Boom

North Dakota, contrarian that it is, enjoys nice economic growth while a looming recession is scaring the pants off of folks in the rest of the country. So reports the Christian Science Monitor.

Jon Hassler

Sure, he was a Minnesota author, but he went to UND.

Minnesota novelist Jon Hassler dies at 74

March 12

On this date in 1922, Jack Kerouac was born. In 1957, his novel On the Road was published.

From page 20:

I looked at the company. There were two young farmer boys from North Dakota
in red baseball caps, which is the standard North Dakota farmer-boy hat, and
they were headed for the harvests; their old men had given them leave to hit the road for a summer.

(March 12, is Kent Conrad's birthday, too. But how many books has he sold?)

Prairie Home Ron Paul

Probably half the state of North Dakota has seen this house on I-94 displaying its support for a certain oddball Republican and a general lack of structural integrity. Now readers of snarky political blog Wonkette have too, thanks to some guy named Ryan.

Also, I missed another recent N.D.-related Wonkette post about our stingy ways in presidential campaigns.

We Want Wheat

Lawton, N.D., gets a dateline in a front-page NY Times article about the global spike in food prices. Briefly, it's good for farmers, not so good for poor people.

(And as someone who grew up in the 1980s, it still seems weird that something good is happening to farmers, rather than a perpetual economic disaster.)

Honored

Master Sergeant Woody Keeble, a Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux and veteran of World War II and the Korean War, received a post-humous Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor in Korea.

CNN: First Sioux receives Medal of Honor

White House transcript of medal ceremony

1861

On March 2, 1861, the United States government organized the Dakota Territory. It was later split up into North Dakota and some other states.