BY ELINA KOLSTAD Recent discussions of policy, specifically the 2040 Plan in Minneapolis, have discussed the fact that we have severe racial disparities that we need to deal with as a city. This is encouraging in that the first step to dealing with a problem is to recognize that you…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Along with most of my friends, I wish to reduce my carbon footprint. My environmentally-friendly friends and I think if we live sustainably we can somehow alleviate and mitigate the climate heat that is exponentially encompassing the entire planet. (You know, the hotter it gets, the hotter…
The Women’s Prison Book Project (WPBP) is celebrating its 25th year in operation on Oct. 12, 2019. The project has sent requested books to women in prison and, for the past several years, to transgender prisoners locked up nationwide within America’s criminal justice system of mass incarceration. For our commemoration,…
BY ED FELIEN First, I want to thank the friends and supporters who came downtown to see me try to slay the dragon. The judge asked me why I was doing this. If you don’t like the decisions they make, then there are elections. I said, these elected officials took…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Toward the end of 2018, a few high-profile business closings prompted concern in the media for the health of Grand Avenue’s business environment. In retrospect, this may have been unfounded. Although competing forces of gentrification and economic stagnation for all but the wealthiest consumers, as well…
BY ED FELIEN Why did Patrick Crusius kill 22 people in El Paso? Did he see himself as a hero trying to stop the Mexican invasion of Texas? There is conclusive evidence he was directly inspired by the racist rhetoric of President Trump. Did he believe he would be the…
BY LYDIA HOWELL Donald Trump’s racism can’t be sincerely debated now. His press conference speechwriter-created “denouncement” of racism is meaningless—which Tweets and his next rally ranting will contradict. Racists, neo-Nazi and white supremacist militia groups claim Trump as their own. Trump is directly quoted by the mass murderers who massacred…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN In “Mennonite values in a warming world,” David C. Garen articulates spiritual guidelines for living on the Earth. (The piece was printed as a “web-exclusive” for themennonite.org.) Garen is a retired hydrologist who spent most of his professional career with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the…
DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Open Streets Franklin Avenue is on Sunday, Aug. 25, this year, as ever from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Just like last year, the route stretches from Portland Avenue to 27th Avenue in the east (a block shy of the Seward Co-op store). As each…
BY ELINA KOLSTAD On arriving in MSP after a two-week trip to Germany visiting family, I found out that the Perkins in my neighborhood, the last remaining Perkins in Minneapolis, had permanently closed a few days earlier. The next day I went to an event near the house I grew…
BY TONY BOUZA [On Sunday, July 29, The StarTribune reported: “Arradondo told reporters after a meeting of the City Council’s public safety committee that he wanted to add 400 more street officers by 2025 in order to keep pace with attrition and population growth. “Last week, Arradondo shared a startling…
The May 2019 Southside Pride carried an article by Tony Bouza in which he considers the film “Leviathan, or The Death of Stalin” as an accurate assessment of Russia, and he extends this assessment to Cuba and Venezuela and compares these countries with Scandinavia. Chief Bouza praises Scandinavia for promoting…
Guns banned in New Zealand During World War II my husband spent about a year on duty in Australia and his letters to me from there exacerbated my interest not only in Australia, but also New Zealand. So, the New York Times article about gun usage in New Zealand drew…
BY ALLISON ANDRADE The U.N. warns that the world is “on course to exceed the temperature threshold” of warming, meaning another 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) above that set out in the Paris climate agreement. Many cities and community organizations in our country have set out to hold themselves…
Members of the MN350 Solutions Committee met with Cargill executives on July 11 to make them aware of changes they could make to benefit the environment. When the activists arrived at Cargill corporate headquarters in Wayzata, they were not allowed to enter the building but rather were escorted by security…
