Dakota Beacon

“I think it’s good we continue to out-perform the nation.”  This was Paula Iler, NAEP coordinator for ND, crowing about the 2011 performance of state fourth and eighth-graders on standard tests.  She would be correct if she compared ND students to black students in Mississippi or Hispanic students in New Mexico, but if she compared ND students to white students nationally, she would find ND students are just average.  The light is beginning to go on with the ND media and there are steadily fewer headlines bragging about state performance on standardized tests.

A proposed oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico is being delayed by environmentalists protesting oil production from Canadian oil sands.  President Obama will ultimately have to make the call.  Something similar is taking place regarding electricity produced in ND’s lignite-fired plants.  Minnesota restricted the use of that electricity, but its Legislature voted to repeal the restrictions -- the repeal was vetoed by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton.  ND will take Minnesota to court.  Proponents of the lawsuit argue that business between states is a federal responsibility -- one state cannot regulate another.  A parallel argument would be that the U.S. should not attempt to regulate oil production in Canada.

The ND Legislature cleared the way to drop the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo.  The state’s most popular and potent symbol is on the way out.  UND President Robert Kelley told the GF Herald that about half his time since taking the job of president in 2008 has been spent on the Fighting Sioux nickname issue.  In the last year, the issue had taken almost three-fourths of his time.  The name is the victim of the NCAA and two groups at UND: a treacherous faculty minority and a succession of administrations who have bungled the issue.

Jim and Sheri Kleinsasser are among the most well-known names in UND and ND sports history.  Jim for football; his sister Sheri for basketball.  In a brief, meaningful letter presented to the ND Legislature, the Carrington natives said they absolutely did not want to see the Fighting Sioux name discontinued, but UND and student athletes would suffer if the name wasn’t dropped.  They wanted future UND athletes to have the same opportunities they had.

A Pyrrhic victory is one which comes with staggering losses.  For many who opposed the UND Fighting Sioux nickname the loss of the name may be a Pyrrhic victory.  A few UND faculty opponents will remain forever smug, but many ND Indians will lose one of their tribe’s most positive identifiers without a corresponding benefit.  This realization may be the reason the Spirit Lake Sioux struggled so hard to preserve the name and gain the moral high ground.

Faculty members with a radical agenda punch above their weight at UND.  Their success at manipulating the NCAA about the Fighting Sioux nickname is Exhibit 1.  The case of UND student Caleb Warner is less known.  He was accused of sexual assault by a female student, found guilty by a campus faculty tribunal and barred from the campus.  Later, the accuser was charged with lying to the police about the incident, but UND still chose to believe the accuser rather than the police.  A Wall Street Journal op-ed about campus excesses described the incident and embarrassed UND.  Only then, did UND President Robert Kelley ask former law school dean Paul LeBel to revisit the matter -- the sanctions were vacated.  The GF Herald’s Tom Dennis notes, by that time, Warner’s reputation and education were seriously damaged.

The “boom inevitably goes bust.”  Tom Dennis is not predicting an early end to ND’s oil boom, but believes “one day, it’ll fade.”  He sees Norway as a model: “All but 4 per cent of Norway’s oil earnings must be placed in the fund for savings; nothing can be withdrawn from the fund until the oil is gone, decades from now; and — most crucially — absolutely none of the money can be invested inside Norway.”  In another column on a different subject, he said Minot will not get the level of federal flood recovery help that Grand Forks received, and it will be necessary for the state “to help Minot get fully back on its feet.”

Residents in flood stricken Minot are abuzz about a new restaurant with “authentic Italian cuisine” and hand-painted design features by Italian artisans.  The new arrival is Olive Garden.  Minot will be Olive Garden’s third ND location; a fourth, under construction in Grand Forks, was slightly delayed when immigration authorities carted away illegal workers from Honduras and Ecuador.  Despite the pretentious self-description, Olive Garden is a national chain whose consistently good reputation makes it a top choice in mid-sized markets.

Cory Smoot had a sinister, villainous appearance.  It was appropriate -- he was the lead guitarist for the heavy-metal band Gwar.  They are over-the-top -- if you wish to know, fake blood, goo, things like that.  His stage name was Flattus Maximus.  The Gwar tour bus was making its way to Edmonton, Canada after a show in Minneapolis -- Smoot was found dead when the bus stopped for a passport check in Pembina.  The Flattus Maximus name will be retired.

A good day’s work.  Former ND Governor Ed Schafer will receive stock worth $800,000 for joining the board of Continental Resources, which produces nine percent of ND oil.  The stock will vest over four years.  Schafer is the son of the founder of the Gold Seal Company.

The Agraria restaurant in Washington, D.C. has been a long-running disaster.  The ND Farmers Union opened the restaurant in 2006 to highlight farm-inspired food -- the restaurant industry saw it as a naive display of conceit.  The Fargo Forum said Agraria was a “marvelous display of visionary thinking” and Bismarck Tribune columnist Clay Jenkinson praised the concept, while restaurant critics said Agraria was doomed.  In 2008, the FU groused that Agraria was incurring losses; later that year the name was changed to Farmers and Fishers and management was turned over to consultants.  Early this year Farmers and Fishers closed.  You learned none of this from the Forum, the Tribune or the Farmers Union -- it will go down as a case of provincial hubris.  The NDFU owns another more successful D.C. restaurant in partnership with the consultants.

Remember the western movies in which homesteaders stampede on to the plains and erect tarpaper shack towns.  It’s not quite the same, but a Minnesota developer is going to build an instant town called Centerville about 12 miles west of Stanley on Highway 2.  Centerville is expected to have 500 residents and will be mostly mobile home sites and a few lots for conventional homes.