Lesser Fargo-Moorhead Chamber Lurch to the Right

The following is a letter to the editor I've sent online to my local newspaper, The Forum in Fargo. I'll let you know if it sees the light of print.... because It — The Mainstreaming of Radicalism — Can't Happen Here ... until it does:
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They bill themselves as Greater Fargo Moorhead's Chamber of Commerce, but the actions of the Chamber this past year contradict that "greater." The Chamber's decision last December to announce the hiring of an executive director, Craig Whitney, whose main claim to fame was working for the hapless former vice president, Dan Quayle, signalled the Chamber's eagerness to dive into the cesspool of divisive and partisan rightwing politics.

Fast forward a few months and Whitney announces the Chamber's new "Voices of Vision" speakers series [The Forum, Thursday, Sept. 16), featuring "world thought leaders and cutting edge business visionaries." Who do they pick to exemplify that? Disgraced military merchant of arms to Iran, convicted felon for his involvement in Iran-Contra, longtime spewer of venomous hate on rightwing talk radio, Oliver North.

The man who hid behind his military uniform as he bald-faced lied to the U.S. Congress.

That's the part Craig Whitney wants to airbrush. Hopes you've forgotten. Or thinks you don't care about. Calling North a prime example and fitting person to launch the [Vision] series to honor individuals who personify the chamber's mission to unify and advance business interests is like calling the serpent in the garden a nice little marketer of apples.

While the radical rightwing makes inroads throughout mainstream Republican circles and too many who call themselves moderate Republicans cave to their thuggery, Whitney is leading the Chamber down the same road. As a small business owner and former active member of the Fargo Chamber, put me on record as saying shame. This twisting of history and attempt to airbrush the disgraceful record of Oliver North and hold him up as a model of excellence says much about both Craig Whitney and the Chamber that hired him.

Voices of Vision? Divisive dystopian nightmare, more like.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Fili-bluster Flood Factor

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Senator Bunning's hold-up action has another consequence. FEMA funding for flood insurance is stopped. New policies cannot be written, existing policies cannot be renewed.

And right now in Fargo, we're looking at a 96% chance of major flooding this spring (did I mention there's a 30-day waiting period for policies to go into force?).

The cities of Fargo-Moorhead are gearing up to fill nearly 2 million sandbags. But in the meantime, it's been 13 years since the major flood of 1997, one year since the 500-year flood of 2009, and nothing has been done on Fargo flood-protection infrastructure.

The Republican mayor of Fargo was quick out of the box to endorse the Republican Governor, John Hoeven, to run for the open seat after Senator Dorgan announced his retirement. And on the east side of the river there's that wanna-be-prez Pawlenty....

Oh, we have a nice new fancy-schmancy hockey arena on the South Side. But infrastructure to protect that south side, hmmmmm, no such luck.

So we'll roll up our sleeves, but the powers-that-be better roll up their sleeves, too, because the once-vaunted shoo-in candidacy of the incumbent Governor could take a real hit in the rising rivers of North Dakota. The Flood Factor this spring could have its consequences come November.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

Panda and Panda and Panda, Oh My....

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Live at the Red River Valley Zoo—which surely must now be red panda universe—the first look at the red panda triplets. Yes, triplets. Born June 11. To be on public view starting in August. Start planning your vacation now....
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because it can't be all about politics and floods'n'stuff all the time.
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She's Home

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The governor summed it up in calling Roxana Saberi a Daughter of North Dakota. And friends, neighbors, colleagues and the Governor and North Dakota's lone Congressman, Earl Pomeroy, were there amid maroon and gold balloons, the Concordia College colors, to welcome back at long last our fellow Fargoan.

The local newspaper, the Forum, promises full coverage in their Sunday issue. But here's a preview of the emotional homecoming of Roxana.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Roxana's Return to Land of the Free

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She's back...in the USA. One step closer to home. And saying maybe it's corny but she's glad to be back in the land of the free.

Friends in her north Fargo neighborhood have already planted flowers at the family home to welcome them all back.

Need we mention the quiet heroism of her parents? Leaving the safety and relative obscurity of their quiet life in Fargo for the harrowing challenge of flying to Iran and resolutely staying and speaking out until Roxana Saberi was released.

