11/19/2008 12:01 AM As others have noted, the U.S. has a profitable car-manufacturing industry. It’s just that the signs in front of the factories say Honda and Toyota. The Big Three automakers must become more like their competition, especially where labor costs and quality control are concerned. A bailout would delay those vital reckonings.
11/19/2008 12:01 AM If Gov. John Hoeven were to run for Senate, I don’t think North Dakotans would vote to remove a governor they liked and a senator they liked at the same time. Who would think that is in the state’s interest?
11/19/2008 12:01 AM We in society share a collective, and in many cases, a personal guilt for our moral “lukewarmness” that has let us stand by for 35 years while nearly 50 million of our fellow citizens have had their lives “legally” taken from them.
11/19/2008 12:01 AM I’m joining a group of Minnesota lawmakers in studying the potential of enhanced driver’s licenses in this state, in order to provide those of us who live and work here easier and less-expensive access across the border.
11/18/2008 12:01 AM The NTSB has spoken on the Interstate 35 bridge collapse. The verdict: The bridge collapsed because of a design flaw. And unless more evidence surfaces, that means the partisan sniping should end.
11/18/2008 12:01 AM A rattle of cocktail shakers was heard across the land when it became clear 75 years ago that the 18th Amendment creating Prohibition would be voted out of the Constitution.
11/18/2008 12:01 AM One must ask, what can a married man and woman do that a gay married couple can never do (at least without the intervention of a third party)? The answer is that a man and woman can have children together. Marriage has been created and defined upon that historical (and natural law) basis.
Historical marriage has procreation at its heart.
11/18/2008 12:01 AM After being restructured through bankruptcy, the Detroit Two, or One, might flourish. Let’s find out. The ruinous alternative is to squander more scores of billions of scarce capital that will then be unavailable for job-creating investments in rising industries.
11/17/2008 12:01 AM The structures are in place to conduct a fair and accurate recount. Let election officials and candidates alike be guided by Minnesota’s traditions of honesty, humility and self-restraint.
11/17/2008 12:01 AM “Change!” exclaimed Old Sievert as he stomped across the cold hardwood dance floor into another special meeting of the Homeland Security Committee in the community hall. “I didn’t vote for change.”
11/17/2008 12:01 AM The energy-policy mentality in Washington seems to have regressed to the year President Clinton vetoed legislation to open the outer continental shelf to oil production. His argument was that it would take a decade to get the oil. That was more than a decade ago.
11/17/2008 12:01 AM After a decade, the newly opened areas are expected to produce an extra 0.3 million barrels per day.
How significant is that? In 2008, the U.S. produced about 5 million barrels per day. So an extra 0.3 million barrels per day may increase U.S. production by about 5 percent to 6 percent in a decade.
11/16/2008 12:00 AM This editorial is meant to serve a single purpose: To call attention to and endorse Livio Di Matteo’s idea, which he describes in the “Prairie Voices” interview on this page.
11/15/2008 06:00 PM Ontario professor Livio Di Matteo believes group similar to one in the Pacific Northwest that has spurred cross-border trade and growth there council could work here.
11/15/2008 06:00 PM The deeper one digs into the returns from this last election, the more portentous the results seem, . . . Nonetheless, there are signs of voter shifts that could herald a new political era — and which certainly define the challenge facing the Republican Party.
11/15/2008 06:00 PM Conservatism’s current intellectual chaos reverberated in the Republican ticket’s crescendo of surreal warnings that big government — verily, “socialism” — would impend were Democrats elected. John McCain and Sarah Palin experienced this epiphany when Barack Obama told a Toledo, Ohio, plumber that he would “spread the wealth around.”
America can’t have that, exclaimed the Republican ticket while Republicans — whose prescription drug entitlement is the largest expansion of the welfare state since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society gave birth to Medicare in 1965; a majority of whom in Congress supported a lavish farm bill at a time of record profits for the fewer than 2 percent of the American people who farm — and their administration were partially nationalizing the banking system, putting Detroit on the dole and looking around to see if some bit of what is smilingly called “the private sector” has been inadvertently left off the ever-expanding list of entities eligible for a bailout from the $1 trillion or so that is to be “spread around.”
11/15/2008 06:00 PM T. Boone Pickens has one thing right. The nation needs to overhaul its power grid. The billionaire advocate for U.S. energy independence . . .sees a north-south wind energy corridor stretching from North Dakota to Texas. He envisions retrofitting the nation’s fleet of cars and trucks to run on natural gas. He wants to stop spending huge amounts of American capital importing 65 percent of the crude oil that the nation needs to operate.It’s a big plan, nearly as big as Pickens’ ego. But he’s more right than wrong.
11/15/2008 12:00 AM Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there still will be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations.
11/15/2008 06:00 PM Based on the global response to the election of our new president, the world will be watching the Obama administration.
That’s why the new administration must not make any drastic changes that would affect the continued development and eventual global acceptance of agricultural technologies, including biotechnology.
11/15/2008 06:00 PM Between sips at Starbucks, Kris Engelstad McGarry politely tells me I won’t be interviewing the inspiring woman behind the Engelstad Family Foundation. Not today. Or, I suspect, on any other day.
The devoted daughter explains that Betty Engelstad is as shy and unassuming as she is thoughtful and generous. And that’s saying quite a lot.
