How to spot a scam artist

We’ve always known that Lorraine Collins had great credentials.   And now we learn that she’s also been selected for an online “Who’s Who” registry.  Of course, her discerning ways will quickly elevate her to the head of the class of folks who know “what’s what” and can size-up a scam artist just a mouse click away.   Lorraine has been a regular contributor to the Black Hills Pioneer newspaper for quite some time, and we’re delighted to offer you her latest column here on Black Hills Monitor.

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The other day I got a letter informing me that I had been "appointed as a biographical candidate to represent Spearfish, SD" for an online Who's Who registry for "executive and professional women." This was the biggest thrill I've had since I received word a couple years ago that I had been selected for membership in the Handyman Club of America.

Now, I knew that the Handyman Club was suffering from a serious case of mistaken identity when they said they wanted me to try out their chain saw, and I'm no less certain that this outfit is also laboring under some misapprehension. The misapprehension might be that any woman who receives this letter will be flattered and pleased and will immediately send the necessary biographical information to this organization for them to use as they see fit. But I thought the letterhead might as well have read SCAM instead of WHO'S WHO.

Yet it did sound awfully nice. They were pleased to inform me that my candidacy was already approved. They just wanted me to visit my personal website (one they had set up in my behalf) to verify my biographical information. The letter went on to explain that candidates are selected based on "researched executive and professional listings." Frankly, I couldn't think of any executive or professional listing I might be on and furthermore, I'd have been more impressed if the letter had been sent with a real 44 cent stamp instead of one of those indicating a mass mailing.

The letter indicated getting listed in their online directory would be free, which I sincerely doubted. I was not surprised when I did a bit of research online to find that the Better Business Bureau in several states had received complaints about the company. I guess everything is free for the first few minutes of a phone call.  But then honorees are expected to purchase lifetime membership for several hundred dollars, or buy a hardcover book with their listing, or pay to have their skimpy biography enlarged. Some people have actually made the mistake of giving the outfit their credit card number.

Moseying around their website I found that many Who's Who members (they have several different categories) were self-published authors hawking their books as well as the occasional person who seemed to be either deranged or a con artist or both. One woman claimed that "Social Security checks will begin to shrink by September 30th this year" so she suggested a website where we could "discover sound alternate investing." I was not tempted to go there.

It's puzzling, really. I wondered how people could be so vulnerable to scam artists but then I realized that in a sense we are conditioned to believe whatever unproven allegation anybody tells us. Often we are told what we want to believe and sometimes we're told what somebody else wants us to believe for their own purposes. Just think of all the lies and distortions that circulate on the Internet and land in our email inboxes. Outrageous and untrue statements are made all the time, often by people who want to spread fear and anxiety to further their political agenda.

The best defense against scam artists in either commerce or politics is a healthy dose of skepticism which I think one can develop without becoming totally cynical. When we are offered something wonderful for nothing, we have a pretty good indication that it's going to cost quite a bit. When someone appeals to our ego, or to our fear, there's a good chance that the truth may be bent just a little. Some folks can spot a snake oil salesman a mile away and still fall for a smooth talking fellow who assures us that he knows just what ails the country and how to fix it.   

The thing is, it's easier to spot a scam artist if he's not masquerading as a patriot. 

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

           

Religious tolerance -- eroding everywhere?

by Larry Miller


In the past several days, we’ve received a few forwarded e-mail messages with dire warnings about Muslims. The mail comes from friends and relatives alike.

Much of it is based on seemingly scholarly work attributed to one Dr. Peter Hammond.

A bit of research reveals that Dr. Hammond is founder of the “Frontline Fellowship” in Cape Town, South Africa. Its purpose is to “glorify God” and expose the “strategies and ideologies of evil.” Listed priorities include “working for Reformation and praying for Revival.”

As something of a conservative curmudgeon, my interest was piqued by their trove of literature about the Great Reformation – from the bloody Crusades and John Calvin to Oliver Cromwell and Martin Luther. Frontline Fellowship’s library is replete with books, CDs and DVDs focusing on the Reformation. And the clear message on its web site is that there needs to be a religious reformation with zeal and commitment – some would say radicalism – and it must be mobilized today if the forces of evil are to be defeated.

