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Opinion

That tracks

Local Columns

Few signs are more welcome in the late season uplands than a stretch of pheasant tracks along a snow-rimmed piece of birdy habitat. Be it a slough, a stretch of brush, or a bushy shelterbelt planting of olive caraganas or crimson dogwoods, anywhere those four-toed imprints weave and wind their ...

What is narcissism?

Community Voices

I frequently hear people say that someone whom they know is a narcissist. | am not sure that they are all using the same definition or criteria to make that judgment. What do psychologists mean when they say that someone is a narcissist? Where does the name come from? I have heard of ...

Enjoying my oyster stew

Community Voices

Food is many things: flavors, textures, smells, an excuse to use your fingers to clean a bowl that was used to mix chocolate cake batter. But food is also memory. It’s a time machine, resurrecting recollections that had shriveled like an orange peel on a scorching summer ...

Whose beans are getting crushed?

Letters to the Editor

To the editor: In 2024 China imported about 26.81 million metric tons of soybeans from the US. So far, just before the October China — USA meeting, China purchased 5.93 metric million tons with a promise of 12 million metric tons. This is less than half of 2024. China has been quietly ...

Somalian residents should be respected as true Americans

Community Voices

In the past several weeks Minnesota’s Somalians have come under political attack originating in our nation’s highest office. President Trump and his radical conservative supporters have asserted that Somalians defraud the government and send money to terrorists. He’s called them ...

Thinking about food

Community Voices

My wife Pam says that I think about food a lot. Once I get this column started, I plan to eat a pumpkin muffin that is out in the kitchen. I’m looking forward to that. At various times in my life, I’ve been chunky to a tad overweight. You don’t get to be that way without thinking about ...