South Dakota Politics

Yeltsin

The New York Times:

Boris Yeltsin, who engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy as the country's first post-Communist president, has died, a Kremlin official said Monday. He was 76.

Kremlin spokesman Alexander Smirnov told The Associated Press that Yeltsin died, but gave no cause of death or further information. The Interfax news agency cited an unidentified medical source as saying he had died of heart failure.

Reid

Harry Reid gets slammed by his hometown paper for his position on Iraq:  "The Democratic strategy to use the ongoing violence in Iraq to their political advantage in the run-up to the 2008 elections requires some skill and nuance. But it's growing harder to believe Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- Nevada's own -- actually possesses those skills."

Remember that Senator Reid was one of the seventy-seven senators who voted to go to war in Iraq.  HT to Instapundit.

UPDATE: In a related topic, see these thoughts on the war, politics, and message control from The Mudville Gazette.

UPDATE:  Bill Kristol:  "What Harry Reid said is much more disgraceful than anything Trent Lott said. And I do think Democrats should ask Harry Reid [to] step down."  Investor's Business Daily is also calling on Reid to step down: 

In aiding and comforting the enemy in wartime, Reid has betrayed the office he holds, shamed the Nevadans he represents and made the Democratic Party he leads synonymous with surrender. There is one way he can repair the damage he's done to the nation: step down.

UPDATE:  Nevada soldiers are not happy with Harry Reid.

Liberal Democracies

Eric Posner:  "Liberal democracies, not activists and international law, protect human rights."

Y'all People

This video is getting major promotion around the web.  Hear Hillary Clinton slip into a fake Southern accent as she addresses Al Sharpton's National Action Network   Wanna bet she does not talk like this when she is raising money on the Upper West Side?

A City With A Great Future Behind It

The Inter Press News Service, which my journalism major daughter recommended to me, gathers stories from people living in the places they are reporting on.  I found a story by Zoltán Dujisin about the Polish city of Nowa Huta. 

Construction of Nowa Huta (New Steel Mill), now a district north-east of Krakow, a city of 1.4 million about 300km south of capital Warsaw, began in 1949 as authorities of then People's Republic of Poland decided to build an autonomous model city around the Lenin Steel Works.

The monumental city grew rapidly with migrant workers coming mostly from the countryside, and its steel mill became the largest in Poland. The city came to be known as the perfect example of socialist-realist urban planning and architecture, with a Polish touch.

The Soviets loved to create "model cities" to show how top-down planning could create the communities of the future.  As the lawyers say, the model proved too much.  The model cities worked only when lavishly supported from outside.  When that support collapsed, so did the model. 

Once employing 43,000 workers, the steel mill was downsized to a workforce of 9,000, and much of it lies abandoned as only few sections were sub-leased to private companies.

"Politically and economically everything has changed, but I'm not sure people are happier," Aleksander, a former engineer at the Lenin Steel Works told IPS. "Perhaps there is more freedom, but many more people don't find work. Maybe our work wasn't that good, but it was work."

Ah yes.  Working to prove a political point is good work if you can get it.  But someone has to actually make the things your pay check will buy.  Real economic growth always comes from below.  The task of rational government is not to "grow economies" but to foster their growth.  Radical leftist government is like the father in the Berenstain Bears books.  He is there to show us what not to do. 
 

Roe v. Wade was a Disaster for the Court

Roe v. Wade was not the worst decision in the history of the United States Supreme Court.  Dred Scott, which declared that freed men could not be citizens of the United States, and that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in U.S. territories was worse.  It may not have made the Civil War inevitable, but it surely made it more likely.  Plessy v. Ferguson was worse.  That decision protected American apartheid from challenge under the Equal Protection Clause, and set back racial progress a good half century.  Even if you see abortion as wrong in the same way that slavery and segregation were wrong, as I do, those decisions did more damage to the foundations of the American Republic. 

But Roe did more damage to the Court itself than any other decision in its history.  In Dred Scott the Court wildly invented false constitutional principles, but the Court at least had some text and tradition to stand on.  The Constitution did, lamentably, include protections for slavery.  In Plessy the Court ignored the obviously unconstitutional intention of legal segregation, but its decision did have both logic and tradition behind it.  "Separate but equal" was a disastrously bad interpretation of equal protection, but it was an interpretation, and it was consistent with prior legislative histories. 

In Roe v. Wade the Court took sides in a deep political conflict, without a shred of evidence in the text or traditional interpretations of the Constitution.  It gave a total victory to one side, but that victory rests entirely on the whim of any five members of the Court.  Worse still, it sometimes depends on only one, a fact that is perfectly evident in Gonzales v. Carhart.  Four justices would overturn Roe and let the states and Congress decide.  Four would strike down virtually any limitations on abortion.  That leaves Mr. Justice Kennedy, one single citizen out of about three hundred million, to decide exactly what kinds of abortions American women have a right to. 

This is disastrous for the Court because it turns every Supreme Court appointment into a single issue election.  Questions of intellect and competence cease to weigh much with most of the Senators and activists.  Imagine for a moment that the typical pro-life or pro-choice advocate had to choose between a competent candidate whose position on Roe was uncertain, and a candidate whose competence was uncertain but who clearly shared the advocate's position.  You see what I mean.  Senators and pundits talk a lot about "judicial philosophy," but what they almost always mean by that is the nominee's position on Roe. This is like hiring only those umpires who would call the most strikes against the White Sox.  (Wait a minute, I'm for that). 

This is very bad for the Court.  Roe should be struck down.  Then the Court can go back to its role as the umpires of American politics.  Abortion may be central to the lives of women, as pro-choice advocates advocate.  But war and peace, liberty and security, global warming and economic development, are all central to the lives of all Americans, and yet we are content to let Congress put the questions.  If Roe does go down, it would not lead to the end of legal abortion in America.  I suspect it would lead to more compromise between the choices available to women and the rights of unborn sons and daughters.  I think that would be better for the Republic.  It is clear it would be better for the Courts. 

An UglyTruth

Steve Chapman on partial birth abortion:

The court cited one nurse's account of this procedure. The doctor, she said, "delivered the baby's body and arms -- everything but the head." At that point, she said, "The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out . . . . The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby's brains out."

The striking fact about the debate here is not that some people are appalled and revolted by what is done in these instances, but that some people are not. They don't flinch from the violence visited on well-developed fetuses in the name of reproductive freedom. Any abortion, in their eyes, is a justifiable abortion.

Novak on Johnson

See this from Bob Novak:

TIM JOHNSON'S SEAT

National Democratic Party strategists believe that Sen. Tim Johnson, out of sight since suffering a brain hemorrhage last Dec. 13, will be able to run for re-election in South Dakota next year. But if he cannot, they fear Democrats will lose the seat in the heavily Republican state.

These strategists doubt Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, the probable Democratic nominee if Johnson does not run, can win a Senate race. The strongest Republican candidate would be Gov. Mike Rounds. Other possibilities are Lt. Gov. Steve Kirby and State Senate Majority Leader Dave Knudson.

South Dakota Republican insiders say they doubt Johnson will be able to be a candidate. His office has said he may return to the Senate as early as this summer, with the help of a wheelchair.

The Dance in France 3

It looks like Sarkozy and Royal will face one another in a runoff after today's French presidential election.  From CNN:

Four polling agencies put Sarkozy ahead of Royal, and both of them in the May 6 run-off, eliminating the 10 other first-round candidates.  Sarkozy won 29-30 percent and Royal 25-26 percent of the vote, leaving their competitors far behind, according to the projections.  The projections were based on actual vote counts from representative samples of hundreds of polling stations across the country.