Interestingly, if you want to join the Frontline Fellowship, you’re asked to fill out a 20-page application and tell them about your military service. They also want a copy of your discharge papers.

Dr. Hammond seems something other than an objective biblical scholar.

And the data he offers is designed to scare the socks off you. And apparently it’s working, as more and more people seem to be expressing great fear of Muslims, whether moderate or extremist. Hammond correlates increasing Muslim populations with terrorism and lawlessness everywhere from France and India to Israel and Guyana. But he probably wasn’t counting when one-time-Christian-turned-extremist Jim Jones engineered mass suicides in Guyana a generation ago.

Hammond writes that he’d like Hollywood to come to his aid and produce films consistent with his view of the world, but overall, he’s not very thrilled with westerners. He charges that “the West is quick to intervene to help Muslims – but not Christians. They’ll help Muslims in Bosnia, Muslims in Kuwait, Muslims in Somalia – but not Christians in Rwanda or Sudan.”

Religious extremists everywhere are seeking followers for their causes. And most peddle misinformation and fear. They seem to be everywhere, from Afghanistan to the United States – and, yes, South Africa.

I am reminded of the hysteria perpetuated by the media a half century ago when John Kennedy was a candidate for President. It warned that if Kennedy were elected, the Pope would be de facto president of the United States. In retrospect, that anti-Catholic diatribe now seems ludicrous.

Fear of the unknown can be a real and very powerful force. Much of what many Americans think we know about Islam arrives in our homes via e-mail, predicting dire consequences for the United States. There are lots of “facts” in these e-mails, but little rational thought concerning the context or honest implications of those “facts.” Recipients of this stuff would do better to explore more credible research done by the likes of the Pew Research Center, which has found that most Muslims in the United States consider themselves U.S. citizens first, and Muslims second. And most of them – according to Pew – “are very concerned about Islamic extremism in the world.”

I am a Christian. While I’ve never been accused of being a devout Christian, I am an inquiring Christian, trying to learn and understand more about my faith – and the faiths of others who value the freedom of religion that our country has embraced since its inception.

As a journalist, I am also a skeptic. Radicals of all stripes get my attention, wherever they reside – in the news, in schools, in Congress, or in the pulpit. When they begin hatemongering, I refuse to sit idly by and blithely accept their versions of the truth.

The latest irrational salvo to hit my mailbox is a “fox guarding the henhouse” claim spewed out against Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Arif Alikhan. Not because Alikhan is alleged to be incompetent or crooked; but simply because he happens to be a Muslim – like nearly three million other Americans!

If the good folks who forward these ill-conceived e-mails would dig beneath the surface a bit, they’ll discover that Mr. Alikhan has pretty good credentials: he’s a former federal prosecutor, who also had “operational oversight of Los Angeles Police, Fire and Emergency Management Departments.” I would expect that he also has sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States, something I suspect many authors of these anti-Muslim missives have never done.

With a bit of inquiry, and a closer examination of the Constitution, we might all learn more about the letter and the spirit of “freedom of religion,” something that our forefathers took seriously.

And so should we.

The problem with August

We always enjoy sharing the writings of our good neighbor Lorraine Collins, who pens columns regularly for the Black Hills Pioneer newspaper.   For some time now, we've suspected there was something awry with the month of August -- but we just didn't know what!  Lorraine spells it out here.  You may contact her at collins1@rushmore.com.

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A friend in Toronto called me the first Monday in August and after we had chatted for a while she expressed surprise that the first Monday is not a holiday in the United States. In Canada it's "Civic Holiday." Now, it seems to me that this is a typical Canadian practical solution to a problem. In this case, the problem is August.

August is 31 days long and there are no public holidays. Therefore, declare a "Civic Holiday." It doesn't have to commemorate any historic event, the birth or death of any great person, or anything else. Just realize that August needs a holiday and put one in. Close government offices and banks and go fishing.

