New Gym “The Pit” In Dickinson, North Dakota

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Update 5/27/2018:  When I first wrote this blog post article about the Pit Gym in December of 2017, I had a very positive and favorable opinion of this gym because it was the only weight room gym in town.  I am not going to re-write my initial reaction, but I have added to the bottom of this blog post, a description of what I think is going to be a frustration for powerlifters and bodybuilders at this gym.

Approximately one month ago I was driving south on 10th Avenue East toward Villard when I saw a sign for the gym “The Pit” right next door to East End Towing.  I have lived in Dickinson for a little over five years, and in this particular neighborhood for six months, and this was the first time that I ever saw that a gym was in this building.

I turned in to the parking lot, and I got out of my vehicle to look in the windows.  The gym was mostly free weights, weight benches, and weight lifting racks.  I had not seen a gym like this in years.  Virtually all gyms in the United States have been transformed into “Fitness Centers” over the past 25 years in order to have a wider range of customers.  The “Weight Rooms” are almost all gone now.

I thought for sure that the owner must be a Power Lifter, because who else would open a gym now with mostly free weights and weight lifting racks?  I went inside, and there was a blond lady sitting at the desk, which was a surprise to me.  I said, “I was expecting to see a guy at this gym, not a lady, this is a Weight Room.”  She mostly understood what I meant, especially because her husband is a Power Lifter, but she probably didn’t like me saying it, because she is a Power Lifter too.  This was probably Step #1 of me getting kicked out of this gym.

I talked to her probably longer than I should have, but I wanted to see if she and her husband had had the same experience as me at the West River Community Center.  There are just so many people at the WRCC, and so many things going on, that it is difficult to get to the free weights and the weight racks at the WRCC.

For instance, I could plan on using one of the weight racks at the WRCC to safely do overhead press, squats, shrugs, or dead lifts, using 300 lbs or more, and all of the racks would be taken up by “Fitness People” who wanted to do multiple sets of lunges or bent over lifts using just the 45 lb bar, with no weights at all.

When I found out who her husband was, Dave Clem, I remembered seeing him at the WRCC many times.  I believed that he probably wasn’t very happy with the “circus” at the WRCC, and it was no surprise to me that this was his gym.  Dave is a Power Lifting competitor, and he currently holds several national Power Lifting records.  He routinely squats 750 lbs at meets.

Membership at “The Pit” gym is $40 per month.  If you are serious and goal oriented in Weight Training, Body Building, or Power Lifting, here are the advantages of this gym:

  1. Multiple sets of dumbbell pairs, ranging in 5 lb increments from 5 lb to 100 lb, with no gaps.  Four weight benches dedicated to the dumbbells.
  2. Two heavy duty Power Lifting bench press benches.  Adjacent weight plates to load 700 plus lbs.
  3. Two heavy duty Power Lifting squat racks, with quick release bar rests, safety bars, and safety chains.  Adjacent weight plates to load 700 plus lbs.
  4. Dedicated dead lift platform, with bar jack for loading and unloading weight plates.  Adjacent weight plates to load 700 plus lbs.
  5. The walk from your car, to the weights that you want to use, is less than 75 feet, with no one, and no thing in your way.  Going to the WRCC, is almost like going to an airport.
  6. The Pit gym has 24 hour access.  If you come during the day, or later in the evening, you will almost certainly have immediate and uninterrupted access to the weights, weight bench, or weight rack that you want to use.
  7. At certain times during the week, Dave Clem and the Power Lifting team are training for squat, bench, and dead lift, and are watching and assisting in improving each other’s lifts.

Dave and Wendy Clem have a Power Lifting team that trains at The Pit gym.  There is a large white competition board that lists each member’s weight class, competition record for squat, bench press, dead lift, totals, and personal best lifts.  They encourage high school students to become involved in Power Lifting and they provide coaching.

At this gym, it is more goal oriented and results oriented.  In Weight Training, Body Building, and Power Lifting, people are interested in increasing the weight used in lifts, increasing repetitions with weight, increasing the size and definition of muscle, and increasing strength in a measurable way.  It is not like a “Fitness Center” where people dabble on a piece of equipment until they become bored or distracted, and then wander over to another piece of equipment and watch television on a monitor, not paying attention to what they are doing.

Change in my opinion of The Pit Gym 5/27/2018:

The whole reason for The Pit Gym to even exist in my opinion, was to provide access to heavy-duty, high weight capacity squat racks, bench press benches, dead-lift platform, incline leg press, and dumbbells in a way that the West River Community Center, and Anytime Fitness in Dickinson, North Dakota do not.

The West River Community Center is one of nicest fitness centers in the United States.  It has two very large indoor swimming pools, one outdoor swimming pool, two tennis courts, four racketball courts, four basketball courts, a rock climbing wall, thirty pieces of cardiovascular equipment, and a weight room with squat racks, bench press benches, dead lift platform, and dumbbells, all for less money than The Pit Gym in Dickinson.

What the West River Community Center and the Anytime Fitness in Dickinson do not have, is an area for adult men to use heavy weight equipment, free from women and children.

At the West River Community Center in Dickinson, there are all kinds of things for women and children to do.  Swim laps, use the water slide, play tennis, play racketball, climb on the rock climbing wall, play basketball, walk the track, run the track, do yoga or floor exercises, take an aerobics class, use thirty pieces of cardiovascular equipment, and even go do squats, bench press, dead lifts, with just the bar, with no weight, for as much as they want, for as long as they want.

The West River Community Center also has a day care for kids, and a very large women’s locker room with many lockers, toilets, and showers.  The Anytime Fitness in Dickinson is also very large, with just as much cardiovascular equipment and weight lifting equipment as the West River Community Center.  The Anytime Fitness has a women’s locker room with several toilets and showers.

The Pit Gym in Dickinson is small in size, approximately 35’x 50′.  It has no women’s locker room, no women’s only bathroom, no shower, just one piece of cardiovascular equipment, no floor exercise area, and far less weight training equipment than either the West River Community Center or Anytime Fitness.  The only thing that The Pit Gym has that what appealing to me, is the heavy-duty weight benches, squat racks, dead lift platform, and dumbbells, combined with the absence of women and children.

If you add women and children to The Pit Gym, and you have either a woman or a kid on the two squat racks, the two bench press benches, and using the dumbbells, The Pit Gym in my opinion is not worth going to.

I thought that Dave Clem the owner of The Pit Gym and a power lifting competitor, went through the trouble of finding a building to rent, and moved all of his heavy-duty, high weight capacity, power lifting training, exercise, and competition equipment into this building, so that people who wanted to lift and train with heavy weight, could do so without any conflict or interruption from the women and children at the West River Community Center or Anytime Fitness.

Yesterday, I went to The Pit Gym in Dickinson, and two young men had brought their two young girlfriends with them.  The Pit Gym is very small, about 35’x 50′, there are only two squat racks, and two bench press benches.  I got to use the squat rack that I wanted to use, but one of the young men’s girlfriends was talking a lot, and playing around, like this was their garage, an afternoon barbeque, or a social occasion.  I was not as focused, or trying as hard as I should have been, I was distracted.  The space is so small, that you can’t really escape how other people want to act, or what they want to do.

Soon, there was another young man that arrived with his young girlfriend.  She was attractive, and was wearing training shorts, and a sports bras top.  I became even more distracted, not just because this girl was attractive, but because she was talking on her phone, and talking about other things.  Again, this was like a social occasion for her.  And again, this gym is only about 35’x 50′, if other people want to talk about food, and what they want to go eat, you can’t help but hear them, which takes your mind off of what you are doing.

I realized that I was stopping short of where I should have in my exercises, because I was not paying attention to what I was doing.  It was not just the distraction, it seems like there is a natural response to not completely disregard or ignore other people, as if this would be rude or impolite in a social situation.  However, I was not looking for a social situation, I had intended to focus completely on my lifts, but I was not able to.

There was one bench press bench that I needed to use next, which was available, except one of the young women had left her head phones on the weight bar.  What else would this bar be used for, other than to hang personal belongings on?  I moved her head phones to the adjacent bench press bench.  I was going to do behind the head pull over curls while laying on the bench, and this was the only bench with enough room to do this without hitting anything behind your head while laying down on the bench.

I didn’t realize that the young woman was going to use the adjacent bench press bench, to do bench presses with just the bar.  I dragged the bench press bench that I was going to use, away from her, so that when I was doing behind the head curls while laying down, I would not hit her with the bar.

Lately, I would go up to 135 lb with behind the head curls, and in the past I was able to go up to 160 lbs.  But today, I stopped at 105 lb, and left the gym before I was done with this exercise, and before I was done with the remainder of my exercises, because of these two women.

I did not want to continue with behind the head curls while laying down, for more sets with more weight, because I was worried about hitting the young woman with the bar, hurting her, and possibly losing my balance, and getting myself hurt too.  I did not think that she knew the range of motion that I was going to make in this exercise, and I did not think that she understood how difficult this is to lower 135 lb behind your head and pull it back up using just your triceps.

My next exercise was going to be dumbbell flys, but the other young man and his girlfriend were socializing by the dumbbells and the dumbbell benches.  I was concerned that I was not going to be able to make a maximum effort because of being distracted and not being able to entirely block out this couple.  I was also concerned about being bumped into by the young woman who might not have understood the range of motion that I was going to make, possibly hurting her, and possibly losing my balance and hurting myself too.

In the 30 years that I have been going to gyms, I have always sought to go to weight room gyms where everyone uses heavy weights.  At Anytime Fitness, the West River Community Center, or any gym where there are women and children, I have often had to stop what I am doing in the middle of a repetition, to avoid hitting or harming a woman or kid, that did not know the range of motion that I was going to make, or understand the amount of weight that I was moving.

For instance, in the past, I would train with 120 lb, 130 lb, and 140 lb dumbbells doing dumbbell presses.  I could not use more than 100 lbs, at the West River Community Center, because women would come walking up beside you when you were on a bench, totally not understanding that this was 100 lb in each hand, that you were going to extend your arms completely in a press, and this movement was going to hurt them if they got in the way.  And after five or six repetitions with 100 lb in each hand, they had better not be standing where a dumbbell could land on their feet.  Women and children did not know, or understand, when you were lifting heavy weight.

In my opinion, there is absolutely no point, no reason whatsoever to join The Pit Gym in Dickinson if the owners Dave and Wendy Clem want this to be another fitness center with women and children.  This gym will no longer offer anything that is any different from what the West River Community Center and the Anytime Fitness have to offer.

I have seen from my experience in going to many gyms over a 30 year period, that most women and children have no understanding or comprehension of an adult male making a maximum effort to lift the heaviest weight he can lift, for one or two repetitions, in an exercise where he can be severely injured or fail at the lift if he is distracted.  Or, the understanding that they could be severely injured if they don’t move the fuck out of the way.

Here below are some examples with photographs:

What this guy below needs, is for someone else’s girlfriend to stand at the weight bench next to him, so that her leg gets broken when he puts down one of those 200 lb dumbbells.  Maybe he should learn how to put them down gently, 200 lb each isn’t very much is it?  That’s not that much more than 10 lb, is it?

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These two guys below, what they need is someone else’s girlfriend standing in front of them wearing a sports bras, and talking on her phone about where they are going to eat.  Some kind of distraction is what they need, to cause them to fail in the lift and get hurt.

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All three of these guys up above need someone else’s kids running around them and bumping into them, to cause them to lose their balance so that they can fail in the lift and get hurt.

Today, in response to my updated blog posts, Wendy Clem, the wife of Dave Clem, wrote some comments.  She completely disagrees with my opinion and my wish that her gym be oriented primarily towards men.  She believes that her gym should be open to everyone.

Wendy wrote some comments saying that I was Chauvanistic.  I agree on this, as far as my opinion on having one gym in Dickinson that is primarily for men.  Wendy called me on the telephone, and said that if I came down there right now, she had two women in the gym who could kick my ass in the gym.  I said that I would be right there.

When I got to the gym about fifteen minutes later, Wendy met me outside the gym with a refund of money.  She wanted to tell me what she thought.  I said where are these two women who can out lift me?  I was introduced to a very large young woman who had just completed a 400 lb squat.

I said to the young woman, O.K., you have me beat on squat, I admit it.  Let’s go do some 100 lb dumbbells.  She wouldn’t do it.  Then, I got told to leave the gym, and never come back.

You May Not Want To Stop In The Small Towns Of North Dakota

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I have lived and worked in North Dakota for a little over five years now.  I have worked in the following towns, in order of largest to smallest:  Bismarck – 73K;  Dickinson – 25K;  Watford City – 6K;  New Town – 3K;  Killdeer – 2K;  New England – 1K;  Belfield – 1K;  Richardton – 600;  South Heart – 500;  Taylor – 300;  Gladstone – 300; and Dunn Center – 200.

When I arrived for the first time in North Dakota back in 2011, at first everything was a new and exciting adventure for me.  Within about three months of living and working in North Dakota, it became more of frightening, worrisome, and scary adventure.  I came to have a great deal of apprehension about what my employer, co-workers, local people, and the Police were going to do to me next.

I came to realize that many or most of the local people from North Dakota were hostile, mean, unfriendly, hateful, uncooperative, and not helpful.  I came to be worried about my safety at work because my co-workers were not careful, so many of them were getting hurt, and everyone seemed to find a way to injure their co-workers.  It was as if the employers in Dickinson could not see the disarray, or straighten things out, however in time it came to appear more likely that the employers in Dickinson deliberately wanted the disorder and ineffectiveness, for reasons that I won’t elaborate on now.

