Walsh County Press October 27, 2021: Page 5

October 27, 2021 Walsh County Press
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N... 4. w......,..,... my a. no. a-.. .. ..... ... ‘val'val c...» ... -Ww... . .. .0“... M..- . - .... ... .......,... .gmmn~-wuwpwwwmw~w.ur . PRESS PERSPECTIVES WALSH COUNTY PRESS - WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 202| Page 5 _, ..,._............ Murmur-10mm.»m-anmmiFWWmMWWmMWWW7~wiﬂélwrﬁw#iiqﬂn;n;'.,w;.‘,i.1L.M;u~;.i .. .._.' M1... . 1‘ . . FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK... BY ALLISON OLIMB Eorron, WALSH COUNTY PRESS I sat and typed ﬁom the sidelines as I waited for my ﬁvevyear—old to ride a mechanical bull. It was nice being at the fair again. This summer was one of the ﬁrst ’ big activities we did as a family “post-pandemic”. We went to the Pembina County Fair. It still felt weird. It still felt like it was way too peopley and there was something it. is The Motive was Revenge October 25, 2021 —— A tenible tragedy took place on this date in 1913 near Ray, North Dakota. Three people were brutally shot down. The motive seems to have been revenge. The Dillon family farmed near Ray, in Williams County in western North Dakota. It was the second marriage for Mrs. Dillon. She ear- lier was married to Maurice Cul- bertson, who Mrs. Dillon divorced because of mental and physical cruelty. The former Mrs. Culbertson eventually married a Mr. Dillon from western North Dakota. She and her daughter from her ﬁrst maniage then settled in to the fam- Editor ’s Note: David Adler Is column was unavailable this week. In its place is an editorial by North . Dakota Newspaper Association Executive Director Sarah E lmquist Squires The permanence of print in a changing world By Sarah Elmquist Squires NDNA executive director When I was in high school, we ﬁled down to the library (before the rebranding of “media center” en- tered the landscape). We crowded around the ﬁont desk, the librarians eager to Show us something called the World Wide Web. “Pick a top- ic f— anything,” one said, and when urine of the gangly teenagers vol- unteered, she chose zebras. She cranked the enormous monitor around and showed us just type in the word, and you can get all the irr- formation you want, far more than our Dewey decimal system offers on these shelves. The ancient print- er started screeching, puttering out page after perforated page of entries on the striped animals. Today, the internet whizzes Silently in the background of near- ly all we do, be it banking or buy- ing or chatting with our friends and family. We rarely think about it in terms of the infrastructure system it is, nor how it was designed, or the limitations it poses when we rely on it for things great and small. For a brief moment a few weeks back, when the World of Facebook went dark, some were struck with a thought wait, all my family pho- tos, special memories what if they are erased? But then, before the day was done, the Facebook machine whirled back to life, and the idea that our intemet caches might ever be emptied fell to the wayside. We are in the early stages of a profound paradigm shift, as socie— ty moves from the system of care— fully indexed and preserved aca- demic and historical records in li- braries and museums, to casting the imprint of our lives and knowledge into the vast space of the intemet. But as Harvard law and computer sciences professor Jonathan Zittrain notes in his piece “The Internet Is Rotting” in The Atlantic, unlike the libraries and temples of the past, the intemet has no index, and despite our collective thoughts otherwise, a no guarantee of permanence. Schol— ars identify two terms — when con- tent is changed, it’s called “content drifting,” and when it’s eliminated Q) Riiihiirir‘m ( e ‘7 society” PM". Rum Another week over, why does the time seem to go by so fast? The weath- er sure has become fallish, our mom- ings are getting colder each day. To- day (Oct 21) as I drove to work here in Park River, the deer were terrible. I had to slow down 5 times to avoid the deer crossing the road and some poor guy had just hit one on Hwy 17 west of Park River. The weeks are so busy, especially due to covid and our county positiv- Vicki Best, Activity Director still too raw about it. We ripped off that band-aid with a ﬁill-on rodeo event that packed the grandstands from wall to wall, top to bottom. Up until that pOint, I had been riding on this paranoia of “we just