Dakota Today

No 9 foot statues, but a "Statesman Pavilion" for SD State Capital grounds

Governor Noem is proposing cluttering up the State Capital building with 9 foot tall statues of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt.  I don't think the inside of the capital building needs any more clutter.

Instead,  I propose a statesman pavilion of sorts between the capital and the lake. It could be something like two letter S stuck together in curves. Each curve would represent a century with life size statues of the Presidents on the east side and the SD governors, US senators and reps on the other side. Columns on each side. It could be left open or enclosed with glass. The space between the State and Federal sides could have information about all the statesman so honored.

***** Stay tuned anyway*******

*** Trump is unsuportable with rationality and real facts

I watched much of the GOP convention opener. It was soon obvious that Trump cannot be supported without lies and distortions of some facts and ignoring other salient facts. The GOP will not even have a platform indicating it is a vacuous hole aimed only at supporting Trump and the lust for holding onto power even if the power is not used or simply abused for personal profit. Months or years ago, I thought that Trump and supporting him would lead to the GOP howling in the wilderness for 40 years.

The GOP is now a partisan black hole with Trump sucking all valid ideas and ideals out of it. I am amazed that any thinking adults can continue to support this incompetent liar after four years of his bullshit demonstrating a serious mental illness of acute narcissism and vanity.

 

***** Stay tuned.  Trump lunacy is alive and well in retrograde South Dakota.

Scientific American on raising virus immunity

       The July 2020 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN has several articles on the Corona Virus Covid-19. On page 21 is an article titled "How to boost your Immunity". It says it offers "Some simple, practical steps can raise your resistance to viruses.. Basically they are a matter of sommon sense. Eat vegetables and fruit and a healthy diet. Get vitamins C and D. Suggested is a basic multi-vitamin as well. Prolonged sleep loss seems to harm the immune response. Get 7 or more hours of sleep on a regular schedule. Sleep seems necessary to move T-cells to lymph nodes.
         The concluding lines in the article note that none of this may guarantee you don't get a virus, but the suggestions apply to all viruses which is a bit of a silver lining.helping you endure whatever comes your way. As the intro indicates, this all seems to fit common sense and probably what your mother told you as achild. Be careful and good luck. No matter what right-winger anti-science and Trump and his Trumpers say, the virus is not a Democratic and Press plot to harm Trump. It has killed thousands and will kill more unless Trump and his supporters get their heads out of their asses and masked in public.

**** Stay tuned,  Much more good and bad news is coming these days--- Doug Wiken.

Testing, quarantines and controls best way to get economy going again.

I just watched Noem claiming SD gov and people had done such a wonderful job. Maybe she is excluding the aliens working at Smithfield, but more likely is just blowing smoke. Had she and her administration been doing a great job, there would have been no more than 3 cases at any single location and there would not now be a few dozen locations. Continuing to focus on the flattening of the curve and not stopping the spread and dropping it to zero no cases is a recipe for both failure in control and failing to improve the economy in the fastest way possible. Universal testing and strict quarantines are all that is going to really work to actually succeed and do a great job. Being more concerned about sales tax revenue that stopping the Covid-19 in its tracks will result in more cases and more deaths and more economic failures.

Below is a message I got from a friend in Washington state who sent it to a number of federal officials as well.  Today on Sabbath gasbag shows I was finally hearing much the same from both Republicans and Democrats who are neither amused or impressed with the contradictory narcissism, excuses, folklore, factless blaming and flaming coming from President Trump who refuses to believe scientists or science.

Dear Secretary Azar:

The nation needs to test everyone (99% of 330 million people) for: (a) infection (b) antibodies (c) isolate infection (d) stop infection and spreading very quickly in a month.

The economy is being damaged very severely and we should not wait for vaccines and treatments for possibly as long as one year.

I realize this effort may cost $30-60 billion and lots of manpower, but it is small potatoes to what is at stake. We are rapidly acquiring more than 1,000 machines and can test 10,000 samples per machine per day - times 30 days equals 300 million tested people (Corrected to show 300 million instead of 30 million).

Further, my manpower estimate is about 10 technicians per machine x 1,000 machines = 10,000 personnel per day to pull the samples and get the laboratory results recorded and provided back to the people being tested.

