Notes on Terry Woster and the Decline of Journalism

We note with regret Terry Woster's retirement from that Sioux Falls paper. Better writers than I can offer more substantial and informed encomia of South Dakota's best political journalist. I will say simply that cub reporters who want to learn how to cover their communities should read Terry Woster, not just the dispatches from the Capitol in the heat of the session, but also his reflections about growing up on the farm. Good journalism, like all good writing, must be grounded in writing about what you know... and what you love. Woster's volumes of rich, intelligent political and personal writing demonstrates what I will presume to conclude is a profound love of South Dakota.

Love, commitment to community, the meaning of place—none of those items appear in corporate ledgers. In the best commentaries yet on the meaning of Woster's retirement, Bernie Hunhoff at South Dakota Magazine and David Newquist at Northern Valley Beacon make clear why corporate media are inimical to Wosterian journalism:

The problem with corporate-owned media is the nature of corporations. Corporations are bureacracies. They operate on the same kind of self-interest that government bureaucracies do. The current economic plight of our country and the world, in fact, is the result of corporate management. Bureaucracies do not honor and reward high-mindedness. They cater to the greedy, the devious, the ill-intentioned. Their intellectual and moral guidepost is the bottom line. And so Gannett, which announced job cuts previously last summer, ordered a 10 percent staff reduction late last month. The objective is totally to carry out the management order. The quality of journalism is not a consideration [David Newquist, "Requiem for the Fourth Estate," Northern Valley Beacon, 2008.11.15].

As Hunhoff makes clear, journalism, telling the stories of South Dakota, is about much more than following orders from distant rulers and making money:

I tend to agree with the fellow who blames the hometown publishers for selling out their communities. A weekly or daily paper (and I'd like to believe the same is true of our magazine) is a public trust. If you're blessed to have the privilege of being the caretaker of it for a few years, then one of your biggest concerns should be to pass it onto another generation who will care for it as you tried to do.

The same may be true of land owners and business owners in general. But certainly when it comes to the Fourth Estate, the people of the United States would be better served with five thousand independent and creative newspapers and magazines than the fluff and mush served up by today's corporate media [Bernie Hunhoff, "Terry Woster: Who's to Blame?" South Dakota Magazine: Editor's Notebook, 2008.11.15].

According to Mr. Epp, Terry Woster is 65. He's done his service. But what attention will that Sioux Falls paper and other corporate media give to hiring committed community journalists to continue that service?

I haven't seen (or produced) a blog yet that that approaches Woster's oeuvre in quality. But as corporate cost-cutting pushes Woster from the stage, someone's got to keep an eye on what's happening in South Dakota. Citizen journalists, duty calls!

Supreme Court Saves Madison from Heidelberger Mayoral Campaign

Rest easy, Madison: Jim Heidelberger will not be your mayor. So sayeth the South Dakota Supreme Court.

No, we didn't go to Pierre to fight for our political rights, but Madison's city finance officer Jeff Heinemeyer did. As you may recall, in 2006, Heinemeyer was elected to the Madison-Volga-Groton seat on the Heartland Consumer Power District Board. However, Heinemeyer sold his Madison house a week before the election and moved out to Lake Madison, outside city limits. He rented an apartment in Madison, but that wasn't enough for the Heartland board, which refused to seat Heinemeyer. Heinemeyer went to court, and in November 2007, Circuit Judge Vincent Foley bought Heinemeyer's argument that, because he still maintained his voter registration at his in-town rental address and spent most of his time working in Madison, he could legitimately claim Madison residency. Judge Foley thus ordered the board to seat Heinemeyer, and the board did so.

I thought this opened the door for my dad, who fulfills all the residency criteria sold by Heinemeyer's lawyer Wilson Kleibacker, to challenge Gene Hexom for Madison's mayoralty in 2010.

