Main Street
Philosophical Currents: Aging; Dave & the News; Matt reviews "Longlegs"
(upbeat music) - Welcome to this Thursday edition of Main Street. I'm your host, Craig Blumenchine, and thank you for joining us today. In the second half of today's show, Matt O'Lien reviews the movie "Long Wags" and Dave Thompson and I review this week's news. But first, we bring back our popular philosophical current segment with Dr. Jack Russell Weinstein, a Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for Philosophy in Public Life at the University of North Dakota. Today's topic is aging. I began our conversation by asking Dr. Weinstein to refresh us all on what he is hoping to accomplish with these monthly philosophical current segments. - The goal with the segment is to just take the news and create a more philosophical spin on it. I really get frustrated with the adversarial nature of TV news and also the idea that everyone has to answer a question immediately. They have to know exactly what they're talking about at all times. They can't spend some time and figure it out. So what for me, the goal is to explore these issues in a way that shows our thought processes that lets people come into the discussion and that takes a look at our world from, I don't know, a side door or something like that in a way that people might not necessarily think about, but that will help them understand how these things connect with their lives. - We have many topics that we'll get to month after month as you were able to discuss with Ashley Thornberg, my former colleague here at Prairie Public. So I am excited that we get to continue this segment. I think it's engaging and I do think that it presents issues in a way maybe that people don't have time and today it's compressed media or compressed news arena to maybe think about in the context that we're going to allow them to maybe think about some different things. So kudos to us Jack for continuing on the tour part year. - Pat's on each of our backs, backs, whatever the plural of backs are. - So today's topic as we said in the promotion is aging and this is an important topic to me, Jack as you know, just this last weekend, I attended my mother-in-law's memorial service. It was a wonderful time for our family of course, but as she was going through the end of her life, it brought many issues to our minds again. Both of my parents have passed away and I think it's an issue that many people have in the back of their minds, but maybe don't want to think about. And I'm curious, Jack, from your research, is it inherent in our human nature for us to be fearful of aging or is this more of a construct, I guess, of modern society? - There are a lot of philosophers who believe that what makes human beings different from other animals is that we're aware of our own mortality, that we know our life is limited. And because of that, we have anxieties, we have neuroses, we have aspirations, we have all these other things that, the fact that our life will end is ever-present in us. What there's less discussion about, however, is the process of getting to that end, the process of becoming older. And I see that in our society because we have a lot of discussion about the worth of older people, especially now with the Biden-Trump stuff. And we also have a lot of discussion of what it feels like to get older, but we don't connect them. These are two very separate conversations. So it feels like the people who aren't older are having a discussion about the use of older people, and the people who are older don't have the opportunity to explore what this new perspective is. They don't have anyone to talk with about it, and it becomes more frightening, more alienating, and it becomes harder to go through when, in fact, it's something everyone goes through if they're lucky, and we should be talking about it all the time. - We should, and I don't think that children should be fearful of talking to their parents about this topic. Jack, in one thing that I noticed with my parents, my mother was much more adept in having a social structure as she aged to help her with issues that she was up against with her different diseases and different medical concerns and all of those sorts of things. And I thought that was very helpful for her. My father, maybe a typical male, didn't have as many social outlets in his, I guess, senior years, in his latter years once he stopped work. And I think that was detrimental to his aging a little more gracefully, perhaps, than my mother did. - I think that that is a common experience. Certainly many people who retire aren't prepared for it, or lack of that kind of meaning in their life, and they tend to flounder a little bit. At the same time, I think you're right that there's also gender stuff going on, because in our culture especially, men are not educated to express their emotions. They're supposed to be impregnable. They don't wanna be vulnerable. And so when you do have men who are engaged in this conversation about aging, you get this sort of cliche moment of all the guys in the coffee shop at eight o'clock in the morning, where they have their own mug waiting for them, and they sit there for an hour, an hour and a half, have a little food, talk about what else them, talk about just the gossip or politics of the day. - Yeah, exactly right. And women do it much more integrated into their own lives. They take walks, they sit and have tea. They, you know, if they're of the right age, they text and talk on the phone and things like that. For men, these conversations are very, very compartmentalized. For women, they're much more integrated. - The other thing that always struck my mind is, does our country manage those who are aging better in certain parts of our country? In other