Dakota Today

**About that C Street "Churchish" Group that has John Thune as a member

It is rare that Salon Premium stories mention South Dakota even in passing. That is sort of the case here, but the passing reference is to US Senator John Thune and his membership in a group that has helped cover up some of the transgressions of GOP hypocrites currently in the news for cheating on their wives or other assorted bits of hypocrisy.

Salon Online Magazine about C-Street House

Most likely if you are not a Salon Premium member, you will have to endure some ads in order to read the story. A letter following the story notes that at some time, Hillary Clinton was also a member of this group. Politics makes strange bedfellows in more ways than one.

**Stay tuned even if you think that money given to churches and religious groups should not end up providing places for GOP politicians to cover up their sexual trysts--- Doug Wiken

**Some thoughts on the Sotomayor hearings

The GOP senators at the confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor as a nominee to the US Supreme Court have been trying to make hay with Sotomayor's "I hope an Hispanic woman....." comment in a speech or speeches.  They have been beating on one or two dead elephants ever since the second GOP senator had his face on TV.

While she hasn’t stated it in the hearings, her statement was prefaced with “I hope….” No matter what the GOP politicians say, they could get away with a statement of the kind, “I hope my experience as a White male ….etc….”

I am not at all impressed with identity politics and certainly Obama nominating an Hispanic women kills two birds with one stone in the identity politics area. That said, it seems more obvious to me every day that this woman is VERY, VERY intelligent, informed, thoughtful, hardworking, and prepared…. and she has remarkable tolerance for fools.

Her statement was unfortunate in that it could be so easily pulled out of context and made to appear as if it is the basis of a monstrous issue by political hacks more interested in scoring points with the NRA and the anti-abortion dark ages groups than in actually learning anything relevant to the approval process.

That the GOP is using something pulled from a speech and not from something like 3,000 judicial decisions is an indication of the poverty of their unified talking points. Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal on PBS noted something to the effect that “Sonia Sotomayor has made clear the distinction between diversity factors in understanding versus in interpreting or applying the law.” [NOT an exact quote.]

That pretty well explains why the GOP attacks have been irrelevant from day 1.

The GOP has also been trying to make hay with one of Obama’s obvious political puffery points regarding the nomination. They know better than to pretend this is an actual issue relevant to the nominating process they are engaged in.

Democrat Senators have fawned a bit too much, but they have also asked some interesting questions. Republican Senators have all asked essentially the same questions over and over again apparently all expecting to get a different result or answer. That kind of behavior has been labeled as a kind of insanity.

The GOP Senator’s problem with the confirmation hearings is not so much an actual perception Sotomayor has, as it is with their intentional or ignorant misconception or illegitimate presentation of Sotomayor's perspectives and/or the context of her remarks.

They have been left exposed as attempting to build mountains out of molehill pseudo-issues and creating strawman arguments.

When they start resorting to attacks in the form implying she is some kind of a pointy-headed intellectual lawyer markedly different than the general public when they start saying stuff like, “Fine legal minds might accept that, but the American People (as if these clowns represent all the American people) want this explained in terms they can understand”, you have another measure of their desperation and the poverty of their arguments.

While the GOP Senators have been mostly hammering on Sotomayor's expressed preferences as if she has let them influence her judicial decisions despite no evidence for that, their own positions appear as if they could all be predicted by the contribution reports of their major special interest supporters and business interests.

**Stay tuned for the soon to appear "full-court" press coverage--- Doug Wiken

**Free Advice for Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly in a column today in the Mitchell Daily Republic has a column titled "Debating the Strategy of Destruction".  Mostly the acid-tongued attacker of everything he perceives of as liberal is upset that he is being attacked  by "far-left loons" because of his attacks of doctor George Tiller.

So-called "far-left loons" have noted that O'Reilly attacked Tiller in columns and TV shows at least 25 times...apparently with O'Reilly repeating the "Tiller the Killer" phrase.  Now O'Reilly is claiming that criticism of him is part of some well thought-out, coordinated campaign to "silence Americans who are appalled by late-term abortion".   You can read his whole long whine in the paper or wherever O'Reilly's dribble is posted.

