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…
BY ED FELIEN That’s what it sounds like, “Git outta here!” The Planning Commission last month just approved zoning changes that will ultimately mean the removal of communities of color and those of us who live in the inner city in affordable housing and replace us with Young Urban Professionals…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE This holiday season, I am contemplating redemption. I am initially inspired by a nontraditional modern Christmas carol by Bruce Cockburn, dating from an album released in the early 1990s, “Cry of a Tiny Babe.” The chorus proclaims, “Redemption rips through the surface of time in the…
BY EARL NETWAL Prior to being elected to the City Council in 1973, I was an elected and active member of the Minneapolis Model City Planning and Policy Board, which was made up of citizen representatives elected by precincts within the Model City area (a broad area roughly between Cedar…
BY KATHRYN KELLY On Nov. 15, an exhibit debuted at The White Page at East 34th Street and Cedar Avenue South in Minneapolis (https://the-white-page.org/). Called “Final Report—Lake Hiawatha—Anthropocenic Midden Survey,” it displays a large collection of trash collected from Lake Hiawatha in South Minneapolis. This collection of trash has been…
BY TONY BOUZA Once a guy gets to my age, he needs to ask himself whether he’s ever engaged in sexual harassment, in any form: “An unexamined life . . . “ Well? After a mental search, I remembered. It was August 1994. Erica was selling her jewelry at the…
Slow Cooker Stuffing with Extra Veggies This stuffing is packed with flavor and veggies. The veggies are cut small so they don’t overpower the stuffing. This recipe uses the slow cooker to save much coveted oven and stove space for other Thanksgiving goodies. Makes about 12 servings. Ingredients: ¼ cup…
Stacy Beyer, from Johnson, Minn. (pop. 29), with Veterans for Peace member Steve McKeown signing a petition to ban nuclear weapons globally. In doing this, she completed a lengthy statewide effort to collect signatures from likeminded residents in all 851 Minnesota towns—22,681 signatures obtained so far.
