There are steam locomotives, and then there’s “Big Boy.” At 604 tons and 132 feet long and with a 4-8-8-4-wheel arrangement, it is the largest, most powerful steam locomotive in the world.
Nexus, Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools’ controversial consultant, has now been paid over $20 million since initial hiring — not a bad gig for a company that didn’t exist until hired by the district, but not good for taxpayers who foot the bill.
At this time of the year around the Fourth of July, we Americans rally around the flag and appropriately take pride in our country and patriotism. The United States is a great country. Every time I return home from my frequent travels, I marvel at just how lucky we are to live where we do.
About a week ago, as we do on most summer evenings, my wife, Marcia, and I were out on our front porch discussing the issues of the day, the fate of the world and the failings of the younger generation. Retired septuagenarians do that sort of thing.
Scott County is one of the best places to live in Minnesota.
Promontory Point is a desolate spot on the high desert above the Great Salt Lake roughly 60 miles north and west of Salt Lake City. It’s no vacation Mecca, just rock, sand and sagebrush, but on May 10, thousands showed up for a special celebration.
There are only a handful of birds that elicit pure excitement and joy when it shows up at your backyard feeding station.
These are challenging times. Our southern border is being overrun by thousands of undocumented, illegal immigrants. Iran and North Korea continue to pose potential nuclear threats. Our nation is adrift, floating toward socialism, abandoning the foundation upon which America was built. These …
Go to Rapid City, South Dakota, and you’ll find the face of President Theodore Roosevelt chiseled on Mount Rushmore. T.R., as he was affectionately known, succeeded William McKinley when the latter ran afoul of an assassin in September 1901. Roosevelt was the 26th President and today ranks h…
Climate change didn’t begin with the smoke and soot of industrialization. It’s been a constant component of our planetary history. It was here before we evolved and will be here long after we move elsewhere in space and time — assuming we don’t destroy the planet and ourselves before we vaca…
A whole new field in the study of economics has developed in recent years, that of behavioral economics. This involves how our unconscious biases affect our economic decisions and result in choices that are not optimal. For example, most people avoid losses more than they seek gains, even if…
Political activity is heating up for the oncoming presidential election.
When people think about the relationship between science and faith, the question that often comes to mind is: So which is right? Faith or science?
Our second president, John Adams, wrote, “Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself.”
I saw them pull it down that summer of 1962. I’d just finished high school and had a job downtown earning extra money for college in the fall. I took the bus from Bloomington, and every day, morning and evening, I’d go by the corner of Second Avenue and Third Street in Minneapolis and watch …
This is the week when state legislators returned to St. Paul and began the grinding process of going through the legislative proposals of our two political parties — DFL and Republican — to see about areas of agreement.
The term climate change is an impersonal, ambiguous one with negative impacts to “humanity” around the world. But on a recent trip to Tanzania in Africa, I met some of the innocents who will be most affected by the increased droughts caused by the changes in climate resulting from increased …
A couple of years ago I asked a Metropolitan Council planner if the council had ever taken a critical look at the costs and benefits of suburban growth. I was underwhelmed with the response in the negative. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, has the state, or a county, or local government in …
While national politics seem to dominate the news cycle in most venues, I want to talk today about our state government and the work that is going on right now in St. Paul.
In his recent column, John Diers provided background about the $25 million burden that may hit taxpayers in Prior Lake. A decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court brought this issue to a head.
Twenty-five million dollars is a lot of money. It could end up on the public tab if developers are allowed to fatten their profits and unload the costs of their projects on Prior Lake property taxpayers.
Health care in Minnesota and the United States is broken and in need of major repair.
We have many options on what to do about our world’s changing climate. Among them are the following:
Today, water and the water supply are uppermost on the minds of metro planners, the Metropolitan Council and state officials. Check out the Met Council’s 2015 Water Supply Plan or search “Minnesota Water Supply” online for articles and reports. I’ve read them, and there’s reason for concern.…
Arguably the most challenging job in the world is president of the United States. If there were a job description, it would spell out the experience necessary to serve as CEO of the federal government’s 4 million employees and $4 trillion annual budget. The job requires administration of law…
With the current winter beginning to fade behind us, many are asking, “Where is global warming?” Others may ask, “Is climate change real?”
“Failure on our part to prepare for demographic change will have substantial adverse effects on the economic welfare of our children and grandchildren and on the long-run productive potential of the U.S. economy.”
