Today we took a break from sightseeing. In the morning, Cindy caught up on some work and I traveled to visit the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Cairo. My good friends Karla and David Grafton, who helped profoundly with planning this trip, worked at the seminary when they lived here and it was an incredible chance for me to learn about …
We got to sleep in a little later this morning, heading out at 8:20 a.m. to our first site, the Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan. We try to get out a bit earlier because traffic in Cairo is absolutely insane and I’ve never heard so much beeping. So many cars, so many people. On our way to the mosque we passed …
A Florida charter school principal was forced to resign this past week after a photograph of Michelangelo’s David was shown in a sixth-grade art class. Hope Carrasquilla of the Tallahassee Classical School was forced out after several parents complained, one of whom called the famous 16th-century statue “pornographic.” Carrasquilla was not the teacher who showed the image to students without …
Today began very early, as we met our guide and driver at 6 a.m. to begin the journey to Alexandria. It was a 2½ hour drive on what it’s called the Desert Road between the lush oasis that is Cairo, which is fed by the Nile River, to Alexandria, located on the Mediterranean Sea. Alexandria was the capital of Egypt …
A letter to a whole bunch of really good friends. Dear Friends, The nightmare is over. My lawyer says I can talk about it now. Some of you know about it already. Most don’t. Here’s the short version. About a year and a half ago, there was a knock on my front door. A kind of unruly looking fellow, probably …
Every so often in life, you are dealt unexpected curveballs that seem unfair and moments of true serendipitous grace. For me, in the past year, I’ve had both. When I left my call at Emanuel, I lost a Lily Sabbatical Grant that would have provided an amazing experience for my family and me. And now I have begun a truly astonishing …
This is another in an occasional series of articles Governing is publishing this year by Clay Jenkinson on some of the less well-known presidents of the United States. It would be tempting to regard historically forgotten Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) as one of the caretaker — as opposed to change maker — presidents, but that would be unfair. He was actually quite …
“On New Year’s Eve, 1940, Paul Southworth Bliss, a veteran of the Great War in Europe and a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, took his service revolver from its holster in his small apartment at the Kansas City, Missouri, YMCA, put the pistol to his head, and pulled the trigger. He was just 51 years old. He left a …
A seemingly endless winter is always a good occasion to make soup. And if you have a pantry and freezer full of goodies from this past summer’s garden, all the better. I came across a soup recipe recently that did not require me to go to the supermarket. I had all the ingredients on hand and only a few tweaks …
In the movie “Dumb and Dumber,” Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels make a wrong turn at the Colorado border and, after driving through the night, wind up many hours later in a perfectly flat landscape in central Nebraska. Jim Carrey’s character, Lloyd, who mistakenly thinks they must now be in the fabled Rocky Mountains, looks around and quips, “That John …
The University of North Dakota men’s hockey team’s 2022-23 season came to an end Friday night as the Fighting Hawks dropped a 3-2 overtime decision to St. Cloud State University in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference semifinals in St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center. The Fighting Hawks (18-15-6) held leads of 1-0 and 2-1 over the Huskies (23-12-3) on goals by …
Singer and songwriter Tom Brosseau doesn’t need much of an introduction, especially around here in the Midwest. But other places as well. The Grand Forks native has performed in Australia, Japan and elsewhere around the world. In a few days, he’ll be back home, along an excellent group of performers, singing for a good cause. Tom has collaborated with the …
The firebrand Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene recently tweeted, “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.” Although her tweet …
Today is International Women’s Day, so naturally my mind immediately begins to focus on the women I met in the Oula and Mungula Refugee Settlement Camps. While sharing with someone about my recent trip to Uganda, I told about my role in the Trauma Healing Training. I give leaders in the community the tools they need to assist them as …
I’m pretty sure these phone calls have already happened. Rrring! Rrring! “Hello, Governor’s Office, this is Doug Burgum.” “Hello, Governor, this is Bill Peterson over at the State Historical Society. They’re telling me I have to decide if I should sign off on letting the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad tear down its historic bridge over the Missouri River so …