First, I think O'Reilly is trying to have it both ways here.  He is trying to claim that his attacks were not a factor in the assassination of Dr. Tiller.  He is also implying that he is terribly significant in the fight against the actions of people like Dr. Tiller..so significant that any criticism of him is somehow an attempt to silence a whole bunch of people.  While David Brooks is fretting about the lack of humility he sees in President Obama, he seems to be missing O'Reilly's simultaneous "I am the greatest" and his "What me as a columnist aid and abet murder of an abortionist?"  line of BS.

But, here is the free advice to Bill O'Reilly (less affectionately known as "Bile O'Lielly):  "If you can't stand the heat in the kitchen, stop throwing gasoline on the fire."

In a somewhat related issue, The June 15, 2009 TIME magazine page 45 has a comment on Islamic leaders who within years of the 632 death of Mohammad began conquering lands far and wide giving birth to the "jihad" idea which mandated battles to the death against unbelievers with the aim of conversion.

This cautious phrasing seems to be describing the Islamic  "better dead than infidel" version of the rightwing "better dead than red".  I do wonder if both kinds of these right-wing fanatics see their reflection when they see their "opposite" and fully comprehend and appreciate the incredible harm and damage their lunacy  does in the world.

In any case, "Better read than dead", So.......... **Stay Tuned--- Doug Wiken
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**Situational Ethics and Norm Coleman and all those sanctimonious conservatives

Years ago there was controversy involving "situational ethics".  It turned into a political battle as well as a source of some turmoil in religions.  My recollection may be wrong however.  Wikipedia has some details:

Wikepedia on Situational ethics

I seem to remember conservative Republicans and Democrats ranting and raving that western culture and governments would collapse if their perception or presentation of "situational ethics" were widely adapted.

 While not a perfect match perhaps, Norm Coleman's behavior in the followup evaluation of the election between him and Al Franken seems to be an example of highly flexible ethics if not highly flexible situational ethics.

 When it appeared Coleman was ahead prior to recounts, Coleman was all in favor of quick settlement of the race in his favor so Minnesota could get on with full representation in the US Senate. Then the situation changed and Coleman was the loser. Oops, time to reset all those pious election ethical concerns and switch to the need for court examination after examination and investigation after investigation. Something like 7 or 8 months have now been burned up in the process and Coleman wants more court involvement.

  Minnesota Post on Coleman at Minn. Supreme Court

But on the other hand, Coleman might not be so excited about getting into court with this case which allegedly involves some tricky campaign funding arrangements which may involve Coleman's wife and a rich supporter.

Coleman and wife have some high-powered lawyers

I don't remember any conservatives who were eager to attack situational ethics now ranting and raving about Colemen's highly flexible ethical gymnastics. Has there been one of the likes of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, . Charles Krauthammer, et all going all ballistic about Coleman's flexible ethics?

Might be of course that these Republicans have not recovered from Al Franken's disembowelment of Bill O'Rielly.

**Stay tuned for a new reason tomorrow..your reasons for reading can be adjusted with impunity--- Doug Wiken

** Leslee Unruh says she doesn't like federal strings

The Sunday May 24, 2009 ARGUS LEADER has an article titled "Abstinence-only focus loses favor, money". The article discusses the decline in funding expected under Obama budget proposals which consider the general ineffectiveness of Abstinence-Only as a government policy. Perhaps indisputable is the argument that a personal policy of abstinence prevents unwanted pregnancy, but as a public policy, it is a failure.

Anyway, in the article, Leslie Unruh is quoted as saying something like, "I've never liked federal money, " she said, decrying the restrictions attached to such grants. "If I had my way, I'd want no federal money going for this." I do wonder why anybody in the press ever takes anything Leslie Unruh says seriously without doing some checking.

