Debunking Two Big Lies about Initiated Measure 15

I voted for Initiated Measure 15, the extra-penny sales tax to fund K-12 education and Medicaid. I'm not deeply enamored with IM15. There are decent arguments against this regressive tax. Whether IM15 passes or not, we will have some serious legislating to do to make our state taxing and spending more just and effective.

But I can recognize bogus arguments made against Initiated Measure 15. Two of the biggest fibs about Initiated Measure 15 are the following:

1. IM15 is the biggest tax increase in state history.
2. IM15 dumps much more money into education and Medicaid than has been cut.

The first one is a matter of mathematical interpretation. The dollar figure, $180 million in new revenue, may be correct. But raw dollar figures over time and inflation are bogus. Percentages matter. Jon Walker lists changes in the sales tax in his November 4 article on IM15. We implemented a state sales tax of 2% in 1935 (in the midst of the Depression and the Dust Bowl, no less!). In 1937, we upped it to 3%. Adding that extra penny increased the net sales tax by 50%. In 1969, we added another penny, a 33% increase in the sales tax. In 1980 and 1987, we implemented brief extra-penny increases, each of which was a temporary 25% increase. IM15 proposes to increase the state sales tax from 4% to 5%, a 25% increase. That's a lot of money, but proportionately, it is not the biggest tax increase in South Dakota history.

The second claim above is also untrue, at least in terms of K-12 funding. Jon Walker provides the following numbers on our state per-student allocation for K-12 education:

year	per-student state aid	change	PSA if  increased by 3%
2006	$4,238
2007	4,365	3.0%
2008	4,529	3.8%
2009	4,665	3.0%
2010	4,805	3.0%
2011	4,805	0.0%	4949.15
2012	4,390	-8.6%	5097.625
2013	4,491	2.3%	5250.553

I added the fourth column to show what would have happened to the state per-student allocation if we had followed the funding formula in 2011, 2012, and 2013 and increased education funding by 3%. We'd be at $5,251 per student. That would be $760 more than we are spending this year per student.

According to this year's sales tax revenue and K-12 enrollment, Initiated Measure 15 would increase state spending on K-12 education by about $720.

In other words, Initiated Measure 15 restores 95% of the funding that schools should have received if Pierre had not reneged on the K-12 funding formula for three years in row. Under IM15, compared to where they would have been under the the fiscal policies preceding 2011, our K-12 system will still be running short $40 per student, or a touch more than $5 million statewide.

IM15 is a big tax increase, but it is not the biggest in South Dakota history. And it does not put back into education more than has been cut. It actually falls just short of filling the gap our legislators have dug in the last three budgets.

Snowgates Demonstrate Practical Wisdom of Public Services

Mr. Ehrisman's passionate advocacy of snowgates and our weekend winter wonderland got me wondering why Madison's public works department doesn't use snowgates. My dad, a font of local wisdom, tells me that Madison once upon a time did install snowgates. The innovation came at the urging of Harvey Rhoden, who worked for the city.

Personal digression: I knew Harvey as "Grampa Rhoden," not because he was kin, but because he and his wife babysat me when my mom worked at the college. Grampa Rhoden was a big, round man whom I remember as deeply tanned from being outdoors running heavy equipment all the time. His cigar habit may have imprinted on me a fondness for the aroma.

Harvey's snowgates worked great, Dad says. But the city didn't like them, because they slowed down the work. The snowplow drivers were on the streets longer, and the city had to pay them more. So, says Dad, the snowgates didn't last.

Dad and I had this conversation as we towed his skidsteer from one of his rental units to another to clear the snow ridges from the driveways. We saw plenty of other people applying their own shovels and snowblowers to the hard, chunky walls of snow sculpted across their driveways by the city plows. Madison only had three inches of fluffy snow, so clearing steps and sidewalks was a breeze. The skidsteer made clearing the driveway a snap as well... if you consider gassing up, loading and unloading, and maintaining personal heavy equipment all year long a snap. Without the skidsteer, I guesstimate clearing a typical snowplow driveway ridge might take ten minutes with a good metal scoop shovel. And that's a light snow.

Now multiply that effort by a couple thousand households. Calculate a GDP equivalent. Say a couple thousand people expend that effort. 2000 people × 10 minutes × $10/hour (your time is worth at least that much, isn't it?) = $3333. Add in a few dozen broken plastic shovels, gas for snowblowers, the investment in skidsteers and trailers made by a few wildmen like my dad....

Compare that with the cost of centralizing that snow removal as a function of local government. I'm totally speculating here, but suppose six snowplow operators have to spend three more hours lifting and lowering snowgates to keep our driveways and sidewalk egresses clear. Suppose we pay them twenty—heck, thirty bucks an hour (that's cold, crappy work). That's $540 above current costs. Add equipment and maintenance....

Snowgates remind me of the discussion we had last year about closing drivers license stations last year. When government spends less on certain services, it often shifts costs to individuals. We pay less in taxes but more in personal resources, and more folks are left out. Dad has a skidsteer and truck and trailer to haul, but the old lady down the block has felt boots and a plastic shovel. I suppose if we had some Christmas spirit, we'd have just run the skidsteer dry clearing every driveway we could for free... but what kind of socialism is that?

