By John Strand
Staff Writer
With the oil sector now bigger than Ag here in North Dakota, we’ve just witnessed an epic shift in defining who we North Dakotans are. The one caveat about oil, however, is that it’s a one-time harvest.

Yet this is not ND’s first crossroads and neither will it be its last. A relatively young state, North Dakota at 125 years of age has more than ample time to self-define going forward. Some day, this moment of record oil production will be looked back at in an historical reference as well.

Perhaps most daunting about the surge in oil production in the Bakken is the reality that it’s still early in the boom. While we’ve just surpassed 1 million barrels of oil a day, industry leaders say they expect 2 million barrels a day production to be the eventual result.

Meantime, ND still has a sparse population of about 750,000, all spread over 70,704 square miles of land, translating into just over 10 people per square mile. Also, while we are at it, don’t ever underestimate the reality that a good part of why outsiders can have such an influence over ND is that same fact that there are so few of us and we are spread thin over quite a large geographical map.

That said, the Bakken’s boom is forever changing North Dakota. When viewed in the context of peers, our state could well be the luckiest state in the Union. Others across the land are facing debt loads and fragile economies very different from what we are experiencing here. To the contrary, ND’s percentage growth in our economy and population now top the charts regularly in the US, right there with ND having the lowest unemployment rate in the country..

Throughout history, we’ve seen epic change before. And we’ve always survived it, yet each time it entails a complete paradigm shift in the way we live our lives here in North Dakota. Perhaps the last sea change of this magnitude was when our state shifted from a predominantly rural to a predominantly urban state. Decades later, the implications of that continue to surface as we’ve seen a power shift from rural parts to our cities.

Pre-statehood, of course, these lands were inhabited by Native Americans. It undeniably was an epic shift when the white people took lands from the indigenous peoples and then opened the western territory up for development, leading the way of course with the railroads.

One thing that has not changed much through these 125 or so years is the reality that sparsely populated rural hinterland is an easy target for outside influence peddlers. The groundswell of support of the Non-Parisian League’s explosive growth and success in the early 1900s was fueled by local residents not wanting to be influenced, managed and directed by mega out-of-state interests, especially in agriculture, energy and transportation.

Yes, we have politicians who claim credit for the current economic upturn. Yet we all know better. Those same politicians however have huge influence over how we manage and handle the current boom in the Oil Patch.

This is an election year. The ballot slots are cast. Between now and November we’ll all get opportunities to get to know the various candidates for office and to gauge which will be the best stewards of North Dakota’s resources going forward.  Which candidates will mirror the people or which ones will serve as shills for out of state interests wanting to simply move in on what we’ve got?

There is no turning the hands of time back, and we’d be foolish perhaps to not embrace this oil boom that’s transforming our landscape politically, demographically, geographically, and economically. That does not mean, however, that we don’t place the best voices for our interests at decision-making tables.

That’s where the people power lies: a sleeping giant which will rear its head in the coming months, to say the least. November has the potential of delivering another epic moment while facing this current crossroads.  The power truly lies with the people.

We are also fascinated by Neanderthals. So much so, we have teams of scientists at Neanderthal campgrounds in Spain studying their teeth and the plants and animals they have consumed. They have also analyzed with chemicals the oldest poop ever found from Neanderthals. It contained cholesterol from meats and other compounds from plants, proving they had a mixed diet.
Bring Your Night-Vision Binoculars And Thermal Devices For The Search
Such research has aroused the interest of people around the world who say they have seen the Abominable Snowman, Sasquatch, Yeti and creatures known as Bigfoot. Hundreds of hours of TV have images of huge, hairy, knuckle-dragging potential NFL defensive tackles with no visible genitals clomping through forests. They might be Neanderthals thought to have died off 30,000 years ago!

Research reported in the Proceedings of The Royal Society, the most prestigious science organization in the world, indicates there is still no clear evidence that Bigfoot exists. Scientists have tested dozens of examples of Yeti fur supposedly left on trees and brush. So far, the hair and fur examined comes from cattle, dogs, sheep, raccoons, porcupines, human beings, brown bears and many other animals – and a few plants. There may be a match between brown bear fur and fur of a polar bear that went extinct over about 40,000 years ago. So it is still possible that the Abominable Snowman may be a close relative of the bear and is tromping around the Himalayas. Perhaps the Minnesota Bigfoot Research Team will spot Sasquatch in Paul Bunyan State Park where they are now headquartered.
While Scientists Work To Examine Life On Earth, The Supreme Court Diddles With Life In Heaven
Please do not accuse the five male Roman Catholic Supreme Court justices with using scientific facts as they turn free speech into expensive gold, corporations into artificial persons and 32,000 religious denominations in the U.S. into government entities. With the recent Hobby Lobby decision, the five heroes of the American Taliban don’t seem to recognize facts, particularly that women like sex.
I’ll let The Guardian’s Jessica Valenti speak for me on that subject: “Women like sex. Stop making ‘health’ excuses for why we use birth control. When 99 percent of the female population uses contraception, it’s sad that we can’t just come out and say that we use it for sex. And that we like sex — a lot. To conservatives, contraception is not about health — it’s about sex, their fear of sex, and a panic over women having sex that doesn’t lead to babies. Women like to have sex. Some women who like to have sex don’t want to get pregnant, so they use birth control. Conservatives won’t admit their deep-seated fear of non-productive sex … But if this is our mid-summer debate, well, let’s at least try to find a reason for the stupidity (of the conservatives), shall we?”

Well said, Jessica. She adds that 98 percent of the women who use contraceptives are sick and tired of being called sluts and whores by Republicans, their Court appointees, and the Rush Limbaughs, the Sean Hannitys and the Faux News crowd.
The Religious World Of Two Navels, Speaking In Tongues, Faith Healing And Gold
So here comes the bizarre ideas of the Court Taliban that free speech equals money, that corporations are really persons, and that we are a Christian nation. David and Barbara Green, principal owners of Hobby Lobby, are members of the Pentacostal Church of God of Prophecy, a church about 100 years old based in Cleveland, Tenn. It claims to have congregations in over 130 countries – but has a membership of only about 85,000 in the U.S. To add some perspective to the “power” of this church, even the state of Arizona has more adherents to the Hindu religion!

The Greens and their church believe that every word in the Bible is inspired by God, without error, and is infallible – just like the Roman Catholic pope is – sometimes. So the Church of God of Prophecy endorses slavery, the stoning to death of fornicators, gays and adulterers and believes the “fact” that God killed 42 children because they made fun of Elisha’s bald head. I could go on ...

The Greens say they are “born again” Christians, so they are cleansed of all sins. One might think God would leave a sign of this momentous blessing. Perhaps another navel someplace … I have always had a how-many-angels-can-dance-on-a-head-of-a-pin type of question: Did Adam and Eve have navels?

By the way, the Tennessee Snake Handlers are another Pentecostal group with similar beliefs such as speaking with tongues and belief in a “literal” Bible. Snake handling is in Mark:16: “And these signs will accompany those who believe in my name they will … pick up snakes with their hands … and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all.” We have lost a few snake handler while they are speaking in tongues.
The Greens: “God Owns The Company”
The Greens have made a personal fortune of $5.1 billion so far, operating 588 stores with over 28,000 employees at last count. Hobby Lobby employs three chaplains to advise thousands of employees. Green says: “We don’t own this company. God owns everything.” Although they say God owns “everything,” God will only get half when they die, according to their wills. Evidently the Green family gets to keep the other half. One would think people who think the Bible is inspired and infallible because of God’s words would have remembered some of the 79 major verses about material wealth:

Matthew 6:24–“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Proverbs 11:28–“Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.”

