Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Check out what's coming to the Elks Theatre in Rapid City


Elks Theatre, 6:30 p.m., Monday, March 26. All seats $5.00.
Directed by Kristin Canty. Starring Linda Faillace, Mark McAfee and Joel Salatin.
Farmageddon is the story of a mom whose son healed from all allergies and asthma after consuming raw milk, and real food from farms. It depicts people all over the country who formed food co-ops and private clubs to get these foods, and how they were raided by state and local governments. Source: IMDb.com
A movie whose claims, if accurate, should give us all food for thought. – Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
Kristin Canty’s Farmageddon is a plucky, grassroots, urban mulch pile of info-tainment. – Joseph Jon Lanthier, Slant Magazine
89 minutes. 2011 release.


Additional note from Clay Upton:


Hello friends,


This Monday, March 26 we will be showing the film "Farmageddon." There will be a discussion panel afterwards. Jessica Miller, representing Dakota Rural Action, Dawn Habeck, representing Black Hills Milk, Shirley Frederick, representing Dakota Local Food Network, and Nisa Schwiesow, representing Breadroot Food Cooperative, will be the panel members. Nisa also has a CSA farm and is a permaculture certified organic gardener. She has been involved with sustainable agriculture in Costa Rica and on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Dawn and her husband John have a dairy farm in Bell Fourche, and now have retail stores in Rapid City and Spearfish. Shirley is also a member of Dakota Rural Action and is actively involved in other local community organizations. This promises to be a very informative evening. Please come out and join us. We look forward to seeing you there. 

Congress should have the same health care as the rest of us


 I just took a moment to sign on to this simple statement by Consumers Union, "Stop insurance company abuses: Uphold the Affordable Care Act," and I hope you will join me.

The Supreme Court will debate our new health insurance rights at the end of this month, and those who want to overturn the law are going to be there in force. Like me, you probably can't go to Washington, but if you add your name to this statement, Consumers Union will put your name on a huge banner that will be unfurled in front of the Court for all to see. Click here to add your name!

Why is this moment in time so important? If the Court strikes down the law, we will lose our new rights that hold insurance companies accountable for how they spend our money and how they treat us.
Gone will be our right to get a refund on our premiums if insurers spend too much on their CEO salaries and overhead. Gone will be our right to get decent coverage even if we have a pre-existing condition. Gone will be the ability to keep teens and young adults on their parents’ policy. Gone will be a prohibition that stops insurers from charging women more than men.

Please take a moment to show your support for our new rights under the law by adding your name to the banner. Thank you!

Friday, March 9, 2012

Protest made latest local news in Rapid City


Today Democracy in Action sponsored a protest in front of the office of KOTA in down town Rapid City.  Here is a post from the Occupy Rapid City Facebook page:

Due to the requests of participants at today's rally in front of KOTA, the scheduled Occupy Rapid City rally for tomorrow, Saturday, March 10th will continue the theme of holding Rush Limbaugh and KOTA accountable for their actions. It is an open forum. All are welcome. The protest will begin at Main Street Square at 12 Noon, and then we will march over to the KOTA station on St. Joseph Street. There were at least 60 people at the KOTA protest today. Their management appears to be placing greed over any sense of integrity. What Rush said is offensive and unacceptable. He must be held accountable. Please come out and protest this horrible stance taken by Rush Limbaugh and KOTA Radio.

KOTA Radio’s web page reported that there were between thirty and forty protesters.  The photo accompanying the report on their website showed five protesters from an angle that did not include the much larger group.

The Rapid City Journal’s website includes an option to see the most commented on recent articles published on their website.  As of seven o’clock on Friday, March 09, 2012 the most commented article was Locals petition to take Limbaugh off air with 190 comments.  The third most commented on article was Limbaugh comments overshadow GOP contest with 37 comments.  Also today, the Journal’s website included a survey poll question that readers could vote on:

Do you think Rush Limbaugh should be taken off the air for the inflammatory comments he made last week on his nationally syndicated radio talk show?


After voting the cumulative results were displayed. The cumulative votes as of this writing were 2,334. The results showed the distribution of votes to be 49% yes and 51% no. This is the same distribution percentage that the poll results showed earlier in the day when the total votes was at 2,008. Obviously, quite a few voters had an opinion on this question, but the distribution was completely static for much of the polling period. That happens all the time, right?

Tonight in perusing the various local television news broadcasts, it appears that the protest efforts weren’t news worthy. Even the Rapid City Journal ignored what appears to be considerable local interest in this issue relating to what the general manager of Duhamel Broadcasting Enterprises, Ted Peiffer refers to as “the most listened to radio program in America.”

