Staff & Contributors

Ed Raymond

Ed Raymond is a former Marine officer and school board superintendent, and resides in Detroit Lakes.

Content By This Contributor:

How About Cow’s Tongue For School Lunch?

Ed Raymond

I like the word “kerfuffle.” It describes perfectly a rather minor scrum-scrimmage among divergent opinions about a subject that affects a lot of people but is not life threatening. I thought all of the publicity about school lunches in the area lately was really a minor “kerfuffle.” Suddenly I realized that with all of my experiences with schools and school lunches I have a fork in this colorful omelet.

The Autopsy Report

Ed Raymond

Autopsies are performed after an organized group of cells dies, usually represented by a human body. The reasons for such a study vary. Prosecutors may be looking for a cause of death so that someone can be charged with a crime. Physicians may want to perform an autopsy to see why the

How About A Running Wheel In The Poorhouse?

Ed Raymond

I’m writing this column before I know the results of the election, but I know the topic of poverty or pauperism will still be around long after. The November issue of “In These Times” had an article by Maggie Garb that recalled the history of the first anti-poverty organization in the United States, the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism. Poverty hasn’t changed much from 1818 since the Society iss

Is Our Moment Of Greatness Flickering? Is The Eternal Footman Snickering? Is Liquor Quicker Than Candy?

Ed Raymond

There are two poems I admire among many others because they get to the heart of a subject quickly, though by different routes. In Ogden Nash’s epic “Reflections On Ice-Breaking,” he sums up humanity quickly: “Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.” That’s it. That’s all there is. But doesn’t that sum up our society in a one-ounce shot glass? Don’t most of us use booze to make

The Resurrection of Al Capp’s Joe Btfsplk

Ed Raymond

The other day I heard a heart-warming story on National Public Radio about a mother elephant trying to rescue her newborn son from a very deep hole he had fallen into near an African desert waterhole. It seemed to be an impossib

Three Ounces Of Shampoo And 10,000 Rounds Of Ammunition

Ed Raymond

We keep hearing that the November 6th election provides the American people with a real choice of ideologies. A short letter to the Star Tribune editor about the Minneapolis shooting at Accent Signage resulting in carnage for at least nine families put the choice this way: “Why is it that I am a danger to society if I carry more than three ounces of shampoo on a flight, but it’s O

Cheap Teachers Are Very Expensive!

Ed Raymond

Whenever a society is in trouble economically and threatens to become a third world country, politicians jump on teachers, teacher unions, and education institutions and loudly start the blame game. Instead of looking at themselves a

Where The Elite Meet

Ed Raymond

A reader’s pilot husband thought I would be interested in looking at a magazine that is often given away to private jet owners at airports. This is a magazine-catalog strictly for One Percenters who have everything but want “more.” No wonder the One Percenters ha

“Ashes To Ashes, Ashes To Bullets”

Ed Raymond

Would you put up a yard sign with the warning “Ready For Blast Rites? Please Make My Day—Even If I’m Dead”? In the constant battle to attempt to make an honest buck, a Stockton, Alabama company called Holy Smoke, LLC is prepared to provide your relatives ammunition in either cartridges or shotgun she

What A Country! From George Washington To Barack Hussein Obama

Ed Raymond

It has taken just over 200 years to have the presidency of the country move from the white uncallused hands of the wealthy slaveholder George Washington to the white-black hands of Barack Hussein Obama. It is very possible that George got rich from the slavery

A Different View Of The One Percent And The Ninety-Nine Percent

Ed Raymond

The media has been filled with how the One Percent owns about 45 percent of the wealth of the United States, the rest shared by 99 percent of the rabble, including me. The six Walton family members of Walmart fame are worth about $90 billion, or the total wealth of the bottom 41.5 percent of U.S. families. In short,

We Are Rapidly Running Out Of Padded Basement Cells For Crazy Uncles

Ed Raymond

In a previous column I tried to make the case that Mitt Romney might be an alien cyborg raised on Pluto, so far the only ex-planet in the universe. I’m still trying to discover what Mitt is. He has no pimples, no cavities, perfect political hair with no dandruff, and wears wrinkle

Will Frankenskeeters Do The Job?

