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The odd Olympics

This week the Olympic Summer Games will begin in Tokyo, already a year late and one of the oddest ever to be held. Thanks to COVID-19, the International Olympics Committee and the Japanese government have banned foreign spectators. The athletes marching in for the opening ceremony will have no one to wave to. No chants or cheers from home nation fans as they compete. The streets of Tokyo will be empty, without the tourists that are usually expected to boost the local economy and provide a return for the massive investment in facilities that Japan has made. A vast percentage of a ...

Rep. Thompson should step down

State Rep. John Thompson, DFL-St. Paul, raised questions of racial profiling during a recent traffic stop, when police pulled him over for not having a front license plate. Since then, the questions have all been raised about him. First, why would a Minnesota state representative have a driver’s license from Wisconsin? State law says you have to apply for a new Minnesota driver’s license within 30 days. Thompson said he has never had a Minnesota driver’s license, and has even renewed his Wisconsin license twice since moving to Minnesota. So, either he was lying to the state of ...

Thumbs Up/Down

Hungry for festivals Thumbs Up: Bavarian Blast is looking to have one of its best festivals ever, judging by big crowds Thursday and Friday. That’s due in part to pleasant weather, but another reason has to be the hunger for getting together and celebrating that developed over the past year. That hunger for social contact developed over the past year as people realized the truth of the old saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” This summer, with restrictions lifted, people are flocking to opportunities for celebration. And Bavarian Blast is just what ...

Hiding out an old political ploy

The Democratic members of the Texas Legislature are on the lam in Washington D.C. this week, to prevent Republicans in the state from passing more restrictive voting regulations by denying them a quorum. It’s not the first time a legislative caucus has abandoned their session to stymie legislation they can’t defeat. Going AWOL to prevent a legislative quorum is an old concept that has been used from time to time by both Democrats and Republicans. There are even some instances dating back to the George Washington administration. But for sheer nerve, perhaps no legislative quorum ...

No time to relax on COVID

We have been heartened by the drop in COVID-19 cases in Minnesota and Brown County during the past month and a half. The daily count of new cases has been seemingly stuck, with one or two new cases every couple of days. It is good to see people feeling comfortable going without a face mask, thanks to their vaccinations. But there is still reason to be cautious, especially in light of nationwide statistics. There continue to be hot spots, places where people have been resistant to getting vaccinations, and are falling victim to the new variants like the delta variant that is spreading ...

From pets to pests

An interesting news item from Burnsville this week recounts the problem of lunker-sized goldfish taking over Keller Lake. Apparently people have been dumping their no-longer-wanted pets into the lake and the cute little finny friends are growing into football sized pests that tend to root up bottom vegetation, roil the bottom sediment, releasing phosphates that lead to algae growth and compete for food with native species of fish. It is against state law in Minnesota to release goldfish or any other fish into domestic waters; it’s called illegal stocking. We’ve seen what has ...