Of course, I think the solution to the no-holiday problem in August is to finally make an official public holiday of Women's Equality Day which is celebrated modestly by a few on August 26th, tomorrow. It commemorates the day in 1920 when the 19th Amendment took effect after it was ratified by the last state to do so on the 18th, so women in the United States were finally  allowed to vote. This day was first proposed in 1971 by Rep. Bella Abzug of New York who managed to get Congress to declare in a Joint Resolution that August 26th is a day worthy of official commemoration.

But somehow, it has never been able to make it onto the calendar, even though one calendar in my house notes Ground Hog Day, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, First Days of Spring ,Summer, Fall and Winter,  various Jewish and Christian holidays, Earth Day, Administrative Professionals Day, Armed Forces Day, Father's Day, Mother's Day, as well as all of the legal holidays like President's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, and so forth.

I tell you, it makes one a little paranoid to realize that calendar companies give more respect to  ground hogs than to women. However, I try not to fret about it. I know that many women suffered, were imprisoned, went on hunger strikes, were force fed, were sent to mental institutions for demanding the right to vote. But that's only 90 years ago, so I suppose we shouldn't be too impatient waiting for recognition of the sacrifices made to achieve equality.

 I also realize that there are many other worthy causes that are not on the calendar in August, though they could be if people just pushed hard enough to get them recognized. When I went online to find what various people thought we should be celebrating in August, I found that just about every day was designated to celebrate one thing or another.

It's amazing, really. There's International Left-hander's day on August 13 and there's Income Tax Day commemorating the date of the first Income Tax in the U.S. in1861. But I don't suppose there would be many patriotic parades for that one.

There are days in which we are asked to commemorate many nice things--friendship, parents, Switzerland, the Coast Guard, and even Bad Poetry Day. Personally, I think I'd skip that one. There are an amazing number of days in August devoted to recognizing food. These include days devoted to toasted marshmallows, filet mignon, potatoes, waffles, sponge cake, ice cream sandwiches, mustard, rice pudding and a host of others. I like all that stuff except mustard so I'm sorry I didn't learn of the various Days until it was too late.

I suddenly realized that August 26th is not only Women's Equality Day but also is National Dog Day, I wondered whether we could join forces to try to get on the calendar together, celebrating our mutual virtues. But when I went to the website for National Dog Day, I realized it honors dogs for offering "Love--all you want, unconditionally, forever, no contract required."

Hmm. That sounds more like Mother's Day to me.

Accepting the Journal's "Page Too"

My bride and I often vote for opposing candidates in elections, thereby cancelling any impact our votes might have upon public office holders from U.S. president to mayor.

But politics isn’t the only place we’ve seen things differently.

When the Rapid City Journal created its shrine to wayward celebrities on “Page Too,” my spouse became an almost instant fan. Curmudgeon that I am, I would not allow myself to forage through these juicy tidbits of “human interest” stories that have little relevance to my life. As a journalism school graduate, I thought there was just too much weightier stuff that I should be reading – everything from health care issues to the plight of Social Security. And surely the war in Afghanistan and our faltering economy deserve more of my attention!

But to get from the Journal’s front page to local and state news on page A3, I’ve always felt I had to hurriedly ignore “Page Too,” lest my eyes and curiosity be aroused by those fluffy features.

Alas, it’s no use. The longer that I worry that the Journal is only feeding the frenzy over all things celebrity, the more I catch myself shamelessly devouring the latest gossip about David Letterman, Lady Gaga, or Barbra Streisand.

I am a reluctant, if guilt-ridden, convert.

So now it’s time to pay homage to the Rapid City Journal for hatching “Page Too.” Without it, I wouldn’t know about the tax woes of actor Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee), the non-injury accident outside the home of author Stephen King, or the seemingly endless drug problems of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, rapper T.I., and a litany of other celebrities.

Commercial television long ago realized the value of dumbing down its programming to “give the people what they want.” And it’s so much less expensive than providing all that confusing news stuff.  Newspapers have just been slower to abandon their journalistic souls in adopting this “eye candy” media strategy.