Ed Raymond

A quote from Minnesota DNR technician Vince Nelson in John Myers’ article in the Fargo Forum jarred my senses the other day: “I haven’t seen a moose all summer.” Corky and I have driven and camped through much of northern Minnesota bog and swamp country for

The Drones Of The Hive

Ed Raymond

Two recent interviews about war were absolutely fascinating. One was a radio interview of an American marathoner leaving in the London Olympics. He came to this country 25 years ago from Eritrea with his dad. When in a Florida seventh grade PE class, his teacher told him if he ran a good race he would give him an “A,” but If he ran a poor one he wo

Better Drive To Alaska Soon

Ed Raymond

Three stories about global warming, climate change, “It’s hotter than hell,” or whatever you would like to call it hit the news recently. The road known in the past as the Alaska Canada Military Highway is sinking, rising, and breaking up in spots because some of it was built

Why Are You So “Stunned and Shocked” About Aurora? We Have Three A Day!

Ed Raymond

Millions of words have been written and spoken about the murders of innocents in an Aurora, Colorado, theater. Thousands of pictures were taken and thousands of hours of video were filmed. “Stunned,” “shocked,” and other powerful adjectives were used to describe the deaths of twelve souls and the wounding of 58 others. Why in hell are you surprised, stunned,

A Good Draft Would Blow Most Wars Away

Ed Raymond

Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post has covered the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since their inception and has always spoken truth to power. To me he is the Ernie Pyle and Bill Mauldin of these modern wars. Last week he wrote an article called “Let’s Draft Our Kids.” In the same week we read about the ever-increasing suicides in the military. The generals in charge just don’t seem to understand it.

American Dreams May Be Just Mirages In An Economic Desert

Ed Raymond

There’s a great deal of discussion about whether our children and grandchildren will be able to realize the “American Dream,” the idea they will have a better economic, social, artistic, and intellectual life than we did. Won’t that always be true? Jon

Old Mexico Would Make A Good Choice For The 51st State

Ed Raymond

Among religious wars, drug wars, civil wars, genocides, and dozens of other kinds Planet Earth remains a dangerous, fascinating place. The Shiites and Sunnis of Iraq and Afghanistan continue to kill each other with car bombs and AK-47s. Thirty people were killed in Baghdad this morning with two car bombs. The Mexican drug cartels are using ev

Afghan Taliban And The American Taliban —Is There A Difference?

Ed Raymond

We know what the Afghan Taliban is all about. This Taliban is a fundamentalist Islamic sect of male vampires who suck the blood from a culture by placing themselves atop a “religious” pyramid where they sacrifice women for their own enrichment and gratification. Women are chattel to keep barefoot, pregnant, and ignorant. Excess females in poor fam

Afghan Taliban And The American Taliban - Is There A Difference?

Ed Raymond

We know what the Afghan Taliban is all about. This Taliban is a fundamentalist Islamic sect of male vampires who suck the blood from a culture by placing themselves atop a “religious” pyramid where they sacrifice women for their own enrichment and gratification. Women are chattel to keep barefoot, preg

This Big Bang Says This Country Is Ending With A Whimper

Ed Raymond

Sally Quinn has not written a “political” column in the Washington Post for some time, but in my view dropped a very powerful bomb in the middle of Washington last week with “Sally Quinn Announces the End of Power in Washington.” Actually my favorite political commentators are all women. They sort through the garbage quickly and get

Charles Darwin, The Vatican, Tomato Genetics, And U.S. Catholic Bishops

Ed Raymond

Charles Darwin, the respected but often reviled author and developer of the theory of evolution, came up with this irrefutable fact during his lifetime of studies of plants, animals, and the origin of species: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Ironically, Darwin and his family turned out to be victims of his ignorance about inbreeding, evolution, and genetics. Researchers recently reported in the

“On The Same Night The Hogs Ate Willie.....”

