FROM THE BARRICADES FOR 7/24/09

Posted by Jon Pike Jul 24, 2009

Boy Howdy! I have not had an opportunity to write for the ol’ activism blog for about a month. Well, job searching, setting up housekeeping, and planning for a marriage will do that. Oh, that wedded bliss did not interfere with one’s blogging!!

I like to keep the ol’ activism column as local as I can. Goo writers can make much from their own backyards. It’s also a way for me to explore issues in what may be my main locale for a while. I’m talking about Fargo, ND.

As I was driving about yesterday, I was certain that my column this week was going to be about the lawsuit against a state anti-abortion law. Considering that North Dakota is under a million people, and there is but one abortion clinic in the whole state, it is curious that abortion is such a lightning rod in this state. North Dakota is the front line of the abortion wars. For the above reasons , there simply cannot be that many abortions performed in North Dakota.

But then, the Forum hit me this morning, and I decided to write about this week’s topic instead. I did so for a couple of reasons: first of all, it’s interesting to explore rifts in one side, as opposed to two sides going at it. Second of all, health care, is once again the topic du jour. This, even though Harry Truman promised a single-payer system in 1948. That’s 61 years.

On the writing front, I’m back to being a volunteer writer for Fargo’s High Plains Reader. Check them out in hard copy, or on the web. My paid writing gigs still include Free Speech Radio and the Minnesota Independent. Please give them some web-love as well.

I continue to seek out paid writing gigs as I still have this insane notion that I can earn a living off of it. Hope springs eternal. I do really hope this Suite101 stuff continues to be a decent paid hobby for me. I like writing t for them, and it keeps instilling a writing discipline in me.

I have to keep putting up four activism columns a week for them as per my contract. Please give the people who write for this service a bit of your web love also. As for next week, we’ll see what materializes, on the barricades. Hope to see all of you there.