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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Topics > News |
Cover stories and featured articles in Pulse that are deemed "newsworthy." You decide! |
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Friday 29 June @ 14:21:24 (Read: 19097) |
Take Up The Torch
by LYDIA HOWELL
For me, Pulse has been my university for becoming an investigative journalist, and for the Twin Cities, it's provided a space for progressive voices. Ending both the newsprint and online editions of Pulse is a huge loss, for writers and for the community.
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Tying up the loose ends on immigraton raids:
Friday 29 June @ 14:19:46 (Read: 20183) |
Who’s accountable and what the hell is going on?
by DENNIS GEISINGER
“There are three things, as I see it, behind these immigration raids,” Travis Thompson, staff attorney for Centro Legal, Inc. in St. Paul said earlier this week: “To force the conversation on immigration debate, to satisfy a ‘messianic’ zeal among immigration law enforcement officials to rid the country of what they see as an undesirable element and just to drive up law enforcement budgets.”
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Letter from Mexico
Friday 29 June @ 14:14:10 (Read: 18830) |
The Mexican League
by STAN GOTLIEB
While it is little known north of the border, there is strong support for both baseball and basketball in Mexico. So far, there is no national basketball league, but Mexico has had a Big Show for years.
Here in Oaxaca, our Guerreros (warriors) are always among the finalists for the league championship and have won more than their share of trophies. With the bottomless billions of native son and local resident Alfredo Harp Helu on the board of Citibank, retired from running Banamex (The Bank of Mexico), philanthropist and culture vulture to draw from, our version of the Yankees does not lack for funds.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Friday 29 June @ 14:02:44 (Read: 18362) |
Government Secrets Past and Present
by LYDIA HOWELL
The CIA just released what was referred to as the “Family Jewels,” documents of how the spy agency violated its ban against spying on Americans, in the 1960s and ’70s. Dick Cheney is resisting a subpoena from the Senate Judicial Committee to turn over documents related to Bush's secret program of wiretapping Americans without getting the required special warrants. The National Security Agency and the Justice Department are also part of the subpoena. The family of Pat Tillman, NFL star-turned-soldier, killed by “friendly fire” in Afghanistan, has fought for almost three years trying to get the Pentagon—who covered up the circumstances of Tillman's death—to release documents. Where accused “terrorists” are being sent in other countries, what “interrogation” techniques (aka torture) are used, and who most of them are remains “classified.”
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Thursday 28 June @ 14:23:48 (Read: 17933) |
Free Expression and Bush's Court
by LYDIA HOWELL
A poll a few months back found that more people could name all the characters on the animated TV show “The Simpsons” and all three “American Idol” judges, than could name all five freedoms protected by the First Amendment of our Constitution. This week's decisions from the Supreme Court about free expression--who has it and who doesn't--ought to be water cooler conversation. In subtle, and in some legal analysts' view, narrow rulings, we're seeing how free expression fares on a court veering rightward.
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Thousands Gather in Atlanta for U.S. Social Forum
Thursday 28 June @ 14:15:19 (Read: 22677) |
(Editor’s note: The diversity represented by this regional gathering of social justice advocates in Georgia presents an important tool for dialogue on the path toward peace and justice. When a female Iraq War veteran sits down at the same table as an Iraqi oil worker, we should pay attention.)
Thousands of people have gathered in Atlanta for the first-ever U.S. Social Forum. The regional gathering is an offshoot of the World Social Forum, a meeting of social justice advocates that attracts tens of thousands of people each year. World Social Forums have been held in Brazil, Venezuela, Pakistan, India, Mali and Kenya. The theme for the U.S. meeting is ‘Another World Is Possible - Another U.S. Is Necessary.”
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Filipinos duped by corporate interests
Thursday 28 June @ 14:11:32 (Read: 17737) |
by POLLY MANN
INFACT, the Nestle Boycott, born in Minneapolis over 25 years ago, eventually declared a victory in its fight against corporations selling infant formula to Third World mothers and disbanded. However, the battle was not won by any means. The Philippines is a case in point. A major health problem there is that only 16 percent of children between four and five months old are exclusively breastfed, one of the lowest documented rates on earth. As 70 percent of Filipinos have inadequate access to clean water essential for safe infant formula, the result is a public health disaster. Every year, according to the World Health Organization, 16,000 Filipino children die as a result of “inappropriate feeding practices.”
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Wednesday 27 June @ 15:01:48 (Read: 19982) |
B-Girl Be--a very different kind of T and A
by LYDIA HOWELL
Lady Pink is slim and appears almost fragile--until this graffiti-artist groundbreaker speaks. Starting at 15, in 1979, she was the only female among about 10,000 young men, tagging the New York City subway trains.
“I didn't know about feminism. Just what I saw on TV—like Marcia Brady standing up. Guys would say I couldn't do graffiti, but all I thought was, ‘You need testicles to paint graffiti?’ All you need is a little bit of courage and a little bit of skill and you're good to go--as long as you can run from police.”
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Shalit’s father expresses hope Hamas is willing to negotiate
Wednesday 27 June @ 14:39:45 (Read: 18376) |
by AVI ISSACHAROFF and JONATHAN LIS, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and News Agencies
Hours after Hamas released an audio message purportedly from Gilad Shalit, the father of the Israel Defense Forces soldier issued a response on the first concrete sign of life of his son since his abduction a year ago.
Addressing the press from his home in Mitzpeh Hila, Noam Shalit said the tape appears to be authentic, although the content was “obviously dictated by his captors.”
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Continuing violence in Gaza
Wednesday 27 June @ 14:26:10 (Read: 13025) |
by AVI ISSACHAROFF and YUVAL AZOULAY, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and Reuters
At least 12 Palestinians were killed and two Israel Defense Forces soldiers were lightly wounded on Wednesday in two separate IDF operations in the Gaza Strip.
Commenting on the raid, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday “we strongly condemn these criminal acts, either in Gaza or the West Bank. We are against violence in all its forms and also we are against launching rockets [at Israel]”
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Tuesday 26 June @ 13:48:36 (Read: 10837) |
Exercising Your Rights At Work
by LYDIA HOWELL
Politicians and pundits refer to “the middle class” as a mantra—all the while promoting and passing legislation that is an all-out assault on those who want to stay in the middle class or aspire to it. This week the U.S. Senate votes on the Employee Free Choice Act, a law that could help level the playing field between Corporate America and the people whose labor actually creates profits—that is, you and your fellow workers. This bipartisan bill, which already passed the House, would remove some of the boss-based barriers to employees joining a union.
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Zombie
Tuesday 26 June @ 13:38:10 (Read: 10673) |
by CINDY SHEEHAN
On the way home from Los Angeles yesterday, my daughter Carly, and I stopped in a store on the Grapevine to purchase some CDs for the longish drive (six hours). One of the CDs we bought was a greatest hits album by The Cranberries.
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What are you doing September 11, 2007?
Monday 25 June @ 13:26:58 (Read: 13113) |
by KATHLYN STONE
Wouldn’t it be nice if all the people who demand health care reform and all those who want to end war yesterday would converge on the Capitol to truly Take Back America? Imagine the assembly widened with those who lose sleep over global warming, stolen elections, the national debt, torture–the list goes on. Imagine the tsunami-force power of those united voices.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Monday 25 June @ 13:20:12 (Read: 10918) |
Liberating Passive Consumers Into Active Citizens
by LYDIA HOWELL
Consider this everyday phenomena. From head to foot, caps to sneakers, people are covered with company logos and designer labels—paying top dollar to be walking billboards. What an ingenious scam to get people to pay corporations to advertise their products. What's even more disturbing is how these consumer goods have become an increasingly significant part of people's identity. The much-touted American individualists are morphing into passive consumers who buy buy buy.
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How did the war begin
Friday 22 June @ 15:24:42 (Read: 13654) |
by ED FELIEN
According to Cross-Cultural Understanding (ccun.org) the Israeli occupation army invaded Al-Qarara village, located near Khan Younis, a city in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, on Wednesday morning. Israeli soldiers posing as civilians were discovered by the Palestinian resistance. The soldiers began shooting and called in reinforcements. The incursion was launched at 1 a.m., June 20, when Israeli occupation military tanks penetrated 1 kilometer into the strip and Israeli soldiers ransacked several homes. The troops arrested a number of citizens. Six Palestinians were killed and several wounded. An activist from the Al-Nasser Salah Addin Brigades, 19-year-old Suleiman Khashan, was killed while attempting to blockade the invading force.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Friday 22 June @ 14:49:25 (Read: 3284) |
Jump-starting an American democracy movement
by LYDIA HOWELL
Congress is debating millions of dollars in funding for a "democratic transition" in Cuba. This is money funneled through groups like the Endowment for Democracy, which are fronts for the U.S. government to interfere with elections, political movements, and economic and social policies in other countries. More than ever with Bush's preemptive war policy, the word "democracy" is frequently applied. Before bombs are dropped on another country, other means are used to "democratize" it, from supporting one party over another to loans through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank—contingent on another country's government cutting their social services or opening up their economy to American corporations.
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'3-state solution' is no path to peace
Thursday 21 June @ 15:28:46 (Read: 2275) |
by ALI ABUNIMAH , a Palestinian-American and the author of "One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict."
Published on Wednesday, June 20, 2007
by www.washingtonpost.com
The U.S. decision to back Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the recent turmoil virtually guarantees an escalation in violence. Abbas has installed an unelected "emergency" government to replace the democratically elected Hamas-led national unity government.
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Carter Blasts US Policy on Palestinians
Thursday 21 June @ 15:14:40 (Read: 2644) |
by SHAWN POGATCHNIK
Published on Wednesday, June 20, 2007
by The Associated Press
Former US President Jimmy Carter speaks during the ninth annual NGO Forum on Human Rights, at Croke Park conference centre, Dublin. Tuesday June 19, 2007. Carter said Tuesday that Ireland is the strongest voice for human rights within the EU.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Thursday 21 June @ 14:56:08 (Read: 3250) |
Corporate-Sponsored Celebrations Aren't Ours
by LYDIA HOWELL
Summer in Minnesota means weekly festivals of all sorts. Two annual celebrations, Juneteenth and Gay Pride, bookend this week. I've loved both ever since I can remember, but in recent years I haven't celebrated them. I wonder how many people even know what inspired these two events.
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"op-eds" by Ahmed Yousef
Wednesday 20 June @ 16:31:39 (Read: 2550) |
by ALI ABUNIMAH
In a quite remarkable development, both The Washington Postand The New York Times today carry op-eds by Ahmed Yousef, asenior advisor to Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the democratically-elected Palestinian Authority cabinet, that Mahmoud Abbas purports to have removed from office in favor of an unelected, U.S.- and Israeli-backed "emergency government."
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Engage With Hamas: We Earned Our Support
Wednesday 20 June @ 16:30:52 (Read: 2788) |
by AHMED YOUSEF
Published on Wednesday, June 20, 2007
by www.washingtonpost.com
GAZA CITY, Palestine -- The Palestinian National Authority apparently joins the list of elected governments targeted or toppled over the past century by interventionism: nations that had the courage to take American rhetoric at face value and elect whomever they would. No doubt some in Washington persist in the fiction that the United States is following a "road map" to democracy for Palestinians, just as others believe the Iraq war has been a sincere exercise in nation-building. Neo-conservative strategists have miscalculated, however, and Hamas is stronger than ever.
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What Hamas Wants
Wednesday 20 June @ 16:30:24 (Read: 2349) |
by AHMED YOUSEF
Published on Wednesday, June 20, 2007
by www.nytimes.com
Gaza City -- The events in Gaza over the last few days have beendescribed in the West as a coup. In essence, they have been the opposite. Eighteen months ago, our Hamas Party won the Palestinian parliamentary elections and entered office under Prime Minister Ismail Haniya but never received the handover of real power from Fatah, the losing party. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has now tried to replace the winning Hamas government with one of his own, returning Fatah to power while many of our elected members of Parliament languish in Israeli jails. That is the real coup.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Wednesday 20 June @ 13:48:17 (Read: 3067) |
Pardons for the powerful ... prison for us
by LYDIA HOWELL
I guess nobody told Dick Cheney's right-hand man: “First of all, 'Scooter ' Libby, when you're a powerful person, it's not the crime, but the cover-up that ends up getting you jail time.” U.S. federal Judge Reggie B. Walton not only sentenced Libby to 30 months, a $250,000 fine and two years probation upon release, for lying to a grand jury and obstruction of justice, but, just refused to let Libby remain free while appealing his conviction. For once, a judge recognized the double standards of the American injustice system and refused to cut the usual slack to a powerful person that ordinary defendants rarely get.
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Turn, Turn, Turn
Wednesday 20 June @ 13:29:05 (Read: 2489) |
by CINDY SHEEHAN
Published on Tuesday, June 19, 2007
by www.commondreams.org
To everything there is a season.
A time for war, a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes, Hebrew Scriptures
I wish I could say I thought of something profound as I saw the president and his wife's picture on that billboard on Hwy 317 in my rear view mirror on my way out of Crawford today. I will be back for the final weekend farewell to Camp Casey on July 6th, but I won�t be back as the owner of property there, or as a leader of the American peace movement.
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Local gay scholars awarded Point scholarships
Tuesday 19 June @ 16:09:11 (Read: 3595) |
Point Foundation, the nation's largest publicly supported organization granting scholarships to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students, recently announced the 2007 Point Scholars. Point scholarships are substantial and multi-faceted; the average annual award is $13,600, and will be renewed annually for the remainder of their degree program as long as the student maintains academic standards. Point runs a formal mentoring program that matches each scholar with a successful professional in a field related to that particular scholar's area of interest. Finally, Point also hosts a leadership conference each year for all current scholars.
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DIVISION AMONG PALESTINIANS
Tuesday 19 June @ 15:49:45 (Read: 2368) |
~ ALI ABUNIMAH
As a Palestinian, I am appalled that the European
Union and the United States have backed Mahmoud Abbas'
so-called "emergency government" in Israeli-occupied Ramallah.The Palestinian Basic Law makes no provision for such adevelopment.
Hamas, no matter what one thinks of it, won the January 2006election fair and square. On the eve of its victory, it had already observed a one-year unilateral truce with Israel.According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, Israel killed almost 700 Palestinians in 2006, of whom half were unarmed civilians, and 141 were children. By contrast, Palestinians killed 23 Israelis.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Tuesday 19 June @ 15:30:17 (Read: 3083) |
Panhandlers, Part 2; Illegal to beg
by LYDIA HOWELL
The argument at Minneapolis City Hall came down to whether toughening the already-existing ordinance against “aggressive solicitation” of money—aka panhandling—was about public safety or, once again, targeting the homeless as criminals. Council Members Ralph Remington (Ward 10) and Lisa Goodman (Ward 7), representing Uptown and Downtown respectively, grew increasingly petulant, insisting homelessness has nothing to do with panhandling. Hennepin County's coordinator for ending homelessness, Cathy ten Broeke, initiated a survey of people panhandling—silently with signs—and found that 96 percent of them had lived on the streets for around six years, averaging about $350 a month.
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Olmert to tell Bush:
Monday 18 June @ 16:38:57 (Read: 2124) |
We need to separate Gaza Strip, West Bank
by ALUF BENN
Olmert and Bush will meet tomorrow to discuss the continued isolation and possible invasion of Gaza, according to Haaretz, the largest daily newspaper in Israel.
Haaretz Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is planning to tell United States President George Bush at their meeting at the White House next Tuesday that there is an urgent need to view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as separate entities and prevent contact between them, political sources in Jerusalem said Thursday.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Monday 18 June @ 15:59:47 (Read: 2829) |
 Sports Politics and Dave Zirin
by LYDIA HOWELL
I was a bookish tomboy, often perched in my favorite tree with a book or running the neighborhood with my younger brother and the boys on the block. Halloween pranks and re-fighting WWII in the undeveloped fields edging the suburbs with the boys was a lot more fun than dolls. I wasn't a jock, but basketball was my first visceral sense of what freedom felt like. Today's girls and young women have a lot more opportunities to play sports, even though ESPN and daily newspapers' sports columnists still don't take women athletes as seriously as men.
Progressive sports writer Dave Zirin is a wonderful exception. With unfailing love of the game, Zirin incisively looks at sports through the lens of race, gender and class. He challenges the corporations that see athletes as commodities and have turned sports into a great distraction, where it was once inspiration, intimately linked to the labor movement and fights for racial and gender justice. Zirin is the winner of Press Action's 2005 and 2006 Sports Writer of the Year and will be in Minneapolis, Tuesday, June 19.
His first collection of columns, “What's My Name, Fool?” got its title from a famous quote from boxing champion Muhammad Ali, who's undeniably Ziron's all-time sports hero and often the yardstick he uses to measure the character of today's celebrity athletes. Zirin's just devoted a book to Ali, “The Muhammad Ali Handbook,” which reminds the nation that during the Vietnam War, there was one athlete who risked his fame, fortune and freedom to oppose a war. Ziron also has a second, much anticipated collection of essays out, called "Welcome to the Terrordome; The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports."
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Wi-Fi kickoff
Friday 15 June @ 15:40:03 (Read: 2668) |
by DENNIS GEISINGER
The Minneapolis Foundation, Minnesota’s oldest charitable organization, has been named to administer the projected $1 million a year collected by the City of Minneapolis for its new “Digital Inclusion Fund.”
The announcement was made yesterday evening at a Wireless Minneapolis kickoff event at the downtown library.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Friday 15 June @ 15:33:09 (Read: 2773) |
Honoring the Men Who Made Us
by LYDIA HOWELL
TV ads to the contrary, hardware stores didn't invent Father's Day. A woman, hearing a 1909 Mother's Day sermon, decided to honor her father. He was a Civil War veteran and farmer, who lost his wife in childbirth with their sixth child and raised his family as a single parent. Today, the fathers we hear about the most are “deadbeat dads” or bellowing traditionalists like the Promise Keepers, a right-wing Christian group dedicated to “men's leadership to family life”—that is, men as unquestioned bosses of wives and children. But, for about 40 years, a quiet revolution has been going on, with more and more men from the Baby Boomer generation onward, deciding to be different fathers than the ones they had.
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DIY impeachment—here and around the country
Thursday 14 June @ 14:30:36 (Read: 3358) |
by DENNIS GEISINGER
Representatives of the grassroots activist group Impeach for Peace and the Green Party of Minnesota met with Minneapolis City Council Members Cam Gordon, Green Party-Ward 2, and Elizabeth Glidden, DFL-Ward 8, in a public forum at the Wolves Den on Franklin Avenue last night.
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Ron Paul for President?
Thursday 14 June @ 14:21:44 (Read: 4475) |
by SEAN GONSALVES
I feel such gratitude toward Congressman Ron Paul for his comments during the Republican presidential debate that I just might vote for the guy. You sure as hell don’t hear Democrats talking like that.
A belated, Texas- sized, 10-Gallon Hats-off to Congressman Ron Paul. I still haven’t gotten over what he said during the Republican presidential debate in South Carolina a few weeks back on live TV!
When he was asked if he really wanted the troops to come home, Paul pointed to the BIG elephant in the elephant party tent. (The GOP tent has several elephants, and a few 800-pound gorillas too, but I digress).
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Hypocrisy in the Middle East
Thursday 14 June @ 14:10:13 (Read: 2457) |
by RON PAUL
(Following is an article Ron Paul wrote earlier this year.)
