“Plain and simple, if you f*ck with me I’m going to break your legs before you even get a chance to run. Be honest. I don’t screw around.”
That’s what Minneapolis police officer Rob Webber told 17-year-old Faysal Mohammed last March. When one of the teens asked why he was being arrested, Webber responded, “Because I feel like it.” Continue reading
Filed under human rights, police and crime
Bernie Beermann called in to talk to me after one of my Wednesday morning KFAI Morning Blend news discussions, and I met him in a parking lot for an interview.
UPDATED February 4, 2016 — Bernie-the-cabdriver, sitting in his green and white taxi van, calls it as he sees it, and he doesn’t like South St. Paul’s proposed rental ordinance changes. The changes will fly under the radar for most people, because almost no one pays attention to city council meetings. Making city ordinances, Bernie says, is “like farting under a blanket.” Eventually, the smell gets out, but nobody knows who is responsible. Continue reading
Lettuce growing at St. John’s University, January 16, 2016
Local lettuce all winter? At St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict, passive solar greenhouses grow lettuce for college food service, with farming and management by enthusiastic student volunteers. With a few dozen other folks, I visited both greenhouses on a subzero January Saturday, on the first of the Deep Winter Greenhouse Tours sponsored by the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota. Continue reading
Filed under agriculture, environment, food and farming
El Salvador is dangerous. The murder rate last year was just over 100 per 100,000 residents — one per thousand. That’s even worse than Honduras, where the murder rate is 61 per 100,000. The Peace Corps suspended its program in Honduras in 2012 because of the violence there. On Monday, January 11, the Peace Corps suspended its program in El Salvador “due to the ongoing security environment.” Continue reading
Filed under immigration
Photo by James G Miller, used under Creative Commons license
Want to rent in downtown Minneapolis? Latitude 45, a 13-story building with 318 apartments, is conveniently located at 313 S Washington. The Strib reported (back in October) that the building was a product of a public/private partnership , with the state of Minnesota contributing $472,000 for site clean up. Monthly rents run $1300 to $1600 for a studio apartment, with two-bedroom units going for $2500 to $3000. Amenities include a direct skyway connection and a heated rooftop dog oasis. Continue reading
Photo by Fabrice Florin, used under Creative Commons license.
(CORRECTION 1/13/2016 – see below) Back in December, I talked to M.L. Kenney on her Consuming Media radio program on Macalester college radio. We started off with her question about whether the media is trustworthy. My take: The right response is not trust but a critical, skeptical stance toward both media and official/semi-official sources of information. A critical response goes beyond the automatic “I don’t believe you” to a more difficult attitude of thinking about who has furnished information, how reliable the source is, and what other sources say. Continue reading
Filed under media
On this cold Minnesota night, about 25 Glendale Public Housing residents gather at Luxton Park for a Defend Glendale meeting. Discussion shifts back and forth, English to Somali, with translations and side conversations swirling about the room. Continue reading
The finished product from the Materials Recycling Facility (MRF): bales of paper, plastic, cans.
It’s noisy in here. Crashing, clashing, grinding, headache-inducing noisy — and that’s with earplugs in. Not only earplugs: for this visit to Eureka’s Materials Recycling Facility (MRF), I’m also outfitted with a safety vest, plastic goggles, and protective hard hat. Watching a big, yellow front-end loader move across the floor toward us, I’m glad that I also have an earpiece and transmitter so I can follow the directions given by my guide, Lynn Hoffman, Eureka’s chief of community engagement. Continue reading
Filed under environment, St. Paul Notes
Outside the glass windows of the office, the incessant clatter and clashing of the Eureka Recycling‘s Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) continues nonstop. Inside, I extract the protective plugs from my ears, and sit down to talk to José Hernandez about his work at Eureka Recycling. Continue reading
Filed under environment, St. Paul Notes
While I can’t claim that I see every story, I do read a lot of news, and I’m struck by how often really important stories get less reporting and fewer readers than more sensational stuff. Three of this week’s biggest underreported stories: the Obama administration staged raids to capture and deport mothers and children back to the deadly violent Central American countries they fled ; Flint, Michigan’s cheaper water poisoned thousands of children; an on-going methane leak in California may have a bigger impact than the BP oil spill. Continue reading
Filed under environment, immigration, race, Uncategorized
Mary Turck