Dakota Today

**Blue sky, dry grass

My wife and I lived for a few years in Rochester, NY. While the rain and lack of dreadful dry summer winds made huge trees possible in all directions, those same trees meant the sun, sunrises, sunsets, and sky were seldom seen as on the plains of South Dakota. There were no broad horizons visible unless we looked across Lake Erie. Yesterday, the sky was mostly blue with some clouds. I hope you enjoy the photo below.

Sometimes, we don't know what we've got until we don't have it anymore. Click on the photo for a larger view.

**Stay tuned even if your view of South Dakota is impaired by the stench of factory farms or city lagoons-- Doug Wiken

**Modest Proposal-- It all fits together

News from the legislative cutting edge..well sort of...Let the 10 year olds hunt and if they are old enough to hunt well...

By golly, the legislative plan for pandering to every special interest is starting to fit together. They can suck up to the NRA and the liquor special interests in no time at all.

If 10 year olds are old enough to carry rifles and shotguns, they are old enough to defend our country against invading crows and feral cats and if they are old enough to do that, they should be old enough to drink.

Yup, put all that SD legislature logic together and you venture into the fields of the absurd. Here's another area of the legislature missing the obvious solution in search of a protect-the-special-interests solution that appears to do something good, but ....well.... read on.

Liquor licenses are being resold for ridiculous amounts. Apparently some have sold for over $100,000. To solve this problem, the legislature opens up a whole no category of liquor licenses. Let's look at the obvious solution.

Liquor licenses go with a business when it is sold, but they can not be transferred by the current holder. The new owner of a liquor business has the first option to purchase the terminated license from the city or county at the regular license fee.

There is absolutely no reason to allow private businesses or individuals to convert a public license into a small goldmine. There is no reason liquor licenses should be any more valuable than the license plate on a junked car.

Incidentally, the last Scientific American has an article on the "white matter" in our brains. Apparently it is important in the way brain pathways are laid out. At specific ages, some pathways are essentially locked and others are still open to change. Some of the rational decision areas are not complete until around age 26. Some language functions are essentially locked at a very young age. Our brains find no reason to store or retain the ability to recognize speech sounds that are not used in a particular language. Wait too long, and an adult learning a language will never get it quite right. Our brains just plain become unable to recognize some of the speech sounds except for the primary language.

Another interesting finding involves the relationship between a mother smoking while pregnant or children being exposed to tobacco smoke. There is a good correlation between such exposure and tone deafness in children. A specific area of brain cell damage has been identified. Now you can understand why some kids can listen to the damnedest most aggravating musical noise and find nothing wrong with it. You also might now understand why kids and guns and kids and booze really don't go together. Buy the Scientific American and see if you can understand the details and implications better than I did.

**Stay tuned even if you are irony-impaired or satire-challenged--- Doug Wiken

**Sue the Federal Government for failing to control borders

Cottonwood, Minnesota is reaping the wonders of diversity and a porous border. An illegal alien driving so fast through a stop sign that when she hit railroad tracks went airborne apparently. Flew through the air and crashed into the side of a schoolbus high enough up on the bus that it rolled on its side tipping unto a pickup truck coming from the opposite direction. Four young children were killed and a dozen or so injured..some seriously.

Aliens and immigrants are now expressing concern that this might generate backlash. My guess is the parents of the dead children hope so.

The illegal alien started off with no drivers license, an invalid ID listing her as "Allanis Morales" or something close to that which was actually a person in Guatemala. Latest is that her actual name is not completely Hispanic apparently, but rather "Olga Marino Franco". It took days for the US government to come up with that.

Were she male, she might as well have been Asama Bin Laden for all the US government knew. All the Bush blather about protecting "the Homeland" from terrorism is pure unadulterated bullshit as long as our borders our open and millions of illegal aliens remain in the US.

How many cheap heads of lettuce and tomatoes will the parents of these children have to buy to make up for the loss of their children? Is a porous border that allows the rich who are too lazy to take care of their own homes cheap illegal alien help worth the problems that porous border policy has caused just for two or three families?

It all reminded a Sioux Falls family of their husband and father who was killed by another illegal alien who arrogantly disregarded stop signs and speed limits. Arrogant disregard for our borders is followed with arrogant disregard for our driving laws and language. I guess "STOP" is not in the vocabulary of illegal aliens.

The families of those children killed or injured should be allowed to bring suit against the US government for falling to control our borders as is the Bush and other administrations constitutional obligation. It is time our area senators and representatives took responsibility for the failure of our government to protect our borders and payup for the damages to US citizens and for the unfunded education and health mandates coupled with rights for the invading hordes.

