“Is anyone surprised by this?” It’s one of the most-used phrases on social media when the news pertains to Trump, It’s easy and always applicable. Would anyone be surprised by the possibility of the following?: “I got an A-plus for my handling of Hurricane Maria, but some low-energy losers blame me for people dying on Porto Recliner. A lot of …
The desert mountains and majestic saguaro cacti were still in full darkness when the men convened that recent Saturday morning. There was Tim Wright, pastor of Community of Grace Lutheran Church in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria, and 20 or so guys who for years had been coming together weekly to study the Bible and discuss important things, (though the …
A couple final (?) thoughts on the Nov. 6 election in North Dakota. * * * * * Did racism play a role in the 2018 North Dakota election? As I’ve said repeatedly over the past few months, North Dakota Democrats needed to focus ALL their messaging opportunities on two topics: Trump’s trade wars and Republicans trying to take away health …
Paging through an old book of poetry, I came across this poem by North Dakota poet Paul Southworth Bliss, from “Poems of Places.” The poems in the book were written as Bliss traveled the country in 1937. This one came from a stop in Oklahoma, which got oil a long time before North Dakota, but the similarities are striking, 80 …
Photographer Jeff Olson and his wife, Joanne Burke Barclay Olson, took time on their recent trip to New England to check out the USS Constitution in the Boston Naval Shipyard in Boston Harbor. Also known as Old Ironsides, the USS Constitution is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the U.S. Navy named by President George Washington after the U.S. Constitution. She is the world’s …
Western Michigan University completed a National Collegiate Hockey Conference weekend sweep with a 6-2 win over the University of North Dakota in men’s hockey Saturday night in Ralph Engelstad Arena. The Broncos (6-6 overall, 3-3 NCHC) surrendered the lead in the first period on Jasper Weatherby’s first collegiate goal but scored the game’s next six goals before Rhett Gardener closed out …
Hey slackers, did you really think you were going to get away without a current events review before the semester ends? Oh, no — Jim Acosta is back, so you know the fake news spigot is going to be running wide open. Pull up a desk, kids, stow the cell phone, grab a No. 2 pencil, eyes straight ahead and …
Pretty much every political pundit (including me) has declared the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party dead after this year’s election, and the debate continues to rage (well, maybe not rage, but to be discussed) among Democrats about what caused the demise of the party after so many years as a major political force in our state. Most of my friends have …
Bent Panoam and Elijah Hazenkamp each scored 18 points to lead the University of North Dakota men’s basketball team to a 112-58 win over the University of Minnesota-Morris on Saturday afternoon at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center. Panoam was a 7-for-11 from the field, including three three-pointers. He also had a game-high five assists, two rebounds and blocked a shot …
The Old North Church & Historic Site, made famous during the American Revolution by Paul Revere’s midnight ride and “One if by land, two if by sea,” is a must see for those visiting Boston. Photographer Jeff Olson and his wife, Joanne Burke Barclay Olson, did just that on a recent trip to New England.
Last week, our president stated the following: “These people, like the Antifa — they better hope that the opposition to Antifa decides not to mobilize. Because if they do, they’re much tougher. Much stronger. Potentially much more violent. And Antifa’s going to be in big trouble. “Because if you look, the other side, it’s the military. It’s the police. It’s …
When I interviewed with the Emanuel Call Committee, I was completely honest with them. I told them if the wanted a perfect pastor, who was always put together, they should not call me. However, if they wanted someone who was flawed and broken, limping through life, relying on the grace of God, then I might be the right choice. Today …
Despite outshooting Western Michigan University 31-19, the University of North Dakota men’s hockey team fell 2-0 to the Broncos on Friday night in National Collegiate Hockey Conference play in Ralph Engelstad Arena. The two teams played scoreless hockey for two periods before Josh Passolt and Colt Conrad (empty net) tallied in the third period to give WMU the win. Goalie …
Fall is perhaps my favorite season of the year. The reason for my fondness is that I get to combine three of my favorite pastimes — gardening, hunting and cooking. The past couple of months have been especially satisfying. I finished my gardening, which started last March when tomato, kale and pepper seeds were planted indoors; canned more than a …
The University of Kentucky handed the University of North Dakota men’s basketball team its first loss of the season Thursday night in Rupp Arena in Lexington, Ky., by a score of 96-58. PJ Washington scored a game-high 25 points and added seven rebounds to help the No. 10 Wildcats (2-1) over the Fighting Hawks (2-1). North Dakota was led by …
Jimmy Butler earned his basketball bravado playing for the Chicago Bulls. Unfortunately when he joined the Minnesota Timberwolves, he was mostly just full of bull. Oh, there’s no doubt Butler is a baller. But sometimes there’s addition by subtraction. When the disgruntled dribbler was finally traded to the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday, along with injured rookie Justin Patton, the Wolves …
“Does North Dakota Really Need Democrats?” read Rob Port’s headline on the Fargo Forum’s Sayanythingblog. At first, I hoped he didn’t waste a lot of time coming up with that stupid question. Then I realized the Port is probably one of those stable geniuses who ask stupid questions. A game-changer. Let’s discuss this. First of all, is it Democrats like …
Alexandria, Va., photographer Jeff Olson and his wife, Joanne Burke Barclay Olson, recently traveled to Massachusetts. Among the sites they took in was Walden Pond in Concord, where they also visited the site of writer Henry David Thoreau’s cabin.
