In November 2016, just days before the election that would send Donald Trump to Washington D.C., North Dakota’s lone House Representative Kevin Cramer announced his intent to call for congressional hearings in the new year to ferret out alleged liberal bias in the national news media. “Your FCC license and the liberty that comes with … Continue reading Kevin Cramer and America’s Cynicism-as-Ideology
North Dakota’s Fury Road
Fans of dystopian cinema will recognize the scene: a mismatched collection of somber and sunbaked subjects, most of them left long behind by the masters of a civilization well into its senescence, erect a barricade of wooden pallets, broken tables, and rusted vehicles across a cracked highway as the sun goes down over a big … Continue reading North Dakota’s Fury Road
“I was wrong about the people”: the Bismarck on North Dakota, Liberalism, and Punk in the 21st Century
Despite having spent the better part of this century in the Washington state, Dan Mohr, Eric Fundingsland, and Chris Jury know a bit about the American Midwest. Growing up in and around North Dakota and playing in all manner of punk bands in Grand Forks in the 1990s (Happy Accidents, They Drive By Night, the … Continue reading “I was wrong about the people”: the Bismarck on North Dakota, Liberalism, and Punk in the 21st Century
White Buffalo: OUT and the Politics of Despair
Not to sound all theological, but there are times when it feels like the Cosmos just has a plan and yall best get out the way. Convenient, isn’t it, that something like Philip K Dick’s fascists-take-America alternate history novel The Man in the High Castle (1968) was finally made into a television series that debuted … Continue reading White Buffalo: OUT and the Politics of Despair
“The State Always Arrests Journalists”: Unicorn Riot and Breaking the News
Unicorn Riot (UR) is a noncommercial, volunteer-run news collective established in 2015. Having covered everything from Black Lives Matter and the drug war to the fight for a higher minimum wage and the White Power movement, collective members captured dramatic video of clashes between anti-Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) water protectors opposing what they call the … Continue reading “The State Always Arrests Journalists”: Unicorn Riot and Breaking the News
Be Grateful: North Dakota’s Surveillance Culture
Chris Anderson only wanted his cows back. In June 2011, three heifer/calf pairs absconded from Anderson’s Nelson County, North Dakota, ranch and wandered onto acreage owned by Rodney Brossart. The long-faced patriarch of a close-knit family of “exceedingly hard-working farmers and ranchers, who prefer to limit their contact with governmental actors,” according to his attorney, … Continue reading Be Grateful: North Dakota’s Surveillance Culture
Arms to Call
It goes without saying in 2016 that the networked economy and mobile communications technology have profoundly changed how the news media contributes to democracy. Print journalism especially—newspapers, magazines—has seen more upheaval than perhaps any other industry this century. While many large and middling newspapers and magazine publishers have achieved a level of stability in their … Continue reading Arms to Call
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