On this Memorial Weekend, we salute all the men and women who work in every facet of our American government, military, State Dept., intelligence services, diplomatic corps, Congressmen and Senators and their staffs...working in public service for us all. Led by a White House working to restore the honor and dignity of this nation in the eyes of the world...and ourselves.

Working to assure, most days in obscurity, that we all truly live in the land of the free.

We have much to celebrate...and reflect on...this Memorial Day weekend.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Roxana Speaks

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From Tehran to Fargo, the joy at the release of Roxana Saberi from prison and espionage charges is heartfelt.

Roxana herself expressed gratitude to all those who supported her release, while new details of the case against her became public.

In her hometown of Fargo, neighbors and mentors spoke of their happiness after the long months of concern and fear for her safety.

Fargo will be waiting to welcome Roxana home... and will give her the space and place to regroup after her tumultuous spring. As our Red River settles back into its banks after the flood, we know, too, Roxana will find a wellspring of comfort in her home community.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Roxana Saberi: Not Graduation Day

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Today is graduation day at Concordia College, across the river in Moorhead from the community of Fargo where Roxana Saberi grew up.

The featured speaker is not Roxana Saberi.

Oh, she was supposed to be. Roxana was a graduate of Concordia, she was supposed to wrap up her own studies and living in Tehran and be back home in Fargo to take part in Concordia's graduation.

Yesterday, leaders of the community, members of many media organizations, former teachers and professors, and friends and neighbors of the community that she called home gathered at the Veterans Memorial Bridge to show their support for Roxana as she remains within prison walls in Iran.

The bridge's central memorial area is a fitting location, the bridge between the two communities that influenced her school years. Yet it's not an easy place to get to...there's no handy parking on a bridge, no easy access for the disabled. It requires an effort.

Just as it requires an effort for a woman like Roxana, herself a bridge between two cultures, holding dual citizenship here in her American birthplace and in the ancestral home country of her father.

She made the effort to use her skillset to communicate to people. She reported for the BBC, NPR and other media about the people and life in Iran. We surmise she did exactly the same there, tried to share understanding about the people and life in America.

Now her telling has been interrupted by the swift authoritarian actions of the Iranian judicial system. What the final chapter will be we do not yet know.

We only know that the community that is her American hometowns very much wants her here again, soon, to tell it.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Roxana Saberi Vigil on Saturday

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Fargo-area journalists have organized a vigil for Roxana Saberi slated for Saturday, May 2, at 2 p.m. CT. The vigil will be on the Veterans Memorial bridge on Main Avenue, which links Fargo with Moorhead, North Dakota with Minnesota.

Roxana is in her second week of a hunger strike, her father has recounted. Iranian officials deny that. Last Sunday, she was allowed an additional visit by her parents, Akiko and Reza, because it was her 32nd birthday.

Details are frustratingly scant about Roxana these days. The national news media seem to have forgotten her story amid the "story of the day" overkill. You'd think they'd be more concerned about one of their own.

But Fargo has not forgotten. North Dakota has not forgotten. Her journalist colleagues have not forgotten. And Saturday, folks will gather, and wear yellow like the yellow ribbons that now flutter in her home neighborhood.

And we are mindful, also, that two journalists are held in North Korea. Their story, too, needs remembering...and reporting.

That's why I'm thinking that even if you can't participate right here in Fargo, on Saturday at 2 pm, wherever you are, pause and reflect on how important responsible journalism

Roxana Saberi Charged with Espionage

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The details are scant, but devastatingly harsh.

Fargo native Roxana Saberi, who had reported from Iran with press credentials for globally respected news organizations including the BBC while a graduate student in Iran, has now been charged with espionage.

We're an optimistic and positive-thinking bunch in the upper heartland, so we'll think positive. But the charges, which have gone from allegations of buying a bottle of wine to espionage, hit our hearts with the same deep concern as looking out upon the Red River which will rise again and batter against sandbags with a second crest soon.

It's easy to jump to the conclusion that this idealistic woman who wanted to inform and educate people in the Western world about the everyday people of Iran is now being used as a pawn in global diplomacy and brinksmanship.

We only want to see her back home. We could use another sandbagger.