The Police in Dickinson also seemed to have a hatred for people, and a predatory desire to arrest as many people as possible.  Before long, living in Dickinson for me became like being in prison.  There was no where to go, nothing to do, I was in danger of physical harm all day every day, and the Police were always trying to get me for something.

When I went to work outside of Dickinson in some place new, I looked at it as an opportunity to go to a better place.  I thought that in some other place, there might be nicer people, attractive women, or better restaurants.  In the places that I worked outside of Dickinson, I came to find out that most of them were even more unpleasant than Dickinson.

Outside of Dickinson, there were even less attractive women, and even less restaurants.  In Watford City, the Police were even more aggressive and constantly trying to sneak up on me, even more so than in Dickinson.

Within a couple of years of living in North Dakota, and having worked in several small towns, I learned to be very cautious about the small towns.  You have to be very watchful and careful about the small town Police.  Because there is very little going on in small towns, the Police do not have a lot to do.  They spend their time fantasizing about crime, criminals, and making a big arrest.

When a vehicle that the Police do not recognize drives through a small town in North Dakota, that vehicle and its occupants assume the roles that the Police officer has been fantasizing about for days, weeks, months, and years.  They want to try to stop your vehicle for any reason whatsoever, so that they can see who you are, ask you questions, decipher and detect what crime you are involved in, and make an arrest.

Also in the small towns in North Dakota, the local people are not that different than the small town Police in their fantasizing, imagining, and mistrust for people from somewhere else.

I decided to write this blog post, because of two recent incidents that happened to me.  I began working about one hour’s drive from Dickinson in the beginning of November.  At first, I was happy to be getting out of Dickinson, and I was looking forward to change.  I hoped that I might meet some nice people or attractive women in the rural, sparsely populated area that I was going to.

The closest town to my job site, is about ten miles away.  The small gas station in this town, and the small grocery store both close at 6:00 p.m., which is before I get off work at night.  After a couple of weeks of being alone all night after work, staying in a trailer at the job site, I looked forward to going to a restaurant for dinner in a town about 20 miles away.

When I got to the town 20 miles away, I found that the restaurant closes at 7:00 p.m., I was too late.  I went to the grocery store in this town, which closes at 8:00 p.m.  After I had paid for my groceries, and I was walking out of this store carrying my groceries to my vehicle, a store employee came outside and held up his cell phone pointing it at me to either photograph me or video record me going to my vehicle.

At that moment, I was both slightly amused and slightly irritated.  This was such a big deal, someone that they did not know coming into their grocery store, that they had to photograph me.  Their imaginations must have been running wild, who knows what they thought I was going to do.  After a few more minutes, I felt insulted.

As I was driving back to the job site, I began to think that this was not good.  If the people in this grocery store were so sure that I was some kind of criminal, so convinced of this that one of them followed me outside to photograph me and my vehicle, maybe I should just buy all of my groceries in Dickinson.

My current job assignment is a good one.  I am taking over from a ten year employee who recently got let go due to a conflict with a local person at the job site.  No one could have foreseen that what this ten year employee did would have resulted in him losing his job, but it did.  I do not want the same thing to happen to me, so I do not want to have any conflict with the local people.

The day following the incident at the grocery store 20 miles away, I had to take the company vehicle to the gas station 10 miles away from the job site to get fuel.  This was the fourth time this month that I have had to take this company vehicle to this gas station where there is a company account.

This time, the middle-aged woman at this gas station could not understand or did not want to understand anything that I was saying to her.  I said to her that the vehicle parked at pump #3, (which has the company name on the door and was parked closest to the store window), we have a company account under the name …., I would like to put about xx gallons in it.  She could not understand what I was saying, though I repeated what I was saying, twice to her.  An older man at the counter to told me to go ahead.

I went outside, and I tried to get the pump to start more that several times, but it would not start.  Keep in mind, that this was the fourth time that I had taken this company vehicle to this gas station this month.  I gave up trying to put fuel in it, and I began cleaning each of the windows, while I thought about what I wanted to do.  I did not want to get into a conflict with these people.

This was the only gas station in this town, and it was 10 miles from the job site.  The next closest gas station was 20 miles from the job site.  The owner of the company had opened an account with this gas station.  Any kind of disagreement whatsoever, even a minor one, I am sure that these people at this gas station would have told the company owner how “rude” I was.  Then, they would have started politicking with the local people about what a “rude” and “asshole” person I was, and very likely gotten me fired, just like the person who I replaced.

Meanwhile, during this delay, a couple of local people stopped and asked me about what I was doing, one because he did not recognize my vehicle, and the other because he did recognize my vehicle.  I am not supposed to say anything whatsoever about the project that I am working on, and anything that I said would jeopardize my job.

I went back inside the gas station, prepared to say that I would send someone else back tomorrow to get fuel, I needed to go and didn’t need the fuel right now.  I needed to tell them that I did not get fuel, so that there would be no misunderstanding, or a billing for the fuel amount that was already displayed at the pump.  The older man started the pump, and I got fuel.

Were the people at this gas station, trying to be difficult?  Were they trying to start a problem?  This is the only gas station in this town.  Any kind of disagreement, I would have lost.  The owner of the company would have thought, why can’t I just go get fuel without getting into an argument, what is wrong with me?  I don’t know, why can’t I just go get fuel, like I have been for the past 32 years of driving?

I talked to a co-worker, a North Dakota native who is older than me, who has worked at this job site longer than me, and I asked him if he had had problems at this gas station.  He said yes, but it had not come to the point of him having to leave without getting fuel.  I discussed that I might bring fuel from Dickinson, or I might wait until after this gas station closes at night, in order to get fuel with my own personal credit or debit card.  I do not want to get into any conflict with these local people, and I do not want to have any kind of delay in which local people want to ask me questions about work.

Maddie Gower And Heather Louise On Facebook

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For those of you who do not read my blog website regularly,  I have lived in Dickinson, North Dakota for approximately the past five years.  I came to work here during the Oil Boom that lasted from approximately 2007 through 2014.  Though the Oil Boom is over now, and many oil field jobs have gone away, I can still make more money here than I can where my home is in Idaho, which is why I continue to stay in Dickinson.

I started this blog website about three years ago, out of boredom and frustration.  There is very little to do, and no where to go in western North Dakota.  One of my biggest frustrations, is that there is a shortage of women, and a scarcity of attractive women.

In Dickinson, the ratio of men to women is probably 3:1.  In the other oil field towns in western North Dakota where I work sometimes, the ratio of men to women varies from 10:1 to 20:1.  Even though there was, and still is a tremendous shortage of women, prostitution is not allowed, and there are no strip bars.

Because there is a shortage of women in western North Dakota, the women that are here, for the most part, do not care about their appearance.  They do not care that they are overweight, that their hair is unkempt, and that they are sloppily dressed.  They glare, scowl, sneer, and they say and do mean unfriendly things.

The only attractive women that I ever see, are on the internet.  Perhaps because Facebook feels sorry for me, about two months ago, Facebook began adding to my “Friend Suggestions” and “People You May Know”, beautiful women from around the World:  Vietnam, Russia, Turkey, Italy, France, Brazil, Venezuela, Australia, and more places.

Not only were these women beautiful, unlike women in North Dakota, they took pride in how they looked, and they wanted to show off what they looked like.  I looked at many beautiful women from around the World on Facebook for the past two months.  One of the women who stood out, was Maddie Gower from Pennsylvania.

I wanted to write about Maddie Gower for several reasons.  Maddie is about 20 years old.  I will just attribute it to boredom, that Maddie takes a couple of photographs of herself each day, and she then posts these photographs to her Facebook profile.

To the readers who are shrieking at me right now for writing about this young lady Maddie’s personal Facebook page and her photographs, I thought that she knew that hundreds or thousands of men from around the World were looking at her Facebook profile, because these men were leaving comments to each of her photographs that she posted.  Maddie appeared to enjoy it when men from around the World would leave compliments about each of her photographs.  Though less than one hundred of these men were leaving comments, hundreds or thousands were looking.

I wrote this particular blog post using Maddie’s full name, because I wanted her to see this blog post and read it.  I liked looking at Maddie’s photographs too.  Only about 0.1% of women, that’s 1 in 1,000, are as physically attractive as Maddie.  She is young, healthy, in very good physical condition, very good looking, and she wears slightly revealing or alluring clothing around her house and she takes photographs of herself.

To someone like me who lives in western North Dakota, I don’t ever get to see anything like this anymore, it is just a distant memory, it is like it doesn’t exist.  Another one of the reasons why I wrote this blog post using Maddie’s full name, was so that other people in western North Dakota who never get to see attractive women could look at her Facebook page and see her photographs too.

I did not think that I would be upsetting Maddie by calling attention to her Facebook page, because I was under the impression that she wanted people to see her photographs, and that she liked to receive comments from people if they were positive comments.

I was concerned, and I was worried, that Maddie should not post the name of the college that she goes to or the town that she lives in, so that people would not try to stalk her or do anything to her.  Later, I found that Maddie’s mother, Heather Louise, posts more photographs of herself on Facebook, than her daughter does.

This made me feel a little less worried about Maddie posting photographs of herself, because her mother Heather posts more photographs of herself, than Maddie.  Heather also appears to enjoy comments about her photographs that are positive comments.  Because the two of them live together, and they both post photographs of themselves on Facebook each day, I believed that they each were aware of the risks of attracting the attention of men, and that they could look out for each other.

Besides Maddie and her mother Heather being good looking, I also liked and appreciated that they take pride in their appearance, care how they look, and that they enjoy showing off how they look.  This attitude is almost completely non-existent where I live in North Dakota.

If Maddie and Heather didn’t know that there were thousands of men looking at their Facebook profiles, they will now after reading this.

Update 12/10/2017:

In early December of 2017, Maddie did see this blog post that I wrote.  She was surprised or shocked, and she wrote some comments about it on her Facebook page.   At that time, I created a fake Facebook page, in order to contact her, and make her aware that she might have disclosed too much personal information on her Facebook page.  She was angry to hear this from me, but I wanted her to know this, and be aware of this.

In the correspondence that I had with Maddie at that time, it was discussed that she had 2,000 Facebook followers, but perhaps as many as 10,000 views per month or more, from men around the world.  Even though she didn’t like hearing this from me, I explained that it would be possible that men could turn up where she lived in order to meet her.

Maddie read and understood what I wrote to her, she was aware of everything, and she continued to keep her Facebook page very much the same.

 

Update 1/01/2018:

I like Maddie’s mother, Heather Louise.  I look at Maddie’s and Heather’s Facebook profile almost every day.  Heather is always, always, positive, pleasant, thoughtful, considerate, and nice.  She is never mean or cruel.

I wanted to send something to Heather for Christmas, so I mailed her a Christmas card and a music CD that I made, that had fifteen of my favorite songs.  Her daughter Maddie, intercepted my Christmas card and music CD, and would not let her mother have it.  I thought to myself, “I am glad that I didn’t pay a lot of money for flowers, her daughter would have just thrown them in the garbage.”

I was thinking, how could I ever send anything to Heather, without her daughter confiscating it?  Then I realized, that I could order something at the florist, and then let Heather know on Facebook to go and pick it up.

I looked up florists in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and I found a good one downtown.  You can go to their website, and see the different floral arrangements that they have to offer, and how much they cost.  I sent this particular florist an e-mail, with Heather’s address.  So if you want to send Heather flowers, and Heather does love flowers, here is the info:

http://www.inspirationsfloralstudio.com/
Inspirations Floral Studio

24 E Main Street

Lock Haven, PA. 17745
phone: (570) 748-8028

Constructive Criticism For Dickinson State University

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I am very familiar with small Colleges and Universities.  About 95% of them require or encourage students to complete all of their General Education requirements within the first three years, for a number of different reasons.

Usually, the General Education requirements coincide with the course work that would have to be completed in order to receive a two-year Associates of Arts degree.  Even if a student was unable to complete all four years at a small College or University, if they completed the General Education requirements, they would likely be eligible for an Associates of Arts degree.

Another reason why small Colleges and Universities require or encourage students to begin completing their General Education requirements right away, is so that their writing, math, and analytical skills are at a high enough level for them to pass the course work in their Major field of study leading to a Bachelors degree.

Most small Colleges and Universities have General Education requirements that are very similar.  One of the reasons for this, is so that the College or University will be Accredited by a review board as having a legitimate educational program.  Another reason for this, is so that students can transfer into, or out of, the College or University and have their course work credits accepted.

All of this information that I have just written above, is to establish that it is commonly known that it does not matter too much where a college student completes their first two or three years of school.  As an aside, it was very, very common in Florida for students to graduate from High School and begin going to a local Community College.  They could continue to live at home, continue working at a job they already had, and attend a college that was much less expensive.  After two or three years, they could transfer to a College or University that offered B.S. and B.A. degrees.

The decision that students and their parents made on which College or University to attend, would most often be based on what special advantage it offered, and the cost.  The special advantage that I am talking about, could be one of the following:  was the College known to be a feeder school to employment with certain companies or industries;  was the College known to have a strong and influential network of Alumni;  was the College known to be gateway to esteemed Masters and Doctoral programs;  did the College have a particular program that was very specialized and hard to find;  was the campus environment unusually beneficial and positive.

Dickinson State University is like thousands of other small Colleges and Universities located in small towns that have very little going on.  Some small college towns are located beside the ocean, in beautiful mountains, or not far from exciting metropolitan areas.  Dickinson State University is not located in a beautiful environment, it is not anywhere near a desirable metropolitan destination, and it does not have a great academic reputation.

