Sharing my origin story has become a regular part of my role as a leader and mentor, about how a young boy from Detroit, Michigan, would ultimately move to St. Paul, Minnesota, as an adult to lead one of the most prestigious performing arts centers in the world. While it was undoubtedly a non-linear path, the dots can be connected back to being exposed to the arts as a young person by my elementary school teacher, going on field trips to cultural events on the yellow school bus, and having access to places like the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.

The arts thrive when they belong to everyone. When the Ordway opened its doors in 1985, our chief benefactor and guiding spirit, Sally Ordway Irvine, had a vision to create a place where ALL the performing arts would be embraced and ALL members of the community would feel welcome. That vision is alive and well 40 years later. The Flint Hills Family Festival, presented by the Ordway, embodies this ethos each summer in downtown St. Paul.

It is a gift to the community, and I am proud to champion the Flint Hills Family Festival. Not just because it’s the country’s largest and longest-running festival of its kind, but because it drives economic impact and contributes to the vitality and vibrancy of our community. I continue to be inspired by teachers, parents and guardians who often make sacrifices to share the power of the arts. As a lifelong learner, I have picked up a thing or two from the youngest festival attendees, like hula-hooping and the power of perseverance.

2025 is a big year of milestones for us. In addition to it being the Ordway’s 40th anniversary and the 10th anniversary of the Ordway Concert Hall opening, this year the festival is celebrating its 25th year. This milestone is a celebration of what happens when businesses and communities prioritize the arts as a public good. Since 2001, the festival has welcomed more than 1 million people to Rice Park in downtown Saint Paul to enjoy live performances, concerts and free activities designed to spark curiosity in toddlers, teens and adults alike. This year, the festival will welcome over 25,000 attendees and will feature more than 270 artists, including local veterans and Grammy winners, alongside interactive art stations run by local educators and volunteers.

For 25 years, the passion of Minnesotans has made this event more than just a music festival for families. It’s an invitation to the arts for the next generation. When families attend the Flint Hills Family Festival, they’re part of a legacy. Many of the first generation of festival-goers – kids whose eyes lit up at their first theater or concert experience in 2001 – are now parents themselves. Some of them will return with their children to this year’s event, passing down a tradition of curiosity and artistic discovery.

Nationwide, 25-year corporate partnerships are becoming increasingly rare. For a quarter century, Flint Hills Resources has partnered with the Ordway as a believer in making the arts accessible to all. Together, we’ve weathered economic downturns, shifting trends and a pandemic, all while keeping these formative experiences affordable. We have worked side-by-side to invest in ensuring families of all shapes, backgrounds and socioeconomic status see themselves represented onstage.

Live, in-person, shared experiences with the arts are more important now than ever. When we experience the arts, it transforms the way we see the world, and most importantly, helps us to better understand our place in it. I believe we have a responsibility to invest in the current and future generations of creatives, as well as our business, civic and community leaders. This can be done by exposing young people (and the young at heart) to the arts through longstanding events like the festival, which runs from May 28-31 at the Ordway in downtown St. Paul.

There is a plethora of data that documents the many benefits of being exposed to the arts, including emotional and social growth, better academic outcomes and being more civically engaged. But you don’t need data to feel it — watch a child’s face decorated with paint light up as they step into a crowd buzzing with music, and you’ll understand why this festival — the largest and longest-running of its kind — isn’t just the Ordway’s or Flint Hills’ legacy. It’s all of Minnesota’s.

Christopher Harrington is president and CEO of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul.

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Stop with the antisemitism

Antisemitism keeps on coming back and rearing its ugly head. Worldwide, the Jewish population is actually a very small fraction of the total global population.

There’s approximately 15.3 million people who consider themselves Jewish. Globally, the total population is about 8.23 billion. That comes well less than 0.2%. It’s not even close to 1%. That’s just a very small tick of 1%.