Money Does Grow Trees

Last night, after attending a rousing NSU Theater production of The Mikado, we stopped by a local establishment at which an area singer was performing.  With great earnestness he announced that tomorrow (or today as I write this) was Earth Day.  An earnest invocation of Earth Day is never a sign of good music to come.  He asked the crowd if we had seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and suggested that if we ever have a couple free hours we should watch the film.  I was sure that never would I have two hours that free (ok, as one of the few Americans who has read Earth in the Balance  maybe I will see the movie).  The singer then launched into a song entitled "Money Doesn't Grow Trees."  Get it.  It's a take on "Money doesn't grow on trees."  Genius. Actually, it was a clever song, but factually wrong.  It is private land that is more effective in growing trees.  Private lumber companies tend to manage their land better than the government manages the public land.  There are fewer fires and more trees.  Naturally, the lumber companies are interested in the continuing existence of trees, since that's how they make money.  So if you want more trees, make it profitable to have more trees.  In that sense, money does grow trees. 

The Dance in France 2

The Washington Post's John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore have the best piece on the French election.  Here is your French voter:

Guillaume Beaucheron did not become a train engineer because he loved toy trains as a boy. He did it for the good pay, short work hours and early retirement offered by France's state-owned railway company. And now, he says, that is all under threat.

"In the past 20 or 30 years, the government has failed at everything," Beaucheron complained. It has buckled under to European Union rules that jeopardize and delay his retirement, while the Internet and automation have eliminated railway jobs by the day.

And so when he goes to vote in Sunday's French presidential election, said Beaucheron, 36, he'll back a candidate who will fight globalization, protect jobs from encroaching technology and defend his retirement plan, which allows him to quit working at age 56. He declined to specify his candidate choice, citing his powerful labor union's neutral position in the campaign.

"We need change," Beaucheron said, his thinning brown hair tied in a skinny ponytail. "We need to get the country moving -- more jobs, pay raises for everyone."

Beaucheron's demand for change on the one hand, and his absolute fear of it on the other, reflect the country's core ambivalence going into Sunday's election. The three front-running candidates embody this paradox, too. While each campaigns as an agent of change, few people here believe that whoever wins a five-year term in the Elysee Palace will tackle the country's serious ills.

Monsieur Beaucheron is in the position of a man who knows he needs to lose weight, but doesn't want to diet or exercise.  Which is to say he is like all voters in every modern democracy, only more so.  You can include me in that mix.  I'm all for making the economy more efficient except when that means cutting into my paycheck or making me work more.  Fortunately, I live in a republic which is reasonably efficient to begin with, well, except for that baby boomer/social security thing.  France is going belly-up a lot faster. 

My friend Chad at CCK recently said that the "Conservative Movement" has no ideas left.  He may be right about that.  I reply that the "liberal movement" has exactly one idea: to make the United States more like France. 

The Dance in France

France has had two presidents in the last 26 years: Francois Mitterrand, and Jacques Chirac.  Mitterrand, a nominal socialist who acted like a conservative (French relative scale) was a giant.  I remember a picture of him walking with Ronald Reagan, Maggie Thatcher, and Helmut Kohl of Germany.  The Fantastic Four, who together brought down the Soviet Union.  Chirac, a nominal conservative, was a dwarf in all but physical stature. He fiddled while France spun steadily downward. 

Sunday the French will begin the first round of choosing their next dwarf.  And the nominees are:

Nicolas Sarkozy, for his role as gadfly to Chirac, conservative reformer, and atypically pro-American Frenchman.  Sarkozy is nominally Chirac's successor, having edged out the odious Dominique de Villepin.  If anyone can save France, Sarkozy can.  He can't.  You can see Sarkozy above with Secretary Rice.   

Ségolène Royal, a socialist who would be France's first woman president, and perhaps the only French woman to actually have had children in the last decade. 

François Bayrou, a "centrist" (French relative scale).  And finally, drum roll please,

Jean-Marie Le Pen.  Let the New Republic fill us in:

With his coarseness, anti-Arab racism, homophobia, and long history of Jew-baiting, Le Pen well deserves his "beyond the pale" reputation. But, if you spend long enough in France, you will meet plenty of people who tell you privately that Le Pen "has the right idea about the immigrant problem" and that he's "saying things that need to be said."

I am pulling for Sarkozy (pronounce it sar-koh-zee, with an equal emphasis on each syllable).  He can't fix France, but he might just pull it in the right direction.  I'll be posting the results.

SDP Jazz Note: Thelonious Monk Meets George W. Bush

Yesterday I finally got around to watching a program I'd recorded on my DVR.  It was a PBS feature, In Performance at the White House.  It featured students and faculty (and some guests, I think) from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at Loyola University in New Orleans.  The President and First Lady got to listen to some very good jazz from some very distinguished figures along with some up and comers.  Oddly enough, I can find no mention of the event on either the PBS or the Monk Institute websites.  You would think that the latter, at least, would have good reason to publicize the event.

The show itself was a little odd, in so far as many of the players were not named at all, or not until after they had played a set.  I watched one gentleman come on stage with a soprano sax and play some lovely lines.  It took me a couple of minutes to recognize him as Wayne Shorter, my own personal jazz hero.  Other greats included Herbie Hancock, Clark Terry, and Anita Baker.  I gather that Hancock has a prominent role in the Monk Institute.  Anyway, it was a fine exhibition of jazz horns, piano, and vocals.  Since PBS and the Monk Institute did not get around to publicizing the show, I have done it for them.  If you get a chance to catch it, catch it. 

ps.  Wayne Shorter was in fact shorter, by a head, than the other players. 

Russia

See this New York Times story and thank fate that you live here and not in Russia, where their freedom of the press is vanishing:

At their first meeting with journalists since taking over Russia’s largest independent radio news network, the managers had startling news of their own: from now on, they said, at least 50 percent of the reports about Russia must be “positive.”

In addition, opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the United States was to be portrayed as an enemy, journalists employed by the network, Russian News Service, say they were told by the new managers, who are allies of the Kremlin.

How would they know what constituted positive news?

“When we talk of death, violence or poverty, for example, this is not positive,” said one editor at the station who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution. “If the stock market is up, that is positive. The weather can also be positive.”

In a darkening media landscape, radio news had been a rare bright spot. Now, the implementation of the “50 percent positive” rule at the Russian News Service leaves an increasingly small number of news outlets that are not managed by the Kremlin, directly or through the state national gas company, Gazprom, a major owner of media assets.

More on Carhart

One appreciates Peter Lawler's disdain for constitutional law, while recognizing that some form of judicial decision making is necessary and a reasonable adherence to precedence allows for predictability in the law.  It isn't really constitutional law that is the problem, rather it is constitutional lawyers.  Lawler is certainly correct that continued intrusion into the abortion arena only damages the Court. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey the Court claimed that it must uphold Roe in order to maintain its integrity.  Justice O'Connor made much the same argument in the original Carhart case (Stenberg v. Carhart ).  This prompted Justice Scalia to write:

Today's decision, that the Constitution of the United States prevents the prohibition of a horrible mode of abortion, will be greeted by a fire storm of criticism-as well it should. I cannot understand why those who acknowledge that, in the opening words of JUSTICE O'CONNOR'S concurrence, "[t]he issue of abortion is one of the most contentious and controversial in contemporary American society," ante, at 947, persist in the belief that this Court, armed with neither constitutional text nor accepted tradition, can resolve that contention and controversy rather than be consumed by it. If only for the sake of its own preservation, the Court should return this matter to the people-where the Constitution, by its silence on the subject, left it-and let them decide, State by State, whether this practice should be allowed. Casey must be overruled.

The abortion question has turned the Court into a political football, dragging it from its status as an impartial monitor of the law to just another political branch.  While recognizing that impartiality is an ideal, not a reality, as long as the abortion question remains one of judicial decision making, as long as we allow the courts to write an abortion code for the nation, neither the courts nor the public are well served.  Roe must be overruled. 

Educating The Free Citizen

Some time ago I suggested I'd write something on Jefferson and education. Finally the time has been found.  The question to be asked by those serious about education is what kind of education is fit for a free man.  This is sometimes called "liberal education," i.e., an education conducive to liberty. 

