By Denise Ross

This coming in Sunday’s letters:

This letter is in response to the full-page ad run by the Mayo Clinic against the DM&E railraod. The ad reads, ‘These trains often carry hazardous chemicals and flammable materials.’

Well folks, the ad was printed on flammable material!

The writer goes on to note that all of our houses contain loads of flammables, and are, in fact, flammable themselves.

As for hazardous chemicals:

Your own vehicle is full of hazardous chemicals as it ‘charges down the road.’

All amusing, but here’s the one line that I hope Blogmore will debate.

This deal is good for South Dakota.

Here’s the ad in question.

By Denise Ross

Remember that one time, when Gov. Rounds sent Highway Patrol officers to the homes of state brand board members to fire them?

That bit of political theater centered on South Dakota’s brand inspection program, which that state contracts out to the SD Stockgrowers Association. At the time, there were allegations and investigations, and while the Stockgrowers got to keep the brand inspection program, not everyone on the brand board kept their seat.

Thursday, the brand board OK’d the Stockgrowers’ request to increase the brand inspection fee from 70 cents to 80 cents per head, a move that didn’t set too well with the SD Cattlemen’s Association.

“I want to make it clear that SDCA, and I personally, support a brand inspection program that is totally transparent, efficient and accountable to producers who pay brand inspection,” said Scott Jones of Midland, SDCA president-elect. “We also believe that the majority of brand inspectors do a good job and deserve periodic raises. SDCA does question how much of the increase will actually go to the inspectors since raising their salaries is always part of the reason for increasing the fee.”

That’s from a story in Friday’s RC Journal, part Steve Miller, part AP.

Blame the fee increase on the drought. Because ranchers have been selling off their herds, there are fewer cattle that need inspecting. Because the Stockgrowers are inspecting fewer cattle, they need to raise the per-head increase to keep taking in the revenue.

Since the brand board voted 3-2 for the fee increase, is it a fair guess that this isn’t universally loved in the ranching community?

By Bill Harlan

See the NYT’s “Senate Passes Broad New Detainee Rules”. The lede:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — The Senate approved a measure on Thursday on the interrogations and trials of terrorism suspects, establishing far-reaching rules to deal with what President Bush has called the most dangerous combatants in a different type of war.
Twelve Democrats crossed party lines to vote for the bill. One Republican, Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, voted against it.

A wire story to follow soon on the RCJ homepage. Click here for a text of S. 3930.

South Dakota Democratic Sen.Tim Johnson voted with 11 other Democrats for the bill. Republican John Thune voted with his part in favor of it. See the entire roll call here.

And this from the law itself, a section I like to call “Welcome to the Jack Bauer School of Dentistry”*

Sec. 950uu. Mutilating or maiming
`Any person subject to this chapter who intentionally injures one or more protected persons by disfiguring the person or persons by any mutilation of the person or persons, or by permanently disabling any member, limb, or organ of the body of the person or persons, without any legitimate medical or dental purpose, shall be punished, if death results to one or more of the victims, by death or such other punishment as a military commission under this chapter may direct, and, if death does not result to any of the victims, by such punishment, other than death, as a military commission under this chapter may direct.

*”Hello, I’m Professor Dustin Hoffman, marathon coach here a JBSD.”

By Bill Harlan

Blogmore’s own Kevin W. was at the Rapid City press conference Dems held to focus on themes they call “Common Ground,” which they describe as “The Meat and Potato Issues that Affect South Dakota’s Families.”

The outline is:
-Bigger paychecks for South Dakotans.
-Better responsibility and accountability for spending tax dollars.
-Brighter futures for families.

You can go to their Web site for specifics, and see Kevin’s story in the RCJ for more perspective, including some Republican responses.

By Bill Harlan

Rounds for Governor has money, the majority party and a big lead, but Billion for Governor has a song! The title is “Back Jack,” and it’s on their campaign Web site. The players, not identified, sound familiar to me. Anyone got any ideas?

Will Rounds retaliate? How much would it cost him to get the rights to “Hit the Road Jack”? Will Billion strike first with “Get to Pierre, Jack”? Why aren’t there any cool songs with “Mike” in the title?

