Near Two Harbors, 34 structures burned and Highway 61 closed; in Crow Wing County, a 1,600-acre fire sparked evacuations

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About two years ago, Boston Globe reporter Billy Baker, an old-school reporter if ever there was one, put together this video about two kids in a poor section of town. Their father had killed himself by jumping off a bridge. Their mother, who had mental health issues, wasn't able to make ends meet. She spoke no English. They spoke no Vietnamese. Johnny and George didn't fall into the gangs that their peers did. But they were still young then.

Baker found this story because he was finishing work on a project that documented the tough times in the neighborhood, the kind of story that journalists often tell, the kind that leave the reader feeling hopeless because nothing could rescue the people in the grips of poverty. But he didn't want the project to end on that note, so he decided to do a story on the bus that takes kids to Boston Latin High School, and he found the two brothers.

Last evening, Baker wrote a new story about the boys. On Twitter. It's a completely inefficient way to tell a story and it's going to use up a lot of real estate to tell it. But, trust me, it won't matter

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412717780396294144

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412717899556466688

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412718020729896960

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412718120424333313

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412718281091325952

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412718458401341440

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412718610243522560

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412718711208816640

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412718830062817280

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412718999428816896

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412719298302328832

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412719396293865473

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412719654172258304

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412719837933088768

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412720076383461377

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412720733102411776

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412721019078455296

https://twitter.com/billy_baker/status/412745663223697408

Anything is possible when everyone gives a damn.

 On the north side of Minneapolis, this is what kids walk by after there's been a homicide.

"If this was on Nicollet Mall, on the street in front of governor's residence, in front of the Guthrie, in front of Rudolf's on the sidewalk and in the street, I bet it would be cleaned up," Phillip Murphy writes on the 

, the Daily reports. A friend on Twitter raises an interesting question: By covering this continuing story, are we alerting even the most clueless criminals where the easy money is? Also: Why are certain media-savvy politicians in Minnesota so invisible on this story?

The federal budget sequester has worked its way up the ladder to senior citizens. The 

 looks at the meals programs for the elderly.

In Appleton, Minn., for example, seniors have been able to get fresh-cooked-on-location meals since 1977. That's ending. Three other sites are closing altogether. It's a big deal in rural Minnesota, where the elderly don't even have grocery stores nearby anymore.

Children in need dine on food donated by local restaurants

At last check, the Salvation Army's red kettle drives were way behind previous years. At the same time, my social media timelines were full of people vowing they wouldn't throw anything in, what with the stories they knew of, they said, of the role of religion in the Salvation Army and the alleged insistence on adhering to a theology in exchange for a helping hand.

The accuracy of those assertions have always been in doubt to me. When we were working to save a neighborhood in Moorhead from flooding in 2009, the Salvation Army truck stopped by occasionally to deliver bologna sandwiches and water. Nobody asked for anything in return.

The stories -- especially the anti-gay stories -- persist, nonetheless. Jennifer Finney Boylan hadn't heard them when she started ringing a bill outside a Maine mall. Then she did, she writes in today's 

. She stopped ringing. She's a transgender woman.

She doesn't ring the bell anymore, she says, but she occasionally throws a buck into the kettle and thinks about other things besides politics and religion. "The ways in which acts of charity help to get us outside ourselves," for example.

The Salvation Army doesn't get much love in the reactions to the piece, though people admit they're conflicted.

4) THOUGHTS WHILE WAITING FOR BASEBALL SEASON 

It's generally believed that the reason the Vikings wasted their season trotting Christian Ponder out to play quarterback is because the team's GM, Rick Spielman, mandated it over the more sensible opinion of coach Leslie Frazier. Frazier is 

, Spielman is likely to return, according to the 

The best webpage ever created has been unveiled.

Bill Nelson was going to be an artist. He went to St. Cloud State in the '70s, enrolling in the art program to become a jeweler. Then he found his passion, apparently: protecting women from domestic abuse. Now he's a bounty hunter, the 

 to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. She didn't need the sympathy vote, what with her announcing this year 

 I feel dirty for getting sucked into the mass marketing of the season. But... but...

 In my neck of the woods -- Woodbury -- there's only one farm left and it'll probably be gone soon since yet another shopping center is going up next door. I moved here 21 years ago. Across the street from our subdivision, Holsteins ruled the land, until it was sold and a crop of houses went in. Nice timing, Woodbury (and almost every other suburb in the Twin Cities), you never saw 

the hot new things in the 'burbs coming: farms.

(9-12 p.m.) - First hour: In his recent New York Times Op-Ed Thomas Edsall sites many stats suggesting Obama has a rough road ahead if he plans to push for policies requiring a collective movement against inequality. We dig into those numbers to get a fuller picture of the national climate. We consider why many people seem to be reacting to severe inequality by becoming more individualistic rather than seeking refuge in redistributive policies that benefit the collective. We’ll pay special attention to working class people who feel this way even though they would most likely benefit the most from redistributive policies.

Second hour: NPR’s veterans correspondent Quil Lawrence recently finished a series on troops with “other than honorable” discharges. What are some of the consequences of having “bad paper?” What are some of the avenues they can turn to for help, since many VA benefits - including health care, employment, housing and education -- are not available to them? Who is fighting to make sure these men and women are not forgotten?

Third hour: Economist Charles Kenny will discuss his recent Foreign Policy op-ed, "Linked Out: the Case for Sending America's Unemployed Abroad." Plus: In the second of our series of year-end interviews, Tom Weber speaks with Cathy Tenbroeke and Margaret Miles, the first same-sex couple to get legally married in Minneapolis, and Ann DeGroot, who was first on line in Ramsey County on the day when same-sex couples could start applying for marriage licenses.

 (12-1 pm) - From the America Abroad series: "Deradicalizing Terrorists." With reporting from London and Minneapolis.

 (1-2 p.m.) - NSA snooping and the effect of yesterday's ruling on its likely constitutionality.

 (3-6:30 p.m.) - Enrollment at many Minnesota colleges and universities continues to drop. Preliminary figures from the state Office of Higher Education shows headcount is down 2.7 percent since last fall, and almost 5 percent since fall 2009. National and state enrollment analysts say students who sought refuge from the recession have graduated, dropped out, or joined the workforce. The for-profit sector has been hardest hit. And the fortunes of some schools in other sectors have been radically different from their counterparts’. MPR's Alex Friedrich will have the story.

One decade ago, a global health initiative took off and it changed the face of AIDS around the world. So far, $50 billion has been spent, making it the largest public health initiative ever undertaken to combat a single disease. NPR examines the legacy of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

NewsCut

Bob Collins

Author

The joy of a mentor,  the end of programs to feed hungry seniors,  in search of the right Christmas kettle,  thoughts on football while waiting for baseball,  and the bounty hunter at work.

‘A story about what’s right when we spend too much time writing about what’s wrong’ (5×8 – 12/17/13)

Go Deeper.

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