Monday, December 1

Glassblowing is a craft with its origins dating to 14th century Italy. Glassblowers were kept on an island, and killed if they tried to escape with the trade secrets. Today glassblowing is growing in popularity in the United States. For our odd jobs segment today Mainstreet Radios Dan Gunderson visited Jon Offut, who teaches glassblowing at Moorhead State University. Offut works in a studio surrounded by two roaring furnaces and a workbench littered with tools that look like oversized tweezers. He begins the process by dipping a five foot long pipe into a pool ofmolten glass in one of the furnaces.

Half of Minnesota's public school principals are scheduled to retire in the next five years. Some people are warning of an imminent crisis. At the same time many principals nearing retirement, educators say they're finding fewer teachers willing to cross over into adminsirtation. Minnesota Public Radio's Tim Pugmire reports.

On Future Tense: What do you call a grain that murders people? A cereal killer. It's a bad joke, and you can blame it on a computer program called "JAPE." JAPE writes puns, sometimes successfully, sometimes miserably. For example: what do you get when you cross a sofa and a bed? A sofabed. JAPE was developed by a grad student at Edinburgh University. The idea is to see if a computer can be funny - and if it can, what THAT means for the field of artificial intelligence. JAPE was the subject of a recent forum at Standford University. One panelist who wondered aloud whether machines can be funny: comedian and actor Steve Martin.

Terry Tripler, publisher of Airfare Report discusses holiday airfares: how cheap are they, how booked are they, should you buy them on the Internet.

Chris Farrell previews the week ahead on Wall Street.

Thomas Sellers, professor at the U of M, discusses the findings of his study showing that hormone therapy during menopause increases life expectancy for all women, even those with a history of breast cancer in their family.

Tuesday, December 2

The online industry is promising to do more to help parents keep Internet pornography away from their kids. As Minnesota Public Radio's Jon Gordon reports, it's an effort to keep government regulators at bay.

Name recognition counts for a lot in business, and on Minneapolis' near north side, nearly everybody knows about Lucille's Kitchen. The smothered pork chops, gumbo and other dishes on the soul-food restuarant's menu are popular. This Fall the restuarant got an unexpected burst of publicity during the Minneapolis mayoral campaign when people leaving a candidate debate at Lucille's got into a parking lot altercation. Lucille's Kitchen and other businesses are welcome additions on Plymouth avenue where there are still numerous vacancies. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson has more.

On Future Tense, Mike Gowin is staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group. Godwin says he doesnt think industry efforts will calm public fears about the Internet.

Don Campbell, author of "The Mozart Effect" discusses how music improves your IQ and can heal you.

Dan Salamone, Executive Director of the Minnesota Taxpayers Association discusses the 1.3 billion dollar budget surplus and what should be done with it.

Wednesday, December 3

On Future Tense: a report from the Children's Internet Summit in Washington, where online companies are touting filtering software as one way to keep Internet pornography away from children. But one group sees filtering software as a threat. The Gay and Lesiban Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD, says software that blocks sites with words like "sex" or "homosexual" or "gay" threatens to render gays and lesbians invisible on the Internet. Loren Javier of GLAAD.

Robert Riskin of LeaderSource, an executive development and outplacement firm in Minnespolis, discusses trends in management downsizing and where those executives are ending up.

MN Business Partnership Executive Director Duane Benson discusses the budget surplus and how it should be used to facilitate property tax reform.

Thursday, December 4

On Future Tense: The U of M was once known widely for creating "gopher," a system for navigating the Internet. The world wide web has all but wiped out gopher. U of M associate vice president Bob Kvavik says the gopher died for lack of a corporate partner. he's determined not to make that mistake with the U's innovative online services for students.

Marianne Combs' latest audio letter from Africa talks about a dirty river near her village that the people use for all of their water needs.

State Senator Doug Johnson discusses his plan for using the budget surplus to cut property and income taxes, especially for the poor.

Filmmaker Wendell Jon Anderson, who received a Blockbuster grant two years ago, talks about how it helped him make a movie. Now he is trying to sell his movie to a distributor.

Friday, December 5

On Future Tense: A new exhibit at the National Museum of American History in Washington explores computer bugs of the non-insect variety. Curator Peggy Kidwell says the exhibit includes two famous recent bugs, a faulty pentium computer chip and the Millenium bug.

MPR's John Bischoff visits a school which is in dire need of donated musical instruments. A joint effort of the Ordway Theatre and Schmidt Music is encouraging donations and repairing the instruments.

Author Bill Holm discusses his new book Faces of Christmas Past.

MPR's Chris Farrell analyzes an unexpected drop in the nation's unemployment rate.

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