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Photo by Sally Lieberman
Supporters of the Fairview pool gathered outside the hospital Thursday afternoon. |
Fairview to close therapy pool
BY CHRISTINE SIKORSKI
Many users of Fairview-Riverside’s therapeutic pool were shocked by a letter they received mid-January informing them of Fairview’s plan to close the pool permanently on Feb. 26, 2010. Among patients currently using the pool, which has operated for 52 years, some are recovering from short-term injuries or illness, while others, diagnosed with such chronic conditions as arthritis, fibromyalgia, degenerative disc disease and chronic pain, have relied upon the pool for five, ten, even 20 years to manage their conditions.
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Dave Bicking censured by CRA chair
BY ED FELIEN
 Civilian Review Authority (CRA) member Dave Bicking was censured by CRA Chair Don Bellfield at their meeting Feb. 3. Bellfield wrote a letter to Bicking asking him to resign as a member of CRA if he spoke out against the reappointment of Police Chief Tim Dolan at a public forum on March 3. On a vote of 5 to 2, the CRA board supported Bellfield.
Bellfield sent his letter to the mayor and all the members of the City Council. In it he said, “”With Mr. Bicking publicly stating his opposition to the reappointment of
Chief Dolan, he has again put the CRA in a position where our mission, credibility and integrity are brought into question.”
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Reclaiming Coldwater
BY SUSU JEFFREY
The process of converting Coldwater Spring from a Cold War industrial research site back into prairie oak savanna has moved to the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) point. Since 2003, when former Congressman Martin Sabo landed a $750,000 appropriation to return the 27-acre Mississippi blufftop property to “open green space,” the undertaking has been grinding its way along the federal agency beltway.
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Coldwater development
The South Metro Airport Action Council (SMAAC) supports more compatible land use around the MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport) for many reasons, especially through those projects that would enhance environmental, historical and recreational land use in a densely-populated urban area.
Ms. Jeffrey's note that the Coldwater Spring area is in a crash zone is literally true, but other areas not designated as such, and more overflown, are at a greater risk of a crash.
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Love letter to the Mississippi
BY TRISH STACHELSKI
The Mississippi River supports 260 species of fish, and 60 percent of all bird species in North America use the river as a migratory flyway. There are 38 species of mussels, 50 species of mammals and 145 species of amphibians and reptiles that call the river and its environs home. (Twin Cities Tours Website 2008)
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Special to Southside Pride
A deficit of democracy
BY RICHARD TAYLOR
Students are taught to revere the Constitution for advancing the cause of democracy, but the most prominent author of the Constitution, James Madison, viewed the matter quite differently. In 1787, during the debates over the Constitution, taking note of England and being aware that greater voting rights would lead to an agrarian law harmful to the interests of wealthy landowners, Madison sought to structure the U.S. Constitution’s checks and balances in such a way that “our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation” so as “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”
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Who are the families Ryan Olander was trying to help?
We are publishing this month a response from the Israeli Consulate in Chicago to the article “Freedom for Ryan Olander, justice for Sheikh Jarrah” that we published last month in these pages. We believe strongly that a resolution to the Palestine/Israeli struggle is key to peace in the Middle East. We hope that our dialog contributes to that solution.
BY RENIE E. SCHREIBER, PRESS OFFICER, CONSULATE GENERAL OF ISRAEL TO THE MIDWEST
Please allow me to present some background, which may clarify the present situation:
About one kilometer north of the Damascus Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem is an ancient burial cave traditionally identified as the tomb of Simon the Just (in Hebrew Shimon Hatzadik). This is a traditional Jewish holy site. In 1876, the cave and the land adjoining the tomb were purchased by the Sefardic Jewish community
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Israel reply to Tilsen
The following is a response from the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) to David Tilsen’s article last month, “Ten days in the Cairo Corral,” about his attempt to go to Gaza to march in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
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Obama’s third war—on the developing world
BY JANET CONTURSI
The lesson from the Copenhagen climate talks is clear: Obama is not only negotiating in bad faith, but is pursuing a destructive war of the worlds: the developed world against the developing world. Copenhagen, by any standard of fairness and decency, was a failure of industrial nations to own their pollution, and a nightmare for poorer countries who expected more accountability from the rich. Instead, they got a concerted effort, led by the United States, to undermine the Kyoto protocol’s legal distinction between developed and developing nations and their respective responsibilities for global warming.
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GLBT marriage approved in Mexico
BY JOhNNY HAZARD
The legislative assembly of Mexico City approved a same-sex marriage bill in December, just three years after having approved a civil union law. Some assembly members linked to the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), the largest party in the city, had threatened to oppose the bill because it didn’t go far enough. They argued that adoptions by same-sex couples should also be permitted. Surprisingly, they were able to pass an amendment that widened the law to include this proposal. Attacks by the Catholic Church and its allies in right-wing parties like the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) came fast and furious, and are ongoing. The PAN is the party of Felipe Calderón, who assumed the presidency after disputed elections in 2006.
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Being a Victim
BY BILL NOLAN
This past week, while on my way to a lunch meeting, I was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light. I told the driver of the other car that we needed to pull over and survey the damage. He drove ahead, further than I anticipated, but still within sight. Finally, he stopped on a side street and got out to look at my car. I noted the damage and asked for his insurance information. He went to his car to get it, or so I thought. As I went into my car to get a pen and some paper, he sped off. My car was certainly drivable and no one was hurt, but my Irish temper was in overdrive! I had been taken advantage of! I was a victim!
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The power of Aphrodite
BY BARNABY DEVITT
The Ancient Greeks worshipped the goddess Aphrodite.
What that means is that the Greeks respected the power that sexual energy can have over people’s thinking. They considered that energy a divine force in all of us. They didn’t actually bow down and worship statues or anything like that. Of course, Sigmund Freud elevated the Greek’s respect to a science that saw sexual energy as the underlying cause of all human interaction.
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Reining in the gods of the Fed
BY Jim Hightower
Here’s a story that reads like the script of an old B-grade monster movie—and it would be comic, were it not so serious. The monster is named “The Fed,” a hydra-headed creature with enormous and destructive power, which it exercises from within the misty confines of a marble cavern that is unapproachable by commoners.
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February 2010 
