Editorial: Thumbs

To the Albert Lea softball team.

Kudos to Kassi Hardies, who with bases loaded and the game tied knocked one out of the ballpark in the final inning to lift Albert Lea over Owatonna on Thursday. The Tigers scored once more and beat the Huskies 7-2. A grand slam victory is a great way to start the season for a Tigers squad from which we expect excellence. We encourage fans to go to their home games on the Albert Lea High School campus. Watch the prep calendar on the Sports Page, and it’s best to arrive via Riverland Drive. Keep up the excitement, girls.

 

To the DFL-controlled state Legislature.

No one goes into education because they dislike the students and could care less about how they are treated by peers. There are teachers, administrators and school board members who make key decisions every day to prevent bullying in Minnesota and all across the country. The legislation passed this week by the Minnesota Legislature, the so-called “anti-bullying bill,” is a knee-jerk reaction to a single misguided school district. The bill does more to hamstring school leaders with paperwork and unfunded, labor-consuming mandates than it does to assist the victims of bullying by allowing districts to tool their policies to local needs. No one in St. Paul can do a single thing to halt bullying in Albert Lea. It’s up to Albert Lea people — not just the school alone, but every single responsible adult — to halt problems stemming from bullying.

The measure, it should be noted, is simply feel-good law to get the youth vote. But it does an outstanding job of telling fiscal centrists to go vote Republican this fall because the DFL Party is again throwing money at problems it can’t solve.

 

To the 1st District Republicans.

The community of Albert Lea appreciates that the party held its 22-county convention in Freeborn County last week at the gymnasium of Southwest Middle School. The convention brought together an estimated 500 Republicans. They could have gathered in a bigger city in the district such as Mankato, Rochester or Winona to endorse a candidate to run for Congress, but they decided to come to Albert Lea. That’s good for the local economy. What’s more, just about everyone who attended — including the news reporters — appreciated that the convention wrapped up around 2 p.m. after three ballots. That’s because candidates Mike Benson of Rochester and Jim Hagedorn of Blue Earth were gracious in stepping down when they trailed in the results. It was in stark contrast to two years ago in Mankato when the convention went 14 hours with 23 ballots and no endorsement as a result of refusals by Allen Quist, who trailed Mike Parry, to drop out. The collegial relationship of the 2014 candidates was noticed.