Category Archives: Expository

Downtowners Association kneecaps non-profits during Folkfest…again

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There was a dark cloud over today’s Folkfest celebration in downtown Bismarck. No, I’m not talking about the one that dumped a torrential downpour on the event just after my wife and I got into the truck… I’m talking about the heavy-handed tactics employed by the Downtowners Association.

Many groups such as the Boy Scouts use events like this to sell homemade items or concessions as a means of fundraising for their organization. A year or two ago, however, the word came down from the Downtowners that nobody could sell pop at this event but the Downtowners themselves. It’s actually in the Food and Vendor Application form available on their website. I asked around to a few of the places that were selling concessions, and none of them were very happy about this arrangement. People at some of the non-profits I talked to admitted that this did affect their fundraising efforts significantly.

The Downtowners allow vendors to sell “brewed coffee, brewed tea, and/or fresh hand squeezed fruit drinks.” I didn’t see anyone running around with much of any of those. I did, however, see a lot of people running around with Coke products sold by the Downtowners.

The Downtowners is the association that whines about parking and a lot of other pet issues they have down there. They actually kept a list of license plate numbers of people who they knew worked downtown so they could complain. When I worked at KFYR-TV, one of our reporters caught wind of that because his vehicle was one that they’d “tagged.”

Apparently some people think that downtown Bismarck is their own little area to regulate as they see fit. It’s just a shame that they’re taking away money from organizations that could really use it. I give the event a big thumbs-up, but the Downtowners Association two thumbs down. Their handling of this part of the Folkfest is a disservice to the community.

Here’s an idea…if they want to monopolize sales of pop so they can protect their deal with Coke, they should allow exemptions for non-profit groups. The exemption could give fundraising organizations the ability to serve fountain pop as long as it’s Coke products. Then the Downtowners could continue to sell the 20 oz bottled drinks exclusively. They could even include a stipulation requiring that soft drinks must be included in a food purchase, such as “Brat & Coke – $4.00” or something. Everybody could do their fundraising, including the Downtowners, and nobody gets cut out. And it would best serve the customer, too…did any of you enjoy waiting in line for a turkey leg, bread bowl, or indian taco, then having to run around to the closest intersection to buy a bottle of Coke?

If you agree with me, click here to email the Downtowners Association and let them know. I bet a few non-profit organizations and their fundraising directors would thank you.

Wade out to the dock

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In an effort to correct one of their many mistakes on the upper Missour River, the US Army Corps of Engineers has throttled up releases from Lake Sakakawea to try to cover up the water shortages in the Oahe basin. As a result, we’ve got a very high river. So high, in fact, that it’s pretty much impossible to get out on the dock at Fox Island without getting wet! These guys don’t care, though; in fact, it’s a good way to stay cool on those last few hot days.

With the releases so high, there aren’t many sandbars remaining. That raises the question of protected habitat for the piping plover and other endangered species that nest on those sandbars. If the Corps could just come up with a decent equitable way of planning the Upper Missouri River management, they wouldn’t compound their problems so badly.

President Bush sure frustrates me some days

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I watched the Presidential Address tonight while working in the garage (see next post) and heard something again that really ticked me off. Again, he referred to the terrorists as practicing a perverted, radical form of Islam. I sure hope he knows better… and that someday he’ll just come out and say the truth?

I’m a fundamentalist Christian. I read my Bible every day, work to memorize key verses, believe it’s the inspired word of God, and I do my best to live my life accordingly. I’m not a “radical” Christian, although in these days of prosperity preaching and the church growth movement, Christians who actually read their Bible do tend to stand out. But I’m taking my faith at its fundamentals by reading the “instruction manual” that God provided, putting my faith and trust in it, and doing my best to conform my life to God’s teachings in it.

These terrorists are fundamentalist Muslims. They read and memorize the Koran. They believe it’s the inspired words of their god allah and his prophet. They do their best to follow the teachings in it. They are not radical Muslims, they’re just reading the instruction manual that mohammed gave them, and trying to follow it.

How many Christians do you know that are sold out for their faith… witnessing to people, eagerly giving their testimony, and trying to tell others of their need for Jesus Christ as their savior? Certainly not the majority of them. But that’s what God wants us to do: the great commission, as it’s called, is to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” While any Christians who do that may stand out in this day and age, they’re the only ones doing what God told them to do.