By Bill Harlan

See my story about a Zogby poll paid for by South Dakota Judicial Accountability. The poll shows the amendment leading 67 precent to 20 percent, with 13 percent undecided. Wow. Opponents of Amendment E say it’s a push poll. The one Amendment E question in the poll certainly didn’t tell the whole story — see my story for the question — but what poll question could? The 23-section amendment is more than 2,000 words long.

Your assignment Blogmorites, should you choose to accept it: Read Amendment E, which is on the ballot Nov. 2. Discuss among yourselves.

Also, go to Vote No on E, where you’ll find a ton of organizations opposing the amendment, including these county commissions:

Aurora County
Bennett County
Brown County
Brule County
Clark County
Day County
Douglas County
Edmunds County
Grant County
Hand County
Jerauld County
Lawrence County
Lincoln County
Lyman County
Meade County
Perkins County
Roberts County
Stanley County
Walworth County

Hmmm. No Pennington County. No Fall River County. No Custer. No Butte.

Addition on Monday, Oct. 2: Readers have pointed out that Fall River, Pennington, Custer and Butte county commissions adopted resolutions opposing amendment E.

Go to South Dakota Judicial Accountability for the other side of this issue. They also have a list of endorsees, one of which, Police and Military Against the New World Order, is pretty interesting. Here’s their mission statement:

Our association’s singular goal is to prevent our brothers and sisters in uniform from being unwittingly used to enslave the people of free nations under the anti-God, anti-Freedom (United Nations-led) world government system.

We understand two most important points concerning the globalists’ plan:

They intend to gain, through any available means, total dictatorial control over all the peoples of the world.

They cannot realize their goal if their would-be enforcers (we police and soldiers) refuse to assist them in their treachery.

Our motto spells out this truth:
IF POLICE OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS WILL NOT ENFORCE TYRANNY, IT WILL NEVER BE ENFORCED!

Alrighty then.

By Denise Ross

A group set out on a treacherous journey Tuesday. They hope to convince South Dakota voters to keep a tax on themselves.

The Vote No on 8 Committee not only faces a ballot crowded by more emotional issues, they face the daunting task of trying to convince people to want to keep paying taxes.

At a press conference Monday by the “No on 8 Committee,” state Sen. Jerry Apa (R-Lead) points to an enlargement of a filed petition, noting that the sponsoring entity of Measure No. 8 on the November ballot is Verizon Wireless of Bedminster, N.J., and the originating signature is that of Verizon’s director of state and federal taxes, a Denver, Colo., resident. (Steve McEnroe/Journal staff) (Nice beard, Jerry, but we all still recognize you.)

Here’s Kevin’s story, appearing in Wednesday’s Rapid City Journal.

The upshot of the group’s argument: A repeal of the tax would mean a rise in other taxes or a cut in services.

South Dakota counties would lose $3.5 million, based on projected tax income this year, under the repeal. Pennington County would lose about $411,000 of that, Pennington County Commissioner Ken Davis said.

…

A supporter of the repeal, former state Sen. Alan Aker of Rapid City, said the county could easily survive the loss of that money, which makes up less than 1 percent of Pennington County’s $55 million budget. Aker is co-chair of South Dakotans Against Double Taxation.

The underpinnings of this debate date back years, when Apa was a practically brand new legislator. It took him a few tries, but in 2003 he convinced his fellow lawmakers to apply a 4 percent gross receipts tax to cell phones as a way to make things square with the land-liners.

To remove the 4 percent gross receipts tax on wireless services would give the cell-phone companies an unfair tax break, Apa said.

“It’s a question of fairness. Why should a person with a cell phone not pay that tax?”

Even if voters believe the Vote No on 8 group’s arguments are solid and valid, once in the secrecy of the voting booth, how many will vote their pocketbooks? Is this going to be a repeat of the repeal of the inheritance tax — which Bill Janklow at the heights of his popularity as governor couldn’t even slow down on its way to the dustbin of history?

