Gadfly

​The Death of a Baby

October 24th, 2022

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Why Did One of the Most Civilized Countries Commit Crimes Against Humanity?

At the end of World War II I was thirteen and enthralled by aircraft carriers, 70-ton tanks, B-29s, and uniforms. Since then, I have read a dozen books and hundreds of articles about the Holocaust, and Corky and I have spent many hours in the Holocaust Museum in Washington. I have always wondered why human beings from one of the most civilized countries in the world could commit…

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​Is This London or Hell?

October 20th, 2022

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

There Are Many Reasons Why Our Middle Class Is Disappearing

English novelist Charles Dickens, who experienced both poverty and wealth in his lifetime, included both poor and rich in his novels, particularly in Bleak House, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and A Tale of Two Cities. Remember Scrooge and Tiny Tim in Christmas Carol?

Raised in London in a family of eight, Charles went to work in a shoe-black factory when he was twelve because his father was…

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​School Lunches and Rookie Dinners

October 1st, 2022

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

A Rich Caveman Had Extra Skins While Today a Super Rich Man Has Two Yachts

The Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch’s daily recipe for the rich and infamous, publishes a section called “Mansions” every Friday. In the September 16th edition, the section bragged shamelessly that a developer was asking $250 million for a penthouse on the 129th through 131st floors of a New York skyscraper 1,400 feet tall. It had 17,500 sq. ft. of livable space, seven…

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​Warm Wealth or Cold Poverty?

September 25th, 2022

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

From Mansion or Hovel, We All End Up Dead

We are now living in the Divided States of America, which has been developing for more than 240 years. Economist Frederic Bastiat has come up with the main reason for the division: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

English poet Thomas Gray captured the…

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​Terrible Transgenders in Trumpistan

September 18th, 2022

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Double Jeopardy: Being a Member of the LBGTQ+ Community and College Debt

In the 16th Century, King Henry VIII told the Roman Catholic Church in England to go back to Rome after Pope Clement VII refused to give him an annulment or divorce from his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon, because she did not give him a male heir to the throne—plus other reasons. Besides, he wanted to marry the beautiful Anne Boleyn, the sister of one of his mistresses.…

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​History Is Going Critical

September 17th, 2022

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Our Society is Facing Several Nuclear Options in These Critical Times

I always had my senior English students at Fargo Central High School read and discuss “The Strange Death of Louis Slotin,” because for the rest of our human history we were going to live or die with atoms.

It had little to do with literature, but a great deal to do with life. Canadian physicist Louis Slotin at the Los Alamos nuclear facility in New Mexico, in 1946, was showing his…

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​Chaos: A Born-Again God

September 14th, 2022

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

I Pledge to Maintain a Good Constitution as I Pray to Liberal Gods and Goddesses

During the Pledge of Allegiance mess in Fargo a couple of weeks ago I suggested as a former member of the Fargo School Board that, as Homo Sapiens have been around for 300,000 years, we have pledged allegiance to thousands of gods. Why not name a different god for each daily pledge? In five minutes of googling I discovered thousands of gods created by Homo sapiens over that…

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​Pansexuality and Polyamory

August 27th, 2022

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gnail.com

Isn’t It Time Everybody Learns About Sex Before “It” Happens to You?

We just had a president who didn’t read anything but body language on stacked trophy women. He watched television while trying to overthrow the government of our country.

Americans no longer read much. They watch TV, smart phones, laptops, tablets, social media, internet sources, podcasts, and other electronic marvels. In 1989, 62.6 million subscribed to daily newspapers when…

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​All the World’s a Stage

August 20th, 2022

By Ed Raymond 

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Hell has Nine Stories—and We Will Have Politicians Getting Off at Every Level

American politicians are going to Hell today and the elevators are exceeding weight limits. When Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin was elected to his last two terms in 1976 and 1982, he spent less than $200 in campaign funds to win each election. The campaigns for just one of the Wisconsin U.S. Senate…

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​Destroying the Fourth Reich

August 20th, 2022

By Ed Raymond 

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Politics From Bill Fields: “I Never Vote for Anyone. I Always Vote Against.”

Every day, if possible, I have a martini on the rocks in tribute to a man who has enriched my life. At the age of twelve W.C. Fields was learning how to juggle while helping his poor father sell milk and oranges door-to-door from a horse-drawn cart in Philadelphia. At age 18 his ability to…

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