Even Dakota War College agrees: we'd be snowed without good government services. Government can provide some centralized services more efficiently than private efforts can.

Now, about that single-payer health care system....

Fr. Tyler: America Oppresses Catholics, History Indicts Protestants

Father Tyler in Rapid City marks Guy Fawkes Night with the provocative contention that the Catholic persecution against which Fawkes was rebelling is on a par with the intolerance American Catholics face today:

The Gunpowder Plot was the attempt of desperate men to be allowed the freedom to practice the faith demanded of them by their conscience.

I do not condone terrorism. I do not think blowing up the British Parliament was a good idea. It is helpful, however, to consider what drives a man to consider such extreme action. England claimed to permit a great deal of "tolerance" towards Catholics in those days. It is a mantra almost identical to the message of tolerance we hear today. By my estimation, this country tolerates faithful Catholics about the same way that England did in 1605 [Fr. Tyler Dennis, "Thumbing My Nose at England," Prairie Father, 2010.11.05].

As a member of the 1.6% minority of declared atheists in this country, I am perhaps insufficiently sensitive to the intolerance experienced by the largest Christian denomination in America and in the world. So let me ask you, pious readers: do you find the practice of your faith (Catholic or otherwise) so oppressed in America that you could be driven to Fawkesian rebellion?

The religious oppression wrought by King James leads Fr. Tyler to declare it "impossible to have a good grasp of history and remain a Protestant." Hmmm... wind the clock back a hundred years from King James, and don't we find the men of the Catholic Church engaged in such earthly corruption as to drive any conscientious historian out of the Catholic faith as well? Demand a history free of fallen men and earthly excess, and no church 'scapes whipping.

I think that was Luther's point (I'll check with my wife: she's studied history... and she's still in Lutheran seminary). None of us well acquit the institutions and faiths we represent. None of us are worth following. The only man for the faithful to follow (cue that preacher from the Old Time Gospel Hour) is a certain carpenter and fisher of men from Nazareth.

Patricia Stricherz Makes History: First Female Legislator from Lake County

At some point, Patricia Stricherz may cease to amaze me. But not tonight.

My wife and I got to wondering when the last time was that Lake County elected a woman to the South Dakota Legislature.

That's a tricky question, and I welcome my fellow bloggers and commenters to contribute their research. For one thing, districts change, so we Lake County residents haven't always been in District 8. But a quick scan of the Legislature's archive reveals that Patricia Stricherz is the first woman from Lake County ever elected to the Legislature. Going all the way back to Charles B. Kennedy, who served two years in the Territorial Assembly, Lake County has produced 63 legislators, all male.

Now Stricherz moved from Moody County to the great rebellious part of Lake County known as Winfred just this summer, so we almost didn't get to claim her. Had she stayed in Moody, she'd have made history there, too: no lady legislators have ever had Moody County as their home address, according to the archive.

Now here's the stumper question: has Lake County ever been represented by a lady from another county in our district? Remember, districts change over time (and will again next year, as the Republicans recarve our fair state in an attempt to ensure their continued dominance at the polls), so figuring this one out will take a little historical review. No prize but praise and fame, but hey, South Dakota political trivia buffs: start searching!

Open Valhalla as Public Landmark, Not Private Playground

The latest Madville Times poll finds a majority of you gentle readers agreeing with me on the use of Peter Norbeck's "Valhalla" cabin in the Black Hills. I asked you "Should Game Fish and Parks open the Peter Norbeck/"Valhalla" cabin for rental to the general public?" The results:

• Yes: 88 (66%)
• No: 46 (34%)

Norbeck's cabin is a remarkable public asset, built by a remarkable South Dakotan. Norbeck was our first Dakota-born governor. He won the federal funds—pork and stimulus!—that allowed Gutzon Borglum to carve four white guys on sacred Lakota ground and bring thousands of tourists to the Black Hills each year (pick your own value judgment; either way, Norbeck made history). Norbeck also pushed for the development of such South Dakota gems as the Needles Highway, Sylvan Lake, and the Custer, Badlands, and Wind Cave parks.

Much of Norbeck's life was dedicated to opening the Black Hills to more public use. That his cabin should become the private playground of "favored guests" of the ruling political regime flies in the face of Norbeck's values.

If we really want to get Norbeckian, we should be looking for ways to make as much money off the cabin as possible. Game Fish and Parks, which manages Valhalla, says the cabin generates maybe $4500 in revenue each year. Let's see... isolated cabin in the woods, six bedrooms, great hiking and biking and horseback riding, near several major attractions... would $100 a night be too low? At that rate, I think we could draw users for at least 180 days a year... $18,000 right there, quadruple the current revenue. And the sitting governor and his political friends could get in line to rent it right along with everyone else.

One of my good Democrat friends, Mr. Kurtz, says the governor needs a secure retreat, but I must differ. Every governor can use a vacation, sure, but can't he buy his own cabin at the lake like the rest of us? Let's not get too big for our britches: South Dakota's governor is not the President with the Secret Service and the nuclear football. Security is obviously not a concern in a state where the only things standing between citizens and the governor at work are a secretary and a wooden door. What's the point of a secure hidden location for the governor when he probably drives himself to Wal-Mart to pick up fishing tackle? The last thing we need to spend state money on is the crazy notion that our governor needs a secret compound to hide in.

