I spent an hour with our very threadbare Duluth News Tribune today. I’d already listened to NPR while ironing a weeks worth of long sleeve shirts so I had it turned off. It will be a damn sad day if and when the people of Duluth have to depend on the news releases reported to them by our local television news crews.
I won’t link to the stories just enumerate them:
Page one: Judge dismisses Duluth’s casino challenge: Darn. Its hell to be treated by Fon du Lac the way Native Americans have been treated for generations. They don’t even have to pay property taxes for the services their Trojan Horse Reservation on Superior Street gets from the City. Anyone who has driven on Duluth Streets since 2009 when they “were ordered to stop” contributing six million to the city annually can feel the pain.
Page one: Minntac expects 700 layoffs: That’s about the fifth “ouch” in the business cycle for this commodity since I moved to Duluth forty years ago.
Page 4: Indiana governor vows to ‘fix’ law: Governor Pence probably would be glad to defund liberal arts educations too. I guess there are just too many little men holding hands on wedding cakes in Indiana these days.
Opinion Page: Minnesota moving up among most-taxed: Well argued but barely any acknowledgement of the Red Plan’s contribution.
Page 7: Decision delayed on building Edison high school: ISD 709 better help recruit 600 high school students to move to Duluth to replace the Edison kids. We have a lot of Red Plan still to pay off over the next fifteen years. And I find it hard to believe the Superintendent’s claim that 60% of the 650 kids Edison will take with them currently attend Marshall School and Harborview. The former costs an arm and a leg to attend and the latter only has a very small high school population. Do 390 Edison kids (60%) really attend these two high schools?
Its too bad that the highfalutin demographers we paid $40.000 to look at our school population weren’t told that we are about to lose these students to a new high school. They might have extended their study to test the Superintendent’s optimistic numbers.
Page 9: Minnesota gets renewal of waiver from No Child Left Behind: Rehashes many recent stories including Duluth’s disappointing lack of success with minority children.