Ed Raymond

I’ve never had much truck for the South and Rednecks. Corky and I lived in Washington, D.C., Parkfairfax, Virginia, and New Topsail Island, North Carolina, for the three years I was assigned to Quantico, Virginia, and Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, as a Marine Corp officer. This was before civil integration of the races but after the integration of the military, before the Civil Rights Act, during the “Separate But Equal” fiasco, and right in the middle

The American Saga Of The Cruise Ship And The Fishing Boat

Ed Raymond

The death of the black teenager Trayvon Martin, shot to death by a private “security” guard in an Orlando, Florida “gated” community, not only is a deadly comment about our society, it reminds all of us that we are building a…

Forty-One Years Of Living, Loving, And Marriage—And They Still Don’t Hold Hands In Public

Ed Raymond

Linda, 69, and Gloria, 64, were the first lesbian couple to be married legally in the United States, eight years ago. They were part of the lawsuit against the state of Massachusetts that won gays the right to marry in the state. They have been an item for 41 years. In a Washington Post story by Eli Saslow, they are proud they have spent only four nights apart in

ObamaCare, The Supremes, And Pelvic Pyromania

Ed Raymond

I suppose many people think that the old evolutionist Charles Darwin caused enough trouble with his “Origin of the Species” without getting involved so much with pleasurable, powerful, and restricted sex. We do need sex to survive—and Charles came up with another irrefutable idea: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Soon we will get some kind of a decision about the A

A Potpourri of Precious Piffle

Ed Raymond

Several times during the year I end up with a lot of subjects I would like to write a column about, but many of them don’t deserve a lengthy diatribe—just a few short jabs and then a haymaker. Here are some from my collection.

The American Middle Class, Wayne Gretsky, Sisyphus, And Rock And Roll

Ed Raymond

I am not a hockey fan, but I did play a version of it on a little frozen pond near my rural school District #54 in Morrison County, Minnesota. We had about 25 students, grades 1-8, so we would form two teams out of that mess, put on our four-buckle manure-covered overshoes (none could afford skates so they were banned), carve a stick from a curvy branch, find a chunk of wood, and do battle on reed-infested ice. It was great fun. But I found out later when I was a Fargo high school principal

America Goes Postal–The National Rifle Association’s Tsunami Of Death

Ed Raymond

In the last 44 years, over a million American civilians have been killed by gunfire. Last year 100,000 were killed or wounded, with 33,000 going toes up immediately. We lead the world in a lot of things—and shooting guns at people and hitting them is one of them. Europeans say we have so many gun deaths and horrific wounds because we are not quite civilized yet. The man who was invited to talk to the recent National Rifle Association’s annual convention in St. Louis proves that a

Did Mitt Romney Leave Pluto When It Was Downgraded To A Plutoid?

Ed Raymond

There’s something about Mitt Romney... I get uncomfortable in the presence of Mitt. It’s hard to pin down. He’s a good-looking guy with nice hair, a full set of teeth, and perfect posture. He’s not an empty suit like Tim Pawlenty or Al Gore. Maybe the problem is that he wears several different suits over his sacred underwear at the same time.

Searching For Bounty In The Colosseum On Sunday Afternoons

Ed Raymond

The One Percenters in the Roman Empire are being reincarnated in the American Empire over two thousand years later. There were no skyboxes or executive suites in the Roman Colosseum like in the dozens of gladitorial colosseums spread across the United States, but the booze and delicacies flowed freely in the reserved sections in Rome

The Crimes Of The Century

Ed Raymond

The Grand Jury of the State of Reason and Logic in the United States, after more than a decade of gathering evidence, finds there is sufficient evidence to bring an indictment against the Republican Party for the attempted murder of science, history, and ethics in the 21st century. As prosecutor I submit the following into evidence:

To Men: “First You Put A Viagra Between Your Testicles...”

