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GARY EICHTEN: Tomorrow should be even nicer than today. Sunny sky with a high, tomorrow, of 65 degrees. Now, there's a slight chance of rain on Wednesday, but still very, very pleasant, 55 to 60. And then on Veterans Day, a little cooler, but still very pleasant, sunny and a high of 50 on Veterans Day. Today, 60 and sunny in the Twin Cities.

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And good afternoon. This is Midday on Minnesota Public Radio News, I'm Gary Eichten. Coming up this next hour, Minnesota Supreme Court Justice, Alan Page. Justice Page has a remarkable life story, one that includes a Hall of Fame Pro Football career. We'll hear from Justice Alan Page, talk about his life and his career right after the news.

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LAKSHMI SINGH: From NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Obama is endorsing India's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council underscoring a US pledge to strengthen ties with its South Asian ally. He also pledged to join India to step up the fight against global terrorism.

BARRACK OBAMA: Nothing ever justifies the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children. It's why we're working together more closely than ever to prevent terrorist attacks and to deepen our cooperation even further.

LAKSHMI SINGH: The president drew sustained applause when he pledged to bring those behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks to justice. He visited a memorial to Mumbai victims angering some who criticized the US's ties to Pakistan, which was home to the Mumbai attackers.

International airliners are flying again to Jakarta days after they were canceled due to another volcanic eruption. However, the White House says President Obama still plans to stop in Jakarta tomorrow. Indonesians, meanwhile, are trying to escape Mount Merapi again after local authorities warned it could erupt. The closest airports closed because of ash, so many are trying to leave by rail and minibuses.

In Iraq, two explosions in the holy city of Najaf have killed seven people. NPR's Kelly McEvers reports that the attack comes as Iraqi politicians are nearing an agreement that could end an eight-month-long stalemate over how to form a government.

KELLY MCEVERS: Officials in Najaf confirmed that seven people were killed and 36 wounded when two bombs exploded near the office of a leading cleric. Najaf is home to the shrine of Imam Ali, one of the holiest cities in Shiite Islam. Earlier today, another bomb struck Karbala, another holy city for Shiites, killing seven pilgrims.

In recent years, attacks in Southern Iraq have been rare. The bombings in the holy cities follow coordinated attacks against Shiite civilians last week in Baghdad. A coalition of largely Shiite parties is poised to run the next government of Iraq. Politicians are meeting in the northern city of Erbil to finalize an agreement on what posts will be given to Kurds and Sunnis. A final deal is expected at a session in parliament on Thursday. Kelly McEvers, NPR News, Baghdad.

LAKSHMI SINGH: US Airways plans to hire hundreds of flight attendants and pilots next year despite the sluggish US economy. More from Arizona Public Radio's, Gillian Ferris Kohl.

GILLIAN FERRIS KOHL: US Airways plans to fill 420 flight attendant openings and 80 pilot spots. The positions will first be offered to employees who were furloughed earlier this year by the airline, any remaining jobs will be opened up to candidates outside the company. The Arizona-based US Airways says the mass hiring means nearly all furloughed flight attendants will be rehired, but about 100 pilots will still be without jobs.

LAKSHMI SINGH: Arizona Public Radio's, Gillian Ferris Kohl. On Wall Street, the Dow is down 40 points at 11,405. This is NPR.

SPEAKER 1: Support for news comes from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, promoting lifelong family connections and celebrating National Adoption Month at aecf.org.

STEVEN JOHN: From Minnesota Public Radio News, I'm Steven John. Republican Tom Emmer has concluded a private meeting with Governor Tim Pawlenty as Minnesota's gubernatorial election moves toward a recount. Advance notice of this morning's meeting was not given to reporters. Democrat Mark Dayton is scheduled to have time with Pawlenty and his top staff tomorrow. Dayton leads Emmer by about 8,750 votes, a margin small enough to trigger an automatic recount.

Twin Cities girls as young as 12 were shuffled across state lines to work as prostitutes in a wide-reaching sex trafficking operation controlled by Somali gangs. That's according to an indictment unsealed today in federal court. Laura Yuen has more.

LAURA YUEN: Federal agents arrested 23 people in Minnesota and Tennessee this morning and six more were at large. Three Minneapolis gangs allegedly operated the ring, including an all-female gang known as the Lady Outlaws. Working with the Somali mafia and the Somali outlaws, the group recruited preteen and teenage girls to have sex in exchange for cash, marijuana, and other items, the indictment said.