However, Dickinson State University could begin to develop a reputation as being a feeder school to employment with certain companies and industries, and a reputation for offering a very specialized and hard to find academic program.

Dickinson State University does not have the budget or the breadth of faculty to have a degree program for Petroleum Engineering or Chemical Engineering.  This is O.K., because many large Universities offer this, and there is not a shortage of Petroleum Engineers and Chemical Engineers.

There is a great shortage of people who understand instrumentation, automation,  and controls.  Large Universities like to teach theory in their Engineering programs, and engineering students don’t spend actual hands-on time dealing with the specific actual instrumentation, automation, and control equipment that is used in the petroleum, refining, and oil industry.

Recent graduates with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, do not have the immediate exact knowledge of how a specific brand of Programmable Logic Controller should be programmed and wired to receive signals from each kind of specific brand instrumentation, and programmed and wired to send signals to controllers and transmitters, and where and how to install the instrumentation and controls.  Many engineers would not want to perform the physical labor to build and install the instrumentation and controls in the field.

Electricians do not mind installing conduit, pulling wires, building racks, and installing instrumentation, but very few of them have the classroom training to be able to know how a Programmable Logic Controller should be programmed and set up at a particular site to receive all the input signals from the instrumentation, perform decisions on the signals, and send output to the controllers and transmitters.

In industry, not just the petroleum, refining, and oil industries, but in all industries, there is a great shortage of workers who understand instrumentation, automation, and controls.  In the oil field in Texas and in North Dakota, I have seen the people actually doing the installation having very limited knowledge, and the people back in the office having very limited knowledge, and the work being completed by trial and error, with a great amount of error.

In Vernal, Utah, there is Uintah Community College which offers courses in Automation and Controls.  This is the only College which I am aware of, which offers courses in this.  These courses exist and are possible, because there is an oil field in Vernal, Utah, and there are some personnel in Vernal, who have enough knowledge and experience to teach the courses.

What I suggest that Dickinson State University do, is create an Associates Degree program, where they offer an Associate Degree of Industrial Technology.  The students would complete the General Education requirements taught by the normal DSU professors to meet the requirements of an Associates of Arts degree, but they would also be required to complete course work involving instrumentation, automation, and controls.

It should not be a secret at all, that what the DSU Associate Degree of Industrial Technology program was offering, was a chance for people who wanted to work in the oil, gas, refining, petroleum, or other industry, to receive practical hands-on training that would allow them upon graduating, to immediately go to work in industry.  They would have the advantage of a demonstrated knowledge and ability in instrumentation, automation, and controls, and also the competency level of someone with an Associates Degree.

I would expect that many major petroleum companies such as Continental, Marathon, Tesoro, Conoco Philips, Amarada Hess, and Whiting who operate here in North Dakota would be very cooperative with funding assistance and instructional assistance, since this program is so needed and would be helpful to each of them.  I think that the petroleum companies’ support would not only help DSU, but the entire North Dakota University system.

My estimate of the College course work required in addition to the General Education requirements would be as follows:

  1.  2 credit hours – Intro To Oil Field Operations:  Overview of geologic formations of oil, drilling methods, fracturing methods, well completion, oil production, oil transmission, pipelines, storage, environmental issues.
  2.   2 credit hours – Intro To Industrial Hazards:  Includes OSHA 10 Hour type instruction, H2S training, confined space, working at heights, fall protection, MSDS, hazard communication, combustibles, flamables, hazardous chemicals, fire fighting, pressures, emergency response, lifting and operator hand signals.
  3.   3 credit hours – Valves, Fittings, & Instrumentation:  Classroom and hands-on training in valve types, operation, and failure;  fittings, installation, and failure;  instrumentation, flow meters, pressure meters, temperature gauges, level gauges, installation, failure, and units of measurement.
  4.   2 credit hours – Electrical Principles & Circuits:  Classroom instruction on basic electrical principles and circuits.
  5.   3 credit hours – Fabrication & Welding:  Classroom and hands-on training in material, taking measurements, material cutting, and welding.
  6.   3 credit hours – Automation & Controls I:  Primarily classroom training and introduction to Programmable Logic Controllers and Controls.  Instruction on programming and programming logic.
  7.   3 credit hours – Automation & Controls II:  Primarily hands-on training where students must demonstrate their ability to set up Programmable Logic Controllers, Instrumentation, and Controls to accomplish basic functions.
  8.   3 credit hours –  Industrial Applications:  Classroom instruction and field trips to provide study and instruction on practical use and application of instrumentation, automation, and controls.

I have outlined a course of study above, where a motivated student could complete two Industrial courses per semester, in addition to their General Education requirements, if they were a full-time student.  I would recommend and encourage course work in computer science and the use of common work application software such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and Project.

There are many personnel in Dickinson, many of them who I have met, who are capable of teaching much of the Industrial course work outlined above.

Classification Of People In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In my previous blog post, I wrote about Bigfoot Hunter Tim “Coonbo” Baker and his classification of Bigfoot into at least four distinct species.  Tim “Coonbo” Baker’s classification system helps to clear up confusion, misunderstandings, and arguments that have existed for over 100 years concerning Bigfoot.  I thought, why not do the same thing for Dickinson?

Below I have created a classification system for people in Dickinson.  This list is arranged in order from most common, to least common in Dickinson:

  1. Local Catholics – Most common group of people in Dickinson.  Usually of German or Ukranian ancestry.  Typically unfriendly, uncooperative, not helpful, hostile, and mean.  Adult males are difficult to get along with at work.  Adult females usually sneer, scowl, glare, and tend to be overweight.  Catholic children in Dickinson can be quite nasty, especially if they go to Trinity School.
  2. Local Lutherans – Second most common group of people in Dickinson.  Usually of Norwegian or Scandinavian ancestry.  Typically helpful and friendly.  Adult females expect their husbands to rake and mow the lawn, trim the trees and bushes, and clean the cars, house exterior, roof, windows, driveway, and sidewalk.  Even though Lutheran women are notorious for their casseroles, the Lutheran men are skinny due to having to work all the time.
  3. Local Methodists – Not very common in Dickinson.  No one knows how they got here.  They stay hidden and keep a low profile.  If you meet a person who acts normal in Dickinson, they might be a Methodist.
  4. Local Mormons – Not very common in Dickinson.  They might have come from Illinois, Missouri, Idaho, or Utah.  Adult males are usually good reliable employees.  Adult females stay at home.  Young unmarried females are nice and pleasant to a fault.  Young unmarried males are annoying.
  5. Local Non-Denominational and Other Christians – Any individual in this group could have come from anywhere.  There is no telling what they will do, so don’t turn you back on them.
  6. Red-Necks from the South – Much more common in Dickinson from 2008 through 2014 during the oil boom.  Not very common in Dickinson now.  Adult males tend to be overweight and they like to stare and look at everything to see what it is, whether it is a lawn sprinkler, squirrel, taco truck, any vehicle for sale, etc.  Adult females in Dickinson are always “fixin to go to the store”.
  7. People from Texas – Just as common and annoying now, as they were during the oil boom from 2008 through 2014.  Adult males usually drive a Ford F250 4×4, faster and more erratically than necessary, like they would in Dallas or Houston.  There is usually something wrong with someone who had to drive all the way from Texas in order to get a job in North Dakota.  There are no women from Texas in Dickinson, they won’t come.
  8. People from Coeur D’Alene – Just about everyone who left Coeur D’Alene, Idaho to come to work in Dickinson, has been or still is involved in illegal drugs.  Adult males typically work for companies where there is no drug testing, like small construction companies or dangerous oil field service companies.  Adult females typically work where there is no drug testing, mostly in restaurants and hotels.  Vehicle license plates from the Coeur D’Alene area of Idaho, begin with the letter “K”.  A good rule to remember is, “If it starts with the letter ‘K’, stay away”, whenever you see an Idaho license plate.

Important Criticism That Bigfoot Hunter Tim Coonbo Baker Needs To Hear

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I explained in a recent previous blog post that I had been looking at the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization website for the past 15 years.  I gained about 90% of my knowledge about Bigfoot and Bigfoot behavior from the BFRO.  As it turns out, I should have been looking for information elsewhere, because the BFRO was lacking some very important information.

About three weeks ago, I stumbled upon a YouTube video where Tim “Coonbo” Baker and his friend “Bear” were giving a presentation about Bigfoot to a small audience of people.  This YouTube video was recorded on 9/19/17, and it was uploaded by UPARS LA on 10/16/17, and it is 2 hours 52 minutes in length.

Besides the famous Patterson-Gimlim film from 1967 that clearly shows a Bigfoot for approximately 20 seconds, and the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, Tim “Coonbo” Baker may have the most important information and knowledge on Bigfoot.

There are three areas that Tim “Coonbo” Baker has important first-hand knowledge on, that is hard to get from other sources:  1)  Bigfoot communication and vocalization;  2)  Specific corroborated knowledge of more than several cases where Law Enforcement investigated brutal killings of people by Bigfoot;  3)  Specific knowledge of at least four distinct species of Bigfoot and a classification system.

Tim “Coonbo” Baker’s specific knowledge and ability to demonstrate that there are at least four distinct species of Bigfoot in the United States is probably the most significant finding on Bigfoot in history.  His description of the four different species clears up and explains many of the discrepancies and arguments about Bigfoot that have been going on for over 100 years.  This is my recollection of his classification system:

  • Type 1:  Very tall and large Bigfoot found mostly in the Pacific Northwest.  The least aggressive towards humans.
  • Type 2:  Slightly smaller Bigfoot than Type 1, but the most common Bigfoot in the U.S.  Large and ape-like in appearance.  Slightly more aggressive towards humans.
  • Type 3:  Can be just as large as Type 1 and Type 2, but far less common.  Appearance is different because face has a slight snout.  Even though less common, they have a history of aggression and violence towards humans.
  • Type 4:  Can be just as large as the other Types 1, 2, and 3.  The least common Bigfoot.  Appearance is very different, because this Bigfoot resembles a wolf-man.  The head resembles a wolf, the legs resemble wolf legs, the mouth has canine or fang teeth, but this Bigfoot walks upright on its hind legs.  Usually always violent and aggressive towards humans.

Tim “Coonbo” Baker can substantiate his information, knowledge, and claims by his own personal first-hand experiences which are many; by his in-person verification with Law Enforcement, Fish & Game, and Park Rangers who were at the scene of many cases; and through witness photographs taken of different kinds of Bigfoot.

I have looked and looked on the internet for all of the interviews and presentations given by Tim “Coonbo” Baker, and they are all a mess, except for the one YouTube video uploaded by UPARS LA on 10/16/17.  Even on this one and only presentation where Tim “Coonbo” Baker is mostly able to give his information in a semi-serious, concise, and professional manner, he was not able to talk about everything due to running out of time and interruptions.  Please read the comments on this YouTube video that the viewers wrote, most of these comments expressed regret that he ran out of time.  Here is my comment:

Tim “Coonbo” Baker:

Your experiences, knowledge, information, and understanding of Bigfoot is very, very important.  Even though you may have started out doing your investigations as a hobby and something that you have enjoyed, your collective experience, knowledge, information, and understanding of Bigfoot is too important, to not get this information out in a serious manner.

Starting out, you may have been invited on various radio programs and to various venues because of people’s interest in the Bigfoot subject, as a novelty and form of entertainment.  I have tried and tried to find interviews that you have given, to listen to what you have to say about Bigfoot, but on virtually every interview, you are interrupted, sidetracked, and your time is taken up by other people, and you have been prevented from giving all of your information.

You are getting old in age now, and I am begging you for my sake, and the sake of many people, to Please, Please, make at least one video presentation, without anyone, and I mean anyone, interrupting you or getting you sidetracked, so that you can fully and completely tell your childhood experiences and conclusions from your family farm, your later investigations as an adult, your understanding and conclusions about vocalizations and communication, your knowledge of the specific cases of Bigfoot homicides, and your evidence for the classification of Bigfoot in the U.S. into at least four distinct species.

If you make just one video telling most of what you have found, this will be just as valuable or even more valuable than the Patterson-Gimlin film to the understanding and acknowledgment of Bigfoot.

Here is the video with Tim Coonbo Baker, where he almost got through everything that he wanted to cover:

Warning To Women In Dickinson, About Me

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I should probably give this warning to women in Dickinson, about me, at least annually or bi-annually.  I do not want women in Dickinson to ruin their marriages or careers by having a relationship with me, it is not worth it.

Even women who are intelligent, accomplished, and have good sense, are vulnerable and susceptible to being seduced, or falling victim to their own desires.  Boredom, loneliness, curiosity, empathy, lust, the feeling of excitement and danger, the desire for revenge, and the feeling of being in love are things that lead women to be involved with men that they shouldn’t be.

For women who have been married for many years, it may seem that there have been way more bad times than good, nothing turning out the way that they wanted or expected, feeling that they have been used and unappreciated.  It may seem this way, especially when one chooses to ignore the good things, caring, and happiness that does exist in marriage.  Being with me would or could ruin your marriage, and you might only realize what you had lost after it was irretrievably broken.

Friendships, social contacts, social standing, and a reputation are very important to women.  Each one of these four elements, are interdependent on the others.  A woman might not be able to maintain friendships, social contacts, or her social standing, if she gains a bad reputation.  A woman’s whole life, her career, her success, might be dependent upon her reputation.

