Lucky to be an American

Every so often, we happen across a news item or video that captures our attention.

Such was the case earlier today when good Nebraska friend Con Marshall sent us a video link by Baxter Black.

He may not be very well know in urban settings, but Baxter Black is something of a household word across rural America. He's been sharing his insight and down-home common sense for several decades now, and we first became acquainted with his work while living in Oklahoma and working for public radio. Baxter Black had earned a regular spot on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition," which was trying to find an audience, just as "All Things Considered" had done many years earlier.

A native of the southwest, Baxter is usually identified as a "cowboy, poet, philosopher, and former large animal veterinarian."

We like what he has to say in this produced video -- and it's vintage Baxter Black. Left or right. Conservative or liberal. Baxter's words should be an inspiration for all. Enjoy.

What are we going to do about it?

By LORRAINE COLLINS

After the latest tragedy in which a seriously mentally ill person murdered random citizens engaged in peaceful pursuit in Tucson, there is finally some attention being paid to the fact that there is little or no protection in this country for the mentally ill, or for those who may be fatally impacted by this lack of protection and help. Families like mine, who have encountered all the difficulties and impossibilities of trying to get help for the mentally ill, may finally have some hope for somebody else's future, even if it's too late for us.

There are several reasons why there is so little help for the mentally ill in this rich and powerful country. To go back in history a bit, in many countries it used to be possible for a person to be involuntarily committed to a mental institution with little or no due process. In the Soviet Union, political dissidents were sent to mental hospitals. Before women had many rights anywhere, a husband could declare his wife crazy and off she'd go. Anybody who didn't conform to social norms could be regarded as insane. To correct this situation, in the 1960's in the U.S. the rules were changed and suddenly mental hospitals were emptied in the name of Civil Rights.

That was good, except no provisions were made to give help and take care of those who were seriously mentally ill. Governmental units were pleased to get rid of the expense of caring for the mentally ill and closed mental hospitals. Unfortunately, this seems to have resulted in spending more money on building prisons. The statistics are astonishing, but it seems that 70% of juveniles in jails and prisons have at least one mental illness and at least 20% of inmates in adult prisons are mentally ill. 

Laws make it difficult for families to get help because many times these laws are based on the Tombstone Theory. That is, until the mentally ill person does something awful, such as bringing a gun to school and killing people, there's no way to involuntarily commit him to a hospital where he could get help. In many states a parent or caregiver has to go to court to declare their loved one a danger to himself or others in order to get him committed. This is a very difficult experience to go through.

And in the end, the stay in the mental hospital doesn't last long. The average stay at the Human Services center in Yankton, SD is 15 days. In my experience, that's typical. The person is stabilized, is back in his right mind, compliant, and the crisis is over. He can be referred to other outpatient services and everyone wishes him well. On C-Span's "Washington Journal" earlier this month, Michael Fitzpatrick, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) said that most mentally ill people are taken care of at home, by parents, spouses, siblings because there is nowhere else for them to go. When they leave home, which they often do, they are homeless, wandering America. Fitzpatrick said we must have "public discourse and education" on the problems of mental illness in this country.

In terms of being able to get someone help whether he wants it or not, Arizona seems to have more effective laws than many, but people don't know what the law is, don't have access to help, and of course the budget for mental health in Arizona has been very sharply cut in recent years. One report said it was cut 65%.

 Help for the mentally ill is generally in the hands of states and counties, so how much help families can get depends on where they live and how much state legislators and county commissioners are willing and able to spend. Fitzpatrick said that half of the mentally ill people in the U.S. get no help at all, and that untreated mental illness has a tremendous impact on the community. He called this a national tragedy. It's a tragedy for families, too.  So, what are we going to do about it?

Lorraine Collins is a writer who lives in Spearfish. She can be reached at collins1@rushmore.com.

