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The School Board voted to re-open Howe in 2013 and create a dual campus with Hiawatha Elementary. Howe would serve third- through fifth-graders and Hiawatha would serve kindergarten through second grade.
Photo from Sandy Colvin Roy's 12th Ward Newsletter
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Can we afford a new Vikings stadium?
BY ED FELIEN
At the legislative hearing Tuesday, Dec. 6, Mayor Rybak again proposed putting up $300 million of Minneapolis taxpayers’ money for the construction of a new Vikings stadium. But, as with last week’s hearing, Zygi Wilf was not impressed. He was so unimpressed he wasn’t even there, again. He sent in Bagley, his vice president in charge of dealing with idiots.
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An open letter to MN Attorney General Lori Swanson
BY ED FELIEN
Dear Attorney General Lori Swanson,
If it was possible for the State of Minnesota to sue the tobacco industry for the damage they knowingly perpetrated on Minnesota citizens and recover monies to compensate for those damages, then why is it not possible to sue the five major oil companies and Koch Brothers Refinery for the health problems and deaths that have resulted from the transmission and burning of fossil fuels when they have known for years the damage they were doing to the people of Minnesota and to the climate and planet?
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Cops
out of
control?
BY ED FELIEN
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” George Orwell, “1984”
The Minneapolis City Council agreed on Friday, Dec. 9, to pay out another $1 million to victims of police brutality. On the night of Feb. 16, 2010, the MPD were executing a search warrant looking for David Conley whom they believed was selling drugs at a South Minneapolis address.
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A warning to the good citizens of our fair city
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN
Are you a law-abiding citizen? Do you obey the laws, the ones you know about, because you care about the common good? Do you believe there’s a reason for our laws and you follow them because it makes your own life and the lives of others safer and more pleasant and so on? Do you care about “humanity”? That’s how I am. Then again, there are certain laws I don’t understand and which I obey just so I don’t get hassled.
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Looking for love in very old places, Part Two
BY ED FELIEN AND CAROL HOGARD
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Carol standing next to a "Cycladic Goddess" statue
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We landed in Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia, and spent a couple of days wandering through museums, looking at sculptures and figurines, but we were anxious to see something real, something on site, in situ (as archeologists say), that had been part of the life of the pre-Nuraghic or Ozieri culture.
We went to a small town on the southeast coast, Villasimius, where there was supposed to be a good example of a domus de janas. Domus de janas was what locals called these little structures. The term means fairy houses. There is something whimsical about them. The one we found by the sea in Villasimius looked like a stone igloo, with a narrow passageway leading to a bigger room. Of course, if you’re looking for inferences to the great mother goddess culture, then the structure could also remind you of the female reproductive anatomy, with a vaginal canal leading to a large womb, and the womb would have been the final resting place for the woman to be buried. There were two large flat stones guarding the entrance that could have been placed in front to keep out small animals while the body decomposed. The structure was quite small, but four thousand years ago people were quite a bit smaller.
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Seven South Minneapolis neighborhood organizations steer toward a bright future
Over the past year, seven neighborhood organizations in South Minneapolis have worked together to explore strategic partnership opportunities that will improve operating efficiencies and ensure long-term sustainability of the sector while improving our capacity to engage and build grassroots leadership.
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Books for Winter
BY ED FELIEN
 .I confess to a magnificent obsession. I’ve been reading “Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution” and I can’t put it down. It’s taken up all my spare time. I don’t finish the newspaper. Who cares about current events when the tragedies unfolding in the 19th century seem so compelling?
Michael Moore, in a recent televised appearance, said, “At one point Marx only had Engels,” when talking about how small the movement for social change was at that time. But Moore was wrong.
Before Engels, Marx had Jenny.
Jenny Marx was born into German nobility. Her father befriended the young Marx and told him about his visions of utopian socialism.
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Synchronized News, Limited Views
BY POLLY MANN
From the WAMM Newsletter
They remind me of the little football figures lined up on the pinball machines––the individual companies that make up the corporate media––identical characters with synchronized movements. That’s the way they’re constructed. The lead article in the October issue of Extra!, the monthly magazine of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, carried a list of the 20 corporations that dominate the media, including names of many unknown to me, plus such well-known names as Walt Disney, NBC, CBS, The New York Times, Yahoo, Time Warner and Hearst.
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Tom Dooley corrects the historical record
TOM DOOLEY, ????
AT MAYDAY BOOKS
Today, Dec. 12, 2011, Pres Obama announced at a news conference, “...after nearly nine years, the war in Iraq will end ...” The President should know better and so should the thousands of pundits and others, especially left/progressives who have also used the term “ nine years of war.”
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Letter to the editor
Dear Editor,
Just read your lead article in November 2011 Southside Pride, “Ray Harris wants your Park Board,” by Shawne Fitzgerald and Ed Felien. Thank you for not giving up on the City.
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The Best Gift for Our Students
As we enter the holiday season and the season of giving, I wanted to reach out to our families and friends in Minneapolis. The best gift that a child can receive is your support in his or her pursuit of a high-quality education experience.
Bernadeia H. Johnson, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
Minneapolis Public Schools
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The “big stick” of people power
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
Getting Congress to act on behalf of the People’s interest—especially when it requires members to take a firm stand against the moneyed interests—can’t be done by saying “pretty please.” Congress is a beast—to make it move, you have to whack it with a big stick.
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Occupy Wall St & the future of the 100%
by Senator John Marty
Although the “Occupy Wall Street” movement’s message has been criticized for being unclear, it is beginning to sharpen its focus around demands that government begin to represent the interests of the “99%” instead of carrying water for corporate interests and the wealthiest 1%. It’s not an attempt to punish the top 1%; most Occupy advocates understand that we are all in this together. They are interested in a society that works for 100% of us.
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December
Announcements
Call County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin
“Hands Off the People’s Plaza!”
612-348-7884, commissioner.mclaughlin@co.hennepin.mn.us
The People’s Plaza is our Plaza—a place for us to gather, to organize and to voice our demands for a society that puts people over profits. Since Oct. 7, Occupy MN/-Minneapolis has carried out a 24/7 protest at the Hennepin County Government Center, demanding a redress of grievances...
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