This is my Sunday, Feb. 10 column for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. So the other day our son Henry, who is two and a half, picked up a toy truck from the coffee table, examined it carefully and made a simple declaration. “I’ve had this truck a long time.” We offered the standard parent agreement,…

… Thyroid Awareness Month must share its month with Soup Month, Oatmeal Month and Braille Literacy Month. Now, I like soup. I like oatmeal. I’m all for the Braille. But as an informed citizen who seeks to abide by the commemorative months discussed on the 5:15 TV news dump, what I am to do? I…

Nothing gets people thinking about the past or future better than a bland, even foreboding present. Possible economic recession? Yuck. Uncertainty in the presidential election? Nothing but ulcers for political junkies like me. And since the past involves “quantified research,” it’s so much easier to just envision the future. That’s what folks did last week…

With politics in full swing after last week’s Iowa caucuses and next week’s New Hampshire primary, it’s easy to overload on words right now. Candidates pour words aplenty upon the voters, some true, some truish, some true lite, and the rest regular old false. But while people sometimes distort the truth, words themselves don’t lie.…

So we sent out our Christmas cards which were actually just letters, and photocopied letters at that. I’ve read the etiquette columns and I know such documents should be augmented with personal notes, ribbons and probably glitter, but we just sent out the black and white photo letter. We have three boys under the age…

I made a dumb mistake in my column yesterday. In a (mostly) satirical column I suggested that Minnesota trade its high-profile Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty to North Dakota for its Republican Gov. John Hoeven, a bunch of steaks and two nuclear weapons. In the column I say that Minnesota hasn’t had a governor with a…