who is the real thug?
TRANSCRIPT
THE PRESS DAKOTANTHE DAKOTAS’ OLDEST NEWSPAPER | FOUNDED 1861
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OPINION | OTHER THOUGHTS
Ethanol QuestionsAnd Answers
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them willfall to the ground apart from your Father. Matthew 10:29. Portals ofPrayer, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis
F RO M T H E B I B L E
By The Associated PressToday is Monday, Nov. 25, the
329th day of 2013. There are 36 daysleft in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History: OnNov. 25, 1963, the body of PresidentJohn F. Kennedy was laid to rest at Ar-lington National Cemetery; his widow,first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, lightedan “eternal flame” at the gravesite.
On this date: In 1783, the Britishevacuated New York, their last militaryposition in the United States duringthe Revolutionary War.
In 1908, the first issue of TheChristian Science Monitor was pub-lished.
In 1940, the cartoon characterWoody Woodpecker made his debutin the animated short “Knock Knock.”
In 1952, the play “The Mousetrap,”a murder mystery by Agatha Christie,first opened in London’s West End; itis the longest continuously runningshow in history.
In 1957, President Dwight D.Eisenhower suffered a slight stroke.
In 1973, Greek President GeorgePapadopoulos was ousted in a blood-less military coup.
In 1980, Sugar Ray Leonard re-gained the World Boxing Council wel-terweight championship whenRoberto Duran abruptly quit in theeighth round at the Louisiana Super-dome.
In 1986, the Iran-Contra affairerupted as President Ronald Reaganand Attorney General Edwin Meeserevealed that profits from secret armssales to Iran had been diverted toNicaraguan rebels.
In 1999, five-year-old Elian Gon-zalez was rescued by a pair of sportfishermen off the coast of Florida, set-ting off an international custody battle.
In 2001, as the war in Afghanistanentered its eighth week, CIA officerJohnny “Mike” Spann was killed dur-ing a prison uprising in Mazar-e-Sharif, becoming America’s firstcombat casualty of the conflict.
In 2002, President George W.Bush signed legislation creating theDepartment of Homeland Securityand appointed Tom Ridge to be itshead.
Ten years ago: The Senate gavefinal congressional approval to historicMedicare legislation combining a newprescription drug benefit with meas-ures to control costs before the babyboom generation reaches retirementage. Yemen arrested MohammedHamdi al-Ahdal, a top al-Qaida mem-ber suspected of masterminding the2000 bombing of the USS Cole and
the 2002 bombing of a French oiltanker off Yemen’s coast. (Al-Ahdalwas later sentenced to three years forthe French tanker attack, but was notcharged in the Cole case.)
Five years ago: President-electBarack Obama said economic recov-ery efforts would trump deficit con-cerns after he took office in January;at the same time, Obama pledged a“page-by-page, line-by-line” budgetreview to root out unneeded spending.Former NFL quarterback Michael Vickpleaded guilty to a Virginia dogfightingcharge, receiving a three-year sus-pended sentence.
One year ago: Rioters stormed aMuslim Brotherhood headquartersbuilding in northern Egypt on the thirdday of street battles following a powergrab by President Mohammed Morsi.YouTube announced that “GangnamStyle,” by South Korean rapper PSY,had become the site’s most viewedvideo of all time, with more than 805million viewings.
Today’s Birthdays: Actress NoelNeill is 93. Playwright Murray Schisgalis 87. Actress Kathryn Crosby is 80.Actor Matt Clark is 77. Actor Christo-pher Riordan is 76. Singer PercySledge is 73. Pro Football Hall ofFame coach Joe Gibbs is 73. Author,actor and economist Ben Stein is 69.Singer Bob Lind is 69. Actor John Lar-roquette is 66. Actor Tracey Walter is66. Movie director Jonathan Kaplan is66. Author Charlaine Harris is 62. Re-tired MLB All-Star Bucky Dent is 62.Dance judge Bruno Tonioli (TV: “Danc-ing with the Stars”) is 58. Singer AmyGrant is 53. Former NFL quarterbackBernie Kosar is 50. Rock musicianEric Grossman (K’s Choice) is 49.Rock singer Mark Lanegan is 49.Rock singer-musician Tim Armstrongis 48. Actor Steve Harris is 48. ActorBilly Burke is 47. Singer Stacy Latti-saw is 47. Rock musician RodneySheppard (Sugar Ray) is 47. Rapper-producer Erick Sermon is 45. ActressJill Hennessy is 44. Actress ChristinaApplegate is 42. Actor Eddie Steeplesis 40. NFL quarterback Donovan Mc-Nabb is 37. Actor Joel Kinnaman is34. Actress Valerie Azlynn (TV: “Sulli-van & Son”) is 33. Former first daugh-ter Barbara Bush is 32. Former firstdaughter Jenna Bush Hager is 32. Ac-tress Katie Cassidy is 27. Contempo-rary Christian singer Jamie Grace is22.
