Forty-mile-per-hour winds drove a pouring rain sideways outside the Billings County Courthouse in Medora, N.D., this past Thursday afternoon, washing the Bad Lands dust from a dozen or more cars and pickups (mostly pickups) parked on the streets outside. Inside, another storm was brewing, this one going on behind closed doors, as a handful of drivers of those vehicles waited …
Joe Mauer didn’t reject his induction to the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame this summer, and if he gets enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame next year, he won’t turn that down, either. I’m not saying he should. It’s just that no one turns down an award. Who are you to deny your admirers if you’re to be …
It is intellectually dishonest to say that the indictment of former President Donald Trump that happened Thursday was unfair without reading the indictment itself. And anyone, upon reading it, who is not deeply disturbed by the allegations to subvert our democracy and actively work to discount a free and fair election can’t say that they are committed to democracy or …
You’re holding in your hand something akin to a miracle in an increasingly authoritarian world, a reflection of incredible foresight on the parts of the Founding Fathers. They understood that democracy couldn’t exist if the voice of the governed was stifled. Free speech wasn’t an afterthought, it wasn’t the Second Amendment, it was the First. It’s enshrined in the U.S. …
His full name was Squirrel The World’s Grumpiest Cat. He was the boss around here for 19½ years with a grating, tuneless, demanding meow. For a long time, we didn’t know exactly how old he was. You see, we kept his records taped to the inside of kitchen cabinet, and when we pondered his age years ago, India mistook the …
“Campaigning with Crook,” by Capt. Charles King, (excerpts), Harper and Brothers, 1890 “At 2 p.m. we bivouac again, and begin to growl at this will-o’-wisp business. The night, for August (1876), is bitter cold. Ice forms on the shallow pools … and the thermometer was zero at daybreak. “The grandest country in the world for Indian and buffalo now … …
An e-mail from an old friend, the filmmaker John Hanson, came out of the blue Wednesday, the day before the newspapers all said we were going to have a northern lights display tonight. The front page headline in the Bismarck Tribune on Wednesday blared “Solar storm to create Northern Lights.” Whoa. Not so fast. The correction at the bottom of …
For the past 23 years, the Minnesota Twins have employed a likable character named T.C. Bear as its mascot. You can find him roaming around Target Field, often leading cheers from atop the Twins’ dugout, or posing for cute pictures with young fans. It’s easy for me to like T.C. After all, we share the same initials and both pull …
It’s no exaggeration to say that one of the most highly acclaimed shows on television right now is the comedy-drama “Somebody Somewhere.” The hit series has just been renewed for a third season on HBO and was recently named one of The Best Shows of 2023 So Far by The Hollywood Reporter. Locally, even some fans of the show don’t …
He was a handsome young Georgia Marine in spit-shined shoes, a white hat and a sharply pressed dress uniform, a member of the United States Marine Corps Drill Team, stationed in Washington, D.C., in the mid-1950s. She was a pretty little country girl from North Dakota, working in the Washington office of a North Dakota congressman. Their paths crossed. She …
Cooking food in the oven isn’t always an option when summertime temperatures drift into the mid-80s to near 90 degrees. Grilling is one option when this is the case, but a quick skillet meal is also a good substitute. The following recipe allowed me to take advantage of about a pound of large shrimp in the freezer along with some …
You could still play catch at 9:30 as July 4 loomed the other night. Even with the crawl of time, anyone who grew up in Minnesota carries the souvenir of having wrung every glimmer from the penetrating summer sun. Nearly 16 hours of daylight made the week leading to the Fourth of July glorious in the Red River Valley, and …
When Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971, he knew three things. First, he was breaking federal law. Second, he was very likely to go to prison. And third, he was willing to spend much of the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary as the personal “cost” of ending the disastrous war in Vietnam. In the …
I “Lean West,” as my friend Clay says. Although I’ve lived all over the world, including Asia, Slope County, North Dakota, is my home ground. West Fork Deep Creek Township. My family always leaned west. I am most content where there is short-grass prairie. In my bones, I know the flora and fauna of the short-grass prairie. Very small remnants …
Been about 10 days since I reported on the status of the Burgum for President campaign. I can report this morning that the e-mail machine is alive and well. I’ve gotten a couple of dozen more e-mails, at least two a day, since Doug announced he was running. I haven’t responded. Yet. But I might. You can as well. Just click on …
The death of Daniel Ellsberg (1931-2023) on June 16 comes at a time when America is engaged in a grim public conversation about the unauthorized disclosure of top secret and classified government documents. In June 1971, Ellsberg engineered the most important leak of secret documents in American history. He died from complications of pancreatic cancer at his home in Kensington, Calif. He was …
They are called by several different names. In Iran, they are known as dolmeh, In Greece, they are called dolmas or dolmades. They are koupepia in Cyprus, tolma in Armenia, yarpaq dolması in Azerbaijan, yebra in Syria and warak enab in Lebanon. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m talking about stuffed grape leaves. That’s all I knew …
Grand Forks photographer Michael Bogert recently visited White Horse Hill National Game Preserve near St. Michael, N.D. White Horse Hill is a 1,674-acre national wildlife refuge that was initially established as a national park on April 27, 1904 under the National Park Service. In 1914, it was further designated by Congress as a big game preserve. And in 1931, it was …
Photographer Jeff Olson and his wife, Joanne Plager Burke Olson, recently mad a day trip to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. The park, 415 square miles (265,807 acres), encompasses a spectacular range of mountain environments, from meadows found in the montane life zone to glistening alpine lakes and up to towering peaks. Sun, rain and snow, moose, deer and …
Spent a lot of years in a classroom or office, sometimes with no window. Have attempted to spend as much of the Summer Solstice outdoors. Here’s to more trips around the sun!
