$0.09

According to the New York Times, North Dakota trails every other state in donations to presidential campaigns. In this election, residents have given 9 cents per capita, or $57,613. Apparently, voters prefer personal contact with their politicians over monied media campaigns.

“Even for a statewide political campaign, you have to get to the lutefisk feed. ... Putting commercials on TV is not going to work."

In North Dakota, Forget Money. Politics Is Different.

Fiction Dept.

Louise Erdrich has a new short story in the New Yorker. It's long, so you might want to wait and read it at work.

The Reptile Garden

It's Cold

A newspaper columnist in North Carolina hears it's cold in North Dakota, investigates. Lloyd Omdahl provides details.

Asheville Citizen-Times.com

Red States Blues?

Red state Democrats like Barack Obama. Our own Kent Conrad has endorsed him. Noted smart guy George Will explains what that means (or at least what he thinks it means).

(On a related note, has anyone noticed that George Will sorta looks like Kent's dour, unfriendly brother?)

Plains Drain (Part II)

The Economist gets in on the obituaries for the Great Plains in an article about the depopulation of the American Middle, and Frank and Deborah Popper's not-much-beloved Buffalo Commons idea gets another airing. If you need a refresher on what that was about, try Anne Matthews' "Where the Buffalo Roam."

The Too Much Mistake

National Geographic goes to North Dakota for an article about all the people who aren't there anymore.

Basically, 100 some years ago, folks were overly optimistic about the number of people who would show up and how many would be able to make a living there.

Seems like a bit of a miscalculation.

National Geographic: The Emptied Prairie

Times Topics: Sugar Beets and the Pill

Vacation, computer problems, very few new posts. Here's some stuff that was in the New York Times recently.

Round 2 for Biotech Beets: Soon genetically modified sugar beets may be tumbling from trucks on DeMers Avenue.

Big Rise for Cost of Birth Control: Includes a UND senior whose pills have gotten too expense. (Let's hope Grandma didn't see the article before Thanksgiving dinner.)

Kent, Huck and the Nuge

Outdoor Life magazine made a list of 25 people it says have done the most for hunting and fishing interests. Conrad is one of them and the only politician listed besides Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Naturally, Ted Nugent is up there, too.

I didn't know Conrad hunted.

NIMBY, or This Ethanol Stuff May Be Harder than We Thought

A New York Times article about how new ethanol plants are meeting opposition in some communities and, due to a glut on the market, scaling back in others, like Grafton.

In Farm Belt, Ethanol Plants Hit Resistance (Grafton mention on the second page.)

Fascinating

AP: North Dakota ranks ninth in personalized license plates.

Olio

There's been not much posting here lately. A brief round-up of what we've been missing:

Ozzy: Mad at Fargo sheriff for using a chance to party with the Oz as bait to catch suspected criminals.

Fox reports (you decide): Political correctness threatens UND mascot.

Sen. Kent: Conrad has been all over the news talking about the new $289 billion farm bill. Here he is in the Wall Street Journal.

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.