Last Word

A Republican Senator with a Spine – 24/7

February 26th, 2020

Governor Bill and Lydia Langer voting CA 1940

Step #8. Stand Out

“Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.” - Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny

“It is a mistake - as events since September 11 have shown - to suppose that a government can promote and participate in a global economy and at the same time act…

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The Affliction

February 26th, 2020

by Zach Nerpel
zachnerpel@gmail.com

The battle against contentment rages in 2020. The acts of caring for one’s health and finding peace in doom seem to sap the mind of interesting motivations. You find your days melding into each other, not in the fugue of depression, but in hapless uneventfulness. Looking forward to cooking dinner and plans for dinner, become the most engaging thoughts you have left. You think about it while driving and your fried rice is the highlight of the…

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Trump’s and McConnell’s War on Democracy at Home and Abroad

February 12th, 2020

“Donald Trump sits on a wall;
But Donald Trump fears a great fall.
All would-be king’s horsemen, and would-be king’s men;
Still keep him propped up there, again and again.” - Chicago Dog, 2/2/20

Step #5. Remember Professional Ethics
“When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient…

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Badlands Watch: ‘We Will Get That Project Stopped’  Badlands Family Challenges Bridge in Court

February 5th, 2020

The Little Missouri State Scenic River valley north of Medora. photo by Bill Kingsbury

The Little Missouri State Scenic River valley north of Medora. photo by Bill Kingsbury

I have written before about this stupid, harebrained, boneheaded, senseless, vacuous, selfish, destructive, egomaniacal, (insert your own adjective here), idea of the Billings County Commissioners to put a bridge over the Little Missouri State Scenic River a dozen or so miles north of Medora. I’m going to keep writing about it until it goes away.

Six months ago, it looked like the bridge was just a…

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Iranian Pride and American Prejudice

January 29th, 2020

“On January 16, 1979, the self-styled ‘King of Kings’ (the Shah of Iran) was…forced to seek exile abroad. To understand the reason for this unexpected dénouement, it is necessary to note that the Shah was essentially a western creation. Once before he had been forced into exile, in 1953, when he tried to oppose a popular (democratically elected and anti-Communist) Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq, who had nationalized the oilfields at the expense of (the) Anglo-Iranian Oil…

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Something we can all learn from

January 15th, 2020

photo by Sabrina Hornung

by Karen Anderson
kartcone@gmail.com

Congratulations to the Fargo School District for opening up a discussion regarding today’s students as covered in the January 7, Barry Amundson article “Social, emotional learning a forefront of Fargo's State of the Schools.” I am a twenty year educator of students ranging in age PreK-16; I have seen a change in how students learn and an increase in their non-academic needs. Contemporaneously within the last decade schools have addedto their…

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Doom Chimes

December 23rd, 2019

By Zach Nerpel
zachnerpel@gmail.com

Doom chimes all around us and I feel a greedy sense of relief understanding the real possibility I will be here when it all ends. What greater gift than to be a part of the very last chapter of humanity? The only question is, how exactly will we come to pass?

Will we burn as they are in Australia? Will we drown or be swept away by tidal waves like small, Oceanic islands and litter the deep seafloor like several oily Atlantis? Will it be climate at all?…

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How Small We’ve Become

December 11th, 2019

By Waylon Hedegaard
retiringwithcats@gmail.com

When I think about grandmothers, I think of a kindly woman with a plate of cookies in an old fashioned kitchen, but I’m not sure why. For my grandmother, none of this was even remotely true.

Except for the cookies. There were always cookies. Sometimes they even had sugar… but that’s another story.

My grandmother lived on a farm in Eastern Montana. She was small but tough, that ornery kind of tough that makes those around her nervous, and…

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Routine fatigue

December 4th, 2019

By Zach Nerpel
zachnerpel@gmail.com

What fugue was this which ferried me from Fall into our now and immediately miserable Winter? Where had I been this entire season? How much time had passed and what had I experienced? What had I learned?

The last time I had written to this publication, it was about unfulfilling and wasted Summers. How fitting it is, then, that Fall was so meaningless itself that I never felt the need to relieve myself on paper the entire period?

But was it so…

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​Dr. Snyder’s 20 Tips to Topple Tyranny

December 4th, 2019

“Because oil and gas are found all over the freaking place…companies need a rudimentary foreign policy to maximize…their ability to produce their product; (they need)…stability, access, control, simplicity. Countries may come and go, but oil and gas companies need to think bigger than that: …so the longer the relevant foreign ruler is in power, the better. And if the local autocrat is …on the payroll, no one’s going to bother anyone about cleaning up any mess that oil production…

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