Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 31

FRIDAY, MAY 14 1999 STAR TRIBUNE PAGE B9 Obituaries Meg Greenfield, editorial chief at Washington Post Washington Post WASHINGTON, D.C. Meg Greenfield, the Pulitzer Prizewinning editor of the Washington Post editorial page and a columnist for Newsweek magazine, died of lung cancer Thursday at her home in Washington. She was 68. An astute and principled observer, Greenfield spent her professional life writing about the events that shaped the second half of the 20th century. She brought to the task a rigorous intellect, a broad insight into the human condition and a conviction that life is not as simple as one would like.

She distrusted shortcuts and the idea that it is always possible to reconcile differing points of view. In her world, there were losers as well as winners. Most of all, Greenfield loved irony the disjunc- Meg Greenfield in a 1997 photo. She was described as "independent and uninfluenced by trends." tion between reality and appearance in this or that bit of the day's news. Nothing pleased her more than pointing out the difference between what actually happened or was proposed in a given situation and the spin with which one interested party or another might describe it.

She conveyed her findings to readers with gusto and a fine eye for detail and character. For more than 30 years, Greenfield helped shape the Post's views on issues. Katharine Graham, a former chairwoman of the board of the Washington Post Co. and one of Greenfield's closest friends, described her as "independent and uninfluenced by trends or molds. Her judgment is very dispassionate." Topics that particularly interested Greenfield included nuclear strategy, military preparedness, politics and civil rights.

In a statement issued at the White House, President Clinton said, "Hillary and I were deeply saddened to learn of" her death. "In her work for the Washington Post and Newsweek, Meg perfected the art of the newspaper column," he said. "Her essays were invariably tightly reasoned, forcefully stated and deeply felt. She called on those who work in government to pursue farsighted public policy and bipartisan solutions. Her voice of eloquence and reason will be sorely missed." Although she played one of the defining roles in the Washington drama in which the protagonists are the government and the media, Greenfield was an intensely private person.

She avoided the television appearances and interviews by which many of her colleagues are known, and she limited herself to perhaps three appearances a year, usually in university settings. Greenfield joined the Post as an editorial writer in 1968 and was named deputy editor of the editorial page in 1969. In 1978, she won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing for pieces about international affairs, civil rights and the press. She became editor of the editorial page in 1979. In 1974, she began a biweekly column in Newsweek, which is owned by the Washington Post Co.

It dealt primarily with Washington life, a subject which, "contrary to widespread belief," she said, "does not exclude everything human." Greenfield was born in Seattle on Dec. 27, 1930, to Lewis and Lorraine Greenfield. Her father ran an antique furniture business. Her mother died when she was 12. She majored in English at Smith College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude in 1952.

She then spent a year at Cambridge University studying the poetry of William Blake on a Fulbright Scholarship. In the 1956 presidential election, she was director of research for the New York committee of Adlai E. Stevenson, the Democratic candidate. The following year, she joined the Reporter, a magazine of political commentary. She was assigned to its Washington bureau in 1961, and in 1965 she was named Washington editor.

She stayed in that job until the Reporter ceased publication in 1968 and the Post hired her. She leaves no immediate survivors. P. Scott Makela; was graphic designer known for digital work By Lucy Y. Her Star Tribune Staff Writer Graphic designer P.

Scott Makela was known for his work in digital imagery and typography, and for music videos he did for Miles Davis, 10,000 Maniacs, Urge Overkill and Michael and Janet Jackson's $7.5 million video, The St. Paul native died last Friday of a bacterial infection, called epiglottiditis, in Pontiac, Mich. He was 39. Makela also did film and video work for Nike, MCI, MTV, Kodak, Warner Bros. Records and Prudential.

And he collaborated with David Fincher and Jeffery Plansker for the opening title for the movie "The His most recent work was for Fincher's film, "Fight Club." In the early 1990s he designed the Minneapolis College of Art and Design catalogues and did work for covers of magazines such as Eye, How and Idea. "Anybody who was informed about the field of design knew Scott's work," said Kathy Halbreich, director of the Walker Art Center. "He was one of the most intelligent and grounded artists. He understood the implication of new media before we knew how to use our PCs. He understood how interconnected we were.

He understood how computers changed the way we lived." Andrew Blauvelt, design director at the Walker, said Makela "seemed destined to bridge the gap between the page and Like many designers emerging in the 1980s, Scott demanded not simply a voice for the designer but sought to pump up the volume of design's Vsual performance Biernat quits panel over Kondirator talks Mayor, Cherryhomes defend closed meetings with American Iron By Kevin Diaz Star Tribune Staff Writer Citing "secret negotiations" over the Kondirator metal shredder proposed for his ward, Minneapolis City Council Vice President Joe Biernat resigned Thursday from the city's powerful Executive Committee. In a terse, one-page letter, Biernat said that he has been excluded from a series of closed meetings involving Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton, Council President Jackie Cherryhomes and American Iron Steel chief John Isaacs, who has fought a 10-year legal battle with the city to build a Kondirator metal shredder on the upper Mississippi riverfront. "It is unconscionable to think that the mayor and council president would participate in secret negotiations circumventing not only the council member of the ward, but all other council members as well," Biernat wrote. His move came two days after Sayles Belton, Cherryhomes and Isaacs visited a similar American Iron shredder in St. Cloud, part of a series of encounters prompted by pending state legislation that would force the city to grant environmental approval to the fivestory shredder.