Ed Raymond

The bumper sticker “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” is not seen anymore, but when we look at history it’s true women have come a long way since Qin Shi Huangdi was the first emperor of China back in the 3rd century BC. Qin was the first to unify all of the Chinese warlords into a unified nation. Evidently Qin believed in an afterlife because he spent much of his life preparing to go somewhere after death. In 1974 when peasants were digging a well, they discovered a vast tomb

Maternity Suites At $4,000 A Night And Panda Poop Tea At $34,000 A Pound

Ed Raymond

There’s no dull day in the United States when so much makes no sense at all. Here we are in a country that has major hospitals advertising $4,000-a-night maternity suites (all medical charges extra!) while it ranks 29th out of the top 30 industrialized countries in infant mortality. Norway, with universal health care available for every citizen, is second in the world in health care expend

Children Will Be A Lot Better Off Without NCLB

Ed Raymond

OK, all you politicians who think you know something about education, what IQ scale point would you give to this gun-nut who has blown away a minister’s daughter? Moises Zambrana of St. Petersburg, Florida, all legal-like and everything...

Progressives Versus Regressives

Ed Raymond

My daughter bought several grocery bags full of “discarded” books at the Moorhead Public Library the other day for three bucks a bag. What a bargain! She picked out a couple ...

What Would Chesty Do?

Ed Raymond

Let’s see. We send our young “volunteers” to war from poor small towns in poor counties. They choose to get out of a dull town and make something of themselves.

Gadfly: Russian Proverb: “A Pessimist Is A Well-informed Optimist”

Ed Raymond

In the race between education and disaster “The Best Congress Money Can Buy” seems bent on lowering its approval rating with the general public to less than nine percent. The evidence that disaster will win in a tsunami of legislative flotsam is pili

A Thin Red Line Of Heroes When The Band Begins To Play

Ed Raymond

Congress just passed a $662 billion defense budget to fight a war with Afghanistan, a country without fighter planes, tanks, aircraft carriers, and bombers. It does have an untold number of snoopin’ and poopin’ fundamentalist religious fanatics ...

Gadfly: Crowfoot and Abortion

Ed Raymond

We have reached the point where our species creates as much intellectual, scientific, and technical information in two days as we created from the first cave paintings 30,000 years ago to the year 2003.

Gadfly: The Eel, The Van, And The Skulls Of Twenty Cows

Ed Raymond

As one gets older you discover the world is always filled with surprises, sometimes when we least expect them. A man in San Jose, California bought a used minivan for $14,000 at a car lot. After driving it around the city, he discovered ...

Gadfly: The Pea In This Shell Game Is Real Tacky

Ed Raymond

City of Fargo employees would be wise to save these tips about three companies in which to invest their 401K funds if the City Commission decides to privatize their retirement system from pensions to 401Ks as proposed by Commissioner David Piepkorn.

Gadfly: The Race Between Education And Disaster Intensifies

Ed Raymond

ast week I reviewed some evidence whether education will win out over ignorance based on Voltaire’s statement that “History is a race between education and disaster.” At the end of the column I expressed hope the race was still tied.

Gadfly: Education vs. Disaster

Ed Raymond

It’s funny how the mind runs from subject to subject. I was watching CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield present the news the other day while I was reading the Forum (11/4/11) article about the Whitman Ranch near Robinson, N.D. I was fascinated by ...

Gadfly: “Minnesota Nice” Is Getting Real Ugly

Ed Raymond

Minnesota used to be among the best states in the Union in which to live. Yes, we paid moderate taxes–but we had a quality life. That’s why 21 Fortune 500 companies settled in Minnesota and none have enriched the lives of North and South Dakotans...

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