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Once again, the Winona City Planning Commission examined a zoning change request and made a recommendation to the city
council, and once again, the council ignored the recommendation and made an emotional vote.
I’m glad the Winona City Council can look the other way from zoning laws and ordinances and vote how they “feel.” I’m also glad I’m not a member of the planning commission. I’d feel pretty stupid doing all that research and volunteering my time to give the council my best decision only to have council members vote against my recommendation.
The most recent decision by the council to vote against a proposal to remove ailing railroad warehouse and build student apartments shows the council isn’t interested in organized growth, It wants to push student housing away from the campus.
Because two neighbors objected to the proposal, the council quickly folded. Student housing may have been the lesser of the options. The land’s M-1 zoning could bring the neighbors a host of undesirable options.
It’s time the council quit fighting the student housing expansion. The city’s 30 percent rule continues to transform neighborhoods further away from the campus into rental neighborhoods, putting students where they don’t want to be with neighbors who don’t want the student housing.
The city council should use the advice of its planning commission. If the council insists on voting on its gut, then do away with the planning commission and quit wasting their time.
DNA is our most intimate informationIf you watch cop shows, you are familiar with DNA. It’s the unique signature we all have. While its actual name is, deoxyribonucleic acid, scientists and researchers use the shorter “DNA” name.
While very few of us care what our DNA signature is, apparently the government is very interested. The state of Minnesota has illegally collected and claims ownership to the DNA of 780,000 children and has provided the DNA of 42,210 children to genetic researchers without parent consent.
If you are naïve, you assume the genetic research would be to help cure disease. Don’t be so naïve.
This invasion of genetic privacy has very few restrictions. At present, there is very little the government can do with our DNA. With research, there are all kinds of sinister ways of using our DNA. That’s the conspiracy theory.
Too assume only good will come from government ownership and research of our DNA information is more than I can hope for. Every step of losing our privacy deserves a close examination. As researchers discover more information from our DNA, the slope gets very slippery.
Giving the government complete control of our DNA is wrong. It was never the government’s to collect, and the fact that almost a million Minnesotans have their DNA filed away should give us all reason to question the good and bad that might come from this.
God is getting in the way of good scienceAs credible scientists begin to recognize that life is far too complex to have evolved naturally, these scientists are being ostracized by the very incubator that grew their curiosity.
Academia rebukes the creation view as nonscientific. If you are a scientist who believes that life came from an intelligent design (God), you lose your credibility and are labeled a politician — worse yet, a conservative.
It’s a given that there are more liberal atheists than conservative atheists. Does that mean that God is a conservative?
As we “evolve” in this presidential election, you can expect to hear more questions about Darwinism and Creationism. Scientists who want to keep their jobs at universities and colleges will avoid speaking out on the subject. Politicians won’t be able to avoid the question.
As the complexities of life become clearer, it’s getting harder for scientists to ignore that something as complex as the human body couldn’t have evolved by chance. In the exactness of science, it’s difficult to define. In the wavering, waffling and maneuvering of politics, it’s easier to muddy the water. Don’t look for definitive answer from either group. Both could lose their jobs over it.
Galewski is the retired editor and Opinion page editor of the Winona Daily News. His views don’t necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper. If you have an idea or tip about a Winona issue, call Jim at (507) 452-3960. His e-mail is editor@luminet.net.
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