The female victims were forced to engage in sex acts in places ranging from a Minneapolis apartment complex to a men's bathroom in a Blaine shopping mall. In all, 29 people were indicted on charges of sex trafficking of juveniles and other crimes. The sex ring operated in the Twin Cities, Nashville, and Columbus, Ohio. Laura Yuen, Minnesota Public Radio News.

STEVEN JOHN: The US Supreme Court won't stop a Minnesota State court from getting involved in a fight between the NFL and Vikings defensive lineman, Kevin Williams and Pat Williams. The high court today refused to hear an appeal from the NFL over violations of the league's anti-doping policy. Mostly sunny skies today, mild across the region mid-50s to mid-60s expected for highs. It's currently 59 in the Twin Cities. This is Minnesota Public Radio News.

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GARY EICHTEN: And good afternoon. Welcome back to Midday on Minnesota Public Radio News, I'm Gary Eichten. Well, this hour on Midday, Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page. There's a new biography out that tells the Alan Page story, and what a story it is. Alan Page was one of the greatest defensive players in the history of football playing for the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears. He played in four Super Bowls, was selected to the Pro Bowl all-star team nine times, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988.

Pretty impressive in and of itself, but then, Alan Page went on to reach the top of another profession, the law profession, working as an attorney in private practice, then as an attorney in the Minnesota Attorney General's Office, and finally getting elected, and last week reelected, to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Along the way, he and his wife also founded the Page Education Foundation, which has helped thousands of Minnesota School students continue their education after they leave high school.

Well, there is a new biography out that tells this story. It's written by Bill McGrane, and it's titled, All Rise-- The Remarkable Journey of Alan Page. As a follow up, a couple of weeks ago, Minnesota Public Radio's Cathy Wurzer interviewed Justice Page about his life and career, everything from his years in the National Football League, to his passion for the law, to his desire to one day become a teacher.

The conversation was the inaugural event in the University of Minnesota's learning life forum, Witness to History, held at the U of M's College of Continuing Education. Here's Cathy Wurzer.

CATHY WURZER: You have had a remarkable journey, but no one's path is ever smooth. And I'm curious, you've done so much, where are the bumps in your road? Where were the big obstacles for you? Reading the book, I got to say, Justice Page, it appeared to be relatively smooth, hard, but relatively smooth.

ALAN PAGE: Well, I think it has been relatively smooth. Obviously, there have been bumps in the road. At 13, I lost my mother. That was far more than a bump. That was probably the most traumatic thing I've ever had to deal with. And I suppose once you go through something like that, the rest of it isn't so tough. And so they do seem more like bumps than anything else.

My first marriage failed, that was traumatic, difficult, but out of that came the love of my life. The person who has been so much a part of making me who I am, and the success that I've had that I can't really say enough about her. And then while I was playing football with the Vikings, I got fired. No nice way to put it. But out of that came three and a half years in Chicago that was good for me, good for our family. So all in all, the bumps have been few.

CATHY WURZER: Was there a fork in the road for you when you were playing football? And was there an aha moment where you said, I'm going this direction. I'm not going to-- I'm playing pro football. I'm one of the very best there is at this game, but I'm going to do something else. Where was that moment for you when you realized, I'm going this direction?

ALAN PAGE: For me, that came before I started playing football. I had parents who knew and understood the importance of education and stressed that with me long before I started playing football. And so I had a sense of, both who I was, and, at least, to the extent that a 18-, 19-year-old can know where they want to go, I had that sense also.

CATHY WURZER: Did you know you wanted to get into law early on?

ALAN PAGE: People would ask me when I was maybe in the fourth grade what I wanted to do when I grow up, and what does a fourth grader know? Not much. But I knew this much growing up in Canton, Ohio, where the good jobs were in steel mills. I knew that I didn't want to do that. And that was if things went well. Things didn't go so well. The prospects for somebody like me would mean hanging out in the street corner, maybe involved in our criminal justice system, and I knew I didn't want that.

So people would ask and I'd say I wanted to be a lawyer. What do I know about lawyers? The few I had heard about, my impression was they were wealthy, they played golf every Wednesday afternoon. To a fourth grader, that sounds much better than the steel mill, and so I would say I wanted to be a lawyer.

Part of that was probably influenced by a little too much Perry Mason, but also I can remember in 1954 reading in the newspaper about Brown versus Board of Education. And even at that young age, being influenced by it and somehow making the connection with the law and lawyers.