In the meantime, CBS news continues to tell some truth about the roots of the invasion of illegal aliens. Twenty or thirty years ago CBS 60 Minutes learned that the primary opposition to stopping the invading hordes came from the Catholic Church. Last night CBS or one of the other news programs noted that the US Catholic Church has lost 23 million members in the last years, but those lost members have been largely replaced by Hispanics. Mexico provides a near never ending source of the superstitious and ignorant who can be cannon and canon fodder for the US Catholic Church. It is just one more area besides abortion issues where that church blurs the boundaries between church and state even as it demands the protections afforded by that same separation. Disregard for that constitutional separation is a danger to that same church and to all religions. The backlash will not be simply against illegal aliens.

That meddling also messes up government and politics. In the end, innocent kids end up dead in Minnesota, and Sioux Falls police find hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal drugs in the company of a dozen or so people with Hispanic surnames. Where is the conservative outrage about these unfunded mandates?

***Stay tuned and it won't be broadcast with Spanish language subtext or for "Latin Eyes"--- Doug Wiken

**Lunar Eclipse photos and a new Photography Blog

Some months ago, I had a post here mentioning the SD Lottery Calendar photos. Today, I noticed at SD Magazine that the photographer has a new blog. More on that later. Below are a couple of photos I took of the lunar eclipse. Unfortunately, between the miserable chill factor that night and feeling wretched after catching some of the crud that apparently crawls from fingers or infiltrates by some miasma to disrupt stomachs, I missed the actual eclipse. Caught the start of it and the fading end of it. Guess they give the general idea anyway.
Click for slightly larger versions.

But, for some good photography, check NWLINK to DakotaGraph Blog by Chad Coppess

Coppess does photography for the State of South Dakota. 12 or more of his photos were in the free 2008 Calendar provided by the SD Lottery. He indicates at his blog that he intends to provide hints for photographers hoping to get good photographs in South Dakota and also plans to add more of his own photos to the blog. Enjoy what is there and I suggest you bookmark the blog and check in regularly. Might give Chad more incentive to post more photos... and as Martha Stewart might say even if not being held in Gitmo, "That would be a good thing."

**Stay tuned and as George Bush the minor might say, "Is your photography learning better?"---Doug Wiken

SDSM&T and SDBOR select new President for SDSM&T

After a few weeks of looking, the SD Board of Regents with apparently some input from SDSM&T has selected a new college president for SDSM&T. Take a look at his short bio from a press release below:

Robert A. Wharton, Pocatello, Idaho, provost and vice president for academic affairs, Idaho State University. As the chief academic officer since 2005, Wharton has responsibility for advancing the academic and scholarly life of 13,280 students and 670 faculty members on the Pocatello campus and at four outreach centers. He successfully led the first campus-wide effort to implement and align evidence-based strategic planning, budgeting, and assessment at ISU, and led student recruitment and retention efforts that resulted in a 4 percent enrollment increase as of fall 2007. He is a tenured professor of biology at ISU and previously served as its chief research officer, leading the university’s efforts to foster, support, and expand its research enterprise. He has past service with the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has a Ph.D. in botany from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, a M.A. degree in biology and a B.A. in botany from Humboldt State University in California.

His full information can be found at NWLINK for Robert A. Wharton PDF Data

A crowd of about 300 attended the announcement. Apparently about a dozen students showed up. The primary emphasis of discussion was all about economic development of South Dakota and almost nothing on actual education or education value. The closest the discussion got to that was concerning Wharton's desire to increase student enrollment as he apparently had done at Pocatello.

As you can see his background is primarily biology and botany which does not seem like much of a match for an engineering campus. A previous post here has a link to a site with all the candidates on it.

Below are a couple of images. One of Wharton and a very rapidly sketched cartoon which might suggest why only a handful of actual students attended the meeting.

Click on either image for significantly larger versions.

Well, that is about as much news on this that I have right now. Based on the apparent mixture in the crowd, I suspect the SD Regents are more interested in pleasing the rich and influential of Rapid City than they are about doing anything for the actual students on the campus. SD citizens have a right to start discussing what are the actual goals of the SD Board of Regents.

In the continuation is qualifications requested by SDBOR for the new President published with the notice of the job opening. There is nothing in that list that suggests anything which will change the apparent perception of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology as having a rather callous disregard for student rights, welfare, fair meaningful testing, or even actual education. Until that perception is changed, recruitment of more students will remain a tough job.