The Peter Norbeck cabin in Custer State Park is a great public asset. We should make the most of it. Open it to the public. Rent it out to supplement the Sylvan Lake Lodge and other fancy lodging in our busiest state park.

Year of Unity Note: Remember the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians

Pierre has been putting out press releases promoting the "Year of Unity" declared by Governor Rounds to revive the reconciliation process started by Governor Mickelson in 1990. The latest notes Eagle Butte's upcoming Centennial celebration and Hometown Days July 15–18.

Perhaps the Year of Unity notes from Pierre are focusing on positive things happening now that can bring whites and Indians together. But unity also requires a shared understanding of our complete history, of the actions and abuses that made us the peoples we are.

Consider, for instance, the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians in Canton, South Dakota.

The federal government authorized this facility in 1899. It took its first inmate on December 31, 1902. In its thirty-year history, the asylum racked up a litany of atrocities.

The facility was run first by political appointee, former Canton mayor, and former South Dakota Congressman Oscar Gifford. Having no background in health care or mental illness, Gifford got the nod from the Bureau of Indian Affairs because he arranged the acquisition of the land for the asylum. Gifford was replaced amidst a scandal over patient Lizzie Vipont's becoming pregnant.

Gifford's replacement, Dr. Harry R. Hummer, was no improvement. He starved the patients while his wife secured more rations for his family. He didn't hire staff with formal medical training until the 1920s.

Souvenir spoon and plate from the Hiawatha Asylum. See also this postcard.
Photos provided by my neighbor and local historian John Hess, who wrote a great essay on the Canton asylum for the July 2009 Heritage Herald newsletter of the Lake County Historical Society.

Many patients had no mental illness. Some were essentially political prisoners, shipped off to Canton for making trouble on their home reservations. Patients were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. Cells had no furnishings, no electricity, no plumbing, just overflowing, untended chamberpots. An inspection by Dr. Samuel Silk from St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. found the following appalling conditions:

Patients were found poorly clothed. Many of them were tied to their beds or found handcuffed to pipes or radiators. One woman was found lying in mounds of her own feces infested with maggots. Yet another was found gagged inside a locked room. Those that were coherent attempted to escape or tried to fight for their release by writing to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs only to have their requests dismissed when Dr. Hummer stepped in and made up a good excuse for their continued committal.

Hospital equipment was not used appropriately or at all. The surgery built in the separate hospital building was used for coal storage. TB patients were not sequestered, nor were their utensils or clothing sterilized as required. Menus were not kept but the food served to Dr. Silk was barely edible for animal consumption, let alone human consumption, and was described in its grisly detail in his report ["A Brief History of the Hiawatha Asylum," Hiawatha Foundation, last updated 2009.09.12].

The City of Canton saw the asylum as an economic development tool. Dr. Hummer happily advertised the asylum as a vacation destination, a place to "come see the crazy Indians." The asylum generated $40,000 a year in revenue for the city and provided numerous local jobs. In 1933, new Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier declared the "institution was so outrageously cruel and injurious that we would deserve to be blown out of the water if we continued it." But when the commissioner moved to end those outrages and close the asylum, the City of Canton went to court to keep their federal pork, arguing it was wrong to take federal jobs away in the midst of the Depression. The city also enlisted area tribal members to fight to keep the asylum open: the Rosebud Sioux, for instance, did not want inmates from their tribe transferred even farther from home.

Uncle Sam transferred the inmates out of the Hiawatha Asylum in December 1933. Seventy patients were sent to St. Elizabeth's in Washington, D.C. Twenty-seven inmates were deemed not insane and released. The government officially closed the facility in 1934. Of the horrific conditions that led to the asylum's closure, the City of Canton's official history says only that "Federal reports and assessments cited mismanagement, mistreatment, politics and the economy as the reasons for the closure."

The facility housed 374 Native Americans from 50 tribes around the country. 121 died and were buried on the asylum grounds. The cemetery remains in the middle of the Hiawatha Country Club and Golf Course, between the fourth and fifth fairways.

The Augustana College School and Wheels and the old Norwegian Ski Hill both have state historical markers in the area. A historical marker for the old asylum and the 121 Native Americans buried on the grounds would be an appropriate Year of Unity gesture.

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Read more:

1. Elizabeth Stawicki, "A Haunting Legacy: Canton Insane Asylum for American Indians," Minnesota Public Radio, 1997.12.09
2. Friends of Hiawatha Project, maintaining Web archive and seeking to produce documentary. Also offering a large bibliography for serious historians.
   
3. Carla Joinson, Canton Asylum for Insane Indians: history blog and book project
   

Tea Party Not Perot Movement, Just Reinforcing GOP Status Quo

Ah, Ross Perot. Those were the days. I got all giddy when Perot talked about taking a shovel and scooping out the barn (the barn was Washington). I attended a political forum in Hansen Hall at SDSU and parroted all sorts of Perot platitudes insisting Perot would save our country from... well, I'm not sure what. My heart swelled with pride every time I drove under the bridge on I-29 south of Brookings where someone painted some hopeful Perot graffiti ("If you vote, Perot can win," I think it said... and no, I didn't do it).