If a woman in Dickinson were to become involved with me, and it became known, her reputation would suffer.  Dickinsonians would ask themselves what is wrong with her, doesn’t she have any sense, and doesn’t she know any better?  She would be considered to be a traitor.

Further warning is this, I like to sleep, I am usually behind in doing laundry, I like to play, I don’t like to spend money, and I don’t have a lot of money.  Soon, any woman would get tired and frustrated with this.

I am warning any woman who is married, who has a successful career, or who is on the verge of having a successful career, to not have too much involvement with me.

I Relied Too Much On The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization

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When I was a kid, I was terrified of Bigfoot.  What was so horrible, was that thanks to the famous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film, I knew that Bigfoot actually existed, and therefore he could get someone at any time.  My mother would tell me, that there weren’t any Bigfoot around where we lived, which at the time, I thought was the truth.  However, when I was in my thirties, I began to learn that there were Bigfoot in the swamps where I lived and spent much of my time.

In approximately 2001, I found the internet website The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, or BFRO for short.  You could click on this website, click on the tab for Sightings by Region, click on each state, and see the number of reported Bigfoot sightings for each county in that state.  I clicked on Volusia County, Florida, and there were Bigfoot sightings from where I had spent much of my time as a kid.

The BFRO website was created in approximately 1995.  People were invited to submit their Bigfoot sighting to the BFRO.  Once a report was submitted, a BFRO staff volunteer would contact the person who submitted the report, and ask follow-up questions in order to make the determination whether the report was a joke, a hoax, or was probably legitimate.  Once a report was determined to be credible, it was included in the public database, and organized under the county and state in which the sighting occurred.

The BFRO staff volunteers tended to be assigned to the state where they lived, and they usually were biologists or retired wildlife management professionals, who would sometimes travel to meet with the report submitter in person at the location of their Bigfoot sighting.  As the BFRO website gained credibility, retired Fish & Game officers, Park Rangers, Bureau of Land Management personnel, Military personnel, and Law Enforcement officers began to submit sighting reports from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s.  Thousands of ordinary people, and some wildlife experts, began to submit their sighting reports, from every state in the U.S. except for Hawaii.

States like Florida, California, Washington, and Oregon had hundreds of Bigfoot sighting reports.  Many other states had nearly one hundred Bigfoot sighting reports.  Beginning in 2001, I would spend hours at a time, reading Bigfoot sighting reports each week, and I did this for months and years.  Individual sighting reports from the BFRO still stand out in my mind, but mostly I was gleaning considerable general knowledge of what was going on as follows:

In many areas, Bigfoot attempt to do their travelling at night in order to avoid being seen by people.  It appears that Bigfoot have better night vision than people, which gives them more of an advantage at night.  Bigfoot make an effort to not be seen by people, to not be caught out in the open away from any concealment during the day, and to avoid people.

Bigfoot eat fruit, vegetables, grain, fish, insects, small game, large game, and dogs. Bigfoot will sometimes attempt to eat food that has been left out by people, food that was meant for livestock, and livestock being raised by people.

Bigfoot most often live in family units with adult males and adult females, juvenile Bigfoot, and baby Bigfoot.  Bigfoot communicate with each other in close proximity through a language that sounds like grunts and chatter.  They communicate over longer distances through calls that are an imitation of other animals, and through wood knocks.

In some National Parks and National Forests, Park Rangers will neither confirm nor deny the existence of any Bigfoot in their Park, but they will listen to your Bigfoot sighting.  In some cases, they will reply “You didn’t try to shoot it, did you?” or “I think I know which one you are talking about.”  The Park Rangers are interested in what their Bigfoot are up to.

Bigfoot are wary of people and mistrustful of people, but they are curious.  They are attracted to, will follow, and like to watch children playing.  They are attracted by women, when women are menstruating.  Bigfoot will sometimes look in people’s windows to see what they are doing.

Up until very recently, I obtained about 90% of my knowledge about Bigfoot from the BFRO website.  I only looked elsewhere to be able to answer the common question that other people ask, “If Bigfoot is real, why hasn’t one been shot or captured by now?”  Approximately ten years ago, I found a website titled “Lawnflowers, Jerky, and Bigfoot”, that was a collection of approximately 100 old newspaper articles from around the United States going back to the early 1800s.  Each of these 100 old newspaper articles contained a Bigfoot report, often where the Bigfoot was captured alive or dead, and the Bigfoot was examined by all of the prominent and respected local citizens and officials at that time.  This website appeared to have been created by a biologist researcher at a University, but this website was taken down in approximately 2015.

The other question that I had looked up in the past was, “Has a Bigfoot ever killed anyone?”.  In the past, the only report that I was ever able to find about a Bigfoot killing someone, was just one report about two trappers back in the late 1800s who were harassed by a Bigfoot.  One of the trappers left to go collect his traps, and when he returned, he found that the other trapper was dead after having been flung around like a rag doll.  This story was written about by President Theodore Roosevelt in his 1890 book titled “The Wilderness Hunter”.

What the BFRO reported was, that in all the thousands of reports that they had received where an individual had an encounter with a Bigfoot, even the reports of rock throwing and chasing by the Bigfoot, no one had been harmed by a Bigfoot.  When I used to go look for Bigfoot in the forests where they had been seen in Arizona, or recently here in North Dakota, I had mostly believed that Bigfoot were not violent towards humans.  It turns out that this is not true.

I will give The Bigfoot Field Research Organization credit for being by far the biggest contributing factor to bringing openness and acceptance to Bigfoot sighting reporting.  One result of the professionalism and legitimacy of the BFRO site, has been the willingness of retired Fish & Game, Park Rangers, BLM personnel, Military personnel, and Law Enforcement to submit their sighting reports.  However, this new openness has reached the point, to where these aforementioned retired officials, are now reporting the numerous cases where Bigfoot killed people.

Approximately two months ago, this was the first time that I read a report, which is becoming more and more talked about, where a group of Bigfoot murdered multiple families of people in rural western North Carolina in the early 1990s.  After reading this report, and doing more reading on this subject, this is not nearly the first time, or the last time, that individual Bigfoot and groups of Bigfoot, murdered multiple people.  In my opinion, the following story appears to be what opened the flood gate on people beginning to report Bigfoot killing humans:

In a town in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, in a rural area, all the members of several families had been killed by some thing or things that were much bigger and stronger than humans.  The victims’ bodies had been pulled apart and flung around like they were rag dolls.  There was damage done to buildings and automobiles.

Due to the nature of the damage done to the victims’ bodies, buildings, and automobiles, and other evidence left behind following this killing spree and rampage, it appeared that local Law Enforcement quickly came to the conclusion that this was done by a group of Bigfoot.  In my reading reports from other cases, the FBI is called in cases like these where there are multiple homicides under suspicious circumstances.  In the other cases that I read, the FBI has a procedure where they have in the past called for U.S. Military Special Forces to hunt down rogue or murderous Bigfoot.  That is what was done in this case in North Carolina.

A U.S. Military Special Forces team was briefed prior to arrival in North Carolina and were shown photographs that were taken of the human casualties and the property damage.  Upon arrival, they were taken to the crimes scenes.  From there, they followed the tracks and the trail left behind, into the forest.  The tracks indicated that there were approximately seven Bigfoot involved in the massacre.  Over the next three days, they hunted down and killed seven Bigfoot.  Afterward, they were instructed to not disclose or discuss what had occurred.

I am not relying on just the above story to draw the conclusion that an individual Bigfoot or group of Bigfoot sometimes kill people.  There is a report of this having happened at a park campground in Bishop, California in the 1970s, where a family of people had been ripped apart and tossed around by Bigfoot.  There is a more recent report of a family having been ripped apart and tossed around by a Bigfoot at a campground park area called Land Between The Lakes in Kentucky.  The Bishop, California killings and the Land Between The Lakes killings have been verified to researchers by Law Enforcement officers who were at these crime scenes.

Recently, I found out about a Bigfoot researcher named Tim Baker from Arkansas who gives in-person presentations to groups, and gives radio interviews on all of the Bigfoot research and findings that he has collected, who goes into Bigfoot behavior which has previously not been talked about and been covered up.

With the new information that I learned recently, and with Tim Baker’s presentation of previously undisclosed details about Bigfoot, this has helped me fill in more pieces of this puzzle, to where it makes more sense.  I had wondered why the U.S. Fish & Game and the U.S. Park Service wouldn’t be more open about the presence of Bigfoot in wildlife areas.  At times, I thought that it would be safer for people and for Bigfoot, if people were given some basic facts and do’s and don’ts concerning Bigfoot.  Other times, I thought that denying the existence of Bigfoot by Fish & Game and the Park Service might reduce the desire of people to hunt, stalk, and bother Bigfoot.  Now, I see that Fish & Game and the Park Service have a much more difficult situation to manage, and deniability is an element that gives them more flexibility.

In a wildlife area, Fish & Game and the Park Service keep track and pay attention to the population of prairie dogs, squirrels, coyotes, raccoons, foxes, beaver, deer, sheep, antelope, wild horses, elk, buffalo, wolves, bear, and mountain lions.  I can recall many times, when wildlife managers deny, deny, deny, the presence of wolves, bears, and mountain lions, presumably to not cause alarm in people.  But also the longer they deny the existence of a potentially dangerous animal, the longer they have to not have to do anything about it, and the more that Fish & Game and the Park Service can claim that they were not aware of any dangerous animal should a person be attacked or killed.

Jan Murtha Taking Over As Dickinson City Attorney, But She Is Probably Not Available For Dating

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I have to work out of town several days each week.  As I was driving back to Dickinson this evening, the drive was boring and monotonous, because I didn’t have anything to look forward to in Dickinson.  Just grocery shopping.  Then I have to leave again tomorrow morning.

When I got home, I looked at my blog website statistics to see how many views my website got and to see if there were any comments.  I had good readership recently, and I saw that this was because Google had listed some of my blog posts under Dickinson Local News Community Update.  In order to see which of my blog posts Google had included in Dickinson Local News, I scrolled through the Google Local News and I saw a Dickinson Press newspaper story titled, “Jan Murtha Taking Over As Dickinson City Attorney”.

From the photograph that was included with this Dickinson Press newspaper article, it appeared to me that Jan Murtha might be attractive.  Though this photograph of Jan was perhaps meant to be plain and stark, to accompany news articles focusing on her professional work and accomplishments, I thought that she might actually be good looking.

I read the Dickinson Press newspaper article.  This article said that Jan had been working as a North Dakota Assistant Attorney General in Bismarck, before that she worked as an assistant county attorney in Duluth, Minnesota, and that she had also worked in private practice.

I was glad that the City of Dickinson was going to fill an important staff position with someone from some place else, who was not from Dickinson, who probably did not go to school in North Dakota, who had worked outside of North Dakota.  Possibly a “normal” person.  This would be good for Dickinson.  Also, it looks much, much better for the City of Dickinson to have a City Attorney who is not an employee of a local law office.

I was thinking that Jan would be a good girlfriend for me.  The Dickinson Press newspaper did not say anything about Jan being married and the name of her husband, which is something that they usually do when someone is married.  I frantically did Google searches trying to see if Jan was married, and to try to find any more photographs of Jan.  As most readers know, there is a shortage of women in Dickinson.

In my haste and excitement, it appeared to me that I had found out that Jan or “Janilyn” was the daughter of the late Thomas Murtha, a long time Dickinson attorney.  So much for Janilyn not being from Dickinson, I thought, at least she went to work out of state,  and worked in Bismarck as an Assistant Attorney General.  I did see that Jan was formally going by “Ms. Janilyn Murtha”, so certainly, she was not married.  I read that she went to law school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Thank God, not North Dakota.

I was going to include Ms. Janilyn Murtha on my widely known blog post “List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson” right away, in order for her to feel welcome and appreciated, and also in order for men to be alerted to the fact that she was available for dating.  As most readers know, there is a shortage of women in Dickinson.

I wanted to write a blog post about how “Wonderful” it was that Ms. Janilyn Murtha would be taking over as City Attorney, that she was attractive, not married, and available for dating, in a way that wouldn’t make her decline the job and move away.  My strategy was, that calling attention to her attractiveness and singleness, would cause all kinds of dumb ass men to proposition her several times a day, for months.  This would result in three possibilities:

  1. She would soon meet a man that was nicer than all of the other dumb asses, and this would be the one that she picks and stays with.
  2. She would soon become accustomed to being propositioned all of the time, though worn out and tired of it.  After dating whoever she thought had potential, seemingly meeting everyone there was to meet, and not finding any one, this is when I would want to make her acquaintance.
  3. She would move away.

In preparation for writing my blog post about Ms. Janilyn Murtha, I continued to try to find out more about her, by performing internet searches, especially trying to find more photographs of her.  Eventually, I found that in 2006 Jan was married to Thomas Murtha IV, son of the late Thomas Murtha III.

This changes things.  If Ms. Janilyn Murtha is married, she is probably not available for dating.  I would have felt like an idiot, writing an enthusiastic blog post about a nice unmarried woman moving to Dickinson, when in fact, she is married.

I blame this near embarrassing mishap, on Janilyn, her husband, and the Dickinson Press.  This caused me a great deal of confusion, this “Ms.” business, and it nearly caused havoc in Dickinson.  Why, why, why in Dickinson, would any woman want to go by “Ms.” instead of “Mrs.”?  This is just inviting trouble.  As most readers know, there is a shortage of women in Dickinson.

