Thanks for the review Paul... your take was fair and accurate.

This is admittedly "difficult listening" music and obviously not for everybody. I gained an appreciation for difficult listening music early in my life after hearing records by Zappa, Beefheart, the Residents, etc., and I found that the "pay off" doesn't happen on the first listen, but rather the sixth listen. I would encourage you (and the readers) to give it a few plays to let the weirdness wear off. You still might not like it but, who knows... maybe you will start to find it to be a catchy toe tapper.

Tired of each other. A Falling Out! Suing Your Band Mate. Taking Away What is Not Really Yours. Holding Out For Something Better...

Come On Grow Up Already!
Stop Treating Mark Like He's Trash. He helped out tremendously and gave GFR the Voice the band needed regardless of the situation. Meanwhile you let Terry Knight get away with all of GFR's hard earned millions. You (Don) & Mel have no regard for anyone's future and have destroy a legacy of Flint, Michigan and the chance to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. You guys threw it all away to solidify what! Now, there's nothing to solidify. Poor concepts of life and business ethics and choices have made you guys a disgrace to the music industry.

John, I would like to correct two factual errors in this article. The State of Michigan did not mandate Eagle Mine pay a $300,000 annual tax for independent water monitoring. Eagle Mine does voluntarily pay $300,000 for the Community Environmental Monitoring Program operated by Superior Watershed Partnership. The article also states that "Eagle Mine is not a sulfide deposit". Eagle Mine is a Nickel and Copper sulfide deposit. Thank you.

Hello John,

We'd like to talk more with you in the future about the COGGS trails and the Duluth Traverse. Sorry about the initial lack of response while our e-mail server was down, I know someone responded but was told it was too late and the story was finished for publishing.

Hopefully we can chat when you have some time.

-Pam Schmitt
COGGS Board of Directors

p.s. Closed means closed to all users, as damaging trails with hiking boots is no different than doing it with tires.

Wow, this is passive aggressive and patronizing. You really should have ironed out some of your "thoughts" with COGGS before going to press with this.

My incisive prose affects different people in different ways. Welcome aboard, Jeremiah.

In yet another example of local media not checking facts, the Duluth News Tribune and two TV stations all parroted the claim that Spirit Mountain would save $200,000 a year on water--because that's what a slide show told them. Press-release journalism at its finest!

Duluth News Tribune parroting

WDIO parroting

Northland News Center parroting

Someone here actually needs to do some journalism. The worker with leukemia was not at the plant during the accident. He explained that he went to the plant in Oct 2011 to help clean up and stayed 14 months.

When he was diagnosed with leukemia, no cause could be identified, because his radiation monitoring had shown low exposures, well below Japanese safety limits, which themselves are below international limits.

Thus, not only is it unlikely that radiation caused his disease, he stated he had no regrets for working at the site. All he wanted was standard workman's compensation, which he got, despite no scientific link between his disease and the plant.

This site seems to love fibbery. It even forgets to research actual Fukushima effects, such as water pollution and fish radiation exposures/content. Perhaps it gets donations by pumping out scary falsehoods, as climate deniers do? Perhaps this site intends to help the combustion industry?

In any case, here are some reported facts about fish tested at Fukushima now...

"Radioactive Cesium in fish caught near F. Daiichi continues to dwindle. Of the more than seventy specimens taken in October, only five showed any Cesium isotope 134, the “fingerprint” for F. Daiichi contamination in the Pacific Ocean. The highest Cs-134 concentration was with a Banded Dogfish, at 8.3 Becquerels per kilogram. Half of the sampled fish had detectible levels of Cs-137 in them, but all were well below Japan’s limit of 100 Bq/kg. The highest Cs-137 concentration was in the same Banded Dogfish (above) at 35 Bq/kg. Cs-137 is residual from nuclear weapon’s testing in the South Pacific six decades ago.." -- all Japanese have access to these reports. The editors/writers here don't do research?

And what is a Bq (Becquerel)? A banana emits about 20Bq -- 20 beta/gamma emissions per second from natural Potassium. I and the deceptive writers at this site each experience >4000Bg all day every day, for life, simply because our kidneys regulate Potassium throughout all our cells, so we can live. Radioactive K40 has a half-life of 1.2 billion years -- how can we be alive?.

This means that the authors/editors on this site are far more dangerous to be around than any fish caught anywhere near Fukushima.
;]
--
Dr. A. Cannara
650 400 3071 (call to discuss "journalism")

John LaForge's Fear-Mongering Starting to be Acknowledged:

A healthy human body always has about 150 grams of dietary potassium in millions of cells dispersed throughout the body. Of that, 120 parts per million (about 0.018 grams) is the radioactive isotope K-40 (Potassium-40.)

That tiny amount of K-40 has a total emissive energy of 6,300 MeV / sec. This is a constant dose of internal radiation, zapping your organs every single day (and night) of your entire life. There's no avoiding it.

CA coastal seawater contains 0.01 Becquerels / liter of Fukushima Cs-137, with an emissive energy of 0.0054 MeV / sec.

If you actually drank an entire liter, it would only increase your internal radiation dose-rate by about 1 / 1,000,000-th (6,300 ÷ 0.0054 = ~ 1,000,000).

So chillax already about Fuku radiation, K?

This is a brief and accurate overview of an unethical disaster-in-the-making. If this goes forward, it will be an total rip-off of our children and grandchildren.

Add Flexeril to this list.

To which City department does COGGS report? Parks and Recs? It sounds as if they pretty much have been given carte blanche to "improve' taxpayer green space to the benefit of, well..a very small percentage of the population. I could see the public benefit of such attention if all 35,000 members listed above actually lived in Duluth or at least visited.
Also, isn't it up to the Parks department to determine public parks/land is "open" or "closed"? This reminds me of the recent story about the Builders of all the hunting shacks/cabins/houses that have "improved" State and County land that have been reminded that it is in fact Public land. Oh well, as we all know-it's who you know in this town.

This is NOT an accurate description of the situation and I wish people would stop the general fear mongering. Comparing apples with oranges isn't helping anyone and selectively picking out details without the context of the overall picture is plain inaccurate. Rather, we should ensure that all the fact are available to everyone and then have people draw their conclusions not spreading half-truths and, sometimes, outright lies (in a previous article it was claimed the Eagle mine is not a sulfide mine - this is just plain wrong but some people don't seem to be interested in that it seems).

I want to thank You John Ramos! It seems that no other journalist or news organization in Duluth has the scruples to ask the questions you ask of the city or the wherewithal to find the answers (or at least do a damn good job of broaching the issue). You have no idea how much solace it brings me to know that at least one journalist in this city is worth there salt. Keep the questions burning and the flame hot!

ROFLMAO~!

I've just discovered your articles in the Reader. I was in Duluth to visit nephews and picked up a copy for the snowy drive back to the cities. As a passenger, of course. I enjoy your style and opinions.

As always, John, you are the best. Thanks for writing.

Steve Stilwell (front row of the balcony)

Not sure is the CAMBA trails qualify, but those are pretty sweet too!

Sadly, Thirsty Pagan no longer does open mic night....

Thank you Dr Kohls, for alerting the community about the crimes of Big Pharma.

We lost our eminently sane yet depressed son Daniel, R.I.P. (10 November 1976 - 6 August 2014), to a cocktail of prescribed antidepressant and antipsychotic 'medicine', made by Pfizer, Eli Lilly and others.

We have since joined a class action here in Australia, against these criminal corporations.