BY ED FELIEN Secretary of State Blinken just got back from his visit with Xi Jinping and Chinese diplomats. He says the only issue dividing the two countries is that the U.S. wants closer military contacts to avoid a mistake that could lead to a catastrophe. That sounds so sensible,…
BY CAM GORDON On June 16, a quiet Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend, with little advance notice, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and other United States Justice Department staff held a press conference with city officials to announce the results of their two-year investigation into Minneapolis police and an…
A remembrance BY ED FELIEN I went to see him just before he died. He said, “The problem with dying is it takes too long. And it’s boring.” The first time I met Tony Bouza, he was chief of police. It was at a demonstration against Honeywell anti-personnel bombs used…
BY TONY BOUZA A TV crew traveled all the way from Paris, France, to interview me for over an hour about Malcolm X, who was killed in February 1965. Huh? How can this be relevant? I’m not sure but it is somehow contemporaneously relevant. I struggled with the question and finally…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Stuffed full of culture – Minneapolis’s Cedar-Riverside (the West Bank) With numerous theaters, music venues and more, Cedar Avenue’s northern stretch from Washington Avenue to Franklin Avenue is a cultural corridor like no other. There’s Minneapolis’s oldest community theater, Theatre in the Round, at 245 Cedar…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Summer is for parks and nature Summer in Richfield is a time to get out and about in your city. Richfield has a lot of options for outdoor activities. The two largest city parks, Veterans Memorial Park, at 6335 Portland Ave., and Wood Lake Nature Center,…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Highland Bridge development I made a couple of reconnaissance trips to Highland Bridge, the development in Highland Park headed by Ryan Companies. There are people living there and the parks are mostly finished, but overall it still has an “under construction” feeling of raw newness. Here’s…
BY ED FELIEN To socialize: “to make someone behave in a way that is acceptable to their society.” Carol Becker was a member of the Minneapolis Board of Estimate and Taxation from 2006 until Dec. 31, 2021. She is a respected conservative voice in Minneapolis politics. She wrote a very…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN I’ve started going to two writing groups that have sprung up in our neighborhood. I go every time because I love words, language and people and that’s what these groups are about. I consider myself quite limited when it comes to imagination and since I wrote factual…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Openings and closings Most of the interesting new openings right now are in St. Paul. There are three that catch my eye, although some have been in the news for a couple of months already. The first one is Juche, a newish Korean restaurant and bar…
BY ED FELIEN The music just carries you away. “Can’t Take My Eyes off of You,” “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “My Eyes Adored You,” “Oh, What a Night,” “Working My Way Back to You, Babe,” “Dawn, Go Away I’m No Good for You” – those…
BY ED FELIEN Kieran Knutson held onto the door to the meeting with Medea Benjamin, threatening to disrupt the meeting. Members of Vets for Peace stood behind the door blocking his entrance. Dave Bicking asked him to leave. At least six officers and an MPD sergeant showed up. Eventually, Knutson…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE I am a member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and I have been since 1986. In DSA, we like to debate something called the Dirty Break. This is premised on the decades of tension between the Democratic Party and the left outsiders, with the leftists…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Seward Cafe is back! After a launch event in April, the Seward Cafe officially reopened, albeit with some changes, on May 16. Since the pandemic and the George Floyd uprising, the cafe has been closed although the collective owners and the building were not idle, at…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Yes, Nicollet Avenue was originally a main north-south corridor that went from downtown to Bloomington. Very few people remember those days today, but we live in hope that it will soon be so again. Nowadays, Nicollet Avenue is essentially two unconnected streets. One is the funky,…
