Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed legislation this month that will gradually boost the state’s minimum wage to $9.50 by 2016. Passed with only Democratic support in the state legislature, the new law shall mandate that Minnesota’s current minimum wage of $6.15 per hour, one of the lowest in the country, will rise by more than $3 over the next few years and stay tied to … Continue reading Two Cents on Minumum Wage

I came across the term “differently-abled” a few years ago, and thought it was just an eye-roll-inducing invention by the hyper politically correct. In the past year, however, I have come to see it in a positive, even necessary light. Most people in this country have heard of the ongoing debate about the appropriateness of cochlear implants in people who are deaf. Some say, for people … Continue reading The Diff-abled

Keenan Madson – On the Chinese Program On July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter delivered his “Crisis of Confidence” speech where he addressed American’s fears that the future was not going to be as promising as the present. In echoing President Carter, I, too, am writing because the Gustavus Community is now suffering its own crisis of confidence. If Gustavus continues with a trajectory marred by … Continue reading Guest Submissions

The Incas were a brilliant and vast empire. They had control over substantial amounts of land, flourished without Western conventions, and remained this way for  long time. So it is no surprise that the United States, which fancies itself to be a great empire, wants to achieve this same greatness. After much speculation over the prospect of world domination, the U.S. has finally come to … Continue reading World Domination and Other Food Staples