You can read all the newspaper stories with lists of vaccination and testing sites, and death counts, and you can watch the incessant pokes-in-the-arm on the six o’clock news, but  you can’t really understand Covid-19 until you’ve sat at the bedside of a good friend in the intensive care unit of a hospital and watched … Continue reading Sadness And Anger

Well, my e-mails have sure been interesting since I wrote about the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) gifts earlier this week. The first was just after I wrote about Rick Becker’s plastic surgery clinic getting a couple of loans: “Hey, what about his bars and restaurants?!?!” Oops. I checked. Yes, he is the registered owner of … Continue reading The PPP Has Been Very Good To North Dakota

This might be the shortest story I ever post here. While doing some research for an earlier story I wrote, I came across the website that apparently tracks every single “loan” made under the pandemic-inspired Paycheck Protection Program. That’s the program that was passed by Congress in 2020 to help keep small businesses afloat during … Continue reading Augmenting Your Business With A PPP Loan

Just when you’ve got a sore neck from shaking your head over the stuff you read and learn about Meridian Energy Group, the company that wants to put a refinery beside our national park . . . there’s this. In spite of the fact that there is no oil refinery, and the only business the … Continue reading The PPP Has Been Really Good To Meridian Energy

I try to write an update on the Meridian Energy Group, the company that wants to put an oil refinery next to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, when there’s some news to report about them. Today’s news comes from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Meridian filed an amended report on its offering of … Continue reading New Office Digs For Refinery Company

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittensBright copper kettles and warm woolen mittensBrown paper packages tied up with stringsThese are a few of my favorite things When the dog bitesWhen the bee stingsWhen I'm feeling sadI simply remember my favorite thingsAnd then I don't feel so bad There's so much bad news these days, it … Continue reading A Few Of My Favorite Things

In yet another bizarre twist to the long-running story of the controversial proposed bridge over the Little Missouri State Scenic River north of Medora to serve the oil industry, the state of North Dakota is now considering stepping in and taking over the whole project, including paying for the bridge and using eminent domain to … Continue reading An Offer From The State To Billings County: We Could Build Your Bridge.

This is going to be a story about bacon. It's an article which appears in the October issue of Dakota Country magazine, which is on the newsstands and in the mail this week. Hang in there with me for a little bit while I provide some background. I’ll get to the bacon part in a … Continue reading The Best Bacon Ever

More than three years after it was first given an Air Quality Permit To Construct an oil refinery on the doorstep of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Meridian Energy Group has received another 18-month permit extension to begin building the refinery. The company said when the permit was first granted in June of 2018 that they … Continue reading The Refinery Threat To Theodore Roosevelt National Park Just Won’t Go Away

September 11 has mostly come and gone. The twentieth anniversary of what has become simply "9-11." I did nothing to observe that anniversary today. I did not watch television, or read the newspaper stories about the events of 20 years ago. Instead I did things I would always do on a Saturday in September. I … Continue reading Yes, It’s September 11. Again.