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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Flood Watch

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We told ourselves it was just another weekend at the cabin as we drove out of Fargo Friday morning. A disability family, we knew the wise course was to be safely out of the danger zone of the flood of the millenium. Mayor Walaker has enough on his plate, and we are doing our part along with other evacuees so we do not become a distraction on resources.

Heartsore and muscle weary, we left the work of sandbagging and walking dike patrol and all the rest of the urgency of fighting against the river to others to sustain.

We're like the rest of the country now, watching from afar.

But in that, there is much to learn, because truly this is a teaching moment. For those of us of Fargo-Moorhead, where our city leaders and the allies they have in this battle--from FEMA to the National Guard to volunteers from all over the region--the learning curve is swift and essential.

When a permanent floodwall started leaking at the base threatening a school, news reports tell us the response was swift although the river overwhelmed for a time. Now military helicopters drop one-ton sandbags to divert the river's wearing course. A Predator drone patrols the miles-long course of sandbags looking for signs of breach or leakage.

Infrastructure that should have been built along the Fargo river corridor languished since the flooding of 1997. The urgency wasn't there for Fargo as it was for Wahpeton and Grand Forks. It should have been. Hmmmm, what could possibly have diverted all those resources from things like infrastructure since 1997....

Local officials are already at work planning for the recovery and cleanup. Even while watching the weather forecasts and the over three million sandbags that may need to withstand the crashing waves and whitecaps a winter storm could bring. And directing the teams into hot spots to strengthen the dikes.

Multi-tasking. Stepping up to the work that needs doing. Brushing aside the naysayers who prod for evacuating the whole city. Surrendering. Fargo's mayor, and Fargo, will have none of that. Lesson to be learned, America.

When the imminent danger is passed, we'll be going home. We've seen floods before and filled and hefted our share of sandbags. And because we've been richly blessed in ways no financial statement could measure by a lifetime of living in Fargo, we will give back in ways we can contribute. We'll be community activists again.

We'll help rebuild. Students and volunteers and dedicated city staff and leaders have fought to keep the river at bay. Now we'll take the city as we find it and make it better.

One city, one country...we will rebuild.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Flood-in-Progress

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Evacuations are beginning in Fargo and Moorhead. It's neighborhoods, now, and nursing homes, and even the city's larger hospital complex. People have a city to save, so those at-risk are moving --and being moved--now.

The river is rising, uncharted territory now. Over 40 feet and possibly going as high as 43 feet.

The students of the communities are being sorely tested and responding heroically. Residents on the river's edge and neighbors, too. And new friends from hundreds of miles away....

Heroic, too, are the city leaders, Mayor Denny Walaker, Deputy Mayor and self-described parttime surgeon Tim Mahoney and their city staff. They are our leaders, they are our neighbors, they are our friends. They are making decisions that may cost them their own home.

The reporters on local media [kfgo.com, wday.com] report with dispatch CodeRed alerts of their own neighborhoods.

This is a war zone. The war on water.

The scoundrels are few [don't get me started on the ND Chamber of Commerce smear'n'fear ad campaign against Employee Free Choice wallboarded amid the announcements and news flying thick and fast on the radio this morning].

Four blocks away, a mandatory evacuation near our own neighborhood.

This is our home. This is our heritage.

And we are determined this is our legacy.

The city will win this war.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Dear A.I.G., He Quits.

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Some must reading today, this op-ed in the New York Tmes: Dear A.I.G., I Quit!

Add this to Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone article that cuts through the jargon b.s. and smoke and mirrors to explain so even I can understand how we got where we are.

And, this commentary over at Oxdown Gazette from Selise: Dear Congress, Your Hearings Suck! [and isn't that Dilbert cartoon great]

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We have tons of school kids and college students in the process of saving Fargo from going underwater even as I type...they're coming in on buses over 100 miles away, too... we owe the next generation bigtime, and Fargo's experience truly shows that.

Paying them back starts with fixing the same ol' same ol' crap in Washington.

Mother Nature's Shovel Ready Stimulus

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Nothing like an impending natural disaster to focus the mind and energies.

Right now in Fargo, we're preparing to face by this weekend what may be the worst flooding on record. Or second worst, to 1997. Whichever, we'll be ready, we'll have exerted maximum effort to guard against it.

