Happy Birthday to me! This is my birthday week – I turn 67 Friday. Now, I’m not saying this just to get presents (but I’ll be home if you need to deliver something.) I’m just pointing out that I am happy to be getting old-ish.
For nearly two years, the government and media pretended everything was great, when a police station was burned down, neighborhoods were destroyed, businesses plundered, innocent people terrorized, but then Jan. 6 happened and then there’s a threat to our democracy.
The Redwood Area School District is in the process of reviewing a Feasibility Study for the Reede Gray Elementary building. The district contracted with WOLD architects a year ago. The purpose was to identify needs and put a price tag to the “fixes.” The list is long and the price tag high. Thus, the Board of Education has asked for prioritization and solution options.
January is Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month as well as National Stalking Awareness Month. WoMen’s Rural Advocacy Programs Inc. (WRAP) has been and continues to serve victims of trafficking since 2020 as well as victims of domestic violence since 1994 in Lincoln, Lyon, Redwood and Yellow Medicine counties.
I missed a meeting this morning. Another, more urgent meeting had been scheduled at the same time and I had no choice but to bow out of the first meeting, which was disappointing given the fact that the topic of the meeting I missed was all about identifying the most significant changes the members of my clergy small group and I have experienced over the past two years.
Body worn cameras, aka BWC, were first deployed by law enforcement in the United Kingdom in 2005. Like most new technology it was rudimentary and expensive. Ten years later the technology had become more reliable and cost effective so implementation in the United States started taking off around 2014.
Minnesota Farmers Union praised the Biden-Harris administration for dedicating $1 billion to expand independent processing capacity. “COVID-19 laid bare the fact that our meat processing system is too consolidated,” said Minnesota Farmers Union (MFU) President Gary Wertish.
I’ve had this column on my mind for the past week. I couldn’t get away from the fact that this is the Jan. 6 paper. I felt I couldn’t ignore what happened one year ago. Then sometimes I would think to myself: “do you really want to bring that up and get angry comments?”
The 2,465 page Build Back Better bill was filled with “pork.” The cost went from “zero dollars” to $3.5 trillion to over $5 trillion! Almost $80 billion would have gone to weaponizing the IRS to assist in looking at transactions in your account that were over $600, later raised to $10,000. There is also around $12 billion for electric cars, $1 trillion to turn government facilities into “green buildings,” new funding for gender identity issues and bias training, massively expanding federal tax dollars for abortions without the Hyde amendment protections, while limiting seniors’ access to new cures and treatments by imposing socialist price controls on prescription drugs, subsidizing union members’ dues and on and on….