CATHY WURZER: What was it about the law, though, that attracted you?

ALAN PAGE: The same thing that still attracts me today. The law is about solving problems and helping people. And for whatever reason, I don't know where it comes from, but I've always had that interest.

CATHY WURZER: In the AG's office, the Attorney General's office, that can become an advocate position. Do you miss the advocacy of that job versus what you're doing now?

ALAN PAGE: Not at all. What I love is the law, and figuring it out, and sorting out what it is and what it should be. Not being the advocate. I was at-- in private practice for a while, too, and that didn't agree with me at all because the private practice is about the business of law.

CATHY WURZER: You have to be a rainmaker.

ALAN PAGE: You have to be a rainmaker, and I simply had no interest in the business of law.

CATHY WURZER: Any similarities between the high court and the football team?

ALAN PAGE: In some ways, you have to be able to work together, you have to understand who you're working with, you have to understand what the common goal is, and you have to have, as the objective, what is best to achieve that goal. And so in that sense, there are a lot of commonalities.

CATHY WURZER: The cases that you take under advisement, do they live with you in the sense of when you're jogging-- I presume you're still jogging, right?

ALAN PAGE: Ever so slowly.

CATHY WURZER: OK. Do they pop up when you're jogging? Do they stay with you till a decision is made?

ALAN PAGE: Until the opinions are filed, they stay with me and pop up at various and sundry times, the oddest times, and other times when you'd expect it, but sure. They're all a work in progress until you can't do anything with them anymore, and you can't do anything with them anymore once they're filed.

CATHY WURZER: How intense was the Coleman Franken case? You were the one who selected the judges on the panel.

ALAN PAGE: I get the credit for selecting the judges on the panel. We do very little individually. We do virtually everything as a court. One of the things that we all understood, given the political nature of the issues, was that we couldn't be involved in the politics. The judiciary couldn't be involved in the politics.

Our role is to exercise our judgment as best we can. We don't get to decide the politics of the issue. So we worked very hard to ensure that that three-judge panel was made up of judges who there would be no question about their ability to be impartial.

CATHY WURZER: Let me ask you about politics in the judiciary. The US Supreme Court ruling about five years ago, Republican Party of Minnesota versus White, that allows political parties to endorse judicial candidates, and also allows candidates to speak--

ALAN PAGE: Political parties could always endorse. They've always had the right to do whatever they want to do.

CATHY WURZER: This particular ruling also allows candidates to speak about specific rulings and their views on them.

ALAN PAGE: Well, about their political, social, economic, and other views.

CATHY WURZER: There's been fear that in Minnesota, this would really politicize judicial elections. But in '02, '04, '06, it doesn't seem to have really changed the judicial elections in Minnesota. Do you fear that that could happen, though, down the road?

ALAN PAGE: We are heading down the road where that is happening. And it wasn't long ago that Wisconsin, their judicial elections looked a lot like ours. Well, not this last cycle, but the cycle before that in Wisconsin, I think there was roughly $5 to $6 million spent on the election, and some pretty ugly advertising, I mean, really ugly advertising.

10 years ago, that wasn't Wisconsin. And so those who suggested it can't or won't happen here only have to look next door. The same thing is true with the State of Washington. Their elections were a lot like ours are now 10, 15 years ago. They're now spending millions and millions of dollars on judicial elections. And with that money comes special interests, comes partisan politics, and that's not healthy.

The only thing that courts have, the only power that courts have is the trust and confidence of the people we serve. We don't have the power of the purse like the legislative branch. We don't have the police power of the executive branch. All we've got is your trust.

And if it looks like we're just another branch of the government that-- well, let me put it this way. If we look like just like politicians in robes, then there's no reason for people to trust what we do. And when that happens, I think it does serious damage to our democracy.

When I am connected to a political party, just using that as an example, how do I sit on a Coleman Franken, and not, at a minimum, appear to have a bias? Put aside actual bias, but the appearance.

So at that point, do I have to recuse? If I've got to recuse, then why am I here? I can't sit. There are enough other reasons that pop up along the way that cause recusal. But when your campaigning causes it because you're speaking out on whatever the issue may be, it doesn't really matter, I think that's problematic.

CATHY WURZER: Where do you see this going? Do you really see Minnesota heading in the direction of Wisconsin and Washington State and other states?