 In fact, Leslie Unruh has pursued federal funding like a nymphomaniac whore pursuing funding for an unlimited source of Viagra for her clients. Note the information below in a long story on Leslie Unruh, the twice-married, once-divorced messenger of virtue for others and master exploiter of federal funds.

Her timing could not have been better. After years of watching hundreds of millions of government dollars flow to such ideological rivals as Planned Parenthood, abstinence advocates could finally drink deep from the federal-funding trough themselves. In 1996, Rector's abstinence-education program was inserted into the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (aka the Welfare Reform Act); Republicans argued that reducing teen pregnancy would help fight poverty, and President Clinton signed the bill into law. Fifty million dollars a year for five years was earmarked for education programs that would, as the act specified, teach "the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity," and that "all sex outside marriage is likely to have harmful physical and psychological consequences."

In 2000, Congress authorized another multimillion-dollar abstinence-education initiative, Community-Based Abstinence Education grants. "I'm pretty certain President Clinton did not understand what would happen [when he signed abstinence-only education into law]," Unruh crowed to a reporter in 2002. In fact, funding has more than quadrupled in the United States.; all told, more than $1 billion in federal money has been spent on domestic abstinence education in the past 12 years. This windfall is exclusively for school programs that teach only about abstinence. By 2005, government contributions and contracts accounted for 71 percent -- about $1 million -- of Abstinence Clearinghouse's annual revenue.

That same year, government grants accounted for 41 percent ($241,839) of the revenue at Unruh's crisis pregnancy center. Today, Abstinence Clearinghouse affiliates -- among them hundreds of crisis pregnancy centers -- pay Unruh and her staff to show them how to secure federal grants and then how to negotiate the government's review process. And today, says the women's rights advocacy group Legal Momentum, about 12 percent of all abstinence education funds go to crisis pregnancy centers or groups closely affiliated with them.

Leslee Unruh's Facts of Life - Page 6 - MORE Magazine (25 May 2009) http://www.more.com/2050/2814-leslee-unruh-s-facts-of-life/6 http://snipurl.com/iqtpx

Lesliee Unruh's Facts of Life

Other links suggest that Unruh has pulled out something like $154,000 per year out of such programs to enhance her own lifestyle. She has been part of the distribution of the same federal funds she decries in her sanctimonious sour-grapes,  pious GOP current cant.

 A Google search for -- leslee unruh federal funding -- is all it takes to get more than you want to know about the woman with friends in former high places.
 Barack Obama and Abstinence-Only
Anti-Abortion site decries federal cuts
 Lesliee Unruh on Bristol Palin... a truth bridge to nowhere
Leslee Unruh explains how to suck in money from the gullible..(pdf on fundraising) Probably actually some useful information here for any group on any side of any issue. The kind of stuff that Pat Powers used to put regularly into SDWC.
The Free Republic Wingnut site on Leslee and Funding
Todd Epp on the tactics of Unruh and her friends

Unruh and the Laws she and friends ignore

Well, those are a few items for those who might want to think twice about assigning any credibility to anything Leslee Unruh says. A charitable observer might suggest she was a bit disingenuous, an uncharitable observer might suggest her name should be changed to "LesLIE Unruh".

EDIT at 6PM May 25,2009:  It appears that the ARGUS should be happy to see that a number of people still try to find news buried in the ads there and also that South Dakota has more than a few bloggers who like to read newspapers since "Leslie's Lies" caught the attention of a number of them and was conspicuously ignored by a few: Those who also noticed include:

Dakota Women note "Leslie never really wanted all the money"

Cory Heidelberger noted "Leslie's Latest Lies"

SD Humanist asks, "Say What, Leslie?"

 Stay tuned even if you too are too old to ever need an abortion and long past the point of needing abstinence-only "education"--- Doug Wiken

** Oh, well..what's new since the inquisition

Jerry Falwell stops spinning in his grave and Liberty University bans the Democratic organization on campus.