The same thing pertains to the terrorists. They think a god told them to convert people to their twisted religion, by the sword if necessary. And, while they’re mistaken, they’re doing just what the book they read tells them to do. They might stand out from the millions of peaceful Muslims out there…but if one uses the Koran to judge them, they’re the ones who are really practicing it.

Political correctness will be our undoing. When grandmas are pulled aside and searched while middle Eastern men are given a pass so as not to offend them, then we’re sunk. If we can’t refer to our enemy as what he truly is, then we’ll never defeat him.

Oh, and one more aside; if we figure that these terrorists are just a minority among the nations of Islam, we’re fooling ourselves. Look at all the hate that’s being taught in mosques all around the world, including in our own country. And we’d be naive to think that the peaceful Muslims will make a difference; have you EVER heard a representative of Islam condemn a terrorist act against the West? Never. CAIR is proof that they realize how to beat us over the head with our own politically correct sensitivities. Well, if the “moderate Muslims” here and abroad won’t even speak out against terrorism now, what makes anyone think they’ll make a difference when things get worse?

President Bush: If you really think that it’s a perverted version of Islam that we’re fighting, get better advisors. If you know the truth, please say it. America’s ready to hear it. Take a stand and call on CAIR and other such groups to denounce terrorism… we all know they won’t. Let’s make them show their true colors instead of being afraid to point them out.

Path to 9/11

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I watched the latter part of the ABC docudrama last night as well as the finale tonight, in the garage while putting up new garage doors. There’s been so much buzz about this movie on both sides; conservatives say it’s finally time to highlight the fact that terrorists do want to strike our country, and the liberals are mad that someone would dare insinuate that their favorite son, Bill Clinton, could have done more. Talk about a charged environment! I decided to watch objectively, and here’s what I got from it.

First off, the point of this movie was that the federal government is unable, as such a huge bureaucracy, to get out of its own way in the war on terrorism. It didn’t portray either administration in a stellar light. In fact, Richard Clarke comes out looking like somewhat of a Paul Revere character, and he’s no friend to the Bush administration. But it was obvious that more could be done in both administrations.

Second, it illustrated that terrorism is nothing new to the United States, and it’s not going to go away. If we were to continue to turn the other cheek after every attack, as the Clinton administration did, they wouldn’t stop attacking us and our interests. In fact, the way we cut and ran in Somalia was one thing that emboldened them, and they’ve said so. Anyone who says that “George Bush is making new terrorists” is off their rocker.

Third, and perhaps most profound, is the reaction to the film before it had even aired. The same people which cry out for civil rights, terrorists’ rights, free speech rights, abortion rights… pretty much every type of rights except religious rights, were the ones threatening the broadcast licenses of the ABC stations for airing this! You want government censorship? Look at the behavior of the Democrats in Washington! Can you imagine if President Bush had asked Michael Moore to edit his piece of drivel, Fahrenheit 9/11? People would be screaming about the first amendment and calling Bush a fascist. Well, they call him that anyway, but they’re insane.

It was as interesting to watch the reaction to this movie as it was to watch the movie itself. It’s amazing how people circled the wagons around former President Clinton. You can write books and make movies about the assassination of George W. Bush, but you don’t dare point out the record of the Clinton administration. Isn’t that crazy?

The movie was entertaining. It was a good reminder of a lot of things. It also allowed a lot of people to show their true colors, before the film even aired. I hope people learn as big a lesson from that as they do from this or other 9/11 coverage.

I also think that, while we should not give the terrorists any credence in treating this as a day of mourning, we should never forget what happened that day. We need to see the planes hitting the towers. We need to see the people jumping out the windows to get out of the flames. We need to see the towers come down. There are so many people out there trying to pretend that it never happened that we need to emphasize that it did.

I had a friend who got off the Boston flight just before it boarded with new passengers and took off for the last time. A friend of mine with a White House job recalled seeing some of the hijackers in a restaurant a few days before they executed their plan. As Americans we all have a connection to the attacks, because they were meant to strike at our way of life. Most of the people that protest the war live lifestyles completely incompatible with the Sharia law that fundamentalist Muslims want to impose on the world. But they’ll never face that reality. It’s up to the rest of us to make sure we never forget.

