June 28th, 2017
How many Americans shot themselves or others today?
We won’t know for awhile how many Americans were KIA or WIA from firearms on June 14, when Republican Majority Whip Steve Scalise of the House was critically wounded by some of the 71 rounds fired by James Hodgkinson and the police.
Actually it was not a big mass shooting deal, although Scalise was made the national center of attention by his congressional colleagues and the mainstream media.
In the first 165 days of 2017 we had only…
June 21st, 2017
From Homer’s Odyssey to Buddy Holly: The times they are a-changin’
When Robert Zimmerman, born in Duluth and raised in Hibbing, better known as Bob Dylan, won the Nobel Prize for Literature (worth almost a cool $1 million), he said, “When I received this Nobel Prize for literature, I got to wondering exactly how my songs related to literature. The music of Buddy Holly changed my life, along with Homer’s Odyssey, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, and Erich Maria Remarque’s All…
June 14th, 2017
Red blankets, thousand-dollar pills, and angry Irish
It makes for an interesting week when people, rats, monkeys, and the Irish wave the middle finger with wild abandon toward their erstwhile enemies. The Irish finally showed how fed up they are with the “state” Roman Catholic Church that treated pregnant girls horribly in forced-labor laundries and transferred priests who took sexual advantage of adolescent boys for centuries.
Irish voters sent the Vatican a final goodbye finger…
June 7th, 2017
How long does it take you to pay your Social Security taxes for the year?
Jay Gould was one of the richest capitalists in the United States in the 19th century, bribing legislators, robbing, killing, and hiring a private army to fight labor union strikes over wages, hours, and working conditions.
He and his associate Jim Fisk tried to corner the gold market so they could raise the price of agricultural products and increase the price of shipping on his railroads. Gould came from a poor…
May 31st, 2017
A good sign: the Spanish are finally giving up bullfighting
Sometimes it takes thousands of years to rid a society of a cultural icon. Bullfighting has been an integral part of Spanish society for almost a thousand years.
Bullfighting was first mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh which covered prehistoric bull worship and sacrifice in Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean area. It later moved to Rome to entertain the crowds in the Coliseum.
In the 1100s the rich brought bullfighting to Spain…
May 24th, 2017
The rich live 20 years longer than the poor
Several recent incidents in the airline industry are sending messages to the Ninety-Nine Percent around the world. If you can’t hold it, don’t book a flight.
A male passenger was removed from a flight because he had to pee while the plane was sitting on the ground. He violated the rule that toilets are closed while waiting for take-off. He had been sitting in his seat for more than half an hour and had told the attendants he had to go. They…
May 17th, 2017
It’s time to end religious slavery, discrimination, racism, and sexual violence
Religions have authorized slavery for thousands of years. It still exists in many corners of the world and is outlawed in few countries.
Religions have allowed men to marry several women at one time, which is now a crime called bigamy in some countries. Remember: Osama bin Laden had four wives.
Churches in our South taught that blacks were inferior to whites and pushed for Jim Crow laws to make sure blacks…
May 10th, 2017
How about cow’s tongue for school lunch?
King Donald of Trumpistan has decreed that the school lunch regulations propagated by Michelle Obama back in 2010, after serious research and debate by medical authorities and dieticians, did not have enough fat, sugar, and sodium.
So he has ordered the Department of Agriculture to follow the desires of food corporations such as General Mills, Schwan’s, Cargill, Land of Lakes, and Hormel, that over the years have added millions of tons of fat…
May 3rd, 2017
The absolute destruction of the American dream
It has become commonplace. The majority of college graduates in the United States now are forced to move back home to their parent’s basements, sometimes for more than a decade, because the 2016 graduating class is the most indebted in history.
They might make more than $15 an hour in a job, but they cannot afford homes, cars, or other accoutrements of a middle class life.
There is no doubt that economic growth and the national…
April 26th, 2017
Are we nearing the end of the human race?
Moore’s Law is a rather simple observation made by Gordon Moore back in 1965 when he founded Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel, two very important computer chip makers. He remarked that he thought the number of transistors in a circuit would double about every two years—and would continue to double every two years for at least another ten years. The art of doubling computer chip capacity every two years has now continued to 2017.
With the great…
__293px-wide.jpg)
__293px-wide.jpg)
By Alicia Underlee NelsonLocal groups will speak out against current and projected federal budget cuts in downtown Fargo this Saturday, April 26. The Red River Valley chapters of Fearless and Indivisible will lead a protest from…
By Prairie Rose Seminolems.prairierose@gmail.com I was a child who walked behind my parents into classrooms and kitchens, spaces of song and prayer, where teachings lived in the air and settled on my shoulders. I didn’t yet have…
Saturday, April 26, 1:30-3:30 p.m.Rourke Art Gallery + Museum, 521 Main Ave., MoorheadThings are coming up rosy at the Rourke in a true feast of the senses during the third annual “Gallery in Bloom” exhibit. The pop-up…
By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com I feel like reading a newspaper is the equivalent of listening to music on vinyl. Not only is it analog, it’s an experience. I might be a little biased, but there's something about the rustling…
By Ed Raymondfargogadly@gmail.comThe wizards and kleagles in whites now wear blue suits and red tiesA hundred years ago, more than 30,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan from virtually every state in the Union wearing their white…
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 After a very inspiring conversation with Kayla Houchin of Sonder Bakehouse a few weeks ago, I decided that it’s an appropriate time to write a column about some of the sweet people who are involved…
Mooncats and Pert Near Sandstone play Empire TheatreBy Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comThe MoonCats describe themselves as “Americonscious Campfire Folk.” They have a clear acoustic folk sound with a sense of whimsy — think…
By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.comRyan Coogler goes big and bold with “Sinners,” a sweaty, bloody vampire movie set in 1932. The filmmaker stuffs this universe with enough ideas to serve a limited-series season of episodic…
By Raul Gomez Modern Man was a gentle soul. If you were down or just wanted a friend, he’d be there for you. I remember the first day I met Modern Man. It was Jeremiah Fuglseth and me. He wanted to write about this legendary…
By John Showalterjohn.d.showalter@gmail.comHigh Plains Reader had the opportunity to interview two mysterious new game show hosts named Milt and Bradley Barker about an upcoming event they will be putting on at Brewhalla. What…
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 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.…
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 Faye Seidlerfayeseidler@gmail.com In 2023, the Superintendent of Fargo Public Schools, Rupak Ghandi, gave a passionate plea to the Fargo School Board to follow federal law, because a recently passed state law would increase…
