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…
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…
February 12th, 2020
Who Will Be The First Trumplican To Stop Applauding?
Watching the State of Trump, the National Prayer Breakfast for Trump, and the White House Celebration for the “perfect” Trump, I recalled a HPR column I wrote about Joe Stalin’s days as Russia’s Trump back on November 11, 2007 titled “An Archipelago of Terror: Don’t Ever Be The First To Stop Applauding!” I am going to repeat some of it in order to make a point about the behavior of Trumplican congressmen and supporters…
February 5th, 2020
President Roosevelt: “The Malefactors of Great Wealth Are Against Worker Rights”
He also believed that the Declaration of Independence declared that “the rights of the worker to a living wage, to reasonable hours of labor, to decent working and living conditions, and to freedom of thought and speech and industrial representation---in short---in return for his arduous toil, to a worthy and decent life according to American standards. Progress results not from the crowding out of the…
January 29th, 2020
art by Mark Robinson
The Crazy Nutcase In the Basement Is Now Presiding In The Oval office
There is no doubt in many minds that the impeachment of King Donald and the 2020 presidential election are the two most consequential actions in the 224-year history of the United States because we have an uncertified nutcase sitting near a nuclear button that can destroy worlds. We have dozens of issues to debate which I will list later, but when a malignant narcissist, a person who thinks only of…
January 22nd, 2020
Whatta Deal! A Heart Transplant Only Runs $1,698,831.13!
Ten years ago our life expectancy plateaued—and then we started to lose years of life. Every other industrialized country has gained years. A study claims this has happened because of drug overdoses, suicides, alcohol-related diseases, and obesity. The age group 25-64 is dying at ever-increasing rates. During the ten-year span obesity mortality rates increased 114% (71% of Americans are obese), hypertension and heart 78.9%, and…
January 15th, 2020
Our Great Leader of the Zombies Is Tilting at Windmills Again
A few days after he was impeached by the House, King Donald admitted to a group of young conservatives attending a Turning Point USA annual summit in Florida he never has understood wind, but “You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody I know (His genius streak revealed again!).” But then our national nutcase went off the rails again. Scientific research (which the Trump administration…
December 23rd, 2019
There Are Old Bold Pirates and New Bold Pirates
I’m transposing a phrase by E. Hamilton Lee and General Chuck Yeager, both pilots of renown, who used the phrase: “There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots” in the old business of flying airplanes to the new business of swindling money out of healthcare consumers. The first Golden Age of Piracy in history lasted between 1650 and 1730 was led by a back-alley list of glamorous despicable pirates by the…
December 18th, 2019
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Where Are The Best Capitalistic Countries?
A worker and his family in (_______) is automatically covered by a taxpayer-funded universal healthcare program equal in quality to any on Planet Earth. Twenty percent of the costs of their healthcare does not go to paperwork, insurance companies, doctors out of network, agents haggling and denying exorbitant bills, and fancy boutique buildings. The young children in the family attend a highly professional and ethnically diverse public daycare…
December 11th, 2019
It’s Time For Pitchforks
I have been told my French ancestors lived in Normandy in the last half of the 18th Century and some of them used pitchforks for a living. I often wonder if any of them took part in the storming of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789, an act which started the French Revolution. The Bastille was a medieval stone fortress turned into a prison by the French monarchy to hold political opponents and assorted criminals. The fortress represented royal power and…
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By Alicia Underlee NelsonMore than 1,000 pro-worker events are planned for Thursday, May 1 across the country, including rallies in Fargo-Moorhead, Grand Forks, Minot and Jamestown. East Grand Forks and Bismarck will host protests…
From concerts and car shows to Japanese art and Juneteenth celebrations, there's so much going on around the region this summer. This year's High Plains Reader Summer Events Calendar is back and bigger than ever. It's packed with…
June 21, 11 a.m. - 11 p.m.Fargo Theatre, 314 Broadway N., Fargo“We Watch Shudder,” Fargo’s favorite horror podcasters, bring on the darkness during the longest day of the year. The Darkest Day of Horror Film Festival features…
By John Strandjas@hpr1.com One description that perhaps aptly describes the mental state of many lately is that they feel they are attached to a string. Or several strings. Call it the notion that people are played like puppets,…
By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comFor sale: White House in D.C. housing dung beetles and giant leechesI suspect someone close to Donald Trump has read “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,”because the Trump administration is…
By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com Holiday wine shopping shouldn’t have to be complicated. But unfortunately it can cause unneeded anxiety due to an overabundance of choices. Don’t fret my friends, we once again have you covered…
By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com After a very inspiring conversation with Kayla Houchin of Sonder Bakehouse a few weeks ago, I decided that it’s an appropriate time to write a column about some of the sweet people who are involved…
Mooncats and Pert Near Sandstone play Empire TheatreBy Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comThe MoonCats describe themselves as “Americonscious Campfire Folk.” They have a clear acoustic folk sound with a sense of whimsy — think…
By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com The writing/directing partnership of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck has to be one of the most curious cases of crazy connect-the-dots career moves in recent cinema. From short documentaries and…
By Raul Gomezraul@hpr1.com Minutes before Modern’s Celebration of Life opened its door at the Sons of Norway, I was fiddling with the bar computer, trying to pull up the playlists of Modern’s work I had set aside for the…
By John Showalterjohn.d.showalter@gmail.comHigh Plains Reader had the opportunity to interview two mysterious new game show hosts named Milt and Bradley Barker about an upcoming event they will be putting on at Brewhalla. What…
By Annie Prafckeannieprafcke@gmail.com AUSTIN, Texas – As a Chinese-American, connecting to my culture through food is essential, and no dish brings me back to my mother’s kitchen quite like hotdish. Yes, you heard me right –…
By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comNew Jamestown Brewery Serves up Local FlavorThere’s something delicious brewing out here on the prairie and it just so happens to be the newest brewery west of the Red River and east of the…
By Ellie Liveranieli.liverani.ra@gmail.com There appear to be differences in the incidence of mental illnesses between men and women. For example, women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression, post-traumatic stress…
By Alicia Underlee NelsonProtests against President Trump’s policies and the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are planned across North Dakota and western Minnesota Friday, April 4 and…
By Vern Thompsonvern.thompson.nd7@gmail.com Our trucking business has me driving almost daily from gas plants in western North Dakota's oil patch to Canada. I haul natural gas liquids (NGLs) products we used to see flared off at…
