A Party In Canada

Okay, there are a lot of interesting stories at the Olympics. Lillian is an Olympic junkie (she's turning to the sports page first in the morning, if you, her friends, can imagine that), and has turned me into one as well. It was pretty easy. The Americans beat the Canadians in hockey for the first time in 50 years this week. If the fairy tale ending continues, they will play again Sunday for the gold. But I have this deep seated fear we have awakened a sleeping giant . . .

Lindsey Vonn turned out to be a prima donna. Julia Mancuso was my hero until she went into a giant pout after Vonn ruined her chances at another medal the other day. Apolo Ohno is just too cool, but I hate the way he hangs back in the crowd for the first few laps. Scares the crap out of me every time. Oh, ye of little faith. (By the way, everyone is asking about his mother, after the TV cameras repeatedly show only his father in the stands. The stories about her are mysterious--she apparently disappeared when he was just a young boy. I think I know. She dropped the "h" and ran off with John Lennon.) The red-headed snow boarder is unbelievable. Smart, composed, rich, unflappable. Who ever thought someone who dresses like that could be an American hero?

Then there's the Norwegian men's curling team. And their pants. Now, I'm going to admit a couple biases here. First, I like curling as an Olympic sport because it provides an opportunity for people shaped like me to be Olympic "athletes." Second, because of my Norwegian heritage, the Norwegians are the second team I root for in the Olympics. When there's no American in contention, I look for the Norwegians. I share in their joy that the Danes have not won a single medal so far in this Olympics, while as of today, the U.S. has 32 and Norway 19. Even Latvia has two, but none for the Danes. There is a God.

But for curling, the Norwegians showed up in these kind of argyle red, white and blue checked pants. Nobody's seen anything like that before. John Daly is calling for the name of their haberdasher. Click here for a look.

But the best story of all is the Canadian Women's Hockey Team. They earned capital letters because of what they did last night. No, it's not that they won the gold medal. It's for the party they had afterwards. Now, most teams would have gone to the shower, cleaned up, gotten dressed, and headed back to the hotel for a great celebration. Not the Canadians. They broke out the beer and the cigars right there on the ice. Got shit-faced and took the Zamboni for a little ride. Yeeeehaaawww. We won the gold. Let's party!



Now the IOC says they want to investigate and punish. C'mon, IOC, they were just acting like, well, like Canadians. And it IS THEIR COUNTRY, after all. They're throwing a party for the world. Leave them be. I mean, is there anyone among us who wouldn't like to take a Zamboni for a ride?

So let's move on. To Apolo finally getting a gold medal tonight, and Zach Parise and his teammates winning a gold medal on Sunday. The Olympics. God, they're great.

Happy Endings

A couple of weeks ago I started to tell the story of the Hettinger nursing home, a story with a pretty happy ending. Here’s a little synopsis. Last September, the North Dakota Health Department responded to a complaint that an elderly resident had died, choking on some food during a meal. That led to an inspection which found multiple problems with care at the home. The home was not shut down, but was told they would not be allowed to admit any more residents until they cleared up their problems.

A Bismarck Tribune reporter got wind of it and did a long story, which ran at the top of page one. The reporter struggled between sensationalism and empathy. For the most part, empathy won out, but the result was a real black eye for the nursing home. And it scared the shit out of people who had relatives in the home. At least one actually moved out, to a different nursing home.

My mother had been a resident there from January 2005 until last September. When she moved there in 2005 she told her kids she wanted to live there because Hettinger was her home town and her friends were there. She told her kids she could do most things for herself, which was good, because there was almost always a pretty severe shortage of help. She said that when she was no longer able to do that, and required more intensive nursing care, she would probably move to a nursing home in Bismarck, where she would have access to better care. When that time came, last spring, she changed her mind, decided she wanted to stay there. She was hopeful that the new owners, West River Health Services, the local nonprofit which took over from the for-profit corporation that had run the place into the ground, would increase the staffing, and she would be okay there. She remained there until she died in September of natural causes.

Staffing problems were chronic during the entire time my mother lived there. Nurses traveled from as far away as Devils Lake and Minot just to maintain minimal staff. The problem: there simply aren’t very many nurses living in Hettinger, or Mott, or Lemmon, or Bowman, or in any small town in North Dakota these days. Contract nurses from afar had to be brought in, at outrageous costs—if indeed any could be found. Likewise, there was a shortage of CNA’s to assist them. My mother told us often of staff working double and triple shifts just to make sure there was someone available to help the residents.

During my many trips there in the last nearly five years, I met many of the staff. They were caring and professional, friendly and helpful, but often under-trained in geriatric medicine, overworked, and probably underpaid. All were young enough to be my mother’s children, and she was like an adopted grandmother to many of the younger staff. They treated her as they would treat their own mother or grandmother. We were grateful for that.

Perhaps some mistakes were made. Perhaps the doctors and board members and staff who run West River were too ambitious in thinking that they could provide quality end-of-life care for the elderly in their community. Perhaps they should have given up, sent those old folks in need of skilled care off to Dickinson or Bismarck or Rapid City where there was adequate staff available. Instead, they tried to keep providing this service right there in their small town. I say, God bless them for that.

As my mother neared the end of her life, she was saddened by the problems the nursing home was experiencing. My mother was a nurse, and for much of her career was Director of Nursing at that very nursing home. She knew what it was like to have adequate and trained staff. Hettinger was a bigger town then, and there were enough nurses, and aides, as they called them then, to provide good quality care. And she could see how difficult it had become there to care for the residents with inadequate staff levels.

But she was overjoyed and optimistic when the new owners took over, because West River Health Services in Hettinger is one of the single greatest success stories of rural medicine in America. With more than a dozen doctors providing care for a rural geographic area about the size of Rhode Island, they just completed a multi-million dollar upgrade of their hospital, and there are dreams on the drawing board of replacing the nearly 50-year-old nursing home with a new facility. I hope they succeed. I hope they can find the staff. I hope people will move there and work there and enjoy the quality of life a small town can provide.