***Stay tuned for more "education"--- Doug Wiken

**So what are the SD Regents looking for in a top educator?

A previous post here provides some information on the SD Regent search for a President of SDSM&T. One of the finalists provides in his letter and vitae an indication of the concerns of the SD regents for SDSM&T. Take a look at this one and you may notice something:
NewWindowLINK to Cheatham Letter and vitae Note. It is a damnable PDF file.

If his letter indicates the actual expressed concerns of the regents for a college president at SDSM&T, they have little to do with students and actual education and a lot about money. Obviously they are linked, but the letter suggests the SD Regents are not really primarily concerned about students getting a good education or getting good instruction and education in difficult and complex disciplines. Disciplines and study areas which are difficult to comprehend with even the best quality teaching can be nearly incomprehensible with mediocre instruction followed by mediocre testing which measures mainly the professor's desire to show he or she is smarter than the students...even if some of those professor are not.

Here is a logo for SDSM&T that may provide a bit of reality for the candidates considering leading SDSM&T.

Click on the image for a larger view. Expect some better versions in the future.

It appears that the SDSM&T public information system does not work too well. Most students found out days too late about the opportunity to meet the applicants. The college presidents might even deign to walk among their students as did I.D. Weeks many years ago at USD.

This indicates a problem that should be fixed immediately at Tech. Campus communications suck. Some professors realize that it is a mess and try to supplement it by using other means to communicate with students outside the official dead-end channels. There is no annual and no real campus newspaper. Building any kind of a community requires regular information and communications.

One of the main problems facing all education in science and engineering is the incredible growth in such knowledge..even in just the last 50 yers. Mathematical innovations that took tens or hundreds of years to develop are now dumped onto students with an expectation that they will understand in literal minutes what took real geniuses many years to understand and develop. Sorting massive amounts of knowledge and information in ways which will actually benefit real engineers and scientists in the real world is a great challenge. Dumping students into the middle of it works for some, but leads many to flounder in the sea of "stuff". Couple that with professors who are not really good at educating or testing and the system becomes a very expensive and inefficient sorting system rather than an actual working education system.

As a girl in a national science competition indicated, "Science is empowering," and our society and state needs that kind of power. Better ways to generate that talent and enhance it instead of merely finding it are needed. Challenges that face the USA are not going to be solved by scientists and mathematicians in India or China. Unfortunately they will also not be solved by those students who become so discouraged by a system that is advertised as the best but is often actually mediocre that too many students with excellent minds drop out of Tech. Some are depressed and turned off by science and math for the rest of their lives. Even making the school catalog more realistic with five-year options with class support as well as four-year plans might be a help. Psychological evaluations of professors might also be useful.

Tech presidents themselves need to talk to the freshmen and sophomores who decide to leave SDSM&T as well as the handful of "STARS" that excel or survive no matter how dreadful is the system.

And if he doesn't have anything else to do, the president ought to be looking toward converting one of the most poorly engineered and planned campuses in the US with grossly inadequate and inappropriate student housing into an example of good engineering, ergonomics, and design.. now and then by exploiting the talents of the students on that very campus.

Well, that is probably more than enough from a dumb farmer wasting time considering higher education in South Dakota...must get buried in my more "parochial interests"....as has been suggested by a South Dakota reporter of note recently.

**Stay tuned even if you don't remember that the LOG of 10 to the 50th power is something llike 50 unless your slide rule shows 49.995--- Doug Wiken

**Congratulations to Mt. Blogmore and RCJ

I can honestly say I knew it all the time ...even if I am a bit surprised to see now that more tha a few significant people agree.
NWLINK to "Mt. Blogmore Best in Nation"

Congratulations to all involved in getting Mt. Blogmore going and keeping it going including Bill Harlan, Denise Ross, Kevin Woster and all the other commentators and posters. Mt. Blogmore has an interesting bunch of cats commenting and some usually pretty good cat herders keeping track of interesting stuff and now and then being a bit too concerned with good taste and protecting George Bush, Jr. from being hanged by his toes in a public court and noting that he and his father have been claimed to have "pussy" as their favorite discussion topic.

After seeing what a colossal mess Bush the Minor has made of the USA's reputation around the world and of our economy, it now seems that "pussy" may be all that was ever on the Texas Twit's mind..and that has nothing to do with mountain lions in the Black Hills.

**Stay tuned even if you and your old man never spent much time talking about "pussy"--- Doug Wiken

**SDSM&T Searching for round or square plug for a leadership hole

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSM&T) at Rapid City, SD is in need of a new college president among other things. You can look at their application letters and vitae at the link below. If you are planning to write job applications in the future, you might want to see what gets into an application for a college president.

