Cloud Cult's Shannon Frid, Connie Minowa and Craig Minowa. Photo: Michael Anderson

2008 was a big year for the Minnesota-based band Cloud Cult. They released a new album, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes), earning spots on a few best album lists (including one by the Atlanta alt-weekly Creative Loafing) and Rolling Stone’s Breaking Artists page. They played SXSW, the CMJ Showcase at the Knitting Factory and, locally, the Walker Art Center’s Rock the Garden. The Denver Post dubbed the group “one of the best live bands out there,” they penned a partnership with insurance company Esurance, and a documentary about them is slated to come out in a few months.

As we peek around the corner of 2009, I caught up with Cloud Cult frontman Craig Minowa, an environmental scientist at the Organic Consumers Association by day, to see what the year has in store — musically, environmentally and personally.

For progressives, 2008 was a big year politically — at least in contrast to the previous eight. But 2009 isn’t an election year (except for some smaller races), so how will you be “political” in the new year and beyond?

The coming year is going to be a critical time to put pressure on the Obama administration’s agencies, namely the USDA and EPA, to reverse disastrous policies Bush put into place. For example, Bush gutted the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, and these need to be put back into place. Obama’s science advisers are also well educated on the climate change crisis, so, at the very least, by the end of 2009, the EPA needs to be looking at greenhouse gases as something that can be federally regulated. The Supreme Court has already ruled that this is the case, but the Bush administration is ignoring that and is doing nothing to curb the nation’s disastrous output of greenhouse gases.

What personal activism will you be doing in 2009?

The climate crisis is much bigger than most Americans are willing to accept. We need to make radical changes to curb greenhouse gas output, but we also need to make radical changes to prepare for the coming changes. I plan to also be involved in pushing mass transit. With the new administration, I think we’ll see some significant opportunities to build mass transit infrastructure. For example, there’s a plan in place to connect Minneapolis and Duluth with a high-speed commuter train. There would be a stop-over in Hinckley. It’s called the Northern Lights Express, and I plan to be more involved in making sure it happens. At the same time, Connie [Minowa, his wife] and I are continually trying to expand what we do at the farm. We’d like to get to the point where we are growing and preserving most of the food we eat.

A note on your site says you’re taking a break as a band. So what’s in store for 2009 -– for the band or for you?

We’re releasing a full-length DVD documentary in the spring. It’s kind of a behind-the-scenes look at the band and includes footage going back as far as 10 years. John Burgess and Scott West [who directed the video for the band's song, "Everybody Here is a Cloud"] have been working on it for a couple years now, so we’re excited about that. An album of live songs and previously unreleased songs will be released with the DVD. We’ll be touring the U.S. and some of Canada quite heavily March through May. We’ll probably do some festivals over the summer. I’m not sure what’s on the plate for the fall yet. In the meantime, I’m working on writing a new album. I want it to be the best one yet, so I’m taking my time on it and not putting any deadline pressure on, like I have with the last few albums. Right now, I’m also scoring the music for a National Geographic special on the grizzly bear.

What was it like having documentary filmmakers in your home for so long? Are you cut out for a reality-TV gig?

We’ve had a few too many cameras up at the farm. There were a few different shootings for the documentary up here, but having situations like MTV coming out to shoot us out here can be really uncomfortable, because we have a pretty modest place here. The Weather Channel also did a piece on us, for their Forecast Earth program, so they had a crew up here this summer, too. Reporters from different publications also come out here, and there are the occasional fans who track our home down and come spy for a bit. And then Showtime called to send a crew, but we really hit a point where we felt we needed to cut the traffic off and have a place in our lives where we could enjoy some privacy. It’s really nice that people are interested in our lives, so we can’t complain, but, at the same time, there’s a certain point where you start to feel like you’re never leaving the stage. The documentary itself was fun to be a part of. I feel bad for John Burgess, the fellow that did the bulk of the shooting. I’m really a pretty introverted person, so if I’m not on stage, I’m usually pretty quiet and mellow, so I don’t think I make a very entertaining reality-TV-type subject.

