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Over 1000 people of all ages from all over the area came to the Nokomis Community Center on Minnehaha Parkway to celebrate the Night Before the Night Before New Years.
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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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Keewaydin School expansion & planning for park changes
FROM COUNCIL MEMBER SANDY COLVIN ROY
 The Minneapolis Public School Board recently allocated $16 million for improvements to the Keewaydin Campus (grades 4-8) of Lake Nokomis Community School (LNCS) as part of its actions to accommodate growing enrollment. The changes will be designed to provide LNCS students parity with other schools in the system, starting with a gym large enough for the older grades to play in, space for activities like tutoring that now go on in hallways and closets, just to name a few.
Planning for this exciting investment is happening now, with design scheduled to be completed early this year. A public meeting to gather comments and suggestions from the community is scheduled for Jan. 19. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring of 2012.
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GO VOTE!
BY ED FELIEN
If you live between Chicago Avenue and 35W and between 42nd Street and 50th Street, then you have an opportunity tomorrow, Jan. 10, to elect the new representative for 61B to the Minnesota State Legislature.
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Final curtain: Obama signs indefinite detention of citizens into law as final act of 2011
BY JONATHAN TURLEY
President Barack Obama rang in the New Year by signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens. It was a symbolic moment to say the least. With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country … and citizens partied blissfully into the New Year.
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Some practical proposals
BY JOHN KOLSTAD
St Paul has 70 miles of utility tunnels, mostly in the Jordan Sandstone. Minneapolis also has many miles, plus many natural caverns. This constitutes a vast heating and cooling resource that has largely been ignored. If the existing tunnels were not adequate or available, more could easily be created where needed. This sandstone is so soft that I can remember digging in caves with a spoon and tin can when I was a kid in St. Paul. This layer is 100 to 150 feet thick under our Cities. We are sitting on an energy gold mine.
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Folwell to reopen in 2013
BY ED FELIEN
When I went to Folwell in the early 1950s, it was a seventh through ninth grade junior high school. It was a feeder school to Central High School, South and Roosevelt. It was full to over-crowding, with a student population of at least 2,000. And it was at least 99% white. That school closed in 2010.
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Looking for love in very old places
BY ED FELIEN AND CAROL HOGARD
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A venus statue found near Olbia, Sardinia |
The Dorian invasion of Southern Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa changed the history of the world.
Nowhere is the evidence of this change more apparent than in Sardinia.
Nothing could stand in the way of the Dorian cowboys from the Russian Caucuses in 1600 BCE when they swept into Sardinia on their horse-drawn chariots, with their bronze spears, herding their cattle and goats. They were a warrior cult with a hierarchal social structure that made military command efficient and effective.
They left little direct evidence of themselves. What we know of them, we know only from the influence they had on the local indigenous cultures.
We know in Sardinia that before the Dorian invasion the Ozieri culture was a very peaceful agrarian society. There were no weapons or forts, even when the land became crowded and food might have become scarce.
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Boondoggle Park
BY ED FELIEN AND SHAWNE FITZGERALD
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The Yamasaki building at Washington and Hennepin |
The downtown business interests want to declare themselves a park and have the rest of us pay for their festive decorations. They’re talking about our spending $50 to $100 to $150 million on landscaping improvements.
Their just released “Downtown 2025 Plan” is breathtaking:
“The Nicollet corridor will cover 20 blocks, starting at the Walker Art Center and Sculpture Garden, running through Loring Park to Peavey Plaza, then heading north along a newly green and fashionable Nicollet Avenue to the Mississippi Riverfront.
“Starting at the 5th Street light-rail station, a strip of intense greenery will run for six blocks to the foot of the Father Hennepin Bridge. This Gateway Park will feature a large gathering space just north of the Library and a ‘step down’ to the river on the current site of the Post Office parking ramp.”
The new improvements will “Animate NICOLLET with a curb-less walking environment that shares space with quiet, zero-emission transit vehicles—electric buses or modern streetcars—that offer free shuttle service every few minutes.
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Unemployment rate disguises true extent of jobs crisis
Through its groundbreaking research and tireless public education, Minnesota’s JOBS NOW Coalition has challenged conventional economic wisdom for nearly 30 years. The coalition consists of more than 100 organizational members who come together around the belief that all workers should have the opportunity to attain a decent standard of living. Below, Southside Pride’s Dick Taylor interviews JOBS NOW’s education director, Kevin Ristau.
SSP: What is the main focus of JOBS NOW’s research?
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Longfellow School has become a high school for mothers
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Tatianna Carpenter, Darryanna Williams, Jocelyn Gums, Larencia Bigbear
Photo by Opal Ehalt |
The doors are once again open at the Longfellow building at 3017 E. 31st St. in South Minneapolis. Presently housed in this unique and lovely complex is a growing and wonderful program for pregnant and parenting mothers. These female high school students are earning credit while continuing to balance motherhood, study and often work.
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The NRP Policy Board is dead Long live the NRP Policy Board
BY GARY ARNTSEN
Twenty-four hours after the NRP Policy Board adjourned its final meeting, after 20-plus years, neighborhood representatives Carol Pass and Jeff Strand were elected by the Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission (NCEC) to the newly reconstituted NRP Policy Board. Their current terms ended Dec. 31, and their new terms begin in January and end in June.
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A pastoral letter to the archbishop
BY ED FELIEN
Dear Archbishop Nienstedt:
I was saddened to read your Pastoral Letter to parishes in your Archdiocese denying the blessing of love and joy to God’s creatures who do not conform to your strict definition of marriage. Most people now agree that gay people do not choose to be gay. It is not a vocational choice. The affectional preference of gay people is something they were born with. It is a gift from God. What right does anyone have to judge God’s gift as something sinful and forbidden? Why cannot gay couples have “faith-filled, holy marriages and holy families”? Why is “the union of one man and one woman in a lifelong, exclusive relationship of loving trust, compassion, and generosity, open to the conception of children” the only possible plan of a loving and generous God?
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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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Preparing for the future
Dear families,
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Bernadeia H. Johnson, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools |
This is an exciting time of year. Teachers and students are settling back in their classrooms after winter break and have important work ahead in the last semester of the school year. Our kindergarten students are striving to meet literacy goals, MCA-II tests are right around the corner and many of our students are preparing to start a new phase of their academic careers.
Fifth-grade students are preparing to enter middle school, eighth-grade students are preparing to enter high school and our high school seniors are preparing for college and career paths. Each day, our students are gaining an urban education experience as they prepare to become global citizens.
It is also almost time for families with children in grades K – 11 to choose a school.
Please join us at the upcoming Pre-K – 8 School Information Fair, Jan. 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Hyatt Regency, 1300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis. Families with students in all grades should request a school before Feb. 29.
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January
Announcements
Support Joe
Callahan!
Fundraiser for
Joe’s Legal
Defense
Saturday, Jan. 14, 7 to 10 p.m.
The Home of Sarah Martin
622 8th Ave. S.E., Mpls. 55414
In July 2011, after two Salvadorean immigrants went to Canada to apply for asylum,Twin Cities activist Joe Callahan was arrested, alone in his car, at the Canadian border. He spent a month in Thunder Bay District Jail, before being released on bail. At his trial (not yet scheduled), Joe will face charges of “aiding and abetting an immigration without a visa,” “providing false and misleading information,” and “smuggling or human trafficking.” The prosecuting “Crown Attorney” is seeking a sentence of three to four years. Of course, Joe Callahan is neither a smuggler nor a criminal!.
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January 2012 
