At the turn of the 20th century, North Dakota’s population was mostly rural farmers, yet a small number of powerful corporate interests dominated the state’s politics and finances. The farmers took back political power with the founding of the Nonpartisan League. The Nonpartisan League started with a clear, precise platform that was simple to understand. The NPL asked supporters to sign a pledge to support the platform, and it expected them to support candidates endorsed by the NPL, regardless of political party, in order to create and maintain a tight association which could work toward a single goal.

The NPL was one of the most powerful political organizations in American history and the speed of its rise to power was unprecedented. The organization was formed in 1915 by two men sitting around a kitchen table. By 1918, it had taken complete control of the government of North Dakota and enacted much of its platform. Its success and failures hold a wealth of lessons for anyone interested in political organizations.

While conservatives are whining about Obama not going to Arlington National Cemetery for Memorial Day, they’re missing the fullness of the celebration. Accounts of the earliest Memorial Day celebration (years before they celebrated it at Arlington) note that the day included a march of veterans, speeches, decorating graves, and a barbecue. That’s right: a barbecue.

Don’t let anyone tell you that you can celebrate Memorial Day without one. YMMV (Your Menu May Vary), but you have to fire up the grill to really celebrate Memorial Day the way the founders intended.

Jimmy Driftwood sings The Battle of New Orleans. What’s on your mind tonight?

“A Different Kind of War” is a historical document, meant to be studied and learned from. Obama’s team, in deploying additional resources, do seem to have drawn lessons – but eight years on, they may be the wrong ones.

[Welcome Marian Brannan, and Host Lisa Derrick]  [As a courtesy to our guests, please keep comments to the book.  Please take other conversations to a previous thread. - bev] Twenty Remarkable Women Seen Through Their Handwriting makes me wish I had a niece old enough to appreciate this book–and one who won’t be spending most [...]

Adam Cohen’s prose is a rhapsody in fact. A throwback to historians such as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. or David Halberstam, in an era that issues forth vague tissues of assertions, or declarations of ideology, his are pages stamped with “In Fact We Trust.”