Watching the Teabaggers get all hot and bothered this past year, listening to some familiar-sounding singing in the shower about taking Washington back, I thought maybe we could trace a cultural or historical connection between 1992's Perot voters and the folks bringing tricorner hats back into fashion today.

The Washington Post's Dan Balz analyzes possible connections between today's Teabaggers and the Ross Perot electorate of 1992. Are their connections? Balz finds the similarities balanced by important differences.

1. Teabaggers are mostly white (87%, by WaPo's survey), but less so than Perotistas (94%). (Of course, Dems are mostly white, too—65%.)
2. Teabaggers include more men than women, like Perot voters.
3. The two groups have identical educational backgrounds: one third with college degrees, two thirds without.
4. Teabaggers are older, with a majority over 45. 63% of Perot people were under 45. (Hmm... maybe they are the same voters, just 18 years older now!)
5. Teabaggers are richer than the folks who followed the Texas billionaire. Perot's voters matched the economic class distribution of the general population, while the Tea Party draws more from the wealthy folks.
6. The Teabaggers are undeniably a conservative movement; Perot voters did not clearly fit a party or ideological profile:
   
   

If anything, [the Tea Party] is simply an adjunct of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, even if many of its supporters say they hold no particular allegiance for the GOP and are critical of party leadership....

Despite the same strong anti-government sentiment and focus on the federal budget deficit as the tea party activists of today, the Perot voters were far less conservative.

In 1992, 53 percent of those who backed Perot for president described themselves as moderate, with 27 percent calling themselves conservative and 20 percent liberal, according to the exit polls. Among tea party activists, the Post poll and the CBS-New York Times poll found that nearly three-quarters called themselves conservative. David Winston, a Republican pollster, pegged the group's makeup as 65 percent conservative, 26 percent moderate [Dan Balz, "Don't Be Too Quick to Mistake Tea Party for Perot Movement," Washington Post, 2010.04.18].

Of course, my friend Joseph Thompson tells me that we get more conservative as we get older (so far, I'm headed the opposite direction, but I'm just one data point). Maybe that's what happened to the Perot voters. That, and they got worse at spelling. (But haven't we all, thanks to spellcheck?)

The big difference, says Balz, is that the Perot movement was a challenge to both parties. That's part of why I got excited about Perot in 1992. He really was the underdog, someone with the potential (however faint and fleeting) to start a third party. Practically speaking, the Perot movement was a genuine alternative, a genuine challenge to both parties. Dems and the GOP both had a reasonable shot at competing for Perot votes.

The folks in tricorner hats aren't an alternative; they're an extension of the two-party system. They like to say they're about throwing all the bums out in Washington, but show me one Republican Congressman they plan to replace with a non-Republican. The Teabaggers are all about beating Obama, beating Dems, and establishing a Grover Norquist hammerlock on the Republican Party. They're just slightly different packaging for what Republicans have been selling since 1994.

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Update 2010.04.22 07:24 CDT: Soldier of wisdom Thompson comes this close to meeting my challenge: he points out that the astroturfy Tea Party Express has endorsed incumbent Democratic Congressman Walt Minnick from Idaho. Minnick is a Bluer Dog than Herseth Sandlin, with a vote against the stimulus package along with opposition to cap and trade and health reform.

Flag at Half Staff Too Often?

It seems like we get an awful lot of orders from Governor Rounds to fly the flag at half staff. Today's grief: remembering the 15th anniversary of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Search KELO, and you'll find a dozen half-staff orders in South Dakota in the past year. That's in addition to the five official days of remembrance when everyone should fly the flag at half staff. Once every three weeks is either an awful lot of time to spend grieving... or not enough, considering American soldiers die defending their country each week (though more killed themselves than were killed by Afghani bad guys last year).

I would like someone with a longer memory to help us out: did we fly flags at half staff this frequently in the 1980s? Or during Vietnam? Or World War II?

I do not seek to denigrate the memory of any fellow citizen killed by bad dudes. But on days like today and September 11, when we remember the slaughter of innocents on our own soil, I wonder if the proper response to psychopaths like McVeigh and Atta would be to add an extra foot to the flagpole and fly the flag a little higher, just to say, "See? We're still here. Your plot didn't work."

Tea Party Funded by Stalin's Money

I can't make up this stuff. Koch Industries, with its ties to the John Birch Society, climate science denial, and the Tea Party, built its wealth in the Stalinist Soviet Union. Back in the 1920s, grandfather Fred Koch developed some new refining technology that didn't fly in the American market. Koch thus made money selling his technology to the Communists:

In 1929, after hosting a delegation of Soviet planners in Wichita, Kansas, Winkler and Koch signed a $5 million contract to build 15 refineries in the Soviet Union. According to Oil of Russia, a Russian oil industry trade magazine, the deal made Winkler-Koch into Comrade Stalin's number-one refinery builder....

At the time, the Soviet Union's oil industry was a total mess. Equipment built by Western engineering firms was always breaking down or didn't work at all. Western engineers were constantly being accused of espionage or sabotage, real or imagined, and booted out of the country. Soviet workers suspected of colluding with the foreigners were simply taken out back and shot. Winkler-Koch made sure it was running a tight, efficient operation. Unlike his Western competitors, Koch pleased his Soviet clients by ensuring top quality and helping the cause of socialism [Yasha Levine, "The Roots of Stalin in the Tea Party Movement," AlterNet.org, 2010.04.17].