Your environmental cred is remarkable — and too long to quickly summarize: Cloud Cult has resisted the major label system, continuing to self-produce albums on your nonprofit Earthology label to remain environmentally responsible. You buy wind-energy credits to offset the CO2 emitted in touring, you’ve planted trees and begun recycling used CD jewel cases. You live on an organic farm, work as an environmental scientist at the Organic Consumers Association, use geothermal, wind and solar energy, etc., etc., etc. A geeky question: Are there green technologies, practices you’re hoping to learn more about or implement in your life or work — or that deserve more public attention in 2009?

We’re working hard on trying to line up a mass transit tour for 2009. Our band manager, Adrian Young, is working out the details to try and have us do the whole tour on Amtrak. Our biggest ecological flaw, as a band, is the fuel we burn up when we’re touring, so this would be a major step in greatly reducing that impact. Right now, we plant hundreds of trees each year to absorb the CO2 we put out from the touring, and we went the biodiesel route for a while, but we have a lot more work to do in figuring out how to mitigate those negative impacts.

Where have you found inspiration in the past year?

I’ve been reading a lot about understanding the difference between the true self and your brain. We’ve been taught to equate our selves with our brains. But thought patterns are actually just a screen that tricks us into feeling like we’re separate from everything. I’ve been working hard on trying to shut the brain off and just be more present in the moment. I’ve come to recognize the constant noise up there is not a healthy thing, and it’s taking a lot of work to quiet down. It’s been inspiring to see life through very different eyes. I can’t expect to write truly good music or to have the energy to keep working towards a green planet, if I can’t get a better ongoing connection to the whole.

At Cloud Cult concerts, you often wear a sleep mask. What’s the significance — and does it come off in 2009?

It helps me separate from “Craig.” My conscious brain has all these conceptions of who and what “Craig” is. But if I try to write music or perform on stage and am overly conscious of that concept of me as “Craig” then I won’t create anything worthwhile.

The disease of the pop music industry is ego. It’s everywhere, and it is contagious and very destructive. Music is a very sacred art form. I remember reading how the Buddhists talk about moments of enlightenment being the complete loss of the sense of self. Performing and writing music does that for me. A good night on stage entails having moments where I can completely forget that I have an identity as “Craig” and connecting to what feels like a bigger higher power. It’s sort of like dreaming, as in dreams you often don’t have a sense of where or who you are.

Anyway, one night before a show, I was taking a nap backstage with my sleep mask on, and I realized that just by putting the mask on, it created the psychological feeling that I was about to enter the dreamworld. So I started putting it on before shows, as a matter of ceremony and ritual to get my mind connected to the other side. It’s sort of like making sure I have my eyes on heaven at all times, because the day I lose the real meaning of the music, which all came from a very spiritual place, is the day I need to hang the guitar up and try a new profession.

Photo: Michael Anderson

Tomorrow: A Q&A with Doomtree emcee, singer and writer Dessa.

Al Franken (Photo: Aaron Landry) and Norm Coleman (Photo: WDCpix.com)

Two of the first in a series of a dozen regional meetings that started today in Minnesota’s Senate election recount adjourned this morning after only an hour — with very different results.

In Sherburne County, representatives of the campaigns of Al Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman agreed to forward to the State Canvassing Board 15 of 18 unopened absentee ballots that local election officials decided last week had been wrongly rejected.

But next door in Anoka County the process prescribed by order of the state Supreme Court quickly collapsed, with the rival campaigns at loggerheads over the Coleman representative’s insistence on including ballots that local officials had not selected as having been wrongly rejected. Coleman’s camp wanted to add about 10 ballots to the 35 that Anoka County Elections Department had identified as belonging in the so-called “fifth pile” of unopened absentee ballots, Anoka Elections Supervisor Rachel Smith said. Franken’s forces rejected that move.

“Both campaigns refused to participate.” That’s how Smith described the situation to the Minnesota Independent. After about 45 minutes, the meeting was adjourned with no action on the uncounted ballots. The Supreme Court’s Friday deadline for submitting the ballots to the state can only be met if the meeting participants come to some agreement, Smith said. But due to the New Year’s holiday and staff scheduling, any follow-up meeting will have to occur today or Wednesday.

