Rounds Chooses Technicalities, Not Life

When Governor Rounds stayed Elijah Page's execution last night, the news carried comments from relieved protestors, including one woman on KELO TV who said she knew that the Governor had it in him to spare Page's life. She averred that Rounds is a good man, as demonstrated by his support for the abortion ban (now Referred Law 6 on the November ballot). Others now may draw the conclusion that Rounds holds a consistent pro-life vision.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In his press conference yesterday laying out his reasons for the stay, Rounds said absolutely nothing about sparing Page's life or even sparing the convict cruel and unusual punishment. Rounds couched his decision entirely in terms of the particularities of South Dakota statute. South Dakota's death penalty law, written in 1984 (and evidently not reviewed by the governor until yesterday afternoon around 4 p.m.), specifies the use of a two-drug combination in the lethal injection chamber. Board of Corrections officials had made plans to use the 3-drug combination that apparently has become the standard in other states. The only reason Governor Rounds postponed the execution was his concern that state employees participating in the execution might have faced legal penalties afterward. He thus has stayed the execution until July 1, 2007, by which time he expects the legislature will have addressed the issue in its winter session and cleared the way for the execution to take place in a legal fashion.

As he did on the first abortion ban to come to his desk in 2005, Governor Rounds has avoided making a moral decision and instead played the bureaucrat. He has successfully delayed the execution, South Dakota's first since the 1940s, until well after the election, when he can calmly oversee the state's killing of a man without facing any awkward questions from his voters on their way to the polls about the depth and consistency of his pro-life stance. Governor Rounds has not answered anyone's prayers besides his political consultants, who know that the two-drug mix of abortion and the death penalty, while perhaps not guaranteed lethal, could cause Rounds some cruel and unusual punishment at the hands of his fellow Catholics and other riled voters in his effort to be re-elected governor.

The debate on an issue as serious as the death penalty, the state-sanctioned pre-meditated killing of individuals who have already been contained and deprived of their state-given rights, should not center on technicalities. True political leaders would engage us in a conversation about the fundamental values involved. True political leaders would face up to and either defend or resolve the apparently contradictory position of forbidding a rape victim from seeking an abortion because of our dedvotion to the sanctity of life but allowing a brutal criminal to dictate the terms of his punishment and assisting in a suicide. Governor Rounds is failing to show that leadership on this moral issue.

Comment Moderation -- The Madville Times Policy

Update 2009.05.01: I'm trying out a new comment policy. Given my experience that anonymous comments foster unneighborly, unproductive, off-topic ranting, I'm banning anonymous comments. Very simply:

1. Leave your real name with your comment.
2. If I don't recognize your name, and if you don't provide a hyperlink to a profile or other identifying information, I delete the comment.
3. If you have something to say but are unwilling to say it publicly, send your info privately, and we can talk.
4. Don't like it? Get your own blog. It's easy, it's free.
   

My rules of civility outlined below are worth reading. And if you think I'm picky, feel free to compare comment policies from NPR, Huffington Post, and New York Times.

----------------------------------------------------------
--earlier comment moderation policy, repealed 2009.05.01--
sections rendered wholly irrelevant by nymity policy
appear in red italics
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The Madville Times does not moderate comments. If you submit a comment—pro, con, or neutral—it will appear (barring gremlins) uncensored. The Madville Times reserves the right to delete comments at whim, but will use that right sparingly. The Madville Times assumes no responsibility for illegal content (e.g., libel); commenters retain sole legal responsibility for the content of their submitted material.

Cuss words are generally unnecessary.

On anonymous comments: The Madville Times recognizes that some citizens want to participate in public discourse but are afraid that other citizens may retaliate in some fashion against them for expressing unpopular views. The Madville Times does not share such fears and urges all citizens to exercise their First Amendment rights respectfully yet fearlessly.

Nonetheless, recognizing that a call to fearless speech is more easily said than done, the Madville Times is currently willing to tolerate anonymous comments. Please note that this policy runs counter to established practice for most social institutions:

1. The Madison Daily Leader, as well as nearly all newspapers, will not publish anonymous letters to the editor and requires verifiable contact information with every letter.
2. The school districts I have worked for will not act on anonymous complaints.
   