Kristin Hedger is lying to you (yes, she’s a Democrat)

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On the news tonight I was surprised to see the Democrat candidate for ND Secretary of State trying to propagate more lies that somewhat involve work I’ve done. I sat quiet the first time, but this time I’m calling her on it.

Tonight’s ballyhoo was about how the Secretary of State’s office has confused people into thinking they need a driver’s license to vote, and how suddenly people are approaching her to say they’re scared they can’t vote without a driver’s license. She implies that the Secretary of State’s Office is putting out false or incomplete information. That’s nonsense, and something specifically tackled by a series of voting videos produced by the Secretary of State’s Office and edited & animated by yours truly. These videos are produced for county officials and anyone else who wants them, for education purposes. The plan is that they’ll allow county officials to get up to speed so they can educate voters and answer their questions, and educate voters too…they work for everyone. Tackling voter education is the best way to increase turnout, and the SoS provides the tools to do so.

These are just thirteen of the graphics I made for those videos indicating what counts as valid ID, stressing the need for a street address to vote in the proper precinct. These videos also stress that it is possible to vote without ID, and how. The audio of the videos repeats the information multiple times, with vignettes illustrating different circumstances. What’s so confusing about that, Kristin?

What Kristin is probably really upset about is that Secretary Al Jaeger thwarted her attempt to take credit for it on behalf of the Democrats of North Dakota. In a June 19th letter to the editor of the Fargo Forum, she praised the videos and said they were the “product of legislation initiated by North Dakota’s national delegation in Washington, D.C.” Secretary Jaeger then set the record straight in a followup letter to the Forum editor the following weekend. And while federal legislation made funds available, the current Secretary of State (not Conrad, Pomeroy, or Dorgan) is the one who took on the effort and produced the videos. Besides, the President signed it into law with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress. He gets the blame for every law the Dems don’t like…can’t he get any credit for the ones they do?

So then Kristin flattered herself to say that the videos were an “answer to her comments” about youth voting in ND. These videos were initiated long before anyone ever cared who Kristin Hedger is, as if anyone does now. People from all over put months of work into producing them, and their hard work shows. Heck, even in news articles online and her own press releases, Kristin praises the videos. But of course, she says, more must be done. As if the current SoS is sitting in an ivory tower at 600 East Boulevard.

There were a lot of talented people from a lot of different entities that cooperated to produce these videos. I was privileged to work with those people, yet their hard labor is only a tool for Kristin and her political ambitions. One of these videos targets the youth voter, one targets the elderly voter, and one targets all voters. Yet another helps educate pollworkers on the special needs of voters with disabilities. These are all good educational tools…so good, in fact, that I’m working on similar videos for OTHER states because they have seen what North Dakota’s SoS has done. Our work is not good enough for Kristin Hedger, though.

Kristin, if you expect anyone to take you seriously, don’t go after an incumbent with the usual Democrat ploys. Come up with something on your own and build yourself up, don’t try to knock someone else down. And quit trying to build a campaign using someone else’s hard work for it; it exposes you for the small person that you are. See you in November.

Rode the Suzuki to the bay, but the bay was dry.

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I no longer fish and I don’t own a boat, but even I know of a nice little place south of Bismarck that used to be really good for both: Beaver Bay, where Beaver Creek meets the once-mighty Missouri. A few days ago I had an opportunity to blast down there on the motorcycle, so I paid the place a visit to see if things are still as bad as I feared. They are. That grassy area across the road from the sign? That should be water.

This used to be shore line, as you can see. It is reinforced with rocks, but now all those rocks do is bake in the sun. I had no problem finding a camping spot in which to stop and drink the water I’d brought. This is a great campground and recreation area…it’s too bad there’s no water to draw people here. I did see a couple of campers, but for the most part this place was a ghost town.

You can’t even SEE any real water from the boat dock; just a little flow of creek that’s cut its way through to the river along a winding path. I can’t imagine when the last time a boat was even loaded or unloaded on this dock; the Army Corps of Engineers has mismanaged the upper Missouri system for so long, it would be hard to guess.