Alas, I can quit trying to figure out how to fit "HEIDELBERGER" on the campaign t-shirts: this week, the State Supreme Court overturned Judge Foley's ruling, with three of the five justices deciding Heinemeyer really does live in Wentworth:

“Heinemeyer does not actually live in his apartment in Madison,” wrote acting Justice John Brown of Pierre. “Heinemeyer acknowledged that he does not spend any substantial amount of leisure time at his apartment, keeps few, if any personal effects at the apartment, and rarely sleeps there overnight.

“Furthermore, while Heinemeyer testified that he obtained the apartment in order to have a place to eat lunch during the work-day and occasionally take naps, he also admitted that he began renting the apartment to satisfy the residency requirement in order to serve on the board" [Joe Kafka, "Man Cannot Serve on Power Board*," AP via Mitchell Daily Republic, 2008.11.13].

Now I sometimes like having lunch in town instead of driving back out to the lake, but it never occurred to me to rent an apartment for lunch instead of resorting to the brown bag or Dairy Queen. As for naps, well, I hate naps, but if I'm really tired, both libraries have some cushy, low-rent chairs.

The decision was no slam dunk: two justices supported Heinemeyer's argument. Chief Justice David Gilbertson noted that the Heartland board knew before the election that Heinemeyer was selling his Madison house and moving out of the district but didn't challenge his candidacy until after the election. "To permit the board to wait until after the election to oust Heinemeyer is to overturn a free and fair expression of the will of the voters," said Justice Gilbertson, stirring my democratic soul.

The Heartland board should have spoken up sooner, maybe contacted the paper or their favorite local bloggers to raise a stink before the election. (See: speaking up can save a lot of trouble!) But the majority of the court got it right with a straightforward interpretation of residency. You live where you live, not just where you have lunch. The law is the law, and the fact that an ineligible candidate won an election does not render that candidate eligible.

So blame (or thank!) the Supreme Court, dear Madison neighbors, for averting a (Jim) Heidelberger campaign for mayor.

*Add that maxim to "Man cannot live on bread alone." But who's that leave to run Heartland... puppies? pheasants? Greek gods? Oh great Zeus! hurl thy thunderbolts and lower my electric bill!

Keep Marriage out of the Constitution -- Note for Ken

Ken Blanchard is right: he and I agree much more than we disagree on the issue of marriage. His critique of my effort to differentiate monogamous adult relationships from polygamy and incest is reasonable. I said that polygamy and incest are too often entangled with power issues, but as Blanchard points out, there are plenty of conventional marriages and homosexual unions tainted with inequality, if not abuse. If I could go around with my magic legislation wand banning all relationships in which partners fall short of loving, honoring, and cherishing each other as equal partners, well... how many marriages can you think of that would go poof? Yikes.

I recognize Ken's point that the Constitution doesn't lay out principles governing marriage, thus leaving decisions to the legislatures. I would suggest that the decision needs to be left even further down, at the church steps. (Maybe that's further up, depending on your perspective.) When I refer to contortions of law and Constitution, I refer to the effort to enshrine marriage in law—not civil unions, not insurance beneficiary designations, not visitation rights, but marriage, this institution that, as far as I can tell, is really distinguished only by its sacred component. Sacred means religious, and religious means hands off for secular authorities.

Remember, I'm married. Mrs. Madville Times and I said our I do's at First Lutheran in Brookings (yup, Touchdown Jesus). If Pastor Scott has looked at the two of us, shaken his head, and said, "Nope, I can't be marryin' off one of our precious Lutheran angels to a heathen like this guy," well, I'd have been disappointed, but I wouldn't have had a court case. I couldn't sue a pastor for not marrying me any more than I could sue Pastor Daryl here in Madison for denying me communion (don't worry, Daryl, I'm not coming to test that one).

If the state is going to get into the business of granting certain practical rights to partners in committed relationships (e.g., see above), it can't Constitutionally distinguish between relationships that are religiously sanctioned and those that aren't. That's why I view having to obtain a license from the courthouse to get married as an improper "contortion" of the law.