Very, Very Strange And Upsetting Feeling In Dickinson, North Dakota This Week

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Even though things are going O.K. for me personally in Dickinson, North Dakota right now, I am sensing that something is very wrong in Dickinson.  It is like there is so much pain, anxiety, fear, uncertainty, anger, bad thoughts, and bad intentions, that I can’t help but feel that something is very wrong.

If a psychiatrist or psychologist would analyze my thoughts on this, they would likely say one of three things:  1)  You are projecting, inferring, or attributing your own thoughts and feelings onto other people;  2)  You are witnessing actual events and real happenings, mentally processing these facts, arriving at legitimate conclusions, and these conclusions are being presented to you as emotions or feelings rather than in words;  3)  Animals and people have a way of sensing and knowing things, that we can not explain.  Maybe #3 is something that a psychiatrist or psychologist would not say.

The older that I have become, the more I believe in listening to my inner voice.  Some people believe in God, Guardian Angels, Spirit Guides, or a Collective Consciousness.  I believe in each of these things to some extent, some times more than other times.  Perhaps one’s inner voice, is just a momentary conclusion based on one’s own lifetime of experiences.

The actual events and real happenings which I recall seeing and observing in Dickinson recently are:  The Dickinson Police having a heightened desire to arrest people, even if they have to make things up;  the Police having motorists pulled over on the road whenever I go out; the restaurants that I go to having very few customers;  the restaurant workers appearing and behaving in an angry, unhappy, unfriendly manner;  my neighbors appearing very stressed and unhappy;  some neighbors moving out in an unhappy manner and my apartment building becoming more vacant;  some of my friends being unable to find employment;  some of my friends having to sell their possessions and possibly their home in order to survive;  not one person that I know looking forward to or speaking about Thanksgiving or Christmas in a happy manner;  when I go shopping, the shoppers appear and act like poor worried people, none of them appear or act like successful confident people;  long lines at McDonalds drive-thru but few customers at other restaurants;  property theft in Dickinson becoming much more prevalent and common.

I had been looking forward for a couple of months to see who would be announced as the new Executive Director of the Downtown Dickinson Association.  I had hoped that a particular candidate that I liked would get the position, someone who I believe is a very positive, pleasant, well liked, up beat, and delightful person.  Instead, the Downtown Dickinson Association never made an announcement on which candidate was selected, and they just went ahead and re-advertised for the Executive Director position without any explanation.  I feel sorry for the people who applied, especially for the person that I like very much, who I hoped would be the new Executive Director.

I have just listed above many things that I recall seeing and observing in Dickinson this week.  It seems that this might be enough for me to get the feeling that there is pain, anxiety, fear, uncertainty, anger, bad thoughts, and bad intentions in Dickinson.  However, one of the strongest and most upsetting feelings or impressions that I am getting, is that people have the intention of victimizing others.

My warning to readers in Dickinson, is that I am getting the feeling that many people who have pain, anxiety, fear, uncertainty, anger, bad circumstances in their own life, bad thoughts, and bad intentions, would like to somehow victimize and try to bring down other people right now.  This is why I am trying to stay home, and not go anywhere.  It appears that many other people in Dickinson are also trying to stay home and not go anywhere currently.

Where Do People’s Souls Go When They Live In Dickinson, North Dakota?

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In my previous blog post, I explained that trauma and prolonged suffering or unhappiness can cause a person’s Soul to leave their body.  Knowing that people would doubt what I was trying to explain, I also copied and gave a lengthy and thorough explanation that was written by someone else.

One of the points that I was trying to make in my previous blog post, was that people who are aware of Out-Of-Body Experiences and/or Astral Projection, where the Soul leaves the physical body, these people think that this only occurs when people meditate or sleep under peaceful and tranquil circumstances.  However, the Soul will leave the body under conditions of trauma or prolonged suffering or unhappiness.  Hence living in Dickinson, North Dakota, people’s Souls are trying to leave their physical bodies pretty much all the time.

When I wrote about disassociation of the Soul from the physical body, I did not mean “dissociation” a term which psychologists and psychiatrists use to try to explain an unconscious coping mechanism that a person’s psyche uses to cope with trauma.  I have found that psychologists and psychiatrists sometimes try to suggest or infer in their analysis that the Soul or Spirit is just a mental a concept and not something that actually exists separate from the physical mind or physical body.

In order to convince the reader that I am not making this up, I will provide another excerpt taken from the website address https://www.mysticeye.co/single-post/2017/03/01/Soul-Retreival:

“The physical body is animated by the spirit and the spirit can fragment. This happens a lot in trauma specifically when the soul is overwhelmed. It disassociates from the body to feel safe.

 The soul literally gets scared out of the body and fragments. This can manifest as psychological disassociation or any other form of mental illness. All victims of trauma show signs of disassociation such as victims of war, rape, car accidents. In the moment of severe trauma the soul separates itself or leaves the physical body and is scared to come back into the body until it knows and understands that it is safe. Many people report feeling “above” their bodies in times of trauma. Or they say that they felt as if they were “witnessing” the event from a third-party perspective. This is because the event is too traumatic for the soul so it leaves until it is coaxed back.This is where the process of soul retrieval comes in and the shaman…

 A shaman will act as a spiritual lawyer to coax the soul back to the body. Many of the times the soul doesn’t know that the body is safe again. Its last experience with the body was scary and overwhelming. It still believes or thinks that the body is in danger. The shaman acts as a spiritual lawyer to coax the soul back to the body. It allows the soul to see that the body is now in a safe location and can return back to its original home.”

Where do people’s Souls go in Dickinson?  In my case, when it is very cold and windy outside, with very cold wind chill, and I have to work outside in the miserable and unbearable wind and cold, if I have driven one of my Toyota trucks, my Soul will go and sit in my truck.  Or, if I have to work in a very bad, hostile, unfriendly, miserable, dangerous, circumstance, my Soul will go and sit in my truck.  This is why I like to drive my own vehicle to work locations, because me and my Soul can both just get in my truck and leave.

Other times, like when I have not driven my own vehicle to work, I don’t know where my Soul goes.  If there were any nice pleasant restaurants in Dickinson, with nice friendly waitresses, my Soul would probably come back when I went to eat after work.  But since the restaurants in Dickinson are so shitty and the waitresses are so mean and nasty, my Soul stays gone.

At night, when I am laying in bed, sometimes I try to consciously convince my Soul, that during the night, it should go to one of the women’s houses on my List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson, and pull their toes while they are trying to sleep, but I do not think that it ever does this.  Instead, my Soul goes to some classroom which typically reminds me of High School, and sometimes some of my High School acquaintances are there.  I usually get impatient after a while and begin to realize, and then I announce that I don’t know why I am here, I already have a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering, me being here is ridiculous and unnecessary, and I leave.

Come To Dickinson, North Dakota For Enlightenment And Spiritual Awakening

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Come to Dickinson, North Dakota for Enlightenment and Spiritual Awakening.  There is no need to travel to Nepal, Tibet, Sedona, or Sante Fe.

The Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Wicca religions have sects and followers that believe enlightenment and spiritual awakening can be reached through the practice of Asceticism.  Asceticism involves abstinence from physical and sensual pleasures, renunciation of material possessions, and much time spent alone reflecting upon spiritual matters.  Some Ascetics practice self-infliction of pain, making their body suffer, or maiming their body.

When you live in Dickinson, North Dakota, you will experience no earthly pleasures, no enjoyment of anything, no distraction of women and sex, and plenty of discomfort, suffering, pain, misery, and maiming.

Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, there is very little to do, and nowhere to go.  There is a shortage of women, and a scarcity of attractive women.  Living here, you will forego all forms of enjoyment.  Many people in Dickinson experience and practice the abandonment of personal hygiene.

Self-infliction of pain comes when you go outside, live in a poorly insulated trailer, or go to work in Dickinson.  Work in Dickinson involves co-workers who are mean, hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, and undermining.  Work in Dickinson consists of long hours outside in the cold performing physical labor which is dangerous.  Co-workers assist with the infliction of pain, suffering, misery, and body maiming while at work.

The police in Dickinson are very helpful in making people’s lives even more ascetic, assisting with the deprivation of enjoyment, pleasure, money, and in providing confinement.

After living in Dickinson for approximately five years now, I have come to realize more about the Soul.  Many people are familiar with out-of-body experiences, and/or astral projection, where it is believed that the Soul or Astral Body leaves the physical body at night during sleep under certain conditions, usually conditions of peace, quiet, and tranquility.

However, living in Dickinson, your Soul or Astral Body, will be trying to leave most of the time, even during the day.  To a lay person, bystander, or an uninitiated person, the self-denial and self-infliction of pain practiced by the Ascetics might be seen as purification, dedication, devoutness, withdrawal from the world, and focusing inward, in order to achieve enlightenment.  However, the constant condition of pain, suffering, misery, and unhappiness, causes the Soul or Astral Body to begin disassociating from the physical body.

With only my random thoughts and no intention, I would often find myself thinking of living in Dickinson as being like a Jew in a concentration camp.  Especially at work, where I was cold, dirty, hungry, having to defecate on the ground, and being endangered and mistreated by hostile Germans, how could I not feel like a Jew in a concentration camp?  I thought of the daily lives of the Jewish prisoners, the horrors and the torture that they had to endure.  I had wondered before, and I began to wonder now, how does their physical body, Consciousness, Spirit, or Soul cope with torture, and at what point do these elements of a person shut down or leave?

I remembered a conversation that I had had in the past with an engineer who was much older than me, who said that he believed that when the body experiences physical pain to a certain point the Consciousness, Spirit, or Soul realizes that it is time to leave, and it vacates the body, rather than stay any longer.  I also remembered a story that was told to me by a minister, who described the daily physical abuse that a child had experienced from his parents every day of his short life, that amounted to torture.  One day, the child died.  An autopsy was performed, but no cause of death could be found or determined.  It was apparent that the child had been abused, but there was no injury that had caused his death.  It was as if his Consciousness, Spirit, or Soul decided to go ahead and leave this physical body.

I will give an explanation of this from sources other than myself.  From the website address http://www.sacredserpent.net/soul-retrieval.html, I have taken the following excerpt:

“As a rule soul loss occurs due to trauma. Children are most susceptible to soul loss, as they are more vulnerable than adults and still more connected to the world of spirit or Otherworld than most adults are. When a child gets abused or suffers great distress or unhappiness he or she will often instinctively try to escape to the Otherworld to flee from the pain and to find peace or happiness.

But soul loss affects not only children but people of all ages. Typical triggers for soul loss are accident, injury, shock, trauma or prolonged unhappiness. An event that triggers soul loss in one person may not cause soul loss in others with a similar experience. It depends on how severe the shock or suffering was felt from a subjective point of view….

Physical injury is not a prerequisite for soul loss. It is not unusual for people who were involved in a car accident but suffered no physical injuries whatsoever to have soul loss. The loud sound and the impact cause shock. Your soul thinks you are dying and “ejects”. It may come back later when the shock wears off, or part of it may stay out. Any severe shock can cause soul loss….

Only very severe and / or repeated trauma can cause total soul loss. The result of total soul loss would eventually be death, or at the very least coma.”

In the above excerpt, this was the first time that I have heard of partial or incomplete Soul loss, where one’s entire Soul does not disassociate during suffering or trauma.  But the description of the circumstances of Soul loss were so clear, and the explanation was in conformity with what is written by others elsewhere, that I quoted this source.

The point that I wanted to make, is that people who have associated Out of Body Experiences and Astral Projection, where the Spirit or Soul leaves the physical body, with meditation, sleep, peace, and tranquility, they can come to Dickinson, North Dakota, live here for a while, and they can experience their Soul leaving their physical body all of the time.

 

Art Bell And William Cooper Moving To Nowhere

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In a recent previous blog post that I wrote titled, “Moving To Nowhere”, I explained that after graduating from college and working in Tampa for seven years, I just couldn’t stand it anymore.  Though I lived in Tampa and worked in Tampa, it was a one hour drive to work in traffic in the morning, and a one hour drive home from work in traffic in the evening.  That’s ten hours each week of nearly getting in a car wreck, or stopped at a standstill on I-75.

I didn’t want to live like this anymore, so I put most of my belongings in storage, and I headed to the western U.S. in my truck.  I didn’t care what I would do for a living, or what kind of house, building, apartment, or trailer I would be living in.  If I ended up living in a trailer in the desert with nothing but tumble weeds, that would be fine with me because there wouldn’t be any noise, traffic, or asshole people.

I wasn’t inspired by anyone to move away from everything, nor was I searching for anything.  There was just so much that I wanted to get away from.  In Tampa, people were pushy, aggressive, and fighting in order to have the chance to buy a car that they could not afford, buy a house that they could not afford, and have a job that they could not keep up with.  All these people thought that they were getting ahead, when really they were ruining their life in every way.

I have had fifteen years of a different kind of life now.  Much more time to think, rest, relax, appreciate my surroundings, talk to people, and learn.  This to me, is the life that I should be living, and the life that I want to have.

It wasn’t until recently that I was thinking about and considering the lives of other people who did the same thing that I did, move away from everything.  I wrote about Chris McCandless whose journal was used to make the book and the movie “Into The Wild”.  I also wanted to write about two AM Radio late night talk show hosts who moved out into the desert, Art Bell and William Cooper.

As I am thinking about Art Bell and William Cooper right now, I am laughing to myself, because I know exactly how they felt when they moved out into the desert when they became middle aged.  Both Art Bell and William Cooper were born into families where their parents were on active duty in the military.  They lived in many different places and in foreign countries when they were kids, and also later when they themselves served in the military.  They had seen everything, been everywhere, and met all different kinds of people.