February 26, 2007
Hundreds of thousands of American troops already occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, a number that is rising as the military surge moves forward. The justification, given endlessly since September 11, is that both [countries] support terrorism and thus pose a risk to the United States. Yet when we step back and examine the region as a whole, it’s obvious that these two impoverished countries, neither of which has any real military, pose very little threat to American national security when compared to other Middle Eastern nations. The decision to attack them, while treating some of the region’s worst regimes as allies, shows the deadly hypocrisy of our foreign policy in the Middle East.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Thursday 14 June @ 14:04:27 (Read: 2869) |
Earmarks, otherwise known as bi-partisan corporate welfare
by LYDIA HOWELL
Besides saying they'd bring the troops home from Iraq, Democrats won a majority in Congress by saying they'd end the Republican corruption-- including what are called “earmarks,” pork barrel spending requests slipped into the budget, like Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AL) $200 million “bridge to nowhere.”
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Companion piece to lead story on Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
Wednesday 13 June @ 13:49:13 (Read: 2419) |
Glowing praise about Jack: A 1973 letter from his college baseball coach(Following is a letter from Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s St. Olaf College baseball coach.)
May 31, 1973
Mr. & Mrs. Wayne Nelson
Coon Rapids, Minnesota 55433
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Nelson:
Before the busy summer season sets in, I wish to reflect a bit on our baseball program and your son, Jack.
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Turkish speaker at Humphrey Institute presents her research on human trafficking
Wednesday 13 June @ 13:33:03 (Read: 2933) |
by DENNIS GEISINGER
The modern manifestation of slavery, trafficking of humans, is a one billion dollar a year industry where Europe meets Asia at the hub of Istanbul, according to Dr. Ilknur Altuntas, a judge in the Ministry of Justice in Ankara, Turkey, and a 2006–07 International Hubert H. Humphrey fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Wednesday 13 June @ 13:16:13 (Read: 2946) |
Working Class Hollywood
by LYDIA HOWELL
I've loved the movies ever since I can remember, but too often most of what Hollywood shows is simply a variation of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” The stories of working class and poor people—who make up the majority of humanity-- are too rarely told. Seventy-five percent of roles are for white men, while all the rest of us struggle to be seen at all, much less with our rich complexity. This week's Working Class Culture and Counter-Culture Conference, June 14-17 at Macalester College in St. Paul, got me thinking about class and the cinema.
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RNC Welcoming Committee’s Call to Action
Tuesday 12 June @ 12:39:07 (Read: 2232) |
[This is the mission statement and call to action of the RNC Welcoming Committee, an anarchist/anti-authoritarian organizing body formed to prepare for the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul.]
Every four years, in two very lucky cities, big money gets thrown around while look-alikes from opposite ends of a closed circle step up to their podiums and spout nonsense. RNC. DNC. Whatever. The point is that once the conventions are over, once November is come and gone, once the inauguration is only an unpleasant memory, people across this stolen land find themselves in pretty much the same place as before: a bad one.
And we’d like to offer up a movement--some real, tangible change. Unfortunately, the reality is that we’re rundown at best, hopeless at worst, and though we see liberation shining off in the distance, we don’t know how to get there.
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St. Paul diocese opposes tort reform in sexual abuse cases
Tuesday 12 June @ 12:19:21 (Read: 3550) |
by DENNIS GEISINGER
“That’s right,” said Dennis McGrath, director of communications for the St. Paul diocese of the Catholic Church, in a phone interview with Pulse yesterday. “We are opposed to extending the statute of limitations for prosecuting crimes of sexual abuse. We feel that there’s no need to fix the system that’s already in place,” he said.
McGrath was reacting to questions about a full-page advertisement in last Thursday’s Star and Tribune from a Pennsylvania group called The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP). Titled, “Is It Fair That the Innocent Pay for the Guilty?” the ad predicted “additional 67 million victims of sexual abuse scandals on the horizon.”
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Tuesday 12 June @ 11:59:43 (Read: 2633) |
 Easing the Summer Gas Gouge by LYDIA HOWELL
It's time for the annual summer rise in gas prices. Candidates for president talk in vague terms about “energy independence.” Meanwhile, a fight is breaking out between some state governments (like California, which wants to go further than the federal government and the Environmental Protection Agency does) and Congress on how to address global warming. Automakers continue to resist raising miles-per-gallon standards. Coal state politicians say they've got a domestic alternative to gasoline, liquefied coal—except that this “alternative” fuel spews out twice as much carbon dioxide as gas does. (see two articles at Truthout.org about current energy bills in Congress: www.truthout.org.
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An Interview with Shia Firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr
Monday 11 June @ 13:09:15 (Read: 2414) |
 by Nazr Latif , The Independent
Moqtada al-Sadr, the man Washington blames for its failure to gain control in Iraq, has rejected a call to open direct talks with the U.S. military and has accused the Americans of plotting to assassinate him.
In an exclusive interview the Shia cleric says: “The Americans have tried to kill me in the past, but have failed ... It is certain that the Americans still want me dead and are still trying to assassinate me.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Monday 11 June @ 12:55:11 (Read: 3097) |
 Immigration, part 2: Searching for a middle path? by LYDIA HOWELL
What was actually in the U.S. Senate's McCain-Kennedy immigration bill changed hourly and tried to please everybody--except American workers—and ultimately the bill pleased nobody. It's a good thing the bill died. Immigration policy will certainly be a big issue in 2008 campaigning.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Friday 08 June @ 15:20:20 (Read: 3038) |
Singing Songs of Working Class Resistance by LYDIA HOWELL
Is being a NASCAR fan or listening to country and western warmonger Toby Keith the only markers of “working class culture” in America? Uhhhhh … no.
From June 14 through 17, Macalester College hosts the Working Class Culture and Counter-Culture Conference, where local, national and international activists, artists and academics will gather to re-discover and revive the vibrant arts and organize a 21st century labor movement drawing on a diverse hidden history and culture.
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Antiwar group goes ahead with RNC march plans without City permit
Friday 08 June @ 14:59:08 (Read: 2694) |
by KATRINA PLOTZ
On June 7, activists from the “March on the RNC and Stop the War Coalition” held a press conference in front of the Xcel Energy Center, the site of the upcoming Republican National Convention (RNC). The group announced the planned route for a large antiwar march on Sept 1, 2008, to coincide with the first day of the RNC. “On that day, possibly hundreds of thousands from many different organizations and communities will join together,” said Jess Sundin of the Anti-War Committee. “We will demand: U.S. out of Iraq now; we want money for human needs, not for war. We will say no to the Republican agenda and demand peace, justice and equality for all.”
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Thursday 07 June @ 14:26:53 (Read: 2992) |
Media Stars as Shadow Candidates by LYDIA HOWELL
This will be my last column on the 2008 presidential campaigns for awhile.
Two candidates who've not yet even declared they're running for president were in the psychological wings of this week's Democratic and Republican debates; Al Gore and Fred. D. Thompson.
Both from Tennessee, both having been that state's Senator, Thompson replaced Gore once he became Bill Clinton's VP. Both are media stars;:Gore for his Oscar-winning documentary film on global warming and Thompson for his role as the tough DA Arthur Branch on the long-running TV series 'Law and Order'. While Gore continues to say he has no interest in running for president, there's a Draft Gore movement. Thompson told Fox News Sunday recently, '"I'm giving some thought to it. Going to leave the door open." even without campaign. Polls suggest strong interest from conservative voters who don't trust the three Republican front-runners.
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Ron Paul supporters “meet up” to watch Republican presidential debate
Wednesday 06 June @ 12:29:37 (Read: 8378) |
by DENNIS GEISINGER
About 30 people met at Stub and Herbs bar near the East Bank of the University of Minnesota last night to watch the televised Republican presidential debate and mark the first gathering of a local network group to support the candidacy of Republican Congressman Ron Paul.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Tuesday 05 June @ 12:59:43 (Read: 3175) |
Panhandlers As Public Enemies in Minneapolis? by LYDIA HOWELL
When you don't drive a car, hover around (or under) the poverty line and you walk the inner city neighborhood you live in, having strangers ask for money happens all the time. I've never seen panhandlers as offensive or as a threat. But, well-off people—including elected officials--have a very different reaction and they regularly tell the same sort of story over and over.
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Ask an U of M expert:
Tuesday 05 June @ 12:49:24 (Read: 2211) |
What can we do to help the bees?
by MARIA SPIVAK
What can you do? Don’t panic. Educate yourself. If you’re not a beekeeper, please appreciate the bees in our environment.  Spread the word about the benefits of bees. Support research and Extension efforts to promote the health of honey bees. Or learn to keep bees yourself.
What is the University of Minnesota doing about the problem?
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The buzz on bees
Tuesday 05 June @ 12:35:01 (Read: 2679) |
The news has been full of stories on honeybee disappearances throughout the U.S. While no one cause for “Colony Collapse Disorder” has been identified, many ideas have been generated; and while no one has the answer yet, everyone can agree that this is an issue with far reaching implications for our species and others.
The honeybee pollinates approximately one-third of our food products, such as citrus trees, and their hives provide us with sweet honey. The contribution of honeybees cannot be underestimated, as fruit, nut and vegetable growers that require bee pollination have an economic value of $15 billion, according to a Cornell University study.
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Some dogs bite!
Friday 01 June @ 12:31:45 (Read: 3142) |
Minneapolis policymakers want more teeth in dog laws
by DENNIS GEISINGER
The number and severity of recent dog attacks has some policy makers putting more teeth in their laws applying to dangerous pets.
In the Twin Cities, six different cases of dogs attacking people have resulted in serious injury in the past three months.
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South Africa official: Palestinian treatment infinitely worse than apartheid
Thursday 31 May @ 13:28:32 (Read: 2213) |
by ALI ABUNIMAH
Reading an account of an Israeli cabinet meeting in Ha�aretz is like a trip through a House of Horrors. Here are some choice excerpts:
�Ministers Meir Sheetrit and Rafi Eitan proposed Wednesday that Israel produce its own version of the Qassam rocket to be fired at targets inside the Gaza Strip in response to Palestinian rocket fire on its southern communities.�
�Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Eli Yishai of Shas proposed that Israel use air strikes to destroy Palestinian towns and villages in response to the rocket fire, after giving local residents advance notice allowing them to evacuate their homes.�
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Moving Mountains - Supreme Court Judges Play Doctor
Thursday 31 May @ 13:18:50 (Read: 3045) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
It was surreal hearing about Supreme Court Justices trying their hand at medical diagnosis during the oral arguments of Gonzalez vs. Planned Parenthood in late April. For one thing, Chief Justice John G. Roberts echoed other opponents of women’s reproductive rights, who habitually erase women from the debate.
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JOIN Congressman Keith Ellison
Wednesday 30 May @ 11:56:11 (Read: 2219) |
IN PROVIDING INFORMATION & TOOLS FOR NEWLY RELEASED EX-OFFENDERS AT A TOWN HALL DISCUSSION ON Wednesday, May 30 | 6 P.M. – 8 P.M.
Did you know that 6,000 People are being released from correctional facilities in Minnesota each year?
What is available for ex-offenders and their families who want to succeed and become contributing members of society?
Let's enhance collaboration, leverage resources, and discuss.
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Moving Mountains-Planting a Garden
Wednesday 30 May @ 11:43:37 (Read: 2857) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
I spent my first 30 years in Texas and could have gardened almost year-round, but I didn't discover gardening until moving to Minnesota, where the growing season is precious and too brief. My first chance to garden was some years ago, living with a friend who owned his own house. Then, I had a container garden on the wide back deck of a West Bank 1890 apartment building I lived in for five years.
But frankly, for years, I’ve longed for a bit of land.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Friday 25 May @ 13:33:46 (Read: 2915) |
Memorial Day: Who Supports the Troops?
by LYDIA HOWELL
Toward the end of the Vietnam War, on a school trip to Washington, D.C., I saw the Arlington National Cemetery for the first time. Those rows of white tombstones stretching into the distance, starkly expressed the eternal sorrow of war. Every time I go to the nation's capitol, I make a pilgrimage to the Vietnam War Memorial. The sober black granite, with over 58,000 names, never fails to move me.
Yet, these memorials to fallen soldiers are incomplete.
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The Siege in Lebanon
Friday 25 May @ 13:14:04 (Read: 2208) |
 (from the Electronic Intifada)
(Thousands of Palestinian refugees are fleeing from Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon as five days of fighting by the Lebanese army and a militant group known as Fath al-Islam has left dozens of soldiers and fighters and an unknown number of civilians dead. As the situation of these Palestinian refugees worsens, 59 years after they were first expelled from their homeland into Lebanon, the world looks on in silence. Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah spoke with As’ad Abukhalil, the creator of the Angry Arab News Service blog. Abukhalil explained the origins of Fath al-Islam, the events that led to the violence and what it means for Lebanon and the region.
EI: What is Fath al Islam?
ABUKHALIL: We hadn’t heard of Fath al-Islam prior to late last year. There have been reports over the last two years especially after the withdrawal of Syrian of troops from Lebanon of a variety of extremist militant groups who are sprouting throughout the refugee camps of Lebanon, and elsewhere outside of the camps especially in northern Lebanon.
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Opium: Iraq’s Deadly New Export
Friday 25 May @ 12:55:53 (Read: 2289) |
by PATRICK COCKBURN
BAGHDAD - Farmers in southern Iraq have started to grow opium poppies in their fields for the first time, sparking fears that Iraq might become a serious drugs producer along the lines of Afghanistan. Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with the area have told The Independent.
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The Law School Commencement Speech that Alberto Gonzales did not give
Thursday 24 May @ 14:44:32 (Read: 2419) |
 by COLEEN ROWLEY
I doubt whether most “loyal Bushie” Alberto Gonzales would have questioned why it is that, with so many law-trained persons around, so many in these last few years haven’t used their critical thinking skills better to uphold the rule of law in our country. So when AG Gonzales got too busy trying to remember things and couldn’t make their commencement, I decided to tell the 2007 Iowa law graduates what he probably wouldn’t have.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS-Immigration, Part 1:
Thursday 24 May @ 14:26:28 (Read: 3200) |
Immigration, Part 1: Bosses Unite
by LYDIA HOWELL
Trying to make sense of all the variations on “immigration reform” is challenging, but there’ s something for everyone to hate in the various bills, including the Senate’s bi-partisan bill supported by the Bush Administration.
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In Case You Missed It …
Thursday 24 May @ 13:41:50 (Read: 2336) |
New law requires state pension fund to divest assets in the Darfur region of Sudan
On Wednesday May 23, Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed Senate File 1075, a targeted divestment bill which will divest Minnesota's State Board of Investment from companies that support the genocidal government of Sudan. "Minnesotans can be proud that we are taking action to help cut off the flow of money to Sudan's military. We're doing our part to stop the crimes and inhumanities in Darfur,”
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Moving Mountains: Michael Albert Says “It’s the VISION Thing!”
Wednesday 23 May @ 15:02:52 (Read: 2913) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
It seems like most of what we hear about the 1960s—that period of social and political upheaval which actually dates from 1965 to 1975--is either right-wing denigration or progressive nostalgia. Z Magazine and South End Press co-founder Michael Albert rejects both stances in his new book, “Remembering Tomorrow: From SDS to Life After Capitalism.” He’s speaking in St. Paul, Wednesday, May 23, and gave an advance phone interview.
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Cold as ICE
Tuesday 22 May @ 16:23:23 (Read: 2294) |
by ED FELIEN
What was ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) doing in South Minneapolis?
Why was a federal agency leading a bust that began as an investigation by the St. Paul police and was taking place in the Minneapolis Police Department’s (MPD) jurisdiction?
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Antiwar arrestees plead guilty in civil disobedience case
Tuesday 22 May @ 16:18:30 (Read: 2345) |
by KATRINA PLOTZ
Yesterday, 10 anti-war activists appeared in Ramsey County Court on charges stemming from a civil disobedience action nearly two months ago. On April 3, they and two others occupied University Avenue in front of Senator Norm Coleman’s office to demonstrate their opposition to the Iraq War. After placing construction roadblocks in the street, they unfurled banners declaring: “This is What Occupation Looks Like” and “The United States: A Roadblock to Peace.” Seventy-five supporters chanted anti-war slogans from the sidewalk, while several passed out flyers to stalled motorists explaining the purpose of the demonstration. Police arrested 12 people for obstructing traffic, a misdemeanor.
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Wi-Fi pilot program up and running in Seward neighborhood
Monday 21 May @ 15:31:22 (Read: 2430) |
by DENNIS GEISINGER
Technology Day set for June 14 at Central Library
The City of Minneapolis has secured $500,000 from its local wireless internet partner US Internet to fund education programs and affordable computer hardware and software in order to help bring low income residents into the digital age.
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The Iraqi Resistance: We need “political support”
Monday 21 May @ 14:13:39 (Read: 2319) |
by KATRINA PLOTZ
On Saturday, May 19, over 50 people packed Mayday Books to hear an antiwar presentation from a perspective seldom heard, even within the peace movement. Kosta Harlan, a North Carolina resident and member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) attended a conference called “With the Resistance – For a Just Peace in the Middle East” in Chianciano, Italy, on March 24-25. The conference provided the first opportunity for leaders of the Iraqi resistance to speak in the West.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS-Whom did Jerry Falwell serve?
Monday 21 May @ 10:57:44 (Read: 2446) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
The Founders Fathers of this country had plenty of “blind spots”: seeing Indigenous people as savages to exterminate, writing slavery into the Constitution, not heeding Abigail Adams' advice to her husband John to “Remember the ladies” who remained the property of fathers or husbands. Even white men could only vote if they held property. But, the men that wrote our Constitution got one damn thing right: they understood the dangers of the State-sponsored Church.
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The Forgotten Torture Chambers, Walls and Economics of the Occupation
Friday 18 May @ 13:01:02 (Read: 2243) |
From Anna in Palestine
A few weeks ago I attended an event commemorating Palestinian Prisoner’s Day at Al Far’a Refugee Camp in the Tubas area. To enter the theatrical and cultural spectacle we had to pass through a makeshift checkpoint with soldiers pointing their guns in our faces and screaming in Hebrew for us to get back. Although I knew these were Palestinian actors role playing the harassment they experience daily, it was very frightening to have men with guns yell at me in a foreign language and stick killing machines in my face. I realized immediately that although I witness harassment at checkpoints constantly, as a white Jewish American woman of extreme privilege I can never really know what it feels like to go through one as a Palestinian. I suspected the actors had been instructed to especially focus on Western attendees to illustrate some of the abusive behavior we remain so shielded from. It was very effective.
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The perspective from a former Marine—When will our Mideast “allies” stand up?
Friday 18 May @ 12:30:16 (Read: 2442) |
by JOE LAKE
The nations of Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates either have land borders with Iraq or are accessible from it via water. Given the proximity of these countries to Iraq, it would seem that they should be doing more to stabilize that country; yet, they have done little more than enjoy the ever-rising oil revenues that the Iraq fiasco has put into their already overflowing coffers. Nearby Syria can’t be expected to put troops into Iraq to aid the U.S.: We’re enemies after all, right? That is, except for the occasional tortured captive exchanges. Even though we share embassies, the Bush administration has handled its foreign policies so ineptly that Syria has little desire to offer any meaningful assistance in Iraq. Turkey wouldn’t be welcome, having occupied Mesopotamia for decades during the Ottoman Empire’s reign. But don’t worry: Turkey will be fighting the Kurds in northern Iraq soon enough.
