Thunder Bay a sane asylum — with Duluth as the portal

By John Freivalds

Published November 11^th, 2017

The Twin Cities media are full of advertising for Duluth tourism: Lake Superior, ocean-going vessels, Canal Park, and more. However, recent trips made by my friends and me to Canada, through Duluth, revealed a new market positioning: Duluth as a gateway to the sane asylum of Canada.

Commentary: Roads are like an all-you-can-eat salad bar

By John Freivalds

Published 10/21/2017-Lakeshore Weekly News

Three things are unavoidable in life — death, taxes and traffic. But there is something we can do about traffic if we understand what its all about.

First of all, we are traffic. The same desire we have to drive whenever and wherever we want motivates everyone. So we are not innocent in this.

Traffic is about human nature, not just cars. Every driver needs to read Tom Vanderbilt’s book “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and What It Says About Us.” And then go to a public hearing on road closures and quote from this book.

Why Martians Will Never Be a Threat to the American Way of Life

By John Freivalds

Published 10/18/2017-JFA Press

A Martian friend of mine just visited me. Mars is suffering from solar system warming and he came to check out how it would be living on earth in the United States. Before getting on his space ship he watched a lot of American cable TV off a satellite to try and understand our culture. He asked me can I bring my ray gun with me. I said sure, every American has a right to bear arms; a ray gun is an arm so it would be allowed. It's in the US Constitution. And organizations like the NRA make sure that the Constitution is duly honored.

How to Avoid Cruise Control

By John Freivalds

I just got one of those Caribbean cruise offers in the mail. This one is to Belize and one feature is an onshore excursion of a two-hour walk through a rainforest for $100. Yikes!  When I was in the Peace Corps I was paid $90 a month for two years to live in a rainforest!