BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE In 2008, at age 55, I lived in a small town in England. I had recently been diagnosed with high blood pressure, and my blood glucose and cholesterol numbers were high too, though not demanding treatment. I started an exercise regimen at a private gym in…
BY TONY BOUZA By 1975 women were entering police ranks in great numbers. They’d been piling up at the gates for years and then the dam broke. I am very proud of my role as an expert in demolishing the barriers. The Southern Poverty Law Center sued to eliminate the…
Dear Ed Felien, Deb Keefer Ramage, and Dave Tilsen: I saw the heading “Celebrate Mayday,” so of course I had to pick up this issue: The November 2019 Nokomis edition. I am glad that you wish to see Mayday celebrations continue, and that you wish to uphold the Free Speech…
BY KATHRYN KELLY How does the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board get what they want? One way is to twist and change input from their Community Advisory Committee (CAC) members to suit their agenda. And, according to Commissioner AK Hassan, referencing the 2020 budget, it is also through “a series…
BY ED FELIEN Obnoxious plutocrats and Donald Trump have given golf a bad name. That’s too bad, because it really has an honorable history. It’s probably the oldest game played with a stick and a ball. Our ancestors in Egypt, thousands of years before they crossed the Sinai Desert into…
BY ELINA KOLSTAD The other day while crossing the street with my family (including my 2-and-a-half-year-old) an oncoming car slowed to a stop. The car behind that one, however, sped up and aggressively passed the first car on the right. Luckily, my family had just made it to the opposite…
BY FRANCIS X. KRONCKE “Your sacrifice in fighting against the war in Vietnam defined your life.” Someone recently wrote that to me, and it is true. “Sacrifice”—I’m not sure about that word. At the time, I was young (mid-20s), now I’m old (mid-70s). Like the guys (some gals) who went…
BY LAURIE SAVRAN When Ram Dass (formerly known as Richard Alpert, sometimes known as RD), died on Dec. 22, 2019, at age 88 in Maui, I had recently returned from Maui, where I had gone to attend a retreat with Ram Dass entitled “Open Your Heart in Paradise.” People considered…
A Positive Corporate Direction My cynicism about the one-sided motives that corporations display in their transactions is sometimes challenged—not very often but once in a while. That happened yesterday when I was reading The New York Times. The headline of the half-page article read: “Bringing a Focus on Doing Good…
El Colegio is a small public high school in Minneapolis (Bloomington Avenue and 42nd Street) that has been serving students in English and Spanish since 2000. In 2019, Executive Director Norma C. Garcés was awarded a Bush Fellowship, so she will be leaving the school to pursue further education, while…
BY ED FELIEN What happened? There are revolutionary changes happening in Minneapolis, and I don’t remember voting on them. Robespierre had more of a mandate for his Reign of Terror than Bender and Frey do for their changes that are transforming Minneapolis. The city’s so-called “Inclusionary Zoning” has marked the…
BY ED FELIEN Last year the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) District lost 1,500 students, more than 80 percent of them students of color. Enrollment was 45,011 in 2000. Today it’s 35,717. How does the School Board react to this obvious vote of no confidence? They want to eliminate six more…
BY LEX HORAN, RECLAIM THE BLOCK The Minneapolis City Council on Wednesday, Dec. 11, approved a budget that gives the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) an $8.2 million raise, bringing its budget to a total of more than $193 million, while allocating comparatively insignificant funds to preventative and public health programs…
HOLIDAY HOOP-LA Among the many catalogs I receive at Christmas is one from Hammacher Schlemmer. Just why I don’t know. I’ve never bought so much as a pin cushion from them. It’s filled not only with things I can’t afford but even more with things I don’t want. You can…
BY LUCIA WILKES SMITH A joyful party at the Kenwood Isles condominiums in Minneapolis celebrated Polly Mann’s 100 years on a November afternoon with live music, sing-along and rap songs, original poems, pretty flowers, laughter, foods, bubbly beverages and memories. There were SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER fortune cookies, sugar cookies…
