I’m often asked about my work as a preschool teacher. I hear things like, “I don’t know how you do it,” and “You must require a lot of wine.” First, wine is out of the question on school nights because one has to be in tiptop shape to make it as a teacher! To be honest, managing a group of preschoolers is not as stressful as it sounds.
I have concerns that we’re teaching our children that it’s okie-dokie to lie, fabricate, deceive, misinform or otherwise make stuff up in order to achieve our goals. It’s okay to do that in America apparently because of a little clause in the Constitution that guarantees Congress shall make no law “abridging the freedom of speech…”
Having just returned from a family vacation to Puerto Rico, I will verify that travel is 1. expensive 2. eye-opening 3. carbon intensive 4. fun, and 5. uncomfortable. Why, where, and how we travel seems to be how heavily we weigh each factor. In our family, travel is highly valued for its eye-opening and fun qualities. In fact, we traveled for two different years, living aboard our sailboat. It was a way to see other places that was relatively cheap and eye-opening, and destroyed fewer resources than living on land. Sometimes it was great fun–blowing conch shells from the deck on a sunset evening, hosting potlucks with families from all over the world in our cockpit, leaning over the bow to watch the dolphins playfully dive. Other times, it was distinctly un-fun and uncomfortable–vomiting on a hot night on the Atlantic Ocean, saying good-bye to dear friends as our paths diverged, sitting for weeks in humid Florida lagoons surrounded by condominiums. The upshot is that now we live on land, make a livelihood with our sailboat on Lake Superior, and vacation by train, car, and land. Heading to Puerto Rico was an opportunity to learn how Puerto Ricans are faring in today’s world.
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Dear Editor, I want to thank the writer who submitted a response to my comment on the timber sale adjacent to our property. I believe that public discourse is a truly important part of our society, and our ability to live alongside each other, with all of our commonalities and differences alike.
Statements made by the Cooperative Light & Power (CLP) CEO in “Co-op Light & Power Urges Customers to Increase Participation”, Lake County Press on March 5, 2022, seem consistent with how a cooperative should operate, but there are stark contradictions between these statements and current policy and practice at CLP. We refer in particular to the adoption and enforcement of CLP Policy IV-36 titled “Board Meeting Member Attendance” August 25, 2021.
The Minnesota Supreme Court will be handing down a big decision in the near future. They heard the arguments of the lawyers last November, and the result should be announced any day now.
This time of year beekeepers in our northern region are discovering if honeybees they attempted to overwinter survived. It’s also when honeybees are congregated in California almond fields by the billions are collected, divided and redistributed across the country. There is a mass migration of beehives throughout the growing season where thousands of colonies are loaded onto semi-trucks and brought to fields all over the country. Almond pollination is the largest of these, with over 1.5 million acres of almond fields in California, and it takes two healthy colonies of honeybees to pollinate one acre of almond trees. Most of these almond fields are monocultures, meaning only almond trees are growing there and honeybees must be supplemented with sugar syrup and pollen substitutes when the almonds aren’t blooming.
Ripped from the Headlines! Excerpts from the front pages of the Lake County News Chronicle from 1922, 1947, and 1972. Submitted by the Lake County Historical Society.
Radical Love. Many of us have grown up hearing a version of these words, “Just be good and keep the Ten Commandments and everything will be alright.” The trouble is, that is an impossible task. If we could do that, we would not need a Savior and Jesus’ death on the cross becomes an unnecessary cruelty.