April 23rd, 2022
By Ed Raymond
fargogadfly@gmail.com
What Do Republican and Democratic Women Stand For?
Have we lost our way? What are the values of a democracy?
In February of 1994, after many years of Russian subjugation, the president of Estonia listed the following values in a speech in Hamburg, Germany: ”(The values are) Freedom of every individual, the freedom of the economy and trade, the freedom of the mind, of culture and science, are inseparably connected.” In broad terms, with the two…
April 9th, 2022
By Ed Raymond
Zebras Are Half Black and Half of Humans Are Above Average
In Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, Prospero’s daughter Miranda has been sheltered much of her life. After a storm maroons them on an island, she is exposed to some of the residents. In her naivety concerning humans, she exclaims, “Oh, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in it!”
Her father, who has seen many…
April 2nd, 2022
By Ed Raymond
fargogadfky@gmail.com
Some Fetuses in the Uterus Are Female, but Are Born With Visible Male Parts
Almost 2,400 years ago Thebes, Greece formed a military organization called the Sacred Band to assist in battles against Sparta. It was made up of 150 pairs of gay lovers. It performed very well in the field, often defeating the enemy when outnumbered two to one.
According to myth, the god Hercules…
March 26th, 2022
By Ed Raymond
fargogadfly@gmail.com
Whatever Happened to Real Conservation, Family Values, and Honest Debate?
With the word “transgender” in the headlines lately, which describes the power of the brain over the organs of the body, I thought I would come up with a new word describing the flip-flopping knuckle-dragging philosophy of Republicans lately.
That word is “transolosophy.” It describes the “translating” of the old philosophy of conservation ( the saving of the status quo…
March 19th, 2022
By Ed Raymond
fargogadfly@gmail.com
Breaking World News! Trump Told His First Truth and Only Truth Five Years Ago!
It’s been a terrible week. The Vikings signed their narcissistic quarterback Kirk Cousins to two more years of mediocre play at the most important position on a football team. He thinks only of himself and his personal records. God wouldn’t give him COVID-19 so he refused to get vaccinated to help protect his teammates. He has just enough talent to win the little games…
March 16th, 2022
By Ed Raymond
fargogadfly@gmail.com
What Can We Do To Limit Population When Each Female Can Have 39 Births?
This is what happened in 1967 when Lorraine Saulino-Klein of Laramie, Wyoming was an 18-year-old student nurse at Kings County Hospital Center School of Nursing in Brooklyn:
In a hospital room with a half-dozen doctors watching a pregnant 16-year old girl rolling her eyes, thrashing on a bed, yelling in pain, it was her job to keep tracking her temperature. The girl had been brought…
February 27th, 2022
By Ed Raymond
fargogadfly@gmail.com
Will a Political Party That Burns Books Ultimately Burn Who Reads Them?
My choice for second-worst political party in modern times is the Monster Raving Loony Party organized in Great Britain by Davis “Screaming Lord” Such. His platform had two major goals: (1) tow Britain 500 miles further out to sea to improve its climate, and (2) put glowing phosphorescent material in all dog food so that pedestrians walking in the dark would not step in doo-doo…
February 27th, 2022
By Ed Raymond
fargogadfly@gmail,com
Three Men Who Turned Me Into a Social Liberal and a Moral Capitalist
My political beliefs were not forged by Greek philosophers, Nobel economists, politicians, and historians. They were born and matured by words of steel by three writers of fiction: Howard Pyle, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare. In District #54 in Morrison County we averaged about three kids per grade, give or take (I graduated from Eighth Grade with Jim and Adeline). Our…
February 19th, 2022
By Ed Raymond
fargogadfly@gmail.com
Should That Be a Question on the Job in the Richest Country in the World?
Back in the 17th century, Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play mused about life and death, heaven, purgatory and hell, religion, and whether suicide might be an answer to all of life’s problems in the greatest soliloquy ever written. Here are a few lines:
To be, or not to be, that is the question; whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,…
January 29th, 2022
By Ed Raymond
fargogadfly@gmail.com
The Roman Empire Lasted About 600 Years
How long will the American Empire last? The English historian Edward Gibbons covered the rise and fall of the Roman Empire in six volumes published in 1788 and 1789. He covers 98 AD to 1590 AD in his epic work. Among his six volumes he has an excellent summary of why Rome failed in just one sentence: “The Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions in large part due to the gradual loss of civic virtue among…
By Josette Ciceronunapologeticallyanxiousme@gmail.com What does it mean to truly live in a community —or should I say, among community? It’s a question I have been wrestling with since I moved to Fargo-Moorhead in February 2022.…