DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE OK, so admittedly this has not been such a celebratory year. This time a year ago we were stunned (most of us) by the election results and dreading the year to come. It could have been worse, but it was still pretty hard. The hurricanes and earthquakes…
BY ED FELIEN Before the Open Meeting Law, politicians decided destinies in smoke-filled rooms. Of course, that was also before the laws against smoking indoors. After the election, I was invited by Louis DeMars to a meeting at the Leamington Hotel to organize city government: free food, free booze, lots…
BY ED FELIEN Hiawatha Golf Course got a stay of execution. The Park Board rescinded its motion to stop pumping at Hiawatha Golf Course in three years and moved the date up to five years. So, now, in five years, the Park Board will ask the Department of Natural Resources…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Cultural Uniqueness of Trinity Lutheran Congregation When I talked with Jane Buckley-Farlee, co-pastor of Trinity Lutheran Congregation, we discovered she had been at that church as long as I’ve been at Southside Pride—21 years. I’ve been reporting on religious groups, mostly churches, during all this time; overall,…
BY ED FELIEN We like Ray Dehn for mayor. We think he understands the problems we face in Minneapolis: “Centuries of over-policing and misconduct have created a fundamental distrust of police by people of color and indigenous communities (POCI)”; “Every person deserves to live in a safe, quality, affordable home.…
Mayor Ray Dehn City Council Ward 2: Cam Gordon Ward 12: Andrew Johnson Park Board At-Large Meg Forney, Mike Derus, Charlie Casserly Park Board District 3: Charles Exner or Abdi Gurhan Mohamed Park Board District 5 Bill Shroyer
BY STEPHANIE FOX It started with the railroad, or at least that’s what some historians claim. The small four-block commercial section of the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood called Dinkytown may have gotten its name from the railroad tracks that ran through the area. Or maybe, not. Photographer and Minneapolis historian Steve Bergerson…
BY JOHNNY HAZARD At 1:15 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept.19, the annual simulacro that commemorates the earthquake on that date in 1985 had recently finished and I was working with a student in a second-floor office near the fire escape in Iztapalapa, Mexico City. He noticed something just before I did…
BY COOPER In late July I was able to see the 2017 Biennale in Venice, Italy. The Biennale is a grand gathering of work by artists from all around the world. There are two sections, the Arsenale and the Giardini, each with more pieces of art than you could see…
They’re too big! They are like the Tower of Babel. The Bible says the ancients built a great city and then they built a great tower. The tower grew more and more elaborate. The people became more and more convinced of their own genius. The tower grew bigger and more…
BY POLLY MANN One of the most erudite and informed people on the planet is Noam Chomsky, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of countless books and a lecturer par excellence. The May 2017 edition of the London Review of Books contains reviews of three books written…
BY TONY BOUZA Do you want to know why police departments across the breadth of America are screwed up? Look no further than the July 15, 2017, shooting of Justine Damond—a white woman—by a Minneapolis police officer who is black. In this ghastly tragedy we encapsulate the nation’s ills. Race,…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE I thought I was going to have to write something anodyne and pedestrian this time around, due to the dearth of scandals and uproar in the Minneapolis school system. Well, I thought, no one is howling for Ed Graff’s head, there are no school board elections…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE The Dish visited two casual but popular Mexican restaurants for Part One (la Primera Parte) of our Mexican food exploration and rating report. The first, Dominguez Family Restaurant, is in South Minneapolis and is a full-service restaurant with beer and wine. The second, Andale Taqueria y…
BY ED FELIEN The spring of 1973 was critical. I had been fired from Experimental College. They didn’t actually fire me. Dean Werntz told the three coordinators who ran Experimental College that if they didn’t get rid of me and David Tilsen, the university administration was going to get rid…
