Staff & Contributors

Boys of Baraka & Freddie Gray Case

Jane Hoffman

With the recent problems in Baltimore including the arrest of Freddie Gray who had 18 arrests in just 8 years with 4 arrests alone in 2015, it is hard to imagine what style of justice the Baltimore courts wield.

Jade Helm 15: U.S. Military Exercise

Jane Hoffman

It’s an American conspiracy theory fantasy that may actually involve true life participation similar to an Xbox gamer with a real rifle in his hand. But where? Texas, the lone star state

Dawson’s Creek, television breakthrough

Jane Hoffman

What is the fate of Joey Potter’s human condition? A teenage girl whose mother died when she was 13 years old, a father in prison and a sister who bore a child from an interracial relationship which interferes with her reputation

Anita - A documentary of Anita Hill

Jane Hoffman

Awkward and offensive. The words and testimony of Anita Hill trailed through the echoed sound-trapped chamber of the ancient building beyond the microphone while her soft doe-like eyes resounded a brazen tale of workplace inappropriateness

“Good People”

Jane Hoffman

The premise seems ordinary. A young American couple transplants to London, England to engage in renovating the wife’s family home while living in a dump.

Frankie & Alice

Jane Hoffman

Sherman Indian High School

Jane Hoffman

by Jane Hoffman

Unsolicited Cyber Bullying

Jane Hoffman

Facebook has upped their suggestive advertising in the last few years so one finds invites to people and pages a person has no interest in. The ads exist to trap you.

What’s new in town: the Amity Café

Jane Hoffman

Patti Chuang and fiancée Adam Swank always talked of their own subterranean dream of having a coffee shop as they traveled and visited coffee houses along the way.

Drones that Shone

Jane Hoffman

“I found the hidden beef.” Now he hopes to develop technology so the Northern Lights region will zip line the cows through the air back to North Korea with a swift electronic command. The cows will successfully jump over the moon.

Waco Siege Series – Part Six

Jane Hoffman

The goose bumps really began the moment Trinity stepped her foot onto the earthen clay floor of Mount Carmel Center built in 1957.

Waco Siege Series – Part Five

Jane Hoffman

Trinity carried the Sears battery up the hill the next day to put in her car. Stanley Mulbridge was waiting at the bottom of the hill with his Buick Park Avenue running, circa 1988

The Waco Siege Series – Part Four

Jane Hoffman

You could hear something shake beneath underground. When he pulled out the sword, it was double edged dark blue and silver with a distinctive inner blade. It had an etching on it: Ephesians 6:17

Waco Siege Series – Part Three

Jane Hoffman

“The meek shall inherit the earth, but I inherited all the strangely frocked preacha men of Southern persuasion.” Stanley cackled “You haven’t even known me ten minutes and you somehow bust my fashion statement.

Waco Siege Series - Part Two

Jane Hoffman

He was a hit in these parts with his sullen piano playing and melancholy hymns.” Jedda didn’t say anything, just walked away.

The Waco Siege series

Jane Hoffman

The rich black earth mixed with moose and caribou was his dream assignment. Jedda Diah Whitter hands were clean now but the sweat that travailed his body was mounting

Saudi Succession into the Modern Age

Jane Hoffman

Part Two

Delicate decision making in the Saudi Royal Kingdom

Jane Hoffman

Part One

Am I Charlie? I am Lassana Bathily

Jane Hoffman

Remarkably so, any number of journalists can stand by their credo but the carriage of the message comes through in the heart of the intended core of the subject matter.

Living in a dual homeland

Jane Hoffman

A scent of a woman underscores the endless gypsy quality of people trapsing through the multiple stores. The stores are lined up and open every day for the bargain hunter.

The Elderado Rides out of Town

Jane Hoffman

A few weeks before Larry Elder got his star on the Hollywood walk of fame, KABC Talk Radio gave him a non-Hollywood ending.

Compromise on Iron Slope Mountain

Jane Hoffman

The Holiday Spirit

Jane Hoffman

How should one feel around the holidays? Should I be automatically propelled to be in a jovial mood because I hear Christmas tunes on the radio?

Good Cop, Bad Kid: The Tamir Rice Story

Jane Hoffman

Good cop, bad cop. Good kid, bad kid. Good child, Black child. Status quo, never had a chance. Should my child be waving an airsoft gun in the air in light of gun misuse and perception in America?

The Huddled Masses

Jane Hoffman

A way to a man’s heart is a meal. A way to a hungry soul is food. I had a strong sweep of emotion overcome me as I stood waiting for the church assistant to come by with her grocery cart ready to fill bags up for my family of two

Earthlings from Outer Space

Jane Hoffman

Since the Bold in Bold Choice Theatre stands for “Battling Obstacles Living with Disabilities,” I was expecting a unique theater experience when I surveyed the presentation at the Shrine Auditorium last week

The Red Herring Open Mic Night

Jane Hoffman

The vacancy and shadowy cult of poetry is often an individual journey. It is not a public confession in a beatnik or modern coffeehouse, with glossy eyes fixed on the orator.

