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2828 άρθρα από 58 πηγές
Advocates for Agriculture
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Constant Conservative
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design:South Dakota
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GAP-South Dakota
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GETTYSBURG SOUTH DAKOTA
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gold prospecting the Black Hills of South Dakota
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Hutchinson Herald, Menno, South Dakota
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interested party
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Kayaking the Lakes of South Dakota
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Kristi Shanks Photography - Sioux Falls, SD
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Left Dakota Right Dakota South Dakota
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Northern Valley Beacon
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Pierre, SD
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robbinsdale radical
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West River Blue Blog
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YOUR OPPORTUNITY: SOUTH DAKOTA JOB CORPS!
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“Who even has a body like that?!”
Okay, you often see images of models in the grocery store magazines, and think to yourself, “This shit doesn’t exist in real life.”
Well, tonight, I saw it.
I won’t even describe the outfit (which was modest to a point), or the girl’s body, that’s for some smutty magazine.
But when I pointed her out to one of my (Male) co-workers, he titled this piece.
S. L. Ehrisman (c) 5/19/12
Click here to view the embedded video.
If Paul Schiller and Groth want to have a show about weather, I suggest they tough it out like the rest of us artists and put it up in some coffeehouse;
Just in time for summer vacation, there’s a new exhibit at the Washington Pavilion. ”Beauty In The Beast” features pieces from South Dakota artists highlighting the weather. Along with Paul Schiller, four other local artists lend their talents to the collection.
“Mary Groth, Nancyjane [Huehl] and Dale Lamphere are probably some of South Dakota’s best when it comes to art, and it’s a real honor to be able to work with them,” Schiller said.
Do I think an exhibit like this is cool, meh, but what bugs me the most is that it seems since Schiller and Groth used to sit on the board of directors they can feature their artwork in the building as many times as they want to.
It’s getting old. Go buy your own museum already.
00:22
On this date, May 21, 1919, Sioux Falls held a Service Day parade for returning veterans from the Great War (WWI), complete with a replica Arch d'Triumph.
00:01
On this date, March 23, 1953, South Dakota's first television station, KELO-TV, went on the air in Sioux Falls.
23:31
We live in interesting times. Here is the latest blockbuster from the WaPo:
Minority babies outnumbered white newborns in 2011 for the first time in U.S. history, the latest milestone in a demographic shift that's transforming the nation.
It is difficult to know what that might mean in a nation where Harvard Professor and Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is a minority faculty member because she is (but really isn't) 1/32nd Native American, but Robert Zimmerman, whose mother is Latina, is a White Hispanic because he shot an African American teen. If Warren and Zimmerman somehow had kids, would they be part of the thrust or the drag in the WaPo's "demographic shift"?
If you think that racial and ethnic identity is clear and meaningful, consider the "birther" theory. I have always been and I remain contemptuous of the charge that Barack Obama is not, as the Constitution requires, a "natural born citizen." It comes as some surprise to learn that, among prominent birthers, one finds Barack Obama. Or at least his literary agent. From the Telegraph:
Breitbart.com has discovered that in 1991 Barack Obama's literary agent (who also represented New Kids on the Block) published a booklet that included a biography of the future President. The audience was "business colleagues" in the publishing industry and it was designed to promote Obama's anticipated first book (later abandoned) called Journeys in Black and White. Here's how it describes the author's origins.
Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation.
The key phrase here is "was born in Kenya" – and this bio line was apparently being used as late as 2007.
I suppose that if you can believe that Elizabeth Warren is, in some meaningful sense, Cherokee, it shouldn't be too hard to believe that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and Kenya. The Telegraph's point is not that this discredit's Obama's claim to birth on American soil, but that it shows that the mainstream press did a lousy job of vetting Obama in 2008.
Maybe, but that's a small point here. What it shows is that race, ethnic identity, and national origin are invested with emotional power and that ambitious persons frequently exploit the ambiguity of these categories in order to take advantage of that power. Sometimes such persons are tempted to fib a bit. There is less reason to believe that Elizabeth Warren is a Native American than to believe that Barack Obama is really a Kenyan. One document less, to be precise.
Racial categories can be very useful for purposes of demographic analysis; however, they are more frequently abused as weapons or sources of anxiety. In the cases described above, these categories are no more real or more useful than astrological signs. Americans have worried that immigration would dilute the body politic. Once we worried about Irish and Polish immigrants. Now we worry about Hispanics and Muslims. These worries are always vane.
What it means to be an American has nothing to do with the color of your skin or what language your grandfather spoke or what gods he worshiped. The American homeland is not blood or soil but parchment. To be an American means that, more or less consciously, you sign your name to the Declaration of Independence and recognize yourself as one of "We the People" in the preamble to the Constitution.
Enormous waves of immigrants have come here and signed on and they have been enrolled. If the strength of those institutions continues, it won't matter what percentage of babies are White or Black or chartreuse. If the institutions fade, no amount of Whiteness, whatever that is, will save us.
21:27
20:44
Last week's episode was labelled as "whine-free", and somehow it became the most downloaded Ledge broadcast in over a year. Well, this week's episode not only feature plenty of whining, but also a bottle of wine. I was joined by the lovely Heather Hellkitten, the host of Realpunkradio's Morning Poo and Happy Hour With Heather Hellkitten. Besides talking about her shows, we basically became a couple of hens gossiping about reality television, wacky small town living, and awful pop culture trends. Oh yeah, and we spent a few minutes talking about our favorite e-cig flavors. For more info on that part of our lives, head to Rocky Top Vapor and enter ledge10 to get 10% off and free shipping on any order.
16:29
The Sturgis Public Library will be closed Memorial Day weekend, Saturday, May 26th through Monday, May 28th.
11:20
The sky was looking a bit ominous the other afternoon when a storm came rolling through the area. It wasn't a bad storm and didn't last very long. It was just long enough for me to capture a few beautiful sky shots including a double rainbow.
Don't forget to hop on over to Skywatch Friday and view some of the other amazing skywatch photographs.
08:07
Great, now this election year can be all about gay marriage, a human-rights issue we could have solved years ago. Concerned about sexual morals? Then get to work bringing pedophile priests, domestic abusers and human traffickers to justice.No shit.
Meanwhile, this nation's policy discourse should be about liberating us from the corrupt corporate-congressional revolving door and realistically addressing what's headed our way from tar-sands filth, BP dispersants, Monsanto poisons, melting ice caps, Fukushima, and our own nuclear mess. Wake up, people! Someone else's marriage can't kill you, but the rest of this stuff could.
Sasha Pyle
Santa Fe
23:51
Mitt Romney got some good news from Gallup this week. While he remains tied with Obama on a head to head matchup and Obama remains tied with himself on approval/disapproval (47%), have of Americans have suddenly decided that they like the Mitt. His personal approval rating reached 50% for the first time. His 50% favorable/41% unfavorable rating is in sharp contrast to the 39% favorable/47% unfavorable score he received back in February.
Some observers have suggested Obama's recent declaration in favor of gay marriage has a lot to do with this. That may be true, but if so I suspect that it all because Obama's evolution hurt him more than it helped him and not at all because Romney took the opposite position. While Romney's opposition to gay marriage is more in sync with how Americans actually vote than how they answered surveys, personal approval is not about that. Obama's battlefield conversion may have firmed up his support with fund raisers and activists, but it looked an awful lot like a purely calculated move. Being wishy-washy on such issues eats away at one's personal image about as fast as anything.
Meanwhile Romney has been dealing rather badly with the issue of homosexuality on a number of fronts. This is likely to catch up with him fast if he doesn't firm up. Perhaps the worst case is this one, reported by the LA Times:
In mid-April Romney hired Grenell, a former spokesman for former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, to become the foreign-policy spokesman for his campaign, starting this month. Grenell happens to be openly gay, and a vocal advocate of gay marriage -- not that those aspects have anything to do with the war in Afghanistan or Iran's nuclear program.
On Tuesday the Washington Post reported that Grenell quit his new job because of pressure from "anti-gay conservatives."…
Romney's team says it tried to persuade Grenell not to leave. And in a statement Grenell gave to the Post's Jennifer Rubin, he thanks Romney for the "clear message" that "being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team." But the statement also suggests he didn't think he could be himself in Romney's service.
There are all kinds of theories about why Grenell left, but it is difficult to believe that Romney couldn't have persuaded Grenell to stay. If he had kept Grenell on, it would have shown that Romney can stand up to pressure from his own coalition. If Grenell was doing a good job (good enough for John Bolton), then Romney should have pulled out all the stops to keep him. Failing to do the right thing, and that is surely what it looks like, makes Romney look weak and weak isn't likeable.
The second case is Romney's waffling on gay adoption. From CBS:
[Romney] said on Thursday: "And if two people of the same gender want to live together, want to have a loving relationship, or even to adopt a child -- in my state individuals of the same sex were able to adopt children. In my view, that's something that people have a right to do. But to call that marriage is something that in my view is a departure from the real meaning of that word."
But then on Friday, he was asked, in an interview with CBS' WBTV in Charlotte, N.C., how his opposition to same-sex marriage "squared" with his support for gay adoptions. Romney told anchor Paul Cameron, "Well actually I think all states but one allow gay adoption, so that's a position which has been decided by most of the state legislators, including the one in my state some time ago. So I simply acknowledge the fact that gay adoption is legal in all states but one."
It's a bad idea to talk of adoption as a right belonging to the adopter. When child custody is contested in court, the judge ought to hold the interests of the child above the claims of the parents. Sometimes that comes down to a judgment call and in such cases "rights" language does not help much.
A reasonable person can believe that being raised in a household with a mother and father is preferable to being raised in one with two parents of the same sex. That would matter, if it should matter, only in case where things were otherwise equal. Where an adoption is uncontested, a same sex couple should be judged the same way any couple would: solely by their fitness to be parents.
Romney could have said that. If he had done so firmly, he would have looked like a man who knew his own mind. The same would be true if he had come out against gay adoption, though that would be more problematic and would have been wrong, in my view. At least it would have been decisive. Instead, he used the reasonable position in favor of state prerogatives as a dodge. That makes him look indecisive, and indecisive isn't likeable.