When I was a boy growing up in southwest North Dakota, I thought my Dad, Whitey Fuglie, was the most patriotic man in America. I know that I heard him say “God Bless America!” at least a hundred times. Maybe 200. Maybe several hundred. He really was a patriot. A World War II veteran of the U.S. Navy Air Corps, …
Where do we go from here? First, I cannot as a historian put Mr. Donald Trump’s indictment into context because this has never happened before in our 247-year history. That’s the context. It’s unprecedented. The classified documents case will play itself out in the federal court system. On a grave occasion like this, I don’t want to write about politics per …
Many years ago (well, actually seven years ago this past Sunday), on the eve of the 2016 North Dakota primary election), I wrote in this space, “On Tuesday, I’m going to vote in the Republican primary election for Doug Burgum for Governor of North Dakota.” As I’ve written here many times, I’m a Democrat, and I don’t take crossing over …
It’s amazing to watch more than a dozen hopeful men and women who have, as Theodore Roosevelt put it in 1912, thrown their hats into the ring to run for the Republican nomination for president in 2024. Every one of them is going to hire a big staff, lease an airplane, carom around the country like an errant pinball, burn …
This is another in an occasional series of articles by Clay Jenkinson on some of the less well-known presidents of the United States. The temporary centrality in our public conversations of America’s wild and burgeoning national debt seems like a good time to look back on the one-term presidency of Herbert Hoover (1874-1964). Hoover’s four years in the White House (1929-1933) are the least …
Last week, President Joe Biden visited Hiroshima. He was the second sitting president of the United States to make the pilgrimage to the site of the most destructive moment in human history. On Aug. 6, 1945, at 8:14 a.m. local time, the United States dropped a uranium 235 gun-mechanism atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a plutonium …
Lark Buntings and Meadowlark everywhere. Scarcely a vehicle. Power River. Power River bridge
This is another in an occasional series of articles by Clay Jenkinson on some of the less well-known presidents of the United States. Somehow, I feel sorriest for John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) of all the one-term presidents. He was the sixth president of the United States, son of the second, John Adams the revolutionary. It seems to me that JQ was …
Public respect for the U.S. Supreme Court has plummeted. A 2022 Pew Research poll indicates that only 39 percent of Republicans have a strongly favorable opinion of the court, and only 13 percent of Democrats. Independents give the court a 25 percent approval rating. In 1987, 80 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of Democrats had a high regard for the …
These signs of spring in Bemidji State Park caught the eye of Grand Forks photographer Michael Bogert this past week.
The Minnesota fishing opener is Saturday, and you can be sure there will be a lot of anglers bringing home some nice walleye fillets. Whether it’s pan-fried, deep-fried, poached or baked, most anglers will agree that walleye is one of the tastiest freshwater game fish. And just about everyone who fishes has a go-to recipe or two for walleye using …
Just at the end of April, Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China offered to help negotiate a peaceful end to the war Russia has been waging against Ukraine. This news put me into a bittersweet mood. I remembered that moment — in 1905 — when American President Theodore Roosevelt offered to mediate the Russo-Japanese War. The Russian Empire and the Empire …
About a month ago, I agreed to walk 100 miles in the month of April to raise awareness of cancer and the deadly toll it is taking on us and to raise money for the American Cancer Society. My goal: $250, to be donated by me and my friends. I had the help of a fine list of friends: Valerie …
This is another in an occasional series of articles by Clay Jenkinson on some of the less well-known presidents of the United States. Poor James Monroe (1758-1831). His greatest challenge was living in the shadow of his two illustrious predecessors, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Most people know that Jefferson and his frenemy, John Adams, died on the same day, the …
I love gadgetry. I have remotes to run my remote controls. It’s not perfect, though. I discovered that my Apple TV remote volume control triggers my new Chinese-made CD player. And everyone’s worried about TikTok. Yes, they still make CD players. I mean, what was I going to do with all those CDs I bought to replace all those vinyl …
This past Sunday, photographer Dave Bruner and his wife, Sheila, ventured out on a more than a 150-mile journey that began at 9:30 p.m. and ended at 2:30 a.m. Monday in search of the aurora borealis or Northern Lights, a phenomena that is the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth’s atmosphere with charged particles released from the …
J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance has been restored by the U.S. government, just 55 years after his death and 68 years after his clearance was stripped from him during the most hysterical period of the Cold War. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said, “More evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was …
As you’ve driven down Interstate 94 to Medora, N.D., for the past dozen or so years, you’ve seen a couple of yellow signs just inside the park boundary fence a few miles east of Medora that say, “Land for Sale.” Until I found out the story behind them, they gave me some pause. Hmmm. The park is selling off part …
So here we go, another American detained in Putin’s Russia. Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal has been incarcerated in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison. He is accused of spying. Gershkovich is not so high profile as Brittney Griner of the WNBA, but the charges against him are much more serious. It is likely that he will languish in prison for a considerable …
Snow. Snow since October or November. Blizzards. Drifts. Shoveling. Blowing. Ice dams. Water in my house. Snow melting now. Snow melting in Slope County. Snow melting in Stark County. Snow melting in Billings County. Snow melting in Burleigh County and Morton County. Snow melting on my husband’s garlic and strawberry and raspberry beds. Ice on our driveway. Rivulets. Walkers in …
