Fargo Police Department

13.April.2021 ·
Today, Officer Thomas Dye was recognized by the RACC of Fargo-Moorhead as a recipient of the Healing Hurt Award. Each year, RACC staff nominate organizations and individuals they feel have gone above and beyond to positively impact those victimized by domestic/dating violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, trafficking/sexual exploitation, and child sexual abuse in the past year. The recipient is chosen because the staff believe they have greatly contributed to supporting the agency's mission to create a society free of personal abuse.

Officer Thomas Dye was nominated by RACC staff for "showing compassion and patience while responding to a sexual assault call at a local emergency room. He did his best to make the client feel comfortable and heard while remaining respectful and diligent in his questioning."

RACC Staff said: “Officer Dye showed this survivor that they mattered - he treated them as a person, a human being who deserved his time, his attention and to be heard. Many survivors don’t come forward out of fear of police response, however Officer Dye’s approach made the reporting easier than it could have been for the clients.”

Lately, I have noticed comments from friends & acquaintances who I thought might be non-political, have made comments about Pres Biden's spending ideas. "Infrastructure is only a small portion of the bill", or "Boy, that is a lot of money we're spending". Of course, I retort immediately stating, 'it's about time we took care of our infrastructure- it has been too long' .

There's no follow-up discussion but I now know they are 'in the closet' Trump people who had been very careful in stating their views.

Has anyone else noticed this change all in the last couple months?

Just heard this song on YouTube, sung by the Taizé community. The music runs through my head during this pandemic and season of Lent, (like after visiting Disneyland, "It's a small world after all"

Behüte* mich, Gott. Ich vertraue Dir
Du zeigst mir den Weg zum Leben.
Bei Dir ist Freude, Freude in Fülle.



My translation to fit the tempo of the music.

Keep* me, O God, I trust in You.
You show me the way for living.
With You is joy, joy in your Presence.

*my understanding is that the word 'behüten' means to keep/ protect in the sense of 'keep me safe in your hut'

I have a question about whether covid relief stimulus funds should only be sent to people who need them.

Are Stimulus funds considered to be income? If so, on next year's federal taxes, for those people with higher incomes, does the higher tax rate basically recoup the $2000 which was sent to them? Hence, in the long run the people who need the stimulus get it and those who don't need it, pay it back in their federal taxes?

This question came up at a recent dinner party.

Trump thought the words of his swearing-in was, "I will faithfully execute the United States...."

He tried, but didn't work.

asking for a friend since I have asthma and don't partake.


1) Emergency federal legalizing of pot, especially in states with insurgency hot spots.

2) Install smudge pots around the Capitol and burn 'hemp' during protests.

If the states are now really not purple but clusters of red and blue. I was wondering how many US cities are larger than the state of Wyoming, which turns out to be 32. What if any city which fits that category is allowed a (one or two) Senators of its own? The rest of the state still keeps its own 2.

The numbers can be adjusted but that's the basic premise, to give cities and rural areas their distinctive voice. ( I'll bet in some states, it would turn out that the one big city will have a population greater than the rest of the state, so therefore why should the city only have one Senator while the rest of the state has 2?)

Turns out Texas has several cities which fit this category. I'm sure the 'Texas republic' would not care to have its cities with multiple Senators and the rest of the state with only the traditional two.

Anyway, just thinking about this on a Friday morning. No chance this will happen.

I'm no professional baker, just a recent retiree who loves freshly home baked bread.

Weigh ingredients. My go-to proportion is 4 parts flour: 3 parts liquid. For a smaller loaf, 400g flour with 300g water (or total of water, milk, egg and olive oil). This will result in a relatively wet dough.

Add a little butter or olive oil because I feel it keeps the bread from drying out to quickly.

Use good yeast, like Platinum yeast, available online.

Warm the flour in a microwave for 30 seconds. If you have a powerful microwave, cut back on the timer because you don't want to cook the flour. This warm flour speeds up the first rise.

If you use regular all purpose flour, add a 1-2 Tablespoons of Vital Wheat Gluten.
If you skip this step, I'm sure you will still have a nice loaf of bread

For the first rise, place the bowl in the trivet in an Instant Pot and press the Yogurt function.
I also use the IP for the second rise.

Consider withholding olive oil or butter until the 1st rise and dribble some over the surface of the dough so the dough doesn't dry out.

Between the 1st and 2nd rise, sprinkle some flour on the dough such that you can knead the dough. Try to stretch & fold the dough on itself at least 10 times- it results in a rise which won't collapse. (This secret I learned from a chef on YouTube.)

Just before 2nd rise, insert an oven temperature probe in the dough. I use a tall sided silicone veggie strainer with holes, so the probe goes in one hole and out the opposite side.
Silicone can be placed in the oven and after the finish bread cools down, the silicone peels away from the bread without ripping the crust.

I read cautions about using too much salt in the dough because it may interfere with the action of the yeast. So, I use no more than 1 ½ t. in the dough but after I place the dough in the IP for the second rise, I crack some coarse pink Himalayan salt on the surface of the dough.

Forget trying to time the length of time in the oven, base your results for removing the bread on the temperature probe reaching 200ºF. Sometimes I wait until the temperature reaches 205ºF.

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Please add your own tricks because I am constantly searching for the ultimate recipe and techniques

Can we as a country make a conscience effort to move away from using 'war' rhetoric?

I just saw on MSNBC the rerun of Tom Brokaw's contribution, saying that the Democratic party is 'at war among itself'. The USA has a war mentality even in the simplest terms or phrases.

I recall someone (Joe Scarborough?) inviting two men onto this show with clearly opposing views, but he introduced the segment and a "shoot-out". Yes, it's literary.
Is it so wrong to say 'we are inviting guests with totally different outlooks'?

It's time to bite our collective tongues using such phrases.