Last Word

Notes from North Dakota’s political conventions

April 18th, 2024

By Jim Fuglie

jimfuglie920@gmail.com

I couldn’t make it to Fargo for the two state political conventions last weekend. It takes an old guy a lot longer to get over a cold than it used to. So I watched from afar and read about them, and wrote down my impressions, first on Saturday and then on Sunday. Here they are.

Saturday: Convention Notes . . . So Far

I’ll start this off by talking a bit about Tammy Miller, “Tall Tale Tammy” as Kelly Armstrong calls her. I think I get an assist…

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​How To Be An Anti-Partisan

March 21st, 2024

By William Cooper

wcooper11@gmail.com

When people look at political questions through a partisan lens, they apply their own personal gloss to the world. They reflexively interpret events in favor of their own tribe and against the other side. This distorts empirical reality, which is completely independent from such subjective mental processing.

The main problem with partisan thinking is that it’s inaccurate, wrong, mistaken—irrespective of what tribe it comes from. It leads to gross…

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The Challenges of Modern Journalism

September 23rd, 2023

By Faye Seidler

fayeseidler@gmail.com

On the first day of the month I ask people to thank a journalist they know or someone who contributes to papers in some meaningful way. When I grew up, my best friend's father was a journalist and there were times in my life I wanted to be one. And even back then, I was told, don’t get into this work, there is no pay.

Today we see the burn out in the fourth estate. We see papers shrinking, fewer reporters turning up, and tight deadlines for…

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Navigating Safely in Times of Terror

August 20th, 2023

By Faye Seidler

fayeseidler@gmail.com

As someone in her thirties, I’m still at an age to have had active shooter drills as part of my school experience in Fargo. I was in middle school when 9/11 happened and grew up with the changing world as our national zeitgeist was overcome with grief and anxiety.

We tried to cope with 24 hour news networks, because of a belief that enough information would keep us safe. If only we knew everything, we couldn’t be surprised anymore. It was always a…

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ND House Bill 1332: Conversion Therapy

March 8th, 2023

By Ken and Alice Christianson

submit@hpr1.com

HB 1332 is currently before the North Dakota legislature. The bill proposes to permit social workers to use a discredited treatment method to convert the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian persons to be heterosexual. The same method is proposed to change transgendered persons to the declared birth gender.

The treatment method, called conversion therapy, is proven to be ineffective and often dangerous. Mental health professionals have…

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​Good evening, Valley City/Barnes County Public Library Board Members and Fellow Community Members

January 8th, 2023

By Stacie Hansen-Leier

submit@hpr1.com

I’ve been a resident of Valley City for most of my fifty-one years, with the exception of short residencies in Jamestown, Fargo, the Park Rapids Minn. area and five years in the Cities.

I’ve been a voracious reader for most of my life and some of my best childhood memories come from days spent sitting in a bean bag chair downstairs in the children’s section of the public library, a pile of books at my feet just waiting to be read, as I paged…

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​An Open Letter to Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians.

November 17th, 2022

By Waylon Hedegaard

retiringwithcats@gmail.com

For all those who still decry my departure from the Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christian faith, understand that I will never return. I see the examples you set and want no part of them.

For I know you. I used to be you, and I never want to be that again.

I have heard you preach against lies, then lie about others. You fabricate new truths when the old no longer suit. You twist events into unrecognizable shapes, then use them as weapons to…

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​Feudin’ a-fussin’ and a-fightin

September 14th, 2022

By Andrew Alexis Varvel

mr.a.alexis.varvel@gmail.com

Will our congressperson be Cara Mund or Kelly Armstrong?

Back 75 years ago in 1947, American radio stations played the hit song “Feudin' and Fightin'.” Its refrain went, “Feudin' a fussin' and a-fightin'. Sometimes it gets to be excitin'.”

That sounds increasingly like North Dakota politics this year!

North Dakota's races for US House and US Senate have been tumultuous, as weird as they are exciting, and with momentous …

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​Woodstock and The Age of Aquarius

August 17th, 2022

By Stewart Rogers 

Stewart_Rogers2001@yahoo.com

On August 15, 1969, a half million long-haired freaky people gathered in the mud for the Woodstock Music Festival in Upstate New York. For some, the event symbolized the worst of American youth – dirty, drug-crazed dropouts, listening to the devil’s music, obsessed with free love, unwilling to take personal responsibility, spitting in the faces of hardworking…

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​Doug Burgum’s Climate Crisis Plan: Will It Help? Is It Going To Work?

June 18th, 2022

By Madeline Luke

madelineluke@ymail.com

Sonja Kaye, of CLEAN in Fargo gave the third of four talks on climate change issues specific to North Dakota for the “What in the World Series,” in Valley City on April 5.

While the topic of the event was Project Tundra, a carbon sequestration project proposed to operate at the Milton Young Coal Station, Sonja’s information introduced the audience to the science, finances, and possible limitations of this technology which is the cornerstone of…

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