tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53719040201646972582024-03-18T21:01:49.947-05:00Northern Valley BeaconNews, notes, and observations from the James River Valley in northern South Dakota with special attention to reviewing the performance of the media--old and new.
E-Mail to MinneKota@gmail.comDavid Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.comBlogger1297125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-12656489853838904932024-03-09T15:30:00.003-06:002024-03-11T22:22:11.992-05:00Oh, didn't he dither?<p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">When Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) rebutted Joe Biden's state of the union speech, she based her comments on the contention that he was dithering away and lost control of the country. However, much you may disagree with what Biden has done, you cannot validly say he hasn't done it. Saying that Biden can't perform because he's old is like saying Obama couldn't perform because he's black. Ageism is a prejudice just like racism.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">As my spouse has been a staff member for both U.S. senator and a congress woman, I am familiar with the reputations of many people who have worked in Congress, Joe Biden being one of them. Biden is a task man. When there was <span>a</span> particularly difficult issue to address in Congress but something had to get done, he was often assigned to help get it done. He has an affable and kindly demeanor that could cool down partisan rancor. He was friends with many people from the opposing party. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">Joe Biden is a stutterer. He has had to learn a therapeutic procedure that stutterers employ so that they don't stutter when they speak. Stutterers can generally read aloud without stuttering. <span style="color: red;">(</span></span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/us/politics/trump-mocks-biden-stutter.html" style="color: #cc0000;">https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/us/politics/trump-mocks-biden-stutter.html</a><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">During my first year of college teaching, I had two stutterers in my classes. I was concerned about how to treat them during a class discussion. I didn't want to put them in an embarrassing situation in front of their peers. The college I was at then was known for its speech therapy program, so I asked the chair of that department for advice. He explained that stutterers process language differently than those who don't stutter, and a technique that stutterers are taught to help them with their speech is to write the words in their heads that they want to say before they pronounce them. As it turned out, the reason that the two young men chose that college was because of its speech therapy program. I gained a great respect and admiration for stutterers from that orientation and especially for those young men. I note that Joe Biden often refers to notes at his press conferences and often hesitates a bit as he answers questions. His occasional stumbles are not a matter of age. And he joins Winston Churchill as a world leader who stuttered.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">As an old person myself, I am well aware of the vicissitudes of age. One of them is the huge amount of information one acquires. When asked to give a perspective on some matter, there are so many facts to sort through. It may take a while to give a considered answer because there is so much information to consider. When we call up information on our computers, we get that whirling circle or a notice that the computer is gathering and loading the data. But we seem to expect humans to be instantaneous in their thought processes. It has nothing to do with age, but with process.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">However, there is a fatigue factor to consider. This is something that affects people of any age, and people who do intellectual work know that there are times when you have to rest and renew your approach when dealing with vast amounts of information and difficult issues. We warn people about making decisions when they are tired and advise them to tackle a problem in the morning after a good night's sleep. Competent decision-makers avoid being impetuous and give their information and their own thought processes careful deliberation. Taking care and time is not a matter of age; it's a matter of competence and integrity.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">Acts of competence, care, and thoroughness should not be considered dithering. Calling Biden a ditherer is in the same class as calling Barack Obama a n*gger. We should hope to lift our politics up out of that level if the American experiment in democracy is to have a chance to succeed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-67768417647882185362024-03-06T11:27:00.000-06:002024-03-06T11:27:20.586-06:00 Procto-America<p> <span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><i>procto-</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-large;"><i>combining form</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><i>indicating the anus or rectum: proctology</i></span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6LUTb4Lao3NyFCXrFsUfGLh3z5IltEhRKz-GeP1GcDHtYmddMHv1nLI4SbVmdEquQGsKqQ2Md5GCKQnptS3TBoNwfRQXA3d0hWDyYZlI6BTQZkmXaNbBKmBKZz8kVaktW_RNXeTf6RYZzi1j28gwQRRlz6MB2bNdUw2DGChaEH5kYaFELpautmJYP3Q/s1500/A497A8FD-C857-4347-9419-3D1B24820369.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1067" height="843" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6LUTb4Lao3NyFCXrFsUfGLh3z5IltEhRKz-GeP1GcDHtYmddMHv1nLI4SbVmdEquQGsKqQ2Md5GCKQnptS3TBoNwfRQXA3d0hWDyYZlI6BTQZkmXaNbBKmBKZz8kVaktW_RNXeTf6RYZzi1j28gwQRRlz6MB2bNdUw2DGChaEH5kYaFELpautmJYP3Q/w600-h843/A497A8FD-C857-4347-9419-3D1B24820369.jpeg" width="600" /></a> </p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">The election of Donald Trump to the presidency signaled a drastic change in American values. It was a rejection of what Tom Brokaw termed The Greatest Generation, and everything it stood for and accomplished. It was an expression of America's fascination with and love of assholes. The United States have become a procto-nation, a nation of assholes, which they want led by a preeminent asshole, Donald Trump.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">There is a segment of Americans who admire success and for whom the measure of success is wealth. They admire Donald Trump, therefore, because he has acquired millions, or is said to have, at any rate. In their minds, wealth is the mark of leadership. But Trump has established a record of saying stupid and malevolent things that call unto question his fitness for office. He is such an obstreperous jerk, an asshole, that he seems unfit to be involved in any human activity that requires intelligence, probity, and respectfulness. What is disturbing about Trump is not his politics, but his demeanor and what it portrays about his mind and his motives. What is more disturbing is the number of Americans who approve and support such a person.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">An aspect of America's system of freedom is that Americans have the capability to vote away their democracy. It has developed a pronto-caucus which seems interested in doing just that. They threaten to change the land of the free and home of the brave to land of the servile and home of the dolt.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-83497026645289646142024-03-03T17:25:00.006-06:002024-03-03T20:19:21.610-06:00Elegy for a dying town<p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">More than 300 more people will lose their jobs in Aberdeen in coming months as the town faces another episode in its history of abandonment. <a href="https://aberdeeninsider.com/banner-engineering-closing-aberdeen-plant-311-to-be-laid-off/">Banner Engineering</a> is closing its plant which had 311 employees. Just a year ago, it expanded its Aberdeen plant.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The nation is experiencing a high point in the economy, but Aberdeen seems to be left out.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">This is the latest in a series of major manufacturing companies closing down their operations in Aberdeen. In the 1980s. Control Data shut down its Aberdeen plant with 1,340 employees to move the jobs to the Pacific Rim. More recently, Molded Fiber Glass left town, joined by Hub City, Inc., which had been in town for 125 years.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The closure of Presentation College last summer marked a trend that community leaders don't want to talk about. And they don't. But it demonstrates a reality, which is a community in decline. That decline is more evident in the retail sector which in recent years has had the closings of Kmart, Shopko, J. C. Penney, Herbergers, Sears, and Conlin's. Aberdeen has lost its role as a shopping destination for the region. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The most significant closing was Presentation College because it indicated that its sponsors did not see a future in Aberdeen. In their statements on the closing, the leaders listed the demerits of the town as a factor: its remoteness was the major one cited. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">As the business editor for a newspaper, I covered many business changes, relocations, and closures. Mergers and buyouts often signal an eventual closing. Smaller companies which are merged or purchased by a larger one disappear into the corporate murk. An example in South Dakota is the Gateway computer. Once prominent in the midwest, it disappeared when the company moved to California. Decisions to move or close a facility are often notional. <span>E</span>xecutives decide to make a change for personal reasons or just because they have the power to do so. Business reasons are often not good reasons. They are a matter of executive choice.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">A lot of executives have chosen to shut down their operations in Aberdeen. Why Banner decided to abandon its operation here a year after expanding it is a matter of someone's choice. Given the circumstances, it is difficult to understand how it could be the only rational choice. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Someone or a group of someones decided to abandon a newly expanded plant and get rid of 311 people. Corporations are not democracies. They are dictatorships. The people affected by their decisions cannot call them into account. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Northern State University has a strong business department. It cooperates closely with some business ventures. It was involved in the EB-5 scandal a few years back when some corporate magicians made millions of dollars disappear. Although not primarily a research university, it is in a position to study the community which supports it. While it can make nice with the businesses in the community, it can also exercise its academic function of examining how companies are going about their business. Are they pursuing the good business practices taught in the classrooms? Are they meeting the standards of competence and integrity that contribute to an honest democratic society?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">And what happened to the people who have lost their jobs in recent years? I recall when Control Data dumped its employees into the job market, many came to Northern to prepare for new careers. But what has happened to the people let go by Molded Fiber Glass and Hub City? What will happen to the people from Banner Engineering?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Economic development and business promotional people customarily suck up to and bow down to businesses to attract them and keep them in a community. No one keeps a serious check on how the businesses are performing as corporate citizens. And being a corporate citizen is a matter of how one contributes to and lives in the community. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">In a statement about its closing, Banner said, "</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">We regret having to take this action and will work to provide the resources and tools to make this transition as successful as possible.”</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"> From the business standpoint. a successful transition means getting out of town as fast and unobstructed as possible. It doesn't </span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">mean having anything further to do with the community.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">At this time, state officials are commenting on a shortage in the labor force. Aberdeen will contribute 311 people to alleviate that shortage, but where will they gave to go and what will they have to do? Finding a commensurate job in Aberdeen seems unlikely.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The city manager recently issued a glowing prospective on Aberdeen's outlook. When asked about specific developments, the only thing he could cite is the upgrading of the waste water treatment plant. Could some of those 300 people be hired for that job? As a neighbor put it, dealing with more of Aberdeen's shit.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">But at some point, Aberdeen leaders will have to face reality. And reality can't be dispensed with by glowing predictions that do not address the facts. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-87681729625903506282024-03-01T21:03:00.003-06:002024-03-01T21:03:31.814-06:00Prattle is all the rage<p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Friday night is the night for discussion shows on television. For a while, I watched some network discussion about presidential candidates during which some people registered their attitudes about Joe Biden and Donald Trump. There was much talk about age and how it affected ability to do the job. I was struck by the absence of any facts about what the candidates have done or not done. There was mention of both of the men visit\ting the southern border and of an immigration bill that is floating around Congress, but there was no reporting on what the bill proposed or what issues were being raised about it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">So, I turned to the Northern State University channel, and four professors were chatting on the same subject. They were sprawled in easy chairs around a coffee table in very casual clothing. Very casual, hell. They looked downright unkempt. Although that was appropriate for the level of discussion. It seemed to have no point of examination. It consisted of asserting some contentions, but were expressive of the attitudes of the speakers, not the characters or accomplishments or lack thereof the candidates.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">We, the general public, used to refer to such exchanges as tavern talk. But this session didn't offer the compensation of a cold beer. It did inspire a trip to the refrigerator, however.</span></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-28001232833250482792023-12-07T00:48:00.003-06:002023-12-07T01:47:13.345-06:00YMCA: Where some go to get fit and others go to get shot, in the town where democracy goes to die.<p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"><i><b>A clown-car spectacular!</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><img alt="Several law enforcement agencies were outside the Aberdeen Family YMCA responding to a shooting in the parking lot Wednesday, Nov. 15. Aberdeen Insider photo by Troy McQuillen" class="size-full wp-image-24505 mwl-img" data-mwl-img-id="24505" data-pin-no-hover="true" decoding="async" height="855" loading="lazy" mwl-index="0" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" src="https://aberdeeninsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/DSC_8975.jpeg" srcset="https://aberdeeninsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/DSC_8975.jpeg 1280w, https://aberdeeninsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/DSC_8975-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://aberdeeninsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/DSC_8975-1024x684.jpeg 1024w, https://aberdeeninsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/DSC_8975-768x513.jpeg 768w, https://aberdeeninsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/DSC_8975-750x501.jpeg 750w, https://aberdeeninsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/DSC_8975-1140x761.jpeg 1140w" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: zoom-in; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" title="Law enforcement investigation into Wednesday shooting continues 2" width="1280" /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">A man was shot dead in the parking lot of the YMCA. Law enforcement and the news media treated the matter with the comportment as if someone passed gas during high mass at church. They wrinkled their collective noses, exhaled, and went about their business as if nothing happened.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">This report from the <a href="https://aberdeeninsider.com/police-investigate-shooting-in-ymca-parking-lot/">Aberdeen Insider</a>: "</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span>At this point, [Police Capt. Tanner] </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Jondahl said, officers have determined two vehicles pulled into the parking lot and one person shot the other in the north entrance of the YMCA parking lot." (That's a nasty part of the body to </span></span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span>get shot in.)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The problem is that the victim was shot dead. The victim was not named. Neither was the shooter.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">And for the most part, the entire incident remans factless. So, the local newspaper, the Aberdeen American News, did not bother to report what actually happened.. It published this statement: "</span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The name of the person who was shot has not yet been released pending notification of family." And that appears to be the final word on a fatal shooting in this fine, upstanding community, as far as that newspaper is concerned. That's probably because the paper no longer has any reporters in town. The staff of the Aberdeen Insider is comprised of two former reporters from the Aberdeen American News.