Target board members fighting to hold on to their seats

Members of Target’s board are fighting for their — comfortable — chairs. Says Kavita Jumar in the Strib, “In a letter this morning, Roxanne Austin, the board’s interim chairwoman, told shareholders that the board takes its oversight responsibilities seriously and asks for their support in re-electing all of the directors. … [Institutional Shareholder Services] suggested that members of Target’s audit and corporate responsibilities committees, including Austin, should not be re-elected since risk assessment and oversight of reputational risk were part of their duties.”

If you love Tom Petters (and all the other great fraud stories) you have to read David Phelps’ Strib piece on the Herculean effort to claw back ill-gotten gains … not that the victims will ever see much of the jing. “[Bankruptcy trustee Doug] Kelley is well aware that attorney’s fees are an issue in a bankruptcy liquidation plan for Petters Group Worldwide and Petters Co. Inc. So far the estate has recovered about $110 million, net of professional fees, to eventually be distributed as pennies on the dollar to creditors of the Petters corporate estate and victims of the failed Ponzi scheme. Separately, about $300 million has been recovered in related bankruptcy and receivership cases, for a total of $410 million.” … out of $3.65 billion.

Now THIS is good stuff: Aaron Rupar at City Pages reports on the most colorful interaction of the GOP convention. “ … the surprise was just how hard [campaign manager Andy] Parrish took [Julianne] Ortman’s defeat. So hard, in fact, that he ended up allegedly calling an MNGOP activist who supported [Mike] McFadden a ‘cream puff’ before repeatedly slapping him in the face.” What? No hair-pulling and eye scratching?  

High water is here and still comin’ … Tim Nelson at MPR reports, “The Minnehaha Creek Watershed district says [Lake Minnetonka], which feeds Minnehaha Creek, is at the highest level since the agency started keeping records in 1906. The level is continuing to rise as runoff reaches the lake.”  

And she survived! The AP says, “Police say two 12-year-old girls lured a friend into some woods in southeastern Wisconsin where one of them held her down as the other stabbed her 19 times. The 12-year-old victim survived the attack on Saturday in Waukesha and police say her condition is stable.” I gotta see the attackers’ parents in this one.

Those dismal first quarter economic numbers may actually be temporary, as some experts have said. Dee DePass of the Strib says, “After a frigid spring, U.S. and regional manufacturers grew in May and showed surprisingly strong pockets of new orders and employment growth in the Midwest, according to two widely watched economic reports released Monday. For Minnesota and the eight other states that make up the ‘Mid-America’ core of the country, manufacturers reported the highest economic index in three years, according to Creighton University’s Mid-America Business Conditions report.” I’m still waiting another week to put the snow blower away.

And next? A pharisee for every check up?  Christopher Snowbeck of the PiPress says, “When Ron Meyer visits his doctor, there’s always a third person in the room. Last week, it was Allyson Untiedt, 24, of Minneapolis, who is one of the small but growing number of “scribes” working in medical clinics and hospitals across the Twin Cities. Scribes accompany physicians in exam rooms and help document what happens during a patient’s visit. They tend to a patient’s chart before the exam — so doctors can quickly find the lab and test results they need — and help physicians complete documentation chores afterward.”

The howling about the president’s executive action on coal emissions has only just begun. But Kari Lyderson at Midwest Energy News points out, “North Dakota is famous for its shale oil and gas reserves – the Bakken Shale has created boom towns, fueled the state’s economy and even changed the railroad industry as trains transport the shale products cross-country. But North Dakota is also heavily invested in another fossil fuel – massive reserves of lignite coal. … North Dakota is still fiercely protective of its coal – which provides almost 80 percent of the state’s energy, major electricity exports to neighboring states, and scores of mining and related jobs.”

In the aftermath of the Santa Barbara slaughter, Gail Mullaney of Maplewood offers a Strib commentary about her experience as a woman. “What is truly frightening to me today is how much more prevalent that violence and hatred are. Without straying toward politics and religion, we cannot ignore the way women are treated as mere objects in much of the world, possessions to be bought and sold, beaten, stoned. So I’m back to writing, to speaking out. And I will repeat the line others have chorused: We should not be teaching girls how not to be a victim; we should be raising boys who respect women.”