So Was That a Public Ceremony?

On the front page of the Tuesday Madison Daily Leader:

Noem Notes: Losing Nerve, Losing Momentum, Losing Definition

Among Kristi Noem's problems is her inability to define herself since the primary. She could have been a Tea Party star. With one or two clever policy initiatives, she could have defined herself as a more serious, less erratic Sarah Palin.

But sometime this summer (oh, say, when she hired R. Blake Curd's last-place campaign manager), Noem lost her nerve. She coasted on primary bounce and forgot that she's still the challenger against a smart incumbent. The moment the August debates started, Noem let Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin push her to the defensive on one major policy initiative Noem had supported, Congressman Paul Ryan's bold budget proposal, which included privatization of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Noem backpedaled hard and has sounded scared of policy specifics since. Heck, now she can't even answer a simple question about her pick for Speaker of the House without checking with her handlers.

She has also inched away from her Tea Party base. She declines to attend the Ted Nugent Second Amendment rally organized by South Dakota Citizens for Liberty, the Rapid City Tea Party group that's been rooting hard for Noem. Skipping Nugent's nuttery in favor of a pheasant fundraiser for sick family on the other side of the state is clearly a reasonable choice, but Noem has also backed out of a Rapid City debate with Herseth Sandlin on KOTA television. Noem has thus bailed on two opportunities for high-profile exposure among West River conservatives who can help her with electoral energy and money.

Thus declining to embrace Tea Party iconhood or any definite policies beyond publicity stunts that don't gain traction, Noem is stuck with definitions of herself that she doesn't want. Of all the tags the national media could put next to her name (straight-shooting rancher, ethics reform crusader, challenger to Sarah Palin for Tea Party supremacy), the first and maybe only thing the national press mentions is Noem's "extensive record of driving violations." She gets tied conceptually to the Tea Party as a fellow hypocrite in railing against big government but personally taking over $3 million in farm subsidies (a story we've been having fun with here in South Dakota since March).

Noem still has a better chance to beat Herseth Sandlin than the last two Republicans who tried to take our House seat. But feckless campaigning has kept Noem from emerging as a Republican super-trooper. She's just a nice lady saying nice things and hoping she can hang on until November.
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Bonus Noem Blooper: Independent House candidate B. Thomas Marking gets an invite to a Noem fundraiser in Custer. "I can’t decide," says B-Thom, "whether this represents the abject ignorance of her supporters or the supreme arrogance of this political party and their candidate."

Got High Water? Thank Neighbors' Drainage

The Brookings Register runs two articles that we should read together:

First, Ryan Woodard hears from a county official that the recent flooding on Six Mile Creek and elsewhere in Brookings County was of unprecendented intensity:

“I’ve had people on Six Mile Creek that were here in ‘69 say this is the highest they’ve seen it,” Brookings County Emergency Manager Todd Struwe told Brookings County commissioners this week.

“I’ve been here 18 years. I’ve never seen the water this high and I’ve never seen it come this fast” [Ryan Woodard, "Flood's Intensity Unprecedented, County Officials Say," Brookings Register, 2010.10.01].

The Register's John Kubal then turns to Dr. Carter Johnson to discuss the potential impacts of climate change on the Prairie Pothole Region (you know, the great American duck factory we live on). Dr. Johnson discusses a lot of the economic value we get from our prairie wetlands for free—lumber, hunting, water purification. Then Dr. Johnson turns to the economic costs of draining the wetlands, which include more intense floods:

Contrast some of the above with the draining of wetlands and tiling of fields, which leads to water going into small streams and creeks. Johnson noted that people living along the Missouri River saw floods in the 1990s "made worse by the fact that we drained wetlands" [John Kubal, "Could Our Duck Factory Go Dry?" Brookings Register, 2010.10.04].

Dr. Johnson proceeds to other important findings from his climate change research. But it's worth noting that, when it comes to our wetlands, we perhaps need to worry less about Al Gore's jet plane and more about our own digging and physical transformation of our land.

