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Facebook Papers and what they reveal about ourselves

Since former Facebook employee Frances Haugen blew the whistle on practices at the social media giant earlier this month, news organizations have been combing throught the company emails and documents she has provided. The results, now beginning to be reported, show a picture of a company that paid more attention to its profits than to the effect its practices were having on society. Haugen has testified before Congress and before the UK’s Parliament how Facebook Groups amplify online hate, that its algorithms take people with mainstream interests and push them to the extreme ...

Needless risk with guns in films

Guns have been a part of Hollywood moviemaking since cowboy star Tom Mix rode the silent movie screen. Last week, a tragic accident showed once again why live ammunition and even blanks should be banned in filmmaking. Actor and producer Alec Baldwin was filming a scene last Thursday in a film he is prociding and starring in. He was handed a gun, which he was told was not loaded with live bullets. The person who gave him the gun was mistaken, and he accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza, who was standing behind her. With today’s ...

Thumbs Up/Down

CTE Center THUMBS UP: District 88 held open house this week in its new Career and Technical Education center, or CTE. District 88 has the makings of a first-rate CTE program, dedicated to helping introduce and train students toward careers in the skilled trades and business. The district got an immense jump start on this program with the donation from the Ryberg family, who gave them the old Windings building. This gives the program a first-class facility for learning things like welding and fabrication, auto mechanics, woodworking and carpentry, etc. We hope District 88 voters ...

Redistricting problems

With the 2020 Census finally in the books, state legislatures throughout the country face the task of redrawing congressional and legislative district boundaries to balance out the populations in each. This ensures that each citizen in each district will get equal representation — one person, one vote. But the process of redistricting has also come to be known as gerrymandering season. Political parties who control legislatures have been known to redraw district boundaries in their favor — to bring together distant groups of one party into an octopus-shaped district, for example, ...

Deal-making in D.C. among Democrats

President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan is undergoing some contractions this week. The $3.5 trillion spending bill is down to about $2 trillion. Biden met with groups of Democratic senators on Tuesday, hoping to sell them on a reduced plan that will still carry some of his top priority items. It was a tough sell, we’re sure for the progressive senators he met with first, who think we should be spending even more than $3.5 trillion. Biden wants to salvage some remnant of his climate change plan. To do that he will have to mollify Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who ...

Walz’s record

Gov. Tim Walz announced Tuesday he will seek re-election to a second term. This sets up an interesting race that will focus on his record and accomplishments. Walz and his Republican opponents will try to interpret Walz’s record in vastly different ways. On the state’s COVID response, for example, Walz is touting the state’s actions as life-saving measures that have helped bring the virus under control. Republicans have been painting Walz’s use of executive emergency powers as an abuse of power that damaged the economy and cost people jobs. On law enforcement reform, Walz ...