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">That brings up the matter of withholding names of people involved in law <span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">enforcement and other public incidents. There are no laws or rules regarding the disclosure of identities of people involved in government proceedings. There are laws requiring that accurate records be kept and that those records are open to the public because they are the property of the people in a democracy. Records may be withheld if the information would impair an investigation or a business negotiation in process, but they are supposed to be available once the work is completed.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">South Dakota has what purports to be a sunshine law which requires that government records be maintained and open to the public. However, the law provides discretion to public officials which in effect nullifies the open record requirement. Generally in the case of a death, the deceased person will be named in reports, but news media withhold the name of the deceased until the family is informed, which is usually a matter of a few hours. The police may either inform the media if the family has not been notified or embargo the name until the notification is made. But the police do not have the <span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">authority to withhold names because they want to. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">In this case the name of the man killed, <span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Donald Michael Heinz, was withheld for four days. The name of the shooter was never revealed, nor were the circumstances of the shooting. And that is a violation of democratic principle that the people have a right to know and an obligation to keep informed about how their government is performing.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The reports published the names of all the agencies involved in the shooting of Mr. Heinz as they patted themselves on the back for doing such a great job, but not a word was uttered about what actually happened. And that is a failure of the agencies and the news media. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">It is not clear what is behind the refusal to inform the public in Aberdeen. It could be the officious, bumbling ignorance and incompetence of some public employees or it could be the nefarious collusion of those who think they are the rulers of the public. But crimes and disasters do not happen anonymously. They happen to real people with names, ages, and addresses, and real people respond to them. Sometimes incompetently.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Washington Post has a motto on its masthead that says, "</span></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="font-family: georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-style: italic;">Democracy Dies in Darkness</b><span style="font-family: georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">." </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">It seems to have taken </span></span></span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">its last gasp in Aberdeen.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Below is the coverage of the homicide, and no one is informed about what kind of homicide it is.</span></span></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p></p><p> </p><blockquote><p> [Aberdeen Insider 11-17-23] <b style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">A shooting incident on Wednesday, Nov. 15, where one person shot another in the parking lot of the Aberdeen Family YMCA still remains under investigation as the Aberdeen Police Department continues to look into what led to the incident.</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>According to a news release from the Aberdeen Police Department, law enforcement received a report of a man with a gunshot wound who was in the YMCA parking area around 12:15 p.m. on Wednesday. Life-saving measures were attempted and the man was taken to the hospital, but he died from his injuries.</b></p><div><b><br /></b></div></blockquote><blockquote><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>“The individual who is believed to have fired the gunshot was on scene when law enforcement arrived,” per the release.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>Police Capt. Tanner Jondahl said the person believed to have shot the gun was initially detained, but released on Thursday. No charges had yet been filed as of Friday but, the case remains an active investigation. Any charges, he said, will be under discussion with the Brown County State’s Attorney’s Office.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>As of Friday, State’s Attorney Karly Winter said the case remains an ongoing investigation and the case is still pending.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>“We want to have all the evidence before making a charging decision,” Winter said.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>Officers had determined by Wednesday that two vehicles pulled into the north entrance of the Aberdeen Family YMCA parking lot and one person shot the other, Johndahl said.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>YMCA staff assisted with life-saving measures, he said.</b></p><div><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>According to a statement from YMCA Executive Director Mike Quast members and staff immediately called 911 after the shooting occurred.</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>“We are thankful for their quick response and are keeping those who responded as well as the victim and their family in our thoughts and prayers,” Quast said in a statement.</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>According to the release, Avera St. Lukes made the determination to go on lockdown out of an abundance of caution. No security measures were taken at the YMCA or at Roncalli’s elementary school. Jondahl said officers were able to discern very quickly there wasn’t a security risk to people at the YMCA or the school that would necessitate a lockdown. According to the release, the incident appears to be isolated and unrelated to the YMCA.</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>“The safety and wellbeing of everyone who enters our doors is a top priority of the Aberdeen Family YMCA, and we will continue to work with Aberdeen Police Department to ensure our safety policies align with best-in-class practices. We are also providing mental health counseling to the staff who responded to the situation,” Quast said.</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>In addition to the Aberdeen Police Department, other agencies responding are The Brown County Sheriff’s Office, the South Dakota Highway Patrol, the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, Brown County Emergency Management and Aberdeen Fire & Rescue.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>**************************************************************************************</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;">[Aberdeen Insider 11-21-23] <b> A 70-year-old Aberdeen man who died as the result of a Nov. 15 shooting has been identified.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>The incident remains under investigation, but Brown County State’s Attorney Karly Winter confirmed the man who died was Donald Heinz.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>The shooting was in the parking lot of the </b><a href="https://www.aberdeenymca.org/"><span><b>Aberdeen Family YMCA</b></span></a><b>.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>According to police reports at the time, Heinz and the man who is believed to be the shooter both pulled into the parking lot where Heinz was shot. The identity of the person who shot Heinz has not been released, though he was immediately detained by law enforcement and later released. No charges have been filed.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>“We want to have all the evidence before making a charging decision,” Winter said.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The shooting was around 12:15 p.m. on Nov. 15. Life-saving measures were attempted, and Heinz was taken to the hospital, but he died from his injuries.</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>Avera St. Luke’s Hospital went on lockdown out of an abundance of caution, according to the initial news release from the Aberdeen Police Department. No security measures were taken at the YMCA or Roncalli’s elementary school as law enforcement determined there wasn’t a security risk.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><span><b>OBITUARY: </b><a href="https://aberdeeninsider.com/donald-michael-heinz/"><span><b>Donald Michael Heinz</b></span></a></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 22.5px;"><b>In addition to the</b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/AberdeenPD/"><span><b> Aberdeen Police Department</b></span></a><b>, other agencies responding included the Brown County Sheriff’s Office, the South Dakota Highway Patrol, the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, Brown County Emergency Management and Aberdeen Fire & Rescue.</b></p><div><b><br /></b></div>
<p style="font-family: Verdana; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 10.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10.7px; min-height: 13px; text-align: justify;"></p></div></blockquote><div><p style="font-family: Verdana; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 10.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10.7px; min-height: 13px; text-align: justify;"><br /></p></div>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-55019020185092281992023-11-02T12:04:00.000-05:002023-11-02T12:04:51.860-05:00The day we blew the school up<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOOeEO7HBzm5uhleqc_geaiX19IJDQQkyahDevRyf_Kb8Pv9obRSVnFKOMRH-fN8-MuYTm6PCw0bftsuE6QekRjvmlgCMw0eRtlrUWFwbKbjPVGRlSdFGVv6Cak5L5dcdSbPEbEt8s6CqpE2KU7Un-7d3obxNbn8AnvI9YmStZFf-pKr7mDzFhcDsMx9w/s200/059137EA-575E-4EEA-8701-BEB7EB107985_4_5005_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="200" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOOeEO7HBzm5uhleqc_geaiX19IJDQQkyahDevRyf_Kb8Pv9obRSVnFKOMRH-fN8-MuYTm6PCw0bftsuE6QekRjvmlgCMw0eRtlrUWFwbKbjPVGRlSdFGVv6Cak5L5dcdSbPEbEt8s6CqpE2KU7Un-7d3obxNbn8AnvI9YmStZFf-pKr7mDzFhcDsMx9w/w640-h480/059137EA-575E-4EEA-8701-BEB7EB107985_4_5005_c.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The old Moline High School, now an apartment building</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The science classrooms and labs were on the top floor where I went to high school. Some of the labs had sky lights in addition to the windows. In chemistry lab on this particular day, we were generating oxygen through some chemical reaction. We were instructed in setting up the glass ware over a bunsen burner, letting the chemicals work, and then lighting the gas that emanated from the pipette to produce a clear blue flame. There were nice blue flames aglow throughout the lab, and my lab partner Dan and I were carefully assembling our experiment, measuring the chemicals, getting them to cook for a time to produce the oxygen, held the match to it, and lucky for us, the explosion sent the entire experiment straight up into the sky light, and then rained down chemicals and glass into the laboratory sink. In trying to determine what went wrong, Mr. Swanson said we probably had an obstruction in our pipette. </span><p></p><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Our obstructed pipette became a feature of the After Dinner Club-Maroon Fellowship annual review show which did a sketch of why the school held a fire drill if Newquist and Holland were ever seen in the chemistry lab together. The sketch capitalized on the known fact that I smoked cigarettes and portrayed me as trying to light the oxygen gas experiment with a lit cigarette.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The chemistry lab was the source of many interruptions of the school day. A favorite prank was to create a rotten egg smell that would pervade the building and cause an evacuation until it was cleared of the odor. At a school board meeting a citizen asked why they bothered to clear the building; why not let the nasty little asses sit there and breathe the foul air they had created? The young speech teacher asked who would want to sit in a room and breathe air that smells like a particularly egregious fart. The young speech teacher received a letter of reprimand from the school board for saying the word <i>fart</i> in public, suggesting it was permissible to fart in public, but never to use the word. And where does that smart aleck get off using a word like <i>egregious</i>? <span> <span>The school board passed a resolution that the chemicals used in creating that odor be kept under lock and key. That was proven absurd as the odor became more frequent as its <span><span>ingredients were smuggled in from the outside and placed in the ventilator shafts. </span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span><span><span><span>Times have changed. My spouse works at the high school. I have never heard her mention the school being emptied to clear it of a rotten egg smell. Nor for any chemistry experiments that went awry.</span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span><span><span><span>However, schools are alert for possible shootings, and long for the day when rotten egg smells were the biggest threat. <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span><span><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span><span><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span><span><span><span><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-10556044481427748242023-10-29T11:53:00.003-05:002023-10-29T11:53:51.790-05:00Aberdeen, a great place to be from<p> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_pvsxvO-xHoFkMmNW91P0h37LJGm4c0eQ3ccdOM1lGPh12k_XVsd_bj1sjUaqyop_HnEl_vws134gp614iwX_7eJnICM1gywJe-cCI7SJ3LS9xQK9UYpFA4JAMzVcYWqRG1MQHuh7EgJH6sq3JizJisMqsOkYpJImFShGHLS8Te1RAWhudQc-Y4pAnL4/s767/A5C22842-EC47-4A00-B53E-7B200A65E804.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="767" height="506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_pvsxvO-xHoFkMmNW91P0h37LJGm4c0eQ3ccdOM1lGPh12k_XVsd_bj1sjUaqyop_HnEl_vws134gp614iwX_7eJnICM1gywJe-cCI7SJ3LS9xQK9UYpFA4JAMzVcYWqRG1MQHuh7EgJH6sq3JizJisMqsOkYpJImFShGHLS8Te1RAWhudQc-Y4pAnL4/w640-h506/A5C22842-EC47-4A00-B53E-7B200A65E804.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Aberdeen was once a shopping center for northeastern South Dakota and southeastern North Dakota. It had national brand stores such as Walmart, Target, Kmart, Shopko, Sears, Herbergers, among others, and a functioning downtown area as well as a couple of strip malls. For a time, it supported a good-sized mall, but the tenant stores come and go. Many went. When Northern State U. students from the area wrote essays about growing up, they often included memories about coming to Aberdeen to shop, dine, attend movies, sport events, and special entertainment events. For the most part, the places of those memories don't exist anymore. When I first moved to Aberdeen, there were, for example, four mens clothing stores on Main Street downtown. No such enterprises exist in town now. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Aberdeen still has a Target and a Walmart and two locally owned supermarkets. In the retail sector, Kohl's and Marshall's are recent additions. But the chamber of commerce and other promotional organizations say little about the town's advantages because most of their efforts are devoted to denying that the town is shrinking commercially. People in Aberdeen tend to drive the four-lane highways to Sioux Falls or Fargo or cross-country to the Twin Cities for their serious shopping.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The buying habits within a community change with the times, the fashions, and the shifts of populations. Aberdeen's changes are trending downward. It has lost stores such as Kmart and Shopko recently.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">This summer marked the closing of Presentation College. The college leaders said the remoteness of the town was one of the factors in their decision to close the college. It is somewhat difficult for students to get to Aberdeen. It's not on the way to anywhere, and is not much of a destination in its own right, a fact that community leaders are loathe to admit. Aberdeen's most important asset at this juncture is Northern State University.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The city is purchasing the Presentation athletic facilities, including an inflatable dome, to add to its parks and recreation program. The academic and residential facilities remain vacant at this juncture, reminders of a lost educational enterprise.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> The town has a history of being abandoned by enterprises. Control Data closed its operation in Aberdeen which had 1,340 employees at one time. Some employers have merged with or been acquired by large companies, and seem to follow a pattern of shipping the operations performed in Aberdeen to other locations. Such is the case with Hub City, Inc., a manufacturer of transmission parts which had operated in Aberdeen for 125 years before its corporate owner, Regal Beloit Corp., which is now Regal Rexnord, closed it down. Molded Fiberglass for which a special building was put up for manufacturing blades for wind-powered electricity generators left town in 2021.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Businesses have noted the difficulty in finding and keeping competent employees, and some have closed because of it. This was cited as the closing of a Max and Irma's restaurant. A personnel manager who was a neighbor of mine complained that as soon as people established good credentials at his firm, they would use them to obtain jobs in other places. He eventually followed suit. Employable people are aware of the fickleness with which corporations have treated Aberdeen, and choose to invest their energies where companies offer a more stable work environment.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Public transportation to and from Aberdeen is scarce. The town gets its nickname, Hub City, from the fact that five railroads once converged here. There are no passenger trains now, but a couple of BNSF freight trains rumble through a few times a day. A bus service is listed as having a stop at an automotive repair shop, but I haven't seen one traveling through town recently. Through federal subsidies, Sky West has airplane flights to and from Minneapolis a couple times a day at some inconvenient times. If you google for the flight schedule, however, you won't find one. Aberdeen does have a 4-lane expressway east for 75 miles to I-29, and 2-lane highways in other directions. An automobile is essential for getting in and out of Aberdeen. And many people have chosen to drive the heck out of here.