Both Sayles Belton and Cherryhomes declined to discuss their meetings with Isaacs, saying they At a glance: Early childhood bill The Family and Early Childhood Education Conference Committee reached agreement on a number of issues this week. They include: Early Childhood Education parenting programs and other services receive $39 million, a $10 million increase over current biennium. Adult Basic Education programs receive $42 million, up from $25 million this biennium. After School Enrichment programs get $10.5 million, a $1 million increase. Headstart budget stays at $37 million.

School Readiness grants stay at $20 million. Transitional housing programs receive a $1 million increase, to $4.1 million. Family Assets for Independence, a new pilot project to help low-income families start savings accounts to buy homes or start businesses, receives $500,000. Programs to help young men be responsible parents stay at $500,000. "It is unconscionable to think that the mayor and council president would participate in secret negotiations circumventing not only the council member of the ward, but all other council members as well." Joe Biernat, whose ward includes the Kondirator site are bound by a confidentiality agreement.

Both, however, said the meetings are necessary to head off legislative intervention in the Kondirator dispute. "What's important is that we impress upon the Legislature that we don't need them to resolve it," Sayles Belton said. "We're trying to avoid state intervention in a municipal land-use issue." The pro-Kondirator bill is tied up in a conference committee of Senate and House members, with the Minneapolis legislative delegation unified against efforts to force it through. Since the bill was attached to a House environment bill two weeks ago, city officials have been under pressure from Senate leaders to resolve the long-festering legal dispute with American Iron, which involves as much as $65 million in claims against the city. Cherryhomes said American Iron requested direct, top-level talks.

"The principals American wanted to meet with the principals for the city, and that means the mayor and the council president," she said. Any agreement, she said, would still require eventual council support. American Iron spokeswoman Cyndy Brucato said that while Isaacs and Biernat have had their differences, it was the city's decision, not Isaacs', to leave Biernat out of the talks. Sayles Belton and Cherryhomes said that was because Biernat's participation would constitute a quorum of the Executive Commit- LEGISLATURE from B1 Reserve of federal welfare money tapped for increase Some legislators had been worried about the future of state child-care subsidies after the election of Gov. Jesse Ventura, who criticized state child-care aid during his campaign.

But the governor's budget, like those in the House and the Senate, included an additional $100 million in subsidies for families on welfare. The increase reflected Ventura's goals of making families more self-sufficient, his aides said. But to pay for subsidies for low-income, nonwelfare families, Ventura proposed using federal instead of state money. The conference committee agreed, taking about $78 million from a $302 million reserve of federal welfare money that the state controls. "So we have increases in child-care funding, but not in state spending," said Sen.

Pat Piper, DFL-Austin, chairwoman of the Senate Family and Early Childhood Education Committee. "My concern is for future years if we don't have that reserve." The bill, which is expected to be voted on in the House Friday, would move about 3,000 working parents off county waiting JOURNAL from B1 Travel directors get favorable view of Twin Cities gay life "One of the impressions a lot of people have about us is that gay people travel only to go to gay bars," said Garbo Afarian, who operates Travel Escape in Washington, D.C. "That's part of what we're interested in. But we are also interested in culture, history and good restaurants. "We discovered today that there i is much of that here in the Twin Cities.

As a travel agent, I will be better able now to excite our clients about this A warm welcome At the Regal Minneapolis Hotel, a lobby display showcases such IGLTA members as Out About, Out Away and Men on Vacation. Germany's Lufthansa Airlines pitched its "Gay and Lesbian Capitals of Europe" package, and another company advertised "the largest all-gay cruise ever." But that's for later. Now is for the Twin Cities. Official Minnesota was welcoming. "Minnesota has a reputation for its strong positions on human rights," Gov.

Jesse Ventura noted in a letter published in the convention program, "a profile that my new administration intends to And Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton bragged in her letter that Advocate and Out magazines named Minneapolis "one of the tee, a -committee of the mayor and council leaders that deals with city legal, administrative and labor issues. Because a quorum would trigger a statemandated open meeting requirement, Sayles Belton and Cherryhomes said they suggested to Biernat several weeks ago that he resign from the committee in order to participate in the negotiations. Biernat refused, he said, because he thought it would compromise his ability to represent his ward. But Biernat's decision to quit the Executive Committee now leaves it unclear whether he will participate in future closed-door Kondirator discussions. "It's not the reason I resigned," he said.

"I resigned in protest." "With what the committee had a I think we did a pretty good job." Rep. Barb Sykora, Excelsior lists for child-care assistance, said Tim Michaels, administrator of the Senate committee. That leaves 4,000 still on the lists. The committee didn't have the budget to provide assistance to all of them, Piper said. The working parents receiving subsidies would have to make higher copayments for their child care than they do now, under the bill.

