A study came out last year that showed college students’ often astonishing ignorance of American history.

Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s second national study asked more than 7,000 college seniors to answer a 60-question, multiple-choice quiz covering U.S. history, government, place… Read full post »

Like most Internet fads, it's been pretty well forgotten, but one of the hottest things online earlier this year was actor Christian Bale’s profanity-laced tirade at a crew member who stepped into a shot during filming of “Terminator: Salvation.”

It was pretty funny and certain… Read full post »

I’ve always prided myself on being a good father, but sometimes I just don’t know if I am.  Like any parent, sometimes I realize that I either haven’t done something for my kids that I should, or that I did something I shouldn’t have.

My younger son recently turned 21.&nb… Read full post »

As a child of the 1970s, I’ve always found a sort of sick amusement in the concept of drug testing your own kids.

Well, now the concept has come to Fargo.  Drug-testing kits were recently distributed in town by a local officials in conjunction with a group called notMYkid, which, according/… Read full post »

I have lived in Fargo longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere else.  I raised a family here, built a career here, saw that career evaporate and then began to reconstitute it.  I know a lot of people here and a lot of people know me.  I know the local jokes and/… Read full post »

One of the most interesting things about these hard times is that they have highlighted a very real disconnect between the upper class’ values and everybody else’s reality.

It’s astonishing -- there’s no other word for it – that some people making mid-six figure incomes… Read full post »

More opportunity to panic.

The National Weather Service has now said there is a 75 percent chance that a second crest on the Red River could reach 41 feet between April 15-22, which would exceed the 40.82-foot crest last Saturday.

The good news is that dikes, both earthen and sandbag, already… Read full post »

We are, by all appearances, on the downside of the flood here.

The latest reading on the Red River, 45 minutes ago as this is being written, w.as 36.85 feet, down four feet or so from the actual crest .  It's predicted to keep heading down before rising some again due to 10… Read full post »

It’s easy for us media types to think we are allowed to do things the public isn’t.  We’re often allowed into places the public isn’t, and often under different conditions.  We’re spoiled.

And every time a reporter or photographer – usually, it’s th… Read full post »

Those 0f you who see this know where I live and may be wondering how I'm surviving the flood of '09.  The answer is: I'm fine.

Here's my personal situation.  I had to evacuate my apartment, but not because of water.  I live behind a permanent dike.  I'm not sure of… Read full post »

In times like these, when a job is a precious thing, one can’t help but think about jobs present and past.

One of the things that’s always made me a lucky, lucky man is that I love my work.  Even in the worst work situations, the job itself always was great. … Read full post »

Watching Jon Stewart interview Jim Cramer on “The Daily Show” certainly was satisfying, but a bit squirm-inducing in a sense.

Cramer, host of the CNBC show “Mad Money,” had been tied to the whipping post most of the week after Stewart, the nation’s highest-profile satiri… Read full post »

We Americans just love our myths.

That’s true even when we’re ill-served by them.  And it’s true whether they harm us or the subject of the myths themselves.

The real problem is that much of our mythmaking is political.  As much as we pride ourselves on our exaltation of t/… Read full post »

I turned 50 recently and just got the best “gag” gift I’ve ever gotten.  My sister Jenine found my childhood teddy bear.

It’s not the actual bear, of course; he lost his stuffing long ago.  But she apparently found the exact bear, from the exact year, on eBay for $40/… Read full post »