Here’s the recent good news. In December, the Health Department went back to the Hettinger nursing home and found out that the home had resolved all 31 of the citations for substandard care they had received in September. ALL 31! They have been given the green light to begin re-admitting new residents. I’m going to drive down there one of these days and thank the staff, especially Susie and Barb, again, for all they did for my mother. I know they had a rough fall. I know they kept on caring for their residents as they worked to correct the problems. The newspaper said West River Health Services had invested an additional $350,000 in staffing since the citations were issued. I don’t know how they did that, but good for them!

Still, this is a way bigger story than just the problems of one nursing home in rural North Dakota. It is the story of the depopulation of the prairie. There will probably be more like it. Because if no one with skilled nursing experience lives in rural North Dakota, there will come a day when there are no more small town nursing homes. And then small town residents will have to drive far to see their elderly parents, and they’ll see them weekly or monthly, instead of daily. That will be sad.

Postscript: I remain in awe of that bunch of medical professionals in Hettinger. I was just reading my Pheasants Forever magazine, a slick, glossy, full-color publication which comes monthly from that organization. It has a section that carries ads for hunting equipment, hunting dogs, hunting preserves, hunting vacations, and all things upland game hunting. Pheasant hunters all over the country read it and patronize those advertisers. And right in the middle of that section is an ad placed by West River Health Services of Hettinger, North Dakota: Physicians Wanted. If you’re a doctor and like to hunt, call us, and come out to Hettinger for a visit. Great place to live and raise a family and enjoy the outdoors. Jim Long, administrator at West River, tells me they got a couple of responses, but haven’t yet recruited a new doctor. But they hope to. And I bet they will.

A Gonzo Anniversary

Five years ago today, Hunter S. Thompson put a pistol to his head and blew his brains out. I was, and remain, a Hunter Thompson fan. I have, and have read, all his books, plus others about him.

I never met him. But I met someone who did, not so long ago. Senator George McGovern was in Dickinson a few years ago, and I got invited to have breakfast with him and some other western North Dakota Democrats. McGovern and Thompson were well-acquainted, of course through Hunter’s coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign, chronicled in his book “Fear and Loathing On The Campaign Trail ’72.”

After the book was published, Thompson sent McGovern an inscribed copy, of course, and McGovern wrote a letter thanking him for the book. The letter was reprinted in Doug Brinkley’s second volume of Hunter’s letters, published in 2000, “Fear and Loathing in America.”

So I took the Brinkley book along to breakfast with Senator McGovern, and had him autograph it just below his letter, on page 558. McGovern got a big kick out of it, and said kind words about Hunter.

In fact, McGovern, just a few months earlier, had written a tribute to Thompson in which he pointed out that one of the photos in Thompson’s book was of himself and Thompson with the spoof caption “Pictured above is George McGovern urging Dr. Hunter S. Thompson to accept the vice presidential nomination.”

McGovern wrote in his tribute, published just days after Thompson’s death, in the Los Angeles Times (and headlined “Gonzo But Not Forgotten”) “In retrospect, I wish I had. Perhaps then Hunter and I might both still be alive and well instead of dead and wounded, respectively.”

Five years ago today, Hunter Thomson left this note beside his typewriter:

No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt.

And pulled the trigger.

Hunter once wrote “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone . . . but they’ve always worked for me.”

Lift a glass for Hunter S. Thompson tonight. He made our world a little more bearable.

Love The Nordic Combined, Though

I don’t get luge. Grown men put on skin tight outfits, lie down on their backs on a plastic sled that weighs 7 pounds, and hang on for a 90 mile per hour ride down an icy chute. I can see that as a thriller at Disneyland, but it just doesn’t seem like an “Olympic sport” to me.

Here’s the thing. There doesn’t seem to be much of a variable in this sport. Let’s look at the numbers. Felix Loch of Germany won the gold medal. His fastest run down the course was 48.161 seconds. His slowest of his four runs was 48.402 seconds. That is a difference of .234 seconds. That’s two hundred and thirty four one-thousandths of a second. Man, that is consistency. In reality, the human eye can’t see much difference. Only, I suppose, an electric eye trigger at the start and the finish could measure that difference. But for all intents and purposes, he made all four runs down the course in same amount of time.

I looked at other numbers. In the second of the four runs, for example, the difference between the lst place finisher and the 25th place finisher was just over nine-tenths of a second. Finishers two through twenty four were all less than nine tenths of a second apart.

That means one of two things. The 25 best lugers in the world are all about exactly equally good. Can that be possible? Or is it just that anyone can get on one of those sleds and cruise down there at about the same speed as the guy who won the Olympic gold medal. Certainly we learned that the 25th best luger in the world is only nine tenths of a second worse than the very best luger in the world. I actually heard one of the NBC commentators yesterday say this of the winner, Loch: “He has a commanding lead—almost three tenths of a second.”

The point is, when three tenths of a second is a commanding lead, and a sport’s winner and losers have to be measure in thousandths of a second, there is no apparent difference between them. There’s not much of a human element involved. It’s about coating a tunnel with ice and putting a plastic sled on it. I guess the reward is for being brave enough to fly down that tunnel at 90 mph. I don’t think much of that kind of a sport.

I used to careen down Water Tower Hill in Hettinger on my Radio Flyer sled at about ten miles per hour, I’d say, and that was plenty fast for me. But at least my sled had a steering mechanism, and I was facing forward so I could see where I was going, so I had some control—there was a variable involved. Just laying down on my back and letting the sled go where it wants to seems pretty exciting to me, I guess, and a little dangerous, but not a sport of Olympic caliber.

Quote of the Day

“I timidly like Hoeven, but cannot support him enough for a vote in November. He is too progressive for me.”

