News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Friday December 26th 2025
We Are Your Neighbors: Things You Might Not Understand about New Immigrants
By PM English Level 5/6 Class at the English Learning Center
There are many things that people in Minnesota don”'t understand about new immigrants. There are many things in our culture that are different.
First, our religion is different. Some new immigrants are Christians, some are Muslim, and some may be another religion. One difference for Catholics from Mexico and South America is that they celebrate Virgin Mary on December 12. Muslims pray 5 times a day. Also, every year, Muslims have one month of fasting and two holidays. Many Muslims hope to go to Hajj in Mecca.
Many immigrants wear clothes that are different. Muslim women wear dresses, hijabs, and scarves that cover all of the body except the face and hands. Some women also choose to cover their face. For many new immigrants their home country is hotter than Minnesota. They need new winter clothes in America. It is very cold here, especially in Minnesota. There is no snow in many of the countries immigrants come from, so winter is new and harsh.
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Frank Reflections-March 2015
By Frank Erickson
“Prove to me that sarcasm and ridicule are unjustifiable if they break the crust of prejudice, roused a conscience or shammed a sinner! Our aim is to alter public opinion.” …Wendell Phillips
I wonder how often Wendell Phillips used sarcasm and ridicule to change the behaviors of loved ones or co-workers, and if he did use it, how well it worked.
They have a “fighting season” in Afganistan that goes from spring to fall. Every year for the past fifteen years both “sides” have taken a break from the fighting for five months during the harsh winter months. For as long as the “war” has been going on, that”'s a total of 75 months, just over six years. If a 15 year “war” can have six years of no “warring”””is that not evidence that they can stop fighting?
I”'m not quite sure what is more disturbing, a man being burned alive in a cage, or millions of people flocking to theaters to be entertained by a “sniper” who is justified in gunning down 140 Iraqis from nothing more than being of “military age.” Chris Kyle creates his enemy by shooting at his enemy, What more does Clint Eastwood have to work with?… Read the rest “Frank Reflections-March 2015”
Keep citizen journalism alive!
Hiawatha/Hi-#55 Stoplight opinions wanted
Andrew Johnson
BY ANDREW JOHNSON, 12TH WARD CITY OF MPLS. COUNCIL MEMBER
Over the past few years, the City of Minneapolis and its partners made major investments in a new traffic signal management system and other equipment to slash wait times for vehicles along and crossing Hiawatha Avenue. Drivers who use Hiawatha know firsthand how traffic flow can be disrupted by the Metro Transit”'s Blue Line. Nowhere else in the country can you find a fast (45 mph or faster) commuter train running parallel to a highway, forcing frequent stops to side street traffic along the way. Now, the City is reexamining traffic in light of those investments and changes to see if any additional improvements can be made.
Traffic signal operation improvements along Hiawatha in 2013 included the addition of 160 in-pavement traffic detectors, the activation of a traffic signal control system that wasn”'t available when the light-rail line started service in 2004 and a revision of traffic signal sequences. These investments drastically improved traffic flow with average delays decreased by 32 percent and the number of vehicles waiting two minutes or longer cut in half.
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