By the way, Ken mentions nookie. Rebutting my contention that the legal discussion of marriage need not be about sexual intercourse, Ken says, "We wouldn't be considering extending the relationship of marriage to couples of men who are just chums. Without the nookie, no one would be talking about marriage." A minor quibble: the law generally turns a blind eye to whom we choose to have sex with (as ought we all). Why the law would suddenly start paying attention to our genital activities after we buy a ring is beyond me. And to be honest, if two heterosexual male best friends decided marriage wasn't for them but wanted to be roommates for life, share the mortgage and insurance coverage, and be each other's go-to guy if the other was in the hospital, I'd say, "No problem." Give 'em a civil union and all the concomitant legal recognitions. Rights shouldn't depend on nookie.

(Ken also notes his virgin spellchecker doesn't recognize "nookie." Ken's spellchecker doesn't know what it's missing.)

Bad: No Credit. Worse: No Credit for Buying American Cars

A report on yesterday's All Things Considered that noted some lenders are only handing out car loans (car loans) to folks with credit scores of 700 or better. Reporter Chris Arnold then offered one of the scariest economic quotes I've heard yet:

The U.S. carmakers are under particular stress right now. Art Spinella heads up CNW Research and focuses on the auto industry. He says he's seeing something he's never seen before. He says some lenders seem to be more willing to lend to people who are buying Hondas, Toyotas, or other foreign cars.

[Spinella] "Someone might want to buy a GM or a Chevrolet product and the bank might say, nah, I'm not sure, even with your good credit score, we're not really sure that that's feasible because we're not really certain -- and they don't necessarily say this out loud -- but they're not really certain that Chevrolet isn't somewhere along the line going to be damaged dramatically by a GM bankruptcy filing" [Chris Arnold, "Markets Weigh U.S. Plan to Expand Bailout," NPR: All Things Considered, 2008.11.13].

Think about that: banks deciding for consumers that an entire brand of products, American-made products, is too risky of an investment. GM is on the ropes, Ford is looking a little pale, too. What happens if wary bankers decide the entire American auto industry is too much of a gamble?

I wonder: while some locals appear to be fretting over possible hesitance by Madison lenders to support Madison's TIF district, what happens if the banks decide they want to hold off on funding purchases from Prostrollo's All-American Auto Mall?

I don't know, Pat... maybe stocking a few Hondas out by the White Buffalo wouldn't be such a bad investment... just in case.

Mundt Tournament in Peril: Harrisburg Willing to Do What Madison Won't

Elisa Sand gives the Karl E. Mundt Debate Tournament big coverage in tonight's Madison Daily Leader. Readers will recall my coverage Sunday, which explained that after four decades of honoring Madison HS alumnus Senator Mundt by hosting the final regular season South Dakota high school debate contest, the Madison Central School District apparently wants out.

I'll fact-check later—for now, read Sand's coverage... and note that while Madison appears to be full of "No We Can't," Class A rival Harrisburg, which has had a debate program for just two years, appears to have the Obama spirit—"Yes We Can!"—to take this proud tradition from Madison. School spirit, anyone?

Wherein I Do Dwaine Chapel's Job...

Commenters have had a field day with the obtuse essay from Dwaine Chapel that I posted Wednesday. Readers questioned the income data presented, smoked out the pretty clear mischaracterization of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and expressed a fair amount of suspicion and disagreement over how the LAIC operates.

Maybe the LAIC wouldn't catch such heck if it operated more transparently. A big step toward such transparency would be clearer communication from its executive director, Mr. Chapel.

As an example, consider the essay currently under scrutiny. The text Chapel wrote for the Nov/Dec Chamber newsletter reads to an outsider like a cut-and-paste job with no clear unifying thesis. We get definitions, a Wikipedia-quality explanation of the CRA, a couple euphemisms (banks "are afforded the ability to reinvest" by the CRA? har har), and a couple statistics about Lake County. So what's wrong with that essay?

• The author draws no clear connection between any of that information and current events in the county.
  