3. The legal system permits witnesses to testify anonymously only in the most extreme cases where a clear threat to the witnesses' safety can be demonstrated.
4. People who show up at public meetings wearing masks are generally viewed with suspicion.
   

In general, the Madville Times frowns on anonymous comments because they represent a weaker form of civil discourse. As members of a community, we should speak with each other as equal partners in the great endeavor of maintaining and improving the quality of life in the city and state we share. Even when exercising the privilege of anonymous commenting, readers should moderate their own comments by the following criteria:

1. Would you be willing to say these same words in a face-to-face conversation with the person to whom you are directing your comment?
2. Would you be willing to say these same words in person with other people listening?
   

SD Schools Throw Money Away on Outside Speakers

School is resuming at Montrose. We had two days of in-service, Tuesday and Wednesday, which consisted entirely of a presentation by Dr. Ed Porthan, a former teacher and administrator who now makes an apparently better living in the private sector as a consultant who presumes to tell teachers who stick with the profession how to do their jobs. I was hoping the money spent ($1500, according to one administrator) to bring Dr. Porthan down from Minnesota would turn out to be well spent. Alas, I found myself sitting through yet another in-service that offered no new information or practical knowledge that left me better prepared to step into the classroom and educate children next week Wednesday. For my assessment of the debacle (the address of which I have already mailed to the profiteering Dr. Porthan), see my essay "Teacher In-Service: More Taxpayer Dollars Down the Drain -- A Review of Dr. Ed Porthan's Educational Consulting."

The question for taxpayers to consider is this: if funds in our school budgets and small towns really are limited (and the proliferation of expensive boats and RVs sometimes leads me to question even that premise), wouldn't school boards better invest those limited funds by paying their teachers more, knowing those dollars will turn over more as local teachers spend that money locally, rather than handing spare funds over to out-of-state consultants with litte knowledge of our school districts' specific needs who will take the money and run without leaving us with any useful knowledge?

Hey, GOP! Want to Retake SD's House Seat? Recruit Herseth!

Representative Herseth proves again that she's really a Republican. In the wee hours this morning, she voted Aye with 33 other "Democrats" to support the GOP's cynical effort to slash the estate tax for its wealthy constituents. The GOP threw in a minimum-wage increase as political cover, and Rep. Herseth went along with them.

So instead of putting its hopes on its own candidate for the House, why doesn't the GOP court Stephanie? She's voted with them on the estate tax, gay marriage, and other issues; why not get her to switch to the party that her voting record better reflects?

Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Beetle Beadle Days....

Biking through town yesterday on a fruitless mission to find some new painting sandals, I rode down Main Street and noticed a banner on one of the Four Corners bars. The banner announced the specials and activities the bar is offering in conjunction with Crazy Days -- oh, but wait, someone involved in community marketing decided that Madison's version of the usual small-town summer festival of sales and other merriment needed a different, more distinguishing name. "Crazy" perhaps has fallen out of favor due to its politically incorrect undertones. It also is the name used by a hundred other towns for their weekends of sidewalk sales and kiddie tractor pulls, so it's not terribly useful in helping Madison build its brand (and if this town can just build a brand, then all our dreams will come true, the Lake Area Improvement Corporation tells us). Thus, Crazy Days has been renamed Beadle Days, in honor of local historic figure General William Henry Harrison Beadle.

But back to the banner: Evidently the bar owner isn't pulling together as a team player with the rest of the community. The banner reads "Beetle Days." The community marketing folks dedicated to creating these cool marketing campaigns must groan when they see that banner. And I'll admit -- even I as an English teacher groan at such apparent miscommunication and misspelling. At a bare minimum, good marketing demands understanding exactly which words we are supposed to use. Obviously that's not happening with this latest bright idea. Besides this amusing misspelling, shop windows and newspaper ads show the general confusion as to whether the weekend event is still Crazy Days. Where "Beadle" was supposed to be a unifying term, it appears to have ended up just thrown in the mix with the other labels used for the event.