Coleman’s camp tried to introduce new uncounted ballots in Sherburne County too, but local officials there refused. Sherburne County will send the secretary of state an explanation for why the three “fifth pile” ballots aren’t included with the other 15, County Election Manager Steve Klepsa told MnIndy. The 18 were the only absentee ballots of more than 4,000 cast in Sherburne County to be wrongly rejected.

In Anoka County, the 35 fifth-pile ballots were the only ones wrongly rejected out of 13,000 that voters submitted, Smith said.

Two other counties with only a handful of uncounted ballots each also held their meetings today at the two north metro locations, Isanti County at Anoka County and Mille Lacs County at Sherburne County. Other counties where officials are holding public reviews of fifth-pile ballots today include Dakota, Kandiyohi, Olmsted, Beltrami and St. Louis. The meetings continue Wednesday and Friday in Wright, Blue Earth, Otter Tail, Crow Wing, and Polk counties.

Recount, International Falls, Minn., Nov. 24. Photo: Adam Lockhart

Here’s a quick recap of the latest developments in Minnesota’s Senate recount as of mid-day Monday.

The biggest remaining pool of disputed ballots — 1,346 that that local officials rejected on Election Day for no legal reason — remain disputed. The campaigns of Al Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman differ sharply on how many should be counted; indeed, the two sides are off by an order of 10.

Yet under a state Supreme Court order they must somehow reconcile their views this week at 12 regional meetings where the ballots’ fate will be decided.

Meanwhile, the state’s only sure-bet senator, Amy Klobuchar — no stranger to electoral squeakers — said she prefers a seat-’em-first, sue-’em-later approach to the contested post. The recount now comes down to the 1,346 absentee ballots that the state’s 87 counties didn’t tally but now say they should have. By order of the state Supreme Court, the counties will submit uncounted, unopened absentee ballots by Friday (that’s a time extension) to the State Canvassing Board, which will incorporate them into the overall vote count before it certifies the election.

Not all 1,346 are likely to make it into the certified tally. First, the campaigns of Al Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman will review the uncounted ballot envelopes this week at 12 regional meetings around the state and knock out any they find unworthy of counting.

Franken’s folks sent the Coleman camp a letter over the weekend that proposed the two sides skip that step and essentially approve the inclusion of all the counties’ uncounted absentee ballots by acclamation. The Coleman campaign said no, that’s not what the Supreme Court asked us to do.

After a weekend of reviewing the uncounted ballots, Franken wants to count all 1,346 and Coleman wants to count only 136 — about a tenth of the total. The Supreme Court’s order includes a threat of unnamed sanctions for unreasonable objections but it isn’t clear what effect that will have this week.

Franken’s determination to count all the wrongly rejected absentee ballots rests on two ideas, one philosophical, the other political. Counting all valid votes has been the Franken battle cry from the beginning, so even with a lead in hand the campaign has continued to call for including any such ballots in the state’s tally. And with Coleman now almost 50 votes down, any reasonably random pool of ballots (like those wrongly rejected absentee ballots) is statistically unlikely to provide him with enough extra votes to make up the margin.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Klobuchar told the Star Tribune the Senate should seat the man who has more votes after the State Canvassing Board certifies the election — and that man seems likely to be Franken. If Franken does assume his first elective office after a close election, he’d have that in common with Klobuchar. She narrowly won her first race 10 years ago, for Hennepin County Attorney, by a margin of 3,740 votes, avoiding an automatic recount by only three-tenths of a percent, or 1,525 votes.

Attorneys for Franken and Coleman inspect ballots (The Uptake)

Here, direct from Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie himself, are the dates and times of a dozen public meetings on the U.S. Senate recount to be held on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday this week at locations around the state. At these regional meetings, the campaigns of Al Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman will hash out with county election officials which of as many as 1,600 wrongly rejected absentee ballots should be included in the final vote tally. That’s in accordance with a state Supreme Court order that gave the two campaigns a role in deciding whether uncounted absentee ballots that local officials have determined were turned aside for no valid reason should be opened and counted.