Thought for Today: “Reject ha-tred without hating.” -- Mary BakerEddy, American religious leader andfounder of The Christian ScienceMonitor (1821-1910).
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* * * BY BOB MERCERState Capitol Bureau
PIERRE — There’s no good way to measurethe true breadth and depth of the opposition tothe Common Core standards that will be usedin South Dakota’s public schools to measurestudents’ academic achievement.
But it was a strong sign when a busload ofangry people from the Sioux Falls area showedup at the state Board of Education meeting inPierre a few days ago. They demand SouthDakota withdraw.
At its roots, the opposition movement isstirred to action by a common hatred for Presi-dent Barack Obama. Common Core is seen asan evil perpetrated upon the nation by Obama’sadministration.
But Common Core’s start came in 2007through the National Governors Association.That was two years before Obama took office.
The governors wanted a common set ofstandards to measure their states relative toeach other. Common Core was to be that. Eachstate’s elected leaders could decide whether touse Common Core.
The desire for the uniform standards was inresponse to No Child Left Behind, the federalaccountability program that measured studentand school performance.
The 2001 legislation passed by Congress wassigned into law by President George W. Bush onJan. 8, 2002. That was six years before Obama.
National Governors Association staff over-saw the Common Core initiative. In SouthDakota, the state Department of Education con-sidered adoption for two years.
In December 2010, during then-Gov. MikeRounds’ last month in office, the state Board ofEducation adopted Common Core.
The Common Core math and language stan-
dards and the Common Core assessments arenow the replacement South Dakota will use forthe Dakota STEP assessment. The state Depart-ment of Education had developed and usedDakota STEP under NCLB.
The plan by the state board and the statedepartment calls for schools across SouthDakota to administer Common Core assess-ments to students this school year as a trialrun.
South Dakota received a waiver from NCLBfor the current school year from the U.S. De-partment of Education. The state department ispreparing to seek a second waiver.
The state department’s plans for meetingthe federal government’s requirements in theNCLB waiver involve using Common Core. ButCommon Core wasn’t forced on South Dakota.
South Dakota could have stayed under NCLBand suffered federal interference and penalties.Approximately one-fourth of students weren’table to reach proficient or advanced levels onDakota STEP.
The movement against Common Core inSouth Dakota is part of a national uprising. Inthe 2013 legislative session, the House of Repre-sentatives voted 36-32 to require the state De-partment of Education to receive theLegislature’s approval before adopting any fur-ther Common Core standards.
The legislation was sponsored by Rep. JimBolin, R-Canton. He planned to run for the Re-publican nomination for the state office of landscommissioner in 2014, but he put that ambitionon hold this fall so he could organize againstCommon Core.
Senators killed Bolin’s bill, HB 1204. Don’t besurprised, however, if busloads of CommonCore opponents pack the 2014 session this win-ter demanding South Dakota withdraw.
Capitol Notebook
Common Core ProgramIs Not An ‘Obama Plot’
Marijuana’s FutureRandy Gleich, Yankton
Legalized pot, in Washington, seems tosoon be a reality. This year Washington D.C.(District of Columbia) is looking to decriminal-ize marijuana. Sixteen states have already de-criminalized first time possession. WashingtonD.C. has three dispensaries and three cultiva-tion centers. Basically 1 ounce of pot or lesslooks like the fine would be around $25 or nomore than a parking ticket, not worthy of thelocal police to pursue it.
I’m sure this will be a hot topic for the 2014South Dakota Legislature. Proponents suggestit is ridiculous to incarcerate individuals forsuch a small fraction, when there are morepressing concerns our police could focus on.They state it would also relieve the courts andlaw enforcement offices from an already over-burden system.
I do not support the use of marijuana; how-ever, the country seems to support this posi-tion. There are moves in Pierre to follow suit.We will have to watch and see.
BY LEONARD PITTS JR.Tribune Content Agency
With George Zimmerman out on bail lastweek after his latest run-in with police,it seems an opportune time to discussthe second killing of Trayvon Martin.
The first, of course, has been dis-cussed ad infinitum since Zimmermanshot the unarmed 17-year-old to deathlast year. But then Trayvon was killedagain. The conservative noise machineengaged in a ritual execution of hischaracter and worth, setting out withbreathtaking indifference to facts andcallous disregard for simple decency tomurder the memory of a dead child.
Geraldo Rivera blamed him for hisown death because he wore a hoodedsweatshirt — in the rain, yet. GlennBeck’s website suggested he mighthave been an arsonist, kidnapper or killer. RushLimbaugh made jokes about “Trayvon MartinLuther King.”
Some conservative readers even chastisedme for referring to him as a “child” or a “boy”though at 17, he was legally both. Makes himseem too sympathetic, they said. One man as-sured me, absent any evidence or, apparently,any need of it, that contrary to reports, Trayvonwas not walking to where he was staying thatday but was in fact “casing” the neighborhood.