words, the East Coast versus the West Coast, the North versus the South, the Midwest, or do other countries do better with maybe supporting and helping their aging parents, our senior citizens in their community? - That's such a complicated question, because of course, through most of history, most people lived in multi-generational houses. And so the grandparents were around to help with the little kids and the parents were around to help with the grandparents. And we in the United States really lost that for a variety of reasons. So I think that in smaller towns, in places where there is more structure for multi-generational interaction, that agent can be dealt with in a personal way and in a sort of family-by-family way. In the cities where there's much less space, where there's much more going on, we tend to take women and, sorry, we tend to take older people and put them in nursing homes. And then it becomes an institutional and a bureaucratic management. And some people thrive in nursing homes. My own grandmother had about four or five wonderful years in her nursing home. Other people, not so much. They feel alienated, they lose their family. And so in this instance, actually, I think it's about space and generational cultures and around the world in Italy. You have multi-generational households. In Greece, you have multi-generational households. In Korea, you have multi-generational households, although often that is a response to high cost of living. And that if the whole family is in one apartment, it certainly is cheaper than if everyone is in their own place. - There's no necessity there. - Absolutely. And so much of our lives are driven by necessity, by the money we have to spend, the nature of our health, the nature of our abilities, right? If you have my father-in-law who passed away a couple of years ago, he was an incredible carpenter. And when we bought our first house, he came up, he spent a few weeks here. He and I did a whole bunch of renovations on the house. When he got to the age where he couldn't handle a hammer anymore because he was shaking, or he just didn't have the attention span or the visual acuity anymore, he began to feel useless. And the moment he started feeling useless, he became angry and defensive, and you can imagine what happens next. So much of our necessity connects to our abilities and what we can and can't do, and for older folks, and I actually think for almost all adults, you define yourself by your abilities so much that when you start to lose those abilities, you really feel like you're losing a piece of yourself. - Do we know much about how different societies are managing in this high-tech world aging and assisting those who are getting older? - I don't know that there has been a kind of science fiction shift where the technology is taking care of the people where there's such advanced artificial intelligence that the technology or the computers or what have you are making profound changes in the social experience of folks. However, medical technology, the ability to do operations from remotely, the ability to have conversations with your grandkids or your grandparents over FaceTime, these things have profoundly changed society because I know that with my parents and I'll say my daughter, with all of her grandparents, my daughter is texting with them all the time, is sending pictures with them all the time. And so we aren't at the science fiction sort of fantasy level yet where nursing robots care for people 24 hours a day, but we are at a place where the expansion of technological ability, the speed of things, the connected things does change what resources we have to help make everyone's lives, but particularly the older folks lives better. - Jack Russell Weinstein. He's a Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and the Director of the Institute of For Philosophy and Public Life at the University of North Dakota joins us here on Main Street. We're continuing our philosophical current segments. Today we're talking about aging. - Jack, with what's happened with President Biden and of course with millions of Americans who are older, what is the role of memory in shaping our perception of aging? - That is a wonderful question. It's a really rich and interesting question because of course most of what we experience is in our imagination. The past is in our imagination, the future is in our imagination. By the time I finish this sentence, this sentence will be in your imagination. The only thing that we exist in is the now. Part of the way the human beings deal with that is that we are narrative animals. We are animals that tell stories to make meaning, whether they're religious stories to give us symbolism and things like that or whether just the story of who is Jack, who is Craig, how did they get to this point? When you start to lose those connections, you lose the ability to really argue for who you are. You lose the ability to articulate your ideas and very often with folks who are struggling with Alzheimer's or other memory issues, they remember the long distant past, but they don't remember the recent past. And so then they start imagining that they're talking to people who've passed away three, four years ago or they sometimes think that they're still a child or they're living with their mother or father or something like that. And because the imagination plays such an important role in our lives and our experiences and because narrative plays such an important role in the meaning of our lives, the moment you start losing your memory, you start to lose the core features that make human beings, human beings, including rationality, analogy and just the ability to empathize and connect with other people. One of the shifts in medical care, as I understand