Since people on this list are already familiar with my opinions regarding the Minneapolis Police, I won't comment about them for this particular thread. At this point we ought to be questioning the ethics of the Star Tribune and its reporter, Rochelle Olson.
Back when R.T. Rybak was a candidate for mayor, Olson and the Strib, unapologetic supporters of incumbent Sharon Sayles Belton, went to great lengths to under-report the successes of R.T.'s campaign. One example: When R.T. got the most votes in the DFL spring caucus, thus denying SSB the endorsement, SSB got her picture on the front page but not Rybak. Now some may say that Olson can't be blamed for the picture fiasco, fair enough. But just before the general election Rochelle Olson wrote an article about candidate Rybak which noted that he was estranged from a close relative of his (a brother or half brother, I believe), while mentioning nothing about how SSB was getting along with her family. DISGUSTING!!! Ms. Olson should have been fired back then. Well, now that R.T. has been faithful to his masters at the Star Tribune (engage big business, they instructed him in an editorial a day or two after the election, and ignore the "granola heads"), Ms. Olson is a lot more respectful in her coverage of him. But by conjuring the specter of Joe Biernet, whose crimes against the city of Minneapolis are far, far, far more serious than Johnson Lee's transgression (if one can seriously call her reasonable response to the police a transgression), it's obvious Rochelle and her bosses have an axe to grind with Councilmember Johnson Lee. Evidently, the councilmember's real crime is being an advocate for the poor and disenfranchised citizens of Minneapolis. And being a member of the Green Party she might be hanging out with too many granola heads and not enough CEOs. Speaking of Joe Biernat, I invite readers on this list to recall and compare the Star Tribune's editorials regarding the Brian Herron scandal and the Joe Biernat scandal. Despite the fact that Biernat never owned up to gravity of his mistakes, unlike Brian Herron who publicly admitted wrong doing and apologized to the city, the paper remained rather severe in its judgement of Herron, while advising its readers not to be in a rush to criticize Biernat, even after he was convicted in court, for God's sake! Smells like racism to me.---------------------------Peter Schmitz CARAG TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