One woman forwarded a chain email depict-ing a tough-looking, light-skinned African-Ameri-can man with tattoos on his face. It washeadlined: “The Real Trayvon Martin,” which itwasn’t. It was actually a then-32-year-old rapperwho calls himself The Game. But the messagewas clear: Trayvon was a scary black man whodeserved what he got.
I sent that woman an image of Trayvon fromthe Zimmerman trial. It shows him lying open-eyed and dead on the grass. “This is the realTrayvon,” I wrote.
It was a waste of time. “They’re both picturesof Trayvon,” she insisted. So deeply, bizarrely in-vested was she in the idea of Trayvon as thugthat she could not distinguish between a fair-skinned man with tattoos, and a brown boy withno visible markings. Literally, they all look aliketo her.
And once again, a conservative movement
which argues with airy assurance that Americanracism died long ago, disproves its thesis with itsactions.
Here, someone wants it pointed out thatTrayvon Martin was not an angel. Well,he wasn’t. He took pictures flipping thebird. He used marijuana. He was sus-pended from school at the time of hisshooting. Obviously, he needed guid-ance. The same is true of many boys.Indeed, it is rumored that there areeven white children who use mari-juana.
But here’s the thing: Why did someof us need Trayvon to be an angel inthe first place? Why did they feel sucha pressing urgency to magnify — andmanufacture — his failings? Why was itso important to them to make him un-worthy of sympathy?
It is a question that assumes newpotency the more we see of George
Zimmerman. On the day he shot Trayvon, thishero of the conservative noise machine, thisrighteous white Hispanic man who was, they say,just standing his ground, already had a recordthat included an accusation he attacked an un-dercover police officer. That same year — 2005— a woman sought a restraining order againsthim, alleging domestic violence.
In September, Zimmerman had a fresh run-inwith police over a domestic violence accusationby his estranged wife. In this latest episode, agirlfriend said he pulled a gun on her. In court,she said that once, he even tried to choke her.
Granted, none of these charges has been ad-judicated, but there is certainly a pattern here. Itought to give decent people pause and the con-servative noise machine shame — assuming it iscapable of that emotion. That pattern paints inneon the machine’s willful blindness, the reflex-ive alacrity with which it assigns the thug labelto the black kid — and innocence to the whiteman.
Well, look again. George Zimmerman seemsawfully darn thuggish to me.
Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The MiamiHerald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Read-ers may contact him via e-mail at [email protected].
© 2013, The Miami Herald
Who Is The Real Thug?
Leonard
PITTS
RAPID CITY JOURNAL (Nov. 20): The Renewable Fuels Stan-dard was created by Congress in 2005 and required oil companiesto add ethanol to gasoline. Beginning with a 4 billion gallon re-quirement in 2006, the following year President George W. Bushcalled for increasing the amount of renewable and alternativefuels produced by 2017 to be 35 billion gallons.
We joined South Dakota elected officials in embracing addingethanol to fuel, first from corn and from other biofuel sources, in-cluding waste from timber operations in the Black Hills NationalForest and elsewhere.
Back then, the overriding concern was the use of a domesti-cally-produced fuel additive instead of importing more oil, includ-ing from the volatile Middle East. The RFS also provided thestate’s producers with another market for their corn crop.
The vast expansion into ethanol as fuel has had unforeseenconsequences, including higher corn prices ($1.95 a bushel in2005 to $7.13 a bushel in March 2013) that has led to an increasein prices at the grocery store and feed prices for livestock produc-ers; encouraging farmers to plow land set aside for conservationfor the more lucrative corn market, leading to fewer pheasantsand other birds and animals; and an increase in environmentaldamage caused by using more fertilizer, as detailed in a series ofAssociated Press stories carried by the Rapid City Journal andother newspapers.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced recently a re-duction in the Renewable Fuel Standard from 16.55 million gallonsto 15.21 million gallons this year.
Sens. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., and John Thune, R-S.D., blasted theEPA’s decision. “I’m very disappointed in the EPA’s announcementtoday proposing to lower the RFS targets below current levels,”Johnson said. “The ethanol industry has a $3.8 billion economicimpact in South Dakota. This proposal will negatively affect farm-ers, ethanol producers and communities throughout the state.”
With a record amount of domestic oil production and morefuel-efficient vehicles on the highways, the need for ethanol is lessthan it has been.
Despite the problems detailed by the AP series on ethanol, westill support the Renewable Fuel Standard and research into biofu-els.
We have questioned whether enough corn could be grown ordiverted to ethanol to meet the 2007 RFS of 35 million gallons ofrenewable fuels by 2017. It now appears that there is only half asmuch demand for renewable fuel additives as will be required by2017.
What happened with the push for more cellulosic ethanol pro-duced from grasses and wood chips, including forest byproductsproduced in the Black Hills? With all the questions being raisedabout corn-based ethanol, now would be a good time to push forother ethanol sources.
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