2007 in Review: What Did You Learn from the Madville Times?

I struggled with the format I wanted for my 2007 retrospective. How should newspeople and bloggers quantify the "Top Ten Stories of 2007"?

1. I could rank stories by number of posts and length: the DQ Miracle Treat Day might come out on top, followed by the TransCanada Keystone pipeline, teacher pay, and health care would probably come out on top.
2. I could rank posts by how many comments they drew: again, teacher pay was a big draw, as well as health care, abortion (even without David's persistent efforts), and local politics (remember the new gym?).
   
3. I could rank posts by how often they drew Google searches: alas, the biggest non-story of the year, Shawn Cable, would win that one hands down, although lately the Lakota treaty withdrawal has been topping the searches.

Perhaps later -- heck, perhaps as a side project in my doctoral studies! -- I'll do a quantitative analysis of the 640 posts and hundreds more comments. But on this last morning of 2007, I revert, as is my habit, to the pedagogical paradigm and ask the question, "What have we learned here?" What are the most important things you've learned reading the Madville Times this year? ("Heidelberger's a raving idiot!" doesn't count.)

Here's my list of the most significant things I learned while blogging in 2007:

1. Teacher pay in South Dakota is worse than we thought. We often rationalize our persistent low teacher pay by saying our low cost of living compensates for the difference. But when the difference in average teacher pay between South Dakota and the next lowest state, North Dakota, is $3000, that argument doesn't hold water. In July and December, I found stats that show the gap between South Dakota's cost of living and that in surrounding states doesn't come close to the teacher pay gap.

But hey, the social engineers on the radical right will shortly be able to use South Dakota for more experimentation: when all of our young teachers move to Minnesota and Wyoming for higher pay, South Dakotans will all have to be homeschooled (which actually might not be so bad).

2. The "Toyota lottery" doesn't work. Madison's economic development efforts have focused on the big score, recruiting big manufacturers to bring a whole slew of jobs at once. manufacturers like Persona and Dakota Vinyl (or like Knight and Carver over in Howard) provide good jobs, and the folks who work in those plants are darn glad for the work.

But while these manufacturers have a big positive impact when they set up shop and operate, they also have a big impact when they leave. And they do leave: Guerdons in 1980, Rosco in 2003, May & Scofield in 2005, Arctic Cat and Pavement Services in 2007. The money we spend recruiting big employers from elsewhere naturally attracts the more mobile, less rooted companies who are willing to leave for the slightly better incentives that another community will offer. When we bid for big out-of-state manufacturers or other employers, we are bidding against other cities all around the world. There will always be someone who can outbid us with tax incentives, cheaper land, or a bigger available workforce (our already low unemployment rate is a conversation stopper with a lot of companies looking to relocate).

We would do better to look for small-scale, local solutions. If we have money sitting around for recruiting comanies, we should take the big offers to big outside companies and divide them up into lots more little offers to local entrepreneurs with a greater commitment to our community than a desire for higher profits.

3. Republicans aren't really committed to the free market. Whether we're talking Tax Increment Finance Districts, eminent domain for pipelines, or health insurance mandates, Republicans are not the champions of the free market their sound bites would have us believe. They cry socialism when the left proposes to correct failures of the free market that hurt the poor and middle class (like the shysterism of the health insurance industry that could be rectified by Kucinich's single-payer not-for-profit plan), but they have no problem with government interventions in the market that suit the business interests of their country club friends (right, Sibby?).

Not that Republicans (or Democrats, or Independents) should defend the free market at every turn. The free market is not ordained by the Bible or the Constitution as the proper order of things; it is just one means to the proper end of liberty, and when the free market infringes on liberty (as it often does), government must intervene. Republicans just need to be honest about their principles and quit fighting the Cold War in their economic rhetoric.

And while I'm thinking about it....

4. Tax Increment Finance Districts might not be so bad. My commentary on the Tax Increment Finance District approved by the Madison City Commission for Randy Schaefer's development out behind the Schaefer Plaza prompted a conversation with the developer himself, a conversation in which I learned the following:

1. The developer doesn't stand to make out like a bandit; the tax increment financing should turn a losing project into maybe a break-even project.
   
2. Schaefer sounds committed to making real affordable housing happen, right in line with the needs the LAIC and city have identified. The building values cited in the original application -- $110K to $150K, which didn't strike me as particularly low income values -- were spur-of-the-moment figures, not finalized plans. Schaefer is still brainstorming how to maximize affordability.
   