Water. It’s something many people in the developed world take for granted. That what comes out of our faucets won’t kill us. However, having just recovered from what was most likely a water-borne infection, thanks to the wonders of modern antibiotics, I am incredibly aware of just how precious clean water is and just how deadly contaminated water can be. …
Do you know some young person just starting or just ready to start a professional career in North Dakota? Someone who’s a good communicator — maybe a journalism degree) — and is interested in the outdoors (especially North Dakota’s Bad Lands)? Well, I’ve got an idea for them. I’ve been a member of an organization for more than 20 years …
The University of North Dakota men’s hockey team closed out its regular season in winning fashion with a 2-1 National Collegiate Hockey Conference win over the University of Nebraska-Omaha on Saturday night in Ralph Engelstad Arena. Ethan Frisch and Chris Jandric scored goals for the Fighting Hawks (16-13-6 overall, 10-10-4 NCHC), while Matt Miller scored the only goal for the …
This is another in an occasional series of articles Governing is publishing this year by Clay Jenkinson on some of the less well-known presidents of the United States. You can listen to the companion audio version of this and other essays in the series using the player below or on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Audible Jimmy Carter and American Memory Jimmy Carter was …
Although I can no longer untangle when I decided to learn more about Ruth and Clell Goebel Gannon, I credit my friend, Ken Rogers of Mandan, N.D., for piquing my interest to the point at which I started collecting their books and admiring their prose and poetry. Ken and the inimitable Kevin Carvell of Mott, N.D., who quite possibly has …
One of the key objectives of our visit to the settlements was to meet the people involved in the South Sudan Leadership and Community Development cooperatives and share their stories. These cooperatives are what set SSLCD apart from most aid organizations because they are literally organized by the refugees and for the refugees, as we seek to empower their leadership …
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about some bad bills in the North Dakota Legislature that attempt to ban books from our pubic libraries. One, SB 2123, was a goofy bill that just removed libraries from the list of places “dirty books” are allowed to be displayed. It was such a bad bill that it failed in the Senate …
I recently said good-bye to an old friend. A warm, wrap-around friend who was always able to comfort me to the core in the harshest times. I gave away my North Dakota parka. I have gone whole years here in Omaha, Neb., without having to wear it. The coat was really too heavy for Nebraska’s relatively milder winters. This was …
This is one of an occasional series of articles Governing is publishing this year by Clay Jenkinson on some of the less well-known presidents of the United States. In the tributes to Jimmy Carter that have flooded the news and social media in the wake of his announcement that he will live out the last days of his life at home under the …
In addition to our work with trauma healing and peace-building training, one of the other reasons we as board members of South Sudan Leadership and Community Development come to visit is to provide support to our on-the-ground organizers and help assess the needs and strengths of the cooperatives. We believe the work being done in refugee settlement camps through SSLCD …
One of the key principles of South Sudan Leadership and Community Development is that we operate within the settlement camps through cooperatives. We have three organizers who work within the camps to focus on leadership training, which is part of our work this week, and on community development. Our focus is to improve the lives of the women, children and …
Our second day in the settlements took us to Olua, which is a bit closer to Adjuman, a little over a half hour away. The two camps are very different. Olua is more concentrated, so it appears to have more buildings, whereas Mungula has more space and appears more sparse. Even in refugee settlements, there is an urban/rural demarcation. Although …
Colorado’s Poudre Canyon, a glacier-formed valley through the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains northwest of Fort Collins, Colo., offers some spectacular viewing as photographer Jeff Olson and his wife, Joanne Plager Burke Olson, can attest. Jeff and Joanne recently took a hike through the canyon, which begins high in the peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park …
After a mostly sleepless night, thanks to the loud bed-shaking music playing outside our hotel until after 5:30 a.m. — which, I might add, seemed eminently unfair since they must have been the only place in Adjumani with electricity — we spent the morning getting supplies to provide for breaks during our day at the Mungula Settlement. Hospitality is a …
