Last Word

Much Ado About Nothing?

June 27th, 2024

By Jim Fuglie

My articles here are about politics. I’m writing this before the North Dakota primary election. You are reading it after the primary. Advantage: readers. So I won’t speculate much on that election, because you already know who won.

I think instead I’ll talk about Burgum. Doug Burgum. You’ve heard of him. He used to be North Dakota’s Governor. Not so much lately. Even he admits it. I went to the Memorial Day Service at the North Dakota…

Shotguns, dead dogs, liars and courtrooms

May 16th, 2024

By Jim Fuglie

jimfuglie920@gmail.com

I am an old man. I have been a politics junkie most of my life. I have been involved in many campaigns, but have not run for office myself. Each time someone has suggested I do that, I tell them the same thing: I will not put my name on a ballot until all my college roommates are dead. Luckily for me, a few of them are still with us. Brad, Ron, Jim, you know who you are. Ssshhh.

But in all my years of participating in other people’s campaigns, I…

Should America save small towns?

April 18th, 2024

Dismissing the value of small towns for the future of our nation is a mistake

By Bill Oberlander

arcandburn@gmail.com

According to U.S. Census projections, by the middle of this century, roughly 90% of the total population will live in an urban setting. This conclusion follows a trend that began at the start of the industrial revolution. Advances in machinery and technology moved the largest labor demands away from farms and rural outposts into urban centers. People have been moving to the…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…