by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | May 3rd, 2020
Swift: “A Good Fat Child Will Make Four Dishes Of Excellent Nutritive Meat”
When Donald the Lyin’ King proposed that COVID-19 might be able to be controlled by injecting bleach, Lysol, sanitizers and other disinfectants into the body, the very idea was so nut-crazy I thought of two satiric works of Jonathan Swift that attacked the policies of English and Irish politicians in the 18th Century. Born in Dublin in 1667, he trained to be a priest at Trinity College and spent much of his…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | April 26th, 2020
Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds: “Because We Know Who You Are….
In 1944 as a prisoner of war in a German labor camp M/Sgt Edmonds was the leader of the American prisoners. One morning at roll call the German commander demanded that all the Jews in the formation step forward. Edmonds said: “We are all Jews here.” The German officer pulled his Luger from its holster and put the barrel against Edmonds’s forehead and commanded: “Sergeant, One last chance. You will order the Jews to…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | April 19th, 2020
Hey! Hey! Hey! Supremes! How Many Badgers Did You Kill Today?
We are in the middle of a deadly COVID-19 pandemic that may last years, but we have been attacked for 244 years by another pandemic which started in Philadelphia when 56 white guys signed a proclamation that “all men are created equal.” I guess signing it wasn’t much of a problem for 27 who owned slaves or made lots of money off the slave trade. But it started a pandemic of voter suppression decimating us every year…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | April 5th, 2020
The 14th Century Black Plague Started Something Beyond Thoughts And Prayers
I see Donald the Lyin’ King has decided that Easter will not be a good time to fill churches--but maybe April 30 will be. King Donald had talked so much about the virus and April he reminded me of the words of one of my favorite poets T.S. Eliot in his first lines of “The Wasteland,” an epic poem about humankind: “April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of a dead land, mixing memory and desire,…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | March 29th, 2020
Fact: In 1979 We Had 19.5 Million Manufacturing Jobs; Today, 12 Million
That’s just one of the startling statistics revealed in two books reviewed by Helen Epstein in the New York Review of Books. The titles indicate the subject: “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism” by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, and “We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America” by Jennifer Shea. These books should be read by anyone eligible to vote in the 2020 elections.…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | March 18th, 2020
Why, It’s Joe Biden, Stumbling Through Debates and Billionaire’s Pockets
Brian Michelz and his wife Sarah in Madison, Wisconsin are saddled with medical and college student debt, and like half the families in the United States, can’t come up with $400 to cover an emergency although both are working, she as a nurse, he in an auto parts store. A great economy? my a--. They can’t afford to have children. Mrs. Michelz pays off a $100,000 debt from nursing school $800 a month at a…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | March 11th, 2020
photo by Sabrina Hornung
This Is How We Stop The Trumplicans’s Predatory Capitalism
In Gallup’s large Midterm Election Benchmark Poll conducted between October 15-28 of 2018, Republican and Democratic registered voters were asked to identify “Extremely/Very Important '' political issues. The polled picked the following top six issues in this order: Healthcare-80%, Economy and Inequality-78%, Immigration-78%, Treatment of Women in U.S. Society-74%, Gun Policy-72%, Education and…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | March 4th, 2020
Here’s Why We Need Single-Payer Medicare-For-All
Utah teacher Ann Lovell flies to San Diego and then is escorted across the border to Tijuana every few months to buy drugs to control her rheumatoid arthritis. Her flights are paid for by the state of Utah’s insurance carrier because, even with the flights and costs related to it, it’s much cheaper for her insurance company to buy her drugs in Mexico instead of Salt Lake City. An escort picks her up at the airport and takes her to a…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | February 26th, 2020
One Day In The Life Of A News Junkie
A column or two ago I used Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s novel “One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich” to paint a picture of Stalin’s reign of terror in the 1940s. He served an eight-year sentence in the slave-labor gulags across Russia for writing derogatory comments about Stalin in letters to friends, so he knew all about totalitarian oppression and survival in the absolutely brutal conditions. In contrast, I am an addicted slave to news each…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | February 19th, 2020
Two Devastating Swarms
‘Tis the season when billions of locusts swarm across Northern Africa and Southern Asia creating famines. A single swarm with as many as 70 billion who transform themselves from avoiding other locusts to a “gregarious” state, can cover 450 sq. miles of territory and consume as much as 300 million pounds of grain in a single day. We have another devastating swarm of marauder locusts, those who fly into Davos, Switzerland each year on their private jets who do…
By the time this article is published, all the major new outlets in the area will have reported on the May 30th protest in Fargo demanding change and justice after the needless killing of George Floyd, as well as its aftermath. …
by Sonja ThompsonDebra Ruh is the CEO and Founder of Ruh Global IMPACT, a consulting firm that strives to help clients amplify their impact and become disability inclusion leaders. She also serves as the Chair of the United…
Thursday, March 19, 4:30- 8 pm1609 19th Ave N, FargoCass County Soil Conservation District is hosting their annual Ladies’ Ag Night supper event. This event has a goal of bringing together multiple generations of women involved…
by Sofia Makarova and Massimo Sassi The global pandemic is an incredibly challenging time for many. Nearlyone in every three Americans’ jobs have been affected, whether a temporary layoff, a permanent job loss, or a reduction in…
The Death of Empire by A Thousand CutsSome empires last longer than others. Rome was one. The Chinese empire died the death of a thousand cuts they made famous a thousand years ago. But the Chinese heart that was sliced centuries…
To say that this year’s Bartenders Battle was the best display of talent in the six years since its creation would be an understatement and a disservice to not only the bartenders who made it into the competition, but also the…
It goes without saying that Valentine’s Day is the most profitable of all the holidays and the one with the most tortured history, literally. It is confusing how an ancient Roman festival that involved sacrificing animals and…
Fargo obviously loves their classical music. Audiences have still turned out during the 2019-2020 season of the Sanford Masterworks Series performed by the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra despite an unrelenting winter. That…
Well-deserved praise for writer-director Amy Seimetz’s efficient and provocative “She Dies Tomorrow” almost inevitably points to the film’s eerie timeliness as a metaphor for pandemic-inspired malaise and disequilibrium.…
This weekend, the 10th Annual Unglued Craft Fest will be held at the Plains Art Museum, featuring over 70 local and regional artists selling handmade items. Though most are Fargo-Moorhead residents, artists from Minneapolis, Sioux…
by Dominic EricksonThis March, the Fargo Film Festival will celebrate its 20th year of entertaining die-hard cinephiles and casual moviegoers alike. The festival begins on March 17 and concludes March 21. The event is once again…
by Kris Gruberperriex1@gmail.comAdam Quesnell's last show at The Cellar beneath the Front Street Taproom in Fargo was in early September of 2018. He was embarking on a seminal move from Minneapolis to LA. As always, his comedy was…
by Jill Finkelsonjsfinkelson99@gmail.comFar North Spirits, located up in Hallock, MN, is the northernmost distillery in the lower 48. They may be young in the distillery world but the farm and the spirit reach far into the past.…
by Laurie J Bakeremsdatter@gmail.com Part of modern yoga is participating in the world around us. We live in a time of upheaval in society and nature, and of great suffering in humans of all ages. Most of us perceive this suffering…
by HPR Contributor
by Devin Joubertdevinlillianjoubert@gmail.comIt’s that beautiful time of the year that’s filled with seasonal decorations, sparkly lights, warm family gatherings, and delicious feasts. I love everything about this time of the…
“(Kafka’s) world knows no physical or moral order…We, the readers, are reliving our bad dreams…punishment is over all the characters, but the crime remains mysteriously hidden…” - William Hubben“The specter of color is…
