Since there are frequent articles in the FCJ on religion, specifically on Christianity and by writers who claim the authenticity of their own beliefs at the exclusion of all other views, perhaps it is time to look at such opinions objectively. There are many misconceptions and fallacies the average person has about Christian doctrine and history, but one misconception seems to … [Read more...]
One Moment, Please… 2018 Teacher of the Year nominations
On May 2, 2017, the Fillmore County Journal presented the first Golden Apple Award to Mary Hoiland, a 42-year veteran of the Rushford-Peterson School District. Historically, this was the first time in which a Teacher of the Year was selected from the six school districts in Fillmore County. As referenced in a May 10, 2017, article authored by Barb Jeffers, “In addition to … [Read more...]
Letter about young adult males working…
To the Editor, Jason Sethre’s recent commentary is a textbook case on how to take facts and use them to reach misleading and false conclusions. It also can and does trivialize an important subject. Mr. Sethre leads us to believe that video games and lax parenting have led to a recent decline in worker participation of younger men as shown by U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics. … [Read more...]
Are you prepared for the grazing season?
The weather is not quite in the spring spirit yet, but it’s time to start thinking spring! Spring is a critical time to prepare pastures for the summer grazing season. Did you miss your chance to seed pastures in the fall? Don’t worry, you can still do it in spring. A recommendation from the University of Minnesota is to spring seed between April 1 and May 15. Since the … [Read more...]
Leave busy to the bees
Why does everyone want to be busy? You see it all the time: social media feeds flooded with pictures of this event and that outing, conversations hijacked by talk of how tiring it all is, countless plans forced off the rails by that four-letter word “busy.” The strangest part, though, is seeing how, for all of the complaining about it, no one seems to be doing anything to … [Read more...]
What is liberty?
By Dr. Bryan Van Gorp Rushford, MN Our country is more divided than any time since 1968 when progressive leaders like Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated and there were riots in the streets. Citizens are rarely uniformly conservative or progressive on all issues. People may be fiscally conservative and socially progressive. They may be conservative on … [Read more...]
One Moment, Please… Play video games or go to work?
As of December 2017, the unemployment rate in Minnesota dipped to 3.1%. And, according to DEED (Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development), Fillmore County hovers closer to 2.9%. And, if you ask any business owner about their hiring prognosis, they are less and less optimistic about finding candidates to fill their open positions. From 2008 to 2018, we … [Read more...]
Letter about What do we care about?…
To the Editor, We care about ducks. They often fly in flocks, and from a duck’s perspective, this might be a curse, or a blessing. A curse because a fast-shooting hunter might be quick enough to take more than one duck from a passing flight. A blessing, because the sheer density of prospective targets may render the shooter incapable of concentrating sufficiently on an … [Read more...]
Devil’s Advocate…Human connection matters
Have you ever been in a state where your mind feels like it’s spinning without any indication of stopping? You can lie awake for hours at night, thinking of everything and nothing at once because each thought is so fleeting one cannot be grasped firmly enough to pull your mind out of the maelstrom. The compass to give your mind direction on the stormy seas of contemplation … [Read more...]
Where to start? Fix the budget process
You could choose any number of marquee dilemmas to illustrate how broken congressional politics has become. Guns, Russian interference, climate change — Americans want progress on all of them and get little from Capitol Hill. But to my mind, nothing illustrates the dire state of our politics better than how we act on the federal budget. This is not a glamorous issue, but it … [Read more...]