Update 11 pm 3-9-12:   KOTATV and KEVNTV did report on the Limbaugh protest today.  KEVN Fox News report put the number of protesters at seventy and KOTA TV did a much better job of showing the whole group than the picture posted on the radio website.  Mr. Peiffer says the calls supporting Limbaugh on the air were three to one in favor keeping the program.  Perhaps he is using the same scientific data collection methods that will be used to evaluate teachers for the new merit pay system.

Update 3-10-12:  Today's Rapid City Journal included a picture of the Friday afternoon protesters with a large caption.  Their online poll vote count had increased to over 2,639 by 8:00 a.m., but the distribution was still stuck at 49 % yes and 51 % no.  For comparison sake consider that according to the data base section of the RCJ website shows that 13,640 votes were cast for mayoral candidates in the 2011 election.  The poll vote count is equal to slightly over 19 percent of the number of votes cast for mayor in scheduled election.  The online poll drew nearly twenty percent of that number votes without being an publicly announced event like the mayoral election.  If Mr. Peiffer got as many callers as the Journal got poll voters, then he must have had a very busy phone day.

Monday, March 5, 2012

BAD BILLBOARD BILL Guest Editorial


GOVERNOR DAUGAARD; PLEASE VETO SB-157

By Tom Katus*

The BAD BILLBOARD BILL, SB 157 has passed and will go into law.  The vote:  42 to 26.  It took 10 BILLBOARD Lobbyists, being paid tens of thousands of dollars by the BIG BILLBOARD CORPORATIONS to get this vote!  We had 0 dollars and the people to represent.  You now know what runs your State Government!

A sad day for the citizens of South Dakota, and local control of its municipalities and counties...

--Lisa Modrick
Scenic Rapid City Committee, Inc.

SD LEGISLATURE BOUGHT BY SIGN COMPANIES

-- Sign at Occupy Rapid City Rally, March 3rd.

The people of Rapid City and West River are livid about the majority of East River’s Legislators’ arrogance to override a local initiative, for which scores of us circulated petitions to have a vote on billboard control. That vote of 6,000 + was more than 2/3rds majority of the people.  I am certain that citizens of Brookings, Sioux Falls, Aberdeen, Watertown, Mitchell, and Pierre would feel similarly affronted if an initiated measure in their city, securing more than 2/3rds of the vote were overturned by the Legislature.

The undue influence of moneyed interests in the federal government has lead to widespread cynicism of the people and a Congressional approval rating of 11%.  Now the East River majority in the SD Legislature is acting equally irresponsibly and thwarting the will of the people.

We have many divisions in this State, including age, gender, race and partisanism.  However, the greatest division remains the split between East and West River.  When I served in the Senate and when I ran for State Treasurer, my major theme was to work hard to overcome these East/West Divisions and bring ALL South Dakotans together.

Last month, I lead a delegation of Legislative Fellows selected from throughout the US by our State Department to visit Nepal. We spent a week meeting with political leaders and non governmental organizations (NGOs) assisting them with their constitutional review.  Nepal is transitioning from an authoritarian centralized government to a federal democratic system. I was asked to address their National Lawyers Association, on behalf of our group, on the US Constitutional review process culminating at Independence Hall in Philadelphia in July, 1789.  I stressed that perhaps the greatest strength of our federal system is extensive LOCAL CONTROL.  A fellow delegate who is a Councilman from Concord, New Hampshire reinforced this view.  The Nepalese were very impressed with LOCAL CONTROL, and are hopeful they can institute it in their country.

Thus, it is particularly disheartening to return to SD to find that a majority of our East River Legislators has overturned the people's will.   Governor Daugaard has made some excellent strides in reaching out to ALL our people. His positive decisions on Valhalla and the Black Hills Playhouse are commendable. Vetoing this onerous legislation, would certainly reinforce his strength in the Republican Heartland of West River.  While such a stance may irritate the deep pocket sign companies, it will definitely make him more popular with 6,000+ Rapid City voters and the tourism industry. Tourism has much greater economic impact on the State than three wealthy sign companies and their 10 paid lobbyists!.

 But regardless of the politics of any such decision, a veto would be the right thing for ALL the people of South Dakota.  I am hopeful that he will once again rise above politics and do the right thing. I urge Governor Daugaard to veto SB 157.  I am confident that we would have sufficient strength in the SD House of Representatives to sustain his veto.

*********

Tom Katus served as a State Senator (2007-08), is a member of Scenic Rapid City and Occupy Rapid City.