This blog was originally posted on Unheralded.fish’s Facebook page Monday. Ah, Veterans Day. It did not exist by that name the day I was born. But has every day since. That’s my slim contribution. Along with being a No. 19 draft choice in the Vietnam lottery. The closest I have come to winning a lottery. Then the Paris Peace Accord …
There were plenty of reasons that would provoke a normal North Dakotan to vote for the bigoted puffy suit of peacock feathers known as Kevin Cramer over the impossibly more competent, intelligent and productive Heidi Heitkamp. Mainly it was the letter behind Heitkamp’s name that was a provocation. Cramer had no record, so he relied on the letter “T” for …
By Lillian Crook and Jim Fuglie As many of you know, Jim and I have a fascination with a North Dakota poet named Paul Southworth Bliss, and we are writing his biography. For the 100th Anniversary of Armistice Day, we wrote an accounting of his military service, from my research. Joining the legions of Americans sent to France to join the …
Eric Bergeson, the Country Scribe, shares these photos taken near Patagonia, Ariz., a town of 800 in high ranch country near the Mexican border. In his own words, “So many worlds exist within a 100-mile radius of Tucson.”
This story in our World War I Centennial series is written by Dr. Gordon L. Iseminger, who teaches European history at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. His recent research is on the German-Russians of North Dakota’s McIntosh County during World War I. By Gordon Iseminger Known first as the Great War, World War I broke out in 1914. …
“If Heidi Heitkamp loses, what is Forum columnist Rob Port going to write about over the next six years?” — Jim Shaw It’s always the kids who suffer the most unless they’re surrounded by metal chain-link fencing which is as insufferable as it gets according to senator to be Kevin Cramer an expert on child confinement for some reason. After six …
As the Beatles sang in their 1964 hit, “Money Can’t Buy Me Love,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s millions of dollars collected in the wake of her vote against Trump Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh weren’t enough to sway North Dakota’s Republican bias, and she took areal thumping in her race against Congressman Kevin Cramer for the U.S. Senate. Midterm elections are notorious …
So what did the midterm election of 2018 tell us? I’m going to try to make sense of it from a purely analytical view. If, as President Trump said repeatedly, he was on the ballot in 2018, the results are mixed. The election was certainly not a ringing endorsement of his character, behavior, policies and the first two years of …
Last year, grief therapist Patrick O’Malley and I published “Getting Grief Right: Finding Your Story of Love in the Sorrow of Loss.” We suggest in the book that there is no right or wrong way to grieve, that each person’s experience of mourning is as unique as a fingerprint and that, therefore, there are no reliable models, no steps and stages …
This story in our World War I Centennial series is written by Joseph T. Stuart, Ph.D., associate professor of history at the University of Mary in Bismarck. By Joseph T. Stuart Although the U.S. did not enter the Great War until 1917, a number of Bismarck residents left to serve in the conflict before then, fighting alongside British troops or as …
Bob and I sat, our motorcycles idle, among a quiet group of veterans, waiting for stragglers. But no one came late. Most of us had been there early enough to stretch our legs. A few of us smoked. The veil of fog faded away from the black and green hues of the Black Hills. It looked like rain. Hell, it …
This story in our World War I Centennial series is written by Carole Barrett, PhD, professor emerita of American Indian Studies at the University of Mary in Bismarck. Calvin Grinnell is a historian for the Mandan Hidatsa and Arikara Nation in North Dakotya. He is a member and past president of the board of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. …
This story in our World War I Centennial series is written by Joseph Jastrzembski, professor of History at Minot State University. By Joseph Jastrzembski When the great powers of Europe went to war in 1914, they drew not only on their own populations but those of their subject colonies around the globe. This meant that the armies of Europe represented …