• The CRA appears not to apply to Lake County, which doesn't appear on the FFIEC list of "distressed or underserved" tracts.
• The income information is given no context: whatever Lake County's median family income may be, how does that compare to housing prices?
• The essay sounds like the author forgot that his readers don't have all the information he does. Maybe someone who has read the housing study would understand the point... but how many of you have sprung $250 for a copy?
  

The only logical meaning suggested by my readers is that the CRA essay was Mr. Chapel's attempt to encourage local banks to adopt a more liberal lending policy toward affordable housing projects, specifically Randy Schaefer's TIF district. It is a reasonable thesis: economy's tight, credit is freezing up, nobody wants to take risks. Where President Bush thought $700 billion dollars might prime the pump, fellow Republican Chapel perhaps thought he'd try some gentle words as a local stimulus package.

But the current economy is no place for gentle words. If I were the local official in charge of economic development, and I wanted to send the message my readers have divined from Chapel's words, here's the essay I would have composed:

There's no doubt about it: the economy's tight. Debt has finally caught up with individuals and businesses, and everyone wants to scale back and save.

Now as consumer and taxpayer, I think saving money is a great idea. However, as a public servant charged with serving Madison and Lake County by promoting economic development, I recognize that everybody tightening their belts could actually do more harm than good.

Specifically, let's look at housing and construction. Imagine what would happen if Craig Williams and Nick Opdahl and all the other builders in town said, "We'd better cut back. No more houses until the recession is done. We're going fishing." Folks would lose jobs, houses wouldn't get built, and the local economy would lose out. We need our construction industry to keep chugging along.

But it can't do that if our local banks hang the "Gone Fishing" sign on the door. Ed, Tim, the rest of you, we need your help. Sure, housing looks like a risky investment right now. But we're not talking about facilitating the house-flipping and other real estate speculation that got the country into its current mess. We're talking about building houses for local folks, for your neighbors, the folks who've helped you build the successful banks you have. We're talking about sustaining jobs and cash flow in our community. That's not a risk; that's an investment.

Funding Randy Schaefer's housing project and other building right now may not look good on your actuarial tables. But consider: every house Randy builds is another several truckloads of materials Pro-Build sells (and it it helps, I'll get Randy to buy everything locally). It's another several weeks of work for a construction crew and all those subcontractors. And it's a new home for a new family who, once they get their boxes unpacked, will come around wanting loans for a new car or maybe even a new business.

Madison and Lake County need your help. The housing study proves we need more affordable housing. Don't believe me? Read it for yourself, for free: I'm having Kari run a copy over to the public library, and I'm sending an electronic copy to Cory to post on his blog.

Tightening our belts is a perfectly reasonable response to short-term economic concerns. But to make Madison grow, we always need to think long-term. Banks, investing in your neighbors has always paid off, and it always will. Let's see some loans! Forward Madison!

Are local banks getting too tight with their money? Should they pour funds into the TIF district and other projects right now? Does Madison need more housing? Beats me. But if those statements are true, we don't have to reach for a vague and irrelevant appeal to the Community Reinvestment Act and contextless statistics to make that point.

Maybe even my glittering prose wouldn't move banks staring down the barrel a deep recession. But the local economy and life in general would be so much better if all of us, including quasi-public officials like Dwaine Chapel, would just say what we mean.

Obama on Religion: Doubt, Suspicion of Dogma Good

And for those of you with any lingering questions about the religious faith of President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama, see this newly posted transcript of a lengthy interview he gave to Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani on March 27, 2004. My favorite passage so far is his reply to a question about responding to an altar call at Trinity [emphasis added]:

FALSANI:
So you got yourself born again?

OBAMA:
Yeah, although I don't, I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I'm not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I've got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others.

I'm a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at its best comes with a big dose of doubt. I'm suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.

I think that, particularly as somebody who's now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart, there's an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.

Also heartening:

[Obama]: Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. I am a big believer in our constitutional structure. I mean, I'm a law professor at the University of Chicago teaching constitutional law. I am a great admirer of our founding charter, and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming, and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root in this country.