11/15/2008 06:00 PM To say that religion has no place in government is, in George Washington’s own words, to “shake the foundation of the fabric” of “popular government.” Argue with him; I’m just the messenger.
11/15/2008 06:00 PM In her letter, Jillian Grygier asks the question, “How does gay marriage hurt you?” (“What’s wrong with gay marriage?” Page A4, Nov. 11).
However, since the status quo is that gay marriage is illegal, the opposite needs to be answered instead by advocates of gay marriage: How does gay marriage help you?
11/15/2008 06:00 PM In a recent letter, Jillian Grygier asks, “How does gay marriage affect your life? Does it hurt your everyday existence?” (“What’s wrong with gay marriage?” Page A4, Nov. 11).
I’d like to answer her question. Sex, gay or otherwise, is not a religious issue. Rather, it is an issue of natural law.
11/15/2008 06:00 PM The North Dakota teacher of the year was recognized and congratulated by Gov. John Hoeven and State Superintendent Wayne Sanstead as part of a program that the Department of Public Instruction and NDEA opened to the public in the morning. . . . Earlier in September, NDEA let that teacher know that she would not be able to attend members-only events such as the evening socials, but she came anyway. She knew the policy ahead of time, and she chose to show disrespect to the very organization that actually tried to protect her from embarrassment.
11/15/2008 06:00 PM These few lines are a way to publicly thank the many volunteers whom we had at our Veterans Day observance and meal.
The meal was served at Post 157 American Legion Club in East Grand Forks. It took many hours of preparation, but the result was a smooth and fine event that was enjoyed by nearly 600 people.
11/14/2008 01:30 AM Most Americans aren’t looking for small government, but they’re not looking for big government either. They’re looking for good government — and that’s what Republican (and Democratic, for that matter) leaders should deliver.
11/14/2008 01:31 AM The American taxpayers, who are struggling through this economic crisis, are told they have to fork over a pile of money to bailout some big banks, while the big banks are busy calculating their year-end bonus payments — maybe to the same geniuses who built this financial house of cards and were last seen driving the getaway car from the scene of the wreckage.
I think it’s nuts!
11/14/2008 01:31 AM We can’t meaningfully address poverty or grow the economy as long as urban schools are failing. Obama talks boldly about starting new high-tech green industries, but where will the workers come from unless students reliably learn science and math?
11/14/2008 01:32 AM Considering that each American’s share of the debt is now more than $34,850, any new spending liabilities should be considered with great care.
11/14/2008 06:00 PM I’m a little confused about the need to have a “hate crime law.” I looked “hate” up in the dictionary, and it is called an emotion, not an action. I thought that laws were made to punish crimes committed — actions — not thoughts or emotions.
11/14/2008 06:00 PM The campaign for public service commissioner was a very rewarding experience for my family and me. It was our first, and we enjoyed it very much.
Karen, Jordee and I want to thank all of our supporters, friends and family who worked so hard for us to be successful Nov. 4.
11/14/2008 06:00 PM State lawmakers from Grand Forks fulfilled a campaign promise this week by proposing a two-year tuition freeze.
Now, lawmakers also should follow up on another idea from the District 42 campaign trail: a university system endowment.
11/14/2008 06:00 PM November is National Adoption Awareness Month, and we were pleased to see the Herald stories about several local families who became families through adoption.
11/13/2008 12:01 AM It was an “overture,” not an “offer,” North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad said of the inquiry from the Obama administration.
But a better term yet might be “opera.” That gets across a bit of the theater that likely was involved.
11/13/2008 12:01 AM I also can imagine that Louis Armstrong is pleased with what happened on Election Day, and that all the pain and tribulation was worthwhile. And I know a new day dawned for America on Nov. 4.
11/13/2008 12:01 AM As an attendee at the 2008 North Dakota Education Association’s instructional conference in Fargo, I am having a hard time with North Dakota news media headlines that labeled the treatment of North Dakota’s 2008 Teacher of the Year, Beth Ekre, as a snub.
11/13/2008 12:01 AM Choosing a new puppy? Ha! The Obamas face a much tougher public relations dilemma: Are they willing to put their school-aged daughters where daddy’s political promises have been?
11/12/2008 12:01 AM By making the applications public, the state narrows the applicant pool for one of North Dakota’s most important jobs: college president.
11/12/2008 12:01 AM The Constitution grants the president many powers, but they pale in comparison with the creativity of the American people that gifted leaders have unleashed. For all of his legislative and foreign policy triumphs, Ronald Reagan’s (1981-89) greatest achievement was restoring a sense of optimism to a sullen nation.
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You may drop letters off at the Grand Forks Herald or mail them to us at 375 2nd Ave. N., Grand Forks, ND 58206-6008. Letters may also be sent via e-mail to: tdennis@gfherald.com.
I love deer; they're delicious Dorreen Yellow Bird
‘Tis the season for “run, Bambi, run.” And when the emphasis is on Bambi, it's “run, run” for me.
But if you are talking about new recipes such as slow-cooked pot roast of venison with fine vegetables, venison steaks sauteed in olive oil or maybe a piece of venison dipped in wonderful sauces with an aroma to kill for, then I am there.
Coya came home 50 years ago Marilyn Hagerty
In November 1958, Rep. Coya Knutson from Oklee, Minn., lost her third run after her husband had written the famous “Coya Come Home” letter. She was defeated by Odin Langen.
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