A parent who has one child and earns $20,000 a year, for example, would have to make a $113 monthly copayment, compared with $84 currently. The bill also makes it easier for Minnesota parents to receive child-care subsidies to stay home for a year with their infants. Few parents had been able to use the program because first they had to wait on the same waiting lists as all of the working largely by private contributions, is part of why Minneapolis "is the absolutely best place for gays and lesbians to live," he said. "We know what we went through when we were growing up. huge mainstream, familyfocused companies take risks to give to District 202, but they do because they know it's right." Visits to cultural hot spots The bus slowed for commen- tary, occasionally bawdy, outside the "Mary Tyler Moore house," a house in Kenwood where the TV series' initial opening scenes were shot.

There were stops at the Walker Art Center, at the Guthrie, Orpheum and Ordway theaters, and at the University of St. Thomas where Rounds told about his niece, who wrote a story about her gay uncle for the college newspaper. Beverly McIntyre, owner of Pink Fairy Travels in Charlotte, N.C., said that she got into the business because two of her four children are gay. "I I sent some gay men to the ice sculptures Winter Carnival in St. last year," she said.

"They came here in the dead of winter. They came back to North Carolina and just raved about it, they had so much fun." McIntyre said she took 22 people from Charlotte to the 1998 Gay Olympic Games in Amsterdam. Some of the athletes, including her son, were HIV positive, she said. "I'm so blessed that God gave me two gay children, because it has opened my eyes to the world parents. The bill allows stay-athome parents to apply directly to the program and frees up to $8.5 million for them.

In addition, the bill adds about $17 million to Adult Basic Education programs, particularly in rural Minnesota, and $12 million to the budget of the Early Childhood Family Education programs. It also maintains funding for two programs that Ventura had left out of his budget adolescent parenting programs and "male responsibility" programs that encourage young men to be responsible fathers and pay child support. Children's advocates said they generally were satisfied with the bill. "My reaction is mixed," said Rosemary Frazel, public policy director for the Children's Defense Fund of Minnesota. "They went as far as they could go to put more money into the basic sliding fee program, and that is good.

The increase in attention to early childhood family education programs is exciting. So is strengthening the at-home infant care program, which will benefit parents around the state." However, Frazel said she was worried about parents' ability to make the higher co-payments, as well as about the committee's decision to not include "consumer protection language" for unlicensed child-care centers. "This desire to imbue his work with such intense energy was reflected not only in the creation of his 'living but also permeated all aspects of his life. Makela often gave lectures at the center in the 1990s. Jeff Cashdollar, a freelance graphic artist in New York who used to work with Makela in his Minneapolis studio, called Words Pictures for Business Culture, said he was close to Makela.

Within a week of meeting Makela and his wife, Laurie, he was baby sitting with their daughter, Carmela, now 9. "He was an incredibly friendly and trusting person," Cashdollar said. James Gladman, of Bloomfield Hills, met Makela in the mid-1990s. "He came from humble beginnings, but he just kept giving," he said. "He took a lot of cynicism out of my life because he met with success on his own terms and always did the honorable thing." Makela studied graphic design at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

He later formed Makela Knickelbine Design in Los Angeles. While there he also taught design at the California Institute of the Arts. He received his master's degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1991 and returned there in 1996 to be cochairman of the 2-D Design Department. In addition to his wife and daughter, Makela is survived by a son, Nikolai of Bloomfield; a brother, Eric of Minneapolis; a sister, Ann Snyder of Minneapolis, and his father, Martin of St. Paul.

Services will be held Sunday in Bloomfield Hills. "One of the impressions a lot of people have about us is that gay people travel only to go to gay bars. That's part of what we're interested in. But we are also interested in culture, history and good restaurants." Garbo Afarian, of Travel Escape in Washington, D.C. 10 best gay and lesbian cities in the nation." Rounds gave the tour a personal touch.

Introducing Loring Park, which has been a place of controversy involving gay cruising, he said it was an important place in his life. "It's where my father proposed to my he said. He directed the bus around Irvine Park in St. Paul, where he said two gay friends recently held a commitment ceremony. And at District 202, the gay and lesbian youth center in Minneapolis, he talked about strides made in understanding, acceptance and support.

The your center, sustained and to the power of compassion," she said. Robert DeLoach, who has operated Apollo Travel in Anchorage, Alaska, for seven years, said that most of his gay-oriented tours go to San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, and other coastal destinations with gay-friendly reputations. "I've never considered Minneapolis much as a gay destination," he said, but Thursday's bus tour may have changed that. He liked Rounds' descriptions of how gays and lesbians are integrated into social, cultural, business, religious and political life in the Twin Cities, at least more so than in many other large cities. Despite his company's "gay niche" orientation, DeLoach said, about 70 percent of Apollo Travel's clients are straight.

"Anchorage is a young city, and in ways it's like Minneapolis," he said. "There isn't really a 'gay Like here, gay life is incorporated into the rest of the city. And isn't that what we want?" She notices the extra in the ordinary. Kim Ode on everyday life, Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday in Variety. Star Tribune It's where you live..