Opinion
Letters to the Editor
The recently concluded legislative session left a number of important issues unresolved, many of which are important to cities and our residents here in Southwestern Minnesota. Specifically, the agreed-upon final versions of the Tax bill and the Jobs and Energy bill are much-needed items that will offer opportunities and to our residents and our communities.
PRAIRIE NOTEBOOK
The saddest and most tragic thing about last week’s severe storm was the lives that were lost. In some regards, Ma Nature spared us even more devastation, but what she dealt was bad enough.
Beyond Reason
Through no fault of my own, it has come to my attention that May is Older American Month. This gave me pause. Let me see if I have this straight. May is a month. I get that. For Older Americans. Um, what the what?!
Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor, Minnesota drivers have faced record-high gas prices in the last few months. But like many of today’s most pressing challenges, Minnesota’s farmers and agricultural industry hold the key to helping solve them.
From the Editor’s Desk
I’m a list maker. Every surface of my desks is covered in lists, the notes app in my phone has seven or eight lists going at any time, there’s lists in notes on my laptop, and even sometimes, lists are written in ink on the steering wheel of my car (yes, this drives my husband nuts). It also drives my sister nuts that I don’t consolidate all lists onto the notes app on my phone, where I could keep my life more in order. She fails to recognize that this chaotic collection of lists IS my version of organized.
From the Editor’s Desk
Whenever I have the opportunity to look through the newspaper’s archive books, I’m more than happy to spend hours leafing through the pages. While leafing through the Advocate Tribune archives I’ve come across classmates and photographs from my years at Yellow Medicine East. There’s even a photograph of me in the fifth grade at the school’s spelling bee.
Live Well, Age Wisely: How are the flashlight batteries?
As I was under a heavy blanket in my basement, (a friend had texted and said, “Get down there NOW and cover yourself so you don’t get hit with flying debris!”) I thought about a column I had written a couple years ago about emergency preparedness. And I was kicking myself for thinking, “I will get this taken care of later.” It was later and my only flashlight was in my car (with waning batteries, I later found out), my important documents were in various places so I ran and grabbed what I could remember and found a candle.
PRAIRIE NOTEBOOK
Did you know that all toads are frogs, but not all frogs are toads? Minnesota has 14 species of “frogs”, some of which are “tree”- frogs and also the three most common “frogs”out here on the prairie we call “toads”. Some are concentrated in the SE corner, some more spread throughout the state and three (all classified as “toads”) reside in our western prairie environment.
Beyond Reason
In the Hundred Acre Wood, during the season of spring, you will find Piglet spring cleaning, beating his rugs outside his tree house. Some say spring cleaning comes from Persian New Year (first day of Spring) or the Jewish anticipation of Passover. Others say it’s just the first time you can leave the windows open. Either way, it’s the time to streamline. But how? Marie Kondo, a Japanese organizing consultant and author of The Lifechanging Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, says we should get rid of every article of clothing that doesn’t “spark joy”. I think she has a different relationship with wardrobe than I do. Do my pants “spark joy” in me? No. But my pants do keep me from getting arrested when I go out.
From the Editor’s Desk
Mother Nature decided bright and early Monday morning to make it the Monday’est Monday that ever Monday’ed with a storm moving through the area dropping massive hail right about the same time the kids were arriving at school.