BY ED FELIEN “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.” —Oscar Wilde And the Minneapolis Police Department seems to want the worst of both of those worlds. Our police officers seem to kill our citizens with barbaric indifference, and the administration creates…
Good News The New York Times headline of Dec. 14 read, “The Pentagon Is Not a Sacred Cow.” Of course it isn’t, and our readers know it and so do we, but for the Times to acknowledge that is like finding a shoveled path to navigate after a winter snow…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE The George and Dragon 813 W. 50th St., Mpls. 55419 612-208-1047 http://www.ganddpub.com/ This isn’t really eating for England. This is eating in a vain attempt to assuage my mounting “homesickness” for British food, which is the presenting symptom of my general homesickness for England. Now don’t…
BY ED FELIEN “Dear landlord Please don’t put a price on my soul” –Bob Dylan, 1967 In 1974 the vacancy rate for rental housing in Minneapolis was 3%. Rents had gone up 35% on the West Bank in the city-supported Cedar-Riverside Towers and 15% around Loring Park. Poor people were…
BY ED FELIEN What is this guy thinking? Raj Bunnag makes monsters come alive and leap off the page at you, and he uses pen and ink, black on white printmaking and wood block carvings to create a horror that seems lurking behind the public manners of everyday life. The…
At its Dec. 2 General Membership Meeting, Our Revolution Twin Cities agreed to six priorities for the new City Council: 1. Policing: Make $50 million of the police budget contingent on them voluntarily adopting a civilian review board to review cases of misconduct whose recommendations would be implemented in every…
Editor’s note: An article by Joe Selvaggio, founder of Project for Pride in Living and MicroGrants, was published in the Nov. Nokomis and Dec. Phillips/Powderhorn and Riverside editions suggesting ways to solve the problem of poverty in Minnesota. Elaine Klaassen, managing editor of Southside Pride, responded to the article in…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Minnehaha Communion Lutheran Church (MCLC) has already been for years a place where non-members and strangers come to be buried and married (same-sex couples included). And for many years there have been regular AA, Al-Anon and Adoption Support groups that meet at the church. Community groups sometimes…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Dust to dust. Whatever. Life is hard. Fires, storms, early deaths, accidents, failures, let-downs, rejections, abandonments, wars. Life goes on. We make our chips and dip, fire up the pickup truck, shingle the roof and sew our wedding dresses. We still smile at the sunrise and hold hands at…
BY ED FELIEN First, let’s look at the facts. Leanne Tweeden wrote to Al Franken: “You forcibly kissed me without my consent, grabbed my breasts while I was sleeping and had someone take a photo of you doing it.” Tweeden agreed to rehearse a skit with Franken in which he…
BY ED FELIEN Jews were always revolting. When they revolted against the Persian King Nebuchadnezzar around 600 BC he carried the leaders of the rebellion off to Babylon. In exile for 70 years they studied in one of the great libraries of the ancient world and came up with their…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Kristi was dead, there was no doubt about that. Her passing was sudden and cruel, and it was also 35 years ago. But I only say there was no doubt that I wasn’t seeing a living but long-lost sister in the struggle to make it clear…
BY ED FELIEN In 1970 I was publishing Hundred Flowers, a weekly underground newspaper, an anti-war, anti-racist, early feminist, psychedelic fun rag that sold for a quarter. Some people were having a demonstration somewhere on Harriet Avenue protesting the demolition of houses to make room for a two-and-a-half story walk-up…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN There’s a special place in heaven (or, at least in my heart) for people who make music a reality in the lives of children. Such people are found at St. Helena Catholic School, a PreK-8 in South Minneapolis. The music program at St. Helena isn’t what it…
Are you feeling helpless and hopeless because of the madness in Washington? Take some time this holiday season to speak out for peace: No War for the Holidays is the theme for the peace vigil on Dec. 20. Several Twin Cities area peace and anti-war groups have issued a call urging people…