Hebrews 13:5–“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have.”

Mark 10:25–“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

Maybe the Greens have a very tiny camel – or God has made a humongous needle especially for the Green’s camels so He can get His hands on their dough.
The Bizarre Idea That Corporations Are People
In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet is conflicted about what to do to avenge his father’s murder by Uncle Claudius, who then married his mother. Quite a moral problem, particularly when you go to Hell for murder. So he is confused and torn: “I am but mad north-northwest. When the wind is southernly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.” In the Hobby Lobby case, the American Taliban on the Supreme Court seems to be suffering a constant north-northwest wind. The Court’s 5-4 decision is one of the greatest unemployment insurance policies for lawyers and judges ever manufactured. The Hobby Lobby case is all about abortions and contraceptives for humans and whether corporations are artificial persons with religious freedom. Talk about arousing the passions of culture warriors!

The basic question is: Can living, breathing, loving, hating, red-faced, hollering, kicking “natural” persons pass on these characteristics to corporations representing “artificial” persons that exist only for the welfare and wealth of stockholders? Of course, the answer is “NO!” But lawyers, judges, and the Roman Catholic members of the Supreme Court have screwed around with the meaning of words and north-northwest winds in an attempt to satisfy their ideology. They have turned religious and sexual freedom into a cesspool by speaking in obscure lawyerly tongues. This is bizarre Inquisition stuff.

Corporations are legally formed to cover and protect the asses and assets of natural persons who have invested in a business venture. End of story. Legally, its only purpose is to protect the interests of shareholders. The Greens want to use immense profits to spread their version of religious freedom by selling plastic crap made by Chinese prisoners and slave laborers.  Chinese families are forced to have abortions because they are limited to one child. The Greens buy Chinese to make American dollars while supporting abortions. Why should two Greens have the right to attempt to force their version of artificial corporate religious freedom on seven billion other natural people on the planet? The Green’s health insurance currently pays for vasectomies and Viagra for tired old men but does not pay for many contraceptives for women.
The Bible reveals King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. I wonder if any of his 1,000 women liked sex. What a Viagra co-pay! Kings 1 tells the story of Solomon, the son of David and Bathsheba, another sexy story. The Bible says Solomon owned 12,000 horses with horsemen and 1,400 chariots. A man of wisdom and wealth by 957 B.C., he was said to have composed 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs. A real busy Type A guy. Solomon may have been the first One Percenter.
The Corporation In The Confessional: “Bless The Corporation, Father, For It Has Sinned…”
In the Hobby Lobby case the five Supreme Court Taliban have decided that (gasp) corporations have greater responsibilities than just making money for their shareholders. What could that be? Teaching the world that the Church of God The Prophecy has the religious message the entire world needs? Only seven billion natural persons to go. That corporations should pay their fair share of taxes? That corporations should not pollute the water and air? That closely held corporations have the same qualities as natural persons so they can proselytize their employees, families and the entire world? What about the Church of Satan, The Tabernacle of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth? Shall we give them free rein? Some of the 32,000 denominations can’t even spell!

The Supreme Court has now made it possible to see the board of directors of a Catholic corporation crowd a confessional to seek forgiveness for its sins: “Bless our corporation, Father, for the corporation has sinned. It has sinned against natural persons by producing faulty products, by firing retiring persons, by forcing persons to work off clock, by cheating persons of overtime, by providing unsafe working environments, and ...” The sins could go on and on … If the corporation gets 100 Hail Mary’s for penance, do all the employees get together with the CEO and the board of directors and say penance on company time?

Hobby Lobby has opened the culture war floodgates of bigotry, hypocrisy and further discrimination of gays and women. Over 150 corporations have already threatened to sue the administration over legislation banning laws against sexual and gay discrimination. That’s extra work for thousands of lawyers and hundreds of judges.

Here’s a scientific fact for the Court. A Washington University study determined that if contraceptives were made available free to all, abortion rates would drop 78 percent.

PULL QUOTE:
With the recent Hobby Lobby decision, the five heroes of the American Taliban don’t seem to recognize facts, particularly that women like sex.

After two murders in the mid ‘90s, the state established six-foot buffer zones in an attempt to quell violence. Police called to control the violence described the violent scenes on the property surrounding clinics: “The six-foot buffer zone was impossible to enforce. Everybody is in everybody’s face, no matter what. It’s almost like a goalie’s crease out there.” Hockey fans who watch slashing, tough body checks and “enforcer” fights would have loved to watch bloody clinic protests. Police recommended that the 35-foot buffer “was by far the most effective way of keeping the peace (New York Times Editorial Board).” The Supreme Court, representing the American Taliban in this case, don’t agree with the Massachusetts police because, after all, what do they know?
Free Speech: Should A Woman Getting A Legal Medical Procedure Be Forced To Listen To a Religious Nutcase Protesting This Basic Right?
Roberts and the other Catholic conservatives on the Court describe the Pro-Life clinic protests as sedate debates controlled by Roberts’s Rules of Order. John Roberts wrote: “Petitioners wish to converse (!) with their fellow citizens about an important subject on the public streets and sidewalks – sites that have hosted discussions about the issues of the day throughout history.” Have Supreme Court justices ever observed a Pro-Life discussion at an abortion site?

Some Fargoans will remember the violent protests at the old Fargo abortion clinic. Yelling, screaming, spitting, cursing, hating protesters aided by chains and pipes locked together at clinic entrances tried to block driveways and entrances. City of Fargo taxpayers spent thousands on the policing of the clinic area. Remember the arson attempts that threatened lives in the neighborhood? Roberts calling protesters screaming “a wish to converse? (!!)”  The four liberals on the court seemed to go along with Roberts’s abominable bullcrap. What the hell were they thinking—if at all? Republican legislatures have been attempting to pass “Stoopid Wimmin” laws about abortion for 40 years.

Roe v. Wade determined that reproductive freedom for women is a basic right. Abortion, with some limits, is legal. Women have a right to an abortion and birth control. Lisa Tuttle in her book Encyclopedia of Feminism adds: “To be realized, reproductive freedom must include not only her right to make those choices freely (abortion and birth control), without pressure from individual men, doctors, governmental or religious authorities.”
Isn’t This Sweet 77 Year-Old Woman Protester Wearing A Catholic Cross?
One of the challengers quoted by Justice Antonin Scalia is 77-year-old Eleanor McCullen, who often marched on yellow lines of Massachusetts clinics. She said the distance was too great for civil discussion. She said: “Today’s ruling means that I can offer loving help to a woman who wants it, and neither of us will go to jail for the discussion. I am delighted and thankful to God that the court has protected my right to engage in kind, hopeful discussion with women who feel they have nowhere else to turn.”

I wonder if she heard Pope Francis, who is also 77, stumble around trying to justify how the Vatican treated women. He said that women were “the most beautiful thing God has made, that theology cannot be done without this feminine touch. The issue of women needs to be gone into in more depth, otherwise you can’t understand the church itself. Priests often end up under the sway of their housekeepers.”

Eleanor wears a big cross on the picket lines. I wonder if she thinks about the 98 percent of Catholic women who use birth control during their lifetimes. Recent headlines reported that polls of Catholics around the world proved the Vatican and American bishops are completely “out of touch.” No kidding! Where does she get the idea she must talk to these “stoopid wimmin?” Do they get up one morning and say, “Geez, I think I’ll get an abortion today?”