That’s from a letter to the editor I saw in some newspaper over the weekend. Forget Governor Hoeven, and the politics here, and take a trip with me far back into the Dark Ages, when we did not have to worry about our leaders being progressive. And when we were not ashamed to tell the whole world we were afraid of progress. Today, just coincidentally, is the birthday (1564) of Galileo Galilei, who became the most famous public defender of Copernicus’ theory of heliocentrism—the theory that the sun, not the earth, might be the center of the universe. Scary thought. Don’t tell that letter writer.

Good-bye Bill

We lost an old Badlands cowboy this week. Bill Dixon was ninety-something and lived an interesting life. Bill ran the ranch just across the road from the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. One of the things he did to support his ranching habit was run a little canoe outfitting service on the Little Missouri. Not a real lucrative business, given the infrequency of canoeable water on the Little Missouri, but I think he probably did it partly for the opportunity to meet people.

Bill was crusty, and funny, and didn't get to see a lot of people out there in the Badlands, so he loved the company of an occasional canoer who needed a lift. My canoe trip gang and I hired Bill a couple of times to ferry us to a put-in or take-out spot on the river. The last time was quite a few years ago, and we had paddled from somewhere south of the North Unit into his ranch, and he was giving us a ride back to where we had left the cars. Two memorable pieces of the conversation with Bill on that drive come to mind.

Bill was thoughtful, and he was a man of few words. He chose them carefully. We were talking about fishing on that drive, for some reason, someone asked Bill what his favorite fish was. Bill didn't hesitate. "Well, once you've eaten orange roughy, it's pretty hard to eat anything else."

We exploded in laughter over that response from a grizzled old Badlands rancher.

And then as we're driving down this terrible Badlands gravel road, on a hot day, with this big cloud of dust billowing behind his pickup, all of a sudden we were driving on pavement. The road was paved for about a quarter of a mile before we approached a ranch alongside the road, and then for another quarter of a mile after we passed it.

"Bill, what's up with this paved road?" someone asked.

"Oil," Bill responded, "makes things possible."

So long, Bill. Hope they're serving orange roughy up there.

Kings X!

That’s what we used to holler when we were just about to be caught and become “It” in the game of Tag, back when we were kids. You too? “King’s X! I need to tie my shoe!”

I never intended this blog to be “tagged” as a political blog. It just turned out there was a lot of politics going around when I started writing on it, and it drifted that way. Retirement is about doing something different every day, I’ve decided. So from now on, I’m going to try to write a couple of days a week about what I see going on around me. A little boring for some of my political junkie friends, I’m afraid, but I’ll try to throw a little red meat out once in a while. Meanwhile . . . “Kings X” from politics . . .

Two very good things happened in my world this week. First, I got to see Camelot on the stage at the Bismarck Civic Center. Second, the North Dakota Health Department gave the Hettinger Nursing Home a “clean bill of health” and the wonderful staff there is back in the business of taking care of people instead of dancing around in a regulatory never-never land. More on that later. First, Camelot.

My, it was wonderful. Lillian will tell you I am a sucker for vintage musicals. West Side Story. My Fair Lady. The Sound of Music. Paint Your Wagon. Oklahoma. The Music Man. And for old movie theme songs. When we’d go into movie rental stores (in the days before Netflix) she’d steer me away from the classical movie section because she shuddered and put a lot of distance between us when I’d launch into “Moon River” in a very loud voice every time I spotted “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” on the shelf.

But Camelot stands alone. Partly because of the story of King Arthur and his round table, a story of idealism and innocence and innocence lost. And partly because of the wonderful song lyrics, especially this, from the title, song:

A law was made a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot.
The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot.

The rain may never fall till after sundown.
By eight, the morning fog must disappear.
The snow may never slush upon the hillside.
By nine p.m. the moonlight must appear.
In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.

Those lyrics include one of my favorite phrases: “happily-ever-aftering.” I’ve never heard it used anywhere else. Using that phrase as a verb is magical to me. It’s what we should be doing. We should be about happily-ever-aftering all the time. The world would be a better place if we spent more time happily-ever-aftering.

Camelot, of course, also calls to mind President John F. Kennedy, whose name will be forever linked to it. The story goes that shortly after Kennedy’s death, the author Theodore H. White, who wrote The Making of the President—1960, (as opposed to the other, British, T.H. White who wrote The Once and Future King, the semi-historical novel on which Camelot, the musical, is based-there’s a bit of irony) was interviewing President Kennedy’s widow, Jacqueline, for a story in Life Magazine, and she told him that President Kennedy, before he went to sleep at night, loved to play records, and the song he loved the most was from Camelot, the title song, and the lines he loved to hear were

“Don't let it be forgot,
That once there was a spot,
For one brief shining moment
That was known as Camelot.”

Mrs. Kennedy told White that there’ll be great presidents in the future, but there’ll never be another Camelot—this was Camelot.

That article appeared in Life Magazine just a couple of weeks after the President’s assassination, and it forever attached the word “Camelot” to the Kennedy administration. One brief shining moment, indeed. Far too brief. Like Arthurian England, America lost its innocence on that November day in 1963, and sadly, I fear, we shall never get it back.

Happily-ever-after stories just don’t get told much any more. But there is one this week, right here in western North Dakota. It’s the story of the Hettinger Nursing Home. And I’ll tell it next time I sit down at my computer to write.

P.S. If you’d like to hear Richard Burton in his original Broadway role as King Arthur sing Camelot, click here. Go ahead. It will make your day brighter. It worked for me.


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You Could Look It Up

Well, the Tea Party movement got some fame over the weekend. Payin’ Sarah Palin a hundred grand paid off for them. But now there’s this weird controversy over the word “teabagger,’ that I haven’t been able to understand. Apparently at the urging of Fox News, people started using teabags as a symbol of this protest movement. Hanging a teabag from their mirror in their car, or from the visor of their baseball cap. And the phrase “teabagger” was born. Or at least that’s what I thought. But then some of these participants started objecting to the label, saying it was derogatory. Had to do with some strange sexual practice.

