Artwork, fundraising begin to add women “Heroines and Humanitarians” to Flint’s sculpture pantheon
By Paul Rozycki A heroine of the Flint water crisis, a matriarch of civil rights, an Olympic gold medal boxer, an ardent advocate for the poor, a benefactor of a major library, and a tireless champion in the NAACP: all these Flint women are deserving of sculptures in their honor, a Flint Institute of Arts sculptor and a Mott Community College trustee contend. Jane Trotter, Flint Institute of Arts sculpture instructor, her students,...
Central American turmoil and revolution highlight Flint author’s first novel
By Paul Rozycki It may have been St. Paddy’s Day March 17, but that didn’t stop a number of leading Hispanic leaders and their families and friends from gathering at Mott Community College Sunday afternoon to launch a newly published novel by Flint-based author Martin Barillas. About three dozen attended the event at the Regional Technology Center. Barillas’ novel Shaken Earth: A novel of Guatemalan life against Nazi influence is a...
Residents convene, share and reflect at “Connect the Blocks” Flint Neighborhood Summit
By Jan Worth-Nelson Qualities of neighborliness–collaboration, cooperation, valuing each person’s worth– were on full display Saturday at the “Connect the Blocks” Flint Neighborhood Summit at the Flint Food Bank. “Value people,” said Megan Heysa, president of the Eastside Improvement Association, whose group planted flowers and painted 53 porches last year. “You’re dealing with...
Kids swarm City Hall to read books with Weaver and Howard University spring break students
By Patsy Isenberg Twenty third grade through fifth grade students from Freeman Elementary School in Flint swarmed City Hall Wednesday to read with college students from Howard University, solve a problem about shoe laces, and consider what makes people feel happy and sad in their neighborhoods. The event celebrated March as National Reading Month and included 42 Howard University students from Washington D.C. who came to Flint for an...
“America: The Farewell Tour” by Chris Hedges: a review
Reviewed by Robert R. Thomas An unsettling childhood memory is that things were not as they seemed, and nobody was talking about it. My brother Alan succinctly described our childhood milieu as a “culture of silence.” While reading America: The Farewell Tour, by Chris Hedges, that childhood culture of silence revisited me. The book’s chapters—DECAY, HEROIN, WORK, SADISM, HATE, GAMBLING and FREEDOM—are lucid reveals about the fall of...