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Moving Mountains - Crucial Vote to Restrain Military Bully
Friday 18 May @ 12:11:06 (Read: 2226) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
Now, “defense” funding bills are the battleground for debating continued occupation or withdrawal from Iraq. Yet, these bills also contain other Iraq issues not getting much corporate media attention. There are also serious implications for how American democracy is supposed to function.
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Who takes responsibility at the airport? The MAC? Northwest?
Thursday 17 May @ 13:27:51 (Read: 2490) |
by ED FELIEN & JIM SPENSLEY
Late last month the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a report on a serious accident that happened two years ago between two Northwest planes.
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MOVING MOUNTAINS - Making social Change, Rock by Rock
Thursday 17 May @ 13:22:10 (Read: 2340) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
Some of the most enduring truths are encapsulated in ancient stories, whose authors may not even be known to us.
Pulse publisher Ed Felien titled this column “Moving Mountains” after an old Chinese story. Here it is.
At the foot of a mountain, an old man was picking up and moving rocks, when another man came by.
“What are you doing?” the passerby asked.
“I'm moving this mountain,” the old man answered, not missing a steady step.
“That’s ridiculous! A mountain can’t be moved. And besides that, you’re just an old man!”
the passerby snorted.
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The making of one journalist
Wednesday 16 May @ 17:51:30 (Read: 2477) |
Introducing our new web columnist for "Moving Mountains"--
by Lydia Howell
As Pulse says farewell to newsprint and expands in cyberspace, it feels like the moment to share thoughts about journalism.
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Witnessing the decline of the French Left
Wednesday 16 May @ 16:05:36 (Read: 2256) |
by CHRIS HOLMES
I spent a long evening last week at the victory celebration of Nicolas Sarkozy, the right-wing candidate in France’s presidential election. There were over 10,000 people, many of them quite young, assembled in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. This is where the guillotine stood during the revolution. A stage had been erected a few steps away from where that famous device had served as the “National Razor” in the 1790s, onto which the President-Elect emerged just after 11 p.m.
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Honoring our water
Wednesday 16 May @ 15:05:00 (Read: 2719) |
by SID PRANKE
Those concerned with issues of environmental justice and cultural rights should be pleased with last Thursday’s decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan to dismiss charges against three people who entered the Coldwater area to collect spring water and pray.
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City could jump into Twins stadium financing plan
Wednesday 16 May @ 15:00:43 (Read: 2707) |
by DENNIS GEISINGER
The City of Minneapolis is once again considering whether to jump into the bath with Hennepin County over the public financing of the embattled downtown Twins ballpark development, or to stay dry.
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Calling for a General Strike for Peace
Wednesday 16 May @ 13:00:44 (Read: 2538) |
by MARV DAVIDOV
Most U.S. citizens oppose the Iraq War. The Iraqi people want the U.S. to leave and the troops want to come home.
Our task is to make visible the millions of Americans who oppose the war.
Our answer is a General Strike.
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AntiWar Committee Manifesto
Wednesday 16 May @ 12:40:35 (Read: 2285) |
by KATRINA PLOTZ
The Anti-War Committee began in December 1998 with 13 people who committed civil disobedience to protest the bombing of Iraq. Since then, we have evolved into an organization with approximately 20 core members and a mailing list of over 4,000. We organize protests, educational forums, street theater, civil disobedience actions and solidarity delegations to challenge the injustices of U.S. foreign policy. We believe in peace through justice, and we stand in solidarity with oppressed people here and abroad. As the U.S. war in Iraq continues, our most urgent campaign is to end the occupation and bring U.S. troops home now.
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Letter to this year’s high school graduates
Wednesday 16 May @ 12:23:15 (Read: 2413) |
by POLLY MANN
Dear graduate,
I would have addressed this epistle to one of my draft-age grandchildren but none is going to enlist in the military. They’ve been so much exposed to my antiwar messages over the years that none is vulnerable to the misinformation disseminated by recruiters. Also, my grandchildren, while not rich, have family to provide a cushion for them until they’re on the way to discovering what they want to do to sustain themselves in the future. So they’re privileged, and most privileged kids simply aren’t enlisting for daily exposure to death in Iraq. The children of the people responsible for the decision to go to war are, on the whole, not going to war either. You might consider a survey of the U.S. Congress to find out for yourself.
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Resource Center of the Americas faces tough financial times
Wednesday 09 May @ 14:25:46 (Read: 2776) |
by DENNIS GEISINGER
“We were facing a severe financial crisis at the end of 2006,” Resource Center of the Americas (RCA) Interim Executive Director Kathleen McKown said in a recent interview. “Times are still very tight financially, but now everyone has been able to return their focus to (our) important work.”
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Immigrants in the Twin Cities add new life to the economy
Wednesday 09 May @ 14:15:18 (Read: 2924) |
by DENNIS GEISINGER
photo by Scott Chamberlain
Blanche Ndangha is a native of Cameroon. In 1992 she fled political violence that burned her mother’s house and forced her, while pregnant, to walk for days through the bush of her West African nation and board a flight that ultimately brought her to Minneapolis.
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International Workers Day march in Minneapolis; Immigrants’ rights meeting set f
Wednesday 09 May @ 13:57:53 (Read: 2532) |
by KATRINA PLOTZ
photos also by Katrina Plotz
On May 1, International Workers Day, 2,000 people marched in Minneapolis to support immigrant rights. Coordinated in solidarity with similar events nationwide, the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition (MIRAC) and the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network organized the event, which began with a rally near Nicollet Avenue and Lake Street. Eduardo Cardenas of MIRAC said, “Immigrants and people of color should not have to live in fear of being harassed, separated from their families or deported. We need to unite and show this country that we’re here to stay.”
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If the treaty is valid!?
Wednesday 09 May @ 13:29:30 (Read: 2338) |
by SUSU JEFFREY
Last November U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur J. Boylan decided that the 1805 Dakota-Pike Treaty is not a valid treaty because it was signed but never proclaimed. However, in a final pretrial conference earlier this week, both sides on the treaty rights case centering around access to the Coldwater Spring area by Minnehaha Park argued that the treaty is valid.
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Looking Back-Interview: Dana Priest on secret gulags, CIA and war
Wednesday 02 May @ 14:23:34 (Read: 2599) |
by SID PRANKE
Dateline: November 30, 2005
[Editor’s note: Since this interview ran, Dana Priest won the Pulitzer Prize for her secret gulag story.]
Pulse: Were you surprised when you found out about the secret gulags in Europe?
Priest: “I was surprised about the Eastern European democracy connection. Yep, I was, and the reason was that the sites would be considered illegal in the countries they are located. They have governments similar to ours with similar legal systems … where all detainees have some rights, including the right to counsel, just like they would here.”
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Looking Back-Right here, right now: A war on day labor
Wednesday 02 May @ 14:11:35 (Read: 2097) |
Dateline: November 17, 1999
by EMILY CARTER
At 5 a.m., Central Avenue is quieter than death. An unbroken black sky seems to flatten the low-rise brick buildings huddled on either side of the wide and empty boulevard. The only sound is the low, arctic rush of wind and the occasional rumble of freight trains passing unseen. This is what a city looks like after the bomb has dropped, the plague has run its course, and the cockroaches have not yet come out to claim their spoils. Of course, the Avenue, if you discount the passing cars, is not appreciably more lively at any other time of day. This is what’s left of an urban neighborhood when it’s been left behind by market forces.
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Looking Back-Bush's war against civil liberties in Minnesota
Wednesday 02 May @ 14:08:03 (Read: 2508) |
by PETER ERLINDER
Dateline: March 13, 2002
Less than a month ago, in the Minnesota coffee shops, stores, homes and mosques where recent Somali immigrants gather, the chilling, whispered rumors began … “people were disappearing from their homes and their jobs.” Could it be true? Where are they? Are they alive? Who could know for sure? Who would be next? Should we call the police or the FBI? Many Somalis were afraid to even talk about the rumors, or to leave their houses.
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Looking Back-Canadian MP nominates the ISM for Nobel Peace Prize
Wednesday 02 May @ 13:57:20 (Read: 2229) |
Dateline: May 14, 2003
[Editor’s note: The nominating letter follows.]
Dear Committee Members,
As a member of the House of Commons of Canada, and as the International Human Rights advocate for the New Democratic Party of Canada, it is my pleasure to nominate the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.
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Looking Back-Pawlenty to protesters: Pay for the police
Wednesday 02 May @ 13:52:28 (Read: 2303) |
by ED FELIEN
Dateline: April 2, 2003
Maybe it’s not such a bad idea: fining demonstrators $200 for arrests, making crime a pay-as-you-go proposition.
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Looking Back- Spider John Koerner's guitar: stolen
Wednesday 02 May @ 13:47:04 (Read: 2238) |
Dateline: July 16, 2003.
Someone broke into John Koerner’s car on the evening of June 26 while it was parked in the back of his house in the Seward Neighborhood and stole his 12 string Gretsch guitar and Fender Deluxe Reverb Amplifier. The guitar was in a black hardshell case with black tape repair. What makes the guitar distinct is that Gretsch is misspelled: Gretsrh. It is natural wood with dark brown sides. The amp is more than 25 years old with a new reverb unit. It is black and about 20 inches tall and 2 feet wide.
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Lawsuit filed against immigration officials
Friday 27 April @ 13:27:33 (Read: 3329) |
by Katrina Plotz
Maria Diaz’s cell phone woke her up at 6 a.m. on April 10. “They’re raiding houses. They just took my cousin away,” said a frantic voice. Her phone didn’t stop ringing all day. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were conducting house-to-house raids in Willmar at dawn and people were terrified. Located 100 miles west of the Twin Cities, this town of 19,000 boasts 35 different ethnicities. Racial minorities account for 20 percent of the population. Many are immigrants who have a positive relationship with the community and contribute $80 million to the economy, according to MSNBC.
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Messy Utopia at the Mixed Blood Theatre
Friday 27 April @ 13:27:26 (Read: 3183) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Several seasons ago Mixed Blood Theatre founding artistic director Jack Reuler got together with literary director Michael Bigelow from the Guthrie and hatched something called Bill of (W)rights, putting about a dozen really short plays together to comprise an evening. The theme entails how our government tramples on, gets around or, if need be, flat-out ignores Americans’ right to free speech. It succeeded so well, Reuler returned to the drawing board last year for Point of Revue, collaborating with director-actor-playwright Thomas W. Jones II about aspects of African Americana. Also a hit. Why stop? Hence, “Messy Utopia,” commissioning five playwrights to look at folk who deal with having, well, mixed blood.
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MOVE's Ramona Africa in Minneapolis April 19
Wednesday 18 April @ 16:12:10 (Read: 3274) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
Law enforcement’s 1993 military assault against the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, is infamous. But it had a 1985 precedent in Philadelphia. Police hounded the MOVE Organization for years, culminating in a police helicopter dropping a bomb on their home, burning down the neighborhood.
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Mexico City likely to legalize a woman's right to choose
Wednesday 18 April @ 16:14:18 (Read: 3409) |
by JOHNNY HAZARD
A proposal to legalize abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy has the support of five of the seven parties represented in the legislative assembly of Mexico City and will likely pass on April 24. The current law, passed in 2000, represented a slight liberalization in that it permitted abortion for health reasons and for economic reasons. This year’s proposal, which Mayor Marcelo Ebrard says he will sign, will make Mexico City the only place in Latin America outside of Cuba where legal abortions will be available for almost any reason, and free or very cheap at city hospitals.
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The French presidential election--they look like us, n'est -ce pas?
Wednesday 18 April @ 16:15:24 (Read: 3415) |
by CHRIS HOLMES
The French presidential election is looming. In spite of its potentially fateful consequences for France and Europe, one is amused by the agreeably absurd spectacle of the campaign. Thus far, there has been enough shameless lying, transparent pandering, and hilarious incompetence to make an American feel quite at home.
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Alliant Techsystem's role in illegal uranium weapons trade: Pulse writer speaks
Wednesday 11 April @ 15:03:03 (Read: 4324) |
(Editor’s note: John LaForge, freelance writer for Pulse and organizer with Nukewatch, was invited by the Manchester, England-based Campaign Against Depleted Uranium (CADU.org/uk) to be part of a panel on uranium weapons at the British House of Commons. The occasion was CADU’s Parliament Lobby Day, intended to inform British MPs about uranium weapons—in pursuit of an international ban. A transcript of his speech follows.)
by JOHN LAFORGE
It is an honor to speak with you in this magnificent place, especially since I come to you from a country where discussion and debate within civil society is being drowned out by the roar of mercenary armies sent abroad, and screaming sports stadiums at home.
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Streetcars in Minneapolis? The Greenway system of bike trails may add trolleys
Wednesday 11 April @ 15:02:33 (Read: 3765) |
by TROY PIEPER
Work hasn’t stopped on the Midtown Greenway—the more than 5-mile-long bikeway and walking path extending from the chain of lakes in South Minneapolis to the Mississippi. Last year, “Phase 3” was finished, extending the trail from Hiawatha Avenue to the river. Construction has begun this year on a $5 million bridge over Hiawatha (right now, bikers and walkers cross the busy highway at 28th Street), and the City and other entities are seeking funding for a new bridge to be built across the river, connecting the Greenway to St. Paul’s system of trails.
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Courts could put stadium deal out of reach--it's the bottom of the ninth
Wednesday 11 April @ 15:03:15 (Read: 4112) |
by DENNIS GEISINGER
The County’s stadium shell game goes on despite the fact that building a ballpark does not.
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Did Ellison sell us out?
Wednesday 04 April @ 13:43:27 (Read: 3606) |
by ED FELIEN
Last Saturday, March 31, the Progressive Caucus of the DFL held an open meeting to discuss Keith Ellison's vote to continue funding the Iraq war. Of the 40 or so people who came, probably less than half were DFL regulars. Most of the participants were part of a loose coalition of leftists and peace activists that had come together to support Ellison's campaign last fall.
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School board rejects student demands on military recruitment
Wednesday 04 April @ 13:43:35 (Read: 3511) |
By TY MOORE
Last November, students from Central High Youth Against War and Racism (YAWR) sent an open letter to the St. Paul Board of Education demanding substantial restrictions on military recruitment in all district schools.
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Mercury-free vaccines debated in MN Legislature: sensible but not easy
Wednesday 28 March @ 15:09:12 (Read: 4332) |
by LEO CASHMAN
A bill introduced in the state Legislature would require that a mercury-free version of a vaccine be given whenever it is available to health care practitioners. If not available, then a vaccine containing mercury could be given. But if the vaccine contains more than a trace of mercury (more than one microgram), the practitioner must disclose that “this vaccine contains more than a trace amount of the mercury compound, thimerosal.” Thimerosal is a highly toxic substance.
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Third RNC public forum gets intense
Wednesday 28 March @ 15:09:03 (Read: 3786) |
by SID PRANKE
If there was any doubt in the minds of city officials about how upset locals are about the prospect of losing any more of our civil liberties at the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC), Monday’s third public forum should have it made it crystal clear.
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Ellison signs death warrant
Wednesday 28 March @ 15:08:54 (Read: 3475) |
by CHANTE WOLF
On Friday, March 23—Keith Ellison, who was elected mainly due to his pledge to vote for no further occupation funding—joined other Democrats in signing the Pelosi bill. This Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability supplemental funding request would give $124 billion dollars in funding for the occupation of Iraq, while weakly calling for gradual troop withdrawal by 2008. It passed the House of Representatives by a slim margin with some strong dissenting voices like Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Rep. Lynn Woolsley (D-CA).
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Notes from Mexico City: Anti-Bush protests
Thursday 22 March @ 12:18:55 (Read: 3293) |
by JOHNNY HAZARD
I just got back from the anti-Bush march which turned into a bit of a police riot, to my surprise. About 3,000 people started marching from the Hemiciclo Juarez, in the Alameda Central, at 4 o’clock. By the time we reached our destination, there were about 10,000. The embassy is on a major boulevard: Reforma—the same one the people shut down during the post-election action.
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The Case of Santa Maria Tzeja, Guatemala: still no justice
Thursday 22 March @ 12:18:47 (Read: 5191) |
by DAN GORDON
It’s a sweltering February afternoon, a day that hangs on the edge between the rainy and hot seasons in northwestern Guatemala. Inside a high-ceilinged cinderblock church are some 300 members of the community of Santa Maria Tzejà resting on plastic chairs and stained wooden benches. Women in their embroidered huipiles (blouses) sit solemnly next to their husbands, in secondhand button-down shirts, the mud from the fields still clinging to the soles of their Sunday best. For the past 10 years they have been gathering here, unnoticed by most of the world, for a Mass to remember the 19 members of their community massacred by the Guatemalan military.
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World Water Day--FYI on H2O
Thursday 22 March @ 12:18:39 (Read: 3851) |
by DENNIS GEISINGER
Does the Land of 10,000 Lakes need to worry about water? A growing tide of local, state, national and international voices trying to raise public awareness about water resources say the answer is a very dry “yes.”
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Vets' medical benefits debated at State Capitol
Monday 19 March @ 10:53:12 (Read: 3298) |
by SUSU JEFFREY
Just how much returning Minnesota veterans are worth is under debate at the State Capitol this session. Despite public sympathy for returning military and Gov. Pawlenty’s declaration that vets should be first in line for any benefits from the state’s surplus, a bill to test Iraq and Afghanistan vets for depleted uranium exposure is in trouble.
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The Occupation Project--six weeks in and time to step it up
Monday 19 March @ 10:53:20 (Read: 3577) |
by KATRINA PLOTZ
As the Occupation Project rolls into week six, the vigils continue. The project is a national effort to end the Iraq War by pressuring Congress to cut off funding. Activists around the state have been holding all-day vigils every Tuesday in the offices of both Minnesota senators and seven of the eight representatives. Fifth District Congressman Keith Ellison has already promised to vote against further funding.
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Artists Count study shows artists good for the economy
Wednesday 14 March @ 15:06:33 (Read: 3454) |
by BETSY MOWRY
Investing in artists is good for the economy, according to a year-long study recently released by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts (MCA), Springboard for the Arts and the Minnesota Craft Council (MCC). In 2006, these three arts organizations, with help from 50 partner organizations, contacted nearly 20,000 artists—full-time, part-time, retirees and hobbyists—living in every part of the state. More than 1,000 artists replied to the survey.
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Former TC restauranteur to provide eyewitness report on Iraq
Wednesday 07 March @ 15:48:31 (Read: 3272) |
by KATRINA PLOTZ
“Salam,” the Arabic word for peace, is both a friendly greeting and the goal of the Muslim Peacemaker Teams (MPT) in Iraq. On Thursday, March 8, Sami Rasouli will speak at St. Joan of Arc Church about his experiences with the MPT. Born and raised in Najaf, Sami left Iraq in the late 1970s to seek medical attention for his son. In 1987, he moved to Minneapolis and opened Sinbad’s, a Middle Eastern restaurant on Nicollet Avenue. Sami lived in Minneapolis for 17 years and was widely credited with helping introduce Arab culture to the Twin Cities area.
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Author of Freedom Rider speaks at MN Historical Society
Wednesday 07 March @ 15:48:24 (Read: 3331) |
by DWIGHT HOBBES
A great many books get called important. This one actually is. And fluidly written to boot. Raymond Arsenault’s “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice” (Oxford University Press, $32.50) chronicles, exhaustively details and seamlessly articulates the embattled turning point at which Americans of conscience and courage dug their heels in against evil, laying their lives on the line for freedom.