need to get through the schOol year without getting sick or quarantined again.” It was a year ago that two of my :EMWEEWWWB. ily business of farming. Things ran smoothly for the Dillon family, until Mrs. Dillon’s ﬁrst husband, Maurice Culbertson, again entered the picture. Appar- ently he had not gotten over the di- vorce and was now looking for re- venge. Seeking out his former wife and daughter had led Culbertson to the Dillon homestead. Finding Mr. Dil— lon alone in the barn, he inquired if he might spend the night with entirely, it’s known as “link rot.” It’s a fascinating piece, one that explores these topics in far greater detail than I could recount with au- thority. But the threat to “humani- ty’s collective knowledge” it ex- plores is far from just academic blather. It’s real. CNN Business just investigated the way that the demise of Adobe Flash destroyed “some of the most iconic 9/ 11 news cover- age” along with “other major events from the early days of online jour- nalism.” Just the other day I read about the city of Lewiston, Minn, a few miles from my former news- paper, the Winona Post. Lewiston was hit with a cyber attack a ran- somware attack that stole the city’s ﬁles and locked up its computers. It ultimately paid $60,000 l5 Bitu a v. i coin to‘ retrieve access to its data. It turns out that, if we want to en- sure that our most important records are maintained, unchanged, into the future, we need to make sure they are tethered to something more tangible than the vast and un- regulated world of the intemet. Zittrain and his colleagues in- vestigated the extent of link rot in 2014 and again last spring. The ﬁrst study found that 50% of links em- bedded in US. Supreme Court opinions since 1996, when the ﬁrst hyperlink was used, no longer func- tioned. A full 75% of the links found in the Harvard Law Review had rotted — disappeared — as well. Zittrain’s studies of thousands of sci- entiﬁc and govermnent websites, and the “link rot” and missing in- ' formation that plagues them, gave way to this pointed thought: That the design of the intemet creates “gaps of responsibility for maintaining valuable content that Others rely on and as tangible counterparts to online work fade, these gaps rep- resent actual holes in humanity’s knowledge.” As a journalist, these ideas beg plenty of questions. The thing that irmnediately comes to mind is what some politicians see as a way of sav- ing a few bucks in doing away with printing government records. “Just throw them on the website” is a con- cept that comes up during our leg- islative sessions, when legislators push bills that would have public notices simply added to the grave- yards of local governments’ web- sites, places few residents ever travel, and where there’s no real way to ensure they aren’t altered or eliminated. Since the beginning of Permanence Cont. page Happenings at Our Good Samaritan ity rating. We covid test twice a week, anything to help keep our resident safe. For baking this week we tried some— thing new, baked donuts. They seem to be the in thing to make. I love to check out Pinterest for new recipes and baked donuts are the new thing. We made Apple Donuts, Donuts, and Vanilla Cinnamon Donuts. They were ok, but nothing beats the good old fashioned ﬂied donuts. We also had de- votions, bingo, rosary, ﬁtness fun, Dakota Datebook On this day in North Dakota past kids were pulled from school as close contacts, required to quaran- tine for two weeks. Lily’s Halloween costume ﬁom last year still has the tags on. There was no testing available to them and it was just a sad, scary, wait-and—see game. That was around the time that everything here went sideways with no real window of what was coming up next . . . it was like driv- ing in the dark with paint on the windshield. We aren’t exactly in the dark anymore, but the light at the end of the tunnel is still a bit ﬁrrther down the road. Based on the accounts of a few them. After refusing Culbertson’s re— quest, Culbertson became angry and immediately ﬁred four shots into Dillon’s back. Culbertson then rushed to the house, where he encountered his former wife running to the barn to investigate the Shots. Without a pause, he shot his former wife in the. chest. Going into the house, he found his daughter getting ready for bed. As she turned to face him, he shot the thirteen year old, who lat- locals, this COVID-l9 challenge still sounds like a battle I don’t have the time to take