As random as possible

I was searching through the papers yesterday and this morning, and I found a few stories that I found interesting. Some on the serious side, some on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Re-election anyone? New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty both announced they would seek re-election in their respective offices this morning. With Sen. Clinton making no reference to the upcoming Presidential race, and Gov. Pawlenty saying that he would honor his term, and has no indications of leaving office early if re-elected. Now I like Pawlenty and can't stand Clinton but should we trust either one?

You say goodbye, I say hello. That is the response from NBC and CBS respectively as Katie Couric said goodbye to NBC's Today show after 15 years. Couric will become the new nightly news anchor for CBS evening news. A post long held by old white men (thanks to Kyle for that inspiration). There is a lot of hoopla over this, but in reality does anyone care? Well apparently millions do, as millions turned in to watch. CBS is hoping that Couric can pull CBS out of the basement of nightly news ratings where they have been since Dan Rather started using the news as his one man stand up comedy hour. This is a great move for the immediate ratings for CBS. Many will tune in to here Katie for the first few months, but than they will all realize what many already know: Is there a better looking man than Brian Williams? I mean come on, why would you not watch NBC nightly news. Brian Williams looks like the most stereotypical news man there is. He even sounds like a news man. In fact if you look up news man in the dictionary... Brian Williams' picture is there. Anyway best of luck to Katie and her new 500 trillion dollar contract.

Land of 10,000 lakes... and counting. There was an article in the Minneapolis Star yesterday about a new development in Lakeville. The contractor had run into a snag building the massive man made lake in the heart of the development. Here's my question, why in the heck do we need to build a lake in MN? I found it really funny reading the story and reading what the guy said about the difficulties they were having with creating this lake. You know, God never had a whole lot of difficulty, maybe we should leave the creation of beautiful Minnesota lakes to him.

The twins that were separated at the Mayo clinic in Rochester a few weeks ago went home the other day. I don't know a whole lot more about this story except to say that it was extremly touching, and in all the flux of constant negativity that the media throws at us, it is good to hear something positive for a change. I will update their condition when I know more.

Two members from the Soulforce Equality ride made headlines once again when they tried to enlist at a military recruiting station in Roseville yesterday. The Equality ride has gained headlines recently with their travels around the country to various conservative Christian colleges trying to protest those colleges stances on homosexuality. The pair was there as part of a bigger protest against the militaries "Don't ask, don't tell policy." The two were clearly there to make a political point, and where going to hold a rally outside the recruiting station and launch a sit in when their applications were rejected. The story yesterday was front page on the startribune.com. The funny thing is that their applications were not rejected they were set aside to be processed after the tresspassing charges were taken care of. Ironically the Star and Sickle did not publish this on the front page, because there is no way you could give a positive light to the military, or report on something that is remotely positive. It will be interesting to see if Jacob Reitan and Haven Herrin (the two from Soulforce) follow through on their promise to the military or if this is just another politically driven stunt. I am compltely for equalility and would love to chat with the members of Soulfroce and see what common ground we can reach together. But how can I look at it as anything other than a politically driven stunt if they don't follow through. They alert the media everytime they go places and to be honest I think it is only hurting their cause. Let's sit down at the table and have a discourse about the subject. We need to reach common ground. We need to be on the same page. We need to leave politics out of it. There will be more on this later.

Finally and most importantly there is a new exhibit at the Minnesota History Center that is gaining a lot of well deserved attention in the Twin Cities lately. The exhibit is all about the 70th anniversary of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. The Olympics that of course have become famous with the Nazi takeover of Germany, and many who were not able to participate because of it. There are some great exhibits dedicated to African American athletes as well as many Jewish athletes that were not able to participate. There is a great story about a young lady who was going to participate in track and field, but she was Jewish and because of that alone she could not. The International Olympic Committee, required that Germany give everyone a fair shot, so they staged "try-outs" for Jewish athletes that were rigged so not to let any in. It is supposed to be a great exhibit by a great organization (I am a card carrying member of the MN historical society), and I would highly encourage anyone who is in the Twin Cities area to check it out. I think it runs through early July.