Blogosphere roundup for March 23, 2009

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The Northfield Blogosphere Roundup is a good way to see the latest information on many of the area’s blogs. The updates included here show blog posts added approximately within the previous 48 hours. See Northfield.org’s blogosphere aggregator page for an automated, comprehensive listing.

This is the title of an article at the Mankato Free Press article about the March 13th Regional Competitiveness Economic Development Summit. The Rural Enterprise Center’s agripreneurs development model was voted the second most important priority for the development of the Agriculture and Food Sector as it pertains to the incorporation and full utilization of skills, assets and visioning coming out from the Latino/Hispanic communities of the region.

We are currently developing the strategic plan for the large scale regional deployment of this model in the coming decade with a launch strategy focused in no more than 8 SE MN counties, but including strategic outreach to other highly promising targeted Hispanic/Latino entrepreneur in other areas of the region.

Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, Rural Enterprise Center

The Minnesota State Court website answers common questions about real estate (house, farm land, etc.) in divorce. Click here to go to the Minnesota State Court website. The site addresses questions like “Who gets the house?” “What about property purchased before the marriage?” and other topics.

Always Family Center

TUCSON, Ariz. – Pacific University (Ore.) held St. Olaf without a hit and defeated the Oles 21-0 on Sunday afternoon. The Boxers had 21 hits, including four homers, in the win.Saint Olaf College Athletics

We are delighted to share with you that some ARTech students are participating in a Pennies for Peace campaign from March 16th to May 15th. Pennies for Peace is a service-learning program designed to broaden our students’ cultural horizons while teaching them about their capacities as philanthropists – one penny at a time.

Pennies for Peace is a program of Central Asia Institute (CAI) founded by Greg Mortenson – author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, Three Cups of Tea. CAI is a registered 501©3 nonprofit organization that promotes and provides community-based education and literacy programs, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of central Asia. Founded in 1996, CAI has built, to date, nearly 100 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which serve more than 28,00 students – over 14,000 of whom are girls.

Simon Tyler, ARTech

The young Norwegian skier Marthe Kristoffersen had a decent first year on the World Cup circuit, where she is mostly known for a very bad anchor leg in the relay at the World Championships and her penchant for skiing with her sleeves pushed up. Like Marthe, Genevieve has quite a bit of Norwegian blood flowing in her veins, has never won a medal at the Nordic World Ski Championships, and likes to have her sleeves rolled up. Olympics 2028?

Christopher Tassava, Blowing & Drifting

Professor of psychology and cognitive sciences Kathleen M. Galotti, senior lecturer in psychology Steven Kozberg, and visiting assistant professor of educational studies Mary Gustafson have published an article entitled “Goal Setting and Decision Making by At-Risk Youth”in the journal The Prevention Researcher, vol. 16, April 2009, pp. 17-20. The article reports on the results of a research project conducted at the Wisconsin Challenge Academy, investigating changes in at-risk older adolescents’ decision making as they experienced a 22-week intervention program designed to enhance life skills.

Carleton College News

The Chamber’s theory: When under siege without a valid argument, start tossing around labels!

Project No Project: The Story of NIMBY

It’s weird, they’re missing a lot, missing a lot of states, a lot of projects, and it’s odd the ones they’re picking.

Minnesota Projects: Wisconsin Projects, Delaware Projects – NONE, Maryland Projects – NONE, New Jersey Projects – NONE

When the Chamber stick their ham-handed hocks in, that tells me they’re worried they’re represented interests aren’t going to get their way!

The US Chamber sure has changed a lot since Bob Jacobsen worked for them…

Carol Overland, Legalectric

The new 2009 Froggy Times features the story of Northfield’s West Side business district, which was decimated in 1958 by a highway relocation. Maggie Lee, Dan Freeman and Dick Heibel share their memories of the way it used to be. Famed architect Harry Wild Jones is also featured. And, of course, check out our new menu!

Susan Hvistendal, Froggy Bottoms Pub

V.S. Naipaul, The Enigma of Arrival (1987). Purchased used for $6.00 at Monkey See, Monkey Read in Northfield.