Tomorrow, I may even discontinue my search for elusive world news in the back pages of the Journal, while also cancelling my subscriptions to Time and the Wall Street Journal. That way I can focus more on Page Too, contributing my “Two Cents” worth of anonymous opinion, catching up on “The Odd” blurbs, and maybe even digressing to more on-line computer time, Twittering and exploring Facebook.

Maybe Paris Hilton will be my friend.

Bootleggers, walnuts, and nostalgia

Spearfish writer Lorraine Collins is a regular contributor to the Black Hills Pioneer newspaper, and we're delighted that she shares her column with us for Black Hills Monitor. She's touched upon a wide range of topics, and this time she writes about "Taking America Back.....to what?" You may contact Lorraine at collins1@rushmore.com

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An elderly gent I know told me that when he was a kid Prohibition was still in force, so he and his pals would get on their bikes and ride through their small town in northwestern South Dakota on Sunday morning to gather up half pint whiskey bottles that had been emptied on Saturday night. They would return the bottles to the bootlegger for cash. I guess this is an early example of recycling.

The bootlegger he dealt with ran a lumberyard and stashed his whiskey in a pile of sawdust at the back of the yard. He says, "If the police wanted to know who the bootleggers were, all they had to do was ask a kid."

Stories like this always make me think of how much society has changed over the course of the last 75 years or so. There are many small differences that we may not think of very often but eventually they add up to big changes. For instance, I watched a TV weatherman the other evening who spoke of "half dollar sized hail." That surprised me, because I haven't seen a half dollar coin in years and I wondered if anybody else has. Why did the half dollar disappear from ordinary commerce? Maybe it's because of all those vending machines that have slots that can take quarters or dollar bills, but not half dollars.

In any case, I thought that "half dollar size" hail was rather quaint until I read a report in the "100 years ago" section of the newspaper in which a fellow reported hail stones "the size of walnuts."

We don't hear of walnut-sized hail anymore because we rarely see a whole walnut in the shell, except maybe occasionally at Christmas. Otherwise, we buy plastic sacks of walnut pieces. So now our reporters say that hail was the size of ping pong balls, or golf balls or even baseballs, but not walnuts. The fact that people out here in the west are more familiar with golf balls than walnuts is just one more indication of how our neighborhood has changed over the course of a century.

It's the gradual realization of how much life has changed, and how complicated it seems to be these days, that leads us to long for the good old days. We think that everything was much simpler when the biggest criminal in town was a part time bootlegger and no one had yet heard of crack cocaine or meth. It's easy to become nostalgic for the time that Norman Rockwell depicted so well in Saturday Evening Post covers when neighborhoods and families seemed wholesome, intact, and benign. It's a pleasant, if unrealistic, vision and politicians sometimes exploit our nostalgia. They persuade us that the country has lost some essential values and talk about trying to get the nation to return to some past idyllic time.

Yet when we cling to the idea of the past, we're investing it with a virtue it may not have had. Those good old days included racial segregation, discrimination against women and, often, limiting children's education to no more than the 8th grade so they could go to work and help support the family. A lot of things were going on behind those white picket fences that the public either didn't know about or ignored, including domestic violence, alcoholism, and child abuse. People with physical or mental disabilities were parked in institutions or hidden in back bedrooms. There wasn't a lot of help for the elderly or families in need.

So we shouldn't get carried away with nostalgia, no matter how complex and hazardous life seems to be these days. Politicians who rely on our longing to return to what we think of as a simpler and more comprehensible life aren't really offering us a clear eyed view of the past. When I hear them talk about "taking America back" I just wonder, taking America back to what?

Students and athletes

Writer Lorraine Collins of Spearfish offers her perspective on recent developments at Black Hills State University and the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology regarding their new status in the NCAA. Her articles are published in the Black Hills Pioneer, and we thank her for allowing us to post them on Black Hills Monitor.

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Not too long ago I was driving down the road listening to South Dakota Public Radio as I usually do and I heard a telephone interview with the fellow who had just been hired by the University of South Dakota to be their Athletic Director. USD had recently been approved by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to be a "Division I" school, and everyone seemed excited about that. This fellow had some experience in Division I schools, so he'd been hired to help USD go through the transition process to become a full fledged member in a couple of years or so.