Whoever screwed up -- the bar owner in not double-checking the order and recognizing the possible misunderstanding of the ambiguous word "Beadle", local businesses for not paying attention to updates from the Chamber of Commerce, maybe the Chamber itself for picking a term so easily misunderstood -- we need to make sure all the local merchants get the memo and get their advertising materials right.

Positive Economics: A Hypothesis on Reliance on Out-of-Town Dollars

Economics is divided into two fields: positive and normative. I usually spend my time in normative economics, thinking and arguing about how our economy -- local, national, and global -- should be structured. Positive economics is merely descriptive economics, analysis of how the economy is structured. You can't do good normative economics without good positive economics.
So here I offer a mere observation on why our local economy works the way it does. I've compained before about how Madison's marketing efforts focus on tourism, on drawing out-of-town dollars. I've suggested that we might build a more stable local economy if we focused on building local industries that serve local needs. However, it hit me why that model would not necessarily provide the economic growth that our fearless leaders want. Madison's wages, like wages throughout South Dakota, are significantly below the national average. We don't have a lot of high-salary jobs. We have lots of farmers who aren't even protected by minimum-wage laws. We thus don't have a lot of workers with expendable income to pour into the local economy in the first place. We have more workers who must pinch pennies and shop at Wal-Mart to keep their costs down. To get economic growth, we need to import wages from elsewhere, from folks in Sioux Falls and across the border in Minnesota who do have high-wage jobs that give them the freedom to travel and spend more money. Our own workers, on the wages we pay them, can't support strong economic growth, so we have to borrow the buying power of workers from states with higher wages. When we do import those wages, we still don't experience enormous growth -- tourism and entertainment jobs pay below-average wages to most of their workers -- but we get at least a little economic boost that our own wage base can't provide.

Like I said, this observation is only positive economics, not normative economics. Given the situation, I can at least understand why South Dakota puts so much emphasis on trying to draw tourists. However, I wonder: could we get an equal economic boost by diverting our tourism-promotion dollars into some sort of wage-support program? Here and there we could find advertising dollars that could be diverted into local paychecks. The City of Madison, for instance, instead of forking out $100,000 a year to the Lake Area Improvement Corporation to market Madison could instead give 50 city employees a $1000 raise. The state could cut back its budget for the Department of Tourism and give more property tax rebates. Or the state could really think big, increase the minimum wage, and businesses could enjoy the trickle-up economic impact of workers in the state having more money to spend at local businesses. Such wage increases seem to offer a more reliable source of economic growth than the gamble of advertising for tourist dollars. But as long as an economy's wages remain low, it must rely on somehow importing dollars from wage earners in more profitable places.

LAIC: Earn Your Keep

Yesterday's (2006.07.26) Madison Daily Leader offers the headline "LAIC Wants More Money." Yes, our friends at the Lake Area Improvement Corporation think they need $30,000 more from the city to do more facilitating and strategizing and all the other tasks that marketers do. I think we'd get as much satisfaction and enjoyment from flushing 30,000 one-dollar bills down a toilet and watching them spin into oblivion.

However, knowing the LAIC will tell us that we must grow or die, and that the only way to grow is to market, I offer the following suggestion: Sure, the LAIC can have $30,000 more in next year's budget, but first, they have to prove that they have brought twice that much revenue into the city coffers in the last year. $30,000 from the city would be the product of $1.5 million in sales (taxed by the city at 2%). Of course, the LAIC shouldn't get every penny of increased revenue -- increased tax revenue is supposed to help us pave streets and fund the library, not simply keep churning out more banners and slogans for our town. 50% of any provable revenue increase is a more than reasonable commission. Thus, for every dollar more that LAIC wants in its budget, it should have to prove that its efforts (not luck, not good weather, not national economic trends, but LAIC's own marketing campaigns) have generated an additional $100 of economic activity in Madison. LAIC's $30,000 budget increase would only be justified if LAIC could show $3 million in increased local economic activity.

If the LAIC wants us to live by the mantra of marketing, the LAIC should also have to live by the rules of business and good government: you want more money, you show us results. Indexing LAIC's funding to its proven performance should have the same positive impact on productivity and efficiency that it does in the private enterprises LAIC is promoting.

