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I want to thank Crow Wing Power board director Bryan McCulloch for his courage in communicating openly with the CWP membership. It seems odd that a community-owned nonprofit would require all board members to sign a non-disclosure agreement, restricting them from communicating openly with their members; the very members who elected them. Thank you Bryan for refusing to sign the NDA and for fighting for transparency and the rights of members. Marty Brummer Fort Worth, Texas
Remember the old nursery rhyme, "Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed to see such sport and the dish ran away with the spoon." Well, is seems the Democrats would rather believe that nursery rhyme before they would believe there is a crisis at our southern border.
It's time we try on the same hogwash Republicans are offering up to explain the Trump campaign's 100 contacts with Russia, foot dragging on implementation of sanctions, and siding with Putin over U.S. intelligence services over their conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. How does it sound when the Trump defense is used for Democratic presidents instead of the course of actions they took? How would history judge Democrats saying FDR needed privacy to develop a relationship with Emperor Hirohito?
In April 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a Letter from a Birmingham jail. While lengthy and in parts directed to certain addresses, he presented a report and response to both current events and history of this nation. All of it is very worth reading, but I present here his final entry of summation:
The subject of a border wall, which has polarized this nation, needs to be looked at in a sensible manner from both sides. There presently exists a wall in a lot of locations. It defines the border but will it keep people from breaching it? Probably not but yet it symbolizes that this is our border and you need to go to a point of entry to get into this country. Someone many years ago deemed it necessary to keep foreigners out and the questions is, do we continue with it or just tear it all down and leave the borders open? Think about that for a minute.
Much has been said lately about whether or not a wall should be built along our southern border. Most of the discussion seems to favor a wall built from steel, constructing it over a distance of hundreds of miles, making it about 20 feet high and having it cost about $5 billion. Not much has been said about maintaining the wall once it's built. Since much of it will be located in a river valley which will be damp, at least in the morning, and the fact that steel rusts, it seems fair to wonder how long it will be before the wall needs to be painted.
Civility—that thing we all remember from back in the olden days when we had a society that cared about others and in which we dealt with each other pleasantly in social situations. It is the basis of the word civilization. How have we let it all slip away so easily? Sunday night my wife and I went to the 12th Night concert as we often have done in the past. This time there was an overflow crowd and a real sense of togetherness as we enjoyed some beautiful music from within the community. Civility had descended on the audience and performers and we were all grateful for it.
Minnesota has a greenhouse gas reduction goal of reducing carbon by 80 percent from 2005 levels by 2050. A study funded by the McKnight Foundation shows that this goal is achievable by increasing the use of electric energy while relying on 65 percent wind and solar. According to Kate Wolford, president of the McKnight Foundation, this "will not only allow us to tackle climate change, but will significantly reduce air pollution, increase human health, and boost our economy by tripling the number of energy sector jobs..." The price of electricity is also expected to decrease.
VRBO has become a popular way to rent vacation and other properties over the last decade. Typically, a property owner utilizes a website to advertise and rent their property. In Crow Wing County, it is estimated that over 1,000 properties are offered as VRBO. As the practice has grown, so has the resistance. Municipalities are restricting, or banning altogether the use of VRBOs in their communities. These are businesses operating on private property, taking revenue from legitimate resorts. Renters don't have a vested interest in the property or surrounding environment.
It seems to me that the Republicans, with few exception, are directly responsible for the chaos that is prevalent in the nation's capital. They have forgone their oath of office to represent their constituents. Most of them have allowed the man in the White House to tell them how to think, how to vote and to bow to him, regardless of some of the dangerous policies that he has enacted.