Leo Strauss once defined liberal education as "experience in things beautiful."  Like Alexis de Tocqueville, Strauss worried that democracy has a tendency toward the mediocre.  A liberal education should thus remind the citizens of the democracy that there are higher, more beautiful things than satisfying immediate interest or pleasure.   One of Strauss's students and later a colleague, Herbert Storing,  argued that for most people Strauss's version liberal education is either beyond their capacity or of little use.  For them, the truly liberal eduction may be one that teaches them a marketable skill so they can provide for themselves.  Being economically independent, they are now capable of being free men.  It is not incidental that Storing was a great admirer of Booker Washington.  So what makes one free?  Is it freedom from economic dependency?  Or is it the ability to see the world as it truly is and have some appreciation for what is highest in humanity?

Jefferson, I think, sought to harmonize the two rival definitions.  One looks to his "Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia" as an example.   Regarding primary education, Jefferson believes it should have the following ends:

[1] To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;

[2] To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing;

[3] To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties;

[4] To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;

[5] To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment;

[6] And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.

The "primary" education for citizens should include both the skills needed to provide for one's self (arithmetic and literacy, for example), but also, through reading, education should "improve...his morals" and help him "understand his duties to his neighbors and country."  This is the education of a gentlemen.  He should be morally decent, have good manners, be patriotic, and be able to provide for himself.  One is not free if one cannot control one's passions and appetites, nor is one free if one is dependent on others for one's well-being. 

Here are Jefferson's goals for higher education:

[1] To form the statesmen, legislators and judges, on whom public prosperity and individual happiness are so much to depend;

[2] To expound the principles and structure of government, the laws which regulate the intercourse of nations, those formed municipally for our own government, and a sound spirit of legislation, which, banishing all arbitrary and unnecessary restraint on individual action, shall leave us free to do whatever does not violate the equal rights of another;

[3] To harmonize and promote the interests of agriculture, manufactures and commerce, and by well informed views of political economy to give a free scope to the public industry;

[4] To develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals, and instill into them the precepts of virtue and order;

[5] To enlighten them with mathematical and physical sciences, which advance the arts, and administer to the health, the subsistence, and comforts of human life;

[6] And, generally, to form them to habits of reflection and correct action, rendering them examples of virtue to others, and of happiness within themselves….

Once again, we see a combination of practicality and refinement.  University educated citizens are the leaders of society.  Thus they need to know the higher theories of the political, mathematical, and physical sciences (including agriculture), but also but also they should "cultivate their morals" and their education should help them be "examples of virtue to others."  This, I believe, suggests "experience in things beautiful," the liberation from vulgarity that Strauss saw as the cornerstone of liberal education.

Jefferson did not think a free republic could exist without an educated citizenry.  Citizens need to know their rights, know the basis of their rights, need to be able to get information on their own (thus the necessity of literacy), and need to be able to tell good arguments from bad.  Thus Jefferson wrote to George Wythe, "Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating the common people." To Edward Carrington he wrote that "the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army" against government oppression, and thus we must maintain our efforts at educating the citizenry.  If we do not "you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves." 

I leave it to the readers to look at their local schools and ask, "Is this an education fit for a free citizen?"

Exploiting the Virginia Tech Killings

School shootings are a chronic disease of modern American society, and each time one occurs a lot of people try to figure out what they mean.  As an inevitable part of this process, some people try to exploit the event, and others complain bitterly about that exploitation.  My friend Chad at CCK has this:

The reaction from conservative circles (pundits and webloggers) to the tragedy at Virginia Tech has largely been themed around the idea that we need more guns.  Students should be able to carry guns on campus, they say.  Our gun laws are too restrictive when it comes to college campuses, they proclaim.  This basic theme is coupled with proclamations that we need to promote the idea of "self defense" and "fighting back."

And in a very interesting post, my colleague Emeritus, Professor David Newquist, has this:

Such occasions must be unbearable for the families and friends of those who have been killed. They affect the nation, indeed the world, so adversely. So it is a particularly offensive and egregious and unforgiveable matter when the NRA and its loonies turn it into an occasion for its cause by saying that if other students had been carrying weapons, the shooter would not have taken so many lives. I am a gun owner. As I write this, I can look at the wall to my left and see a rack of shotguns and a rifle. And behind me are two black powder muskets. I enjoy shooting sports, I respect firearms, but I do not think they have a place in moderating the factional and personal issues that exist in society. There are problems that need to be solved, but their best chance of being solved is at Virginia Tech and all the places that try to apply human knowledge and understanding to human concerns.

Chad and Professor Newquist are right, of course; some pro-gun folks did make the arguments present above.  See that amazing man, Ted Nugent.  But as usual, my blogosphere brothers see only what the half of the story that they want to see.  Anti-gun folks were just as quick to yell "I told you so."  This from Michael Daly at the New York Daily News:

Still love those guns, Virginia?  Ready to admit that it's madness for any psycho to be able to saunter into a gun shop and acquire firepower capable of killing 32 innocents?

I am no big advocate of gun control, though I admit I am less heavily armed that Professor Newquist.  I would have to admit, however, that making it harder for psychopaths to get handguns seems like a better precaution against school shootings than arming all the coeds.  I would point out that most of us see such an event as the Virginia Tech massacre through the lens of political bias.  Moreover, Shulte and Newquist are exploiting the massacre just as much as Ted Nugent is. 

The awful truth is that the Virginia Tech mass murder doesn't mean anything. Seung-hui Cho was probably not insane in any technical sense.  He very deliberately planned what he did, and surely was able to know that it was wrong.  But Cho occupied a spot on that extreme end of the human bell curve with others who are mad as Hell and have no civilized inhibitions.  Such people exist in every society, regardless of its gun control or housing policies.  Maybe gun control is a good idea, and maybe not, but the Chos will always be out there.  We are fooling ourselves if we pretend otherwise.    

Gonzales v. Carhart & The Gory Details

Whatever one thinks of Anthony Kennedy's opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart, he has at least done us one service: he has described in clear detail what the phrase "Second Trimester Abortions" means.   

A doctor must first dilate the cervix at least to the extent  needed to insert surgical instruments into the uterus and to maneuver them to evacuate the fetus.  . . . After sufficient dilation the surgical operation can commence. The woman is placed under general anesthesia or conscious sedation. The doctor, often guided by ultrasound, inserts grasping forceps through the woman’s cervix and into the uterus to grab the fetus. The doctor grips a fetal part with the forceps and pulls it back through the cervix and vagina, continuing to pull even after meeting resistance from the cervix. The friction causes the fetus to tear apart. For example, a leg might be ripped off the fetus as it is pulled through the cervix and out of the woman. The process of evacuating the fetus piece by piece continues until it has been completely removed.  A doctor may make 10 to 15 passes with the forceps  to evacuate the fetus in its entirety, though sometimes removal is completed with fewer passes. Once the fetus has been evacuated, the placenta and any remaining fetal material are suctioned or scraped out of the uterus.  The doctor examines the different parts to ensure the entire fetal body has been removed.

That, bear in mind, is not the procedure that is prohibited under the act of Congress at question.  This is how Kennedy describes the latter:

In an intact D&E procedure the doctor extracts the fetus in a way conducive to pulling out its entire body, instead of ripping it apart.  . . . Intact D&E gained public notoriety when, in 1992, Dr. Martin Haskell gave a presentation describing his method of performing the operation. In the usual intact D&E the fetus’ head lodges in the cervix, and dilation is insufficient to allow it to pass. Haskell explained the next step as follows:

“ ‘At this point, the right-handed surgeon slides the fingers of the left [hand] along the back of the fetus and “hooks” the shoulders of the fetus with the index and ring fingers (palm down). 

While maintaining this tension, lifting the cervix and applying traction to the shoulders with the fingers of the left hand, the surgeon takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors in the right hand. He carefully advances the tip, curved down, along the spine and under his middle finger until he feels it contact the base of the skull under the tip of his middle finger.

“ ‘[T]he surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or into the foramen magnum. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening.  The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents. With the catheter still in place, he applies traction to the fetus, removing it completely from the patient.’ ”

The ban on partial birth abortion prohibits only this latter procedure-delivering as much of the fetus as possible, except the head, before killing him or her.  Why is it necessary to crush and "evacuate" the skull of the fetus?  The most obvious reason is that the skull is the hardest part of the fetal body to get out of the woman's body.  But there is another reason. 

