Letters to the Editor
December 2001

The weather is changing. In fact it was warmer in the last decade than in any decade since accurate weather records have been kept. Small islands around the world are starting to flood and disappear. In a few short years the flood waters in southern Florida will take a little longer to recede.
Some think a warmer Minnesota will be cool. Norm Coleman must be one of those optimists. When we should be planning for a global calamity, when we should be thinking about millions of people migrating to this area in an attempt to escape the heat, when we should be spending our money and our resources on renewable and alternative energy technology that doesn't heat and pollute our planet, our St. Paul leader thinks an ever bigger baseball stadium would be good idea.
Tell us oh most wizened one, great traitor to the democrats, traitor to the farmers and laborers and now great prince of the plutocrats, what other great ideas have you brought to us from the East. Please tell us dim Midwesterners what is best for our state.
Don Johnson

Marimar revisited

Thank you for the fine article about the new restaurant in the Nokomis East neighborhood—specifically at 34th Ave. S. and E. 50th St. Just one change: the name is spelled Marimar. This name is derived from the first names of the owners and chefs: Marcy Alfronsi and Mary Cashman. Just thought you’d like to know.
Herb Weyrauch

While the month of October seems to be the time to share ghost stories, “Ghostwalking at the Gathering Grounds” are not ones that I would like to recall. It seems Mr. Cabbage has confused an overhaul clean-up of the space with it being wasted and motionless.
I was never so glad to see a business exit our neighborhood. Living only three blocks away, my husband and I knew the coffee shop well. Who wants to remember the trashy bathtub filled with dirt parked on the corner of 50th and 34th? Marimar Cafe has done wonders for the corner, inside and out.
It is an exaggeration to say that an abundance of people hung out there. Every time I grabbed a coffee it was the same five people. It seemed at any time of the day, people took orders to go. The dusty decor that smelled of dirt wasn’t the most appetizing. Nasty, moldy couches to sit on? No thank you.
Walking through the coffee shop, one would swear it was someone’s run-down day care instead of a business. No wonder the transition between businesses was so long. The cleanup alone must have been a nightmare.
During the last days of the Gathering Grounds, my husband had an interesting conversation with the owner. She had been fuming for months on how “the new cafe would create so much garbage for the neighborhood.” My husband replied “At least they won’t be putting everything in to-go containers.” Talk about garbage!
I believe there’s a reason why the coffee shop no longer exists. They lost their business, and their last ditch efforts to get the neighborhood to boycott the cafe were tacky. Not everyone is in AA. I’m postive that Marimar Cafe is going to be the much-needed breath of fresh air our neighborhood needed.
If the Southside Pride is going to be a source of information for the neighborhood, I would appreciate it if they would not print such slighted views.
Jennifer Crouch

Follow San Fran’s lead

Leave it to the enlightened, progressive and revolutionary people of San Francisco to vote for a $100 million dollar bonding bill that will finance the installation of solar and wind energy technology in their city. The bill was passed with a whopping 72 percent of the vote.
One of the latest generation of wind powered electric generators will produce $100,000.00 worth of electricity in one year on less than a 1/4 acre of land. The land can still be used for garden or one or two story buildings, parking lots or what have you. These wind powered machines can produce electricity cheaper or as cheap as our filthy, obsolete and cancerous oil and coal fueled power plants. These are not the windmills that slice and dice the local bird population as some of the last generation of wind powered generators were accused of doing just a few years ago. These machines lumber slowly and gracefully in all variety of winds. Money doesn't flow out of the state for nuclear or fossil fuels but more important, Minneapolis takes a giant step in slowing the imminent global warming calamity.
With the two new Green Party council members and a Mayor-elect who promises green progress, I envision something like the San Francisco initiative happening here. Some of these gentle giants installed somewhere in the downtown area, along the river or maybe somewhere in the western corridor of Minneapolis would be a kind of kinetic sculpture tourists might find interesting. Let’s not lag behind on this exciting revolution. Who knows? Maybe one of the oilmen in the White House will come here someday, give a speech under one and “wear it in the worlds eyes as if he’d wrought it.”
Don Johnson

Marimar revisited

Thank you for the fine article about the new restaurant in the Nokomis East neighborhood—specifically at 34th Ave. S. and E. 50th St. Just one change: the name is splled Marimar. This name is derived from the first names of the owners and chefs: Marcy Alfronsi and Mary Cashman. Just thought you’d like to know.
Herb Weyrauch

While the month of October seems to be the time to share ghost stories, “Ghostwalking at the Gathering Grounds” are not ones that I would like to recall. It seems Mr. Cabbage has confused an overhaul clean-up of the space with it being wasted and motionless.
I was never so glad to see a business exit our neighborhood. Living only three blocks away, my husband and I knew the coffee shop well. Who wants to remember the trashy bathtub filled with dirt parked on the corner of 50th and 34th? Marimar Cafe has done wonders for the corner, inside and out.
It is an exaggeration to say that an abundance of people hung out there. Every time I grabbed a coffee it was the same five people. It seemed at any time of the day, people took orders to go. The dusty decor that smelled of dirt wasn’t the most appetizing. Nasty, moldy couches to sit on? No thank you.
Walking through the coffee shop, one would swear it was someone’s run-down day care instead of a business. No wonder the transition between businesses was so long. The cleanup alone must have been a nightmare.
During the last days of the Gathering Grounds, my husband had an interesting conversation with the owner. She had been fuming for months on how “the new cafe would create so much garbage for the neighborhood.” My husband replied “At least they won’t be putting everything in to-go containers.” Talk about garbage!
I believe there’s a reason why the coffee shop no longer exists. They lost their business, and their last ditch efforts to get the neighborhood to boycott the cafe were tacky. Not everyone is in AA. I’m postive that Marimar Cafe is going to be the much-needed breath of fresh air our neighborhood needed.
If the Southside Pride is going to be a source of information for the neighborhood, I would appreciate it if they would not print such slighted views.
Jennifer Crouch