BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE The Poor People’s Campaign (PPC), which began May 14 with an announced 40-day series of actions highlighting all the major causes and intersections of poverty in the U.S., came to a close this month. We attended the last two local, public actions, one in Saint Paul…
BY ED FELIEN The Park Board can stop the flooding of basements in South Minneapolis and the flooding of the Hiawatha Golf Course, and it won’t cost taxpayers a dime. The flooding is caused by the dam/weir at 27th Avenue at the outlet of Lake Hiawatha. It backs up about…
BY TONY BOUZA The prosecution of Justine Damond’s killer will start soon and end badly. Kibbitzing comes naturally to dumb onlookers like me. Getting a jury to convict is gonna be a hard—maybe impossible—sell. After all, the shooter is their protector. He stands between the juror and them, and we…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN I read FB posts too many times a day. I am shattered time and again by the evil afoot in our world. I despair. Then I remember my dear friend Rev. Harry Maghakian, who retired from pastoring Andrew Riverside Presbyterian Church a few years ago, and died…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE We attended a panel discussion with public Q&A and feedback on the Minneapolis2040 (Draft) Comprehensive Plan, hosted at the Seward Friendship Store by new City Council Member Andrea Jenkins on Friday, June 22. This was to be the first of CCM Jenkins’ series of talkbacks with…
BY AMY BLUMENSHINE Remember when the first Muslim travel ban abruptly and chaotically hit the airports? On January 29, 2017, many Southsiders were among those who flocked to MSP with the idea of trying to prevent harm to those caught in the confusion and to protest the president’s action. In…
BY LARA NORKUS-CRAMPTON Look around and it is not hard to see that Minneapolis is being transformed—corridor by corridor, neighborhood by neighborhood. This is a stated goal of the 2040 Comprehensive Plan. We are told that the special permits and upzonings to allow many of these oversized developments are necessary…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Franklin Avenue in the Seward neighborhood has so much to offer: one of the oldest worker-owned co-op restaurants in the world, a bookstore with bicycle delivery, a playwrights’ center, a Somali cafe, a sushi and karaoke bar. But this article is not about them. It’s about…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE The month of May was not very merry, but there was a lot of radical stuff. On May 2 through 4, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief came through town on its disaster relief training tour. The Northland Health Collective helped pre-arrange the venues for the workshops. There…
False arrest and imprisonment creates criminal record The so-called criminal action involving the son of the wonderful woman who weekly cleans my apartment just got out of jail. (We’ll call him Eugene.) He’s about 30 years old and was working as a waiter in North Minneapolis. He’s soft-spoken and smiles…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE K-Bop Korean Bistro 425 13th Ave. SE, Mpls. 55414 612-331-4993 k-bop.com K Bop is a casual “Korean bistro” in Dinkytown, in the ground floor anchor spot of the Chateau apartment building on 13th Avenue. It’s more designed for foot and bicycle traffic, and not surprisingly, given…
We asked candidates for county commissioner for District 4: Should Hennepin County have outreach workers working on the street with the homeless, the unemployed begging at highway entrances, prostitutes and drug dealers? Peter McLaughlin was the only candidate who responded: “Yes, coupled with investments in housing with services to end…
BY DAVE TILSEN We are electing School Board members this November: two citywide candidates and three in districts—two of these districts are Southsiders. Incumbents Nelsen Inz and Said Ali from the two Southside districts are currently unopposed DFL- and union-endorsed and seemed positioned to cruise to reelection. Opponents will likely…
BY ASHLEY THE GREY As a former attorney, I have walked in powerful shoes. Gained respect by the mere title “Attorney at Law.” People wanted to know me. I was asked to sit on boards for nonprofits and odd museums. I had been taught that being a lawyer was the…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN “I’m having an affair with a married man,” my friend Allie, who is a pillar of respectability, told me. “What???” I said. Of course I had to act surprised, but anybody who ever saw her and her husband together would NOT be surprised. Could they ever laugh…