“Derogatory? What’s up with that?” I thought. “Have I been living in a cave, or what? I’ve never heard of that.”

Well, I wanted to find out if I was the only person left in America who didn’t know what that was about. So I called my friend Tom. Tom’s a man of the world. He knows stuff. Nope, he’d never heard of it either.

So I Googled it. Uh oh. Blush. I found the definition of it at a website called Urban Dictionary. You can look at it your self by clicking here. Warning: This is mostly an “R” rated site. I’d skip over Definition # 1 and go right to Definitions #2 if I were you. #2 is worth looking at. And then skip the rest. Too much information.

Frankly, I guess I thought using the phrase teabagger for the people who were part of these parties was a good name. I mean, it’s much easier to say than Tea-Partiers, or Right Wing Malcontents. And catchy too.

I didn’t know about that other weird meaning that those Tea Party participants are objecting to. Which got me to thinking: How did THEY know?

Well, enough about that. I have some other stuff I wanted to share with you today, some things I read, or saw, or heard lately, that I liked. Some serious. Some not so much.

“I thought he was more fiscally cautious than he needed to be (and) unreasonably afraid of disasters that might occur in the future. I think North Dakota would be better off if he had voted with me at least 10 percent more frequently.”

--Representative Eliot Glassheim, a Democrat, commenting on the retirement of fellow Grand Forks Representative Ken Svedjan, a Republican

“They're not knowin’ what are we gonna do if we don't have Tea Party support"

--Sarah Palin in her speech to the Tea Party Saturday night. And no, I have no idea what she was talking about.

“ . . . unknown state Senator wins U.S. Senate seat in shocking upset.”

--State Senator Tracy Potter, in his announcement speech for the U.S. Senate, quoting the headline from the recent Massachusetts election, and commenting on what the North Dakota headline might be on November 3, 2010

“Don’t walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let’s find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people. Let’s get it done. Let’s get it done . . . To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills.”

--President Barack Obama in his State of the Union speech

“The thing is, most of the time when you're coming pretty close to doing it with a girl, she keeps telling you to stop. The trouble with me is, I stop. Most guys don't. I can't help it. You never really know whether they want you to stop or whether they're just scared as hell, or whether they're just telling you to stop so that if you do go through with it, the blame'll be on you, not them. Anyway, I keep stopping. The trouble is, I get to feeling sorry for them.

--Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye,” whose author J.D. Salinger died last week. Did Salinger capture teenage angst, or what?

“A man died and entered heaven. On his first walk about his new abode he noticed several men fettered in ball and chain. His inquiry of a passer-by brought the reply. ‘They were from Leeds, North Dakota, and if they weren’t chained they’d go back.’”

--1950 edition of the WPA Guide to North Dakota

"The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them (our troops) home.”

--Congressman and decorated Vietnam veteran John Murtha, November 17, 2005. Murtha died Monday. The troops are still in Iraq.

Two Friends And A Possibility

A couple of my friends are in the news this morning, both regarding their careers. And there’s a third guy in the news that could just be a possibility. Here’s this morning’s news.

Purdon
Tim Purdon, it appears, is going be the United States Attorney for North Dakota. We’ll be in good hands. I’ve watched Tim since he first came to Bismarck as a young attorney. He’s good. He’s one of the two best criminal defense lawyers in town, maybe in the state (I’ll let each lawyer reading this decide if you’re the other one).

This will be a new role for Tim. He’s been defending people who were (just ask him--he’ll tell you) wrongfully charged with a crime (or charged for the wrong crime, based on the number of plea agreements he’s gotten). Now he’s going to be putting them away. Lucky for him, I say, that he won’t be taking on Tim Purdon in court.

Potter
My other friend in the news today is North Dakota State Senator Tracy Potter. Tracy and I have been friends for a long, long time. We’ve been good friends since that first round of golf we played together back in the spring of 1981 at Lincoln Park Golf Course in Grand Forks. We were both unemployed at the time, the victims of the Reagan landslide which knocked the Art Link Administration out of office in 1980. Tracy and I had been young public servants, he in the North Dakota Insurance Department, I in the North Dakota Department of Agriculture, and the newly elected Republican bosses of those departments decided they did not need our services for the next four years. So we went golfing, and then found new jobs, hung around, did some more public service in the George Sinner Administration, and then got old and moved onto careers in the private sector. We’re still golf mates. After about 600 rounds or so, I think I’m up two strokes on him.

Tracy, I guess, is going to run for the United States Senate this year, abandoning his State Senate seat in Bismarck. I say “I guess” because I haven’t talked to him for a week or so—I think he was afraid to call me for fear I’d talk him out of this. I wouldn’t have, of course. When we did talk about it two weeks ago, I said “Tracy, it’s a bad idea, but sometimes you’ve got to just say ‘What the f**k?’ Why not?”

I mean, lightning can strike. If your name is not on the ballot, you are not going to get the job. So I say, today, Tracy, “Good for you.” I want to be on the team. If you win, I do not want to go to Washington to work for you, but I promise I’ll keep an eye on things back here and let you know what is going on. And I’ll make the tee times (although I would like to play Congressional Country Club some time).

For the record, Tracy will be a good candidate, and a better Senator. Based on life experience, he’s at least as qualified for the job as Gov. Hoeven, maybe even better qualified. I hope he ends up being the candidate. I hope he wins.

Possibility?
I noticed in the paper yesterday there is a fourth Republican candidate to challenge Earl Pomeroy for the U.S. House seat. His name is J.D. Donaghe, and there’s nothing really remarkable about him, except for this: According to the Minot Daily News, he holds an “honorary degree in bible theology.” Huh?

Oh, and his position on health care. Here’s part of his platform (excerpts):

The National Health Care Act
• Effective January 15th 2011, all Medicare, Medicaid and Veteran Administration health care benefits shall be replaced by The National Health Care Program.

