Questions on rent control

I read Cam Gordon’s take on rent “control” [“Competing options for rent control,” Jan. 2, 2023]. Now I have more questions than I did prior to reading it. The options Cam wrote about are vague; they contain no specific examples of how an option would affect renters and developers/owners. Wouldn’t…

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Trump People ‘R’ Us

BY JOHN RYKHUS JR. Go east on the I-94 freeway and jump off onto Highway 29 near Elk Mound, Wisconsin, toward Green Bay. At Chippewa Falls take a hard left onto Highway 178 and then you will see something. Rolling fields are tree-lined with green forest. After crossing O’Neil Creek…

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Passing: Pat Welna

Pat Welna Pat Welna died on Jan. 17. She was 93. She was the last of the second generation to run Welna Hardware on Bloomington Avenue. She was funny and always cheerful, and she made you feel special even if you acted like an idiot with a plumbing problem. She…

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A response to SSPride Ukraine columns

Your coverage of the Ukraine conflict aligns with a pro-war narrative driven by neo-cons and the military-industrial complex. These actors have dominated U.S. foreign policy for decades, proclaiming U.S. hegemony and laying the groundwork for expansive wars (in non-NATO countries Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria). This huge, revolving-door bureaucracy and…

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So far, so what?

BY ED FELIEN Tulsi Gabbard Did you see Tulsi Gabbard’s takedown of George Santos, the pathological liar and newly elected congressman from Long Island, on Fox News?  Tulsi is a lot more complicated and harder to figure out than most of the noise on Fox.  Her anti-war votes and speeches against the…

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Dream Sequences

At the northwest corner of East Lake Street and 36th Avenue South, Elsa’s House of Sleep – a furniture, rug and mattress store – has been shuttered and dark since 2019. But last month a group of volunteers installed “Dream Sequences,” a pop-up public art project intended to beautify the…

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What does the FL in the DFL stand for?

BY ED FELIEN What does the FL in the DFL stand for? It stands for Farmer-Labor. In 1944 the Farmer-Labor Party and the Democratic Party merged. The Democratic Party was small potatoes in the 1930s and ‘40s. It polled in the single digits in statewide elections. The Farmer-Labor Party enjoyed…

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Support Ukraine

BY ED FELIEN As of November, 33,476 Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russian bombs and missiles. And the unspeakable slaughter of innocents continued through Christmas Day and New Year’s. In contrast, the bombing of Guernica in 1937 by the German Luftwaffe that inspired Picasso’s painting killed only 1,654 people.…

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The divide between urban and rural

BY JOHN RYKHUS, JR. Many consider the oft-quoted phrase by Abraham Lincoln, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” as almost cliché. But in reality, it may contain nearly as much relevance and be as applicable today as in Lincoln’s time. Taking into account the social upheaval and political events…

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There’s no place like home – finding “inspo”

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Inspo is not a tropical fish, like Nemo. Inspo = “inspiration” in millennial slang. Thanks for attending my tiny Ted Talk. In the throes of winter, even in the supposedly hopeful post-solstice part, it’s kind of hard to think about redecorating, remodeling, or (shudder) moving to…

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Trip to Africa is life-changing

BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Steve Floyd (not related to George Floyd) has been taking Black youth from South Minneapolis on trips to Africa since the early ’90s. Floyd feels that traveling to Africa is one thing that really works to help them heal from the effects of slavery throughout their history.…

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Lake Street Council rising

BY KAY SCHROVEN The Lake Street Council (LSC), a nonprofit organization, has been around since the late 1960s. It was formed to support businesses that remained on the Lake Street corridor as the escape from the urban landscape to the suburbs continued. This exodus began in the first half of…

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