Dakota Today

**New faces at Mt. Blandmore

The Rapid City Journal has Mt. Blogmore. Recently it won prizes. Recently also, it lost Bill Harlan who headed off to a public information and education job for the new research labs, etc. at Homestake and Sanford Research.

Just in the last day or so, the maverick look of Mt. Blogmore has been converted to the rather bland corporate standard homogenized look. It is so homogenized all the cream and flavor disappeared. Notice the boring similarity in the images below.

And you get the message, but there is one more out of the list of RCJ Blogs.

And in other changes, apparently instead of the semi-balanced basic posts used to stimulate discussion at Mt. Blogmore, we will get some posts more like something Bile O'Lielly or Calvinist Thomas might write on a particularly slanted day.

I suspect Mt. Blogmore may remain one of the best blogs in the country (it was honored as such recently), but I won't be holding my breath. One change is better however. Posts you or I might make are now shown as "pending" which is perhaps better than clicking save or post and then having the pixels disappear without so much as an error message. If Mt. Blandmore..er blogmore is still in a stage of flux, the HTML mavens at the RCJ might want to look for some slightly less bland WordPress themes. There have to be some better ones around somewhere.

Of course, people living in a glass blogs, shouldn't be throwing stones...I guess...maybe..ah what the hell.

**Stay tuned even if corporate bland is your favorite non-colorful--- Doug Wiken

**Farmer's share of your grocery bill ..data from NFU

Every time we return from the local grocery stores, it seems like the bill is bigger and the bags are smaller. I found the National Farmers Union fact sheet in the local paper. It kind of gets buried in the page, but a few more people might get a chance to see it here. Click on the small version for one large enough to read and copy if you wish to print it yourself.

There is wide variation in the farmer's share depending on the food category. It appears that grocery buyers purchasing dairy products and flour end up giving the farmer a nearly fair share. Other "foods" like beer and potato chips are something else however.

Also in the local paper was a line similar to this in a story about a farmwife and her recipes, " Name here grew up on a farm as a little girl." You might want to think about that one for a minute. From her photo despite that sentence, she appeared to have grown into a fully formed woman with a pleasant smile and good recipes.

Incidentally, in a recent story on food "deserts", Tripp County was listed as one of them. Two grocery stores selling almost wholly "Surefine" products leaves much to be desired. Their rice and pasta is nearly inedible compared to some brands, and the canned goods are almost never as good. A spoonful of good-tasting food may be better than a cheaper cupful of food with the wrong taste, texture, or sauce. Of course, your food mileage may vary especially if you have to drive out of the food desert for a good dessert..even if they aren't your just desserts.

NOTE added March 28, 2008: Cory Heidelberger at his KELO section of Madville Times added signficant information to this post regarding the idea of "food deserts", etc. Worth taking a look at his perspective on this too.
New Window LINK to Madville Times at KELO Blogs

***Stay tuned and eat healthy..or as best you can wherever you are--- Doug Wiken

**Denise Ross, Blogger is a noted Fellow

Some news from South Dakota Blogland. First, in the "Come Blow Your Own Horn" category, Denise Ross links to this:
NWL Argus says Denise Ross a Lusk Fellow

She tells all at her blog:
NWL to Hoghouse Blog "Fellow" Story

So, another congratulations to Denise Ross. Apparently she is telling students at SDSU about new kinds of journalism or journalism trends. I might guess she may even mention blogs in South Dakota as sort of a followup to her column in the Mitchell Daily Republic. Not sure if she mentions the relative transient nature of the various forms of media. Plain old dead tree media can be around for decades. Broadcast TV is instantaneously here and gone..even if it can be copied to tape or DVD, etc. Newspaper web sites are mostly somewhere between in that they can have news there for a few hours or for years even if not accessible to all readers, etc. So, existing media can move from transient to less transient or more transient. Not sure if that is at all significant or even trend worthy, but seems moderately interesting to me.

I also wonder if younger readers such as college students think about this as they use FaceBook, blogs, etc themselves.

And, one of my old jokes made for a cartoon: Two American Indians in the bad old days are on a hilltop looking down on a settler's cabin. Smoke is rising up in puffs from burning newspapers. One of them sees the puffs of smoke and says, "Nothing new there. It's yesterday's news."