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The current population of Aberdeen is listed as 28,500, up from 26,100 in 2010. While Aberdeen, along with the rest of the state, has shown growth, there has been some fluctuation in the town's expansion. The population took some hits ten years ago when a meat packing venture failed as part of a scandal involving the <a href="https://listen.sdpb.org/news/2016-04-07/eb-5-charges-no-surprise-for-aberdeen-residents">government EB-5 program.</a> But Aberdeen is affected by a situation that is statewide. It was brought up at a meeting of the <a href="https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2023/10/25/governors-economic-advisers-caution-against-optimism-in-2024/">governor's economic advisers</a>: </span><span style="background-color: #fefeff;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">“Trying to keep our talent in the state, rather than going elsewhere, is the continual challenge we’ll all have.”</span></span></p><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #fefeff;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The outmigration of educated and talented people</span><span style="font-family: Optima;"> i</span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">s shifting the population in ways that are indicated in the political make up of the state by voter registration: Republican, 302,066; Democratic, 148,136; Libertarian, 2,943; independent, 89,180. Republicans are more than double the number of Democrats. Just a few years ago, Democrats held all three federal offices, the one House of Representative seat and both Senate seats. With today's political makeup, it doesn't look possible to elect a Democrat to anything. That applies to Aberdeen and Brown County.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #fefeff;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #fefeff;">Political "scientists" castigate the Democratic Party for the Republican </span>domination of state's political offices. They accuse it of slovenliness. They fail to acknowledge that the outmigration from the state is led by people of the liberal bent who wish to escape the mean-minded stodginess of which the so-called political scientists are a part. The governor's advisers, at least, note the problem. The dominance of South Dakota governance by Republicans is a reflection of the outmigration. Liberals tend to flee from the state for political and cultural reasons. And that is true for Aberdeen. Many of the younger people I encounter are focused on getting out of town and living their lives elsewhere. They tend to be of a liberal mentality.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #fefeff; font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #fefeff;">With two colleges in town and their associated activities of sports and cultural activities, Aberdeen was an educational center. It boasted both a </span>public and a private Catholic higher education facilities. The closing of Presentation College removes a basis for that claim. Northern State University has stepped up to take over some of the programs Presentation offered, such as nursing. Northern has almost a 7 percent enrollment increase over last year, some of which is likely the absorption of local Presentation students. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">For those who find the politics and culture oppressive, there is some comfort in knowing there are other places and other cultures to go to. Higher education offers a passport to those places. The talent is here, looking for some place to go. Aberdeen is a great place to be from. That seems to be its future.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Optima; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #fefeff;"><br /></span></span></div><div><br /></div>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-303933301852821462023-10-16T10:45:00.001-05:002023-10-16T10:45:11.622-05:00How to show children that democracy doesn't work<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX_tRxW1CC6M0iAQvcdfjV_J8KRmj6sB_XxmoyxWrzGwIajenrgMDY_6a6X9WfqjrtK01b_YBAN90e3dxlYJVYA-feLCs4VcZOSet9yUzdCzdm_FeOpZG0wJFkp5KErNLkUoo8yhoR5G59jKLvzXN0VzB5XqQamlG8RIJNK9GBMP1QiK3z81Vkj2tIJRI/s276/52EC8DEB-B559-43FA-886E-1EC006F85E47_4_5005_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="276" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX_tRxW1CC6M0iAQvcdfjV_J8KRmj6sB_XxmoyxWrzGwIajenrgMDY_6a6X9WfqjrtK01b_YBAN90e3dxlYJVYA-feLCs4VcZOSet9yUzdCzdm_FeOpZG0wJFkp5KErNLkUoo8yhoR5G59jKLvzXN0VzB5XqQamlG8RIJNK9GBMP1QiK3z81Vkj2tIJRI/w640-h424/52EC8DEB-B559-43FA-886E-1EC006F85E47_4_5005_c.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">It's a South Dakota story. A woman and her children returned to their Aberdeen apartment from a family vacation in the mountains and found an eviction notice on their door. The issuer of the notice claimed the woman hadn't paid her rent. </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">She went to the building manager with her bank account statement to show that her rent check for the month had cleared, and to make preparations to move. However, upon checking her records the manager found that the rent was in fact paid up. Just a mistake, she said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The children did not accept that easy dismissal. They regarded the eviction notice as an attempt to put them out on the street. No dismissal or apology or cajoling from their mother could change the malice and menace that it represented to them. So now they live in a place they hate because, they think, its managers intended to get rid of them. To the children, it signifies the kind of world they live in, a world that poses constant obstacles for them. Children see the world as it treats them, not through the prisms of justification that we adults do. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The single mother of the children says she will probably move to settle down the children, but to do so will be expensive and disruptive to their lives. The kids have developed an adverse attitude toward the place; they don't want to live in a place that has indicated it doesn't want them. Teachers note the perspicacity of children. Kids see the realities and motives of the world, and they don't believe or trust adult efforts to brush them aside or placate the children.</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">They say many of their students confront realities and see through the artifices we erect to disguise the malevolent attitudes and cerebral incompetence of adults.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">To be lawful, evictions must be processed through a court, but South Dakota is notably partial to landlords in applying rules governing rental property. The execution of an eviction is supposed to be done through an order of the court. While the rules mention guaranteeing due process for renters, they don't specify how to implement that process. Obtaining the court sanction to evict seems to be a routine, mechanical process. The mother said in this case the landlord did not seem to have followed the procedure. She simply asserted her authority, and in this state, no one challenges it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">I do not know the family involved personally. I know of the situation through a civil rights organization I have worked with and supported over the years. It is monitoring the case. The children's teachers observed how disturbed the children were and the school informed social workers about them, as they were so distracted that they couldn't concentrate on their school work. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Civil rights leaders' concern about incidents like this eviction notice are based on the effects they have on children. For kids to acquire respect and appreciation for American liberty, equality, justice, and equal opportunity, they have to be shown in their daily lives how those qualities of life work. They have to have the principles of democratic beneficence applied to them. The children in this family feel menaced by a legal procedure, although it was withdrawn. They are wary about a threat that seems to lie in wait for an opportunity to strike again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">To those children, the adult world is not something that can be trusted. That kind of distrust does not portend well for the future of our republic. What they believe in the future will depend on how carefully the principles of our democracy are applied to them now. Even evictions must be carried out in a spirit of good will. Taping an eviction notice on a door expresses ill will. And that is an expression of our society.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-41217110562076098622023-10-14T00:07:00.004-05:002023-10-15T15:28:42.807-05:00Where are the Democrats?<p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Those who monitor and comment on politics in South Dakota tend to ignore one factor that significantly affects the political climate. That is the outmigration: who leaves the state, how many, and why.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">As a South Dakota professor, I was aware that a goal of many, perhaps most, students was to find work and life in other places. At one point, the college president recognized this and sought to use it as an appeal for attracting students. He started using a slogan for the university as being "a gateway institution," a college that prepares one to find and make a living in other places.</span> <span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The suggestion that a state college would encourage its students to study as preparation for life in other states enraged politicians, and the regents severely reprimanded the college president for making that appeal. He quickly ended its usage.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">But the shifts of population out of the state are a fact of life. The opportunities to apply a college education in a job within the state of South Dakota are very limited. That college president was concerned about where college students could find positions where they could utilize their educations. He was troubled about the "brain drain" in South Dakota, but to use their educations, many students had to go to other states, and the state lost their knowledge and talents.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Political strategists recognize the implication of the brain drain for the state. People with intellectual tendencies gravitate toward liberalism. And when they seek out places where they can work with their brains, they take their talents with them. South Dakota identifies itself as a conservative state, but to many "conservative" means "backward," resistance to liberating influences. There is an outmigration of intellectual talent when students graduate from high school and go to college in other states. There is another when college students in the state graduate and move to other places to utilize their degrees. What political operatives fail to realize is the reason that there are so many more Republicans than Democrats in South Dakota is that young liberals leave the state for better opportunities and more progressive cultures. And the more conservative the state gets in its politics, the more determined young liberals are to leave it. Staid residents often say to critics of the state that if they don't like it here, they should leave. And that's precisely what they do.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">For many years, as an officer in a political party I maintained a mailing list for the Democrats in my area. I noted a steady decrease in members as their names were removed for reasons of attrition. When people left, they weren't replaced. People looked for work out of state. They chose other places for retirement. Many just chose to move. Whatever the motives, the decline in membership was striking, and when we officers reviewed the membership roll, we determined that the decline did not come from a loss of interest, as we had feared, but from a general loss of people in those categories that comprised the active membership. When we consulted population studies, we found that our region of the country--the upper midwest-- had one of the nation's largest losses of population in the productive age group. We also noted that some communities have lost facilities run by organizations which were important parts of the of communities. Aberdeen has lost facilities run by groups like the American Legion and VFW, the Elks and Eagles lodges, and has lost retail outlets such as Shopko, Kmart, and Herbergers. The population numbers seem fairly stable, but a closer analysis shows that those leaving are the creative, ambitious, more intellectual people; those left behind are those who tend to avoid stimulation, venture, and change.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Current news in Aberdeen includes reports of further decline. The school system has 59 fewer students this term. The Burger King, a national franchise in every community of any size, has closed. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The Republican Party has almost a total lock on government. But that's not because its policies and messages are most appealing. Or because it is more deft at organizing. It's because the Democrats are leaving. The party has trouble finding candidates and people who can martial an effective campaign. That's because the people who could fill those roles are off somewhere physically or mentally working on creating more vital and relevant lives</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-39987947407625034512023-08-28T12:11:00.001-05:002023-08-28T12:11:32.230-05:00Democratic Doomsday: they slog around in wet shoes.<p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">For many years, I was active and held county offices in the South Dakota Democratic Party. During that time, Democrats held both the U.S. Senate seats and the House of Representatives seat, and my county had Democrats in the state legislature. Today, Democrats holding those same offices </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">doesn't seem like a possibility. The current number of registered Democrats in the state is vastly outnumbered by Republicans and independents, and the latter seem to heavily support Republicans in the voting booths.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">I began to note the decline in party membership during the time I was active. Among the local party members, there was a significant outmigration. Their children were leaving the state for higher education and to find jobs commensurate with their educations and abilities, and they seldom returned to live in South Dakota. Many members moved out of state for better jobs or retirement. </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">As people left the party through attrition, there were no younger people taking their places.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">But there were other factors that affected the party. One year the state party convention was held in Aberdeen, and local members were much involved in facilitating the work sessions. We noted that factions were very aggressive about obtaining and holding on to power. The delegates from the larger metropolitan communities, Sioux Falls and Rapid City, often exhibited a patronizing attitude toward delegates from the rural areas. On some matters, the internal politics were ruthless, approaching hostility. At one point, a few people were offended and decided to leave and go home. I recall that federal office holders had staff members go after the disaffected ones and try to conciliate with them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">A long-time staff member remarked that he wished the party members would show that kind of intensity during the election campaigns, rather than "pissing on their shoes" during our organizational meetings. At this time, there are no South Dakota Democrats holding national offices, so there are no current Democratic staff members </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">at work in the state </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">who possess contacts and political knowledge. Staff members work directly with their constituencies, understand the concerns of the people, and provide the political intelligence that informs their bosses. As a matter of full disclosure, I note that my spouse has staffed members of both the Senate and the House.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Staff members are acutely aware of how the public perceives the party, because they deal with the public daily. They are aware of the dedicated opposition, of which people focus on competence, integrity, and effectiveness, and which people are mindless partisan hacks. When the elected officials asked their staff members to try to make amends with the people who were leaving that meeting, they were concerned about the way the party was presenting itself to the members and the general public.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The dwindling of registered members cannot be totally attributed to an outmigration. The way the party conducts itself and the way it deals with problems determines to a large degree whether people want to associate with the party. As Democrats are a minority in the state, they don't receive much press coverage. They have received a lot of late, but it is of the pissing-on-shoes variety that makes experienced and savvy politicians cringe. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The party has voted to recall the state party chair who had been in office for only four months. Leaders say she viola</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">ted the party</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">constitution by taking actions without getting required approval from the central committee and that she created a hostile workplace, which caused a newly appointed executive director to resign. The central committee vote to recall her was unanimous with a couple of abstentions. This removal received extensive reporting by the press, which has the effect of telling the public that the party is in disarray. It's a message that Republicans love to circulate.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">When the recalled chair took office, she said, according to a report in the <a href="https://www.sdstandardnow.com/home/ery00s2je84ue4yvsl5etjybga94mb">South Dakota Standard</a>:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I was honored to be elected as the leader of the Democratic Party here in South Dakota,” she said in a statement provided by the SDDP. “Democratic politics in this state is a challenging job. I know many of us feel ignored and looked down upon. Our voices are valuable and deserve to be heard. I intend to make that happen.”