Category Archives: Politics

Eating Without Money Part 4: The Big Day Comes

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I recently conducted an experiment to see how well I could feed myself for a day without expending any money whatsoever. To accomplish this, I ordered about $45 worth of food on Amazon. Rather than purchase it using money, I used earnings from Amazon Mechanical Turk. The food arrived last week, and I chose yesterday to perform the experiment.

Even though I had more dollars to work with this time ($45, vs. $26.01), this experiment was more challenging than my experiences during the SNAP Challenge, when I had to feed myself for an entire week with a budget of $31.50. This is because at local stores, I was able to find lower prices and, more importantly, smaller quantities of items I needed. Fresh food was also available.

Despite these hindrances, I ate quite well yesterday. Here’s what I had:

Breakfast

Since a box of pancake mix was part of my purchase, it’s only logical that I had pancakes for breakfast. I actually made them the night before, froze them, and heated them up in the toaster. I made plenty, and unlike during the SNAP Challenge, I had plenty to share. Therefore, my kids also had pancakes for breakfast. They had theirs with normal syrup and butter. In my case, I had neither. The least expensive sweetener I could find was the Agave Nectar, which was excellent, and much better than normal syrup. I had ordered this to use as a sweetener for other recipes, but for my one-day experiment, the only thing I used it for was the pancake syrup.

I had fried the pancakes in the Butter Flavor Crisco, which turned out to be the biggest surprise of this experiment. I had assumed that I could use this shortening for cooking, but it never occurred to me that it could actually be used as a butter substitute. As you can see, I decided to use a small amount in place of butter. Obviously, it wasn’t as good as real butter, but it actually passed as margarine. This is a good thing to keep in mind for emergency food storage. The Crisco has an essentially infinite shelf life, and could be used as a substitute for butter in an emergency. As you can see, I (and the kids) also had some of the summer sausage for breakfast.

Yes, it’s kind of weird to have lemonade for breakfast, but that was the only drink I had available. When I purchased it, it was the least expensive beverage to be found on Amazon. When I checked again today, it was still available on Amazon, but at an insanely high price for such a small package. The Cafe La Llave Espresso coffee was excellent, and only slightly more expensive than regular coffee.

Lunch

For lunch, I could have gotten by simply be eating crackers and sausage from my sausage sampler. But I decided to try my hand at actually cooking something with my limited supply of ingredients, and made some biscuits. Despite their odd shape, they were actually very good. I simply mixed a cup of the pancake mix with about a half cup of Crisco (melted in the microwave for about 45 seconds) and a small amount of water, I baked them at 450 degrees for about 10 minutes.

That sounds like a cookie recipe, and they wound up looking like cookies. But they tasted great and were very filling. They turned out extremely crumbly, and I think I would have done better to use a little less shortening and a bit more water. As you can see, I turned them into a sandwich with the sausage.

All of this, of course, I washed down with lemonade and coffee.

Supper

I ate lunch rather late, and the biscuit sandwiches were extremely filling. For supper, I only had half of one of the Hormel Compleat dinners. (My son eagerly ate the other half.)

During the day, I also had some snacks of pancakes, sausage, and crackers from the sausage sampler.

Observations

From what’s left over, I could repeat an identical diet for about two more days. Some of the items (such as the Crisco) would be left over.

Was this a practical way to feed myself? No. I didn’t spend any actual money, but I could have used that $45 for other things. I could have had an almost identical diet for a day for about $5 and still have leftovers. So this is definitely not the most practical way of doing things. But what I wanted to demonstrate was that even without any actual money changing hands, it is possible to subsist by using whatever resources are available. In this case, the resource at hand was Amazon.

From a more practical point of view, the better course of action would have been to supplement normal groceries with staples from Amazon. The pancake mix I bought was very expensive for a single box, but by buying larger quantities, such as this 4 pack, the price becomes much more reasonable. I’ll be making use of the remaining five Hormel Compleat dinners, which were reasonably priced and are very convenient for a microwave lunch away from home. By shopping around Amazon, it would be quite possible to stretch a grocery budget by buying items with “free” money such as I was using. It’s also possible to purchase luxury items such as the Agave Nectar and the premium coffee at no cost.

Eating Without Money Part 3: The Free Food Arrives

My free food, courtesy of Amazon.