Herseth Supports Gay Marriage Ban; Progressives Wonder Where to Turn

Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth was one of 34 Democrats to vote for House Joint Resolution 88, proposing a Constitutional amendment restricting marriage to unions between one man and one woman. The amendment failed the July 18 vote 236-187.

To express my disappointment with Representative Herseth's un-Democratic vote, I e-mailed her the following comments:

Dear Representative Herseth:

A couple weeks ago, a young woman named Cassie called me on behalf of the South Dakota Democratic Party to talk up your achievements in Congress and solicit money so you could continue to fight against the Republican majority. I asked the caller why I should support a Democrat who associates herself with the Blue Dog conservatives and talks and votes like a Republican on numerous issues. Poor Cassie, who apparently was a new trainee in the party office, said she didn't know about that.

If Cassie calls again, I will direct her attention to your vote on HJ Res 88, proposing a constitutional amendment relating to marriage. My wife and I are both registered Democrats, and we want to vote for legislators who will fight for a truly progressive agenda. How can we do that when you vote like a Republican? Why not take a stand on this unnecessary, discriminatory, and dangerous amendment and make the effort to persuade South Dakotans that issues like gay marriage have nothing to do real family values like supporting working parents, teaching kids, and providing affordable health care for all ages? You don't have to pander to the yahoos of the religious right who are trying to co-opt Christianity as well as American politics. Make a stand; be the progressive thinker that South Dakota needs (and that progressives like us are aching to hear speaking for us in the public arena).

With sincere longing for a real Democrat....

I'll let you know if she responds....

New Teacher Academy Ignores the Obvious

Friday's (2006.06.02, p.1) Madison Daily Leader leads with a story about next week's New Teacher Academy taking place at Dakota State University. The purpose of the three-day event: to keep new teachers in the profession. State Secretary of Education cites the well-known (in education circles) statistic that nationwide, 50% of teachers leave the profession within five years.

O.K., hold it right there. Pop quiz: Imagine you are the Secretary of Education and you wanted to address new-teacher retention. Which of the following do you think would persuade more teachers to remain in the profession?

(A) Celebrate the accomplishments of new teachers;
(B) Reflect on new teachers' progress and influence on student achievement;
(C) Examine core propositions of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards;
(D) Develop professional relationships to achieve common educational goals;
(E) Participate in activities that demonstrate a commitment to the teaching profession;
(F) Receive more pay.

If you answered (F), you aren't thinking like a true education administrator. Such individuals don't get to their positions of power and influence with straight talk and common sense. They get there by proposing and lauding make-work mumbo-jumbo like options (A)-(E), which come straight from the Department of Education's description of the New Teacher Academy.

This story doesn't completely ignore the issue of teacher pay: Tom Hawley, dean of DSU's College of Education, notes (in column 5 of a six-column article) that new teachers "can go into the private sector and make a larger salary." Hawley says that through the New Teacher Academy, the state wants to be "proactive and try to keep the best and brightest teachers in the classrooms in South Dakota."

Actually, it sounds like the state is simply trying to find ways to make itself look good by throwing federal grant money down another hole. If you want to keep new teachers on the job, don't cut into their vacation with more mindless academic activities (the same sorts of tedious, content-free classes we already have to sit through to meet our overly burdensome and talent-discouraging certification requirements). Say "Good job, here's a check. Want to stick around for another year?" Handing out checks wouldn't look as good on an education administrator's resume as a fancy seminar, but it would achieve the goal of teacher retention a lot more directly and efficiently.

As Expected, Slogan Underwhelms

Friday's (2006.06.02) Madison Daily Leader reports that the employees at CommissionSoup have come up with a new slogan for Madison: we may replace "In Touch with the World" with (brace yourself) "Discover the Unexpected."

I wish I could get paid for sitting around and thinking up slogans. Apparently, I wouldn't have to think of anything terribly creative or even representative of the town, product, or service I'm trying to promote.

This new slogan fails in two ways. First, it fails in terms of content. "Discover the Unexpected" -- what unexpectedness does Madison offer? How many people have driven to Madison and exclaimed, "Wow, I never expected to find that in Madison?" I love my town, but I will admit that it is a typical small prairie town: farm and manufacturing jobs; some small shops on main street struggling to compete with the big stores out on the highway and in Sioux Falls; lakes with bullhead, walleye, and the wily carp; and a majority of high school graduates who can't wait to get out of town for their college education and better job opportunities elsewhere.