</span></span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">That statement does not correlate at all with the reasons stated for her removal. Her stated intentions appear to be in direct contrast with her relationships with party workers. Her removal from the chair was angry and noisy. And the result will be something political strategists fear most: heavy collateral damage within and outside the party. Once again, party members put on a spectacle of pissing on their shoes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">I have heard some of my colleagues in the communication arts groan and say, this is so South Dakota! That raises the matter of the outmigration of people from South Dakota and the reason it reflects the dwindling numbers of Democrats in the state. South Dakota, while it claims a superior work ethic and more freedom, has earned a reputation among many people for meanness. pettiness, and deficits of intelligence. People of liberal values tend to leave, while certain brands of conservatism find it comfortable. The brands I speak of are those which cling to racism, sexism, class divisions, and which dislike programs that help the disadvantaged. The rather boisterous removal of the Democratic chair demonstrated that the party is more motivated to respond to personnel issues than it is to formulate and promote measures that improve democracy. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">While the recall of the chair may be justified, it adds to the image of a bumbling organization in the minds of many. That is a major obstacle that Democratic candidates for office have to deal with. The party certainly has the right and responsibility to take necessary actions to insure that it is properly run. But it also needs to acutely be aware of the messages its actions send to party members and the general public. The message sent with the firing of the chair came across as a good, old South Dakota pissing contest, not a demonstration of responsible, honest, effective governance.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">There is huge irony in this situation. The kind of things party leaders accused the Democratic chair of are the kinds of things the press reports that the <a href="<iframe title="New York Times Video - Embed Player" width="480" height="321" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="true" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" id="nyt_video_player" src="https://www.nytimes.com/video/players/offsite/index.html?videoId=100000007491399"></iframe>">current Republic governor does</a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">She won re-election, is very popular, but legislative leaders admit they don't talk to her. There is much about her administration that is an offense against decency. She provides young liberals with reasons for leaving the state. If the Democrats can get their act together, there is quite a story to tell the people. If any are left in the state to tell it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-83118969063339380812023-08-17T15:54:00.003-05:002023-08-28T09:20:04.562-05:00The gate keepers of the concentration camps<p> </p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinMIr65MoifzJKXxIxOPwDTRU3B4xpPvnoc2Cp5gwfUfPt4JpQJDCKV1hKB4fhRUcOn5Z8Sa1dcHFeFL5VwZsgIbxtXNWiQjMyhUKVI8CLb1NV64OtiftokbAncTfOB5rIaeHqTcx7vkEV95hbMC27b8mAOIU-v-vw0puKbDF823zSJn-qmd7yOoRMDe4/s274/56252B88-C9AE-4DEB-971B-DF86F9042120_4_5005_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="274" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinMIr65MoifzJKXxIxOPwDTRU3B4xpPvnoc2Cp5gwfUfPt4JpQJDCKV1hKB4fhRUcOn5Z8Sa1dcHFeFL5VwZsgIbxtXNWiQjMyhUKVI8CLb1NV64OtiftokbAncTfOB5rIaeHqTcx7vkEV95hbMC27b8mAOIU-v-vw0puKbDF823zSJn-qmd7yOoRMDe4/w640-h430/56252B88-C9AE-4DEB-971B-DF86F9042120_4_5005_c.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large; text-align: left;">"[the]</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> tired, [the] poor, [the]</span></span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large; text-align: left;"> huddled masses yearning to breathe free"</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who aspires to the presidency of the United States, and Gov Greg Abbott of Texas put on an unusual display of emulating the Holocaust. It involved immigrants.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">What to do about the migrants piling up at our southern border has been a conundrum for decades. We used to call it the wetback problem for the people who swam the Rio Grand to get across the border and then labored in the fields in sweat-soaked shirts harvesting America's produce. Those people were driven over the border to find work and survival. Today they are more driven to escape oppressive regimes. There is a constant supply of them crossing the border.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Gov. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/02/us/migrants-marthas-vineyard-desantis-texas.html">DeSantis' solution</a> was to put the migrants on a plane and send them to Martha's Vineyard, a favorite gathering point for wealthy liberals. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/11/us/migrant-child-abbott-bus.html"> Abbott chartered</a> buses and sent migrants to New York City. People at the destination had to figure out ways to accommodate the migrants.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The governors said they took this action to give those northern liberals a taste for what it was like to have to deal with the influx of migrants. They were using human lives to make a mean and resentful point.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">This was the same tactic that the Nazis used on people they didn't want. They loaded Jews, Roma, and others onto trains, but they had preparations at the destinations: concentration camps equipped with gas ovens. DeSantis and Abbott did not send the migrants to death camps, but their trivialization of migrant lives was carried out in the same spirit.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">And so, they sent "[the]</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> tired, [the] poor, [the]</span></span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> huddled masses yearning to breathe free" to oblivion.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-26916936623810258812023-07-22T10:55:00.004-05:002023-07-22T10:55:42.617-05:00Can nurses keep NSU healthy?<p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">One April day in 2021, the president of Northern State University suddenly left the campus. He was obviously fired, but by whom and for what was never revealed publicly. This summer he will take over the presidency of Minnesota State University Moorhead. His hiring to be president of a larger university in the region serves as a rebuke to whatever took place at Northern.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The general public has no idea of what took place at Northern. The South Dakota press doesn't get much involved in anything but processing press releases. And local news coverage in Aberdeen is sporadic, at best. Actually, there are no media left in the area that actually practice journalism. No one is asking from the perspective of public interest if Northern State is operating as a university of free and open inquiry or if it is under political control. It is doubtful that anyone really cares.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Shortly before that day the president left, legislators had circulated the draft of a letter to him threatening to fire him if he put a plan for diversity at the university into effect. Apparently, someone found reason to carry out the threat. Which raises issues about what kind of place NSU is.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">With the ditzy governor issuing <a href="https://news.sd.gov/news?id=news_kb_article_view&sys_id=1921d9951b83215062c8a8eae54bcb68">directives to the Board of Regents </a>defining for them what universities are and what they can do, one can assume that Northern is being managed as a political department of state government, rather than an independent academic institution. Noem wrote to the regents that liberal ideologies have compromised universities throughout the land and she orders them to do something about it. That is a nakedly political charge and brands the state system as being reduced to an indoctrination center for small-minded and fallacy-driven conservatism. As a retired professor who once headed the faculty union in the state, I could not recommend sending a student to a college system presided over by a peevish and ignorant shrew. There has been some mild whimpering from the faculty about the Noem nonsense, but a competent, functioning faculty would quickly and emphatically make clear that the governor in no way represents the competence and integrity with which they carry out their work. To not do so raises issues about the academic competence and integrity of the system.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">In the past, the South Dakota faculty had a union through which they could address their professional concerns. That is no longer the case. The governor and legislature passed a law banning college faculty unions. And that raises questions for prospective students and their parents about education delivered by a faculty cowed into a state of subservience by domineering and ignorant political bullies. The ban violates a basic premise of authentic scholarship in that it limits freedom of inquiry. It cancel</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">s academic freedom</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">. </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">What is most significant is that no one seems to have objected to having a fundamental academic right and procedure taken away.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">For students and their parents who are interested in educations that employ critical inquiry, Northern has a questionable history. In the past, it</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">w</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">as once censured by the American Association of University Professors and had to correct its administrative practices to get off the censure list.</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Building and maintaining a sound academic reputation has been a struggle at Northern, but it has had faculty members that strove for a competitive reputation for the college. However, it also has operated with a portion of the faculty willing to concede their academic freedom and collegial privileges in order to keep in the good graces of authoritarian administrations. When a faculty union was established, Northern professors were in the leadership in gaining and utilizing collective bargaining to improve the professional status of the faculty in the state. The faculty has since abandoned collective bargaining as a means of exercising shared authority in the work of the universities. And the fact is that NSU is under pressure to be a political indoctrination center and not an institution of academic freedom. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> With the closing of Presentation College this summer, Aberdeen lost a facility for training nurses. Up to this time, Northern was not involved in educating nurses. Within the state higher education system, SDSU was the primary campus for training nurses. The Regents have now authorized NSU to start a nursing program. The closing of Presentation College is a blow to the community, but Northern's expansion to include degrees in nursing restores an important medical education resource to the region. But this expansion of Northern's mission comes at the same time that its scholarly authority is being diminished by a governor and elements in her political party. The college will have an arduous task in establishing cooperative programs in nursing education with local hospitals and clinics, but there is a public demand for developing such resources. The nursing program at NSU will start in the fall 2024. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">If educators establish and run the nursing program, it should be a credit to the University. The problem is if University leaders and the Regents can protect the system from the governor. She is a threat to education.</span></p><p><br /></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-20800849510645781462023-06-19T09:59:00.002-05:002023-06-19T09:59:35.752-05:00 Take cover! The Governor got out!<p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0HBeIukhL_hnwsG6womvpn8hJYI310LqNo3HEsEi5_ATWngq4doJjxsqPDXpspAn8lfEQIOB3hLGKLNQgJ6POh4uP0ZLSNnGR0dpzHsFYtMu558hNMt3s7t2YPAIj78L6gTjQqcivEOKkLIflFRgxJDeK50qbWAIIoE0SXQ_gyVGFUkHC5FaZxKp1/s278/99383439-5088-4D0A-896A-A81684EA5568_4_5005_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="182" data-original-width="278" height="419" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0HBeIukhL_hnwsG6womvpn8hJYI310LqNo3HEsEi5_ATWngq4doJjxsqPDXpspAn8lfEQIOB3hLGKLNQgJ6POh4uP0ZLSNnGR0dpzHsFYtMu558hNMt3s7t2YPAIj78L6gTjQqcivEOKkLIflFRgxJDeK50qbWAIIoE0SXQ_gyVGFUkHC5FaZxKp1/w640-h419/99383439-5088-4D0A-896A-A81684EA5568_4_5005_c.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The South Dakota Governor's Mansion</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The spike-tipped fence around the South Dakota governor's mansion cost $462,000. (It was never made clear exactly who paid for it--tax-payers or donators or both.) But wily as a coyote, good ol' Ditzy Kristi Noem still gets out. A half million dollar fence ain't going to corral this gal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Of late, she has decided to <a href="https://www.thedakotascout.com/p/noem-wants-probe-of-sd-colleges-after">stalk the state universities</a>. Nose to the ground, she is sniffing out poisonous liberal ideologies she claims are lurking on the campuses. She is really torqued that the graduation rate in the state universities is only 47 percent whereas nationally it is 63 percent. We wonder if the universities have figures on how many students transfer out and obtain their degrees in other states. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">A lot of kids may take their fundamental courses at South Dakota schools, but go elsewhere to get their diplomas. South Dakota universities have a bit of a reputation for being diploma mills run by political hacks rather than being full-fledged academic institutions, and good students like to hold degrees from more respected institutions. Nobody contributes to a negative reputation more than the ditz herself. She finally obtained her own degree when she held office as a U.S. congresswoman. She said she took courses that she worked on while flying back and forth between her constituents and her office in Washington, D.C. Professors and students alike question how it was possible to take senior college courses, do the study and research, write papers, and take examinations, while doing the full-time job of a U.S. congress person. It would take heck of a lot of flying hours along with a much help from some servile faculty and some zesty amphetamines to pull that off. However, that may well be how she came up the state slogan "Meth. We're on it."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">A good thing about South Dakota is that it has tuition reciprocity agreements with other states so that students can attend colleges in other states without paying out-of-state tuition. A degree earned in a place where some dippy governor does not intrude into setting academic standards and policy has more value and credibility.</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">She did struggle to get through college. She claims she had to drop out of college when her father was killed in a grain bin accident and she had to take over management of the farm. She also struggles with the truth. She withdrew from Northern State University in 1992 and got married that year in Watertown. Her father died in March 1994.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Apparently her surveillance of the campuses has revealed more crime, corruption, and extra-curricular diddling in the library stacks than she can deal with on her own. She dealt with this crisis by establishing a whistleblowers' hotline. The ringing telephone has kept her up at nights. Apparently academic terrorists have targeted the universities at Vermillion and Black Hills State for particularly insidious attacks. During the covid crisis, a professor told a student who refused to wear a mask that any deaths caused from spreading the disease were on him, her, it, whatever pronoun you choose. Ditzy believes that any death by covid is the will of God and anything that interferes with his, her, its or their will is a desecration. By God.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">If there is one thing Ditzy can't stand, it's people interfering with open inquiry and expression of ideas. Some years back, the faculty in state universities were organized into a union, which collectively negotiated the terms of the contracts under which faculty work. In a letter to the Regents, she complained that professors have abandoned logic and reason and the search and the open exchange of ideas in the search for truth. She put a stop to that nonsense. In 2020, she signed a law banning faculty unions on college campuses. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">There was a governor named Noem</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">About whom was made this poem.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">She hated liberals and the Chinese</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">and other things that made her sneeze.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">She vowed to keep the state free of speech and gluten,</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">and run it just like Vladimir Putin.</span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-72693985126231122912023-06-15T11:15:00.000-05:002023-06-15T11:15:36.057-05:00The man in the purple suit<p> <span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">I don't remember exactly what his name was, but it began with a K. Koraba possibly. I did not have much contact with him because our assigned duties were in different sections of the guided missile base, and our work schedules rarely coincided. He was a mild and naive soul who never adjusted to the crudities of Army life. He did and said things that drew ridicule from the troops. In Germany, we were often visited by a sales representative from a custom tailoring company who we called Hong Kong Charlie, named for where the clothes were sewn. K. ordered a suit from him with an iridescent fabric that flashed from purple to maroon when the light struck it. He thought it was nifty. It was actually ugly. The troops shouted out warnings to put on sun glasses when K. wore it. He often remonstrated with his fellow soldiers about their carousing and their pursuit of loose women. He prayed before eating his food in the mess hall and before going to sleep. He meekly protested when treated with unkindness or cruelty, which was often. His meekness seemed to attract the attention of bullies. The ridicule was constant, but some of the men sternly told the ridiculers to leave him alone.