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Soulforce does its 2nd Equality Ride for civil rights
Wednesday 07 March @ 15:48:14 (Read: 3757) |
by DWIGHT HOBBES
Soulforce sustains an interesting development in activism, one that characterized their protest last April at North Central University in Elliot Park. This time, at Plymouth Congregational Church, on March 3, there is no celebrity along the lines of Star Trek’s George Takei making an appearance, so it doesn’t get a big splash in the mainstream press. But, clearly, the organization merits attention.
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Colombian Speaker calls for release of political prisoner Ricardo Palmera
Wednesday 28 February @ 13:33:23 (Read: 4339) |
by KATRINA PLOTZ
Imelda Daza-Cotes recently completed a national speaking tour that included a stop in Minneapolis. Once a political activist and elected official in Colombia, Daza-Cotes was targeted by a murderous campaign that wiped out the Patriotic Union, a leftist political party that rose to prominence in the 1980s. She fled to Sweden where she’s been living in exile since 1989. On Feb. 13, Daza-Cotes addressed an audience of 40 people at Spirit of the Lakes Church in Minneapolis to discuss her experiences, as well as the extradition and trial of Colombian rebel Ricardo Palmera and U.S. intervention in her homeland.
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MPIRG, landowners to challenge MN PUC's oil pipeline decision
Wednesday 28 February @ 13:16:16 (Read: 4050) |
by SID PRANKE
Accusing the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) of “trivial and slipshod environmental review,” the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG) will challenge the PUC’s decision to approve the certificate of need and routing permit for a $300 million oil pipeline that would run 304 miles in Minnesota from Clearbrook to Rosemount to two refineries in the Twin Cities area. The refineries are owned by Flint Hills Resources in Rosemount and Marathon Petroleum in St. Paul Park.
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Big Oil in Ireland--the people won't play the Shell game
Wednesday 28 February @ 13:10:15 (Read: 3554) |
by Emily Lindell & Dan Gannon
By June 2005, the residents of the tiny community of Rossport, Ireland, had had enough. For years, they had registered objections and appeals to the Shell gas pipeline project proposed to run through their farming and fishing community. By mid-year, the corporate interests were losing patience with the delays and raised the stakes of the dispute. Bringing police officers with them as they attempted to access private yards and farmland that was to be seized for the pipeline, Shell officials still were turned away repeatedly. The police that accompanied the multinational’s reps recorded the names of those who refused to welcome Shell onto their properties. Soon, five of these community members would land in a Dublin jail on an indefinite sentence as punishment for their refusal to submit to Shell’s plan.
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War in Iran?
Wednesday 21 February @ 17:08:23 (Read: 4340) |
by MAX SPARBER
There is a lot of nervous speculation about George W. Bush’s saber-rattling toward Iran. Any push to go to war with the country would, of course, be madness. The U.S. military is currently so overtaxed that 40,000 of the 140,000 some-odd troops are National Guardsmen. They’re so overtaxed that the soldiers in the field are currently looking at a seemingly endless tour of duty, as there are few new troops to replenish them. Right-wing pundits have joined military leaders in expressing a sense of total hopelessness that victory is possible in Iraq—recently even Kissinger declared that there was no possibility of a military victory in the country. We can ill-afford this war, and yet Bush seems to have set his sights on Iraq’s larger neighbor to the east. Let’s compare sizes: Iraq has a population of 28 million. Iran has a population of 70 million. Iraq has an area of about 168,000 square miles, or about the size of California. Iran has an area of about 640,000 miles—in other words, it’s the size of Alaska, our largest state.
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A surge by any other name is escalation
Wednesday 21 February @ 17:08:14 (Read: 3379) |
by REP. KEITH ELLISON
Nothing is new about the President’s troop “surge.” Despite the advice of military leaders, the Congress and the people of the United States, the expansion of the Iraqi occupation is not a change in course. In fact, this is the fourth escalation of the war. The question today is what we do about it.
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If you want to stop the war escalation
Thursday 15 February @ 15:42:40 (Read: 3238) |
BY KATRINA PLOTZ
On Tuesday, Feb. 6, activists around the state entered the offices of both Minnesota senators and seven of the eight congressional representatives as part of the "Occupation Project," a nationwide campaign to end the war in Iraq. Organized locally by the Twin Cities Peace Campaign, the goal is to pressure members of the House and Senate to end the occupation of Iraq by "occupying" their local offices. Constituents plan to bring their message to the MN congressional delegation every Tuesday for eight weeks. They cite the staggering number of Iraqi and American deaths, the $350 billion cost and the increasing opposition from the American public as reasons to end the occupation of Iraq immediately.
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Oops! Commissioners forget purchase agreement for ballpark
Thursday 15 February @ 15:37:22 (Read: 3452) |
BY SUSU JEFFREY
The Twins' stadium deal was rife with controversy from the start, when Hennepin County taxpayers were excluded from the planning process, but were still expected to pay for the at-least $522 million structure. Now there's another big snafu.
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Codex Alimentarius--just another way of saying Frankenfood?
Wednesday 07 February @ 15:14:08 (Read: 4979) |
by JAYE BELDO
In the near future, buying vitamin C directly from your local co-op or health food store could be illegal. Instead, you would be required by law to go to a doctor to get a prescription for these and other related supplements. This could occur thanks to an international food regulation known as Codex Alimentarius (CA), which recently passed in Europe and could be implemented in the U.S. by January 2010. CA enforcement is expected by the World Health Organization, the U.N. and, of course, the FDA.
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Confessions of a Capitalist Roader
Wednesday 07 February @ 15:14:16 (Read: 3169) |
by TONY BOUZA
America faces some big problems—war, racism, poverty, health care—to name four. But right up there is the growing unease that our bifurcated society grows wider apart. The wealth chasm expands. Every study shows the top 1 percent gaining and controlling an ever expanding share of our national treasure.
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Those who need your support...
Wednesday 31 January @ 14:42:47 (Read: 3143) |
For all of you who would like to sign a letter of support for Dean Zimmermann as he begins his prison term, please e-mail your support to dave@colorstudy.com. A copy of the letter of support is available on our website (pulsetc.com). For the record, Pulse believes Zimmermann is a political prisoner.
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AlliantACTION, in conjunction with the War Resisters League, celebrated Gandhi’s birthday by nonviolently attempting to deliver to ATK CEO Dan Murphy a subpoena this past Oct. 2. The action resulted in Edina police arresting 78 nonviolent activists at Alliant’s front door. A trial date has been set for 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 1 at the Southdale Hennepin County District Court, 7009 York Ave. S., Edina. We expect it to take all day and possibly into Friday. For more info, see Alliant Action.
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Congress: stand up to Bush
Wednesday 31 January @ 14:38:37 (Read: 3323) |
by KATHLYN STONE
“I’m feeling jazzed!”
That’s how my 15-year-old daughter, Welsa, summed up her reaction to the hours-long rally and march at the Capitol Saturday. “I feel like I want to do something more.” Ah, yes, grasshopper. I smiled to myself.
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Labor and Enviros unite: you read that right
Wednesday 31 January @ 14:10:25 (Read: 3242) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
“The jobs crisis and the environmental crisis are driven from the same source. Corporate America is ripping off the environment and corporate America is ripping off American workers and their families,” said author and 25-year union organizer Jack Rasmus in his keynote speech at the Labor and Sustainability Conference, held recently in St. Paul.
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Feds mess with Indymedia Collective
Wednesday 24 January @ 15:30:18 (Read: 3042) |
On Jan. 5th, members of the Twin Cities Indymedia Collective were contacted by a friend at the out-of-state university that hosts the site’s server, informing them that “law enforcement” was demanding that they remove two posts from the site.
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Jimmy Carter (and others) face criticism for airing plight of the Palestinians
Wednesday 24 January @ 15:19:21 (Read: 5663) |
by POLLY MANN
The reaction to Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” must be quite an eye-opener to those people who have not been involved in discussions or actions around the conflict in the Middle East.
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Show solidarity with anti-war students
Wednesday 17 January @ 15:39:27 (Read: 3129) |
On Wednesday, Jan. 10, Youth Against War and Rascism (YAWR) student activists were disciplined for attempting to educate their fellow students at Thomas Jefferson High School in Bloomington.
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He wants more of our blood for his oil
Wednesday 17 January @ 15:30:13 (Read: 3292) |
by ED FELIEN
“Imagine what would happen if these extremists who hate America gained control of energy reserves. You can bet they would use those reserves as blackmail in order to achieve their objectives.”
–President Bush, speaking to the troops at Ft. Benning, Ga., Thursday, Jan. 11
If you listen long enough to a liar, he ends up telling the truth.
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St. Paul City Council sets good tone with contract for 2008 Republican conventio
Wednesday 17 January @ 15:20:33 (Read: 3519) |
by SID PRANKE
As the St. Paul City Council convened at last Wednesday’s meeting, city officials were still on the phone arguing with GOP lawyers over final language in the contract agreement outlining St. Paul’s responsibilities as host city for the 2008 Republican convention.
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Timeline at Guantanamo: Five years later and still beyond the reach of justice
Wednesday 10 January @ 16:28:33 (Read: 3115) |
Nov. 13, 2001—Bush issues Presidential Military Order allowing himself the power to detain non-citizens suspected of connection to terrorists or terrorism as an enemy combatant. As such, that person could be held indefinitely, without charges being filed against him or her, without a court hearing, and without entitlement to a legal consultant.
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Gitmo by the numbers
Wednesday 10 January @ 16:28:04 (Read: 3061) |
6.5 x 8 feet—approximate size of cell in Guantanamo
1805—number of days that hundreds have been held at Guantanamo Bay without charge or trial as of Dec. 10, 2006
430—Approximate number of people in custody at Guantanamo Bay as of Nov. 17, 2006
14—number of "high value detainees" held at Guantanamo
13—age of Mohammed Ismail Agha when taken into U.S. custody in Afghanistan in late 2002 before later being transferred to Guantanamo
10—number of people in Guantanamo who have been charged with any crime
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Guantanamo demo on Jan. 11
Wednesday 10 January @ 16:27:53 (Read: 3322) |
by KATHLYN STONE
Guantanamo is a symbol of America's corrosion.
Torture, death, unlawful detainment, child prisoners, kidnapping or "extraordinary rendition," bounties that have resulted in prisoners detained for years without evidence or charges. For people around the world, Guantanamo Bay isn't just a U.S. disgrace, it's a blot on humanity and must be eliminated.
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Maria Inamagua’s death points to human rights abuses in our own back yard
Wednesday 03 January @ 17:29:02 (Read: 3524) |
BY LYDIA HOWELL
The specter of "human rights abuses" has become one justification for U.S. attacks on other countries, such as Bill Clinton's assault against Yugoslavia. Human rights was one of the many arguments floated by Bush for invading Iraq. Most Americans—at least those who are white and middle-class or richer—hold the belief that America has the highest human rights standards in the world.
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Squelching protest a First Amendment issue
Thursday 28 December @ 15:25:36 (Read: 3774) |
On Jan. 18, St. Paul city officials are set to travel to Washington, D.C., to formally sign an agreement to host the 2008 Republican National Convention at the Xcel Energy Center. The St. Paul City Council will then be asked to ratify the agreement, and then goes on to deal with the convention’s cryptic planning process.
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Save the Planet: Take Time to Say No
Thursday 28 December @ 15:25:01 (Read: 4287) |
by SUSU JEFFREY
Half of Minnesota's population is in the radiation shadow of two nuclear power plants on the Mississippi River. The radiation zones from the Monticello and Prairie Island nuclear plants overlap in the Twin Cities so we get a double dose of "routine" releases. Monticello, 30 miles north, went online in 1970, with a 40-year license and was just relicensed for another 20 years. Imagine driving a 40-year-old car for another 20 years.
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Eyewitness to a living revolution in Venezuela
Wednesday 20 December @ 20:04:44 (Read: 3424) |
by JOHN PETERSON
Although I’ve been active in defending the Venezuelan people’s right to determine their own destiny since late 2002, I’d never actually been to the country. I could not have picked a better time to experience the process up close.
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Recent evidence of increasing militarism in Mexico
Wednesday 20 December @ 19:40:34 (Read: 3175) |
by JOHNNY HAZARD
On Friday, Dec. 15, a small group of protesters awaited official president Felipe Calderón outside the supreme court building, where he went to attend a banquet.
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Number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq nears 3000-mark-23-year-0ld Nicholas Turc
Wednesday 20 December @ 19:37:26 (Read: 3330) |
by PHIL WILLKIE
Three Minnesotans were laid to rest last week, killed in this tragic war. The oldest among them was Nicholas Turcotte, age 23, who was buried Friday at Fort Snelling.
The military cemetery is a big place—sandwiched between airport runways. Planes going to faraway places take off frequently. But young Mr. Turcotte will not be going anywhere. As they say—“He paid the ultimate sacrifice; he gave his life for his country.”
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In Case You Missed It...
Wednesday 13 December @ 21:29:48 (Read: 3724) |
by SID PRANKE
Homeless Remembrance March on Dec. 21
Exxon spends millions to cast doubt on global warming
Canada grants Quebec “nationhood”
GOP national convention plans already heating up
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The Police Federation versus Ralph Remington—we lose
Wednesday 13 December @ 21:32:55 (Read: 3478) |
by DWIGHT HOBBES
More and more, there’s reason to believe the Minneapolis Police Federation won’t join the civilized world without federal intervention.
Start with the Police Community Relations Council, a glaring fiasco, brought into being because the U.S. Department of Justice, over recent decades, saw enough red flags to step in and keep an eye on things. Follow an evident scheme of things through to the Ralph Remington controversy. It’s staring everyone right in the face: the MPD is hostile toward communities and people of color and has every intention of remaining so.
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Memorial service held for Lisa Jean Niebauer
Wednesday 13 December @ 21:33:04 (Read: 3698) |
by POLLY MANN
On Dec. 2 at the AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, a memorial service was held for Lisa Jean Niebauer who died Oct. 29 from cervical cancer.
Present at the ceremony, along with about 100 friends, were four of her five sisters; her son, Christopher Mattheis; her grandson, Cole and her partner and companion for many years, Mindy Oppenheim. Lisa’s name had been added to those of several thousand etched in a large cement circle in the center of the grove—the names of individuals who have died of AIDS plus names of partners and families. One of Lisa’s two brothers, Brian, died of AIDS.
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Highlights of the Holiday Season
Wednesday 06 December @ 16:07:18 (Read: 3314) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
Fall in love with the holidays again, especially when there are traditions like Minneapolis Art Institutes’ decorated period rooms, diverse renditions of seasonal songs, and a chance to gorge on culture.
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Sister Rita Steinhagen remembered by fellow activists
Wednesday 29 November @ 13:45:18 (Read: 3274) |
by MARY DAVIDOV
Sister Rita Steinhagen died Tues., Nov. 21. She was a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, many of whom frequently joined us in the front lines of the radical struggle for Justice and Peace.
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Undead unite!-Zombie 7 file lawsuit
Wednesday 29 November @ 13:45:22 (Read: 3251) |
The Zombie 7, a group of seven performance artists who were arrested last July 22 in downtown Minneapolis, have joined in a lawsuit against the City, numerous police officers, and the Hennepin County Jail.
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Twenty-two thousand demand SOA closing
Wednesday 29 November @ 13:45:32 (Read: 3387) |
by DON IRISH
It's been an annual get together of kindred spirits for close to two decades, and this year was 22,000-strong. Every fall, the week before Thanksgiving, thousands of anti-war activists celebrate life and call for an end to the School of Americas at Ft. Benning, Ga.
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Public officials & their love affair with new stadiums—this one’s going to court
Wednesday 22 November @ 14:46:42 (Read: 3501) |
by KATIE SIMON-DASTYCH
On Oct. 25, a citizens’ group filed a lawsuit in Hennepin County District Court asking the Court to prohibit the construction of a football stadium planned to be built on Nicollet Island. DeLaSalle High School wants to close off one-half of historic Grove Street and build a football stadium on park land which is adjacent to the school and owned by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.
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An open letter to the Honorable Keith Ellison, Representative
Wednesday 22 November @ 14:28:01 (Read: 3881) |
by ED FELIEN
Dear Keith,
How are things out in Washington? I imagine you’re busy—finding your new office, picking out drapes and getting settled.
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Oaxaca's Dirty War
Wednesday 15 November @ 13:37:51 (Read: 3462) |
by STAN GOTLIEB
(Editor’s Note: For the past few weeks there have been demonstrations in front of the Mexican Consulate in St. Paul on East Seventh Street. Twenty or so people have been protesting the Mexican government’s military occupation of Oaxaca. According to Tom Walsh, information coordinator for the St. Paul Police, the demonstrations have been peaceful, but there was an incident where an individual was seen throwing a brick through a window. Last Saturday night, Nov. 11, someone broke two plate glass windows and the glass doors of the Consulate and threw red paint over the opening.)
Poor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Oaxaca’s governor has become a poster child for what will happen, one day, to all of the political tyrants who serve Mexico’s oligarchy by using the “mano duro” (hard hand) of repression. Driven by his own greed and ineptness, and caught in the role that history has chosen for him, he has opted for more and more brutality as, at each stage of his failed attempts to put down the popular uprising that is gaining momentum all over the state, he is put to shame by a ragtag, sometimes illiterate, but always articulate movement for social justice.
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When is fake copy offensive? When it’s not The Onion?
Wednesday 15 November @ 13:38:05 (Read: 3722) |
by DWIGHT HOBBES
Chris Stewart caught his nether parts in a wringer.It’s doubtful he’ll be out of his job on the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education, but there’s still hell to pay.
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How Did Mike Hatch Blow It?
Wednesday 15 November @ 13:38:16 (Read: 3425) |
by ED FELIEN
It was his to lose and he lost it. In a year when the DFL had an easy time cruising to victory, capturing both houses and all the constitutional offices, Mike Hatch couldn’t beat Tim Pawlenty at the head of the ticket.
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Green Party Takes a Fall
Wednesday 15 November @ 13:38:33 (Read: 3599) |
by PHIL WILLKIE
The biggest loser in this election was the third party movement. The Minnesota Independence Party barely preserved major party status, with Peter Hutchinson receiving about 6 percent of the vote despite spending over a million dollars and receiving the endorsement of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Most of this “Dream Team” Minnesota running for state constitutional offices failed to even reach the “magic” 5 percent.
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Nov. 8 protest at Mexican consulate in St. Paul—stop the repression in Oaxaca
Wednesday 08 November @ 14:33:56 (Read: 3418) |
When: 8 November, 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.
Where: Mexican Consulate, 797 E 7th Street, St. Paul, MN
Twin Cities residents have obtained a permit to protest repression in Oaxaca, outside the Mexican consulate in St. Paul. The protest comes one week after St. Paul police arrested four protesters on the sidewalk in front of the Mexican consulate for violating a St. Paul city ordinance against unpermitted demonstrations.
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Hacking Democracy
Wednesday 08 November @ 14:29:28 (Read: 4123) |
by NANCY SARTOR
(Editor’s Note: By now, we probably know the results of most races in Tuesday’s election. Others, however, may be contested. Some possible reasons for any contested race follow.)
