Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/category/opinion/page/8/)
Next year, the Immigration History Research Center is partnering with the Lao American Writers Summit to host a symposium marking 40 years of Lao in the United States. Saengmany Ratsabout framed the event by noting ‘Lao refugees have been resettling in the United States since 1975, following a civil war complicated by U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.” Continue Reading
Being a server means your income is based on minimum wage, and the amount of tips you earn. Serving in America is a hard job. Surviving as server means you depend on many factors for your income. Some of theses factors include your employer, employees, the government and customers. The government has the “power” because they control the amount of minimum wage. Continue Reading
St. Paul residents should be on alert this winter. One parking mistake can turn into a $300 fee. St. Paul resident Myriah Austin found this out the hard way. Continue Reading
With frequency, education policy finds itself at the crossroads of political contention and debate. Last decade, disputes arose over the implementation of federal “No Child Left Behind” requirements. Today, “Common Core” standards have raised similar controversies. Continue Reading
I had been working with the City of Minneapolis for six years and 11 months before I was discharged on July 3, 2014. I started in solid waste in 2007, then went to utility billing in February 2008. I was a customer service rep 1 before finally going to the Business License and Consumer Services Department in January 2011, where I was also customer services rep 1.
We do live in times of great pain and suffering—locally, nationally, and internationally. And with television and social media we can see and feel all of the world’s angst—often more than we can bear.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.Some of us use chemicals to alter how we feel and become addicted. Others become dependent on sex, porn, food, power, money, status, gambling, video games, the Internet, “likes” on Face Book, our children’s successes, and scaling the corporate ladder. And most of us appear driven to consume the biomass of the planet as fast as we can despite the threat to humanity.Anne Wilson Schaef and Diane Fassel wrote in The Addictive Organization, “An addiction is any process over which we are powerless. Continue Reading
Driving away from Lino Lakes Correctional Facility late in the afternoon, I felt the ache of disconnect emerge. For the entire day, I and my colleagues, including organizers, professors, and legislators, were deeply connected with a group of 150 inmates at Lino Lakes.
For the past two months I’ve been furiously working to collect comment cards from Twin Cities area youth in support of the EPA Clean Power Plan before the public comment period ends on December 1. To curb climate change, the plan calls for nationwide emissions reductions of 30 percent by 2030, and would require Minnesota to reduce its carbon emissions by more than a third in that time. Together with my fellow students from Youth Environmental Activists of Minnesota (YEA! MN), the high school program of the Will Steger Foundation, we collected 649 comment cards supporting the plan.
I recently experienced a successful birthday celebration thanks to Benihana. This is the fifth year I celebrated my birthday with friends over dinner at Benihana restaurant in Golden Valley. Each year I leave satisfied and can be expected to return the following year. The food, atmosphere and staff make Benihana perfect for adult birthday celebrations.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.The Food: There is nothing like a Hibachi Grill, watching your food cook with mouthwatering smells, and amusing talent of the Benihana chefs. Continue Reading
An alcoholic, otherwise-unemployed Santa in the movie Miracle on 34th Street or Art Carney as Henry Corwin in Twilight Zone’s “Night of the Meek.” That’s what came to my mind when a mall-manager friend of mine offered me the Santa job in the early 1990s. His Santa had been showing up drunk or not at all. I was unemployed and living in Sturgeon Bay, Door County, Wisconsin, with a nonexistent job market; I took Robert up on his offer.I donned the cheap, fleecy red costume with black plastic belt, pulling the white trimmed red hat and white wig down to cover my eyebrows. No amount of Lysol™ would remove the idea of germs or someone else’s spit on the inside of the beard and mustache attachment. As I took my seat and waited for dreamers and wishers to visit, I wondered whether to use my own, female voice or try for a deeper male imitation.The first few children accepted my deep voice with its “Ho, ho, ho.” “Ho, ho, ho,” by the way, is not very easy to transfer to a real, natural-sounding laugh. Continue Reading