My pal is dying. And I have to hasten his death.

Russell has lymphoma, which, I’m told, is aggressive in a dog. I haven’t had the deed done yet, but will have to within a week or two if I don’t want him to suffer. I don’t want him to… Read full post »

As there always is after a big, especially violent news event, there’s been a great deal of Monday morning quarterbacking about press coverage of last week’s shootings at Fort Hood.

Initial reports had the gunman , Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, shot dead and said he was one of three shooters.&n… Read full post »

‘Tis soon the season for toy recalls.  I can hardly wait to see what dangers await the nation’s tykes.

A couple of years ago, you might recall, it was Thomas the Tank Engine toys.  My kids were little not long after Thomas became popular in this country and hey, you’ve jus/… Read full post »

I’ve been through a lot of life changes in the past three years – including getting divorced and losing a job, two of the biggies – but I’m now contemplating perhaps the biggest change yet.

I’m thinking of going to grad school to get my master’s so I can teach full… Read full post »

A friend of mine puts it pretty succinctly:

“I hate people,” she often says.

Actually, she doesn’t mind people one-on-one.  It’s crowds she doesn’t like.

Of course, that puts her in league with about 90 percent of the world.  People who don’t like crowds/… Read full post »

This is about something that's on one level a strictly local issue here, but also happens all over he country.

One of the things that’s always irritated me about living in a place like Fargo, which is a small town writ if not large, medium-sized, is the prevalence of the old… Read full post »

I have work today -- today's my heavy production day -- but I'm feeling  bit warm 'n' fuzzy, so I thought I'd post this real quickly.

I would like to thank you, especially those who are regular about it, for the constant flow of kind things I get in the comments… Read full post »

You may or not be a good parent, but this much I can tell you:  If you’re not reading to your child, as a parent, you’re screwing up.

Yeah, I’m death on the subject.  But I know, as certainly as I do anything, that one of the reasons my kids always/… Read full post »

After more than two decades as a North Dakotan, there is one thing about this state that still infuriates me:  our inferiority complex.

It’s especially vexing when we act like the hicks that so much of the country believes us to be.  We try so very, very hard to not look/… Read full post »

One of the few things that distresses me about my job at a relatively unknown (if growing) weekly is that I don’t get nearly enough of two kinds of mail: nut mail and hate mail.

Actually, I don’t get enough mail from readers in general.  One of the signs of a well-read/… Read full post »

Was I the only one who was less than enthralled with President Obama’s health care speech last week?

Oh, there were parts of it I liked.  The story about the woman from South Carolina was funny and well-told, and I loved it when he basically called Sarah Palin a liar (although/… Read full post »

My friend Bill is president of his local school board in Wisconsin.  A man of staggering intelligence and social conscience, who has never suffered fools gladly, he called me last week and we talked about the goings on in his district.

Of all the governmental units I’ve covered, state, fed… Read full post »

I haven’t been to any politicians’ town meetings during the recent kerfuffle over health care reform and frankly, I don’t plan to attend any.

In the first place, for me it’s actually a question of professional ethics, believe it or not.  If I want to publicly express an o/… Read full post »

I recently bought one of my favorite movies, “Animal House,” and finally got around to watching it..

It holds up more than 30 years after its release.  Belushi was every bit as funny as he was the first time I saw it, Tim Matheson was still oily but likable, Karen Allen/… Read full post »

A recent letter to the editor in my paper raised an interesting point.

It was in response to my column about the ‘70s (see last post).  In that, I mentioned the current era’s “intellectual fuzziness” and used, as an example, that “a presidential candidate who doesn&… Read full post »

I was having a crappy morning on the drive to work a while back, but one song on the radio made me feel much better.  It was, of all things, a disco song from the late 1970s.

“Boogie Wonderland.”  Real disco, none of that latter-day faux disco stuff.

I hated disco… Read full post »

It’s always an interesting experience to be accepted, however briefly, into another person’s family.

 I recently spent a week’s vacation in Holtville, Calif., a city of a little more than 5,600 people within yelling distance of the Mexican border.  It probably isn’t/… Read full post »

Sometimes reminiscence just sneaks up behind you and chucks you on the back of the head.

I recently was in a local record-store-cum-head-shop (for strictly professional reasons).  The owner's son and I somehow got on the subject of vinyl records.  He pointed out to me that the store no/… Read full post »

Odds are that by the time you read this, there’s a name you’ll never want to hear again:

Michael Jackson.

There, I said it.  Just as a favor, for the rest of this, I’ll refer to him as “the guy.”

Ever since the guy's death, we've inundated with images of the… Read full post »

A Minnesota Public Radio show earlier this week focused on the topic of what makes a small town survive.

It was an interesting discussion, featuring people who are both small-town residents and people who work in rural development. 

One, a “leadership and civic engagement educator”… Read full post »

If we liberals are going to start gloating, we’d better do it fast.

Right now, with a Democrat in the White House, an unpopular war started by an unpopular Republican president and an economy that (mostly) Republican deregulation allowed to slip into a coma, being a liberal is – dare we… Read full post »

A couple of weeks ago, shortly after her 84^th birthday, we moved my mother into an assisted living place in Minneapolis.

I’ve spent some time down there with her and all indications are that it will work out well.  She seems very happy at Catholic Eldercare; the people are lovely, the/… Read full post »

Groucho Marx once delivered the perfect comeback to the cliché that money can’t buy everything.

“That’s right,” he shot back. “It can‘t buy poverty.”

This from a man who lived through the Depression.  But we’re seeing now what we saw then; p/… Read full post »

A recent cover story in Time magazine was all about how the work world is changing.  For anyone on the downhill slope of the career mountain, it was a fairly disturbing, if unsurprising, read.

Most disturbing was the section about disappearing benefits.  Of course, traditional pensions star/… Read full post »

In times of war, those of us who never served in the military can’t help but feel a little … well, guilty isn’t the word, but maybe as though we missed out on both an obligation and a valuable experience.

I find myself looking at anybody who’s been even the most… Read full post »