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Vice-presidential candidate Cheri Honkala of the Green Party gathered with 50 community members on the steps of the Cruz home to protest Freddie Mac’s unjust policies Thursday afternoon. Honkala, a formerly homeless single mom from Minneapolis and the first formerly homeless person to run for executive office, is considered the founder of the housing justice movement in the Twin Cities. Moved to tears, she held her school-aged nieces, who lost their home to foreclosure two years ago, as she addressed the crowd. “My journey started on 38th Avenue when my oldest son was 9 years old and homeless, and on a cold winter night we housed ourselves in an abandoned house to keep from freezing to death on the streets of Minnesota. Now, some 25 years later, I’m back here in Minnesota, and I just drove about five blocks away from here where my sister Anne and my three beautiful nieces lived for 20 years—and they lost their home,” said Cheri Honkala. “Something different has to happen in this country. We are sick and tired of our babies growing up on the streets of this wealthy nation. I will do whatever I possibly can to uplift the struggle of the Cruz family and all the other Cruzes across the entire country.”
Photo by Andrew Meeker
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Mayor tries to sell his budget
BY ED FELIEN
Mayor R T Rybak hosted a Community Forum Wednesday, Oct. 10, at Becketwood Cooperative Living, 4300 W. River Pkwy., to discuss his proposed 2013 budget.
The mayor is proposing a 1.7% property tax increase. He insists this tax increase is half what it would have been without the stadium deal. He says, “Starting in 2013, Minneapolis property taxpayers will be paying $5 million less per year for the Target Center, a facility used by more than 1 million people a year. We transferred the burden of that cost off of the backs of Minneapolis property taxpayers and onto everyone who pays sales or hospitality taxes in Minneapolis every year, which includes many people from outside Minneapolis.”
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‘They cling to guns or religion’
BY ED FELIEN
In the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama committed what was thought to be a gaffe that the Republicans were quick to jump on. He said, in April, viewing the poverty in rural Pennsylvannia: “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
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RIP Russell Means
By lydia Howell
Early in the morning of Oct. 23, after a long struggle with cancer, Russell Means went to join his ancestors from his family’s ranch in Porcupine, S.D. Russell was an inspirational leader, not just for Native Americans but for those of all races and backgrounds who believe that life demands that we be free. As a writer, an activist and a performer Russell touched many people and leaves behind a unique legacy in those he inspired to live free. His message that what government has done to his people would one day be the fate of all people if government was not checked was prophetic and must be remembered.
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Letter to the Editor
Fare for All
Dear Editor,
I was thrilled to read the article “good eats-cheap” about the Fare for All program in a recent article of Southside Pride, but disturbed because it only told half the story. There are two programs that operate within the Fare for All umbrella, the Express program, which operates like a grocery store in that you pick up your purchase immediately, and the host sites program, which operates as if you were special ordering the food. You pay for your package in the month before you receive it.
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Bananas, global warming and the odd goose
BY JOHN KARRIGAN
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| Cassin’s Kingbird |
Once again this month, I could go back to writing about the weather, but I don’t know what the heck to say about it. Locally things have become somewhat better with some rain (and pumping from the aquifer below the park) to raise the lake level and help local trees and plants somewhat. But as I write this, the weather has caused and is causing a major mess in the northeastern U.S. and various other places, with drought still a major issue in many other places including much of Minnesota.
And just as I wrote this, I heard on public radio news (KNOW 91.1 FM) that bananas might become the major source of protein for the world as global warming makes growing rice, soybeans, wheat, etc., difficult or impossible. Well, I like bananas, but I turned the radio to classical music (KSJN 99.5 FM) because I have no idea of what to do about global warming or the other messes the world is getting into.
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Shame in Okinawa
By Polly Mann
“Arrest of two U.S. Soldiers in Rape Case Threatens to Fan Okinawa’s Anger,” read the headlines in the Oct. 17 issue of The New York Times. Instantly my mind returned to the two exceptional Okinawan women I met some 25 years ago who were in the Twin Cities attending a peace conference. Because of them I developed an interest in Okinawa which remains with me to this day. Rummaging through files and what-not, I found an old address book and the name of one, Nobuko Karimata from Naha City, Okinawa. But more about her later.
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The hungry insurgent
BY CHARLEY UNDERWOOD
Gardeners sometimes think of things a little differently than the rest of us. Anyone who has planted a tomato must realize you have to plant them again every spring, because they don’t grow back. Those kinds of veggies are annuals. But did you ever wonder why you never ate an apple that came from Hawaii or Mexico? Most of the perennials we grow, like apples, apricots, peaches, as well as many nut and berry plants, actually need winter temperatures in order to grow and produce the food we want. Even some seeds cannot sprout without spending a certain amount of time in really cold temperatures.
