For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate." So goes the...

You can't beat the real thing, and in Coca-Cola's case, that includes a tangled web of apparent lies, intimidation and murder that would make the management of Guantanamo Bay sob with tears of joy and...

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, drafted in 1789, reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,...

If the American occupation of Iraq is a quagmire, consider the Democrats expert distributors of quicksand. After five months of doing nothing but blabbering and patting themselves on the back, the Democrats...

I never thought I'd say this, but Rosie O'Donnell is a great American. The 45-year-old stand-up comedian and actress, who has been the outspoken co-host and moderator of ABC's popular daytime chat show...

Imagine. You're barely 20 years old. You're the daughter of the late Gianni Versace and the heiress of his international fashion dynasty, and you enjoy princess-level status as runway royalty in all the...

Apparently, since 1975, we've become more powerful than the sun. Yes, compadres, even though the mass of the flaming center of our entire solar system is that of 332,946 Earths, it has become a near-religious...

Let's call it like it is, my fine feathered friends. For the past 10 years, the culture warriors and prognosticators have been kept aflutter terming our times in techno-centric gobbledygook. First, it...

As Iran continues to thumb its nuclear nose at the United States, an old hawk has swooped down and opened up his crystal ball for those of us brave enough to look. Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew...

At about 6:40 p.m. on the evening of Feb. 10, in the dusky climes of the Mojave Valley of southern California, rising film star Chase Korte was just driving along in the slow lane, relieved and excited...

Last Saturday night, my dear friend, confidant, colleague and hero, Chase Korte, was senselessly killed by a drunk driver. Chase was driving back to Los Angeles from a busy weekend in Sedona, Ariz., when...

When the World Trade Center towers in New York City collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, they left more than one million tons of dust, creating a massive toxic cloud over lower Manhattan ready to be inhaled by...

According to popular legend, the egomaniacal tyrant Nero - the last Roman emperor of Julius Caesar's dynasty - sang and played the lute while the city of Rome burned in the Great Fire, circa 64 A.D. It...

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2006, I was dreaming that I was falling. But this wasn't your easily psychoanalyzed, industry-standard flight of Freudian fancy. In this nightmare, I was plummeting to my death...

For those of you inching further and further (read: younger) from my increasingly age-addled, 24-year-old cerebellum, I ask y'all to indulge my chronological license here. Jenga is a popular Hasbro game...

Finally. After a quarter-century of thoroughly spotty and increasingly cringe-inducing chapters of the James Bond spy-movie franchise, Agent 007 is back in "Casino Royale" with a cocktail that shakes and...

Less than a month after being elected the first Muslim American ever to serve in the U.S. Congress, the Man with the Quran is already burning the piñata at the white kids' birthday party. U.S. Rep.-elect...

Three years and 650,000 dead men, women and children later, perhaps it's time to reflect on the invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq. The questions keep running roughshod over that 'T'...

Have you seen 'Borat' yet?" The question is lobbed innocently, but with the dressings of intellectual engagement, like a virginal softball of low-calorie savoir faire. Where is this fairly innocuous but...

Friends, by the time you read this, we will have selected many new representatives to the not-so-hallowed halls of our U.S. Congress. Perhaps we have finally come to the nearly posthumous realization that...

Like many young Americans who grew up in moderate households equipped with a radio in the kitchen and the car, I was fed a steady aural diet of National Public Radio. I marveled at my parents' ability...

Just how bad has the visa process gotten for potential American citizens? Your imagination needs travel no further than across the river to understand the Herculean heights driving this ever-deepening...

The unending legislative spawn of America's car culture continues unabated. Under the transit-starving tutelage of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration, the Minnesota Department of Transportation appears...

In the wake of the recent rash of school shootings, there has been the requisite post-traumatic scramble for digestible answers, pithy stabs at meaning and morally navigable conclusions. But for all of...

Aaron McGruder, where art thou? Why is it two of our nation's sharpest black comic commentators are bailing at the top of their game? First, television and stand-up star Dave Chappelle walked out on a...

I know I'm going to lose some of y'all with this noise, and I might as well apologize (with fingers crossed behind my back) in advance. But I'm just going to go ahead and say it. I hate homecoming. And...

So, who's ready for another chapter of "Pathetic Dying Music Industry vs. You the Ironically Faithful Consumer"? Ever looked up how to play a song on the Internet? If you haven't, you should - and quickly,...

Can you believe this? The Crocodile Hunter was killed by - of all things - a spiny little fish! In the comic book world, this would be akin to Batman meeting his demise in a battle with one of Lewis Carroll's...