High schools and universities have called off classes, volunteers are rallying in the thousands to Fargo Moorhead and our satellite communities. A neurosurgeon works side by side with a county jail prisoner. National Guardsmen—who've already given so much in Iraq—and volunteers from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, and ordinary citizens, neighbors, farmers driving into North Dakota's biggest city. We have 8th graders joining in today for sandbag building, plus giant "spiders" capable of filling sandbags in the hundreds of thousands.

The forecast for the crest is daunting—39 to 41 feet.

The exactitude is still to come...depending on what Mother Nature contributes overnight. It's blizzarding to the west of us. And that's heading our way. Ice jams are backing up the mighty Missouri river, which flows to the south.

But the basin of the Red River [the ancient Lake Agassiz lakebed] is rising fast and furious and the subsoil is still frozen, so there's no mitigation by absorption.

Coordinating the volunteers and city workers are seasoned teams of flood fighters--city engineering staff, cops, city planners, the mayors and commissioners. They are fighting for their homes, too. And the homes and businesses of neighbors. This is what we pay them to do.

This is we, the people.

Government and citizens, teaming up to take on a common challenge. In this case it's a flooding river basin.

It could be securing a border. Or funding schools. Or finding a solution that serves the common good instead of special interests in health care.

But it starts with a government that acts—and plans—for the common good. And a citizenry with a spirit of volunteerism and community service to make it work.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Flood Waters Be Risin'

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There'll be lots of shovel work in Fargo this weekend...folks filling sandbags, preparing to defend the city against the predicted flood. 1.5 million sandbags, to start.

We've hefted more than a few over the years, growing up in this community. There's work to be done.... and this is how it goes hereabouts: Everybody, from bankers to students to Teamsters to ladies clubs. Everybody pitches in.

No dallying, no whining for a bonus, no what's in it for me...well, there was that cluster the last time that sat on their decks watching volunteers save their asses. But rumor is they didn't have what it took, riff raff, they're long gone. Along with a scurvy BCBS exec and his severance more lately. And good riddance. But that's another story.

Keep a good thought for Fargo and the small towns and cities up and down the basin of the Red River of the North. Floodwaters heading our way in coming days. We've been here before. We've kept 'em at bay. We will again.

And go, Bison!

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Breaking: Obama in Fargo Thursday

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Meet the Press noted Obama is slated to appear in North Dakota Thursday, then 4th of July in Montana. New — Obama will appear in Fargo. Details pending. Brace yerself, Chuck Todd, we may have a surprise in store for you come November.
UPDATE: Obama's appearance reported as an invitation-only gathering with military and families at Yunker Children's Farm, near the airport mid-day. Will Obama's 50-state strategy mean more than 50 minutes on the ground in ND for this visit?

Bridge over Troubled Waters

We’re looking for a bridge these days—oh, not a bridge to the 21^st Century. That’s been pretty abysmal for most folks so far. And not a tongue kiss or handhold to the family Saud…[you’ll have no trouble finding those pictures on the web, not dragging them into the garden this day.]

Every time we go to the gas pump, we’re at the mercy of that “bridge” between 9/11 terrorists and the black gold that funds them.

We’re looking for another bridge…a bridge buffeted by the fogs of fate, yet still able to stand strong, sure. And we surely need him. Because we have been buffeted, too, these past seven years, caught between Iraq and a hard place that is the American economy.

Our bridges are in sorry shape…real bridges collapsing in rivers, others so ruinous they are shut down.

Campaigns that will need to bridge their differences once the primary season is past are now being sorely tested as well.

This week we have an opportunity for some bridge building… Will we build it strong? It’s up to each one of us. We are the bridge-builders … and we will be the bridge users. So, it’s up to us…Will we use the strong steel of our forefathers to build? Or lay back and say let someone else do it?

The buzz is already building out there on the web, launched by the folks at DailyKos, but a swarm of others of us join in the call cutting through the fog. Won’t you join in? Support the Edwards campaign on Friday, January 18. And today as well can’t hurt….

Someone else is dying for us in Iraq. Or coming back shattered in mind or body. For the foolishness of a President whose Napoleonic ego drives him to fearmonger and false promises.

