Religion

MN VIDEOS | White Bear Lake man discovers the meaning of life

By Jay Gabler, MN Videos

White Bear Lake author John P. Lynch is nothing if not immodest: the press release for his new online "book" Extreme Thinking (A Theory of Everything) says that the book "literally covers everything." What does he mean by extreme? "It is EXTREME because the THINKING is like snowboarding a McTwist."

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Minnesota Muslims prepare for different activities at Christmas

By Ibrahim Hirsi, TC Daily Planet

Director of Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center Mohamud Guled poses for a photo after an interview at his office in the mosque (Photos by Ibrahim Hirsi)

When already-busy office computers start buzzing with Christmas songs, clouds burst with snowflakes and some department stores spin Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock,” then you know it’s the holiday season unfolding.

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Light a single candle on the Winter Solstice

By Erik Hare, Barataria

Winter Solstice arrives right on schedule this Friday, 21 December, at 11:12 UTC – 5:12 in the morning here by mythical Central Time.  It’s being celebrated as the end of the world, probably not because anyone believes that’s going to happen.  No Mayan actually predicted such an event, but it is the end of their 13 Baktun cycle.  My guess is that the Mayans would have used this as an excuse to celebrate too, although their idea of a “party” often involved horrific acts of violence.  It’s a staple of the day.

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Barataria

Two Jews on parenting: The ghosts of Hanukkah past

By Carin Mrotz, TC Jewfolk

With Hanukkah approaching and our parenting conundrums adding up, it’s the perfect time to look back at what the Festival of Lights used to be – at least for us, The Two Jews on Parenting.

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TC Jewfolk

Corn in the commons

By Emilio DeGrazia, Downstream

Corn, especially when frozen, bagged and then boiled, leaves me as flat as an Iowa field. In his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan warns that corn, one of our weightiest exports and the primary bloat of our cuisine, gives our nation a long line of wastefulness. When that problem is paired with the poisons in our political air we have something big to worry about, especially if we happened to be on the winning side in the recent elections and are inclined to gloat.

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Downstream

Federal court hearing turns Talmudic in the case of Hebrew National

By Mordecai Specktor, American Jewish World

During a St. Paul federal court hearing last Friday, on a motion to dismiss the lawsuit alleging that Hebrew National’s hot dogs are not kosher, pages of Talmud were projected onto video screens.

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GLOBAL GROCERIES | Kosher groceries are now a lot harder to get in Minnesota

By Stephanie Fox, Global Groceries

Sara Cooper, owner of Cooper's Foods at the kosher section of her market. (Photos by Stephanie Fox)

The rumors circulating among grocery store owners and observant Jews that Twin Cities Poultry had gone out of business turned out to be true. As the only kosher food distributor in the upper Midwest, their closing has left grocery stores like Cooper’s SuperValu Foods in St. Paul scrambling to find ways to fill the shelves for their customers who keep kosher.

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Jesus vs. the 1970s: How the Peters Brothers of St. Paul convinced me to destroy my KISS records

By Jon Hunt, l'etoile magazine

I am in my bedroom, on my knees on the thick blue shag carpet that only existed in the decade previous. In my hands is a copy of KISS’s Destroyer album. Around me, on the floor, are other KISS records. They have been snapped cleanly in half.

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l'etoile magazine

Laurie Radovsky finds healthy way to take the Food Stamp Challenge in Minneapolis

By Eva Heithausen, TC Daily Planet

Laurie looks through the ads.

Can people eat healthy if they have just $31.50 to buy food for a week?

This was a question that Laurie Radovsky, a participant in the Twin Cities Food Stamp Challenge, asked herself. As a family doctor, she tells her clients that it is possible to eat healthy without spending hundreds of dollars for food. Now she used the Food Stamp Challenge as an opportunity to test her own conviction. That meant committing to shop and eat for a week on a budget of $31.50 per person — the amount that, on average, food stamp recipients receive.

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Minnesota Jews, Christians and Muslims take Food Stamp Challenge together

By Eva Heithausen, TC Daily Planet

Searching for cheap food.

Can we imagine what does it mean to live on a food allowance of $31.50 per week?  Participants in the Twin Cities  Food Stamp Challenge week, November 11-18, now have a lot better idea of what it takes.  Members of 15  groups took the Food Stamp Challenge from November 11-18.  They  tried to buy groceries from the $31.50 allowance that is the national average per person for food stamp recipients, and to eat for one week just from the purchased goods. 

This year was the second time that Rabbi Amy Eilberg had participated in the challenge and she had already made a list of essential things she wanted to buy. As she talked about her list at the opening gathering on November 11, one of the listeners raised his hand.

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