As Levine writes, if Koch harbored anti-communist sentiment, he kept quiet about it for decades, until the late 1950s, after doing lots of business and making his fortune working with Stalin to help the Soviet Union become a great industrial nation.

That explains it: the Russians love tea.

Howie Petition Shows Ignorance of Civil War, U.S. History

At best, Gordon Howie's failed petition drive to nullify health insurance reform was futile political grandstanding. At worst, it was the kind of Calhoun conservatism that led to the Civil War.

I'm not the only one who smells secession—or at least ignorance of history—in Howie's political posturing. Here's what Madison business leader Mike McDowell says about Howie's nullification drive:

Whatever your opinion of the new federal law, you should be amazed that a candidate for our state’s highest office seems to have no knowledge that the Civil War which ended in April 1865 settled that issue – nullification of federal laws by the states lost. Send Mr. Howie back to 6th grade history class and keep him there until he knows American history much better than he seem[s] to know it now [Mike McDowell, "Election Silly Season Continues," Forward Thinking, 2010.04.07].

Jerry Prostrollo visits with R. Blake Curd and Gordon Howie at a Madison 9-12 Project meeting April 2, 2010. Perhaps JP is setting the candidates straight on the meaning of the Constitution and dangers of nullification?

I had a nifty screenshot here of the 9-12 Project meeting showing what I'm talking about, but the photographer who snapped the image included in the screenshot has claimed copyright restriction. Above is my recollection of what I saw in on the 9-12 website before the photo in question disappeared from the 9-12 website and from the photographer's Facebook photo album. The green rectangle represents the portion of the screen shot that is my graphic work, superimposed to prevent the dissemination of copyrighted photographic imagery that could make a Madison businessperson unhappy. (And a big welcome to all my new friends at the Canon Digital Photography Forum!)

I would love to hear what another well-heeled member of Madison's economic development leadership thinks of Howie's tom-dick-and-harry-foolery (tomfoolery seems inadequate when describing Howie's politics). State Board of Economic Development chairman Jerry Prostrollo attended Gordon Howie's campaign stop in Madison a couple Fridays ago. He heard Howie preach his gospel of nullification. Did Prostrollo sign that petition? Or did he explain to his aspiring fellow Republicans that Howie's petition drive was actually decided 145 years ago when Lee surrendered to Grant?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Lessons Twisted by Fox News

German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a too-much-ignored hero of the 20th century whom Pastor Steve Hickey and I respect immensely. Bonhoeffer's story is at least as educationally and morally valuable as Gandhi's or King's. Bonhoeffer's story goes underpublished perhaps because it doesn't make as good Hollywood copy: where Gandhi and King each experienced identifiable public victories, Bonhoeffer's resistance produced arguably little in the way of tangible success against the regime he opposed. He was imprisoned, stripped naked, and hung by the Nazis 65 years ago yesterday. Not exactly a Hollywood ending.

Pastor Hickey notes Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, a new book by Eric Metaxas. Perhaps inadvertently, Pastor Hickey alerts us to some things Eric Metaxas gets wrong about Bonhoeffer... some things conveniently tailored to Fox News viewers' preferred narrative about America 2010:

Bonhoeffer believed he was called by God to help those who wanted to assassinate Hitler.

"Bonhoeffer was not a pacifist," Metaxas says. "And that will be news to a lot of people who think of Bonhoeffer as their hero, as some kind of pacifist" [Lauren Green, "New Bio of Executed WWII Pastor/Spy Reveals U.S. Influence," Fox News, 2010.04.09].

We all know pacifist is a synonym for sissy on Fox News. So for the Right to claim this mainline Protestant as their own icon, they have to repackage him. Metaxas obliges—he apparently knows his audience—but he gets Bonhoeffer wrong.

Pastor Steve, help me out here:

As a Sermon on the Mount junkie, I’ve always been quite dialed in on how Bonhoeffer held to the high pacifist ideal in his writings (turn the other cheek, love enemies), but compromised (and justifiably so in my view) that ideal by participating in a secret assassination plot on Hitler [Pastor Steve Hickey, "I sat in Bonhoeffer’s chair, but walking in his shoes is far more difficult," Gate Post, 2009.07.29].

Bonhoeffer was a big pacifist. He denounced Hitler from the moment the Nazis took power. But his main weapons were words, ideas, and theology. Bonhoeffer didn't rush straight to Berghof with a Luger in his hand. Even as he spoke out against Hitler's evil, Bonhoeffer struggled to reach the point where he could justify committing the evil of violence. And even when he finally agreed to participate in violence, he still called it evil.

Coming to a hard decision like that takes some hard thinking. Metaxas appears to dismiss hard thinking in his Fox interview, suggesting that a visit to America somehow transformed Bonhoeffer's faith into something more than "just theology in his head." That a man purporting sufficient expertise to write a biography of Bonhoeffer would append the adjective just to theology suggests the author missed the point. Bonhoeffer's resistance was very much grounded in theological and moral reasoning, not to mention a keen understanding of political and global context.