By Bill Harlan

The relationship between churches and politics being an ongoing topic on the Mount, I’m certain Blogmorites will have something to say about the South Dakota Episcopal Church’s recent resolution opposing Amendment C, the gay marriage ban. The resolution

” … urges Episcopalians, and all voters in the State of South Dakota, to consider rejecting Amendment C not only because it writes discrimination into the State Constitution, but also because its implementation may have many negative unintended consequences that would harm chilfren, elderly persons and families across the state.”

The explanation of the resolution says, in part:

“The Episcopal Church affirms that homose4xual persons are children of God, and as such are entitled to participate in the life of the church and in society with integrity and openness. “

Gay and lesbian marriages already are against the law in South Dakota. The proposed constitutional amendment would,f like the third drug in a lethal injection, kill the practice deader than dead. (See the secretary of state’s 2006 Ballot Pamphlet for details.)

The Catholic Church has been criticized for taking political stances against abortion. What do those critics think of this resolution?

By Denise Ross

Thanks to the Internet, we are facing a future of techno-addicts, tech avoiders and outright tech hostility.

That’s according to a new study out by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

On any given day, 40 million Americans go to the Web for no particular reason, just to pass the time, reports BusinessWeek. (Blogmore welcomes the aimless to this, the land of endless amusements.)

But this ScrippsHoward story focuses on those who will not be turning on or tuning in but will be dropping out.

Call them digital-age Luddites or, in the most extreme case, techno-terrorists. A survey of Internet gurus predicts that a cultural group will emerge by 2020 that will swear off the World Wide Web altogether as a way to limit information overload — and some will retaliate against technology.

Another story in the Bangkok Post reminds me of an old friend who surmised that housepets — particularly cats — are the highest life forms. The lay around the house all day while we go to work; they play, we feed them; they answer nature’s call, we clean up after them, etc.

But I doubt that’s exactly the scenario this guy has in mind.

Bob Saffo of the Institute for the Future predicted that “sometime after 2020 our machines will become intelligent, evolve rapidly, and end up treating us as pets.”

So, will the computers and cyborgs fight for us when the tech-haters storm the Mount?

By Denise Ross

With the Monday’s announcement that David Chicoine would be the new head Jackrabbit, for $300k per year, the SD Board of Regents also let the world know that it would end the practice of using privately raised money from the state U’s individual foundations to supplement university presidential salaries.

Here’s the AP story.

“When you have a single institutional governing board and a single foundation, it might work,” (Regents exec director Tad) Perry said. “But when you have a system and you have multiple, independent foundations, if all of these foundations don’t participate in providing supplemental salaries to presidents, you end up with a situation in which, basically, the foundations establish the compensation program for university presidents.”

Perry said an incident a few years ago at a Georgia campus, where a foundation pulled a significant amount of funding for a president’s salary in retaliation for the firing of a coach or athletic director, was among the reasons the regents reviewed the supplemental income system.

“If you’re going to be the governing board, you have to be the governing board and not have somebody else make those decisions for you,” Perry said.

There was more to it.

More important, Perry said, “was the legal vulnerability question: If you had a situation where you were not providing equitable pay for equitable work, then you were open for a lawsuit. That’s what kind of drove the real decision.”

Jerry Apa of Lead, a legislator who has a particularly firm grip on the state’s purse strings, wasn’t too thrilled.

“They’re going to be asking for more money to replace that (foundation) funding,” said state Sen. Jerry Apa, R-Lead, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Does that bother me? Absolutely. This whole business of inflation creep in higher education just frustrates me, and now, they’re going to want more money?”

Is Apa right, is there “inflation creep” in higher ed? Should public institutions go to foundations to augment top salaries, or anything? Are education adminstrators paid what they’re worth?

By Bill Harlan

I had a conversation last week with a fellow 59-year-old who was a participant in the Cultural Revolution. See my column. Liu Shinan, now an editor at the China Daily, majored in English in college — before the Cultural Revolution did away with college. He told me he admired Dickens, Hemingway and Twain, but Liu emphasized the strong influence of the turn-of-the-century novel The Gadfly, by Ethel Lilian Voynich. I didn’t know the book, so the reference went over my head. I didn’t mention it in my column, but it turns out there’s an interesting story behind The Gadfly. Check out the Web site for a documentary titled “The Morning Sun,” which explains the novel’s importance to young Cultural Revolutionaries.