In conclusion, the current piecemeal sampling of the population will drag out this infection. Testing everyone will provide the information that will stop it.

This is a war! Lets run it like a war to win!

Chuck Noble

*** Stay tuned, better days will be ahead if we act smart and scientifically now--- Doug Wiken

***VP Pence...Least qualified person to put in Charge of Coronavirus programs

I have a feeling that putting VP Pence in charge of the corona virus offense and defense is a bit like putting a monkey in charge of a symphony orchestra. Meanwhile, I also suspect that Hawaii is a tourist destination for Chinese and perhaps people moving in and out of there need to be watched and tested. As indicated in a comment in a news report, when Pence and doctors and scientists call a meeting of all US governors and actually get something done, all we will have seen is Trump speeches designed to reassure Wall Street where all his much bragged about stock market gains of this year have already evaporated.

I hope my guesses and speculation are wrong and informed, intelligent, experienced people will actually be running the anti-virus operation.
After I posted this I say Pam Belden Facebook page where she quoted Robert Reich. Below is that Robert Reich post.
Robert Reich
13 hrs ·

In a rambling press conference that displayed his utter lack of knowledge about public health, Trump announced that he has appointed Mike Pence to lead the administration’s task force for responding to the coronavirus outbreak. He praised Mike Pence’s previous experience handling public health issues, saying “he has a certain talent for this”.

As governor of Indiana, Mike Pence enabled the worst HIV outbreak in his state’s history and actively blocked a policy that would have contained the crisis. He slashed public health funding, which forced HIV testing centers to close, and then took nearly three months to allow a temporary needle exchange to stem the crisis. And now this man is in charge of handling an outbreak of global proportions.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to downplay the scale of the outbreak in direct contradiction to experts’ warnings, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar has refused to say that an eventual vaccine will be affordable to everyone. The sheer incompetence of this administration continues to shake me to my core.----https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=142474049098533&story_fbid=3085316394814269 .

** Stay tuned...and stay home and stay healthy----- Doug Wiken

Trump is dead meat walking

Trump has been impeached. He is dead meat walking. Republicans and others who continue to support him will join him in the dead meat dump. Trump was pushing the Putin idea that the Ukraine interfered in the US election rather than Russia. That has been shown to be completely off base. Biden was pushing to get rid of a corrupt prosecutor. Replacing him with an honest prosecutor might have been more likely to investigate the oil company. The idea that Trump gave a tinker's damn about actual Ukrainian corruption is indicated by his previous support of aid to Ukraine without conditions of funding hold ups. The whole impeachment is not a farce no matter how many times you or Trump's hired guns say it. He has been impeached. Hopefully it is a message to him, but he seems immune to learning which is the reason for pushing for his immediate removal rather than waiting for the GOP to go down the drain with him in the next election. The impeachment is hopefully a message to all future Presidents, Republicans, Democrats, or others that pressuring or bribing a foreign power to provide you with an emolument in the form of election interference or campaign funding is not a good idea and is fundamentally un-American and unconstitutional.

***** Stay tuned for more pro-Constitution posts----- Doug Wiken

Dick Mathis of Mathis Implement buried today

A week or so ago, Dick Mathis had both a heart attack and a stroke while visiting his wife at Winner Regional Long-term Care home. I visited him in the hospital and he was mentally alert, but not happy with his current condition even though he thought care was very good. He died on January 8, 2020 about 30 days short of his 89 birthday on February 17. This morning I attended his committal service at Winner Cemetery. That was quick probably only about 10 minutes and considering the frigid temperature with a -15F chill factor, the short service was a relief. I had talked to Dick Mathis a few dozen times at the Mathis Implement store where he usually occupied a chair near the coffee and popcorn machines. I will miss the chatter even if he was still a Trump supporter. We extend our sympathy to the Mathis Families.
The three Mathis brothers Art, Doyle, and Dick all passed away in the last 18 months or so. Once upon a time, they farmed between Meckling and Vermillion back in my old home area. Art opened an IH store on the north side of Yankton. Those are memories from about 65 years ago. They purchased the Winner IH store from Van Collins (I think) in 1958. In March of 2018. They celebrated 60 years of business.

Stay tuned anyway* Doug Wiken