Some doctors performing an intact D&E attempt to remove the fetus without collapsing the skull. Yet one doctor would not allow delivery of a live fetus younger than 24 weeks because the objective of [his] procedure is to perform an abortion,” not a birth. The doctor thus answered in the affirmative when asked whether he would “hold the fetus’ head on the internal side of the [cervix] in order to collapse the skull” and kill the fetus before it is born.

Another doctor testified he crushes a fetus’ skull not only to reduce its size but also to ensure the fetus is dead before it is removed. For the staff to have to deal with a fetus that has “some viability to it, some movement of limbs,” according to this doctor, “[is] always a difficult situation.”

A difficult situation.  Delivering a live if dismembered baby where you meant to kill a fetus, well, that would be like discovering that your tie doesn't match your shirt, or that you are wearing the same dress as a rival at a social function. 

Civilization is a precarious business.  It may be that we will be less civilized in the future than we are now.  One hopes for the opposite.  If we do see moral as well as technological progress, we will one day look back upon Justice Kennedy's words with the same horror that we now feel about slavery, or drawing and quartering.  If the procedures he describes are not barbaric, then nothing is. 

JL Kirk and the New Media

I've been remiss in not pointing out this story, which is a good illustration of why its dumb to threaten or sue bloggers.  A husband and wife, struggling with unemployment, placed a resume online and a placement firm noticed it and invited the couple to an interview.  The husband completed the application and the initial intervew seemed to go well.  The placement firm calls back and asks for a second interview, this time requesting the wife join the husband, which seems rather strange.  After awing the couple with stories of how difficult it is to find placement, the firm tells the couple that for just over $4,000 they are ninety percent certain they can find the husband a job.

Sound like a scam?  Katherine Coble thought it was, and blogged about her experience with the Tennessee placement firm JL Kirk Associates.  When the firm contacted her again, the offer of placement was no longer on the table.  This time they threatened her:

I am being ordered to take down all of my blog entries pertaining to JL Kirk & Associates. If I don’t, they will so me for tortuous interference and other damages.

In a subsequent conversation with the attorney, Alan Kopady of King & Ballow Law Offices, if I do not take down the blog entries they will contact my Internet Service Provider, Comcast, to have my internet access shut down.

I have until April 13th to comply with the demands of the letter.

It didn't take long for this story to make the rounds in the blogosphere and for JL Kirk Associates to get blowback.  Could Coble have been lying?  Possibly, but a quick Google search of the firm shows this isn't the first negative review they've gotten.  And this has happened before, as Bill Hobbs points out:

Someone at King & Ballow and someone at JL Kirk Associates should, right this minute, go Google "Warren Kremer Paino Advertising" and "Lance Dutson" and see how WKPA's frivolous and baseless libel/defamation lawsuit against a blogger worked out. (Short version: They soon dropped it, but not before coverage by a zillion blogs and news media coverage made them look like blithering idiots bent on squelching free speech.)

This heavy-handed effort by JL Kirk Associates to silence Mrs. Coble has done more damage to their reputation than they possibly could have imagined.  They hired a law firm and sent a cease-and-desist demand rather than address her grievances, and when the story broke about the legal action, bloggers across the nation picked up the story (almost sure to happen when Instapundit is on the story).  The good news out of this is JL Kirk and its legal team has recognized the futility of their effort:

Attorneys for JL Kirk & Assocs. contacted Media Bloggers Association attorney Ronald Coleman shortly after receiving his letter stating that the MBA was representing me in this dispute on Thursday afternoon. Both sides expressed their wish to avoid litigation or further aggravation of the situation. JL Kirk’s main concern at the outset was that we communicate their position - which is different from the information originally told to me by a JL Kirk employee - that JL Kirk is not a continuation of the defunct Bernard Haldane company, either in terms of corporate identity or stock ownership, and that JL Kirk’s principal, Kirk Leipzig, is only a former Bernard Haldane employee but did not buy any assets or stock of Bernard Haldane. I can’t vouch for the truth of that statement because I have no first-hand knowledge of the facts, but evidently anyone who wants more information can obtain it from JL Kirk.

As you know if you read their cease and desist letter, the company disagrees with what I have said about them here, but they have told the MBA lawyer that they are interested in discussing this with my husband and me personally rather than litigating in court. I have not decided if I am interested in talking, but I don’t mind the idea of putting this behind me and moving on, and will not write on this topic again.

This company attempted to bully a blogger into taking down language that made them look bad, and instead set off a storm of bloggers who feel that it's their right to tell the truth about negative corporate experiences.  This is the impact blogs and the New Media are having on our society, and I think for the most part it's a positive development.  The self-publishers of the web, your average, everyday joe, no longer needs to simply give up under the weight of someone with more power.  Companies with shady business practices and shady ethics will now be at risk of suffering the publicity problems that JL Kirk faced.  And trying to roll over someone's First Amendment rights is no small thing.  Any company that makes the same mistake in the future will face the same full-blown negative publicy, which in today's world will be impossible to remove.  Had JL Kirk simply asked themselves how they could improve their business and avoid such problems, things would have been different.  With the advent of the New Media, consumers have networked themselves together well enough that any business that threatens their clients will quickly lose business.   

Go here for a great chronology of the event.  Also check out Bill Hobbs's blog, who has done excellent coverage on this story.  Also check out the related thoughts of tdaxp.

Not From Mt. Olympus

Reading some of the negative reactions over yesterday's Supreme Court decision upholding the federal ban on partial birth abortion (examples here and here), one feels compelled to make an obvious statement: the Supreme Court did not ban partial birth abortions.  It said that Congress has the ability to do so, within certain confines.  If you think it is important to liberty and women's health that it remain legal to perform partial birth abortions, you have a very standard avenue of recourse.  Work to change public opinion and elect members of Congress and a president who will vote to repeal this ban.  I think this will be an uphill battle as this ban has passed multiple times in various versions with super-majorities, which is why it supporters want to rely on the Supreme Court to do their work for them. 

A thing does not become a constitutional right simply because it is a really good thing.  Thus one does not have a constitutional right to adequate food or shelter.  Nor does a thing cease to be a constitutional right simply because it is a bad thing.  Thus Abraham Lincoln could state that slave holders had a legal right under the Constitution to hold slaves while at the same time calling slavery a great evil.  The simply fact is that regulation of abortion is something the Constitution does not address, and thus should be left to the basic police powers of the states to regulate (or not) as they see fit. 

Harry Reid

Jonathan Adler on Harry Reid and the Supreme Court abortion ruling:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was among those who denounced yesterday's Supreme Court ruling upholding the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Act. Commenting on the decision, Reid said "A lot of us wish that Alito weren't there and O'Connor were there," indicating his desire that there has been a fifth vote to invalidate the statute, as Justice O'Connor had provided the fifth vote to invalidate Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban in Stenberg v. Carhart.

What is curious about Reid's statement, as NPR and some news outlets have noted, is not Reid's criticism of Alito -- Reid opposed Alito's confirmation -- but the fact that Reid supported, and voted for, the federal statute upheld in yesterday's decision. [emphasis in original]

...

So, despite his repeated support of legislative restrictions on abortion, Reid's latest comment suggests that he believes the Supreme Court's decision was regrettable and wrongly decided, and that a law that he supported is unconstitutional. To me, the latter is of greater concern. Call me old fashioned, but I believe that if a member of the Senate believes a law is unconstitutional, he or she should vote against it.

Woth Looning Into

Check out the redesigned Aberdeen American News web page. 

Herseth Sandlin's Campaign Treasury

The Associated Press has the latest on Stephanie Herseth Sandlin's campaign coffers in an article entitled "Congresswoman has almost $330,000 in campaign treasury."