it, and we are way beyond my expertise here, is the advice that people now give for older folks who are having memory issues is to play along with them, is to the person's in hospital bed and says, "I just saw Uncle Jack yesterday, he won $2,500 in the lotto." You're supposed to say, "Oh, really? Oh, how lucky for him, even though it's not true." Affirming people's experience allows them to be happier, allows them to have less anxiety, recognizing that we can affirm people's experiences even if they're not accurate or true is a revolution in how we deal with older folks. - Jack, what ethical responsibilities does society have towards our aging populations? Especially since we are living longer, there are more of us in that category of senior citizen or older. What is society's responsibility? We here talk about Medicare, we here talk about social security, but not much more about the care and the social aspects of living a long, long life. - That too is a rich and complicated question because of course, someone who's a libertarian who believes that we don't have any other responsibility, any responsibility towards other people is gonna have a very different attitude than someone who believes that we have to act always as a community watching out for each other. The fact of the matter is, and I tell my students this all the time, if you look at the great Western tradition, the very first question that humanity asks is, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Cain asks that of God in defense of his own actions, but it is the question that threads through all human conversation from that point forward. "Am I my brother's keeper? "What responsibility do I have towards my neighbors? "What responsibilities do I have towards my family members? "What responsibilities do I have towards my strangers?" And then really hard, what responsibility do I have to the foreigner, the person outside my community, the person who might be living under a different code of ethics or a different way of seeing the world? The thing about taking care of older folks is that it really depends on our fundamental sense of what it means to be a community. Are we a bunch of people who happen to live together and just going about our business, but we're on the same train, we're crossing the same street, et cetera? Or are we people who build each other's lives? I'm incredibly indebted to the previous generations that built my house, that built the road, that put the stop sign on the corner. I'm dedicated, I'm very fortunate to have several generations who have created Prairie Public and who have built North Dakota and the University of North Dakota. I could not be who I am and I could not live the life that I have without the assistance of hundreds of millions of people in the past. And so, you have to ask yourself, do we have a reciprocal obligation? Because the past gave us gifts, do we have to return that gift to take care of the people who are the past and also to take care of people in the future? I myself feel that that is a very important responsibility and I think it's a responsibility of the government but also of communities and non-governmental organizations and families and things like that. But your mileage may differ. People are going to have very different attitudes about that depending on how they see themselves politically, how they see themselves morally and it always boils down to this question. Am I my brother's keeper? Because the next question of that is, who is my brother, right? You have to know who your brother is to know if you're your brother's keeper and the thing that is most common to say is that my sister is my brother too, right? Brother is non-gendered, brother applies to everybody and that in itself is a profound revolution. And so, this is not a question that I can answer. It is a question, however, that I can point out is connected to almost everything else we do. - Jack, one of the reasons I'm so excited to continue these philosophical current discussions with you is to understand more about philosophy where I don't believe I've given much time in my life to really engage with. But I do want to ask you about the intersection here of religion and philosophical beliefs or ideas relative to aging and the afterlife and how it impacts people who are aging. - I have seen in all my own experiences, people who are strict secularists get older and start to believe in God. Maybe they aren't accepting of a traditional religion or maybe they don't necessarily know what God looks like but there's just the sense that there is something out there and there is a sense that there's something next. There are people who are perfectly comfortable with the idea of the cessation of our existence who say, I'm gonna die, I'm not gonna feel anything, I'm not gonna experience anything, so I'm not going to worry about it. But there are other people for whom that mortality or the memory of friends is so powerful that they need a story that they need a narrative, that they need someone to tell us there's more happening. This is just the next chapter. Religion provides that and I don't mean to say that religion is a fiction, that's for people to decide for themselves, but what I mean is that religion is much more than a particular story, it's the symbolism, it's the rituals. It's all of those other things and so one of the ways that many people deal with their impending mortality is by planning for their death, is telling people what they want set at their funeral, at picking a gravestone or deciding that they're gonna be cremated or something like that. Religion connects to all of these things because it gives meaning to what could just be shallow action. So for example, there's often controversy because in the Jewish tradition, it's