Editor's Note: the youtube.com excerpts are file compressed, so the video quality is limited.  However, for review purposes, it's fully adequate to give you an idea of what's going on.

 

Click to view this excerpt		Excerpt description
		The "Sky-bi" is the policy centerpiece of my current campaign for Mayor of Minneapolis.  This is an all-weather, enclosed skyway transit system for bikes, segways, scooters, electric wheelchairs and other "people rollers".  There is a 10 page report, with a map, available from the home page of this site.  The video is designed to put this plan in an historical context -- looking at the history of how both our park system developed in Minneapolis -- Bob Carney Jr., Moderate Progressive Republican candidate for Mayor of Minneapolis.
Note: the excerpts below are from the rough cut of "Escape From History Part I: The Minnesota Legislature"
		Six Minnesota House Republicans voted to override Governor Tim Pawlenty's veto of this year's transportation bill.  We hear Republican Representatives Jim Abeler and Kathy Tinglestad give their reasons for their decision to vote to override.  This documentary project began in 2006, before the I-35W bridge collapse, and with a focus on both transportation and industrial accidents. A study of two examples of "post 9/11" architecture is also part of this project.   One of the design elements of the new Guthrie can be seen as a kind of "prefabricated ruin."  We look at this in the context of our society's recent tendency to not build things that last.  The Stone Arch Bridge, in the milling district, is seen as a counter-example -- with traffic on I-35W in the background.  The part of this excerpt on prefabricated ruins and our tendency to "not build to last" was part of an earlier rough cut of this documentary released and copyrighted in 2006.
		The six Minnesota House Republicans who voted to override Governor Pawlenty's transportation veto faced retaliation.  Lyall Schwartzkopf, a long-time Minnesota Republican leader (State Legislator, Hennepin County Republican party Chairman, chief of staff for Republican Governor Arne Carlson, and "Lindsey Republican"), comments on how, and why, the caucus retaliated.  Republican State Representative Jim Abeler speaks on the House floor about a coordinated campaign of phone calls and e-mail directed against both himself and Representative Tinglestad.  Representative Tinglestad talks about how she saw the retaliation, and her decision to put what she saw as the best interests of Minnesota first.  Note: at minute 7:50, there is a 10 second problem with the video -- we're working to fix this.
		The Minneapolis park system is world famous, but it didn't just happen.  We'll look at the circumstances and history that led to its formation.  At its root was a gigantic real estate scheme.  But the people who planned and launched it also valued being good stewards of the earth, thinking ahead 100 years, preserving the natural beauty of Mnneapolis for future generations, and making parks available and accessable to everyone.  This excerpt is part of the longest segment in the documentary -- an examination of how the park system came to be, with a focus on the 1880's, a central decade in an economic boom for Minneapolis that ran well into the next century.  The Minneapolis park system is a model of coordinating public and private interests in the political process.  This history leads directly a discussion with Sviggum of Point 7 of A Minnesota Republican State Legislator's Contract with Voters ("the contract"), on Minnesota's historical strength in striking the right balance between public and private sector activity.
		Note: Due to youtube.com file compression, this excerpt starts with a blank screen for about 10 seconds --  Steve Sviggum was the Republican Speaker of the Minnesota State House until 2007. Point 2B of A Minnesota Republican State Legislator's Contract with Voters ("the contract"), addresses judicial activism.  We'll hear Sviggum agree to this point.  The documentary (but not this excerpt) includes a look at the history of "judicial activism" from the Warren Court's Brown vs. Board of Education decision -- where the Court was unanimous, and recognized the need to build a consensus for the decision -- to a later trend where courts seem to ignore the need for any kind of consensus, and render controverted decisions on split votes, sometimes by only one vote.  We look in detail at an alternative approach to the so-called "marriage amendment."  This alternative approach is an amendment designed to address the problem of judicial activism generally, by building in a review process by the citizens.  Starting at 6:52, this amendment is presented to Speaker Sviggum's, and you'll see something highly unusual (probably unique) in U.S. politics -- a sitting Speaker of a State House, on videotape, presented with and agreeing to, a constitutional amendment in less than four minutes.  Should Constitution amending be an Olympic event?   On a more serious note, you'll also see that Speaker Sviggum knows what his principles are, and has a quick mind -- he understands the amendment fully, and grasps its implications immediately.
		Steve Sviggum was the Republican Speaker of the Minnesota State House until 2007.  This excerpt combines his comments on point 4 of A Minnesota Republican State Legislator's Contract with Voters ("the contract"), with a look at the new Minneapolis Central Library.  The library is an example of "post 9/11" architecture -- it was both designed and built after 9/11.  The documentary (but not this excerpt) looks from the outside, at how this building appears to render an amazingly complete answer to this question: in the internet world, what is a library?  We see how 9/11, and its consequences, appear to have greatly influenced the building's design.  The ability of people to "retreat into their own little worlds," by filtering what they listen to -- something the internet makes a lot easier -- is also examined, through a children's story: The Fox and the Library.