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Solve problems instead of fighting

Letters

When I was a young man, the company I worked for sent me to a seminar for people becoming job foreman. It included all trades (plumbers, carpenters, electricians, and others). The speaker instructed us on the duties of a foreman: keeping projects on schedule, working with other trades, evaluating fellow workers, identifying their strengths ...you get the picture. The best way to evaluate a person was to consider the work they did incorrectly or had to redo. That was called an “Oh-poop.” He used a different four-letter word, but it cannot be printed here. Work done correctly and ...

Minnesota’s clean water certification program helping farmers be good stewards

Columns

My family farms just under 1,000 acres near the headwaters of the Minnesota River and the Red River on the continental divide. The view out our window is an expanse of fields and sky that spans for miles. Water that comes to our farm through rain and snow eventually ends up in the Minnesota River, flowing into the Mississippi and finally into the Gulf of Mexico. We think a lot about how our farm management affects that water, and how to be the best stewards of that resource. That’s why we were eager to meet with our local Agriculture Water Quality Certification specialist, and ...

Saved by the Boys of Summer: Baseball to the Rescue, Again

Columns

Saved by the Boys of Summer: Baseball to the Rescue, Again At my age, I shouldn’t care so much whether the Boston Red Sox win or lose, let alone permit my daily mood to rise or fall accordingly.  It’s only a game. It’s supposed to be a pastime (according to AI, something that ...

Why Americans soured on higher education

Columns

Even colleges can’t fool all of the people all of the time.  Just 38% of Americans have high confidence in higher education, according to a new Gallup poll. That’s down from 57% in 2015. Gallup found the three main reasons for this lack of confidence are political agenda, cost and not ...

An airborne joyride

Columns

The exotic-looking gizmo sat on the tarmac, its bone-white paint gleaming in the summer sun. It’s a peculiar gadget, with two wings that are roughly the same length. Oddly, its elevator is located at the front of the fuselage instead of on the tail. It seemed out of place sitting on the ...