I’ve been rather busy the last week, and didn’t get a chance to really open it until today, but my free food arrived last week. Tomorrow will be my day to subsist on this food and nothing else.

Mornings can be hectic, so tonight, I made a batch of pancakes and put them in the freezer. In the morning, I can simply put them in the toaster. I’ll also make some sausage for breakfast.

The brick of Cafe La Llave espresso coffee smells good, and I loaded the coffee maker and set the timer. I tasted the Agave Nectar, and it should work very well as pancake syrup. The taste was quite similar to honey.

The sausage sampler proved to be a good deal. The description wasn’t clear on the exact portion size, but each sausage is eight ounces, for a full pound of meat, in addition to the crackers and mustard. So I should be well set for both breakfast and lunch.

The lemonade mix proved to be quite expensive, since this package makes only two quarts. But it will easily last me the day, and was the least expensive beverage I could find. Interestingly, it did include the whisk shown on the Amazon picture.

Unlike my experience during the SNAP challenge, when my $26.01 worth of food lasted me a whole week, this experiment will last only one day. Since I have much more than I’ll need for that time, I won’t have to jealously hoard my food as I did during the SNAP challenge, and my family will also get to experience eating without spending money. They will be able to eat other things as well, but they’ll be able to know what my free food tastes like. And it looks like I have plenty of free food to go around.

Retention Elections Will Make Judicial Selection More Political, Not Less. And Iowa Proves It.

A bill currently before the legislature seeks to amend the Minnesota Constitution to end constested elections for judges in the state.

Contrary to popular perception, judges in Minnesota are not appointed. They are elected. This comes as a surprise to most Minnesotans. When asked, they will typically opine that judges are initially appointed by the governor, but then must run for re-election. But that’s not exactly right. Article 6, Section 7 of the Constitution states:

The term of office of all judges shall be six years and until their successors are qualified. They shall be elected by the voters from the area which they are to serve in the manner provided by law.

Section 8 does, indeed, give the Governor the power of appointment, but only in the case of a vacancy:

Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of judge the governor shall appoint in the manner provided by law a qualified person to fill the vacancy until a successor is elected and qualified. The successor shall be elected for a six year term at the next general election occurring more than one year after the appointment.

While there are some differences (the length of the initial term) this system is essentially identical to how U.S. Senators are chosen. U.S. Senators are elected by the voters, but mid-term vacancies are filled by the governor. Yet nobody ever says that senators are initially appointed by the governor, but then must run for re-election, as they invariably say about judges.

The confusion comes largely because most judges retire prior to the expiration of their term. Section 9 gives the Legislature the power to provide for retirement, and Minnesota Statute 490.125 sets a mandatory retirement age of 70. Upon a judge’s retirement, a vacancy is created, and the vacancy is filled by the Governor.

As a practical matter, most Judges retire in the middle of their terms, either by choice, or because they are faced with mandatory retirement. Therefore, the Governor initially appoints most judges. Senators rarely retire mid term, and there is no mandatory retirement age for senators. This is why people rarely explain the senatorial election process the same way they explain the judicial election process. But the two processes are essentially the same: Both senators and judges are elected officials.

Interestingly, in the reports of the Minnesota Supreme Court and the Minnesota Court of Appeals, newly-appointed judges have a footnote next to their name which indicates that they are acting as judges pursuant to appointment. So even the Courts themselves seem to recognize that judges appointed by the governor are somehow not quite fully tenured judges.

The proposed amendment seeks to change the status of judges as elected officials. Under the amendment, they would really become what most people think they are already: They would be appointed by the governor. The amendment would make two changes. First of all, the governor would be limited to nominees presented by a judicial selection commission. The governor would not be able to nominate persons unless they received the un-elected commission’s approval.

The other big change would be in how judicial elections are carried out. Currently, any lawyer in the state can run for judge. If I want to, I can go pay the filing fee and run against any sitting judge. Or, in the rare cases where there’s a vacancy, I can seek employment for the next six years by running for the open seat. Most frequently, however, there is no challenger, and there is no open seat. On the back of the ballot, there’s a dizzying long list of incumbent judges. Each one has a bubble next to his or her name. And below the name, there’s another bubble next to a blank line for write-in candidates. If people look at the back of the ballot at all, they fill in the bubbles next to the names of the incumbents, even though those names are rarely familiar. On rare occasions, there’s another name, that of some brave lawyer who decided to pay the filing fee to get his or her name on the ballot. And that lawyer undoubtedly realizes that if he or she loses, it probably won’t be a good idea to appear before that judge for the rest of his or her legal career.

