Comments for Cheri Register

Comment on Outlaw by Dorothy Rees

Dorothy Rees — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 02:42:49 +0000

Have you ever considered that he may have fallen under the category of a sociopath which is akin to having an antisocial personality disorder? This is characterized by a lack of regard for the moral or legal standards in the local culture. There is a marked inability to get along with others or abide by societal rules. Individuals with this disorder are also sometimes called psychopaths. To learn more about this condition, you can go to: sociopathworld.com under the heading sociopath. Your description of him was very empathetic — I know you’ve always been concerned about him and for him; hopefully in the next life he will have improved.

Comment on To Spinster Teachers and Unordained Preachers by gunnar berg

gunnar berg — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 22:10:30 +0000

Elsie Siebert – On the first day of class she stood before us, “As I look about the room I recognize many of the names and faces. I have had many of your brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers as students in the past. Some of them were good students, some were not. Neil, is your father Marlin?” I was hesitant; I suspected my old man was not a good one. “Ah, yes.” My worst suspicions were realized. She went into a classic Siebert rant about how he never brought a book or paper to class, he slept, he missed class through the hunting season. She smiled, “But he brought me pheasants”.

Comment on Worst Book Reviews by gunnar berg

gunnar berg — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 10:34:56 +0000

Siding with the Weinie Moguls?

Comment on An Antidote to Cynicism by Cheri

Cheri — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 19:07:49 +0000

Where can I find this man’s nose?

Comment on An Antidote to Cynicism by gunnar berg

gunnar berg — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 19:03:43 +0000

Lorna was door-knocking yesterday. She had a man who claimed Obama was a Moslem who was born in Kenya and he “would go nose-to-nose with anyone who disagreed with that”.

Comment on The Whole Picture by gunnar berg

gunnar berg — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:34:02 +0000

When I first was working I was more in the numbers end of design rather than the creative end. There was a hierarchy of slide rules; the higher paid oldtimers had slide rules made of exotic woods with ivory, pearl and brass inlays. Mine is functional(or was), made of milled alunimun with etched and filled numbers. Good for prying open paint-can lids.

Comment on The Whole Picture by Cheri

Cheri — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 00:24:52 +0000

I still have a slide rule in my desk drawer. I don’t know why I keep it, because I never did catch on to its use. If I’m ever supplying a bunch of objects for students to use as writing prompts, I take the slide rule along. People who know what it is tend to write funny recollections of math class and their prowess or lack thereof. Those who have never seen one before give it some fanciful identity and use.
I also need context in telling time. A digital clock is worthless in a classroom. It gives you only the moment; you can’t tell how much time has passed or how much remains. What good is knowing the moment–and then having it change suddenly? My daughters think my habit of announcing the time as “quarter to” is archaic, but it says what matters to me: I’ve got fifteen minutes left–a quarter hour–before the next hour strikes. I wonder if the Swedes, who are surely beset by digitization, still say “fem i halv nio” or “five minutes to half of nine” for the time my daughters insist is 8:25.

Comment on The Whole Picture by gunnar berg

gunnar berg — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 20:01:28 +0000

I remember slide rules, fountain pens, mailed letters and land line telephones. Maps will become obsolete (if they already are not). And the compasses that go with them. And books – yes, books, except maybe the little poetry books and I suppose there will always be book collectors.

Another one that struck me the other day – the Dewey Decimal System is completely obsolete, or should be. Bar codes and bar code scanners allow books to be stuck anywhere in the stacks – frequently used near the front, seldom read at the back. The scanner is connected to a computer that knows where the book is. Nobody, except old people, wander through the stacks anymore. All this is probably being done anyway, but it just dawned on me, being an older gentleman, a couple of weeks ago.

Comment on Tribute to an Old Postmaster by Cheri

Cheri — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 18:24:54 +0000

Mr. Levisen,
Are you arguing with ME? But I agree with you. Agricultural runoff–both silt and chemicals–is the biggest threat to Southern Minnesota lakes. Bear Lake has suffered horribly. Yet my research tells me that the Emmons Ditch first lowered the water level to create more meadowland for adjacent farmers, allowing the lake to fill in all the sooner. My great grandfather, Elbert Ostrander, who farmed between Alden and Conger, published an essay called “Passing of Bear Lake” in the Community Magazine sometime in the 1930s (my copy is undated) and described the lake as he originally knew it as “fringed by a beautiful margin of the primeval forest along the eastern border; a pearl set in the midst of the waving green of an emerald.” (Yes, his prose could be a bit flowery.) At the end of the piece, he describes what the lake had become in his lifetime: “The wild rice has vanished. The pickerel grass and water celery exist only in straggley patches. The snail beds are not, and the water level has been so lowered that ice no longer heaves in midwinter as formerly when it piled up in a long windrow and left an open rift of running water flowing from one section of the lake to another, thus aerifying the waters of the lake. Instead, the water now becomes putrid, making it impossible for life to exist under present conditions during the winter months. The coming spring each season reveals the putrid condition of the water that brings about the finish of all fish life.”

Comment on Tribute to an Old Postmaster by Bob Levisen

Bob Levisen — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 02:31:01 +0000

You have to be kidding me . My family has been on the East side of Bear Lake since 1930 . In the last 20 years this lake has gone from a healthy clean waterway to that of a turbid cesspool . It is been brought to this state by personal and agricultural misuse. You wrote of the packing house, well they slaughtered Hogs and Beef there and dumped what didn’t go in a can into Albert Lea Lake . You have to be connected not with the facts but with views from the side that has caused such a cesspool to develop. What part of this issue is against Clean Water. You need to do a little more research on the cause of this problem.