Readers Write: Border Crisis

Image taken from July 2^nd, 2019 Time Article A Reckoning After Trump’s Border Separation Policy: What Kind of Country Are We?

By Linda Kelley Freivalds

Published July 3^rd, 2019

We can step up and fix immigration

I’ve been amazed and shocked by President Donald Trump and his administration’s positions on so many issues, I cannot count. But watching the news with photos of congressional visits to refugee sites in Texas I am appalled, embarrassed, ashamed, discouraged, saddened and whatever other words are available to see the photos of what our country is doing to people who are only trying to escape tragedy and difficulty in their home countries. We, America, are acting no better than other despotic countries.

My husband and his family escaped from Latvia in 1944 when the Soviet Union invaded their country. His family was fortunate to be taken in by the U.S. troops at a displaced persons camp in Austria and finally was transported to the United States. John, my husband, to pay back the gift of becoming an American, sponsored a Cuban family when Fidel Castro kicked out 350,000 people who are now thriving in the United States.

We did it before; we can do it again.

Linda Freivalds, Wayzata

Freivalds: To be Airbnb or not to be

Published 5/30/2019

By John Freivalds

Talk about cultural isolation. Living on Lexington some 50 miles from downtown Roanoke I didn’t know what Uber was until a friend of mine from New York came to visit. He wanted to call Uber and see if they could take him to the airport. As he called, I asked him “what is Uber?” At that time there was no Uber that came out this far. Then I found out about Airbnb when friend Sandy told me she had listed her house on Airbnb. What’s Airbnb? I asked. Not surprisingly it’s an online company that started in San Francisco (www.airbnb.com)

Kristallnakt finds Kansas (and most everywhere in-between)

Published March 1st, 2019

Duluth News Tribune, Duluth, MN

By John Freivalds

For you Kristallnakt challenged, Hitler's Nazi brown shirts with government support smashed Jewish owned shops and burned 270 synagogues on November 9th 1938, some 80 years ago. Sadly, once again history repeats itself. Will anyone remember the turmoil's we are going through and its causes 80 years ago. Probably not. Yet Kristallnakt and the Border wall have served the same purpose; create fear and intolerance. It is really time to soft pedal Trump and his most ardent supporters as a mere disrupter of the status quo and admit they are really no different from Hitler and autocrats from the past. 

Freivalds: Leave the chihuahuas at home

By John Freivalds, Coffee by the Lake

Published 2/12/19

Lakeshore Weekly News-Wayzata, MN