In the last few years, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that these brave challengers (as well as the incumbents) are, indeed, covered by the First Amendment. In other words, they are, indeed, allowed to say, “please vote for me.” They are even allowed to state their beliefs on matters of public concern.

The fact that the First Amendment still applies has caused a great deal of consternation in some quarters, and there are those who believe that the judicial election process will become “politicized.” There is undoubtedly some truth to this belief. As I have shown, judges are indeed elected officials. And an election is, by definition, a politicized process.

The amendment seeks to end this “politicization” by switching to retention elections. Instead of the back of the ballot having the names of judges and blank lines for write-ins, it will have the judge’s name and a question. The question will ask: “Shall Judge ____ be retained?” The voter will have the choice of two bubbles to fill in: Yes or No.

I think this is a bad system for a number of reasons. A good example of the most commonly cited reasons in opposition are stated by the Republican Liberty Caucus Minnesota statement. In general, I subscribe to the arguments made on that page.

But there’s another argument that is largely overlooked. Moving to retention elections would not do anything to de-politicize the process. If anything, retention elections will make the problem worse! And for proof, we need look no further than the Hawkeye State. Iowa’s experience proves that retention elections do not insulate judges from the whims of the voters. Instead, the retention election process makes judges more vulnerable to voters acting for weak and transient causes. Like Minnesota, the Iowa Constitution originally called for the election of judges. This was amended in 1962 to a retention system similar to what is now being proposed for Minnesota.

In 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court decided Varnum v. Brien. In that case, the court unanimously held that Iowa’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. This decision was unpopular in some quarters. Three of the judges of the supreme court were up for retention in 2010: Chief Justice Marsha Ternus, Justice David Baker, and Justice Michael Streit. All three of them were defeated. In other words, it’s safe to say that Iowa’s 1962 retention amendment didn’t do much to insulate them from the whims of an electorate responding to what many would consider a weak and transient cause. In 2012, Justice David Wiggins, who also participated in the Varnum decision, was retained. This was partly because the Iowa bar was more successful in rallying behind him, but also because three years had passed. That’s the nature of weak and transient causes. They’re easily forgotten.

For those who believe that judges should be insulated from the whims of the voters, did the retention system work? I would say that it did not. And it is obvious to me why it didn’t work. A mob of angry Iowa voters doesn’t have to invest very much effort in voting the perceived bums out of office. The work has been done by the people who printed the ballot. All the angry voter has to do is fill in the box marked “no”. If enough people fill in the bubble, then the judge is removed from office.

In Minnesota and other states with contested judicial elections, it’s not so easy to remove a sitting judge. The action being protested must be sufficiently egregious for two things to happen. First of all, as in Iowa, a majority of the electorate has to agree that the judge must go. But before this can happen, some lawyer must place his or her name on the ballot. I have no intention of running against some judge before whom I might appear someday. And most other lawyers in the state would have similar trepidation.

In short, yes, there is the distinct possibility that in our imperfect system, judicial elections might become “politicized.” But the Iowa experience proves that our current system is the least worst. The framers of the state constitution (both parties, since Minnesota really has two constitutions, as I explain on page 3 of this paper) picked our current system for a reason, and I believe that we should keep it the way it is.

In a future post, I’ll explain another unintended consequence of retention elections, as explained to me by an Iowa attorney.

Are you an attorney looking for a free CLE credit? If so, please attend my free conference call CLE on March 24.

“I Will Not Surrender to an Invading Army”

Twitter @CNNEE

Ángel Omar Vivas Perdomo is a retired general of the Venezuelan Army. He is educated as a civil engineer and has an MBA and a doctorate in finance from Texan American Univeristy. In 1997, he served as the commander of an OAS multinational mission to conduct mine clearing in Central America. He’s received decorations from Venezuela, the United States, and other countries.

In 2006, under the Chavez government, he was appointed the National Director of Engineering of the Defense Ministry, but decided to resign from the army due to its “grave violations of the Venezuelan Constitution.” He has been an outspoken critic of the politicization of the army and Cuba’s growing influence within the Venezuelan military.