Justice Samuel Alito, who recently wrote the majority opinion in the Hobby Lobby contraception case, has demonstrated over the years his committed, undying love for corporations and his consummate hatred for persons. He even has voted that corporations are really people—so now you can love both. Where is Alito hiding a pregnant corporation? Where is the corporation jailed for domestic abuse? Does a corporation go through menopause complete with Premarin? Are corporations transgender? What is (its) blood type? Maybe they are also on Planet Corporateland where the Court justices retreat each night.
What Those Sweet Old Ladies And Their Compatriots Do To Abortion Clinics
Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy don’t seem to have a clue about what happens on clinic protest lines. Starting with the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, murders and violent protests are still taking place.  Just between the years 1989-2004 (only 15 of the 41 years of legal abortion) those nice old ladies and compatriots having quiet conversations on the protest lines have committed the following violent acts: 24 murders and attempted murders; 174 bombings, attempted bombings and arson; 3,309 acts of invasion, assault and battery, vandalism, trespassing, death threats, burglary and stalking; 11,448 cases of hate mail, harassing phone calls and bomb threats; 21,808 arrests made at blockades, 516 blockades and 99,001 picketing incidents handled by police.

In just the years of 1998-2000, 80 letters were sent to clinics in 16 states threatening Anthrax contamination. Anthrax is a potentially fatal bacteria if spores are inhaled. Most letters turned out to be hoaxes. In 2001 alone there were 554 Anthrax threats. Some of the letters contained Anthrax spores. As an example, on 9/11, the day of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, 150 letters containing Anthrax were mailed from five states to abortion clinics in 13 states. Mailed by an organization called The Army of God, the letters contained the deadly bacteria and death threats. From sweet old ladies? By 1996 clinics had suffered over $13 million in damage from arson and bombing attacks.

California, the largest state, has had more clinics torched and bombed than any other state with 30 such “incidents.” Also 30 percent of the California clinics reported that their personnel were “stalked, harassed, threatened, and otherwise targeted at their homes or in other places away from clinics and medical offices” between 1995-2000. Statistics covering all of the 41 years evidently have not been kept. Remember the totals in the first paragraph of this section cover only 15 years and come from The National Abortion Federation.
Should Medical Patients With Feet In The Stirrups Hear Protesters Shouting “MURDERER” Or YOU’RE GOING TO BE THE MOTHER OF A DEAD BABY?”
The Supreme Court keeps emphasizing “free speech” in these cases. Hogwash! Do you see protesters yelling “murderer” at a man going into a clinic to have a vasectomy? Shouldn’t we outlaw all kinds of male birth controls, including amputations? Besides, there is no such thing as free speech in this country. The Republican Supreme Court keeps increasing the value of speech. We used to have “One Man-One Vote.” Then the Supreme Court put a value on speech years ago and it became “One Dollar-One Vote.” With the Citizens United and the McCutcheon decisions we are now at thousands of dollars per adjective for one vote. The Koch boys spent $400 million to buy “free” speech in 2012. Sheldon Adelson put $90 million of his casino money on a politically dead gelding running for president called Newt Gingrich.

Jessica Valenti of The Guardian has been reporting on abortion protesters for years. She has never seen “personal, caring, consensual conversations near the yellow lines.” She writes: “Imagine trying to walk into a building, trying to get medical treatment (it may be for a paps smear, a cancer exam, a mammography, or an annual physical, not an abortion) – and someone screams at you. Someone is two inches from your face – two feet from the front door – and that someone is videotaping you, calling you a whore and murderer. There’s ketchup poured on the snowbanks around you, made to look like spurted blood … People block your way, yelling that you’re going to be “mother to a dead baby.” … These kinds of protesters … are not grandmas praying or kindly “counselors” who just want to talk reasonably to women. These people wait outside clinics to shame and harass you … Picketers yell racist and sexist remarks.”
Ninety Percent Of Abortion Patients Fear For Their Personal Safety
Clinic escorts, often forced to wear bulletproof vests, have seen women who really wanted babies coming to abortion clinics from doctors who have diagnosed their health is in danger from the pregnancy. They receive the same treatment as those seeking abortions from unwanted, unaffordable pregnancies. Over 90 percent of abortion clinic patients, according to research done by Valenti, have expressed concern about their personal safety. What kind of a country, what kind of court, allows fear to rule over a legal activity?

Valenti sums up what this decision means for women: “For the women seeking abortions in the days and weeks to come – and for the providers, workers, and volunteers, who put their lives on the line everyday to ensure women have access to safe medical care — this ruling will impact them immediately. It will make women less safe, doctors and clinic workers more fearful, and violent harassers emboldened.”
Supreme Court Insists On Suitable Order And Decorum Around Their Judicial Clinic
Supreme Court justices thought the 35-foot buffer zone in Massachusetts was way too large to permit a civil, consensual exchange of views. The buffer zone around their judicial clinic measures 252 feet from the front door. In June of 2013 the Court made it unlawful for protesters to demonstrate on Supreme Court grounds. How do you communicate over 250 feet? By United Parcel Service? By Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail? By electronic megaphone? Pony Express? Smoke signals? Now here is the Courts “silencer” law: “The term ‘demonstration’ includes demonstrations, picketing, speechmaking, marching, holding vigils or religious services, and all other like forms of conduct that involve the communication or expression of views or grievances, engaged by one or more persons, the conduct of which is reasonably likely to draw a crowd of onlookers.” These rules would even eliminate a small drone flying a banner with a huge index finger pointed at the Court.

Dr. Shannon Connolly of Los Angeles once worked as a family doctor in the clinic involved in the buffer zone law. She expressed these views in a letter to USA Today: “Before the enactment of the state’s current law (just nullified), protesters were so aggressive that police barricades were needed in front of the clinic, with K-9s and squad cars. Some protesters would position themselves at the clinic entryway, posing as staff and telling patients that the clinic had been closed. Others screamed obscenities and photographed patients, many of whom were seeking basic preventive care such as pap smears or HIV testing.” Dr. Connolly often feared for her own safety.

Last year there were about six million pregnancies in the U.S., three million of them unintended. Between 10 and 20 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriages. Many women don’t even realize they have miscarried. The American Taliban, with delegates from many of the 32,000 “religious” denominations, has managed to turn procreation, sex and something beautiful into something bad, ugly and frightening for women—in a very confused culture.

PULL QUOTE:
Do you see protesters yelling “murderer” at a man going into a clinic to have a vasectomy? Shouldn’t we outlaw all kinds of male birth controls, including amputations?

We are still seeing the impacts of the presidency of George W. Bush. Elections have consequences and nowhere is that more evident than in the Supreme Court’s 5 to 4 Hobby Lobby decision that corporations don’t have to be forced to pay for their employees’ birth control. People who say there is no difference between the two major political parties and who they nominate for President need to understand the impact of appointing Supreme Court justices and the vast differences of judicial philosophies between conservatives and liberals. A conservative justice can decide for instance that the rights of Christian corporations are more important than the rights of individual American women.

Conservatives, of course, want the government out of everything except people’s bedrooms and women’s vaginas. Nevermind whether a woman’s right to birth control should between her and her doctor, regardless of who pays for it. The ripple of the aftermath is still being felt with what’s happening in Iraq and with almost every decision Chief Justice John Roberts presides over. The next time someone tells you it makes no difference who you vote for President, remember these decisions and how you feel about them.

Gas prices won’t stop, can’t stop rising

With average gas prices approaching a record length of time above $3 a gallon while North Dakota hits a milestone of producing one million barrels of oil per day, one starts to wonder when consumers will see some benefit at the pump. With the U.S. now becoming the world’s largest oil producer, thanks in no small part to the North Dakota oil boom, where is all this oil going and how has it not reduced gas prices?
Some in the industry say without the ND oil boom, gas prices would be much higher. But that doesn’t pass the smell test with so much manipulation going on in the oil markets. At some point you start to ask what’s it all for and what we are getting back for all this production and if it all will just continue to mean higher and higher prices despite record profits being made for oil companies and the U.S. producing more oil than ever before. Of course, high gas prices isn’t a new issue, and nothing ever seems to happen to change it. But what is different is our production levels and that is something the industry always pointed to as a cause of some of the high prices. Now that some barriers of getting more oil to the market appear to have been lifted, how about sharing some of that relief with some of your best customers?

