Celebrate Mayday

BY ED FELIEN Please help us celebrate Mayday next spring, on Sunday, May 3, in Powderhorn Park. Like everyone else, we were shocked and saddened by Heart of the Beast’s decision to cancel their participation and organizing of Mayday for next spring. Last January HOBT started telling the press that…

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MaLLy’s Journey to a Smile

BY ZANDER TSADWA 30. To many, the age youth dies. To some, the age you stop caring about looking happy and start caring about *being* happy. This is where MaLLy is at, and he raps with urgency and honesty about growing up, situationships, racism and more while smiling through it…

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Prophets and Losses

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…

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Courageous heARTS

BY DORIS OVERBY On a stroll down a stretch of emerging 38th Street businesses this August, I stepped into Courageous heARTS, a youth-led nonprofit art studio at 2235 E. 38th St., and discovered teen artists selling their work during their organization’s summer “Show and Sell Pop-Up” art sale. Nothing inspires…

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Where do we park?

BY ELINA KOLSTAD Years ago, my husband and I stayed with some family friends in Saint-Etienne in France. They live in an apartment built before the advent of car culture, so when they were going to show us some regional attractions, George walked a couple of blocks to the parking…

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Should transit be free?

BY JOHN CHARLES WILSON The Twin Cities Transit Riders’ Union (TRU) has been recently advocating that Metro Transit quit charging fares and become a free service, like the public library. In this column, I would like to discuss the pros and cons of free transit. First of all, free transit…

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Listening to Commissioner Conley

BY AMY BLUMENSHINE County Commissioners Angela Conley and Irene Fernando, a new “Squad” of women of color, are pushing the county to seriously step up to address the needs of the public. The Hennepin County Board, made up of seven commissioners, approves the second largest government budget in the state.…

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What really happened to American Socialism?

BY HARVEY WASSERMAN Despite the corporate hype, Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy are deeply rooted in the mainstream of our nation’s history. The lie that they’re “foreign ideologies” starts with the fascist assault Woodrow Wilson waged against them during and after World War I. Their marginalization today by corporate Democrats…

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Climate activists Trick or Treat Cargill

Minnesotans stage a “funeral for the Earth” at the home of David MacLennan, CEO of agribusiness giant Cargill, for complicity in Amazon fires In the pursuit of profits, Cargill facilitates the destruction of the Amazon for soy and beef production. Across huge expanses of the Brazilian Amazon and the adjacent…

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Burt Berlowe RIP

BY AMY BLUMENSHINE Burt Berlowe’s chair was empty as his colleagues gathered for the monthly meeting of the Peace and Social Justice Writer’s Group. Burt had passed away that afternoon, Oct. 28, from consequences stemming from his most recent fall. As a candle was lit and libations were poured, those…

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The double cross in Syria

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…

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