LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Red Oak House Garden Notes No. 66
Digging in the dirt is my therapy.
Unheralded
Unheralded
CLAY JENKINSON: The Future In Context — Do Guns Define America?
And so here we are again. Another school shooting. The American slaughter of innocents. Shattered lives, shattered communities. The massacres pile up — Columbine, Blacksburg, Roseburg, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde and literally hundreds more. Aurora, Las Vegas, Orlando, El Paso, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, Sutherland Springs, Boulder. And so we ask: When’s it going to stop? What can we do? …
DAVE BRUNER: Photo Gallery — Carolina On My Mind
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner recently returned from a trip to the Tar Heel state, where waterfalls, old cabins and the flora and fauna of the Appalachian Trail, the Blue Ridge Mountains and the surrounding area provided a variety of photo opportunities.
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — A Victory For The Bad Lands
I know, I’ve written about this legal battle in this space before, but it’s such good news — for now, at least — that I just can’t quit sharing it. Below is an article that appears in the June issue of Dakota Country magazine, on the newstands and in the mail right now. By the way, if you aren’t a …
CLAY JENKINSON: The Future In Context — Why Does America Have Primaries?
It’s Primary season in America, with all the chaos, expense and bombast that phenomenon has come to represent in our national political life. The major media now give more attention to off-year primary elections in half a dozen battleground states than they gave to the quadrennial general national election a generation ago. As if they were interpreting the tarot or …
PAULA MEHMEL: Shoot The Rapids — A Crisis Of Selfishness
It’s the same response every time. “We need to arm teachers. We need more police at school. We need to focus on mental illness,” which stigmatizes mental illness, as opposed to focusing on the real issues. It’s never “Maybe there is no reason to EVER have an AR-15 that isn’t about personal pleasure” or “18-year-old kids shouldn’t be able to buy guns” or …
MICHAEL BOGERT: Photo Gallery — Itasca State Park
Grand Forks photographer Michael Bogert made a jaunt into northwestern Minnesota recently, and one of his stops was Itasca State, home of the Mississippi River headwaters and destination’s namesake lake as well many other small bodies of water.
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Bullion Butte: The Mother Ship
Bullion Butte: The Mother Ship (at least it is to me) Where do I start, I ask myself? How do I not make this dry and unreadable? How do I sort through my lifetime of memories of Bullion Butte and the files in our house? But start I will. I’ve written before about the buttes of southwest North Dakota and …
CLAY JENKINSON: The Future In Context — Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine: A European Perspective
With the war in Ukraine entering its fourth month, the 27-nation European Union is working toward what would be its sixth round of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s Russia since Feb. 24. While outside of Governing’s usual coverage areas, the war in Ukraine has impacted domestic policy discussions here in the United States. To better understand the ongoing struggle, Governing Editor-at-Large Clay Jenkinson recently …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Home From Mom’s Funeral
Home now from Mom’s funeral weekend in Slope and Bowman counties, where there were tears and laughter and the opportunity to visit in person with Mom’s immediate family who were able to be in attendance and with the folks of my childhood home ground, including several who are older than my Mom. Back to gardening and camping and hiking and …
JIM THIELMAN: Beer Here? Not Any More
The best vendors at the ballpark snapped out quips and nonsense, thick as mustard on a hot dog. They poured a beer, handed over a soft pretzel and spun out a story about a mother-in-law they didn’t have or a fish they never caught. Those nearby leaned in to listen. Vendors made fans part of the game, like foul balls …
RUSS HONS: Photo Gallery — Total Eclipse Of The Moon
Those who stayed up late Sunday night were in for a treat. The first total lunar eclipse of the year was visible to people from the Americas, Europe and Africa. The Flower Moon, the May full moon, named as it coincides with the spring blooming season in America, was also a supermoon, making it the Super Flower Blood Moon of …
CLAY JENKINSON: The Future In Context — Teddy Roosevelt And The Surprising Roots Of The National Governors Association
We take annual conferences of the National Governors Association for granted, but nobody had ever thought of bringing America’s governors together until Theodore Roosevelt galloped onto the national stage in 1901, ascending to the presidency after the assassination of William McKinley in Buffalo, N.Y., on Sept. 14 of that year. It’s not hard to imagine Roosevelt, a strong Hamiltonian nationalist who essentially invented the modern presidency, calling the …
TONY J BENDER: That’s Life — The Trails That Led Us Here
My friend Jack McDonald received an award at the North Dakota Newspaper Association convention last Friday for his tireless legal defense of freedom of the press. Our freedom. Your freedom. We listened in the great ballroom, elbows on white tablecloths among the cake crumbs and carcasses of Chicken Cordon Bleu. In his speech, Jack pondered the “what if’s” in life. …
MICHAEL BOGERT: Photo Gallery — A Walk Along The English Coulee
Spring was a late arrival in the Northland his year, but now things are starting to take shape, as these images from Grand Forks photographer Michael Bogert will attest.