It’s the eve of the 2006 mid-term elections and I’m driving home from work listening to public radio. I’ve nearly reached my limit for consuming political news. For weeks and in the name of democracy, candidates and adjunct partisan groups have waged a relentless assault on our faculties—littering our landscapes with lawn signs, cluttering our mail boxes with flyers and poisoning our ears and eyes with negative radio and television ads. I’m so sick of it all that not even the Daily Show parodies can amuse me … much.
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Fun for the holidays
Wednesday 08 November @ 14:03:32 (Read: 3383) |
The Jungle Theater has a holiday present for you. For years they’ve taken a back seat to “A Christmas Carol,” “The Grinch” and “Black Nativity.” “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” served them well for four years, but now they’ve got a production that is an unbeatable contender in the Great Holiday Theater Smackdown!
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Ellison Campaign statement regarding Tammy Lee satire
Monday 06 November @ 15:09:38 (Read: 2383) |
Sent to Pulse from Ellison Campaign Communications Director Bridget Cusick concerning the satiric campaign piece published on AmericanHotSausage.com:
We have absolutely nothing to do with the website in question. The site is tasteless and clearly goes way over the line.
As most people have witnessed over the past six months, we at the Ellison campaign know a little something about being the subject of slanderous attacks. They're hurtful, they detract from meaningful dialogue on the issues; they're bad for the District. That's why we never have engaged and will not engage in negative campaigning.
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Custer Battles and the swindling of a nation
Thursday 02 November @ 11:56:51 (Read: 3298) |
Custer Battles sounds more like the name for a patriotic frontier days toy company than what it is: one of the many U.S. companies that started doing business in Iraq during the reconstruction. In the spring of 2003, Custer Battles received a contract to provide security for the Baghdad International Airport, among a variety of other things. It was a new company which, despite its lack of experience, received the $16 million no-bid contract. Later it received a $21 million contract to provide security for the exchange of the new Iraqi currency. In September 2004 the U.S. Air Force banned them from working in Iraq due to accusations of fraud. On March 9, 2006, a federal jury found the company creators Custer and Battles guilty of 37 fraudulent acts costing the U.S. government $3 million.
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Norm Coleman: W’s oily boy
Thursday 02 November @ 11:52:36 (Read: 3644) |
As is oft the case, the Pulse inboxes are full of glowing feel-good messages from our elected officials’ offices, U.S. Senator Norm Coleman’s office included. The latest e-mail from Coleman’s office was dated Oct. 27 and bore the headline, “Coleman Says Economy Remains in Healthy Shape.” We did not receive any e-mails bragging about Coleman’s latest homage to the Bush administration and oil companies: He wants to block states and the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating CO2 emissions. That includes overturning California Republican Gov. Schwarzenegger’s recent commitment to significantly reduce CO2 emissions. We wonder if Coleman wanted to slip in his draft proposal while the country was busy with mid-term elections? With stunts like this, he seems to be hedging against his own 2008 re-election bid, by clearly aligning himself with the rich and powerful. If he leaves the U.S. Senate, head first, he will still have some cushy job with Exxon or Halliburton to fall back on.
--Sid Pranke
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Who guards the Guards? Support Juan Lopez for Hennepin County sheriff
Thursday 02 November @ 11:51:24 (Read: 3189) |
When we go to the polls on Nov. 7, we make all sorts of assumptions about character. Nationally, some prominent people have fallen from grace as their true proclivities have come to light. The country has learned that high office, top-level administrative responsibility and lavish campaign spending doesn’t guarantee that our elected and appointed leaders are without a dark side.
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Freeman best choice for Hennepin County Attorney
Thursday 02 November @ 11:48:12 (Read: 4270) |
BY SID PRANKE
The Hennepin County Attorney office is, ostensibly, a nonpartisan one. But endorsements from political parties can still be made. This year, Andy Luger received the DFL endorsement for the office. Usually, that would have been enough to get him the job. But this seems to be a strange election year.
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Coke gets the first and final word:
Friday 27 October @ 11:53:10 (Read: 6559) |
One-sided forum may lead to renewal of $28 million Coca-Cola contract with U of M
by CHAZ DAVIS
Serious accusations against the Coca-Cola Company range from complicity in the kidnapping, torture and murder by paramilitaries of union members in the company’s Columbian bottling factories, to water pollution and environmental degradation in India.
Student activism throughout the country has led to discontinued contracts with the world’s largest soft drink maker at over 30 colleges and universities, including NYU and Rutgers, according to the Stop Killer Coke campaign coordinator, Ray Rogers. Coca-Cola has lost 1 percent of its value since the campaign began in 2003, over $600 million dollars. Perhaps what is more troubling to the $67.5 billion Atlanta-based company is the detrimental impact the campaign is having on a prime consumer base, and its potential brand image for the next 50 to 60 years of students’ soft drink buying lives.
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Custer Battles and the swindling of a nation
Friday 27 October @ 11:45:24 (Read: 3114) |
by CHAZ DAVIS
Custer Battles sounds more like the name for a patriotic frontier days toy company than what it is: one of the many U.S. companies that started doing business in Iraq during the reconstruction. In the spring of 2003, Custer Battles received a contract to provide security for the Baghdad International Airport, among a variety of other things. It was a new company which, despite its lack of experience, received the $16 million no-bid contract. Later it received a $21 million contract to provide security for the exchange of the new Iraqi currency. In September 2004 the U.S. Air Force banned them from working in Iraq due to accusations of fraud. On March 9, 2006, a federal jury found the company creators Custer and Battles guilty of 37 fraudulent acts costing the U.S. government $3 million.
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Rebels with a cause: The FARC-EP in Colombia
Friday 27 October @ 11:43:18 (Read: 4090) |
by MEREDITH ABY
“The FARC is a people in arms ... an organized expression of the people. In this fight for social justice ... it was necessary to pick up arms to defend the political struggle. Other paths have been eliminated by the Colombian elites. We ... have taken up arms because it is the only way we have found to achieve our aims.” - FARC commandante (2006)
The FARC-EP (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia— People’s Army) is the largest and longest fighting guerrilla army in Latin America. The U.S. State Department labels them a “terrorist organization.” The FARC describe themselves as fighters for national liberation and against U.S. imperialism. They are Marxist-Leninists leading a revolution that will ensure the use of Colombia’s resources to benefit its own people. This summer I met with members of the FARC to enhance my understanding of the United States’ role in the war and the FARC’s perspective on the conflict.
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Michael Franti’s travelin’ blues
Friday 27 October @ 11:41:17 (Read: 3671) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
“I was the first American they’d ever met who wasn’t holding an M16,” says Michael Franti, lead singer/songwriter of Spearhead, of the Iraqis he met in a summer 2004 trip to the Middle East. “I came holding a guitar with a gift of music, so they treated me differently and wanted their stories to be heard.”
That journey resulted in the new Spearhead CD, Yell Fire!, and a film, “I Know I’m Not Alone.”
Franti’s deep appreciation for narrative comes from his grandmother, “an excellent storyteller,” but she’s only the first in a long line of influences.
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Colombia: getting beyond the stereotype of the narco-trafficker
Tuesday 24 October @ 16:00:21 (Read: 4595) |
by MEREDITH ABY
Since 2000, the U.S. government has spent close to $5 billion on Plan Colombia.
Both presidents Clinton and Bush have given the third highest amount of military aid in the world to the right-wing Colombian government in the name of “fighting the war on drugs.” In reality, the aid the U.S. sends is spent on a counterinsurgency war against the Colombian people. Along with other local and national activists, I went to Colombia this past summer to investigate the reality of the “war on drugs.”
This particular “war” has been used to label leftist rebels and farmers as “narco-traffickers” or “narco-guerrillas.” But Colombia is also a country rich with natural resources, including oil. Its location is a geo-politically strategic one for transportation between North and South America, and it is a site of interest for any future canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; for these reasons it is of particular interest to the ruling elite of the U.S.
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Two if by sea—portrait of an activist
Tuesday 24 October @ 15:54:40 (Read: 3885) |
See also: "A statement from Roger Cuthbertson"
by JOEL GROSTEPHAN
After bumping up against a sheriff’s boat for about two hours in an attempt to drive their boats within the legal distance of a Republican fundraiser, retired teachers Roger Cuthbertson, 67, and his companion Bob Heberle, 72, left their companions and paddled on small yellow rafts toward the party.
Vice president Dick Cheney was the guest of honor at the $250-per-head fundraiser for 6th District congressional candidate Michele Bachmann. Hennepin County Sheriff’s deputies turned the men around, escorting them 300 yards back outside a line of buoys into an established free speech zone. Knowing they would be arrested, Cuthbertson and Heberle turned around and rowed back across the security perimeter. That was June 26.
After numerous delays and a change of venue, charges against Cuthbertson and Heberle were dismissed on Monday due to a mix-up between the sheriff and the prosecutor’s office. Ken Gleason, the men’s attorney, said that Cuthbertson and Heberle may have to face new charges in the next few weeks. But no matter, Cuthbertson was busy declaring victory.
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A statement from Roger Cuthbertson
Tuesday 24 October @ 15:51:48 (Read: 3331) |
See also: "Two if by sea—portrait of an activist"
 We wanted to voice our opposition to some policies being promoted by the vice president. As we saw it, the best chance for us to possibly have our voices heard was to be on boats on the lake near where the party was to be held. Our copy of the Lake Minnetonka Conservation District Regulations of Watercraft (chapter 3) indicated that we could legally cruise within 150 feet of the shoreline, as long as our speed was 5 mph or less and as long as we left no wake. (Our reading of the rules indicated that we were allowed to be 300 feet from shore at full throttle.)
OUR CONSTITUTION PROTECTS PROTEST ON LAND OR WATER
We had every reason to believe that our constitutional rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances would be as valid on water as on land ... We have over 2,700 dead, and the Iraqi toll is over 100,000.
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We’ll miss our friend Stefan Olson
Tuesday 24 October @ 13:39:24 (Read: 4471) |
Last Friday, musician/producer and action figure collectibles king Stefan Olson was found dead in his studio space. He had not shown up for a recording gig at the Turf Club the Sunday before, and his friends and co-workers had tried to reach him numerous times because they were concerned.
A memorial for Stefan was held at the Turf Club after only a few days of word-of-mouth and e-mail notice, and hundreds showed up to honor him on Monday evening. Special thanks goes out to Jim Randall of the Turf for making this happen. Following are some memories Stefan’s friends shared about him.
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Residents work the anti-john beat in the Corcoran neighborhood
Thursday 12 October @ 12:26:01 (Read: 4008) |
by STEVE BUTCHER
The woman with the handbag slung over her shoulder has the herky-jerky movements of someone who has given too much of her life to drugs.
As Kathy Carlson and three other members of the Corcoran “john” patrol watch her from the opposite side of the street, the woman prepares to rendezvous with someone in a red Jeep that has honked and pulled over on the next block.
“Don’t tell me,” Carlson mutters as she flips open her cell phone. Carlson is nonplussed by the woman’s apparently contemptuous and brazen attitude toward the patrol. “I’m calling the police!” she shouts as the woman leans into the driver’s side window of the Jeep. Carlson dials 9-1-1 and reports the Jeep’s location and license plate number to Third Precinct police headquarters. The Jeep and the woman will be gone by the time a squad car arrives, but thanks to Carlson, the police will have enough information to send a letter to the vehicle’s owner.
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“Vote the bums out” fundraiser on Oct. 15
Thursday 12 October @ 11:38:40 (Read: 3484) |
 The Citizens Against Stadium Taxes (CAST) will hold a fundraiser “Vote The Bums Out’’ with music and entertainment at Stub & Herb’s bar at 227 Oak St. S.E. in Minneapolis. The event will be from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15.
CAST will use the funds raised to defeat Hennepin County commissioners Mark Stenglein and Peter McLaughlin of Minneapolis and Mike Opat of Robinsdale in the general election. It will be on Tuesday, Nov. 7
The three men and Commissioner Randy Johnson of Bloomington, who isn’t up for reelection, sought and got from the Minnesota Legislature an exception to the state law requiring a voter referendum for a sales tax. Legislators gave them permission to levy a tax without a referendum to build a new Minnesota Twins stadium. The tax would raise more than $1 billion in public funds over 30 years to build a stadium. There is no end date on the tax. According to Forbes Magazine, Twins owner Carl Pohlad is one of the richest men in America, with a net worth of nearly $3 billion dollars. Donations may be mailed to CAST at 6820 Wooddale Ave. So., Edina, Mn. 55435, or contributed at the fundraiser. The chairman of CAST is Dr. Laura Lehmann, an Edina physician. Her e-mail is ljlehmann@pobox.com. ||
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Cheney boat protesters head to trial on Oct. 12
Thursday 12 October @ 11:12:50 (Read: 4105) |
by KATHLYN STONE
A jury trial has been scheduled for two Minnesotans—Bob Heberle, 71, St. Anthony, and Roger Cuthbertson, 67, Shoreview, for their actions during a protest of a June 26 Republican fundraising party headlined by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Cheney spoke at the private fundraiser for Michele Bachmann, a state senator and candidate for the 6th District congressional seat. The party was hosted by Karen and William Hawks at their Lake Minnetonka mansion which is outside of the 6th District.
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Waiting for the other shoe to drop in Oaxaca
Wednesday 04 October @ 15:54:10 (Read: 4088) |
by STAN GOTLIEB
Special to Pulse of the Twin Cities
Oct. 3, Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico–I wrote the following dispatch a few days ago. Since then, little has changed, although there have been helicopters (usually the precursor to an attack) flying overhead, and some troops have been shifted to bases closer to Oaxaca city, and the Interior Ministry has made menacing sounds about a Wednesday deadline for a negotiated settlement. Truthfully, I can’t tell if tomorrow is “it,” or if it’s another move in the “feint and threaten” strategy of the government. All I know is that what I wrote below was—and is—a true description of what it’s like to be me, here, now.
It’s quiet, as dawn breaks over this colonial city in southern Mexico. There isn’t the faintest whiff of teargas in the air. No church bells are ringing to warn of approaching soldiers or police. No bullhorns are shouting marching orders to the squatters camped out in the city’s main square, directing them to one or another “choke point.” Another relatively peaceful night in what used to be—and will be again, some day—one of the most beautiful, safe, and historically significant cities on the continent.
The occupation, entering its fifth month, started with a peaceful—if obnoxious—strike by the state’s teachers that took over the town square and many blocks of the central city. After about three weeks, it was attacked by state and local police, who were in turn repelled by tens of thousands of ordinary citizens incensed by what they saw as a violation of the teachers’ right to demonstrate (however obnoxiously). It has since grown into an amalgam of teachers, grass roots organizers, nongovernmental social self-help organizations and other dissident groups, whose central demand is that the governor, responsible for ordering the attack, must go.
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Alliant Tech nonviolent action—78 arrests
Wednesday 04 October @ 15:46:24 (Read: 3722) |
 On Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, Oct. 2, at the conclusion of the international Stop the Merchants of Death Conference, 270 peace demonstrators gathered at the corporate headquarters of Alliant Techsystems. The Edina-based war profiteers sold more than $3.3 billion in munitions through 44 sales offices worldwide last year.
Seventy-eight nonviolent activists were arrested attempting to deliver a subpoena to Alliant’s CEO, Daniel J. Murphy. The subpoena ordered Murphy to testify at an upcoming trial of 42 AlliantACTION activists arrested last fall attempting to warn workers of war crimes liabilities under international law.
After World War II, the Nuremberg Trials established corporate responsibility for war crimes. Alliant has manufactured depleted uranium bullets and shells, land mines, cluster bombs—all illegal under international law because of their indiscriminate killing of civilians.
More information online at alliantaction.org. ||
–Suzanne Louise Makepeace
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A Venezeulan discusses the media, politics & the people of Venezuela
Thursday 28 September @ 12:27:44 (Read: 3630) |
by CHAZ DAVIS
Hugo Chavez received much attention in the mainstream media for referring multiple times to George W. Bush as the devil during his speech at the United Nations last Wednesday, just a day after the U.S. president spoke to the same assembly. The aftermath of the Chavez speech coincided with a previously scheduled discussion at Resource Center of the Americas with Maria de los Angeles Peña Fonseca, a Venezuelan journalist and activist who has lived in the Twin Cities for two years.
Over the weekend, Fonseca discussed the changes occurring in Venezuela and the role of the charismatic leftist leader Chavez and his supporters in the South American country. “Poor people feel that we put Chavez in that place, in that environment, in government, so he could help us ...,” Fonseca explained to a group of about 30 people in the Oscar Romero room of the local community center. She further clarified that it is the people who are taking the future of the country into their own hands, with Chavez as their spokesperson. She showed a few short videos related to the grassroots nature of Chavez’s political support, the creation of a rural community radio station by local campesinos, and the creation of various independent media collectives reporting on a wide variety of issues. The number of alternative media has gone from 23 to 300 since Chavez first came to power in 1998, according to Fonseca.
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Full Text of Chavez Address to the United Nations
Thursday 28 September @ 13:31:40 (Read: 4482) |
[Pulse is proud to publish the full text of Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez's speech (corrected translation version) to the United Nations General Assembly in New York from September 20th, 2006. Please forward widley and enjoy! ~ web.ed]
September 20th, 2006
HUGO CHAVEZ, PRESIDENT OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPULIC OF VENEZUELA
President Chávez: Madame President, Excellencies, Heads of State, Heads of Governments, and high ranking government representatives from around the world. A very good day to you all.
First of all, with much respect, I would like to invite all of those, who have not had a chance, to read this book that we have read: Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious intellectuals of America and the world. One of Chomsky's most recent works: Hegemony or Surviva: America's Quest for Global Dominance. [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] An excellent piece to help us understand what happened in the world during the 20th century, what is going on now and the greatest threat looming over our planet: the hegemonic pretension of US Imperialism that puts at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn about this danger and call on the people of the US and the world to halt this threat that is like the sword of Damocles.
I intended to read a chapter, but for the sake of time, [flips through the pages, which are numerous], I will leave it as a recommendation. It's a fast read. It's really good Madame President, surely you are familiar with it. It is published in English, German, Russian, and Arabic (applause). Look, I think our brothers and sisters of the United States should be the first citizens to read this book because the threat is in their own house.
The Devil is right at home. The Devil, the Devil himself, is right in the house.
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Astroturfing—quick and dirty
Monday 25 September @ 14:17:00 (Read: 3720) |
by MAX SPARBER
In the past decade, particularly with the rise of the internet, a new page has been added to the book of dirty political tricks. Rather humorously dubbed “astroturfing” by Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, it’s the process by which paid political shills make use of anonymous forums, newsletters, letters to the editor, and other small-media sources to give the illusion that their pet issue has a strong grassroots support.
Most notoriously, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which ran a successful smear campaign against John Kerry in his run for the presidency, turned out not to be a non-partisan grassroots group comprised of veterans who were concerned about Kerry’s Vietnam experience. Instead, the group was a Republican-funded front operation designed to attack the presidential candidate where he was seen as being strongest, because, unlike President Bush and Vice President Cheney, Kerry has actually served as a soldier in combat, and had three Purple Hearts to show for it.
