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Re-evaluate Center/Garden intersection project

In the City of New Ulm and Brown County in 2029 or 2030,the City of New Ulm will undertake a significant road construction project to reconfigure the intersection of Center Street and Garden street. Although, safety is the identified reason for this project, convenience and congestion are the genuine motivating factors at play. For 30 minutes before school starts and thirty minutes at the end of the school day, the intersection in question, is called a nightmare by those transporting about 35% of students. This challenge exists for about nine months a year. This writer and many other ...

Addressing the Sons of Norway

I was recently asked to speak at a meeting of a secret society. I was surprised when they invited me as it’s widely known that I can’t keep a secret. My wife and I went to an innocuous building located in the midst of a sleepy college town. We descended a set of concrete stairs that led ...

New Ulm adds some diversity

Woohoo New Ulm! The monkey is off your back. You’re no longer the “least diverse” city in America. I remember hearing that New Ulm was the most “ethnically homogenous community of over ten thousand in America.” It was fun to share that with friends through the years, even though “ethnically homogenous” is hard to say without twisting my tongue. That came from analysis of the 1980 census that was reported in a National Geographic article. New Ulm led the way of places with “low diversity.” At the time, 99.2% of New Ulmers were classified as white, non-Hispanic. Not ...

The Mandalorian adventure

My first movie theater experience happened when my three older sisters let me tag along to see the flick Yours, Mine and Ours. Not the 2005 version starring Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo. I may have been a late bloomer, but I wasn’t that late. I mean the movie that featured silver screen legends Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball. That flick premiered in 1968, which means that I was 10 years old. My iPhone calculator tells me that this was 58 years ago. I can’t be that old! Besides, my wife is constantly saying that I act like a juvenile. Yours, Mine and Ours is the story of a widower ...

Our doors always open to veterans

When you look at the calendar, it seems like time is flying — not only in weeks and months, but definitely in years. This September will mark twenty-five years since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, a day that reshaped our nation and the lives of countless service members and families. In our work serving veterans in this area, the passing of time becomes very real. We are still meeting a surprising number of Vietnam Veterans who have either not been to the office for many years or have never stepped into the VA system at all. It amazes us because so much help is available, and it ...

AI CEOs are their own worst enemy

Much of our rising energy costs comes from a decades-long campaign of progressive environmentalists and Democrat backed regulators to tear down coal-fired power plants, block nuclear and natural gas expansion and make America reliant on wind and solar — the two power sources most popular during the dark ages. Data centers get blamed for higher power bills, but the reality is inflation has much more to do with those rising costs. The fear about data centers, however, is spreading with misinformation about rising costs, social harms, etc., spreading from a well-organized propaganda ...