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — A Laundry Lament
My wife, Lillian, is an Anglophile. For at least as long as I’ve known her, she’s been fascinated by anything involving England or Great Britain, especially royalty, especially female royalty. Also British history. Our library is full of books about England. So a few summers ago, she took a dream trip, a three-week tour of England and the British Isles, …
CLAY JENKINSON: The Future In Context — Why We Don’t Trust Government
Chief Justice John Roberts’ characterization of the leaking of the draft decision on abortion as a “singular and egregious breach” of trust puts a fine point on the tenor of our times. In March, Senate hearings that confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the nation’s highest court in anticipation of shaping such decisions underscored the fact that, whatever the intentions of the …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Marian Crook Silbernagel In Her Own Words : A Mother’s Day Offering
In 2007, my mother, Marian Crook, wanted to write her memoir (expanding on what had been written in Slope Saga and taking her story on through her long and adventurous life), and she asked me to assist her. Although she had in the later years of her career in nursing certainly used a computer to chart for her patients at …
JEFF TIEDEMAN: Mom Was The Best
It’s been 10 years since we celebrated Mother’s Day with my Mom. She died less than a year later in what was at the time a shock but now what I probably view as a blessing. Mom was in relatively good health but suffered from some COPD and probably was a borderline asthmatic. She died in her own bed, just …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — What Larry Woiwode Did
Why not? Why not scribble down some thoughts about Larry Woiwode. Nobody else seems to be doing that. He deserves better. Larry was one of those people who drifted in and out of my life. Our meetings were almost always by chance. The last was a couple of years ago in the parking lot at Menard’s in Bismarck. It delayed …
CLAY JENKINSON: The Future In Context — The Dangers Of Settling For Truthiness
Systematic attacks on the truth, supercharged through social media, trolling and cancel culture, have Americans angry, frustrated and unsure as to where to turn for knowledge. It’s a crisis of historic proportions, but author Jonathan Rauch argues we already have in place a structure from which to repel these assaults of disinformation. He locates it within the global network of …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Another Wind Event In North Dakota
We know at Red Oak House we’ve had another “wind event” when the local tree service trucks begin to show up to deal with the fallout. In other news, a massive and gnarly tumbleweed blew into our front yard in the middle of Bismarck! Wonder where that came from? On the bright side, the National Weather Service says the drought …
CLAY JENKINSON: The Future In Context — Watergate: A Fresh Look At The Most Influential Political Event Of The Past Half Century
Growing up in the 1980s in a family of journalists, Garrett Graff’s sense of Watergate was shaped by the on-screen exploits of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in “All the President’s Men,” in which they portray Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, respectively. But when the recent impeachment of Donald Trump prompted him to take a fresh look back at the Nixon administration, Graff stumbled …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The Redcoats Are Coming! The Redcoats Are Coming!