Mark your calendars and make your travel plans for the dates and times listed after the jump. These are the regional recount meetings mentioned but not listed in the Dec. 27 Star Tribune. Check back for an update as to whether The Uptake will provide online video for any of these meetings. Note that the meetings in Beltrami and Dakota counties will take place over two days. The last meeting on the list, at the Secretary of State’s office in St. Paul, is the occasion for opening the ballots that all parties have agreed at the regional meetings should be counted.

TUESDAY, DEC. 30
County Board Room, St. Louis County Courthouse
100 N. Fifth Ave., Duluth, Minn.
9 a.m.

Beltrami County Board Room, County Administration Building
701 Minnesota Ave., Bemidji, Minn. 
10 a.m.–3 p.m.

Council Board Chambers and Conference Room 1, Olmsted County Government Center
151 Fourth St. SE, Rochester, Minn.
1 p.m.

Kandiyohi County Government Center
2200 23rd St. NE, Willmar, Minn.
1:30 p.m.

County Board Room, Sherburne County Government Center
13880 Highway 10, Elk River, Minn.
8:30 a.m.

Room 710, Anoka County Government Center
2100 Third Ave., Anoka, Minn.
9 a.m.

Dakota County Board Room
1590 Highway 55, Hastings, Minn.
1 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 31

Dakota County Board Room
1590 Highway 55, Hastings, Minn.
9 a.m. (continued from Tuesday)

Location to be determined, Wright County
Buffalo, Minn.
9 a.m.

First Floor Auditorium, Blue Earth County Government Center
410 S. Fifth St., Mankato, Minn.
10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Multiple rooms, Otter Tail County Government Service Center
500 W. Fir Ave., Fergus Falls, Minn.
9 a.m.

Meeting Rooms 1 and 2, Crow Wing County Land Services Building
322 Laurel St., Brainerd, Minn.
10 a.m.

Room to be determined, Polk County Government Center
612 N. Broadway, Suite 207, Crookston, Minn.
10 a.m.

FRIDAY, JAN. 2

Beltrami County Board Room, County Administration Building
701 Minnesota Ave., Bemidji, Minn.
10 a.m.–3 p.m. (second meeting)

180 State Office Building, Secretary of State’s Office
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., St. Paul
10 a.m.

Had state Sen. Kathy Sheran’s bill to reform absentee voting dodged Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto pen last year, it might have spared Minnesota some of the agony of the current statewide recount. Sheran denied foreknowledge that this year’s Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race would hang on absentee ballots. Now she tells the Minnesota Independent her reform effort also wasn’t inspired by a recount that involved a contested absentee ballot in her first race 24 years ago.

That story is told in government meeting minutes that are — amazingly — available online going back more than 50 years at the City of Mankato Web site. But proximity to the state’s most dramatic recounts seems to run in the family for Sheran, whose father, a longtime chief justice on the state Supreme Court, joined the high court in the midst of Minnesota’s last major statewide recount.

Sheran’s 2007 bill was the latest in a long line of legislation proposed since 1994 but never signed into law that would make it easier for Minnesotans to cast a valid absentee ballot. Under her bill, voters wouldn’t have to give a specific reason for voting absentee, such as being unable to make it to the polling place on Election Day. Regular absentee voters could have signed up to automatically receive absentee ballots, rather than applications for ballots, before each election. Voters who can’t get to their polling places because of illness or disability, or who live in nursing homes, could have an absentee ballot sent to and cast by an agent they designate. And Minnesotans who are out of state wouldn’t have to have their ballots witnessed by a registered Minnesota voter or a notary public, unless it’s their first time voting absentee.

(That last measure wouldn’t have been enough to help one Minnesota voter in New York who told MnIndy her initial absentee ballot this fall was rejected for improper witnessing – a problem she was able to remedy only by last minute heroics.)