ALAN PAGE: I don't know why we're different. I know we're above average.

[LAUGHTER]

CATHY WURZER: I've heard that.

ALAN PAGE: And I would like to think that it won't happen, but I can't see why it wouldn't happen. And we have in current elections and in the recent past elections, we've had people receive endorsements from political parties. And it may not be a big deal now, but in time, it will be a big deal.

CATHY WURZER: I want to switch gears here on you for just a moment. We're going to talk a little football here. In the book, Bud Grant said he felt you never really liked football despite your success. Was football a means to an end for you?

ALAN PAGE: I love playing football.

CATHY WURZER: Bud, obviously, had a different opinion, I guess.

ALAN PAGE: There were a lot of things about the game and the business of football that I didn't like, but being on the football field, I loved every minute of it. I wouldn't have done it for 15 years professionally, four years in college and four years in high school beyond that, I wouldn't have done it that long if I didn't love it. I love playing.

CATHY WURZER: It's a hard job. I was talking to a person who used to play pro football, he said playing football, especially on the defensive line like you did, you feel the next day like you fell off the back of a speeding truck. Do you personally experience any long-term lingering effects, physical effects from what you did?

[LAUGHTER]

ALAN PAGE: This is a result of multiple dislocations.

CATHY WURZER: And by the way, for the radio audience, this is your left pinky which is at a right angle. Yeah.

ALAN PAGE: Yes. I dislocated it multiple times and so that the ligaments on the inside of the finger are all gone, so that the ligaments on the outside of the finger pull it down so that it's pretty much a right angle. But I'm lucky because that's pretty much all that I've got. And it doesn't look so good, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't get in the way of much other than when I'm trying to get to the A key on the keyboard, and it's a little bit of a problem.

CATHY WURZER: I'm curious, while we're on the subject of-- it is a dangerous game, no two ways around it. And I know you've been following, I'm sure you have, the whole research line on the effects of concussion and brain neurological damage. What's the NFL to do about that? One of your former colleagues, Wally Hilgenberg, died.

ALAN PAGE: Yes. The truth be told, I'm more concerned about what we're going to do with young children who are playing football whose brains are not fully developed when they're getting hit in the head. I think that's more of a concern for me.

The league will do what it does. They'll figure out between the league and the players how to address it. But the more critical question is the 9-, 10-, 11-year-olds that are throwing their bodies around in ways that cause the same kind of injuries but nobody's looking.

CATHY WURZER: Before I leave the football here, I got to ask you this, too, your sister, is it Twila?

ALAN PAGE: Twila.

CATHY WURZER: Twila, your sister, Twila, said in the book you have selective memory. My brother would probably say that about me, too, if asked. She maintains you hardly remember the Viking Super Bowl losses. Now, is that true? Everybody else in the room remembers it.

ALAN PAGE: Which plays?

[LAUGHTER]

Oh, I remember them well, too well. While it is true that losing those Super Bowls, once they're lost, they're lost, and so I haven't spent a lot of time looking back on them. I have to admit that I've never been a very good loser.

And so losing the Super Bowls was not pleasant, but then we lost some preseason games along the way, too, which I found not pleasant. So for me, the losing was-- didn't really much matter whether it was the Super Bowl or preseason game, the object was to go out and play well. And the reason to go out and play well was to win. And when you don't win, not fun.

CATHY WURZER: I've noticed that some athletes need to hang on to their athletic memories. Some members of the media, actors, singers, folks in the public eye take their identity sometimes from those pursuits. Some still live those memories. You don't seem to do that. It seems like it was easy for you to walk away.

ALAN PAGE: Well, I was ready to go. It was time. Playing professional football is a little bit like being in the candy store. And after a while, even being in the candy store is a little too much. For me, it was-- there are only so many things you can do on a football field. And by the time I left, I had not done all of them, but I had done most of them. And so it was time to move on to the next thing.

CATHY WURZER: By the way, I was always surprised, too. It is so hard to work a full-time job and go to school, and that's exactly what you did pretty much.

ALAN PAGE: It was hard, it is hard, but people do it all the time. I'm not unique in that.

CATHY WURZER: You say in the book you didn't really value education until your second try at law school.

ALAN PAGE: Yes.

CATHY WURZER: You say in the book that is where you learned how to learn.

