News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Tuesday December 16th 2025
Food Obsession: THERE”'S NOTHING TO EAT AROUND HERE!
by Jane Thomson
Above is the frequent lament heard from my son Randall, some 25 year ago, when he would come home from high school and look into the refrigerator. If he was looking for sugared soda pop or chips with greasy dip, he was right. Or perhaps my daughter”'s six-foot-five-inch boyfriend Doug had beat Randall to the snacks (“Thanks, Mrs. Thomson ”“ the cookies were great!”). Years later when my son was a young husband and father, and I was baby-sitting Ella (now 17), I would open his fridge, see leaves, roots and strange grains, and say to myself “There”'s nothing to eat around here.” And there are people who can look into the fridge (if they have one), any time, assess that there”'s nothing to eat, and be correct. Someone please write more about this!
The point I am leading up to is that if possible there should be some wholesome and interesting food for kids to eat when they come home from school. They may have eaten lunch at 11 a.m.. Some may go right to a job after the snack (if they can get jobs). Some kids may have extra-curricular activities after school and be really hungry when they get home.… Read the rest “Food Obsession: THERE”'S NOTHING TO EAT AROUND HERE!”
Winter”'s Bone & Despicable Me
Winter's Bone
By Howard McQuitter
Winter”'s Bone
*****
Anonymous Content
Drama/Thriller
Uptown
Running Time: 100 minutes
Rated: R
Director: Debra Granik
If ever there was a heroine from opening to closing scene in a film, it”'s a new actress named Jennifer Lawrence, 18. Her character Ree Dolly lives in the Ozarks of Missouri, a harsh country with tin can houses, junk cars in backyards, an occasional horse or cow, and in this backwater, more than a few dogs.
Miss Dolly has plenty on her plate, taking care of two younger siblings, Sonny (Isaiah Stone) and Ashlee (Ashlee Thompson) and a mentally incompetent mother. Times are so hard Ree gives her horse Ginger, who hasn”'t eaten in four days, to her neighbor Sonya (Shelley Waggener). Ree is saddened by leaving her horse in another”'s care.
When Sheriff Baskin (Garret Dillahurt) shows up at Ree”'s front yard, asking for her dad, Jessup, who may have slipped bail after being arrested for setting up a meth lab, she tells him she doesn”'t know where he is.
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Keep citizen journalism alive!
State Commissioner Recklessly Alters Locally Initiated Window Safety Legislation
by Jim Graham
Three years ago Minneapolis”' own Linda Berglin and Karen Clark, with a little help from yours truly, got legislation passed to require window fall protection, such as security screens, on all new window construction for multi-unit buildings. It was limited to multi-unit buildings as a compromise, and as a beginning, but also because a huge proportion of child falls came from apartment buildings. It was anticipated even that limited law might prevent up to 80% of child falls. And that it would eventually result in even concerned parents with single family homes installing such screens. Much like the CO regulations has successfully done.
The attention and work on that legislation came about because of the sudden awareness of the problem due to Laela Shagobay falling from a window four floors up in a newly constructed building that met ALL construction codes and regulations at the time. That building and some others put on “Safety” screens as soon as they could be designed to retro-fit the windows, and before “Laela”'s Law” went into effect.
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