Columnists

Regular Columnists

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

 


Save Hiawatha Golf Course

BY ED FELIEN It seems nothing can stop them from closing Hiawatha Golf Course in a couple of years. At a public meeting late last month, Michael Schroeder, the assistant superintendent for Planning Services, told an anxious crowd of more than a hundred golfers that the course would be open…

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Shopping adventures on 66th Street

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Southside Pride, well, OK, me, that is I, took advantage of the long Independence Day “weekend” (flexible day Monday, off Tuesday) to visit some alluring businesses that I had heard about lining the mixed residential and shopping hub corridor that is 66th Street, just over the…

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FROM WHERE I STAND: Wealth inequality

BY POLLY MANN According to research on wealth by the Boston Counseling Group, by 2021 only 1% of American millionaires and billionaires will control 70% of the nation’s wealth. Currently more billionaires and millionaires live in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world, with two out of five millionaires…

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Save Hiawatha Golf Course

BY ED FELIEN The Park Board seems hell-bent on destruction. It seems nothing can stop them from closing Hiawatha Golf Course in a couple of years. At a public meeting late last month, Michael Schroeder, the assistant superintendent for Planning Services, told an anxious crowd of more than a hundred…

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Save Hiawatha Golf Course

BY ED FELIEN The Park Board seems hell-bent on destruction. It seems nothing can stop them from closing Hiawatha Golf Course in a couple of years. At a public meeting late last month, Michael Schroeder, the assistant superintendent for Planning Services, told an anxious crowd of more than a hundred…

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DFL City Convention July 8

BY ED FELIEN The DFL will hold an endorsing convention for mayor, Board of Estimate and Taxation and nine Park Board seats on Saturday, July 8, at the downtown Minneapolis Convention Center. There are four leading candidates for mayor: Betsy Hodges is the incumbent. She hasn’t raised a lot of…

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Open Streets 2017—now with more Minnehaha Avenue

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Just like last year, the Open Streets program is putting on eight events on eight separate Sundays through the summer. (Two events, Downtown and Lyndale, have occurred already.) The routes of a few of the events are different this year. Last year the event for East…

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Public art and artists along Cedar Avenue

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Cedar Avenue from the West Bank to Lake Nokomis does not, at first glance, seem to be a cultural corridor. Its houses are modest, its restaurants and other businesses not trendy or pretentious. But nevertheless, it is home to a few unique art spaces and on…

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More war in Afghanistan

BY ED FELIEN Trump is taking the leash off his pitbull. McMaster, the Bush architect of the first failed surge in Afghanistan, has his chance to do it all over again. He’s got a plan to add 3,000 to 5,000 more troops to forces in Afghanistan to settle down the…

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The Beloved Community

BY ED FELIEN There is a hunger in all of us for community. The impulse is older than human understanding. We long to be part of the tribe, to feel the comfort, to know the security, to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We were family, then clan, then tribe, then…

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Fly By Night will capture your heart

BY ELAINE KLAASSEN I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I HATE musicals, but they are definitely not my favorite genre. I’ve heard a lot of people say they don’t much care for musicals, so for that crowd I’d say, “Go see ‘Fly By Night’ at the Jungle…

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Park Board to close Hiawatha Golf Course

BY ED FELIEN According to a memorandum sent out June 8: “MPRB staff has considered the potential of a 9-hole golf course, but has determined 9-hole golf is not financially viable at this course. As a result, the options for use of the property in a reduced pumping scenario no…

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The Co-op way of business

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE When Sean Doyle, general manager of Seward Co-op, gets me on the phone, he agrees with me that Seward Co-op is currently the biggest news item on Franklin Avenue. It all happened very quickly, with little warning, so the board and managers have understandably been busy,…

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“Deja vu all over again”

BY TONY BOUZA “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” — George Santayana Metempsychosis—the Buddist theory of transmigration of spirit-lives.  The spirit of Charles Stenvig (remember him?) has landed on Chief Janee Harteau.  How deliciously ironic. In 1980 I was hired to exorcise the spirit of…

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