August 29th, 2018
In the halcyon days of the 1970s in North Dakota, when the state was a quieter, kinder, friendlier, more thoughtful place, the Legislature passed a bill, and the Governor signed it, designating the Little Missouri as our state’s only official State Scenic River, and creating a commission to look out for it.
The Little Missouri Scenic River Commission did its job through the administrations of four governors who cared about the Bad Lands and its river—Art Link, Allen Olson, George…
August 28th, 2018
by Senator John McCain - from Facebook page
“My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for sixty years, and especially my fellow Arizonans,
“Thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the rewarding life that service in uniform and in public office has allowed me to lead. I have tried to serve our country honorably. I have made mistakes, but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them.
“I have often observed that I am the luckiest person on…
August 22nd, 2018
The Bismarck Tribune’s Amy Dalrymple’s wrote a good story recently about a marathon Little Missouri Scenic River Commission meeting. I’m going to write more about that later. I’ll just say, for now, be careful what you wish for.
What I’m writing about now is one of the things the Commission discussed—the illegal bridge over the Little Missouri State Scenic River on the Wylie Bice Ranch in Dunn County.
I’ve written about this a few times, but there are new developments and…
August 15th, 2018
Well, after nearly a dozen years of delay, it looks like Billings County is finally going to build a bridge over the Little Missouri State Scenic River north of Medora. The county posted a notice in the Federal Register on October 12, 2006, that it was beginning an Environmental Impact Statement process “for a proposed roadway project and river crossing over the Little Missouri River.”
In late July of 2018, almost 12 years later, the county presented its Draft EIS to the public and…
August 15th, 2018
“Liberty is a strong food, but a difficult one to digest; it needs a healthy stomach. I laugh at those degraded people who, letting conspirators incite them to rise in arms, dare to speak of liberty, without having even a notion of what it is; who, with hearts a prey to all the vices of slaves, imagine that to be free they need only be rebels.”
– Jean Jacques Rousseau
“If…If…We didn’t love freedom enough.”
– Alexsandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
“He would never…
August 8th, 2018
By Gary Olson
olsong@moravian.edu
"The sun was shining as I was strolling
The wheat field waving the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice was chanting
This land was made for you and me"
— Woody Guthrie
With socialism, even in a diluted and inchoate form, assuming a higher profile, I’m reminded of my early years in North Dakota during the 1950s. On the one hand, it wasn’t the Gestapo-like scenes from Standing Rock, today’s widespread sex trafficking in the booming oil fields…
August 8th, 2018
By Mark Rodenbiker
mrodenbiker@gmail.com
The first brick building had just gone up on the corner of the block. The government built that to house the post office, so it didn't mean so much. Not like this one; for a person to have the ambition to build a brick building of that size was an acknowledgement that Rocklake was no longer a railroad siding. Now, in 1907, Rocklake was a town.
The post office may have made it government-official before that, but the show hall made it…
August 8th, 2018
“Hell… is the suffering of being unable to love.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
“I and the public know, what all school children learn; those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.”
– W.H. Auden, September 1, 1939
“To my knowledge, America has never known any enemy children.”
– Senator William Langer (R-ND), March 29, 1946
“We ask ourselves what kind of world we live in, but it’s too painful to face the truth. Maybe our worst fears have already been realized -- maybe the…
July 11th, 2018
By Gary Olson
olsong@moravian.edu
Recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.
- The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Good on everyone who rallied in such large numbers on behalf of keeping families together. I will generalize and break down the participants into three groups. The first was composed of folks who may have participated in their…
July 11th, 2018
“Davis Refinery permit approved.”
That was the headline in the paper last week, telling us that the North Dakota Department of Health has approved an air quality permit and issued a permit to construct an oil refinery three miles from Theodore Roosevelt National park.
Yikes! What kind of monsters would want to do this—put an oil refinery right next to Theodore Roosevelt National Park? And what kind of state regulators would permit that to happen?
And who, at the highest level of North…