War, Huunhh!

What is it good for? Absolutely nuthin', unless you're Ken Burns, who made a 14-hour documentary out of World War II, now being shown on PBS. The series covers the U.S. experience during the war by focusing on four towns in different regions of the country, with the Midwest represented by Luverne, Minn.

Luverne's local newspaper editor and publisher, North Dakota native Al McIntosh, is featured prominently as a chronicler of life on the home front, and his near-forgotten writing is experiencing a second life.

Loonie

Canadians run amok at Cavalier crafts show. "We've never really had that before," said a terrified witness.

Currency Parity Brings Canadian Shoppers South

"What the Hell Happened Here?"

The Washington Post tries to piece together how exactly a B-52 bomber flew from Minot to Louisiana carrying the equivalent of "60 Hiroshimas." More details make it scarier.

Missteps in the Bunker

Obligatory description of North Dakota as a barren wasteland:

"Veterans of Minot typically describe their assignments by counting the winters passed in the flat, treeless region where January temperatures sometimes reach 30 below zero."

(Emphasis added)

Little Rock, Grand Forks, Satchmo

I'm big fan of Louis Armstrong (who's on my short list for Greatest American Ever), so I was aware of his famous interview in the midst of the Little Rock integration fight in 1957, when he briefly abandoned his jolly entertainer persona to call Eisenhower "gutless" and declare, "The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell." What I didn't know until today was that he said this in an interview with the Grand Forks Herald.

Who knew? NY Times: The Day Louis Armstrong Made Noise

Bonus North Dakota connection: Ronald Davies, the federal judge who ordered the integration was also from Grand Forks, by way of Crookston.

Reservation Games

Some Indian tribes are exerting a stronger influence in the casino industry, according to the New York Times, expanding off their reservations and buying up other parts of the entertainment world. No North Dakota tribes are mentioned but a UND professor, Steven Andrew Light, gets quoted.

Slow News Day in Guam

Guam woman wins Spam recipe contest in Minot. Her secret? Spam sushi.

Article from the Pacific Daily News

Guam and Hawaii eat more Spam than anyone else, at least according to Wikipedia.

Alf, Again

North Decoder sent this link, another article about Simpsons composer Alf Clausen. Includes a couple mentions of his N.D. background.

Sitting Bull

He's more famous than Phil Jackson, though it's hard to say whether he qualifies as a North Dakotan -- Lakota, yes, but maybe not North Dakota. But the Smithsonian Museum is returning to his ancestors some items related to Sitting Bull.

New York Times arts briefs, third item, about halfway down.

Phil Jackson

His parents took an oath of poverty. He grew up in Williston. He coached Michael Jordan. Monday is Phil Jackson's birthday.

To the average person outside of North Dakota, he may be the most famous North Dakota right now.

Jackson bio at NBA.com

The Sound of Springfield

The Simpsons composer and former North Dakotan Alf Clausen is featured on a new collection of music from the show.

NPR: The Maestro of 'D'oh!' Makes a New Soundtrack

61*

Fargo's Roger Maris was born 73 years ago on Sept. 10, 1934.

OK, he was born in Hibbing, Minn., but North Dakota can still claim him.

More Bomb

The Washington Post follows up the misplaced nukes and their trip to Louisiana, with links.

Um, uh, uhh ... oops?

Aw, jeez.

BBC: U.S. B-52 in Nuclear Cargo Blunder

Credit goes to Johnathan at j5mc for finding this one.

Washington Cover-Up

Byron Dorgan's prodigious comb-over gets mocked on the Tonight Show. Watch the video on YouTube, or better yet, explain to me how to embed video on this Micky Mouse blogger program.

(Credit to Rob at the Say Anything blog, who posted the clip first, after some other blogger mailed it to him. So it goes in the blogosphere.)

Lost in Fargo

The Forum had an article today about the so-called Lost Boys from Sudan who settled in Fargo after years of wandering across Africa and waiting in refugee camps. One of their number has written a book about what they've been through.

Back in 2001, the New York Times Magazine ran a long piece about them called "The Long, Long, Long Road to Fargo." While my conscience won't allow me to reproduce the whole premium access-only article, I'll allow that it has a great lead:

One evening late in January, a 21-year-old named Peter Dut led his two teenage brothers through the brightly lighted corridors of the Minneapolis airport, trying to mask his confusion. Two days before, they had encountered their first light switch and tried their first set of stairs. An aid worker in Nairobi had demonstrated the flush toilet to them -- also the seat belt, the shoelace, the fork. And now they found themselves alone in Minneapolis, three bone-thin African boys confronted by a swirling river of white faces and rolling suitcases, blinking television screens and telephones that rang, inexplicably, from the inside of people's pockets. Here they were, uncertain of even the rug beneath their feet, looking for this place called Gate C31.

Finally, a traveling businessman recognized their uncertainty. ''Where are you flying to?'' he asked kindly, and they told him. The eldest brother, his eyes deeply bloodshot, explained the situation in halting, bookish English. A few days ago, they had left a small mud hut in a blistering hot Kenyan refugee camp, where after walking for hundreds of miles across Sudan they had lived as orphans for the past nine years. They were now headed, with what Peter called ''great wishes,'' to a new home in the U.S.A. ''Where?'' the man asked when Peter Dut said the city's name. ''Fargo? North Dakota? You gotta be kidding me. It's too cold there. You'll never survive it!''

And then he laughed. Peter Dut had no idea why.

TV Guy Comes to Mott!

Small town is validated through visit by television personality.

Ron Mott comes to Mott

Sacred Cows

For the second week in a row, the New York Times food section visits the boonies, this time for the intersection between farming and religion.

We meet organic farmer nuns in New York State, an evangelical South Dakota farmer who raises kosher cattle for Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn, and buried toward the end, a Saudi Arabian businessman in New Rockford raising halal beef for Muslims.

Of Church and Steak

Musical Ambitions

A young music ensemble from Florida sends its leader to Grand Forks to pay the bills. Chung Park is a UND instructor, youth conductor for the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra and leader of the Project Copernicus, a group of musicians under 30 who specialize in contemporary composers.

According to the Miami Herald, they're beginning to get noticed.

Bison Burgers

An article about the tastiness of bison, but as usual, South Dakota hogs the spotlight. Don't you just hate that? NDSU gets a mention toward the end, though.

Home Again On the Kitchen Range

Get Out While You're Young

The blog has been on vacation. Apologies for the absence.

Not much in the news lately, so here's a review of Debra Marquart's 2006 memoir of her rebellious youth as a Napoleon farm girl with parents who sound like they were a bit of a bummer. Here's an Amazon.com link, too.