News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Wednesday May 15th 2024
Calling Youth Artists and Their Fans!
By the Editorial Leadership Committee
Have you been enjoying the interviews with young artists in our community? So have we. And we know there are many more cool and talented young folks to highlight in the alley pages.
The artists featured were super excited to be in the paper. Their families, too. Here are a few quotes:
Thank you for everything! It has been a wonderful experience to do the interview and just that you took your time to do this. I love the paper! It’s amazing! – Sha’Vontie, Dancer, Singer, Musician, Actor
That looks really good! Thanks so much for everything. I can’t wait to get a copy! – Orren Fen, Puppeteer
This looks great, Mary Ellen! I’ll be hitting up neighbors for their copies for the grandparents. – Orren’s Mother
Noelle became an instant hit with some of my extended family. They didn’t know she loved painting and now they are requesting (and offering to pay!) for her art. It’s built up her confidence. – Noelle’s Mother
The week Andrew’s article was printed, we got a ton of texts and comments from friends who read it. He got so much positive feedback. – Andrew’s Parents
Send an email to copydesk@alleynews.org… Read the rest “Calling Youth Artists and Their Fans!”
METRO TRANSIT
Safer and Smaller Trains?
By JOHN CHARLES WILSON
Metro Transit is in the midst of an experiment with running two-car, instead of three-car, trains on both the Blue and Green Lines. This experiment continues through 20 August. The purpose of the test is to see if two-car trains reduce the amount of cleaning necessary and increase the amount of “interaction” between the Metro Transit police and train riders. Three-car trains will still run on busy days, such as Twins game days.
Personally, though it may not do much for the cleaning issue, I believe the best way to make train travel safer is to order “open gangway” light rail vehicles, as are used in Toronto. Instead of separate cars with no inside connection between them, open gangway trains fit together with an open corridor between cars, creating an effect similar to articulated buses. This means people in back don’t have the full separation from the front which seems to embolden troublemakers, and it also means that if someone in one part of the train feels bothered or scared, they can move to the other part without waiting for the train to stop.
In other news, Metro Transit has quietly released information concerning the coming D Line, a Bus Rapid Transit line slated for Chicago Avenue.… Read the rest “METRO TRANSIT”
TODAY MY HEART IS HEAVY
By BARB TILSEN
May 25, 2022
Today my heart is heavy
Whenever the news arrives of children dying
The six year old found in the trunk of a car
Shot by his mother
While that story is still freshly told
the News brings yet more details
of the shooting yesterday
with the horror of deja vu
Nineteen children in Texas
2nd graders
3rd graders
4th graders
Beautiful and precious
Murdered
By an 18 year old
With an assault rifle he bought
On his birthday
Leaving his childhood behind
In bloody footprints
Bringing haunting memory
Of another school shooting
of our young children
Carried in Sandy Hook’s river of tears
Bringing the stark truth
that lies at the center
of our country’s stalemated inaction
We are a nation that allows our children
To be murdered
It is our legacy
It is our history
The heartbreaking picture comes to the fore
Large numbers of beloved Native children
Stolen away to boarding school
Portrait of the stolen lives
In that sea of young faces
The stolen promise
The stolen land
Building the wealth of our country
We are a nation that murders its children
With the facade of personal freedom
When we allow laws
Protecting the violence of the gun
With more violence of the gun
That make it easy, possible
for the sick, the wounded
the disturbed to arm themselves
With weapons of war
To use in the halls of learning
Sacrificing
The sacred promise of the child
When will we ever learn
When will we ever change
And meet this reckoning
with the courage and the will
This moment requires
Our wounded world requires
Today my heart is heavy
©️2022 Barbara Tilsen
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