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">One morning when we fell out for reveille, we were unable to wake K. up. We reported this to the duty sergeant who tried to arouse him, then summoned the medics. The last time I saw K. was on a stretcher as he was being carried to an ambulance. We heard that he was taken to the Army hospital in Heidelberg, then to an Air Force hospital that had a psychiatric ward and staff trained to deal with mental issues. Our post medic told us that K. had regressed into an infantile state in which he sought refuge from his problems through lapsing into unconsciousness. We never heard if he was ever awakened again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">For some of us, it was a hard experience. It was like losing a fellow soldier in combat, except his own side inflicted the wounds. We talked among ourselves about the insane depravity that a person could be drafted to serve his country and end up like K. We talked about whether the military needed to be more attentive in dealing with cases like K.'s, and the irony of the fact that the Army which had liberated Germany from the concentration camps had created just such a place for K. For many of us, it was a sad tragedy. It still haunts me.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">I didn't know him well enough to remember his exact name, but I never forgot him and the forlorn life he lived. Some of us had tried to be kind and friendly to him, but he did not fit into the lives we lived as soldiers. He wasn't the kind of guy who would join you for a friendly beer or go on pass with. After he was gone from the barracks, one of the men asked if there was anyone in our outfit that K. could call a friend. Another man asked if there was anyone in the world he could call a friend. K. projected a desolate and pain-filled life. No one knew his background or the kind of life he led as a civilian. However, his departure left most of his fellow soldiers in a deeply saddened state.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">This all happened more than 60 years ago, but the case of K. still comes to mind. He was a peculiar sort of fellow, which made him the object of ridicule and cruelty by some people. The man who bunked next to me suggested that a group of us pay a visit to K. at the hospital where he ended up to wish him well. We thought that even if he had not regained consciousness, a visit from fellow soldiers would register on him. But we learned that he had been moved again, presumably back to the U.S., and we were unable to get anymore information on his status. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">What happened to K. was a failure of our battery in basic humanity. Its treatment of K. was a refutation of what our schools and churches try to teach us. Most of the men realized this, and there was a very noticeable drop in morale. One man expressed it: we'll never forget the man in the purple suit.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">He was right.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-44089319246585171952023-06-09T11:36:00.003-05:002023-06-09T15:10:04.409-05:00How "woke" identifies the mean and stupid<p> <span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">I cringe when white people bandy the term "woke" about as if they know what they are saying. It is a term that has a special meaning and a special history. It comes out of the American black community where one might hear a person say, "He be woke."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">To white people, it sounds like an ungrammatical term for being awake. Most white people don't realize that much of black language that sounds ungrammatical to them is code language that means something quite specific to an American black. There is a vocabulary and a body of songs and stories that fool the honkeys but sustain the blacks. We refer to Negro Spirituals and assume they are songs about going home to Jesus, such as "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." It is actually a song about the UnderGround Railroad and escaping slavery.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">When a black says "he be woke," it means a person who understands the oppression that black people have been subjected to and is willing and able to provide a way out of it. The term <i>woke </i>comes directly out of the Underground Railroad.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">William Still, a black man in Philadelphia, who had family held in slavery, operated an Underground Railroad station. He compiled a book of letters exchanged in conducting the business of helping people escape slavery. One of the letters he received announcing that some fugitive slaves were being sent to him was from Petersburg, Va., in 1860 signed by an agent who called himself Ham and Eggs. In part, the letter says,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">I want you to know, that I feel as much determined to work in this glorious cause, as ever I did in all of my life, and I have some very good hams on hand that I would like very much for you to have. I have nothing of interest write about just now, only that the politics of the day is in a high rage, and I don"t know of the result, therefore, I want you to be one of those wide-a-wakes as is mentioned from your section of country now-a-days, &c. Also, if you wish to write to me, Mr. J. Brown will inform you how to direct a letter to me.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">No more at present, until I hear from you; but I want you to be a wide-a-wake.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> Yours in haste,</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> HAM & EGGS*</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p></blockquote><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">To be aware of the failures of our democracy and endeavor to correct them is what t means to be woke, in the jargon of abolitionists. A woke person will understand that slavery and segregation have vestiges that still operate in our institutions. Critical Race Theory posits that remnants of discrimination and oppression linger in some of our laws and institutions and can be identified and rooted out, as part of making democracy more perfect. Some people who rail against anything woke are simply too ignorant and stupid to understand the origins of the term. And some actually long for the good old days of racial oppression. Critical Race Theory is not a subject matter that can be taught in schools. It is a process of being aware that racial discrimination still exists and is practiced in parts of our culture.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><span style="font-style: normal;">It really gets tiring to hear the term </span><i>woke </i>because it is so misunderstood and misused. At one time it referenced the efforts to make democracy more perfect. Its contemptuous use identifies those who would repeal the Thirteenth Amendment and re-establish racial oppression as the American way. Rather than call oneself <i>woke</i>, it is better to simply advocate for the principles of American democracy--liberty, equality, and justice.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">But if you want to know who the opponents of democracy are, note who rants and raves against woke. Then you have to decide if they are simply incredibly stupid or if they are among those who would like to end democracy. </p><p> *William Still, <i>The Underground Railroad Collection: Real Life Stories of the Former Slaves and Abolitionists</i></p><blockquote><p> </p></blockquote><blockquote><p> </p></blockquote>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-25658126408992661492023-06-07T09:17:00.008-05:002023-06-07T10:04:57.923-05:00A pall descends<p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">A pall fell over the Memorial Day weekend. A woman who was a close friend of my daughter's committed suicide. Suicides produce a darkness of spirit in people who are touched by them. Surviving friends and acquaintances are devastated. They question if there was some way they could have helped the victim deal with the agony and misery that drove the person to take one's own life. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">I had met the woman, but did not actually know her. But I saw the effect her death has had on my daughter and her friends. My daughter became friends with her in middle school. Her friends have said she had a rough life in which she endured maltreatment. She also had a substance addiction, probably as a way of dealing with the distress in her life. As is the custom in public obituaries, no mention is made of the manner of death or suffering that drove her to it. It emphasizes the "positive" aspects of her life. Obituaries customarily avoid the truth.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Suicides are the canaries in our social coal mines. They signal that poison is in the atmosphere. People die from the toxins in our society, but our society is too stupid or too brazen to pay attention, to take notice that there is something lethal in our environment. When bad things happen, we make mutterings about mental health, even though we have no idea about what constitutes good mental health. So, we have mass shootings regularly which provide opportunities to recite our rituals about thoughts and prayers and mental health and then wait a week or less for the next shooting so we can make our recitation again. But we don't even know about suicides, because our news media doesn't mention that manner of death in order to keep from adding more anguish to the survivors. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">My acquaintance with suicides occurred when I was working on a newspaper and the reporter who covered county government wrote a story that reported that in a vey short time in the community, the coroners' office had recorded 29 suicides. Only a few had been reported as such in news reports and published obituaries. The chief editor of the paper decided that we needed to do an accounting of this many suicides, not by revealing their identities, but by finding out their causes and effects. A team of reporters and editors was assembled to develop the project which turned out to be lengthy and complex. I was assigned to the team. We were to see what we could find out about each individual case and try to determine what factors compelled the person to act. I eventually left the newspaper to go to graduate school, but the editor asked if I would still participate in the project until it was published. I worked on it when I had time over the years, but </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">it was never published because it was never completed</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">We interviewed law enforcement and mental health authorities to obtain a comprehensive background. Then we searched out relatives, friends, workmates, and any acquaintances of each of the victims who might provide insight into why they chose to die. We emphasized that no identities would be revealed, but wanted to get details as to causes and effects. That is where the project bogged down. Most people did not want to talk about the suicides initially. Some changed their minds and consented to be interviewed because our project might help them come to terms with the deaths that were a lingering disturbance in their lives. We consulted with psychologists, lawyers, and clergy about how to conduct the interviews and keep them on an empathetic level. We were accumulating a tremendous amount of information, but had not reached the point where we could make a coherent summary of it. A problem was that it was taking so long that there was a turnover of personnel. Still, the editor and people who worked on the project thought it was important and unique enough that it should be completed in some way. Somewhere there are boxes of copy files and notes from a project that was too big to ever reach completion.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">It took a toll on the people who worked on it. One of our copy editors who assisted with some interviews ask to be excused from the project because dealing with the ongoing suffering of people was affecting her own emotional health. Other team members said they also needed a break from the desolation they encountered. We could feel the despair that the suicides passed on to their survivors, and while we believed that the project would be a significant work of journalism, we recognized that it weighed heavily on our own minds and had many imponderable aspects. The news of the woman's death over the Memorial weekend cast that same bleakness of spirit that suicides produce among the people who knew of her.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">A suicide is the ultimate rejection. In some cases it results from an illness and the prospect of an agonizing death and is an act of euthanasia. But in many cases it is a way to put an end to a life that is torturous. And the survivors are left with the assumption that they were part of the torture or did not offer any relief from it. It makes them feel that they are the referents in Sarte's line that "hell is other people." Most suicides involve a harmful relationship with some people. We prefer to think we are not those people who do things that influence people to give up their lives. Still, we feel the sting of rejection when we learn of a suicide, and it is something that signals to us that something is wrong.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The interviews from that failed journalism project indicated how suicides were deeply unsettling to most people who hear about them. The sense of rejection, especially in a democracy, projects a failure of society. A pastor said that when it came to suicide, there really was no comfort that could be offered to the survivors. Death by suicide is not part of the natural life cycle, but is a conscious and deliberate rejection of it. Survivors of it have a question branded deep in their very souls: why? Even though I did not know the women who died over Memorial Day weekend well, I knew that she was troubled and had some bitter relationships. She left behind two teenage children. They will live with a wound that will never heal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">As a society, we have never approached the causes and effects of suicides with the kind of comprehensive effort that we apply to biological pathogens. It's one of our nation's failures. As I write this, the news reports that seven people were shot at a high school graduation in Richmond, VA, with two being killed. Such shootings are so common that many media are not publishing a story about it. America has some spectacular successes as a country, but it also has some spectacular failures which nullify those successes. When it comes to keeping people safe from gunfire, our country is at the bottom of the list. Guns are a common instrument of death in suicides. They are the highest-ranking cause of death for children. They are the badge of our nation's moral bankruptcy. And suicide is a major cause of death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued this report:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span face=""Open Sans", apple-system, blinkmacsystemfont, "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span face=""Open Sans", apple-system, blinkmacsystemfont, "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">Suicide rates increased approximately 36% between 2000–2021. Suicide was responsible for 48,183 deaths in 2021, which is about one death every 11 minutes.</span><span face=""Open Sans", apple-system, blinkmacsystemfont, "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"> The number of people who think about or attempt suicide is even higher. In 2021, an estimated 12.3 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.5 million planned a suicide attempt, and 1.7 million attempted suicide</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span face=""Open Sans", apple-system, blinkmacsystemfont, "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">While it is important to acknowledge America's successes, its refusal to </span></span><span face="Open Sans, apple-system, blinkmacsystemfont, Segoe UI, Helvetica Neue, arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">acknowledge its failures nullifies its successes. Until America confronts its failures, it will live under the pall of violence. We have millions of people wishing to </span></span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">get into America, but we also have millions who are thinking about leaving it through death. </span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Folks will blithely ignore suicides and say life goes on. But that's the point. It doesn't.<br /></span><p></p><p><br /></p></div>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-85561791843862384102023-04-28T07:53:00.556-05:002023-05-22T12:32:52.382-05:00They felt they didn't count<p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">It's not the kind of story you will find in a college alumni magazine. But it has its origins on the Northern State University campus. It is a story that gained nationwide attention. Two women meet at NSU, marry, adopt six children, and kill the entire family in a deliberate car crash.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Jennifer Hart, from Huron, SD, and Sarah Gengler, Big Stone City, SD, met in 1999 after both had transferred to Northern State University from other colleges, Jennifer from Augustana University and Sarah from the University of Minnesota. They both majored in elementary education. Sarah graduated in 2002 with a concentration in special education; Jennifer never completed her degree. They were lovers and developed a husband-and-wife relationship. They lived together in South Dakota as college roommates, then moved to Alexandria, MN, and decided they would reveal their relationship. Initially, they got jobs working at a Herberger's department store, where Sarah became a manager. Jennifer became a stay-at-home mom. In available accounts, there is no indication that Sarah ever used her teaching degree.