We don’t have it totally under control. It’s not going to be just fine. It didn’t miraculously go away by April, when it got a little warmer. “We think some of the states can actually open up before the deadline of May 1.” And how’d that work out? No, 99 percent of COVID-19 cases are not totally harmless. “The coronavirus
Goodbye Jemima; hello Black Lives Matter
Goodbye, Aunt Jemima. The Quaker Oats Co. decided recently to “retire” her as a marketing image for its pancake mix. I grew up with Aunt Jemima. That is, we kids in the 1950s ate stacks of scrumptious syrupy pancakes almost every day. Mom would make them from a box showing the face of a grinning plump-faced Negro woman wearing a
Sidelining scientists costs lives
We have a science problem. A vocal minority of Americans, egged on by political leaders at the highest levels, continue to ignore basic science and long-standing public health practices to deal with the pandemic. Face coverings, social distancing and frequent hand-washing slow the virus’s spread. Instead, the non-science types talk about a hoax, a miracle drug (that doesn’t work) and
This Fourth, let’s live up to our values
We have made it another year to the Fourth of July. But this year, the situation is much different. Our country, and the world, is engulfed in fighting a deadly pandemic that has already infected more than two million Americans, and killed more than 130,000. Horrific shootings of Black Americans have sparked a massive movement to finally confront the injustices
Free speech is not free of consequences
The incident could have ended tragically. St. Cloud police tried to disarm a black man in the early morning hours of June 15 and the gun went off. The bullet hit a cop and the man escaped, only to be caught and arrested a few minutes later. Officer goes to the hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. Man with the
It was a lynching by ‘knee’ in broad daylight
It was a vicious public lynching, except the policeman used his knee instead of a noose to squeeze the life out of George Floyd as three cops stood there and watched. That cruel cold-blooded murder on a Minneapolis street unleashed outrage and demonstrations worldwide and rightfully so. These murders of black boys and men, often by police, have been going
Exploits in space, strife on Earth bring back memories
Here we are again. Restarting the space race. NASA launched its first manned rocket from U.S. soil in nine years on May 30. As I watched the high-definition video of the astronauts inside the SpaceX craft, I couldn’t help but think about my memories when the first American rocketed into space. I was a first grader at Waseca’s Hartley Elementary
Now is not the time for silence
During the last few weeks, we have gone through some truly dark days for our country. The horrific death of George Floyd at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers, and the ensuing increased attention to the equally horrific deaths of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, has exposed tremendous feelings of grief and outrage across the United States. We have