BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE In an article about another cemetery, local journalist Andy Sturdevant remarked that in his opinion, “The most profound meeting of public space and private lives is in our cemeteries.” And indeed, it turns out that a major inspiration for noted 19th century landscape architect Frederick Law…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE March was a dizzyingly busy month for Twin Cities progressives, and it’s going to get even more intense in April and May. Even though admittedly the DFL cannot always claim to be progressive, still a lot of progressive folk can be found there, especially in March…
BY MICHAEL LIVINGTON The Minnesota Peace Action Coalition (MPAC), a coalition of peace and anti-war groups in the Twin Cities, is organizing a protest on Sunday, April 15, as part of national spring anti-war actions taking place around the U.S. The demonstration begins at 1:30 p.m. with a gathering at…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Way too many people don’t take teachers seriously. Teachers have massive educational requirements, several hundred years of history as one of the major recognized professions, and they provide a service so valuable to the health of society and the needs of the economy that even in…
BY TONY BOUZA That is, according to Hamlet, the question. As a naturalized citizen I feel it is something we must all ask ourselves. At the very least it becomes a sovereign exercise in introspection. The life unexamined … In a very complicated equation, it finally became clear to me…
BY JANICE F. BROOKS My name is Janice F. Brooks. That’s the name I was given at birth but my new name is: PARANOID SCHIZO INCAPABLE ERASED AND DEAD. Today’s topic is toxic shame. I was born normal. I had my first psychotic episode in 2006. I was incapable of…
BY ED FELIEN It happened in less than a minute. I got on the elevator at City Hall on the third floor to go down to the parking garage. Jack Baker got on with me. Jack had been president of the university student association, a very out gay. He’d just…
BY ED FELIEN He’s their useful idiot. They’ve been playing him for 30 years. In March of 1986, Dubinin, the Russian Ambassador to the U.N., with his daughter, went up to the Trump Tower to meet Trump. According to his daughter, in an article for Komsomolskaya Pravdanewspaper, he told Trump,…
You will be asked to vote on the confirmation of Susan Segal for city attorney at the City Council meeting March 30. Even Segal’s most severe critics would agree with you that she is intelligent, well versed in the law and has been a good and faithful servant to the…
BY STEPHANIE FOX Everyone in Minneapolis recognizes the large, elegant neoclassical building facing Hennepin Avenue near 23rd Street. Temple Israel, housing Minnesota’s oldest Jewish community and the state’s largest Jewish congregation, is more than an architectural landmark. It is a cultural and religious one as well. Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman leads…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Merlins Rest 3601 E Lake St 612-216-2419 merlinsrest.com www.facebook.com/pages/Merlins-Rest/43488676171 Merlins Rest is a Longfellow mainstay and one of four area “pubs” that offer an interpretation of British and/or Irish food along with the beers and booze. Merlins Rest’s main claim to fame is its impossibly huge…
BY POLLY MANN What can be done with guns? In 2012 after the rampage shooting of 20 school children and six educators, in Newtown, Conn., Connecticut lawmakers passed some of the toughest gun measures in the country: 1) expanding an existing ban on assault weapons; 2) prohibiting the sale of…
BY ED FELIEN One of my more ambitious projects was to try to take over the electric company. It had all the romantic allure of Castro and Che sweeping down from the hills to take over a radio station and declare the Revolution. In Minnesota more than 146 municipalities owned…
BY TONY BOUZA I first heard the word a couple of years back. Its utterer seemed to be in possession of some unique verity. Profound. I was on my annual, solo pilgrimage to Cape Cod, where I’d spend January in splendid isolation. A friend—Jeff—called and said he had a video…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Fika Cafe American Swedish Institute 2600 Park Ave. 612-871-4907 fikacafe.net Fika (the name means coffee break in Sweden) is the hypermodern, innovative and esthetic cafe, bakery and cocktail bar of the American Swedish Institute, which has won accolades under all three of its chefs since its…
