36 hours later, I’m in Germany

So this is my first dispatch from Germany during a two-week trip for a journalism exchange program known as Atlantik-Brucke, a post-WWII program that was initially designed to improve relations between the United States and Germany by shipping U.S. journalists to the Fatherland for a tour of the country’s political and business elite. Anyway, I [...]

Jon Stewart’s ‘Jim Crammer’ moment?

Jon Stewart emerged this year as an effective critic of CNBC’s coverage of the economic meltdown but played a slightly different tune in 2006 when former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan stepped down. In its “irrationally exuberant” tribute to Greenspan, Stewart ironically lauded the former fed chief’s policies, namely lowering the fed’s interest rate, [...]

Jay-Z + Radiohead = Jaydiohead

This is from a blog post I had posted to my former Blogger account. Figured it was relevant now that Jaydiohead (a NYC DJ named Max Tannone) dropped a second round of mash-up tracks today:
After all the writing I do about politics, I sometimes forget how much I actually love to write about music/pop culture. [...]

Paper cuts

It’s no secret that newspapers, from coast to coast, are struggling. The industry even got its own congressional hearing last week in Washington about the future of journalism to prove it.
Amid this digital transition,  newspapers, blogs and talk shows have reported the various cuts newspapers have endured to stay afloat over the past three years. [...]

Happy Mother’s Day!

Now that its is well into its 35th season, Saturday Night Live finally looks to be crawling out of its post-Ferrell funk without the aid of a presidential election to give it relevancy (note: Will Ferrell is hosting the show on May 17). The show’s most obvious strength is its Digital Short segment, which usually features [...]

Journalism awards and Jack

If there is something most journalists have in common it’s this: we love donning awards among ourselves (from state newspaper associations to the Pulitzer Prize) and then getting rip-roaring drunk after award ceremonies.
I got to continue this tradition last night at the North Dakota Newspaper Association annual convention dinner, where I was awarded the Rookie [...]

Scrubs Win

So if you weren’t a fan of the popular dramedy “Scrubs,” then you missed out on Wednesday when the series finally came to its well-deserved close (or not, depending on if ABC decides to do a spinoff). Still, it was, in my humble opinion, top notch television for a show about 20-somethings dealing with the [...]

Winter killed, but the summer is killer

I’m often asked what I thought about living through my first North Dakota winter. My usual response: it sucked. No need to go into more detail, because honestly, the memories are painful. My car died three times and I’m pretty sure I almost got frostbite while trying to dig out my car that became stuck in a snow bank one cold night after work. And by cold I mean it was painful to breath – especially when it drops to 20 below zero.

But I survived and I’m stronger now than I was before. Winter in North Dakota is difficult to explain, but I’m told its never as bad as you think – except when it actually is. Unfortunately for my inaugural Nodak winter, it was one for the record books: Bismarck was a mere three inches short of setting an all-time snowfall record this winter (about 101 inches) and nearly broke the all-time low temperature: 44 degrees below zero. And that doesn’t even cover the flooding disaster around the state. Welcome, Brian Duggan.

Hello world!

So I’m moving my blogger activities to this new, nice and shiny WordPress site. So before I start spouting off about this or that, enjoy the following…