Romney needs to firm up. He isn't seeking the Republican nomination anymore, he is running for President. He can't afford to ignore political realities and those include making sure his coalition continues to coalesce. Another political reality is that voters on the right and in the middle have to trust him. Sometimes the best way to secure that trust is to figure out what is the right thing to do and then do it.
Of course, if this is true, and he won, the Royal River Casino could kill two birds with one stone.
I have heard vague rumblings that he is gearing up to run against Denny Doogard. Truth be told, if I had a choice, I would probably roll Huether. But like in the last governor election, I would probably vote for neither and leave the ballot blank.
When asked if he was going to run for mayor again in two years, he made no real promises.
This info comes from two sources;
Number one tells me about all the fundraising efforts of the SD Democratic Party concerning Huether and the recent push to get a Republican elected to the city council with Democrat’s money.
Number two tells me about the electronic mail fundraising efforts of the mayor.
Quite honestly, don’t know if either is true, the SD Democratic Party has been mysteriously quiet. Let’s just say Detroit Lewis is not on their mailing list 
And that’s cool, because they are going to have to save all of their money for the Barth/Varilek race.
As for the Casino issue, I encourage the media and citizens to ask questions and demand answers. Is the mayor pursuing higher office? That is a cry for another day.
This is a screenshot of the mayor running the May 16, 2011 council meeting approving item #37
Okay, this may not be a concern of many of you, but first I want to send you the link to the meeting;
May, 16, 2011 (FF to Item #37, you can do this by clicking on the item.)
Okay, sounds all fine and dandy. Market rentals in a poorer neighborhood in town. Good stuff. Eat it up Maynard. But this isn’t about helping out the working poor to find a roof over their heads, it is possibly about conflicts of interest.
As you may or may not know, Mike is an investor in many projects around the city (or should we say, his wife is – LOL). The speculation is that she is an investor in many of these kinds projects around town. No biggee, except, maybe the mayor should have excused himself from this vote (or supervising the vote), which he did not.
The running joke around city hall was after the meeting he was asking people if what he did was proper. It is kinda like asking if peeing your pants is okay.
UPDATE: HE DID HOWEVER COME TO HIS SENSES BEFORE THE CITY SIGNED OFF ON THE TIF (This document shows Cotter signing off on the project FOR the mayor): TIF 11
Do you think it is proper for the mayor to be investing in development projects around town? Better yet, do you think it is proper for these developments to be asking for TIF’s?
I saw this while watching the Stormland-TV video on the Royal River Casino proposal, and took a screenshot. LOL!
21:08
Click here to view the embedded video.
Or maybe it should be ‘Where did you go now?’
Mr. Ehrisman has since updated his post to show Mr. Powers’s response. Powers has not quite shut down his DakotaCampaignStore.com website, but he has deleted most of the pages on the site. He has also redirected hits to the homepage to drag viewers through three different sham sites before finally dropping them on the infamous “Rick-Rolling” video (go ahead, click: you could use Rick Astley pop-rocking you through your day).
Guess what Pat? The joke you tried to make about ‘obsessive people’ isn’t on me or you, it’s on all the SD voters who trust in your office. Poor bastards.
15:42
My dear husband use to tease me that I had absolutely no concept of time. For the most part he was right. I could easily let the day slip by while I soaked up the beauty around me. 
09:35
That agreement “relied on a NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) document from 2004 that the judge determined was not adequate,” said Dean Rundle, the Moiese refuge’s manager. “This is based on that ruling.” It will give interested parties the opportunity to comment on the draft funding agreement, first in a scoping period Rundle said is designed to identify “issues, problems and missed opportunities” that can be more easily addressed before a formal public comment period. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which filed the lawsuit that got the last agreement thrown out and has long fought any tribal involvement at the Bison Range, indicated it would again oppose a funding agreement.The comments in the Missoulian story thinly veil the predominant prejudice implied in a deeper tribal role.
Glad to see someone is checking into these things;
According to documents obtained this week by KELOLAND News the tribe approach city leaders last year with a proposal to build a 1600 slot machine, 100,000 square foot casino in Sioux Falls. The tribe’s proposal shows the City of Sioux Falls would share nearly $9 million a year in revenue, which is the exact amount the city will pay every year for the events center.
I also got another tip in the naming rights debacle, well kinda, one of the interested parties basically cannot deny or confirm they submitted a proposal because of a disclosures. So for now, we wait.
08:22
23:20
If the budget process were like one of those card games where you can win by losing every single hand, the President would be in good shape right now. The budget he submitted to Congress failed to win a single vote in either house. It was voted down today in the Senate, 99-0.
It is not hard to say what this means. The President has calculated that he can produce a budget that shows skyrocketing deficits as far as the eye can see without suffering much damage. His campaign probably supposes, and probably correctly, that Romney won't be able to exploit the issue without offering his own alternatives and that any possible alternative will produce juicy targets in the campaign.
Individual Democrats cannot rely on that same calculation. They cannot afford to put their names on a document that is so manifestly irresponsible. Their strategy is to offer nothing and attack everything that the other side offers. That is fine so long as you think that political calculations are all that's important. If, however, you think that addressing the fiscal solvency of the nation might be at least a little bit important, you would have to note that the Democrats in Congress and the White House are altogether incapable of it.
Fiscal responsibility is a hard issue to win an election on. While I doubt that the issue is hurting Obama now more than it already has, it is possible that it is helping Republicans in Congressional races. The most recent generic polls show a GOP lead of almost 2% in the RCP average. Republicans almost always do better than the generic polling question predicts. Rasmussen has the GOP up by 7% with a sample of 3500 likely voters. Gallup/USA Today confirm that with a 6% lead for Republicans. If those numbers hold, the next Congress will be firmly in Republican hands.
The recall election in Wisconsin suggests that a Governor willing to be bold on fiscal matters can survive the predictable challenges. Rasmussen shows Walker leading in his rematch with Tom Barrett by five points. That is confirmed by a Marquette Law School poll that gives Walker a six point lead. Perhaps a better indicator is the fact that the DNC seems to have decided not to invest in the recall fight. Rachel Maddow has called this the second most important election this year. I suspect she will not repeat that on her MSNBC show if, as seems likely, Walker wins. Walker is showing what the virtue of courage can achieve.
My friend and esteemed blogosphere colleague, Cory Heidelberger, reveals, inadvertently, the problem that the Democrats are resolutely ignoring. He complains about Republicans starving kids to feed the armed forces and comes up with an impressive list of spending cuts that may or may not happen in the near future. That suggests a horizon in which it's only a matter of will to do the right thing, or a matter of guns vs. butter.
What's just over that firmly limited horizon is a fiscal situation in which there will be no money for guns or butter. Borrowing astronomical amounts of money to finance spending now means that interest payments will start to squeeze out all other spending in the future. We are not talking about fifty years from now, but twenty if we are lucky. It isn't going to help to plead "think about the children" if we have nothing left to spend on the children, or on highways, or on defense, or on anything else.
That is the reason that the Democrats in Congress are fiscally constipated. They can't afford to pass anything because it would require them to lift their horizon past this year's election. The rise of the Tea Party movement is evidence that this is present in the consciousness of a large class of voters. How it will affect this election is not something I claim to know. I do know that you cannot make the world go away by refusing to lift your eyes to eye level.
21:37
20:30
15:56
With a name like Jed's Dead, isn't it perfect that there would be a Ledge episode devoted to the band? Jed's Dead is an Las Angeles-based Americana band who describe themselves as "folk noir". Don't know what that is? Then listen to this show!
15:31
I’ve seen this article from the Argus on the positions of Jeff Barth and Matt Varilek on marriage equality a few times on my newsfeed on Facebook, but I have to admit to being surprised that my progressive friends in South Dakota aren’t more upset about this.
Matt Varilek’s take on marriage equality is one that is becoming increasingly obsolete. More and more people (including Varilek’s opponent in the primary) have begun to see the cruelty of denying the rights and benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. Why on earth should we as feminists support this person? Honest question. I don’t get it. And while I’m at it, any feminist should recoil at a candidate who uses a phrase like “traditional marriage” to describe a model and an understanding of marriage and sexuality that is actually pretty modern.
The longer I remain an active observer of politics, the more tired I get of being told that I need to vote for the candidate who has a chance of winning, or the candidate who is the lesser of two evils, or the candidate who is a Democrat, or the candidate who is a better fundraiser, or whatever. This is about an issue of basic civil rights, and Matt Varilek is unapologetically on the wrong side of it. And we shouldn’t stand for that.
South Dakota progressives: you don’t owe Matt Varilek or the Democratic Party your vote. It’s quite the opposite, in fact – they need to earn your support. If Kristi Noem is re-elected in November, it will not be your fault. It will be because the Democrats chose a candidate who doesn’t share your values.
10:23
Field work continues
10:05
The Flood of 1972 will be the topic of the May History at High Noon program. Memories of Boulder Canyon, Sturgis, Piedmont and Tilford areas, and anywhere along Bear Butte Creek and Vanocker Canyon will be shared on May 18th in the Program Room at the Library. This flood was experienced in such a wide area of the Black Hills and surrounding area that any and all memories will be welcome. History at High Noon will be taking its usual summer vacation, so this program is the last for a bit. Programs will start back up again in October.
09:35
I’ve been quiet on the blog for a very long time, but now that I’m hitting the research phase of my grad school program, I finally have a little time to devote to the blog.
Our neighbors to the west in Missoula, Montana, (where, in the interest of full disclosure, I lived for two years) have over the past several months experienced a sort of perfect storm involving a rash of allegations of rape, an ineffective and insensitive university administration, police force and prosecuting attorney’s office who handled cases poorly, and a history of poor communication between the University of Montana and the city and county authorities that have caused survivors of rape to be further victimized. Many of the allegations involve members of the Montana Grizzlies, the university’s beloved football team – even the team’s starting quarterback has been accused of rape – but others include a foreign exchange student who became aware of allegations against him through the university and fled the country before city police could arrest him.
