Sextortion: threatening to distribute someone’s sexual images, videos, or information in order to receive something of monetary value. This is a word that is slowly becoming unavoidable when we open our social media or news articles. It is common for us to say, “Oh, that doesn’t happen ...

There really are authentic warriors who live and work around us. We take them for granted, rarely give them much thought, and may not even notice them until something happens. We depend on them, can’t live without them, but may not even know their names. They protect us, and thanks to them, ...

This is an e-mail I sent to the Mayor and City Council of Marshall, the Lyon County Commissioners and the EDA Director of Marshall, regarding the building of a Hampton Inn Hotel in the area of the Red Baron Arena: My wife and I have some serious questions about this “proposition” that has ...

Minnesota relies on the strength of our state’s rural communities and farmlands. As your Senator and as one of the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee, it’s important to me to hear directly about the challenges you are facing. Every year I go to all 87 of Minnesota’s counties, and ...

I am about to attend one of the most stressful events anyone can imagine. That’s right: I will soon be going to my high school class reunion. Specifically, it’s the reunion that will mark 50 years since we graduated. Fifty years. How can that be? How is it that half a century has ...

I wrote once when I was young, that farmers had about 40 seasons to ply their trade. When I wrote that, 40 years seemed an unimaginably long time. Here I am, past that number, still putting in a crop. You could say I’m in extra innings. Each planting season is highly anticipated, stressed ...