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Karen Sandness

Minneapolis, MN
Commenter for
5 years 13 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 09/15/12 at 02:00 pm in response to How — and why — I made my decision on the voting amendment

about the controversy in Ohio about extended polling hours in some precincts and not in others. (It was eventually resolved in favor of equal hours in all precincts.)

Posted on 09/11/12 at 01:46 pm in response to Supporters of proposed voting amendment rally in St. Paul

Would they feel the same way if they understood all the ramifications of the amendment, such as the expense required to provide everyone eligible to vote in Minnesota (approximately 3 million people) with a picture ID that proves both current address AND citizenship AND lack of felony convictions?

Posted on 09/11/12 at 03:56 pm in response to Separating church from state on the marriage amendment

have a civil ceremony to make a marriage legal. Religious ceremonies are not illegal, but they are optional, an addition to, not a replacement for the civil ceremony.

Why can't we do that here?

Posted on 09/10/12 at 10:34 am in response to Will the voting amendment dismantle Minnesota’s current election system?

placing regulations that are neither basic organizing principles of government nor statements of citizens' rights in the state constitution is a recipe for tying the state government's hands (which is precisely what a lot of conservatives want to do).

I did not live in Minnesota between 1984 and 2003, so I cannot comment on the wisdom of any amendments that were subject to referendum during that period. In Oregon, where the initiative process is out of control (special interest groups...

Posted on 09/10/12 at 09:43 pm in response to Will the voting amendment dismantle Minnesota’s current election system?

Has Mr. Petersen forgotten that both the Franken-Coleman and Dayton-Emmer races were three-person races, with candidates from the Independence Party racking up significant numbers of votes?

From all indications, the Independence Party candidates attracted supporters from both parties, but somewhat more from the nearly extinct breed of moderate Republicans.

Pretending that those were two-person races is playing dumb and hoping that voters have short memories.

Posted on 09/06/12 at 11:07 pm in response to Minnesota voting amendment would change much more than you might think

the presence of third party candidates who took votes from moderate Republicans had nothing to do with the DFL wins?

Posted on 08/30/12 at 11:50 am in response to Making deliberate TV choices

I receive my Internet service through Comcast, and I found that receiving both Internet and super-basic cable (local channels plus CNN and public access) was cheaper than Internet alone.

But it was an easy decision to cut out the rest of the channels. I sometimes went for days without turning the TV on, and it was around 2005 that I realized that I was paying large sums of money for channels that I never watched.

At present, I watch an occasional PBS program (as long as it's...

Posted on 08/29/12 at 05:13 pm in response to Chris Christie’s GOP convention speech: 20 truths make a lie

It also seems that Greece, Spain, and Italy are the European countries that right-wingers have heard about lately. What about Ireland, which the right-wing media used to tout as "proof" that their economic theories were the magic recipe for prosperity? The GDP was growing, former emigrants were coming back home, young people were staying instead of emigrating, multinational companies were setting up shop there...and then the whole thing collapsed.

Now the right wing doesn't talk...

Posted on 08/27/12 at 11:05 am in response to Itasca’s killer app could transform higher ed

When I was a college student in the late 1960s, early 1970s, large companies still hired liberal arts graduates and (gasp!) trained them in-house. By the early 1980s, these same companies were hiring only business majors or people with specific technical skills. Students soon got the message. When I was in college, Business Administration was a tiny department with only a few students. By the time I began teaching at my alma mater as a part-time instructor ten years later, the requirements...

Posted on 08/24/12 at 11:27 pm in response to Low-wage, high-tuition model for higher ed is a disaster for teachers, students

who was both part-time and full-time during her career, I was dismayed to read recently that the average wages for adjuncts are less in real terms than I was receiving in 1982-84.

Oregon State University, where I taught from 1984-86, was a "pioneer" in trying to offer education on the cheap, and it was horrible for faculty morale. I was relatively lucky, being on a full-time, year-to-year appointment. A few members of my department, the Foreign Language Department, were on tenure-...