In the summer of 2007, we visited Stonehenge, then drove down to Salisbury to visit the great cathedral, which among other things is home to the world’s oldest mechanical clock (1386). Time was on my mind when we visited Salisbury. We had less than a month left of our year in England, and this was our last English holiday before returning home to Minnesota. In a short drive, from Stonehenge to Salisbury, we had traversed a distance of nearly four millennia, connected by modern highways and confusing roundabouts. On the lookout, as always, for literary associations, I found in Salisbury Cathedral a bust of the late nineteenth-century nature writer Richard Jefferies, whose native haunts were the Wiltshire downs.

Rob Hardy, Rough Draft

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — During Spring Break, five members of the Carleton men’s track and field team participated in the Walt Disney World Invitational. Tom Ballinger (Sr./Wenatchee, Wash.) recorded a NCAA provisional qualifier in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 53.83, which currently ranks second-fastest in Division III.

On Thursday, the Minnesota Senate set targets to resolve the budget deficit. Last week we received the final budget forecast which gives us the most accurate picture of the kind of revenue Minnesota can expect over the next several years. It may not come as a surprise to know that the news is not pretty. We are in one of the worst economic downturns in recent memory.

This was the week of highs and lows. I had a great bill up in the Commerce Committee on Tuesday that would have brought some badly needed oversight to the Payday Lending industry. So many good people worked on this bill since the last session, only to see it go down in flames on Tuesday. The bill would have allowed consumers to get three payday (short term) loans within a 6 month period. Inquiry into a fourth loan would have triggered a conventional loan allowing the consumer to pay off any debt in installments at much more reasonable interest rates. Payday loans are a booming industry where consumers find themselves caught in a debt trap that tends to spiral out of control.

Kevin Dahle for Senate District 25

Ronald James Griffith passed away on Thursday, March 12, 2009 from pancreatic cancer. Ron’s brilliant and inquiring intellect, commitment to family and community, outstanding professional leadership, and generous heart will be missed by the many people he touched in Northfield and around the world.

Shirley Ann Johnson Nelson was born May 21, 1923, in Red Wing, Minnesota, to Victor L. and Glee (Dibble) Johnson. She was raised in the Red Wing and Cannon Falls area and graduated from Red Wing High School in 1941. She took Nurses training at St. John’s Hospital in Red Wing and in 1944 became a Registered Nurse. On November 11, 1944, she married sailor Phillip Marvin Nelson at the Episcopal Church in Cannon Falls, becoming a Navy wife for the next 16 years. They traveled to Florida, Maryland, California, and Tennessee, with frequent stays in Red Wing while Phil was “out at sea.”

Northfield.org obituaries

Spring Skating Camp wrapped up a great season for NSS! Camp took place Saturday March 14th and Tuesday March 17 and involved skaters with a wide variety of abilities, background, and even geographic areas – skaters from Owatonna participated!

According to our campers, the biggest hits were the private lessons, exhibition, and synchronized skating workshop with guest coach Roni Maas. We finished camp with treats and a slideshow to celebrate a job well done.

Thanks to the extended Northfield ice season, we can look forward to more camps like this one in the future.

Northfield Skating Schoo

St. Olaf President David R. Anderson ’74 has announced that Congressman Erik Paulsen ’87 will speak to the Class of 2009 during the St. Olaf Commencement ceremony May 24. Paulsen represents Minnesota’s 3rd District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

MARCH 23, 2009 — Twin Cities NBC affiliate KARE 11 visited campus recently to find out how many steps it takes a unique team of St. Olaf students to change a light bulb. CNN also aired the story. Link to the KARE story, below, and view CNN’s version here. Watch an earlier story about the group at stolaf.edu.

Saint Olaf College News

Carleton Students Attend Midwest Real Food Challenge Summit March 23, 2009 at 10:17 am By Katie Blanchard

Two weekends ago 125 students (including 3 from Carleton) gathered at Maharishi University in Fairfield, Iowa for the Midwest Real Food Challenge Summit. We built coalitions and strengthened our voice as students working for bold changes to our food system, most specifically within our college and university dining services. When asked whether our campuses were at most 10 miles from an industrial agribusiness cornfield, if not within one, almost every student raised a hand. From a wide array of specific interests and backgrounds, we came together around a common goal: real food.

