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Lots to do in NU THUMBS UP: It is nice to get back to the situation where there’s usually a lot of interesting things to do in New Ulm on a weekend. Last year at this time you could hardly get into a local baseball game. This weekend, no one can complain about having nothing to do. State Street Theater Co. is putting on “Little Shop of Horrors,” a musical horror-comedy about an overgrown plant. Crazy Days is going on downtown, picking up after last year, when most businesses were shut down. And the Antique Automobile Club of America is holding its 2021 Grand Nationals at the ...

Jan. 6 investigation must be held

The events of Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol are unprecedented. Never before has a mob broken into the nation’s capitol to disrupt Congress in the midst of its duties — the certification of the election of a U.S. president. This was an appalling event, one that is being described differently by different parties. Was it a mob of insurrectionists, or a group of patriotic citizens who got carried away? Were they trying to reverse the election or simply voice their opinion? Was it a attempt to keep power fomented by then President Donald Trump? These are the kinds of questions ...

Weather doesn’t respect borders

Perhaps you noticed the moon the last couple of nights with a reddish tint as it crept across the sky. No doubt you saw the haze in the air as you looked down the street Wednesday, or across the valley. Meteorologists tell us the haze is being caused by wildfires burning in the West, affecting our air quality. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has been issuing air quality alerts the last couple of days as the haze descends. We are used to weather from Canada blowing across the border with no regard for the customs officials. Alberta Clippers have been whipping up snowstorms and ...

County fairs brighten up summer

The COVID-19 restrictions last year forced us to give up a lot of things that we take for granted — packing into a ball park to watch a town team baseball game, for instance, or going to the movies or out for dinner. One thing that hurt a lot of small Minnesota communities was the shutdown of the county fairs. All the kids working on their 4-H and FFA projects and preparing their animals for showing had nowhere to show them. Adults working on their art, their crafts, their baking, their livestock had nowhere to go. People who enjoyed spending sunny afternoons and warm evenings ...

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 ...