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L.A. Krahn

Pine City, Minnesota
Commenter for
5 years 19 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 05/03/13 at 03:57 pm in response to Twin Cities area suffers from shortage of ... empty lots

It's ironic when you stop to think critically about it!

UHC is a moth in the public purse, making money disappear with little to show for it. They are merely creating hoops-to-jump-through, barriers to health care, but do not provide any actual health care. They are not health professionals practicing on patients. They are "overhead." They're part of the reason why our fragmented US health budget is twice as large as most countries' but we get less healthcare for that giant cost....

Posted on 05/03/13 at 04:08 pm in response to Twin Cities area suffers from shortage of ... empty lots

Sorry, Kiri and Thomas in Thunder Bay! 'Twas a typo.

Posted on 05/01/13 at 01:05 pm in response to Get ready for more White Bear Lakes: Two new looks at groundwater depletion

Until you read this article, you probably thought that "your" share of Minnesota groundwater is just a "given," isn't it?

Like fresh air or a quiet starlit night sky, these are community resources we perceive as norms. They have no intrinsic monetary or economic value until there is disruption to these norms' very existence.

Water resource conservation needs a much higher priority than the DNR has given it. Groundwater monitoring wells would be a great start to focus our...

Posted on 03/26/13 at 01:07 pm in response to Owners agree to stop dumping ash from Great Lakes' last coal-fired ferry

The timely payment of penalty, the production of a feasible plan and any indications of progress on reducing the S.S. Badger's pollution... all three are all matters of negotiation that the owners can continue to finesse on their own terms. I bet they will continue with the "delay, denial and regulation-bashing" playbook, as asking the corporation to reinvent its stance is unlikely: they'd be admitting defeat.

Your continued reporting, Mr. Meador, instead appears to be best match...

Posted on 02/20/13 at 05:27 pm in response to Quick, fly away, snowbird!

The prototypical snowbirds are healthy "young" retiree couples. Fast forward fifteen to twenty years, and the surviving widower likely has health issues and wants to be nearer to family caregivers back home, up north. The social services that individual returns to are expected to be in place, and the former snowbird is often much more frail than when they departed.

Perhaps Texas, Florida or Arizona would voluntarily strengthen their statewide social safety nets to prevent such a...

Posted on 01/18/13 at 02:08 pm in response to In a massive winter power outage, how would Minnesotans heat their homes?

I agree. In planning our very rural home, my husband and I thought about this constantly: what if...
During my formative years, a January 1977 ice storm hit and multiple generations packed into grandma & grandpa's farmhouse because despite the electrical grid being down a week, they had (1) a hand-pump well, (2) a summerhouse boiler that could burn wood for heating water and cooking as well as heat MOST of the house, and (3) oil lamps and candles. Retro resiliency!

So we...

Posted on 11/14/12 at 01:51 pm in response to MCAD's Art Cellar and the ephemeral art of hand-made signage

just because of the fun creative signage. I'd like to further the scope with the "sculpture department" source of creative materials, Ax-Man surplus! I fondly recall an iron lung on display at the Ax-Man University Avenue store...

Posted on 09/14/12 at 01:57 pm in response to How — and why — I made my decision on the voting amendment

is not "Data" it's anecdotal. Apparently anecdote is enough for some palates, but not the critical ones.

Last night at a candidate forum in Ogilvie, before a good-sized crowd and the media, a local R candidate (when questioned about the ballot amendments) simply declared "I know of a student who used his college ID to vote in seven districts!"

For the interests of civility I resisted shouting "Bullshit!" and instead whispered to my seatmate "Red herring." The preponderance...

Posted on 09/05/12 at 10:01 am in response to Letter from Lake Michigan: Saying farewell to a much-loved old ferry

The posturing of the Lake Michigan Carferry (LMC) is terribly shallow and one-sided; I wouldn't sign any of their EPA petitions aboard. Yes, it's a great 1950's vessel, hours and miles are saved, and they beg us to keep them afloat with a signature so they don't have to comply with modern regulation.
It's not just the ash that's troubling. The coal-source air pollution concentrated in that route and in those two ports from two crossings a day, all season long, must also be...

Posted on 07/09/12 at 08:37 am in response to Boom! Boom! Could that be the Twin Cities housing market?

The journalism Central Corridor Funders Collaborative and The McKnight Foundation are funding focuses on quantity over quality.