In 2007, he petitioned the Supreme Court requesting that the army cease use of the motto “Patria, socialismo o muerte. Venceremos!” (“Fatherland, socialism or death. We shall overcome!”). The author of this motto was none other than Fidel Castro. The hearing before the Supreme Court took place in 2008, and the petition was denied. While leaving the court, Vivas was arrested and later charged with insubordination. In 2012, he was sentenced to a term of 4 months and 15 days.

Yesterday (Sunday, 23 February 2014), he became one of the focal points of the resistance movement when president Nicolas Maduro ordered his arrest for encouraging the massive protests that are taking place throughout the country.

Sunday morning, General Vivas posted this picture of telephone workers disconnecting his internet connection.

Twitter @Gral_Vivas_P

At some point, counter-intelligence troops arrived.

Twitter @valsosadasilva

While wearing Venezuelan uniforms, a number of Twitter users pointed out that the soldiers’ boots were of the type issued by the Cuban army, and the speculation is that these are actually Cuban soldiers.

Vivas presented himself armed and bearing the Venezuelan flag. He announced that he would not surrender to an invading army. He and his lawyers announced that the order for his detention was illegal, was not signed by a judge, and that he would not be abiding by it.

Twitter @barbaradeccs

Soon thereafter, scores of National Guard troops arrived on the scene:

Twitter @DespiertaVene

So did, however, hundreds of neighbors and supporters who rallied to the scene after word of the standoff spread on social networks.

Twitter @carlosramirezl3

Outnumbered, the National Guard shut off the power to the house, retreated, and left only the (possibly Cuban) counter-intelligence officers at the door.

More information is available (in Spanish) at El Universal or follow General Vivas on Twitter.

Interview with Colombian TV NTN24, February 24.

#SOSVenezuela: Sources of Information

A small group of fascists, according to official sources.

The Venezuelan government controls the electronic media, so there’s no sense looking for information from broadcast sources. When I checked the front page of TV network Venevision, it appears that the most pressing news story facing Venezuelans is the fact that Christina Aguilera is expecting a child.

The print media still has some freedom, although the government has managed to deal with that problem largely by restricting the import of newsprint. Many newspapers have suspended their print edition, and even the largest ones have severely reduced the size of their editions. But still, there is some information coming out through traditional journalism. El Universal has a regularly updated section in English.

The internet has been shut down in some areas, but the best source of information appears to be blogs. The following English-language blogs will let you know what’s going on in Venezuela:

http://caracasgringo.wordpress.com

http://antipatrioticvenezuelan.blogspot.com/

http://caracaschronicles.com/

http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/

http://maruangarita.blogspot.com/

http://venezuelablog.tumblr.com/

http://devilsexcrement.com/

http://martineretting.wordpress.com/

http://thirdworldchronicles.blogspot.com/

SOSVenezuela

As a lawyer, one of my obligations is to do what I can to fight injustice, and I don’t believe that obligation ends at the borders of my country. People everywhere are entitled to live in a free country and in peace. Venezuela used to be such a country, with a free press, an independent judiciary, and the rule of law. It used to be a relatively prosperous country with a strong middle class. It hasn’t been that way for quite some time, and the people are finally taking to the streets to reclaim their country. The pictures below are from Twitter, and were all taken by ordinary Venezuelans in the last few days (I write this on February 20).

The government has responded to these protests by sending in National Guard troops , augmented by irregulars–red-shirted armed thugs–supported by the government. They have killed civilians, set fire to apartments, and detained many of the protesters.

For whatever reason, the U.S. media are largely silent. Perhaps it’s partly because their cameras were seized, as happened to this CNN crew.

The El Universal Newspaper, is still reporting, and you can read their English edition online. The Caracas Chronicles blog is also providing good information. And despite the service being shut down in many parts of the country, Twitter is the best source for up-to-date information. You’ll get an idea by searching for #SOSVenezuela or by following @ReportaVE. Most of those tweets will be in Spanish, but the many photos speak for themselves.

Please educate yourself as to what is going on in Venezuela. Since the U.S. media has not deemed this to be a priority, it is up to the rest of us to come to the aid of the people of Venezuela.

Iowa Supreme Court Has Some Choice Words About Crony Capitalism. It’s Too Bad Minnesota Politicians Don’t Listen.

Iowa’s constitution, like that of Minnesota, contains a strict prohibition that the credit of the state shall never be loaned to any private entity. The Iowa Supreme Court recently had occasion to examine this provision, and it’s very relevant today.

