The need for speed . Little different than wanting to walk on the moon . . .really . .

There was nowhere to comment on this so, I believe and agree with Rachel on her description of Joe Biden's speech. It has to be the greatest speech I have ever heard. It spoke to my heart, and as he reached out and gave grieving parents a bit of hope, only in the fact that we may one day smile when we remember our children that have died made me smile through the outpouring of tears, knowing that this man also feels the same way I do. And that he truly does understand how it feels to lose a child. We need more people like him, he is a man I can trust. Thank you, Rachel for airing that, no matter how hard it hurt.

Steve Benen, be sure to keep an eyeball on this story as it evolves. It is just terrible.

http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/154914355.html

5 firefighters hurt battling blaze that destroyed Mpls. church

It's a 100-year-old church, was built by a Big Woods lumber baron, but it was housing offices for all kinds of social justice causes, including Occupy Minneapolis. The thing that smells fishy is the possible arson, the idea of two guys running away to jump into a yellow pickup.

Who would do that to THIS church?

I'm also thinking about those suspicious fires in Atlanta area clinics, and how these things seem to be spreading, like an idea, or a conspiracy.

The church is situated in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of south Minneapolis.

"This is a sad day," said Gillette West, a member of Occupy Minneapolis, an activist group that meets regularly at the church. "This is devastating ... they have been very good to us."

[...]

The fire, which broke out at 8:19 p.m. and burned for hours, drew hundreds of spectators and involved scores of firefighters.

"It's a beautiful old building," said Hugh Brown, a nearby resident who was at the scene within an hour. "It was really going. It looked like it started at the top, on the west end."

West, who lives close to the church and who said she has been a volunteer firefighter, said she believes the fire was started by a lightning strike.

"I heard the lightning strike and then the sirens not long after that," West said.

But several people who live across from the church , which is at the corner of 16th Avenue S. and E. 31st Street, said they saw two men run out of the church and jump into a yellow pickup about 15 minutes before the blaze erupted.

"They came running out the front door and they kept looking back," said Michael Stewart, who lives in a duplex kitty corner to the church. "A few minutes later, I saw smoke coming out of the top of the church."

Loutongia Adkins, who also lives at the duplex, said she got a call from Stewart telling her about the two men running out. As she sat down on her porch, she said she noticed the smoke and flames at the western top portion of the church.

"He said that that didn't look right," Adkins said as she watched the futile effort to save the church. "It couldn't have been no lightning strike."

Church history

The church, located at 3104 16th Av. S., began in 1886 about two blocks from its current location as Bloomington Avenue Methodist Church.

But as the area grew, so did the congregation, and by the early 1900s was "crowded out," according to a church history.

The congregation began looking for a place to build a new home.

"Wealthier Minneapolis Methodists, particularly lumber baron Thomas Barlow Walker and fellow congregants at Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church, provided the bulk of the $20,000" to build the new three-story church at 31st Street and 16th Avenue S, which was named after him. Walker and his wife personally donated $3,500, and also paid about half the cost of a $6,000 pipe organ.

The cornerstone for the red-brick building was laid in 1909, and the church was dedicated on March 27, 1910, Easter Sunday, according to the church history.