on. Fast forward to that mechanical bull and I swear for a second there, I almost believed the normal. There were a few masks. There was a little distancing. It was a world of difference from the non- fair fair from a year ago, but it still was not quite as big as the fairs of the past. This “post-pandemic” idea still has a little room for improvement. I appreciate everything that every- one involved in the fair did to 1111ka it happen, mechanical bull and a . Like " the Walsh County Press on Facebook er died without regaining con- sciouSness. Culbertson immediately headed for the nearby city of Ray. Think- ing no one would soon discover the ' bodies, he registered at a local ho- tel. The next day he hopped a bag- gage train heading east. Culbertson didn’t get far. He was arrested by the freight conductor who had received a tip that the mur- derer might be on his train Somehow, Mr. Dillon survived the shooting and was able to iden- tify Culbertson. Had it not been for a heavily armed posse and jail guard, the ﬁen- zied citizens would probably have Dakota Datebook Cont page Leading the Horse to Water By Lloyd Omdahl While the rest of us are lament— ing the ignorance of the electorate, the North Dakota Council on the Hu- manities and the North Dakota NewspaperAssociationaretaldngre— ‘ medial action. They have been sponsoring a series of writings by President David Adler of The Alturas Institute in which he discusses the basics of the United State national government. Adler is well equipped to explain government, having ' books and 100 scholarly articles in the leading journals in his ﬁeld. Adler Outstanding As a colleague in political science, I ﬁnd his writing outstanding, giving clarity to the provisions of the Con- stitution. A number of North Dako- ta newspapers have been carrying his work. Ominously, Adler alleges that “without a broader public under- standing of the Constitution and deeper appreciation of the virtues and values of American Constitutional- ism, there is little reason to believe that the nation’s founding docu- ment will long endure.” Many polls and surveys have veriﬁed time after time the ignorance of the electorate. Proving Ignorance Citing one poll, Adler notes that one in three native-bom citizens fail the civic literacy tests while over 97 percent of immigrants pass. Only 25 percent of the people can name the three branches of government; 70 percent do not know that the Con- stitution is the supreme law of the land. Without a clear understanding of the implications of every article of the Constitution, “civic illiteracy casts a dark and foreboding shadow over the ﬁiture of our Democracy,” Adler as- serts. At present, most citizens depend on hearsay for their opinions. Prac- tically none have read the Constitu- tion, yet they expound on it as though they graduated from the Yale law school. Fodder for Gullible Because they haven’t taken time to learn basic civics, they are easy prey for the rumorrnongers and de— cervers. And the media on the left and the right are happy to provide fodder for :.:'t~.es~;;:‘:ararzéaéi t“ Y3 ,i a ~:» a watched the movies "the Bucket List" and "Halloween Town", made Hal- loween Treat Jars for each of the res- idents to receive on Halloween for craft day, read the Daily Chronicles and the ladies got to enjoy Ladies Night (menu was chicken cordon bleu, scal- loped potatoes, crockpot com and chocolate lasagna for dessert). I believe nobody went to their rooms hungry that night. This week we will have Men's Night, watch the movies "Casper", "the Haunted Mansion", and "Hocus Pocus", trying to get everyone in the Halloween frame of mind. For Tues- day baking, we made pumpkin bars written Six 1 the gullible. In North Dakota, we have saddled citizens with an impossible task of re— sponsible voting. . We are so election happy that we require intelligent votes for school districts, park districts, townships, counties and the state — something like 2,500 governments in all. North Dakota has more state- elected ofﬁcials than all other states except South Carolina. And do our voters know the qualiﬁcations of each candidate and the track record of each incumbent? At your leisure, go down a city street and ask people at random who the state treasurer is? Or the agriculture commissioner? Too Many Elected Ifmost states can get by with ﬁve elected oﬁicials, why does North Dakota need a dozen? Those with only administrative duties should be appointed and only those