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Court case for Dakota people info & testimony
Monday 25 September @ 14:15:11 (Read: 3516) |
 The Dakota-Pike treaty rights case is set for Monday, Sept. 25 at 9 a.m. at the Federal Courthouse in St. Paul, 180 E. 5th St., with a rally planned for 8 a.m. The case stems from petty misdemeanor charges in October 2005 for failure of the defendants to show paper permits in order to visit Coldwater Spring, a traditional sacred gathering place for upper Mississippi Indian nations, including: Dakota, Anishinabe, Ho Chunk, Iowa, Sauk and Fox. Lead attorney on the case is Larry Leventhal, and expert witnesses on historical and geological topics will be on hand to testify when called. Treaty rights and Coldwater preservation supporters plan a thanksgiving meal after court at Coldwater, located in the Minnehaha Park area at Hiawatha Avenue and 54 Street, Mpls.
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Peace action on Sept. 23 to say “U.S. Troops Out Now”
Monday 25 September @ 14:14:12 (Read: 3749) |
by ALAN DALE
This Saturday, Sept. 23, the Twin Cities anti-war movement will join in a nationwide round of actions to speak out against the continuing U.S. war in Iraq.
The Minneapolis protest will begin at 12 noon on Hennepin & Lagoon Avenues in the Uptown neighborhood.
There will be a brief rally followed by a march through the neighborhood and a return to the starting point.
The protest’s common theme: “Stop the U.S. War in Iraq-U.S. Troops Out Now”
The local event is part of a week of peace actions planned across the country for Sept. 21–28 organized by the “Declaration of Peace” The Declaration says in part, “The majority of the people of the U.S. and raq has declared it is time for peace. We have the power to bring our friends and family home now. The first step is to declare our desire for peace.”
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Calling all agitators— don’t miss Honeywell Project reunion
Monday 25 September @ 13:50:57 (Read: 3807) |
 Remember the Honeywell Project? If you were a part of it at any point from its inception in the late 1960s until it dissolved in the early 1990s, take note of the upcoming reunion planned for Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. on campus at St. Thomas University. The occasion is part of a planned Sept. 29–Oct. 2 mega-event, “For Justice and Peace: Stop the Merchants of Death” by local and national peace groups organizers which will include a strategic conference, a showing of the film “Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers,” a rallying concert and a nonviolent action at the headquarters of local merchant-of-death, Alliant TechSystems.
For those from out of town or who aren’t old enough, The Honeywell Project began in December of 1968 during the war in Vietnam. After 22 years of work, the group, which had developed a worldwide movement against the management of Honeywell, was one of the major factors in forcing Honeywell out of the weapons business. Given the ongoing war economy, in 1990, Honeywell created Alliant TechSystems, now a $3 billion outfit. Alliant has made 18 million depleted uranium shells, and they also make all three rocket motors for Trident nuclear missiles.
For more info or directions to the event,call Marv Davidov at 612-874-7715. ||
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Confessions of a smoker: Dave Thune ready to quit (again)
Friday 15 September @ 03:16:08 (Read: 4566) |
(Editor’s Note: We caught up with St. Paul Council Member Dave Thune, who spearheaded the St. Paul smoking ban, which kicked in about six months ago. We quizzed him about starting to smoke again—at least he was honest ...)
by SID PRANKE
Pulse: Where are you at with your smoking?
Thune: I am about to quit again (laughs).
Pulse: Uh-huh ...
Thune: And—I’m going to the Commit Lozenges and Zyban again, although now I’ve read about another drug on the market where you don’t get the nicotine—I was going to ask about that.
Pulse: When did you last quit and how long did that last?
Thune: On March 31, when the smoking ban in St. Paul took effect—until about 30 days ago.
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Author/minimum wage sleuth Barbara Ehrenreich appears at book event Sept. 14
Friday 15 September @ 03:15:30 (Read: 3189) |
by ED FELIEN
 On Thursday, Sept. 14 at 7 p.m. Magers and Quinn booksellers are bringing Barbara Ehrenreich to Lyndale Congregational United Church of Christ at 810 W. 31st Street. She is the author of “Nickled and Dimed” which was dramatized by the Guthrie a year ago. Of particular interest to Minnesotans was her undercover work at Wal-mart in Bloomington that formed a chapter in that book. By the way, Minnesota was the only place where she worked that she was unable to afford housing on her minimum wage job.
“Bait and Switch” is her new book about the underbelly of American capitalism. This time she goes undercover to expose the hidden tragedies of the middle class who have hell to pay trying to find a job when they’re laid off or fired.
There’s no charge for the event, but it would be nice if you bought a book. ||
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On War Crimes and staph infections: grim musings from federal prison
Friday 15 September @ 03:14:14 (Read: 3374) |
by JOHN LAFORGE
A lot of people have asked me about being in prison for a protest over the torture scandal, when Nukewatch has been so pointedly focused on nuclear issues and the U.S. invasion du jour. And while most would agree that human rights and nuclear madness are related, for those who need convincing, the philosopher Viktor Frankl said this about the connection between the Bomb and unbridled militarism: “Let us be alert—alert in a twofold sense. Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.”
Crossing the line at the malevolent U.S. Army School of the Americas (now called WHINSEC; don’t even ask) was merely a recognition that, in the words of Eduardo Galeano in the September issue of Progressive magazine: “The tortures of Abu Ghraib ... are nothing new to us in Latin America. Our militaries learned their interrogations techniques from the SOA.” But did the torturers of Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Base, and Guantanamo Bay get their crime schooling from the SOA too? It does appear likely, if indirectly.
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Fall Actions Against the War
Friday 15 September @ 03:13:44 (Read: 3413) |
by ALAN DALE
As people return to work and school this fall, the anti-war movement is preparing to return to the streets.
Over the summer the increasing death toll among Iraqis and U.S. military personnel has been reported daily. U.S. troop presence in Iraq is now over 140,000. Recent U.S. polls show that a majority of Americans view the war in Iraq as a mistake and want the troops to come home. To highlight this growing opposition, two nationally coordinated rounds of action have been set for this fall.
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Situation in Mexico becoming very dangerous
Thursday 07 September @ 16:06:00 (Read: 5150) |
(Editor’s note: Over the past few days, Pulse’s two Mexico correspondents, Johnny Hazard and Stan Gotlieb, have described an increased danger for leftists in Mexico City and escalating violence by rightwingers in Oaxaca. Hazard also reports that outgoing Mexico President Vincente Fox tried to deliver his final annual address, but was unable to take the stage as left-wing legislators who suspect fraud in recent elections shouted slogans, amid 3,000 federal police who withdrew after Fox left to deliver his address from his official residence instead. Mexico’s top electoral court has rejected claims that July’s presidential election was tainted, but leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed not to concede to conservative (and Bush-supported) candidate Felipe Calderon, who was formally declared the winner by the election court on Sept. 6. Obrador has stated he may form a parallel government in the streets. A report from Oaxaca follows.)
The Dirty War in Oaxaca
by STAN GOTLIEB
There were more drive-by shootings last night. Reports are that one striker was injured, though not seriously. So far, depending on who’s telling the tale, about six people have been killed, all strikers, and dozens injured. The number of “disappeared” is somewhere around 20.
The shootings and disappearances are the work of “death squads” comprised of local, state and (some say) federal police, and professional gunslingers armed with heavy caliber automatic weapons (the AR-15 seems to be their favorite: it’s military issue), who tear through the streets wearing ski masks. None are in uniform.
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Coldwater: Sacred site isn’t real estate
Thursday 07 September @ 16:05:35 (Read: 4578) |
NEWS ANALYSIS
by SUSU JEFFREY
“I am pleased to reach an agreement with the Department of Interior to protect the Camp Coldwater Spring and restore the Bureau of Mines property to open green space,” Congressman Martin Sabo stated three years ago. Now, however, the National Park Service wants to sell most of Coldwater Park’s 27 acres, according to the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
The Park Service repeatedly admits that “transfer” of the land has “adverse” consequences for protection of historical and cultural properties, nevertheless it plans to sell off most of the park.
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Minneapolis ordinance would criminalize walking, biking down alleys
Thursday 31 August @ 01:01:41 (Read: 3926) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
If a new ordinance passes the City Council, just walking in the 455 miles of Minneapolis’ alleys will be a crime. Unless you can prove you live on that alley’s block, are a resident’s guest or are doing work there, you would be ticketed and, with police discretion, could be arrested. No other American city has such a law. The Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told the City Council the ordinance is unconstitutional. The ordinance would also apply to skateboarders and those who rely on wheelchairs.
“This ordinance provides another tool for law enforcement’s toobox to address crime in our city,” Ward 6 Council Member Robert Lilligren argued at a public hearing at the Public Safety and Regulations Committee August 23. That’s become the common argument for increased survellience and expanded state and law enforcement powers at all government levels, allegedly for “the war on terror.”
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Does restroom surveillance at library take “security” too far?
Thursday 31 August @ 00:43:24 (Read: 3456) |
When the new Minneapolis Public Library had its grand opening a few months ago, the band probably didn’t play “Every Breath You Take.” But the 100 cameras in the new library will still be watching you.
Katherine Hadley, director of the Minneapolis Public Library, issued a statement to Pulse about the security cameras at the library:
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Democracy is “in”: just check out the streets of Mexico
Thursday 31 August @ 00:05:00 (Read: 3785) |
by JOHNNY HAZARD
Special to Pulse of the Twin Cities
 The Mexican movement in resistance to electoral fraud nears the two-month mark with no sign of letting up. The electoral tribunal ordered a partial (9 percent!) recount, which, though completed two weeks ago, has not been acted upon. The tribunal has until Sept. 6 to declare a victor or annul the election. Observers’ reports indicate that in the districts where the electoral packets were officially counted, massive inconsistencies were found.
According to the campaign of left populist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, two-thirds of the packets opened had either more votes registered than ballots or vice versa. He claims to have evidence that, were all the votes to be correctly counted, he would beat right-wing candidate Felipe Calderón by two million votes. (Current official results show Calderón winning by about 240,000 votes.)
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Turmoil in Oaxaca: A revolution in the making
Friday 25 August @ 11:29:52 (Read: 5373) |
by STAN GOTLIEB
Special to Pulse of the Twin Cities
Oaxaca de Juares, Oaxaca, Mexico
Jorge is a student at the Language Institute of Benito Juarez Autonomous University, the state university of Oaxaca. He is studying for a “licenciatura” (professional degree) in teaching English as a foreign language. He is the son of teachers. His parents are part of the current insurrection in Oaxaca, as is he.
Back in May, his parents joined with tens of thousands of their colleagues from all over the state in an annual occupation of the center of the state capital. As they had for the last 26 years, they pitched their tents and stretched their tarps during spring break and demanded better salaries and more money for books, shoes and hot lunches for their students; but this year something was different. Instead of negotiating the promise of relief of their grievances (more a promise in the past than a performance), the new governor, a self-styled “strong man,” rebuffed almost all their demands. When the two weeks that had in the past constituted the limit of their stay was up, the teachers refused to budge. The governor sent in the troops, and a battle ensued which the teachers, by their overwhelming numbers, won.
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Public hearings on Twins ballpark to be held all week
Friday 25 August @ 11:28:00 (Read: 4342) |
by SID PRANKE
In a remarkable show of their concern for democracy and public input, the Hennepin County Board will be holding “timely” public hearings before it votes on imposing a countywide sales tax to help finance a new Minnesota Twins ballpark in downtown Minneapolis.
Never mind that the MN legislature already approved the $522 million stadium in late spring, using April’s preliminary go-for-it votes of Hennepin County Commissioners Peter McLaughlin, Mark Stenglein, Randy Johnson and Mike Opat as the green light to impose a tax on only Hennepin County residents without a referendum. To their credit, County Commissioners Gail Dorfman, Penny Steele and Linda Koblick voted against the preliminary resolution.
“In a lot of minds, this is a done deal,” said John Knudsen of the Hennepin County public affairs department, but nonetheless, three public hearings are being held this week to hear what the public thinks about being given no opportunity to chime in with a referendum BEFORE the legislature approved the stadium bill.
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Gardens of Eagan offers crop tours, harvest party—keeping it organic
Friday 25 August @ 11:27:41 (Read: 3629) |
 The Minnesota Pipe Line Company wants to run a crude oil pipeline across Minnesota to bring oil from Canada to the Koch refinery in Rosemount (see the July 12 Pulse cover story, “Oil vs. Soil”).
In order to avoid suburban areas, the company’s preferred pipeline route would cross 149 miles of farmland and five organic farms, including the Gardens of Eagan farm (located 45 minutes south of the Twin Cities), putting the survival of all the five organic farms at risk.
Public hearings will run from Aug. 24 through Sept. 14 (you need not live in a given county to give testimony there). For tips on giving public testimony, see www.gardensofeagan.com. If you cannot attend a public hearing you may still send written testimony by Sept. 22.
On Saturday, Aug. 26 from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., Atina and Martin Diffley, operators of Gardens of Eagan, will host a harvest party and public hearing energizer. From 5 p.m. until 7 p.m., a wagon tour of the crops and potluck dinner will be held, with free corn and watermelon; from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., a dance will be held with music by The Organic Pheromones. ||
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Preservation panel turns down DeLaSalle stadium at Nicollet Island
Friday 25 August @ 11:27:11 (Read: 4298) |
by SHAWNE FITZGERALD
The Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC) recently voted unanimously to deny DeLaSalle High School’s request to build a football and soccer stadium on Nicollet Island. The inappropriate scale of the stadium and the destruction of a portion of Grove Street, one of the city’s oldest streets, could not be reconciled with historic district preservation standards. Nicollet Island is a subdistrict in the federally recognized St. Anthony Falls Historic District.
The Commission’s primary recommendation is to protect and preserve Nicollet Island’s remaining historic features, including the street grid pattern and views to and from the Island. Commissioners objected to destruction of original historic features, sound and light pollution, and disruption of the historic district as it is used today.
City Planning staff had earlier recommended against approving the stadium on the grounds that closing a portion of Grove Street would adversely affect the historic subdistrict. Grove Street is mapped on the 1865 plat of Nicollet Island and may have been in use before that time. Grove and other Island streets were recently repaved with a stone pattern similar to hose used in the 1800s.
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Hip-hop generation responds to North Minneapolis violence
Wednesday 16 August @ 15:14:11 (Read: 5251) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
“I never thought I’d be going to funerals every other week. I feel like I’m in a combat zone.”
Shelly Martin speaks softly with edgy bewilderment about her cousin Sterling Horton, murdered July 25, one of 26 people killed in North Minneapolis this year. “Sterling loved football and baseball. A real people-person. Sterling was going to be a senior at Wayzata High. He just turned 17 in May.” Martin, a petite, African-American 20-something, writes for Liberator Magazine, which is based in North Minneapolis.
Brian Kosoro started Liberator Magazine three years ago, as a freshman studying political science and journalism at the nation’s premier African-American college, Howard University. Writers range from high school students to their early 20s.
“We conceived this as an urban journal. Like the ‘Journal of Science,’ it’s a place for serious ideas and hypotheses to be argued,” Kosoro explains. “Young people have things to say. Let’s create a place to talk without pressure to be perfect. Not just angry opposition, but creative, pro-active thought, as well as new CD reviews. We don’t proclaim ourselves a Black publication. We’re open. A lot of white folks read the Liberator. People say ‘It’s real. It’s not compromising.’ Nothing will be sugar-coated on either side.”
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STATEMENT ON VERDICT IN DEAN ZIMMERMANN'S TRIAL:
Wednesday 16 August @ 14:35:57 (Read: 3864) |
 The Green Party of Minnesota reaffirms its belief that Dean Zimmermann had no intention to solicit or take bribes. We base this on his record of more than half a century of service to his community and active work for justice.
We recognize that he has made serious mistakes in the handling of funds, and we do not condone or excuse those mistakes. Nevertheless, we believe that he was never motivated by personal gain.
Our hearts go out to Dean and his family in what is clearly a tragic situation. We have serious questions about what appear to have been questionable investigative processes by federal authorities. As a party we believe that the root of the problem is the vast sums of money being poured into politics and the climate of widespread suspicion and corruption that it creates. We are concerned about the legal bribery inherent in the existing political system.
The Green Party continues to stand, as it always has, for clean and fair elections, public funding of campaigns, and strict regulation of lobbying.
– The Green Party of Minnesota
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Young, smart and broke:
Wednesday 16 August @ 14:17:01 (Read: 4003) |
Has the American dream flatlined?
by MEREDETH BARZEN
A college degree used to be an automatic ticket to at least lower middle class. You were qualified. You had distinguished yourself. You felt wanted.
These days, post-collegiate life has become a fierce struggle just to earn enough money to pay for a tiny apartment in a safe neighborhood, a little gas to get around, insurance, some organic food, utilities and a warm winter coat.
Is globalization the culprit? With more and more jobs being outsourced every day, many college grads end up in the service industry just to get by. They claim that it’s temporary, that they’re just (barely) paying the bills until something better comes along. But listen closely to the tinge of fear in their voice when they tell you that—they’re worried that “something better” won’t come by at all.
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Accountability that sticks – reform sought to make bad cops pay
Sunday 13 August @ 23:03:26 (Read: 3731) |
by DWIGHT HOBBES
 Between police chief inaction and stonewalling by the Internal Affairs Unit (IAU), civilian complaints have been a waste of time in the recent MPD past. Now, though too close to call, the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights may have found a way to finally make the City of Minneapolis hold cops accountable for abusing authority.
A recent study recommends giving the Civilian Review Authority (CRA) the power to do something about abusive police officers. Specifically, it counters MPD’s past attempts to neutralize CRA findings. And the City Council is all over the report, both praising it and working to implement its recommendations.
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Our hot sticky American summer — and the “point of no return”
Thursday 03 August @ 15:22:07 (Read: 4233) |
by Sid Pranke
Unbearable. Oppressive. Wretched. Miserable. Never before in my entire life have I been so afraid to go outside to avoid weather. Blizzards, sub-zero temperatures, lightning storms, torrential rainfall, tornado warnings, those I can deal with, but this last bout of hot weather seriously tested my patience and even my indoor survival skills. Compare notes with friends and neighbors and you’ll probably hear the same thing.
And if there are still people who think “greenhouse gases” might be foul odors emanating only from homes painted a deep shade of chartreuse, then the past weekend should have helped to convince them of what scientists already know: global warming is a given—the only question is how much and how fast it will affect our world.
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Sweating it out with Dean Zimmerman & the Quakers
Thursday 03 August @ 15:21:46 (Read: 3607) |
by David Tilsen
 Sitting in sweltering heat, surrounded by 40 or so silent people, and one well-behaved, but not so quiet toddler, I was pretty uncomfortable, and not just physically. This was a “Quaker service” hosted by the members of the Twin Cities Quaker community on the eve of a trial in Federal Court. It was held at the home of the defendant and his family, a longtime friend.
At a Quaker service, people sit in silence until moved to speak. I have never totally understood what is supposed to move them; I have been told it is not God, but that it is spiritual. I know Dean and Jenny get a lot of their strength from the Friends meeting they are part of, and I was willing to participate for their sake.
What do you say to someone on the eve of a trial? Well it seemed that these peaceful warriors in the Quaker community had a handle on it. You share your strength. You sit in silence, and you suffer together in 100-degree heat.
After the service, everyone gave Dean and Jenny a hug, and stood around trying to think of something to say. ||
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Arrests of the undead — “zombies” treated as terrorists
Thursday 03 August @ 15:21:27 (Read: 6841) |
by Lydia Howell
Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis features all kinds of musical “street performers”—one of the joys of a Minnesota summer. Was it paranoia induced by the Department of Homeland Security or sheer incompetence that prompted Minneapolis police to arrest street dancers “armed” only with recorded music?