Carleton College sustainability blog

After a few schedule changes Cooking Class finally met again at Emmaus Church. On Thursday March 19th about 10 youth learned how to make crepes from youth chef extraordinaire Danny Dobrow. I wasn’t able to stay and make the food but the kids who went spoke very highly of Danny and the food.

Union of Youth

Gospel, John 3:14-21 During the Exodus the people complained about the food. So God led them into an area infested with a type of venomous snake whose bite caused a severe burning sensation and even death for some. The people realized there were worse things than bad food and asked God’s forgiveness for their complaining.

Father Denny Dempsey

Seldom do we have a chance to hear from one of our members who is both a musician and minister. But today we heard from Richard Collman, who gave us his classification talk, and left no doubt in our minds that he has been passionate about both careers, and from an early age.

Northfield Rotary Club

Most people go to the doctor because they think they have something they shouldn’t have and want to get rid of. But over the years, we chiropractors have come to understand that the problem when you aren’t feeling well is NOT that you have something you shouldn’t have and need to get rid of; the problem is really that you have LOST something you need to be healthy and happy. You see HEALTH (also called “EASE”) is your natural state! If you are experiencing anything other than ease, it is usually because you have simply LOST something that is necessary for you to maintain ease/health. Understanding this very simple truth will not only help you get the most out of your chiropractic care, it will also help you and your family to keep growing stronger and healthier for the rest of your lives!

CNC Chiropractic

The Annual Meeting was on Saturday and what a night it was! I have to first say a big THANK YOU to our sponsors’s, The First National Bank of Northfield and Carleton College, we would not have been able to put on this event without their support! The meeting went well and many people stayed to dance the night away! If any of you would like a copy of the Annual Report you can download it here or you can call us at 507-645-9268 to get your copy.

Northfield Historical Society

Seems like only a few days ago that I was announcing details about River City Books’ month-long going-out-of-business sale. That’s what happens when you want something to last — it goes by just so fast.

Now we’re down to the wire, the final week in the store’s history, and they’re pricing books, CDs, DVDs, gifts, clothing, yada, yada, so low because, well, they want to use as few moving boxes as possible. Which is the silver lining to this cloudy week — a savings rundown that’s otherwise hard to believe.

River City Books

“They all get the idea that if we’re transparent about what we’re bad at as well as what we’re good at, we’ll get better.” That’s a quote by Paul Levy, President and CEO ofBeth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, speaking about his staff. Levy maintains a leadership blog called Running a hospital where he regularly shares “thoughts about hospitals, medicine, and health care issues.” You can also follow Levy on Twitter.

I’ve been thinking about Northfield (my hometown) area public leadership, transparency, and social media tools this week for four reasons.

Wigley and Associates

Watchmen is a graphic novel about the real lives and struggles of super-heros. The story is about masked crusaders from the sixties that start to show up dead. The few that are still alive have to find and take down the killer while dealing with there own issues. I personally loved the end of the book, but I’m not going to ruin it. The book is not for kids because it deals with some tough moral issues, and there are many violent and bloody scenes. Watchmen has been recently made into a major motion picture. I haven’t seen it yet, but it looks pretty good. Of course, the movie is never as good as the book. If you want a sneak peek, here it is.

Monkey See, Monkey Read

We are often uncomfortable talking about sin, but if we don’t acknowledge all the ways we are not the people we want to be, we separate ourselves from God’s mercy and loving care. So, here’s a sermon about sin …

Healing in the Wilderness

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10

This is a sermon about sin. If I am going to preach honestly about these texts, it has to be a sermon about sin, but that raises several problems.

First United Church of Christ

St. Olaf Sponsors National Day of Service in Northfield Saturday, April 18, 2009, 9 am to 1 pm

Participate locally in the National Day of Service! This year marks the first time St. Olaf has sponsored a volunteer project for Northfield. Join other Northfield-area Oles and friends to help clean up the parkway area from 5th Street Bridge and Bridge Square south to Riverside Park. Feel free to participate as singles, couples, families or groups. ID Insight of Northfield is using this opportunity as a company-wide service project. Thanks, ID! We encourage other local organizations to follow this community-spirited example.

5th Bridge

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