BY ED FELIEN Virgil Welna died last month. He was 89. For 50 years I depended on him for advice. I walked into Welna Hardware with a problem, and he knew that problem, and he had a solution for it. It wasn’t just the wise expertise, though. When he saw…
BY JOHN CHARLES WILSON Few Minnesotans know who Mark McLaughlin or Herman Liebelt were. For the safety of our transit operators, this is a crying shame. You see, on Black Friday 1998, in the mid-afternoon, Mr. McLaughlin was peacefully driving King County bus number 2106 with 34 passengers on board.…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Dilla’s Restaurant 1813 Riverside Ave. Minneapolis 55454 612-332-2898 dillasethiopianrestaurant.com The Dish continues our pursuit of international lunch options with a visit to Dilla’s Ethiopian on Riverside Avenue. Dilla’s decor is very down to earth, while its reputation for food is high, and they have a vegetarian…
Armed conflict major cause of world hunger. One of the publications I subscribe to is a newspaper-size 8-page periodical, The Catholic Agitator, the cost of which is minimal. It has a definite viewpoint: that of the poorest, not just the poor but the very poorest, the homeless and the hungry,…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Where you are born is the luck of the draw. We don’t choose our birthplace. Why is THIS my home? The rippling grain, the lone tree, the curling creek beds and endless sky. The prairie is my home. Not the desert, not the mountains, not the sea,…
More than 200 workers marched down Lake Street to Powderhorn Park to celebrate MayDay, May 1st. One of the leaders from Trabajadores de la Twin Cities said, “Today we are proud to be workers. But we should be proud every day that because we wake up at 4 a.m. and…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Everybody hopes they will never be jumped, assaulted, robbed, held up, mugged, etc., on the street. But it happens. It’s hard to imagine what gives perpetrators permission to traumatize vulnerable victims, such as the disabled, the elderly, young mothers, unarmed people. At the end of January, Mr.…
BY JOHN KARRIGAN It must have been something I ate. I mean, I’ve always liked buffalo. So mighty, so strong, so historical. But what was it doing in my park? And with 18 legs, or sometimes more?! What a nightmare! Oh wait, this is the beginning of the month of…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE The business and cultural scene along East 38th Street, a personal favorite east-west connector and not just because I live near it, remains lively but in a healthy way. There have been some beloved mainstays that went under—notably Southside Farm Store. I will kind of miss…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Some of us were deterred on April 15 from attending the Anti-War Rally by the crazy blizzard that hit us on the 14th and lasted three or more days. But not everyone! Our Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America comrade Andy Guthrie was there and filed…
BY ED FELIEN There’s a lot you can do if you’re a City Council member in Minneapolis. Someone came to me while I was on the Council and told me they were being evicted from their apartment because the landlord hadn’t paid the utilities. They thought they should be able…
BY ED FELIEN We’ll be fighting in the streets With our children at our feet And the morals that they worship will be gone And the men who spurred us on Sit in judgment of all the wrong They decide and the shotgun sings the song I’ll tip my hat…
BY TONY BOUZA In August and in October 2017, I wrote essays on the Justine Damond shooting in Minneapolis in these pages. I called it murder and criticized the mayor, police chief and prosecutor. The first two are gone—not, I’m confident, as a result, but following a vague chiasma of…
BY LYDIA HOWELL After Sept. 11, legislators didn’t hesitate to act. War, expanding surveillance—national security! Ignoring civil liberties—like jailing 1,000 Muslim men without charges—public safety! Yet, for homegrown gun violence, lawmakers and police are strangely inert. Local police were alerted by concerned people or called to the Florida school shooter’s…
BY STEPHANIE FOX At the corner of Bloomington and Lake Street is Mercado Central, recognizable by the bright blue awning above the doors and the always-crowded parking lot. The stores, restaurants and other businesses reflect a vibrant, flourishing marketplace. If you come to the Mercado on weekends you will have…
