News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Monday December 15th 2025
A Process for Valuing the Work in the Backyard Initiative
By Janice Barbee, Cultural Wellness Center
When the Backyard Initiative began three years ago, residents of the neighborhoods of Central, Corcoran, East Phillips, Midtown Phillips, Phillips West, Powderhorn Park, and Ventura Village were invited to a meeting to look at Allina”'s plans for improving the health of the residents. One of the central messages of that meeting was that community residents need to be active participants in that planning and in the implementing of any health-improvement projects. People are tired of programs that are done for them, or to them, or on their behalf. People want to present their own ideas based on their own experiences. People want to participate in projects that involve and impact what they care most about, what they most value. And the evaluation process for reflecting on the learning and identifying and assessing the accomplishments must be owned and implemented primarily by the participants themselves. Only then can the process support improvement of the projects and help others in the community to learn how not to repeat the same mistakes and to build upon what residents have developed.
Citizen Health Action Teams (CHATs) have been implemented in the Backyard area over the past year, and CHAT members are now going through a reflection process to harvest what they have learned, what they have achieved, and what they will do differently going forward to most effectively improve the health of the community.… Read the rest “A Process for Valuing the Work in the Backyard Initiative”
Searching ”“ A Serial Novelle Chapter 31: Towards the Unkown
By Patrick Cabello Hansel
We use the phrase “love birds” to describe a couple in love who seem to have grown wings of joy. They can be 18 or 19, 80 or 90. It is the quality of their embrace that lifts them off the ordinary ground. When Luz and Angel kissed in the deep snow at the cemetery, they were the love birds we love. When they got up and walked, hand in hand, toward their evil and their freedom, they were birds of a deeper, stranger love.
There are no paths in a cemetery after a heavy snow. There are only the stones and the white wilderness. They followed the flight of the hawk they had seen, and walked through knee deep snow towards the center of the holy ground. Without a word, they both stopped at the place they felt they had to.
“I don”'t see the hawk””el halcón,” Angel said.
“Nor do I.”
Then both of them looked up and to the east, and there on a bare branch rested the whitest bird they had ever seen.
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Keep citizen journalism alive!
Occupation Time
by Peter Molenaar
Just moments ago I witnessed a national TV news report which exposed the deliberate short supply of chemotherapy drugs made available for children. Profits before people”¦
Yet the ongoing protests against corporate greed lack a clear set of demands. Sure, the slogan “Power to The People” has merit. But what? Does the banner “Revolution Not Reform” really lead us to “Revolution Now!”?
The fact remains: There can be no fundamental change without the participation and consent of many millions of people. Moreover, us “masses” are drawn to the class struggle in the first place on the basis of intermediate demands which taken separately do constitute “mere” reforms.
With the above thought in mind, the CPUSA has issued a brochure under the caption “SAVE OUR NATION!” It contains the following points:
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