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Latest strike shows the pressure facing rural health care
Health care is hard to understand. Let’s start with the fact that most of us have no idea how our human bodies actually work. Thousands of years of science and development taught much to the human race. But the average individual knows only a little. We don’t know anatomy. We don’t know how drugs are…
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This bill kills
A full description of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” remains a moving target. But if the version of the budget reconciliation deal being debated in the U.S. Senate on Monday afternoon is any indicator, it could be one of the most devastating bills for rural health care in a generation. The health care system is…
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When a broken system blocks rural patients from effective treatment
The fourth in my series of columns about mental health issues in Minnesota is out now. One of my biggest goals in this series was to convey that there is hope for those facing mental illness. There is widespread agreement that effective treatments exist for those suffering most forms of mental illness. The problem is…
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Talking mental health on business podcast
This Sunday, my series of columns on mental health issues in rural Minnesota continues. Before then, here’s something related. On Friday, I appeared on an episode of “Business Talk, Sister Gawk” with Rebekkah Anderson. Anderson shared some of her personal experience with mental illness as an adoptive and foster mom for my column. She also…
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Preorder ‘On an Inland Sea’ from Belt Publishing
We must never lose our amazement over the fact that Duluth, Minnesota, is an international port. Dead center of the continent, thousands of miles from any saltwater, and we see ships roll in from Europe, Africa and beyond. Northern Minnesota may not touch the ocean, but we have always lived along the inland seas of…
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Live from New York, it’s a new world of politics
What could a corn-fed Midwestern boy add to the glut of analysis about the New York City mayoral race? Only this, that Zohran Mamdani’s upset win in Tuesday’s Democratic primary seems relevant to trends in modern American politics, including some upcoming races here in Minnesota. What’s happening is much bigger than tit-for-tat partisanship. Whether you…
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But wait, it gets worse: barriers to modern civility
I already wrote about civility in the aftermath of last week’s tragic murders and shootings in Minnesota. What more to say? How about how easy it is to say you’re against violent rhetoric while allowing it to go unchecked on your side of the street. Or how we have freedom to say just about anything,…
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What’s a ‘golden share’? Let’s find out
The successful merger of U.S. Steel with Nippon Steel of Japan will go down as one of the big business stories of the year. On Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range, the deal holds special meaning. It will bring in significant investment to aging taconite plants at Keewatin and Mountain Iron, but it’s hard to say what…
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For small towns, the bill’s come due and the hard part lies ahead
Sometimes it feels like life in a rural area is just one long string of budget cuts. It’s a perception thing, perhaps. Rural areas expanded services as their populations crested decades ago. Since then, the population has dropped and everything got more expensive. But this is a heck of a way to live; a…