ALAN PAGE: And I learned both how to learn, and maybe what helped me learn how to learn was learning to love learning simply for the sake of learning. I came to that late in life. Would have been nice if I had come to that much sooner. But as somebody once said, youth is wasted on the young, and in that respect, it was wasted on me.

But when I got to the University of Minnesota Law School, I was bound and determined that I was going to learn the law. And not just to perform well on tests, but to understand, to actually figure it out. And that's been a quest that I've been on since I entered law school, and it continues today.

CATHY WURZER: So it's ever-evolving.

ALAN PAGE: The beauty of the law is that the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. And it is a continual work in progress.

CATHY WURZER: Kind of like life.

ALAN PAGE: Kind of like life. A lot like life.

CATHY WURZER: Education is big for you, obviously, with the Page Education Foundation. I know that it bothers you greatly to see the large achievement gap between kids of color and white students in Minnesota schools. What do you think should be done about that?

ALAN PAGE: The achievement gap bothers me. The overrepresentation of people of color in our criminal justice system bothers me. The correlation between educational achievement and incarceration dictates that if you don't perform in school, you're likely to end up in jail. Your chances go up dramatically. And to the extent that there is that disparity, I think we have to figure it out.

And are there any simple answers? If there were, we might not have these problems. But in my view, we have to figure out a way to educate children one school at a time, one child at a time, one classroom at a time. And I think that's really the key, how do we educate the individual child as opposed to groups of children?

CATHY WURZER: But the Page Education Foundation is stepping up and helping-- you've helped some 4,000-plus Minnesota students. That's got to feel pretty good. What's the long-term strategy for that foundation?

ALAN PAGE: Well, what the Page Education Foundation does is pretty simple, pretty straightforward. And we hope to continue to do it and do it well. What we do is-- hopefully, our goal is to motivate, encourage, and assist young men and women of color pursue education beyond high school.

And we do that two ways. One by providing financial assistance, but two and more importantly, we require-- we call them Page Scholars. We require our scholars to go back into the community where they come from, back into the community where they go to school to work with young children, kindergarten through eighth grade, to send those younger children the strong, clear-- specifically in the area of education, to send the strong, clear message that education is a tool that can be used to achieve whatever your hopes and dreams are.

As you say, we've been doing it now for 22 years. We've got over 4,000 Page Scholars. We've got 560 this year. Our goal is to hopefully over time increase the number of scholars and increase the number of grants. We talk about athletes as heroes and role models. But people are influenced by those they can reach out and touch.

Not many of us have the ability to reach out and touch a professional athlete, but everybody can reach out and touch somebody that they know. And for our Page Scholars going back into the community where they come from, the young children that they work with see somebody who looks like them, comes from where they come from, maybe has some shared understanding of their experience, and they can look up to those scholars in a way that, even I as an athlete, as a Supreme Court justice can't. And those scholars can have a lasting impact that will change how those young children see the future.

I like to say the future is really about hope. And a lot of the dysfunction that we see in our prisons, the people who are in our prisons, arises because they've given up hope. Now, certainly, there are some people who have no moral compass, and we have to deal with them. But for far too many of the young people in jail, they've simply given up hope. And that loss of hope gives them a certain amount of freedom to do whatever they-- whatever pops into their head at the moment.

Well, when you see a future beyond what you have at the moment and you hope to make something of that future, then good things happen. And somehow we have to convince children that they have a reason to hope, and that if they perform, that hope will lead them to whatever their hopes and dreams may be. And I think that's very possible.

GARY EICHTEN: Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page talking recently with Minnesota Public Radio's Cathy Wurzer. Their conversation was part of the University of Minnesota's new learning life forum, Witness to History, which is held at the U of M's College of Continuing Education. We'll have more from that event after a break for news.

TOM CRANN: On the next All Things Considered, Minnesota's cigarette smokers are more likely to use smokeless tobacco products than people in most other states. I'm Tom Crann, more on that and all the day's news, join me starting weekdays at 3:00 here on Minnesota Public Radio News.

STEVEN JOHN: From Minnesota Public Radio News, I'm Steven John. The Presidential Commission investigating the Gulf oil spill has found no instance where a decision deliberately sacrificed safety to cut costs.

The Chief Counsel for that investigation said today the probe didn't come across any time when someone made a conscious choice to favor dollars over safety. The statement conflicts with investigations by Democrats in Congress who have accused BP of cutting corners when it made several critical well-designed decisions. Those decisions have also been questioned by other major oil companies.