Even if a visitor with an eye less accustomed to Madison's native wonders than my own were to visit and find something unexpected, the slogan still fails on a second level, as a unique and competitive identifier of our fair city. The slogan fails to set us apart from the other communities with whom we are competing for tourism dollars and economic development.

Test the slogan this way: could we slap that slogan on any other town and still have it make sense? "Discover the Unexpected... in Brookings!" "...in Mitchell!" "...in Ramona!" The slogan makes as much sense applied to any other town as it does to Madison. Any town could claim to have unexpected treasures. Potential visitors comparing slogans to determine their next family vacation or major business investment would learn nothing about Madison from "Discover the Unexpected."

Compare the proposed slogan with another slogan, one enjoying perhaps the greatest top-of-mind awareness of any current metropolitan tagline: "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." Not only does the slogan mention the city by name (by somewhat catchy nickname), but it captures a defining aspect of the city's character, something that no other city could legitimately claim. ("What happens in New York stays in New York?" Heck no -- New Yorkers think their city is the center of the universe and want everyone to know what happens there.)

By this standard, even our current slogan, "In Touch with the World," sells the city better than "Discover the Unexpected." "In Touch with the World" fits with our local university's mission and our technological knowledge base. It promises businesses and new residents something specific and useful: connection with the broader economy and culture. "Discover the Unexpected" leaves people wondering whether the slogan is promising unexpected economic opportunity, simple distracting oddities for tourists, or maybe just a fly in your soup at Nicky's.

If Madison really wants to succeed in the arena of metro-slogans, it should make an effort to compose a slogan that reflects specific competitive advantages of this community over its neighbors. Of course, if Madison really wants to succeed in general, it should stop wasting time and money on marketing and focus on real economic improvements.

Correction Made, Question Remains

In response to "Local Economy Needs More Market, Not Marketing", I received the following e-mail from Commissioner Karen Lembcke:

Corey,
I appreciate your opinion as to the letter to the editor. However when you are quoting people be sure you are getting the right people and comments. The commission is in favor of the marketing campaigne, and I do appreciate your interest. However I need to correct your statement, I did not make the comment about the city becoming stagnant, that would have been Mechelle Nordberg, perhaps you should have read Thursday nights paper, front page, this would let you know who said what.

Karen Lembcke
Prostrollo Auto Mall

Indeed, in my original post, I misattributed a quote by Commissioner Nordberg to Commissioner Lembcke. Commission Lembcke was quoted right before Commissioner Nordberg, and I was reading too quickly while working on my response to the article. I immediately edited the online version, although alas, the Madison Daily Leader published my essay right away in Friday's paper, so the damage has already been done. Following is the response I e-mailed to Commissioner Lembcke:

Dear Karen,

Oops! Thanks for the correction. I am sorry I got the wrong name on the quote. You rightly take me to task, just as I would any of my students who made a similar mistake. I will edit the online version of the text to properly cite Commissioner Nordberg's quote.

So, given that correction, I'm still curious why the city puts so much emphasis on creating an image. Rereading the article (yes, I did read the entire article; I just misread the tag on the quote when working on my response), I find your actual quote telling. "It seems like a lot of money, but we're going to have to find it if we want Madison to grow and prosper." Indeed, I'm all for growth and prosperity (within the framework of a reasonable plan, since bigger isn't inherently better), but I wonder, when we do find money, wouldn't we get a better return on those dollars first fixing our potholes, funding the bike trail, and making other real improvements to our infrastructure?

Keep looking for solutions! I'd run in the next election and come help, but for now, teaching is my calling to civil service. I'll be sure to use my own essay and your correction as an in-class example of how even English teachers need to check and double-check their sources.

Sincerely,
Cory Allen Heidelberger

Local Economy Needs More Market, not Marketing

Today's Madison Daily Leader (05.11.2006) reports that the City of Madison will throw $500,000 over the next five years into marketing our fair city. Those tax dollars will be transferred to the Lake Area Improvement Corporation, which has big plans to "market Madison through advertising on radio, TV, newspapers and magazines and create new banners, billboards, signs and possibly a new logo." Says LAIC Executive Director Dwaine Chapel, "We're already looking at ads in tourism magazines."

