By Bill Anderson

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Thus spoke Hamlet in Act 2, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s tragedy of that name. Poor Hamlet, he couldn’t make up his mind. Almighty God, however, does not hesitate to make a decision when one is desired or required. For instance, after creating man in his own image, without clothing, God pronounced his entire creation, including unclothed men and women, to be “good.” Now, however, in 2023, the Republican dominated North Dakota State Legislature is in the process of adopting legislation declaring that depictions of human nudity in library books is “bad.” The legislature, for the first time in the history of the State, is on the verge of: banning books containing depictions of unclothed humans; censoring the content of books to make sure that they don’t include any pictures that the legislators, in their wisdom, might find offensive; and, imprisoning any librarians who fail to remove offending books from their library shelves. Just imagine, Marian, the Librarian, locked up behind bars, a desperate, corrupting criminal, in the opinions of North Dakota’s Legislators. So, Almighty God, omniscient and omnipotent, has declared that the naked human body is good. The North Dakota State Legislature thinks that the naked human body is bad. It will be interesting to see who wins this argument. At 24 degrees below Zero, though, even the Almighty would most likely agree that some clothing might be a good thing.

Once again, Mother Nature and Old Man Winter have teamed up to give us another winter storm, this one on the evening of Tuesday, February 28, and the morning and some of the afternoon of Wednesday, March 1. As of 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday, the snowfall amount, at a little over 1 inch, was considerably less than the 5 to 9 inches that the weather gurus had been predicting on Tuesday. The wind had most of the snow up in the air, though, so the total snowfall reading might be considerably higher when it all settles down. The experts were right on when it came to their wind prediction, though. As of Wednesday morning, there was more than enough wind to run multiple windmills that could be pumping water, generating electricity or just providing targets for near-sighted birds to run into. So, are the winter wind, cold and snow good or bad? What about windmills? We’ll probably have to follow Hamlet’s advice, and think about it.

A moving crew consisting of Janelle Brakke of Fargo; Wanda (Brakke) Rasmussen of Fargo; Andy Harris of Rutland; and, Bill Anderson of Rutland; coordinated their efforts to move Rutland native Kathleen Brakke to a new residence east of The Red River on Friday, February 24. Since October of 2019 Kathy had been a resident at Mapleview Memory Care in south Fargo. Her new home is at Lilac Homes Memory Care, 2615 Parkview Drive South, Moorhead MN 56560. Kathy enjoys receiving cards and postcards from friends and family. She also enjoys music, particularly visits from her cousin, Cayuga native Emily (Banish) Wangen, who works with Music Therapy In Motion of Fargo.

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