Antisemitism has been around for thousands of years. Antisemitic friends have told me that the Jews control the governments and banking systems around the world. They told me that Jewish people are devious and sneaky. They control Hollywood. They control the media. They control the economies all over the world. Really? A slight tick of 1% of the worldwide population has enough wealth and political power to alter our world? Please. Enough of that ridiculous sentiment.

I ask my friends about how they know this. They reply, well so and so told them that was what they heard from somebody else or they read it on social media, or it was passed or handed down from their families and neighbors. No proof was offered. It’s all of a part of a self-directed self-energized unofficial propaganda campaign against a group of people who are innocent and being society’s scapegoat. It’s probably magnified since WWII.

What purposes and benefits does this antisemitism attitude provide to societies worldwide? For every thousand people you meet, statistically only one or two are Jewish. It’s likely you don’t know who they are, but they can be good friends and they share the same values, dreams and ideas that you do. They look like you and they act like you. They are average people like you.

Their “sin” if you will, is that some of them practice Judaism, or some have Jewish blood and family relations. There are over 10,000 distinct religions in the world. Much of Christianity is based on Judaism concepts. Why do people feel threatened when someone practices a different religion than you? Jesus was a Jew and he practiced Judaism. Are Christians really offended by this fact? When Jesus’ name is raised, are you going to practice antisemitism around his name?

I wish that antisemitism would go away and let the world be at peace with itself. When people practice antisemitism, they give or endow some kind of power to Jewish people who really never had it or wanted it in the first place. Why are people who practices antisemitism so afraid and fearful of people that they really don’t know? Antisemitism seems to be a religion in itself. It seems to be a belief or religious system of hatred.

If you are a part of the antisemitism chain of unfounded claims and no facts, please stop. Think about what you say and do. Just stop. And tell others to stop as well.

Barry Siebert, St. Paul

 

It’s more than just criticism

The May 22 letter (“So much safer to just criticize”) notes the multiple daily articles in the Pioneer Press regarding budget cuts directed by President Trump and the DOGE team that are causing hardships to the American people. The writer states that Democrats put forward nothing but criticisms of these cuts and offer no solutions to the looming budget deficit crisis.

Within these numerous articles the cuts are repeatedly described as random and reckless and that they do very little to resolve the deficit. In the meantime, Trump’s “big beautiful bill” would add trillions of dollars to the deficit.

I agree that a solution requires bipartisan cooperation. For now, flagging destructive, ill-conceived rogue actions is more than criticism. It’s telling the truth.

Steve Masson, St. Paul

 

Consent decree politics: much ado

As observed by a person within our Minnesota state government, “the removal of a federal consent decree agreement ‘doesn’t have any meaningful impact on reform efforts’… because the Minnesota state consent decree also forces the City of Minneapolis to make major policing reforms.”

Minneapolis politicians, and some DFLers, have seized the moment to portray themselves as Department of Justice victims and, accordingly, as Minnesota’s progressive ideology leaders.

Call it all “much ado about nothing.”

Gene Delaune, New Brighton

 

Up to all of us

America celebrated Memorial Day with parades and events to honor the military who served and died to preserve the freedoms we experience today. It is ironic that, at the same time, these same freedoms are rapidly being dismantled by Donald Trump and his supporters.

Congress has the power to reverse this trend.  People must unite and become active — protest, lobby, contact congressmen by email or phone. All or any congressman, U.S. Congress positions affect all residents.

Googling can get lists of congressional members’ phone numbers and email addresses.

These senators and representatives must hear from many and be reminded that their positions may be severely devalued if democracy, as we know it, continues to diminish.

Former President Obama says, “It is up to all of us to fix this.”

Mary DePrey, Roseville

 

They saved the Bur Oaks

Kudos to White Bear Lake City Council members Heidi Hughes, Andrea West, and Kevin Edberg for rejecting the City of White Bear Lake’s Mobility and Parking plan because it required the cutting down of a 150-year-old Bur Oak tree.

