Gadfly

Avaricious Locusts and Plutocrats

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…

Read more...


Archipelago Of Terror

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…

Read more...


Abuse of Power

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…

Read more...


A Nutcase ‘Genius’

January 29th, 2020

art by Mark Robinson

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…

Read more...


Healthcare That Makes You Sick and Bankrupt

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…

Read more...


Zombies on 5th Avenue

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…

Read more...


A Covey of Vultures

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…

Read more...


Can This Eagle Be Saved?

December 18th, 2019

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…

Read more...


American Dream—or Nightmare?

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…

Read more...


In The Country Of The Blind….

December 4th, 2019

88,633 Reasons Not To Build A Wall
Our Great Leader (a title used by North Koreans for Kim) is demanding that Congress include $5 billion in the 2020 federal budget for the border wall which he promised his rabid constituents Mexico would pay for. If there is something more stupid than building a wall on the Texas border, please let me know. Geographers utilizing the Ground Positioning System (GPS) have determined that the United States has 88,633 miles of tidal shorelines and 12,383…

Read more...


Tracker Pixel for Entry GFArtFest Tracker Pixel for Entry FPL Tracker Pixel for Entry Empire Tracker Pixel for Entry Hjemkomst Tracker Pixel for Entry Bismarck Tracker Pixel for Entry Blackbird

Recently in:

By Bryce Vincent Haugen By all accounts, Democratic-Farmer-Labor U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar — first elected in 2006 — is the most popular active politician in Minnesota, whether she’s judged by polling or by her four electoral…

Saturday, June 13, 10 a.m.- 5 p.m.Paradox Comics-N-Cards, 814 Main Ave., FargoCalling all nerds: it’s time to get down and nerdy with vendors aplenty, who are selling comics, toys, video games, board games, various collectibles…

June 6-7StatewideYou grab a line and I’ll grab a pole — and if you’re a North Dakota resident, you can head on down to your favorite fishing hole, no license needed (for this weekend, anyway). All other rules still apply…

By John Strand It took us over 30 years for us to reach out and ask for your help. The High Plains Reader has always been subscription free and paywall free. Our content has — and always will be — free to access for all of our…

By Ed RaymondWere women created to do the work of God?One of the first requests made by new Pope Leo XIV was to invite an expert on the alt-right conservative Catholic organization known as Opus Dei to brief him about its…

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 GionThe scarfing of canned fish and seafood products by online food influencer types is hard to miss on social media these days. Some of the consumed morsels range from exquisite to downright nasty. However, there are many…

By Bryce Vincent Haugen The curtain has come down on Jade Presents. Fargo-Moorhead’s largest event promoter has brought thousands of shows — more than 150 per year — and hundreds of artists to the area over the past 36 years. On…

By Greg Carlson Steven Spielberg, who will turn 80 this December, returns to the subject of aliens among us in “Disclosure Day,” his first feature since “The Fabelmans” in 2022. Now closer to the end than the beginning of…

By Jacinta Zens I recently sat down for a chat with ceramicist Louie Albertson, Clay and Studio Program Manager at the Plains Art Museum. Before the interview, I had the pleasure of getting to know him a bit as a colleague when I…

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 Eli Liverani Cholesterol is probably one of the first molecules I have ever heard of in my childhood. Most of the relatives on my mother's side had high cholesterol in their blood, and apparently, levels above a certain range…

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…

Chris M. Stoner I was recently dismissed from my role as drag show director and emcee for Dakota OutRight, a role I had been fulfilling for more than two decades. The reason given? My political commentary during shows, while…