Perhaps if they had millions of dollars, they would have chosen to live on the beach in Malibu or northern California, I might have also.  The view, the weather, the peace, the lifestyle, the interesting and intelligent people.  However, like me, if you don’t have millions of dollars, you take the money that you do have, and try to see what you can buy out in the desert away from people.

I am taking it for granted that everyone knows what I am talking about.  Instead of living in a neighborhood on a 100’x100’ lot, with a curb, sidewalk, driveway, lawn, landscaping, and a neighbor on either side of you, in front of and behind you, there is none of that.  Your lot may be 300’x500’, or much larger, with no neighbor within 1,000’ of you, or further.  The road in front of your house may or may not be paved, but certainly there is no curb and sidewalk.  The yard that you own has no grass, but it has some mesquite trees, some cedar trees, juniper bushes, and cactus.  As a practical matter, your yard actually stretches for miles and miles, as far as you can see, because there is hardly anyone else where you live.

In the middle of nowhere, out in the desert, there is no “keeping up appearances”, “keeping up with the Jones’s”, peer pressure, or very many rules.  The people who live out in the desert generally have very modest incomes, spend as little money as possible, and try to live plainly and cheaply.  In order to maintain the peace, neighbors are civil to each other, but they try to keep to themselves and mind their own business.

William Cooper bought a modest home on a very large lot in Eager, Arizona, population 5,000.  Art Bell bought a more modest home but on more acreage in Pahrump, Nevada, population 36,000.  Then, at about the same time, both of them started broadcasting their late night AM talk radio programs.  William Cooper’s radio program was called “The Hour of The Time”, and Art Bell’s radio program was called “Coast To Coast AM”.

I remember listening to Art Bell’s late night AM talk radio program that he broadcast from his house in Pahrump, Nevada during the early and mid 1990s, and I believe that this was probably the happiest time of his life.  He was there in his home with his wife Ramona, their son, and their several cats. His radio program was becoming a commercial success, he was doing what he loved, and he was very proud and contented.

Probably because of Art Bell’s growing popularity, audience, and financial success, coupled with his bringing attention to controversial subjects and guests, caused him to be attacked on many fronts.  His teenage son was abducted and molested.  Art Bell was wrongfully and baselessly sued for libel.  Art Bell was baselessly accused of involvement with child pornography.  Then, his wife Ramona died.  Although Art Bell made it through all of this, he was never the same.

William Cooper was probably also the happiest he had ever been when he began broadcasting his late night AM talk radio program from Eager, Arizona.  He was doing what he loved, getting his message out, and he was happy with his life, with his wife and daughter.  William Cooper was much more concerned with getting his message out, than with financial or commercial success.  He was desperately trying to disclose to as many people as possible, what he had learned while reviewing Top Secret Classified documents as a U.S. Navy intelligence briefing officer.

William Cooper was fairly certain that he would be killed before long.  He was so sure that he would be killed, that he made hundreds of copies, of hundreds of documents in a short period of time, and then he mailed them off to people in the U.S. and around the world at a cost of $27,000.  His associates said that he spent all of the money that he had in savings to do this.  He sent his wife and his daughter away.

In June of 2001, three months before the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, William Cooper on his two hour radio program “The Hour Of The Time”, discussed at length that even though the United States was claiming that Osama Bin Laden was their most sought after terrorist, that CNN had just found him easily, and had filmed an interview with him.  William Cooper went on to describe that the U.S. government was setting Osama Bin Laden up to take the blame for an attack on the U.S.

Within one month following the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center that was blamed on Osama Bin Laden, William Cooper was gunned down in his front yard by Law Enforcement.  Law Enforcement positioned multiple unmarked vehicles down the hill from William Cooper’s house.  One unmarked vehicle was sent up the hill and down the street from William Cooper’s house, to begin blasting the car stereo and causing a disturbance.  William Cooper got in his truck to drive down there, expecting to find teenagers.  Instead, when he realized that it was a car load of armed agents waiting to kill him, he raced back to his house.

William Cooper was intercepted and forced off the road by a second car and a third car full of armed agents, as he tried to make it back to his house.  William Cooper got out of his truck and tried to run to his front door with his prosthetic leg.  Law Enforcement shot him multiple times until he fell to the ground.  No ambulance was ever called, to make sure that he would just lay there and die.

The American Civil Liberties Union In North Dakota

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When I was a kid growing up in Florida, my family had a subscription to the newspaper the Daytona Beach News Journal.  I didn’t like to read very much, I thought at the time, but I did in fact read a lot.  When I was about 12 or 13, I would read the Daytona Beach News Journal, and I would become angry, irritated, annoyed, incredulous, or amused at the news stories.

I still remember the first times that I read about the American Civil Liberties Union and the impressions that I had.  In reading about the American Civil Liberties Union, I would usually have to stop reading the sentence that I was on, go back, and start reading again from the beginning to make sure that I was reading this correctly.

“They are doing what?”, I would think to myself, “Let me read this headline again.  Let me start over reading this again.  This can’t be right.”  The ACLU was always doing the exact opposite of what a normal person would do, it seemed to me when I was a kid.  Any weird thing that a person was doing, that all normal people were condemning or trying to stop, the ACLU would be defending them.

It wasn’t until I started reading some articles about Jewish attorneys defending Neo-Nazis or White Supremacists, or the ACLU defending Neo-Nazis or White Supremacists, that I began to more seriously consider and think about what these attorneys were doing and why.

You would think that Neo-Nazis or White Supremacists would be the worst enemies of the Jews, Jewish attorneys, or the ACLU.  Why would these people want to defend Neo-Nazis or White Supremacists?  From thinking about it, and reading what the attorneys said, the attorneys had the belief that everyone was entitled to equal protection and equal treatment under the laws of the United States.

I began to see the point of what the attorneys and the ACLU were doing.  Even though a person, their beliefs, and their actions could be repulsive to an individual, group, or majority of people, everyone was entitled to fair and equal treatment under the law.

Thinking about this more, “Why did some attorneys and the ACLU, seem to go out of their way to defend the most hated, controversial, or disreputable people?”  My conclusion came to be, that in order to ensure that everyone, everywhere in the United States had equal rights, equal treatment, had due process of law, and received fair trails, that one of the ways to achieve this was to see to it, and it make it public, that even the most hated, controversial, or indefensible individual was entitled to equal rights, equal treatment, equal protection, a complete legal defense, and that the rights of any individual would not be abridged.

Another way to put this, is that in order to make sure that the laws in the United States are used correctly and applied correctly, and in order to make sure that the Constitution of the United States and its Amendments are followed, particular attention and effort has to be made in extreme legal cases, where it is likely or possible that the law may not be used or applied correctly, to make sure that it is.

It wasn’t until I got older, probably not until I was in my 40s, that I realized through life experience, that the “majority opinion” was not always right, and in fact the “majority opinion” has been one of the most destructive and harmful elements of civilization throughout history.  I began to realize and appreciate more that the founders of the United States tried to build into the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Amendments provisions that would protect individuals from the “majority opinion” or “the mob”.

Examples of cases where the majority opinion or the mob was allowed to determine an outcome are: The crucifiction of Jesus Christ; the conquests of the indigenous peoples during colonization of the world; the dispossession of the Native Americans; slavery of Black people; Holocaust of World War II; internment of Japanese civilians during World War II;  segregation of Black people;  Apartheid in South Africa.

Now, the people of the United States would not openly try to relocate to a new area, take away the land from the people already living there, and murder the people already living there, without the expectation of being charged and tried for theft and murder.  However, the majority opinion, or the majority opinion of the privileged class, during colonization or pioneering was that you could take land from indigenous people and kill them.  The majority opinion at the time, is not always correct in hindsight.

The American Civil Liberties Union has often taken an unpopular, greatly opposed, minority position on issues, lost many court case over these issues, but helped to change the popular and legal opinion on these issues, which we now take for granted.  For instance, in the 1920s when the ACLU was formed, it litigated for people to have the right to meet, organize, and form labor unions.  At that time, author Upton Sinclair was arrested at a labor union rally for merely attempting to read aloud the First Amendment to the Constitution.

In 1935, the National Labor Relations Act was passed which affirmed the right of workers to unionize.  In 1937, the Supreme Court ruled that “peaceable assembly for lawful discussion cannot be made a crime”, which affirmed the right of people to assemble and discuss unionization, but was also the beginning of the end of many state and local laws preventing people from meeting and engaging in discussions that the local majority did not agree with.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the ACLU and the NAACP engaged in litigation and support for the removal of segregation in public facilities, private facilities open to the public, and in public schools.  Segregation existed through the period of slavery, after the Civil War, and into the 1950s and 1960s due to the majority opinion, or the majority opinion of the ruling class, to just go ahead and continue long established racist policies.  Even though the majority opinion at the time in local areas was to leave things as they were, we now see in hindsight that the majority opinion is not always correct.

The ACLU has a long history of calling attention to and litigating against police misconduct.  The ACLU was involved in court cases that upheld the right of individuals to be represented by an attorney, the right to have an attorney present during questioning, the right of legal representation to indigent persons, the right to not be unlawfully detained, the right of individuals to be informed by the police of their Constitutional rights, and the requirement of police to obtain a warrant before searching someone’s home.

In North Dakota, the offices of the ACLU are located in Fargo.  Jennifer Cook is listed as the Policy Director, and Jen Petersen as the Communications Director.  If you go to the website http://www.aclund.org, then click on the “about” tab, then click on the “staff” tab, then click on each of these women’s names, you can read their short biographies.  The Executive Director for the ACLU in North Dakota is listed as Heather Smith.  However, Heather Smith is also listed as the Executive Director of the ACLU in South Dakota.  You can go to the ACLU of South Dakota website and read the short biography of Heather Smith.

This blog post, my previous blog post, and perhaps many of my previous blog posts, are the beginnings of my pleas to the ACLU to have more involvement in Dickinson, North Dakota and to pay more attention to what is going on here. It is kind of ironic, that Fargo which is the most progressive and liberal town in North Dakota has the ACLU, and western North Dakota which is the furthest behind, has no or hardly any ACLU presence.

I ask all local people in Dickinson, and people in western North Dakota, to urge the ACLU to become more involved in Dickinson and pay more attention to what is going on in Dickinson.  The ACLU does more than just litigate, it also has many ways to bring attention to and address problems of injustice and unfair treatment.

Dickinson Needs The American Civil Liberties Union

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I am still very angry about what the City of Dickinson Police Department and the Fargo Police Department did recently.  Even though it has been several days since I wrote three long blog posts about it, not only am I not done, I don’t even know where to begin.

There is plenty enough crime going on in Dickinson every day, committed by habitual career criminals, without the Dickinson Police trying to create crimes and make criminals out of law abiding citizens.  I will begin with two brief examples.

Manish Maharjan, a recent graduate from Dickinson State University, and a key employee of a local well respected company, was recently arrested after he responded to an advertisement placed by an 18 year old girl on the internet.  This was a fake advertisement created and posted by the Dickinson Police Department.  After Manish responded, the Dickinson Police started making up fake scenarios about the girl being under 18 in order to get Manish into a lot of trouble.

Like myself, and everyone else that I know, we have found it very difficult to meet women in Dickinson because there is a shortage of women.  The ratio of men to women in Dickinson is approximately 3:1.  It is very, very common in Dickinson, for men to look for women to date on internet dating sites.  With very few women on any or all of the internet dating sites, men then go look on other internet sites such as Craigslist or Backpage.

The Dickinson Police know full well the situation in Dickinson.  When they place a fake advertisement on the internet in Dickinson posing as a woman offering sex, they know that they will get a response from many different men in Dickinson.  Arresting and charging men in Dickinson when they go to meet a woman that they contacted on the internet, does not help anyone in Dickinson.  But the Police in Dickinson went further than this, they made up a fake scenario after contact had been made, so that the man would face a Class A felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Like I said, there is plenty enough crime happening in Dickinson every day, without the Police in Dickinson trying to create crimes and make criminals out of law abiding citizens.  Why are the Police in Dickinson trying to conceive, plan, and carry out schemes to make criminals out of citizens in Dickinson, so that they lose their jobs in Dickinson and go to jail for many years?

The second example that I will give, happened when I first came to Dickinson in 2011.  I got into the habit of going to the Paragon Bowling Alley bar after work in the evening.  I was playing pool when two men that I did not know walked in and wanted to play pool.  Within about fifteen minutes, they brought up drugs, and then kept asking about where to get drugs.  I was drinking, not thinking, and I almost gave them the phone number of someone that I knew who used any kind of drug he could get.

I suspected that these two guys that came in and wanted to play pool, and began talking about drugs and asking where to buy drugs, were undercover police officers.  Either way, I didn’t care, I just wanted them to shut up about where to get drugs.  Which is why I almost gave them my acquaintance Chris’ phone number.  I didn’t think that they were trying to frame me for being a drug dealer, or for trafficking drugs, but that is exactly what they were trying to do.  What good would this have done to arrest and charge me with being a drug dealer or trafficking drugs, when I neither used nor sold drugs?

The overall point is, What The Fuck Is Wrong With The Police In Dickinson, North Dakota?  Why or how would this be good or beneficial to arrest and charge me with drug dealing, when I neither used or sold drugs?  Why or how would this be good or beneficial to arrest and charge Manish Maharjan with Patronizing a Minor for Commercial Sex Activity, when he never intended or sought to have sex with a minor?

