Columnists

Regular Columnists

Ed Felien  •  Elaine Klaassen  •  Polly Mann  •  Tony Bouza  •  David Tilsen  •  Debra Keefer Ramage  •  Stephanie Fox  •  Johnny Hazard 

 


Hundreds protest another police killing

BY ED FELIEN Estimates range from between 1,000 and 1,200 people who gathered on Sunday, Jan. 3 to protest yet another police killing of a young Black man. On Wed. night, Dec. 30, the Minneapolis police Strike Force/SWAT Team/Community Response Team/Roughrider Cowboys/or whatever this unit of the MPD is currently…

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The race is on in the 11th Ward

BY ED FELIEN By the time we went to press, there were three candidates for City Council in Ward 11: the incumbent, Jeremy Schroeder; Dillon Gherna, a young gay man who worked on Hutchinson’s successful campaign for sheriff; and Emily Koski, the daughter of former mayor, Al Hofstede. We asked…

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The race is on!

BY ED FELIEN Alondra Cano has announced she will not run for a third term as City Council member for the 9th Ward. Southside Pride supported Cano four years ago when she ran for reelection. We were thrilled when she supported demonstrations supporting holding Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officers accountable…

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Pius XII

BY TONY BOUZA I have a tiny coterie of friends who, whenever we meet, immediately plunge me into esoteric, vehement exchanges on arcane subjects. Two such are the publisher of this tract (and I mean that in the sense of propaganda leaflet) and the sadly dead and missed Ivan Musicant.…

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2020’s two great losses in local journalism

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Throughout this pandemic, we have been noting businesses in various categories that have closed for good (and a few brave souls who opened businesses!).We’ve noted the impact on restaurants, breweries, retail and services, both vital (like groceries and pharmacies) and not so vital but still pretty…

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NENA reconsidered

BY ED FELIEN Last month in this space we published a notice we found on the Nokomis East Neighborhood Association (NENA) website about a new program they were planning: Nokomis East Neighbor-to-Neighbor Communication Project. We felt this could be a very useful community resource. Who could disagree with their organizing…

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The art of winter wellness

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Oh, great. Not only is it winter, but it’s in the peak of a terrible pandemic. And you want to talk about wellness? Is that some kind of sick joke? When the conditions are most stacked against your goal, that’s not when you give up, it’s…

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Bloat

BY ED FELIEN In ancient China, the state apparatus was 3,000 years old when the student revolts on May 4, 1919, began the Nationalist revolution that eventually overthrew the emperor. The bureaucracy was so far removed from the people that they spoke a different language. They had contempt for the…

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Holidays are holy

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,” Joni Mitchell famously sang. I have been thinking about the many local delights that are gone, or may be soon. In 2016 I was still working for Heart of the Beast Theatre. We put on “La Natividad”…

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The slab

BY TONY BOUZA On Nov. 28, 2020, The New York Times reported the discovery of a 12-foot steel monolith in the desert called Red Rock Country, Utah. It described it as evocative of Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In that film primates howl around an unexplained monolith.…

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