A pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow?

BY ED FELIEN The Rainbow store at Lake and 27th Avenue is closing. It was part of the sale of Rainbow stores by Roundy to Super Valu. It was purchased by Jerry’s Enterprise that also operates the Cub store across the street. It seems very likely Jerry will want to…

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Vikings stadium will kill birds

BY WENDY HAAN, MINNESTOA CITIZENS FOR THE PROTECTION OF MIGRATORY BIRDS Bird advocates went before the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority Friday morning, Oct. 10, urging the panel to order bird-safe, energy efficient glass for the new Vikings stadium under construction on a major migratory bird corridor. Experts agree the 200,000…

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A sample ballot for November 4th

BY ED FELIEN United States Senator—Al Franken I wish there was someone running to the left of Al.  He’s a good man and generally progressive, but he’s voted to drop bombs on anyone Obama says is our enemy of the week. United States Representa-tive—Keith Ellison Keith was one of six…

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Hennepin County’s expensive burner fetish

BY LARA NORKUS-CRAMPTON Energy and environmental consultant Alan Muller recently submitted a letter to Hennepin County, invoking the Data Practices Act, to ask for information on significant financial expenditures and reinvestments totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to promote and sustain our 26-year-old Garbage Burner, HERC.   http://www.alanmuller.com/?p=382 His letter was…

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Notes from Polly

The name of the eminent physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who died on Oct. 24, would probably not be remembered by many people born after 1954. Oppenheimer was tried and denied a clearance by the Atomic Energy Commission after 19 days of secret hearings. Now, with recent reclassification of material from…

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Powderhorn poet laureate

Longtime Powderhorn Park neighborhood resident Mildred Farkash Miller passed away Oct. 29, 2014, at the age of 94. She was proud to be born the year women got the vote and could often be seen sitting on her backporch swing reading. The late poet Roy McBride called Mildred “the poet…

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Former anti-war activist now pro-war?

BY ED FELIEN David Pence, in almost two full pages of the Sunday Star Tribune editorial pages on Aug. 31, wrote a piece, “The influence of religion,” that almost screams for a Crusade against Muslims.  According to Pence, it is not so much the oil in Iraq or the opium…

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Student protests continue in Mexico

BY JOHNNY HAZARD Students at most public universities in the Mexico City metropolitan area went on strike last week as part of the continuing protests against the massacre and forced disappearance of five and 43 (respectively) students of the teacher preparation school in Ayotzinapa, Tixtla, Guerrero. The “disappeared” students were…

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Hope at the end of the Rainbow?

BY ED FELIEN “When elephants fight, the grass suffers.”  Swahili proverb The elephants have struggled.  Rainbow and Cub fought for years over market share at Lake and Minnehaha, but they remained competitive, and each had their share of loyal customers.  Then Target decided to open a fresh food section in…

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Can King Coal come clean?

A REPORT FROM POLLY MANN It probably won’t receive too much attention but it should:  Canada has recently produced the world’s first commercial coal-fired power plant equipped with carbon capture and storage technology. The Boundary Dam plant in Saskatchewan promises to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 90%.  The state-owned electricity…

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Dinkytown’s new alliances

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.     –Lao Tzu Ten months ago, Dinkytown was at one of those unmistakable crossroads of change rife with both crisis and opportunity.  The businesses in Dinkytown are survivors of change, so this was…

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Meeting with the chief, or not

BY ED FELIEN On Thursday, Sept.18, more than 200 people came to Sabathani Community Center on 38th Street to meet with Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau.  She didn’t show. She said she had “credible information from a long-standing community leader, in addition to a number of other sources, about planned…

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The fight for $15 spreads to MSP airport

BY GINGER JENTZEN, 15 NOW MINNESOTA ORGANIZER On Monday, Sept. 15, workers at the Minneapolis/St.Paul airport, backed by dozens of community supporters, delivered 1,000 petitions signed by their co-workers to the Metropolitan Airport Commission (MAC) calling for a $15/hour minimum wage. This action, led by workers organized in 15 Now,…

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