by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | May 31st, 2020
Are We Close To Hearing The Last Clicking Of A Stoplight?
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker, has been creating provocative and entertaining columns for many years. She also was a speech writer for President Ronald Reagan. I call her a true conservative, not a fake one, because she actually believes everyone has “place” in a society. In May she had a fascinating experience. She has been walking the streets of New York for more than half a…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | May 24th, 2020
Democratic Socialism Rescues Disaster Capitalism—Again
Our elected representatives are currently appropriating trillions of taxpayer’s dollars to save our economy from the ravages of COVID-19 and disaster capitalism. Here we go again. Economists who have studied capitalism for many years say that recessions and depressions happen about every 8 to 10 years between bull and bear markets. The last Great Depression started in 1929 when Wall Streeters opened up upper-story windows and…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | May 17th, 2020
Something Is Not Rotten In Denmark
William Shakespeare, writer of my favorite play Hamlet, was born in Stratford-on-Avon, England during a plague year. Thomas Nashe, a contemporary, wrote a short poem A Litany in Time of Plague to commemorate serious plagues in England during 1564, 1582, 1592-93, 1603-04, 1606, and 1608-09. These are lines from the first stanza:
“Rich men, trust in wealth,/ Gold cannot buy you health,/ Physic himself must fade.
All things to end are made,/ The plague…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | May 10th, 2020
Two American Con Men With An Insatiable Appetite For Wealth
Phineas Taylor Barnum was born poor in 1810 in a rural village in Connecticut where survival was determined by cunning, smarts, drive, and ruthlessness. He had an insatiable appetite for wealth. Some say it was from when he learned to count. He conned his way to becoming a wealthy man during our first Gilded Age in the latter half of the 19th Century.
Donald John Trump was born rich in 1946 in New York City and later used his…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | 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…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | 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…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | 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…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | 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,…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | 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.…
by Ed Raymond | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | 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…
The vibrant life of Ashley Lake Hamilton came to a sudden end on the Sunset Highway between Airway Heights and Fairchild Air Force Base on Thursday, December 10, 2020.Ashley was born on a beautiful Monday afternoon, June 2, 1980,…
By Michael M. Miller michael.miller@ndsu.eduThe late Mary Lynn Axtman, native of Rugby, ND, who dedicated many hours for GRHC, shared this message about ornaments from Joseph S. Height’s section on Christmas in his book,…
Thursday, March 19, 4:30- 8 pm1609 19th Ave N, FargoCass County Soil Conservation District is hosting their annual Ladies’ Ag Night supper event. This event has a goal of bringing together multiple generations of women involved…
By John Strand jas@hpr1.com21 January 2021Like most of you, we are relieved to be past 2020. What a crazy year!…
By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.com21 February 2021Have We Eliminated ‘The Giants Of Racism, Extreme Materialism, And Militarism’?In 1915 President Woodrow Wilson saw the first American motion picture ever shown in the White…
To say that this year’s Bartenders Battle was the best display of talent in the six years since its creation would be an understatement and a disservice to not only the bartenders who made it into the competition, but also the…
Reviving Rural Grocery Stores in North DakotaBy Annie PrafckeFargo, ND – On October 7th, Gov. Doug Burgum awarded Milnor Market and the Forman grocery store project Main Street Awards, as part of an initiative led by the Office…
When we were growing up we often found ways to rebel against our parents, some more nonsensical than others. Not all of us decided to use those methods as inspiration for the name of a band. Bismarck-based band Spite Nap decided…
By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com19 February 2021Filmmaker Sabrina Doyle’s “Lorelei” aims for hardscrabble, working-class romance. Good onscreen chemistry between Jena Malone and Pablo Schreiber lifts the filmmaker’s…
By Jill FinkelsonWe’ve been hearing the word Unrest a lot lately. Unrest in the streets. Unrest in the capital. Unrest in our own homes as we struggle to hunker down in the face of the unseen pandemic. People are restless. They…
By Kris Gruberperriex1@gmail.comDrag shows, for me, feel like a celebration of artistry, esthetic, music, and camaraderie. With a dash of confetti thrown in.The local drag community is a close-knit family. Giving back to affiliated…
by Kris Gruberperriex1@gmail.comAdam Quesnell's last show at The Cellar beneath the Front Street Taproom in Fargo was in early September of 2018. He was embarking on a seminal move from Minneapolis to LA. As always, his comedy was…
by Jill Finkelsonjsfinkelson99@gmail.comFar North Spirits, located up in Hallock, MN, is the northernmost distillery in the lower 48. They may be young in the distillery world but the farm and the spirit reach far into the past.…
by Laurie J Bakeremsdatter@gmail.com Part of modern yoga is participating in the world around us. We live in a time of upheaval in society and nature, and of great suffering in humans of all ages. Most of us perceive this suffering…
By Ashlee Nordquisthpr@hpr1.comI've come to the conclusion that not everyone understands why my brother and I went on ventilators for covid and what that means. As I survived and my brother SO FAR is improving, I can make jokes and…
By Faye Seidler fayeseidler@gmail.com Community Uplift Program Project Coordinator (701) 732-0228https://www.facebook.com/communityupliftprogram …