Expiration dates

By LORRAINE COLLINS

On New Year's Eve, I pulled a container of whipped topping from the freezer and saw that it said that if it was frozen, I should use it by December 21. I was ten days overdue! Should I use it, or not? A few days earlier, I'd found a can of sliced mushrooms that said it was "best" by October 3. Oops! Should I use them or not? If it wasn't "best" was it still edible? It came all the way from China, so I thought not.

I prefer dealing with fresh produce because it's pretty easy to tell if a head of lettuce or an apple is too old to be usable, or a carton of milk or cottage cheese. But canned, frozen and packaged goods are something else. I really hate to waste the product, but when I read the expiration date of something that's lingered too long in cupboard or freezer I worry whether, if I use the product, I'll be advancing my own expiration date.

How long is too long? That's the question, isn't it? Not only in food safety, but in life, love, professional football careers, reality TV shows, Royal Dynasties and living in a hospital bed attached to tubes and a respirator. Serious questions demand sober and thoughtful answers. I can in good conscience reluctantly throw away outdated food, but getting rid of out dated ideas has proved much more difficult for me and for many different societies over time.

Meanwhile, on a less philosophical level, we do have the current South Dakota Legislative Session to think about, and it does have a definite expiration date. That date is March 28th. It has a shelf life of 38 days and it has many things to accomplish during that time. The United States Congress, which also recently began its countdown to expiration, has two years before it turns sour, or so we hope.

At this point, we really don't know what the situation will be by time these governmental expiration dates arrive and so far as I know, there's no guarantee of quality or purity of product. It would be kind of nice to have some agency like those protecting us from poisonous food or dangerous products to examine various bills and call for those that are frivolous, poorly conceived, or based on a personal agenda to be voluntarily recalled. The Legislature wastes a lot of time dealing with bills that should never have been filed in the first place.

We know that in our state government there are expiration dates called term limits and there has been some argument about whether these are good for our democracy or not. Theoretically, term limits encourage more people to run for office to be involved in our government, but in practice when somebody's term is up in the House he or she runs for the Senate, or vice versa. And we've recently seen that when one Constitutional Officer is term-limited, he can just get  appointed to another office, so government in Pierre becomes a game of musical chairs for those already in the game.

This year we saw again that elections serve as term limits in some cases and it can be said that this is the best kind of term limitation. Some years ago, South Dakota wanted to put term limits on our Congressional representatives but this was seen as unconstitutional. In fact, the ballot box has proved to be a pretty good substitute for any term limiting law.

On the whole, I think that if we need expiration dates on anything, it's political campaigns because shortening them would reduce the influence of money. If we can't get that, maybe we in the electorate should make it clear that our patience and tolerance for outrageous lies, accusations and distortions does have an expiration date. And that's today.   If we make that clear, it might improve the quality of the product. And it's certainly something we aren't going to import from China.

Lorraine Collins is a writer who lives in Spearfish. She can be reached at collins1@rushmore.com          

Remembering our way to the future

By LORRAINE COLLINS

There was a very interesting segment on the CBS  program "Sixty Minutes" recently when viewers were introduced to a handful of people who could literally remember every day of their lives. If they were asked to remember a day like July 23rd 2006, for instance, they could tell you whether it was a Tuesday or a Friday, whether it rained that day, who they talked to, what they had for lunch and so forth. 

Of course this is hard to verify, so scientific investigators asked about things they remembered on dates that can be historically documented and in every case the people with this incredible and somewhat frightening ability could recall that day instantly and exactly.

When asked how they could do this, they said they didn't know. Just ask them about a day they'd lived through some years ago and suddenly they "saw" that day and re-experienced it. They didn't particularly want to, but they did. Some of the instantly remembered days made them feel whatever emotion they had felt that day--sadness or joy. Subsequent MRI examinations revealed that there were some differences in the brains of these people and the rest of us.

Memory is a mysterious thing and losing it can be devastating both for individual people and for societies. I've been thinking of this, now that we are approaching the end of another year, because this is when the media attempts to sum up the year, decide what was most important, what good and bad things happened, to record it for posterity. I suppose that's inevitable and it does help fill pages in newspapers and magazines and many hours on television and radio. The trouble is, I'm not sure we are all remembering the same things in the same way.