• All citizens of the United States of America shall be afforded full and complete unfettered access to The National Health Care Program.

• All legal temporary guest workers shall have the same access to the National Health Care Program as naturalized citizens.

• Temporary visitors to the United States of America shall not be denied emergency or preventive care by any medical facility but shall be fully responsible for payment of services rendered.

• All National Health Care Program recipients shall have the full and exclusive “Right to Choose” the health care service provider or facility that will best fulfill the needs of the individual without regard to location.

• The National Health Care Program shall provide the following list of health care benefits to any and all citizens of the United States of America without regard to age, sex, race, religion, color, creed, origin, location or medical condition:
• Primary Care
• Prenatal Care
• Preventative Care
• Testing and Diagnostics
• Non Elective Surgeries
• Emergency Services
• Hospital Stay
• In Home Health Care
• Hospice Care

• Effective January 15th 2011, any and all health care providers operating within the United States of America shall submit any and all invoices for services rendered to the Social Security Administration office located within their respective county of operation.

• Effective January 15th 2011, any and all invoices submitted to the Social Security Administration county offices for health care services rendered shall be paid in full within 15 days of receipt.

Huh, again. It’s on his website. Check it out. http://www.freedomin2010.com/Health_Care_Reform.html.

I think I’m for him. We could even be friends. I can live with the honorary degree.

What's It Take To Be A Republican?

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail that gives our Governor, John Hoeven, credit (rightfully so, it appears) for having influenced the Republican National Committee at its winter meeting in Hawaii last week.

The RNC adopted a resolution that urges party leadership to “carefully screen the record and statements of all candidates who profess to be Republicans” and to determine “that they wholeheartedly support the core principles” of the Republican platform.

That could only be a reaction, my friend says, to our Governor’s announcement that he is running for the U.S. Senate, after national blogs last week printed stories about his conversion from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party (credit my friend Chad Nodland over at northdecoder.com for starting that bandwagon).

Well, I was curious as to how they were going to do this, so I decided to do some research, and it is amazing what you can find on the Internet these days. If you Google enough word combinations, enough times, you can find anything. I found the test that the RNC is going to give to its candidates to check their purity. Here it is.

2010 REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE PURITY TEST

1. Who are you most likely to vote for in the 2012 presidential election?

A. Barack Obama

B. Ralph Nader

C. Sarah Palin

2. Who’s the best television political analyst in America?

A. Keith Olbermann

B. Ed Schultz

C. Sarah Palin

3. What do you see as the most important political issue of 2010?

A. Bringing health care to 40 million Americans

B. Putting 20 million Americans back to work

C. Making sure Sarah Palin stays in the public eye as she prepares for 2012

4. Who is the most popular former governor in the United States?

A. Rod Blagojevich

B. Bill Janklow

C. Sarah Palin

5. Despite public opinion polls, who was the most popular governor in the United States in 2008? (careful here, Gov. Hoeven-watch your ego)

A. John Hoeven

B. Rod Blagojevich

C. Sarah Palin

6. What state had the most far-sighted Governor in 2009?

A. John Hoeven (he could see Canada from his place)

B. Rod Blagojevich (he could see the Illinois state pen from his place)

C. Sarah Palin (she could see Russia from her place)

7. Who would you prefer to see host Saturday Night Live?

A. Paul McCartney

B. Tina Fey

C. Sarah Palin

8. Whose eyeglasses started a national fashion trend in 2008?

A. Theodore Roosevelt

B. Ben Franklin

C. Sarah Palin

9. What would you say would be your perfect vacation?

A. Two weeks in January on a beach in Hawaii

B. An all expenses paid 30 day trip around the world

C. Salmon fishing for a couple hours in hip waders with Sarah Palin

10. If you could bring someone into your state to endorse you and help you with your 2010 campaign, who would it be?

A. God

B. Taylor Swift

C. Sarah Palin

Answers: C.

Scoring:

10 correct: You’re on the ballot, the RNC and Tea Party checks are in the mail.

8-9 correct: There’s some hope for you. You’re eligible for a 10-day Tea Party “workshop” to get your mind right.

0-7 correct: Call the DNC and see if they have any candidate openings.

Random Thoughts On A Cold Morning

Having it Both Ways

I’m trying so darn hard not to be a partisan on this blog, but geez, there are some things that just tick me off. One of them is what was said by Governor Hoeven in the paper this morning, commenting on the President’s speech Wednesday night. Our Governor was critical of a 21 per cent budget increase in some federal programs. Well, people who live in glass houses . . . I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I seem to recall at least two recent North Dakota Legislative sessions where Governor Hoeven’s budget proposal was at least 25 per cent higher than the previous biennium. You won’t find me among the critics of those budgets, because much of the increase was for much needed new funds for education. You will find me among the critics of hypocrisy and pandering now that the Governor is a candidate for higher (?) office and needs to swing way to the right to keep his party’s activist base happy. But then, I think Curly and his friends have good memories too.

Cousins, But We Ain’t Kissin’

Okay, so now we learn (it’s true, you can look it up on the Internet) that President Barack Obama and newly elected Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts are related. Yep, they are actually 10^th cousins. They are both descended from one Richard Singletary, who died in 1687 at age 102. Uffda. Let me tell you, though, that stretching out distant cousin relationships doesn’t reveal much about family similarities. I’ll give you an example of how far apart relationships like that can go. I have a second cousin named Margaret. Her grandmother and my grandmother were half-sisters. My great grandfather was widowed at a young age and remarried. He had daughters with each of his wives. They were the grandmothers of Margaret and I. Margaret and I don’t have much in common though, other than a mutual interest in politics. We hardly know each other, even though we both live here in Bismarck. Margaret ran for political office once, and I didn’t vote for her. She will be running for the North Dakota Senate again this year, against one of my best friends, Tracy Potter. No offense, Cousin Margaret (Mrs. Sitte), but blood is not thicker than politics. Tracy will get my vote again. (I think Margaret and I once had an agreement not to tell anyone we were related, but one of us broke it long ago. Now the whole world knows. Uffda again.)

