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“I see boarded-up cribs, and I see people in the streets, and I see banks that get bigger and bigger, and it’s the most criminal thing that could ever happen,” said rap artist Chuck D of Public Enemy, speaking at a rally of about 200 Occupy Homes activists in South Minneapolis on Thursday, Dec. 6, before they all marched to occupy a vacant house at 3915 Portland for a homeless veteran who had lost his home to a bank foreclosure. They were able to contact the former owner of the home after a couple of days. He was uncomfortable with the takeover, so Occupy left. They are looking for other foreclosed homes in South Minneapolis that the previous owners wouldn’t mind turning over to Occupy for temporary shelter for people made homeless through foreclosure. Call 612-432-8888 if you can help.
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Election results in South Minneapolis
BY ED FELIEN
There were no real surprises in the election results in November.
Obama carried the state by almost eight points: 52.65% (1,546,163 votes) to Romney’s 44.96% (1,320,240). The leading third party candidate was Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party: 1.20% (35,098), who probably got the votes of disaffected Ron Paul supporters who had captured almost all the Minnesota delegates to the Republican National Convention but couldn’t get the Convention to let their candidate speak in what would have been his farewell address.
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Show me the money!
BY ED FELIEN
Governor Dayton said, “I don’t think there’s any reason for concern right now,” when state budget officials reduced the anticipated Vikings stadium revenue to $16 million for the next fiscal year, down from $34 million. They are projecting that revenues from electronic pull tabs will be almost half what was projected for the construction date of 2017 ($47 million versus $83 million). If the state doesn’t get the revenues it anticipated, then that burden will fall on Minnesota taxpayers.
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Two-year-old child dies in apparent accidental shooting
On Dec. 5 police responded to a shooting involving a child victim in the 1900 block of 7th Street.
Officers found a 2-year-old boy who had apparently been accidentally shot by his 4-year-old brother. The 4-year-old had been playing with a handgun he found in a bedroom in the home. The 2-year-old died in the ambulance at the scene.
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Tom Jones’ images of identity stolen and reclaimed
BY JANET CONTURSI
The images are well known: totem poles, tomahawks and feathered headdresses are symbols we associate with American Indian culture and, more disturbing, with the essential identity of American Indians. But these are mainstream America’s images of Native Americans, and the photographs of Tom Jones, currently exhibited at All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis, ask tough questions about whose notion of Native identity they represent.
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Letter to the editor
World is getting flatter
Dear Editor,
I believe Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat” and the complex process of globalization were poorly represented in November’s article, “The ‘flat-world’ yarn falls flat in the MIA’s globalization exhibit,” by Janet Contursi, on the MIA’s new exhibit.
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Changing her name
BY POLLY MANN
I said good-bye to middle age a long time ago and at the same time I lost some of my powers—especially the power to remember—not important things cracking the window at night or getting to the bank—but where I put something or—who asked me about going to a movie. So it was with Zehaya. When she called I couldn't quite place her but I knew I had heard the name and had talked with her. Her voice was youthful and eager, with a bit of huskiness and energy. "Would you go to court with me next week?" she asked. "What's the issue?" I asked. "Oh, it's nothing that's going to put you on the spot. I'm having my name changed and I need a couple of witnesses who can verify I am who I say I am." I acquiesced, asking myself why I was going along with this. On the other hand it sounded intriguing and I had nothing better to do.
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The David Petraeus affair
Does power corrupt? Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Would the head of the CIA, accustomed to the prerogatives of power, believe he was entitled to make his own laws? Would he believe he was entitled to a piece of the action?
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General Petraeus, a simple sex scandal?
BY DAVID TILSEN
Nothing interests and drives media obsession more than a sex scandal. It’s fun. It’s titillating. And everyone believes it. It also distracts from whatever else is going on.
But none of what we are being told passes my personal smell test.
The CIA has grown and changed significantly over the past decade (since 9/11 and the IRAQ war). These changes have happened even faster under the current leadership of General Petraeus. Its budget has grown over tenfold, and its mission, while still secret, has certainly also grown.
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Rare earths, heavy metals and Afghanistan
BY DAVID TILSEN
Since 2009, The USGS has been mapping, identifying and surveying the potential for replacing the opium trade with mining in Afghanistan. Its preliminary report, released in September of 2011 is astonishing for its detail and scope. In summary, Afghanistan is perched to become one of the world’s major suppliers of materials that our new electronic digital age is dependent upon. The race is one between U.S. multinational corporations and the Chinese government for access and control.
