September 27th, 2017
By Jill Westerholm
jillwesterholm@gmail.com
The latest Affordable Care Act repeal by Republicans, the Graham-Cassidy bill, is reportedly now being pulled due to the good sense of John McCain, Rand Paul & Susan Collins expressing that they would not vote for the bill. A nightmare averted, for now, once again.
Eight years they've had to work on a replacement and they don't have anything. They just don't want an Affordable Care Act; repeal but no replace. Isn't that the best evidence of…
September 20th, 2017
By Robert Franklin, Esq.
parents@nationalparentsorganization.org
In North Dakota, a child’s chances of spending meaningful time with each parent following divorce have less to do with his parents than what county they divorce in.
For example, there’s a whopping 100% difference in joint custody between Grand Forks and Morton counties. Worse, courts are less than one-fourth as likely to order shared parenting as parents are to agree to it.
Those and other worrying facts have come to…
September 13th, 2017
William Prentice, the slickster CEO of Meridian Energy, which wants to build an oil refinery 2 ½ miles from Theodore Roosevelt National Park, blew a bunch of smoke up the ass of a young reporter for The Dickinson Press the other day, and the kid, who’s actually a pretty good writer, wrote a real puff piece about how great the refinery is going to be for western North Dakota. I’ve written about this a couple times. My pieces weren’t puff pieces.
The Bismarck Tribune and Forum…
August 30th, 2017
There’s a little blue-collar resort community at the top of the Van Hook Arm of Lake Sakakawea, a couple hundred trailers and cabins and a bait shop, a small RV park, and a boat ramp.
This spring, an oil company named Slawson Exploration moved in beside the resort, and with its huge machinery, began clearing a 25 acre site at the top of the boat ramp, which will be home to what now looks like an 8-well oil pad. The site is just a few hundred yards from the park and the homes in the…
August 23rd, 2017
“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.” – Edmund Burke
“The history of the twentieth century has taught us that people who are rendered permanently superfluous are eventually condemned to segregated precincts of the living dead or are exterminated outright.”
– Richard Rubenstein
“To the Nazi economists goes the credit for working out a system of living on their debts. They realized the implications of the well-known fact that a dishonest debtor has all the advantage over…
August 16th, 2017
A few months ago I wrote about the long, strange saga of Jason Halek, the fellow who dumped 800,000 gallons of poisonous oilfield brine down an abandoned oil well south of Dickinson. Back in April of this year, he pleaded guilty to three felony violations of the U.S Safe Drinking Water Act for those crimes he committed in late 2012 and early 2013.
Jason was scheduled to be sentenced to 24-30 months in a federal prison on July 31.
Well, July 31 has come and gone, and no sentencing yet.…
August 5th, 2017
Of all the sleazy companies to show up in North Dakota’s oil patch in the nearly ten years since the Bakken Boom began, the sleaziest of them all has to be Meridian Energy, the company proposing to build an oil refinery called the Davis Refinery just three miles from Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I wrote about them a few months ago. Here’s an update.
Normally, when a company wants to build a large energy plant, like a refinery, it applies for a siting permit from the North Dakota…
August 5th, 2017
For the last 50 years or so, there have been just five places where you can drive your car across a bridge over the Little Missouri State Scenic River: In Marmarth on U.S. Highway 12, on Pacific Avenue in the city of Medora, on I-94 just north of Medora (two bridges, one going each way), on U.S. Highway 85 south of Watford City (the Long-X Bridge) and on ND Highway 22 north of Killdeer (the Lost Bridge).
The Billings County Commissioners have made news for the last ten years trying to…
August 2nd, 2017
When I moved to this community 23 years ago from Dallas, Texas, I knew I would have much to learn. I was coming to a part of my country that was completely different from what I had known when it came to geography, climate, and ethnicity. What I did not expect was how much I would learn from people who immigrated here from much farther away and from a wide variety of cultures.
My education in what “we the people” truly means began only after I became a teacher. Prior to then, I did…
July 19th, 2017
“…the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” – Milan Kundera
“It may seem kind of bleak to say that the future of our planet rests in large part on the consciences of Republican politicians. But it kind of does, at least right now. The thing is, like me, many of my colleagues have grandchildren. And grandchildren can be a powerful motivator, even if they don’t have a Super PAC.”
– Senator Al Franken (D-MN)
It is difficult to have the…
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By Maddie Robinsonmaddierobi.mr@gmail.com This article discusses topics related to mental health and suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org. …
By Michael Millermichael.miller@ndsu.edu As I reflect back on July, I want to share a USA Today article from July 3, 1986, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. It has been 138 years since 1886 when…
Thursday, August 8, gates 5 p.m., show starts at 7 p.m.Bluestem Amphitheater, 801 50th Avenue S., MoorheadFormed by guitarist/vocalist Brian Setzer, upright bass player Lee Rocker and drummer Slim Jim Phantom, The Stray Cats…
We’re making progress. By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com Yay Kamala! It is such a relief to see a candidate for POTUS who is actually capable of doing the job and preserving our representative democracy. And, of course, she’s…
By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comMen 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…
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 In this land of hotdish and ham, the knoephla soup of German-Russian heritage seems to reign supreme. In my opinion though, the French have the superior soup. With a cheesy top layer, toasted baguette…
Lamb of God celebrates 20th anniversary of a seminal albumby John Showalterjohn.d.showalter@gmail.comPhoto by Travis ShinnWhen the band Burn the Priest formed in 1994, they likely did not realize the impact that they would have on…
By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com Writer-director Nicole Riegel’s sophomore feature “Dandelion” is now playing in theaters following a world premiere at South by Southwest in March. The movie stars KiKi Layne as the…
New Minnesota sculptures include artist’s largest trollBy Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com According to Danish artist and environmental activist Thomas Dambo, “All trash is treasure.” So far, he and his team have built 138…
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 John Showalter john.d.showalter@gmail.comThey sell fentanyl test strips and kits to harm-reduction organizations and…
JANUARY 19, 1967– MARCH 8, 2023 Brittney Leigh Goodman, 56, of Fargo, N.D., passed away unexpectedly at her home on March 8, 2023. Brittney was born January 19, 1967, to Ruth Wilson Pollock and Donald Ray Goodman, in Hardinsburg,…
By Chad Obanali.hoffman@ndunited.org North Dakotans know that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. That is certainly the case with the ill-advised constitutional ballot measure to eliminate the ability of local…
