Remember the books you read in junior high?  How about high school? How about last week?
    I have spent the majority of my adult working life in the classroom with high school students, trying to find a way for them to appreciate literature. As a high school English teacher, I had an opportunity several years ago to earn continuing education credits by taking a course in Regional Literature from Bill Holm. The first activity he did in that class was to write this statement on the board:  “Literature honors our human experiences.”  As I read that statement, suddenly, after almost two decades of ‘teaching’ literature, the reason I love literature became perfectly clear.
    As humans we encounter, or could encounter, hundreds of thousands of experiences.  We could experience a kaleidoscope of emotions.  In a single lifetime each of us will encounter the same experiences and react to those experiences differently. Some of us will encounter experiences that others never will.
    Literature, people sharing those experiences and emotions by writing them down in stories and poems, is one way that we can experience ‘things’ that we will never have a chance to experience.  We will embark on a journey to a new world.

By Robert Beussman
and Lynn Stauss

Brace yourself.  If you like the gridlock in Washington, you will love one of the bills now being heard at the legislature.  It proposes to amend the constitution by requiring a supermajority of the legislature to approve any increases in taxes or expenditures.  If it goes to the ballot and is passed, it would lead to bigger legislative struggles, more state shutdowns, budget setting through the constitution, and the most ineffective government ever seen in Minnesota.
 Last year, Minnesota faltered.  The inability of state leaders to cross party lines led to partisan gridlock and the shutdown of state government.  We thought legislators would learn something from that experience, but instead, some are trying to up the ante through a constitutional amendment that puts increased restrictions on the budgeting process.   The amendment would require a three-fifths supermajority of both the House and Senate to approve any increases in taxes or expenditures, turning what is always a difficult process into an impossible task.   
 If passed, an extreme minority in the legislature could easily stymie any legislative attempt to fund critical infrastructure, maintain needed programs, respond to emergencies, or even redesign government, leading to a wave of constitutional amendments.   The thoughtful, studied legislative process of setting the budget would be replaced by popular vote, with the outcome unknown and the budget process put into further disarray.

    Saturday night brought a whole lot of folks together at Bootlegger’s Supper Club for the Granite Falls Chamber’s community banquet. It was a fun night by all accounts and was a chance to enjoy some very good food and some unique entertainment with the a cappella singing group Home Free.
    The event, which helped to kick off the Ole and Lena Winter Carnival, drew a large crowd and it gave the Chamber a chance to get the word out to folks about Chamber activities and promotions. We all need to hear more about promoting the community and Saturday’s banquet was a good way to bring some of that good work into the spotlight.

If state Reps. Rich Murray, Tony Cornish and Jeanne Poppe don’t want people’s property taxes to go up even more than they already have lately, they must — yes, must — vote against any measures this session that would place a supermajority amendment on the November ballot.
In fact, any lawmakers with common sense should know to vote against such oddball restrictions.
A bill introduced in the Minnesota House calls for a constitutional amendment that would require a three-fifths supermajority vote in the House and Senate to pass any tax increase.
That sounds good on its face, but the state doesn’t control all taxes, just some of them. The failure of state lawmakers to pass any state tax increase in about a decade or so — except for a small gas tax following an embarrassing bridge disaster — only has forced local governments to raise property taxes to stay functional. Such a constitutional amendment only would make property taxes go up, something some far-right Republicans who authored the bill don’t seem to mind at all. Their anti-tax sentiments don’t seem very anti-tax to us, and nor should they to the more sensible moderate Republicans.

    The vote last week by the Chippewa County board to not participate in the discussions about the  future of the Minnesota Falls Dam was disappointing to many folks in this area.  The board voted unanimously not to participate in a joint powers board that would explore the possible ownership of the dam by a multi-agency public/private partnership with Yellow Medicine County, the City of Granite Falls, Granite Falls Energy (GFE) and Minnesota Valley Co-op Power and Light.   The purpose of any  discussion by the group would be to  explore possibilities for the dam and preserve its reservoir that impounds water upstream.
    Working together is always a good idea and  the joint powers agreement doesn’t obligate any of the parties to do anything except sit down and  talk about what might be possible at Minnesota Falls.
    On the surface, the county board might seem to be exercising the courage to say no, especially in light of Granite Falls Energy being one of the largest property taxpayers in  Chippewa County and GFE using the reservoir as a resource for its water intake.

    First things first. I have an apology to make to a young man who I observed at the Marshall danceline competition a couple of weeks ago. I wrote, One dad was the unofficial ‘cheerleader’ prompting the fans to yell out a Y.M.E. cheer. Oops!  I was told that the man is the older brother of one of the dancers, not a dad. Sorry.                                                                       
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    When people find out that I was born in Minneapolis and raised in Fargo, they often ask me, “Why did you want to live in a small town?”
    After teaching for over 20 years in ‘small towns’ I know that kids don’t understand why I stayed. At the top of their ‘list’ is to move out of the small town; to go to college and to move anywhere but back to the small town. Over and over again, I heard, “There are no opportunities here.”
    Back when I graduated from high school, I attended college at NDSU and then graduated from Moorhead State.  I had no desire to move to a small town.  I wanted to stay in my home town.  But back then, the opportunity for me was in a small town. I accepted a teaching position in Ortonville.  I worked my way down the Minnesota River and taught in Montevideo and Granite Falls.  At one point, after my divorce, I had an opportunity to move back to Fargo.  I never gave it a thought.  I got the questions again, “You’re staying in Granite?”