Friends, Not Cousins

Speaking of voting, I’m ticked off at a couple of my friends too. Three of them, actually. And all three are running for Congress in North Dakota. There’s been a lot of criticism coming from the right directed at my friend Earl Pomeroy the past couple of weeks. My friend Kevin Cramer (God, I hope he’s still my friend a year from today) and my friend Rick Berg (Rick’s from Hettinger, and I’m from Hettinger, and Hettinger has never had a Congressman, and he’s going to cause me a lot of heartburn on Election Day if he is the Republican candidate) have both accused Earl of walking in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress. Y’know, guys, this goes both ways. EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN in the U.S. Senate voted in lockstep with Mitch McConnell on the major pieces of legislation last year. And EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN in the House of Representatives voted in lockstep with . . . aw, darn it, I can’t even think of the House Minority Leader’s name (that’s how insignificant a player he is), and I’m not going to waste time looking it up. Now, if Rick or Kevin gets to Washington, that’s exactly what they are going to have to do. So just don’t pay any attention to that kind of criticism this year. As for Earl, I hope he quits talking like a weenie on health care. He voted for the House bill. He should vote for the Senate bill (see Monday’s blog post). And then fix it.

Totally Unrelated

And speaking of friends and cousins, today’s paper also says state wildlife officials say there are more coyotes in western North Dakota, and with the increase has come a jump in the number of coyotes with mange. Nah, I’m not going there.

What I Meant To Say

Paul Begala wrote this. I wish I had. It's what I really feel about politics, the U.S. Congress, the Democrats, and the health care issue. He just nailed it. Especially in the 5th paragraph. I read it on Huffington Post today and want to share it with you. I don't think Paul will mind.

In an op-ed several months ago, I advised my fellow progressive Democrats to support health care reform even if it fails to include some of their cherished goals.

Now I'm begging.

I understand and share the frustrations of progressives. They compromised before the debate even began, giving up on Medicare for all and settling for its weak cousin, a public option. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has been everything that the reactionary wing of the Republican Party has not: open-minded, pragmatic and respectful of the views of others. The Republicans' obstinacy has been rewarded by the voters, who sent Scott Brown to the Senate as the candidate of change who promised to defend the status quo on health care. So why do I urge further flexibility? Because failure is not an option and surrender is not a strategy.

I am convinced that Democrats lost the Congress in 1994 because we failed to pass health care. And yet today many Democrats are worried that they will lose the Congress if they pass health care. They are wrong. Here's why:

You're going to get the attack anyway, you may as well get the accomplishment. I don't mean to be rude, but if health care is the kiss of death, you've already been kissed. Now, I don't think it is -- not in the slightest. If passing health care would ensure Republican takeover of Congress, wouldn't those Rovian Republicans cut loose one or two senators to help it pass?

The Senate bill is progressive. No, it's not as progressive as the House bill -- but that's the wrong question. The right question is whether the Senate health care bill is better than the status quo. And that ain't even close.

The Senate bill prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, stops insurers from dropping health insurance coverage when someone gets sick, eliminates gender discrimination, requires coverage of preventive care, and levels the playing field for the little guy and gal through new health insurance exchanges. It includes the largest expansion of Medicaid since it was created under LBJ, fully funds the Children's Health Insurance Program through 2016, protects seniors who have fallen through the so-called "Donut Hole", and finally -- finally -- covers 31 million Americans who today lack health insurance.

After passing the Senate bill Democrats should use the budget reconciliation process -- in which the majority still rules -- to make improvements like a fairer system of taxing (assessing the rich instead of the middle class), and a better system of subsidies. I am convinced those improvements will never be made without first passing the basic architecture -- and the Senate bill is the only viable blueprint.

The winners get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "History will be kind to me because I intend to write it." The truth is the winners in Massachusetts are miswriting the history. Health care is a uniquely complicated issue in Massachusetts because the state already has near-universal coverage (which Scott Brown voted for). Thus, many voters who would otherwise support a candidate in favor of health care reform worried that a new national program might cost them more for health security they already had in Massachusetts. As Brown said in a debate, "We have insurance here in Massachusetts. I'm not going to be subsidizing what other states have failed to do." That's a far cry from outright rejection of health reform. In fact, if there's a lesson to be learned from Massachusetts, it is that once enacted, comprehensive reform quickly becomes broadly popular and politically impregnable. A poll co-sponsored by the Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University showed that 68 percent of Massachusetts voters support their state's health care reform -- including a majority of those who voted for Scott Brown.

This is our last, best shot. Up to 40,000 Americans die each year because they lack health insurance. 40,000: a 9/11-size death toll every thirteen days. After our failure in 1994 it took 16 years before another president and Congress were bold enough to take on the challenge. If we fail now it won't be just 16 years -- or even 36. If we fail now, I doubt anyone old enough to read this column will live long enough to see universal health insurance.

If Democrats fail to deliver on a basic campaign promise, it will only heighten voters' anger and deepen their cynicism. But health reform that actually protects consumers and controls costs will soon join Medicare -- and the Massachusetts reform -- as unassailable accomplishments.

Amen, Paul Begala. I think that is what I was trying to say last week. He's just so much better at it. House, pass the Senate bill. Then, Senate and House, use your majorities to make changes to make it better. My friend Tim says this is the moral issue of our generation. He's right.

Just do it.

Sound Familiar?

I’m not quite sure I understand why a party with an 18-vote majority in the United States Senate feels it is handcuffed when it comes to passing major legislation. I know, I know, the Republicans can filibuster. That’s what the 60 vote deal is about. Cutting off debate so a vote can be taken. But when is the last time anybody actually filibustered (is that even a word?)?