The Iowa constitutional provision was taken from New York’s constitution, and was to prevent the practice under which “aspiring new states had loaned their credit freely and extravagantly to corporate enterprises which had in them much seductive promise of public good. These enterprises included railways, canals, water powers, etc.”

The Iowa Supreme Court has jealously guarded the public fisc over the years. In a 1923 case, they held that “no public purpose can be meritorious enough, and no obligation of equity appealing enough, to override this provision.”

In its recent case, the Iowa High Court lamented the fact that other states have ignored similar provisions. “To engraft by judicial gloss a vague and open-ended public purpose exception would undermine this constitutional prohibition.”

They quoted a 1987 Kentucky opinion identifying the practice for what it is: “Crony Capitalism.”

The framers of most state constitutions knew better than to freely and extravagantly lend the state’s credit to seductive private enterprises. Fortunately, a handful of states such as Iowa still apparently stubbornly cling to the archaic idea that the public treasury and the public credit should not be used to make the rich richer.

Publicly funded stadiums and other boondoggles should be recognized for what they are–crony capitalism. The seductive promise of public good is an insufficient reason to open up the public treasury to favored private interests.

I have a more complete summary of the case, Star Equipment, Ltd., v. State of Iowa, Department of Transportation at my website.

Appeals Court Says USDA Can’t Keep SNAP Dollars Hidden

Federal court sheds some sunlight on food stamp fraud.

When the Food Stamps (now known as SNAP) started in 1964, Congress appropriated $75 million. By the program’s third year, this amount had risen to $200 million. By fiscal year 2012, the program had a price tag of over $78 billion–a staggering thousand-fold increase over the program’s first year. By 2012, more that 46 million people–more than 15 percent of the U.S. population–were receiving benefits.

What SNAP (food stamps) is intended for.

Most of that money goes to needy families. But an estimated $858 million per year is “trafficked”. Recipients illegally sell their benefits for cash to unscrupulous retailers. By one official estimate, about one in ten of the participating retailers engage in this illegal practice. Not only are these businesses stealing money from the taxpayers, but they are stealing food from hungry people.

If you’re doing this in South Dakota, you’re about to get busted, thanks to the tenacious efforts of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper. For almost three years, they’ve been fighting to get the USDA to hand over the secret data of how much money is going to each participating retailer. It’s safe to say that armed with this data, they’re going to be responsible for sending a few dishonest store owners to jail, all through the simple expedient of good journalism. If you’re taking in millions in food stamp dollars, it’s now only a matter of time before a reporter camps out outside your door. If you don’t have any customers walking out with bags of groceries, you’ll have some explaining to do. And you can do that explaining to a judge and jury.

For almost three years, the USDA, which runs the food stamp program, tenaciously fought to keep this information secret. They refused to hand it over when the newspaper made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. They refused again when the newspaper filed an administrative appeal. And they fought hard and won when the newspaper brought them to federal court in South Dakota.

But that all changed on January 28 when another federal court ordered the USDA to hand over the information. The U.S. Court of Appeals, based in St. Louis, struck down the South Dakota judge’s ruling, and held that the public and the newspaper are entitled to this information. The court brought a little sunlight to the USDA bureaucracy, and even quoted Justice Brandeis who said that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

A few months ago, I did the SNAP Challenge and wrote about it. I know that it’s tough (but not impossible) to feed yourself adequately with the amounts allowed. And it’s a lot harder if people are stealing the money designated to feed the hungry. If you’re stealing from the taxpayers and from hungry people in South Dakota, you’re about to get busted. And it’s about time.

You can read a more complete summary of the court’s opinion at my website, including a link to the court’s opinion.

Mayhem Erupts at Minneapolis DFL Caucus, But It’s a Tradition

The drafters of this document also had problems deciding who got to run the meeting. But even the Democrats of 1857 agreed that no member of the state shall be disfranchised unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.

According to the Star Tribune, mayhem broke out tonight at a DFL precinct caucus in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis. 300 people were present, most of them Somali Americans. An altercation took place about who would chair the meeting. Cops were called, and both the fight and the caucus were broken up less than an hour after they started. No business was transacted, police escorted attendees out of the building, but no arrests were made.