Oooooops. Last year, former 6th Ward City Council member and Green Party activist Dean Zimmermann was caught (on tape) on the receiving end of a "financial transaction" (read: bribe), and now he's been...

Just what does the dawn of August mean to performance artists in Minneapolis? It certainly doesn't evoke the halcyon month of holiday that millions of Europeans flock to the south of their countries for. No...

I heard a phrase recently that's been bandied about the water cooler and the radio dial alike this past week. Is it another terse Trump aping of "You're fired"? Perhaps the under-due renaissance of MTV's...

So, how does one celebrate America's birthday? A candy-tossed parade, a lakeside picnic, an impromptu backyard ballgame? A solemn commemoration of our nation's bravest veterans, perhaps? Nah. I'd rather...

Hey, hold on a minute! Since when did all my friends become bisexual? For some reason - chalk it up to the long and repressed dog days of summer - I did a quick mental inventory of sexual orientation among...

Ever since my first kick at something checkered black-and-white (that wasn't a dining room table or a spotted Yorkie), I've always had two questions: One, why is it that whenever men see small, foot-sized...

Back in ye olden days of the mid-1990s - when the Macarena was steppin' and Ice Cube was still reppin' - Purina introduced a bacon-flavored dog treat called "Beggin' Strips." I recall this product not...

Summer in Minneapolis is a divinely wrought thing. Not only do the skies finally open for torrents of rain - I mean, sun - but the already well-stocked performing arts schedule across the city gets to...

The epiphany of the week is as follows. Here, amid my personal throes of a difficult breakup and an even tougher academic semester, I have realized that everybody needs some circus in their life. And yes,...

Dear Jason McLean, I had this rocktacular idea the other day. I was passing through the usual blitzkrieg of vacant stares (and ever-vacating storefronts) in the shoddy excuse for a "neighborhood" we call...

According to a recent glut of media coverage spearheaded by the work of American "techie sociologist" Sherry Turkle, your "digital self" is your computer-based personality - the composite of what you present...

Relatively quietly and without much political ceremony or volume, the South Dakota Legislature handily passed a state law last week banning abortion under any circumstances except when the life of the...

Fellow citizens, today our nation lost a remarkable woman, an activist for peace, well-respected for the steadfastness of her beliefs and persistence of vision. I speak of former parent Cindy Sheehan,...

Last December when I hit these keys of futility " composing powerless words " a man sat in his cell near San Quentin State Prison in California, an advocate for peace, a reformed gang leader, possibly...

First of all, God save the Queen. That's right, folks " 1970s glam-turned-pop rock superstars Queen are returning to tour the United States for the first time since 1982. The 23-date juggernaut includes...

For the past five years or so, the Twin Cities area has been garnering national attention for its hip-hop talent. It all started when local indie rap hero Eyedea smoked the competition in HBO's televised...

If the names Mark Rylance and Dario Fo don't mean anything to you at this moment, that's fine. If they still don't after you read this column, I'm going to wade through the sea of Fanta cans you call your...

I was thinking recently from a bus seat trapped in the soot-choked environs of our fair city's downtown district: Aren't we humans due for another Renaissance? We certainly have revisited the intellectual...

So, what's next for renegade student group Trash Film Debauchery? Will the Student Activities Office finally come around and recognize the value of alternative cinema shown free on campus? TFD founder...

First of all, despite its menacing name, the recently deceased Trash Film Debauchery student group was nothing more sinister than a sinfully entertaining Friday night quirk-fest. But the major selling...

Welcome back, you finely defined battalions of preppies and nerds, to this nightmare on Oak Street we sometimes not-so-ironically refer to as a - laugh track followed by a Full House-quality "aww" here...

Hurry up, everybody! The Save General College bandwagon is leaving! Quick, hop on! Don't think about it! You want to be "campus-cool," right? Hey man, all you got to do is order early-bird season tickets...

Monday night, I had the journalistic equivalent of a fever dream: I was interviewing Michael Jackson. I sat on a stool in a resplendent kitchen de grandeur, with stunning teal tiling and exotic pots and...

As more than 2 billion Christians around the world celebrated Easter this weekend with their loved ones, nearly 1 billion people of all beliefs didn't have enough to feed themselves properly. As millions...

Financially speaking, this is the worst time in history for U.S. residents to travel abroad. The euro is (literally) making Swiss cheese of the dollar, and of course my lovely girlfriend chooses now to...

If I were deported to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba tomorrow for being half Afghani, I still think I wouldn't have it half as bad as a dissenting voter on Bloomington's City Council. For the past 40-odd years,...