Travis Hafner, AKA Pronk, Sykeston native and Cleveland Indians DH, re-signs for a giant crap-load of money -- $57 million, or 1,000 times the annual economic output of Sykeston. Good for Pronk. 
John Ydstie is a host and correspondent at National Public Radio and is a native of Wolford, N.D. Among his NPR pieces are several in which he reflects on his upbringing in North Dakota. One of the best was about playing in the finals of the Class B basketball tournament for his high school, a good evokation of the state's smallest towns and the spotlight of Class B sports.
Not Kent, but ex-Canadian and erstwhile media mogul Conrad Black is on trial in Chicago for allegedly using his publicly held company as a personal expense account and in general being a weasel. Part of the evidence against him is the millions of bucks he directed to himself through questionable non-compete agreements in the sale of his media holdings, including the Jamestown Sun.
Trial account in the Toronto Globe and Mail. The Jamestown mention is about two-thirds into the article.
A blog from the National Association of Manufacturers ("The business of America is business," according to Coolidge) visits North Dakota and says the state's healthy attitude toward the energy industry can help reverse outmigration. It's true that with gas prices above $3 oil companies will want to explore new sources, but it would nice for the state to develop through a less volatile industry. It probably looked like the sky was the limit for the oil industry in Williston around 1979. But that didn't last long.
Goodbye, Bismarck, and Thanks for All That Energy
Nice headline, though.
Belated. Gary sends his regards via "The Writer's Almanac."
The link opens a RealAudio file of the program. Here's a link to the text.
(I'll try to get less Public Radio-oriented here. Rob the Say Anything Guy might start fingering me as a mouthpiece of the left.)
If you're a liberal elitist like me, you love the hell outta the National Public Radio, maybe while driving your hybrid car to a wine tasting or a protesting.
NPR has a nice, homey feature called StoryCorps, in which people interview their grandmas and talk about all sorts of touching stuff. From the archives, here are some North Dakotans telling stories about their childhoods. I like stories.
Conrad takes issue with coverage of the Democrats' budget proposal. It's not about assumptions of the expiration of upper-class tax cuts. It's about the tax gap, off-shore tax havens and abusive tax shelters. Got that?
Today's Washington Post has an article about families of Minnesota National Guard soldiers, who are on one of the longest deployments in Iraq. It's mostly about Minnesota, but also about the Red River Valley, with some North Dakota references. It's also a good read for Memorial Day.
Bored Chicago columnist, eager to get out of the office for Memorial Day weekend, picks on North Dakota. At least someone is gauging America's North Dakota awareness. Apparently, it ain't too good, either.
... whom I'd never heard of.
Myer Shark, 94, not a fan of the utilities
If your name is Shark, are you destined to become an attorney?
El Roge is talking Cuba again, this time in the Miami Herald. (It's a short quote, halfway down).
C'mon ... Let 'em have our agricultural products. They can't live on cigars alone.
... and, um, elephant poop. I guess even the most worthless seeming crap is good for something.
Synfuels plant now a "crown jewel"
The other one has the whiff of a hoax. Five hundred pounds a day ... wow!
This story was all over the wires today. It's a good story, too, as much about a 93-year-old woman (who seems like a hoot) as it is about a small town. By Blake Nicholson of the AP, here is how it appeared in the Washington Post. (Nice work, Blake.)
"Squeaky clean" North Dakota farmer loves hemp -- for rope, cloth, livestock feed and all that -- and brings the word to Vermont. But alas, every time he plant a seed, they say kill it before it grow.
Chicago Tribune editorial: Norwegians in North Dakota are stoic. The rest of you should stop whining, too.
For some reason, this story set off alarm bells in the heads of wire editors across the country, perhaps confirming long-held suspicions. Here it is in the Washington Post:
Not much new today, so we'll go back to 2003 for maybe my all-time favorite Onion news article.
North Dakota Found To Be Harboring Nuclear Missiles
And then's another article on the state's new incorporation rules. Strap yourselves in, it's one exciting story.
Reuters: "Don't expect a rush of large companies to the sparsely populated state."
I acknowledge that this isn't exactly a national news event, but it gets to the (poorly stated) point of this site: How does the rest of the world view our generally unknown state?
The Economist lauds North Dakota's new incorporation laws. The writer also followed the no-one-knows-anything-about-North-Dakota-but-bad-weather theme. God knows, Delaware's lax incoporation laws have helped that state burn brightly in the world's imagination, so maybe this will help.
"Look Marge, I'm reading the Economist! Did you know Indonesia is at a crossroads?"
As reported by Weekend Edition. Includes a good slideshow of Grand Forks then and now, interviews with Mike Jacobs, Pat Owens and others. Perhaps NPR music director and Grand Forks native Ned Wharton helped steer NPR's attention to the anniversary. Or maybe it's just a good story.
Brief mention of UND about halfway through. The rest is the usual pop culture absurdity.