White House officials say that US intelligence did not connect an American man to the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks that he later admitted he helped plot. The White House says details about David Headley will be released after Indian authorities are briefed. In India today, President Barack Obama and India's prime minister pledged to form closer ties in combating terrorism.

Former President George W. Bush says he thought an angry confrontation with, then, Vice President Dick Cheney would hurt their friendship, but it didn't. Bush told NBC's Today Show that Cheney was angry that Bush didn't pardon a former aide over his role in the leak of CIA Operative, Valerie Plame's, identity. A man who's been convicted in a brutal home invasion in Connecticut will be sentenced to death.

Today a jury decided on the sentence today for Steven Hayes. A judge will impose the sentence next month. Another man still awaits trial for the crime in which a woman was forced to withdraw money from the bank while her family was held hostage at home. She and her two daughters were later killed.

A lawyer for Republican Tom Emmer says his client isn't giving any thought to waiving an automatic recount in the still undecided governor's race. Attorney Tony Trimble spoke this morning after Hennepin County certified its election total, a process that saw Emmer pick up six votes in a Plymouth precinct. Dayton Attorney, David Lillehaug says he expects Dayton's lead to survive a recount. Mostly sunny, highs in the mid-50s to mid-60s for Minnesota, this is Minnesota Public Radio News.

GARY EICHTEN: And this is Midday on Minnesota Public Radio News. Good afternoon, Gary Eichten here. It's about 25 minutes now before 1 o'clock, and let's get back to Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page. There's a new biography out that tells the story of Alan Page's life and career. It's titled All Rise-- The Remarkable Journey of Alan Page. Alan Page spoke a couple of weeks ago at the University of Minnesota with Minnesota Public Radio's Cathy Wurzer.

CATHY WURZER: You mentioned dreams. I love talking about dreams and hopes and that kind of thing. When I look at you, I don't see retirement anywhere. I don't think that's in your vocabulary.

ALAN PAGE: Not yet. Although Diane keeps asking about it.

CATHY WURZER: Do you have hopes and dreams, still? Do you have something out there on the horizon that you still want to conquer?

ALAN PAGE: What I'm going to do when I grow up? At some point in my wildest of wild dreams, I would like to teach. And people say, well, you'd be a great law school teacher, and not so interested in that. I would like to teach young children, second, third, and fourth graders.

Now, whether I have the energy and the courage to take on that challenge, I'm not sure. But in refining my thinking, what I would really like to do is to create a reading and writing program, a reading, writing seminar for 7, 8-year-old, 9-year-old African-American males. Because I'm convinced that if you can get young people to both read and to write, particularly the writing, you can begin to solve a lot of problems.

Because if you can communicate-- if you can learn to communicate on the written page, beyond learning to write, what you're doing is learning how to think. You do critical thinking. And the reading, writing seminar sounds like it could be both challenging, interesting, and effective. So that's what's been rolling around in my head lately.

CATHY WURZER: No designs on a nonjudicial statewide run for office?

ALAN PAGE: I have had the opportunity on more than one occasion to join the political arena, and that is the last thing, the last thing I want to do.

CATHY WURZER: You prefer to watch the circus instead of getting into it?

ALAN PAGE: Use your words, not mine.

[LAUGHTER]

There is a place for politics and partisanship. I'm just not interested in that. I'm more interested in, A, solving problems, and, B, being challenged. And I find nothing particularly interesting or challenging about figuring out how I can manipulate. I should be careful what I'm saying now. No, the political arena, not my idea of a good time.

CATHY WURZER: I think you're probably better off with the smaller kids, helping them out.

ALAN PAGE: Much better off with the smaller kids. I mean, the reason I sort the court is because the law is a place where I can go and not have to be partisan. All I have to do is try to figure out what the right answer is. I don't have to figure out what the political answer is. That's somebody else's problem. And after all these years, I'm not about to go down that road.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Justice Alan Page, thank you so much.

[APPLAUSE]

ALAN PAGE: Thank you, Cathy. Had a good time.

GARY EICHTEN: Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page talking with Minnesota Public Radio's Cathy Wurzer. They spoke a couple of weeks ago at the University of Minnesota's College of Continuing Education. Now, after that opening conversation, Justice Page took some questions from the audience.

AUDIENCE: Could you please tell us what you have witnessed in history that has influenced you the most?

