Can North High be Saved?

Post by the Hawthorne Hawkman, photo from Minnesota Public Radio.

Since the Star Tribune broke the story about the Minneapolis superintendent proposing the closure of North High, a rally has already been scheduled for tomorrow night's school board meeting.  A robust discussion is occurring on the Minneapolis Issues Forum.  I encourage readers to check it out and contribute to the dialogue there.  However, the Issues Forum has its limitations.  Only two comments per 24 hours are allowed, and one cannot comment anonymously.  So I'm offering up the NXNS site for a such a dialogue if folks wish to do so here.

This is quite the conundrum.  North High is reportedly the oldest continually functioning high school in all of Minneapolis (although not always out of its current location).  It boasts quite a few famous graduates (we'll forgive them for letting Sid Hartman get a degree).  And yet, despite everything it ought to have going for it, only 42 students enrolled in the freshman class.  The current proposal allows for these 42 to remain until graduation, but I can't see that happening.  If I were a freshman and the school were closing, I know I'd want to transfer somewhere else.

We can cry and holler all we want, but at the end of the day it's that number that's the most significant factor at play.  A school of this size simply cannot function with so few students entering its doors each year.  On the Issues Forum, some very pertinent questions get raised...

Fire at a Mohammed Amro Property

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

The two properties down the street from me at 2515 and 2519 3rd St N have played a key role in my blogging efforts.  The owner, Mohammed Amro, has been coined "Mr. Slummy" on the Johnny Northside blog, due to his extraordinary flouting of both city housing ordinances and common sense.  After I confronted Amro regarding his illegal excavation at 2515 3rd, an anonymous commenter on JNS was the first person to use the moniker "The Hawthorne Hawkman."

Well, on Sunday I was out for a stroll in the neighborhood when I saw the family that lives just south of Amro's properties standing outside and looking rather concerned.  They had noticed smoke billowing out of a second-story window and alertly called 911.  It should be noted that Amro has been nothing short of a complete disaster of a neighbor to these folks, and yet they still had the common decency to do the right thing.

And thankfully, no one was home when the fire occurred.  It appears as if no one in the house nor any firefighters were seriously hurt either.  For Amro's sake, let's hope the damage is minimal, because...

Working on the Presidential Seal

Post and first photo after the jump by the Hawthorne Hawkman, above photos contributed by a fellow Habitat volunteer.  Second photo after the jump by Irving Inquisition.

With all the tremendous progress made in Hawthorne last week thanks to Habitat for Humanity and President Carter, I wanted to spend at least a few hours volunteering.  It took until Friday morning before I finally cleared enough time to stop by and fill in wherever I was needed.  By that time I had put in enough hours at work that I was feeling a bit under the weather.  But if Jimmy Carter, at 86 years old, can spend a day or two in the hospital and then come out and pound a few nails, this former farmboy ought to be able to tough it out.

I asked where I was needed, and they put me on caulking duty at the house where the President worked.  So in a way, you could say I helped with the Presidential seal.  My childhood times scampering around on the top of a hay wagon came in handy too, as I approached the heights of the scaffolding rather casually.  I did have to duck out early enough to practice a speech written by former HNC Board Chair (and now Officer Candidate) Peter Teachout.

And earlier in the week, I received...

Totally Awesome Girls Organize Hmong in NoMi

Post by the Hawthorne Hawkman, photo from Jay Clark.

Over the past several days, Minnesota Public Radio has run two stories on Hmong organizing in NoMi (primarily in Hawthorne).  The first explains what I've come to dub "stealth organizing" around common events such as soccer or Halloween parties.  Calling people up or showing up at their door out of the blue and organizing them around issues such as housing or public safety can be difficult at best.  Throw in language and cultural barriers and the task becomes even more daunting.  But when parents and kids are gathering around a soccer game, bringing up community concerns in a casual setting becomes far easier.

One such issue that has been consistently raised is the desire to get a Hmong-speaking police officer on the day shift in the fourth precinct.  We know this wouldn't solve every communication difficulty between the Hmong, Hmong-Thai, 911 dispatchers, and the fine officers of our precinct, but it would go a long way towards building a stronger relationship throughout these groups.  In this MPR story, a group of kids Jay Clark of CURA calls "The Totally Awesome Girls" talk about their experiences and why such a move is needed in our community.

I've had the distinction of meeting these kids, and they are, as advertised, indeed Totally Awesome.

I have to take issue with one thing that the police spokesperson Jesse Garcia said, that they cannot assign officers based on race.  That's not what the Hmong in the fourth precinct are asking.  They are asking that officers be assigned based on an intersection of the precinct's needs and the officers' abilities.  From another community meeting, we know that the police officers' union contract explicitly allows for such assignments.

