BY ELINA KOLSTAD “Defund the Police” has sparked a nationwide debate, the likes of which we have not seen before, about what a safe community looks like and how we achieve that for ALL of our residents. The vast majority of people in Minneapolis support redirecting funds from the MPD…
Mexican children incarcerated at the U.S. border Some Central American children coming into the United States are being stopped at the border and are being returned by the U.S. Border Patrol to Mexico or placed in custody. The transfer is contrary to both U.S. policy and an outstanding diplomatic agreement…
BY ELINA KOLSTAD In the month of November, Gov. Walz made two missteps that should cost him any chance at reelection. His administration deployed excessive force to a protest on I-94 and approved the 401 water crossings permit for the Enbridge Energy Line 3 pipeline replacement project. On Nov. 4,…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN On Monday night, Nov. 30, environmental advocacy organization Mighty Earth helped stage a protest at SCOTUS, the Supreme Court of the United States, in which they managed to get around heavy security in order to project colored lights onto the Supreme Court building that read “CARGILL is…
BY ED FELIEN Last month in this space we published a notice we found on the Nokomis East Neighborhood Association (NENA) website about a new program they were planning: Nokomis East Neighbor-to-Neighbor Communication Project. We felt this could be a very useful community resource. Who could disagree with their organizing…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Oh, great. Not only is it winter, but it’s in the peak of a terrible pandemic. And you want to talk about wellness? Is that some kind of sick joke? When the conditions are most stacked against your goal, that’s not when you give up, it’s…
Mexican children incarcerated at the U.S. border Some Central American children coming into the United States are being stopped at the border and are being returned by the U.S. Border Patrol to Mexico or placed in custody. The transfer is contrary to both U.S. policy and an outstanding diplomatic agreement…
BY ED FELIEN In ancient China, the state apparatus was 3,000 years old when the student revolts on May 4, 1919, began the Nationalist revolution that eventually overthrew the emperor. The bureaucracy was so far removed from the people that they spoke a different language. They had contempt for the…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,” Joni Mitchell famously sang. I have been thinking about the many local delights that are gone, or may be soon. In 2016 I was still working for Heart of the Beast Theatre. We put on “La Natividad”…
“We are in pain, don’t choke us.” —Ira Azhakh BY KAY SCHROVEN Despite ambitious efforts by the city and a Neighborhood Action Plan to reimagine Lake Street, Ira is not hopeful. After 40 years in the car business in the 4500 block of East Lake Street, he has closed. Before…
BY TONY BOUZA On Nov. 28, 2020, The New York Times reported the discovery of a 12-foot steel monolith in the desert called Red Rock Country, Utah. It described it as evocative of Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In that film primates howl around an unexplained monolith.…
BY KAY SCHROVEN During the week of Nov. 9-13, the first Southside Summit, hosted by the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association (PPNA) and sponsored by the Graves Foundation, took place (virtually). It was a meeting of the minds from a number of organizations involved in enhancing and improving our communities. As…
BY KATHRYN KELLY Results of the latest Minneapolis Park Board survey on the Hiawatha Golf Course Master Plan have, again, shown that a HUGE majority of respondents do not support a plan that has, so far, cost over $870,000. The responses have been compiled and quantified in a best effort…
Dear Tony Bouza, I enjoy your columns and respect your expertise and vision as both a police chief and a commentator. I have several suggestions to make for reform of the Minneapolis Police Department. First, I would like to see the City of Minneapolis require police officers to live in…
BY SARAH MARTIN Lee Ross, a lifelong activist and longtime Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), member died at the age of 94 on Monday, Nov. 16. Lee was the youngest of three children born to parents from Tsarist Russia. Her parents moved first to Paris and the French Riviera before…