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The problem with this story is that some details are widely circulated but unsourced. It is hard to know what is fact and what is speculation at times and to know where the information came from. There is a multitude of podcasts inspired by this story in which people pose in front of cameras and </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">prattle on and on as if they have special knowledge about the incident, but add little verifiable, clarifying information. </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Jennifer and Sarah at some point during their time in Alexandria decided to foster and adopt children. Their first was a 15-year-old girl who, as the story gets told, gets dropped off at a therapist's office by the couple and is then informed that they will not return to pick her up. Instead, she is taken to another foster home where her belongings had already been delivered. She never saw Jennifer and Sarah again. Another problem with this story is why a therapist would be party to a scheme like this. Some unidentified sources said that the couple had complained that the girl was suicidal and they did not want her to be around to influence younger children they planned to foster. One source claimed the young woman had been contacted and affirmed this happened to her, but people with knowledge about working with adolescents insist that a valid therapist would never be involved in such a cruel episode. It occurred shortly before the first group of three young children came to the couple's household.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The couple received their first set of three siblings in March of 2006 and they were formally adopted by the women in September of that year. The children, who were given the Hart last name were Markis, 8 at the time, born in 1998; Hannah Jean, 4, born in 2002; and Abigail, 3, born in 2003. In June of 2008, they received the second set of siblngs, Devonte Jordan, 6 at the time, born in 2002; Jeremiah, 4 at the time, born in 2004; and Ciera Maija, 3 at the time, born in 2005. They were officially adopted in February 2009. All of the children were black.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Nine years later, on March 26, 2018, they were all killed when Jennifer along with Sarah loaded them all up in the family SUV and drove it off a 100-foot cliff onto a rocky ocean beach in California.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The incident raises questions about how people who are care-givers become the agents of death, particularly the intentional, violent death of children. Murder. Some people say the potential is inherent in some personalities. Others say it is acquired through life experiences. Some motives for murder are understandable. Sort of. Others are questionable and puzzling. This suicide-murder event was committed in the context of America being the world leader in mass shootings and shooting deaths in general. In this case, the instrument of death was the automobile. As in all instances of mass murder, the insistent question is, what motivated it?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Many analysts and commentators on the Hart suicide-murders say it arose from mental health issues. They gloss over the basis for the bad mental health, what were its recognizable symptoms, and what can be done about it if it is recognized. And some others contend that the murders are a matter of defects of character, of evil.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The question is, what puts people in a state of mind that allows or induces them to kill children? It is certainly significant that nearly all mass murderers kill themselves. The reasons for killing others are usually left unaddressed, but it is doubtful if reason is a relevant element in such cases. We assume that despair leads to suicide, and the person who commits suicide may think that the killing of children is a means of sparing them from such despair. Or in their rage, they simply want to express it by killing children.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Hearing of the Hart suicide and murders is the occasion for despair in itself. The events are failures of society. They cannot be dismissed as the rare actions of an individual possessed by a psychopathology. Jennifer and Sarah Hart seemed to have inclinations and ambitions that were positive, but other issues were at work, too. They did comment on occasion about encountering disapproval of their lesbian lifestyle, but they seemed to have many supportive friends, too.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">As an educator, I, as do my teaching colleagues, like to tell stories about people who have met adversity and triumphed. Our job is to present information that secures and enhances life. However, we cannot ignore those who are defeated by the vagaries of human society. While our society has developed tolerance and understanding of people with differences from the conventional, it retains pockets of cruel bigotry and intolerance. It is the ill will that comes out of those pockets that sends people over the edge. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">In the Harry Bosch detective stories by Michael Conelly, in his pursuit of justice, the detective often says, everybody counts, or nobody counts. That is a definition of what equality means. Tragedies of self-destruction like those committed by Sarah and Jennifer Hart are triggered when people are made to feel they don't count. As a society we are are responsible for making people think they don't count. The tragedy is ours to own.</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJIAYhzvV5ajSAvfvGjKufcfNq2j9yf2zuBZMA1g_RXCo27XuEb0cjNxwHYwX1ViCvqx6etEDHvlM5xcYMlG7aJplCzWX1jnZKJdnf-Ii8g4YmWQlEASxXtVU8obeuCYMnBPwoQJdoN1buBiN3tCXj28Hz8p9I_azkNHDtUIcqWml5LrewHeiHN9Lj/s1500/FE787E68-3A6A-45B2-A8A1-129377CF6D84.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="994" data-original-width="1500" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJIAYhzvV5ajSAvfvGjKufcfNq2j9yf2zuBZMA1g_RXCo27XuEb0cjNxwHYwX1ViCvqx6etEDHvlM5xcYMlG7aJplCzWX1jnZKJdnf-Ii8g4YmWQlEASxXtVU8obeuCYMnBPwoQJdoN1buBiN3tCXj28Hz8p9I_azkNHDtUIcqWml5LrewHeiHN9Lj/w640-h424/FE787E68-3A6A-45B2-A8A1-129377CF6D84.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div> The Hart family killed in a deliberate car crash March 26, 2018.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-60617771117578427832023-04-15T21:37:00.000-05:002023-04-15T21:37:15.486-05:00When there is nothing to lose...<p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The feature editor of the newspaper I worked for started a series in which he interviewed some very young people who had been convicted of crimes, and detailed their objectives and techniques. It attracted a vast readership. It also inspired outrage in some readers who thought it glorified criminals and gave lessons in how to commit crimes. The editor of the paper saw an opportunity and decided to provide balance to the series with stories on the criminal justice system from the viewpoints of various participants in it--the criminals, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers, and clergy. I was assigned to interview a prison chaplain who had himself served time. As a young man, he had been involved in gang activity for which he was sent to prison. While there, he became a trusty and assistant to a prison chaplain, during which time he joined a religious order. After release from prison, he entered a monastery and eventually was ordained a priest. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The interview was lengthy, and he provided me with more perspectives on the working of the justice system than I had opportunity to use. He did focus on the dangers posed by convicts. One of my questions was, who did he think was the most dangerous kind of convict? He said, a person who is wrongfully convicted.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">He explained that good law enforcement officers operate on the principle that when apprehending violators they should never, if possible, put them in a position where they have nothing to lose. When perpetrators think they have nothing to lose, they have no restraining considerations, nothing to really live for. They have no reason to submit to any kind of authority or accept any compromises. They are explosively dangerous to the people around them, because they think they have nothing to lose. In their minds, they have already lost everything.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">People who are wrongly convicted experience a failure of the justice system. They have substantial reasons to think it is just another destructive force in their lives. Even those who find eventual exoneration retain skepticism about it because of their experience with it. Some who find eventual release from prison express gratitude for gaining their freedom, and they work at continuing their lives in a positive manner. However, others, the chaplain said, can never overcome the discouragement and bitterness at having their lives demolished. Some acted like model prisoners so they could get out of prison to avenge the wrong that had been done them. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The chaplain recalled the case of a man who was exonerated by another's confession. The man had never engaged in any kind of criminal conduct, but had been convicted of a particularly brutal crime. He was so obsessed with obtaining some retribution for his ruined life that the prison authorities were reluctant to release him from prison in fear of what he might do. There was no legal means to retain any kind of supervisory control over the man, so the state made extensive and generous attempts to help him resume a productive life. But the man devoted much of his efforts to keeping watch over people involved in his conviction to find any wrong doing that might be used against them. The man told people trying to help him that there was no justice; only revenge. He made clear that his remaining purpose in life was to never let society forget what had been done to him and who did it. The chaplain said the man succeeded in putting misery into many lives.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">He said the unforgiving persistence of the man was a reminder of the burden that all the wrongfully convicted people live with. This interview happened in the mid-1960s, long before there were any organizations devoted to justice for the innocent. In order to generate interest in helping the wrongfully convicted, the priest worked actively with organizations such as the America Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, law schools, and social organizers. He said that people who are wrongly convicted undermine all of a free society because they provide hard evidence of its failure. He worked to find and eliminate wrongful convictions.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">When DNA analysis became usable in determining guilt or innocence, a multitude of projects were formalized and made active in finding and correcting wrongful convictions and in refining the criminal justice system to prevent them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">When the chaplain talked about people developing a nothing-to-lose mentality, he said that was a </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">problem he found in people in ordinary life who had no associations whatever with the justice system. He mentioned that they were the most troubling people that priests and social workers had to deal with. They were often suicidal and they had no hope or purpose to grasp. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Shortly after that interview one of the early mass shootings occurred. Marine veteran Charles Whitman carried a rifle up to a building tower at the University of Texas and shot to death 15 people and wounded 31 others. Just before that he had stabbed his wife and mother to death. He was killed by police. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">An autopsy showed that he had a small growth on his brain, but the examiners could not see how it would have affected his behavior. Follow-up stories revealed that Whitman had a very abusive father and had consulted a campus psychiatrist about pressures he was feeling. In our newsroom, those of us who worked on the criminal justice series talked over what the prison chaplain had said about people who had developed a nihilistic attitude. Whitman certainly went on his violent rampage knowing he wasn't going to come out of it alive.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">That is a constant in mass shootings. The two killers at Columbine took their own lives after killing 13 and injuring 21. Mass shooters have no intention of surviving their attacks. They commit suicide by themselves or by cop. Very rarely are they captured alive so that there is any chance to probe their motives.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Mass shootings are a pandemic. 105 days into 2023, and the U.S. has had 146 mass shootings. Our gun control laws have been shaped to insure that any would-be mass shooters have easy access to highly effective means to carry out their tasks. And, of course, beyond offering thoughts and prayers, people will mutter about mental health. And that will suggest it's all a matter of recognizing individual cases of mental pathology.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span>But mass shootings are too common at this point to be isolated incidents unconnected to the way our society is conducting itself. We experienced those people during the Covid-19 epidemic who acted out against masks and quarantine while scientists worked frantically to develop and produce effective vaccines. Today, we've had almost 103 million cases of covid-19 in </span>the U.S. with 1,118,800 deaths. Those who whimpered and whined and flouted the control measures have a lot of responsibility for those high numbers. But they give us insight as to why mass shootings have become part of everyday life in America.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">A mental pathology is being cultivated and passed around. What makes some people so nihilistic and angry that they devise plans to kill masses of people? Why would some choose to gun down school children? What is there in American society that makes mass murder a common event in our daily lives? This is unique to America, so it is possible to isolate and identify the causes. We can put science to work on it like we put it to work on covid.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Mass murder can be controlled. There are people who should not have guns. People who think that carrying guns will protect them from the miscreants with guns have seen too many westerns. The fact is that the more guns, the more shootings. The habitual carrying of firearms will create killing fields, not sanctuaries of peace. But guns are the means of killing, not the motive.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Some shooters have indicated that they intended to make a name for themselves for killing the most people. The question is, how did they get the notion that making people dead, especially children, is an accomplishment? How did they arrive at that as some kind of a cultural mindset? We have avoided pursuing that question because we know the answer will not reflect favorably on the culture we have created.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">It's a question we will have to ask, quickly and persistently, before we as a nation have nothing to lose.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-72042226879811829802023-04-09T13:15:00.004-05:002023-04-09T13:54:27.237-05:00"we look like stupid and cruel hicks"<p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Greg Brown, a well known folk-singer who works out of Iowa City, rented a theater and put on a retirement show in February. He told the press that he would no longer perform except for some benefit events. He wrote much material that celebrated life in Iowa, but he said he can't celebrate it anymore. One line from "The Iowa Waltz," which he wrote is "</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">‘We take care of our old/We take care of our young." He says that's not true anymore. And he said he'd move out of Iowa if he wasn't so old.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">He told the Cedar Rapids Gazette: </span></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">“Iowa has turned into a toxic mess due to the Republican administration. The water is some of the worst in the country. Our schools used to be respectable, including the college (University of Iowa) but those schools now are in the middle of the pack or are lower. People still say that Iowa feeds the country. Well, I hope the nation loves high fructose corn syrup and ethanol because that’s what we’re making here.”</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">In commenting on Brown's assessment of Iowa, the <a href="https://www.stormlake.com/articles/editorial-the-last-waltz/">Storm Lake Times Pilot </a> editor said of Iowans, "we look like stupid and cruel hicks." But, of course, Iowa is not the only place experiencing a deterioration of its state ethos. What happened to Iowa happened to the nation. When Trump was elected president, the democracy fell flat on its face into the muck of degeneration. The character of Trump is an expression of the values that possess half of America. That half does not merely "look like stupid and cruel hicks;" they are stupid and cruel hicks. They share Trump's perfidy (he's on record for telling more than 30,000 lies during the course of his presidency); his malice and vindictiveness; his greed; his predatory morality; and his willful ignorance. When Trump became president those Americans who resent other people having liberty, equality, and justice assumed it permitted them to unleash their own tendencies. They emulated Trump in their behavior.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">This degenerate behavior showed up in the Tennessee legislature. After a mass school shooting in Nashville in which three staff members and three children were killed, people flocked to the state capitol building to demonstrate in favor of gun laws which address the slaughter of children in school. Three legislators added their voices to the demand to do something to stop the killing of children. The GOP members</span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAM3pbMb1kZoAhg4oqdNVzmULWW96loR0WcQ9qjn5PAB_aOLH1yTNpbdYgY0h9whGTIXW11H7zOiYWqoM_J3T0ecE85qeN8G3WmUPkuzCLpxQA_qAyQmNYzeBC_sYslHRqvUBkUT6vpKE7Iy4WHy1VYxepx-DVHnJhtRJRQbl82_3qDiHnrUxLU9OY/s300/DFB36F1E-0BDB-4ADC-B72D-3BC21B357197_4_5005_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="359" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAM3pbMb1kZoAhg4oqdNVzmULWW96loR0WcQ9qjn5PAB_aOLH1yTNpbdYgY0h9whGTIXW11H7zOiYWqoM_J3T0ecE85qeN8G3WmUPkuzCLpxQA_qAyQmNYzeBC_sYslHRqvUBkUT6vpKE7Iy4WHy1VYxepx-DVHnJhtRJRQbl82_3qDiHnrUxLU9OY/w640-h359/DFB36F1E-0BDB-4ADC-B72D-3BC21B357197_4_5005_c.