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Karin Noren

Chaska, MN
Commenter for
3 years 51 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 10/12/10 at 04:48 pm in response to Rural Minnesota suffering from 20% loss in manufacturing jobs since 2000

Thanks, Greg. You nailed it.

Posted on 09/23/10 at 01:33 pm in response to In this era of incivility, messianic nationalism strides to the fore

It is a fact of history, that the fall of the middle class into poverty creates increased anger and frustration. And so much of this is aggravated by the 'elephant in the room', increasingly not affordable health care. That elephant is involved in the increasingly higher costs of government and business at all levels.

When will we face that?

Posted on 09/10/10 at 02:11 pm in response to Like rest of nation, Minnesota failing miserably on eating enough fruits and veggies

Only in our very modern society have fruits been available to most more northern people year round. When I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, the fruits had a very short season. Many were canned (and sweetened in the process, and we usually had a serving in a sauce bowl about twice a day.... if that. But we ate rather plainly most of the time with what was grown on the farm. High in healthy omegas, the grass fed meat and free ranging chickens and eggs largely explain much...

Posted on 05/04/10 at 07:45 pm in response to Efforts to shrink Gulf's 'dead zone' face serious setbacks from oil spill

Right on, Rolf. The government and big business push, long in the making, and the push for 'cheap food' has had some (or a lot of) unintended consequences. Like so0 many other things that have developed over the past several decades, short term profits have trumped long term sustainability in many areas.

I grew up on a relatively small farm in ND. Back after WWII, these small farms produced families that did not depend on one or both working off the farm to make ends meet, and...

Posted on 05/03/10 at 03:15 pm in response to South Dakota dreaming: Using greed for motivation

Have you ever heard of personal property taxes? Sd has then, ND used to have them. Their effect?
Last Thursday we went on a four day road trip to the northwestern part of ND. We decided on a different route. We went out 212 into SD where we took I29 north. Try it sometime. Careful Observation of your surroundings may bring up some interesting questions.

Posted on 02/14/10 at 08:55 pm in response to Dealing with the prison of deregulated capitalism

Bernice, it is a breath of fresh air down here to find someone speaking of the unique ND institutions that were the direct result of the exploitation of North Dakota 'assets' by out of state entities during its early years. I am currently rather disturbed by the reports from part of that state of the "Tea Party'. I wonder if because of "No child Left Behind", they are no longer teaching their students the unique history of the state of their birth, conservative, yet with many common good...

Posted on 02/13/10 at 02:10 pm in response to Dealing with the prison of deregulated capitalism

Thanks, Gordon, for an application of a Biblical text in reference to the time in was written as well as the times we are in. Most of us are all too ignorant of the forces at work in that particular time, as we have been discovering in our recent Bible studies. Putting writings in the context of the time they were written in puts a whole different complection on the meanings of various scriptures and gives us a much richer understanding of our scriptures.
Some things change little,...

Posted on 02/13/10 at 02:21 pm in response to Let biodiesel mandates, subsidies expire -- nature does it better

Does anyone remember that natural gas, which is refined from what comes from the ground to remove sulfer and other undesirables. is in fact a fossil fuel??????????? I grew up on the ND oil fields, less than two miles from where a gas plant was built. There were many downsides to the oil industry up there: although it kept many small farmers in farming, it did nothing for the health of the local population. I, to this day, have a love/hate relationship to it.

Posted on 02/04/10 at 05:45 pm in response to How to boost student learning? More recess might help

Now this makes sense. There have been studies of workplaces, over a period of many years, that have proven that getting up and moving around at least once an hour was very beneficial to productivity.. not to mention health, etc. Recent studies have shown that sitting at a desk all day has negative impacts on our health that even an hour at a gym afterwards can not erase. We have an epidemic of childhood obesity. Tie these together, and consider what you get. In my youth, we were...

Posted on 10/13/09 at 03:42 pm in response to Is the cross a Christian symbol?

If we go back to the event of the crucifiction of Christ, the cross was the means used to "kill" the opponents, political, of the Roman empire and was used mostly for those who had participated in an insurection against the 'state'.

As such, a cross, besides being a handy way to have a space to to write the name of someone 's grave, is also symbolic of someone whose life was taken by the opponent in battle.

Need we say more?