Other news in SD Blogland is not surprisingly, another blog. Don't know if it is good, bad or whatever, but may have some interesting perspectives:
New Window Link (NWL) to "Cranium Creek Blog by Mike"

**Stay tuned even if a real spring without many cold days and snow might be on the horizon and we could all find something to do outside-- Doug Wiken

**Marquess of Queensberry rules for blogging and website??

PP at the SDWC is having some fun at the expense of Steve Sibson. Pat Powers has bought sibbyonline.com and is auctioning it off for the benefit of charity for a few things that apparently appall the easily appalled Steve Sibson.

Those who care about truth, should buy the site for Sibby so he can spread more..well you know. Nothing like a little a little intramural Republican cat fight with hair-pulling and crotch-kneeing to liven up the blosphere.

Liberals owe it to themselves to help Sibby. We should help buy the site from PP so he can contribute and then give the site to Steve so he has another place to distribute his..er..ah truth.

More seriously, while PP is having fun with this, I don't really view it as an area of conflict we bloggers want to venture into. If there were Marquess of Queensberry rules for blogging and websites, buying or squatting on websites with names of "opponents" to poke them in the eye would probably be banned and penalized.

**Stay tuned when all else fails--- Doug Wiken

**Obama discusses "the religion issue"

In the continuation of this post is the planned text for Barrack Obama's speech given today in Philadelphia. If you go to the source site, following the text is a discussion of the speech.
New Window LINK to Blog with text, comments on Obama speech

While the press has billed this as a speech on religion, or a response to hate speech, or race and politics, or whatever hot-button term they use to skew a story or hype it, I believe it was really a response to attempts to attack Obama using guilt by association. As I have indicated here and in other forums, Republicans and their corporate media friends and co-conspirators who wish to live by "guilt by association" deserve to die by it as well.

Every Democrat needs to challenge every Republican to repudiate George Bush and Bush, Inc. for the over 900 documented lies they made in support of a unitary presidency and an ill-begotten Bush war in Iraq. Buy into the Iraq lies and pay for the broken pieces....which now include the US economy falling apart at the rich seams from excess leverage and greed. The USA is at a crossroads or soon will be. We can back away from the strings between too large business and too incompetent government or we can let the cascading descent drive us further into a fascist system that fits the corporate wing of the Republican Party and Bush,Inc.

As indicated in a previous post, I believe that some of the huge firms have grown beyond the ability of mere mortals to control or direct them well. The wisdom of the many is not relevant in top-down aristocratic organizations. This is worth some more serious thought. Wikipedia works because gross errors are corrected because many people have input. There is no single "truth" defining America if there is competition in ideas that is paralleled with competition in business. Not competition by oligopolies as intent on milking government as providing services, but many businesses doing their best both benefiting from their rightness and paying for their errors.

The Republican way now being demonstrated is to allocate profits to the very rich and demand payment for grotesque losses by we taxpayers. This shows the gross hypocrisy of those who demand free markets and competition for everybody else while they use government influence, expensive lawyers and lobbyists to destroy competition.

And have a little pity (well very little pity) for those Republicans and co-conspirators whose brains are (as BOJ wrote) ready to explode as they simultaneously try to attack Obama for being too Moslem and too fundamentalist Christian simultaneously.

**Stay tuned even if you skipped my blather to read Obama's words of wisdom--- Doug Wiken

**Catch 22...get your credit report online

A few posts ago, I put in a LINK for getting your credit report. I had time to dink around tonight. Thought I would see if I could get it. A few questions must be answered. Unfortunately, old mailbox addresses in a rural area don't have street addresses to go with them. I also don't carry old credit cards, but credit card numbers also did not match. Hmmm. Then if you have a problem, they request your current address information again.

This has the appearance of a Catch 22 circle that never ends. Free credit reports that are impossible to get are just about worthless. In any case, I have more credit than I feel like using right now with the economy as it is.

I suspect a local banker could push one key on a keyboard and get the information, but then would refuse to share the information. Oh well. Another service demanded by the federal government of big business and banking that doesn't work for the little guy. Big surprise.