very important to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. There are people who believe that Jews with tattoos can't be buried or that non-Jewish spouses can't be buried in there and it becomes such a profound symbol of their lives that it creates conflict and of course, synagogues and all religions adjust over time. So I think religion provides a bunch of different things. I think first, it provides the story for people who need it. Second, I think it provides the meaning of their daily lives that help them make choices and then it just provides psychological comfort for them and for the people who know them because they feel like someone loves them, someone's watched over them, you have a whole another 500 lives to reach Nirvana, whatever it is that is relevant to your experience, religion helps create meaning and ritual in our lives and that's infinitely more important than do you believe in God or what things does your God approve or disapprove of. It's the meaning and it's the ritual that connects these great traditions to our lives. - Jack, as we wind up our conversation today, one of the things I've noticed with my family is that physical decline was associated then with intellectual and mental decline and I wasn't certain it should have been that way. What have you noticed or what is out there relative to continued intellectual and spiritual growth even though your body physically isn't doing so well. - This too is very difficult. There are great philosophical questions about the relationship between the mind and the body that if we had more time we could get into but part of what happens is that when your body starts to betray you and that happens at much earlier age than we like to admit, when our bodies start to betray us, we have less opportunity to go to the theater to be social with other people. We have to be cared for and often the caregivers treat us like we're babies because since we can't walk or if we have a hard time hearing, then that means something cognitive is going wrong. And the danger is that by treating people as if they have lower cognitive functions you realize those lower cognitive functions. You don't expect the same kind of conversation or reading or adventure and all those sorts of things. So one of the things that technology is very, very good at is creating stimulation for people who might not be as mobile as they used to be. There's a joke that goes around the internet a bunch and my best friend and I talk about it were Generation X and that once the nursing homes are full of Generation X, everyone is going to be playing video games and smoking pot and that the vision of what a nursing home life in is completely different because our generation is the first generation raised on computers as a lifestyle device, computers as an entertainment device. And there's no reason to think that if you spent the first 50 years of 60 years of your life playing Mario Kart, you're not going to want to do it when you're 85 or 90. And if we can figure out a way to integrate intellectual exercise, the strengthening of the brain muscle in what we're doing, that is an incredibly liberating experience, which is why, in fact, if you know musicians for many, especially professional musicians, the ability to play their instrument is the last thing to go. They may have terrible arthritis, but if they can move their fingers, they can play the piano or what have you. And that just goes to show you that the mind is trapped by the body and what we need to do is make sure that the mind gets exercise on its own. - And be cognizant of those that we are with that in fact the mind can get that exercise even though there are physical limitations perhaps. - Absolutely right. - Dr. Jack Russell Weinstein from the University of North Dakota, he joins us for Philosophical Currents. Jack, it's a pleasure. - It's my pleasure as well, Craig, thank you. - Coming up on Main Street, we'll review this week's news and Madeline will take us to the movies. That's after this. (upbeat music) - And with that, we bring in Dave Thompson. He's Prairie Public's longtime news director Dave. How are you this morning? - Doing well, thank you. - It's August, Dave. We are officially in the August. - August, yes. - Summer, some people think it starts a little bit earlier. I think it kind of starts now. Are you ready for it? Are you ready for summer to wane in the fall? - No. (laughing) - I'm not either. And man, there are some very severe weather around the state here yesterday. - True. - Some of the baseball sized hail that we saw pictures of this morning looked devastating to some areas. - And do you see that the governor has issued that summer storm disaster declaration for Central North Dakota? - We can lead off with that, Dave. Yes, the governor Bergham did announce that news where he's office did yesterday. What's that mean? - What it means is that the area that he's talking about is basically Central North Dakota with Stutzman County, it really got hit. Six to nine inches of rain in June and localized hail straight line winds that cause more than $30 million of damages at 13 different sites. So what the governor, signing this declaration means is you can now ask for FEMA help. So it will go to FEMA, and FEMA probably will give some help. - Makes it easier then for North Dakotans to get that help now that the governor has made that request. - That is correct. Dave, the Ethics Commission is looking for a new member and complaints are up to the commission. So two sides of a story there, Dave. - Mm-hmm. Well, let's talk about the amount of complaints being up. This was an interesting, and I'm putting quotes around interesting election season. And I almost expected them to be up, but I was interested that it more