Aiming for a playful protest against the American obsession with shopping, seven youths danced down Nicollet Mall on Saturday, July 22, around 8 p.m. Faces painted ghoulish white and black, they wore backpacks outfitted with clearly visible speakers playing music, calling themselves the “Zombie Dance Party.” They inspired some passersby to join them.
However, someone at the 1st Precinct decided they should be arrested.
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Mexico has a new president — but who is he?
Thursday 03 August @ 15:19:58 (Read: 3752) |
 by Stan Gotlieb
On July 2, Mexicans went to the polls to elect the people who will represent them for the next six years. Deputies (representatives), senators, governors, mayors, and one—and only one—President. When the smoke cleared, there was one too many presidents.
Felipe Calderon Hinojosa of the conservative, pro-NAFTA party known as the PAN (National Action Party), hand-selected by current president Vicente Fox, “won” by about one-half of one percent of the votes according to the national election commission (IFE), and immediately began acting 8220;presidential,” assembling a “transition team” and giving speeches in which he outlined his “platform” as if he were the official winner—but until the TRIFE (the electoral court) makes its declaration on Sept. 6, there is no “official” president-elect.
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Good treatment programs for prostitutes lack funding
Thursday 03 August @ 15:19:12 (Read: 3774) |
by Steve Butcher
Frustration was palpable at a panel discussion on prostitution that took place at Minneapolis Third Precinct headquarters last Thursday. Organized by the federally-funded community group Central Weed and Seed, and by Ward 8 City Council Member Elizabeth Glidden, the discussion was billed as a “solution” to the constant struggle between neighbors and streetwalkers.
The city court system was criticized for its perceived inability or refusal to hold and punish prostitutes. Minneapolis police lieutenant Dan Roen and Central Neighborhood activist Jeff Smollar both noted that women often reappear on the streets within 24 hours of their arrest. Corcoran Caring Neighbors member Sarah Blanch circulated photos that showed a half dozen drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes who congregate regularly along the 3000 block of Longfellow Avenue. “More and more residents in the Corcoran neighborhood are afraid to leave their homes,” she said.
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Viking Bar closes its doors after 46 years in business
Thursday 03 August @ 15:18:29 (Read: 3647) |
 Willie Murphy & friends played one final time at the Viking on Monday night. Willie has been hanging around at the bar since the ’60s, and has played Monday night gigs there for about 16 years. The farewell crowd at the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood institution was wild—dancing on the bar and tables just like the old days.
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Hug a tree, impeach a Bush
Wednesday 26 July @ 17:35:06 (Read: 6175) |
by Kaythlyn Stone
 Daniel Fearn is hoping you’ll hear about the “Blackout of National Shame” and start turning your lights off at home every Wednesday from 9 to 9:30 p.m. What’s that about?
The lights out protest is the latest of many ideas Minneapolis resident Fearn has presented, hoping one will be the tipping point that ignites people to actively support impeachment. Fearn is aiming his message at anyone dissatisfied with the hard right turn the country has made under President George W. Bush.
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Henceforth, being googled is bootylicious— just ask Professor Anatoly
Wednesday 26 July @ 17:12:40 (Read: 4479) |
 by Jaye Beldo
Anatoly Liberman, an internationally acclaimed linguistics professor at the University of Minnesota recently had his book “Word Origins... and How We Know Them” published by Oxford University Press as a kind of respite from a more extensive project, a multivolume etymological dictionary of English, which he has been patiently compiling over the last 20 years. “Word Origins” is chock full of intriguing, accessible insights into how our language has evolved, mutated and otherwise morphed over thousands of years. Recently Pulse interviewed the professor on the current status of language in the electronic age.
Pulse: What do you think will happen to language with the invention of the internet—specifically Google, text and instant messaging?
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The aftermath in Mexico— million-plus gather to oppose election results
Wednesday 26 July @ 16:59:11 (Read: 3831) |
Special to the Pulse from Mexico City
 by Johnny Hazard
On Sunday, July 16, in the biggest political march in Mexican history, about 1.2 million people gathered to oppose the theft of the presidential election by the right-wing, officialist candidate, Felipe Calderón. The winner-according-to-some, Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador, announced the intensification of nonviolent civil disobedience, which in the past week took the form of demonstrations and entrance-blocking at Banamex, the largest bank in the country. (Banamex was sold recently to Citibank, and the former owner, a Calderón supporter, needless to say paid no taxes on the transaction.) Other actions targeted Televisa, the largest Mexican television network, and Sabritas, a junk-food peddling subsidiary of Pepsico. Probable targets in the near future will include Wal-Mart. In spite of the non-violent nature of this movement (though participants have no “training),” Calderón and his supporters in the Mexican and international press continue to attack López Obrador and the people in general as violent. Calderón even went so far as to assert: “I believe in using the force of law on behalf of the people and against the violent.” Hmm. (As I may have mentioned in my previous article, this “law and order” stance goes so far as to support the beating and rape of activists.) Another march this Sunday promises to be much bigger, as organizers hope to double the attendance of the last one. I continue to marvel at how the U.S. media outlets that gushed over the election protests in the Ukraine in 2004 call similar actions in Mexico destabilizing. Whatever happens, and whether or not we believe a López Obrador government would really bring about fundamental change, it´s refreshing that someone is breaking the patterns of submission to corrupt, violent authority that predominate in Mexico and points north. I encourage readers to organize and participate in protests at Mexican consuls in the U.S. ||
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Red Ribbon riders raise $620,000 for nine AIDS charities
Thursday 20 July @ 13:16:14 (Read: 3789) |
by Phil Willkie
I just completed the 300-mile Red Ribbon Ride over the weekend—benefiting nine local AIDS charities.
I rode in the first Twin Cities to Chicago AIDS ride in 1996. At the time I thought it was ridiculous that you had to ride a bicycle to raise money. I had been a driver and board member for Open Arms of Minnesota. I thought bicycling was a distraction from delivering meals to homebound people with AIDS. But I was surprised that by doing a physically challenging feat, I was swamped with contributions.
In six charity rides for AIDS service organizations, I’ve raised more than $52,000. On this ride I came in second with contributions of nearly $9,500. Jim Maurer, the director of Park House, had nearly $10,000. I was followed by Rick Rosow with $8,200 and Jack Conrad with $6,200. Some 273 riders raised $620,000. The minimum for getting into the ride was $1,300.
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Matt Entenza drops out in attorney general race
Thursday 20 July @ 13:16:06 (Read: 3804) |
 Posted on Matt Entenza’s website Tuesday, July 18: “While I’m confident that I can win the race for attorney general, obviously in this environment staying in this race would hurt the Democratic Party and the progressive issues we care about so deeply. I have seen this before ... I know now as I did then that with enough time, I can fight my way through this and prevail. But with so little time and so many attacks, from anonymous faxes to attacks on my family, it is impossible to fight these attacks and win this race without it taking a serious toll on the people and the party we care about the most. It has been my honor to serve the people of this state. I am proud of my record in public service and even more proud of my wife. I am confident the voters of Minnesota would see these attacks for what they are: politics pure and simple. So today I am ending my campaign for attorney general ...” ||
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ELECTION FRAUD IN MEXICO: THE COUP OF THE TECHNOCRATS
Wednesday 12 July @ 16:48:45 (Read: 4333) |
BY JOHNNY HAZARD
On Sunday, July 2, Mexicans voted in a close race between Felipe Calderón of the PAN and Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PRD. The third candidate, Roberto Madrazo of the PRI, remained irrelevant. The specter of PRI corruption, however, was resurrected in the PAN.
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A Soldier's Heart Then and Now
Wednesday 12 July @ 16:15:06 (Read: 6655) |
By Chante Wolf
When Richard Saholt joined the Army in 1942, he did so in hopes of proving himself to his father and society. He did, by becoming a sniper, scout, point man and a member of the infamous 10th Mountain Division.
The division were ski paratroopers, and Saholt earned the Combat Infantry Badge and Bronze Star. The training alone was the most brutal and rigorous training known in the military.
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We Secede From and you should
Thursday 06 July @ 12:26:08 (Read: 4116) |
BY SID PRANKE
The time of year when many Americans get drunk and blow up things has just passed.
While some of us may continue to get drunk—ordinances generally prohibit anything resembling
a rocket’s red glare without a permit.
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News Junkie Jason Leopold: Karl Rove Still Not Exonerated
Thursday 06 July @ 12:07:21 (Read: 3958) |
BY LYDIA HOWELL
Journalists are supposed to report on scandals—not become them.
On May 13, on the progressive new-site Truthout.org, Jason Leopold predicted that Bush advisor Karl Rove faced indictment by independent “Plamegate” prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, within 24 hours. With day after day passing with no indictment and Rove’s lawyer claiming to have received a letter from Fitzgerald resolving the matter, Leopold has been attacked by journalists and bloggers from both the right and left.
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Is Coldwater for Sale?
Thursday 06 July @ 11:52:38 (Read: 4751) |
By Susu Jeffrey
Last fall the National Park Service (NPS) considered selling off 23-percent of its total acreage. That proposal was booed out of existence by public outcry but despite small increases, America's "crown jewels of the outdoors" are systemically underfunded by appropriations that do not keep pace with the value of the dollar.
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Reflections on giving our kids a fighting chance
Wednesday 28 June @ 14:51:32 (Read: 3712) |
BY DWIGHT HOBBES
Julie, a warmhearted lady if ever there was one, is on the phone, telling me they are enrolling at, we’ll call it Faith Academy, and am I interested in having my 12-year old daughter, who’s enrolled in the Minneapolis Public School system, apply for one a very few, soon to disappear openings.
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Why Join the Military?
Thursday 22 June @ 16:00:04 (Read: 3672) |
by Chante Wolf
Why do feminists and GLBT folks want to join the military? Is it that they want the same choices that white men have supposedly had for job opportunities (not that killing people is now something I put on my own resume), college money, and/or travel? Perhaps. That is why I enlisted, to get training as a photographer (which, of course, never happened).
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Mexico at the crossroads: the struggli in Oaxaca
Thursday 22 June @ 02:58:04 (Read: 3502) |
by Stan Gotlieb
In an annual ritual, the teachers’ union of the state of Oaxaca (one of Mexico’s three poorest states) put down their chalk and put on their marching shoes to come to the capital city and camp out in the heart of town. Some 50,000 plus marched in on May 22, and about 30,000 stayed to occupy the town square and some 50 blocks surrounding it, effectively choking off the tourist watering holes, and most of the upscale stores and restaurants that remain in spite of the appeal of the new malls in the suburbs.
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Ritchie nabs DFL endorsement on first ballot
Thursday 15 June @ 15:57:24 (Read: 3700) |
 Mark Ritchie and his wife, Nancy Gaschott, lock hands to celebrate Ritchie’s victory in the race against Christian Sande for the DFL endorsement for secretary of state. Sande withdrew from the race after the first ballot, when it became clear his campaign would not succeed. The convention then endorsed Ritchie by acclimation. Ritchie will now face incumbent Mary Kiffmeyer, a Republican, who has drawn fire for politicizing the secretary of state’s office. Ritchie said he would change that . “As secretary of state, I will restore dignity, integrity and non-partisanship to the office in the proud tradition of Joan Growe and Arlen Erdahl,” Ritchie said. ||
(Photo by Greg Popowich)
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The Devil wears ... credentials
Thursday 15 June @ 15:57:06 (Read: 4027) |
 by Sid Pranke
Operating on the premise that at least part of the world belongs to those who bother to show up, I showed up at the DFL state convention in Rochester over the weekend. Wearing two sets of credentials (one for media, another as an alternate delegate eligible for upgrade in Senate District 64, St. Paul)—I knew I would have floor access at all times, and not be relegated to the balcony.
The name of our subcaucus was “Impeach Bush, Antinuclear Labor Uncommitted.” I never imagined we would get enough delegates at the district level to earn a state delegate and alternate. I had borrowed a few colored markers to make a little sign but otherwise did no advance planning. Somehow we eked out enough numbers to make it to the state level.
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State grants Como Zoo funding for luxury polar bear love nest
Friday 09 June @ 17:25:57 (Read: 4147) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Every once in a blue moon, politicians serve the public good. Accordingly, lightning struck at Minnesota State Legislature this past session. Granted, they went ahead and soaked Hennepin County taxpayers to the tune of $387 million in forthcoming sales levies so the Minnesota Twins can have a stadium they don’ t need. And the filthy rich University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus got $26.6 million in funding to expand the already thriving Carlson School of Management—along with $40 million to build yet another a biomedical sciences research building. However, at least some of the almost $1 billion bonding bill will come to the long overdue aid of St. Paul’s comparatively shoestring operation, Como Zoo.
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Candidate Kelley votes not to limit mercury; he shoots down Lourey protection
Friday 09 June @ 17:25:37 (Read: 3869) |
by Leo Cashman
In a governor’s race looking for candidate differences, it is worth revisiting the melodrama that took place in 2005 in the Senate Health Committee, where DFL Senator Steve Kelley shot down a mercury bill authored by Senator Becky Lourey. Concerned that the much ballyhooed flu shot, which still contains 25 micrograms of mercury, Mercury Free Minnesota—a coalition of over a dozen of Minnesota’s activist environmental and health groups—backed a bill to curtail the use of mercury in vaccines. An assortment of all-unpaid citizen lobbyists, including some parents of vaccine-injured children, sought to educate House and Senate Health Committee members on the issue.
Imagine their surprise when some of the liberal DFL senators—such as Linda Berglin and Steve Kelley, who have a good record on mercury in the environment—had no interest in even meeting with the parents to learn about the basis for their concern. One of the mothers—Stephanie Lee, whose daughter suffered repeated vaccine injuries and died—lives in Sen. Lourey’s district. Lourey listened at length to the tales of tragic vaccine injury, with mercury in the vaccines as a prime suspect. Lourey eventually agreed to author a bill aimed at curtailing the use of mercury in vaccines. Not a complete ban on thimerosal, the deadly mercury-based preservative, the bill required doctors to use a mercury-free version of a vaccine whenever the mercury-free version can be obtained by the doctor’s best efforts.
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Try begging–DFL delegates urged not to leave too early on Sunday
Friday 09 June @ 17:25:12 (Read: 3792) |
by Sid Pranke
With Ford Bell pulling himself out of the DFL endorsement process, Friday at the state convention could be a snoozer. Unless, of course, the convention decides not to endorse anyone, that is, Amy Klobuchar. Observers wonder whether that move by Bell was a wise one—he announced his decision a few weeks ago on “Almanac,” a local political program on public television. Bell more than held his own on the issues in a verbal exchange on that show with the Hennepin County district attorney—he sounded more “senatorial” than Klobuchar, and had more than fluff rhetoric to offer viewers.
It will be interesting to see how the strong numbers of “Peace in the Precincts” delegates react to the idea of endorsing Klobuchar. Prior to Bell’s exit from the endorsement process, many delegates were committed to being “uncommitted” on the first ballot in the Senate race, to make a point about opposition to the war of Iraq.
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Minnesota’s election season
Wednesday 31 May @ 23:21:09 (Read: 4344) |
by Mordecai Spector
The eyes of the nation are sure to be fixed on Minnesota in the run-up to the November elections. There will be contests for the governor’s office and for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated by Sen. Mark Dayton.
In the Sixth District congressional race, voters will be faced with a stark choice between the leading candidates, Patty Wetterling, a liberal, pro-choice DFLer, with a national reputation as an advocate for missing and abused children, and state Sen. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater, one of the most conservative state legislators and the author of the proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
And the recent surprise announcement by Rep. Martin Olav Sabo that he would not run for re-election, after serving the Fifth District for 28 years in the U.S. House, created an opportunity for a dozen or so local politicians to position themselves for a run at the House seat in an overwhelmingly DFL-voting district.
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In all fairness to Ralph Remington ...
Wednesday 31 May @ 23:20:59 (Read: 3607) |
by Ed Felien
Although it is true, as we reported in “Short Notes on Tall Buildings” (Pulse, May 17) that Minneapolis City Council Member Ralph Remington did OK the development at Calhoun Square that will ultimately wipe out Borders Books and Orr’s Books, he really didn’t have much choice at that point. The process was already pretty far along. Anything he would have done at that late a date would most certainly have precipitated a lawsuit that the City would have surely lost.
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Just don’t get sick in prison
Tuesday 30 May @ 21:03:03 (Read: 3484) |
by Steve Clemens
(Editor’s Note: Following is an excerpt of a letter from Steve Clemens, who is serving three months in federal prison for nonviolent civil disobedience at the “School of the Americas.”)
My past exposure to city and county jails and federal prisons had led me to counsel fellow peace activists who risk time in the lock-up to try and stay healthy ‘cause prisons are not the best places to have close encounters of the medical kind.
I’ve read stories of how Dan Berrigan almost died in the dental chair at the Danbury Federal Prison. I personally watched “the Interstate Man” (that’s what he called himself in 1981) in Potter County Jail in Amarillo, Texas, go into a seizure, waiting for 20-25 minutes until the guard arrived, only to see them cuff him and throw him into solitary (‘the hole’) for the rest of the night before seeing the doctor the next day.
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Lying about radiation at Prairie Island’s nuclear plant
Tuesday 30 May @ 20:31:42 (Read: 3789) |
 by John LaForge
A bad accident May 2 at the Prairie Island nuclear power reactor site contaminated “about” 100 workers internally with radioactive iodine-131. The crew was far inside the reactor’s misnamed containment area when it was doused with the toxic metallic fumes that the Nuclear Management Company, which runs the reactor for Xcel Energy, said were leaking from one of the system’s thousands of uranium fuel assemblies. None of the employees were wearing respirators when the gas “was inadvertently released on the workers and inhaled,” according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) speaker went as far as to say, “that 100 workers were exposed was a high number,” but that was about it in the indisputable fact department. The rest of the NRC’s and Xcel’s spin about the accident was obfuscation, misinformation and outright falsehood, but it is worth considering for future reference because radiation accidents are a part of our future.
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Father Harvey Egan dies at age 91
Tuesday 30 May @ 20:17:40 (Read: 3500) |
Father Harvey Egan died at age 91. He built St. Joan of Arc from a sleepy, quiet parish into one of a lively, meaningful, musical spirituality, with 1,000 people at each Sunday Mass.
He called God She.
The most interesting speakers in town or passing through town did the homilies, including Gloria Steinem, which freaked the archbishop. People of all races, classes and sexual persuasions most often got standing ovations. I, an agnostic Revolutionary activist Jew, even did homilies.
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So, what’s new with Karl Rove lately?
Tuesday 30 May @ 20:11:21 (Read: 5943) |
 According to an e-mail received from Truthout.org Executive Director Marc Ash, three independent sources have confirmed that attorneys for Karl Rove were handed an indictment late last week.
However, the office of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald would not confirm, deny or comment on its investigation on Truthout’s report. “We know that both Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin and Rove’s spokesman Mark Corallo have categorically denied all key facts we have set forth. We know we have information that directly contradicts Luskin and Corallo’s denials,” Ash wrote in the e-mail—“this is what we believe—Rove may be turning state’s evidence. We suspect that the scope of Fitzgerald’s investigation may have broadened—and clearly to Cheney...”
Prior to these possible new developments, Rove has been asked to testify five times during the grand jury’s “Plamegate” investigation.