Dang! Dang! Dang! When you’re old and retired, it’s hard to keep track of what day it is, and what the date is. Today was one of those nice Spring days when I hardly had a care in the world, and we kept busy, even a road trip to Dickinson, N.D., for supper and back, until just before bedtime Lillian …
CLAY JENKINSON: The Future In Context — Do Economic Sanctions Work? A Brief History
In 2014, Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Crimea, a peninsula of southern Ukraine that juts into the Black Sea. The West grumbled and imposed economic sanctions, expelled Russia from the Group of Seven (G7) political and economic forum but chose not to go to war against Russia. Although the sanctions hurt the Russian economy, and no doubt impaired the lives of the 144 …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Another Not-So-Little Win For The Bad Lands
I’m sitting in my office on a clear, crisp, Saturday morning (I know it’s clear because the sun is shining in my eyes through my office window, and I know it’s cold because I went out looking for three or four days’ issues of the Bismarck Tribune in the snow, to no avail) reading a 17-page decision handed down by …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Blue Sky And Sunshine At Red Oak House
Friday, April 15, 2002: I was up at dawn to look out the windows here to check on the status of the historic blizzard of April 2022. My treat was a beautiful amber full moon setting in the west, which meant some blue sky sunshine today. So far no wind here. One neighbor left in his 4-wheel drive pickup for …
NICK HENNEN: Now I See —Only Love And Always Love
Mom had a rare brain disorder called PPA, and she was taken too soon for me. She died four years ago today. I don’t know how to feel about this day, but I want to somehow honor her. She was the most beautiful person (inside and out) that I have ever known. She radiated joy and taught me how to …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Day Three, April 2022 Blizzard: Lucinda Gets The Final Word
Dispatch from Red Oak House (April 14): I dug some snow, watched someone go by with a pickup, heard snowplows and pondered whether a trip to the market was advised. Canceled a plan to drive to Rhame tomorrow (postponed for another time). Did other work around the house. No paper or mail delivery. Filled the bird feeders again. Did some …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Day Two, April 2022 Blizzard
Dispatch from Red Oak House (April 13, 2022): Mostly I shoveled snow, trying to keep ahead of it. Spotted lots of birds, including a Sharp-Shinned Hawk flyby and some Turkey Vultures taking shelter in the neighborhood trees. My siblings and relatives elsewhere in North Dakota were texting me photos of the snow at their houses. (Family in other parts of the …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Day One, April 2022 Blizzard
Dispatch from Red Oak House (April 12, 2022): I shovel the driveway and back patio four times. Jim sets up the indoor greenhouse in the dining room for the vegetable seedlings. I text back and forth with various family members across the country, including my uncle in Mississippi who is watching the same Weather Channel report from Bismarck as me. (In …
CHUCK SCHUMACHER: Coach Chuck — Yelling Isn’t Instruction; it’s Just Yelling
Who likes being yelled at? I’m not fond of it. Anyone who’s ever been to a youth sporting event has witnessed parents and coaches yelling at little kids. When is this OK?Never. Well, OK … if they’re standing in front of an oncoming car, you’re going to yell at them to save their life. But a coach yelling and screaming at a little …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — ‘Keep It Between The Ditches’
The blizzard has begun here at Red Oak House. On days like today, if indeed we were going to drive (much less leave the farmhouse), my Slope County Grandpa Andy (and my Mother, his daughter) would say, “Keep it between the ditches!” My Mother said this until her last days to her children when she was worried about us traveling. …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — North Dakota Republicans Riding High (But Welcome Back, Potter, And So Long, Ricky)
I think I’ve gone to a political convention of some kind in almost every even-numbered year since 1972. That year, 50 years ago now, I came home from the Navy and went to my district Democratic-NPL convention, and someone said, “Hey. We’ve got a Vietnam veteran here today, let’s send him as a delegate to the State Convention.” That’s a …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — In With The New And The Old Still Works
In with the new and the old still works. Got some spring cleaning done to boot (spiderwebs, dust, etc. removed). My daughter helped me with the techy stuff as well as the basics while we chatted. The new IT equipment works and it only took me three online chats with customer support and one phone call to the company who …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Early April Accomplishments
Planned some North Dakota Road Trips for camping and hiking. Took out some seasonal stuff from storage, chatted with neighbors and friends and daughter and others. Didn’t watch The Masters. Watched and listened to spring birds, filled bird feeders, laughed at squirrels and bunnies and spotted new spring growth here in North Dakota. Lastly, took out my hand saw and …
CLAY JENKINSON: The Future In Context — Why A Seat on The Supreme Court Matters
This is a bonus installment in a Governing series on the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, following the U.S. Senate’s historic confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson on April 7. The first four essays in the series examined “Myths of the U.S. Supreme Court,” “Why Supreme Court Nominations Sometimes Fail,” “Dangerous Trends on the Supreme Court” and “Life Tenure on the Supreme Court: …
ERIC BERGESON: The Country Scribe — Gladiolus Rag
This post is from 2016, from the late Eric Bergeson, the Country Scribe, who plays “Gladiolus Rag,”a middle-period classic rag by Scott Joplin, considered by many to be Joplin’s best.
JIM THIELMAN: How Robinson’s No. 42 Went From Insignificant To Iconic
Accolades will shower Jackie Robinson once again this April 15, the 75th anniversary of him scaling baseball’s racial wall. Every big leaguer since 2007 has worn Robinson’s No. 42 on April 15. It’s the only number retired by all 30 major league teams — the first retired by an entire sport. It held no significance for him. Robinson played when …
TERRY DULLUM: The Dullum File — Spring 1997
This blog was posted originally on April 13, 2017, in Unheralded and reprinted in the Grand Forks Herald and The Forum of Fargo Moorhead, as our region was observing the 20th anniversary of the Red River Flood of 1997. During a massively destructive event, it was one small moment that has stayed with me. I still think about it from …