Washington Post on Liberty U censorship of Democrats
Somehow this doesn't really surprise me. What also won't surprise me is that the docile student folk intent on keeping women barefoot and pregnant and keeping kuchen, kindern and kirchen going strong in the US won't be picketing the administration and holding protest love-ins in the library or coffee shops..if there is a library.

 Note: I found the link at J-Walk blog. There is a link in a previous post. Now and then there is some interesting stuff there.

** Stay tuned, maybe I will find something shocking--- Doug Wiken

** WIRED Magazine on "more information leading to less knowledge"

At the risk of sounding like renowned blog critic David Newquist of Northern Valley Beacon blog, I will try to summarize a bit of a WIRED article by Clive Thompson page 38 in the February 2009 WIRED.

 Thompson notes there is a measurable reduction in actual knowledge that follows a deluge of data on evolution, smoking, global warming, etc even as we have been deluged with "facts" on these issues. Thompson refers to science historian at Stanford Robert Procter who notes that when it comes to many contentious subjects, our usual relationship to information is reversed; ignorance increases.

 Proctor has developed a new word "agnotology" which he defines as "the study of culturally constructed ignorance." The more information society getting claiming that Obama is a Muslim, that irelevent factors other than tobacco cause lung cancer, that cars and fossil fuels aren't related to global warming, the more likely it is that society will know less than it did before. Special interests may work to gain  profit from creating confusion.

 Most people assume that if someone doesn't know something, it is because they aren't paying attention, but ignorance and confusion also result because of suppressing information and disinformation campaigns coming from special interest funded bogus studies.

 Intentional unnecessary complication can also increase ignorance and confusion. The financial meltdown is driven by complicated products designed to dilute knowledge and responsibility.

 Finally, getting to blogs and the internet. Perhaps when we read or present only the information we agree with, we contribute to the "agnotological rot". It is also possible that wide availability of information from the internet and blogs if designed to be tested can reduce the "rot".

 You can get the original at WIRED without my "spin" and also an email address for the author:
Clive Thompson-- Manufacturing Confusion

WIRED is an interesting mixture of humbug, worthwhile interesting articles, worthless interesting articles, mindless fashion and celebrity crap, but now and then some very thought provoking articles. The recent article comparing body-mass indices of females in the general population with the BMI of Playboy Playmates is one of those that isn't profoundly thought-provoking, but worthlessly interesting. YMMV; ie, Your mileage may vary.

 ***Stay tuned to find out if Obama can really walk on water and float from cloud to cloud--- Doug Wiken

**ON SDPB--TV in a few minutes... Denise Ross's video on "Unplanned Democracy"

A tad bit late for this, but on SDPB-TV tonight is a version of Blogger Denise Ross's video on the abortion fight in South Dakota prior to that of last election. Info at her blog: Hog House Blog on SDPB Broadcast

So, gotta leave the computer and head for the TV. You have about two minutes to go.
[[[ AND, a little after the fact further comment.  The video "Unplanned Democracy" sure brought back the memories and images of the fight both for and against the SD legislature's rapist rights legislation which was referred to the SD voters and rejected.

The video seemed pretty well balanced..likely to leave both opponents and supporters alternately cheering and booing.  It seems to me the video could be used well in government classes to start serious discussion of the actual issue, of legislative abuse of half the South Dakota population, bowing to special interests, the dangers of theocracy, and also the dangers to democracy when the supporters of particular legislative issues remain unknown, so actual agendas also remain hidden.

Perhaps Denise Ross and the rest of those involved with the video are burned out on the issue, but an appropriate followup would compare how many women have been emotionally warped by having an abortion versus those whose lives and potential have been turned upside down or partially destroyed by being forced to have children they were unprepared to take care of or actually support.

