January 16, 2006

Twin Cities Churches Online

Some Twin Cities churches were featured on Nightline last week, including Bluer and Spirit Garage, both located in Minneapolis. Bluer has the entire "Faith Matters" segment online for your viewing pleasure.

Posted by kevin at 4:07 PM | TrackBack

June 17, 2005

Minnesota: Land of Not So Many Lakes

An Ohio geography professor has some good news and some bad news for Minnesota. The good news: Minnesota has way more than 10,000 lakes (it's actually more like 100,000). The bad news: We're only number 7 in the nation, behind Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Kansas (!) and two other states.

The geographers didn't distinguish between natural and manmade lakes, resulting in a huge number of glorified ponds being counted.

Posted by kevin at 7:18 AM | TrackBack

June 16, 2005

Twin Cities Free Market

The Twin Cities Free Market is the place to score free goods. People list items they're wanting to get rid of and rather than dump them on the curb, other folks can come find what they need. It started in St. Paul seven years ago and has expanded to include the entire Twin Cities and surrounding counties. It's run by Eureka Recycling and has helped keep 4 million pounds of stuff out of the trash. Last year the site saw 11,000 exchanges.

The Star Trib covered the site the other day, focusing on a 1903 upright piano that was given away. (Fellow Twin Cities blogger Nick Ciske actually blogged about this site months ago, but that was before Twin Cities Liver was living.)

Posted by kevin at 11:03 AM | TrackBack

May 23, 2005

Hmong in St. Paul

The Pioneer Press has a series of stories on the Hmong community in St. Paul. Thirty years ago Hmong soldiers were conscripted into a secret war to fight the communists and as Laos fell, many Hmong became refugees. They were eventually settled in the U.S., and St. Paul is home to one of the largest communities of Hmong in the world. It's a culture many have never heard of (I hadn't until I read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down in college and volunteered at a local school and Hmong community group), and few understand the role the Hmong played in Vietnam (I certainly don't know all the details--even my summary above hardly covers it). Which makes collections of articles like these a good start to understanding a new culture in America.

Posted by kevin at 9:39 AM | TrackBack