An interesting article from NPR

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2015/03/11/392183832/why-some-schools-serve-local-food-and-others-cant-or-wont?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150312

Billy McLaughlin coming to Central Square in Glenwood

Billy McLaughlin and special guests will be in Concert on Friday, March 27, 7:30 p.m. at Central Square Cultural and Civic Center, 105 2nd Avenue NE in Glenwood.

We invite you to see an inspirational performer with a wonderful message. Billy McLaughlin is recognized internationally as a world-class guitarist, Emmy Award winning composer and inspirational keynote speaker who has appeared on Billboard’s Top-Ten Chart. McLaughlin has 14 CD releases, 3 National Campus Entertainer of the Year Awards, 5 Minnesota Music Awards and his 

decades of national concert touring earned him the Hall of Fame Achievement Award.

But in 1999 McLaughlin vanished from sight as his career crumbled due to a little-known neuro-muscular disorder, Focal Dystonia. After suffering several years without a cure or even a diagnosis, this right-handed guitarist em-barked on an unlikely attempt to regain his career by re-learning his instrument left-handed! His remarkable comeback is captured in a documentary film, Changing Keys, and a concert film called Coming Back Alive.

Now serving as Ambassador for Awareness for the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, 

McLaughlin is the winner of the 2010 Public Leadership in Neurology Award and resides in his home state of Minnesota where he is proudly raising two boys.

Contact Central Square for advance sales at 320.634.0400. Please see our website at www.centralsquare.org for more information.

What on earth is wrong with this country?

This is in the United States of America:

http://www.naturalnews.com/037209_children_at_play_parents_criminalization.html

Mike's Market in Brooten!

Read more about the opening of Mike's Market in Brooten this week in the Bonanza Valley Voice.

Front page.

What a terrific achievement! The town has been without a grocery store since February 2014. We only have to look down the road a little ways to the southeast to see a much bigger town, New London, struggling with trying to restart their own grocery store. They have been without a grocery store since 2009. (Ouch)

B-B-E Area Jaycees cook-off is March 28

Mark your calendars and support the B-B-E Area Jaycees and the B-B-E Food Shelf while having a great time to boot!

Click on the graphic for best viewing.

Another angle on U.S. education

An Educational Culture: The Right Angle on Education

by Dr. Gary Welton

The basic problem with America’s educational system is not that college is too expensive. Nor is the basic problem that public school teachers are underpaid or that educators are poorly trained. The basic problem with America’s educational system today is that far too many children are given the implicit message at home that education is not a priority. “Perhaps the nerds and the geeks need these educational skills, but in our home, they just are not that important.”

Our schools face a huge challenge today, because the educational message that teachers are trying to inculcate into their students is far too often dismissed at home. If you live in a subculture where education is not valued, it is unlikely you will come to value your own educational opportunities. We cannot expect our schools to inculcate values of learning when there is little to no reinforcement at home.

The reality of life is that education and learning is not always fun. I was, and still am, an eager learner; nevertheless, some topics were uninteresting and seemed pointless when I first learned them. Some things are not intuitive; being sick and missing math class the day we were introduced to right angles, I was totally confused the day I returned to school. I could not figure out whether a right angle was the opposite of a left angle or the opposite of a wrong angle. That, of course, was an easy fix with a few questions that evening around the dinner table—an easy fix because my parents and my older siblings cared about education.

The college opportunity was not available to my father-in-law, but one of his primary goals in life was to enable his children to be college graduates. In order to fund this educational goal, he worked a factory job in addition to farming his own property. He only liked one of these jobs, but he worked them both, because he wanted to make sure his children had every educational opportunity. In “Look Homeward, Angel,” Thomas Wolfe says, “He loved a farm better than anything in the world except a school.” My father-in-law communicated that value to his children.

My father-in-law saw both of his children succeed in college, and recently celebrated the diplomas of all four of his grandchildren. He fostered an educational culture in which education was important. His children and grandchildren were motivated by his own continuing love of learning.

President Obama has sought to increase the number of college graduates in America, and is currently proposing that the federal and state governments pay the tuition for community college students. As Michael Horn recently stated in a CNN column, however, community colleges have not been particularly successful (only 22 percent of students complete their two-year degree within three years and 28 percent within four years), in spite of the fact that tuition is already heavily subsidized. He concludes that 60 percent of tuition is already covered by federal, state, and local programs, and, for needy students, the remaining 40 percent is entirely covered by Pell Grants.

Horn argues that providing free tuition will not fix the educational system. Indeed, the problem begins in American homes. When parents and caregivers communicate that education provides access to jobs and opportunities, and when parents demonstrate that college tuition is high on their list of priorities, students will come to value their educational opportunities. President Obama’s current proposal will not fix the problem unless the core issue of educational value becomes the focus.

If we want to improve our educational system, creating an educational culture is the essential and right angle.

--Dr. Gary L. Welton is assistant dean for institutional assessment, professor of psychology at Grove City College, and a contributor to The Center for Vision & Values. He is a recipient of a major research grant from the Templeton Foundation to investigate positive youth development.

Health insurance brings Tax Day surprise for some

by State Representative Paul Anderson

Some Minnesotans who received a subsidy last year to help cover the cost of their health insurance may be in for a surprise when they file their tax return for 2014. At least one constituent reported to me that they must pay several hundred dollars of additional tax to cover the subsidy they received from the federal government to defray the cost of insurance. To be fair, this is not a problem brought on by the troubled MnSure exchange in Minnesota. It has to do with incomes that turned out to be underestimated, which resulted in subsidies received that were too large.

Back when folks signed up for health coverage and the associated subsidies for last year, 2013 incomes were used to determine the level of subsidy. However, if the actual income for 2014 increased by a certain level, it changed or eliminated the subsidy amount people were entitled to receive. That’s the reason why some will have to pay income tax on that subsidy, although they had no idea this might happen. And even if they knew, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, to get back into the MnSure system to make a change in income, which would have also resulted in a lower subsidy and higher health insurance premiums.

In addition, an announcement late last week from Washington told of an error in sending out tax information to nearly one million Americans. It’s a new form called 1095-A, and it goes to all who received a subsidy to help with the cost of health insurance. This situation also serves as a strong message illustrating the new and complicated link between health care law and taxes. Nationally, it’s estimated the wrong information was sent out to one in five of those who received subsidies. The information represents a tax reporting error on the government’s part that will slow down the filing season, especially for those who file early in hopes of receiving a refund.

***

I attended the opening of a new exhibit on space flight at the Science Museum of Minnesota last Thursday evening in St. Paul. On hand to mark the occasion was Col. Mike Fossum, an astronaut who spent nearly six months aboard the International Space Station and has walked in space on seven separate occasions. He gave an excellent speech and then opened the floor to questions from the audience. One of the questions pertained to motivating today’s kids to get more involved in activities that might increase their interest in space exploration. I thought Col. Fossum’s answer was excellent when he said that kids should be “unplugged” from their video games and cell phones, and that they should spend more time outside, playing and looking up at the stars above them.