Nokomis

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE On St. Paul’s Grand Avenue, along a route noted for upscale markets, high concepts and trendy boutiques, is a store that so easily holds its own, you would never suspect its secret. Despite being a model of retail excellence, this store and others in its chain…

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BY ED FELIEN Gaza has been Arab since the dawn of civilization.  The city of Gaza was the home of the Philistines at the time of Moses.  It was an Egyptian city with an Egyptian religion and social customs.  According to the Torah the Arabs wouldn’t let the Jews pass…

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BY STEVE HUNEGS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR “Friends in need are friends indeed.  Here tonight, we are friends indeed.” It is worth recalling this exhortation by Governor Mark Dayton at last week’s Israel community gathering when reading Ed Felien’s recent column on the ongoing conflict between Israel, a liberal western democracy, and…

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BY TAMAR MYERS Banks must release more data on Minneapolis mortgage loans in order to truly investigate alleged race-based discrimination in housing loans, a July 23 City Council committee meeting starkly revealed. University of Minnesota law professor Myron Orfield presented his report entitled “Twin Cities in Crisis: Unequal Treatment of…

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BY CHARLEY UNDERWOOD As I read and write about food security issues, I often come across stuff by survivalists, or “preppers” as they are sometimes called.  They are a group of mostly individualists who store food, grow food and often have a lot more faith in guns and weaponry than…

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BY RAINA GOLDSTEIN BUNNAG The State Fair isn’t usually a place people go to eat a healthy meal.  When a quick search for “Minnesota State Fair” and “salad” delivered the result “Jell-O Salad Ice Cream,” I knew this article wouldn’t be easy to write.  Yet, I’m here to prove that…

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BY CARLA WALDEMAR Blackbird 3800 Nicollet Ave. S. 612-823-479 www.blackbirdmpls.com Yes, once in a while, truth in advertising does prevail. Perhaps the Gold Standard is Blackbird cafe’s promise: “Our goal is to make Minneapolis yummier by offering a high quality meal at a good value.” And what they neglected to…

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The E Minnehaha Parkway Resurfacing Project, from 27th Ave. to 38th Ave., will begin Aug. 12. The westbound portion will begin after the eastbound is substantially complete. The intersections at 38th Ave. S. and 39th Ave. S. will remain open to traffic. It will last approximately seven weeks. Detours and…

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BY DEB RAMAGE It smells like the 1980s: a   little bit stale tobacco smoke, a little bit unwashed dog. This is appropriate, I guess, because this same record    store with a different name (Oarfolkjokeopus, a very different name) was the high tide point of the Minneapolis music scene  during a…

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BY DWIGHT HOBBES It’s hard to find a more authentic cross section of South Minneapolis’ cultural diversity in one place at one time than the annual Hosmer Library Talent Show, which this month enjoyed its 16th year.  This is not, by the way, a contest where you come to try…

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BY ED FELIEN As of the first of July, 750 “advisers” are going back into Iraq to help stop ISIS from advancing on Baghdad.  The New York Times reported June 26 that more than 1,000 private security guards will go to Iraq to protect those advisers.  That’s in addition to…

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BY JOHN KARRIGAN The weather has not been as odd as many other months lately so I guess I will have to write about something else, like the Miracle of Birth. Oh, I could do that! On July 2, I saw a moderate sized Painted Turtle laying eggs near the…

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Kim Carrier of Hairesy Salon, 3749 Bloomington Ave., has a part-time hobby and a full-time devotion.  She has founded The Pet Project to supply dog food to food shelves so that hungry people won’t have to choose between feeding themselves and feeding their dogs.  It is estimated that it costs…

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BY TAMAR MYERS It’s strange to have rows of sleek DVD cases be an object of nostalgia, but for those who haven’t set foot in a video rental store for years, visiting The Movies on 35th Street is almost like returning to a simpler time. It’s exactly like the video…

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