Anyone with Internet access can trace Sheran’s concern for the plight of absentee voters back to her first election nearly a quarter century ago. A special meeting of the Mankato City Council on Sept. 18, 1984, in its capacity as the local canvassing board, heard Sheran make the case for tallying an absentee voter’s challenged ballot in a primary election for an at-large seat on the council:

Kathleen Sheran, 117 West Glencrest, appeared before the Council stating that the outcome of the election would not be changed overall by the one challenged ballot. She explained that the opportunity of the person to vote is significant, and determining the validity of the ballot in question was an important decision. She stated that she appreciated the way the challenged ballot was presented. Ms. Sheran further stated that the Council must determine the voters intent. She questioned whether the scribbling on the ballot would identify the ballot, and should this take away that person’s right to vote. She stated that it might be easier to say that one vote would not make a difference to the outcome of the election.

The ballot was counted and though it didn’t tip the election, it allowed Sheran to increase her lead over the third-place finisher by five instead of only four votes:

Mr. Smith moved to accept the challenged absentee ballot as a vote for Kathleen Sheran for the office of Councilmember At-Large. Mrs. Lofy seconded the motion. Mr. Hagemann, Mrs. Lofy, Mr. Smith and Mayor Mocol voted aye. Mr. Christ and Mrs. Brown voted nay. The motion carried. Mr. Hagemann then moved to approve the results of the re-count of the Primary Election for the office of Councilperson At-Large, with 1,390 votes for Francis X. Brady, 1,513 votes for Paul V. Meyer, and 1,395 votes for Kathleen Sheran. Mrs. Brown seconded the motion, all voting aye, the motion carried.

Sheran went on to take first place — and her first elective office — in the general election that year, as she explained in a recent e-mail to MnIndy:

The first time I ran for election to the Mankato at large seat there were three candidates…so in the primary I came in second….in the general election I came in first…and served 16 years… The vote was so close that there was a recount…for the primary that is…I won by a significant amount in the general election. I can’t remember the numbers for the final outcome that year. It is interesting you ask if my interest dated back to this experience.  The answer is no…this did not enter my mind at any point during the introduction of the absentee ballot bill. The bill I introduced served to increase access to persons who might not otherwise be able to vote, and provided an option of getting some assistance to recieve a ballot, while limiting the number of persons one person can assist. I enjoyed looking back at the minutes you found….LONG time ago and would not have remembered this appearance unless you had shown me these minutes…actually..still don’t recall the appearance… I do remember the recount!

Proximity to dramatic Minnesota recounts seems to run in Kathy Sheran’s family. She’s following in the footsteps of her father, Robert. J. Sheran, who after wartime service as an agent in J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, was elected to two terms (1947-50) as Mankato’s state senator.

Robert Sheran

Ten years later, the elder Sheran, a DFLer, joined the state Supreme Court, taking his place on the bench Jan. 8, 1963 — just as Minnesota’s last great statewide recount in the governor’s race was getting underway. He narrowly missed a direct role in that recount: A series of preliminary decisions that favored the Republican incumbent soon after the election led to an agreement by both sides to forego the Supreme Court for a separate, three-judge panel that would oversee the recount. Sheran might have recused himself anyway, since that recount involved Republican Elmer L. Anderson — the man who had just appointed Sheran to the high court.

Later Robert Sheran was elevated to chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, where he served for eight years, 1973-81. During that time current Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, who’s also a member of the State Canvassing Board that will certify Franken or Coleman as winner of the Senate recount, learned the judicial ropes as a clerk in Sheran’s office.

None of which answers the question: Why the heck does the City of Mankato Web site have city council meeting minutes from 1984 (let alone 1957!) online? According to City Manager Patrick Hentges, city staff realized five or six years ago that a resource they’d found useful — records of city council meetings going back to the Eisenhower era — might be enjoyed by Mankato citizens (and the Whole World Wide Web, by extension).

It’s advantageous for all involved in city matters to review the record on recurring topics. “A lot of these issues go back … We dealt with them before, in 19-whatever,” Hentges says. He adds that having council meeting minutes — and soon, video excerpts — available online makes up for the inevitable loss of institutional knowledge as council members and city staff come and go over the years.

Ironically, Kathy Sheran’s freshman year, 1985, is one of only four years since 1957 that are missing from Mankato’s online archive of city council meeting minutes. Hentges said city staffers aren’t sure what happened to the records from those years.