For instance, some of us may remember that the last Legislature succeeded in balancing  the budget but others of us will remember that to do so they had to use federal stimulus funds and cut state aid to public schools. Some of us may remember all the fun and profit the annual Sturgis Rally brought to the Hills, while others of us remember the noise and inconvenience. While some people are remembering that we are assured the recession hasn't hit South Dakota as hard as other states and that we have a good economic climate here, others may remember that eight of the poorest ten counties in the United States are within our borders.

In other words, I tend to think we often remember what we want to remember and forget things we don't want to pay attention to. Maybe that's the only way we can function much of the time or we'd get bogged down in regret and uncertainty.

Yet, as we approach another New Year, I hope that those who hold political and economic power in South Dakota and the United States do not suffer loss of memory. I hope they pause to reflect on some of the mistakes that have been made in the last decade. We wouldn't be in an economic mess and fighting two wars (not counting excursions into Yemen and Pakistan) if some mistakes hadn't been made along the way. Our highways wouldn't be deteriorating, our schools struggling, our prisons overcrowded, if we hadn't made some pretty bad decisions over the years. Remembering and recognizing mistakes is the first step toward making better decisions in the future.

Even if we all could remember every day of our lives, I'm not sure that this would help us  achieve a more sane and benevolent society, because we would still be filtering reality through our own eyes, our own beliefs, fears, ambitions. People do remember things differently which is why there are conflicting reports from eye witnesses and arguments at family reunions.

Yet we should do our best to try to remember history and see it clearly. As the saying goes, those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.

Happy New Year. 

Lorraine Collins is a writer who lives in Spearfish. She can be reached at collins1@rushmore.com.

Bryant: No emergency at Terry Cemetery

It appears that there is no imminent threat to the Terry Cemetery.

LCHS President Jerry Bryant spoke today (1/3/11) with Wharf Resources General Manager Bill Shand, who said he believes Wharf has no plans to do anything with the old cemetery for at least the next five years.

Wharf had filed documents with the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources on September 27th, indicating their intention to significantly expand their large scale gold mining operation near Terry Peak. (See our story of 12/25/10:  Terry cemetery area targeted.)  If approved, Wharf would expand its heap-leach gold mine operation by some 600 acres, including the old Golden Reward mining area.  The Terry Cemetery was included in their request for “Determination of Special, Exceptional, Critical or Unique Lands” submitted to DENR.

Shand told Bryant that, if and when Wharf decides to do anything with the cemetery – which “he doubts” – they will give “ample” notice to LCHS and other interested parties.

After talking with Shand and State Archaeologist Mike Fosha about the cemetery, Bryant said it would appear there is no emergency regarding possible disturbance of the cemetery. 

“But it never hurts to be prepared, and we’ll have our ducks in a row to combat it, whether it’s at Terry Cemetery or some other cemetery,” said Bryant. 

At least one individual plans to submit a nominating petition to include the cemetery on the preliminary list of “Special, Exceptional, Critical, or Unique Lands.  Jeannine Guern, who is active with both the Black Hills Pioneers and LCHS, plans to file her document with DENR before the January 11^th deadline.

Cemetery preservation and maintenance is on the agenda for the LCHS Board of Directors when they meet tomorrow afternoon (1/4/11) in Deadwood.  The 4 o’clock meeting will take place at the Deadwood City Library.

The Board is also expected to discuss and take action regarding a contract with the Adams Museum and House, establishing the “terms and conditions” for use of the designated “LCHS Room” in the new Homestake Adams Research and Cultural Center.  LCHS earlier approved spending $15,000 to gain space “in perpetuity” in the nearly-completed HARCC, which is located at 150 Sherman Street in Deadwood. 

Construction on the structure is all but complete, and efforts are underway to outfit the facility.  A grand opening celebration is slated for Thursday, June 16th, 2011.