The local newspaper (the Missoulian) has done an amazing job of covering the details of this from the start, but this article from Jezebel does a good job of summarizing what has happened in Missoula thus far. It also reveals an attitude that seems pretty widespread throughout Missoula – that women who go to bars ask for it (the quote from a UM student in the article is “Yes the guys are rapists, but the girls help it along”), that “our boys” on the Grizzly football team couldn’t possibly be guilty of rape, that “our” beautiful, liberal, hippie, microbrew-drinking, Obama-loving city in Montana couldn’t have the kind of culture that allows for this kind of thing to happen as much as it does.
What this article does most effectively, I think, is that it reveals some of the problems we have in understanding rape and sexual assault. In most cases, rape doesn’t involve a stranger in a dark alley. The perpetrator is usually someone the survivor knows. The perpetrator is usually someone who has assaulted before, and will assault again. The perpetrator often uses alcohol or drugs to make issues of consent hazy or uncertain. Because of all of this, only a tiny percentage of sexual assaults ever come to the attention of authorities. I don’t think any of this – attitudes about survivors of assault or a lack of understanding about what sexual assault usually looks like – is specific to Missoula.
Both the federal Department of Justice and the Department of Education are currently investigating the city police and county prosecutors’ office and the university for possible gender bias and Title IX violations in their handling of rape cases. Hopefully this will lead to new policies in Missoula that will better serve survivors of assault when they come forward. Changing peoples’ attitudes about survivors will be much more difficult.
07:19
The gray wolf found dead Monday morning near Pine Ridge made a 400-mile journey from Yellowstone National Park to southwest South Dakota in less than two months, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf specialist said Tuesday. Mike Jimenez of Jackson, Wyo., said information received from the radio-transmitter collar on the wolf identified it as a 3- to 4-year-old male that was part of a wolf pack in the southeast part of Yellowstone. --Kevin Woster, Rapid City JournalDear Goddess.
00:16
Most folks, most of the time, are content to allow elites to manage their governments. They reserve only the power to decided, from time to time, which group of suits gets to put their hands on the levers. When the voters begin to express an anti-establishment sentiment, it is a sure sign that the managers are failing at their tasks.
This is what has happened in Europe. The election of Francois Hollande in France and the failure of Greek parties to form a government are cases in point. The project of European Union was executed with consistent contempt for the voters. That didn't kill it as long as the scheme held together. Now that it is falling apart, Europe's elites have lost control of their peoples.
The United States has always been more democratic, which is to say more responsive to the electorate, than its European counterparts. The same trend, however, is evident here.
In West Virginia, Keith Judd, an inmate serving 210 months for extortion in Texas, won 40% of the vote in the state's Democratic Presidential Primary. Barack Obama won the remaining 60%. It is easy to say that this doesn't matter and that it is a protest vote that reflects local conditions. President Obama doesn't like coal, and a lot of West Virginians don't like that.
Now, however, the same thing seems likely to play out in Arkansas. From the Weekly Standard:
A new poll of Arkansas Democrats shows Barack Obama receiving support from only 45 percent of Democratic primary voters in Arkansas's Fourth Congressional District, while 38 percent support his underfunded and relatively unknown primary challenger, Tennessee lawyer John Wolfe, Jr. Seventeen percent are undecided in the district poll.
Much the same thing is playing out in Republican primaries. The defeat of long time incumbent Dick Lugar in Indiana is one example. Now we have Nebraska. From the Politico:
Nebraska state Sen. Deb Fischer wrested the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate from Attorney General Jon Bruning Tuesday night, riding a burst of late momentum to pull off an unexpected victory.
Her stunning come-from-behind performance amounts to a warning flare about the volatility of the primary season and the unintended impact of outside groups.
Fischer, a rancher and little-known state lawmaker, maintained a positive, above-the-fray tone while Bruning and state Treasurer Don Stenberg consistently traded blistering barbs. But she also benefited from a flurry of outside spending against Bruning, the front-running establishment favorite for more than a year who watched his polling lead evaporate during the final week of the campaign.
The Politico tries to blunt the impact of its own story by using the word "volatility", as if this were about something like the weather, and by bringing in the issue of outside money. Horse feathers. If the money made a difference, it was only because there was a difference to make. What stands out in this story is not volatility but a steady headwind. The people are mad as Hell and they aren't going to take it anymore.
Republicans may or may not benefit from these populist currents. If they do, they will have to figure out in short order how to address the public angst. There is a widespread loss of confidence in our fundamental institutions. If that is not corrected, soon, the next crisis will be a lot more interesting. Trust this political scientist on one thing: in politics, interesting is usually directly proportional to terrifying.
21:21
What a beautiful viewing, for the 2nd week in a row. Apparently seven days isn’t long enough to fix a software glitch. And who are we kidding anyway? We’ve had over 5 years or more to move the RR tracks. How’s that working out?
Maybe not, but it looks like they are trying;
Since Sanford Health of Sioux Falls, S.D., merged with Fargo’s MeritCare in 2009, the organization has built itself into the largest nonprofit rural health care system in the country, with facilities spread across North Dakota, South Dakota, parts of Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska, and a market population of 2 million people.
21:19
20:12
12:49
Here is a comment Cory left on his web site:
Gayle, folks like Sibby don’t engage in politics to answer your questions or to learn from others. They speak to exclude others, to play word games, pronounce judgments, and reassure themselves that they are right and righteous.
That exclusivity, practiced by Sibby and Howie, stands in stark contrast to President Obama’s approach to politics. In declaring his support for same-sex marriage, President Obama continues his rather regular pattern of trying to include as many people as possible in the blessings of American liberty and prosperity. Think “Yes We Can!” versus Romney and the Republicans who seem to always campaign on “No You Can’t!”
That was shortly after he said this on this web site:
This post would matter if you would just cut out the New Age stuff.
So when it comes to the mention of "New Age", Cory says "No You Can't".
When it comes to restricting marriage to one man and one woman, Cory says "No You Can't". Which was the issue being discussed when he issued the accusation that only us Christian Conservatives say "No You Can't". Also interesting that his pro-gay marriage cohorts said "No You Can't" when it came to marrying your dog, your own child, and your own mother. I agree with them, but the point is that they too set up "No You Can't" rules too. That really made them mad. So they can, but conservatives can't is their idea of "social justice". And what really upsets them is when I bring up the "New Age Theocracy" that is being established in America by the United Nations via the government schools. And he says "No Yo Can't" say that, even though I have produced research that backs up that truth.
And it takes a New Age Theocrat to be a "blog czar":
Did someone in the 0bama administration appoint you the czar of what matters and what doesn't ? Yeah, I didn't think so.
This post matters regardless of whether you (or anyone else)agrees with the references to "new age-ism" or not.
Even if there were no "new age" or secular humanist component present in all of these globalist-supported education standards/scams, it would still amount to an infringement on local control over education.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't loss of local control over education one of the arguments that liberals (and even a few conservatives for that matter) used when opposing HB 1234 ? Why yes. Yes it was.
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"A bunch of voters already have their “No” pencil sharpened for anything that says “tax.” HB 1234 won’t swing their vote. Conservatives like Rep. Stace Nelson who are already engaged enough to understand that HB 1234 promises to waste money on bad programs and usurp local control won’t be confused about the sales tax issue; they’re probably already voting against it.
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The preceding excerpt of course came from:
If I could make one small suggestion, it would be this:
Try not to confuse random ad-hominem attacks with actual constructive criticism or commentary.
Well, it appears that my work here is done.
Have yourself a lovely weekend there mister "blog czar".
Most days blogging I get little grocery store samplings of issues concerning our city and a little light digesting. Not today. I just left the buffet and I am about to hurl.
I will say this, my sources are very reliable, and I have spent a fair amount of time before posting this backing some of the sources up. Unlike our non-free online newspaper, I don’t have to name my sources. And I won’t. If you have a problem with that, start posting your comments using your full name and address.
This information was given to me by a couple of different people, some of it is backed up by documentation, some of it is not. So for now, let’s just say this is speculation, and leave it at that. You be the judge. It is not to hard to connect the dots.
NAMING RIGHTS OF THE EVENTS CENTER
Let’s talk about the naming rights issue, I have a feeling that this will boil over in the public forum soon enough. You know that $60,000 we spent on the naming rights consultation? That is only about the interior not the exterior. Darrin Smith has taken it upon himself to handle the naming of the building. Guess how that is working out? Let’s just say if the events center remains nameless, it will be no surprise. More to come . . .
(how much money is this dude costing us anyway?)
HOW CAN WE PAY FOR A NEW EVENTS CENTER?
This was often a topic. We were promised many different things; a temporary increase in sales taxes, a 25% kick-in from private business. In the end we bonded for it. But what if we had a private business offer to give us revenue to make the bond payments for us every year, and they didn’t want naming rights, just permission to set up shop in Sioux Falls? Sounds like a pretty good idea? Doesn’t it? They might even offer to help us book acts and conventions.
The rumor is the city did get this offer and the mayor refused to meet with them. It’s a little more complicated then that though, the business would have had to get permission from the state and governor also to set up shop in Sioux Falls. But refusing to even hear the proposal and NOT letting the citizens of SF to vote on it seems ludicrous to me.
WHAT IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO MEET WARREN BUFFET?
Pretty easy question, isn’t it? Just as an average joe why would you turn down the opportunity to meet one of the greatest economic minds of our time? Even for 15 minutes over coffee and some biscotti?
Let’s turn it up a notch. What if you had a dilemma, like moving railroad tracks from the downtown of your city you are mayor of said city, and Warren just happened to own controlling stock in the RR you were trying to get moved? Would you meet with him then?
Well, rumor has it that was the proposal on the table to our mayor, and he didn’t seem to find the importance in such a meeting. I hope this was only a rumor.
Mike have you ever played the game of ‘Monopoly’? What properties do you want to buy first?
UPDATE
In my crazy frenzy to post about all this stuff, I forgot another tidbit of information that just happened to drip off my bucket hat in the rainstorm. The Sanford sports complex TIF. Apparently the TIF started out at $700,000 to help pay for the road to the complex. Sanford had a good gripe, why should they pay for a road that also goes to city facilities? Fair enough. So the original TIF was to pay for this road. Overnight it turned into $9 million dollars. (well, not overnight, just when Darrin and Mike took over) And if you ask the city what this money is for you probably will hear crickets. In fact, nobody knows what it is earmarked for. My guess is to pay for the entire complex.
