Columns

From the New York Times, Time magazine, and the complete Chicago Tribune syndicated columns

The Big Snapper slouches toward Cleveland

Back when I went to college to become a Great Author, I tried to be smarter than I actually was and so greatness eluded me and here I am, a newspaperman, sitting at a battered Underwood, my porkpie hat low over my eyes, smoke curling up from a Lucky Strike hanging on my lower lip, […]

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A hymn for Jim Harrison

My friend Jim Harrison wrote to me last fall: “Nothing new here except aggressive aging that comes from working every day of the week. I don’t know what else to do. Since age 14 I’ve been a slave to language. There’s a new book about aging — ‘Travels with Epicurus.’ Penguin. Fine and discreet, elegant, […]

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This next president better be president for everyone

The country is in the grip of fear and anger, riven by class conflict, so we hear, though this is not so apparent on a spring day as you awaken to the sweet smell of earth and the old farmer DNA in you thinks, This is going to be a good year. Things are looking […]

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Think moving abroad will save you from Trump? Think again.

After Tuesday’s voting, several folks I know are talking about leaving the country if and when the Great White Snapping Turtle is elected president, and of course Canada is the favored destination: English-language predominant, handsome young progressive prime minister, socialized medicine, nonstop air connections — plus parallel geography of rockbound East, Midwestern prairies and Western […]

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Trump, Ventura & political performance art

As demagogues go, Donald Trump is not a very good one. I’ve been studying his speeches on YouTube, and what a sloppy orator he is. He can blow for an entire hour in a loose oleaginous confabulation of detached sentences drifting toward crescendo and then swerving away, non-sequiturs segueing into non-sequiturs as his audience waits […]

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Pioneer Press: R.B. Liggett, Former News Executive, Dies

Pioneer Press: R.B. Liggett, Former News Executive, Dies

Robert B. Liggett, 81, of 1125 Summit ave., Mahtomedi, sportsman and advertising man, died Thursday in St. Joseph’s hospital after a long illness.

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The Anoka Herald: Anoka 47, Ramsey 43

The Anoka Herald: Anoka 47, Ramsey 43

The Tornado cagers got past a stubborn Ramsey squad 47-43 Tuesday night to balance up their Suburban conference record. Anoka now stands 4-4 in conference play, having won all home games while losing on the hostile floors.

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The Anoka Herald: Around District 16…

The Anoka Herald: Around District 16…

Turning from the district scene to Region Four, state tourney hopefuls are springing up all over. While some teams have letter records than others, where tournarnent play is concerned, nobody can pick the winner.

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The Anoka Herald: Tornado Grapplers Edge By Hastings

The Anoka Herald: Tornado Grapplers Edge By Hastings

The Tornado grapplers, now with a 5-1 record and better than half through their conference season, edged Hastings 20-18 Friday night.

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The Daily News: Floating on the Stormy Sea of Beer and Straight Vodka

I worked at The Daily from ’62 to ’66, actually on the Ivory Tower, the literary magazine that came out in place of the paper on the first Monday of the month, which true Daily people generally loathed and despised. They were engaged in the manly pursuit of news and we wrote poetry and fiction, which was what girls did, they thought.

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