An excerpt:

The novel The Gadfly enjoyed an unrivalled place in the hearts and minds of the young participants in the Cultural Revolution. A famed bestseller in the socialist bloc for decades, when it was published in China it became a favorite story—and an internalized narrative—for a generation of youthful readers in the 1950s and 60s. … (It) combined the combative mythology of a Lord of the Rings with the beguiling élan of a Harry Potter. Tales of individual revolutionary heroism inspired young people; that the revolution had an Angst-ridden and romantic side as expressed in The Gadfly multiplied its appeal many times over. … The complex and tortured figure of a hero like Arthur in The Gadfly struck a profound chord with the adolescents of China.

I also heard from an RCJ reader today who recommended another novel, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie.

An excerpt of a review on the Web site “Curled up with a good book”:

No one being re-educated is permitted to read any books excepting the little book of sayings written by Chairman Mao. It is when, through a series of events, they obtain a book written by Balzac (the reading of which is now a crime) that suddenly the world of literature and of ideas abruptly opens to them. They are so hungry for more that all they can do is dream (and scheme) about getting other such books. They later meet the third primary character in this book, the very beautiful young seamstress, and, by relating to her the words of Balzac, produce in her too the desire for more such words and thoughts. She is as hungry for new stories and ideas as are the two boys.

Liu Shinan, by the way, was in South Dakota because he’d seen a picture of Mount Rushmore in a magazine and wanted to see it for himself. After we talked, he headed south on Highway 16. I hope to hear about his impressions.

By Bill Harlan

Photo by Jerry Boyer: Spearfish Canyon at Savoy

Blogmorites might be wondering what fall colors have to do with politics in South Dakota. Well, I’ll tell you what. The so-called “autumnal equinox” was supposed to be 20 hours ago, at 22:03 p.m. MDT. That’s the point in time after which night is longer than day, right?

Hah!, I checked the charts, and we still had more daylight than night today. Sunrise was at 5:41 a.m. and sunset was at 5:48 p.m. In Rapid City night will not exceed day until Tuesday, when sunrise is at 5:45 a.m. and sunset is at 5:43 p.m. In other words, we’ve been cheated out of three summer days.

I blame East Coast liberals, Sunbelt fundamentalists and, most of all, “the man” for robbing us of two days of summer. Call Pierre! Write our congressional delegation. E-mail the White House. Demand the return of our pilfered days of summer.

Cynics among you will think this topic was just a poorly constructed excuse to put one of Jerry Boyer’s fall colors photos on Mount Blogmore. To you, sir, I say: Take two!

Jerry Boyer: Lower Spearfish Canyon

And for you conspiracy theorists, I submit Jerry’s fall colors chart, which, when mapped against the number of U.N. resolutions on the Middle East, will clearly show … well, I don’t think I have to explain to Blogmorites.

Jerry Boyer: Spearfish Canyon colors charted

By Denise Ross

Wal-Mart started selling a 30-day supply of a certain number of — I’ve seen 120 and I’ve seen 300 — prescription drugs for $4 in Tampa today, a move so bold that I’m still trying to imagine the ramifications. Apparantly, I’m not alone.

Here’s a Reuter’s piece examining how the move might affect other drug retailers. The answer so far seems to be, We’re not sure.

Target moved immediately to match the deal, and Kmart has a similar 90-day, $15 plan.

As always, there is fine print. Some has been enlarged in this Toronto Daily News story.

Not on the list are generic equivalents of such blockbuster drugs as the cholesterol pill Zocor and the antidepressent Zoloft, both of which lost patent protection this year.

What I couldn’t find is a list of the drugs that are on the list. It wasn’t readily available on Wal-Mart’s official site.

Anyone have that?

And more importantly, will this dramatically disrupt the prescription drug business as we know it?

By Bill Harlan

Time to clear the palate, Mount Blogmore, with a fascinating scheme from a Stanford professor. See the NYT story “Innovator Devises Way Around Electoral College.”