Metaxas and Fox News also offer a rather narrow summary of the message in Bonhoeffer's life and martyrdom:

But the legacy that Bonhoeffer leaves future generations is of the untold dangers of idolizing politicians as messianic figures. Not just in the 1930s and '40s, but today as well.

"It's a deep temptation within us," says Metaxas. "We need to guard against it and we need to know that it can lead to our ruin. Germany was led over the cliff, and there were many good people who were totally deluded" [Green, 2010]

Bonhoeffer's legacy is somewhat broader than that. His legacy is much more about "an active response to Christ's Sermon on the Mount." Christians (and the rest of us) must challenge earthly evil in any form, political or personal. Bonhoeffer says that rather than secluding ourselves in safe chapels and gated communities, we must engage with the world, speak up for and work toward (dare I say it?) social justice.

I won't deny that Bonhoeffer's thinking would agree with Fox/Metaxas's statement about idolizing politicians. I would just hope that readers will recognize the need to apply that specific caution equally to President Barack Obama and politician-turned-celebrity Sarah Palin... and that they would then turn to the rest of Bonhoeffer's theology and history for lessons that go well beyond the spin either Fox or I would apply.

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Update 2010.04.11: Do read Dr. Blanchard's response on this topic. Thoughtful reading all around the blogosphere this weekend.

KJAM Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Who is that man with the face too good for radio?



Guys used to wear neckties on the radio. Really! And they didn't even have webcams back then.

That's original KJAM broadcaster John Goeman, who was on the air on Day 1, December 3, 1959. Goeman was actually in the studio two months before that. He says he arrived with his degree from the Brown School of Broadcasting and thought he knew everything. He climbed up to the studio, dumped out a box of radio gear, and wondered, "What do I do with all this?"

Caption 1: Believe it or not, this is Goeman 50 years later.
Caption 2: Note the sweatshirt: Goeman never misses a chance
to boost the Highway 34 expansion project.

Goeman figured out what to do pretty quickly. He rose from the broadcast booth to own and operate the station for years. He dropped by the station to share some old photos and stories with current general manager Loren Larsen at KJAM's 50th anniversary open house yesterday. The station, now owned by Lincoln Nebraska-based* Three Eagles Communications (darned media consolidation!), must be doing well: they had free punch and cookies. Loren even urged me to take an extra cookie home—the Divine Miss K was suitably pleased when I got home.

The station is making some technical progress. Their new website does more than the old one. The news team is also using the site to include audio clips with stories (serious improvement!) plus some extended interviews à la NPR and other fancy-pants broadcasters. They're also catching with technology on remote broadcasts: where broadcasting a ball game or other event outside the studio used to require hauling a big forty-pound box around, Matt and Matt and Brian (the new guy... and what accent, Brian? :-) ) can each do live play-by-play with nothing but a one-pound netbook, a headset, and a cell phone signal (small is beautiful!). Plus, if the AM and FM stations are already occupied with DSU and MHS games, they can broadcast more games from Dell Rapids, Chester, Howard, and other exotic locales live over the website. (When-oh-when will the Madison Daily Leader figure out how to add value like that with its website?)

When I was little, KJAM was my ticket to free ice cream cones, tacos, and movies on QuizBiz. Now, they're my competition... and a source of a fair chunk of local blog fodder.

Thanks, KJAM, and happy anniversary! I look forward to another 50 years of local news and links!

Update 2009.12.05 09:43 CST: Learn more about KJAM's history—and the origin of those jammin' call letters!—from sports director Matt Hendrickson at the Jackrabbit's Den. [And note the correction: Three Eagles Communications—my apologies to corporate!]

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*Grammar note: I really struggled with the punctuation there. Suggestions?

• Lincoln Nebraska-based Three Eagles...?
• Lincoln, Nebraska-based, Three Eagles...?
• Lincoln, Nebraska,-based Three Eagles...?
• Three Eagles Communication (based in Lincoln, Nebraska—darned media consolidation!),... ?
  

Speaking of Communism, How Was Your Thanksgiving?

The Rooted Pasque of Sioux Falls draws our attention to a fragment of social history with a South Dakota connection on Letters of Note, a fascinating blog that highlights old letters. On August 17, 1939, Robert S. Benson and Clarabelle Voight wrote to the White House to protest President Roosevelt's decision to move Thanksgiving back a week to expand the holiday shopping season. Writing on letterhead from a Groton, S.D., insurance agency, the writers recommend FDR stop acting as if he were "running a Russia or communistic government." They also suggest he be committed to Yankton.

A note on cultural perspective: the writers refer to themselves as representatives of the "people of the Northwest." Interesting: if this letter did indeed come from South Dakota, it suggests a different geographical perspective from the current local perception of South Dakota as part of the Midwest.

Public Option That Still Works: Rural Electric Cooperatives

Hat tip to Rebecca Blood, who points us toward a pointed essay by freelance writer Bob Simmons from Bellingham, Washington, on the public option... for electricity:

Electrical service had not yet penetrated the hills of rural Southern Iowa. Everyone wanted it, Hell yes. We yearned for it. The investor-owned power company wouldn't sell it to us. Analogous to millions who today can't get health care insurance (another thing we did without) we were disqualified by pre-existing conditions: We were farmers and we were poor. We might not use enough power. We might not pay our bills [Bob Simmons, "How FDR Enacted His 'Public Option'," Crosscut.com, 2009.09.08].