Political party stereotypes stayed consistent through the 1950s. Republicans were the party of business and the Chamber of Commerce. Democrats were the party of labor and the little guy. Then came Vietnam and the civil rights movement, and the political parties were pushed apart by the ideol…
Immigration continues to be front and center in the political arena. Our country has found itself stuck in a deadlock over policy and border security, and this impasse has highlighted how divided — yet determined — both sides are, to the point of shutting down the government over this disagr…
On Dec. 3, City Manager Frank Boyles announced Police Chief Mark Elliott had resigned effective immediately and that an outsider had already been appointed as interim chief. The announcement raised some eyebrows. Since Boyles is in a lame-duck period of management with retirement scheduled t…
Last Saturday, I moderated a second national issue forum on immigration at Wescott Library in Eagan; the first was in Prior Lake. It is interesting to see where people from all across the political spectrum find common ground and where they differ. While the sample is small and certainly not…
Drive between Savage and Lakeville and you might glimpse a weed-covered railroad right-of-way that hasn’t seen a train since 1980. It’s a remnant of the Dan Patch Line, also known as the Minneapolis, St Paul, Rochester and Dubuque Electric Traction Company, a railroad that achieved distincti…
President Trump calls the news media an enemy of the American people. He’s dead wrong. Without a free press, our democracy as we know it would crumble.
There’s an old curse that says, “May you live in interesting times,” and we do.
My wife, Marcia, has been reminding me for many years to sort through and thin out my library and associated books, files, photos, magazines and papers. They go back decades, and I keep adding to them. She says I’m a stacker, not a filer — and to that charge, I’ll plead guilty. Organizing pa…
The holiday season is a time when we can celebrate the people and the opportunities around us. It is a time to recognize the organizations and people that make Prior Lake the great community that it is and will become in the days ahead.
In March of 2005, while walking into Prior Lake High School at day’s end to tutor math students, I was met by three oversize guys taunting a much smaller boy. They were enjoying themselves, calling him names I can’t print. The smaller boy was crouched over cowering as I walked into the school.
More than 2.5 million Minnesotans went to the polls on Nov. 6. It was the largest turnout for an off-year election in Minnesota history. Scott County set its own record with 77 percent of eligible voters showing up at the polls.
I’m writing this on Nov. 5, election eve. It will appear in print sometime after the election. Out of good sense, and cowardice, I have no predictions or prognostications for the outcome, even though I’ve spent the day and a good part of the last several weeks watching all the news programs,…
We are seeing the greatest polarization and demonstrations of hate of “others” that I can remember. We can do better as a country.
My wife says I’m an “old white man,” and I’ll plead guilty as charged. She’s a 1960s person and keeps reminding me that some of the ideas that tumble out of my aged brain are right out of the ‘50s. As a septuagenarian, I liked the ‘50s, and if I had a time machine I’d go right back and hang …
Our free market economy is a game of musical chairs with winners and losers when the music stops. Ask the bankers holding mortgage paper in 2008 or the Wall Street tycoons of 1929. Consider the railroad barons of 1873 and 1893, who had overbuilt thousands of miles of track but not traffic an…
My most vivid childhood memory occurred in 1986, when I was 8 years old. I grew up in rural Iowa in the “good old days,” when we as kids spent our summers outside from dawn until dusk. There was an elementary school about a half-mile down the road from our home. One summer day, while riding …
Go to the website of the P rior Lake-Savage Area School District, and you’ll find this statement: “Our mission is to educate all learners to reach their full potential as contributing and productive members of our ever- changing global community.” Then go to the 2017-2018 budget on the same …
Welcome to the loud and raucous 2018 campaign season. We are already experiencing strong messages and push back from political groups at the state and national level. And while these races are noisy, they are still important. At the local level, we have a chance for a different kind of discu…
Andrea Mullenmeister lives on Pleasant Street and is hoping for a sunny Saturday, Sept. 22. Bright blue skies would be absolutely perfect. Andrea is the inspiration that brought all of Pleasant Street together for the first Pleasant Street Art Walk. You’ve heard about the Edina Art Fair at 5…
The southwest suburbs keep right on growing. Estimates from the Metropolitan Council show Scott County added 2,417 residents in 2017, a 12.2 percent increase since 2010. Prior Lake has roughly 26,400 residents and is expected to reach 40,000 by 2040. These aren’t numbers on a piece of paper.…
I go to Alaska every year for a variety of reasons. I go for the wide variety of wildlife. I go for the amazing adventures. I go to connect with the mountains. This year is no different from any other year, but on the other hand, everything is different.
In October of 1990 I was in Tel Aviv to meet with officials of an Israeli defense contractor. When business was concluded, I decided to make a tourist-type visit to the Old City in Jerusalem. It was a week after the Al Aqsa massacre and tensions were high in Israel, but my visit ended with a…