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The “flat-world” yarn falls flat in the MIA’s globalization exhibit
BY JANET CONTURSI
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| Yuji Honobori--Eleven-headed Kannon |
What can one say of an exhibit theme that is based on a book scholars have dismissed as culturally misinformed, propaganda, intellectually impoverished and shockingly ignorant of history?
Thomas Friedman’s “The World Is Flat: A Brief History Of The Twenty-first Century” is the inspiration for the eight-part exhibit, “Art in the Age of Globalization,” at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA). The exhibit deserves mild applause but, apart from being a native son, Friedman has little to recommend him as muse.
“Friedman’s understanding of culture is simplistic and sloppy,” writes anthropologist Roberto J. Gonzalez in the San Francisco Chronicle. “He relies upon analogies rather than analysis, stereotypes rather than social science, and hearsay rather than history.” Does it matter that Friedman is the poster child for the MIA’s globalization exhibit?
Yes, for two reasons. First, the museum has an educational responsibility to the community; and second, the MIA is a “brand name” in the arts community, exercising considerable influence over artistic ideas. Friedman’s book may have made the New York Times’ best-seller list owing to its trendiness and clever writing, but it is full of Western cultural assumptions and questionable economics. By incorporating Friedman’s bizarre ideas into the theme of the exhibit, the MIA puts its stamp of approval on them.
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Hello and Good-bye to Dick’s Metropolitan Carpet
BY ED FELIEN
 Dick’s Metropolitan Carpet is moving off the corner. Dick and Dorothy Pitheon have been running their business on the corner of 48th and Chicago since 1978. They started at 4737 Chicago and then in 2002 they moved around the corner to 809 East 48th Street. They’re moving on Nov. 15 to a new location at 5611 Chicago Ave.
They’ll be having an Open House at their new location from Dec. 11 to 15 with holiday cheer to show their new showroom and new colors. There could be a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Claus, and there will be a drawing for a holiday rug.
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Dear MPS Partners and Friends
Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) is deeply grateful for and humbled by the overwhelming support that the citizens of Minneapolis have given the school district. We believe that this support demonstrates that the people of Minneapolis value our work and have confidence that we can make the improvements necessary to raise student achievement. One of our school district’s sources of support and funding is the property tax levy.
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Watch out for the Speed Trap in Cedar Rapids!
BY ED FELIEN
On the last warm weekend in September my wife and I traveled down to Davenport, Iowa, to visit family and watch the St. Ambrose Bees lose their homecoming football game to the Valley View Vikings. It was a lovely visit, but it was ruined when we got a letter in the mail a week later from the City of Cedar Rapids telling us we had violated its speeding ordinance by driving 67 and 68 in a 55 mph zone (they got us coming and going). We were liable for a civil fine of $150. It was not considered a criminal offense and “payment of the civil fines shall constitute the final disposition of this matter.”
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Courting disaster at Prairie Island
BY ED FELIEN
There was another “notification of an unusual event” at Prairie Island on Wednesday, Oct. 31. This time they said it was the failure of some security equipment.
Xcel officials claimed that no radioactive materials were released and that there was no danger to the public or to their employees. Prairie Island, located about 28 miles southeast of the Twin Cities, generates 1,076 megawatts of electricity from two nuclear reactors. Unit 1 is off-line for scheduled refueling while Unit 2 remains running, Xcel officials said.
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November
Philllips Powderhorn
Community Calendar
events
AIOIC is Now Takoda Institute of Higher Education
The American Indian Opportuni-ties Industrializa-tion Center (AIOIC) recently changed the name of its accredited post-secondary institution from School of Business and Office Technology to the Takoda Institute of Higher Education.
Takoda is a Dakota word meaning “friend to all,” and communicates both the school’s roots in the American Indian community and the idea that all individuals, no matter their cultural background, are welcome to come through its doors to learn.
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| Philllips Powderhorn Religious Calendar |
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EVENTS
Woody or Wouldn’t He? Woody Allen from the Shrink’s Couch
Friday, Nov. 9, 7:30 to 9 p.m.
Minneapolis Sabes Jewish Community Center
4330 Cedar Lake Rd. S., St. Louis Park 55416
Or Emet, the Minnesota Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, will present a program by Or Emet member, cinema instructor and lifelong movie fan Alan Miller on the serious, the sublime, the slapstick and the psychosis of actor/director Woody Allen, including the screening of several movie clips that demonstrate Allen’s unique way of showing murder without the graphic violence.
Visit http://sabesjcc.org/directions.php for directions.
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November 2012 
