September 4th, 2019
Should Tourists Pay An Entrance Fee Just To See Venice?
Back in 1807 English poet William Wordsworth was so fed up with his fellow humans and their activities he wrote these famous lines in his poem “The World Is Too Much With Us”:
“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;--
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”
When he wrote this analysis of his world there were less than one…
August 28th, 2019
Race, Slavery, And American Capitalism
Even a small liberal Midwestern city like Bloomington, Indiana can’t escape the division caused by racial demons led by Donald Trump and his Republican minions who both promote white nationalism. Relations among vendors at the farmer’s market in the city of 85,000 and the University of Indiana grew so bad over the subject of white nationalism the mayor suspended the market in July over public safety concerns. This from the city that survived the…
August 21st, 2019
Basing Gun Control On Militia Muskets Is Nuts
There was a picture of hundreds of colorful backpacks in the Fargo Forum that were distributed to children at the Fargodome a couple of days ago. It was part of the 21st Annual 2019 United Way School Supply Drive. I wonder if any of them will end up having a “bullet-proof” insert placed in the backpack. I also wonder how many metro area parents have purchased a “bullet-proof” or “bullet-resistant” backpack for their children to…
August 14th, 2019
Is The Bottom Going To Fall Out?
The story about the Fargo man who died in his storage unit who remains unclaimed by any family reminds me of thousands of Irish funerals conducted during the Great Potato Famine. Because of the numbers of deaths during those trying times, the Irish held the cost of funerals down by recycling coffins. Everything looked normal while the coffin was lowered into the grave but when it reached the bottom of the grave the bottom of the coffin was fixed to drop…
August 7th, 2019
Humanity has always been on the move. The new science of paleogenetics proves it. Humans have been crossing lands since Lucy decided to climb down from a tree on the African savanna. Every human should read “A World On The Move” in the July National Geographic. We humans don’t have family trees. We are all tiny branches and leaves on the same gigantic single human bush growing out of mother continent Africa.
Genetic scientists can now take a thousandth of an ounce of a…
July 31st, 2019
Hungry Kids, Expensive Views, and A Nutcase In The Oval Office
We are in serious trouble. America is suffering from a world-wide pandemic that has been the downfall of most empires. It’s called greed. One of our numerous billionaires, Howard Schultz, who convinced people that drinking $5 cups of coffee is a great physical and mental boost, wrote this prescient paragraph about money in his book ‘From the Ground Up’: “Money is never about money. It’s about dignity, autonomy, the…
July 24th, 2019
Let’s Send Our Best To Mars
In the first place, women live about six years longer than men. There are 43 people in the world known to be at least 110 years old. This may come as a shock, but 42 are women, according to the Global Gerontology Research Group. The University of Southern Denmark’s Institute of Public Health has studied the life expectancy records of many societies and countries as far back as 250 years and has determined that the difference between man and woman is due to…
July 17th, 2019
There Seems To Be A Lot Of Confusion About What Freedom Is!
At a recent conference of the evangelical Christian’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, Chairman Ralph Reed, long a hard worker for the Moral Majority’s Jerry Falwell, had the freedom to proclaim this about our president, the Manhattan Village Idiot: “We have had some great leaders! There has never been anyone who has defended us and fought for us, who we have loved more that Donald J. Trump. We have seen his heart and he is…
July 10th, 2019
Henry Ford Was Wrong
Over 100 years ago the inventor of the Model T had a rather unusual opinion about the study of history, which, like the famous albatross, settled around his neck for his long lifetime. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune he uttered these fateful words: “Say, what do I care about Napoleon? What do we care about what they did 500 or 1,000 years ago? I don’t know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across and I don’t care. It means nothing to me.…
June 26th, 2019
Sexual Ignorance: Like Lightning, It Can Strike Anywhere
There has been a spate of laws restricting or eliminating abortions in over a dozen states, a subject very important to millions of women. States that have passed such laws are governed by male-dominated legislatures. The Nevada legislature, “dominated” by a 51% majority of females, is one of the few states passing legislation to make access to abortion easier. The current 50 state legislatures are made up of just 28.7% of…
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.…