So in came the rural electric cooperatives, a result not of slow, deliberate Congressional bipartisanship, but a unilateral executive order by a determined President who said of conservative animosity to the evils of government action, essentially, Bring it on!

And omigawd were they [the rural electric cooperatives] evil. Socialistic, un-American, undermining the very fabric of democracy. Legislators, businessmen, members of Congress, editorial page editors all over the country railed at the specter of Big Government shouldering into private enterprise, when everyone knew Government couldn't do it right.

Most infuriating of all, government did it right. The cooperatives became the pricing yardstick for electrical power. Investor-owned utilities had to lower their rates to compete. In four years, the cost of installing a mile of rural power line dropped from $2,000 to $600. In 2007, 72 years after FDR created the public option, customers using public power nationwide reportedly paid 17 percent less than those served by privately-owned utilities (according to the American Public Power Association, not necessarily a neutral source) [Simmons, 2009].

Anyone else see a connection between rural electrification and universal health coverage? And might President Obama take a lesson from FDR in how to get the job done?

Mo' from Rock Port MO: M.O. for Historic Preservation and Downtown Development

Atchison County Memorial Building, downtown Rock Port, MO

Reading up on Rock Port, Missouri, the first 100% wind-powered town in America, I happened upon the website for Rock Port's Atchison County Memorial Building. Built in 1921 in honor of World War I veterans, the building is a National Historic Landmark, says the website, but it is falling apart. Rather than see this impressive edifice crumble, locals have formed a non-profit foundation to restore the Memorial Building and protect its place as a cultural center for the community. The building still gets some use as a theater, and the Foundation wants to keep it going. The Foundation's goals include fixing up the building inside and out, installing a veterans museum and walk of honor, and establish an ongoing maintenance endowment.

The first phase, exterior renovation, is expected to cost $548,000. Subsequent phases will rack up another $1,750,000.

So Rock Port, town of 1300, looks at that big price tag, and do they say, "No way—we can't afford that"? Nope: they start fundraising. The Foundation has raised $200,000 so far, including a number of individuals and groups who have each kicked in more than $5000, and they are applying for various tax credits through the Neighborhood Assistance Program.

Masonic Temple,
downtown Madison, SD

So look at that building: impressive architecture, big columns, a unique building in the middle of town that everyone sees as they pass through. A building that can establish the identity of a the downtown area and the entire community. A solid old building that a community effort could restore to grandeur.

Sound familiar, Madisonites? Anyone getting any bright ideas?

McDonald's Recalls Custer Toys from Lakota Country Happy Meals

Hat tip to AllGov.com!

Marketing rule #1: Know Your Customers. That might include knowing your history. It might stop you from doing silly things like handing out General George Armstrong Custer dolls in Happy Meals in Rapid City, where Native Americans constitute 10% of the population. The figurines are a tie-in with the new Night at the Museum movie. Tim Giago reports from the metropolitan hub of the Republic of Lakota:

Bobbie DuBray, Administrative Assistant for the Lakota Peoples Law Project was not only shocked by this apparent display of racial insensitivity, but also angered by it.

DuBray says, "I went through the drive thru at McDonalds on East North Street to get a Happy Meal for my five-year-old son. I got home and my brother opened the meal and found the Custer doll." She said he then asked her to come and look at what he found. To her shock it was Custer toy. Her son wanted the toy and she told him, "No. that's a bad toy." She said that her 10 year old daughter did not understand why the toy was bad. She and her mother, Betty Handley, then gave the girl a history lesson "My daughter was not taught about this in school. What are they teaching our children?" she asked.

DuBray, visibly upset by this experience, said, "I think it's insulting. It's like handing out KKK dolls in the south where there are a lot of Blacks" [Tim Giago, "Custer Rides Again in McDonald's Happy Meal," Huffington Post, 2009.06.09].

Interestingly, one observer lays blame on the very East Coast elites we like to think are the big liberals:

[Oglala Lakota Jason Wolters] added, "Most advertising agencies are in the east and the people who put the ads and flyers together have absolutely no idea about the demographics out here in Indian country. We Lakota never see an Indian in the flyers of Kohl's, J. C. Penney's or Wal-Mart. They never stop to consider that our Lakota children never see people like themselves in the flyers and ads they send out here and yet you can go to Chicago or San Francisco and see ads with African Americans and Asian Americans" [Giago, 2009.06.09]

McDonald's appears to have quietly pulled the figurines, which feature Custer riding a motorcycle, from Rapid City stores.

Bush Worst President? Not the Point...

What's worse: liver or beets? Judge Judy or infomercials? Warren G. Harding or George W. Bush?

Professor Blanchard's fair reading of the bad and the good from the Bush II years reminds me of the difficulty in arguing that George W. Bush is the worst President ever. How does one measure the good of fighting AIDS in Africa against the bad of pushing bad science? How does replacing Saddam Hussein with a democratic Iraqi government stack up against a six-year occupation, hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and two million Iraqi refugees who as of last month are still too scared to go home? How does preventing another 9/11 (if it wasn't just luck) make up for not preventing the first one, or for squandering the international political capital that disaster gave us? And how do we measure all of that against the feats and foibles of every preceding President?