They brought an amendment the excluded the tree from being cut, and supported the White Bear Lake community that rose up to defend all the Bur Oaks that were originally slated to be cut for 15 parking spaces.

Honorable mention goes to the White Bear Lake Environmental Advisory Commission that opposed the cutting of the four Bur Oak from the beginning, and persisted when they were ignored; and to the many WBL residents who wrote letters to the White Bear Press, and the 28 people who spoke up to defend the trees at the City Council Hearing.

“Paved paradise” but saved the Bur Oaks.

Ann Frisch,  White Bear Lake

 

What does a city owe its current residents?

What does a city owe its residents? Residents of Lowertown have learned it’s illegal to park on Fourth Street East.  If you park too long, you’ll likely get a ticket. Come down here on a typical day and the street is clear for traffic.

This is not the case during events. Come down here on a Farmers Market morning and you’ll see a dozen vehicles lined up between Wacouta and Broadway. Illegally parked, in the lane of traffic, congesting an already busy area.

If the city and its leaders are working tirelessly to drive more businesses, events and people to the city, what does the city owe its residents who currently live here? Do the residents deserve the proper infrastructure to handle this increased traffic?

If the city was building an event from scratch, I think they would not allow vehicles to be illegally parked and be left unattended directly across the street from where hundreds of people are gathered. Yet, this routinely happens at the Farmers Market.

I’m not just picking on the Farmers Market. This parking issue happens in varying degrees during Saints games, art fairs or any event that drives visitors to the area.  There are plenty of places to park legally in Lowertown. Illegal parking increases congestion and decreases safety.

When I asked the city to help, I was told concurrently that the infrastructure is perfectly fine and if I wanted increased signage to deter illegal parking I would have to pay for it myself.

So what does the city owe its residents? Are we a serious city or are we just pretending? I feel we deserve better.

Ryan Radunzel, St. Paul

 

We’re all responsible for Donald Trump

I find it amusing the number of people who want to blame the Democrats for Donald Trump. We are all responsible for Trump as none were able or willing to stop him.

Those who could have, congressional Republicans, the Supreme Court, and American voters, failed to do so.

So the question becomes what are we going to do about Trump and what future do you envision with Trump?

As Shakespeare wrote,  “The fault lies in our ourselves and not in the stars”

Donald Rohrer, Woodbury

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Tejano music superstar Selena Quintanilla has been gone for 30 years, but the late singer’s family issharing unseen footage of her life in a new documentary, which had its Texas debut at Austin’s Paramount Theater at this year’s South by Southwest festival.

Selena y Los Dinos is the first feature-length documentary film produced about the late singer and her family band. Directed by Mexican-American filmmaker Isabel Castro, the movie offers a tender portrait of the lives, love, and loss of the Quintanilla family. 

The film follows the family’s tribulations using a tapestry of decades-old intimate camcorder footage and recent interviews woven together. Some salient scenes include: the primary-school aged Quintanilla children rehearsing and making faces at the camera and Selena laughing alongside guitarist Chris Pérez not long before the two became a couple, stitched alongside a recent interview including his telling of their first “I love yous” exchanged in Laredo.

Archival footage brings viewers to Selena’s humble beginnings, from the foreclosure on the family’s home and restaurant in Lake Jackson after the decline of the town’s economy to a brief flash of a local social services office where the Quintanillas waited to file papers for food stamps.

In an interview shot inside a van chock-full of costumes, Selena giggles as she answers the question: “What’s your final goal?” Her answer was ready: “Mercedes Benz. I don’t care if I have to live in it!” she exclaimed, unaware of the fame and fortune that awaited her.

Castro’s depiction of Selena and the band reveals a goofy, down-to-earth family, even after they struck success. After signing a record deal, the two Quintanilla sisters filmed a tour of their California hotel room: “I am in Long Beach, California, lifestyle of the rich and famous!” Selena yelled, her arms splayed out as she posed in front of the building.