ND king of beer drinkers

For the second year in a row, North Dakota has topped a list of states for the most beer consumption in the United States. While some may think this is nothing to be proud of, we think it is a badge of honor.

In North Dakota, we work hard and play hard. Enduring lengthy frigid winters is no easy task. So we choose to reward ourselves with a tasty, frothy beverage or two at the end of the day. With the craft beer explosion opening new bars and restaurants all over Fargo and across the state, it’s easy to see how this might continue. But while others may be more proud of the state leading others in economic indicators like unemployment rate and building permits, perhaps this ranking is the greatest sign that we are prospering more than others and needing to relax more than others after all that hard work.

This story circulated many years ago. One evening, shortly before the spring semester’s final exams, the brothers of an academic fraternity decided to try and fool the administration of a Midwestern state university. The members of the frat created a fictitious student, Isaac Claymore Butz. They first created a transcript for Isaac from a fictitious, rural Texas high school. With it they submitted an application for his admission as a freshman. During the summer a frat brother became Isaac temporarily and sat for his entrance exams. Isaac Claymore Butz did well on the exams and the university admitted him. The hoax had been successful and so shortly before the beginning of fall semester the men celebrated with a party.  Late in the evening, or more likely early in the morning, one brother suggested they continue the deception. The vote was unanimous so they enrolled Isaac Butz with a full load of courses for the fall semester. Tuition wasn’t much back then and the fraternity treasury easily covered it. 

To carry out the plan they drew up a schedule of Isaac’s classes on a large piece of cardboard and posted it near the front door. Next to each class a fraternity brother signed up to become Isaac. The fraternity’s math whiz took Isaac’s math class, the fraternity poet his English class, the keeper of the basement beer brewing enterprise his chemistry class; you get the idea. Five senior brothers took one class each as Isaac Butz in addition to their own full load. At the end of the fall semester I.C. Butts earned three A’s and two B’s. The deception had not been found out, so the fraternity unanimously voted Isaac a long-term project and registered him for five more classes. Four years later Isaac Claymore Butz received a degree in university studies. A junior student donned cap and gown, went through graduation as I.C. Butz, and accepted the diploma. 

Today a fraternity member and, indeed, any student can practice a similar deception without fear of reprisal. Here’s how. Faced with declining budgets and pressure from elected officials, universities have discovered online courses. They don’t require additional investments to set up, they can be taught by relatively inexpensive adjuncts and part-time faculty, and they produce student tuitions, often higher than on-campus tuitions, without many of the expenses associated with a physical plant. But they are ripe for abuse. You’re good at biology and I’m good at history; you take my on-line biology class and I will guarantee you an A in your online American History because I have taken the course already. Can students actually take online classes for each other and get away with it? Not only can it happen but the teachers have no way to stop it. 

Online courses are just one more in a long line of educational fads tried, rejected, and replaced with the next. In the 1920s radio was the new technology. Several universities bought radio stations and broadcast educational programs. But collecting tuition proved a problem and radio classes disappeared. If you can’t make money at it, why do it? In the 1940s motion pictures were used to train military personnel. But the cost of producing films and the lack of interactivity rendered them useless for university students. In 1980 I was asked to teach a class on-line: a telephone line. I was given one classroom of students at the university and another in a community college 60 miles away. A speaker-equipped telephone sat on a desk connecting my class with a speaker phone at the more distant one.  Unfortunately, the telephones could not pick up the voices of anyone more than a few feet away and students in the remote locations tended to wander in and out of the room: mostly out. In sum, neither room’s students found the method acceptable. It was dropped. Then in the mid 1980s the university asked me to prepare mail-order courses that contained texts, lecture notes, and sets of chapter exercises for the students to complete and mail to me for grading. I did, but only a few students signed up for them, fewer still completed them, and they were dropped. In the 1990s the university built interactive television (IT) rooms. It installed TV sets at the front of these classrooms and connected them to TV’s in remote classrooms. Faculty members attempted to teach classes in both an IT room and in remote locations at the same time using these TV monitors for students’ interactions.  Students found the setup objectionable and many teachers pronounced it unworkable.   

In spite of the failure of past fads, the university eagerly embraced the next one: online courses and degrees. Academies have furiously digitized university courses and offered them online. However, online courses suffer from two flaws. 

First, it seems we live in a flat world where everything that can be digitized will be outsourced offshore to low cost firms. Thomas Friedman cites an example; Indian universities graduate thousands of accountants each year. They are U.S. tax law literate, highly motivated, and cheap. And so an increasing number of U.S. accountants are or will be outsourcing their tax work to Indian accounting firms. Will a university suffering from budgetary issues ever outsource its online courses and degrees? I think the answer is yes.  Will offshore universities offer their own online courses and degrees? The answer again is yes.  Will students enroll in these online courses and degree programs? Students have and will find offshore universities’ online courses and degrees just as useful as the homegrown varieties because for many, a degree is a degree.

Second, online teachers have few ways of ensuring that the individual who signed up for an online class is the individual who completes the work. The person busily typing away at his/her computer might be the same person who registered for the class. Or it could be a spouse, friend, fraternity brother, sorority sister, or someone paid to complete the coursework. For example, all students at my campus must complete an online alcohol awareness course. But, I’m told, students throw parties and play drinking games while a designated person, not necessarily a currently enrolled student, sits at a computer and finishes the course for each partygoer. 

The newest fad is MOOC: Massive Open Online Course. These depend upon recorded lectures on popular topics by well-known academics at large universities. Some have enrolled thousands of students who access the lectures on their computers. However, only a small percentage of students complete these free courses. And the evaluation of student learning is problematic. Moreover, not everyone is an auditory learner and can benefit from lectures. 

What fad is next? Already skirting the edges of academe is virtual reality education.  Students will don headgear, gloves, a body suit and shoes, all connected to computers.  Virtual teachers will monitor students in a virtual setting. English students can compose themes with virtual teachers at their elbows offering on-going critiques. Zoology students can dissect virtual fetal pigs rather than expensive real ones, again with virtual teachers looking on. After the initial investment in technology the dollar savings will be substantial for fewer living, breathing teachers will be needed and fewer campuses necessary. VR education seems not to suffer from the issues of earlier fads, but it may well possess problems yet unrecognized.     

I am not against technology. However, I think the strength of a brick-and-mortar university lies not with fads, but with face-to-face classes taught by full time, tenured/tenure track faculty. Immediate student-teacher interaction remains at the heart of the teaching-learning process. Universities must allow its faculty members to teach their students in real classrooms on real campuses without pressures to adopt the newest fad. No doubt, with today’s still depressed economy and declining enrollments public universities need to cut costs and acquire additional funds. But the motivation for public higher education practices should be student welfare rather than money. 

Who Gave You The Zombie Heart, Dick Cheney?
Whenever I see and hear former Vice-President Dick Cheney go on one of his acrimonious tantrums about the fate of the world under the leadership of President Barack Obama, I think of T.S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock, a man filled with high sentence but a fool, ruminate about his own qualities: “I am no prophet–and here’s no great matter,/ I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,/And I have seen the eternal Footman (Death) hold my coat and snicker,/ And in short, I was afraid.” Why can’t he leave it alone? Is it because he “feels perfect in every way?” Does he think he can rehab his crippled legacy? Or does he feel guilty about leading George W. Bush into desert sand after oil while turning the tribes of the Middle East into warring barbarians? Cheney is a fascinating conundrum of narcissism, ego, inferiority complex and pathological liar.