As I said before, in my own public policy, I'm very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics.

Now, that's different form a belief that values have to inform our public policy. I think it's perfectly consistent to say that I want my government to be operating for all faiths and all peoples, including atheists and agnostics, while also insisting that there are values that inform my politics that are appropriate to talk about.

A standard line in my stump speech during this campaign is that my politics are informed by a belief that we're all connected. That if there's a child on the South Side of Chicago that can't read, that makes a difference in my life even if it's not my own child. If there's a senior citizen in downstate Illinois that's struggling to pay for their medicine and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer even if it's not my grandparent. And if there's an Arab American family that's being rounded up by John Ashcroft without the benefit of due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

And on speaking of faith publicly:

FALSANI:
Do you think it's wrong for people to want to know about a civic leader's spirituality?

OBAMA:
I don't think it's wrong. I think that political leaders are subject to all sorts of vetting by the public, and this can be a component of that.

I think that I am disturbed by, let me put it this way: I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God's mandate.

I think there is this tendency that I don't think is healthy for public figures to wear religion on their sleeve as a means to insulate themselves from criticism, or dialogue with people who disagree with them.

Perhaps Governor Palin should review that last comment.

Overall, President-Elect Obama sounds like a man people of all faiths can respect and, more importantly, work with to get things done.

Christmas Gift for Chapel and Palin: English Lessons

Dwaine Chapel writes about as clearly as Sarah Palin speaks. I'm not sure on whom that reflects more poorly:

Calling Tina Fey. Here’s Palin defending herself on the contention that she got confused about Africa:

“My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars" [Maureen Down, "Boxers, Briefs, or Silks?" New York Times, 2008.11.11].

Chapel and Palin have similar facility with the English language. They are both Main Streeters from the real parts of America. Maybe Palin-Chapel is the ticket to lead the Republican restoration in 2012.

Update 10:23: Or maybe not.

Wireless Internet: Great Investment for Madison

A quick note as I peruse the Madison city budget for 2008—I find the following costs for the Madison Public Library:

• Cost of new books for the Madison Public Library: $32,595 (and worth every penny!)
• Cost of automatic door opener: $4,000
• Cost of wireless Internet access: $600

Talk about opening doors: the library is able to provide its patrons with wireless Internet for less than $2 a day. Now that's service!

Imagine what a bargain it would be for the city to make the entire downtown a wireless Internet hotspot for shoppers, businesses, and our guests from out of town... just like Aberdeen does!

Howler of the Week: County Supports Library

Maybe Madison Mayor Gene Hexom was just trying to put a happy face on things. But sometimes, even our good-hearted mayor stretches the truth a bit.

In Monday's Madison Daily Leader, Mayor Hexom responded to a question about the state of city-county cooperation by offering MDL's roving reporter Elisa Sand "numerous examples where the agencies work together." Hexom cited, among other things, Lake County's support of the Madison Public Library.

Mayor Hexom's statement is technically correct... or at least it was in 2007, when the county commission authorized $800 for Culture and Recreation.

$800. Out of a $4.3 million county budget. Out of a $380,000 operating budget for the library. $800—that's 0.2% of the library's budget.

To say the county cooperates with the city on the library is like saying I work for Amert Construction because I once held the door for Don when he walked out of the lumberyard with a sack of nails.

I appreciate Mayor Hexom's ability to put a happy face on even the smallest of good things in our community. Perhaps our new county commissioners will give Mayor Hexom something much more substantial to crow about by fostering more practical cooperation between our governing agencies.

Keystone Pipeline Surviving Low Oil Prices, Will Survive Reasonable Tax

The South Dakota Legislature went to great efforts to kill or water down any efforts to regulate or tax the TransCanada Keystone pipeline during the 2008 session. I argued vigorously that nothing our legislature might do to impose some responsibility and, bluntly, make some money on the pipeline would not stop Big Oil from building the pipeline. But the Republicans (and a few Dems, dang 'em) thought that taking even two cents per barrel would create a business-crushing burden on TransCanada.