ALAN PAGE: Boy, between the growing up African-American in the 1950s when this country essentially had state-sponsored apartheid, the Civil Rights Movement that brought about changes in that, the fact that we still haven't solved all the problems that confront us with respect to race, that has been a big part of what has influenced me. It's what drives me, in a sense, to want to ensure fairness, to want to ensure that there really is equal justice under the law. That's been a significant force in my life.

CATHY WURZER: How did you deal with racism?

ALAN PAGE: How do you deal with it? As best you can. When you are confronted with it, you have to make an assessment of, is this something I want to challenge, or am I better off just saying OK, that's just the way it's going to be for the moment?

One thing that has always been important for me is not to-- the fact that somebody would discriminate against me based on my race. It has always been important for me to understand that that's not my problem. That's their problem. And I'm not going to let their problem change who I am.

And so some would say maybe that's sticking your head in the sand a little bit, but if somebody else's discrimination can change who you are, then they've won. And I talked about not liking to lose. If you think I wasn't a good loser at football, I'm really not a good loser when it comes to race, the issues of race.

CATHY WURZER: A question right here in the center of the room.

AUDIENCE: I appreciate your coming and talking with us tonight. And my question is, on the federal level, we hear a lot of conversation about whether the constitution is a living document or whether there is a strict construction.

And I don't want you to comment on the federal level, but as I hear you talk tonight, it sounds to me like you think that the state constitution is a living document so that it might be interpreted one way in one particular decade, and it might be interpreted a little bit differently 20 or 30 years later.

ALAN PAGE: Well, that's an interesting debate. I'm not sure that in the end-- I mean, our rules of construction require that we give words their plain and ordinary meaning, and the constitution, whether it be the federal or the state, made up of words, and the challenge is to figure out what those words mean.

The fact that issues arise today which didn't exist at the time a particular constitution was written, I'm not-- it's not clear in my mind that applying those words to today's circumstances means that you're not being a strict constructionist. The other thing I would say-- so I don't know where I fall on that spectrum other than you read the words and give them their plain meaning.

The other thing I would say is, if, in fact, that the constitution's words are frozen in time, whatever is there is frozen in time-- and I'm trying to figure out how we deal with-- I believe, it's-- I could be wrong on the exact precise site, but how we deal with Article 1 Section 2 of the Federal constitution, which provides for the President of the United States to be the Commander in Chief of the Army and the Navy.

Does that make the Air Force unconstitutional? Because they sure didn't think about it back when the constitution was written. And I don't know the answer to that. Maybe there are-- some bright minds out there will tell me why I'm all wrong. But I'm not sure that that issue really is that much of an issue.

That being said, I would also note that in 1896, in Plessy versus Ferguson, United States Supreme Court said that the constitution permitted the concept of separate but equal. In 1954, in the face of an oral argument where the court was told that to overturn Plessy, you would have to be an activist court, the court did, in fact, overturn Plessy.

Now, I will tell you that it is highly likely that if the court had not overturned Plessy, I probably wouldn't be sitting here having this discussion with you. And so a long answer to the short question, I'm not sure that-- beyond applying the words as they are written to what's going on today, I don't know what else to say. Although I-- just one other thought.

I got asked a question yesterday about how courts find new rights in the constitution along the same line. And I suppose the person asking the question was thinking maybe a right to privacy, the right to-- I'm not sure whether those are new rights or not, the fact that nobody's ever tried to exercise them.

And I think fundamental to all of us is this notion that as individuals, we are entitled to privacy. Indeed, I think it's part of the human condition, the human being in us all. And so the notion that that right hasn't been there or somewhere, that it's new, I find that odd. Now, you might quarrel with how that right gets applied. I think that's a fair discussion. But whether the right existed or not, I don't know about that.

CATHY WURZER: We have a question in the back here on the left.

AUDIENCE: One of your-- the other justices was very concerned about the budget implications within the justice system. Could you give us your insight about your concerns with regard to that?

CATHY WURZER: Chief Justice Gilday has been pretty vocal about this.

ALAN PAGE: Well, she's been pretty vocal. The other six of us have been vocal when given the opportunity. We are approaching the crisis stage. We're not quite there yet, but we're close. Over the last few years, we have been holding open positions. We've been delaying certification of judicial positions. We've been laying people off.

Our staff is-- the judicial branch staff is down about 10%. That means that you go to your county court office, and the counter may be closed part of the time so that if you've got business to take care of that requires the courts, you can't get your business done. The public defender system probably is in crisis. And the result of all this is delays, slowing things down.

