What’s going on with the MPS Board of Education?

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE The spectacular failure of the search for a new permanent superintendent of the Minneapolis public school system is very like an iceberg. It’s a massive frozen thing blocking your progress, threatening your safety, and concealing who knows what further ugliness lies beneath the surface. Here is…

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Queen of Cuisine: Savory Bake House

BY CARLA WALDEMAR Savory Bake House 3008 36th Ave. S. 612-729-1310 http://savorybakehouse.letseat.at/ So … did East Lake Street need a bakery? “We opened on Dec. 18 and I just had my first day off,” declares overworked Matt Okray. He’s the man behind Savory Bake Shop, at 3008 E. 35th St.…

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Pope perplexes Mexico

A review of the pope’s visit in the Mexican press BY JOHNNY HAZARD Jorge Bergoglio, aka Papa Francisco or Pope Francis, arrived in Mexico on Friday, Feb. 12, for a six-day visit. Before his arrival two questions loomed:  a.) Would he meet with families of the 43 education students disappeared…

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Teaching in the Rhetoric Department

BY ED FELIEN After a couple of years in graduate school, and after earning a masters’ degree, I was looking around for a possible teaching position at the U of M.  I heard they were hiring in the Rhetoric Department at the Institute of Agriculture on the St. Paul campus. …

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A leaf flutters to Earth

FROM DICK BERNARD’S BLOG: OUTSIDE THE WALLS My friend Wayne Wittman wasn’t at his Minnesota Precinct Caucus on Tuesday, March 1. My guess is he’d never have missed his precinct caucus. He was always an activist. From his obituary: “Wayne lived every day of his 86 years to the fullest. He…

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Remembering Bill Rowe

William Leal Rowe Oct. 7, 1926 – Feb. 16, 2016 William Leal Rowe, age 89, died peacefully in Chicago on Tuesday, Feb. 16, of natural causes. He is survived by his sister, Patricia Bade, and her family; his daughter, Julia Rowe and her husband, Josh Radinsky; his son, James Weldon…

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The architectural legacy of Hennepin Avenue

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Hennepin Avenue has been a vein of history since before it existed as a named road. Like many other main streets of North America, it follows the course of a walking trail of the Native Americans, in this case a route between what the Europeans called…

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The Star Tribune has run several editorial columns and letters recently about the morass of gun-inflicted violence in which America is mired.  Every suggestion, reasonable or not, for restricting sales or possession of guns instantly generates controversy and resistance. On the other hand, obviously there does exist a consensus in…

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Caucusing for Bernie

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Sort of like the protagonist in “Orange is the New Black,” when the day finally arrived, I wasn’t ready. I was prepared. But turnout—that was the great unknown. As a volunteer, variously called Precinct Captain, Caucus Captain, and finally, Campaign Rep, for the Bernie Sanders campaign,…

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Houses of Worship Directory

Zen COMPASSION CHANTING FOR DIFFICULT TIMES 3212 18th Ave. S. 612-822-9520 [email protected] Baha’i BAHA’I CENTER OF MINNEAPOLIS 3644 Chicago Ave. S. 612-823-3494 [email protected] www.mplsbahai.org Baptist NEW CREATION BAPTIST CHURCH 1414 E. 48th St. 612-825-6933 UNIVERSITY BAPTIST CHURCH 1219 University Ave. S.E. 612-331-1768 www.ubcmn.org Catholic CHURCH OF THE HOLY NAME 3637 …

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Over 50 people attended the Seward Neighborhood Group Community Development Committee meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 9, at Matthews Park and voted overwhelmingly to close Minnehaha Avenue from Franklin to Cedar Avenue.  Hennepin County will be repaving Franklin Avenue between 16th and 21st Avenues this summer, so this was the ideal time for the community to make that change. Sheldon Mains said, “The neighborhood has been trying to get this intersection improved to provide better safety for people in cars, people on bikes and people walking since at least 2000.”

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