Got high water? Ditch and yard and back forty filling up faster after a big rain than they used to? It could be that, in addition to the heavier rain falling on your land, you're getting heavier drainage from your upstream neighbors. When farmers lay tile under their land and when developers dig up and tile and pave new subdivisions, they remove earth from the prairie-wide filtration system. Water that used to sit and seep out of those acres now comes rushing downstream. That's exactly what's supposed to happen: you plant corn or build a new McMansion, you don't want it sitting in water. But that drainage also shifts your water problem to folks downstream... who have a higher likelihood of seeing their homes and businesses washed away.

Rutland School Wins Ace Hardware Makeover

Local cultural instutition, employer, and blog sponsor Rutland School just found another way to stave off Pierre's efforts to strangle small schools: they won a paint job! Ace Hardware's "Helpful Hands" Program just named Rutland School the South Dakota winner of an indoor makeover. The school will get $2000 worth of painting to fix up some classrooms or other areas that need the work.

The school applied last May. Ace Hardware announced the nationwide winners yesterday.

No word yet on whether the Rounds Administration will now try to claw back $2000 in state aid from Rutland to apply toward the state deficit. I wouldn't put it past the governor....

Lake County Dems Watch Heidepriem TV Together -- You're Invited!

It's not dinner and a movie, but how about potluck and a pitch? The Lake County Dems are hosting a little get-together for local Dems and other interested voters to watch, cheer, and discuss gubernatorial candidate Scott Heidepriem's big half-hour TV broadcast tomorrow night. The party is bringing hot dogs, burgers, and lemonade; we'd like other guests to bring a salad or dessert to share.

If you're interested in political marketing and conversation, come to the Parsley Barn at 103 N. Liberty here in Madison Thursday, suppertime October 6. Chow starts around 6 p.m.; show starts at 6:30.

And yes, the Nebraska–Kansas game will still be on afterward.

Heidepriem Cites Keystone Leaks; Daugaard Digs Dollars Über Alles

Jon Walker wrote up our gubernatorial candidates' views on energy in that Sioux Falls paper Monday. Among other important issues, Walker asked the candidates whether they support TransCanada's Keystone pipelines.

Democrat Scott Heidepriem, who represented South Dakota landowners in their fight against TransCanada's eminent domain effort, hits all the right notes—not just green notes, but red-blooded South Dakotan notes:

Heidepriem: I can't argue it's a good thing particularly from the three leaks. Land was disrupted. It took a lot of fertile farm ground with almost no jobs created. They used a heavy hand to do that with eminent domain. That's not being a good corporate citizen. There should be no incentive on contractor excise and sales tax. Why does South Dakota feel the need to hemorrhage citizen tax dollars? [quoted by Jon Walker, "On Energy, Candidates for Governor Vow to Be Strong Voice," sidebar, that Sioux Falls paper, 2010.10.04]

Hey, Scott! Where'd you first read about those three leaks? Oh yeah....

Republican Dennis Daugaard apparently isn't worried about oil leaks, continued addiction to dirty fuel, weak job production, tax refunds for foreign oil corporations, or violations of South Dakotans' property rights. He thinks those property tax dollars make everything hunky-dory:

Daugaard: It's good. It allows us to reduce our dependency on oil from unfriendly nations. Most landowners I've spoken with are happy to have the pipe under their property. ... They still pay us $25 million a year in property taxes [quoted by Walker, 2010].

Pay close attention, fellow voters: the Republican here is saying something is great because it pumps more money into the government coffers, while the Democrat is speaking up for individual property rights instead of tax breaks for foreigners.

Does anyone else smell irony there?

Too Drunk to Bounce?

The press coverage on the preliminary hearing in Madison fireman Scott Johnson's DUI case caught my attention, and not just because it brought the KELO and KDLT station wagons crawling up to Madison to trumpet the 0.098 blood alcohol content revealed by the county's blood test.

Madison city police officer Aaron Talich testified that he first interacted with Johnson the night of the incident at 2 a.m. at Teezer's Bar. Talich was responded to a call about a stolen check card. He spoke with Johnson because Johnson was working security at the bar. Talich saw signs—bloodshot and glassy eyes—that Johnson had been drinking.