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Tennessee Three adding their voices to the demand to stop the shooting of school kids.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">were so enraged by this </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">attempt to get legislative attention and action that they called for the expulsion of the three. The one white woman of the three was one vote shy of being expelled. The two young black representatives were expelled. In its vote to expel the members, the GOP caucus effectively expressed its approval for more mass shootings and more dead children on classroom floors.</span></span></p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">For those in the nation who want to understand how </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">America became the only nation in the world in which mass shootings are common and frequent occurrences, the Tennessee legislature provided a strong indication of who creates the conditions that make it so. The nation is dealing with an irony that jeopardizes its survival. Despite the fact that a <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/470279/dissatisfaction-abortion-policy-hits-high.aspx">Gallup poll</a> shows that more than two-thirds of Americans are dissatisfied with abortion laws with many considering it a constitutional right that should be left to individuals and their doctors to decide, a large faction of the GOP is expending maximum efforts to ban abortions even as a life-saving measure for the mother. These same people refuse to address the mounting deaths by gun violence and the killing of children in schools. They are not people with whom intelligent discussion and compromise are even possible. The talk of unity with them is absurd. What person of conscience and good purpose wants to associate with them? Reconciliation with malevolent idiots is like trying to compromise with rattle snakes. Facts and reasoning cannot penetrate the reptilian cortex which is where they do all their thinking. If you can call it that.</span></span><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">In recent years, a number of books have been written about how democracy is put in peril and lo</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">st. We are at a point of loss. Mass shootings in America are a disease that ravages Americans: more than 600 were killed and 2,700 wounded last year alone. </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">In Tennessee, a peaceful call to take action on the scourge was met with an act of </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">destructive ill will. One of the young men, a divinity student, who was expelled said that the legislature was </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1f1f1f;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">“holding up a mirror to a state that is going back to some dark, dark roots.” Tennessee is where the Ku Klux Klan was </span></span><span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(31, 31, 31);">founded. The legislature showed the rest of the nation how a bunch of stupid and cruel hicks can take over.</span></span></div><div><p></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">God bless America.</span></span></p></div>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-49796523842968786512023-04-02T10:21:00.000-05:002023-04-02T10:21:56.519-05:00The country that kills its children<div><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD-2RzSquZsiC_1Fijz5hyPOsWoxd2kTSwbRJSeOBt70v9sREjLUpfcZgGWjQWeIvcn7IrqzI2FHlnCaArzoBaeNqsEFj-EwpieHCY_lt2p63QY8ORWMs6kbA2-5w62z-plh64hFGmtzQnCNnhJpe85RSverpEwwXFKOKkfVIReZzclCp8beX1j3vC/s600/B8983D0C-DE53-47FE-9FF8-B108BB027572.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="600" height="564" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD-2RzSquZsiC_1Fijz5hyPOsWoxd2kTSwbRJSeOBt70v9sREjLUpfcZgGWjQWeIvcn7IrqzI2FHlnCaArzoBaeNqsEFj-EwpieHCY_lt2p63QY8ORWMs6kbA2-5w62z-plh64hFGmtzQnCNnhJpe85RSverpEwwXFKOKkfVIReZzclCp8beX1j3vC/w666-h564/B8983D0C-DE53-47FE-9FF8-B108BB027572.jpeg" width="666" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">America failed. It promised to recognize equality and give everyone the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. It has shown itself incapable of protecting life. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Our failure is not spectacular in the ways that other countries have taken lives. Right now we are much occupied by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but mostly unaware of a previous invasion and its consequences. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/25/books/review/babi-yar-anatoly-kuznetsov.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces-time-cutoff-30_impression_cut_3_filter_new_arm_5_1&alpha=0.05&block=more_in_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=326714337&impression_id=5ec34525-cd1b-11ed-9b48-616b860ff061&index=3&pgtype=Article&pool=more_in_pools/books&region=footer&req_id=996208423&surface=eos-more-in&variant=0_bandit-all-surfaces-time ">Germany invaded Ukraine</a> in 1941 and on Sept. 29 and 30 of that year lined up almost 34,000 Jews in a ravine outside of Kyiv and gunned them down.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">We haven't approached that magnitude yet, but we have gone a step further: we're doing it to our own people, including our children.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b>Other nations experience mass shootings on rare occasions, but in America, they have become routine daily occurrences. As of the 87th day of the year, America has had 130 mass shootings. Thirteen of them were at schools. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for American children.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Who cares? Not many Americans. At a news conference about the school shooting in Nashville this week, a woman repeated the contention that America loves guns more than it does its children. The history of school shootings and the body counts of children killed in them show that statement to be true. Government and research organizations have been tracking mass shooting incidents for a half a century, but the country has shown neither the ability nor the desire to do anything about them. Gun violence has become a characteristic of the American identity; the refusal to address the security of the people as a condition essential to the pursuit of life, liberty, justice, and happiness is a failure of democracy. The primary responsibility of a government is to keep its citizens safe. America has refused to deal with the proliferation of guns and their role in the violence that has become a national trait. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">For every 100 Americans, there are 120 guns. What we don't have is a well-regulated militia, but the Second Amendment was created to serve that as its purpose. We do have an epidemic of armed people who use their guns to kill other people, and we are the only nation in the world who has that plague as part of its national character. Our national legislature has authorized mass murder as the American way. It let the ban on assault weapons lapse. After the Nashville shooting, The New York Times posted this headline: </span><b style="color: #292929; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 20px;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/us/nashville-gun-laws.html?searchResultPosition=2">After Mass Shootings, Republicans Expand Access to Guns.</a></b></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(41, 41, 41); font-size: large;">That headline explains how the United States became the world leader in mass shootings and the extermination of children. It also designates the major political party that staunchly values the right to bear any kind of firearm over the lives of children.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(41, 41, 41); font-size: large;">In the 1960s, the nation put school children through drills on what to do in case of nuclear attack. Now they are drilled on what to do when an active shooter comes to their school. Since the Columbine shooting in Colorado, 348,000 school children have experienced gun violence. We lost no children to nuclear attack. The enemies who attack our children come from within the nation. And those enemies are served by people in Congress who make sure that they can get anything they need to carry out their attacks.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(41, 41, 41); font-size: large;">Gun safety has turned out to be the ultimate IQ test which designates the mentally and morally incompetent. Rather than deal with the gun crisis, many Americans take refuge behind incredibly stupid sayings, such as "guns don't kill children, people do." Some posit having teachers carry guns. Others suggest having armed guards posted in every school. Those who utter such inanities are in need of special handling themselves. They are too mentally incapacitated to understand the problem. Or they are too morally bereft to care, and some might even take pleasure in the killing of children. America's gun problem will not be solved until its stupidity problem is.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(41, 41, 41);">Some experts on what the possession of guns means for America, suggest that there are so many guns out there that it is too late to devise any effective control measures. They see America descending into a state of violent confusion that effectively ends the republic. One expert said that America is committing suicide by cop. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(41, 41, 41);">With guns being the leading cause of death in children, that is a sign that the nation does not have a peaceful future. The gun displaces books as the basis for what governs us.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(41, 41, 41);"><br /></span></span></p><div><b><br /></b></div><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-14630944158036113612023-04-02T04:03:00.005-05:002023-04-02T04:14:03.339-05:00How the American experiment in democracy failed: Donald Trump<p> <span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">I have an old colleague, a political scholar, who claims America ended when Donald Trump was elected president. He is what some people call a political scientist, but he prefers to call himself a professor of political theory and practice. He is among the growing number of political analysts who see that America has made a major movement away from the democratic goals of freedom, equality, and justice for all. He was not surprised when the Jan. 6, 2021, mob invaded and took over the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election. They did it at the behest of Donald Trump. But, my colleague says, Trump did not convert these people against democracy; they found a voice and leader that represents their values in Donald Trump.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">My colleague thinks Americans fool themselves with patriotic babble. They believe America is a better country than it actually is. He says we talk about the divide among Americans, but the divide has always been there. There has always been a faction that hates freedom for anybody but themselves. They resent that people they hate on a racial, ethnic, religious, economic, or sexual basis are considered equal with them. They think that justice is the oppression and punishment of the people they hate. Hatred to them is a driving virtue. We are living in an age when some gains in civil rights and social progress are being reversed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">A few years ago, we were instituting measures to increase the vote. Now many states are taking measures to restrict it by claiming widespread voter fraud. Racial oppression and anti-semitism are notably on the rise. Reports of police killings of unarmed Blacks and anti-Jewish propaganda fill the news. And school systems are beset by people who want only their ignorance and bigotry taught in classrooms.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Trump has been indicted and Republican are rushing to his defense. Tump's personal lawyer and the chef financial officer of his company have received prison sentences for what they did under Trump'a direction, but the GOP leaders claim the indictments against Trump are political vengeance. In his former home base of New York City, Trump is despised for being an obnoxious jackass in his social life and a shyster in his business practices. The fact that he holds the Republican party in thrall, however, says more about the intellectual and moral deterioration of America than it does about Trump's quality of personhood. My former colleague says the large segment of the American populace that adores Trump suffers from Mafia envy. What they admire in Trump is the freedom and power to do wrong. They regard organized crime as entrepreneurship.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Good South Dakotans would be quick to say that if that is what my colleague thinks of America, he should leave. He has. When he retired, he moved to a university town in a Scandinavian country from where he monitors what he regards as the demise of America. Many fellow political scholars in Europe share his views. To them, America chose to end the democratic enterprise when it chose Trump as its leader. They think that Jan. 6 iwas the first major event in the disintegration of the American republic. It and the support of Trump in another run for the presidency are a deliberate rejection of the American experiment in democracy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">While there are forces in charge that pursue the goals of that experiment, the adversaries have gained ground in recent years. And while there are hordes of people at the borders waiting to get into America, a significant outmigration is in process. An article in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_States">Wickpedia</a>, notes the trend:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122;">According to a </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallup_(company)" style="background-image: none; color: #795cb2; font-family: sans-serif; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;" title="Gallup (company)">Gallup</a><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122;"> poll from January 2019, 16% of Americans, including 40% of women under the age of 30, would like to leave the United States.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-69" style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_States#cite_note-69" style="background-image: none; color: #795cb2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">[69]</a></sup><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122;"> In 2018, the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Voting_Assistance_Program" style="background-image: none; color: #795cb2; font-family: sans-serif; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;" title="Federal Voting Assistance Program">Federal Voting Assistance Program</a><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122;"> estimated a total number of 4.8 million American civilians lived abroad, 3.9 million civilians, plus 1.2 million service members and other government-affiliated Americans.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-70" style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_States#cite_note-70" style="background-image: none; color: #795cb2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">[70]</a></sup></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-70" style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_States#cite_note-70" style="background-image: none; color: #795cb2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;"></a></sup></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Whatever happened to America? For one thing, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/02/world/europe/trump-indictment-world-leaders.html">Trump did</a>. And the GOP stands with him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-82500191318739388342023-03-23T13:21:00.007-05:002023-03-25T14:58:37.918-05:00What can people in Aberdeen do to get some news?<p> <span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The most noticeable symptom that something was wrong was that the newspaper featured a front page photo of Governor Ditz (aka Noem) almost everyday. That seemed to be a distraction for the fact that the paper contained no local reporting whatever.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The Aberdeen American News has been wheezing along on life support for a couple of years now. About all that's left to do is close the lid on the casket and bury the remains somewhere.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">It announced its ill health in the spring of 2020 when it shut down its press and printed the paper in Sioux Falls, where it said it would be adding production staff, and moved ts editorial operation out of its building on Second St. into office space on Main Street. Twenty-one employees got booted in the old wazoo with that move.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Then in November 2021, the Gannett folks, who own the paper, announced that it was closing down the press in Sioux Falls and printing the paper in Des Moines, Iowa. It said that the rinktums* of 24 people were the boot targets in that move.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">There seems to be no one in Aberdeen working on the paper, but someone in Des Moines or environs is filling the news hole with canned copy and getting Kristi Ditz's petulant pucker on the front page every day to signal who is in charge of life in the great state of South Dakota, land of the Oahe stock dam.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">When I came to teach at Northern State College, I was faculty advisor to the student publications. I found that Aberdeen was monitored by a substantial news crew. It had the Aberdeen American News, reporters and video photographers working out of two television stations, KABY and KELO, and news departments in three radio stations. And once a week or so, an Associated Press correspondent dropped by to see what was going on in town. Those sources have all vanished.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">But there are news people, mostly from the defunct newspaper, trying to keep up some semblance of community journalism. A local communications entrepreneur, Troy McQuillen, who publishes <i><a href="https://aberdeenmag.com">Aberdeen Magazine</a>, </i>has started an online news publication, <i><a href="https://aberdeeninsider.com">The Aberdeen Insider</a>, </i>which has announced plans to publish a weekly print version in April. Former Aberdeen American News employees Elisa Sand and Scott Waltman are heading up the news reporting operation. <i>The Insider</i> openly states that it operates behind a pay wall because bills need to be paid.