John R. Koza –who, by the way, invented scratch-n-lose lottery tickets — offers a plan that is positively Swiftian in its simplicity. An excerpt:

Now, a 63-year-old eminence among computer scientists who teaches genetic programming at Stanford, Dr. Koza has decided to top off things with an end run on the Constitution. He has concocted a plan for states to skirt the Electoral College system legally to insure the election of whichever presidential candidate receives the most votes.

“When people complain that it’s an end run,” Dr. Koza said, “I just tell them, ‘Hey, an end run is a legal play in football.’ ’’

The first fruit of his effort, a bill approved by the California legislature that would allocate the state’s 55 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, sits on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk. The governor has to decide by Sept. 30 whether to sign it, a decision that may well determine whether Dr. Koza’s scheme takes flight or becomes another relic in the history of efforts to kill the Electoral College.

It’s as if Ron Popeil invented a constitutional-amendment machine that skips the step where you … well, amend the Constitution.

However, can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, such a plan being adopted in South Dakota? The Republican majority here all but guarantees our Electoral College votes go to the Republican candidate. Still, it’s an intriguing notion that we might, you know, elect a president.

By Denise Ross

Bill Harlan just returned to the RC Journal newsroom with a story and photos of arrests at an anti-abortion rally.

One anti-abortion guy was arrested for impeding traffic at Mountain View Road and West Main, and a woman — a counter-demonstrator of sorts — was arrested for scuffling with a demonstrator. You can see Harlan’s story on the RCJ homepage.

An officer at the scene told Harlan the woman arrested for scuffling was upset her kids were subjected to the images on large posters carried by the protesters. In fact, the pictures were so graphic they did not make the story in the RCJ.

We warn Blogmorites we’re going to show the protest here, uncut. They are not obscene — at least by the definitions of the RC Police Department — but they are disturbing anddisgusting. Questions also have been raised as to the authenticity of similar photos. In fact, we had a long discussion about these kinds of photos on Mount Blogmore months back. Some of you even objected to our allowing links to such photos. Our thinking is, this was a protest in a public place. Motorists in rush-hour traffic saw the pictures, so we’re going to show you what the protest looked like.

But as you can tell, we’re playing for time, giving you a chance to bail out. So let’s talk about the leader of the protest.

Matt Trewhella, founder of Missionaries to the Preborn

Matt Trewhella of Milwaukee, Wisc., is a controversial figure. I discovered a couple of interesting items in the New York Times archives, from 1999, and more stuff on the Web site of Missionaries to the Preborn. You can see them in my story on Friday’s paper or on our homepage.

A warning sign a few yards before the protest

Trewhella told me the sign above was to give motorists a chance to turn if they didn’t want to see the posters, but there wasn’t really a place to turn. Go to his group’s Web site for their rationale for graphic posters. (I quoted part of it in the story.)

Ammon Richardson of Boise, Idaho, told Harlan he couldn’t remember the name of the group organizing the protest.

Al Carlson of Rapid City is not a member of Missionaries to the Preborn. He saw the protesters and joined in. He said he’d picketed Planned Parenthood in Rapid City many times.

Don Wandler of Rapid City also joined the demonstration when he saw the protesters, who had been in the parking lot of Rapid City Central High School.

Jason Storms of Milwaukee, who also has demonstrated against gay marriage.

Lauren Murch, left, of Virginia was with Trewhella’s group. Chantell Waldman was upset by the graphic nature of the posters. She stopped, hand-lettered her own poster and held a one-woman counter-demonsration. (She is NOT the woman who was arrested.)

By Bill Harlan

The local group Democracy in Action, which bills itself as “Women working for a better world,” now has it’s own blog, “DIA-Log.” DIA is liberal and Democratic, with a capital “D.” The DIA Website is ambitious. It includes a voter’s guide, questions candidates should answer, a “how to” if you want to get involved.

Alert Blogmorites will recognize some Blogmore regulars on the site.

BTW, the DIA Evening Group meets tonight, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., at the Rapid City Public Library.

