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…
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…
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By Alicia Underlee Nelsonalicia@hpr1.comDairy Queen restaurants across the country will raise funds for Children’s Miracle Network hospitals during Miracle Treat Day on Thursday, July 31. At least one dollar from every Blizzard…
By Alicia Underlee Nelsonalicia@hpr1.comFM Pride Week returns to the Fargo-Moorhead metro August 3-10. A snapshot of events are listed below. Discover event descriptions and locations as well as volunteer opportunities online at…
August 28, 6-8 p.m.Plains Art Museum, 704 1st Ave. N., Fargo See this major exhibition firsthand and hear about Rimer Cardillo’s work from the artist himself at 7 p.m. Cardillo is an internationally renowned multidisciplinary…
By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com I’m going to go ahead and say it. I have trust issues with a lot of things and artificial intelligence (AI) is one of them. Yes, it’s a tool that can sit shotgun and make your everyday tasks…
By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comTrump: the new man for all seasonsFive hundred years ago, Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More of England refused to write a letter to Pope Clement VII of the Roman Catholic Church asking that he annul…
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 There seems to be a renaissance in Italian restaurants in the Fargo-Moorhead metro area. It’s a welcome change from just sporting an Olive Garden as a lone option. No offense to Marilyn Hagerty’s…
By John Showalterjohn.d.showalter@gmail.com Bluegrass is a genre of music that is often associated with the American South. Many people would express incredulity at being told there is a thriving bluegrass and folk music community…
By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com There are so many memorable moments in the short life of musician Jeff Buckley that filmmaker Amy J. Berg could easily have gotten lost in an endless highlight reel. The veteran documentarian,…
By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com 2025 marks three years of the Annual Vergas Area Backroads Art Crawl. The art crawl is sponsored by the Vergas Arts Club. The Arts Club also happens to be part of the Vegas Community Club and both…
Alicia Underlee Nelsonalicia@hpr1.comPenn & Teller are returning to their roots. The legendary magic and comedy duo will appear on the Crown Stage at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival in Shakopee, Minnesota, where they first…
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 Dr. Marc Sapir, MD, MPHjessica@pellienpublicrelations.com Across America, families are quietly struggling with a rising challenge: how to care for aging parents, siblings, grandparents, neighbors and friends. Most seniors want…
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@rocketmail.com Working in the Bakken oil fields of the Williston Basin is so different from my home in Fargo. I'm not judging, because the people working and living in western North Dakota are very…