One caller asked the new AD if he could expand the sports program to include hockey and the fellow said he wasn't sure because the NCAA required schools to have a women's sports program equal to men's and to offer equivalent athletic scholarships. After the long struggle to get Title IX enforced, I was happy to hear this. Later when I went to USD's website to check on things, I discovered that the university actually offers more women's sports than men's. Both men and women are offered basketball, track and field, cross country, golf and swimming and diving. The only thing men have that women don't is football. Women have soccer, softball, tennis and volleyball. I tend to believe that the university has to offer those four women's sports to try to equal the amount spent on football. But that's just a suspicion.

Since Black Hills State University and the School of Mines & Technology have both just excitedly announced that they have been accepted into Division II of the NCAA, I wondered how their sports programs shape up. So I visited their websites, too. BHSU offers more women than men's sports but SDSM&T offers an equal number. It's interesting that all of these schools, in making their thrilling announcements about being accepted into a Division of the NCAA, immediately said they were going to have to raise a lot more money. One report indicated that SDSM&T's scholarship funds will need to more than double from $500,000 to more than a million.

Being in Division I or II of the NCAA means that schools are going to have to concentrate their fund raising efforts on offering scholarships to recruit athletes. Whether this should be the priority for our state supported institutions of higher education is a good question. I was surprised to read a statement by the Athletic Director of the School of Mines saying that about 65% of the school's athletes are from out of state. I presume this means that about 65% of the School of Mines athletic scholarships are given to students from out of state. This is something that alumni and donors may want to think about when they are asked to support athletic scholarships. I hope that scholarships for science, art, music, mathematics, drama, education, English and the like do not suffer because everyone is pouring money into sports scholarships.

The NCAA has many rules and requirements, one of which is that member schools must have a fulltime Athletic Director, which neither BHSU nor the School of Mines had until they began to make application for Division II status. There will no doubt be a number of other costs associated with achieving full membership in the Division, including getting associated with Division II conference and competing with schools in other states.

If BHSU and Mines join the Northern Sun Conference, they'll be with schools from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. If they find their way to the Rocky Mountain Conference they'll be with schools from Nebraska, Colorado and New Mexico.

I suppose the least we can do is congratulate the schools on meeting the challenge of NCAA membership, while hoping that the schools don't lose track of what they are supposed to be doing for students who are not athletes.

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

Problems in South Dakota pharmacies?

STATES FAIL TO REPORT DISCIPLINED CAREGIVERS

By Tracy Weber & Charles Ornstein - ProPublica, 19 July 2010

Hundreds of state agencies nationwide have never told the federal government about health professionals they disciplined, undermining a central database meant to weed out dangerous caregivers.

The federal database is supposed to contain disciplinary actions taken against doctors, nurses, therapists and other health practitioners around the country so that hospitals and select others can run background checks before they hire new employees.

Federal officials discovered the missing reports after a ProPublica investigation in February found widespread gaps in the data, including hundreds of nurses and pharmacists who had been sanctioned for serious wrongdoing.

Since then, regulators nationwide -- prodded by federal health officials -- have submitted 72,000 new records to the database, nearly double the total submitted for all of 2009.

All states are required by law to report the licensed health workers they've sanctioned to databases run by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). But ProPublica found that many state agencies either didn't know about the requirement or simply weren't complying.

The failure to report means frontline health workers who have a record of on-the-job misconduct, incompetence or criminal acts aren't flagged to hospitals or other potential employers, who pay a fee to run checks on job applicants.

Wisconsin, for example, has not reported sanctions against emergency medical technicians. The state's Department of Health Services website, however, shows that more than two dozen EMTs have been disciplined, including several for criminal convictions and one for stealing drugs from an ambulance.

An agency spokeswoman said officials are working to submit the missing information.

HRSA's analysis of 13 nursing boards flagged by ProPublica as missing records shows the depth of the problem. Since being contacted by HRSA, those boards collectively have reported more than 2,000 missing cases, including 147 in California and 66 in Illinois. Florida alone had 972.