Republicans probably would have resorted to the simple expedient of having a vote, and letting a majority of those present decide who should chair the meeting. (Although Republicans also sometimes resort to calling the cops, seizing microphones, and other similar measures when a majority gets in the way of someone’s carefully made plans, as evidenced by the 2012 state Republican conventions in
Louisiana, Oklahoma, and other states.)

But having two people trying to chair the same meeting is nothing new to Minnesota politics. Indeed, Minnesota is unique in the Union in that it has two constitutions, based upon an incident not unlike that which occurred Tuesday night in Minneapolis.

When the Minnesota Constitutional Convention convened in 1857, there were two men on the platform purporting to chair the meeting. The Democratic chairman took a motion to adjourn until the next day. Meanwhile, the Republican chairman continued to preside, and the Republicans got down to work. The Democrats then left the chamber for the day.

Upon their return the next day, the Democrats found the chamber occupied. Undaunted, they simply moved down the hall to the other chamber, and held their own convention. Each convention published its own journal of the proceedings.

Somehow, a small conference committee was able to produce a single document to which both sides could agree. However, the two conventions never met together, and two copies of the document were ratified, one subscribed by the republican delegates, and the other subscribed by the democratic delegates. One of these copies was officially transmitted to Congress. However, the other copy found its way to Washington as well, and it was this second copy that was attached to the bill admitting Minnesota to the Union. Therefore, both versions, with their minor differences, stand on equal footing. When the placement of a comma is critical to the interpretation, lawyers still need to look at the two original handwritten documents and see whether the comma is really there in both copies.

So two people trying to run the same meeting is nothing new. But the Republicans generally do a better job of sorting out such messes, and even the Democrats of 1857 performed admirably at solving this little problem.

If you happen to find yourself disfranchised by your party, especially if you find yourself disfranchised because you’re a new American, perhaps you should think of finding a party that doesn’t have such a history of disfranchising people.

The Bomb Shell of Fort Ripley, Minnesota

The Bomb Shell, an almost forgotten piece of journalism history.

If you’ve looked at my hectograph page, you might have guessed that I’ve always been intrigued by primitive printing methods. As that page shows, you can whip up a little printing press in the kitchen. According to Wikipedia (unfortunately, no sources are cited for the assertion), a hectograph was used by allied prisoners of war in World War 2 to make documents for a planned escape attempt.

A more laborious method was employed by three soldiers at Fort Ripley, Minnesota Territory, in the summer of 1854, when they published their newspaper the Bomb Shell. According to its masthead, the Bomb Shell is the handiwork of R. Pollock, the “Bombardier”, H. Nugent, the “Gunner”, and C. Herman, the “Powder Monkey”. It bears the motto, “the Earth’s a shell, thrown from old nature’s mortar.” The prospectus issue indicates a subscription rate of 50 cents per year, but there’s no indication that any issues other than the first, dated July 28, 1854, were ever dispatched from that mortar.

This newspaper is unique in that it was produced with hand-carved type. These early proto-bloggers didn’t let the lack of technology stand in their way. With a pocket knife, they carved out the type, set it by hand, and printed their own newspaper. According to its first issue, “the appearance of the BOMB-SHELL before the public may be as unexpected and to some as unwelcome as its prototype.” It goes on to say, however, that the new paper “shall be as harmless as the egg of the turtle dove and except in defense of the innocent, will never be charged with explosive matter.”

The editor of another Minnesota newspaper described it thus:

Its contents are lively, and entertaining but it is not on that account only, we desire to see “Bomb Shell” succeed. To the eyes, it is an uncouth, ill-printed, muddy-looking sheet, and every letter in it is larger than those in a child’s Primer–but all these drawbacks are more than compensated for, by the knowledge that all the letters and furniture used in setting up the paper, were made by one of the soldiers in the Fort, his principal tool to work with, being a small pocket knife. Those who know how necessary it is to accurately square and level types, to make them serviceable at all, will readily agree with us that this is a wonderful exercise of skill, patience, and ingenuity.

Minnesota Democrat, August 23, 1854, reprinted in Douglas C. McMurtrie, “The Printing Press Moves Westward,” Minnesota History, Vol. 15, No. 1, p. 24 (Mar. 1934) (available online).

I know there is one copy of the Bomb Shell in the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, but it’s unfortunately not available online. In addition to the article cited above, the Bomb Shell is also referenced in Newspapers on the Minnesota Frontier by George Hage.

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