The United States Senate’s Reference page on the World Wide Web defines filibuster as an “informal term for any attempt to block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter by debating it at length, by offering numerous procedural motions, or by any other delaying or obstructive actions.”

The Senate rules permit a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish and on any topic they choose. When was the last time they did that? When did Strom Thurmond die?

I’ve got a four year old issue of Rolling Stone magazine laying around with an article by Tim Dickinson about President Bush’s “Deficit Reduction Act of 2005” (remember, this was in the days when Republicans controlled the Congress and the White House). Here’s part of what Dickinson wrote:

The net result of the Deficit Reduction Act will be a $50 billion increase in the deficit. In the bizarro world of President Bush's doublespeak bills, the new spending measure takes its place alongside the Clear Skies Act, which sought to increase air pollution, and the Healthy Forests Initiative, which opened America's woodlands to more clear-cutting. "If this is deficit reduction," says Bob McIntyre, director of the nonpartisan advocacy group Citizens for Tax Justice, "then up is down, down is up and George Orwell is president."

It wasn't easy for Republicans to get the measure through Congress. The final bill was hammered out in a closed-door, GOP-only session. Then -- when the spending plan was finally released to Democrats and the media after midnight on Sunday, December 18th -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert invoked "martial law" in the chamber, forcing representatives to pull an all-nighter and vote on the 774-page act after only forty minutes of debate. "Here you have one of the most consequential pieces of domestic legislation in years, with profound effects on millions of low-income Americans, and members of Congress were required to vote on it without even having a chance to read it," says Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

In the Senate, the measure seemed headed for defeat when a handful of moderate Republicans refused to support the cuts, which GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine blasted as "draconian." Majority Leader Bill Frist was forced to give Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota a $30 million subsidy for his state's sugar-beet industry, essentially bribing him to back the bill. "They have no shame," Minority Leader Harry Reid tells Rolling Stone. "These cuts are simply un-American."

Sen. Kent Conrad, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, decried the dearth of public scrutiny for a bill "written behind closed doors, filed in the dead of night and voted on at the crack of dawn." But Rep. Dave Obey, ranking Democrat of the House Appropriations Committee, isn't angry with his Republican colleagues for operating in the dark. "I don't blame them," he says. "If I put together a bill like this, I'd do it with the lights out too."

Geez, does any of that sound familiar?

So what happened next?

Vice President Dick Cheney was on a rare mission abroad, expressing his support for the millions left homeless by a massive earthquake in Pakistan, when he received a summons to return to Washington immediately. His vote was needed to break a tie on the Senate floor, where five Republicans had broken ranks to oppose the president's Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

Racing halfway around the world on a trans-hemispheric red-eye, Cheney arrived on December 21st, just in time to cast the decisive vote. His "aye" gave Republicans a 51-50 victory on the budget cuts . . .

Go back and read that again. 51-50. Not 60-40. 51-50.

Okay, there are rules, and then there are rules. Budget bills are different than other bills, I think. And that was probably a budget bill. But the score in the Senate these days is 57 Democrats, 41 Republicans and 2 Independents, I think. And the Independents vote with the Democrats. There are ways to pass bills when you have an 18-vote majority. From what I understand, there are 30 million Americans without health care today, who can have health care if a bill is passed. Meanwhile, Congress is paralyzed. Nothing is getting done.

So just do it.

A New Appropriator For North Dakota

I had a couple of poignant comments from friends after last week’s post here about the U.S. Senate race. I want to address both of them.

The first was from my friend Dave over in the Red River Valley (Dave is not affiliated with Senator Dorgan’s office), who pointed out that perhaps Governor Hoeven owes Byron a third thank you card for all the federal funds he’s brought to North Dakota. Something like half a billion dollars, Dave said, and much of it has gone to help create those “good paying jobs” Governor Hoeven talks about a lot. It’s true, the governor has been at a lot of groundbreakings and ribbon cuttings for projects funded by grants Senator Dorgan has gotten for the state. Point well taken, Dave.

The other was from my friend Tom, who winters in Texas, and read my blog from afar. I’ve never known Tom’s politics, but he’s either a Republican or just a fan of the Governor’s, based on his note: “Are you going to say anything good about John?”

Yeah, I am, Tom. Here’s goes.

John Hoeven is not a conservative.

That said, you’re going to have to work pretty hard to find someone to say that Governor Hoeven hasn’t done a pretty good job. Even among Democrats. In fact, maybe especially among Democrats. A lot of conservatives don’t like him at all. The Governor has indeed, as I pointed out, been the beneficiary of lots of money with which to run his government. He’s done a pretty good job creating programs to spend it, and hiring a decent Commerce Department Director to manage them.

The governor, and all North Dakotans, got some good news this week when Senate Minority Leader McConnell showed up and promised that if Governor Hoeven becomes Senator Hoeven, he gets to be on the Appropriations Committee (although I’m not sure if he consulted the Majority Leader and the President of the Senate first—seems to me they might have something to say about that. Not sure—how does that work, anyway?).

Problem is, the quid pro quo for Senator Hoeven is probably going to be that he has to vote with the Republicans. All the time. And if he happens to be the 41st vote for the Republicans, that means he kills every Democratic legislative effort. And if he does that, Democrats on the Appropriations Committee are not going to be happy. And so he’s going to be the most ineffectual member of Senate Appropriations. No bacon to take back home for him.

Well, Governor Hoeven is no dumb man, and he’s going to catch on pretty fast. I’d say it’s more likely that once in a while the new Senator will vote (with the Democrats) in the best interests of North Dakota instead of voting in lockstep with Mitch McConnell. When that starts happening, Democrats might even let him start using that seat on the Appropriations Committee to start delivering the kinds of things Byron Dorgan has been delivering. Good paying jobs for North Dakota. Pretty hard to turn that down.

