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Recalling the day my dad lost his right arm

Writing a column isn’t usually physically challenging. Unless you count wracking my brain. Sometimes I pull a muscle in my cerebellum. Today I’m having to work at this. Wednesday morning, I had carpal tunnel surgery on my right wrist. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to type after that. But here I am, plunking away with a giant, clompy wrap around my right hand. Credit to Tylenol. My post-op instructions mention no strenuous activity for that hand. I’m not sure writing counts as strenuous. Finding the right words and pounding them together to build a sentence are heavy ...

Nuclear energy remains a risky technology after almost 50 years

In the past few weeks I’ve read several editorials about nuclear energy which say that it should maybe become part of our future. One by a libertarian columnist claims that nuclear power has run into too many political obstacles. It states that no one was hurt by the near disaster at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania in the late 1970s. It says that people are exposed to radiation in many ways, air travel as well as other everyday activities. A more objective political editorial states that Minnesota’s moratorium on new nuclear power plants might be an issue in Election 2026. Many ...

Klein hits the sweet spot when it comes to entrepreneurship

You never know who you are going to run into when you attend Eats and Beats events held on Third Street Thursday evenings. It’s really been a successful venture by Visit Marshall. As advertised, there’s good music, food and even beer. Each time I have attended, I see lots of people — ...

Celebrating 145 years of farming

Gilbert Nelson left Norway in 1864 and settled in Ettrick, Wisconsin. He then joined the Wisconsin Regulars and served in the Civil War. By 1881, Gilbert and his wife, Anna, had five sons and a daughter. Hoping to carve out a new life in Dakota Territory, the Nelsons loaded everything they ...

‘Beautiful game’ around the planet

I have followed the World Series since 1965; the year the Dodgers beat our Twins. I was 9. As I got older, I realized the “World” Series isn’t really the world. The World Cup is the world, the entire world. Right now, here in the middle of the continent, the World Cup surrounds us. There are matches north, south, east, and west of us. Soccer is “football” to the rest of the planet. Here in America, we give that name to that other, more violent game we watch on Friday nights, Saturday afternoons, and all day Sunday. Soccer is by a lot the most popular sport on Earth. For ...

Biodiversity has value for our region’s natural landscapes

This summer I’ve noticed for the first time some widespread effects of Emerald Ash Borer in the Marshall area. There are clusters of partially defoliated ash trees in locations such as Southwest Minnesota State University and the Eatros Place housing addition on the opposite side of town. There are at least several other locations where more than a couple of trees are affected. The ash were widely planted in the 1970s and 1980s after Dutch Elm Disease killed off many of the nation’s elm trees. In many communities, elms provided a stately canopy over residential streets. They ...