Of all the essential infrastructure that we take for granted — I’m including Taylor Swift here — perhaps none is more important than soft water. I’m among those who says a prayer of thanks every time I turn the tap and water comes out. This is because running water wasn’t always a ...

May is the month is which we observe mental health awareness, an issue that has strong personal resonance with me. I’ve had two instances in my life when I suffered from delusional thoughts. One occurred in 2004 when I had to make a decision about giving up my job and going to graduate ...

I was at Mass Sunday evening at New Ulm Cathedral. As usual at church, thoughts swirled in my head. The act of stilling myself for worship and letting the busyness of life come to a stop is like braking suddenly in a car. It takes a while to go from sixty to zero. The Second Reading from 1 ...

You can save a life in just a few seconds, by being ready to respond if a stroke occurs. Nearly 800,000 Americans experience stroke each year. Strokes cause 140,000 deaths each year and are a leading cause of serious long-term disability. May is National Stroke Awareness Month. Act quickly ...

My wife recently had a purse emergency. We were staying at a hotel in a distant city when she noticed that her current purse was, as she put it, “shot.” I examined the thing and told her that that it seemed perfectly functional to me. “Men!” she exclaimed. “They don’t notice ...

We had an interesting discussion one day this spring in my Southwest Minnesota State University Gold College class on the U.S. Constitution. One of the class members made a comment that what the United States maybe needs is a common enemy, an enemy to everyone. It would be the same as Germany ...