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For the last number of years, we have heard how important it is to entice South Dakota’s top high school students to attend in-state colleges and universities to increase the chance our best and brightest will stay in the state. This week I got an up close view of just how poorly we may be marketing that effort.
My middle daughter is a high school senior. She applied for and has been accepted at both a South Dakota university and one in the University of Nebraska system. This past week, she got a letter from the Nebraska university telling her that because of her ACT score, class rank and high school grades, she was being awarded an all tuition paid academic scholarship (worth about $8,000 a year given current non-resident tuition rates). This was before she even submitted a scholarship application.
When we returned from GDC volleyball Saturday night, she had a letter waiting from the South Dakota university. It told her that what earned her a no-tuition offer in Nebraska qualified her for a $1,000 a year academic scholarship here in South Dakota — and, oh, by the way, send a check for $100 as a “deposit.”
Based on current tuition, fees and room and board, that means attending school in Nebraska would cost her about one-third less a year than staying in South Dakota. Granted cost isn’t everything and she has yet to submit the standard scholarship applications to both schools. Yet given the fact both universities offer the programs in which she is interested, which do you think showed a keener interest, created a greater impression and obtained a significant upper hand?
Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
William Jennings Bryan
What with the local daily’s changing its format to focus on pictures people take of their kids and pets, this is even more true for me these days. (Via Straight Talk.) As an aside, when I checked its web page Saturday morning, you would not know four Sioux Falls high school volleyball teams (3 of them ranked in the top 5 in the state) played in the Black Hills Friday night or that the Stampede had played that same night. They didn’t even have scores on the web site.
On a somewhat related topic, I heartily endorse one of Bill Maher’s recent new rules that applies equally to the print and broadcast media: “Stop telling me to go to your website for ‘more on the story.’ We’re both here now. Why don’t you tell me the whole story?”
On a political note. although it is an issue on which I have mixed feelings, I find this list of video lottery owners rather fascinating. (Via Doug at Dakota Today.)
CChen comes out of the closet on the literary ghetto she shares with people like me and reveals the same obsession I have. Thus, she has been added to the blogroll.
I had not heard of Project Orion so thanks to boingboing.
Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.
Jerry Garcia, Rolling Stone (Nov. 30, 1989)
It’s easy to summarize a couple items I posted to the No on E blog but didn’t get posted here. The editorial pages are fairly explicit in their condemnation of Amendment E. According to the Watertown Public Opinion and the Yankton Press & Dakotan, J.A.I.L. is “the worst of all the ballot issues” and voters should “bury” it.
The former is the award Amendment E gots from the Public Opinion. Here’s what the paper wrote Thursday as its editorial page summed up its position on the constitutional amendments on this year’s ballot.
Vote “NO” on the worst of all the ballot issues this year. This California-based initiative was begun in S.D. because our state has relatively easy regulations to get issues on our ballot. The out-of-state creators failed four times in their own state, and that’s the reason they brought this here. It’ll cause economic ruin, as most financial institutions won’t be able to operate in our state (i.e., won’t be able to get a mortgage, or a business loan), and in the end, will benefit only a few: those convicted and in prison, and those who want to get even. This is vindictive legislation at its worst. We need to let the nation know on this amendment, “E”, South Dakota is firmly against it.Vote NO on E
Kudos also to the Watertown paper for its excellent review of all of the ballot issues.
The latter comes from the headline of the P&D’s Tuesday editorial on Amendment E. The P&D also deserves a tip of the hat for the honest assessment in the “personal note” that appears in the penultimate paragraph of the editorial. Here’s an excerpt:
South Dakota’s proposed Constitutional Amendment E — the so-called J.A.I.L. amendment — on the November ballot is one of the more distressing measures to ever go before the state’s voters. At best, it’s unfortunate and possibly unconstitutional at the federal level; at worst, it’s an invitation to chaos not only in the state’s judicial system but for elected officials at various levels.
* * *
What we see happening should Amendment E be enacted is a tidal wave of frivolous complaints, filed by disgruntled individuals, filling the dockets of these special grand juries. In some cases, what would the “complainants” have to lose? This would have devastating impact on the state’s judicial system and on governing boards. It would also have a chilling effect on potential candidates for judgeships and for boards: Who would be willing to expose themselves to such intimidation and punishment? That kind of atmosphere would indeed be a recipe for chaos.
One should also ask, if Amendment E is enacted and special grand juries are set up, would these special grand juries be subject to this same kind of review? And would the special grand jury that sits in judgment of the first grand jury also be exposed, etc., etc.? And if not, why not?
On a personal note, we should also mention that our fleeting exposure to the Amendment E proponents, several of whom hail from out-of-state and thus would not be affected by the mess they may generate here, has been intriguing, to say the least. Rightly or wrongly, they come off as hotheaded, paranoid, quick to pass judgment and the kind of people who probably wouldn’t hesitate to file lawsuits and take other actions against anyone they dislike or define as “wrongdoers” according to their own definitions. In short, they make the case in illustrating why the immunities they criticize were set up in the first place.
