Letters to the Editor

Letter to the editor: I don’t like the caucus system

February 4th, 2016

To the editor:

I don't like the Caucus system. Caucuses are archaic and exclusive and usually take place in the evening, when many people have to work, thus eliminating them from the whole process (no absentee voting in a caucus). It's also not nearly as representative as a Primary, where there is one vote for one person. For example, in the 2016 Iowa Caucus, at one precinct in Iowa City, Bernie Sanders had over 400 people choose him, while Hillary Clinton had just over 90 people choose…

Letter to the editor on corporate farming

January 30th, 2016

To the editor:

Corporate farming is not the future of agriculture in North Dakota. Local communities all across the country are fighting against corporate farms for good reason. Recently, the community of Buffalo, ND was blindsided by a proposed 9,000 hog factory farm, which will drastically worsen the economic, environmental, and social dynamic of Buffalo. These types of factory farms do not invest in local communities. They do business wherever they can get the best deal, which is…

Letter to the editor from Trana Rogne on the Diversion

January 24th, 2016

To the editor:

The Saint Paul District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has recently released a document touting the value of the Alternative Delivery plan, called the P3, for funding the FM Diversion.

The P3 funding is a private public partnership to fund projects that were not funded in the Water Resource Reform and Development Act of 2014.

Among the reasons stated in this document for using the P3 funding method are the following:

“It will save the federal government $400 million.”

This…

Letter to the editor from Tony Gehrig

January 24th, 2016

To the editor:

I am tremendously excited at the prospect of the tallest building in North Dakota someday soon coming to downtown Fargo. I have no doubt that this will be a fantastic addition to the area and will draw in new business to our city. I know this project will be a great success for the Kilbourne Group. All the more reason why public tax dollars should be left out of the equation.

My stance on special incentives for private development is not limited to the Kilbourne Group, a…

Anthony Gehrig is wrong on not funding public art

December 12th, 2015

To the editor:

In the online version of the Forum on Sunday December 6 edition sandwiched between editorials by Jack Zaleski about a poetry book of regional and local people describing past memories of Christmas and Jim Shaw’s sadness at the loss 35 years ago of arguably one of the most famous contemporary musicians, John Lennon; was a letter listing the reasons for government not supporting public art by city commissioner Tony Gehrig. The contrast in sentiments of that letter sandwich…

The blink of an eye and Footprints,

December 9th, 2015

To the editor:

Late one night in December 2014, Congress decided in the blink of an eye to take away 400,000 seniors hard earned pensions rights when they passed the Multi-employer Pension Reform Act. I believe they did this without most of Congress even knowing what they were voting on. This gut-wrenching decision is having serious consequences to the 400,000 people affected by the bill’s passage. I am one of those 400,000.

I worked at UPS for over 30 years. I worked hard, causing …

To the editor: I feel very sad for Mrs. Sadek

November 28th, 2015

To the editor:

I feel very sad for Mrs. Sadek, as no parent should lose their child due to government corruption, whether it be agenda driven military action or narky narks run amok. As a fellow victim of Smilin' Wayne's rather unique take on "law" enforcement as facilitated by "confidential informants", I pray she gets answers, but I fear that unless she gets Federal help- or perhaps Gloria Allred- the culture of abuse created and facilitated by our wannabe new governor will stall,…

An elegy for a once close friend

November 12th, 2015

I have a friend who stood in the dying light, who looked and despaired as the sign dimmed, vanishing into the night.

She, sighing, turned home to empty screen, vacant, chagrined.

Cash Wise Video will close, another chapter parting in a book we must read— having few options left.

Endless slumber lurks, too, for the bereft. Must we concede?

What would we give for one night or seven or a thousand more with our rentals, to undo this funeral procession, to enter the night, but not go gentle?

…

Controversy over Madame Butterfly

November 6th, 2015

To The Editor:

My organization, the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, has just learned about the production of “Madame Butterfly” this weekend at the Fargo-Moorhead Opera and its use of the widely criticized practice of “yellowface,” that is to say the casting of Caucasian performers to portray Asian characters, utilizing makeup, hairstyles and costuming to appropriate a culture that is not theirs.

An article today in InForum (

No evidence that business people wanted to rid downtown of those in the vague “homeless” category

October 8th, 2015

To the Editor:

Chris Hennen’s editorial “Downtown Fargo should be open to everyone” (10-1) criticized the city for replacing a few street benches with backless ones.

“Apparently businesses are concerned about the number of homeless people downtown,” he wrote. “The problem in downtown Fargo is not homeless people but intoxicated individuals.”

He got that turned around. There is no evidence that business people wanted to rid downtown of those in the vague “homeless”…