Library News: Feb ’24

By ARI BAUM-HOMMES
All information listed here is accurate as of January 12, 2024. For the most recent information, check out the library website at www.hclib.org.

FRANKLIN LIBRARY HOURS
Monday 9 AM to 5 PM Tuesday 12 PM to 8 PM Wednesday 12 PM to 8 PM Thursday 12 PM to 8 PM Friday 9 AM to 5 PM Saturday 9 AM to 5 PM Sunday 12 PM to 5 PM

PROGRAMS FOR YOUTH AND FAMILIES:

Homework Help
Find homework resources for K-12 students online and at all our libraries: history, language arts, math, science and more.
Franklin Library
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 3:30-7:30 PM
Saturdays, 1-5 PM

STEAM Workshops for Youth
Drop in for fun and creative STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) experiments and projects! Materials provided. Led by Franklin Library’s Teen Tech Squad.
Wednesdays, 5-6 PM

Way to Grow
Way to Grow connects parents of kids 0-8 to a culture-to-culture family educator to help with resources and provide support and education.
Franklin Library
Tuesday, February 6, 3:30-5 PM

Young Achievers
Open to all teens who want to learn about various arts and media (including video projects, skits, and poems)! Young Achievers supports members to be a positive voice for their generation and community.… Read the rest “Library News: Feb ’24”

Letter to the Editor

Resistance is a Human Right

News outlets have been referring to Israel’s attacks on innocent Palestinians as “self-defense” in response to the Hamas attack of October 7th. On October 7th, 1,200 Israeli settlers were killed. In response, Israel has killed 25,000 people and counting, two-thirds of which are women and children.

How can Israel claim “self-defense” when the numbers of Palestinians murdered appears to be rising exponentially, and when the vast majority of those killed by Israel are innocent families? In so-called self-defense, Israel is bombing schools and hospitals, and blockading humanitarian aid to civilians who have no food, water, or electricity coming into Gaza.

After Israel’s 75 year long land grab occupation and apartheid regime, it is hard to see Israel displacing Palestinians from their land and massacring them as self-defense. If anything, it makes sense that after 75 years of home theft, land theft, blockades on food and water, controlled movement, check points, degradation, and so many other human rights violations, Palestinians rose up and fought back in self-defense.

Anything Israel has done since October 7th has been an escalation of a colonial project they already had underway.

-Whitney Wildman
Minneapolis, MN

Related Images:

A Forgotten Scandal

from the series Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery…

Number 219

By SUE HUNTER WEIR

Sometimes stories take a disturbing turn. This one started out as a biographical sketch of Sumner Cutter who was described in his obituary, published in the Minneapolis Tribune on April 14, 1902, as “one of the most prominent members of the older generation of [Minneapolis’] contractors.” His friends described him as a “man of quiet, steady disposition and never addicted to displays of violent temper.” He was credited with having built several of the city’s early flour mills and having helped dam the falls in the river. But, according to several newspaper stories published in 1864, there’s a darker side to his story.*
On February 24, 1864, Cutter shot and killed George Littlefield, the man who he believed was having an affair with his wife. The story was a major scandal. There was no mystery, no question that Cutter shot Littlefield.

A few months earlier, Cutter had been out-of-town working in the pineries (pine forests) when he received a letter from a friend informing him that his wife was “undoubtedly guilty of improper intimacy” with Littlefield, who was boarding in the Cutters’ home.… Read the rest “A Forgotten Scandal”