Being a man of appetite, I was especially distraught that Bosch’s Bayside had closed. This was my favorite place to stop in for a bacon double cheeseburger…and it’s closed. I believe it closed around this time last year, but I can’t be sure. Who knows what could happen if the lake ever comes back…but for now, there’s just no way a place like this can survive. It’s sad. Maybe if they were pushing barges across the river, the Corps would listen to them…but I doubt it.

The natural way to follow up all this investigatin’ was to jet over to Linton and grab a pizza at the Hot Spot pizza place. This is a typical small-town restaurant: video games unplugged, Bismarck radio playing, locals hanging out or passing through for ice cream. I talked to one older fella briefly about how warm it is in a full leather suit on a sunny day, then had a little homemade pizza and cranked up the iPod.

This drive is one of my all time favorites…I just wish there was a happier story to tell at the end of the road. Lake Oahe and the are to the north of it are hurting badly…so badly, in fact, that the Corps is actually responding in trying to bring the water levels up. That means, of course, that they’re letting water out of Lake Sakakawea. While we may see that as a bad sign, maybe it’s a sign that they’re finally taking notice of the dire situation in the lakes of the upper Missouri system. Can we be a little optimistic about that?

I may have unwittingly committed a federal offense this weekend

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On this weekend’s motorcycle ride I pulled to the side of the road to take some pictures. As I kneeled down on the pavement to open my camera bag, I saw and collected this item: a 5/16″ Craftsman 1/4″ drive deep-well socket.

Would you like to know something silly? If you didn’t, you wouldn’t visit this blog daily. Depending on what part of the road I picked this up, and who owned it, I may have committed a federal offense. This is pursuant to the Antiquities Act of 1906, Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, and Title 36 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Here’s a sample.

For example, if I’m walking along the river or a part of the river bottoms that’s exposed by water due to this year’s drought, I don’t dare pick up anything I find. Regardless of the fact that said “artifact” may have been under water for a hundred years, and may be under water for a hundred more when/if the water comes back, I don’t dare disturb it… at the risk of a federal penalty!

I think that if the indigenous people that left tools and other things strewn all over the countryside cared at all about those “artifacts,” they would not have been left scattered about in the first place. These days it’s called “littering.”

So technically, if this was on a US (ie, federal) highway and the owner of this “tool” as termed in the ARPA 1979 is of native American descent, I’ve committed a federal offense of a most heinous nature. As for that…I’m not telling.

If you’ve ever been on federal land, you’ve probably seen these signs. I’m told that they take them quite seriously. So be careful what you pick up on federal land…if some indigenous person lays claim to it, you could find yourself in a heap of trouble.

The farm where my dad grew up has been pillaged for “artifacts” for almost 50 years. I wonder if there’s a law protecting us? There’s pretty much nothing left of the old farm implements and other items which were stored out there. Or don’t we deserve a federal regulation? Do we have no history or heritage to protect? Not according to any law I’m aware of.

Senator Dorgan book signing in Bismarck

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So there I was…minding my own business, sitting on the floor of Barnes and Noble and perusing Photoshop books. As if I don’t already own enough. Then I noticed a lot of foot traffic around me as people started to pile in for Senator Byron Dorgan’s book signing.

I took a couple of pictures out of curiosity, but I’m not a news service. I did, however, take the opportunity to take a look through a copy of the Senator’s book, “Take This Job and Ship It.” I’m a speed reader, so I plowed through it pretty quickly. It’s a light but enjoyable read, with lots of anecdotes in it that are a good read but typically have a sad ending.

I can’t say that I disagree wholly with the Senator or much of his book, actually. I vote Republican on moral and economic grounds and shudder at the thought of the Dorgans of this nation getting control of the government. I do, however, agree that he does make some good points in this book. Those points entail where the system isn’t working, and he’s got lots of anecdotal evidence to back it up. But that’s where our agreement ends. You see, Senator Dorgan has some pretty bad ideas about how to solve the outsourcing of jobs.

One of these brilliant ideas is an increase in labor unions. Labor unions are driving jobs out of this country…look at the airline and auto industries! Car manufacturers pay more per car for employee benefits than they do for the steel to make it. Meanwhile, union employees at General Motors get paid to NOT work. Literally. I was a union shop steward…I saw stoners get paid as much as (or more) for screwing around than guys who wanted to work hard and stay at their job for the long term. Unions don’t work any better than welfare. They cost a lot of money, nobody gets rich because they have a union job, and unions kill any incentive to work hard. Thus the unions are part of the problem, not the solution.

