Nokomis
Hennepin County’s expensive burner fetish
BY LARA NORKUS-CRAMPTON Energy and environmental consultant Alan Muller recently submitted a letter to Hennepin County, invoking the Data Practices Act, to ask for information on significant financial expenditures and reinvestments totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to promote and sustain our 26-year-old Garbage Burner, HERC. http://www.alanmuller.com/?p=382 His letter was…
Powderhorn Birdwatch “Nature matters”
Notes from Polly
The name of the eminent physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who died on Oct. 24, would probably not be remembered by many people born after 1954. Oppenheimer was tried and denied a clearance by the Atomic Energy Commission after 19 days of secret hearings. Now, with recent reclassification of material from…
Powderhorn poet laureate
Former anti-war activist now pro-war?
Student protests continue in Mexico
BY JOHNNY HAZARD Students at most public universities in the Mexico City metropolitan area went on strike last week as part of the continuing protests against the massacre and forced disappearance of five and 43 (respectively) students of the teacher preparation school in Ayotzinapa, Tixtla, Guerrero. The “disappeared” students were…
Hope at the end of the Rainbow?
BY ED FELIEN “When elephants fight, the grass suffers.” Swahili proverb The elephants have struggled. Rainbow and Cub fought for years over market share at Lake and Minnehaha, but they remained competitive, and each had their share of loyal customers. Then Target decided to open a fresh food section in…
Can King Coal come clean?
A REPORT FROM POLLY MANN It probably won’t receive too much attention but it should: Canada has recently produced the world’s first commercial coal-fired power plant equipped with carbon capture and storage technology. The Boundary Dam plant in Saskatchewan promises to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 90%. The state-owned electricity…
Dinkytown’s new alliances
Meeting with the chief, or not
BY ED FELIEN On Thursday, Sept.18, more than 200 people came to Sabathani Community Center on 38th Street to meet with Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau. She didn’t show. She said she had “credible information from a long-standing community leader, in addition to a number of other sources, about planned…
The fight for $15 spreads to MSP airport
BY GINGER JENTZEN, 15 NOW MINNESOTA ORGANIZER On Monday, Sept. 15, workers at the Minneapolis/St.Paul airport, backed by dozens of community supporters, delivered 1,000 petitions signed by their co-workers to the Metropolitan Airport Commission (MAC) calling for a $15/hour minimum wage. This action, led by workers organized in 15 Now,…
