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Welcome to Minnesota: A Conversation about Immigration and Human Rights

May

25

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Jim Mork

About me

Lived and owned property in Cooper neighborhood for 18, going on 19, years. Retired now and am fulltime booster of the area where I live.

Favorite Places:

Gandhi Mahal, East Lake Library, Longfellow Community Council, Dragon City Cafe.

Activities:

Walking,movies,crime prevention, watching anything funny on TV

Personal Web site:

Longfellow Chatter

Column:

Cooper-Lake Diary

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Sabotage by politics

By Jim Mork, Cooper-Lake Diary

It is a sad day for democracy and for Longfellow.

Under pressure from vested interests, our mayor and city council abandoned whatever integrity they had and voted for public funding of a football stadium.

They chose to transfer sales taxes created for convention center maintenance to the pockets of the Vikings and local developers.MORE »

Cap's Grille, at Hiawatha and 50th Street, is not strictly speaking in Longfellow. But it fully qualifies as a good destination for the community without undue travel. I happened to visit there after seeing that the line at Sea Salt Eatery was too long given the time of the evening. I love fish, but I love smoked pork. Not sure which I love more.MORE »

NEIGHBORHOOD NOTES | Friends School Plant Sale May 11-13 in St. Paul

By Jim Mork, Neighborhood Notes

Distant Early Warning: Friends Plant Sale coming May 11-13 in St. Paul Friends School of Minnesota is a Quaker-run school located on Englewood Avenue in St Paul. Every year in May, the school holds one of Minnesota's largest (if not the largest) spring plant sales. Veterans of the sale have come to expect a huge variety of plants for their gardens, including some specialties.MORE »

NEIGHBORHOOD NOTES | East Lake Library gears up for 2012 Book Sale

By Jim Mork, Neighborhood Notes

The Friends of the East Lake Library hold an annual sale of books, mostly used. The purpose of the sale is to create a fund upon which the library can draw in order to add items to its collection or provide special services. This makes our community library a better place than it would be if there were only the budget that Hennepin County provides. In recent years, state aids MORE »

El Norteno on Lake Street: Tasty fish tacos

By Jim Mork, Cooper-Lake Diary

I've previously blogged about having fish tacos in the neighborhood. On April 16, I decided to have a dinner out in the neighborhood. My wife had borrowed my car, but living in Cooper means many restaurants and cafes in easy walking distance. I decided to go to the easiest, El Norteno, at 40th and East Lake.MORE »

FREE SPEECH ZONE | Tornado Awareness

By Jim Mork, Free Speech Zone

The decades-long sense of invulnerability for Minneapolis residents was shattered by the touchdown in North Minneapolis of a tornado last year.MORE »

Food and carbon footprint

By Jim Mork, Cooper-Lake Diary

I watch a lot of hours of food programming on such channels as Food, Cooking, and Travel. It constantly amazes me that so many people have so many creative ideas on something as simple as food. But I've noticed a disturbing theme. On such series as Man v.MORE »

Dining, food, and values

By Jim Mork, Cooper-Lake Diary

Some people make money to eat food. I'm one of those. Some people eat food to make money. In that class of people are food critics. I don't think I can claim to be one of those. I'm too inclined to overlook small flaws. For one thing, it might be something secondary that influences the relative rating of one restaurant against others in a market niche.MORE »

NEIGHBORHOOD NOTES | Longfellow crime report for March 13-20

By Jim Mork, TC Daily Planet

Precinct 3 of Minneapolis Police Department mailed out its update for March 13 to March 20, for Longfellow. No crime is good, but the silver lining in this latest cloud is bifold: The breakins were forced. Nobody just entered through an open window or unlocked door. And there were at least a couple of “no loss” occurrences. Thieves attempted a theft and went away wMORE »

One night at a chain restaurant

By Jim Mork, Cooper-Lake Diary

Let me start out with a paraphrase of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (ask the hippie in your family if the allusion is obscure):”Love will get you through times of no food better than food will get you through times of no love.”MORE »