Breaking: Wright Sentenced to Life in Prison

A jury has decided to spare Daphne Wright's life and sentenced her to life in prison for the murder of Darlene VanderGiesen.  Argus Leader excerpt:

Daphne Wright was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

After nine hours of deliberations, jurors announced their decision around 8:30 p.m. They were unanimous in opting to spare Wright from death by injection.

Wright wiped tears from her eyes, even as she turned toward her mother and smiled slightly.

Minnehaha County State’s Attorney Dave Nelson was then given permission to read a statement written by Dee VanderGiesen, the mother of slaying victim Darlene VanderGiesen:

“Daphne, there are no words to describe the hurt you have brought to our lives. The pain is deeper than anything we could ever describe. Yet we no longer feel the anger and vengeful thoughts that were first in our thoughts. The Lord has reached down in his grace and mercy … and brought us to a place where we can forgive you … "

The statement concluded with this final message to Wright:

"We want you to know that we pray for you every day asking that God may touch your heart, that you may come to know his love … ”

Had she been sentenced to death, she would have become the first woman on South Dakota's death row.

In closing arguments this morning, Nelson reminded jurors of the physical evidence that persuaded him to seek death: the victim’s burned upper body, the plastic bag over her head, cutting wounds on her feet and that she was found in four pieces.

The jury had to decide unanimously that Wright’s mind was depraved at the time of the crime before even considering whether death is appropriate.

Partial Victory On Partial Birth

My reaction to today's Supreme Court ruling on partial birth abortion is this: I bow down before our imperial masters on the Court for their gracious permission to let us pass this law.  Please, sir, I want some more. 

On a more serious note, I think Jonathan Adler is on to something the commerce clause is the real grounds for challenging this law. 

More Evidence Of God's Goodness

Our long national nightmare is over. 

Herseth Watch

Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin will give the commencement address at NSU on May 12. I for one am excited about this news and hope she gives a great speech.  Let me give you some advice, congresswoman.  When it comes to commencement speeches there is only one virtue: brevity. 

I must dissent some from my colleague Mr. Blanchard's recent post regarding the political future of some of our state's heavy hitters.  I have serious doubts that Herseth-Sandlin is interested in the governorship of our fair state.  This Georgetown grad strikes me as someone who likes the Washington life and wants to remain there.  And what would Mr. Sandlin do in Pierre for 4 or 8 years?

I am with my colleague that it is unlikely that Tim Johnson runs for re-election, but do not absolutely rule it out at Ken does.  My guess is that Johnson is still raising money in an attempt to ward off any serious challenger, thus either putting himself or, more likely, a fellow Democrat in a better position to hold the seat. It is my guess that the "fellow Democrat" will be Ms. Herseth-Sandlin.  Whether Herseth-Sandlin runs for the Senate or for her current seat, I do think she is a formidable candidate.  The one thing that is going against her is that she may live to rue the day the Democrats took control of Congress.  It is easy to defy the party and remain moderate when one is in the minority, but now it is easier to paint her as one who carries water for Speaker Pelosi.  My guess that tyeing Speaker Pelosi does not poll well in South Dakota. 

Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Partial-Birth Abortions

Big news this morning: for the first time, the Supreme Court has upheld a ban on a specific abortion procedure, voting 5-4 to disallow an appeal to the federal ban on partial-birth late-term abortions:

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Partial-birth abortions make up a small percentage of all abortions in the United States, but this is a big victory for the pro-life groups.  This will energize them, now that Bush's appointees have delivered on this issue, and will probably move forward to try and overturn Roe v. Wade.  For their part, we can probably expect NARAL, NOW, and the DNC to make this a major point in their fundraising letters from here on out.  In the broader analysis, I wouldn't suspect this to indicate a substantial shift in the Supreme Court's thinking.  The majority decision concluded the reason for upholding the ban was the rarity of the procedure and its small impact on abortion overall.  As the bench stands now, there would probably no chance of them voting to overturn Roe.  Additionally, there's no evidence to suggest that Roberts or Alito would support overturning Roe if the situation arose.

UPDATE:  Brendan Loy notes some confusion at the AP.  More thoughts from the SCOTUSblog.

UPDATE:  Matt Drudge has reactions from the presidential candidates:

HILLARY: 'Erosion of our constitutional rights'...
GIULIANI: 'I agree with it'...
OBAMA: 'I strongly disagree'...
ROMNEY: 'A step forward'...
MCCAIN: I'm very happy...
EDWARDS: 'I could not disagree more strongly'...

UPDATE:  See this for the reaction from the Kos Kids, who seem to find the ruling a Catholic conspiracy.

UPDATE:  Thursday's Argus Leader has reactions from the big names in South Dakota, and also note that Bill Janklow, Tom Daschle, and Tim Johnson voted for the federal ban on partial birth abortions in 2003.

Court Upholds Partial Birth Abortion Ban 5-4

The Court has finally said that at least some unborn children can be protected under the Constitution.  The majority consisted of Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito, with Athony Kennedy doing what he does: swinging wildly.  See Breitbart.  Hat tip to RealClearPolitics.

Blanchard on the Beef Plant

You can see my piece on progress, Luddites, and the proposed beef plant at the American News.  I'll see if I can cut and paste. 

When I moved to the Hub City from California, almost 20 years ago, there was a bit of cultural whiplash involved. But I fell in love with the people here, and with the fact that a traffic jam in Aberdeen is five cars at a four-way stop.

The Los Angeles area freeways I remember had two speeds: dead-stop congestion and 80-miles-per-hour congestion, with gunplay. Living without a mall was a small price to get off those roads. That didn't mean I wasn't pleased when I learned that a mall was coming.

Some Hub City citizens were less than pleased. They told me that the mall would murder Main Street. All these years later, business along the parade route has indeed changed, but it's still hard to find a parking place within water cart distance of Natural Abundance. You can see dead main streets elsewhere in the Dakotas, but not here.

Of course it wasn't just the mall that chilled the blood of many good people. It was the coming of Wal-Mart. The big blue and gray box, they told me, would drive our existing department stores out of business. But today you can still push a cart underneath ShopKo's disturbingly concealed florescent lights. Instead of losing a K-Mart, we gained a Target. And then came Super Wal-Mart. It will mow down our supermarkets and lower everyone's wages, we have been warned. Maybe, but only if gravity and the laws of economics are suspended.

Putting a mall along Highway 12 should have been a no-brainer. A market center without a highway can't do much marketing, just as a trade route that doesn't connect with markets won't carry much trade. What we have seen since the Lakewood Mall opened is something that historians and economists have known for a long time: destinations and traffic encourage growth in one another.

More people coming into town means a brighter Christmas for everyone from Arby's to the Zion Lutheran Church. Likewise, Menards and Wal-Mart wouldn't have hired someone to pour foundations if they hadn't guessed they could pull more people down the road. Such stores routinely bring tens of millions of dollars in new business everywhere they locate. They hire lots of people to stock shelves and work checkout, people who then spend their wages at Burger King or Blockbuster. The supply of labor tightens just as the money available for wages rises. That's why the arrival of a big-box store can't possibly result in lower wages for the local population.

Investment along Highway 12 brought jobs and prosperity to Aberdeen. But lack of jobs has never been the threat to the town or the region. Our problem is a shortage of people. What we need is not just investment, but the kind of investment that brings people in with it, which brings me to the proposed beef plant. You probably thought I would get around to that.

Some of those who oppose the beef plant do so precisely because it will attract immigrant labor. There is certainly someone out there who doesn't want the new industry because he doesn't want Mexicans. But most beef plant opponents aren't racists, they're Luddites. This marvelously appropriate word indicates someone who responds to progress by trying to club it to death.

Some Luddites don't like progress because they just don't like change. Others believe that change will hurt them personally. I can sympathize with someone who fears more traffic at the local junction. But if you treasure the life in Aberdeen, you have to ask what is good for the community. A healthy supply of new families just cannot be bad for us. New residents will pay sales tax and enroll their children in our schools. They will buy food and clothes, eat out and eventually purchase houses. They will attend our churches and play soccer next to Moccasin Creek. They will follow the same path as everyone else who came to this beautiful place.