BTW, I have one more rainstorm puddle I am going to post about, but it deserves it’s own post.
08:59
These photos are going to make fun backgrounds for a very cute memory book or video for my grandson. I haven't quiet decided which I am going to do yet, maybe I will do both. As a family memory keeper do you also photograph toys?
07:48
NPR Science Correspondent Alix Spiegel tells the story of Robert Dixon, who's in a maximum security prison in Vacaville California and is unlikely to ever get parole because of his score on the psychopath test. The test also is called "the checklist" or, more formally, the PCL-R, which stands for "Psychopathy Check List—Revised." Jon Ronson investigates whether corporate leaders can, in fact, be psychopaths by visiting a former Sunbeam CEO named Al Dunlap.Psychopathy or leadership? Should Willard Romney be a maximum security prisoner after being a corporate executive having murdered numerous corporations without remorse?
Click here to view the embedded video.
WASHINGTON — When asked Sunday whether he would accept an invitation to run as vice president on the ticket with presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said that “you never rule out opportunities or options” in political life.
In this Sept. 15, 2006, photo, Thomas Kinkade unveils his painting, “Prayer For Peace,” at the opening of the exhibit “From Abraham to Jesus,” in Atlanta. (Gene Blythe – AP)
Oh, those hypocritical Christians get me everytime;
Thomas Kinkade, the “Painter of Light” whose collectible works were beloved by fans and bemoaned by critics, died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and prescription tranquilizers, officials confirmed to the Associated Press. A combination of Valium and alcohol was the cause of the painter’s April 6 death, the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office said Tuesday.
However, the commercialization and kitsch of his work didn’t win him many fans among the art-world elite, or with critics. As the Style Blog wrote after his death, Kinkade’s legacy was deeply polarizing: For every art critic who called his art saccharine, sentimental or heavy-handed with its Christian imagery, there were a dozen fans who found beauty in his brushstrokes.
Like Redlin, I have often felt that Kinkade was a talented ‘Illustrator’ but not an ‘Artist’ though it seems he liked to drink like one.
Click here to view the embedded video.
13:45
In an effort to combat the prevailing image of Mitt Romney as woodenly detached and given to a constant stream of verbal clumsiness and foolery, his campaign has insisted that anyone who knows Romney knows him as a funny, fun-loving, kind soul who doesn't have mean bone in his body. The staff encouraged reporters to look to his past and people who knew him then. A Washington Post reporter did just that and came up with some detailed accounts of what a fun-loving, hilarious lad Willard Romney was in prep school.
The real thigh-slapper involved an English teacher with Mr. Magoo eyesight. He walked into closets and became the object of pranks from his adolescent charges. The one recounted is when the teacher and some students, including Mitty, accompanied him to the library, the entrance of which had a double set of glass doors. Romney opened the first door to graciously allow the teacher to pass. At the second door, Romney gave a gracious after-me gesture with his arm toward the unopened glass door. The teacher walked into it, which sent Romney into spasms of mirth and glee. Oh, that Mitty was a card. 
11:48
For the second straight year, I celebrate every mother all over the world with nothing but "Mom" songs. No, I don't mean lite rock or bubblegum pop. I'm talking about songs about these great ladies, performed by rockers, country dudes, and singer-songwriters. There's also a short set commemorating the birthday of my sister, Dawn (who is also a mommy, btw).
10:13
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| My wonderful children |
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| Me with three of my beautiful grandchildren |
00:01
Image by Getty Images via DaylifeOn this date in 1951, NFL coach Mike Martz, who was the offensive coordinator of the St. Louis Rams during their Super Bowl runs, was born in Sioux Falls.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3405b3f3-18d6-4b10-838f-f84c754d8d1c)
20:29
14:16
The Sturgis Public Library now has a Lego Club! Lego fans of all ages are invited to stop by the library on Tuesday, May 15th at 3:30 P.M. to play Legos. No need to bring your own Legos - the library will provide them! 
From Helga;
How did Noem finish four years of college in a little more then a year?
Noem was sworn in January 2011. She says she juggled a full course load last spring (2011) while at the same time finding her way around DC and she finished her classes by the fall of 2011. Earned her degree by December 2011. “Kristi Noem who in December of 2011 received her college diploma while serving her first term in office.” Enquiring minds would like to know how a person earns 2 years of college credit from spring to fall of 2011 (6-7 months)? And at the same time being a full time congress woman (South Dakota’s only congress person) traveling back and forth from DC to SD and around to various states fund raising.
For now the real point is she says she went to college for two years, 1990-1992, so that means she had 2 years left before she could get a degree. Apparently it never dawned on her while she was running the farm, having children, and then getting elected to the SD legislature that she might finish her college degree. (I could be snarky and add racing around the state getting tons of tickets). So 20 years later when she gets elected to the US House she decides she needs that piece of paper? I wonder how the heck she can get 2 years of college credits in less then a year? The last Washington Post story says one way she earned her degree was to “rack up intern credits”.
According to local press, one way the South Dakota Republican earned her degree was to rack up “intern credits.” We’re pretty sure her interning experience was vastly different than that of most fresh-faced college kids — she probably didn’t have to fetch coffee for the boss or subsist on a diet of 25-cent-wing nights and pitchers of beer at the Capitol Lounge.
The Post also points out;
Noem, 40, dropped out of college when she was 22 to run the family farm after her father died. She took courses here and there but life — marriage, kids, business, politics — kept her from finishing until now.
How? “I did a lot of homework on flights,” she told us Wednesday. The freshman Republican juggled a full course load and her new congressional duties last spring, then finished up her classes this fall. Her staff only scheduled her at must-attend events at night and often heard her protest, “I have to work on this paper! It’s due tomorrow!” Noem was studying the Eastern European financial crisis while debating the U.S. debt ceiling. “I think it really benefited me as a person intellectually.”
She gets elected as a US Congress woman and she gets credit for that, at least that is the way it looks to me. Too bad everyone else that works one or two jobs and goes to college at the same time doesn’t get credit for their jobs. Everyone else has to actually go to classes, take tests, pay for the classes with loans that she voted NO on because she thinks doubling the interest rate is just fine. It really just boils down to what classes did she take and how many credits did she get from those classes.
She says she went to Northern in Aberdeen, SDSU and Mount Marty in Watertown. Often times schools do not accept all the credits of other schools. So how many credits did she start with?
Representative Noem graduated from Hamlin High School in 1990 and has lived in the area her entire life. Kristi began her college education at Northern State, later transferring to SDSU and taking classes at Mount Marty in Watertown as well. The unexpected death of her father required Kristi to return to the family ranch full time. In recent years, Kristi has continued to pursue her degree in Political Science by taking classes at SDSU.
She is the only congress person of the state and she gets college credit as an intern. So how did she do it as a first term US House Rep and can other college students do that too? Who did she intern for, (certainly not herself), what papers, projects did she have to write for the internship, who graded them and who decided and approved how many credit hours she got for interning. If she got intern credits just because she’s a US House rep then she received selective treatment.
Besides wondering where the money is going to come from to build an indoor pool (some estimates are at $22 Million) I will bring up again, my main reason I am opposed to a public indoor pool; we don’t need it. There are several private indoor pool facilities you can swim at for a membership fee, just like a public indoor pool would charge. Why compete with private industry? The only way I would be for a public indoor pool was if the city contracted the service (like they do with the city’s golf courses). If the ‘need’ is there, the city will make money from the pool.
We have an important election coming up in November. There are two major ballot initiatives, one has to do with raising taxes the other has to do with education. I have concerns about how our elections have been handled over the past couple of years. I have a lot of questions, and not a lot of answers.
Let’s start from the beginning;
• A Sioux Falls mayoral election in which Staggers was victorious in the general and mysteriously 6,000 new voters showed up to the polls a few weeks later in the runoff helping Huether to clinch victory.
• Minnehaha County Auditor Bob Litz proudly displaying Build It Now signs in his yard until chided by me, an Argus reporter and another concerned citizen to remove the signs, in which he conceded.
• Sioux Falls City Clerk Debra Owen terminated just weeks before the crucial Events Center special election.
• Record turnout for a special election approving the new Events Center.
• Rumors of registered voters living outside of the city limits voting in the Events Center election using old Sioux Falls addresses (I heard of at least two instances where a voter lived in Canton, and one lived in Minnesota – blatant voter fraud).
• Jason Gant getting elected Secretary of State campaigning on a faux issue about the Feds taking over our elections. (This has been proven to be unsubstantiated).
• Secretary of State Gant trying to change rules without the consent of his special committee.
• A move towards e-polling and super precincts in Sioux Falls (I am all for e-polling, but I do not agree with super precincts. We live in a democracy, voting should be as easy as possible and ‘saving money’ should never be used as an excuse to use super precincts).
• Recent municipal election ballots running out. A seemingly dismissive city clerk and a silent School District employee with no real explanation. There wasn’t even an informal investigation by the SOS’s office that I heard of anyway.
• SOS’s operations manager possibly moonlighting as a campaign consultant, and once revealed makes an internet link joke about it.
As you can see, a lot of questions, not a lot of answers. I am only a volunteer blogger, I can’t find the answers to these questions on my own, our MSM needs to start digging.
BANNING TEXTING
I also am suspicious of the recent coalition that is proposing an ordinance change concerning banning texting in Sioux Falls, side stepping the state legislature. Does anyone find it a coincidence that the Mayor is good friends with one of the coalition’s members (Rob Oliver). I speculate this is a move to test the waters of our Home Rule charter by the mayor himself. Why isn’t this powerful group of individuals organizing a petition drive to get it on the November ballot for a statewide ban. And when the group’s leader, Rich Lauer was asked about the state’s involvement during the public services meeting, he was clueless as to why the state has failed to pass a ban (in other words they didn’t even attempt to explore that option).
