Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/category/opinion/page/17/)
The recent Ebola case of Mr. Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas, Texas raises concern and fear in the West African Community, particularly in the Liberian Community, because of the stigma that Liberians are transporting Ebola to the United States. Today it is Mr. Duncan; tomorrow could be another West African, particularly a Liberian, since the Ebola epidemic is still high in Liberia.
Frank Dogbe gives his new employees from West Africa a one-year promise.
This calendar of events is created for nearly 800 neighbors of the West End. Please see this new location for calendar additions, corrections and updates at http://www.josfland.com
You’ve read the articles. You’ve heard about the state of performing arts in the Twin Cities. Many articles report on the depressing lack of funding the arts receive and the subsequent loss of many local programs. However, in many ways, the Twin Cities arts community is thriving and blossoming into a renowned hub for arts, culture, and music. The Twin Cities is the third largest theater market in the country, boasting the second highest theater seats per capita, only behind New York City. While powerhouse organizations like The Loft Literary Center, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, First Avenue, and The Guthrie keep the cultural gears turning, it is easy to forget the smaller arts organizations here that fill in the cracks, keeping this vibrant web of arts strong and prosperous.This is a Community Voices submission and is moderated but not edited. Continue Reading
On a remote tarmac, three steel-gray “Predator B” drones sit motionless, awaiting launch. Their tips balloon into metallic bulges that conceal sophisticated navigation and surveillance equipment. Their undercarriages sport pivot-mounted cameras, each capable of rendering detailed images from high in the air. Continue Reading
Senator Al Franken recently responded to my concerns over the Israeli attacks on Gaza this past summer.
“Greenway yog ab tsi?”, or “What is a greenway?” in the Hmong language, is a question that has been asked more than 100 times of North Minneapolis community members in and near Hmong International Academy by middle school students of color in the YMCA Beacons Minneapolis program at Hmong International Academy (HIA) – a Minneapolis Public School in the Jordan Neighborhood of North Minneapolis.This is a Community Voices submission and is moderated but not edited. The opinions expressed by Community Voices contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the TC Daily Planet.From April to June of 2014, Hmong American Partnership, in collaboration with Hana Media & Development, provided an after-school media arts, service-learning project called In Focus: N. MPLS Greenway (or simply In Focus) for a group of mostly Hmong middle school students at the HIA, to assist the City of Minneapolis share information about the potential North Minneapolis Greenway and collect feedback from the community, especially from Asian Americans in the area who had not been a part of the city’s first round of engagement regarding the possible greenway.The participants in the In Focus project learned about video production skills, the City of Minneapolis’ greenway concepts, and community outreach techniques. Through the guidance of program facilitators, the youth helped to create Hmong and English Public Service Announcement (PSA) videos, and conducted surveys of HIA friends, families, and faculty, as well as other community members in the area. One Hmong student in the project remarked, “It’s great that we are make videos to help share this info with other Hmong in the community.”Through the PSAs and conversations about the project, community members learned that a greenway is a park-like trail that people can use for biking, walking, transportation, and recreation, and that the city is currently considering Humboldt Avenue North, from the Victory Neighborhood to the Near North or Harrison Neighborhood of North Minneapolis, as a possible route for the North Minneapolis Greenway. Continue Reading
Retired advertising executive Bill Sorem has become a familiar figure at demonstrations and protests staged by the likes of Native Americans, peace advocates, equity activists, minimum wage propone
The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is referred to as a “trade agreement” between the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations but it is a Trojan horse for granting even more privileges and undeserved rights for multinational elite mega-firms. To state it bluntly, the TPP basically lets a cabal of foolish lawyers interfere with saving the planet. If the TPP is approved in its current form, it will basically pull the rug out from any efforts to cultivate sustainable local economies and food systems. That is why The Land Stewardship project is one of many groups who has been mobilizing to stop it from being approved by the US Congress. Similar to Trans Fats, the TPP is an artificially concocted health hazard that needs to be labeled, publically denounced, avoided, boycotted and then banned.On Thursday April 16th, 2015 leaders in the U.S. House and Senate leaders announced that they have reached a deal on legislation aimed at ramming the Trans Pacific Partnership through Congress. They intoduced a bill usually known as Fast Track but formally titled “The Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015, TPA-2015”. It will come to a vote in coming weeks and must be stopped at all costs. Elite corporate interests are pushing hard for this fast track bill in order to limit the opportunity that public opposition has to stop overall approval of the TPP. This is a Community Voices submission and is moderated but not edited. The opinions expressed by Community Voices contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the TC Daily Planet.SUING FOR PROFITS THAT THEY WOULD HAVE MADEThere is a most particularly problematic part of the TPP is a type of arbitration called the “investor state dispute settlement”. Continue Reading
The frenzy is on as the 113th Congress moves into its last lap and mid-term electioneering hits peak. Left in suspension is a rush of politically charged bills pulsating to get through committee, desperate to avoid sudden death at the stroke of a partisan pen.Standing apart from the teeming mass is one critical bipartisan bill, the FOIA Improvement Act, co-authored by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). By unclogging the flow of government information Senate 2520 will improve access to information by and about the federal government, thus to facilitate the transparency that undergirds government accountability. Because it is not sexy, pricey or viciously partisan the FOIA Improvement Act escapes the limelight; because it affects every American’s right to know, it deserves attention, understanding and discussion.FOIA has a deserved reputation as a wonkish tool wielded by investigative journalists and attorneys. Most of us have never taken the treacherous path that the Star Tribune’s James Eli Shiffer described in his recent series relating his “mystifying journey” into the world of FOIA.What we fail to realize is that the information that reaches us through the press, advocacy groups, social media, even distorted propaganda, depends on someone having delved into the public record to ferret out the facts. Continue Reading