Have faith in Aberdeen. The same Luddites who opposed the mall and Wal-Mart and Super Wal-Mart, will tell you that the beef plant spells doom. They never get tired of being wrong.

Kenneth C. Blanchard Jr., is a professor of political science at Northern State University. Write to him at the American News, P.O. Box 4430, Aberdeen, SD 57402, or e-mail [email protected]. The views presented are those of the author and do not represent those of Northern State University.

Daschle as Cheney?

Argus Leader political columnist Dave Kranz is acting like Tom Daschle's press secretary again.  Note that in this column from today's paper, his main source is Steve Hildebrand, Daschle's former campaign manager and current employee of Barack Obama.  How objective!

Daschle might be Obama's Cheney

Eyebrows raise among political observers when they see Sen. Barack Obama's fund-raising success.

This ability of a freshman U.S. senator from Illinois to generate significant cash leaves prognosticators believing Obama can actually hang tough and play the game against Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

Maybe it is the infectious popularity coupled with the desire by Democrats to have a new face that fuels his success.

But credit former Sen. Tom Daschle for much of that. Everyone knows that a number of former Daschle staffers are aboard Obama's wagon, but it goes deeper than that.

"He has the benefit of Daschle's contributors' list with 85,000 names," says Steve Hildebrand, a former Daschle campaign manager and now a senior advisor to Obama.

"Having access to that list is very helpful, a big plus for Obama, but you have to keep in mind that Hillary Clinton has a list of 250,000 donors from her Senate race," Hildebrand said.

So far the Obama campaign is pleased with the cash totals.

But Daschle's commitment to Obama goes beyond a list with names. He has begun traveling to key states on his candidate's behalf.

"Tom has made a trip to New Hampshire. He will go to Iowa for Obama, and he has three or four fundraisers for him scheduled around the country," Hildebrand said.

Daschle is doing very well for himself in private life, but once bitten by the political bug, it is a difficult transition back to life away from politics.

So one has to wonder if the journey to the nomination might also mean an Obama-Daschle ticket.

Daschle continues to dismiss any future personal political plans, but his heavy lifting for Obama is not going unnoticed.

For example, a recent column by Howard Fineman for MSNBC: "If Obama wins the nomination, Daschle will be a top contender for running mate. Far-fetched? Maybe. South Dakota is a red state, and one with the fewest possible electoral votes: three. But in 2000, political novice George W. Bush chose a congressional veteran from a sparsely populated state as his reassuringly experienced running mate. Is Tom Daschle the Democratic answer to Dick Cheney? Then Daschle would be back, big time."

Democrats might not welcome comparisons to Cheney, but a discussion of this scenario might come to pass for Daschle.

Iraq Reinforcements

Rocco Dipippo reports from Baghdad:  "I have observed first-hand the effects of the Bush Administration's new Iraq security plan since it began two months ago. Street violence in Baghdad and surrounding areas has declined. Shops and markets once boarded up are reopening. Iraqi civilians are venturing out onto the streets again and living their lives with less fear of being persecuted, tortured, maimed or killed. To be sure, there is still plenty of terror and violence in Iraq, but since the 'troop surge' began, it has lessened considerably."  Let's hope that it continues.

Sandlin Endorses Edwards

This Associated Press story reports that Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin has endorsed John Edwards for president:

U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., has endorsed former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards in the 2008 Democratic presidential sweepstakes.

“Our next president needs to understand and prioritize the needs of rural America, including South Dakota. My endorsement of Senator Edwards is based upon his vision for rural states like South Dakota,” Herseth Sandlin said in a statement.

During a visit to Pierre on Friday, the South Dakota congresswoman said she likes his positions on biofuels and on ways to ease poverty.

“He’s not a Johnny-come-lately on biofuels,” Herseth Sandlin said.

“And I think his focus in the last few years on poverty has a particular role to play as it relates to poverty in rural America and poverty in Indian Country, so I like what he stands for.”

Edwards, who served one term in the Senate, was the running mate of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who lost the 2004 race to President Bush.

Herseth Sandlin said Edwards has clearly outlined his commitment to rural America through a detailed rural policy plan that mirrors many of her priorities.

On Monday, the Edwards campaign released the details of his Rural Recovery Act, which he said would restore economic fairness and create new jobs and businesses in rural America and help protect rural people and their way of life.

“His recognition of the challenges we face, such as rural health care, and the opportunities we provide, like renewable energy, have earned him my strong and enthusiastic support,” Herseth Sandlin said in a release from the Edwards campaign.

His role in poverty?  This, from a guy whose home is the largest in the county he lives in, and whose haircuts cost $400?  I have nothing against the guy getting rich, and in fact I say good for him.  But when you factor in those two incidents, plus the S Corporation tax shelter, which saved him from paying thousands in Medicare taxes, it makes you look awfully hypocritical when you claim the top one percent is not paying their fair share.  As one Democrat remarked: "It's one thing to be a millionaire, but it's totally tone-deaf to be using Katrina victims while you're putting the finishing touches on your multimillion-dollar mansion."

He Who Saves One Life . . .

Liviu Librescu was a Holocaust survivor.  He also survived communist Romania, and escaped to Israel in 1977.  In 1985 he visited the United States on sabbatical, and ended up making Virginia his home.  Yesterday morning he was giving a lecture in Room 204 of Norris Hall, on the Virginia Tech campus, when the pop of gunfire announced that another inexplicable evil had arrived.  It was Holocaust Memorial Day.  From the Jerusalem Post:

As Jews worldwide honored on Monday the memory of those who were murdered in the Holocaust, a 76-year-old survivor sacrificed his life to save his students in Monday's shooting at Virginia Tech College that left 33 dead and over two dozen wounded.

Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter when the man attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, "but all the students lived - because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an Israeli - told Army Radio.

Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he had blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said Librescu's son, Joe.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."

Librescu was killed when the gunman shot through the door he was holding shut.  My wife reminded me of one of our favorite quotes, which occurs at the beginning of the movie Schindler's List. 

He who saves one life, saves the world entire.

I cry easily during certain kinds of movies, and I cried at the end of this one when you see, very vividly, how many human beings are alive today because of Oscar Schindler.  All existing bloodlines eventually mix.  There will come a time when everyone who lives on earth will be a descendant of Schindler's Jews, and very probably, when everyone has an ancestor among the students in Room 204.  Professor Librescu both saved the world, and redeemed it. 

SDP Jazz Note Gets Prominent Mention on In The Groove

I have frequently mentioned my favorite podcast, In The Groove: Jazz and Beyond, put together by Ken Laster at WHUS at the University of Connecticut.  I finally got around to sending him an e-mail to alert him to this fact.  To my delight, last Saturday's show included a very generous plug for South Dakota Politics and for yours truly.  Ken said some kind things about my political commentary and SDP Jazz Note.  I am very grateful for this.  I think I will send my Mom the recording. 

Ken did note that his politics and mine were not something we have in common.  I had no reason to be surprised.  I recall a small comment about the last election that suggested as much, and WHUS calls itself Radio for the People.  That doesn't mean that I take the station's Soviet style logo very seriously.  I am sure that Ken B. and Ken L. agree on more than we disagree, even if the disagreements would be more prominent.

You can download In The Groove from the website linked above.  Any basic music player software will let you listen to it.  Or you can do as I do and subscribe via iTunes and listen to it on your iPod.  Last weekend's podcast, on which I get mentioned, is dedicated to the Hammond B-3 Organ.  It's smokin' music is probably more fun for listeners than the brief mention of my name on radio, except for me, my wife, and my mother. 

In The Groove shows are mostly organized around some jazz instrument or some jazz style, and have titles like Saxy, or Hard Bop.  If you download all the podcasts available, you will get many hours of a wide range of jazz music.  There is an emphasis on Bop and Hard Bop, which is what I like best, but you will get a lot of jazz fusion and contemporary players as well.  If you like jazz or are even curious, I strongly recommend that you sample his show. 