Chief Barthel had concerns about the ordinance, he also had SFPD Captain Steve Haney, chair of a safe driving task force in Sioux Falls speak about his concerns. Something that stuck out in his testimony was that ‘Distracted Driving’ isn’t recognized by the state when filling out an accident report (I think that is what he was referring to) and says that state law has to change to fix that (as I mentioned above, there needs to be a petition drive to put this on the state ballot).
So why do I think the mayor is testing the waters? This is a perfect issue that could easily pass the council. Everyone agrees texting while driving is idiotic. What the mayor and council need to do though is learn from history. The city has lost 3 cases already in reference to the Home Rule charter and it’s power. It’s not a constitutional document. Daily vs. The City of Sioux Falls, the red light camera case and the city trying to regulate video lottery are prime examples of why the Home Rule charter cannot trump state law. The Public Services committee needs to table this proposal and send a clear message to the mayor’s office that it is not within the city’s power to regulate traffic laws, as Haney pointed out, that should be the state’s objective.
23:57
When I was a kid we still played cowboys and Indians and let me tell it straight: nobody wanted to be the cowboy. Indians were way cooler. A friend of mine had a picture of a Cherokee ancestor with long white hair in a three piece suit. He sold posters reproduced from the picture with the title "Puck's Uncle".
So I have some sympathy for Elizabeth Warren, who is trying to take back the Senate seat that Repubican Scott Brown lassoed after Ted Kennedy died. Warren decided early in her law professor career that she'd rather be an Indian than a cowgirl. From Legal Insurrection:
When Elizabeth Warren first acknowledged that she had represented herself to be Native American when filling out forms for the Association of American Law Schools directories in the mid-80s through mid-90s, Warren based her claim entirely on family "lore."
Warren's claim was accepted at face value by at least two institutions of higher learning. From the Boston Herald:
The University of Pennsylvania, where Warren worked from 1987 to 1994, listed her as a minority in a "Minority Equity Report." The report comes after Harvard Law School claimed Warren as a diversity hire in 1996.
This quickly turned into a crisis for the Warren Campaign. She claimed that she had listed herself as Native American "because I thought I might be invited to meetings where I might meet more people who had grown up like I had grown up." She vigorously denied she had taken advantage of the identification in her career and a lot of folks from Harvard and Penn came forward to back her up on that. Well, was she in fact part Native American?
Warren's campaign forgot the First Rule of Holes and kept digging. They rounded up a genealogist who conjured up evidence supposedly identifying a Cherokee ancestor of Ms. Warren. The Boston Herald:
"She would be 1⁄32nd of Elizabeth Warren's total ancestry," noted genealogist Christopher Child said, referring to the candidate's great-great-great-grandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith, who is listed on an Oklahoma marriage certificate as Cherokee. Smith is an ancestor on Warren's mother's side, Child said.
If genuine, it would make her, at most, 1/32nd Cherokee. Was it genuine? William A. Jacobson of Cornell Law School reports the following on his Legal Insurrection blog:
I reached out to Christopher Child, the well-known genealogist who was the source of the claim, and his employer, the prestigious New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), but they have gone silent, refusing to comment on, defend or correct their claim that Warren was 1/32 Cherokee.
I will be so bold as to point out the obvious. Warren's claim in the Law School Directory was fraudulent. There is not a shred of evidence that she is part Native American. The listing of Ms. Warren by Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania as a "diversity" hire is therefore equally fraudulent. The Warren campaign compounded the original fraud with the help of a sympathetic genealogist, but did so in a way almost guaranteed to blow up in their faces.
Apart from the blatant mendacity of this affair, it exposes so much that is wrong with the Affirmative Action regime. Let us suppose for a moment that Ms. Warren's great-great-great grandmother really was Cherokee. Would that entitle her to special consideration when applying for a job? Ms. Warren and her defenders vehemently deny that she benefitted in any way from minority identification, and that claim is altogether plausible. But why do they have to make it? Isn't the whole point of Affirmative Action to make minority status count for something in hiring and admissions? By denying that she benefitted from her minority status, don't they concede the point that Affirmative Action tarnishes the reputation of those who take advantage of it?
The affair strikes deeper at the idea of Affirmative Action than that. The justification for racial and ethnic preferences, one that is woven into constitutional law, is that they serve the compelling state interest of fostering diversity in higher education. By according preference to minority applicants, public universities bring in diverse viewpoints and unique perspectives. Okay. But does anyone really believe that Elizabeth Warren brought a unique perspective to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard just because her great-great-great grandmother was Cherokee? Isn't she in body and soul as White as a sheet of eight and half by eleven copier paper?
Elizabeth Warren is one on a very long line of White folks pretending to be Indians. I think that she had made an utter fool of herself, but it is not me that she needs to apologize to. Again from the Boston Herald:
Suzan Shown Harjo, a former executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, expressed outrage yesterday after learning that Warren had identified herself as a Native American on law school records without documentation.
"If you believe you are these things then that's fine and dandy, but that doesn't give you the right to claim yourself as Native American," said Harjo, who said Warren might have taken a job another Native American could have received.
21:21
20:54
20:33
Trust me, I'm well aware of my reputation as a curmudgeon. A negative creep, so to speak. Well over a decade of this blog is devoted to my vitrol, let alone my day to day bitchfests on twitter and Facebook. Yes, there's a reason I'm rarely invited anywhere (besides the fact that I tend to not show up anyway).
19:49
Starting life over can be daunting. Especially if you are the type of person that tends to plan everything. I was getting a little sad thinking how I have been here in VA for over a month and really haven't done much in the way of exploring. Then I remembered that one must first learn to walk before then can run.
So although I have started out at a crawl, I know as I learn my way around this new home of mine I will find my equilibrium. I have set my sights on the sky this week and am drawing limitless inspiration and comfort from their beauty.
southdacola (c) 5/11/12
Not only did we get a sweet naming rights contract, we also got a new location for the next Walmart.
(Notice the two birds flying above the place – LOL!)
Click here to view the embedded video.
From an SE Fair entertainment announcement email;
Coming to the 2012 Grandstand
Tracy Lawrence
Friday, August 10‘Tracy was sincerely disappointed that he couldn’t perform last year due to weather”, says Scott Wick, Fair Manager, “He made a point to personally meet with us at our convention in Las Vegas last fall to work out his return as to not disappoint his South Dakota fans.”
Maybe I am wrong about this, and hopefully music guru Hudson can chime in, but does the SE Fair really have to attend conventions to bring in musical acts? We have things called telephones and email to work out contracts now.
11:50
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| A native Mt. Rushmore: Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Dull Knife, Geronimo |
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Anaya said land restoration would help bring about reconciliation. He named the Black Hills as an example. He said restoring to indigenous people what they have a legitimate claim to can be done in a way that is not divisive "so that the Black Hills, for example, isn't just a reminder of the subordination and domination of indigenous peoples in that country."He did not specify Mt. Rushmore, although it is in the Black Hills. He did recognize, as has the U.S. Supreme Court that the appropriation of the Black Hills by the U.S. was a violation of a treaty through fraud, deadly force, and genocide. In an interview with Indian Country Today Media Network, he said:
I think there are a lot of issues and a lot of specific programs the federal government, in particular, is implementing to address those issues that I think are making some headway. But what I think needs to happen—this is what I heard [on my tour]—there needs to be a real reckoning of the history that indigenous people suffered and an understanding that the social conditions you mentioned—high suicide rates, alcoholism, domestic violence—are a direct consequence of this inter-generational trauma… And until there’s a reckoning and a reconciliation of this history… it’s going to be very difficult to fully address this laundry list of specific issues.He noted that this kind of appropriation of indigenous lands continues today:
You have two tracks going forward simultaneously. That is, the recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ rights but at the same time greater facilitation for multi-national resource companies to go on indigenous territories to extract the resources often in violation of Indigenous Peoples’ rights. And there doesn’t seem to be a coherent posture in many countries on how to reconcile those two tracks and if anything, the movement forward in extracting resources from indigenous lands is accelerated compared to the movement forward in implementing Indigenous Peoples’ rights.The return of the Black Hills to the control of the native people in restoring the integrity of the Treaty of 1868 is what is at issue in the settlement of the issue. Although the tribes have been offered a cash settlement, they have been adamant in their insistence that they want the return of the land, not the cash. The proposed Bradley Bill of the 1980s the Great Sioux Nation would get 1.3 million acres of the 7.5 million acres returned to them. The 1.3 million acres would be strictly U. S. National Forest Service land. No municipalities, no state owned land, no private land or no federal monument lands would have been threatened. That proposal has not been agreed to by the Great Sioux Nation, but remains the best negotiating point for the settlement of this issue. Of course, it exempts Mt. Rushmore, the national and state parks from the restoration of lands.
11:32
The Argus Leader ran a report on homeschooling that ended with this:
During North Dakota’s last legislative session, state officials tried to raise the required educational level for home-school teachers to a bachelor’s degree. Meanwhile, the home-schoolers pushed a proposal to eliminate mandatory tests. Both efforts failed.
“That was a pretty tough fight last session,” said Gwyn Marback, assistant director of teacher and school effectiveness for the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction.
“They just want more freedom. They don’t want to be told what to do.”
For Brain, few of the restrictions neighboring states have in place would affect her. But freedom to teach her children as she pleases is a matter of principle.
“It’s not like we don’t teach all the subjects,” she said. “I just don’t like being dictated to.”
Marback’s view is that the state has a responsibility to all children, whether or not the government pays for their education.
“They are North Dakota kids. They’re our kids, and we need to know they’re being educated,” she said.
Sad to see the attitude that kids are the states property. That is anti-parental rights. Many who homeschool do so because they know government schools are not about education, but instead are establishing a New Age Religion that will foster a one-world system. And the report points to a movement to take freedom away from parents and force them to homeschool with the same global standards:
However, Education Secretary Melody Schopp said in a recent interview that she wants to re-examine home-school laws and maybe bring new legislation next year. She said she is concerned some home-school students are not in a good learning environment.
“It is one of the things I would like to talk with districts about over the summer and see what other states are doing,” she said. “I think it would be good to go back and review it.”
...
