I’m a Rake fan and this is my first letter. I thoroughly enjoyed Eric Dregni’s article. Enlightening (being paid to have a baby), informative (wages, health and welfare system), funny (the meat bus to Sweden!), and heartwarming (the birth of Eilif). Oh, to live and work in Norway would be a dream come true for … Read more
Eric Dregni leaves out a few very important matters regarding society in Norway, Italy, and the U.S. I also lived and worked in Norway and Italy in the 1980s and early 1990s. Hugh oil revenue to the state underpins the wealth of Norway. I was part of the effort to find and produce this oil … Read more
Many thanks to The Rake and Eric Dregni for the informative essay on the alternative social policies offered by the Motherland. Although Minnesota was settled largely by Scandinavians steeped in the principles of Social Democracy, recent political shifts in both our state and our country reflect a narrow-minded philosophy based on the credo “It’s my … Read more
How a country that forces you to pay ten dollars per whopper, has a combined total of seventy-five percent for taxes, and has incomes that range only to $57,000 can boast the highest standard of living is beyond me [“They Paid Me Cash for this Baby!,” April]. It sounds to me a bit like liberal … Read more
My thirteen-year-old daughter Sophie is a dyed-in-the-wool lifelong vegetarian, occasional vegan, and budding animal rights activist. I hadn’t had the heart to tell her that as a result of this latter interest she’d be the butt of a lot of jokes in her lifetime, but she found out on her own not long ago when … Read more
Notwithstanding our love of the single-occupant automobile, we were very excited about the arrival of the light-rail train this spring. We love strolling down Fifth Street past the bright new Warehouse District station. It gaily announces the time and date on its prim marquees and generally looks as if it expects our train to shoosh … Read more
It’s a bitterly cold Tuesday evening in mid-January, the kind of subzero, dangerously low windchill night when Minnesotans are apt to crank up the boiler and hunker down in front of “American Idol” and “Law & Order,” so it’s a little surprising to find more than fifty constituents gathered in the living room of a … Read more
Imagine: It’s springtime, there’s a sense of optimism in the air. Best Buy is about to open its new corporate headquarters in Richfield. Everyone’s talking about it. Some say it will usher the Twin Cities into a new era; others argue about whether or not that’s a good thing. Wanting to include the community in … Read more
There are no bus stops in San Salvador. Well, there are places where buses stop and people get on and off, but there are no signs with pictures of buses, no benches, no helpful words to reassure you that you won’t just be waiting on the street all day like an idiot. There are also … Read more
Nearly a decade ago, in an endearingly inept campaign to counter his Entertainment Tonight anchorguy blandsomeness, John Tesh embellished a series of magazine articles with casual expletives and weird, crude asides. “Well, [fatherhood] hasn’t helped with the sex life,” he told GQ in August 1995. “I get no time on the breasts anymore, ’cause the … Read more