In some ways he reminds me of the African drongo bird, another well-known pathological liar of the animal world. The bird is known for deceiving other animals by mimicking bird alarm calls so it can steal food the victims of his false alarms leave behind—as they run for their lives. Drongos are the con artists of the African Kalahari Desert, master liars by learning as many as 50 alarm calls of other birds. Sometimes they actually warn other predators of approaching danger. Sometimes they give alarm calls so they can steal the food killed by other predators. The drongos have red eyes, a hooked beak and a forked tail. Cheney has blue eyes, a mouth with a permanent sneer and a forked tongue.

What does Cheney Do When He Looks In A Mirror?

Is Cheney guilty of narcissism? This pathological disorder has been around since the ancient Greeks defined it. Maybe Adam was touched by it – after the apple, of course. In 1980 the American Psychological Association recognized that narcissism is a pathology, although only one percent of the population normally contracts it. (Incidentally, and perhaps ironically, many of the One Percent, of which Cheney is a member, have this one percent pathology!).  Narcissus the Greek looked at his reflection in a pool of water and fell hopelessly in love with himself. He couldn’t tear himself away.

Is this what happens when Cheney looks at himself in a mirror? He has many of the characteristics of the classic narcissist: lacks empathy, is arrogant, has inflated sense of self-importance, is ruthless, aggressive and hypersensitive, has disdain for normal rules, is greedy, overvalues material possessions, needs constant attention and admiration, reacts to criticism with rage and combativeness, is power-hungry and has selfish goals. Add in haughty body language. Watch him during a lengthy interview.

During the Vietnam War the-great-warrior-of-Iraq Cheney received five different kinds of military deferments too numerous to mention here. He also said he had better things to do. As vice-president he said Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) without a doubt, thus convincing Condi Rice to talk about smoking guns and hovering mushroom clouds and Colin Powell to lie to the United Nations. Cheney talked about a mysterious Al Queda-Iraqi meeting in Prague that never took place. Remember when he said we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq? Remember when Cheney’s neocon buddy Paul Wolfowitz estimated that the Iraq War would cost us only millions because we would pay for it with Iraqi oil? Now the closest estimate is $4 trillion. Who agreed to withdraw all troops from Iraq in 2011? Bush-Cheney. Who put Nouri al-Maliki in power? Bush-Cheney. Cheney had the chutzpah to say, “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.” Which president was he talking about?

What Kind Of Man Kills 70 Tame Pheasants In An Afternoon Of Shooting?

It would make a terrific case study. Why does a man with five deferments from armed conflict, a man who has never had a military uniform on, love to kill tame animals by the gross? Is a ruthless pathological liar also a pathological killer? How much “canned hunting” Cheney did before becoming vice-president is probably classified, but records back to 2001 suggest it is at least a personal annual mushroom cloud.

He had a shoot at a 4,000-acre New York canned hunting club named the Clove Valley Rod & Gun Club in 2001 which charges $150,000 a year to kill tame pheasants, ducks, and Hungarian partridges. His trip cost local taxpayers $32,000 for security alone. Sometimes these birds have to be kicked or pushed to get them to fly because they are raised in small cages similar to chickens in an egg factory. The birds often wear goggles so they don’t peck each other to death in frustration. Some cannot walk or fly and none know how to hide in the wild. Some states have banned canned hunting for moral reasons and cruelty to animals. Real hunters have described that canned hunting is like having sex with a blow-up doll. What are Cheney’s reasons? Is killing “sexual” for him?

Remember When The Quail-Hunting Cheney “Canned” A Lawyer?

At a canned hunt at the Pennsylvania Rolling Rock Club in 2003 he killed 70 pheasants and dozens of ducks in one afternoon. His “hunting” party killed a total of 417 pheasants that day. At a 2006 Texas quail hunt he actually “canned” a lawyer friend Harry Whittington, wounding him in the face. I see the Department of Transportation places the value of $9.2 million on each human life. One would think anyone carrying a gun would be more careful.

Psychologist Gerald Schiller suggests that people who program massacres of tame, pen-raised or caged animals and birds have a rather deep psychological disorder. Criminologists say that such killing of defenseless tame animals is often a predictor of criminal and homicidal violence. Richard Speck, the killer of Chicago nurses, and Jeffrey Dahmer of Wisconsin who did weird things to humans, committed very cruel acts on animals before killing human beings.

Psychologists estimate there are about three million narcissists in the U.S. Senator John McCain, who put the irrepressible Sarah Palin’s index finger close to the nuclear button, is another prominent example. John looks into a TV camera, sees his image, and falls in love time after boring time. I just heard him on a newscast say, “We are living in the most dangerous time in world history.”  C’mon, John. More dangerous than the Cold War with Russia and the potential use of nuclear weapons?  More dangerous than WW II? No wonder this guy graduated 894th out of 899 graduates at the Naval Academy! McCain has called for war in at least a dozen countries. Might makes right to the right. He doesn’t have the brains to figure out it’s best to stay out of wars of unintended consequences.

Another prime example is the beautiful Donald Trump, who must live in a house of mirrors. He has dedicated his whole life to himself. He attacks the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency by saying the Hawaii birth certificate is a forgery. He continues to say Barack Hussein Obama was actually born in Kenya. I wonder what location is cited on Trump’s birth certificate. Maybe The Donald is hiding the fact his certificate lists “Heaven.” A reporter described him as being a “shameless, birther-believing, stubby-fingered, spray-tanned, right-wing egomaniac.” Accurate – and not a word about his haircut.

It’s Possible Cheney Has A Zombie Heart And PostOperative Cognitive Disorder

Cheney had his first heart attack at 37 during a period of time when he smoked three packs a day. Over the years he had four more plus many other heart procedures. He lived with a mechanical heart for two years after the five attacks, and finally had a heart transplant at age 71. Although there is no firm age limit for those receiving heart transplants, it is rare over 65. That’s another story.

About half of the patients having heart surgery and anesthesia have memory or thinking problems and some have extensive personality changes. I have followed his career since he was elected to the House of Representatives. He may have been affected by PostOperative Cognitive Disorder (POCD) by all of these surgeries and his transplant, but it is very hard to tell. He was an early drunk and has always been a bastard without empathy. His voting record affirms early and late narcissism and maybe a touch of POCD: consistently voted against Head Start programs, voted against WIC (women and children’s nutrition programs), voted against banning cop-killer bullets, voted against the Clean Water Act, voted against abortion rights even in case of rape, incest and health of mother, voted against public housing programs, endorsed torture interrogations including waterboarding (he called waterboarding “just a dunking”), against gays in the military or in civilian life – until daughter came out as lesbian, arranged for his former employer Halliburton to receive $7 billion in no-bid contracts while he was vice-president — and the list could go on almost to infinity. When Republicans voted to put Iraq and Afghan wars on Uncle Sam’s credit card, he said “Deficits don’t matter!” Always against any form of universal health care for all Americans, Cheney’s government insurance and Medicare have paid millions keeping this One Percenter alive when he is 99 percent wrong.

Research indicates that POCD often occurs after major operations — and is more likely after heart operations than other types of surgery. It occurs in older patients with high alcoholic intake. After his transplant Cheney showed total indifference to the young person who contributed his new heart. Appearing on the Larry King show because of his book about his transplant, Cheney responded to King’s question about the identity of his donor. He said: “It hasn’t been a priority with me … It’s my new heart, not someone else’s old heart. And I always thank the donor, generically thank the donors for the gift that I’ve been given, but I don’t spend time wondering who had it, what they’d done, what kind of person.”