with pol- irilymaking powers should be elect— e . Then we expect intelligent voting on ballot measures. In most cases, voters go into the polls blind and play “eenie, menie, moe” with their de- cisions. From personal experience, it’s the language of the ﬁrst 15 words that make a difference. Or some use the rule “if you don’t know, vote no”. Good measures have been de- feated and bad measures have passed because ballots were cast by voters who didn’t have a clue about the con- sequences. Horse Won’t Drink So the Newspaper Association and the Council on Humanities are bringing a partial cure for igno- rance with the writings of Dave Adler but there is a major problem underlying all of the ignorance. Even though provided with critical information for every citizen, we are confronted with the old adage that “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” I have never had any illusions about the number of readers of ed- itorial pages. Consequently, I won- der how many readers are pouring over Adler’s wisdom. v Because an uninformed elec— torate Slows decision-making, we may dally too long to save the re— public in this fast—moving era It is the Achilles Heel of our democracy. View? and whooper cookies (kinda like a chocolate chip cookie but using whoopers instead of chips). We will also have bingo, rosary, resident coun- cil, ﬁtness fun, devotions, and the dai- ly chronicles. A Special thank you to those who took part in our book sale / bake sale, it was a great success. I know many missed having Nannette's donuts for sale. Wewill have tokeep that-inmind next year. A special thank you to everyone for helping to make our res. ident's days brighter. ' Please continue to stay healthy and safe and God Bless everyone. 10 Tips to Help Avoid Sticker Shock at the Grocery Store I went to the grocery store the other day on a more extended trip. I noticed that I only had three bags of groceries for the price I used to pay for four bags. I buy some of the same things and some different things every week. I had heard some media reports about increasing prices. Carrying my bags to our car hit home. When I visited with my neigh— bors, they were talking about food prices, unsolicited from me. “I didn’t buy that much and it came to $91 l” my neighbor ex- claimed. ~ My other neighbor listed sever- al foods she purchased while on a trip out of state. “The bill for those few items was $75,” she said. This conversation made me cu- rious about just how much prices have increased. I checked in with the US. De- partment of Agriculture Econom- ic Research Service (USDA ERS) to see if our casual observations agreed with data-based information from their nationwide economic analysis. The price of food away from home was 4.7% higher in August 2021 compared to August 2020. Food purchased from grocery stores was 3% higher in August 2021 than August 2020, according to the USDA ERS. Further, in 2022, we can expect an increase of up to 4% for food- away—from—home prices and 2.5% for food-at-home prices. Some food categories, especially protein foods, are growing at a faster rate of as much as 6%. These changes affect how many bags of groceries a consumer can buy on a given budget. However, based on the data, cooking and eating at home is less expensive than eating at a restau~ rant. What’s a sawy consumer to do when purchasing and preparing foods? We all need to eat, of course, and making healthful food choic- es plays a major role in our health. Plan meals a week or more at time. Meal planning helps relieve the stress of not knowing what to cook at the last minute. By planning meals with a variety of foods, your family is more likely to get all the nutrients needed each day. Planning Around Walsh County Extension Ofﬁce Prairie Fare NDSU Extension Service By Julie Garden-Robinson, Food and Nutrition Specialist your menus helps you make use of the foods that are in season and/or on sale too. Check out the store specials on- line or on the ﬂyers, and use the spe— cials to inspire your menus. Shop with a list and try to avoid the many temptations. Avoid shopping when exces— sively tired. When you are tired, you may be more likely to purchase convenience items and make poor food choices. If possible, shop alone and/or go only once a week. Children can prompt many purchases. They are known for their “pester power” ac- cording to food marketing spe— cialiSts. On the other hand, children can learn a lot about food during shopping