New Window LINK to SDSM&T Job Applicant Info

I am getting too sleepy to do much with this tonight. I did notice that one applicant had been appointed to an education committee by George Bush...and not George Bush, Senior, but the Texas Twit. This is an interesting "qualification" considering what Bush the minor has done to eduction and the economy and government budget that is needed to support education at all levels.

More to come. The information on these guys is interesting. What the SD Board of Regents apparently wants them to do is also interesting. Improving teaching, testing, and student retention and graduation, prevention of student depression and withdrawal, etc. etc. are apparently in the "none of the above category" with the regents.

Comments and suggestions for what a new president of SDSM&T really needs to do are welcome.

And, here is a link to a blog apparently written by a college student from someplace in South Dakota who has found Dakota Today and likes it. I better hope she doesn't find any of the really popular SD Blogs.

New Window LINK to Someday Teacher Blog

And an author on Charlie Rose tonight was interesting. Her book sounds interesting more info on that tomorrow. Her name is "Susan Jacoby". Below is link to her site which mentions her recent book "The American Age of Unreason".

New Window LINK to Ann Jocoby Site

And, it sounds like the SD Legislature decided that being labeled as promoting "idiotic"laws by a police chief was not such a really good deal and the Senate decided to kill the bill turning SD colleges into homes for disenchanted posse members armed to the teethl. Why did it take them so long?

**Stay tuned even if the weather might be pleasant enough in SD that being outdoors might be better idea in the coming week--- Doug Wiken

**Get those dudes DNA stat..highest crime rate per capita

Headlines in papers and a few TV and radio stories indicate the South Dakota legislature thinks that everybody arrested whether guilty or innocent should be required to provide DNA evidence via a cotton swab test of saliva or mouth cells..or some such.

I guess perhaps everybody arrested guilty or innocent should be required to have a brand on their forehead saying, "I was first arrested MM/DD/YY".

But, if we are willing to misuse statistics in the same way the gun nut legislators supporting campus posses and misuse them in the same way the loons opposed to seat belt laws on the highways do, then we ought to use statistics in support of a modest proposal.

As part of the House and Senate ethics rules in South Dakota, all legislators should be swabbed and tattooed if we look at the number of rapes, etc. per legislator compared to the general population. And then there are all those stories of wild life in Pierre during the sessions, no telling what that does to crime and health statistics...might even be useful in some paternity suits.

Yup, swab those dudes for suspicious DNA and hereditary brain disorders before they ever get a chance to say, "I so move" unless it is in a restroom with Larry Craig.

And off this subject for a minute or so. The US Congress has nothing better to do than have a star chamber hearing on drugs and baseball. Must have a huge impact on the economy and the deficit and no doubt will help get the US out of Iraq and put a stop to the Bush destruction of citizen civil rights. Yah sure.

We are not getting enough realism or idealism out of our pay for legislators.

**Stay tuned even if you are wondering how big the swabs would have to be to get DNA from legislators' mouths--- Doug Wiken

**Retroactive "justice" for communications companies

Well, I just noticed that South Dakota Democratic Senator Tim Johnson was one of those Democrats in the Senate who could care less about the US Constitutional freedoms and rights for average citizens, but falls over backward into the Bush sewer to give retroactive immunity to communications companies that went along with Bush administration in data mining operations on US phone calls without court hearings. A few companies realized the danger and resisted even if this violation was claimed to be against "terrorism".

Will Johnson also favor immunity for all the people in US prisons who have violated other citizen's rights? Or does his generosity only extend to large corporations? He may also have forgotten Eisenhower's warnings about the "military-industrial complex".

And, while fiddling around the edges of politics, nearly everybody in South Dakota has heard the moaning about cutting funding for the SD Highway Patrol. I am not sure which side of that makes sense. But, if rumors of what is going on in Rapid City are true, legislators might want to repeal the law requiring drivers to move into the lane farthest away from a parked patrol car with flashing lights.

Apparently there are so many spare policemen and police cars in Rapid City that they have time to have a patrol car pull over for no reason, turn on flashing lights for no reason, and then if somebody drives by as they are doing nothing but flashing lights without pulling over, another police car and policeman with nothing better to do (such as stopping vandalism such as shooting car windows out) will chase the driver and ticket him or her.

This seems altogether too much like entrapment if it is actually happening. Maybe stuff like this only happens when Rapid City councilmen are out of town...or are they in town?

And the question for the night: "Is it really all down Hillary from here on?"

**Stay tuned even if you have something to do that you assume is better--- Doug Wiken