3. The inclusion of the commercial property in the TIF District isn't some insidious plot; it actually makes sure that the school district doesn't lose out on as much tax revenue as it would if the district were strictly residential.

Schaefer, like the rest of us, is interested in seeing the TIF District benefit the whole community. In that spirit, the Madville Times is happy to offer recommendations for truly affordable housing and maybe even some green initiatives (how about a windmill to power those houses, and a shared geothermal unit for the whole development?).

5. Too many people are plagiarizing. I thought I was done catching plagiarists when I traded my English classroom in Montrose for doctoral studies at DSU. I was wrong. I found myself hip-deep in plagiarism from Dennis Wiese, Madison's own Chamber of Commerce and LAIC, fellow students at DSU, even the "real" journalists at the Rapid City Journal.

Let's review: contrary to the apologetics of some commenters, plagiarism is lying, cheating, and stealing. It wrecks our credibility and makes us look bad.

Speaking of lying...

6. The HUH crowd can't be trusted. Roger Hunt, Leslee Unruh, Gordon Howie -- the HUH crowd -- will say anything to promote their narrow ideological goals. Roger Hunt will twist the law to keep secrets. Leslee Unruh will co-opt any rhetorical strategy she can think of, even going so far as to say abortion isn't wrong (or not to say that abortion is wrong -- nice word games). And even though Unruh's own blog says "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result," she vows to do the same thing over and over.

A note for the policy debaters: If the HUH crowd is the Affirmative, advocating a change in policy by banning abortion, they must show that the status quo isn't solving and cannot solve (Inherency, the black sheep of stock issues). Abortions continue to decline in South Dakota. South Dakota has perhaps the lowest abortion rate in the nation. The status quo is solving; there is no need for the Affirmative plan. Vote Negative.

7. Ethanol isn't the perfect solution. Better farm income and bigger markets for South Dakota ag products -- I should be all over ethanol. But a year of reading has revealed as much bad as good about ethanol. Land values go up and drive out some small producers. Food prices go up. We don't really use less foreign oil; ethanol just helps keep up with increased consumption. Corn is an energy-intensive crop: it takes a lot of fertilizer (which is made from oil) and water (in the ground and at the ethanol plant). And ethanol still feels like a big-industry solution that enriches the giant agri-business corporations more than the independent farmer. Ethanol isn't bad, but we should keep an eye out for something better (like wind power and conservation).

8. Classroom laptops do a lot more good in Peru than South Dakota. Laptops in South Dakota classrooms are just one more expression of how politicians don't get education. Politicians like laptops because they are concrete objects. They're all techno-snazzy and trendy. They're easy to replace and don't talk back, unlike good teachers. But do laptops really help education in South Dakota? We don't see any evidence of that yet.

But on Christmas Eve, I read about the One Laptop program in Peru and couldn't help thinking that maybe technology can do some good in the world's classrooms, particularly in countries that haven't been connected to the Internet before. In South Dakota, a laptop in the classroom is a drop in the bucket. In Peru, a child and a teacher with a laptop take a century's leap forward.

Of course, I'll bet teacher pay in Peru is pretty low, too....

9. Big money and marketing don't own politics... yet. I came out of 2006 a little disillusioned, thinking that only big-money candidates and campaigns could win at the polls ($32,000 for one legislative seat, Russ?). But 2007 brought some counter-examples. Money and marketing, including a slick website and brochures all over town, could not win a new gym for Madison at the polls. Just a few months later, Madison saw a much lower-key campaign win approval for a new pool (oops, that aquatic center -- gotta sound upscale). Our friends in Yankton put the Internet to work to wage a relatively inexpensive war over recalling their mayor and a councilman. We'll probably see more money thrown away on posters and slogans and image management in 2008, but it's nice to know regular folks still have some chance of making their voices heard without relying on massive campaign finances.

10. Blogging really does promote conversation and community. I've had a number of great conversations this year -- with Republicans, even! -- thanks to the Madville Times. Sometimes they just leave a comment, sometimes we get together and talk face to face, the way God/nature/the flying spaghetti monster intended. I've learned things from commenters and other bloggers that I wouldn't have heard about otherwise. Elsewhere we've seen South Dakota bloggers who sound like they absolutely despise each other get together to shoot pheasants, the breeze, and not each other.

Building conversations, building community: that's what blogs do. That's why I write (that, and the sheer fun of it!).

So what did you learn this year? My list is surely incomplete; submit yours here... or maybe even start your own blog, see what conversations you can start.

Thanks for reading and commenting. Now get ready for 2008, the biggest blogging year yet!