Now Teezer's owner Jeff Gates told John Hult of that Sioux Falls paper in a September 19 article that Johnson had been to Sioux Falls earlier in the evening but was sober enough to work. And bouncing and firefighting are two different jobs.

But does anyone else find it... well, alarming that a guy would have two jobs that involve keeping people safe, and that the guy wouldn't make the connection that drinking alcohol might reduce his ability to do those jobs effectively? I have had little interaction with bouncers, and my 150-pound frame automatically disqualifies me from being one, but consider: you're working in a bar. You're going to be dealing with two kinds of troublemakers: folks who've drunk too much and are out of control, and folks who aren't drinking at all, want to make trouble, and may plan to use all their wits to take advantage of one or more drunk people around them. Up against either type of miscreant, wouldn't you want to keep your mental and physical faculties as sharp as possible?

Or look at it from the customer perspective: if I were to visit one of Madison's many fine drinking establishments, and if I were to spend money in proximity of large, strong men who are authorized by the boss to throw me out the door, I'd feel a lot more comfortable knowing those large, strong men are exercising that commercial authority while completely sober.

Or look at it from the boss perspective: if I pay you money, I expect there to be no alcohol in your system while you're on my clock.

But hey, this is Madison, where I still haven't figured out our ethics on alcohol.

August Labor Data: Lake County Unemployment up to 5.1%

South Dakota Department of Labor data show unemployment in Lake County crept up a tick in August to 5.1%. We continued the pattern from July, adding a few jobs (10) but seeing a few more job-seekers (15) jump in the pool. Those new jobs bring the Lake Area Improvement Corporation within 895 jobs of reaching its Forward Madison goal of 400 new jobs by the end of next year. (Insert pessimistic snort here.)

Around the neighborhood, none of our neighboring counties showed gains in August. Brookings County managed to keep its unemployment rate steady (within the rounding margin) at 4.2%, adding 175 jobs and seeing 190 new faces in its labor force. The unemployment breakdown for the other counties adjoining Lake:

• Minnehaha: 4.5% (+0.1)
• Moody: 8.6% (+0.5)
  
• Kingsbury: 5.0% (+0.5)
  
• Miner: 5.1% (+0.2)
  
• McCook: 4.8% (+0.4)

September and October usually bring a surge in jobs with harvest kicking in (the other peak in our local labor market is March–May, planting season). September was awfully wet for work, so we'll have to wait and see whether we get that fall jobs boost.

Fund Education... Not Root Beer Floats for Merely Tolerable Behavior

I wanted to get excited about an article in this morning's Rapid City Journal about Walmart and Sam's Club giving away $100 gift cards in their Teacher Rewards program. The Walton empire is handing out $4.5 million to teachers this year to offset the estimated $500 that American teachers spend out of their own pockets on their students.

"Ah ha!" I thought. "Here's an example of how spending less at the state level doesn't save any money but only transfers costs off the budget and tax rolls and into the less visible column of individual spending." Take 8000 teachers in South Dakota (that's a low estimate), multiply by $500... that's four million dollars in public expenditure shifted to the workers hired to provide the service.

Now Walmart isn't making up the entire difference or handing gift cards to every teacher. Last week, the local Sam's Club gave ten teachers at Rapid City's South Park Elementary each $100 gift cards, intended for supplies or nutritious snacks for the kids (the kind of thing you can buy in big bulk packages at Sam's Club).

But then one teacher dampens my enthusiasm for this conversation by spending $45 of her gift on the following "educational" expense:

[Fifth-grade teacher Hollie] Hoffman has been teaching for seven years and likes to use incentive parties to motivate or to reward good behavior. On Friday, her class got root beer floats because, during the month of September, all students had less [sic] than three behavior demerits and fewer than five late assignments [Mary Garrigan, "Rapid City Teachers Reach into Own Pocketbooks to Reach out to Students," Rapid City Journal, 2010.10.05].

I guess I really am out of touch with pragmatic modern teaching. I cringe at the thought of handing out treats and throwing parties for students just because they've managed to behave themselves most of the time. And the standards in Hoffman's classroom are apparently pretty low: the kids can be late on homework once a week and still get root beer praise.