The leak investigation, which led to the indictment last year of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, began after administration officials were accused of disclosing Plame's identity as part of a broader White House effort to discredit critics of the administration's justification for the Iraq war. ||
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Short notes on tall buildings
Wednesday 17 May @ 18:09:04 (Read: 4003) |
by Ed Felien
What they call progress is moving along at a rapid pace in Uptown. Newly-elected City Council Member Ralph Remington, who ran on a campaign of “smart development” and seemed critical of development that was not in the community interest, OK’ed, at his second Council meeting, the huge redevelopment complex that will replace Calhoun Square at his second Council meeting. Many of the stores are already gone. Borders is scheduled to close May 29. The Kitchen Window will probably move south into the Borders’ space. An increase in the rent was the reason given for the Borders closing. It’s a smaller store than most of the others in the chain, but executives from the previous Calhoun Square management company have said they were told it was the most profitable store in the chain, based on square footage. Was it the unionization of employees that made management decide to abandon ship? Were they afraid that the noxious flu of collective bargaining would spread to other stores in the chain?
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The differences between DFL gubenatorial candidates
Wednesday 17 May @ 17:51:03 (Read: 4800) |
by Ed Felien
The principal issue in the race for DFL endorsement for governor will probably be the candidate’s position on health care. All the candidates acknowledge there’s a problem and all of them support some kind of universal coverage.
Becky Lourey staked out the high ground early. She has been clear in her support of a single payer system through expansion of MinnesotaCare (MNCare). This would be a gradual expansion that would create
the least disruption and crunch on the State treasury. It would allow Minnesota corporations and small businesses to offer MinnesotaCare to their employees. This is the most comprehensive practical proposal of any of the candidates.
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Coldwater Nation
Wednesday 17 May @ 17:15:18 (Read: 4341) |
New book details firsthand accounts
of 2nd longest urban occupation in U.S. history
by Sid Pranke
In the weeks before Fifth Congressional District DFLers decided to endorse Keith Ellison, Pulse contributor David Tilsen posed a question for delegates to consider while assessing candidates: “How did they respond to the unprecedented and excessive use of force during the Highway 55/Camp Coldwater struggle?” That’s a good question, but until I read a newly-released book with a really long title—“Listen: the Story of the People at Taku Wakan Tipi and the Reroute of Highway 55 or The Minnehaha Free State”—I didn’t realize how good.
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Ellison gets DFL endorsement
Thursday 11 May @ 12:10:33 (Read: 4125) |
by Phil Willkie
State Representative Keith Ellison received the DFL endorsement of Congress to replace retiring incumbent Martin Sabo. Ellison is the first person of color to be endorsed for Congress by a major political party in Minnesota.
The DFL Fifth District met at St. Louis Park High School. It started early with backers of Mike Erlandson, Sabo’s chief of staff of 13 years, trying to limit the number of ballots to six. The old regulars’ best chance was to deadlock the convention. Deadlocked conventions are rare, and that motion went nowhere.
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High School dropouts pay a big price
Thursday 11 May @ 09:23:50 (Read: 3906) |
 by Bao Vang
Football was Terrell Washington’s escape from real life. The smell of nicely-cut green grass made him forget that his mom smoked crack cocaine. The feel of the pigskin was a reliable escape from a fatherless childhood. And the sight of his teammates bonding gave him hope that they would graduate from high school together.
The nearly 6-foot-tall African-American linebacker tackled the roughest kids for Roosevelt High School and the next year for North High. Washington transferred back to Roosevelt as a junior, but couldn’t nail the C average needed to play. When football was taken from him, nothing else mattered. He lacked motivation to get up for school, didn’t pay attention in classes and pretty soon, stopped going all together. No one from his home encouraged him to go back. In fact, he was needed at home to help with three younger siblings.
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U.S. Senate candidates address our questions on nukes, prez impeachment, DU
Wednesday 03 May @ 17:08:06 (Read: 5013) |
 (Editor’s note:Minnesota U.S. Senate contenders—Two DFL candidates, Ford Bell and Amy Klobuchar, and Green Party candidate Mike Cavlan, all responded to the same Pulse questions. Republican Mark Kennedy’s campaign refused to participate. The DFL state endorsing convention runs from June 9 to 11 in Rochester. The Greens’ state endorsing convention will take place on June 3–4 in Duluth.)
Pulse: Do you favor construction of new nuclear power plants in the United States
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Pulse freelancer John Laforge get six months in federal prison
Friday 28 April @ 14:24:43 (Read: 4466) |
Nonviolent rebellion against a storm of lies
by John LaForge
The prospect of six months in federal prison camp for protesting torture seems a lot like accounts of being drafted or volunteering for the military. One hopes for light duty, but the authorities decide where, how and for how long you stay. Like the GIs, I have a ship-out date, a release date, and I’ll be issued olive drab and khaki clothes for the duration. I’ll be taking orders from officers, and the definition of “food” will be institutional. (I once read “beef lips” on an ingredients list in the federal prison camp kitchen in Marion, Ill.)
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Take Back the Night rally on April 27 at Loring Park
Friday 28 April @ 14:24:33 (Read: 3785) |
 Groups from around the Twin Cities will participate in the ninth annual Take Back the Night march and rally on Thu., April 27, at 6 p.m. The rally will begin in Loring Park with speakers Anna Odegaard of Alexandra House—a shelter, support center and advocacy organization for battered women and families; and Peggy Flanagan, advocate for women and children’s social justice, as well as organizer/trainer for Wellstone Action. From Loring Park, participants will march to Uptown to raise awareness of the violence on our streets.Following the march, the event will conclude back at Loring Park for an open-mic session and a musical performance by Elephine. ||
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May the Soulforce be with you — and also with folks at NCU
Thursday 20 April @ 17:40:46 (Read: 5225) |
by Dwight Hobbes
A traveling protest group, the Soulforce Equality Riders, hit town on Monday (4/17) to protest discrimination against gays at North Central University (NCU) in Minneapolis. The Soulforce Equality Ride is, with three stops left, a squad of 33 activists winding up a 51-day, 19-school bus tour demonstrating at military and religious colleges and universities that ban enrollment of gay, lesbian bisexual and transgender students—which North Central University does.
The Equality Riders’ protest—they prefer the term “direct action”—was thwarted by NCU officials, who closed its buildings to non-students, making it difficult for the group to engage the student population, until the day closed with a rally at Elliot Park, directly adjacent to the campus.
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Local church won’t perform opposite-sex marriages in show of solidarity
Thursday 13 April @ 13:32:12 (Read: 5580) |
 Civil marriage for opposite-gender couples will no longer be performed at Lyndale United Church for Christ. “We can no longer discriminate against members of our congregation so we will no longer be doing civil marriages at Lyndale UCC,” said Michael Vanderford, moderator of the 120-year-old Lyndale United Church of Christ in South Minneapolis. The church’s congregation voted unanimously on April 9 to establish a marriage policy that treats all couples equally and affirmed equal marriage rights for all couples. Opposite-gender couples married at the church would need to go before a justice of the peace in order to have their marriage recognized by the state as a civil marriage.
Church member Rev. Rebecca Voelkel said, “Our decision is a symbolic act in the midst of the debate in St. Paul and our nation calling other churches and pastors to stand for justice and equality by refusing to perpetuate injustice and inequality. Some pastors in the United Church of Christ and other denominations have also chosen to stop signing civil marriage licenses. We hope more pastors will in the future and are especially excited that this was a decision, not just of one pastor, but the entire congregation.” ||
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Crime problem continues in West Bank neighborhood
Thursday 13 April @ 13:32:18 (Read: 4517) |
by Burt Berlowe
In January of 2004, I wrote a cover story for the Pulse called "Somali Youth Gangs, Fact or Fiction". The impetus for that piece came from reports of violent and criminal acts committed by groups of Somali youth in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. There were conflicting opinions about the extent of the problem and whether those groups constituted “gangs,” as they are traditionally defined. But there was agreement on the seriousness of this issue among law enforcement officers and the Somali community, with the blame laid primarily on lack of constructive activities for the youth and broken family structures.
Two years later, the “gangs”—or whatever you prefer to call them—haven’t gone away and neither has the dilemma of what to do about them.
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Tens of thousands call for “immigration with dignity”
Thursday 13 April @ 13:32:40 (Read: 5993) |
 About 30,000 immigrants and their supporters marched from the Cathedral of St. Paul to the State Capitol Sunday calling for “immigration with dignity.” Many held signs opposing H.R. 4437, the U.S. House bill passed last December that would criminalize 12 million illegal immigrants and build a 700-mile fence along the U.S. Mexican border (currently, illegal residency is a civil violation). Also common in the crowd were American and Mexican flags and slogans such as “I’m a worker, not a criminal” or “I’m a parent.” The march was preceded by musical performances, Aztec dancers, and remarks by Archbishop Harry Flynn. On the steps of the Capitol, speakers spoke about their personal struggles to immigrate to the United States. Sunday’s march was only one of numerous peaceful rallies taking place in cities across the country this week.
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The quiet crisis will be heard:
Thursday 06 April @ 12:34:08 (Read: 6496) |
Pine Ridge rez Prez plans for clinic
by Cyn Collins
South Dakota women are not taking an abortion ban lying down. Bill HB1215 is the only anti-abortion bill in the U.S. which contains no exceptions for rape, incest or women’s health. This makes it far and away the most extreme ban of 11 states proposing bans, said Sarah Stoesz, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota & South Dakota.
A new coalition, South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families (SDCHF) formed rapidly in response to Gov. Michael Rounds’ signing of the abortion ban bill in early March. More than 600 people are working to garner 16,728 petition signatures by June 19. Kate Looby, state director of Planned Parenthood South Dakota said they received 1,200 signatures after the first three days and people are “ecstatic to sign the petition—people can’t sign the petition fast enough!”
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Legislative update on tax reform bills
Thursday 06 April @ 12:12:28 (Read: 3729) |
by Kim DeFranco
 Legislation to close tax corporate loopholes to make up and resore cuts to Health and Human Services programs for the poor and working people of Minnesota from the 2003 Legislative Session is moving along in the Minnesota Senate.
It soon will be going to full Senate Finance Committee. The legislation is expected to fare well in the DFL-controlled Senate.
However, since the Republicans control the House, it’s difficult to get a hearing for a Democrat-sponsored bill. So, this means that the Democrats of the Jobs & Economic Development Policy Committee will have to bring up parts of the bill as amendments. Representatives Karen Clark from (DFL-Minneapolis), Nora Slawik from (DFL-Maplewood) and Michael Nelson from Brooklyn Park (DFL-Brooklyn Park) are expected to introduce amendments.
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Congressman Kingston calls Cindy Sheehan a “nutcase”
Thursday 06 April @ 12:00:05 (Read: 5916) |
(Editor’s note: Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), writing in his blog, called peace activist Cindy Sheehan a “nutcase.” Following is an excerpt of Sheehan’s response.)
Congressman Kingston,
How dare you psychoanalyze me and call me a “nutcase!” How dare you call me a beatnik and lie about me in your blog!
First of all, April 4, 2006, was the 2nd anniversary of my son’s death. Casey Austin Sheehan was a man filled with integrity and courage. He was a hero who never backed down from the right thing his entire life. He was an amazing person who did not hide when his commander in chief sent him to a war based on lies even when he knew they were lies ...
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Marriage amendment fails in Senate committee
Thursday 06 April @ 11:33:17 (Read: 4006) |
The Minnesota Senate Judiciary Committee voted down the marriage amendment 5-4 on Tuesday afternoon, April 4. (Thank you to breathless Pulse writer Cyn Collins for calling that info in the office.) The vote seems to mesh with recent poll results on the statewide marriage amendment idea.
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News Analysis: City loses a good leader in McManus
Monday 27 March @ 12:44:47 (Read: 4223) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak and the City Council didn’t miss their water until folk in San Antonio started nosing around the well. Then, all of a sudden, hizzoner and company scrambled like cats scratching to cover up shit on a glass floor. Too late. Minneapolis Police Department Chief William McManus had applied for and accepted the job as San Antonio’s Chief of Police and was now in the wind. Now, there is plenty enough egg to go around on the faces of Rybak and the circle-jerking City Council (whose offices are right down the hall and just around the corner from Rybak’s at City Hall).
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Vets plus DU plus the Law
Thursday 16 March @ 23:43:29 (Read: 7970) |
by Susu Jeffrey
In 1944 the U.S. Congress passed the G.I. Bill of Rights, providing help to World War II veterans for medical care, education and the purchase of homes, farms and businesses. By 1951, 8 million vets had gone back to school at a federal cost of $14 billion. Higher education was no longer restricted to the elite, and served as a safety valve during the transition from war to peace. G.I. Bill opportunities helped to move hundreds of thousands more people into the middle class.
My dad, Harry Jeffrey (R-Ohio), was a co-author of that bill and spent his only congressional term writing, and then selling the G.I. Bill of Rights to the American people. Since then, the social experiment in support of ex-military personnel has slowly been gutted, especially since the Vietnam War. “That damn G.I. Bill,” a veteran told me recently. “[Now] after four years you don’t even get enough to go to junior college.” Veterans’ benefits are supposed to do just that—benefit veterans.
But, in fact, the fallout from Iraq Wars One and Two will be never-ending since the poison from American depleted uranium (DU) weapons is dangerous to all life for 4.5 billion years.
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Latinos have pesadilla with local realtor tactics
Thursday 16 March @ 23:15:34 (Read: 5415) |
by Hassan Perez
On a cool, damp March afternoon, Alejandro and Celia sit in the living room of the first home they could call their own.
Sitting in the stillness of their humble Minneapolis home, Alejandro and Celia appear to have realized the American Dream within a decade of coming to the United States from Central America. Their home is clean and tidy and located near schools and major thoroughfares. At first glance, Alejandro and Celia appear to be living proof that America is the land of opportunity.
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Dems—war profiteering should be a crime
Thursday 09 March @ 15:35:14 (Read: 4434) |
by Jeremy Breningstall
U.S. Senate Democrats would like to create a new category of federal crime: war profiteer. Under legislation proposed last week, those who deliberately defraud or overcharge in a war zone could face new penalties of up to $1 million in fines and 20 years in prison. Whether this legislation has any chance of passing remains to be seen. There are 29 co-sponsors to the bill.
The proposal comes on the heels of a series of hearings the Democratic Policy Committee has held over the last few years regarding contracting abuses in Iraq.
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Coldwater: the 1805 Pike treaty
Thursday 09 March @ 15:35:05 (Read: 4877) |
by Susu Jeffrey
There were more cops in the courtroom than supporters for the first appearance of three defendants, who were charged with petty misdemeanors after entering the sacred Coldwater Spring site last October. The case is United States of America versus Jim Anderson, Cultural Chairman of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, Chris Mato Nunpa, Indigenous Nations and Dakota Studies professor at Southwest State University at Marshall, and this writer, founder of Friends of Coldwater.
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Statewide precinct caucuses on Tues. March 7 eve—be there
Saturday 04 March @ 11:32:21 (Read: 4622) |
by Phil Willkie
(Last week Sen. John Kerry spoke at a poorly-attended fundraiser for the Party. While he complained about conduct concerning the War and the rising uninsured millions, he offered no solutions to either problem. The DFL attracted 100,000 people to its caucuses in 1968 when Eugene McCarthy ran. Former Party Chair Mike Erlandson said 57,000 attended caucuses in 2004.)
On March 7 the four largest political parties will hold caucuses: the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), the Green Party of Minnesota, the Independence Party, and the Republican Party. The DFL is the only party with contested races for party nominations.
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Minneapolis votes to outsource public Wi-Fi
Friday 03 March @ 17:35:52 (Read: 5060) |
Right-wing think tanks affect decision; no "bridge" built for the "digital divide" so far
by Aaron Neumann
Amid allegations by public advocates that city leaders were being driven by right-wing think tanks and industry groups, the Minneapolis City Council voted last Friday to begin outsourcing a citywide public Wi-Fi (wireless) network. Curiously, the Council allowed staff to present the latest proposal, a proposal that nearly verbatim espouses to the pro-private conservative policy positions on municipal Wi-Fi networks. Since Council members had just 24 hours to review the revised proposal before the entire Council voted on it, it appeared to some that the Council was bulldozing a vote.
The 11 to 1 vote came quickly, despite legitimate concerns that have been raised about the current proposals and the process that has produced them (see Pulse Feb. 8 cover story “Rybak’s Great Giveaway: The selling out of public Wi-Fi”), more specifically that public ownership of Wi-Fi was not seriously studied at any point in the process, and the two ownership models have never been compared head-to-head.
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Interview: the LIBERAL Sen. Mark Dayton —
Friday 24 February @ 10:14:26 (Read: 6855) |
Not enough for some, too much for others
(Editor’s Note: Sen. Mark Dayton will be leaving office at the end of 2006; he announced his decision not to run again a year ago. We checked in with him.)
by Sid Pranke
Pulse: I read an MPR online version interview/article a few years ago and they addressed what was perceived as you keeping a lower profile in the Senate, and that you were trying to change that somewhat by doing more press releases, etc.
Dayton: “My recollection of the ‘lower profile’ point in time was right in the aftermath of Sen. Wellstone’s death. Paul was my good friend of 22 years, and also my colleague and mentor here [in D.C.] for the two years we were together. I was learning the ropes in the Senate at that time and Paul was one of those who advised me to be, to adopt a lower profile. He felt that was a mistake that he made when he first came in.”
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Whistleblower: Save your breath?
Thursday 23 February @ 15:44:39 (Read: 5348) |
by Ed Felien & Mark Novitsky
“Patriotism is supporting your Country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”— Mark Twain
There’s a bill before Congress right now that the Bush Administration is trying to stop. It’s the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act.
Protection under the current Act are inadequate and an exercise in futility. From July 2002 through December 2003, OSHA completed investigations of 79 whistleblower’s complaints alleging retaliation by employers against employees who criticized company or government procedures. They found in favor of the employers 77 times and in favor of the whistleblowers only twice. Texas courts have ruled that employees are not necessarily entitled to a trial by their peers to hear their complaints, and the history and intent of the legislation cannot be used to interpret its application. It’s no wonder whistleblowers believe there’s little hope for justice.
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Hundreds march down Lake Street in show of unity for immigrants
Wednesday 15 February @ 15:11:37 (Read: 5088) |
by Jeremy Breningstall
Smarting over a perceived effort by Gov. Tim Pawlenty to make them political scapegoats, hundreds of immigrants and their supporters took to the streets on Sunday, Feb. 12 in South Minneapolis.
The Immigrants’ Rights March began in the parking lot behind the Carne Asada restaurant on East Lake Street and continued down past the Mexican and Somali shops on Bloomington Avenue, ultimately reaching the pews of Holy Rosary Catholic Church on 18th Avenue.
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Nelson-Pallmeyer to challenge Sabo
Wednesday 15 February @ 14:50:49 (Read: 8194) |
by Burt Berlowe
Martin Olav Sabo has been a fixture in Minnesota politics. After 17 years as a state legislator, he also has represented the Minneapolis’ Fifth Congressional District for more than a quarter of a century. He has been a loyal and sometimes effective Democratic congressman —voting consistently along party lines and bringing home substantial amounts of money for Minnesota projects, even as he has tended to shun the spotlight and work quietly behind the scenes.
He has been easily re-elected each of those times with minimal opposition from Republicans or from | | |
