Articles

Pete Langr: The irrational choices of (gasoline) addicts

How come we can’t figure this out? The solution is no more complicated than shopping for fruit. When the price of apples doubles, we switch to grapes, or bananas, or kumquats.

Columns

Pete Langr: Done right, train travel would be an attractive option for many

Rail travel is too slow, unreliable, expensive and inconvenient, say critics of the proposed Northern Lights Express rail line between the Twin Cities and Duluth.

Pete Langr: Whole holiday controversy misses the point

“It’s a Christmas tree,” wrote the letter writer, offended by a newspaper’s use of the secular term “holiday tree” to describe the arrival downtown of what I can apparently only safely describe as a large, cut evergreen tree for display.

Pete Langr: Thanksgiving in ‘desperate’ times

My furnace came on today. I know that’s not remarkable. With the exception of once two years ago, my furnace always comes on.

Pete Langr: I ain’t afraid a’ no renters

I’ve got a nasty secret I probably shouldn’t write for public consumption: I don’t feel animosity toward owners of rental homes or their renters.

Pete Langr: State legislature has passed us the buck

Perhaps 15 or 20 years ago, I happened to be visiting Mankato, which is on the banks of the Minnesota River.

Pete Langr: My car, your problem

I once parked near St. Mary’s Hospital, and returned to a note on my windshield: “Please refrain from parking on our street,” was its approximate complaint. “This is a residential neighborhood.”

Pete Langr: When the going gets tough

The year 1908 was, according to writer Jim Rasenberger, “one hell of a ride.” Two events are especially noteworthy.

Getting problems solved

Many in Duluth seem to think that it is somehow un-democratic and un-American for the school board to have gone ahead with the Red Plan without a vote. I wonder, instead, if perhaps it is bad policy to require a traditional referendum anywhere.

Pete Langr: Big news: Kid skis down hill

"It’s easy to imagine this bright sun on faces helping to rebuild those vitamin stores, while those winter blues begin losing their hold with every minute outside. People want to stay out and soak up the sun."

Pete Langr: Planning to fail (again)

Had Duluthians planned 25 years ago, we would have less of a problem now. Unless we plan now how to accommodate still more students, this issue will still be festering in another 25 years.