    Last week the Advocate Tribune had an article about the
venerable foot bridge that spans the Minnesota River in downtown Granite Falls. The bridge has never had a name but Jim Putnam once or twice suggested it be called the Charlie Stoppe foot bridge. Stoppe was the mayor in 1935 when the bridge was built and his name is enshrined on the bronze plaque on the bridge.
    Of course, like most things, it was a whole bunch of folks who worked to bring about that unique and picturesque bridge. It wasn’t built as a scenic overlook although for plenty of us, it provides a great vantage point on the behavior of our favorite river.

­­    Everyone remembers the high school jock; the boy who was the quarterback of the football team, the wrestler who won 100 matches, the basketball player who scored a 1000 points.             Everyone has a special memory about an athletic event they participated in or attended while in high school.  I have heard men share details of a specific football game 70 years after the game was played.  The event is as clear to them as if it had happened last Friday, not 70 years ago.
    No matter what people think about sports, athletics has always been and will always be a part of our high schools and our culture.  
    I did a little cursory research on the internet about physical attributes of athletes and found an article by Simon Thadoni on football players physical attributes and skills on a site entitled Peak Performance.
    Thadoni stated in many, many words that football required athletes to have these skills and physical attributes:  good local muscular endurance, good recovery rate, to be mobile, creative, multi-paced, explosive, aerobic, strong, agile, fast, have stamina, single leg jumping power, balance, endurance, to be mentally strong and that the football was a skilled team sport that was all about technique.

        By Lee Egerstrom

An improving rural housing market, fueled by federal programs, is part of the countryside's economic turn around. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development invested nearly $416.5 million in grants and loan guarantees for single-family and multiple family housing, helping 3,495 individuals and families become homeowners.
These are part of ongoing USDA efforts that blur the distinction between so-called “safety net” and “stimulus” actions that in the past enjoyed bipartisan public support. What’s more, data on people and communities affected show these programs work.
“We are one of the best kept secrets in Minnesota,” said Colleen Landkamer, USDA Rural Development state director. “We’re not happy about that. Everyone should know what these programs do and the impact they have.”

    By the time many of you are reading this we will be experiencing weather that is somewhat more typical of a Minnesota winter.
 The easy days of the mild weather and warm air have been a treat for most of us. There were motorcycles rumbling around on Tuesday afternoon. Motorcycles on Jan. 10? Hard to believe. I know some guys who got a round of golf in last week at Granite Run. It all seems hard to believe.
    That was never more true last Thursday when the thermometer at the Granite airport’s automated weather station showed 61 degrees at 1:33 p.m. That morning we were on a conference call
with folks in Fort Worth, Texas and Washington DC. The call was about important matters regarding the financing and possible purchase of Riverview Apartments.
    That’s an important topic, one that has taken up loads of time and has traveled through many twists and turns.
    With that serious work at hand, the first topic among our phonemates was the weather in Minnesota.
    They, like folks nearly everywhere seem to assume that January in Minnesota is always cold and getting colder. When they asked us how cold it was “up your way”, it was with some pleasure that I mentioned that we were enjoying warm weather

    Coincidence.  God’s will.  Fate.  Random event.
    When I think about the events of my life, I can’t help but dwell on those four words: coincidence, God’s will, fate and random event.             Years ago, my family and I took a vacation trip to Disney World. While enjoying the theme park, we came to a rope bridge like the kind that seemed to always break just at the wrong time for Indiana Jones. The rope bridge spanned a jungle-like swamp. It was only one person wide and when we started to cross the bridge we could not see the other end of the bridge. And sure enough, about the time we got to the middle we found ourselves face to face with people crossing from the opposite side.  We had to carefully squeeze by the other family. The family was our neighbors; Mom, Dad and both of their young sons.      Was it a random event when we literally bumped into our neighbors at Disney World? Was it God’s will? Was it fate?  Was it a coincidence?

By Tim Douglass

Finally, the Iowa Republican caucuses are history. Is it just me, or did it feel like the candidates were campaigning in Iowa for years, not months.
Nevertheless, it was an interesting couple of months for everyone, and, in the end, we found out that Republicans in Iowa were still split about who they support for the party's nominee. One thing was clear, however. negative, attack ads work, especially when done by the nameless, powerful, and wealthy super PACs.
I guess we've always known such tactics work. We've seen them work on a more limited basis on a local level right here in West Central Minnesota, when Sen. Dean Johnson was defeated with attack ads and half-truths about his position on gay marriage. It wasn't his opponent who did most of the attacking, it was outside groups, using outside money and hiding behind cleverly-named organizations. Most of the time, the tactic is to attack right before the election, so there is no time for the candidate, the media or the public to vet the information.

