BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE To me, Al Hildenbrand was one of a score or so of people who joined Walker Church during the 13 years (1998 through 2011) when I was in England. I knew him first just as the person who had taken on the role of the opening…
BY TONY BOUZA The recent turmoil surrounding New York’s governor is a wonderful example of the lessons the Greek ancients tried hard to teach us. But we are slow learners. Andrew Cuomo is the smartest guy in the state. Honest. I grew up with guys like that. Not many, but…
BY KATHRYN KELLY Racism is alive and well at the Park Board, as the Hiawatha Golf Course project has revealed. The Black community has golfed there since it was built in the 1930s. Now, the Minneapolis Park Board was presented with a plan that would retain the 18-hole golf course…
The Lake Hiawatha Earth Day Clean Up was held on Saturday, April 23. From Friends of Lake Hiawatha Facebook page: 320 pounds of trash and 102 volunteers! THANK YOU! Hosted by Friends of Lake Hiawatha, Gay4Good, Northern Coffee Works, Bakers Wife and @MPRB volunteers. Wow! The day started out with…
BY ED FELIEN Mariupol was a thriving northern port on the Black Sea. Actually, the Ukrainians call that part of the Black Sea the Azov Sea because it’s almost closed off from the rest of the Black Sea by a peninsula reaching out from the Russian side trying to reach…
BY JOHNNY HAZARD In the wake of the passage last year of a series of anti-abortion laws in Texas, there are signs that the opposite tendency is shaping up in Mexico. The Supreme Court there has issued various decisions liberalizing abortion laws in recent years but last September came the…
BY ED FELIEN Just when you thought you were safe on dry land, the Swamp Creatures rise from the dead and take you back into the muck. Last year was a painful and exhausting struggle. After months of arguing, the Minneapolis Park Board voted 5-4 to not flood the Hiawatha…
BY ELINA KOLSTAD As the teachers strike unfolded and the district appeared more interested in the visuals of negotiating than they were in trying to meet the teachers’ demands, my husband and I had several conversations marveling at how little the district seemed to care about its own school system…
BY CAM GORDON On March 10, supporters of the East Phillips Urban Farm project were celebrating. An 8-5 majority of the Minneapolis City Council had just approved a motion by 9th Ward Council Member Jason Chavez which rescinded the 2021 compromise that allowed the city to demolish the Roof Depot…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Chances are, if you know 10 people who consider themselves environmentalists or some version thereof (ecosocialist, ecofeminist, environmental anarchist, left-wing prepper) you will notice that they all have different approaches to their activism, and often different “takes” on what informs their beliefs, what matters the most,…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE So many changes, so few column inches What a year this has been for Lake Street! I have to warn you right at the start, there is no way we can cover everything new and different since April 2021 along South Minneapolis’s most vital street. It’s…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Disco T was a well-known DJ in Minneapolis. He died of brain cancer on Dec. 31, 2021. At his memorial event, on his birthday, Feb. 19, everyone spoke of him as a legend, an icon. He was beloved and admired. I knew him by his given name…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Closings in food and drink From Racket.com and other sources we learned that Tin Whiskers, one of the original artisanal Minnesota breweries, is closing this year. Buy up their inventory while you still can, if you’re a fan. From Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, we learn that 35-year Dinkytown…
BY LYDIA HOWELL The Ukrainian language demeaned as a dialect, “Little Russian,” or censored; a beloved folk musical instrument suppressed; prison or death for poets, artists and dissidents since the 1860s – all these things have been done to maintain Russian domination of Ukraine. Whether under czars or Soviets, from…
BY TONY BOUZA I’m given to hyperbole. Can’t seem to help it. “Best this,” “greatest that,” whatever. The U. S. has earned my devoted study. It has, to put it modestly, really lifted me out of certain defeat. No small feat. I owe this great country. So, what would a…