Someone else is watching their neighborhoods boarded up and ruined…by the waters driven by the winds of selfishness and greed. In New Orleans. In Michigan.. In cities where “subprime” destroys lives so rich men may dance. Dance, Karl. Dance, David. Dance, dance, dance.

Someone else is dying on the sidewalk in front of the Bishop’s house in Fargo Sunday night while the city races to finish up a new shelter…homeless, needy, in despair? Chronic addiction, transient lifestyle, they say. It’s someone else.

Until it’s not.

Time, past time, to take a stand. Build a bridge on solid ground to span the troubled waters and unite again this nation divided. It’s an epic battle…and we are the nuts and bolts that will build the bridge…if we have the will.

UPDATE: You'll find commentary updated on the 1/18 campaign for Edwards at DailyKos ... or just stop by the Edwards site direct and help build this bridge. Now would be good.

The Great Equalizer

We are growing libraries in Prairie Country these days. Elsewhere, there are conversations about closings and consolidations, but not here. Small town libraries are banding together to share books and husband wisely their resources. Park Rapids, Minnesota is just beginning to think about how to increase their library space.

Fargo is in the midst of a significant improvement with the opening already of a brand new storefront library on the north side of the city. And a new neighborhood library on the southside replaces a storefront library that burst at its seams in its short life.

Downtown, the existing library has been demolished and a new two-story library is going up in its place. A stolid red brick building, with massive glass walls, overlooking the Red River of the North.

Some of us liked the first design better than the final one now under construction. Vivid, visionary, it would have exemplified the role of libraries in stretching minds, giving them room to imagine exciting things. But we are a pragmatic people in Prairie Country, and the money wasn’t there for visionary, so stolid will do.

Libraries are part of the fabric and foundation of cultures. The library at Alexandria. The Hittites room, a library of sorts in telling what it is that a culture values, even if the culture itself has not survived. We hunt for cave paintings and scrolls and stand in awe of the paper chase for knowledge that libraries, great and small, have hoarded and shared and shed light on.

We seem to value hockey arenas and football dorms more around here, but that’s a transitory thing. Next year, it’ll be soccer fields. Or some other controlled exercise in war-making. Which is not such a bad thing. Better to be fighting battles on ball fields than bloody fields. Seems a tad more civilized, most of the time. Until a player or parent reverts to barbarian rants.

Libraries are the great civilizers…and equalizers. Anyone can walk or wheel through the doors, pick up a book and sit down and read. No admission required. No gatekeepers. No uniforms to buy or restriction other than the desire to learn…or the grudging chore to fulfill a teacher’s assignment…which has the potential in the library to open the doors toward lifelong paths.

Libraries have been part of the fabric and foundation of my life. Yours, too? The first was an iconic Carnegie library on the shores of Lake Bemidji. At first the giant-to-a-child statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe seemed the draw downtown, but it was the library that brought me back again and again. To discover Laura Ingalls Wilder and Bobbsey Twins and Betsy, Tacy and Tib and…. Because we lived just a few blocks away, I was allowed to go on my own. An adult adventure in more innocent times. A seed planted.

I was in the magazine room of the school library, a student volunteer sorting and filing stacks when the announcement came over the p.a. system…President Kennedy has been shot.

The Carnegie Library in Fargo was torn down for a parking lot. But not before I moved from the children’s section to the main stacks and read my way through all the Shakespeare paperbacks and wrote about the Lafayette Escadrille for a school paper and rode the bus home every week with a fresh stack of books.

Libraries are valued by people in every walk of life. Mausoleums called libraries are built for Presidents, where they can tell their story or keep it from being fully told. Private libraries are standard in law offices and hospitals and churches and even homes. Collections of all sizes, all topics. A repository of knowledge, and a stimulator of ideas.

Because of libraries, we have the opportunity to read the banned, the controversial, the disagreeable, the charming, the world-expanding, the latest, the oldest, the most sobering and the most frivolous.

Celebrate your local library, visit it often in the year to come and support it. Share books you no longer use. Contribute to a building fund. Make it a regular part of your life. And share your thoughts about libraries here if you like, or think about it on your way…and come back soon. Thanks for stopping by.