Perhaps the donor was a classical zombie who has died and re-animated with a nervous system—but without a beating heart. Does Cheney have a pulse? Zombies love to devour human flesh. A few retain memories from their previous lives. Cheney certainly has retained every thought he ever had.

Did Cheney See A Vice-President When He looked In A Mirror?

Historians have given the Bush-Cheney administration a double whammy. Many rated the Iraq War as the biggest foreign policy mistake in our history and they have placed George W. somewhere among the five worst presidents in the 44 we’ve had. Not good. How many Islamic terrorists were in Iraq in 2001? The 19 who brought us 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

In recent interviews Cheney has said he and his daughter Liz have started a 501(c)4 lobbying group called Alliance for a Strong America so Republicans can lobby Congress for a stronger military. We already spend more on military defense and offense than the top fourteen countries spend on militaries combined! He says we have a responsibility to defend the European Union. Are 400 million Europeans incapable of providing their own defenses?

Certainly we should have spent a couple of weeks bombing the hell out of Afghanistan to show the world we meant business, but we should have recognized the wisdom of the Russian general who said: “You can bomb Afghanistan to stones in a week, but in ten years you’ll sneak out with your tail between your legs.” Alexander the Great, the British Empire and the Russians failed to conquer the Afghans. Only a narcissist like Cheney would think we could do it.

And then Bush-Cheney lied their way to a trumped-up Iraq War. Cheney said in a recent Washington Post interview: “When we left it (Iraq) was in pretty good shape.” Sure, we got rid of Saddam. He was a bastard. But he was no worse than 20 other bastards in the world at that time. It was all about oil in the end, not bringing democracy to tribes that don’t allow women to drive cars or go to school. We wasted 4,801 lives, changed the lives of 19,000 with missing limbs, suffered 35,000 with wounds, and an estimated 300,000 with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It may cost us $6 trillion before its really over. Cheney’s mirror and TV image should fade to black.

A few months ago, we informed you about Joan Baez, Ben Harper, Paul McCartney, The Flaming Lips (an interview with Wayne Coyne will in our paper next week) and other superb, heavy-hitter musicians coming to Fargo-Moorhead to perform.

Before I get to my “editor picks,” I’d like to leave y’all with a question to ponder:

Why is it lame or uncool to go to a concert wearing a t-shirt of the band/artist you are seeing?

I’ve been informed that it’s uncool since my first teenaged “underground” concert. Is it because music events are the opposite of sporting events? Or because plaid or denim button-ups are way cooler?

I don’t get it. But I know I’ll never wear Dessa t-shirt to a Dessa show. God forbid.

Without further ado, YouTube, Spotify or Facebook search the following artists and then go see them live in Fargo or Moorhead (or Waubun, MN):

Dessa @ The Rourke, July 10
Cool, collected and crazily charismatic, rapper/singer/poet Dessa mesmerizes her audiences with her fierce, poetic, delightfully wordy delivery. Her music has a bit of an acquired taste, but her sincere personality definitely not. Dessa’s kind of big deal right now, especially in the Twin Cities.

Karmin @ The Red River Valley Fair, July 13
Amy Heidemann, the leading lady of Karmin, is one of cleanest fast-spitting female rappers in the game right now. And yet she’s an unassuming, rising mega pop star. It makes no sense, yet it sounds so right. Search “Karmin” on YouTube and watch this chick flawlessly turn an arrogant, macho rap song into something cute and dorky. The video has more than 90 million hits.

Sharon Van Etten @ The Aquarium, July 14
Sharon Van Etten and her musical poetry – aaaah … Fans of Beach House, Low and Bon Iver will especially appreciate Van Etten’s music that listeners can really melt their moods into. Her music is glorious yet sullen, tender yet fiery. See why the New Yorker, NPR and Pitchfork have all praised her work.

Against Me! @ The Aquarium, Aug. 6
Prep your vocal chords and get ready to shout “And just James I’ll be drinking Irish tonight!” or “Baby, I’m an anarchist!” Against Me! is quite possibly one of the most influential punk rock groups of the last decade. Lead vocalist Laura, formally a man known as Tom, sounds and performs as powerful as ever.

Beats Antique @ Pure Bliss Ranch, Aug. 21
Performing for the Cosmic Ascension Music and Art Festival, Beats Antique produces some of the finest, weirdest, most extravagant electronic music on the planet. This is not laptop, disc-jockey dub step. It’s dream weaving, polyrhythmic craziness. Attend this concert only if you dare …

Ryan Bingham @ Bluestem, Sept. 6
Academy Award-winning songwriter Ryan Bingham has a rough-and-tumbled, smoked-too-many-cigarettes and drank-too-much-whiskey singing voice and a aching, yet tireless and inspired songwriting style. For a roots-rock, Americana musician, it’s a dream combination. Furthermore, Bingham’s sound is unparalleled in modern music.

Steep Canyon Rangers @ Bluestem, Sept. 6
Traditional bluegrass freaks and geeks (I mean that in the nicest way possible) will absolutely swoon over the Steep Canyon Rangers. Their harmonies are earth shattering, their finger picking is smooth and ultra clean, their songs are adeptly tuneful and their suits are ever so professional looking. They are also comedian Steve Martin’s backing band, NDB.

Yes, I’m missing lots of other great summer acts: Black Flag (July 21), Jeremy Messersmith (Sept 6), Five Finger Death Punch (July 12), Travis Tritt (Aug. 7) … so don’t stop at this list.

Keep posted for further concerts announcements from HPR, Jade Presents, The Aquarium, The Nestor, The Garage Bar, The HoDo, The Sidestreet, The Empire, Zorbaz, Soo Pass Ranch, Pure Bliss Ranch and more.

Though it’s just the beginning of summer, those of us here at HPR are already looking forward to this fall. Why? Well, it’s the Reader’s 20th birthday, that’s why.
The Little Newspaper That Could will be pulling out all stops to celebrate turning 20, you can rest assured. The party will start Thursday night, Sept. 11, and will continue through the weekend. It will be our best yet.

Looking back, HPR’s journey seems somewhat a blur. Bear in mind, the first two years plus involved the original owners and founders of the Reader, and the paper was still based out of Grand Forks. The Flood of ’97 in Grand Forks changed all that.

Perhaps the most notable part of turning 20 is the simple fact that the High Plains Reader survived its challenging first years. To our knowledge, no other “startup” newspaper has gotten that far down the path in Fargo in several decades. HPR is the exception.

The Reader landed downtown Fargo in 1997 and was originally located on the main floor of the Black Building. Back then, the paper was printed every other week and the press run was 6,000 papers. Soon thereafter, we bumped up to a weekly schedule and then eventually went full color on our cover pages and center spread. It took quite a few years to pull out of the Grand Forks market so we could put our focus on the Greater Fargo metro area. We now deliver as many as 13,000 papers each week, which includes 1,200 for the Lakes Region in summer months.

Understandably, we are pretty proud of our accomplishments over the past two decades. We are proud that our newspaper is something like the fifth highest circulated paper in North Dakota. We are proud of our posture and our messaging. We are proud of our team and we are proud we have stayed on the high road through some very bumpy times. Mostly, though, we are proud of our position as the progressive, open-minded, creatively-lilted media in a conservative state such as ND. Frankly, HPR is on the forefront of many numerous social evolutions and we take pride in that as well.

Neither do we apologize for our advocacy for minorities or individuals whose voices too often get lost in the din of white noise ever present everywhere. We obviously are not establishment and there are some obvious downsides to that. But we are true to our convictions and we focus on the good rather than the negative.

