‘Commentary’ Archives
Raise Your Voice: September ’23
By PETER MOLENAAR Peter Molenaar Yes, the City’s plan to concentrate diesel fumes in our neighborhood has been stopped, and the focus has shifted to the implementation of the Urban Farm business plan. To this end, I have engaged Mayor Frey regarding the Urban Farm to school market connection, and he was receptive.Meanwhile, activists have contacted me for insider information about Smith Foundry’s contribution to our diminished air quality.Note: At Smith Foundry, iron is cast in molds made of sand, the sand is composed of grains of quartz, quartz is crystalline silica (silicon dioxide) and fine silica particles make dust in the air we breathe. When concentrated, silica dust will, over the course of time, accumulate in the lungs. Having worked inside the bowels of Smith Foundry for 35 years, I should know. Hey, the community has a right to know. Hennepin County Commissioners get a message. Source: Peter Molenaar Smith Foundry, 1855 E 28th Street…Once upon a time, there [...]
SIS: George Floyd – A Closer Look
By DWIGHT HOBBES A article in the series: Something I Said Dwight Hobbes His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice (Viking Press - 2022) is a strong, Pulitzer Prize winning read by Washington Post staffers Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa. One cannot read this book with your mind already made up. The authors neither fit Floyd for a halo nor do they demonize him. Without letting him off the hook, they place the man in compelling context, calling Houston’s and Texas’ criminal justice system out for their part in his unwitting, hellbent self-destruction.Nothing is simple about enduring institutionalized racism, particularly the truism, White folk are responsible for racism, but, we are accountable to deal with it. Like a lot of African American parents, Larcenia warned her son George that he was born with two strikes against him. Some of us make that third strike count. Most don’t. Viking Press George Floyd was a decent sort, [...]
