Letter: Precinct caucuses being held Tuesday
February 3, 2010 by Staff
Filed under Letters to the Editor
From: Tom Schoper
Glencoe
Most people don’t even realize Tues., Feb. 2 is a big day. That’s right; Tuesday is the day we hold precinct caucuses in Minnesota.
This is your opportunity to have a strong voice in what happens in Minnesota and in Washington.
The bid for election starts here for most candidates. When you show up to a caucus, you have an opportunity to become a delegate at the endorsing conventions. Elected offices doesn’t belong to the person serving the office, it belongs to you.
This is the first step in getting the right people to be on the ballot in November. All too often we think that caucus is for someone else and not for us. It is for you and it is easy to get involved. Just show up and participate.
As a civics instructor, I teach students about our system of government and how it works and many of my students will be attending the caucuses for class.
You’ve most likely all learned the same things. So let’s put it to practice on Tuesday, and set an example for our students attending party caucuses.
Hello, I would like to respond to an editorial printed in the Chronicle this last December, but only recently bought to my attention. The editorial in question was written by Rosalind Kohls and stated that CO2 was of no danger, and its designation as a pollutant as “poppycock”. I am afraid her science is as antiquated as her verbiage. Massive population increases along with the infrastructure required to sustain this rise, such as deforestation and increased industrialization, has overtaxed the natural cycle in which CO2 is processed. Much like when the deer population explodes as that of its natural predators (wolves, coyotes, etc…) decreases. The chickens are safe but the crops get eaten. Striking developments since the 1970 Clean Air Act have been the explosion of knowledge about the nature of air pollution, and the advanced new technologies available to control that pollution. The study of pollution and the design of pollution control techniques were in their infancies in 1970. Congress did not have the benefit of the wealth of additional knowledge at society’s disposal today.
This expanded knowledge base should permit Congress to adopt compliance deadlines that are better pegged to technical feasibility than in 1970.
Tom Brokaw was wrong in titling his book “The Greatest Generation”. In so doing he lets the rest of us off the hook. A great generation is one that shoulders its times burdens and solves them so the next generation can work on its own dilemmas. These deeds were accomplished not only by the WWII generation but by our countries founders and citizens who had no small task in creating not only a new country, but basing its foundation on new principles. The generation of the civil war, kept us together. The Civil Rights generation, for holding our country to the standards on which it was founded. This is history in a pea shell. The point being that we are at a juncture in which change is being demanded. Not only from citizens from around the world but by our very planet. This is our generation’s burden.
James Graham