The Alley Newspaper

I recently attended a meeting put on by the Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness (MICH). As is common these days, the meeting began with a land acknowledgement, which is a statement recognizing that what is now Minnesota was and is the homeland for various Native American tribes. The wording of a land acknowledgement is up […]

I recently travelled to Breezy Point, in northern Minnesota, to speak at a conference. Since the trip involved five hours of driving, I made sure I had some audiobooks to pass the time. I started listening to Taking the Work Out of Networking: An Introvert’s Guide to Making Connections That Count, and within an hour

I have recently been reminded of the complexities of communicating with others, and the value of improving our abilities to communicate. A few days ago, a conversation about foreign languages started at Peace House Community. Well, it was supposed to be about foreign languages; we spent the first 15 minutes talking about our own language

I need to make some apologies after my article in the Alley last month. The article praised Ventura Village, but when I wrote the article I forgot that the Alley serves many neighborhoods, not just Ventura Village. The Alley staff recognized the problem, but because I submitted my article so close to the deadline, they

This article may sound like I’m currying favor, or being really self-serving, but I want to praise what I see in the Alley and in Ventura Village. When I started writing articles for the Alley five years or so ago, I didn’t really expect anyone to read them. I thought this was a small neighborhood

It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock

Like many people in this part of Minneapolis, I am continually reminded of the challenges facing our neighborhoods. High crime rates, limited resources, livability crimes, drug use…. you know the list as well as I do. Aside from my personal observations, I hear about the challenges the members at Peace House Community deal with every

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first. It’s worth doing poorly many times until you get good at it.-Paul Tracy (or maybe it was Zig Ziglar; I can’t remember which one said it.) Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better. -Samuel Beckett As someone who grew up receiving

Among my other duties, I help coordinate the adult education series at the church that I attend. This fall and winter we have had various congregation members speak about the intersection of their vocation and their faith. In other words, how does their faith affect their work, and how does their work help them see

Dave and Ray Davies, the brothers who led the British band The Kinks since the 1960s, have a famously volatile relationship. Even though they managed to stay in a band together for over 40 years, they often despised each other and had explosive arguments. They addressed their relationship in the song “Hatred (A Duet)”, which