October 21st, 2024
By Ed Raymond
Citizens United Turned Billionaires Into Oligarchs, Dictators, and Kings
We have reached a stage in Divided States of America politics where if the Democratic Party decreed that zebras have black stripes imprinted on white bodies, the Trumplican Party would object by yelling “No!”: white stripes are strategically placed on black bodies. Then, after hearings and a filibuster or two, they would kill zebras to prove their case.
We have reached that…
September 19th, 2024
By Ed Raymond
Where will the homeless go when billionaires go to their bunkers?
Icelanders are living almost on top of volcanos but are cooled by ice, snow, and placid attitudes while hiding a keen sense of humor. But with the planet heating up and devastating windstorms, floods, hurricanes, tornados, and fires of many descriptions constantly harassing the earth’s humans, animals, and plants, they understand what will happen.
In 2019 Icelanders decided to…
August 15th, 2024
By Ed Raymond
Men have made a real mess of the world. We should try estrogen.
I didn’t bother to count the countries involved in wars because this column won’t be published for a week. But I don’t think any of the participating countries are led by a woman at this moment.
There are wars and revolutions on five of the seven continents. Not much is happening on Antarctica, although there may be an encounter or three on Oceania, the continent of thousands of…
July 18th, 2024
By Ed Raymond
How can anyone be lonely with eight billion homo sapiens on Earth?
The world seems to be in the throes of a PTSD pandemic. Even the price of happiness is going way up. Back in 2010 two Nobel Prize laureates studied the complexities of happiness and determined that in most cases $75,000 a year would buy some of it. But this figure applied only to day-to-day moods. The two experts said happiness “plateaus” at some figure depending upon the individual.…
June 20th, 2024
By Ed Raymond
Should ‘The Chosen One’ be Sentenced to Spend Months at each Level?
It’s not unusual on this planet, we have had hundreds of men and a couple of women who have used religion to become dictators and gods in countries and empires when the only god they believed in was themselves.
Think Nero, Caligula -- and his horse, Qin Shi Huang Di, Hirohito, Genghis Khan, Joe Stalin, Catherine the Great, Adolf Hitler, Kim Sung-un, and Donald Trump – I love the…
May 16th, 2024
By Ed Raymond
Is It Possible to Move from a Tent on a Sidewalk to a Garage in the Sky?
There have been wealthy people who added a car elevator to the mansion for their Bentleys so they could unload groceries close to the kitchen, but I have never seen a high-rise apartment building advertise a sky garage for each of the 62 apartments in a high-rise—including the 62nd floor penthouse. On a barrier island called Sunny Isles Beach 30 miles from Miami, a developer is…
April 16th, 2024
by Ed Raymond
According to my great-grandfather many years ago, my French ancestors migrated from Normandy to Quebec to Manitoba to Wisconsin to Minnesota over the spread of more than two centuries, finally settling in or near Little Falls and then spreading to the Twin Cities. People left Europe for two major reasons: economics and freedom of religion and freedom from religion. France had been involved in many big and small religious conflicts between religions and…
March 21st, 2024
By Ed Raymond
The Catacombs under Paris Contain the Bones of Millions of Feudalists
Sixty-five feet below the Paris streets are about 170 miles of tunnels that go through stone quarries, galleries, and ossuaries that contain the bones of six million French who died between the 9th and 18th centuries. Along the tunnel walls are ossuaries where human bones are stacked in the form of crosses, hearts, and even a structure called the Eiffel Tower. The entrance is in the…
March 21st, 2024
by Ed Raymond
Why Jerry Lee Lewis Sang: "There’s a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on"
For the last couple of months, the “Star Spangled Banner'' was not the national anthem. It was Jerry Lee Lewis’s song about sex titled “Whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.” At the same time there was a whole lot of sex going on the continents and in the great depths of the oceans. Pope Francis even got into the act by proclaiming in St. Peter’s Square at a general audience…
March 21st, 2024
By Ed Raymond
Two Super Bowl Seats at a 60 Minute Game would Pay a Year’s College Tuition
The final seat price is in. The average seat price for the 2024 Super Bowl is $9,850, figuring in scalpers, grifters, and the like. The super rich paid as much as $66,000 for an executive skybox seat. Meanwhile, back on earth, we have 45 million American adults from 18 to 95 who owe $1.7 trillion in college student debt. The average annual tuition for public universities in…
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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.comWill the disappeared ever be able to appear again? Not likely!In dictionaries more than a decade old, the word “disappear” appears all alone. The definition: “to pass out of sight either…
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 Shortly following its world premiere in January, first-time feature filmmaker Kate Beecroft’s “East of Wall” won the NEXT section’s audience award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. A…
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…
