Month: July 2005

  • Kieran's Letter of the Month

    Paul Harstad is quoted [Red-Handed, July], “Egypt is a very interesting place… but why on Earth would they spend all that time, energy, and resources to build monuments to dead people?” To which a Rake editor has appended the comment “They should have built more libraries!” As a librarian myself, I applaud the sentiment, but…

  • Coming Up Fast

    On a recent Friday afternoon, a silver Porsche 993 Turbo emerged from the maw of the IDS Center parking ramp into the sun. The driver was Peter Kitchak. “Look,” he said to his passenger as he maneuvered the nimble two-seater through downtown Minneapolis, “the last thing anyone needs is for you to write about how…

  • Back Against the Wall Street

    These days at the complicated intersection of Washington and Broadway, the downtrodden God-Bless-You gang works in shifts along the stoplight medians. There’s a steady stream of traffic, and the location offers proximity to plenty of bars, fast food, and, perhaps most conveniently, the Jug liquor store across the street. There’s a guy with a cardboard…

  • The Sweet Taste of Liberty

    Until June 14, Camp Gitmo, the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was a controversial prison—to some, a necessary response to the war on terror; to others, a Bermuda Triangle of legal rights where suspected terrorists serve indeterminate sentences—but still, in pretty much everyone’s mind, a prison. Then, Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat…

  • Shimmering Surfaces

    The three best reasons for being an academic, as is well known, are June, July, and August. Especially on the occasions when the University of Minnesota conspires with the McKnight Foundation to allow one to spend those months reading and writing about a really genial poet for instance, a character from the Later Roman Empire…

  • It's Not The Size of Your Skyscraper…

    Has Minneapolis gone crazy for cantilevers? We humbly submit proposals for other buildings that could benefit from this glamorous architectural amenity. 1. Keep an eye on rising gas prices while enjoying your double-dip cone—inside the new Loon grocery/gas station/ice cream parlor at 28th and Lyndale. 2. In 1967, the Yippies wanted to levitate the Pentagon.…