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Your sleep can impact your mood

Columns

Everyone knows that we need sleep. If we do not get enough sleep, we also know that it can have a variety of negative consequences. The same may be said of getting too much sleep. I suppose that. Too much, or too little, of anything can have consequences. One word for too little sleep is insomnia, while one word for too much sleep is hypersomnia. Either one can strongly impact your mood. What is mood? One mood analogy is that feelings like anxiety and depression are like the current weather. Mood is more like the climate. Mood is what psychologists call an affective state. ...

Wacky weather

Columns

“Unusual weather we’re having, ain’t it?” – the Cowardly Lion, upon awakening to a snowstorm after a poppy party in the docudrama “The Wizard of Oz.” We denizens of the prairie know that you don’t have to go somewhere over the rainbow to enjoy — or endure, depending on your ...

Sweeping up the ladybugs

Columns

Pam and I have a nice house. It’s one of those old farmhouses that’s been remodeled a hundred different ways. Since the kids left, it’s just Pam and me. And a few thousands of ladybugs. Several times a day, I go around the house sweeping ladybugs into a dustpan and tossing them outside. Depending on the time of day, they gather around different windows. The siege of ladybugs is worse in the country. Townie friends report that some of the little buggers make it to the big city. If you don’t have them, be thankful for avoiding this pestilence. In the fall, they are ...

A tale of two countries

Letters

To the editor: Imagine two mythical countries with the same problem: many non-citizen immigrants within their borders.  In Country B, one party gains power with lies about the immigrants —  “criminals!” (crime rate actually lower than the general population) and “welfare drain!” (actually mostly ineligible) — and pledges to deport them all. Many voters support deportation, a few from pure hate, most from believing the lies and not thinking through what apprehending millions of their neighbors would be like. Billions of tax dollars are spent hiring gangs of masked ...

Thumbs up/down

Editorials

THUMBS UP Capt. Bianchi finally laid to rest Last Friday, New Ulm and several other Minnesota communities celebrated the return of Medal of Honor recipient Captain Willbald Bianchi’s remains to New Ulm Minnesota, over 80 years after his death. His remains arrived by plane at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport Friday afternoon and were transported by hearse to New Ulm. Along the procession route into New Ulm, hundreds of people lined up to pay respect to Capt. Bianchi. It was a once in a lifetime display of respect to a fallen WWII soldier who finally came home. The tributes to Capt. ...

Congressional Republicans fail to protect the BWCA

Columns

Minnesota’s Republican members of Congress — Pete Stauber, Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach, and Tom Emmer — supported H.J. Res. 140, overturning protections for over 234,000 acres just outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) in Minnesota, thereby opening the door to potential copper-nickel sulfide mining next to the BWCA. As a registered Republican I am disgusted by their choice to support a foreign mining company rather than to protect Minnesota’s most pristine natural environment. The H.J. Res. 140 decision passed both houses of Congress along party lines ...