Photos and interviews carefully stitched together also explore the nuances of Tejano identity—the struggle of straddling two identities and two cultures—and the beauty, banality, and occasional blunders of being (or not being) bilingual. 

Abraham Quintanilla, Selena’s father, recalls stories of his youth growing up during an era of segregation and anti-Latino sentiment. Although Spanish was his first language, he struggled to speak it fluently decades later when the band was breaking into the Mexican music market in the ’90s. Growing up for part of their childhood in Lake Jackson, the small petrochemical town south of Houston, the children did not feel in touch with their roots, Selena’s brother explained in the film (though that changed when they moved to Corpus Christi).

In one early scene, a Spanish-speaking journalist interviews a teenage Selena, asking about how the band had made their costumes—white denim jumpsuits with bursts of multicolored splatter paint—to which she replied in English: “wet paint!” 

“And for the people listening in Mexico?” he asked her in Spanish, encouraging her to explain the provenance of the costumes in the language his audience spoke. “Los paint-amos,” she replied, which was immediately met with the journalist’s laughter.

Later in the film, Castro includes photographs of Selena’s Spanish studying materials, and archival media footage shows the late singer as a young adult confidently expressing herself in both languages in TV interviews.

As for the woman who murdered Selena in 1995, the film essentially ignores her altogether. The film’s exploration of the loss of Selena’s life focused on the family’s grief and the late singer’s legacy. Even 30 years after her death, Selena’s influence remains powerful, in Corpus Christi and far beyond.

As a non-Hispanic Texan with a deep appreciation of Tejano and Latin American music, raised far from South Texas in a Collin County suburb, what struck me most about this movie was the audience’s journey alongside the Quintanilla family. Throughout the film, attendees put their hearts on display. They cheered. They erupted in laughter. Some sobbed, as if Selena were, too, part of their own family. Any mention in the film of Selena breaking down doors for the Latino community, breaking the glass ceiling for women, or breaking into a bilingual music market just before her death was met with thunderous applause and shouts of joy.

As theater workers ushered us out of the Paramount Theater, fans paused for a moment to pose for photos or pay their respects to Selena’s now elderly father, who sat in a wheelchair by the exit. I’d joined a friend of mine and her mother at the screening. The mom, a proud Tejana who raised her kids listening to Selena, was among those who stopped to greet Abraham.

She leaned in. “Thank you for sharing your daughter with us.”

The post The Love and Loss of the Quintanillas appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday backed a multibillion-dollar oil railroad expansion in Utah, endorsing a limited interpretation of a key environmental law.

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The 8-0 decision comes after an appeal to the high court from backers of the project, which is aimed at quadrupling oil production in the remote area of sandstone and sagebrush. Supporters said restricting the scope of environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act would speed development.

The case centers on the Uinta Basin Railway, a proposed 88-mile (142-kilometer) expansion that would connect oil and gas producers to the broader rail network and allow them to access larger markets.

The justices reversed a lower court decision and restored a critical approval from federal regulators on the Surface Transportation Board. The project could still face additional legal and regulatory hurdles.

Environmental groups and a Colorado county had argued that regulators must consider a broad range of potential impacts when they consider new development, including the potential impact of producing and refining so much more oil.

The justices, though, found that regulators were right to consider the direct effects of the project, rather than the wider upstream and downstream impact. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that courts should defer to regulators on “where to draw the line” on what factors to take into account. Four other conservative justices joined his opinion.

The court’s conservative majority court has taken steps to curtail the power of federal regulators in other cases, including striking down the decades-old Chevron doctrine that made it easier for the federal government to set a wide range of regulations.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed with the outcome, but with a different legal reasoning. She said federal regulators do not have the authority to take into account any harms caused by the oil that might eventually be carried on the railway. She was joined by her two liberal colleagues.

Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the case after facing calls to step aside over ties to Philip Anschutz, a Colorado billionaire whose ownership of oil wells in the area means he could benefit if the project goes through. Gorsuch, as a lawyer in private practice, had represented Anschutz.