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…
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…
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…
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,…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
_(1)_(1)_(1)_(1)_(1)__293px-wide.jpg)
_(1)_(1)_(1)_(1)_(1)__293px-wide.jpg)
By Bryce Vincent Haugen More than 300 people gathered at Trinity Lutheran Church in central Moorhead on Jan. 27 for “constitutional observer” training. Led by the Immigrant Defense Network and supported locally by the West Area…
By Kooper Shagena Just off of I-94 and Highway 83 on State Street in Bismarck, an abandoned Kmart sits behind an empty parking lot, watching the cars roll on and off the interstate exchange. It has been standing there quietly since…
Saturday, January 31, mingling at 6:15 p.m. and program at 7 p.m.Fine Arts Club, 601 4th St. S., FargoThe FM Symphony is getting intimate by launching a “Small Stages” chamber music series and it's bringing folks together via…
By John Strand If you are reading this editorial and you too are worried sick about the state of our country, keep reading. Maybe we can inspire each other. It was near closing time. We were discussing our values crisis. So this…
By Ed RaymondA mind that snapped, cracked, and popped at one hundredI wasn’t going to read a long column called “Centenarian: A Diary of a Hundredth Year” by Calvin Tomkins celebrating his birthday on December 17 of 2025…
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 GionSince the much-dreaded Covid years, there has been much ebb and flow in the Fargo-Moorhead restaurant scene. In 2025, that trend continued with some major additions and closings. Let’s start the New Year on a positive…
Saturday, January 17, doors at 7:30 p.m.The Aquarium above Dempsey’s, 226 N. Broadway, FargoThe Slow Death is a punk supergroup led by Jesse Thorson, with members and collaborators that include members of The Ergs!, Dillinger…
By Greg Carlson The versatile Nia DaCosta follows her underseen and underappreciated “Hedda” (one of my 2025 favorites) with the first female-helmed entry in the 28 Days/Weeks/Years Later series, a fascinating and grisly…
By Jacinta ZensThe Guerrilla Girls, an internationally renowned anonymous feminist art collective, have been bringing attention to the gender and racial imbalances in contemporary art institutions for the last 40 years. They have…
Saturday, January 31, 6:30-9 p.m.Transfiguration Fitness, 764 34th St. N., Unit P, FargoAn enchanting evening celebrating movement and creativity in a staff-student showcase. This is a family-friendly event showcasing pole, aerial…
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 At the beginning of the movie “How the Grinch Stole Christmas," the Grinch is introduced as having a smaller than average heart, but as the movie progresses, his heart increases three…
January 31, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.Viking Ship Park, 202 1st Ave. N., Moorhead2026 marks 10 years of frosty fun! Enjoy sauna sessions with Log the Sauna, try Snowga (yoga in the snow), take a guided snowshoe nature hike, listen to live…
By Vern Thompson Benjamin Franklin offered one of the most sobering warnings in American history. When asked what kind of government the framers had created in 1787, he replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Few words…