Bonni Boschee, the Northern State University assistant professor who surveyed home-school parents last year, developed an interest in the subject during her 16 years as an elementary school teacher.
“I would get home-schooled children with such varied abilities,” she said, some well ahead of their peers and others well behind.
Her survey found that only 45 percent followed the state’s curriculum standards, and most were using tests from California. However, 35 percent felt their children would not be challenged enough in a local public or private school.
It’s impossible to know how South Dakota’s home-school students are performing relative to the rest of the state. School districts collect the tests, but they don’t necessarily keep them in a reportable format — Sioux Falls School District spokeswoman DeeAnn Konrad said results they store are on paper, not a computer.
The state Department of Education does not collect the test scores. Even if it did, tests would be difficult to compare to the different tests taken by public school students.
So it is clear that the goal is to get homeschoolers to follow the same globalist standards that are being used in government schools. Here is what that means:
Rifkin quite lucidly ties New Age doctrines to the concept of Global Education. Since it is man's creation, we should use global political and economic education to help others attain this idea of spiritual global consciousness.
In order to accomplish this implementation of Global Education into our public-school system, proponents advocate the following basic principles: (1) everyone should become involved with people of other cultures; (2) from earliest childhood, global studies should be involved in all areas of study; (3) economic interdependence among all peoples and nations should be stressed; and (4) the changing role of individual "nations" (including the U.S.) should be emphasized, highlighting the increasing importance of international organizations.
On the surface, some of these may appear acceptable, but beneath lies a program of "cultural evolution" designed to swallow up national and personal distinctives while substituting imprecise definitions of ethics. This is the type of thinking which could produce a climate ripe for a charismatic one-world leader, whom the Bible calls the Anti-Christ.
By undermining cultural, religious, national, and economic distinctives, the stage is being set for the alternative of a synthetic, unified system. For example, Global Education proponents are calling for a world religion under the authority of a one-world government. This new world religion is envisioned as a synthesis of Christian ethics and Eastern Mysticism, in which the task of re-ordering our traditional values and institutions is given over to our public schools.
Clearly we have a violation of religious liberty here. Parents are paying an education tax and then are forced to pay for their own education in order to avoid having their children indoctrinated with the New Age Religion that will establish a global theocracy. And now the goal is to go even further and force the homeschoolers to follow the same New Age Religious curriculum or have their kids forced into the government schools. This must be stopped.
10:26
This photo is so classic… a beautiful Black Hills creek highlighted by a large boulder! I'd buy this claim is it was advertised on the internet (which is isn't!).
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Not nearly as pretty but that's where the gold is! |
10:06
Recently, the National Forest Protection Alliance (NFPA) issued a report challenging the way the 1,242,713-acre Black Hills National Forest (BHNF) is being managed. Working with the Black Hills Group of the Sierra Club, Biodiversity Associates and the Black Hills Sioux Indian Treaty Council, NFPA published "America's 10 Most Endangered National Forests," featuring it as the third-most endangered in the national forest system.To be fair, much of the fire burned over BLM ground pock-marked with 130 years of mining scars overgrown with non-native plant species.
00:19
The President has finally come out of the closet, politically speaking, on legal same sex marriage. From ABC News:
President Obama has abandoned his longstanding opposition to same-sex marriage but says the decision on whether or not to legalize the unions should be left up to individual states, which are "arriving at different conclusions at different times"…
"At a certain point, I've just concluded that, for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married," he said.
As positions go, this one is reasonable. It must be, because it is my position. I think that legal same sex marriage is pretty much inevitable and I think that it is the right thing to do. I do not, however, believe that the US Constitution requires it nor do I believe that it should be imposed on the states by Congress.
The President describes his views as "evolving". Revolving would be more like it. In 1996 he was on record as being all for same sex marriage and opposed to efforts to ban it. In 2004, running for the US Senate, he said this:
"I'm a Christian," he said. "I do believe that tradition and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman."
Now he has come full circle. Much the same thing must be said about Mitt Romney, who was all for same sex marriage before he was against it. Call me a cynic, but I suspect that the evolution of both men had a lot more to do with political calculations than with genuine soul searching.
If there is a difference here, it is this. I have no idea what Mitt Romney really thinks about this issue, but I have a pretty good idea what he would do. He would do nothing. He won't try to reverse the ban on homosexuals in the military. He won't try to use federal power to coerce the states in one direction or the other.
I have a pretty good idea what Barack Obama thinks. I don't believe he has ever been really opposed to same sex marriage. What I don't know is what he will do once safely reelected. Will he respect the right of states to decide the issue, as he suggests in his ABC interview? Or will he use every power at his disposal to try to compel the states to drop their opposition? Whither will he evolve next? It would be nice to know.
What I do know is that Obama's position is logically at odds with the actions of his own Justice Department. Here is Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy:
The problem with the President's position is that it cannot be reconciled with the Administration's stance on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. According to Attorney General Eric Holder, he and the President concluded that the constitutionality of legal distinctions based upon sexual preference cannot be defended. In their view, because DOMA precludes federal recognition of same-sex marriages, it violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the Fifth Amendment. Further, according to Holder's statement, they concluded that no "reasonable" constitutional argument could be made in DOMA's defense.
Yet if DOMA is unconstitutional under equal protection, which applies to the state and federal governments equally, then how could any state law barring recognition of same-sex marriages survive constitutional scrutiny?
In other words, while the President says he believes that states should be allowed to reach "different conclusions at different times" on the question of same-sex marriage, the administration's legal position is that a state's refusal to treat opposite-sex and same-sex couples alike is unconstitutional. So while the President may say he'd like to leave this question to the states, that's an option his administration has already taken off the table.
Once again we are faced with a choice. Either this former constitutional law professor doesn't understand what his own administration is doing, constitutionally speaking, or he is not being candid about it.
Six states allow legal same sex marriage. In several cases this has been the result of court action. Thirty states have laws that confine marriage to a union between a man and a woman. All of them have been passed by popular vote. Apparently, a lot of people do not share the view that I hold and that the President professes.
To be sure, this is a Republic and not a democracy. The Constitution controls popular majorities as much as it controls the President and Congress. Is this a case where the people ought to be overruled? I think the people of North Carolina and the people of South Dakota ought to know what the President will do on this score. His personal feelings are irrelevant. What matters is what he intends and is prepared to do. All we know right now is that he says one thing and does another.
21:10
This issue is contentious and assessing the information has been rather difficult. Many legislators who supported regulating medical marijuana in Montana actually voted to repeal its use entirely and the legislative hearings were rife with miscalculations, exaggerations, and blatant lies.From HuffPo via Cannabis Culture:
A bipartisan measure that would have eliminated funding for federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states where they're legal failed Wednesday in the House of Representatives. The legislation, introduced by Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), Sam Farr (D-Calif.), Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), and Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), was part of the appropriations bill to fund the Department of Justice for fiscal 2013. It failed 262-163. Of the 190 Democrats in the House, 134 (more than 70 percent) voted in favor of the bill. Only 29 of the 242 House Republicans (less than 12 percent) did.
20:05
15:48
The peach tree my son in law planted when they first moved here three years ago is always good for a few nice shots. It is also a good source for some fun family memories. After capturing a few shots from various angles I was distracted by the beauty of the sky.
The trees were in the way so I stepped out of the yard into the wide lawn between the houses to capture some clear shots of the sky. I was only out there a few minutes when I turned around and was met by this sight.
14:51
09:52
Traversie said he’s been working closely with Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Kevin Keckler and his District 5 representative, Robin LeBeau, to sort through the many incoming offers for legal counsel. He said their assistance is invaluable.
“I don’t know anything about this, and I don’t have the resources to do background checks,” he explained. “We’re getting calls from all over. I hope to have representation this week.”
Chairman Keckler confirmed that his office is working with Traversie to sort through the deluge of offers.
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| Yakima Tribal Chair Harry Smiskin |
As a former tribal and Bureau of Indian Affairs police officer, I am particularly disturbed by what has not taken place in the aftermath of the assault upon Mr. Traversie. Upon the Yakama Nation’s inquiry of his tribal leaders and other relatives, I understand that there has been a complete failure of any federal, state or local law enforcement agency to take any initiative on the matter – despite that the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Police have determined conclusively that a hate crime has been committed against Mr. Traversie. In particular, the United States seems to ignore the trust responsibility it owes Mr. Traversie as a Sioux Indian. Like the assault itself, this federal and state inaction is grossly unjust.
To be clear, the federal Civil Rights Act makes it illegal for a person to be discriminated against based upon his race. In particular, private individuals and corporations who deprive a person the equal protection and equal privileges provided by law, based upon racial or other class-based motives, violate the Civil Rights Act. Likewise, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, recently signed by President Barack Obama, says that: “Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
21:17
17:00
Get out, explore, and catch a fish…on us! Next weekend is open house and free fishing weekend across South Dakota. All of the state parks and campgrounds will offer free admittance and require no fishing licenses May 18-20, 2012.
Fishing on South Dakota's Waters
This provides a great opportunity for visitors to explore the beauty and natural wonders of South Dakota’s fantastic state park system. It’s also a nice time for South Dakota’s own residents to explore what is in their own backyard, or perhaps take a quick trip to a neighboring park to explore a new adventure.
Palisades State Park
Several parks are holding special events in conjunction with the open house weekend. The Lewis and Clark Recreation Area near Yankton will be having Techno-Treasure Hunt (geocaching for beginners); Custer State Park will be hosting the annual Volksmarch Trail where visitors will walk their own 6.2 miles through various park habitats. Palisades State Park is holding a family fishing event where poles and bait are provided. Newton Hills State Park will be hosting Youth Activity Day where participants will be exposed to several activities presented by South Dakota Wildlife and Parks staff; visitors can try out archery, muzzleloader shooting, campfire cooking, and fishing! And finally, there will be a Creatures of the Night Hike at Chief White Crane Recreation area. For more information and details on all of these events, visit [www.gfp.sd.gov] .
So head out and find a cozy spot in one of our state parks. We hope you enjoy a fantastic weekend, and this time, it’s on us!
