December was so much sweeter before the militants weaponized “merry Christmas.” There was a time when greeting friends and neighbors was simple. Sharing warm good wishes required no more strategic thought than handing out candy canes or hanging the mistletoe. Whether we chose the long form ― explicitly citing the major holiday and its late December consort, as in “merry …
What is truth? Philosophers may have debated that since time began, but I’ll tell you how I define it: Truth is what I expect to read in my much-respected daily newspaper. Yet when we picked our paper off the doorstep this morning and shook it out of its little orange plastic sack, nearly the first thing we encountered was a …
My husband is rolling in dough. Oh, not the cash kind, but something nearly as good ― at least when he takes it, fragrant and golden, out of the oven. Yes, Russ is a dough nut ― yeasty bread dough. Ever since he fell in love at a Moor head Community Education class half a dozen years ago, he’s been …
My husband and I were taking a spin around our south-side Moorhead, Minn., neighborhood the other night, marveling at the new homes popping up all around us. For block after block, on street after street, sod had been pushed back and basements were being dug. Earth movers were carving out new streets where corn and sugar beets grew just a …
As the shots rang out just after noon last week, I was in a college classroom with my writing students, discussing the art of the interview. Some few might have wondered from time to time whether they’d survive Media Writing 210, but none of us had ever, ever doubted that we’d live past Thursday. Ten people died, including the teacher, …
Yes, I know: The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. That’s just the problem. Twenty years ago, lightning split the pretty Russian olive tree that presided over our back yard. We missed it mightily, especially the next spring, when its tiny perfumed blossoms could no longer tease us through the open bedroom window. We knew just what that corner …
Way back when I was a mere news puppy, wise old editors counseled us on all the news that was — and, specifically, wasn’t — fit to print. “Remember that our subscribers read the paper over breakfast,” they’d caution. “The kids are at the table, too.” Those were the words we lived by. Today’s edition of our local daily newspaper …
Hats off to teachers on the move! All across Minnesota and North Dakota, fresh education graduates are setting off right about now for the great unknown … along with the rest of the tribe of itinerant teachers whose careers take them beyond the beaten track each August to classrooms over the horizon. If teaching is a calling, it often turns …
The Fargo mob panicked last week over a shooting. It didn’t involve guns and the Second Amendment, though. It was touched off by a camera and the First. By now the whole region knows about the furor generated by a would-be guardian of the peace who spotted a man taking photos above Island Park Pool. He became suspicious because he …
CBS said it, so it must be true: Donald Trump now leads the rest of the dozen-odd Republicans who’ve announced their presidential ambitions. And I do mean “dozen-odd.” An implied horde of Americans on the political right are vigorously bobbing their heads as he expounds, pounding the bar and invoking the time-honored rebel blessing, “an honest man who really speaks …
Think tanks and activists have been warning about rising tensions between our society’s “haves” and “have-nots” — the aristocratic 1 percent, with their glossy grasp on privilege, versus all the rest of us. But when the local populace finally rose up in revolt in the week before Independence Day, who could have dreamed what would spur Fargo’s downtrodden to threaten …
Welcome to Dog Terror Week. As fireworks sales commence in North Dakota, families who are blessed with dog companions can be divided into two camps: those whose pooches can accompany them to the picnics and Fourth of July festivities with nary a qualm … and the rest of us, who celebrate America’s independence with our quaking hounds drooling under the …
For some, writing is a passion. For professionals, it’s a job. When you invest your entire career in churning out words, your Muse devolves rather quickly from an inspiration into a math problem. Eventually, you come to take what you’ve written entirely for granted. It’s all about the kind of output that a dismissive BBC documentary on the digital age recently …
Ah, spring — when a young man’s fancy turns to … cruising. Roll the windows down, turn the tunes up and step on the gas. Or a young woman’s, for that matter. It’s the “young” part that counts. Whether that’s true for you in real time or merely a distant memory, there’s something about driving on these long early summer …
Too much — way too much — ink and airwaves have lately been consumed with salacious stories involving teachers and teenagers in the most unseemly situations. Consider two highly charged dramas unfolding before us. The first involves North Dakota’s Teacher of the Year, the West Fargo High School English instructor accused of an extended affair with a 17-year-old student five …
Whatever happened to “Rodham”? As the next president of the United States shapes her campaign messages, her brand seems to be wobbling a bit. From “Hillary Rodham Clinton” to “Hillary Clinton” to simply “Hillary,” media observers have begun to comment on what the Democratic front-runner calls herself these days … and her fellow triple-name females wonder, too. The crisp signature …
The days leading up to Easter are always steeped in talk of religion … but this year’s Holy Week conversations have truly, you might say, taken the cake. From Indiana and Arkansas to, yes, North Dakota, daily news coverage has included the word “Christian” more often than in any prior seven days in American history. But you couldn’t really say …
It was a chill, dreary first day of spring. We’d just sat down for a nice, hot bowl of soup when the telephone rang. Caller ID said it came from the local area code, so I got up to answer its summons. A very pleasant woman — her voice sounded half-familiar — said she had good news about our local newspaper. It’s …
Just say no? From Nancy Reagan to North Dakota, that pointless advice has fogged up every debate about marijuana’s legal status from the Jazz Age to the hippie era … right up to this week, when a legislative committee snuffed out a resolution that dared to even bring it up. Yet a rising chorus of voices questions why it ever …
Rock concerts, once my reason for living, seldom tempt me anymore. But when one comes along that features the entire soundtrack of your life, there’s no excuse not to show up and marinate in music. And when the headliner is also featured on this month’s edition of the grown-up version of Tiger Beat — AARP Magazine — well, the lure …
By now, every alert North Dakotan must know about last week’s rather unorthodox take on religious freedom by the state House of Representatives. Republican leaders in District 24 (Valley City area) took to the Web to sound the alarm: A Muslim, the president of the Bismarck Muslim Community Center, was going to offer the daily invocation in the House chamber. …
In nearly 50 years as a professional writer, I have never done this before: Fuck. Yes, you have just witnessed the very first time that I have typed that word. Ever. It’s not quite the first I’ve thought it. (There was that incident when my husband lost one of his hearing aids in the back yard, then found it … …
Not hiring older workers is a great strategy … especially if you don’t plan to get much older yourself. I borrowed that line from one of my heroes, New Yorker humorist Andy Borowitz. But it’s been on my own brain lately, too, especially after bumping into two of my much-loved former students in recent days. Of course, age being what …