CATHY WURZER: Is justice delayed justice denied?

ALAN PAGE: Definitely. It always has been and always will be. And we are delaying it more and more. And currently, we face a $6 to $7 billion deficit. And so there's talk of budget cuts ranging from 2% to 10% or more. Well, a 10% budget cut would be devastating. A 3% budget cut would be devastating.

By way of example, for our court, when I joined the court, we each-- we had 10 or 11 law clerks shared amongst the members of the court. Chief had two and the rest of us had one and a half equivalent. This year we hired eight clerks, and I think the reality is that that's going to cause us to slow down because we don't have enough people to do the work.

And the unfortunate or the difficulty, the particular difficulty for the judicial branch is most of what we do involves people. Most of our budget is people. And so when you lose people, you lose the ability to do things. We've been pretty efficient moving to technology in order to try to mitigate some of these problems, but they're ongoing and going to get worse.

AUDIENCE: Justice Page, if I could ask a question.

CATHY WURZER: Maggie, over here on the right. Over here.

AUDIENCE: There's one other way that you've been a witness to history, and that is in the collecting that you've done. And so I wondered if you would say a few words about the collection that you've amassed, and why you've put that together.

ALAN PAGE: Actually, my bride, Diane, has amassed a wonderful collection of African-American memorabilia from racist postcards to beautiful paintings, from the slave era documents and artifacts, to the Civil Rights Movement.

We have this wonderful sign that we found in-- wonderful, he says. It says-- it's from the Birmingham, Alabama bus station, Greyhound station. We actually found it in Anaheim, California in an antique shop. But it's lighted, and it says the word, color.

And some would ask, well, why would you collect that sort of thing? We collect it so that it never is forgotten. And for me, it's a constant reminder of what happens when people are treated unfairly. But Diane has collected just a wonderful collection. Me, my collection is toy trucks.

CATHY WURZER: I was going to ask you. You have a lot of toy trucks in your chambers. Yeah.

ALAN PAGE: I do. I have run out of space for toy trucks. I've fallen in love with the trucks of my youth, which I couldn't have then, but I can have now. Would have been a lot less expensive to have had them then than today, but [INAUDIBLE].

CATHY WURZER: What do you plan on doing with that collection of the African-American memorabilia, for want of a better word?

ALAN PAGE: I think I can speak for Diane. She shook her head yes. She would like to see it in a collection tied to a university or college here in Minnesota, here in the Twin Cities maybe. In a school that's close to a neighborhood where people can come and see it, feel it, touch it, look at it, analyze it, study it. That's her dream. I think it would be a great idea. That's her vision of what will happen with it all, and hopefully that will work out someday.

AUDIENCE: So if I could ask one last question, that would be, you get to work with young people, could I ask you, when you do that, what gives you hope?

ALAN PAGE: What gives me hope? It's their energy. It's their enthusiasm. It's their curiosity. It is their honesty. It is their willingness to be open. And one of the beauties of talking with young children, carrying on a conversation with them is they will be honest with you, and that's refreshing.

And with that, they hope you're going to be honest with them, and hopefully over the years I've been able to do that. And when you see that energy, curiosity, and hope before the lights go out, it's very much inspiring.

Indeed, I am inspired by those-- we talked about those 4,000 Page Scholars. I'm inspired by them because the hope that they create, and I'm inspired by the young children they work with. Because they are going to be the future. And because of the work that those scholars do, the future is going to be different from what it might otherwise be, and it's going to be better.

AUDIENCE: Please join me, let's thank Cathy and Justice Page.

[APPLAUSE]

GARY EICHTEN: Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page talking with Cathy Wurzer about his life and his career. A new biography about Alan Page written by Bill McGrane tells the story, it's titled, All Rise-- The Remarkable Journey of Alan Page. Justice Page spoke a couple of weeks ago at the inaugural event in the University of Minnesota's learning life forum Witness to History held at the University of Minnesota's College of Continuing Education.

Well, that does it for our Midday program today. Gary Eichten here. Thanks so much for tuning in. We hope you'll be able to stay tuned. Now, Talk of the Nation will be coming along next, and then over the noon hour tomorrow, we're going to focus on the new federal health care law, a law which, well, it may be facing repeal or replacement. The Republicans in the US House say they're going to mount an attack on that federal health care law. We will take a look at the future, the prospects for the law tomorrow on Midday.

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