JUNE 2009 - Current Editions News


	Phillips/Powderhorn Nokomis Riverside

JUNE 2009

RIVERSIDE:


Ona Kingbird, her daughter and grandson outside their home on Cedar Avenue holding signs that say: "Wells Fargo, Where's my bailout? You don't need another empty house!" and "Moratorium on Foreclosures!" Photo by Flo Razowsky

Are Wells Fargo’s lending practices racist?

BY ED FELIEN

According to the New York Times Sunday, June 7, edition, the City of
Baltimore is suing Wells Fargo for racist lending practices that “tipped hundreds of homeowners into foreclosure and cost the city tens of millions of dollars in taxes and city services.”

Local Native Elder fights eviction due to foreclosure—Demands Wells Fargo renegotiate

BY FLO RAZOWSKY

Ona Kingbird is a Twin Cities Ojibwa elder who has taught for 36 years in
Minnesota public schools and prisons. As a Red Lake tribal member and bearer of the pipe given by her father, a medicine man, she has preserved the
culture of her students at Heart of the Earth school in South Minneapolis. She has provided a home for her family, including her daughter and grandkids. But today Ms. Kingbird faces homelessness due to foreclosure on her house.
AND SHE IS FIGHTING!


Demonstrators outside the courthouse be-fore the Rosemary Williams trial on May 26.

Facing foreclosure? Don’t panic!

BY ED FELIEN

If you and your family are facing foreclosure, don’t panic. Stay in your home and call for help. If your bank won’t talk to you, there are plenty of
other people who will. Hennepin County is offering free workshops on foreclosure:

“What happens during foreclosure? What do homeowners need to know? What rights do homeowners and renters have? What assistance is available?

How to survive the depression

BY DWIGHT HOBBES

Find yourself a bit more impressed by the depression than you ever expected? (Not President Barack Obama and all the king’s men can dress this up enough to look like a recession.) Hanging on to your job by a gnat’s hair? Altogether lost your job? (Lot of that going around, these days.) It’s pretty new territory for you to worry—I mean, seriously worry—about money.

American Indians and Palestinians: Parallel Injustice

Their land, livelihood and safety were stolen from them

BY ELAINE KLAASSEN

When people have their land taken away from them, it’s not a political entity that suffers. It’s individuals – fathers, mothers, children – that suffer helplessly. Most of them don’t take part in the talks, treaties, historical decisions, mandates, wars, negotiations … They are just struggling to survive. A few take political action: sometimes violent action, sometimes profoundly spiritual action. What are people supposed to do when they find themselves uprooted as their land is pulled out from under them? As they are stripped of their human rights? As the powers of the world play chess with their lives?

Where is Pawlenty coming from? and where is he going?

BY DAVE PORTER

Our perpetually potential presidential candidate, Tim Pawlenty, just cannot
keep his eyes off the prize. The Republican presidential nomination in 2012 has him hypnotized. Meanwhile, he disregards the needs and standards of the people of Minnesota. The educational system that provided him with a decent education; the safe roads and bridges he needed to get from South St. Paul to the Capitol; the public health and safety systems that enabled his mother to raise his family — none of these have any value to him now that he has received their benefits.

Got Shade?
With a few adaptations, you can still enjoy homegrown vegetables

BY SHARON PARKER

On hot summer afternoons, most of us are grateful for the cooling shade so generously provided by the wonderful canopy of trees that line our streets and often grace our backyards. Until we plant a garden, that is.

Daring bird chase scenes remembered

BY JOHN KARRIGAN

I am still waiting for the waves of warblers, or for that matter, waves of ducks and grebes we sometimes get in our park and neighborhood. I guess it is not going to happen this spring. I only saw two warbler species in the area, Yellow-rumped Warb-lers and Redstarts, and only one species of ducks, other than our regulars (Mallards and Wood Ducks)—a pair of Blue-winged Teal on the lake one day (May 23). I suppose it is a combination of several things: wind, weather and my walks in the park, although I’ve been there almost every day so far in May. Maybe there will be some late, off-schedule migrants or a good fall migration. With that said, there are still lots of things to report.

Goldman foxes in the henhouse

BY JIM HIGHTOWER

Gosh, the federal henhouse seems to be overrun with Gold-man foxes! Foxes from Goldman Sachs, that is—the financial giant that keeps slipping its top executives inside the government to shape federal banking policies. Two Goldman foxes, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, were economic advisors to Bill Clinton, with both ultimately getting the top spot at the treasury department. In those years, they helped craft the financial deregulation scams that enriched Wall Street outfits like Goldman—before the whole, greed-fueled policy crashed our economy.