opinion

Funny thing about Minnesota in its glory days — the 1970s, the years when the cover of Time magazine touted “The State That Works”: It was neither a Republican- nor...

A single mother of two teen daughters told me this story last month. The mother is finishing her degree at Bemidji State University and she drives 50 miles to classes...

This past Thursday, March 7, I had the honor and privilege of going to the most beautiful celebration of life I’ve ever attended in my 60 years. The traditional Ojibway...

Oh, the spin. Within minutes after the Minnesota Office of Management and Budget released the state’s February budget forecast Thursday, the e-mails and accusations were flying. The forecast showed the...

The last day in Arizona featured the best and worst of customer service and business management. First, a hotel from the nether regions. I won’t name the establishment because I...

State Senator Rod Skoe and Representative Roger Erikson recently held a town meeting in Park Rapids to discuss Governor Mark Dayton’s 2014-15 budget proposal and to obtain citizen input on...

Prologue: The war in Iraq was launched on March 20, 2003. It wasn’t over until all U.S. troops were taken out on Dec. 15, 2011. During that time, 4,487 American...

Cheers to U.S. Sen. Al Franken for a bipartisan proposal that could save the federal Medicare program billions of dollars by allowing millions of beneficiaries to take part in a...

Very little is certain in modern production agriculture, but the crop value figures of the past three years suggest a new era of stability that bodes well for producers and...

With fifteen major league baseball teams training in the Phoenix area, you would think that a baseball fan would be in heaven, racing from ballfield to ballfield collecting autographs and...

In 1993, voters in Colorado repealed their state's tourism tax, which, in today's dollars, was fueling an $18 million-a-year marketing effort to attract visitors. At the time the state was...

The small red dots on a Minnesota map published by a little-known state office are a cause for optimism in an age dominated by a depressing emphasis on short-term gain...

Some eyebrows were raised when Pope Benedict XVI announced two days before Lent that he was resigning as Pope as of Feb. 28. After all, when a pope is elected...

Governor Mark Dayton is proposing a change in the sales tax which would reduce the state sales tax rate, but broaden the reach of sales tax to many other goods...