Ed

Someone from North Dakota nominated for something important. Ed Schafer will cover our state in glory as did Mike Johanns, Ann Veneman and Dan Glickman for whatever places they were from.

Warren Christopher

Saturday is the birthday of former U.S. secretary of state Warren Christopher. He was born in Scranton, N.D., in 1925 and was awarded the state's Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award in 1998. He looks somewhat like an owl.

Caught

Richard McNair, convicted of murdering a man at a grain elevator in 1987, was captured by Mounties in New Brunswick on Thursday. He became notorious for multiple prison escapes since then, was the subject of a New Yorker magazine profile (not available online) and was even an internet phonomenon when a video of him outsmarting police in Louisiana was posted on YouTube.

Maybe they can hang on to him this time.

Profile in the National Post, Canada

Arrest account by the Canadian Press

Nuclear Fallout

Pentagon explains how some nukes accidentally got flown from Minot to Louisiana, then punishes some folks.

"The airmen replaced the schedule with their own informal" system, he said,
though he didn't say why they did that nor how long they had been doing it
their
own way."

AP: 70 Punished in Accidental B-52 Flight

Standing Up for Hemp

Environmental web site chides California's tough-guy governor for caving on hemp legislation, credits much less glamorous North Dakota for standing up to the feds.

California Governor Nixes Industrial Hemp While North Dakota Moves On

Mancur Olson

Monday's announcement of the Nobel winners in economics capped this year's awards. One of the discipline's prominent practitioners was Mancur Olson, a native of the Grand Forks area, NDSU alumnus and Rhodes scholar, who many believe was robbed of a likely Nobel by an early death. His work on the impact of collective action on the economic performance of nations had probably its greatest influence in the field of political science.

The Independent of London marked his passing in 1998.

Armstrong, Again

Another account of a young Grand Forks Herald reporter's scoop of a livid Louis Armstrong's reaction to the thwarted integration of Arkansas schools, this time in Editor & Publisher.

How Young Reporter Got That Famous 1957 Satchmo Scoop

Words

Ed Bok Lee of Seoul/North Dakota/Minnesota is a poet of some sort.

www.edboklee.com

Bismarck Cooks

Epicurious.com, a site run by Gourmet magazine, lauds Bismarck's Pirogue Grille for its tasty, and locally sourced, bison, beef, venison and walleye. Pity the poor vegetarian.