Wednesday, Sep 23, 2009

TTT SEPT 23: ProgressivesMovementsPolitics

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SEPTEMBER 23: MINNESOTA PROGRESSIVES: Movements and Values vs. Political Power?

Minnesota's long tradition for spawning progressive politics and movements, often regardless of party, has been so severely eroded over five decades of undermining our sense of community that the systems all of us have relied on as preserving the commons and common good – preparing and nurturing successive generations of leaders, citizens, workers and responsible purveyors of goods and services – the fundamental functions of food production, nutritional intake, education, health care, electoral processes, environmental stewardship, aesthetic enrichment and a reliance on science as critical compass for cultural and physical sustainability – may be coming to an end - certainly to a crawl.

The very words, ”commons” and ”common good,” have been challenged as subversive, in service of ”socialist” indoctrination as our public education system and other institutions ignore the state's history and the US's founding principles to market and promote consumerism as economic stability and isolating individualism – not just individual responsibility – as politic, all of it based on the notion that Number One is paramount and the devil take the hindmost when it comes to collective needs and community.

What are the core values that drive the current resurrection of the commons, of progressive thought and deed, of public policy that serves the maximum good while inspiring political engagement and community-based problem-solving? What are the tensions between movements for change and the power needed to make them happen? Are those tensions fatal to reviving the values that drive policy for the common good?

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN query some thinkers and doers around those values and the commons in which we all reside, as well as put such efforts in historical as well as present political context. Heady stuff for a Wednesday morning.

GUESTS:

• JULIE RISTAU - Co-Director, On the Commons

• DAN McGRATHhttp://tr.im/z4vp - Executive Director, Take Action Minnesota

• PROF. TOM O'CONNELL, Political Science, Metropolitan State University and progressive movements historian

• TOM VELLENGA - President, Heartland Democracy - Progressive Values Public Engagement Group

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Wednesday, Sep 16, 2009

TTT SEPT 16: LongTermCare

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SEPTEMBER 16: LONG TERM CARE: How's Grandma Really Doing?

America's propensity for placing their aging and infirm parents and spouses in long-term care facilities (assisted living, nursing homes, etc.), likely their last stop before the end has led to the creation of excellent facilities - and to little more than warehouses where the aging are dumped. When things go wrong - and too often they do, perhaps unnecessarily hastening the end for an otherwise healthy senior, or making life pretty uncomfortable for resident and patients - who's responsible? Our first response is: the nursing home or assisted living facility. Often true. But what is our role as family members selecting the proper facility venue for mom or dad or grandma and grandpa? Need they be placed at all? Could they be living independently longer?

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN explore the current state of long-term care, the good, the bad and the ugly and discuss the roles and responsibilities of the systems, the private and public sector providers and family caregivers to provide the appropriate setting(s) for our elders and family members with disabilities - mental and physical.

GUESTS:

• US REP. KEITH ELLISON, D-MN 5th District

• STACY BECKER - Policy Consultant, Key Investigator on Citizens League's Long-Term Care Finances study; former City of St. Paul Budget Director and Public Works Director.

• LaRHAE KNATTERUD - Director, Aging Transformation, Mn Department of Human Services

• LEE GRACZYK - Executive Director, Mature Voices; former Acting Executive, MN Senior Federation

EXTRA:

• DR. BARBARA BLAYLOCK - Denver Primary Care physician traveling with Mad As Hell Doctors bussing their way from Portland, OR, toward Washington, DC, advocating for a single-payer healthcare system.

• DR. ELIZABETH FROST - Minneapolis physician; local leader in PNHP (Physicians for a National Healthcare System)

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Wednesday, Sep 09, 2009

TTT SEPT 9: CHANCE-CedarRiverside

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SEPT 9: WEST BANK C.H.A.N.C.E.: Helping Cedar-Riverside Thrive

Since 2006, and without much fanfare, and using many of the skills and scholarship acquired there, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs (HHH) graduate students have been working in concert with activists in the nearby Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Central Minneapolis to improve the community development prospects. It's a sort of town and gown enterprise - with Cedar-Riverside the next-door neighbor to two college campuses (UofM's West Bank and Augsburg College) now known as West Bank CHANCE (Cedar-Humphrey Action for Neighborhood Collaborative Engagement).html and working through the Center for Integrative Leadership.

From the CHANCE website: Through collaboration among the UMN West Bank schools, institutions, residents and business owners in the neighborhood WB CHANCE seeks to expand the idea of community and sustainable, just partnerships. On the University side, partners include the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota Law School, University Libraries, Office of Public Engagement, and Office of University Relations. On the community side, CHANCE has on-going and developing relationships with the many community non-profits and associations, Augsburg College and Fairview.

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN explore the projects and accomplishments of this small band of volunteers, their cohorts residing in Cedar-Riverside and their faculty advisors

GUESTS:

• MERRIE BENASUTTI - Center for Integrative Leadership (in partnership with Carlson School of Management) and CHANCE Faculty Advisor

• ABDIRIZAK MABOUB -Director, Cedar Riverside Neighborhood Revitalization Program

• BENJAMIN MARCY - President, West Bank Community Coalition, CHANCE member

• MORGAN ZEHNER, MBA - Carlson School Business Fellows Program

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Wednesday, Sep 02, 2009

TTT SEPT 2: HOME FORECLOSURES II: Homelessness is More Acceptable?

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HOME FORECLOSURES II: Homelessness is More Acceptable?

With the public discussion focused on health care and little else comes news that the foreclosure crisis isn't going away - at least no time soon. A relatively new study of foreclosure rates in Minnesota has been a product of a symposium presented by Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA)http://www.cura.umn.edu/ at the UofM's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Meanwhile the street battle to save Rosemary Williams, Linda Norenberg and others from eviction continues to challenge the powers who would make them all homeless. The question is: what use is it to send struggling homeowners into the streets, vacating properties and blighting neighborhoods while those same owners become essentially wards of the community and shelters if they can find no reasonable alternative housing in their cities.

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN ask those question and more as we talk with advocates for poverty-stricken families and homeowners and CURA about community-based solutions to the housing crisis and the impact of foreclosures on our neighborhoods and residents.

GUESTS:

• ROSEMARY WILLIAMS - homeowner facing eviction from her Minneapolis house.

• LINDA NORENBERG - homeowner facing eviction from her Robbinsdale house.

• CHERI HONKALA - MN Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign

• LYNETTE MALLES - Volunteer advocate - MN Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign

• KRIS NELSON - Program Director, Neighborhood Partnerships for Community Research (NPCR), Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA)

• ED NELSON - Marketing & Communications Director, MN Homeownership Center

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