The answer seems to be that the Police in Dickinson, North Dakota are corrupt.  The Police in Dickinson either hate people, get some kind of perverse thrill in arresting and charging law abiding people, or they so want to get ahead in their career that they will conceive, plan, and carry out schemes of entrapment.

I did not like it, and I thought that it was wrong what happened with the death of  Eric Haider in Dickinson.  Eric Haider went missing from a job site in Dickinson, with some evidence that he might have been buried there at the job site where he had been working.  Eric Haider was missing for two years, before his parents hired a private investigation company who located his remains buried on the job site where he had been working.  If the Mayor or Chief of Police in Dickinson would have gone missing while on the job, everyone involved would have been questioned repeatedly over days, weeks, and months, and no stone would have been left unturned.  This was not done for Eric.

I did not like it, and I thought that it was wrong, when the new principal of Trinity High School in Dickinson, Thomas Sander, had been questioned for two days by the Dickinson Police who used “sleep deprivation, intimidation, bullying, threats, deception, lies and the withholding of bathroom facilities, food and water,” until a confession was coerced out of him that he set Trinity High School on fire.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives had to over rule the Dickinson Police Department on this and try to exonerate the new principal Thomas Sander.  The City of Dickinson was then sued by Thomas Sander for “violations of the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, supervisor liability, false arrest and false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, abuse of process, gross negligence, willful misconduct, deceit, unconstitutional practice and policy, unconstitutional discipline, training and supervision, defamation, vicarious liability, and deliberate fabrication and material omissions in an arrest warrant affidavit.”

I have looked up and read other court cases in Dickinson, where people from prominent and wealthy families in Dickinson have committed very bad crimes, heinous crimes, and have received very, very light sentences.  I have also looked up court records of people from prominent and wealthy families in Dickinson where I know that they have been convicted of several crimes from reading newspaper articles and other sources, but the NDCourts.gov website containing the court records repository has been expunged for these individuals.

This is why I think that the American Civil Liberties Union needs to have a permanent ongoing involvement in Dickinson, North Dakota.  Ordinary people in Dickinson who are not from prominent and wealthy local families are at great risk of being “railroaded”, “set up”, and “framed” in Dickinson, especially people who do not have family or relatives in Dickinson to make sure that they receive fair and legal treatment, that their rights are not violated, that they have adequate legal representation, that they receive due process of law, and a fair trial.

Legal Entrapment Of Manish In Dickinson, North Dakota

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This is the third of three blog posts that I am writing about two very similar cases of legal entrapment in North Dakota.  In Fargo and in Dickinson, Law Enforcement created a fake advertisement for a prostitute or girl wanting to have sex, and then posted these fake advertisements on internet websites.  The very reprehensible thing about this, is that these fake advertisements for a prostitute or a girl wanting to have sex, did not say that the girl was under 18 years of age.  Law Enforcement attracted men with their fake advertisements, and then later began to make up the fictitious scenario that the prostitute or girl was a minor.

In the first of these two cases that I have written about, 42 year old business owner Dan Durr of Fargo, has already been found not guilty of the Class A felony charge of Patronizing a Minor for Commercial Sexual Activity, because his defense attorney demonstrated in court that Dan Durr did not respond to an advertisement for sex with a minor, never intended to have sex with a minor, and immediately left when he was told that the prostitute was under 18.  The Fargo Police made up the scenario that the prostitute was under 18, after Dan Durr arrived at the location.  There never was a minor involved whatsoever, the Fargo Police just made up this fake scenario after Dan Durr arrived, in order to increase the charges from a Class B misdemeanor, to a Class A felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

It was very wise for Dan Durr’s defense attorney to just stick with the very clear facts of evidence that Dan Durr did not respond to an advertisement for sex with a minor, never intended to have sex with a minor, and left immediately when he was told that the prostitute was under 18.  Because other facts were so clear, Dan Durr’s defense attorney did not have to bring up the fact that what the Fargo Police did was legal entrapment.

Several days ago, I began reading many articles and legal opinions on what constitutes legal entrapment.  At that time, I was not fully aware of how many times defendants and defense attorneys claim legal entrapment in cases of prostitution stings.  It turns out, that in just about every case of prostitution stings conducted by Law Enforcement, the defendants and the defense attorneys always claim legal entrapment, but they don’t always use this as their legal defense.

The reason that defendants and defense attorneys don’t always use legal entrapment as their legal defense in cases of prostitution stings, is because there are two or three specific elements that must be demonstrated very clearly, and it is not always certain that these elements can be demonstrated clearly enough to satisfy a jury.

In the case of Manish of Dickinson, which I wrote about in my previous blog post, his case has two important elements that just about exactly match two of the requirements of legal entrapment, and very likely the third requirement also: 1) The advertisement that he responded to stated that the person who posted the advertisement was 18 years of age;  2)  Once being informed that the girl was under 18, Manish repeatedly sent text messages stating that he would not have sex with someone under 18;  3)  Law Enforcement’s continued repeated attempts to persuade Manish to meet the girl, likely involved “inducements”,  “persuasions”, and other ploys not permitted to be used by Law Enforcement to lead someone to commit a crime and then arrest them for this crime.

In criminal law, entrapment is a practice whereby a law enforcement agent induces a person to commit a criminal offence that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit.  However, when entrapment is used as a legal defense in a court of law, the details and fine points become much more specific.

The following excerpts which I have taken from the internet website Lawyers.com article “Entrapment: How Far is Too Far for the Police?”, are consistent with everything that I have read:

“Entrapment is a defense to a criminal charge. Although many people think of all police undercover operations as “entrapment,” in fact law enforcement agents and informants may use false identities and deception in their undercover investigations. But there’s a limit: The entrapment defense is an important check on what police can do to make an arrest by enticing someone to commit a crime.

Typically, defendants raise an entrapment defense when they claim that an undercover agent or informant convinced them to commit a crime that they were not predisposed to commit. If a judge or jury finds entrapment, the defendant cannot be convicted

The Legal Tests for Entrapment

Courts use one of two tests when deciding whether a defendant was entrapped:

  • The “objective” test. Some states ask whether the police conduct would have induced any law-abiding person to commit the crime. Here, the question is whether the police conduct in inducing the criminal act would have caused a reasonable person in the same circumstances to commit the crime, regardless of the specific mental state of the defendant. For example, assume an undercover agent asks someone to buy marijuana for that agent in a state where it is illegal. The agent says he wants the marijuana because he needs it to treat the side effects of chemotherapy. Because this type of inducement might cause anyone to commit the crime, the application of objective test would very likely result in a finding of entrapment, even if the defendant had a prior history of drug purchases for recreational reasons.
  • The “subjective” test. The majority of states and the federal courts apply a test that examines both the nature of the enticement and the defendant’s state of mind. When asserting this defense, defendants must show that they were induced to commit the crime and may have to weather the prosecutor’s attempts to show that they were predisposed to commit the crime. Let’s look more closely at the subjective test.

Proving Entrapment Under the Subjective Test: The Undercover Officer Was Insistent and the Defendant Was Resistant

The subjective test looks first at the police conduct, then turns its attention to the defendant’s predisposition (or not) to commit the crime charged.

Inducement

Inducing someone to commit a crime involves more than simply asking that person to commit it. Law enforcement can even lie about certain facts, by using false names, businesses, or associates. To prevail, defendants must usually show at least some persuasion or mild coercion. For example, an undercover agent might ask someone to commit a crime based on friendship, hardship, or a play for sympathy. If a judge or jury concludes that a defendant was pressured to commit a crime, they will likely find that the defendant has been induced. To establish inducement in most jurisdictions, a defendant will be required to show that it is more likely than not that he has been induced by law enforcement to commit a crime.

Predisposition

Defendants who have presented evidence that they were induced may not be home free just yet. While there must be inducement under the subjective test, the question of predisposition is usually the more important factor. Once inducement has been raised by the defense, the prosecutor has the burden to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant was predisposed to commit the crime…”

My belief is, that because Manish responded to an advertisement for sex posted by someone who was 18 years of age, he showed no Predisposition to want to have sex with minor.  More importantly, once Manish was informed that the girl was under 18, Manish sent several text messages stating that he would never have sex with someone under 18.  I think that this clearly establishes that Manish had no intention or Predisposition to have sex with a minor.

My belief is, that because Manish responded to an advertisement for sex posted by someone who was 18 years of age, and then he was later informed that the girl was under 18 once he began communicating with her, this was the first step of “inducement”.  Originally, he had no intention of having anything to do with someone under 18.  Once Manish stated several times in text messages that he would never have sex with someone under 18, and the Dickinson Police tried to continue to communicate with him, I think that this was the second “inducement”, where “The undercover officer was insistent and the defendant was resistant.”

If it turns out that the Dickinson Police undercover officer used any other type of ploy, such as a plea for help, aid, assistance, or friendship, to maintain contact with Manish, the case for entrapment will be very clear and complete.

The defense attorney for Manish may know of a better way to proceed legally, perhaps similar to the defense for Dan Durr of Fargo.  I wonder if the case of Manish being proved to be very egregious entrapment, would or could lead to a Civil Court Case seeking monetary damages against the City of Dickinson Police Department.

Update 2/12/2018:

I received an e-mail from Manish’s sister today, explaining that this court case has been resolved.  She asked if there was anything that I could do, to not damage his name and reputation any further.  I decided to remove his last name from my blog posts, because I believed that Manish was unjustly entrapped to begin with.  However, I want these blog posts to remain on the internet, because I do not want this same thing to happen to anyone else.

In Defense Of Manish Dickinson, North Dakota

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In my previous blog post, I wrote about two arrest reports and court cases that were very similar in North Dakota.  In each of these two court cases, the defendants were charged with Patronizing a Minor for Commercial Sexual Activity, a Class A felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

I hate it when the Police in North Dakota create and post a fake advertisement for a prostitute on an internet website, and then arrest the men when they show up for their appointment with the prostitute.  This is wrong for several reasons.

In many towns in North Dakota, there is a shortage of women.  Mathematically, there are not enough women to go around.  In Dickinson, the ratio of men to women is approximately 3:1.  In towns like Watford City and Williston, the ratio of men to women was at times greater than 10:1.

Prior to moving to Dickinson in 2011, I never had an interest in prostitutes or prostitution.  After living in Dickinson for a couple of months, I could not help but realize that there was a shortage of women.  I began looking for women to meet on the internet dating sites like match.com, plenty of fish, mingle, datehookup, and other sites.  Looking at about four or five internet dating sites, there were still very few women available for dating in Dickinson, North Dakota.

Older truck drivers in Dickinson, recommended to me that I look at the internet classifieds website called Backpage.  They said, look under the Escorts section.  I looked at the escorts on Backpage, and I didn’t know what to think of all this.  I didn’t really want to be with an escort that had sex with many men each day.

It is a good thing that I didn’t try to hire an escort right away from Backpage, because it is very common for Law Enforcement to place a fake advertisement for an escort, and then arrest the man when he shows up for his appointment.

This is what happened to Manish of Dickinson, only much, much worse.  Law Enforcement did create a fake advertisement on Backpage.com, in which the woman posting the ad was listed as being 18 years of age.  However, when Manish asked about her age, she replied that she was almost 16.  Manish responded several times that he would never have sex with someone who is under 18, because he did not want to get into trouble.

Looking at Manish’s name, it appeared to me that he was from India.  I thought about how hard it must be for him to meet women in Dickinson, being from India, looking, acting, and sounding different.  With his age being 29, I thought that he might even be a student at Dickinson State University.

I looked Manish of Dickinson up on the internet, and this is what I found.  In his early twenties, he worked at convenience stores and as a cook while he worked his way through College.  He studied finance and accounting, and he graduated from College in approximately 2014.  Not long after graduating, he got a very good job in Dickinson, where he has been employed for a little over two years.

I can understand that Manish might have had difficulty meeting women in Dickinson.  Myself, and everyone that I know in Dickinson, has had difficulty meeting women in Dickinson, there is a shortage of women.  It is unfortunate, but understandable, that he attempted to meet a woman on the internet website Backpage.

The woman that Manish contacted on Backpage.com, her advertisement said that she was 18 years of age.  This turned out to be a fake advertisement created by the Dickinson Police.  When Manish contacted her, the Dickinson Police began making up the story that she was almost 16, there was no minor involved.  Manish replied that he would never have sex with someone under 18, because he did not want to get into trouble.

The Dickinson Police kept communicating with Manish, posing as the girl who placed the advertisement on Backpage.com, and they persuaded him to meet her at a motel in Dickinson.  It appears that Manish tried to get out of meeting the girl, and instead parked at the McDonalds across the street from the motel.  That is when the Dickinson Police arrested Manish and charged him with the felony Patronizing a Minor for Commercial Sexual Activity.

It seems to be very clear from the evidence, that Manish never sought or intended to meet a girl under the age of 18.  It was the Dickinson Police that began trying to make up fake circumstances after the fact in order to frame Manish for a much more serious crime that he never intended to commit.  Even though Manish replied several times that he would not have sex with someone under 18, the Dickinson Police kept after him, trying to persuade Manish to meet.

The Dickinson Police tried to make a criminal out of someone who would not have been a criminal, had it not been for this treacherous underhanded scheme by the Police.  Many lawyers and judges believe that it is legal entrapment when Law Enforcement induces someone to commit a crime that they otherwise would not have committed, so that Law Enforcement can then arrest them for this crime.