HPR’s reading audience approaches 30,000 people per week. That’s a substantial community when all is said and done. What’s remarkable is that some of our reading audience has been reading the Reader a good chunk of their entire adult life, and now they are moms and dads and have children themselves, and their children will be raised with a familiarity with our newsweekly.

Some loosely refer to the High Plains Reader as the ‘alternative’ newspaper. That’s correct technically, if one defines ‘alternative’ to be a paper that’s editorially driven but also is non-subscription based. That’s the true ‘alternative’ to what we do. We provide it for free.

The Reader is also not a simple fluff piece that gives away news stories to our advertisers. We stay true to the tenets of journalism that separate advertising content from editorial content. It’s important our readers know that subtle distinction, especially when compared to various other publications in the region.
If there’s anything to credit the Reader’s relative success to, it’s heart. Our readership, our advertisers, our contributors, our delivery people, they all exude heart and it shows week in and week out.

You will hear more about our 20th year as the coming weeks unfold. Bear with us as we brag like proud parents, and please know you are all part of our journey.
Then, come Sept. 11, the celebration begins at the Plains Art Museum, and then continuing to the Aquarium and to our own street in front of our brownstone in the heart of downtown Fargo.

As an example of fulfilling obligations, Congress after World War II passed the G.I. Bill, sending tens of millions of veterans to higher education over the last seven decades. Some conservatives thought that free college educations for vets would break the U.S. Treasury. It has been determined that for every dollar spent on the G.I. Bill seven dollars are returned to the economy. The latest American Legion newspaper summarized its importance to the country: “The signing of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (1944 GI Bill) was not simply a postwar benefit to veterans and their families.  It changed the course of U.S. history and stimulated a global economy … The GI Bill has been described as the most significant legislation passed by Congress in the 20th century … It all amounted to a better, more prosperous America.”
In 2014 because of do-nothing Congresses over the last decade we now have fewer high school graduates among the 20-30 group than we have with people between ages 55-64. It’s a disaster on fast track.
Student College Debt Now Greater At $1.2 Trillion Than Credit Card And Auto Debt
Over 70 percent of graduating Bachelor of Arts degrees this year have an average debt of $29,400. Because of the lousy economy seven million of the 40 million student loan borrowers are in default. Remember that student loans are not covered under bankruptcy laws. They are forever. A teacher identified as @brrenda525 by USA Today is still paying her student loans after 25 years of teaching. (An interesting stat: student debt is rising faster in state universities with the highest paid presidents.) Senator Elizabeth Warren, a former Harvard professor and one of the very few senators with a sense of history, says that student debt is a national emergency. Students in lower paying but essential jobs such as education and community services will be still paying off loans in their 50’s. Can they afford to marry? Can they afford to buy a home? Can they afford to live a meaningful life? Living in your parent’s basement after graduation is not part of the American Dream. It would be a nightmare.

While running for the Senate in 2011 she put the warning of John Stuart mill in 21st Century terms while discussing the huge gap between rich and poor: “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there, good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You used other people’s money. You built a factory, and it turned into something terrific or a great idea–God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid that comes along.”

The American middle class, what there is left of it, is now behind most European workers and Canadians in median salaries. Sixty percent say the country is on the wrong track; only 25 percent say we are on the right track. Forty percent of Americans now say they are members of the poor class, a 15 percent jump since 2008. Only 44 percent of the former middle class feel they are still members.
Why Are We In Such A Mess?  The Rich Are Getting Dumb And Dumber–-And More Arrogant
Evidently the ultra-rich in this country have not figured out that to maintain their wealth they must contribute to the education of all members of the society and to the maintenance of the common good. Opportunity to succeed must be available to all.  But the entire U.S. population is also getting dumber and dumber because many reject science while accepting much of the religious voodoo in the 32,000 religious “denominations” in this country. A new Gallup Poll showed that 42 percent of Americans believe the creation took place less than 10,000 years ago. This group has daredevil humans saddling up T-Rexes for a local dinosaur derby!

The level of scientific ignorance is appalling. One in five still believe the sun revolves around the earth! Only 28 percent of the members of the Tea Party have faith in scientists. Over 60 percent have no clue that DNA is the absolute key to heredity. Over ninety percent don’t understand that radiation is extremely harmful to the human body. Twenty-five percent of Texas biology teachers believe that humans, only four million years old at current estimate, cavorted with dinosaurs that died off over 65 million years ago. Please do the science and math. One-third of Americans still believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. How many churches have huge rock piles ready to stone to death homosexuals, adulterers, and other sexual miscreants according to the instructions left by Leviticus? Sixty percent believe in the Book of Revelation and the predictions about Armageddon. They are ready to Rapture to Heaven naked! It’s funny that a majority of Americans cannot name the first book in the Bible although over 85 percent say they are “religious.” These stats end up with the question: Is it possible to govern this country with all this scientific illiteracy? No.
Taxes Are Levied To Keep A Modern, Complex Society Operating
Even Supreme Court Justice John Marshall as early as the middle of the 19th century said taxes are the glue of a society. Our rent-or-buy congress has seceded the power to tax to the ultra-rich and corporation “persons”–and have totally neglected to enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. What a mess! Our roads, bridges, airports, and national parks are falling apart. Public education and the teaching profession is tremendously underfunded while Congress fiddles and diddles naming post offices some want to close. And how about a boring 50-round fight over universal health care?

Paul Buchheit of Alternet reports that trade volume on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange reached $1 quadrillion in 2012. For those who don’t handle that much money that’s a thousand trillion dollars. Our entire gross domestic product in 2012 was $17 trillion. While citizens pay between 6-9 percent sales taxes to support services and infrastructure for the benefit of the public and corporations, the Exchange pays not one penny of sales taxes. They even have the chutzpah to complain their taxes are too high–and got an $85 million rebate from Illinois.

Warren Buffett, the second richest man of the world, has already declared the ultra-rich have won the rich-poor war. He earned $12 billion last year and paid about 12 percent in taxes. His secretary pays 30 percent on her niggardly income. This country spends $8.3 billion to pay all of the 250,000 emergency medical technicians and paramedics. We should send the bill to Warren—and he’s a nice guy. He’d still have $4 billion for pocket change. His company Berkshire Hathaway still owes back taxes from as long ago as 2002 but made $29 billion in profit last year. The company got a $395 million rebate last year by utilizing accounting tricks common in big business. And it deferred $57 billion in federal taxes. Buffet clams he favors a tax policy that would require millionaires to pay federal taxes at a 30 percent rate.
The Saga Of Minnesota’s Medtronic And It’s Escape To An Irish Tax Haven
Remember when multi-millionaire Mitt Romney’s dancing horse Rafalca failed to win the Olympics?  We U.S. taxpayers paid for the care, feeding, grooming, stable fees, and training of the dancer to the tune of $77,000 because Mitt deducted the total cost as a “business expense.” I think Ann Romney also rode the horse as part of some medical treatment….
Although the tax on U.S. corporations is 35 percent, they paid at an average rate of 12 percent in 2013 according to the IRS. Don’t listen to the Chamber of Commerce whiners. They have Congress in hand, Rent-Or-Buy.