Lent is just around the corner, which means it’s fish fry season. But I can remember a time when there was a fish fry every Friday night at the American Legion Club in my hometown of Crookston, Minn. I recall trips to the Legion as a kid, but they were few and far between. Our Fridays were usually dominated by …
Riese Gaber’s third goal of the weekend early in the third period gave the University of North Dakota men’s hockey team a come-from-behind 2-2 tie with St. Cloud State University in National Collegiate Hockey Conference play Saturday night in Ralph Engelstad Arena. The Huskies (18-9-3 overall, 10-7-3 NCHC) gained the extra point with a shootout win. Gaber, who scored twice …
As the American people decide whether to panic, assign blame or shrug at the violation of American airspace by a handful of strange objects, one of them certainly a Chinese spy balloon, it may be useful to look back to a previous moment of national space panic. The Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite Oct. 4, 1957. Sputnik — …
Four flights and a 9½-hour ride on an African bus later, I am happy to report I am safely in Adjumani, Uganda. Denise, my fellow co-chair of South Sudan Leadership and Community Development, and Christine, who also serves on the board, and I met in Detroit. Given a variety of travel concerns in the Midwest due to snow, I am …
Riese Gaber scored two goals, including the winner in overtime, to lead the University of North Dakota men’s hockey team to a 4-3 win over St. Cloud State University in National Collegiate Hockey Conference play Friday night in Ralph Engelstad Arena. The Fighting Hawks (13-13-4 overall, 7-10-2 NCHC) trailed 3-1 before Jake Schmaltz cut the lead to one goal early …
Elections, as they say, have consequences. What’s been going on in Billings County, North Dakota, elections has been pretty consequential. Billings County is an important place. It’s home to the Bad Lands, Medora and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. And the Little Missouri State Scenic River. More about elections in a minute. You’ve been reading here for more than 10 years …
I was saddened when my mother told me that JoAnn Derry had passed away. She was 90. Her obituary described her as “a firecracker with grit and determination.” Yup. That was her, all right. I met her in Sunday School at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Frederick, S.D., in 1968. I was misbehaving one day — hard to imagine, I …
The University of North Dakota men’s basketball team won its third straight game with a 76-73 overtime victory over the University of Nebraska-Omaha on Saturday in Betty Engelstad Sioux Center in Summit League play. Four players for the Fighting Hawks (10-17 overall, 4-10 Summit) hit double figures in scoring, led by Matt Norman’s 21 points. Tsotne Tsartsize chipped in 17 …
And so the annual circus continues, and we have slipped another rung. The 2023 State of the Union Address on Tuesday night was marred by heckling, and what’s left of our republican norms is slipping between our fingers. If Jefferson Was President Today, He Would Have Made It an Email The first two presidents, George Washington and John Adams, delivered their State …
It started last weekend. I began receiving weird text messages from unknown phone numbers outside the 701 area code. I didn’t think about it much the first time, but then they kept on coming, sometimes three a day. I ignored them, like I had been told to when I got my first cellphone. By the way, I remember my very …
Those who grew up in the 1950s and ’60s probably ate their share of hotdish and casserole. Not only were they standard fare of many a stay-at-home moms but also of school lunch programs. We always had hamburger and macaroni hotdish at least once a week at home and occasionally one made with leftover chicken paired with rice. School hot …
There are people who can name all the presidents, some forward and backward. I can do pretty well from George Washington through Andrew Jackson (1-7), but once you get to Tylers and Taylors things get a little murky. And I can count backward from Joe Biden to Herbert Hoover (46-31), but then I start second guessing myself about Coolidge, Pierce …
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a really bad bill in the North Dakoa Legislature, HB 1205, which starts banning books from our libraries. I’ve since learned there’s another one just as bad, SB 2123, which pretty much does the same kind of thing. One’s in the House, the other in the Senate, and both have had hearings and should …
Photographer Dave Bruner captured some beautiful landscape images on a recent visit to the North Dakota Badlands along with his wife, Sheila. For more photographs of Dave Bruner, to go Dave Bruner Photography or www.flickr.com/photos/davebrunerphotography/.
Prince Harry’s “long-awaited” memoir, “Spare,” is anything but. Its 410 pages are causing a big stir in both Britain and the United States and it must be a source of great angst within the royal family. It’s hard to know whether his publisher urged him to ratchet up or ratchet down his conflict with his father, his brother, his sister-in-law …