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War in Afghanistan, what is it good for?
BY ED FELIEN
The war in Afghanistan is principally about opium. That’s what we’re fighting for.
From “Drugs, guns & democracy abroad” by Ed Felien, published in Southside Pride, November 2008:
Afghanistan has grown opium certainly as long as recorded history. Opium grew throughout the Middle East. We have evidence of opium poppies worked into the design of headdresses for Greek goddesses long before there was a written record of Greek culture. The British began to control the exporting of the drug early in the 19th century. The Opium War in China in the middle of the 19th century was a result of the Chinese government trying to forbid the British importation of opium from Afghanistan and the Middle East. The British won the war and the Chinese were forced to allow the British to sell opium. Early in the 20th century Sicilians and Italians found the opium through contacts in Beirut and had it manufactured into heroin in laboratories in Marseilles. The heroin was then smuggled into Europe and the United States. The traditional route for smugglers was over the mountains from Afghanistan, through Pakistan, then through Iran, Iraq, Jordan and to Istanbul and Beirut. The Golden Route traveled the entire length of Iran through the northern mountainous region to Iraq.
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The hungry insurgent
BY CHARLEY UNDERWOOD
I have recently thought about suspending this column for a couple of months.
After all, the growing season is over. No more gardening or canning classes. The wild foods are done for the season. There are a couple of excellent conferences coming up, like the Minnesota Organic Conference in St. Cloud on Jan. 11 and 12, or the M.O.S.E.S. Organic Farming Conference in LaCrosse on Feb. 21 to 23. But, basically, we’re done with this season.
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My first Christmas dinner
BY ED FELIEN
 The first Christmas dinner I can remember is when I was 7 years old. It was in 1945. We drove over to Aunt Beda’s house in North Minneapolis in a 1935 Dodge sedan. She was the matriarch of the family. She raised my dad, his two sisters, Edith and Alice, and his brother Lester. It was a grand event and one of the few times in the year when all my dad's family could get together. There were candles on the table, fine linen and the best china. The candlelight made the crystal glasses sparkle.
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‘Lessons Learned’
BY ANDY DRISCOLL, HOST OF TRUTH TO TELL, A RADIO TALK SHOW ON KFAI
For many of us TONY BOUZA’S forever been an enigma. This erudite retired cop and former Minneapolis police chief has blown most of us away with his extraordinary command of the language and the kind of candor that makes most Minnesotans squirm. This is not a state given easily to the sort of directness Tony Bouza’s pretty much always brought to the table.
But, for some us, too, a cop is a cop—and our observations of the police culture, especially as lived inside the Minneapolis department over these many decades has led to some serious distrust of that culture’s propensity for violence, deception and self-preservation, often at the cost of innocent lives. An entire organization dedicated to stopping police brutality thrives in Minneapolis with no shortage of cases to protest almost every week.
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Climate change and political headwinds
BY POLLY MANN
It’s rather like a prophecy that’s come true. It’s not quite as dire as naming a date on which the world will come to an end but the recent freaky weather—the storms, floods, tsunamis and earthquakes—have made believers of many of us—politicians, scientists students and just plain citizens—in climates that “are a changing’.” So we’re paying more attention to the recent U.N. climate control conference held in Doha, Qatar. The newspaper items about it have usually been one or two paragraphs on the inside pages. So here’s my summary.
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December
Riverside
Community Calendar
announcements
Dakota Ride Begins
Dakota horseback riders and support teams gathered in South Dakota on Monday, Dec. 10, for an annual memorial journey to Southern Minnesota. Their ride will end in Mankato on Dec. 26, the 150th anniversary of the largest mass execution in U.S. history. On that day in 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged from a single gallows platform in downtown Mankato in retribution for the U.S.-Dakota War. The horseback ride will grow as it moves east, with more groups joining in.
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‘Funk’ Concert and Taco Dinner
Friday, Dec. 21, 5:30 to 6:45 p.m. (catered taco meal); 7 p.m. (concert)
Living Spirit UMC
4501 Bloomington Ave.
Erroneous Funk, a band of recent South High alumni and friends, will be playing your favorite funk pieces and a few jazzy Christmas arrangements. Freewill contributions for the concert. Call 612-721-5025 for more information.
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December 2012 