I am always worried that the music industry will try to shut this kind of operation down.  That would be a tragic mistake.  I have purchased dozens of cds after listening to In The Groove.  This podcast is the kind of thing that will bring new listeners to jazz, and bring the older ones like me back into the music section in Barnes and Noble.  Jazz is one of American culture's greatest achievements.  It has sunk its roots into Europe and Japan and a lot of other places.  SDP Jazz Note is a small bit of promotion on the part of Jason and myself.  Ken Laster is doing a lot more. 

Argus

Greg Belfrage:

The Argus Leader has made a mountain out of molehill so many times that the paper lost credibility with many in the community. I refuse to read at least one of their columnists because I doubt he believes most of what he says. Simply put...people no longer believe the Argus.

The Argus' crusade to obtain the names of those invited to the governor's hunt is a great example of why people tune them out. Believe me, folks on Main Street don't give a hoot in hell who was invited. Yet the Argus Leader devoted plenty of ink to the issue. They even went to court - and lost.

I suspect many of those callers have a healthy distrust of government. They simply distrust the Argus more.

Unfortunatly, this is one of those times the Argus has gotten it right. It's ridiculous that the Highway Patrol cannot come up with the names of those arrested.

Even more ridiculous is Governor Round's support of the Highway Patrol's administrative incompetence. The governor's judgment is likely colored by these ongoing feuds with the Argus. Rounds ought to take a step back and think about what's best for the public.

These names MUST be made public. Keeping them secret would be a crime. Don't shoot the messenger...this time.

Virgina Tech Shooting

There's some awful news coming out of Virginia Tech this afternoon:  "At least 31 people were killed today on the campus of Virginia Tech in what appears to be the deadliest shooting rampage in American history, according to federal law-enforcement officials. Many of the victims were students shot in a dorm and a classroom building."  Our prayers go out to those affected by this tragedy.  You can read the statement put out by Va. Tech's president here.  Pajamas Media has a huge continuous roundup of the event.  Here's more from a Virgina Tech alumnus, and more from another local blog.  Here's a couple photos. 

Again, our thoughts and prayers are with those who are going through this horrible event.

Kerry Reopens Door for Presidential Run

John Kerry has declared that he is keeping the option open to run for president in a very Kerryesque statement to 9NEWS:

Afterwards, while answering a question from a viewer on the program YOUR SHOW about why he chose not to run, Kerry said he had decided it wasn't the right time.

"Could that change?" Kerry said. "It might. It may change over years. It may change over months. I can't tell you, but I've said very clearly I don't consider myself out of it forever."

Iraq / al Qaeda

Andrew McCarthy: "I can't help but think that (a) there's undoubtedly a divide between what the raw intelligence shows and how it's been described, and (b) the motivation behind this divide is political. I'd love to be proven wrong ... but I'm not holding my breath."  HT to Instapundit.  Also see this Weekly Standard article by Thomas Joscelyn.

UPDATE:  See further information on the Iraq / al Qaeda connection here, here, and here, in which you'll learn how Hillary Clinton knew on October 19, 2002, that "Saddam Hussein has given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaeda members."

Prayers for WFB

Patricia Taylor Buckley, the wife of conservative godfather William F. Buckley, passed away over the weekend.  National Review has a number of tributes in remembrance.  Our prayers go to the two and all of their family and friends.  HT to Ed Morrissey.

Clinton / Obama Donors

The New York Times reports that Hillary Clinton and her supporters, who thought that the 2008 primary race would be a cake walk, are starting to find that's not the case.  Some of her husband's former colleagues are deciding to back Barack Obama instead:

As Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks to reassemble the Democratic money machine her husband built, some of its major fund-raisers have already signed on with Senator Barack Obama.

Among the biggest fund-raisers for Mr. Obama’s campaign are as many as a half-dozen former guests of the Clinton White House. At least two are close enough to the Clintons to have slept in the Lincoln bedroom.

At minimum, a dozen were major fund-raisers for President Bill Clinton. At least four worked in the administration and one, James Rubin, is a son of a former Clinton Treasury Secretary, Robert E. Rubin. About two dozen of the top Obama fund-raisers have contributed to Mrs. Clinton’s Senate campaigns or political action committee, some as recently as a few months ago.

A list of Mr. Obama’s top fund-raisers released Sunday showed the extent to which the Democratic Party establishment, once presumed to back Mrs. Clinton, has become more fragmented and drifted into her rival’s camp, lending the early stages of the Democratic primary campaign the feeling of a family feud. Some of the movement would have been inevitable given Mr. Clinton’s former dominance of the party.

Why is the former First Lady losing ground?  Probably because she's no Bill; she lacks the same charm and charisma that Bill is famous for.  Obama, on the other hand, is a young, fresh face who exudes charm.  It should say something that Obama, who has had all but two years experience in national office and no depth to policy questions, is stripping away Hillary's donors despite her having far more political experience.  The powers of the party are realizing that Hillary isn't inevitable, and Obama, with his rather thin resume, fits better than Hillary. 

White Guys Don't Matter Anymore

I used to watch the McLaughlin Group every Sunday morning.  As I was putting my hours of Lamaz training to practice upon the approach of fatherhood, I turned the hospital room TV to the Public Television channel and listened to Fred Barnes over my wife's disciplined breathing.  Don't think that will ever be forgotten. 

Those years did not make me an admirer of Eleanor Clift, but she has managed to say something interesting about the Imus story.  I have made the point that the Imus show was a venue where Democrats could reach a lot of otherwise unreachable white males.  But maybe that isn't a valuable market anymore. 

The swiftness of the corporate reaction says something about the velocity of today’s new media combined with the power of race. Imus’s comment about the women basketball players offered a peek into how at least some of white America thinks, and it’s not pretty. But white men of a certain age are getting to be a minority, and if you’re an advertiser looking at brand identity and bottom line, white men are not a growth industry. That’s the American Way--the power of the marketplace. Imus committed a double whammy. He offended women and people of color, and that’s a whole lot of Americans.

I am not sure that Don Imus represents how anyone thinks except Don Imus.  But Ms. Clift is probably onto something.  Like "married with children,"  white males "of a certain age" Democrats long ago moved off of their top target list.  If market forces are following in hot pursuit, well, that just shows how shrewd the Dems were. 

Still, white males represent "a whole lot of Americans" too.  It's nice to know with whom we don't count anymore. 

Primo Levi 1919-1987

April 11th marked the twentieth anniversary of  Primo Levi's death, something I did not notice until today.  Levi was a laboratory chemist in 1943, when the Germans invaded Italy.  He joined the resistance, was betrayed, and ended up in Auschwitz.  More than 600 were sent along with him.  He was one of 26 who survived.  Auschwitz, he would later say, made him a writer.  His death in 1987 from a fall down a stairwell may or may not have been suicide. 

I read some of Levi's Holocaust writings when I was working on a paper I delivered at an international conference, Remembering For the Future, at Oxford, England, in 1988.  But it was not the first time I encountered his writings.  I read a short piece, "Beetles," that was published in his collection On Other People's Trades.  It was a stunning piece of writing.  Here is the opening of the essay:

It is said that the famous British biologist J. B. S. Haldane, at a time when he was a convinced Marxist (and that was before the Lysenko scandal shook some of his certainties), asked by a churchman what his conception of God was, answered: "He is inordinately fond of beetles." 

I did not know until I read that essay that there were over 350,000 cataloged species of coleoptera, or that one and a half million species are thought to exist; nor did I know that what distinguishes beetles is the fact that a second set of wings evolved into a retractable armor.  The latter fact is one of those pieces of biology that stuck with me, and I have been mildly fascinated by beetles ever since.  All the essays in the book are worth reading.  For Levi, scientific curiosity was one of the traits that redeems the human species.  Here is another quote from the book, cut from The Modern World:

The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and the infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return to barbarism.

