Bloat, and more bloat
BY TONY BOUZA [On Sunday, July 29, The StarTribune reported: “Arradondo told reporters after a meeting of the City Council’s public safety committee that he wanted to add 400 more street officers by 2025 in order to keep pace with attrition and population growth. “Last week, Arradondo shared a startling…
Letter to the Editor:Contrast between real world and the movies
The May 2019 Southside Pride carried an article by Tony Bouza in which he considers the film “Leviathan, or The Death of Stalin” as an accurate assessment of Russia, and he extends this assessment to Cuba and Venezuela and compares these countries with Scandinavia. Chief Bouza praises Scandinavia for promoting…
Good Morning, Bloomington Avenue!
DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE This article is about good health, mental health—and breakfast. Obviously, these things are quite interconnected. We had a very fun Sunday morning breakfast at Hot Plate, a diner on Bloomington Avenue and 52nd Street. Hot Plate has been around for over a decade, having been started by…
Notes from the desk of peace activist Polly Mann (b. Nov. 19, 1919)
How the world works
BY RICHARD TAYLOR In his book “The Grand Chessboard,” Jimmy Carter’s former National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote, with refreshing candor, “The three grand imperatives of imperial geo-strategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians…
TRIPARTITE
TRIPARTITE brings together three distinctly different “street artists” to share the gallery walls at Modus Locus. In this exhibit, each artist brings their own unique perspective to their somewhat elusive public art endeavors. GROE’s body of work embodies and reveals the relationships active graffiti participants encounter: the bold, colorful, calculated…
You can work for climate justice
BY ALLISON ANDRADE The U.N. warns that the world is “on course to exceed the temperature threshold” of warming, meaning another 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) above that set out in the Paris climate agreement. Many cities and community organizations in our country have set out to hold themselves…
Better transit needs better roads
BY JOHN CHARLES WILSON There are internet forums where people discuss every issue under the sun. Yes, even obscure subjects like public transit have their own online discussion groups. And, as you can guess, many people in those groups have the “transit vs. roads” or “transit vs. cars” misconception. Interestingly…
MN350 meets with Cargill executives
Members of the MN350 Solutions Committee met with Cargill executives on July 11 to make them aware of changes they could make to benefit the environment. When the activists arrived at Cargill corporate headquarters in Wayzata, they were not allowed to enter the building but rather were escorted by security…
Spotlight on Saint Paul’s Highland Park
Boulder Dam is down!
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Bouza & the Subtle Art of Losing
Hello Ed, Mr. Tony Bouza, The subtle art of losing, does a good job of describing the cause of government bloat. A government official who is “a wonderful man -flattering, generous, thoughtful, knowledgeable and altogether a real pleasure to be with,” who tolerates a bloated bureaucracy. An official who allows…