trips. I used to let my chil- dren pick one item as we walked around the store. They were not al- ways happy about that rule, and sometimes they pondered their choice for a long time. I think they were trying to wear me down. Be sure to have a snack before going grocery shopping to pre- vent impulse buys. Most of us do not make the wisest choices when we are hungry. Compare the unit prices for the same product from different brands to determine the best size and brand for the money. Unit prices are the small labels on the front edge of the Shelves in the grocery store. However, remember that buying the larger amount with the smaller unit price might not always be your best decision. You may end up buying a product that you grow tired of eating, or the product may spoil before you eat it all. In general, avoid buying non- food items at the grocery store. Un- less they’re on sale, the prices of soaps, shampoos and paper prod— ucts can be inﬂated. Be aware of checkout counter mistakes. Look careﬁilly at your re- ceipt to make sure you get the sale price on sale items. Check your change too. We have more resources at NDSU Extension and Extension staff to help. Check out https://www.ndsu.edu/food and see the section on “Food Preparation.” Resources include ﬁve weeks of budget-friendly meals, a series called “Pinchin’ Pennies in the Kitchen” and much more. Hungry for new recipes? I have Prairie Fare Cont page 9 ». -. x- * r .19 the County Park River 284-6624 By Extension Agent Brad Brummond Importing Weed Problems on the Ranch In this time of short feed sup- plies, our cattle producers are tempted to source cheap products ﬁom out of state and from some questionable sources in state. It is a sad day when we have to be afraid of the long—term ramiﬁca- tions of buying cheap feed and pro- tein, but here we are. We also need to ask ourselves where our hay is coming from. Hay has long been a proven source of noxious weeds in North Dakota. I am not telling people not to buy this feed, but know the risks and possible long-term cost to your operation if you import Palmer Amaranth. Let’s ﬁrst talk about hay. If I was buying hay, I would do a little re- search and ﬁnd out where this hay is coming from. Palmer amaranth, Spotted knapweed, russian knap» weed, leafy spurge and musk this- tle would be my greatest concern. These noxious weeds can very easily be hidden in a shipment of hay. If you don’t know the source or at least checked out what nox- ious weeds are prone to this area, you could be importing a huge li- ability. We need to go into this eyes wide open. I would really be cau- tious of buying hay from areas that have a known palmer amaranth problem or spotted knapweed issue. These are two weeds, to my knowl- edge, we don’t have‘here and you don’t want to be credited for its in- troduction. Let’s talk about screenings. I was personally involved where large amounts of spotted knapweed seeds were introduced onto a poul- try operation through screenings and feed. It cost a pile of money and years of dedicated weed ﬁght- ing to get this under control. I am not sure to this day, if it has com- pletely been eradicated on this land. The last time I saw the land it did look knapweed free. What are screenings? They are unusable hulls in sunﬂowers, splits in soy- . beans, the cracked corn, light and ‘ cracked wheat along with weed seeds. You get the weed seeds along with the good grain by prod- ucts. Here is the issue, even a couple of Palmer Amaranth seeds in the screenings goes a long way to an infestation. Running these ' weeds through the digestive system I of your cattle does not kill the ger- , mination on these weed Seeds. I would also be very cautious of buy— ing screenings locally with kochia in them, as we have a real resistance , issue with kochia in Walsh Coun- ‘ ty. I prefer to grow my own resist— ant weeds and not import them. 1 Here is my take on the matter. I, ‘ personally, would not be buying . screenings from areas infested with palmer amaranth. Buyer beware is a good way to i look at things. If you are offered these products, weigh the long—tenn ; risks to your operation along with the short-term gain. You may ﬁnd that the short-term 'gain comes 1 with an unacceptable risk. I hope i I have helped evaluate your risk in ' purchased feed for your cattle op- ‘ eration. I grew up on a cattle ranch, so I know what kind of spot you are in this fall. Let us weigh all the facts when we make these de- cisions.