than doubled to 25. And they had 12 before and things like that. Talking to the executive director, Rebecca Binstock. She's got it right. She says what they need to do is to really educate people about transparency, educating people about elections, what's ethical, what's not, and corruption and then lobbying. And the investigation really is handled by staff within the office, but then the commission can rule on it. - Dave, the commission is hosting a hearing on proposed changes to its complaint process on September 26th. Are those, the complaint processes, they're talking about the changes minor, or is that a major thing? - It looks like it might have some significance. I wouldn't call it major necessarily, but there are significant changes. And what I'm expecting out of it, it could be a little bit easier to bring complaints. - Dave, if someone is interested in serving on the Ethics Commission, what should they do? - Well, they can contact the Ethics Commission first, but if they want to, they can go to the governor's page. There's a page, and a click you can click on, that goes to boards and commissions. And then you can look at the Ethics Commission, and you click on that, are you interested in serving, and then you can fill out the form. - Dave, the federal government now pays $2 billion for farmer discrimination in North Dakota farmers. We'll be able to take advantage of some of this money. What's that story about? - Well, there's been complaints, and I've heard these complaints for years, that when you get USDA, they sometimes, what is seen as discrimination when they hand out some things, and loans, and certain grants, and things like that. So there was a big class action lawsuit, and now it's finally to fruition, and they're gonna pay about $2 billion to farmers across the U.S., I guess. There are 100 recipients in North Dakota going to receive this. - Dave, the issue of who will be Dickinson State University's next president has now taken a turn. They have appointed not an interim president, but a temporary president, I guess. How's that process moving forward? - This is the most interesting process I've seen in terms of replacing a president. I think it became, it was a timing issue, because of when Steve East decided to retire. But you have an acting president appointed right away, then you're going to do a search, and it could be a national search for an interim job. And then once the interim is in, then you might have another national search for the permanent presidency. So I think it's very interesting. But you know, in Steve Easton's case, there was one interesting thing that I heard out of the meeting. The Chancellor of Higher Education had proposed that Steve Easton take a tenured faculty position in the university system, which I thought was interesting. - Has there been a decision on that, and then the decision was that Easton has said, "No, no thanks on that." - And then one always wonders, is there a golden parachute attached to his leaving the campus? - I don't think so at this point. I did not say anything about any extra payments or anything like that. - So Dave, back to the nurses who all resigned because of actions that were taken by Dickinson State University's president, President Easton. Any news there on the impact to that program and how it may look going forward, you know, that's a very interesting question because I've been trying to get some answers on that. And I hope to, you know, in the next few days, I'm trying to get a hold of the board of nursing to find out what their perspective is. I want to talk about how Mabel State is going to help in this. Because I think that's really interesting. There are still some questions to be answered. - For sure. David trial was canceled in a case challenging North Dakota's abortion ban. What's the latest there? - Well, the latest is that the state asks for a summary judgment. Now, when the state asks for a summary judgment, normally they think they can win on it. But you ask for a summary judgment. You also have the opportunity to lose it as well. So the judge took everything under consideration and decided to grant that motion. And we'll look at a summary judgment ruling. From the bench, is this case going to go on? Is the case relevant? Is the state's position wrong? - So is this essentially on hold for a while? And do we have a timeline as to when action may be taken next? - You know, I don't think we have a real timeline because I think Judge Romanik is known that he has, he studies the issues very carefully. And I don't think he's going to rush to judgment. - All right, Dave, let's toot some horns here. And I'm talking about train horns and track. There's been some discussion about reestablishing a more southern route here in North Dakota. What's the latest? Okay, I have to tell you one quick story. I was working at a local AM station in Bismarck the day the train stopped. So I'm getting full circle on this, it's kind of fun. The state of Montana has actually a government sponsor group that's working on Amtrak and working on seeing if they can restore that southern route, which basically went from Minneapolis to Fargo, to Jamestown, to Bismarck, to Dickinson, and then out through Billings and found its way to the West Coast. You have one AM track that is still working in North Dakota. But the feeling is that, you know, with the Presidential Library, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, come to Boudora and increased traveling opportunities, not only to North Dakota, but to the West Coast, that they might have a good case to make. And what they're going to do is have the final report from the Federal Railroad Administration presented to Congress. And now it's going to be up to some committees in Congress to find out if