     By Conrad deFibre

In these days of sovereign debt crises stretching from Athens to Washington, some may consider more public borrowing a fast road to ruin. But it ain’t necessarily so.
Boasting one of the nation’s lightest debt loads, Minnesota is ideally positioned to pump up its economic recovery with long-term capital investment in public facilities. With nearly $2 billion in general obligation borrowing capacity and record low bond interest rates below 3 percent, the state has an unprecedented opportunity to repair aging infrastructure, increase productive capacity and get thousands of construction workers off the jobless rolls.
It should be the Legislature’s top priority this year, enacted early in the session that begins Jan. 24. That way, many of the projects could get underway during the 2012 construction season, helping to restore the more than 40,000 Minnesota construction jobs that have dried up since 2006.

    It’s 2012.
    Over the weekend I assume that many, many, many people made New Year’s resolutions. Over the years I have made hundreds of New Year’s resolutions. The one resolution I have made over and over is to lose weight.  I can say with confidence that I have achieved that commitment. I have lost 300 pounds. The same 10 pounds 30 times!
    Actually, I think making commitments to improve myself is a good thing. Many years, on New Year’s Day, I’ve taken the time to jot down personal improvement goals that I want to accomplish by the next New Year’s Day.  I think it is great to be able to have a custom that allows me to remember to set aside a little time to make a list of personal improvements. It’s sort of like the impetus to change the battery on your smoke alarm on your birthday.

    The New Year rolls in with some cool weather but there is still no sign of snow and we are plenty happy about that. I guess if I was selling snowblowers or snowmobiles I would be squawking but hey, we're all a bit happy to not be lifting heavy snow.            We visited with friends Dave and Jan Thom this past week. They live in the Black Hills and were back in Minnesota seeing Dave's mom here in Granite and their daughter who lives in Pine City. They’re used to that long and imagination-filled drive across South Dakota, having made eight or nine trips to Minnesota this year.
    Just as they were getting ready for that day-long return trip this past week, they got word that there were 14 inches of new, very wet snow lying in their yard in the southern Black Hills town of Custer.
    The fact that the weather out there was going to feature mild 50 degrees temperatures this week means that the snow will be melted in a few days but meanwhile, it will be heavy to shovel. That is something that I am not missing and the anticipation no doubt dampened their journey home.

    Laughter is the best medicine.
    I have no idea where the saying originated, but I know it’s true.  Over the years I have benefited from the medicine of laughter.
    I decided to look up information on the internet about laughter. I found a web site HELPGUIDE.com that states that laughter relaxes the whole body. It states that a good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving the muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes.  Laughter boosts the immune system.  It states that laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving the resistance to disease. Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals.  Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.  Laughter also protects the heart. Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protest against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.

      By Tim Douglass

With all the bashing that newspapers in general have taken from other forms of media over the past few years, maybe it's time we publish some statistics that will never be publicized on television or radio news programs.
Here are the results of a recent study:
"Readers in areas served by community newspapers continue to prefer the community newspaper as their main source of local news and advertising."
Go ahead. Read that sentence again. Sometimes, we need to let readers know the facts, because these don't follow the "demise of newspapers" campaign by other media.
Following consistent trends studied since 2004, the 2011 study found that 74 percent of people in a community served by a newspaper with a circulation under 15,000 read a local newspaper each week. They prefer the printed copy to the online version, with 48 percent saying they never read the local news online. They prefer to receive advertising through the newspaper (51 percent) rather than on the internet (11 percent).

    I believe that anyone who missed the Yellow Medicine East choral concert on Monday, Dec. 19, missed as fine a high school presentation as one could have found this Christmas season anywhere in any high school in the state of Minnesota. If you hadn't yet experienced the spirit and the meaning of the season, this would certainly have done it for you.
  Music Director Jeff Iverson and the entire ensemble of students, accompanied by the talented and seemingly ubiquitous Joan Lundell, inspired an auditorium filled with people of all ages.
    Each group's performance was excellent and the solos were outstanding.
       Mr. Iverson has the wonderful gift of being able to elicit the best from each and every one of his students; and the entire performance honored both Yellow Medicine East High School and our entire community.    
    My congratulations to everyone involved.

Rev. Dick Fylling
Granite Falls
United Church of Christ

    Most folks are too busy to pay much attention to the comings and goings in the world of politics these days. You can’t really blame them but I still  think that it is important to pay attention to who is making what decisions that will affect our communities and our day-to-day lives. There is a lot at stake but hearing about it can be ponderous and more than most folks can tolerate.
    I’ve been told from a reliable source that when I watch television, which is less than many folks, I watch boring programs. It’s true that I get a bit of a kick out of following politics and if there is such a thing as a favorite TV show it might be the Friday night public TV program Almanac or something like 60 Minutes.

    With the upcoming New Year, many recently passed statutes will take effect in Minnesota. The following is a summary of various initiatives that were passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Mark Dayton:
    • A new law conforms state statutes to new federal requirements related to case mix classifications and reimbursement rates at nursing homes.               Additionally, the law permits counties and the state to contract with facilities in a bordering state for detoxification services for Minnesota residents. It also allows Minnesota detoxification facilities to contract with bordering states to provide services to residents of the bordering states.