On this 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the remembrance of my family link to the war takes me back in time. My Grandma Lilly’s brother, Helmer Hovick, a true Norwegian bachelor farmer who lived in the Dakotas in the years before the war, was a World War I doughboy. He served as a courier. When he …
This story in our World War I Centennial series is written by Barbara Handy-Marchello, Ph.D., is a historian and writer for North Dakota Studies who taught Women’s History and the American West at the University of North Dakota for 15 years. By Barbara Handy-Marchello Sarah Sand of Grand Forks was one of nearly 300 nurses from North Dakota who volunteered …
This story in our World War I Centennial series is written by Joseph T. Stuart, Ph.D., who is associate professor of history at the University of Mary in Bismarck. By Joseph T. Stuart It desecularized the state and, instead of religion, made politics the highest expression of human values. The mobilization of entire societies during the Great War dramatically increased expectations …
Late in October, my daughter and I traveled to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, where magic happens for us no matter what see or do. We go there whenever we can. This time, we were there to join in with a research project that has taken place there for several years — banding Northern Saw-whet Owls. I assisted with this project …
Today’s story in our World War I Centennial series is written by Tracy Potter, Bismarck, who travels widely with Laura Anhalt and writes in retirement from a career in heritage tourism. He is author of “Sheheke: Mandan Indian Diplomat” and “Steamboats in Dakota Territory.” By Tracy Potter North Dakota’s sixth Rhodes Scholar was David Nelson of Mayville, who went off …
I’m writing this before the election, so I don’t know what happened, which, come to think of it, is pretty much the norm for me, anyway. If the Democrats won big nationally, as an avowed enemy of the people, I may be under the sheets, contentedly smoking a post-election cigarette. Any celebration will be short-lived, however. Even if Nancy Pelosi …
Jacob Bernard-Docker’s second goal of the weekend gave the University of North Dakota men’s hockey team a 3-2 overtime win over the University of Wisconsin on Saturday night in Ralph Engelstad Arena and a sweep of the weekend series. The Fighting Hawks ( 4-2-1) shut out the Badgers 5-0 Friday night. Bernard-Docker also scored in the Friday night win over the …
Today’s story in our World War I Centennial series is written by Albert I. Berger, professor of history at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. By Albert I. Berger Europe in 1914 had been at peace, more or less, for most of a century. That was remarkable. Europe had been an arena of war since the destruction of …
Captain Rhett Gardner scored three goals on a night that honored another University of North Dakota captain to lead the Fighting Hawks men’s hockey team ( 4-2-1) to a 5-0 win over the University of Wisconsin on Friday night in Ralph Engelstad Arena. Before the game, North Dakota honored former team captain Jim Archibald (1981-85) who was recognized during the pregame introductions as …
The University of North Dakota women’s volleyball team closed out its home schedule Saturday, falling 3-0 (25-22, 25-21, 25-23), to Purdue Fort Wayne in Betty Engelstad Sioux Center. The Fighting Hawks (14-16 overall, 6-8 in the Summit League) have just one match remaining the regular season, holding the sixth-and-final spot that qualifies them for the conference’s postseason tournament entering the …
The first election I ever voted in was by absentee ballot in October 1970. I was home on leave from the Army. Sen. Quentin Burdick, a longtime member of North Dakota’s Democratic NPL Party, was running for re-election against Republican Congressman Thomas Kleppe. At the explicit request of President Richard Nixon, Kleppe was risking a safe House seat, hoping for …
You might have seen, or heard reference to, a goofy little ad North Dakota Democrats ran on Facebook the other day about hunters. I think it was only up on Facebook a few hours because the wording was a little unclear, and it was generally misunderstood by those who read it, and the party got a little heat from some …
Today’s story in our World War I Centennial series is written by Darrell Dorgan, a documentary film producer from Bismarck who is an Emmy-nominated and award-winning journalist and chairs the North Dakota World War I Centennial Commission. By Darrell Dorgan When I was a youngster growing up in Regent, N.D., there was an elderly World War I veteran who, weather …