This in brief is the Medtronic tax story: It has offered to buy Dublin-based Coviden PLC, another maker of medical devices, for $42.9 billion, and move its executive offices to Ireland while leaving its operational offices in Minnesota. Coviden was actually started by U.S. Tyco but quickly moved to tax-haven Bermuda, but then got a better tax deal in Ireland. Medtronic is currently hiding over $14 billion from the IRS in 37 tax havens scattered around the world. One would need a huge chart to follow every shenanigan perpetrated by these two corporations to escape taxes. Corporations around the world employ millions of green-shade accountants to cover their asses from the tax collectors. (I wonder if they spend more trying to hide profits than if they actually paid their taxes to the right country–where they actually made their profits!)
What Could Our Society Do If These U.S. Corporations Paid Their Taxes?
Bank of America has 300 subsidiaries hiding $17.2 billion in off-shore tax havens. It would owe $4.3 billion to us otherwise. Citigroup has $42.6 billion hiding in many tax havens. If this money was in the U.S. it would have to pay $11.5 billion in taxes. That would cover the entire K-12 school lunch program–complete with fresh fruits and veggies. ExxonMobil is hiding $43 billion in “offshore” profits and has paid U.S. taxes at a rate of 15 percent. If they paid the taxes on $43 billion we could fix over ten percent of the faulty bridges in this country, currently estimated to cost $108 billion to fix. Minnesota’s General Mills has money in 55 tax havens. Minnesota’s Honeywell had profits of $5 billion over the last three years but paid only 1 percent in taxes. Pfizer Medical made $43 billion in 2010 through 2012 around the world–but did not pay a dime in federal taxes.

I think its absolutely fascinating that Vegas gambling receipts are declining. Some say it’s because billionaires no longer get a “rush” out of winning millions at the table.

PULL QUOTE:
In 2014 because of do-nothing Congresses over the last decade we now have fewer high school graduates among the 20-30 group than we have with people between ages 55-64. It’s a disaster on fast track.

“Oil yield nears 1M barrels.” - Bismarck Tribune, 1/15/14

“I was shocked that we could have an [oil pipeline] accident of that size [20,600+ barrels] in our state.”- Gov. Jack Dalrymple, Bis.Trib., 1/10/14

“North Dakota’s two senators took turns peppering two BNSF [Burlington Northern/Santa Fe] executives Saturday on the railroad company’s plans to prevent another train [carrying crude oil] derailment like last month’s crash and fire near Casselton.” - Bis.Trib., 1/19/14

“From time to time, Lynn Helms lets his enthusiasm…get the better of him.” - Gov. Jack Dalrymple

“What a deluge! What a flood!
Lord and master, hear my call!
Ah, here comes the master!
I have need of Thee!
- J.W. Goethe/Dubiel

In the course of my profession as a teacher of German and European history, I have spent a great deal of time in Germany since 1960, and in German American communities in Chicago and elsewhere; talking, singing, eating, and occasionally drinking some of that culture’s fine products. However, I never dreamed that I would need my German language skills here in Mandan, until I saw Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Sorcerer trudging wearily up my hill and into my back yard.

Sorcerer: Good day, Prof. Barber!

High Plains Reader: Good day, Honorable Sorcerer! What on earth brings you to the Mandan area!?! It can’t possibly be nostalgia for the Iron Chancellor, for whom the city across the Missouri River from my hill was named. You are from an earlier time.

Sorcerer: It’s what is beneath the earth that brings me, actually. None of your local would be sorcerers, or their junior apprentices, seem to be able to handle all of the oil and gas gushing out of the Bakken, flaring into the atmosphere, leaking into rivers and exploding from tank cars. They thought I might be able to wave a magic wand, and bring things under control.

HPR: Just which would be sorcerers, and junior apprentices are you referring to Sir?

Sorcerer: The Industrial Commission: Governor Jack Dalrymple, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring. They had been anxious to please various drilling empires from foreign states and nations who have come to North Dakota, but it seems that these monarchs have been given more than they or your citizens had bargained for.

HPR:  We call them “corporations” now, but I must admit, their chief officers do sometimes remind me of the kings and emperors of your day. Were you able to be of any assistance? 

Sorcerer:  I’m afraid not.  The situation has gotten well out of control of this state government, despite monetary resources that are quite impressive. It seems their junior apprentice, Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms, has issued so many drilling permits, that the stuff is coming up faster than trucks, railroads, and pipelines can carry or contain them.

HPR: But surely Director Helms would have ceased issuing permits if Governor Dalrymple had ordered him to.

Sorcerer: One would think so, but all I could discover was a general confusion.  In my case, back at the dawn of the 19th Century, I was able to get back to the castle in time to undo the mess my apprentice had created by putting a spell on broom to carry water buckets. It will take more than one sorcerer to undo this 21st Century mess.

HPR: I remember the story well, especially the version by Walt Disney, where the role of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice was played by Mickey Mouse.

Sorcerer: How appropriate!

HPR: And yet, Mr. Sorcerer, North Dakota did once have a Governor of Moravian German Heritage, not unlike yourself, who demanded that the corporate empires of coal respect the land from which that mineral was taken. A friend of mine had a thriving grass seed business which met Governor Art Link’s demand that each plot of land that had been dug up for its coal would be returned to its rich prairie land condition, rather than allowed to become a toxic weed bed, as in other states.

Sorcerer:  That certainly sounds like sorcery to me. What sort of wand did he use?

HPR: None at all, unless you count the bow of his fiddle, so useful at election time. His main sorcery derived from common sense, and a farmer’s and rancher’s natural respect for the land.
Sorcerer: What happened?

HPR: Governor Link’s reign came to an end in 1980, when other sorcerers came forward who were not so interested in respecting the land as exploiting it, and what was beneath it. Phrases like “greed is good” began to replace “he who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind.” It’s a shame really. Had North Dakota’s current leadership put a reasonable limit on oil drilling leases, and set other sensible environmental and safety controls on oil and gas extraction, the way Governor Link’s leadership disciplined the coal industry, North Dakota’s Bakken would have suffered far less chaos in exchange for its bounty.

Sorcerer: As I recall, the coal industry was not happy about those restrictions.

HPR:  Most corporations, and their public relations departments, always howl at any sign of governmental control at any level, the way a teenager howls when held in check by a loving parent. Their mantra is “free markets, no regulations.”

Sorcerer: There certainly is a lack of discipline in your highest levels of government here, despite a remarkable competence among those lower down who are most adversely affected.

HPR: A true sorcerer is disciplined; that is for sure. 

Sorcerer: Alas! I cannot do much for you in your time, so I will retreat to mine, but tell me, is there not a larger government agency than the State of North Dakota, to whom your would be sorcerers and their junior apprentices might appeal, as did mine?

HPR: There is our Federal Government in Washington, D.C., of course, and some of its agencies do get involved when oil trains blow up, or fracking fluids and petroleum spills leak out into waters that were supposed to be for people and ducks, not used as a sewage disposal. But our local sorcerers apprentices only see agencies like the Department of Energy, or the Environmental Protection Agency as glorified clean up squads, to be appealed to when things get out of hand. Otherwise, these agencies are ignored, and even vilified at election time by captains of the oil, coal and gas industries as violators of the sacred principle of unregulated, free markets.

Sorcerer: Are there no Federal Agencies whom your State officials might take seriously?

HPR: Oh yes indeed. The Internal Revenue Service and, sometimes, the Department of Justice. They get involved when money is misused, beyond abuse of the environment or people.

Sorcerer: Ah, the scent of money! It often causes such manias, like that which afflicted my own short sighted apprentice. Money can be a noxious power even a true Sorcerer must reckon with. Where is my wand? There is cleanup work to be done, and I will need help disciplining these benighted Commissioners. I must conjure up Governor Link, who understood stewardship in restoring land and water in this prairie State. I am only a Sorcerer. I need the spirit and the wisdom of your beloved former Governor to assist me. Perhaps he can summon the collected wisdom of all Non Partisan Leaguers and Native American Chiefs who understand the importance of protecting our land, water and air for our grandchildren!