Many lawyers, judges and lawmakers have come out vigorously against this measure (proponents might claim it proves their point) for various reasons. In fact, the state Legislature adopted a rare resolution condemning it. So, let us try the angle of pleading: For goodness sake, run away from Amendment E — or better yet, make a stand and vote “no” on Nov. 7 to plant this thing in the grave of oblivion it richly deserves.
Opinion is power.
Thomas Jefferson
In moving away from the recent concentration on politics, I have to start with an admission. Until this month, I’d never read anything by Cormac McCarthy. As a result, I can’t tell you how his latest novel, The Road, compares to what he’s written before, whether in style, mood or anything. I do, though, feel safe guessing it’s probably the darkest book cover he’s used.
More honesty. The only reason I picked up The Road is because it was described as a tale of a post-apocalyptic world. Sounds like the kind of stuff I like. In fact (SSHH!), it even sounds like (OH MY GOD!) science fiction.
Now that I have likely destroyed any interest in this review because I have (a) admitted my ignorance of McCarthy, (b) called an American literary giant’s book science fiction and (c) really pissed off the literati because of the foregoing, let me say I like this book. A lot. I’m not quite ready to call it this century’s A Canticle for Leibowitz of post-apocalyptic literature but it has aspects that make it equally as impressive in other respects.
The Road is written in language as stark, austere and almost unconventional as the world it portrays. This is a world some years after an apocalypse likely, but not necessarily, caused by a nuclear war. This is a world that was largely consumed by fire, yet where fires still erupt and ashes still fall and coat virtually everything. This is a world that is eternally gray and where night is “sightless and impenetrable. A blackness to hurt your ears with listening.” This is a world in which “the man” and “the boy” travel in search of food, shelter and any other amenity that may provide some sort of respite to the relentless grind of merely trying to survive day by day. This is a world with no crops and no animals in which people have resorted to cannibalism. This is a world so devastated and depleted that the world of Mad Max might seem a holiday.
After scavenging the charred remains of houses in a destroyed community, the man
walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like groundfoxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.
Yet this is the world in which the father and son still search for other “good guys” while trying to avoid but still encountering mostly “bad guys.” The son has known nothing but this world, which continues to putrefy. The father remembers life and a wife before the holocaust. His wife, however, saw no livable future and opted for death over what life had become. The search for “good guys” began as much as an effort to keep some spark of that former world alive as to find safe haven. Yet desolation and destruction take its toll. The boy asks about the bravest thing the father ever did. “He spat into the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said.” And there is only one thing that drives him to get up each morning.
This all, of course, yields a certain degree of fatalism. One old man they encounter assures them things will be better when everybody is gone.
When we’re all gone at last then there’ll be nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too. He’ll be out in the road there with nothing to do and nobody to do it to. He’ll say: Where did everybody go? And that’s how it will be. What’s wrong with that?
Staying alive also depends in large part on luck. Each time the man and the boy are on the brink of starvation, they stumble across food and other supplies that offer a chance of surviving a while longer. Yet even when such caches are located, they fear staying too long and are left to gather only what they can carry in the
shopping cart that serves as their repository. And the man realizes that, in the end, “good luck might be no such thing. There were few nights lying in the dark that he did not envy the dead.”
Yes, The Road is full of desperation and despair at levels that threaten to harden and gut any soul. Yet amidst it all is a theme that pervades many great books, whether they be called literature or SF. Love. Absolute, unconditional and limitless love.
Here it is the love of a parent for a child. The man’s sole raison d’être is doing what he can and living long enough to perhaps offer his son a chance for survival. As he tells the boy after being forced to kill a bad guy who tried to harm the child, “My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you.”
That expression of love is stark and brutal because it reflects the brutality of their world. Yet in the worst of all possible worlds, McCarthy shows that the power of this love is such that it can survive even in the face of an apocalypse. Once you come to this realization, you also truly understand that McCarthy dedicating the book to his young son makes words like literature or science fiction meaningless and irrelevant.
There is no God and we are his prophets.
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
With the election almost upon us and the dust up over campaign ads continuing, it’s time to stick my nose into yet another ballot issue.
Supporters of the abortion law referred for a public vote (Referred Law 6) are being called to task because recent television ads said the ban contains an exception for the health of the mother. Additionally, when pressed on the lack of such an exception, they say the need for it is extremely rare and the law has no impact on how they would treat a pregnant woman. Let’s look at those assertions.
First, it could not be more plain: THERE IS NO EXCEPTION FOR THE HEALTH OF THE MOTHER. The statute expressly says the only exception is for treatment “designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother.” In fact, the Legislature specifically rejected efforts to include an exception specifically covering the health of the pregnant woman.