Well, now we find that taking away $80 per barrel won't stop TransCanada:

Gas prices dropped another nickel in Sioux Falls Wednesday as the price for a barrel of oil fell to 56 dollars. While the falling oil prices are good news for drivers, its not so good news for oil producers in Canada. Canadian crude is more costly to produce than regular oil, so when the price goes down so do profits.

...But, Robert Jones with TransCanada's Keystone pipeline says the price is not going to impact the hundreds of miles of pipeline being put in the ground right now.

Jones says, "The shippers have signed binding contracts and no matter what the price of oil is, the consumer demand in the United States, the refineries, still need the oil" [Ben Dunsmoor, "Oil Slow Down Will Not Stop Transcanada," KELOLand.com, 2008.11.12].

2009 is a whole new Legislative session. We have another chance to impose a pipeline tax that would make Big Oil pay a reasonable fee for the great benefits it will enjoy for the use of our land.

Verbatim: Dwaine Chapel on the Community Reinvestment Act

Permit me to expose my ignorance ("Again?!?" cries the peanut gallery). I've been reviewing Dwaine Chapel's "The LAIC Perspective" column in this month's Madison Chamber of Commerce newsletter... and I have no idea what he's saying. The words are clear enough—Community Reinvestment Act, family income, yadda yadda—but the message... just what is Mr. Chapel trying to achieve with this article?

Gentle readers, you know I enjoy throwing snowballs at Mr. Chapel, and I'll have some packed and ready soon enough. But first, why don't you take a crack at parsing the LAIC's misty oraculations. You can go look at the PDF version of the newsletter if you wish, but as a public service, here's a faithful-to-the-last-hyphen reproduction of Mr. Chapel's text:

Dwaine Chapel, "The LAIC Perspective,"
Madison Chamber of Commerce newsletter,
November 2008, p. 7

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was passed in 1977 and states "regulated financial institutions have continuing and affirmative obligation to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered." This simply means that lending institutions are a-for-profit organization and are afforded the ability to reinvest that profit back into the community in which they serve.

Banks are rated on their reinvestment activities and the funds are used to accomplish many productive and positive tasks. For example the funds can be used to take action in creating new jobs, affordable housing, fair housing, and to help small business and entrepreneurs to name a few.

Fair housing and affordable housing focus on the low to moderate income sectors of an area. Area median income is a guideline used to determine if a bank can receive CRA credit for the loans it issues. Many organizations throughout the country have applied for community development loans addressing housing needs in their community.

The definition of area median income is the median family income for a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) or the county or statewide median family income if the individual is outside of a metropolitan statistical area. The definition of low income means that the income level of an individual is 50 percent of a geographical area. Moderate income means that the income level of an individual is at least 50 percent and less than 80 percent of the area median income. Family median income states that the income is at least 50 percent and less than 80 percent of a geographical area. Middle income means that the income level of an individual is at least 80 percent and less than 120 percent of the area median income. Family median income states that the income is at least 80 percent and less than 120 percent of a geographical area.

What is a metropolitan statistical area (MSA)? It is a geographic area used by federal agencies that collect and tabulate survey information gathered. A metropolitan area contains a population of 50,000 or more as its core urban area. Furthermore, a micropolitan is that urban core consisting of more than 10,000 and less than 50,000 in population.

According to the most recent census data obtained through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), income information for Lake County shows the 2008 estimated median income to be $57,240 which is an increase from the 2004 median income level of $43,750.

The Community Reinvestment Act provides opportunity for banks throughout the country to provide community development loans to address a number of economic development issues in their communities. The CRA was initiated to improve the quality of life issues and create and retain jobs and most importantly retain families for a neighborhood and a community.

Before I can muster any commentary, I need an answer to one simple question: What is the thesis of this essay? Friends, English teachers, countrymen, have at it!

--------------
Update: You can view an English teacher's corrections and comments on the above text here.