North Dakota | Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner

Entries Tagged as 'North Dakota'

Everyone’s a Critic

April 17th, 2013 · Comments Off on Everyone’s a Critic

In 1973, after a student complained about the language in Slaughterhouse Five, the administration at Drake (N.D.) High School decided to take rather dramatic action (see above). When informed of what had been done to his creation, author Kurt Vonnegut responded in the appropriate manner: Vonnegut, asked for his reaction, said, “It’s grotesque and ridiculous. […]

The Comfort of Statistics

March 10th, 2010 · 1 Comment

For those suffering from a grave case of ursinophobia, we provide the following snippet from Bear Facts, an informational brochure produced by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game: Many bears live in Alaska and many people enjoy the outdoors, but surprisingly few people even see bears. Only a tiny percentage of those few are […]

Oil Non-Shock

August 13th, 2009 · 4 Comments

During out all-too-brief sojourn in St. Cloud, Minnesota, we caught wind of James Leroy Iverson’s release from North Dakota’s Missouri River Correctional Facility, after serving 40 years for a pair of 1969 murders. Iverson was, in fact, North Dakota’s longest-serving inmate, and thus a man unaccustomed to 21st-century living. What has shocked him the most […]

The Trick to Extortion

July 8th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Granted, a 46-year-old exotic dancer in Moorehead, Minnesota, is unlikely to understand the delicate economics of successful extortion. But she still should’ve realized that her scheme to squeeze a North Dakota pastor would end badly if she kept pressing for hush money. Given that she hadn’t picked a wealthy target, Bunny Byington really should’ve kept […]

The Bernie Madoff of Farming

May 20th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Bernie Madoff of Farming

Wall Street certainly didn’t have a monopoly on moral decay during the run-up to Depression v2.0. There was also some jiggery-pokery going down in the Heartland, albeit of the modest seven-figure variety: A man convicted in what prosecutors said was North Dakota’s largest farm fraud case has lost another appeal of the government’s attempt to […]

Dinosauring the Sandbag

March 24th, 2009 · 4 Comments

The humble sandbag remains mankind’s main line of defense against floods. Take the current situation in Fargo, N.D., where upwards of 10,000 Good Samaritans are furiously filling bags in order to combat the rising Red River. Working around the clock, the volunteers have so far managed to deploy about 70 percent of the requisite sandbags—seemingly […]

Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner