News commentary for the short attention span

Attention spans are short these days. That's good because my arguments are short, too.

Following is some news commentary, important and otherwise, that won't overexert your attention spans or my brain.

News item: UCLA researchers spent four years on a study that concluded that women prefer muscular men to flabby ones.

Comment: Now they tell me.

News item: Ray and Agnes Grenier, Gentilly, Minn., grew a 13½-pound red beet that measured nearly a foot in diameter.

Comment: If that red beet had been a sugar beet, it would have packed enough punch to stink up East Grand Forks for two days.

News item: Fargo's junior hockey team chooses "Force" as its nickname.

Comment: Hmmm. Fighting Sioux. Force of the North. Looks like UND needs to go to Plan C.

News item: Parents use cameras and GPS units to monitor their teenagers' driving habits.

Comment: A less expensive way to ensure safe driving is to buy a 1997 Mercury Mystique incapable of driving faster than 25 mph.

News item: Trenton, N.J., has made it illegal to wear saggy pants. You can be fined for wearing pants low enough to reveal boxers or bare buttocks.

Comment: I guess you could call that a crackdown.

News item: Grand Forks man pleads guilty to growing 90 high-grade marijuana plants in his home.

Comment: If his house had caught on fire, the entire city would have suffered a severe drop in work production and a rush on grocery store munchies.

News item: Tim Mathern, a state senator from Fargo, will run for the Democratic nomination to oppose Gov. John Hoeven in 2008.

Comment: Mathern will get the nomination. The easy explanation is that there are no other state Democrats masochistic enough to buck the governor's approval ratings.

News item: The region has experienced several hard freezes this fall.

Comment: It's official. For the second consecutive year, I have gone without a single mosquito bite. This speaks either to our mosquito-scarce environment or the quality of my blood.

News item: The Keystone Pipeline project is under increasing fire in the Dakotas. Rural residents feel bullied and ignored by TransCanada Corp. officials. Fargo also is crabbing after its belated realization that an oil spill could damage its water supply.

Comment: The rural folks have the political clout of the aforementioned mosquito, but Keystone folks are fools to mess with King Cass. Perhaps Keystone can get some public relations tips from Enbridge, which draws almost universal high praise from northwestern Minnesota landowners with pipelines on their properties.

News item: Former N.D. Gov. Ed Schafer is nominated as U.S. secretary of agriculture.

Comment: Looks like former Lt. Gov. Rosemarie Myrdal, Edinburg, did a good job of teaching Schafer the difference between a corn kernel and a wheat kernel. Now let's see if Schafer can turn President Bush's attention away from crude oil to soybean oil.

Bakken reports on local news and writes a column. Reach him at 780-1125, (800) 477-6572 ext. 125 or rbakken@gfherald.com .