At a Friday afternoon press conference, Pawlenty unveiled his unallotment decisions, announcing that cuts will come from local government, human services and higher education. Here’s the rundown of cutbacks: $66 million in local aid to cities, $44 million local aid to counties, a $73 million reduction in human services spending, $40 million reduction in appropriations to the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, a $40 million reduction in state agency spending (10 percent of operating budgets), $4 million in unspent funds from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency Fund, a $2.2 million voluntary reduction of the Legislature’s unspent funds, $1.5 million reduction in the 21st Century Minerals Account and a $700,000 reduction in the Minnesota Investment Fund.

An additional $155 million will come from the state’s reserve.

“Unlike the federal government, we can’t deficit-spend,” he said. “We can’t print Monopoly money in the basement to fix the deficit… Families across Minnesota are tightening their belts, and businesses are tightening their belts, and they expect government to do the same. We intend to make sure that happens.”

Cities and counties will bear the burden of the budget cuts.

Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller released a statement on the cuts, “We thought that across-the-board cuts would be a fair solution. The governor’s cuts fall harder on cities and counties across the state and could hurt police and fire protection. We look forward to working with the governor to find the best possible solution to fixing this historic deficit.”

Mayor Chris Coleman talked about St. Paul’s reaction to the cuts. “It is clear in today’s announcement that the Governor has come to at least a partial realization that the success of cities and our ability to provide basic services is the backbone of our economy and our quality of life in Minnesota,” he said. “I appreciate that the Governor took the time to meet with us on this issue. These cuts are painful, and force Saint Paul to make more tough choices among the services we provide. We will do what we’ve always done. We will rise to this challenge and overcome it. We are also eager to return to the table with the Governor and the Legislature to be a part of the solution for the State’s budget crisis.”

In human services, Pawlenty outlined cuts of $28 million to the Medical Education Research Costs, and a $10 million reduction in payments to hospitals for patients on Medical Assistance, specifically add-on services.

A number of unspent grants in human services will be eliminated:

• $17 million - Consolidated Chemical Dependency Treatment Fund Balance
• $2 million - New Mental Health Grants
• $6 million - Mental Health Grants (to be shifted to the next fiscal year)
• $98,000 - Community Service/Service Development (CSSD) Grants
• $2.717 million - Growth in Medical Assistance (MA) waiver programs
• $250,000 - Housing Grants
• $6 million - Adoption Assistance/Relative Custody Assistance
• $491,000 - Patient incentive grants
• $200,000 - Outreach bonus payments

▲ What elected official set the table for both the 1962 and 2008 recounts by backing out of or losing a race?

▲ How does the name Freeman figure into the 1962 and 2008 recounts?

▲ What are two echoes in 2008 of the Highway 35 scandal in 1962?

Answers after the jump. Answers:

▲ Walter Mondale. As Minnesota’s young attorney general in 1962, his decision not to pursue the DFL endorsement for governor left the field open for eventual winner Karl Rolvaag. And in 2002, Mondale’s unsuccessful last-minute candidacy as a fill-in for the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone set the stage for Republican Norm Coleman to seek re-election to the seat in 2008.

▲ Gov. Orville Freeman lost to Republican State Sen. Elmer Andersen in 1960, setting up the 1962 contest between Rolvaag and Anderson. In 2008, Mike Freeman, Orville Freeman’s son, used his position as Hennepin County attorney to propose that local officials sort rejected absentee ballots so as to create a so-called “fifth pile” of ballots that had been wrongly rejected.

▲ The I-35W bridge collapse in 2007 and reconstruction in 2008 occurred on the same highway that was the subject of a scandal that broke just before the 1962 election concerning construction costs, possibly hurting Andersen. The 2008 election had its own last-minute scandal involving lawsuits filed in Texas and Delaware that alleged that businessman Nasser Kazeminy had funneled money to Coleman via Coleman’s wife’s job. That scandal may have hurt the Coleman vote.