Hiking in the Black Hills
Note: Camping fees still apply
A new poll published a couple of weeks ago by the Democratic leaning group Third Way showed that 47 percent of independent voters in 12 battleground states, including 51 percent who identified as “swing independents” who are still undecided, agreed with this Republican messaging statement, “We need an economy based on opportunity, where hard work is rewarded, the government lives within its means, and economic growth is our top priority.”
10:43
Don't forget to vote for People's Choice Award!
09:43
Relays run
Okay, I have whined about this quietly long enough after I missed all 3 public meetings tonight. I have made several councilors and the city clerks office aware of the multiple glitches their is with their program SIRE that they use to post the public meetings online. What the Heck already? I mean I can understand it not working a few times, but this is starting to get ridiculous. Taxpayers pay for this service? Right? So when something isn’t working it should get fixed? Right? And not 2 or 3 days later? Right? This is software and programming not rocket science.
And this is the part I don’t get (an email from the clerk’s office tonight);
Scott,
Thank you for your email. Our office and our IT Department are aware of the issue.
The meeting may be viewed on CityLink (Channel 16).
Great. So why are the video cameras able to transmit to the city’s TV station but not to the internets? My response;
I haven’t had cable for over 2 years, but thanks for the advice.
Fix it already or subscribe to a new service that actually works.
00:57
I have been waging a battle on behalf of the obvious for several days on this blog. I pointed out that the initial deal brokered by US diplomats on behalf of Chen Guangcheng, on the protection of which he left the American embassy, was a deeply embarrassing bungle. I presented evidence of this from a wide range of sources. My cherished interlocutor, A.I., accused me of trying to "baffle em with bullshit".
I think I have about beat this one to death, but today I chanced to listen to the New Yorker Political Scene, a podcast I subscribe to. On May 3rd, just in the middle of things, Evan Osnos, the China correspondent for the magazine, and pundit Ryan Lizza. Here is my transcription of their discussion.
Evan Osnos. Well, initially the deal sounded quite promising, if unusual, which was that the US side announced that they had struck an agreement with the Chinese that would allow Chen Guangcheng to relocate with his family from their home village where they had been subject to such persecution to move elsewhere in China…
But it was really only within a couple of hours that this deal began to unravel. He had gotten to the hospital and was reunited with his wife and it was at that point, it becomes clear now, that he began to learn of the immense pressure that his family and wife were under after he escaped. The guards who had been surrounding his house for years essentially moved into the house. As he put it several times, they were eating at his table; they'd installed security cameras in his house and they said, essentially, had he not agreed to this deal the Chinese guards told his wife that they would beat her to death.
So he gets out of the embassy and, you have to imagine the mindset that this guy has at this point. He's obviously exhausted. He's in the middle of an enormously complex diplomatic negotiation. And then he's told by everyone around him that there is no way that the Chinese government is actually going to honor its promises and protect him in the years ahead and I think that's the point at which this got extremely complicated because he began saying that he wants to leave China, that he made a mistake and that he had been in some sense pressured to leave the embassy early.
After the deal was announced and it was said that Chen was going to be starting a new life in China and he would be given the protection of the Chinese Government and that US officials would be able to monitor him, this was greeted right away by skepticism from the human rights community and from people who are familiar with the way things work in China because frankly that scenario always seemed farfetched. It's just difficult to imagine that this man could go from being under brutal house arrest on one day and then a week later is enrolling in a new university with this family. The fact is that was always a higher bar than they were ever going to meet. But the fact is that it came unraveled even faster than anyone could imagine.
Ryan Lizza: I mean if that's the case I mean that it seems really embarrassing for the Administration and for Kurt Campbell, the Assistant Secretary for, what is it, East Asian Affairs, Evan, and Hillary Clinton who's over there, they sort of took ownership of this deal, bragged about it to the American press, and now the story seems to be coming out that this guy Chen was offered no protection whatsoever.
Evan Osnos. The other thing that seems worth mentioning here is that this is a rare case in which both the US government and the Chinese Government end up looking terrible, frankly. This is not a deal that has produced any benefits for anybody, with the exception of the Romney Campaign.
That is the position that I have taken.
Do people even understand the freedoms of our democracy anymore?
“I don’t mind taking a few extra minutes doing the body scan. If that’s what it takes to feel safe, they can scan us,” Tonya Miller of San Francisco said. “People complain or whine, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I have to do this.’ As long as we can feel safe with the family in the airplane, I’m fine.”
So let me get this straight. The airline companies can overcharge us for an uncomfortable ride, and take naked pictures of us before we PAY THEM for a service? Sounds about right.
23:35
There were two interesting elections today, one in Indiana and one in Wisconsin. Republicans turned out Richard Lugar, who had represented Indiana in the U.S. Senate since 1976. Lugar's defeat is an obvious sign that the Tea Party is still a potent political force. State Treasurer Richard Mourdock won 61% of the primary vote, a landslide. Of course if Mourdock loses in November it will be another case of the Republican Party shooting itself in the butt. This certainly puts a new seat in play for the Democrats.
Lugar was eighty and it was probably time for him to retire. He also made the mistake loosening his ties with his constituency. Lugar was declared ineligible to vote in his "home district." He hasn't really lived in Indiana for a long time. He also seemed to regard his Senate seat as something he was entitled to. It's hard to blame him, but those are the things that can be the kiss of death for an incumbent Senator.
I am guessing that Mourdock holds that seat for the Republicans.
The other election was doubly interesting. It was the special primary ahead of the recall election that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is facing next month. Two things stand out. One is that the Union candidate, Kathleen Falk, was flattened by Tom Barrett (35 to 57%). The Unions of course were the major force behind the recall election, hoping to punish Walker for his curbs on public union collective bargaining. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Shrugging off millions of dollars spent by labor groups to defeat him, Tom Barrett walked to victory in Tuesday's Democratic primary and set up a more taxing sprint toward June 5 - a historic recall that will be a rematch of his unsuccessful 2010 race against Gov. Scott Walker.
In the recall primary, The Associated Press called the race for the Milwaukee mayor over former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, showing that more than $4 million doesn't necessarily buy a close race.
It has been frequently noted that the Democrats primary campaign shifted its focus away from union issues to bread and butter economic issues. From the WaPo:
MADISON, Wis. — When Wisconsin Democrats launched their recall drive against Republican Gov. Scott Walker last year, it was all about unions. They wanted Walker to pay with his job for pushing legislation that stripped almost all public workers of nearly all their collective bargaining rights.
More recently, Democrats, buoyed by fresh federal statistics that show Wisconsin's economy is still sputtering badly, have tried to transform the election into a referendum on the governor's failure to put people back to work. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and a group supporting Kathleen Falk, the two front-runners for the Democratic nomination, launched new television ads over the last three days ripping Walker for not creating jobs.
The steam has all gone out of the union kettle.
Powerline noted the other thing that stands out. Despite facing only token opposition in the Republican Primary, almost as many Republicans turned out to vote for Walker as voted for all the Democratic candidates combined (614,000 to 651,000). That suggests that Walker has a strong base of support. Instead of a referendum on Walker's public union reforms, the election will be simply a repeat of the last one. A lot of voters will wonder why it was worth the cost.
I am guessing that Walker survives, probably comfortably.
21:38
20:16
We haven’t talked about female prospectors much, and being the weekend before Mother’s Day I thought it a good time to discuss an email from Pat about the subject:
Wyatt, please explain your involvement with Urban Agriculture in the city of Sioux Falls.
My wife and I moved to Sioux Falls in February of 2010. We bought a house with a large yard in the Lacey Park neighborhood and, as soon as the weather was nice enough, tore out a large chunk of our backyard and planted a garden. We also did some research and found that it’s legal to keep poultry in city limits (so long as they don’t constitute a nuisance). Shortly after, we built a coop behind our garage and added a mixed flock of six chickens.
Being relative newcomers, we wanted to meet other people raising chickens in town who were also interested in urban agriculture. We didn’t know many people, so I started a blog in hopes of connecting with others. Initially, the plan was to meet enough backyard chicken owners to organize a Tour de Coop, which is basically an opportunity for the public to get an educational, first-hand look at urban chicken coops and gardens. A few months passed and I got a call from a reporter at the Argus Leader asking if I’d like to make a comment about the city’s plans to review the urban agriculture ordinance. At the time I wasn’t following city politics and didn’t know that this was happening. I contacted the city’s zoning enforcement officer who was planning to make a presentation about the topic at the next Land Use Committee meeting. I sent her a research paper from the University of New Mexico comparing 13 different communities which had recently-enacted pro-chicken ordinances. In reply, I received an invitation to provide testimony at the next Land Use meeting.
Through my blog and accompanying facebook page, I asked others who care about the issue to also attend the meeting and provide public input. We had a great turn out and I think we sent the council a clear message that there are a lot of people invested in this issue. We provided testimony about the benefits of urban poultry and asked that the city leave the ordinance as is. The upshot was that Chairman Rolfing asked Zoning to bring together a task force made up of community members, councilors, and representatives from various city departments to study the issue and make recommendations.
Shortly after, a number of the residents who attended that night’s council meeting organized to establish a community action group now called Homegrown Sioux Falls. We teamed up with Dakota Rural Action and focused on lobbying the task force to craft a fair chicken ordinance and on educating the public about the benefits of responsible urban poultry raising. So far the group has hosted two events—a Chicken Mingle and screening of the film “Mad City Chickens”—and is currently planning the Tour de Coop for this summer, 2012.
As a member of the Urban Ag task force do you feel the proposed changes have been positive or negative, in other words, has there been progress or do you feel there is more of a push by the city to be more controlling?
I think there has been a lot of misinformation about the goal of the task force, especially regarding gardens. I’ve heard from some people who are worried the city is looking to restrict backyard gardening, etc. The reality is that the task force is looking for ways to enhance urban agriculture. And, in the community gardening discussion at least, I think that’s exactly what has happened.
I think the new community garden proposal is a positive step for the city to take and should be lauded by urban ag advocates. As it stands currently, community gardening on vacant lots where agriculture is the “primary use” is actually illegal. This would apply to gardens like the one on Cliff Avenue across from Avera. The current task force proposal, which is in the process of review, legalizes this type of gardening and makes a clear statement that the city supports the expansion of urban agriculture and is working to provide land access to low-income populations.