*See the comment from Deb. She objects to me calling DIA a Democratic group with a capital “D.” She says the group is “Progressive.” I perused the endorsement list and didn’t find a single Republican. Or even an independent. But it’s entirely possible that I missed one. Deb points out that the group has Republican and Independent members. Point taken.

And Deb raises an interesting question: What’s the difference between a Democrat and a “Progressive” (with a capital “P”)?

By Bill Harlan

A Blogmorite sent this link backchannel to a story about an Iowa legislative race. It’s got nothing to do with South Dakota politics, unless you declare, as we do from time to time, that Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming are suburbs of Mount Blogmore.

Anyway, it’s an interesting story.

By Denise Ross

Church leaders at both ends of the political spectrum are digging in for battle with the IRS.

A liberal church, in Pasadena, Calif., is neck-deep in a battle over its tax-exempt status.

A conservative church pastor in Sioux Falls says to anyone who comes for his church’s tax-exempt status: bring it on.

Here’s the AP story.

Religious leaders on both the right and left are watching closely, afraid the confrontation at All Saints Church in this Los Angeles suburb will compromise their ability to speak out on issues of moral importance such as abortion and gay marriage during the midterm elections.

According to the IRS, the only church ever to be stripped of its tax-exempt status for partisan politicking was the Church at Pierce Creek near Binghamton, N.Y., which was penalized in 1995 after running full-page ads against President Clinton in USA Today and The Washington Times in 1992 during election season.

Under federal tax law, church officials can legally discuss politics, but to retain tax-exempt status, they cannot endorse candidates or parties.

They can, as I understand it, tell members of their congregations how to vote on ballot issues, such as SD’s own abortion ban and proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

That’s what activist groups on both sides of the issues have been counseling pastors friendly to their messages.

Here’s a summary on the Pasadena church situation:

All Saints is an Episcopalian church (in Pasadena) of about 3,500 - the largest west of the Mississippi - and has long had a reputation for liberal social activism among its largely affluent, Democratic-leaning membership.

The dispute centers on a sermon titled “If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush” that Regas delivered as a guest pastor. Though he did not endorse a candidate, he said Jesus would condemn the Iraq war and Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive war.

The IRS reprimanded the church in June 2005 and asked that it promise to be more careful. Church officials refused.

A South Dakota pastor agrees with the stand his colleagues have taken, even though he takes a different position on the issues.

“I would think that that speech should not be censored and neither should ours,” said the Rev. Ron Traub, senior pastor at the First Assembly of God in Sioux Falls.

When the IRS comes into my pulpit and tells me I cannot speak on issues, on spiritual and moral issues, I believe my congregation will be willing to stand with me and say, `If you want to take away our IRS status, go ahead,’” he said. “The only approval that we need is the approval of God.”

Could the tax-exempt status of church’s become to 2006 what voter fraud allegations were to 2002 and 2004?

By Bill Harlan

Like Steve Martin in “The Jerk,” I’m beside myself that Pennington County and Rapid City have approved their fiscal 2007 budgets, as reported by the RCJ’s Scott Aust.

The county’s budget will be $65.73 million, up from $55.25 million. The Rapid City Council approved a $132 million budget for fiscal 2007, up from $106 million in 2006. (The city comparison is apples and … if not “oranges” at least more expensive apples. Fiscal 2007 will include, among other items, $23.8 million more than last year for 2012 projects.)

The votes weren’t unanimous. County Commissioner Ken Davis voted “no.” On the city side, aldermen Sam Kooiker and Michael Schumacher gave two thumbs down.

The mill levies for the city and county are actually going down. So why are Ken, Sam and Michael dissatisfied? Read Scott’s stories. Call your alderman or commissioner. Discuss and enjoy.

By Bill Harlan

I asked readers to submit photos of last weekend’s dedication of the South Dakota Vietnam Memorial. I got some dandies. Jessica Smith, 18, of Rapid City sent these photos. She’s a student at Black Hills State University. Jessica attended the dedication in Pierre because her grandfather and great-uncle are Vietnam veterans.

Scroll down to see a couple other batches from other readers. Then you’ll get to photos from me and from my colleague, Bill Cissell. (Scroll even further and this blog morphs into the Rapid City Journal Wildfire Blog.)