Tom Vilsack Photo: Wikipedia

Our colleagues at the Iowa Independent hail Gov. Tom Vilsack, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for agriculture secretary, as a “consummate pragmatist” who has “endeared himself to both the left and the right.” But one group that’s not so fond of Obama’s selection is the Finland, Minn.–based Organic Consumers’ Association. It reacted to today’s announcement with a petition calling for organic producers and consumers to urge Obama to block the nomination, highlighting Vilsack’s support for factory farming and biotechnology.

Last month the OCA outlined six reasons they oppose Vilsack for the job, including his support for genetically modified plants and animals, Vilsack’s apparently cozy relationship with Monsanto (the OCA says he’s been known to use the company’s jet), and his advocacy of plant-derived biofuels, “which use as much or more fossil energy to produce them as they generate, while driving up world food prices and literally starving the poor.” (The Iowa Independent’s Chase Martyn reports that Vilsack has “subtly tempered his enthusiasm for corn-based ethanol over the course of his candidacy, shifting to a more tenable position in favor of all forms of cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels, using corn ethanol merely as a ‘transitional fuel.’”)

Obama’s words at this morning’s press conference might suggest that the OCA’s petition drive won’t sway his opinion about Vilsack. He hailed the Iowan for, among other things, “promoting biotech to strengthen our farmers and fostering an agricultural economy of the future that not only grows the food we eat but the energy that we use.”

Meanwhile, Minneapolis’ Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy expressed its reservations about Vilsack as well, echoing several of the points made in Martyn’s piece — namely, that Vilsack’s conservative track record doesn’t suggest he’ll bring real change to the office.

“As Iowa’s Governor, Vilsack has shown a fairly conventional perspective on agriculture — particularly related to biotechnology and the siting of factory farms — that seems to indicate a status quo approach,” said IATP President Jim Harkness in a statement. “But these are unconventional times, and with his charge to implement the national vision for agriculture of President-elect Obama, he has an opportunity to address the concerns of farmers — big and small, organic and conventional — and consumers, as well as environmental challenges facing the country.”

The organization, founded by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, sees volatility in commodity pricing as a big problem the ag secretary must face, but listed other areas it hopes Vilsack pays attention to:

· The bioeconomy is trying to rapidly transition from corn-based ethanol toward more sustainable feedstocks. But what was once a primarily farmer-owned industry is increasingly being dominated by absentee corporate owners, providing fewer community benefits.

· Consumers want more organic, locally produced and healthier food, but government programs still offer relatively little support and multiple obstacles to meet this market demand.

· As the number of farmers declines and the average farmers’ age rises, significant barriers prevent much-needed new farmers from entering the sector.

· Along with adapting to climate change, agriculture is being identified as both a contributor and possible mitigator of climate change. The USDA will have to lead a shift toward a climate-friendly agriculture.

· A rising number of major food recalls and internal government audits have exposed serious weaknesses in the USDA’s food safety oversight.

Text of the Organic Consumers Association petition:

Despite a massive public outcry, including over 20,000 emails from the Organic Consumers Association, President-Elect Obama has chosen former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack to be the next Secretary of Agriculture.

While Vilsack has promoted respectable policies with respect to restraining livestock monopolies, his overall record is one of aiding and abetting Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) or factory farms and promoting genetically engineered crops and animal cloning. Equally troubling is Vilsack’s support for unsustainable industrial ethanol production, which has already caused global corn and grain prices to skyrocket, literally taking food off the table for a billion people in the developing world.

The Organic Consumers Association is calling on organic consumers and all concerned citizens to join our call to action and block Vilsack’s confirmation as the next Secretary of Agriculture. Please help us reach our goal of 100,000 petition signatures against Vilsack’ nomination. Sign today!

More: The environmental site Grist on why Vilsack’s a “big-ag man,” and Bluestem Prairie looks at other responses in Minnesota.

Here’s a photo from Norm Coleman’s U.S. Senate Web site that’s just begging for a caption. Offer your best one-liner in comments; we’ll publish the winner here.

Update: And the winners are…

But by Bloomberg News’ account, the deal helped Wal-Mart avoid a potentially much bigger price tag of $2 billion which could have followed from an order Judge Robert King Jr. issued in the case last summer.