There must be a large sensible middle in South Dakota who while they certainly do not advocate abortion as a routine birth control system, do not want the heavy hand of big brother intruding into their lives complicating their and their doctor's decisions and options needlessly.  Tuesday Nov 18, 2008]]]]]

 

*** Stay tuned --- Doug Wiken

**Big Brother's Nose in your Crotch

We get a lot of blather from the right wing attacking big brother government and government regulations and government intrusion in our lives. Then some of these same conservatives and religious theocrats turn around and try to initiate laws and constitutional amendments which put big brother right smack between doctors and their patients in their religious attempt to stop abortions.

 I don't personally know anybody who is in favor of abortion as a method of birth control. I suspect there are more than a few people who think women who become pregnant because of the failure of a form of birth control should be allowed other options. There is ample evidence that women forced to have children they don't want often become poor mothers and their offspring may become social problems. The conservative opposition to abortion seems more than passing strange when the facade for achieving their goal is to put government between doctors and patients in personally trying situations. It is also more than passing strange since many of these same conservatives don't think the same government should get involved in supporting children in any way that smacks of what they misleadingly label as socialism. So, Just say, "NO" to big brother and vote No on SD measure 11.

***Stay tuned for election day 2008..can't come soon enough-- Doug Wiken

**More about those "Yes On 11" Signs on church property

Today I happened to have a camera in the pickup and noticed a couple of the "Yes on 11" signs on church property occupied by priest and minister. The sign on the Catholic property had disappeared for a few days. Anyway, the local priest happened to be exiting his residence and wanted to know what I was doing. I told him I thought such public displays in relation to political and partisan issues was not a really good idea.

 He let me know that the 503c federal regulations would exempt churches from taxation even if they took positions on issues just as long as there was no specific endorsement of a candidate or an attack on a candidate's opponent. He is right on this issue from the perspective of the letter of the law. Ironically, one of the first sites that turns up with a Google search is an atheist site which supports the priest's position. Lots of other info at the site as well of course. Worth checking no matter which side of the issue of religion and issues you happen to support or oppose.

Church Tax Exemption from Atheist Perspective

I assume the relation between churches and the IRS on candidate support, etc. are part of congressional compromises which gives protection of religion separated from government as long as the churches or religions don't endorse and specific senators or congressmen. I don't quite understand why profit-making properties owned by churches are exempted, but that is another can of worms.

 I frankly don't understand why the tax exemptions for religions requires foregoing involvement in partisan politics, but I think it is fair. Churches and religions in the US have prospered as a consequence of the separation of church and state. It seems fair to me whether or not specifically allowed or prevented by law that churches and religions refrain from involvement in ballot issues in return for the benefits they get from church-state separation. In that sense, it seems to me that signs like those in photos below are some which religions would be wise to avoid like a plague. And, if they don't, it is time that local and state tax authorities should start thinking seriously about taxing church property at least for the part of property taxes that provide services such as fire, streets, utilities etc while continuing to allow exemption for that part of taxes used for support of education.

Well, your mileage may vary on this issue, but I thought it fair to put in the priest's perspective since I was at least partially wrong on the issues related to tax exemption in a previous post here even if I still think the churches and religions would be wise to avoid allowing any kind of signs on their property related to ballot issues or candidates. Local officials should also be thinking about such "exempt properties" starting to carry a fair share of the costs they generate for police, streets, utilities, fire protection, etc.

 Without regard to the tax issues, I think members of religions raising the abortion issue to the level of a single-issue determinate of a voting perspective should be aware that they are being played like a fiddle by the Republican Party attempts to separate Catholics and religious fundamentalist protestants from their own best economic and social interest and from the Democratic Party by using abortion as a wedge issue even though it most likely is one that individuals can personally separate themselves from in their own behavior by not having abortions themselves or generating situations justifying abortion.

 In any case, there are much more serious issues in this election. Do we continue the same old same old that has been demonstrated as vivid and large failures in both Bush administrations and the Reagan administration or do we move the US back on the right track even if that moves us into areas that the GOP wants us to fear as unknowns. If we must gamble on the election selection, it seems better to gamble on the option that promises something better than the past proven failures.

 

))) Stay tuned, KELO-TV says only 13 hours until voting--- Doug Wiken