ELDERBERRY JAM: School Board elections

BY DAVID TILSEN We just had a primary election. For the School Board at-large, we only eliminated one candidate from the ballot, Doug Mann. In November we will have four candidates on the ballot, we can vote for up to two to elect two at-large candidates. We also will have…

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Minnesota Farmer-Laborism: One hundred years old

BY TOM O’CONNELL Ask your neighbors why Minnesota’s Democratic Party is called the Democratic Farmer Labor Party, and as often as not you will get a sheepish grin, and an “I really don’t know.” Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor Party had its immediate origins in the spring and summer of 1918, when the…

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Grand Avenue summer browse

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE We hit up an eclectic mix of shops and galleries all along the 3.5 mile stretch of Saint Paul’s Grand Avenue on a hot summer day in early August. The methodology was to start at an arbitrary point near the western end of the Avenue and…

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What’s happening with Lake Hiawatha?

BY ED FELIEN At its meeting July 25, the Park Board finally responded to a question from its Lake Hiawatha Community Advisory Committee. The CAC asked whether future plans for Hiawatha could include an 18-hole golf course. The Board answered: “The Board of Commissioners intends for the CAC to bring…

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Unintended consequences

BY TONY BOUZA I came late to the Law of Unintended Consequences, usually believing—naively, as it turned out—that the results of our actions were what folks usually intended. Gradually I came to recognize that the corruptions and abuses of Netanyahu actually lent support to Anti-Semites hungry for evidence of Jewish…

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A meditation on Leonard Bernstein and South Minneapolis

BY BRADLEY GREENWALD Like many of you, I’d imagine, this South Minneapolitan’s inner monologue is interrupted by frustrations. While ripping out invasive bellflower on the boulevard, giving a Paddington stare to the redlining commuters 10 feet away tearing down Park Avenue and wishing he had a rock to throw, thoughts…

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FINDING MY WAY: I am Lord of the Rings

BY ASHLEY GRAY Thoughts on the ring of power by a schizophrenic mind. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is in many ways my life. I am Smeagol before I came down with symptoms of schizophrenia. Smeagol was human. Fully human. Smeagol came upon the Master Ring of power. The…

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Franklin Ave Open Streets a pageant of wealth

BY STEPHANIE FOX Highlights of a Minneapolis summer are the Open Streets festivals, held all over the city over the course of the season. The city temporarily closes blocks and blocks of main streets to traffic, allowing pedestrians, bike riders, skaters and skateboarders to roam freely, visiting booths from nonprofits,…

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Fourplexes will sink too

BY DEANNA BOSS It’s election season but it’s not candidate yard signs dotting the streets of Minneapolis—it’s signs advocating for certain positions on issues. The “Save Hiawatha Golf Course” are most popular in my neighborhood, but now I’m seeing the red and white “No Bulldozers” taking a stand against the…

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Lyndale Avenue in stasis and change

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE As I was on my way to check out Encore Music, I had to walk through a deep mud patch on the sidewalk, because some heavy construction was going on. It seemed to be one of the stately old mid-size houses that liberally dot Lyndale all…

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