News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Saturday July 27th 2024
We Want Your Ideas For Health Improvement! Backyard Initiative Update
The Backyard Initiative is a community partnership to improve the health and health care of the community. The Alley Newspaper will be publishing a special insert on the Backyard Initiative in the May edition. We invite you to join us for a special event to meet your neighbors and distribute the insert throughout the Backyard*. Thursday, May 6 5 to 7 p.m. Midtown Global Market Food and brief program before distribution begins Thank you incentives for all volunteers To RSVP: Please call the Cultural Wellness Center at 612-721-5745 *
by Janice Barbee, Cultural Wellness Center & Paula Fynboh, Allina Health System
Join a BYI Citizen Health Action Team (CHAT)
The Backyard Initiative has moved to a new phase. Community residents who live in the Backyard area (the Phillips neighborhoods, Central, Powderhorn Park, and Corcoran) are now meeting twice a month to develop projects that improve the health of residents. We want to involve more community residents in this work. If you have an interest in working with your neighbors on a health-improvement project, and/or if you have a great idea to bring to the dialogue, please join us.
CHATs now meeting:
1. Rebirthing Community: Bringing Elders and Youth Together: Focused on bringing elders and youth together for a “rebirthing” of community.… Read the rest “We Want Your Ideas For Health Improvement! Backyard Initiative Update”
“Going the extra mile”¦beauty is an essential element in one”'s life.”
by Michael Simms
I”'ve always believed that having beauty in one”'s life was an essential element for my own happiness. When we started rehabbing properties in Minneapolis, we had many discussions with various contractors whose mindset was “Just do what”'s absolutely necessary” to rent, and we”'ve insisted on going the extra mile to make our buildings more liveable and to try and instill some pride in the people who live there. We ultimately believe it will extend the life of the property and,”¦ it”'s also the right thing to do.
Whether it”'s restoring a magnificent porch, or keeping or restoring hard wood floors that have been covered up by cheap carpet, or keeping beautiful built-in buffets and wainscoting that dramatically add beauty to a property, we”'ve always insisted on going the extra mile to attract renters who want a sense of beauty in their living accommodations. Of course, we also make sure that they are even more structurally sound than originally. We do new electric, furnaces, plumbing, leveling of floors, and whatever else it takes to meet our standards.
2704 has beautiful built-in woodwork and oak, hard wood floors we just discovered that we”'re bringing back to their original beauty. We put crown molding in other properties, have utilized exposed brickwork to help beautify another property, and in general, are always looking for a way to make a building stand out.… Read the rest ““Going the extra mile”¦beauty is an essential element in one”'s life.””
Keep citizen journalism alive!
Against Finger Pointing
by Peter Molenaar
Scientific reminder: The totality of existence (i.e. ”˜matter”') is in motion”¦this is true because all phenomena are a manifestation of a self-contradictory unity of opposing forces (i.e. matter is ”˜dialectical”').
So then, to understand something one must begin by uncovering the main contradiction within it. Secondly, one must ascertain the dominant aspect of this contradiction (i.e. the relationship of forces must be examined). Thirdly, one must examine the relative development of the opposing aspects as might be correlated with environmental influences (i.e. external factors are the conditions of change, internal contradictions are the basis of change). Fourthly, one must determine (or judge) the “tipping-point” (i.e. quantitative change) beyond which the dominated aspect becomes the dominant (i.e. qualitative change).
To continue”¦
No phenomenon can be fully understood apart from its historic development, potential future development, and interconnection with the totality. Those who proceed otherwise are said to be “metaphysical”. Unfortunately for the human condition, the formal logic derived from a narrow and one-sided approach results in an ”˜idealistic”' departure from rationality.
So then, with regard to President Obama”'s “failings”, whose interests are being served by the trendy groundswell of smug indignation which flows now from the ”˜left”'?
Readers might recall my recent column “Irony of Ironies” which asserted: “We elected Obama to save capitalism (to save capitalism from the capitalists!)… Read the rest “Against Finger Pointing”