I remember hearing a story of a guy who got fired at Melroe for stealing tools, saw blades and drill bits, or something like that. As the story goes, by the time the union was done with Melroe, the guy was back on the job, with back pay to boot! Tell me again how labor unions make America great.

One problem he does NOT go anywhere near in the book, to my recollection, is illegal immigration. Back in Washington he did, however, try to attach an amendment to the Immigration Reform bill to limit worker eligibility. But his colleagues didn’t like that, and it failed when put to a vote. Why he can’t represent his state and take a hard line against illegals entirely is no secret; he’s towing the party line.

I agree with the Senator that it’s awful when the United States sells out to China, with its awful human rights record and all. But let’s not forget, the President he defended from 1992 to 2000 sold military secrets to China and tried to sweep it under the rug. Then Senator Dorgan attempts to hint at President Bush and the Republicans being the problem. He doesn’t do it outright, though… apparently someone reminded him how this state votes when it comes to Presidents and state legislators.

It’s one thing for Senator Dorgan to write a book outlining these problems, and another for him to vote the way his book makes him sound. By the way, 92% of his campaign money comes from OUTSIDE of North Dakota. From those evil corporations AND labor unions, too. Instead of voting with North Dakotans, he votes with ultra-liberals such as Ted Kennedy 82.8% of the time; John Kerry 88.5% of the time; and Chuck Schumer 95.8% of the time.

He does try to throw a bunch of this at the feet of the Republicans…but let’s be honest: all of Washington’s finest are up to their elbows in it. Al Gore owns oil stock while he’s out there telling us little people to stop using petroleum. Ned Lamont tells us little people that Wal Mart is unfair, yet personally purchased enough of Wal Mart’s stock to pay off most of my house. Hillary Clinton has the same anti-Wal Mart rant when she’s talking to her faithful, yet she served on the Wal Mart board of directors. Washington’s broke all around, and it isn’t the Democrats who are going to fix it.

A promise should be kept

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This is a picture from 1948, when tribal chairman George Gillette wept after signing away the best of the reservation lands to the Corps of Engineers. They were paid a paltry sum for the land, denied mineral and shoreline rights, and promised a health care center that never materialized. Sounds consistent with our track record of keeping promises made with indigenous peoples, doesn’t it?

This picture has always stuck in my mind because it illustrates an important point: when we think of treaties broken before the ink was dry, or other consistent mistreatment of the Native American people, we tend to think of the US Cavalry dealing with people still living in tipis or earth lodges. As you can see, that isn’t so. My parents were alive when this last one happened…maybe some of you were as well.

I got the opportunity to work with Tex Hall again this week, who’s the chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes. I asked him about this health care center that was supposed to be built, and he indicated that Senator Dorgan actually pulled some appropriations strings to get the ball rolling. Like Chairman Hall told Senator Dorgan, this isn’t an appopriations priority…this is a promise. A promise made almost sixty years ago.

I can only think of a few ways in which I’m not proud of my country, and its broken promises are one of them. This is one that hopefully will be rectified in the near future. A promise should be kept.

I should be under water

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…or treading it, at least. This picture was taken while I was standing in what used to be Lake Sakakawea. I actually walked over and touched those dry spillway gates…I remember water lapping over the top of them in the not-so-distant past. If memory serves me correctly, that’s over a forty foot difference.

Note the absence of Conrad, Dorgan, or Pomeroy. Note also the absence of any results of their hard fought battle (I mean, they ARE fighting for us…aren’t they?) for equity in Missouri River management between the northern states, who rely on its lakes for tourism, and the southern states, who rely on it for floating casinos and barges.

Yes, I know there’s a lot of talk about the barge industry…but that barge industry doesn’t account for a fraction of the combined financial interest of the northern states’ tourism and hospitality industries. But the riverboat casinos? They’ve got a little more dollars attached. I have a friend who, while he worked in the gaming industry, clued me in to that little tidbit when this debate first started raging a few years ago. I haven’t seen one mention of it in the newspapers.

The next time our congressional delegation start tooting their collective or individual horns about what they’ve done for the state, please invite them to come to Riverdale and play in the state’s largest sandbox.