Star Tribune
As Muslim community grows, old and worn-out Qurans are overwhelming mosques
Judaism’s sacred texts, particularly Torah scrolls and other religious writings, must be disposed of with great reverence. The traditional method of disposal involves burial, said Rabbi Yosi Gordon of the Minnesota Rabbinical Association. “No burning, that’s absolutely forbidden,” he said.
Gordon said synagogues have arrangements with Jewish cemeteries or mortuaries to handle sacred texts. “We send them the books,” he said. “And when they have a burial, they add the books into the coffin and it’s considered a great honor for the deceased to be buried with holy books.”
Rev. Timothy Sas, of St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church in Minneapolis, said Orthodox Christians revere the Bible as Muslims do the Quran. He said he rarely gets asked how to dispose of worn-out Bibles. “The appropriate way … is to bury it or burn it,” he said.
However, Sas said, it’s perfectly acceptable for Christians to recycle printed pages that may include biblical sections or verses. That’s different from Islamic practice, which says it’s inappropriate to discard pages with Quran sections or verses.
Imams and mosque leaders have met with Minneapolis Council Member Jamal Osman to discuss the need for a proper disposal solution for old holy books. But while Muslim faith leaders seek an environmentally friendly option, technology may offer one solution.
Imam Shuayb said many young people use Quran apps on their smartphones during mosque visits, especially on Fridays and between night prayers. The use of these apps helps conserve trees and reduce waste.
A day after Trump’s second tweet, the Justice Department began to take action against Kerry. That day, a top official at the Justice Department in Washington told national security prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York that they were being assigned to investigate Kerry, who denied any wrongdoing.
“The conduct that had annoyed the president was now a priority of the Department of Justice,” the U.S. attorney in Manhattan at the time, Geoffrey Berman, later wrote in a book.
“No one needed to talk with Trump to know what he wanted,” Berman wrote. “You could read his tweets. Anyone wanting to please him at Main Justice — from the attorney general down through the political appointees in his chain of command — could act on them.”
Nearly a year later, Trump posted on social media again about Kerry, raising questions about whether he had broken the law. That afternoon, a top Justice Department official in Washington again called the Southern District to ask the office why it had not yet taken an investigative step that would have given the department access to some of Kerry’s electronic communications, according to Berman’s account.
The same official pressed the office again the following day.
“The pattern here is clear — and outrageous,” Berman recounted in his book. “In the beginning, we got pulled into this investigation by Main Justice after Trump started tweeting his displeasure about Kerry. And now, 11 months later, on the same day of another Trump tweet, one in which he’s specific about what criminal behavior he believes Kerry committed, we were being pushed to move forward.”
A handful of people on Saturday afternoon displayed white supremacy messages on banners hanging over Interstate 694 in Vadnais Heights.
The banners, draped from a walking bridge near the I-694/Rice Street interchange, included statements such as “Defend White Culture” and “Mass Deport Now.”
Ramsey County deputies spoke with the group, which then took down the banners and dispersed, according to a Sheriff’s Office spokesperson.
Seven DFL state lawmakers representing the east metro area jointly issued a statement Saturday condemning the incident.
“This display of racism and xenophobia does not represent our community, and we will not tolerate any group promoting such violence and bigotry,” said the statement, signed by Sen. Heather Gustafson of Vadnais Heights, Sen. Tou Xiong of Maplewood, Sen. John Marty of Roseville, Rep. Brion Curran of White Bear Lake, Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn of Roseville, Rep. Peter Fischer of Maplewood and Rep. Kelly Moller of Shoreview.
“We denounce any ideology or group that seeks to dehumanize people based on their race, ethnicity, religion or any other identity,” according to the statement. “We stand together against hatred in any form and are committed to building a community where everyone feels safe and valued.”
Star Tribune
For Granite Falls doctor who tested thousands of kids for TB, new recognition is long overdue
“In the ’30s, Lewis was caring for the sickest of the sick while Kathleen was in the field trying to slow the spread of TB,” Linda Heen said.
It’s staggering to paint their story with numbers. Kathleen tested 18,000 pupils in 240 schools every two years — using contact tracing, isolation and treatment to shrink the percentage of school children in the four counties reacting to tuberculin from nearly 14% in 1930 to about 2% by 1946.
A 1950 follow-up study showed those numbers dropping from 30.5% to nearly 4% at a Clara City parochial school, while in Fairfax the number of students with TB fell from about 21% to 2%.
All told, Kathleen is credited with testing 1.5 million school children across Minnesota as part of Christmas Seals program that continued into the late 1950s. Those numbers come from a 2022 blog post by Mary Krugerud, an expert on Minnesota sanatoriums who lives in Hutchinson and wrote the book “Interrupted Lives: The History of Tuberculosis in Minnesota.”
If the forearm tests left raised reddened patches, confirming TB exposure, the infected students headed to Lewis’ sanatorium, where he’d read the X-rays. The Jordans, who lived at the Granite Falls sanatorium, had no children — possibly because of fertility issues linked to their TB cases, Carol Heen said.
The Heen sisters consider themselves “Kathie’s kids,” as did the thousands of other students she tested. Carol spoke this summer at a senior banquet in Granite Falls, where many of the attendees recalled Kathleen’s imaginary safari tactic.
