BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Zen Box 612-332-3936 602 Washington Ave. S. Minneapolis MN 55415 zenbox.com Before there was Zen Box Izakaya, there was a much smaller lunch place in the Minneapolis skyway called simply Zen Box. They sold Japanese-style lunch to go—bento— which is the Japanese name for a lunchbox—not…
BY JOHN CHARLES WILSON Running on, running on empty Running on, running blind Running on, running into the sun But I’m running behind –Jackson Browne This month is the quarterly schedule change at Metro Transit. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as you may see it, there aren’t many changes this time around…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN War is waging and we picture the children, 4 years old, 8, 10, 12. It is dark, they’re hungry. Anything could happen tomorrow. There is nothing to count on. They have to believe that somewhere a great big unseen father, or mother, looks out for them. They…
BY MICHAEL LIVINGTON The Minnesota Peace Action Coalition (MPAC), a coalition of peace and anti-war groups in the Twin Cities, is organizing a protest on Sunday, April 15, as part of national spring anti-war actions taking place around the U.S. The demonstration begins at 1:30 p.m. with a gathering at…
BY DAVE TILSEN On March 10 the delegates selected at precinct caucuses gathered on a cold wintry Saturday. About 450 of us from the Central, Powderhorn, Corcoran, Phillips and Whittier neighborhoods made it over to the Justice Page Middle School to endorse candidates for state legislature, elect party officers, and…
BY CAROL BECKER The City of Minneapolis is updating its Comprehensive Plan to change the zoning for single family homes to allow for up to four units of housing on a single house lot from Lowry Avenue North to 38th Street. Currently, higher density housing is zoned along transit corridors,…
BY JOHN KARRIGAN I have not written about birds for several months because there have been very few birds in the park lately. Hopefully there will be a big change soon—as always, we’ll have to wait and see. Despite the absence of small (or song-) birds, there is still activity…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE March was a dizzyingly busy month for Twin Cities progressives, and it’s going to get even more intense in April and May. Even though admittedly the DFL cannot always claim to be progressive, still a lot of progressive folk can be found there, especially in March…
Everyone needs an education I don’t know why the idea didn’t create a real stir around the country. To offer education classes to convicted criminals is such an absurd suggestion! But it really did happen in the 1920s, and the program worked. The prison was the Charlestown State Prison in…
BY TONY BOUZA That is, according to Hamlet, the question. As a naturalized citizen I feel it is something we must all ask ourselves. At the very least it becomes a sovereign exercise in introspection. The life unexamined … In a very complicated equation, it finally became clear to me…
BY JANICE F. BROOKS My name is Janice F. Brooks. That’s the name I was given at birth but my new name is: PARANOID SCHIZO INCAPABLE ERASED AND DEAD. Today’s topic is toxic shame. I was born normal. I had my first psychotic episode in 2006. I was incapable of…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Welcome to the new Southside Pride column Resistance Persistence. We will offer a summary of the past month’s progressive resistance activities across the Twin Cities and note upcoming actions in near future months. We welcome feedback, including corrections or suggestions. The Twin Cities political scene is…
BY ED FELIEN It happened in less than a minute. I got on the elevator at City Hall on the third floor to go down to the parking garage. Jack Baker got on with me. Jack had been president of the university student association, a very out gay. He’d just…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Merlins Rest 3601 E Lake St 612-216-2419 merlinsrest.com www.facebook.com/pages/Merlins-Rest/43488676171 Merlins Rest is a Longfellow mainstay and one of four area “pubs” that offer an interpretation of British and/or Irish food along with the beers and booze. Merlins Rest’s main claim to fame is its impossibly huge…
BY POLLY MANN What can be done with guns? In 2012 after the rampage shooting of 20 school children and six educators, in Newtown, Conn., Connecticut lawmakers passed some of the toughest gun measures in the country: 1) expanding an existing ban on assault weapons; 2) prohibiting the sale of…