they can fund it. - My wife and I ride the train often. We rode the train often when we lived in Wyoming boarding in Denver, primarily heading to Point's West Andy sometimes, and we've also boarded here in Amtrak. Two things, Dave, I hope somebody looks at the hours we have to board in Amtrak. - Absolutely, 'cause you have to be out there at midnight or something like that, yes. - Worse than that, it's like 2.30 or 3 a.m. And the train comes back then about 3.30 a.m. So boy, if you can have some pull with anyone, Dave, change that. - If I had pull, I would try it. And you know, I've told people that on my bucket list is to take the TransCanada train. - That would be a lot of fun. - I think that would be a lot of fun. - Our son decided to go to Jamestown University, and we looked at Jamestown's website and they said there's Amtrak service in Fargo. And we thought, awesome, we can just take into Billings to connect. And all of a sudden, we look at the route and boy was it way north, and it was quicker to just drive to Jamestown, which we did often. All right. - Sure. - Dave, the first North Dakota to fly into space has now been awarded the state's top honor. What a big deal. - It is a very big dealer, Jim Buckley. He was a Marine vet, and he was at NASA. He became the first North Dakota to fly in space. And finally, he's got the Rough Rider Award. His picture will be in the Capitol building in the Rough Rider Hall of Fame. - Dave, harvest outlook looks pretty good despite of what we opened the show with talking about some weather disasters. - Right, and this is from Agriculture Commissioner Doug going, he said, the people are telling him that the harvest is looking good. The downside is crop prices are down. I asked him, would it help if you had a farm bill? 'Cause they're still talking about the farm bill. And he said, yes, it would. But he doesn't think there's gonna be movement on the farm bill because the election's coming up. He thinks if there's gonna be any movement, it's going to be during the lame duck session in December. - Dave Prairie Public has now announced three televised debates. Give us the update. - Yeah, Julie Fadochek and Trigvi Hammer, that's a Republican and Democrat, will be seeking the loan congressional seat. That debate will be Thursday, September 26th in our Fargo studio. And then the debate for U.S. Senate seat between Republican Kevin Kramer, the incumbent Democratic challenger, Katrina Christensen, will be on Wednesday at October 2nd in the Fargo studio. And then the governor's debate is set up too with Democrat Marilyn Pepkorn and Republican Kelly Armstrong October 10th. Those are going to be very interesting debates, I think. - In Wyoming, we also would have, at this time of year now, constitutional party candidates, libertarian candidates. Are there any candidates from alternate parties who are running who won't be participating in the debates? - Well, I think that's still up for debate because we know that Michael Coachman, who's running as an independent, does have the signatures to get on the ballot. I think we just have to discuss the rules. The rules can be set by us. In the past, we've allowed independents if they reach a certain threshold. So, a little bit more discussion on that. And we'll find out what happens. Now that course is Coachman's running for governor. - Dave, what else are you working on with your group? - Well, I have more about an explainer on this Montana group, big sky group, that gets money from the Montana state government to look at this whole Amtrak situation. And I'm looking into a story just because I'm curious. We fund schools from state government, from property taxes. And I've got to my mind, I thought, well, can schools levy sales taxes? I wanted to take a look at that. - Dave, I'm guessing that answer's going to be no, so I will look forward to what you find out. - All right, thanks, Greg. (upbeat music) - Dave, thanks for joining us. Matt Olien is next with a movie review. Stay with us. - We'd like to thank the North Dakota Council on the Arts for supporting arts programming here on Prairie Public. - Welcome back to Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Craig Blumenshine. Today, we bring you a movie review from Matt Olien that we recently aired. It's of the movie Long Legs. Matt had recorded a review of Musica, however, because of a technical layer, we're unable to bring that to you today that we'll early next week. (upbeat music) And there's the fanfare. We welcome back to the Main Street Studios, Matt Olien. Matt, how's your summer going? - Good, Craig. - Is it scary being a lady FBI agent? - Yeah. - Taking a nice long look. - I let it was left with the bodies. - Sign of one word. (screaming) - Matt, this one sounds like it's pretty scary. Slash a movie we have here. The movie, of course, is Long Legs. It is scary. It's well done. Yeah, I'm on a slasher kick. We saw a Maxine last week, and this is, I think, probably better than Maxine even, which I liked, and this is stylish. It's interesting. I would call this a mashup of Silence of the Lambs. Meet Slasher. Meet Satanic cult movie. So you got three different kind of genres, all kind of in one. It's Silence of the Lambs because Micah Monroe plays this FBI agent Lee Harker, and she's trying to solve 20 plus years of murders. - Grew some murders. - Grew some by the serial killer. They're trying to figure out how this happens because the murders happen, Craig, without the murderer in the house, the person that they suspect who is Long Legs, played by Nicholas Cage, and he's never in the house. So how is this happening? How is this done? That's the big secret. When you go see the movie, of course, we're not gonna reveal that, but it takes place in the 1990s up in Portland. There are