Despite the important public safety role of the database, federal officials have little power to enforce compliance. Earlier this month, they took what they said is the strongest action allowed against scofflaws: They put a checkmark next to state names indicating they were "noncompliant" and posted the information on the HRSA website.

"That's the tool we've been given by Congress," said Mary Wakefield, administrator of HRSA, noting that no prior administration had even used that before.

Twenty-one states and Puerto Rico were thus chastised for not reporting on at least one category of health professional or ignoring the government's requests for information. Kentucky was flagged for 10 professions; Louisiana, six; and Alabama and New Mexico, five each.

Many states were listed as "working toward compliance," meaning they were in the process of submitting missing information, or "under review" by the federal government.

Congress ordered the government to create a database of disciplinary actions against all health providers more than two decades ago; information about doctors and dentists was first made available in the National Practitioner Data Bank in 1990. But hospitals could begin searching other professions only in March of this year. The database is not open to the public.

The completeness of the database is important because health professionals often have licenses in multiple states. If a hospital checks just one state's oversight board, disciplinary actions elsewhere may not turn up.

California, for example, recently discovered that 3,500 registered nurses with clean records there had been disciplined in other states.

ProPublica's report in February found that no sanctioned pharmacists had been reported by South Dakota or New Hampshire and only one each in Alabama, Delaware, Ohio and Tennessee. But a search of those states' websites showed hundreds of sanctions, including a pharmacist in Ohio who ran an Internet pill mill that dispensed nearly 1.5 million drug doses without valid prescriptions.

Wakefield acknowledged that her agency is just beginning to assess the completeness of the information. After ProPublica detailed the gaps in the data, federal officials sent letters to the nation's governors requesting help and held numerous training sessions.

HRSA is still trying to sort out the compliance status of 450 licensing boards and agencies that appear to never have reported discipline for some of the professions they oversee. The agency plans to report additional information in October.

Officials are in the process of comparing disciplinary actions reported to the federal database to what states have listed on the states' own public websites. "This is a work in progress," Wakefield said.

The review did not examine state agencies overseeing doctors and dentists because they have been reporting actions for nearly a decade more than others.

Some state officials said they were surprised to be labeled noncompliant.

David Potters, executive director and general counsel of West Virginia's pharmacy board, acknowledged that his board had not submitted all of its disciplinary actions, but said he had turned in a plan to catch up.

Consumer advocate Dr. Sidney Wolfe, who has pushed for a more accurate databank, said the agency's work in recent months is a huge step forward.

"HRSA is at least making some moves in directions that it hasn't made for a while -- and hopefully there will be many more moves," said Wolfe, of Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that advocates for patient safety.

Road construction: my investigative report

Spearfish writer Lorraine Collins is a regular contributor to the Black Hills Pioneer newspaper, and we're delighted that she shares her column with us for Black Hills Monitor. She's touched upon a wide range of topics, and this time she opines on the fine art of high-tech information about road construction. Here's her latest offering.

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My brother-in-law from Montana was here recently for a few days and he asked, "So, is there road construction around Sturgis?" I said there is. He said, "I've been coming to South Dakota for 35 years and there has always been road construction around Sturgis."

Of course, I can't verify that statement without doing more research than the assertion warrants, but I know just how he feels. It's hard to believe how certain sections of I-90 seem to be subjected to construction and reconstruction year after year. This is the perception folks have around here. Road construction around Sturgis begins in the spring, is suspended for the Rally, and resumes until winter. Why does that particular section of the Interstate always need something done to it?

Well, it's probably not the exact same section of I-90 that gets torn up every spring, but it sure seems familiar to those of us who drive it year after year. There are so many problems with infrastructure maintenance and repair throughout South Dakota that it's hard to believe they keep tearing up that same stretch of the Interstate just to stay busy.

I was curious about how many road projects are ongoing on I-90 right now, so I went to a website called Safe Travel USA. The South Dakota Department of Transportation uses it to show a map informing us about road conditions, weather and construction, these being important things for travelers to know. This site also provides webcams at various places along the Interstate and other highways so viewers can actually see what the road and weather conditions are.

