How Can We Protect Our Children? I suspect that the overwhelming majority of American women could come up with a childhood experience like mine. It occurred when I was in grade school and involved our next door neighbor, Mr. Blank, who owned the biggest lumber yard in the town. Every…
By Tony Bouza Erica, telling me a friend of ours—educated and sophisticated—had consulted a psychic, set me to thinking—after overcoming nausea. Psychics are clever scoundrels, preying upon our gullibility using their study of human nature. They observe the external (appearance, body language, etc.) and exploit our hopes and dreams. With…
BY STEPHANIE FOX Jake Reber is a man on a mission, focused on a campaign to get his city government to come up with solutions to fight the rising crime rate in South Minneapolis. Earlier this year, he started talking with his neighbors, hearing about their personal experiences with property…
BY ED FELIEN You have to wonder if there wasn’t another phone call that night. An earlier phone call from Putin, telling Trump if he withdrew American troops from Syria, Putin would personally keep the Russian Mafia bosses off Trump’s case for the casino bankruptcies. The Turkey dodge was just…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE 1 Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Dinkytown is the University of Minnesota, and the Dinkytown experience is quintessentially the student experience. Even if, like me, you first experienced Dinkytown as a fully grown adult almost a decade away from your own college…
Affordable Housing Something has to be done about the ever-increasing gap between the poor and rich, especially as it relates to the availability of affordable housing for those who need it. The National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that in no state in the union can a full-time worker earning…
BY ED FELIEN Thousands of people showed up at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis to tell our President, in the words of Mayor Frey, “Love Trumps Hate in Minneapolis.” The demonstrators were peaceful but determined. They stayed past midnight. There were minor confrontations and scuffles, but no one was…
BY STEPHANIE FOX On the Sunday before the first day of school in Minneapolis, four barbers at Fresh Cuts Barber Shop made sure that 62 kids would look sharp as they walked through their school doors. The annual event gives free-of-charge haircuts to students, kindergarten through 8th grade, before school…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE We have come to a point in late-stage capitalism where a lot of the so-called philanthropy vying for well-meaning control of our lives is so inept, so blinkered by ideology, that it has become its own opposite. “Philanthropy” contains two Greek root words that mean, respectively,…
BY TONY BOUZA History is a mischievous goddess. Accounts are transmitted to us by flawed and often biased observers, and we are compelled to view it as gospel. In the trivial pursuit of a beknighted career, I was sometimes privileged to be a fly on the wall—observing events I otherwise…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE As a “consumer,” you have three broad things on offer from Midtown Global Market: It’s a place to eat and drink, it’s a place to shop and hang out, and it’s a place with numerous neighborhood-based events to attend. The eating and drinking might seem similar…
BY STEPHANIE FOX As the Twin Cities faces its wettest year ever, as lakes in the City of Lakes are overflowing and Minnehaha Creek sends more and more water—50 to 80 million gallons—through the city, rising water tables are starting to cause significant problems for many living in the area.…
How to Take Care of Captives I think that we in the peace movement are so accustomed to looking at the need for action that we tend to let slide the various bits of upbeat news in the world of international politics. The Star Tribune of Aug. 25, however, published…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE We took a leisurely weekend ramble eastward on Selby Avenue and discovered some delightful places to share. Of course, most Minneapolitans know Selby Avenue is there, a couple of blocks south of Marshall Avenue, which is your handy gateway to St. Paul if you live near…
BY STEPHANIE FOX When the Minneapolis 6th Ward City Council Member Abdi Warsame and Mayor Jacob Frey announced the details on the city’s plans to build what they called an African village on a publicly-owned lot in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, the local reaction was shock and surprise. The announcement, made…
