Where do we park?

BY ELINA KOLSTAD Years ago, my husband and I stayed with some family friends in Saint-Etienne in France. They live in an apartment built before the advent of car culture, so when they were going to show us some regional attractions, George walked a couple of blocks to the parking…

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Listening to Commissioner Conley

BY AMY BLUMENSHINE County Commissioners Angela Conley and Irene Fernando, a new “Squad” of women of color, are pushing the county to seriously step up to address the needs of the public. The Hennepin County Board, made up of seven commissioners, approves the second largest government budget in the state.…

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The double cross in Syria

BY ED FELIEN You have to wonder if there wasn’t another phone call that night. An earlier phone call from Putin, telling Trump if he withdrew American troops from Syria, Putin would personally keep the Russian Mafia bosses off Trump’s case for the casino bankruptcies. The Turkey dodge was just…

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Dinkytown: Still Positively 4th Street

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE 1 Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Dinkytown is the University of Minnesota, and the Dinkytown experience is quintessentially the student experience. Even if, like me, you first experienced Dinkytown as a fully grown adult almost a decade away from your own college…

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Frankenstein: Two Centuries

Presented by Ghoulish Delights Performed by The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society celebrates two hundred years of Frankenstein with two original stories inspired by Mary Shelley’s iconic tale, each written and performed in the style of a classic radio series, including commercials, live music…

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Do we need more cops?

BY ED FELIEN Do we need more cops? Yes, and no. Yes, we need a greater police presence downtown and on Lake Street and Franklin Avenue. It is intolerable that violent gangs are beating and robbing people in broad daylight downtown. This has to stop. When Tony Bouza was chief…

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New thoughts on the case for lidding

BY ELINA KOLSTAD As Minneapolis becomes increasingly urban, more of our residents will live in apartments with little access to green space. The dynamic and rhythms of our city will change drastically. The great changes we are about to face could also be seen as a chance to see possibility…

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Preserve Hiawatha Golf Course

After reading the two excellent articles by Ed Felien and Kathryn Kelly regarding the issues surrounding the planned closing of Hiawatha Golf Course, I decided to share my personal story of my experience with the course. I have used the course for over 60 years. I was a caddie at…

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Community Advisory Committee gives feedback

The following lists the requests and questions that the Hiawatha Golf Course Community Advisory Committee put together at CAC meeting No. 6 for the Hiawatha Golf Course Property Master Plan. The Park Board Design Team is currently working on providing answers to the questions and looking into incorporating the suggestions…

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Trump downtown

BY ED FELIEN Thousands of people showed up at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis to tell our President, in the words of Mayor Frey, “Love Trumps Hate in Minneapolis.” The demonstrators were peaceful but determined. They stayed past midnight. There were minor confrontations and scuffles, but no one was…

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If you’re so rich, how come you’re not smart?

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE We have come to a point in late-stage capitalism where a lot of the so-called philanthropy vying for well-meaning control of our lives is so inept, so blinkered by ideology, that it has become its own opposite. “Philanthropy” contains two Greek root words that mean, respectively,…

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Myths and History

BY TONY BOUZA History is a mischievous goddess. Accounts are transmitted to us by flawed and often biased observers, and we are compelled to view it as gospel. In the trivial pursuit of a beknighted career, I was sometimes privileged to be a fly on the wall—observing events I otherwise…

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