I do not know whether Levi committed suicide, and if he did I do not know what it means.  Was it merely the result of the clinical depression he suffered at the end?  Or was it a "delayed reaction" to the terrible fact of the Holocaust?  The latter possibility is something of a scandal among his admirers.  Diego Gambetta covers the uncertain facts and all the weight they carry in his article for the Boston Review.  All I know for sure is that Levi was a wonderful writer and a beautiful mind. 

One final postscript: it was because of my fascination with his essay that I bought for my daughter, then a small child, a book on beetles.  It was to be a Christmas present.  For this I caught a lot of grief from a lot of women.  I gave into pressure and got her something else.  That surrender is one of my few regrets as a father. 

GOP Contenders Head to Iowa

From the Washington Post:

What would Abraham Lincoln have thought of the man in a rabbit suit wearing a sign that said, "Varmints Against Mitt"?

It was the annual Lincoln Day Dinner here in Iowa, and the show was back in town. Varmint Man greeted Republican activists as the party's major presidential candidates showed up to speak from the same lectern for the first time.

Most of them had similar messages -- they would be tough on terrorism, they would fight defeatist Democrats, they would keep taxes low, they would tackle illegal immigration. Many rushed to extol Ronald Reagan while barely mentioning President Bush. They kept reassuring each other that it is good to be Republican despite recent polls and political travails.

But with nine of them trying to distinguish themselves from the pack here in this season's opening GOP presidential cattle call, the candidates looked for small ways and large to attract attention.

In a related story, the Washington Times writes about the problems of front-loading the primaries.  Also see this Wall Street Journal op-ed by Fred Thompson about tax cuts.

Herseth-Sandlin's Cash

Denise Ross has all the information on Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin's campaign coffers:

US Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s first campaign finance report for 2007 is in. If she keeps up the pace, she’ll arrive in 2008 short of $1 million.

That’s a big if, of course, especially since she also was planning her wedding during the first quarter of 2007.

Here’re the numbers from her electronic filing with the FEC.

• Total raised 1st quarter of ‘07 - $168,801.56
• Total spent 1st quarter of ‘07 - $50,006.80
• Cash on hand heading into the quater - $210,570.70
• What’s in the bank now - $329,365.46

She spent $10,000 on “media production” which is almost certainly campaign ads and materials. Probably the office she would be running for wouldn’t be indicated at this early date.

She’s paying somebody at McLean Thompson in Sioux Falls a monthly salary of $2,770.34. (That’s a bit over $33,000 per year, for those keeping score at home.) I get skunked on a Google search for McLean Thompson.

SHS received $12,000 in contributions from top officials at DM&E railroad or it’s partner, ICE Railroad, plus another $2,000 from a Sioux Falls man who works at Cedar American Rail Holdings.

Her largest single donor appears to be a man named Al Hegyi of Dakota Dunes, chairman of 1st Financial Bank, at $4,600.

From the land of PACs, her biggest single check - $10,000 - came from the Blue Dog Political Action Committee.

The Senate reports aren’t yet available. House candidates are reported to file their reports electronically, and the FEC makes them immediately available. The Senate reports are turned in on paper and, as I recall, scanned in at a later date. More to come, then.

Hillary's Iraq Problem

Ed Morrissey:  "Hillary Clinton has had a difficult conundrum facing her ever since the beginning of her presidential campaign. Her vote to authorize the use of force against Iraq and Saddam Hussein in October 2002 has the anti-war base revved up to defeat her in favor of a more capitulationist candidate like Barack Obama or John Edwards. She has tried to alternately defend the vote and claim that she was misled as a defense against the activists within her own party. Last night. however, she ran into someone who refused to buy what she's been selling"

Thinking On Race

Prof. Blanchard gives us his thoughts on the Imus situation.  Patrick Garrity gives some thoughts on Jackie Robinson and Peter Lawler ruminates on the American South.  Meanwhile I am reading this speech by Booker Washington with this essay and this essay from W.E.B. Dubois's Souls of Black Folk in preparation for class.  See my post below on the rumblings I hear of a Civil Rights Initiative movement coming to our state.

  I was thinking while watching Tori Hunter during the Twins game today (Hunter is wearing Robinson's #42) that if the worst thing facing the African-American population today is Don Imus, then we are really doing well.  A far cry from what the nation was like, and what Jackie Robinson faced, in 1947.  Progress has been made, as to be sure more progress is to come.  What form should this progress take is still a question, which is why the disagreement between Washington and Dubois is still a lively subject.  Washington, the more moderate man, believed freed slaves should learn trades and become successful economically before making political claims and before moving on to more advanced liberal education.  In short, the black man will be free when he can support himself.  (One of the things Washington taught was the simple art of brushing the teeth, because a man who cannot maintain proper oral hygiene is probably not a man who can be trusted with the vote).  Dubois, one of the founders of the NAACP, thought quite differently.  Freedom, Dubois argued, means political freedom and the freedom of an elite education.  Reading Dubois brings one of those perverse pleasures one gets when one is doing something naughty, like watching a dirty movie or reading Machiavelli.  Dubois was an elitist.  He thought uneducated people of all races should be denied the vote.  Not exactly a popular opinion today.  But overall he thought a commitment to excellence in education and a non-negotiable demand for political equality were the wellsprings of true freedom for the "black folk."  So Washington was the defender of vocational education, and Dubois of university education. 

The virtues and vices of each are obvious.  Dubois gains points for demanding absolute justice and his defense of the life of the mind, but can be criticized for "putting the cart before the horse." Washington saw the truth that it made no sense to give blacks freedom if they could not use it well, so this people who had been enslaved for 300 years should take time to learn basic skills of a free people, and then the time would come to demand political equality.  But the criticism of Washington is that he was willing to make peace with certain injustices in the service of his "gradualism." 

I find myself attracted to both men, although I think on the whole Washington has the better argument.  But were do we stand now? The Imus situation has been illustrative.  I make no apologies for Imus and essentially second Ken Blanchard's post, but it has revealed some things.  When one looks at the spokesmen on race today, what does one see?  Let me pose a provocative question: Is Al Sharpton interested in racial reconciliation?  Is Jesse Jackson?  Or are they not like George Wallace, demagogues who stoke racial fears and racial animosity for their own gain (both in terms of dollars and ego)?  I do not mean to draw an equivalence (Wallace's defense of segregation was far worse than the sins of Sharpton and Jackson), but I do want to point out that up to a point a racial demagogue is a racial demagogue.  The sooner the racial demagouges of all stripes are discredited, the faster we can get on with the work of true racial healing.  I, unfortunately, am not optimistic. 

Civil Rights Initiative In South Dakota

Rumor has it that Ward Connerly's group is eyeing South Dakota for one of their Civil Rights Initiatives.  These initiatives are designed to eliminate racial preferences in government activities. 

The Party of McGovern

Chicago Tribune:

Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday attacked Democratic leaders as the intellectual heirs to Sen. George McGovern's "far left" anti-war policies of the Vietnam era and warned that withdrawal from Iraq could result in the descent of that country into a new version of Taliban-era Afghanistan.

Cheney, in remarks to the funders and board members of the conservative Heritage Foundation in Chicago, said "history is repeating itself," with Democrats moving away from a commitment to fighting international terrorism.

"Today, on some of the most critical issues facing the country, the new Democratic majority resembles nothing so much as that old party of the early 1970s," he said, citing issues including taxes and spending, but especially foreign policy.

SDP Jazz Note: The Greatest Jazz You Never Heard

Nothing has done more to encourage my interest in Jazz, not to mention my purchase of Jazz CDs, as two podcasts: In the Groove by Ken Laster, and Straight No Chaser, by Jeffrey Siegel.  Both podcasts put a load of excellent jazz on every week or so.  I am sure the record companies are nervous about this, but I have bought a lot of cds because of what I heard on these two podcasts. 

One contemporary Alto Sax player frequently included in Laster's podcasts is Greg Abate [pronounced a-ba-tay].  I bought his CD Monsters in the Night after listening to one cut on In The Groove while I was mowing the lawn.  The compositions and arrangements are superb.  Jazz is much given to hero worship, and I am guilty of this.  Abate is one of the unsung heroes of jazz.  But by God his alto sings.