Newspapers take another hit

Just a decade ago, hardly anyone in the United States got their news from the internet. In an historic shift, some 40 percent of people looking for world news now get it from the "Worldwide Web,” which has moved ahead of newspapers as a source of news.

That’s a key research finding announced this week by The Pew Research Center for The People and the Press. Pew surveyed 1,489 adults during the first week of December and found that Television remains the top source for world news with 70 percent of respondents turning to the TV for their news fix.

While not a surprise, the growing prominence of the internet reflects the enormous plight of the newspaper industry, which continues to struggle with declining circulations and resulting drops in advertising revenue.

You’ll find complete results of the study on the Pew Research Center website.

Federal website surprisingly good

There are few things in this world more anguish-ridden than having to move a loved one into a nursing home. The emotion of the task is further complicated by the challenge of trying to choose the right place.

Almost unbelievably, the federal government has offered up a website that promises to help inject some valuable information into the process. They have boldly rated nursing homes using a Five Star scale, evaluating factors like health conditions, overall quality, and staffing.

I am most familiar with three Nebraska nursing homes, located in Chadron, Crawford, and Hay Springs. I’ve heard much about facilities in Belle Fourche and Spearfish, South Dakota, and my own anecdotal experience with these nursing homes is consistent with the government ratings found at www.medicare.gov I was not surprised that nursing homes in Belle Fourche and Crawford fared well.

Of course, there’s no substitute for scrutinizing nursing homes through a personal visit, and this website can help provide a head start in preparing for such visits. Critics may say the ratings are flawed, but we believe they are a valuable resource for persons wanting to learn more about how nursing homes stack up, and what kinds of things to look for when examining nursing home options.

South Dakota..."failed miserably"

Good friend Bill Kunerth delivered the bad news, which we somehow had managed to avoid for several weeks: South Dakota has again failed miserably in a national survey conducted by the Better Government Association. One of our continuing disappointments is the fact that, in general, South Dakota politicians place little value on open government, and this fact has come home to roost in this report. South Dakota ranks dead last among all 50 states in the 2008 BGA study, which included extensive examination of five critical areas:

Freedom of Information (FOI) Laws
Whistleblower Protection Laws
Campaign Finance Laws
Open Meetings Laws
Conflict of Interest Laws

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Here’s an excerpt from their report:

Overall, the BGA - Alper Integrity Index reveals that states have taken a patchwork approach towards promoting integrity which indicates a lack of the proper amount of concern regarding integrity and corruption. The BGA hopes that this study will help spark a renewed focus and debate on these issues in all the states and ultimately lead to the improvement of the laws we reviewed...

The top five states in our survey were New Jersey, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Washington and Louisiana. The bottom five states were Montana, Tennessee, Alabama, Vermont and South Dakota. The top five states tended to do well relative to their sister states across all the laws while the bottom five under-performed or failed miserably across all the laws we reviewed.

You can find all the gruesome details on-line at BGA-Alper Integrity Index.

We don’t believe there’s widespread corruption in South Dakota government, but it would be naïve to think it doesn’t exist. What should alarm citizens is the fact that conditions exist that readily foster corruption and malfeasance. The BGA study was “conceived as a tool to describe the extent to which each state has protected itself against possible corruption and made its processes open and accountable to its citizens.”

South Dakota has so much about which it can be proud. Open government is not one of them. With a lot of encouragement from interested citizens, perhaps the 2009 legislature will move aggressively to turn this around. There’s no better place to start than by revisiting Senator Nancy Turbak Berry's open records bill that was scuttled by legislative leaders last year.

Barney & Chris....but where's the media?

As we've continued to monitor the bailout of banks, insurance companies, and now the automobile industry, it truly does make one wonder: where does it end?

I remain heartened by the voting of Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, South Dakota's at-large U.S. Representative, who seems to "get it" regarding proposed bailouts. In any event, she is smart enough to know that a huge number of her constituents are appalled at the notion of constantly going to the taxpayers to "solve" problems created largely by these industries themselves. Once again, she has wisely voted to reject a bailout, despite her colleagues passing the $14 billion package.

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Consumers have not been entirely innocent in this nonsense. Many Americans have bought in to the notion that we are "entitled" to houses we can't afford, luxury cars that say more about who we want to be than who we are, and that personal responsibility is a cute notion -- but outdated.

We all share some responsibility for our national financial woes. Some more than others. I am amazed at how quickly the media has glossed over the conflicts of interest involving key politicians who've enjoyed cozy relationships and profitable perks from the industries they now want to bail out. That would be a cue for these two characters: U.S. Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who wields too much unchecked power as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

While they feign making things tough for their wealthy friends in finance and the monied moguls back in Detroit, their own complicity with those screaming for bailouts is deafening.

Let us hope that the "plain folks" back in their Massachusetts and Connecticut districts will one day soon overcome the power and influence of monied interests and send these two bureaucrats packing. They've fed at the public trough -- without much accountablity -- far too long.

We remain hopeful that the Senate will do an about face from its previous position on bailouts and banish the idea of an auto industry bailout to where it belongs -- the auto junkyard.

Easier to ask forgiveness...

It might have been retired Navy Commodore Mac Gleim – a fellow native Nebraskan – who first told me about “Wrong-Way Corrigan” back in the early 1960s.

Gleim was a pilot in Navy Attack Squadron 172, and I was the Flight Records Yeoman. I spent a lot of time in our squadron “Ready Room,” where I vividly remember first hearing the astounding story of one Douglas Corrigan.

It seems Corrigan was a talented aircraft mechanic and pilot who aspired to fly the North Atlantic, just like his hero, Charles Lindbergh, had done some years earlier. Corrigan worked for Ryan Aeornautical Company in San Diego and had been involved in helping modify Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis” for its 1927 trans-Atlantic flight.

Despite Corrigan’s continuing request for federal permission to make the grueling flight, he never received approval. And so it was he took off from Floyd Bennett field in Brooklyn one foggy July morning in 1937, supposedly en route home to California. He was flying a Curtiss Robin OX5 monoplane.

The rest of the story gets even more interesting…and that's no blarney!

Spearfish friend Don Matthesen passed along information about Lowell "Wrongway" Ferguson, who was piloting his Western Airlines 737 plane to Sheridan, Wyoming, but ended up in nearby Buffalo. That was back in July of 1979, and Buffalo now celebrates the event each year. You can visit Jol Silversmith's website to learn about other airline misdirections.

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Visit Wikipedia to learn more about Douglas Corrigan.