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Letters to the Editor

For the kind gentleman

To the editor: I was recently contacted by a very nice gentleman. We had a good conversation, but he took issue with a set of statistics I listed in my letter “Proud of our country, hopeful for the future,” dated 1/24. Specifically, he felt that some people may be misled. I will not name him as I’m sure he values his privacy, just as I do. All I will say is he is a farmer in our area. He asked me very nicely if I would clarify those statistics, so just as promised, here we go. The statistics he said may be misleading are “In 2012, Minnesota was importing 25% of its ...

Respect should be considered in fight over bathrooms for transgender students

To the editor: A recent news article in the Independent was headlined: “Supreme Court declines to step into the fight over bathrooms for transgender students”. It was interesting to read that settling this battle “ongoing across the country,” is difficult because courts are divided as to whether school policies “enforcing which bathrooms transgender students can use, violate federal law or the Constitution.” Isn’t the school supposed to be an extension of positive behaviors and education learned in the home? A young child, at first, needs help in learning how to ...

Electrical grid will be under tremendous strain

Electrical grid will be under tremendous strain To the editor: Re: Xcel Energy shuts down Sherburne County Unit 2 coal unit as grid reliability worsens After a years-long battle, Xcel Energy finally shut down the “Sherco” coal plant on New Year’s Eve. It was capable of powering 25% of Minnesota’s homes on an annual hourly basis. What prompted this stroke of brilliance-California models or another one of Walz hair brained ideas? Maybe the folks who are in charge of Excel live on another planet after looking at the forecast, our electrical grid is going to be under a ...

Proud of our country, hopeful for the future

To the editor: This is in response to Mr. Roger Baumann’s letter, dated 1/17. Minnesota has zero natural reserves of coal, oil or gas. Even if we Minnesotans wanted to mine or drill for these materials in our state, we simply can’t. All of that coal we burn to generate electricity, the refined oil products and the natural gas comes from out of state. What Minnesota does have is quite a bit of wind and a lot of sorta flat space. We use that wind to generate electricity, decreasing our dependence on imported coal. We use some of that flat space to farm crops and animals. We turn ...

Latest heist of century just to watch NFL game

Dear Editor: When I moved back to the upper Midwest from Washington, D.C, at the end of my active duty in the military, it was common for households to have a television antenna on the roof with which you could pick up two or three local stations from some small market such as Sioux Falls or Mankato. Within a couple of years, these antennas developed a new look which was known as a UHF antenna. This was the earliest beginnings of what we then called “pay TV”. As I assumed my first teaching job I began to offer an elective which we called “Mass Media”. Little did I know ...

Denying reality doesn’t help

To the editor: Mr. Phil Drietz (re: It’s a cyclic thing. Dec. 20) claims that all the changes we’re seeing in our climate and our planet are cyclical, meaning that what’s happening now has happened over and over again throughout the eons. With this assertion, he uses volcanic activity as evidence. So, let’s do a little math real quick. Estimations of CO2 expelled from all volcanic activity on Earth are from 130 million tons to 440 million tons per year. Estimations of CO2 produced through human activity currently stands around 40-50 billion tons per year. So, volcanic ...