City Commissioner Mechelle Nordberg sounds particularly sanguine about the project. Noting that other communities are ramping up their marketing efforts, she says, "Unless we want to just sit here and be stagnant, we have to compete with those communities as well."

I am underwhelmed at Madison's efforts to make itself South Dakota's next "City on the Go." Remember that slogan? Watertown used that silly line to promote itself a few years ago on billboards and in TV ads. I remember the line only because my wife and I gleefully mocked the absurd tone of Watertown's ads and slogan. "City on the Go? Where's it going? Someone better catch it before it gets too far. Oh, wait, it's Watertown -- let it go!"

Luverne, Minnesota, is running similar ads for our amusement on local TV. As much as we revel in identifying the weak production elements of this montage of various Luverne landmarks on Luverne's apparently sleepy streets, we have yet to see anything in Luverne's marketing campaign that makes us want to leap off the couch, pull up stakes, and move to Luverne (or even go have dinner there).

Has the Lake Area Improvement Corporation seen these ads? Does LAIC think it has some magic formula that will make Madison's marketing campaign chuckle-proof? More importantly, does LAIC have any data that suggests these ads have contributed to any economic growth in these towns? Commissioner Nordberg's comment suggests the only successful marketing going on here is the campaign to market marketing: get a few towns to hire some image consultants and buy a few cheesy billboards and TV ads, and all the other towns will feel like they have to do the same to keep up.

If Madison needs to keep up with the surrounding burgs in anything, it's not marketing. I suspect that any economic growth Watertown has enjoyed in the last ten years has not come from impressionable consumers seeing the ads, crying "City on the Go?! That's the place for us!" and racing up I-29 to shop at the Watertown Mall. Economic growth comes from entrepreneurs taking risks, starting businesses, creating jobs, and providing goods and services that people want. When a town has strong businesses, their goods and services will draw customers by their own merits. Prostrollo's is an excellent example: Prostrollo's doesn't draw people to Madison by saying, "Look how pretty Main Street is"; Prostrollo's draws people by shouting "We've got the cars you want!"

Likewise, towns draw new residents not by packaging themselves in a slick media campaign, but by offering honest and varied opportunities. When my ex-students finish college and look for towns in which to work and raise their families, they look at the job listings, not the clever slogan on the sign outside town.

If the City Commission and LAIC are serious about drawing new businesses and residents, they should direct their money toward something much more lasting and useful than advertising. What could we do with $500,000?

• Create a small business development fund. Offer grants for job creation: any small business, existing or new, could get $5000 for every job it creates. Imagine the boon to the community if that $500,000 fund led to the creation of 100 new jobs in Madison. (Remember, this doesn't apply if Wal-Mart comes to town, since they'll put everyone at Jubilee, Stan's, and Pamida out of work. We want new small businesses that add to the diversity of goods, services, and jobs in Madison.)
• Create a new-resident home loan benefit. When a new resident moves to Madison and buys or builds a house, LAIC pays the closing costs or offers to pay $5000 toward the down payment. Such money would promote genuine long-term investment in Madison.
• Create a small-business advertising fund. If we just can't get away from the idea that advertising will make Madison a boom town, then we could at least give the money to small businesses to advertise their goods and services to a wider market. Give the money to our local entrepreneurs and let them dream up their own ad campaigns. Maria's new Mexican market at Second and Egan is a great addition to the community; an advertising grant could help Maria's buy a big sign to catch drivers' attention on the highway or some radio and TV spots to draw creative cooks from around the area.

If Madison really is a land of opportunity, its businesses can promote themselves. If the City Commission insists on throwing money into the development effort, it can do so in more fruitful ways than trying to brand our city as just another "City on the Go." Savvy consumers chuckle at cheesy marketing campaigns; they spend their money on goods and services of real value. The occasional RV tourist may make a brief detour on the basis of a glossy ad; serious entrepreneurs and investors work and live in communities that create and support healthy, diverse local economies.