In court, when entrapment is used as a legal defense, the defense attorney must persuade the jury that Law Enforcement persuaded or compelled the defendant to commit a crime that he was otherwise not inclined to commit.  There are several circumstances that must be present, and I think that in this particular case, these circumstances are clearly present.  I will explain why this particular case meets the requirements of legal entrapment in my next blog post.

I want to conclude this blog post by expressing my disgust at the Dickinson Police Department, and the person ultimately responsible for this, the Chief of Police Dusty Dassinger.  You all know that there is a shortage of women in Dickinson.  You all know that if you create a fake advertisement for a prostitute in Dickinson, you will get more responses than you can handle.  With men who are desperate to meet women, why do you think that it is a good idea to lure them to meet a prostitute, and then try to make up the fictitious circumstance that she is under 18 in order to frame these men for a much more serious crime that they never intended to commit?

Update 2/12/2018:

I received an e-mail from Manish’s sister today, explaining that this court case has been resolved.  She asked if there was anything that I could do, to not damage his name and reputation any further.  I decided to remove his last name from my blog posts, because I believed that Manish was unjustly entrapped to begin with.  However, I want these blog posts to remain on the internet, because I do not want this same thing to happen to anyone else.

Police Corruption In North Dakota

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Law Enforcement in North Dakota is taking steps to make sure that North Dakota is the most corrupt, backward, dishonest, and lawless state.  Instead of Law Enforcement taking pride in, defending, and upholding the Constitution, they are subverting it, and disregarding it.  Instead of protecting citizens’ Civil Rights, they are violating citizens’ Civil Rights.  Instead of enforcing laws, they are breaking laws, disregarding laws, and becoming the worst and most notorious criminals in North Dakota.

I will cite two recent Law Enforcement operations in North Dakota, that are almost identical to what the KGB used to do to political dissidents in Russia, East Germany, Cuba, and what corrupt dictators did in the Middle East, Africa, and South America to political opponents.  It is appalling and reprehensible that Law Enforcement in North Dakota would try to carry out the same type of barbarity.

Recently, in Dickinson and in Fargo, North Dakota, Law Enforcement created an advertisement for an escort or prostitute, and placed this advertisement on internet websites.  This was a fake advertisement, created by Law Enforcement to entice men to contact their fake escort or prostitute.  In the advertisement, there was nothing mentioned about the escort being under the age of 18 years.

In Fargo, 42 year old business owner Dan Durr responded to the fake advertisement for a prostitute, and he made arrangements to meet at a location.  When Dan Durr got to the location to meet the prostitute, he was then informed that the prostitute was under 18 years, and he drove away.

Law Enforcement knew that when they placed an advertisement for a prostitute, they would attract the attention of men who were desperate to have sex with a woman.  They did not mention in the advertisement that the prostitute was under 18.  When the men arrived to meet the prostitute and were informed that she was under 18 years, they thought that the men would be so desperate, that they wouldn’t care.

Dan Durr from Fargo thought that he was meeting an adult to have sex, and when he was informed that the prostitute was under 18 years, he drove away.  The Fargo Police arrested him anyway, and they charged him with Patronizing a Minor for Commercial Sex Activity, a Class A felony punishable by 20 years in prison.

But remember, Dan Durr responded to a fake advertisement for a prostitute created by Law Enforcement, where it did not say that the prostitute was under 18.  Law Enforcement lured men to meet who they thought was an adult prostitute.  When the men arrived, they were informed that the prostitute was under 18 years.  However, at no time was a minor ever involved whatsoever, the Police just made the statement that the prostitute was under 18 years when the men arrived.

Dan Durr’s case went to trial recently, and he was found guilty of hiring an individual to engage in sexual activity, a Class B misdemeanor.  Dan Durr was found not guilty of the Class A felony charge of Patronizing a Minor for Commercial Sexual Activity.

I will give credit to the Cass County District Court Judge Susan Bailey, who was asked by Dan Durr’s defense attorney to allow the jury to consider not just the felony charge, but also the misdemeanor charge, and she allowed the jury to consider both charges.  I wish that the judge would have taken the opportunity to admonish the prosecuting attorney and Law Enforcement for tactics that go beyond entrapment, and violate citizens Constitutional and Civil Rights, in attempt to make criminals out of ordinary citizens.

In criminal law, entrapment is a practice whereby Law Enforcement induces a person to commit a criminal offence that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit.  But this case goes much further than entrapment.  Law Enforcement not only lured a citizen into committing a crime by placing an advertisement for a prostitute, which he might not have done if it were not for the advertisement, but then Law Enforcement started to create fictitious non-existent circumstances to enhance this crime that they lured this citizen into in the first place.  Trying to make what would have been a Class B misdemeanor into a Class A felony punishable by 20 years in prison, by adding phony fictitious circumstances.  Dan Durr never sought to meet a minor for sexual activity, nor was a minor ever present or involved in any way.

Additionally, and this is a very important point, when Dan Durr was informed that the prostitute was under 18 years, he drove away.  Why did Law Enforcement try to charge Dan Durr with Patronizing a Minor for Commercial Sex Activity, a Class A felony, when he absolutely did not try to do this, and he immediately left when he was informed that the prostitute was under 18 years?  Why did Law Enforcement seek to arrest and prosecute someone for a crime that they did not commit?  Could anything be more corrupt than this?

The second case that I will cite, is almost identical to the one that I just described above.  Manish M., 29 of Dickinson, has been charged with Patronizing a Minor for Commercial Sexual Activity, a Class A felony.

Here is an excerpt from an October 23, 2017 Dickinson Press article written by Sydney Mook:

“…M appeared in court with his attorney Robert Bolinske.

Stark County assistant state’s attorney, Amanda Engelstad, called Travis Leintz, a detective with the Dickinson Police Department, to testify during the hearing. Leintz said an ad was placed on Backpage.com with the help of an officer from Minnesota who specializes in human trafficking.

Manish allegedly responded to the ad via text message then allegedly exchanged messages with the officers who were acting as a 15-year-old girl. When the defendant asked for the girl’s age, the officers responded by saying “almost 16.” Manish allegedly responded multiple times that he would not have sex with someone who was under the age of 18 and said he did not want to get into trouble. However, he later agreed to meet the girl at the Motel 6 in Dickinson, Leintz said.

Manish later moved across the street to the McDonald’s parking lot where he was later arrested by officers.

Bolinske questioned Leintz about the original ad on Backpage.com, which stated the poster was 18 and said his client had originally said no to someone that was under the age of 18. Leintz said in order to post on Backpage.com, the poster must list 18 as their age.

Southwest Judge James Gion found there to be enough probable cause to move forward with the case.

Manish entered a not guilty plea to all charges.”

What is very troubling to me, is that the advertisement for the girl wanting to have sex, said that she was 18 years of age.  When Manish asked the girl about her age, and she replied that she was almost 16, Manish responded that he would never have sex with someone under the age of 18.

It appears to me to be entrapment by Law Enforcement, to place an advertisement where the poster is listed as 18 years of age in order to lure Manish into communication, to then inform him that he is communicating with a minor, and to continue communicating with Manish and arrange a meeting with him, even after he has repeatedly said that he would never have sex with a minor because he does not want to get into trouble.

In other words, had Law Enforcement not placed a fake advertisement for an 18 year old girl wanting to hook up, then made up the story that she was under 18 years, then ignored Manish’s statements that he would not have sex with a minor, and continued to contact him anyway, caused Manish to be drawn into a possible meeting with a minor.  At no time did Manish actually meet with a minor, because at no time was a minor involved.  If Manish did actually ever meet with this minor, he might have continued to insist that he would never have sex with a minor.

Why are the Dickinson Police trying to charge Manish with Patronizing a Minor for Commercial Sex Activity?  The fake advertisement that the Dickinson Police placed, said that the poster was 18 years old.  The Dickinson Police drew Manish into this, even though he said that he did not want to have sex with a minor.  Manish never did meet with a minor and agree to have sex.  Why are they still charging him?

I think that the Dickinson Police have made a criminal out of someone who never intended to engage in criminal activity.  The charges that Manish now faces, could lead to 20 years in prison.  As far as criminal activity in Dickinson, I would much rather have my truck stolen or my apartment broken into, than have the Dickinson Police try to entrap me in one of their schemes like this one.  Who is worse in Dickinson, the police or the criminals?

Update 2/12/2018:

I received an e-mail from Manish’s sister today, explaining that this court case has been resolved.  She asked if there was anything that I could do, to not damage his name and reputation any further.  I decided to remove his last name from my blog posts, because I believed that Manish was unjustly entrapped to begin with.  However, I want these blog posts to remain on the internet, because I do not want this same thing to happen to anyone else.

Animals And Hunting In Dickinson, North Dakota

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Recently I began working on a project in a very remote and rural area about one hour from Dickinson.  The project that I am working on, occupies about 30 acres of land.

The project that I am working on, is not completely fenced in.  There are other types of operations occurring on adjacent land, that are loosely related to this project, which makes a continuous fence impractical.  There are “No Hunting” signs posted on fence posts, and at the entrances to the site, but there are not enough of these signs.

The project owners, and we workers, don’t want hunting on the project property because we don’t want the equipment to get shot, and we don’t want to get shot.  But this is an ongoing problem.

All kinds of animals have learned and figured out, that hunting is not supposed to take place on this 30 acre work site.  In my 48 years of living in Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Idaho, and North Dakota, I had seen a fox approximately two to three times.  However in the past three days, I have seen a red fox on this work site a couple of times each day, and I see him for a minute at a time.

Also during the past three days, about twelve deer have come to the work site to hide amongst the equipment so that they won’t be shot.  There are other animals trying to hide on the work site, which I haven’t been able to identify yet because I get such a brief glimpse of them.

I drive the work vehicle slowly in order to not frighten the foxes and the deer.  They somewhat recognize the work vehicle and me, they watch to see what I am doing, and they only move away a little bit.  They don’t want to leave the work site.

The reason why the animals are here, is because pheasant hunting season began on October 7.  All of the pheasant hunters walking through the fields and shooting, has caused the animals to flee.

Though there are hundreds and hundreds of miles of grassland in every direction in western North Dakota, hunters keep showing up on the roads adjacent to this work site.  The hunters begin by making an effort to hunt on the adjacent land, but in the both the distant and the recent past, the hunters “accidentally” end up on the work site property, which is posted “No Hunting”.

Essential Information On Working And Living In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I was an outsider to Dickinson, North Dakota.  I have now lived and worked in Dickinson for 5-1/2 years.  For the past three years, I have been writing about Dickinson on this blog website.  After writing, thinking, discussing, and searching hard for answers, about why Dickinson is the way that it is, I finally think that I have the answers.

I have seen and experienced that the local people from Dickinson have hatred, hostility, bitterness, resentment, maliciousness, and malevolence for the non-local people who have come to Dickinson to work.  Non-local people will experience this most profoundly at work in Dickinson.

I believe that one of the causes for the hatred of non-local people, was the Catholic Church here in Dickinson.  The Catholic Church here in Dickinson, was probably the biggest social and cultural influence for many years.  This Church did not teach kindness and helpfulness to others, but instead it taught foremost to protect one’s own family, Catholics, and the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church here in Dickinson instilled an attitude of elitism and the belief of superiority of one’s own family, Catholics, and the Catholic Church, above all other people.

Another cause for the hatred of non-local people in Dickinson, has been the oil boom that made some local families rich, while other local families remained poor.  With it not seeming right to the local people to have hatred and resentment towards their local neighbors who became rich, the local people re-directed their anger and resentment toward the non-local people.

Another cause for the hatred of non-local people in Dickinson, has been that the local people have always had work as their main focus in life.  In Dickinson, life has always been hard due to the very long and very cold winters.  Work and surviving was the primary focus of people in Dickinson.  Unlike other places in the United States where entertainment, recreation, and social activities were a big part of people’s lives, Dickinson never had this.  In Dickinson, the local people’s identities, meaning, and purpose in life, was work.

During the oil boom that occurred in Dickinson from 2007 to 2014, and especially now that the oil boom is over and many jobs have recently gone away, the local people from Dickinson have been hostile, hateful, mean, uncooperative, and undermining to their non-local co-workers.  It wasn’t until recently that I determined that the specific primary cause for this, was that local people from Dickinson get their identity, meaning, and purpose in life, from work.

Unlike other places in the United States where people have many different interests and things that are important in their lives, the local people from Dickinson have just one primary focus, that is their job.  There is a shortage of women in Dickinson, and a scarcity of attractive women.  There are not enough women to go around.  The pursuit of romantic relationships is not common in Dickinson.  There is not much reason for people to go out or socialize in Dickinson.  Nor are there many places to go in Dickinson, or things to do.

The time that other people living in other places put into playing sports, exercising, recreation, entertainment, shopping, going out, socializing, dating, and having fun, the local people from Dickinson never had that, they just put all of their time into work.  Work was their focus, meaning, identity, and purpose in life.

In summary, the local people from Dickinson are so hostile, hateful, unfriendly, bitter, resentful, malicious, malevolent, and undermining to non-local people because the Catholic Church has taught the local people to feel superior to others; there is anger and resentment over some local families becoming rich, and this anger is re-directed toward non-local people; the local people have only work as the meaning and purpose in their lives, the non-local co-workers are a threat to the local people from Dickinson in their only purpose and reason for living.

What this means for people from out of state who come to work in Dickinson, is that your local co-workers from Dickinson will try to get you to leave because you are a threat to their very existence and reason for living.