The problem was, when I went to the website and began counting the number of icons indicating construction sites from the Wyoming line to Minnesota, there were no construction sites mentioned west of Rapid City on I-90. There were 22 construction sites noted between mile markers 59 and 412, but what about those first 59 miles of I-90?

I thought, "Ah ha! This is a conspiracy!" Obviously, the government doesn't want the public to know that the highway around Sturgis is torn up again, because it's embarrassing to keep admitting that year after year. People might get suspicious and think that there's some hanky-panky going on. There's no sense letting the whole world know about our little secret. Folks who live in the area will know of it and they're used to it anyway. By the time a few hundred thousand bikers converge on the area, things will be tidied up as well as possible and all will be serene for a little while.

On the other hand, I thought that maybe construction activity around Sturgis is regarded as "normal" and therefore not worth mentioning. The DOT site does often mention "normal driving conditions", after all. If construction around Sturgis isn't normal, I don't know what is.

I decided to go to the webcam site near Sturgis. Two cameras mounted east of Sturgis looking both east and west revealed nothing of any interest. Then I went to the camera mounted west of Sturgis at mile point 28.6, looking west. There, in the distance, one could see a line of orange barrels. Proof!

The camera doesn't lie!

Since Safe Travel USA provides an opportunity for feedback, I sent an email, politely pointing out that the map of road construction doesn't show the four-mile stretch of orange barrels near Sturgis and asking why. A nice man answered that he appreciated my question and was checking with the SDDOT staff in Rapid City Area to find out. A few days later he emailed me to say that they had discovered there actually is an icon for the Sturgis construction on the map, but it is hidden by another one revealing construction on Highway 34,so we can't see it.

He was going to try to figure out how to correct the situation.

I suppose it doesn't matter much by now. The Rally will be here soon.

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

A license to drive

Having recently gone through the anxiety of preparing for an examination to get my driver's license renewed, I immediately appreciated the following column written by Lorraine Collins. As visitors to this site well know, Lorraine is a Spearfish neighbor who writes regularly for the Black Hills Pioneer newspaper. She graciously allows us to use her material on Black Hills Monitor.

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I stopped in at the drivers licensing station recently to check on all the new requirements to get or renew a South Dakota driver's license. When I read of everything I would need to prove I am who I claim to be, I was really glad that my license is good for another three years and that my passport doesn't expire for four years. With a passport, at least I won't have to try to find my birth certificate and marriage certificate.

Several other things will be required, though, because of new rules that came into effect last December as the result of federal regulations. I believe this is the result of the fact that the driver's license has commonly been used for identification in various business transactions including the purchasing of airline tickets. This has led to some catastrophic events in our recent history. So I guess it makes sense to say that people getting a license to drive must demonstrate that they are who they say they are and live where they claim to live.

This does mean a lot of inconvenience. In addition to the Identity Document, we need to provide proof of a Social Security number and two documents to prove our residential address. These might be utility bills, rent receipts, phone bills, bank statements, and so forth.

People who have changed their name over the course of a lifetime, such as women who chose to use their husband's name after marriage, need the marriage certificate to show why their name is different from their birth certificate. Later, if they get divorced and revert to their previous name, they have to bring the divorce decree to their next licensing session. A rather ominous note in the instructions says that "If you have had multiple marriages you will need to bring similar documents providing legal proof of each name change." That's certainly an incentive for long term monogamy.

I learned to drive before South Dakota required a license to drive. It may surprise many people to know that South Dakota was the last state in the union to require a driver's license, not doing so until 1954. The actual driver's license examination wasn't instituted in South Dakota until 1959. I remember those pre-driver's license days because it was very awkward to be in some other state and not have a valid driver's license. All I could say if some law officer asked to see my license was, "Uh, I'm from South Dakota." I finally went to visit my sister in Colorado, drove her car and passed a driver's test in Denver. I therefore had a driver's license with a completely bogus address. So I do understand the desire of the government to know that drivers actually live where they claim to.