Conversely, putting one (or even several) Hmong officers on the day shift is not going to be some kind of magical elixir that will resolve all facets of this sometimes thorny issue.  The MPD rightly has their own criteria used to determine which officers respond to what calls and how quickly.  And Hmong and other Southeast Asian residents must also become more comfortable calling in to 911 and 311.  I hope that I can be a part of bridging this gap, either with my individual efforts or through my work with the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council.

Refugee Nation and the Laotian Secret War

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman, bottom photo contributed.

I've been close friends with Bryan Thao Worra ever since we worked together at Hawthorne over three years ago.  By the end of my first day on the job, we were cirbbing Star Wars lines to each other; it was "buddy-ness" at first sight.  You could say we grokked each other, and we would know exactly what that meant.  And yet we haven't discussed much in the way of his Laotian heritage, opting instead for intricate arguments such as whether Hellboy 2 remained faithful to the source material.  Who needs to be burdened with personal details when you can both agree on the irony that Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight might very well be the defining portrayal of the Joker, in spite of the fact that the story never appeared in comic/graphic novel form?

That's what friendship is all about, right?

So when one of my closest friends started getting accolades for his involvement in the Legacies of War exhibit (Strib, City Pages, TC Daily Planet, Southwest Journal, and Asian-American Press, just to name a few), I took him up on an offer to see an exclusive preview of the "Refugee Nation" performance.  The play, interspersed with video clips of the carpet bombing of Laos, is both meaningful to those with direct experience with the subject matter, and accessible to newbies such as myself.  It begins with the traditional Laotian greeting of "Sabai dee," which means...

Cooking With the Feared Ghost Pepper

Available at Cub Foods on Broadway

Yes, the ghost pepper is strong enough that you must wear gloves when preparing it.

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman, except where I am in pictures.  Above photo of me taken by the Irving Inquisition.  Below photo of me taken by my sister-in-law.

Earlier this year, I heard an NPR bit about the hottest pepper on the planet, the ghost pepper, or bhut jolokia.  This little baby is so strong that farmers in India and Bangladesh - where it is native - cut it open and rub it on fenceposts to SCARE OFF ELEPHANTS.  In fact, in India, the government is actually looking at weaponizing it as a tear gas/crowd deterrent.  Do you sometimes have trouble with a jalapeno?  Well, that clocks in at about 1,000 Scoville units.  The hottest habanero can get up to 577,000.  A ghost pepper hits as high as 1,050,000 - 1,300,000.  The Scoville scale is imprecise, as the same kind of pepper can vary in hotness depending on cultivation conditions.  At times the Trinidad Scorpion pepper has measured around 1,463,000 on the scale, and could now be considered the hottest pepper in the world. "Trinidad Scorpion," which would make an excellent name for either a death metal band or a WWE wrestler.

There are peppers that are simply hot.  Then there are those that make you respect the pepper.  Finally, you have spiciness that's the equivalent of a religious experience because it makes you realize there are forces in this universe that are far more powerful than you will ever be.  The ghost pepper is one such experience.  I've tried it once before, on chicken wings in a restaurant in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan of all places.  In terms of the religious aspect, it did not disappoint.

My pastor says I make the same face when I take Holy Communion.

I turned a healthy shade of purple, I was dripping sweat from just about everywhere, the entire lower half of my face was numb, and I needed two beers to chase down six ghost pepper wings.  It was glorious.  If there is a Heaven, it might be exactly like this.  If there is a Hell, then these meals don't come with beer.

Naturally, when I saw the ghost peppers for sale at Cub on Broadway, I absolutely had to try my hand cooking with them.  There was one little problem though...

Amecio Enge: Another Violent Criminal Taken Off the Streets

Post by the Hawthorne Hawkman, image from the Star Tribune.
Editorial note:  I have searched extensively for a photo of Amecio Navaro (also shows up as Navro) Enge, but to no avail.  If any readers can provide one, I will replace the above photo.

The weekend was marred by another tragedy in north Minneapolis when Maurice (Mo) Meeks was killed and another man critically injured when a person named Amecio Navaro (also Navro) Enge drove his vehicle directly into a front porch and a crowd.  He was reportedly intoxicated, it's not known if drugs were involved, and the act was clearly intentional.  Earlier this year, we heard Chief Dolan and Mayor Rybak state that a big cause for the uptick in violent crimes was due to a small number of very violent offenders.  That was a tough pill to swallow for many dealing with the violence on a regular basis, but recent events might bear that theory out to some degree.

This is certainly the case for Navaro Enge, who was NOT a nice man.  He has a rather lengthy criminal history, which we'll get to.  But like Alonzo McCoy, the more telling part of his past may be what he was NOT charged with.  For Enge, that was...