The Jingo on the Streets: C’mon, Let’s Light a Fire

Jane Hoffman

There are three things you have to know if you’ve lived in Minnesota for any length of time. The Vikings wear purple and are our football team.

The Modern Message of Christianity vs. Islam Rogue vs. Vogue Believers

Jane Hoffman

On the other hand, the American media doesn’t really project content Islamic people who practice outreach and charity. We only see head-slayers, most recently in an American convert who sliced the head off of a middle-aged woman

Football is the New Politics

Jane Hoffman

I know the names of the President elect in Afghanistan and the lead caliphate from ISIS but until this week, I did not know Al Franken’s Republican’s opponents name.

Celebrity Death Wish

Jane Hoffman

I once met Lauren Bacall at Spagos in West Hollywood. She would have never dared to die before ripening to legendary. This year, at age 89, she finally did.

ISIS (Islamic State of the Levant): An open Para-military Afraid of No one

Jane Hoffman

Saddam had a death wish….and a life goal: To be a nationalistic leader admired throughout the Arab world. Nasser was his regional idol and Stalin his international idol.

Political Loyalty

Jane Hoffman

You can’t be neutral on gay rights, without being targeted as inhumane to the human condition. You can’t support the private sector investment without saying capitalism as a whole is fraud.

Pretty Little Liars Television series - Season Two

Jane Hoffman

With Dr. Sullivan being the only human solace in which the girls have now confided the secret of “A” being an emotional terrorist, Dr. Sullivan disappears. Dr. Sullivan beckons the girls to a group office visit but a note appears which says “The doc

Pretty Little Liars Television series

Jane Hoffman

After sifting in a pool of doldrum television for 15 years, I finally got a permanent high: my Nancy Drew fix mixed with an eclectic high school crowd, crisp parent actors, and a murder plot as complex as Jon Benet Ramsey.

Facing loneliness in Middle Age in the Midwest

Jane Hoffman

My reunion with Minnesota soil this time was breached with record breaking winters two times in a row and a quiet horizon which begged my mind for one encounter with the homeless L.A.

Charam v. Jihad: The path of destruction Israel & Palestinian conflict

Jane Hoffman

Fifty eight percent of the world has a personal stake in Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is not a long term battle the world will fully turn a blind eye to.

Boys of Baraka

Jane Hoffman

The Boys of Baraka is a documentary film produced in 2005 about 20 at risk male youth who are chosen to attend a Kenyan high school thousands of miles away in the open prairie to develop academically.

Scoop (2006): Uncovering Woody Allen

Jane Hoffman

I don’t know if I have all the tools to uncover Woody Allen. I have nuanced versions of his multiple microcosms of personality clipped and pasted into different actors in movies and time periods that rush to my senses

Mixology

Jane Hoffman

Metaphorically searching outside the box for a genre out of one’s element may transcend to a happier, lighter place. Or it may bring me to the dark, shady bar scene of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 1980

The Republic by Plato - Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Modern Man’s Perception

Jane Hoffman

There are also stairs leading outside the cave, where one comes into the light of the sun. In Plato’s world, the sun is the perpetuation of enlightenment.

Doonby

Jane Hoffman

The story seems to be about a mother who has a child but can’t afford him and decides to abandon him. There is also a scene where she climbs the metal steps to a rickety motel.

The Oxford Murders

Jane Hoffman

“No truth exists outside of mathematics. Philosophy is dead so there is no refutable truth to answer the questions of mankind.”

The Squid And The Whale

Jane Hoffman

“The Squid and the Whale” is based on Noah Baumbach’s childhood experience of suffering alongside his younger brother from the divorce of his parents.

Winona needs no apologies: Review of the “The Letter” (2012)

Jane Hoffman

The basis of the movie is deception. The more she tries to analyze the movements of her actors while they utter the lines she wrote, the more she questions their sincerity.

Pay It Forward: Working for the DFL

Jane Hoffman

Despite the lack of supplies, the controlling coordinator, and some lack of volunteer participation during the hottest election year in decades, I felt part of a patriotic fervor

Finding the Bidwell Ghost

Jane Hoffman

Louise Erdrich’s words and imagination are large enough to freefall, swimming into the oceans of our minds, blend and awaken memories and hope for new life

Blue is the Warmest Color

Jane Hoffman

One cannot speculate about whether Kechiche is unraveling the confusion of an adolescent or exposing experimental sex as a socially acceptable art form.

When Nietzsche Wept

Jane Hoffman

Between Nietzsche’s rationally driven benign lectures of mankind’s fate, his lack of trust, and his demands for love, I did not develop any sense of empathy for a writer tormented by his own demons

Lent is not a Ritual

Jane Hoffman

That is why those Christians asleep in the light must awaken those content in the dark. Someone may not have a looming crisis.