News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Friday December 26th 2025
THE HOTEL ST. PAUL”'S
BY PATRICK CABELLO HANSEL
It”'s not hard to find a spot
to build your nest on the old
church roof. After all, the
psalm says “even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts”.
The problem is finding a spot
where the red-tailed hawk,
who claims heaven and earth
as his supermarket, cannot
ravage with his fearsome talons.
Perhaps this is why, a century
ago, the Swedes decided to
add these parapets, niches,
cornices and mini-gables high
above the rose window: not
to make it impossible to paint
without a helicopter and a Tom
Cruise stuntman hanging from
a cable, but to build a haven as
close to heaven as wooden
ladders and scaffolds allow;
for they knew””for winged
as well as biped beasts””that
blessings are passed from
generation to generation and
that a good home to raise your
little ones is a legacy that will
not be forgotten, a kindness
that will spread over the wide earth.
Patrick Cabello Hansel is Co-Pastor of St. Paul”'s Luth. Church at 28th St. and 15th Av. also the location of the “old church roof.… Read the rest “THE HOTEL ST. PAUL”'S”
Frank Reflections: The Korean Dilemma
Self-defense is a “slippery slope”
BY FRANK ERICKSON
The “scholars” are debating if the United States of America can “legally” attack North Korea and claim it is an act of self-defense. Why is it those same “scholars” never talk about people”'s right to attack the USA in self-defense?
How can you continue to kill people claiming self-defense, when your very existence comes from murdering those who had the right of self-defense against you?
How can the U.S. government claim the right to kill in self-defense when Native Americans and their right to self-defense should have taken down the U.S. government a long time ago?
All of this “warring” has nothing to do with self-defense. Why can”'t Cuba “war” upon North Korea in self-defense?
Self-defense is a “slippery slope,” especially when those with the biggest bombs keep claiming to have the right to use it. How many use violence in self-defense if they don”'t see a chance at winning the fight?
What does the future hold? Nothing but “winners of wars” claiming self-defense.”
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Keep citizen journalism alive!
Confederate General Robert E. Lee advised no Statuary for fear of war”'s sores kept open
According to historian Jonathan Horn, Lee was often consulted in his lifetime about proposals to erect monuments to Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson and others.
In a 1866 letter to fellow Confederate Gen. Thomas L. Rosser, Lee wrote,
“As regards the erection of such a monument as is contemplated, my conviction is, that however grateful it would be to the feelings of the South, the attempt … would have the effect of … continuing, if not adding to, the difficulties under which the Southern people labour.”
Three years later, Lee was invited to a meeting of Union and Confederate officers to mark the placing of a memorial honoring those who took part in the battle of Gettysburg.
“I think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered,” he wrote in a letter declining the invitation.
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