When we left the U.S. to move to Singapore my husband and I had International Drivers Licenses based on being licensed to drive in South Dakota. When we moved to London three years later we used our International Drivers Licenses for a while but eventually---I'm not sure why---I thought it would be a good idea to get an English license. Amongst Americans it was said that the Brits didn't like giving us drivers licenses and no American we knew had ever passed the test. I thought that was a challenge.

I studied. I drove with a driving instructor. I showed up for the test properly meek and humble with a big "Student Driver" sign on the car roof. I did everything the manual told me to do no matter how dumb I thought it was, including putting on the parking brake at every stop sign. At the end, the instructor said he thought I'd been overly cautious, so he wanted to know how long I'd been driving.

"Thirty-six years," I said. He burst out laughing and gave me the license. That license was good until I was 70 years old, but I suppose the British have changed things by now, too.

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

Public art and argument

Spearfish writer Lorraine Collins is a regular contributor to the Black Hills Pioneer newspaper, and we're delighted that she shares her column with us for Black Hills Monitor. She's touched upon a wide range of topics, and this time she reflects upon art.....and how it can often create a bit of disagreement among local citizens. Here's her latest offering.
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The first time I realized there could be controversy in connection with public art was when I innocently agreed to be president of the Spearfish Area Council for the Arts and Humanities 20 or so years ago. I had been involved with SACAH only a short time and didn't know the organization was embroiled in a lawsuit about a sculpture. Since then I've heard of public controversy about statues in several other towns, most recently Sturgis. I've come to realize that whether the public is paying for public art or not, the public has an opinion about what they want to see on their streets or in their parks.

Oddly enough, two of the controversial works of art involved fish, including the one in which I became inadvertently involved. A group of citizens decided to enhance Spearfish by raising money to commission a sculpture and after they had pledges of several thousand dollars, they realized they could get a matching grant through the National Endowment for the Arts to make an even bigger prize.

The trouble was, to do that they needed to work through the local arts council and to open up the contest to sculptors nationwide. SACAH agreed to cooperate with the citizens group and sent out invitations to submit a proposed statue to artists around the country. I don't know who the judges were, but the winning artist was a fellow from Ohio who proposed a sort of abstract sculpture called "The Hungry Fish."

When they saw what he had in mind, quite a few people hated it and refused to have it in their park. The citizens committee wrote a letter to the Ohio artist informing him that he had been deselected. He didn't sue them, he sued SACAH, which had been totally uninvolved in either the selection process or the rejection. As I recall, it took a couple of years and $2,000 to settle the suit. We all learned a lot, including that public art causes public controversy more often than not.

In 1995 a sculpture titled "Rapid Trout" was put in Founder's Park in Rapid City. Since it was partly funded by the Cement Plant, it had to be made of concrete and the commission was given to a professor at the University of South Dakota. The sculpture consisted of huge slabs with the fish head carved on one piece, the torso and tail on others. There have been a lot of jokes about the fish but I guess people learned to live with it and perhaps even appreciate it by now. Or maybe they just don't pay much attention to it any more.

The greatest controversy generated about public art may be the sort that Sturgis is now experiencing. Two of the 14 sculptures recently installed on Main Street and elsewhere for the Sturgis Sculpture Walk are unclothed human forms, that is to say, nudes. Some people have protested that these are unfit for children to see. This is reminiscent of what Sioux Falls went through back in 1971. That year a wealthy philanthropist named Thomas Fawick donated to the city a full size replica of Michelangelo's "David". The original has been on display in Florence, Italy for 500 years but some Sioux Falls people felt it was "in bad taste and would have a bad effect on the moral values of citizens."

The statue was placed in a park named for the donor but facing away from traffic. Trees were planted to screen it from the street. Later, when the park was being renovated, the statue languished in storage for several years and then was replaced in the park in a more open location. The Sioux Falls website now brags about it.

It's not surprising that public art causes public argument. Art helps us define who we are and what we value. That isn't always easy to agree on, even in small towns where we might think everybody sees everything the same way we do. Actually, they don't.

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