Now, if I could figure out where to report the slimy assholes who borrowed machinery, failed to return it, and failed to pay the agreed upon machine rental....... but my guess is that would be even more difficult without a Dun and Bradstreet rating or some such. Better things to do anyway. There are ratholes that need sand pounded into them somewhere.

All this is, however, nickel and dime stuff compared to the Bush economy falling apart and TV news just reported wheat prices are up and oh,my god, flour has increased in price. Bread and water won't even be affordable.

***Stay tuned even if you have already shredded all your credit cards--- Doug Wiken

**4000 US lives wasted in Iraq, Trillions squandered, What's $30 Billion?

Isn't this all just too special. The Bush administration doesn't want to create a welfare state for homeowners boxed in on mortgages, but is willing to pony up $30 Billion to bailout big banks, brokers and mortgage finaglers. Of course that amount is a pittance compared to what has already been squandered in Iraq.

Republican "responsibility" starts and ends with "Borrow and Squander". Incidentally, the $30 Billion Bush, Inc. is willing to dump into failing big business is about $100 per man, woman, and child in the US. Would the US economy be better off with dumping $100 per person into the economy instead of into bailing out overpaid executives and stockholders riding on a wave of speculative optimism? [A Paul Krugman article indicates the bailout may be as large as $400 Billion and even that may not be sufficient without other changes]

A few posts ago, the money dumped into Bear Stearns was previously noted by Greg Palast as he suggested that the Eliot Spitzer "affair" was more a diversion from the real economic problems than anything else. That huge money dump has now been followed up with JP Morgan bank buying up Bear Stearns for $2 per share..shares which were selling for $150 just a few months ago. Even associating a high-priced whore with Eliot Spitzer was not however enough to divert the opinion of every American.

This forced merger generates an even more huge concentration of wealth and economic power in the hands of even fewer people. It may be time to start thinking about the logic of collective wisdom and knowledge. Even the logic of crowds may be better than ever more concentration of power and wealth in the hands of an ever smaller "crowd".

I have wondered how any humans can be so incredibly intelligent and wise that they can handle the full demands of huge operations like the US Government and businesses that have control of huge markets. I think we will be seeing more evidence that mere mortals are mere mortals no matter how many million they may be paid by other mere mortals deciding they too are minor gods and godesses of the government and economy.

Wall Street, we have a problem. How many more businesses have stock prices inflated beyond any reason or logic and which will come tumbling down from $150 to $2 in a matter of months?

Let's remember that all the cheap easy to exploit resources of the US have pretty much been converted into scarce or expensive resources. There are no longer resources that can be pissed away on mindless wars without huge consequences for the "General Welfare" of the United States.

The conspiracy between Bush,Inc and big business shares much in common with the failed fascism and corporatism of wartime Italy.

Perhaps what is really needed is a cascading collapse of the huge corporations with the debris ending up in a crowd of wisdom.
[On edit later, a link predicting a mess: NWLINK to Truthout on Walker

**Stay tuned even if your retirement disappeared with Bear Stearns transfer to JP Morgan--- Doug Wiken

**CBS evening news discovers hospital checklists

This evening, March 17, 1008, CBS Evening News discovered the impact of hospital checklists on reducing needless hospital errors and bills. Readers here may have noticed a post on that here perhaps months ago.

Pennsylvania is making an attempt to stop paying for hospital mistakes. One would hope that hospitals would not have to be economically bludgeoned to stop killing patients needlessly. The Pennsylvania Governor is not putting money where the hospitals mouths are or not. Preventable hospital errors kill more people than a number of major serious diseases.

It is time South Dakota legislators, courts, and executive departments started enforcing simple regulations which can reduce major errors with nearly zero cost.