Intelligence Squared hosted a debate in December on the resolution "Bush 43 is the worst President of the last 50 years." William Kristol and Karl Rove were able to sway more of the undecideds away from the resolution than Simon Jenkins and Jacob Weisberg could pull toward it, perhaps largely because of the difficulty in establishing that the net harm done by the Bush Administration outweighs the net harm of Vietnam and domestic unrest under Johnson and Iran and stagflation under Carter. (The final vote on the I² December resolution was still 68% to 27% in favor).

Trying to determine whether President Bush performed worse than Carter, Hoover, or other Presidential bêtes noires may provide entertainment akin to debating whether Lincoln was greater than Washington or either Roosevelt. Such parlor games also miss the immediately relevant point that President Bush leaves the country less secure, less wealthy, and less free than when he took office.

Forget the HuffPost-y hyperbole or even the 61% of historians who deemed Bush the worst President ever (and that was last April, before the economy really tanked). Let's measure Bush by the Reagan standard: are you better off than you were four (or eight) years ago? The numbers suggest you are making less and owing more now than you did eight years ago.

George W. Bush hasn't made things as bad as 1933 or 1981, but he leaves Americans and America in worse shape than when he started. That's failure in my patriotic book.

U2 and Obama at Lincoln Memorial -- Let Freedom Ring

U2 performs at the Lincoln Memorial, 2009.01.18 [Doug Mills, New York Times]

By the way, I'm listening to the "We Are One" Inaugural Celebration on NPR and watching the video on HBO's website. There are a lot of smiling faces braving the cold in DC for this event, but I think the four happiest men in the crowd could be U2, four Irishmen who've hopped the pond to celebrate America and cry "Let Freedom Ring." Bono belts out "Pride (in the Name of Love)" on the spot where Martin Luther King, whom the song memorializes, spoke of his dream in 1963. Even The Edge breaks out in a big grin as he wails away on the guitar in front of thousands at the Lincoln Memorial. Wouldn't you?

Can't help wondering: what would Abe Lincoln think of these Irish rockers... not to mention that skinny fella from Chicago who'll be sitting in his office in two days?

But you know, Pete Seeger, who turns 90 this year, looks pretty happy too, as he leads thousands of Americans in singing "This Land Is Your Land." I think I hear Lincoln's boot tapping.

Dakota 38 Ride Crossing Lake County

An eager reader alerts me to the Dakota 38 Reconciliation Ride, a project started by Lakota spiritual leader Jim Miller to commemorate. Miller is leading riders on horseback on a 300-mile route from Lower Brule to Mankato. The riders are scheduled to arrive in Mankato on December 26^th, the 146^th anniversary of the hanging of 38 Dakota warriors who had participated in the Dakota Sioux Uprising of 1862. This hanging is the largest mass execution in American history.

Miller, a descendant of Dakota Indians forced from Minnesota after the uprising, organized the ride in response to a dream about a long ride that took him to the site of that execution. His goal for the ride: bring awareness and reconciliation to all who share this history.

His more immediate goal is just to stay warm. The riders got caught in the blizzard Sunday and had to stop in Howard. They hoped to make Madison yesterday and keep on trucking to Flandreau, Pipestone, and points east. Their route will also take them through New Ulm, where some of the fiercest fighting of the 1862 uprising took place.

So if you see a band of horse riders on Highway 34 (and then Minnesota 30 and that great slanty 23 up to Marshall), give them... and history... and one man's hopeful vision some room on the road.

Sunday Diversion: Historical Photos of Downtown Madison

Faithful reader and local historian John Hess sends some wonderful historic photos of Madison's bustling downtown. I've posted the four he just sent me on RealMadison.org for everyone's enjoyment. Here are a couple, before and way before:
Here's the North 200 block of Egan Avenue, downtown Madison, circa... well, I'm guessing 1950. Notice the used car lot with the string of lights on the west side, about where the flea market is today, between Bray's Furniture and Piper's Laundry. Down the street, you can see the old Penney's store in what is now the Dakota Drug building. And on the east side, near today's Radio Shack, the State Theater. Movies downtown! Ah, the good old days!

Now the really good old days, when the horse poop around City Hall wasn't just metaphorical. Here we see Madison pre-Detroit. The view looks north, perhaps from the railroad tracks. On the west side, you see the old Lake Park Hotel (oh! what I wouldn't give for a front porch like that on Main Street again!). And across the street, accommodations for the horse you rode in on, too, at the Lake Park Livery.

Those are some august buildings. Dwaine, take some notes (especially of that hotel porch!) and let us know when you want help with that Main Street and More project!

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By the way, in the 1990's, the Lake County Historical Society, with lots of work by Dr. Clyde Brashier, Jon Lauck, and other local folks put together a monster county history book stuffed with great photos like this. I've been thinking it would be cool to have an online version of that book (add that to the list of projects!). If you have more photos of old Madison, share them with the world! Log in and upload them to the Historic Madison album on RealMadison.org.