flashbacks to the 1970s where this little girl meets Long Legs at her farmhouse. Harker's mother, played by Alicia Witt, is a key character in this movie as well. She still lives on that farm. Micah Monroe, kind of a scream queen actress. Very good in this part. Blair Underwood plays her older FBI agent, boss supervisor. They're trying to piece this together. Now Lee Harker also has kind of supernatural powers. She can kind of sense things that are happening. She's piecing together these clues as to who is doing the killing and how they're gonna find this serial killer and trap them. But as she gets further into it, our sense of audience dread kind of continues to grow. And I would say this, Craig, in a movie like this, when we feel powerless watching the movie, it's very creepy. And I think the audience will feel powerless. Like, what supernatural things are going on that the agent Harker has to figure out, will she ever find the killer? If she does find the killer, will they be able to nab the killer? And there's this sense of dread. I think that the writer, director Osgood Perkins, son of Anthony Perkins from Psycho fame. And he's done a really good job here. There's that sense of dread and kind of murky neighborhoods, grainy cinematography that hangs over this movie that I really liked. And I think it's probably the best horror movie I've seen so far this year. Nicholas Cage, who plays long legs, is terrifying. Unrecognizable, terrifying with an incredible makeup job that they've got on him with long hair and makeup. And I'm gonna go on record. I'm gonna push him for a late career, not late career, he's only 60, he's won an Oscar. Kind of a late career supporting actor nomination. Very tricky to get Oscar nominations from horror and slasher movies, as you know, Craig. But he's terrifying when he's on screen. And, you know, he's one of those characters, just like Lector and Silence of the Lambs that seems to be pulling the strings. He's controlling the strings, and you're not quite sure how he's controlling and pulling those strings. And that's what you have to find out. Like this one a lot. If you're scared of stuff like this, don't go. You're gonna think about it afterwards. But it's stylish, well done. And I credit Osgood, Osgood, Osgood, they call him Perkins as the writer, director. You talk about Nicholas Cage and his performance maybe being Oscar worthy. Is the movie itself Oscar worthy? - I don't think, I would- - Is this one of those ones we're gonna remember like Silence of the Lambs, Matt? - Silence of the Lambs is the exception to the rule with Oscars. It was, you know, the only horror movie really to ever win Best Picture. I mean, it's possible. We don't know how 2024 is gonna shake out. Is it gonna be as strong and deep a year as 23 was? Doesn't look like it's so far. But, you know, we'll see sometimes with the current makeup of the Academy membership and voters, you know, skewing younger now, it could slip in there. I really liked it. But it's making money. It's doing well at the box office. I think the word of mouth is good. The night I went, there were a lot of people there. I like horror slasher movies like this where there's kind of a slow build. It's not, it's not gore and slashing every five minutes. There's a build up to what's going on. There's an investigation. You follow Lee Harker as she investigates what's going on. Let me also tell you, there are creepy dolls in this movie too. There are dolls that these kind of handmade wooden dolls, you know, girl dolls that look creepy. Nothing scarier in movies, Craig, than dolls and little girl ghosts, right? Those are just, those are things that terrify us. So these dolls are creepy. They're important to the plot. Very important to the plot. So keep an eye on these dolls when they pop up. When they find them and kind of piece things together, that's also crucial to the plot. This wasn't filmed in the basement of my neighbor's home in Riverton, was it Matt? We would go downstairs and they were just these, just these wonderful, wonderful older folks, great, great neighbors, two sisters and a brother. Our kids loved them, but she had an incredible dog collection downstairs that she loved. And I thought it was about the creepiest thing I'd ever had. And you know, they're just gonna come alive at night, right? We're gonna start looking at you, right? I hope they never got into our home next door. Anyway, I recommend "Long Legs," one of the better movies I've seen this year. All right, let's go on to our trivia question for the day. Matt, of course, Nicholas Cage won the Oscar for his best actor role in leaving Las Vegas at the 68th Academy Awards. Who won Best Actress that year? And also, which picture won Best Picture? Best Picture was Braveheart, the Mel Gibson movie, and Best Actress was Susan Sarandon for "Dead Man Walker." Your recollection is phenomenal, Matt. Thanks for joining us again on "Main Street." You bet. More Main Streets Ahead, stay with us. For many people, revered S.A.S. James Baldwin's words still carry weight today, examining and celebrating his work on his 100th birthday on the next morning edition from NPR News. We'd days beginning at 4 a.m. Central here on Prairie Public. Main Street continues. I'm Craig Blumenschine. This time of year, the North Dakota Prairie is alive with color thanks to the blooming prairie coneflower and purple coneflower. Chuck Laura explores the unique characteristics and medicinal uses of these vibrant wildflowers and provides insight into their significance and history on the plains in his natural North Dakota essay. The prairie landscape this time of year is a wash in color. And two of the more commonly known wildflowers, prairie coneflower and purple coneflower, are or will be soon flowering across