That's reason #847 we're homeschooling for as long as we can. We need to get kids back into the mindset that learning and behaving are their own rewards, that there are things we're just supposed to do, not because we'll get praise and goodies but because they are the right things to do.

I balk at this sort of bribery even as an employee. During my three abominable months working in a call center, management picked some arbitrary sales-to-leads ratio and said if we beat it, the company would buy us all tickets to a ski lodge and lots of booze. That was when it hit me that the work I was doing had no real value in itself... and that I wanted out.

I am relieved that Principal Rick Owen at Rapid City's Pinedale Elementary says public funds are strictly allocated for educational expenses, not pizza parties. And Hoffman says she spends her out-of-pocket money on her kids "because I want to, not because the district funds are so inadequate."

Well, that's a relief, because when teachers feel the need to bribe kids into nominally decent behavior, we have a problem with something other than funding in our education system.

Fast Horse: Amend Indian Civil Rights Act, Abolish BIA

Todd Curtis Fast Horse, member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, writes in The Independent Local that his tribal government needs a whoopin':

On the Rosebud Indian Reservation there is only the illusion of a tribal government that represents the people, is honestly elected and abides by the Constitution under which it was created.

In reality, nothing could be the further from the truth. When tribal governments are allowed to control all funds public and private, as well as tribal revenues and donated resources with no accountability, mismanagement, embezzlement and theft are only the beginning.

I believe Kleptocracy best describes the type of government created by the self-appointed long-term tribal government politicians. The term literally means, “Rule by thieves.” From the inside looking out, bribery, nepotism, cronyism, theft, embezzlement and electoral fraud are a big part of the status quo [Todd Curtis Fast Horse, "When Silence Is Betrayal," The Independent Local, 2010.10.03].

Fast Horse continues, saying the Bureau of Indian Affairs lacks the will and the authority to enforce the Indian Civil Rights Act and facilitates tribal corruption. Fast Horse calls for amending the ICRA and abolishing the BIA.

Fast Horse is a former Rosebud Community Chairman. He was kicked out of office and censured by the tribal council at the end of 2008. He tells more about the political corruption on the Rosebud in this letter to the Resource Party.

Sounds like Fast Horse and his neighbors should dress up like Gordon Howie and Barb Lindberg and toss their elected officials in the Little White River. I'm still waiting for our Tea Party activists to reach out to the reservations and make some serious efforts to fight political corruption right here in South Dakota.

Coal Mine in Your Back Yard: Online Map Fun!

CoalDiver.org provides a diverting tool for visualizing how much land a coal mine chews up. The site, developed by our friends at Plains Justice, features "How Big Is It?", a mapping app where you can see the geographical footprint of a coal mine in the Powder River Basin in the Wyoming's Thunder Basin National Grassland and overlay it on any of your favorite destinations. My results this morning (click pic to embiggen!):

Lay the west gate of that mine near my house, and the complex would stretch about six miles northeast and six miles southeast. Counting sections, I guess it's about 25 square miles, maybe more.

Today's enviro-engineering question: how much electricity could we produce by covering the same amount of land with a wind farm?

Bonus Statistics and Speculation: The Powder River Basin accounts for over 75% of the coal produced in the western United States and over 40% of total U.S. coal production. Hmm... could that help explain why railroad lobbyist turned Senator John Thune is so eager to block the national grassland wilderness in western South Dakota that would take up land near a prime rail route to that coal bonanza?

Lake Herman Cuts Taxes 23.5%

The Lake Herman Sanitary District budget process was not nearly as interesting this year as last. Board member Lawrence Dirks and I went through two meetings, weighty parliamentary questions, and a whole lot of public input before we finally settled on doing the same thing we'd done the year before.

This year's budget process took one 17-minute meeting. No one came to voice an opinion or even observe whether I'd have to apologize to the library staff again. No apologies were necessary. The budget slid through with relatively little discussion.

The 2011 budget also reduces the tax levy by 23.5% to reflect actual projected expenses rather than racking up a surplus.

You're welcome.