BY ED FELIEN What happened? Why did the Democrats do so badly? Was it that white male privilege was threatened by a Black, South Asian woman becoming President? Or was it the Democrat’s refusal to condemn the Israeli genocide of Palestinians? Or was it a general mood of “Throw the…
BY ED FELIEN The first Christmas dinner I can remember is when I was 7 years old. It was in 1945. We drove over to Aunt Beda’s house in North Minneapolis in a 1935 Dodge sedan. She was the matriarch of the family. She raised my dad, his two sisters,…
BY ED FELIEN We just received an announcement that Heart of the Beast is planning to sell the Avalon theater property and move to an as yet undetermined new home where “the new location will be centered on learning and development by providing after school programs, camps, storytime, artist and…
BY ED FELIEN Next year, the city of Minneapolis will elect a mayor and a city council to four-year terms. We understand Omar Fateh, Emily Koski and DeWayne Davis are challenging incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey. We sent Koski this questionnaire, but she did not respond by press time. We did…
BY ED FELIEN You ran a great campaign. You took the right message to the right people, but they just weren’t ready to hear it. White male privilege is a lot to give up. Socially conservative men – Latinos, Muslims, Blacks and Whites — believe their sperm is sacred and…
BY ED FELIEN A super-majority of the Minneapolis City Council issued a Housing First statement of principles and objectives. Finland has a policy of Housing First as a solution to homelessness: first, get them a safe place to stay, then get them a job, and then make them pay rent. Here…
BY ED FELIEN Another month, another probable attempt on Trump’s life. Vance said: “I’d say that’s pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and needs to cut this crap out,” “the left needs to tone down the rhetoric”????? The Trump campaign is built on Fear…
BY ED FELIEN The City Council voted 10 to 3 on Sept. 20 to provide a $1.5 million dollar grant to Agate Housing. Chavez wrote: “Agate Housing and Services recently announced the closing of its 42-bed shelter program and 95-bed board and lodge program at 510 South 8th St despite…
BY ED FELIEN The Museum of Russian Art has a charming exhibit of watercolors by Alexander Viazmensky in one of its backrooms. It’s all mushrooms. His detail, down to the specks of dirt clinging to the roots, is astonishing. The flyer advertising the show has on its cover (unsurprisingly) a photo of…
BY ED FELIEN About the middle of September, Todd Lipelt got called to serve as a juror in Hennepin County District Court. It was a horrific experience. He was rejected for a trial the first day, but he got picked for one the second day. The case was the State of…
BY ED FELIEN I confess, I always kind of resented Joe Selvaggio. My best friend for almost twenty years, Tony Bouza, always said that I was his second favorite hero. I would ask him, “Who’s first?” He would always answer, “Joe Selvaggio.” But I had been publishing Southside Pride for…
BY ED FELIEN You see them standing by the side of the road and your heart breaks. They are begging for money, for shelter, for food. And, maybe, sometimes, they are begging for money for drugs. It’s gotten out of control at 46th and Hiawatha. Nicole M wrote on Nextdoor, “My…
BY ED FELIEN An international contingent was at the Cedar Cultural Center on August 16 to celebrate the release of a new album and a new biography of Cornbread by Andrea Swensson, Deeper Blues: The Life, Songs, and Salvation of Cornbread Harris. Jimmy Jam Harris from LA, US Senator Amy…
BY ED FELIEN Okay, so the Cheapside Carnival Freak show that is the Trump campaign, just got freakier. First, some idiot kid takes his dad’s AR-15 and, at the last minute, picks up a couple boxes of shells and heads off to become famous. He makes it to the roof…
BY ED FELIEN The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw nations between 1830 and 1850. 60,000 people were forced to leave their ancestral homes. Many thousands died on the trail that led from Georgia and South Carolina more than 800 miles…
Columns by Ed Felien