A guy by the name of Elmer once observed that a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself handouts out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result . . . things begin to... READ MORE >
According to the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, the oldest written version of the saying “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” comes from 1576, in Petit Palace by George Pettie, an English writer of romances: “So long as I know it not, it hurteth mee not.” I would suggest the opposite to be true, particularly when it comes to decisions... READ MORE >
I’ll keep this short and–unfortunately– not so sweet. Once again, we’ve reached that time of year when blaze orange is all the fashion rage; turkeys are being plumped and plucked for the plate; and taxpayers are being guisingly (typically concealing the true nature of something) groomed by local governing authorities on the merits of spending more of your hard-earned dollars... READ MORE >
Lloyd Kilmer was eight years old in 1929, when his father lost the family’s southern Minnesota dairy farm at the onset of The Great Depression. Young Kilmer scrambled to find work wherever he could; selling newspapers, bagging groceries at the local grocery, and operating the projector at the movie theater in Stewartville, Minn. The eldest of five sons, Lloyd was... READ MORE >
Why is it that we’ve been intimidated, as a society, into false living? Rather than live authentically we’ve allowed ourselves to be strong-armed through political correctness, pseudo-selective tolerance, and manufactured consensus–the “press” of the social media crowd–to conform to a culture that, in many ways, seems foreign to us? A culture that has blurred the lines between sensitivity to one’s... READ MORE >
Each year, when Minnesota’s deer season rolls ‘round, I’m painfully reminded of my blunder years ago, when I applied for a special permit to hunt deer in St. Croix State Park–about 10 miles west of where Jim Jordan bagged his legendary world record white tail on the morning of November 20, 1914. Jim was a wiry 22-year-old when he brought... READ MORE >
“In the approaching contest, the nation faces a crisis. Fundamental principles are involved. Shall the America of our fathers, with its republican form of government, its principles of civil liberty, and its whole democratic social and industrial order be maintained for a new period of constructive progress, or shall it be abandoned for some untried experiment? “This is not the... READ MORE >
What began way back in 1636, when the Pilgrims adopted a formal Constitution pledging support for disabled soldiers, has—some 300 years later— become the most comprehensive system of assistance for veterans of any nation in the world. Authorized by Congress in 1930—in the midst of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl— our country’s Veterans Administration was established to “consolidate... READ MORE >
Back in the late nineties, David Hillel Gelernter, an associate professor of Computer Science at Yale, authored a book titled, Drawing Life; a title that immediately drew me in when I spotted it on the bookshelf at the local bookstore. Some of you may recall that Gelernter, one morning in June 1993, was nearly killed by a mail bomb. The... READ MORE >
We often hear some commissioners talk a lot about community during their deliberations; perhaps hoping it will make them appear more human and approachable. I often wonder the extent to which they actually understand the meaning of the word. Fabian Pfortmüller, a Swiss social entrepreneur and community builder in NYC claims he’s been on a lifelong journey in an attempt... READ MORE >
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