During the House debate, an amendment was proposed to create an exception for procedures designed or intended to prevent “serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” of a pregnant mother. It lost by a vote of 41-27. During the Senate floor debate, an amendment was proposed creating an exception for “a medical procedure resulting in the termination of a pregnancy that would constitute an undue and serious risk to the health of the pregnant woman.” It lost by a 22-13 vote. (FULL DISCLOSURE: One of my law partners sponsored the amendment. I was unaware of and played no role in his decision to offer it. He is unaware of this post — unless or until he reads it.)
Now let’s move to why this bothers people like me. Some of this comes from a post some seven months ago in which I talked about the gray areas of life that tend to be overlooked in the emotion of the abortion debate.
As it stands now, in addition to the only exception being to prevent the death of a pregnant mother, the physician is required to make reasonable efforts “to preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child.” The statute says medical treatment provided to the mother “which results in the accidental or unintentional injury or death to the unborn child is not a violation of this statute.” (Emphasis added.)
The standard hypothetical is a pregnant woman diagnosed with cancer. Here’s the problem under the law.
Assume the woman is two months pregnant when she is diagnosed. There is a 90 percent survival rate if she immediately begins a course of radiation or chemotherapy (the numbers are solely for illustrative purposes, not actual medical data or studies). The survival rate drops to 25 percent if she carries the fetus to term. There is a 90-100 percent chance the treatment will cause irreversible and potentially fatal damage to the fetus regardless of when it is provided. Because we know that may occur, any such treatment would not result in “accidental or unintentional” injury or death to the fetus. Does the life of the mother exception allow mom a choice here? Or does the fact she still has a 25 percent chance if she carries the baby to term mean that only her “health” is endangered, the exception the Legislature specifically rejected? Where is the dividing line between acting to protect the woman’s health and acting to prevent her death?
In an article today, the law’s prime sponsor supposedly said the standard is “imminent peril.” Does such peril exist when the chances of survival drop to 40 percent, 25 percent or 10 percent? Does “imminent” mean health care providers must stand by until the woman’s heart rate or respiration is such that her death is a certainty if the only treatment might harm the fertilized egg within her?
Think that is an exaggeration? Then consider the far more common situation of an ectopic pregnancy, where a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterus (e.g., the fallopian tubes). Because it is impossible for an ectopic pregnancy to go to term, the only treatment is terminating the pregnancy. Since the law defines a fertilized egg as an “unborn human being” does the sole exception to the statute forbid surgical or nonsurgical medical treatment that would terminate the pregnancy if mom’s life is not at risk? Again, this would not be accidental or unintentional harm to the fertilized egg. Must a doctor wait until mom is on death’s doorstep before embarking on treatment? At what point does death move from a possibility to a probability to an “imminent peril”?
Or consider the aspect of mom’s mental health. Prenatal tests reveal the fetus has anencephaly, a condition in one out of 1,000 live births. A fetus with this condition never gains consciousness and, if not stillborn, usually dies within a few hours or days after birth. The law apparently would require mom to carry the fetus to term because there is, by definition, an unborn human being and the condition does not pose a risk of death to mom. I know a woman who faced such a situation. She and her husband decided to carry the pregnancy to term. The baby — their first — was stillborn. How could you criticize whatever decision they made? But the key is my friend and her husband were allowed to make the decision that was right for them and their emotions and beliefs. The state did not mandate their choice in a no-win situation.
That is really the bottom line of my opposition to the law. The government dictates health care decisions that should be left to the informed consideration and judgment of mom and dad and the expertise of the health care provider. So do not accept the argument that there are exceptions for the health of the mother or there is no need for one. In fact, I think voters should also hold responsible those who specifically rejected efforts to create an exception for the health of the mother. Here is a list of the legislators who voted against the amendments, with the names of those seeking re-election underlined. And to show this wasn’t a party line vote, I’ve italicized the names of the Democrats for any who might think it’s safe to cast a legislative ballot based solely on party affiliation.
HOUSE: Brunner; Buckingham; Davis; Deadrick; Dykstra; Faehn; Frost; Garnos; Gassman; Glenski; Haverly; Heineman; Howie; Hunhoff; Hunt; Jerke; Klaudt; Koistinen; Kraus; Krebs; Lange; McCoy; Miles; Nelson; Novstrup; Olson (Ryan); Pederson (Gordon); Peters; Putnam; Rausch; Rave; Rhoden; Rounds; Schafer; Sebert; Tornow; Van Etten; Weems; Wick; Willadsen; Speaker Michels.
SENATE: Abdallah; Apa; Bartling; Bogue; Broderick; Duenwald; Earley; Gant; Gray; Greenfield; Hansen (Tom); Kelly; Kloucek; Koetzle; Koskan; Lintz; McNenny; Napoli; Peterson (Jim); Schoenbeck; Smidt; Sutton (Dan).
UPDATE: A group of South Dakota legislators today issued a letter outlining in detail that the representations made in the “Yes on 6” ads are contrary to the legislative history.
The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women.
Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Princess,” Dancing at the Edge of the World
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