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The <i>Insider</i> does not plan comprehensive coverage of sports, but directs attention to the online <a href="https://www.sdsportscene.com"><i>SD Sports Scene</i></a> run by another former Aberdeen American News staffer Dave Vilhauer. It contains some great photojournalism by retired American News photographer John Davis.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">All one can do, at the least, is patronize and support these efforts to keep local reporting flowing. These folks are all we have right now to keep some version of the fourth estate alive for Aberdeen. There are blogs which make some effort at tracking news, but they are sporadic and often a bit notional about what comprises useful news. There are other online enterprises that cover news on the state level, such as <i><a href=" https://www.sdnewswatch.org/">South Dakota News Watch</a>, <a href="https://southdakotasearchlight.com/about/">South Dakota Search Light</a>, </i>and <a href="https://www.sdstandardnow.com/"><i>The</i></a></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.sdstandardnow.com/"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">South Dakota Standard</span></i></a><span style="font-size: large;">. However, the Aberdeen American News is a prime example of what happens when hedge funds take over the news business. We owe a debt of gratitude to those who survived this destruction of journalism and are at work to keep us informed.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">*</span><b style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rinktum:</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px;"> as in "rectum." </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px;">"I'll skin your rinktum" (William Faulkner, </span><i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Sound and the Fury</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px;">, p. 70).</span></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-75707395588272486762023-03-22T22:22:00.013-05:002023-03-22T22:27:20.175-05:00Fired NSU president appointed president of Minnesota State U. Moorhead<p>Here is the news release from Moorhead: </p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); color: #544f47; font-family: "Source Sans Pro"; font-size: 40px; letter-spacing: 0px; text-transform: inherit;">Timothy Downs Named President of Minnesota State University Moorhead</span></p><div class="bizberg_cocntent_wrapper" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); border: 1px solid rgba(241, 241, 241, 0); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 30px 30px 15px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">The Board of Trustees of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities has named Timothy Downs to serve as president of Minnesota State University Moorhead. His appointment becomes effective July 1, 2023.</p><figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-77576" decoding="async" height="324" sizes="(max-width: 259px) 100vw, 259px" src="https://news.mnstate.edu/wp-content/uploads/Tim-Downs-1.jpg" srcset="https://news.mnstate.edu/wp-content/uploads/Tim-Downs-1.jpg 1200w, https://news.mnstate.edu/wp-content/uploads/Tim-Downs-1-240x300.jpg 240w, https://news.mnstate.edu/wp-content/uploads/Tim-Downs-1-768x960.jpg 768w" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; float: none; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;" width="259" /></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">“Dr. Downs brings considerable expertise and keen insights into the changing nature of higher education,” said Devinder Malhotra, chancellor of Minnesota State. “He is a great communicator and a person who is strongly committed to being an ardent supporter of students and the innate missions of a regional comprehensive university anchored in liberal arts and sciences. Without a doubt, he is the right leader at this point in the university’s history.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">Downs is a leader known for facilitating transformational change and positioning campuses to meet current and future demands and needs. In past roles he has dedicated himself to student success and sustaining a campus culture that facilitates a spirit of belonging. Bringing enrollment management skills and strong financial acumen, he is an accomplished fundraiser who has successfully cultivated a shared vision with stakeholders and investors.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">He currently serves Cal Poly Humboldt as interim chief of staff where he is responsible for coordinating efforts among all divisions within the university.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">Previously, from 2016 to 2021, he served as president/CEO of Northern State University (NSU), a member of the South Dakota Board of Regents System with enrollment of 3,500 students and 330 employees. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">Under his leadership, NSU revised its campus strategic plan, including a refinement of its mission and vision, and revised its recruitment and enrollment plan to stabilize undergraduate enrollments, increase graduate enrollments, and increase student retention.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">He worked to sustain respectful and supportive learning communities to serve all members of campus with respect and dignity.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">He designed and led a capital campaign that raised over $62 million, raised additional endowed scholarship funds totaling $5 million, and, in total, received over $110 million in gifts to the university during his five-year tenure at NSU.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">He facilitated efforts that yielded 20 new academic programs and partnerships, including a graduate program expected to become a national benchmark in special education.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">His efforts have helped to confirm NSU as a regional economic and workforce development partner and build exceptional relationships with the community.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">Previous engagements include serving as provost and chief academic officer at Niagara University (NY) from 2011 to 2016, and Gannon University (PA) from 2002 to 2011.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">He holds a bachelor’s degree from California State University, Sacramento, a master’s from West Virginia University, and a doctorate from the University of Oklahoma.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word;">Dr. Downs will succeed Anne Blackhurst who has served MSUM as president since 2014 and has announced her intention to retire.</p></div><p><a href="https://news.mnstate.edu/2023/03/timothy-downs-named-president-of-minnesota-state-university-moorhead/">https://news.mnstate.edu/2023/03/timothy-downs-named-president-of-minnesota-state-university-moorhead/</a></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-75306946243928158942023-03-18T16:40:00.002-05:002023-03-18T22:36:32.919-05:00A deathwatch for a community<p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">If you notice that the community you live in is unraveling, it can be dangerous to mention it. Communities seldom actually die, but they do fail. Community leaders tend to take explosive umbrage if someone notes that their community is showing signs of failure. They will rail that the person stating such notice is a negative a--hole, and they will launch into an inventory of all that is alive and thriving in the community and why that negative person is mentally deficient for claiming otherwise. I live, rather I dwell, in a community that is diminishing in aspects of community life. Rather than face the facts regarding the faltering community, many who regard themselves as leaders go into a raging denial.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The latest crisis for Aberdeen, South Dakota, is the announcement of the closing of Presentation College at the end of summer. The closing of an educational institution is a significant loss to a community, a reduction of its status in the world. The closing of Presentation College has implications that have not been fully confronted in terms of the resources it once provided or the options it offered. Finances and enrollment are the usual reasons a college has for closing. However, the place that an educational institution has in the lives of its staff, of its students, its sponsors, and the community is part of their development, their identities, their very lives.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Small colleges such as Presentation which do not operate with a substantial endowment have a formidable disadvantage. The annual tuition and expenses at Presentation is cited as $22,006. Across town at the public Northern State University, it is advertised at $8,845. Northern has the further advantage of more than 50 academic programs, a full range of extra-curricular activities, and supplies financial aid to more than 80 percent of its students. It also has a much longer history of being part of the Aberdeen community. Northern was founded in 1901, and Presentation 50 years later in 1951. However, that indicates a half a century's tenure as part of the community for Presentation, </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">and raises questions about the decision to end that relationship.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The questions raised are not about the college's assessments of its financial and enrollment outlook, but how those assessments reflect on the community's ability to support and sustain an institution that has contributed much to its intellectual, educational, and public services environment. The loss of Presentation College is a severe setback. It significantly diminishes the community. And it comes at a time when Northern State shows faltering in enrollment numbers. In terms of full-time equivalent enrollments, Northern has the lowest of the state's public colleges. The reasons given for the closing of Presentation are "</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(10, 10, 10); color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">a high dependency on gifts and tuition revenue, a remote location that’s hard for out-of-state students to reach, and the pandemic." As a public institution, Northern is part of the state's regental system and has the resources of the system to help out when enrollments decline and tuition income drops. But it is also affected by potential declines in enrollment and a remote location that affected Presentation. So, college officials at Northern and the state have to be alert to any circumstances that might disrupt its operation in ways experienced at Presentation. Northern had a sudden dismissal of its president in 2021 that was never explained to the community, nor addressed by the faculty. That dismissal makes many of its constituency wonder if the institution has lapsed into the status that once earned a censure by the American Association of University Professors. The closing of Presentation alarms community members who know and understand the crucial tasks of keeping higher education functioning and reputable as it might affect Northern.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(10, 10, 10); color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Aberdeen has experienced many severe reductions in employment by companies throughout the years. In the mid-1980s, it lost 750 jobs when Control Data closed a plant and more recently hundreds of jobs when Molded Fiber Glass shut down its operations. Aberdeen has an <a href="https://www.aberdeennews.com/story/business/2017/02/07/community-responds-to-molded-fiber-glass-layoffs/44752173/">extensive history </a>of employers abandoning the town. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(10, 10, 10); color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">It has also lost its status of being a regional shopping center with the closure of such retail operations as Shopko, Kmart, and Herberger's.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(10, 10, 10); color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The closing of a college is a different dimension in which a community can falter. Residents are right to wonder what will be next.</span></span></p><div><br /></div>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-47027847388926120952023-02-22T20:46:00.002-06:002023-02-22T23:45:23.773-06:00South Dakota Democrats are becoming extinct<p> <span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">South Dakota has become a one-party state. Democrats are an endangered species. The big question is why. The answer has to do with brain power. Bright young people who tend toward liberal principles of life do not find them in South Dakota. If they advocate for more humane and intelligent values and diverse lifestyles, they are told that if they don't like it here, they should move. So, they do. And that leaves the residue of racism, intellectual incompetence, and regressive society that characterizes places that resist the principles of democracy. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">South Dakota as a state reminds me of what happened to <a href="https://www.legendsofamerica.com/il-cairo/">Cairo</a>, Illinois, as a town. Cairo strangled itself to death by an insistent racism and intolerant attitude, going from a population of 15,200 to a current population of about 1,600. It became the kind of place that people of talent and good will wanted to avoid, and so they moved. And the rest of the state distanced itself from the town as if it were the source of some contagious pestilence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The abandonment of a place like Cairo involves a process that seems to eliminate any opportunity for the place to recover and rebuild. The deconstruction removes the social foundations upon which a community is formed. Abandoned towns like Cairo are tombstones for failed communities. I have vicariously witnessed the deaths of many small towns, as students wrote about them and the causes of their deaths. Malevolent bigotry and willful stupidity are the main causes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">I had a student who so loathed her hometown that she refused to return to it for the holidays. Rather than go home, she spent her holidays in her dorm room or with friends. Her parents implored her classmates and professors to encourage her to visit her family and friends at home, but she vowed to never return. She had witnessed the mistreatment of a classmate on a racist basis and conducted a one-person boycott of the town. Her avoidance of the place became a trend among young people in the town, and eventually the only functioning establishment on Main Street was a senior center, where the elderly gathered and complained about the lack of civic pride among the younger people. Young people left to go to college or to find jobs and never returned. Those few who remained seemed unable to figure out why people left. Eventually, the town became geriatric in population, and its main street business area withered away.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">When I was more politically active, it was my job to maintain a list of active party members and donors. The list began to dwindle through a steady attrition. As people were taken off the list because they moved or died, there was nobody to replace them. As the party attempted to generate interest and attract new members, it became apparent that people were losing interest in participating in group activities. The party held an annual picnic that once formed lines of attendees that numbered in the hundreds. It dwindled to the point where the only attendees were the people who volunteered to bring the food. Its monthly meeting which once packed the courthouse basement shrunk in attendance to the point that it could be held around a dining table. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">We noted the loss of interest in participating in party activities, but we did not know why. Other civic and cultural groups complained of the same problem. Something had changed in the social dynamic, and this was long before Covid. In Aberdeen the American Legion, Elks and Eagles lodges operated facilities where big public events could be held. Their memberships declined to the point where they had to abandon the large facilities. There has been a change in the desire to gather together to pursue common interests.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">What changed was the angry, divisive attitude that some people adopted. Political discussion had devolved into accusations and invective. Even though my party knew that mean-mouthing drove people away and refrained from engaging in it, the negative effects from the other side set a tone for political dialogue that offended people of good will so that they avoided all political activity. In monitoring membership lists, a demographic shift became apparent. People of liberal tendencies were leaving the state or withdrawing from participation. Their interests and talents were drawing them elsewhere. People of a regressive bent were moving in. They found a comfort zone in the backward populations of the state. In today's South Dakota, the election of a George McGovern or a Tom Daschle or a Tim Johnson would not be possible. The mood of the state is a placid dullness and backwardness. And discriminatory hatreds are evident. A friend who left the state asked recently, "How can you stand to live there?" The answer is that you keep believing that escape is possible and imminent. Change within the state seems impossible at this juncture.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">At this writing, Republican have total control of state government. The state house consists of 63 Republicans and 7 Democrats. The senate has 31 Republicans and 4 Democrats. And Republicans hold all the major state offices. That's how the state votes, and with those huge majorities, alternative ideas don't even get a hearing. That reflects the dominant attitude in the state.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Democrats I am acquainted with expect their children to leave the state. And they expect to eventually join them. There is no talk among them about a future in the state. Their talk of the future centers on other places.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Such talk gives a lot of insight into South Dakota's future.</span></p>David Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.com0