Gadfly

​Two Examples of Silly Math

November 25th, 2023

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

How Many of Napoleon’s Hats Will Save Planet Earth for Homo Sapiens?

Before I get into this week’s subject of why we need to double the number of college majors in English and Humanities if we are going to save Planet Earth for our grandchildren, I must admit I have a passing interest in mathematics.

I think I was hooked on math statistics when I read there were 635,013,559,600 hands I could be dealt if I played Bridge for all my lifetime. I have…

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​Robbing Peter, Paul – and Mary

November 18th, 2023

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

The Purpose of a College Education: Do We Work to Live or Live to Work?

Because of the increasing costs of college, the staggering $1.7 trillion of student debt owed by 45 million American students and parents ages 18 to 95, and the failure of states to support with taxes vocational, community, and two-year colleges, and public colleges and universities, undergraduate college enrollment in the DSA dropped eight percent between 2019 and 2022---and is…

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Thugs, Thieves, and Theocrats

November 11th, 2023

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

“Trump Cabinet Member: ‘If a Document Has a Staple in It, Don’t Give It to Trump.’”

Among the most fascinating papers in the world would be the transcripts of Donald Trump from the elite universities he attended. What courses did he take? What were his major studies? His speech is free from literary allusions, classical images, historical facts, and intellectual musings.

When George W. Bush was president, I never really thought he was dumb, he…

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Back-to-Back Barbarians

November 4th, 2023

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Well, Whaddaya Know! Barbarians Have the Same Life Expectancy!

A barbarian is defined as one belonging to a people or tribe considered to be a primitive civilization filled with fierce, brutal, and cruel persons who are uncultured and insensitive. If there has been a century in the history of Homo sapiens when we didn’t have any barbarians acting up, please let me know.

The Roman Empire conquered half the known earth, but expired when barbarians…

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Of Pitchforks and Penthouses

October 28th, 2023

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Everybody Needs to Understand Critical Economic and Racial Facts

Once in a great while one runs across an innocent-looking article that is like a combined X-ray, sonogram, and MRI examining your country. Daniel Immerwahr in the October 23 New Yorker in “The Pitchfork of History: Beyond the myth of rural America” covers some facts that are not often covered by the media in its struggles to never stop presses, turn out lights, or shut off cameras.

Did…

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Eyes for Eyes and Babies for Babies

October 21st, 2023

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

How many centuries have religions been fighting each other in the Middle East?

In the early foggy, frosty morning of December 25, 1914, before cannons roared and bullets whizzed, songs of Christmas were heard by German troops in the trenches on the Western Front. It was “all quiet on the front.” The music came from English troops in trenches a few hundred yards across No Man’s Land.

As the singing continued, troops left trenches without weapons…

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Billionaires and Bidenomics

October 17th, 2023

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Remember When “Mission Impossible” Instructions Self-Destructed in Five Seconds?

Some Democrats, including a few of his closest advisors, are forgetting what got Joe Biden elected in 2020. He never had a personal political platform to run on except for the fact he had 44 years of experience getting elected senator and vice-president. He had one skill: cozying up to those who voted for the majority in Delaware.

He strapped on Senator Bernie Sanders’…

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Asexual Avocados

October 7th, 2023

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Were the Mushrooms You Ate With Your Steak Asexual or Bisexual?

British plant scientists made a discovery while investigating why an extremely rare green shrub formally called Ruizia mauririana was not doing well in an old Victoria formal garden called Temperate House, in London’s Kew Gardens.

Examples of this specimen are extremely rare, but several were found in the Mauritian highlands. They also made a remarkable genetic discovery. The plant was…

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Cruelty and Human Nature

September 29th, 2023

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Is Cruelty a Part of Nature—or Is It Just Part of Human Nature?

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has been my economics guru for many years for his pithy columns in The New York Times. In his September 14 column he used a word that I believe he has never used before when discussing economic issues. That word is “cruel.”

His statement: “I’ve been writing about economics and politics for many years, and have learned to keep my temper.…

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Biden and the Second Coming

September 23rd, 2023

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Eighty Million Eligible Voters Did Not Vote in the DSA in 2020. Why Not?

In the first week of February, 2023, Deborah Daub, 59, shot and killed her husband James Daub, 62, Morgan Daub, their daughter, then killed her mother Deborah, and then killed herself. Pennsylvania township police said the murders and suicide “appeared to be a joint decision from notes left behind.”

The fundamentalist Christian family was considered by neighbors to be…

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