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Mark Gisleson

St Paul, MN
Commenter for
5 years 19 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 02/13/09 at 02:33 pm in response to City Pages web work probed again

Couldn't leave a comment at Ed's (tip to Ed - try not to upload fifty photos to one post!) but when Steve Perry and I were starting up City Page's blogging community, we discussed this at length.

My recollection is that CP's attorney said NO!!!! very emphatically. I don't know if Perry ever ran my "cropping" idea past them, but I've always wondered if "stealing" photos wouldn't be acceptable IF you only grabbed a portion of the image, and then always remembered to link to the...

Posted on 02/12/09 at 05:16 pm in response to Breaking: Judd Gregg withdraws from Commerce nomination

Well you'll never hear this from the Beltway pundits, but maybe Gregg found out that being in Obama's Cabinet means you have to do what Obama says, and not what this morning's RNC talking points dictated.

I'm still waiting to assess Obama's effectiveness (i.e., giving him 100 days), but so far I see the major media calling FAIL even as Obama's agenda keeps moving forward. The worst of this, however, is the fact that most of Obama's capital is being used up to stop a global economic...

Posted on 02/11/09 at 06:03 pm in response to Not your everyday '60 Minutes' story: Coldplay

I'm a sucker for classical-rock-newagey fusion stuff, and didn't use to mind Coldplay. Then I downloaded a strings tribute to Coldplay and it was immediately obvious to me that once you strip away the atmospheric sound effects, they're really a very trite band with nothing to say musically.

Exactly the kind of music the Grammys were invented to honor!

Posted on 02/10/09 at 11:23 am in response to Which grocer advertised collard greens for Black History Month?

I guess I totally missed the part about collard greens being the moral equivalent of watermelon.

We all need more greens. Kudos to grocers who push collard greens instead of celebrating Black History Month more traditionally (by selling fatty meat and old produce at their inner city stores).

Posted on 02/09/09 at 02:17 pm in response to As old media model dies, new marketing comes alive

The scary thing is that I did just that over ten years ago, mostly because the Strib and DEX were then (and still are) in a cage match to see who could bleed small business owners the hardest.

I question the intelligence and perspicacity of a business community that has kept rapacious newspapers and yellow pages publishers in business long after they stopped delivering customers. This is the price business pays for having ended internal diversification by hiring business and...

Posted on 02/04/09 at 03:55 pm in response to Green ink: Imation unveils recycled toner cartridges

I think your real story here is that Imation/3M waited until an entire toner cartridge recycling industry had sprung up, and then waited yet another decade before addressing environmental concerns.

How does this cartridge compare with other recycled cartridges?

And in what way is this "news story" not a verbatim regurgitation of an Imation press release?

Posted on 02/04/09 at 02:00 pm in response to Rethinking Al Franken: He was stronger than you thought

Eric, I need to specifically address this comment of yours:

"If the rank and file don't get to pick candidates, why would they be a rank and file? Do you think parties run on auto-pilot? There are magical fairies making everything happen? Come do the grunt work, and then you can complain. "

I did the grunt work, but I did it in Iowa. I am a former secretary of the Polk County (Des Moines) Democratic Party Central Committee, and worked on several campaigns as either a volunteer...

Posted on 02/04/09 at 01:52 pm in response to Rethinking Al Franken: He was stronger than you thought

The conceit of the DFL is that DFLers aren't insiders. True, in most states the insiders aren't quite so far down the ladder. But in no other state do the grassroots party members so tightly control their party.

It's easy to think that the grassroots control over the DFL is an anti-insider thing, but just the opposite is true. Political parties thrive when they're loaded with altruistic volunteers. Caucus states are usually loaded with such folk, but in Minnesota that damned...

Posted on 02/03/09 at 01:32 pm in response to Rethinking Al Franken: He was stronger than you thought

The blame -- as always -- lays with the DFL's unique status as the only caucus state that puts so much emphasis on the party endorsement. This is a criminal subversion of the caucus process and it has corrupted the DFL rank and file who now think it is their due that they get to pick the candidates.

Without this up-is-down system, Franken would have probably still won, but I guarantee had he run a primary campaign instead of an endorsement campaign, he would have identified and fixed...

Posted on 02/02/09 at 02:36 pm in response to Star Tribune reporters: Norm Coleman 'misrepresented' DonorGate grilling

Worst senator this state has ever had. Coleman knew the Strib was sniffing around a scandal he was desperately trying to keep out of the news.

Already we know enough to insist he be tried for taking illegal contributions. I can wait until then for more details.