the state. Prairie coneflower, also known as upright prairie coneflower, blooms in North Dakota roughly from June through August. This member of the Astra family grows from one to three feet tall and produces a flower head that's a little different from what the casual observer would identify as a member of the Astra family. Many members of the Astra family, such as sunflowers, produce a flower head with inconspicuous diskflowers in the center and petal-like rayflowers on the margins. The diskflowers of prairie coneflower, however, form a cylinder around an inch and a half long with four to ten yellow rayflowers drooping from the base. Native American tribes use prairie coneflower for a variety of medicinal conditions, such as to treat stomachache. It was also used to treat snake bite and exposure to poison ivy. The leaves were used to make a tea. Purple coneflower, also called echinacea, the genus name, flowers in the state roughly from June into August. It's also a member of the Astra family that grows from one to three feet tall. It produces a single flower head, which has a large rounded orange brown disk with 15 to 20 pinkish to light purple rays on the margins, about an inch and a half long, to grow outward before drooping down. The stem and leaves are hairy and rough, with the leaves being mostly at the base of the plant. Purple coneflower was perhaps the most widely used in medicinal plant by the Plains Indians. Principally used as an anesthetic, the roots, immature heads, and seeds were chewed to treat toothache, stomachache, sore throat, and various bites. I've chewed the root, and although it isn't like a shot of Novocanid, it definitely has a numbing effect. A common demonstration of this medicinal use is to chew a bit of the root, perhaps a quarter of an inch in length, in the front of the mouth just inside the front teeth, while chewing tried to expose the tip of the tongue to the juices produced. A definite tingling sensation will develop. Although assumed to be safe, some people have had allergic reactions to the plant. I've put links to more information about these plants, along with the text of this Natural North Dakota. You can access them at prairiepublic.org. I'm Chuck Lura. That's Chuck Lura. It was a longtime biology professor at Dakota College at Botano, publishing research on ecological aspects of grasslands in the Northern Great Plains. In retirement, Chuck continues to share his natural North Dakota essays for the Prairie Public Audience. Dakota Dayed Book is next. Support for Dakota Dayed Book is provided by Books on Broadway, and Dakota Soda and Coffee Company of Williston, featuring coffees and a wide variety of books for children and adults. Books on Broadway, the independent bookstore for independent minds. This is Dakota Daybook for August 1st. Twenty years after the Civil War, concerns were growing about the welfare of aging veterans. In 1887, Congress set aside land in states and territories for the construction of homes that would care for union veterans. And in 1891, the North Dakota legislature authorized the construction of such a home. The facility opened "On the State" in 1893. Civil War veterans were held in high esteem, and states had made efforts to provide care prior to the opening of soldiers' homes. Countees often paid settlers to take in veterans, but this could be expensive, and the level of care was sometimes suspect. Another option was for veterans to wind up in a poor house. No one thought this was appropriate, but the options were limited prior to the government-supported soldiers' homes. North Dakota constructed a state-of-the-art facility. The accommodations were generous, and clothing was furnished for any veteran making less than $8 a month. Veterans were given a comfortable bed in a dormitory and excellent meals in a pleasant dining room. Sunday services were held each week in the homes chapel. There was also a library with plenty of reading material. The home even provided writing paper and envelopes so veterans could correspond with family and friends. A doctor made rounds every morning, and two nurses were on staff. The home was self-supporting in the early days. Residents received a wage for working the homes' farm operations, doing laundry and performing tasks like housekeeping. As they aged, the system was clearly not sustainable, so civilian employees were hired to do the work. One newspaper described a visit to a soldier's home saying, "The Great War, in which these men took part, "seems shadowy and remote as the years roll by, "and the visitor sees them as they are today, "old men, feeble and grey." Today, the soldier's home, now known as the North Dakota Veterans' Home, is updated and modern. It still provides care for veterans who, as in the early days of the state, are still held in high esteem. Today's Dakota Datebook, written by Dr. Carol Butcher. I'm Ann Alquist. Dakota Datebook is produced in cooperation with the State Historical Society of North Dakota, with funding by Humanities North Dakota. Dakota's largest lifelong learning community. And that's a wrap for today's Main Street. We are so grateful that you have spent time with us. Tomorrow, in this time slot at 3 p.m. Central, it's the middle with host Jeremy Hobson. This week, Jeremy asks the question, "What can be done about the high costs of health care?" And at 7 p.m. Central on Friday, it's Science Friday with Ira Plato. Coming Monday on Main Street, we'll meet Johann Vanade, who saw his very first baseball game at the FM Red Hawks game last Thursday. We'll talk to him about that experience. And oh, by the way, he came to North Dakota from South Africa and also became an American citizen. We'll visit with him about that, too. And we hope you'll join us again Monday on Main Street. ♪