**Stay tuned whether or not you are the picture of health--- Doug Wiken

**Liberate the Founders..Tippet and Waldman

The quote below is a very small part of the transcripts of the "Speaking of Faith" radio program with
Krista Tippet. She interviewed Steven Walman who has written a book on the faith of the founding fathers and the use and abuse of their positions by modern liberals and conservatives. Take a look at the link
following the quote for more information on this issue and the title of the book

Mr. Waldman: Most of the founding fathers would say that the Moral Majority was probably right about that — that it's perfectly fine to have more infusions of religious rhetoric and language and certainly invocations of God and an awareness of God's desires for America, that there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that was in the greatest tradition of early American history. And they probably would look at some of the fights and thought well it's perfectly fine to have God invoked in service of America's goals and dreams. I think the mistake in that is thinking that God would care — that the most important thing for religious vibrancy is whether or not some politician mentions God in his speech. I don't think there is harm in a politician mentioning God in his speech, I just don't really get the idea that it is really important to how most Americans actually practice their faith and determine whether they are good Christians or good Jews or good Muslims. So I end up with a position that I guess is a little bit idiosyncratic, which is that a lot of this stuff ought to be allowed, but that we shouldn't be fighting about it so much and that we should be, um, really placing less importance on whether or not religion is invoked in the public square Ms. Tippett: And what should we be placing importance on Mr. Waldman: We should be placing importance on living a good life according to the dictates of our faith. The founders would say that's the most important determinant of religious success — is whether or not religion makes you a good person. And for the most part, despite the fact that we have all these debates over the war on Christmas and there's lawsuits and there's, you know, fights on TV. You know, for most Americans, the question of the strength of their faith is not actually determined by Bill O'Reilly or the ACLU. It's determined by whether they treat their neighbors well and whether their prayers are heart felt and whether they lead a good life and follow the dictates of their faith.

New Window LINK to Speaking of Faith-- Waldman Transcript

More information on Steven Walman and his beliefnet.com follows:

Steven Waldman has now written a book, Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America. It's a journalistic and historical investigation of the volatile, gradual formation of a new kind of relationship between religion and state in the U.S. in the 18th and 19th centuries. Waldman explores a world before "red states" and "blue states." Religious diversity meant different forms of Protestantism.

New Window LINK to Beliefnet Author

You can dig around those sites. Your mileage may vary as they say. In the meantime, you may want to think a bit about a comment made by "Blind Orange Julius" at Mt. Blogmore suggesting that those attacking Obama because of the belief and opinions of his Rev. Wright must have their heads exploding since they barely got done attacking Obama for being Moslem instead of Christian. Using religion as a hammer to batter opponents and build houses of cards supporting those with common beliefs is not new. It was happening in the days the founders were cogitating and advocating the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Modern media has changed the impact of these attacks, uses and misuses of religion, etc. The current attempts to poison support for Obama using guilt by association fits the pattern. I guess I'm OK with that kind of guilt by association but only if the attackers on the Republican side will agree to their own guilt for associating with the war positions of the Texas Twit, George Bush, the minor.

Well, I'm sure if you read the Walman transcript, you may find all kinds of other perspectives on this.

Which will all also be reasons for not blurring the separation between church and state.

**Stay tuned, the day after Sunday is Monday and we will be back to news as usual-- Doug Wiken

**Denise Ross discusses SD Blogs in her column

Denise Ross formerly with RC Journal and Mt. Blogmore and now with her own HogHouse blog is also writing a regular newspaper column. So far I have seen it only in the Mitchell Daily Republic, but I suspect that more papers will be picking up her column since she has insight on politics in SD that are not the same as some of the regular AP and newspaper columnists.

Her last newspaper columns took note of the variety of opinions presented in a number of SD Blogs. She says her own blog is non-partisan, but her blog has a definite "non-partisan snarky-ness" that is also indicated in her story on SD Blogs. She mentions the usual suspects, but misses a few including those of the regular mainstream media. They get enough of their own publicity to build numbers anyway. Some of the rest of us need all the help we can get to gain a few new readers now and then.

I cut and pasted her column into a form which might fit the web. It is in the continuation of this post. Click on the image there for a larger version.

If you want more regular news of the SD Blogs not filtered through the voluntary or subconscious of the dead tree media, take a look at the sites with lists of SD blogs in the right column of Dakota Today.

Meanwhile, thanks to Denise for letting a few more people know that blogs really can bring new perspectives to politics even if some of us "lean left or right". Buy the dead tree papers, we bloggers need some good sources for our opinions..gotta keep the sources alive...or is it maybe, may the sources be with us.

*** Stay tuned for grammar lessons from Gov. Rounds if the papers prove correct--- Doug Wiken