The community garden proposal allows for on-site rain water collection, composting, and the planting of cover crops. The only criticism I have is the language requiring a 5 ft setback for garden beds from property lines. I feel that’s unnecessarily restrictive.
The second issue that the task force is going to attempt to address is the keeping of animals. We’ve only had two meetings focused on this topic so far, so I can’t really provide much insight into how the final proposal will look; however, I am fairly confident that because there are so many passionate people involved in the process, the ordinance regulating chickens will end up being a progressive one.
I think moving forward, as discussion continues about how residents keep animals in town, the task force should continue to see this as an issue of people’s right to feed themselves. Criticisms that backyard chickens will negatively affect property values or resale potential don’t hold water—and miss the point entirely. First of all, many residents, especially people in my generation, see backyard chickens and chicken coops as an asset when considering purchasing a property. Secondly, if you ask people in my part of town what’s the biggest blow to their home’s resale potential, I’m willing to be they would all mention the same thing: the smell from a pork processing plant that’s located over a mile away.
In contrast to this, I find it extremely ironic that anyone would even bring up backyard chickens in a discussion about property values. It’s easy to see the pork plant as the elephant in the room. Given that, I think this discussion really comes down to a clear choice between the people’s right to produce their own food, on a small-scale, or a continued collective dependence on the industrial model that requires massive processing plants like the one we have here in Sioux Falls (which, incidentally, has earned countless environmental citations and plays a pivotal role in the Big Sioux’s ranking as the country’s 13th dirtiest river).
I know one of the proposals is to limit the number of chickens you can have in your yard and getting permission from your neighbor. What do you think of those proposals?
AND, doesn’t getting permission from your neighbor go against property rights?
I think that putting a limit on the number of chickens can be a good thing if it’s done properly. It doesn’t help the cause when people keep too many birds or are irresponsible. But, the idea or requiring residents to obtain their neighbor’s approval is bad policy which I feel goes against the fundamental principles our country was founded on.
Your neighbor’s opinions are completely subjective. There’s no consistency to an ordinance that is dependent a community’s psychographic make-up. I feel that as a home owner and tax-paying resident, I should be granted the choice to do what I want with my property without asking my neighbor’s permission—so long as it’s within the law. If my neighbor wants to paint his house bright purple, he’s free to do that. It might not be the color I would have chosen, but I understand that he is an adult who pays his property taxes and has the right to paint his house whatever color he likes.
Back to the number-of-birds question, I think it should be dependent on the size of your property. Just like ranchers know the environmental importance of ratios of cows per acre of pasture, city residents should be able to raise chickens on their property as size allows. I think people get upset about regulations when they see them as being completely arbitrary. If it was decided to cap the number of chickens at, say, six . . . well, where did that number come from? There’s no reason or logic behind it. There’s no way to explain it to people. I feel that there’s really no need for that kind of arbitrary limit when you can just as easily base the number on lot size.
As city councilor elect Kermit Staggers pointed out to me, there are already noise ordinances in place that can limit how many ‘noisy’ animals you can have. Do you agree with that or do you think there should be other ordinances in place for people who keep chickens?
Initially, I asked the council to keep the ordinance as is. So no, as a property owner, I don’t see a need to change anything. You’re right that the city does have a noise ordinance already in place. But from enforcement’s standpoint, and to settle potential disputes between neighbors, I can definitely see the need to clarify the language. Who decides what constitutes a nuisance? I don’t know how to answer that, and I’m not sure the city does either. I think as long as the ordinance is written properly, it can be a good thing for both chicken owners and their neighbors.
As a friend pointed out to me, if the city wants to limit the number of chickens a person could have, what’s next, limiting the amount of wildlife your yard and forage attracts?
The old slippery slope? As much as I appreciate your friend’s comparison, I’m not sure it really applies here. The city already limits the number of dogs and cats you can own. Regulating wildlife would be pretty much impossible because there’s no way to prove how many animals you’re attracting. Again, I feel a balance can be achieved that respects both chicken keepers and non-chicken keepers alike. I don’t think crafting an ordinance that addresses the number of chickens you can keep in your backyard will somehow send the city down a regulatory slippery slope.
What would be your suggestions, if any, in changes to city ordinance in regards to urban agriculture and poultry in particular. In other words, if you wrote the new ordinances, how would they read?
Again, I would personally be okay with leaving the ordinance as is. But I do see the city’s predicament and their need to clarify. I’ve talked to quite a few people about what they would like to see in an ordinance, and there seems to be consensus that if a limit is going to be put on the number of chickens you can raise, it needs to take property size into consideration. For example, there are properties in my part of town that are close to an acre. It doesn’t make sense to say those residents can only have as many birds as residents with a 6000 square foot lot. The bigger your lot, the more birds you can have—to me and a lot of other people, that seems like the most sensible approach.
I don’t think the city should require any sort of fee or make people jump through the hoops of a “permitting” process. That just creates bureaucracy and disempowers residents who are trying to be more self-sufficient. These are the residents the city should be trying hard to support. They are trying to turn their properties into units of production. If everyone in Sioux Falls did that, think of the economic and social impact it would have on our community.Keep in mind, for as long as Sioux Falls has been a city, people have been raising chickens in their backyards. If the council wants to enact any changes regarding the way people do this, they will do well to remember that those new regulations will effectively impact people’s ability to feed themselves. When you mess with someone’s breakfast, it’s personal. So I urge caution. But I’m also optimistic about what the ordinance will end up looking like. The task force is made up of open-minded individuals, who I’m sure will come up with a proposal that is not needlessly restrictive. But, in order to do that we need thoughtful input and participation from forward-thinking residents who understand that self-sufficiency and sustainability are the future. If you care about this issue, please come to the meetings and make your voice heard.
11:43
Do I think people should be texting and driving? No. If you participate in texting and driving, please, stop. It’s stupid and dangerous, and believe it or not, you could harm or kill yourself if not someone else. Yes, it is that serious. In fact some studies have proven that texting and driving is more dangerous then drinking and driving. That being said, I commend this local group for advocating a ban, but their approach worries me a bit;
Coordinator Rich Lauer said Sioux Falls has an opportunity under home rule to regulate distracted driving, and it’s the city’s obligation to do something to reduce the threat to public safety. He also said it has been proven that majority of people stop whatever behavior it is a law prohibits, which is what he thinks would be the case with a texting while driving ban.
The group’s proposal calls for prohibiting texting while driving anywhere in city limits, with no exceptions. The other piece of the proposal would forbid the use of any handheld electronic device while driving in a school zone when children are present, with exceptions for law enforcement, fire rescue, and EMT personnel on official business.
So what part of this proposal worries me? The US Constitution and the State Constitution trump ANY city ordinance. The Home Rule charter has been challenged twice in recent years and has been found to be unconstitutional (Daily vs. SF and the Red Light Camera suit). I’m afraid that if Sioux Falls implements this ‘ordinance’ there will be court challenges. Sure, like mentioned in the video, just like code enforcement, most people will comply, and heck, why shouldn’t they? Like I said above, texting and driving is stupid, and you shouldn’t be doing it anyway, but hey, I still know people who don’t wear their seat belts.
Coordinator Rich Lauer says he was ‘disappointed’ the state did not pass a ban. I agree, so do the right thing. I think this group’s time would be better spent trying to change state law, in fact I encourage them to make it a ballot issue and put it on the November ballot, but please, don’t open the city up to more constitutional lawsuits, we have an Events Center we have to pay for, extra money for attorneys is sparse.
(Their proposal will be made at the public services committee meeting today)
21:12
The other night the power went out just as we were getting ready to start cooking dinner. My first thought was alright we can just have sandwiches. Then my daughter informed me that her and my Son-in-Law have made it somewhat of a tradition that when the power goes out before dinner is made they go out to eat. So we loaded up the kids and went out for an enjoyable meal. I do believe I like that tradition. Of course I took my camera just in case something caught my eye. Like this bubbly glass of Mt. Dew.
(Image: www.fallsparkfarmersmarket.com)
It’s one thing to steal video lottery revenue from Sioux Falls, now Grand Falls is stealing farmers;
The market will be held Sundays in the Grand Falls parking lot from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The market will begin July 8 and continue through Aug. 26. There is no cost for vendors to host a space.
I wonder what affect this will have on the Farmer’s Market by Falls Park? Hmmmmmm.
Stormland-TV did have a story about it.
11:37
10:20
The idea that the nation should move to renewable and sustainable forms of energy was at one time one that held an appeal across the political spectrum. In fact, some true conservatives who believed in conservation were its most dedicated advocates. The membership of conservation organizations which worked to clean up and preserve earth were not divided along party lines in the early years of environmental advocacy. Partisan affiliations were irrelevant to that work. During the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, the facts of plunder and pollution were inescapable. They were in the air we breathed, the rain whose acid scorched forests and plains, and etched deeply into the landscape. They confronted communities and organizations. In the early 70s I was a member of a church council that each summer spent considerable money to paint the church parsonage, only to see the paint flaking and peeling and dissolving away by spring. The church was near a factory area where foundries sent toxic and corrosive fumes into the air. Emphysema was a common ailment among men who worked in that environment. There was no disagreement between Democrats and Republicans that what we were burning for fuel and the emissions it sent into the air needed to be changed.
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| China">[www.renewablepowernews.com] is designing renewable energy cities. |
08:43
Wildlife corridors, which connect wildlife habitats, have been proposed for states as different as California and New Jersey. There's even a transnational one planned to stretch from Yukon to Yellowstone. But do they really help to heal fragmented landscapes? "All the study that's been done so far has been typically at very small scales, and only looking at very short-term animal movement," says Paul Beier, a conservation biologist at Northern Arizona University. "What's yet to be known is whether the longer corridors — on the scale of miles — will, over the long term, promote gene flow and allow things like animals to recolonize areas," he says.Even after recent rains the continental volume of dead grasses between Hoover and Santa Fe is explosively dry: goddess have mercy on us for we know not what we do.
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