And I don’t think it will bother him to “go rogue” on the Republicans. I mean, when you stop and think about it, John Hoeven is not a very good Republican, at least as defined by the tea-bag wing of his party. And they are the ones who are running the Republican Party these days. I mean, just look at the huge budget increases in North Dakota during his time as governor. Look at how many times the Democrats have cheered on his budgets while his own party whittles away at them. Look at all the new state funding for education and all the new state programs. Sheesh, looks more like a Democrat than Republican anyway.

And he’s really only been a Republican for ten years—that’s not long, and the Democrats are pretty forgiving folks. Switch parties? Not unheard of. Happened a couple times already in Washington in 2009. So don’t be surprised if North Dakota has an all Democratic-NPL delegation in Washington again before the ink is dry on President Obama’s second certificate of election.

What do you think, Tom?

Footnote:

“I have always been moderate in my political views, but now that I am considering elective office, I realize I must join a political party and stick to it. I have decided to join the Democratic-NPL Party because I believe that is the best fit for my views.”
John Hoeven, letter to the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, February 1996

Credit Where It Is Due

It’s pretty easy to be the most popular governor in the universe when your have a billion dollar state budget surplus and when the Legislature, controlled by your party, cuts taxes by a few hundred million dollars.

And it’s pretty easy to decide to run for the United States Senate when the seat is being vacated by the state's longest-running most popular politician.

So Governor John Hoeven owes Senator Byron Dorgan two thank you notes this month, with a brief one to Senator Kent Conrad as well. Here’s why.

A week or so ago, John Hoeven was comfortably ensconced in the Governors office, his feet up on the desk, reading a paper showing North Dakota government has the best balance sheet in America, comfortable in the fact he could just cruise through his last three years as Governor and then slip quietly into the chairman’s office at First Western Bank to serve out his working years. Never mind the cries from North Dakota and national Republicans to take on Byron Dorgan for the U.S. Senate. Way too much trouble. No fun to risk this incredible popularity in a bloody battle with Dorgan.

And then, the unthinkable . . . Dorgan quits. Well, now, that’s a different story. All of a sudden you’re the odds-on favorite to go to Washington D.C. as North Dakota’s junior U.S. Senator next January. Yikes. No way out now. Here we go.

Thank you, Byron. Card’s in the mail.

But what of that second thank you card? Take another look at the first sentence above. A billion dollar surplus. You can thank Byron Dorgan for that as well.

You see, while Dorgan and the pundits all talk about Dorgan’s legacy of Red River Valley Research Corridors and Devils Lake flood protection and energy policies and aid to Indian reservations, Dorgan’s legacy goes back much farther than that. It goes back to a Good Friday morning in 1977, and Election Day 1980.

In the early morning hours of Good Friday, April 8, 1977, the North Dakota Legislature enacted the state’s first real coal severance tax after an all night session. North Dakota Democrats, led by Tax Commissioner Byron Dorgan, held out through a bitter, and arguably the most interesting, legislative session in all of state history to enact a hefty tax on lignite coal to be strip mined from North Dakota’s shallow underground coal beds. A bill likely written by Dorgan’s chief lieutenant in the tax department, Kent Conrad (HB 1360), was the impetus for the beginning of what was to become a critical revenue source for North Dakota state government. Dorgan huddled with Democratic-NPL Legislators Richard Backes and Buckshot Hoffner for three and a half months, in the end bringing Republican leaders Earl Strinden and David Nething to the table to negotiate a reasonable tax on coal (more about this session in a future blog).

Three and a half years later, late in the evening on November 4, 1980, the North Dakota news media reported that North Dakota voters had approved an initiated measure, Measure 6, which levied a new 6½ per cent tax on oil extracted from North Dakota’s oil fields. The measure, sponsored by a committee composed of the North Dakota Farmers Union, the North Dakota REC’s, the North Dakota Education Association, and the North Dakota AFL-CIO, and written in the office of Tax Commissioner Byron Dorgan (likely by his chief lieutenant Kent Conrad), was overwhelmingly approved, more than doubling the state’s tax on oil from 5 per cent to 11½ per cent. Dorgan and Conrad staked their elections that year, for Congress and State Tax Commissioner, respectively, on that measure, championing its cause as the basis of their campaigns. They were the only two Democratic-NPL statewide candidates to win election that year.

It was Dorgan’s genius, in both cases, to recognize that mineral extraction was going to be an important piece of North Dakota’s economy and that putting a reasonable tax in place while those industries were in their infancy could prove to be an important source of revenue to the state for many years.

Make no mistake: Dorgan (with help from his strategist Conrad) gets the credit for the coal severance tax and the oil extraction tax. Period. Republican Legislatures have whacked away at those taxes in the years since, lowering the coal tax and creating myriad exemptions from the oil tax, but they remain in place today, and when the numbers are in for 2009, they may be providing nearly half a billion dollars annually to state government. Who’da thunk it?

Oh, absent Dorgan and Conrad, we might’ve gotten some kind of a coal tax, but we’d not likely have gotten the oil extraction tax. And today, North Dakota would be like every other state, struggling to keep its financial head above water. And we would not have all those other wonderful amenities that make governors of any party popular, like great schools and roads and parks and museums and universities and well-paid state employees and $400 million in property tax relief.

So take a pause, Governor, along the campaign trail, and get out your pen, and dash off a note to Byron. No, make that two. You owe him.

Welcome to Prairieblog

A note from Jim:

I created this blog in October of 2005, and then never wrote anything on it. I guess I was afraid of a commitment. Because what's the use of a blog if you don't write on it from time to time? Then, a month or so later, I ended my first foolish retirement and went back to work, and worked through the summer of 2009. No time to blog. But now I've really, truly, hung it up. I'm pretty sure. Lillian and I have moved to Bismarck, staked out a home to spend the rest of our lives in, over in the Highland Acres area of west Bismarck. Two months ago today, we moved in. Just now I have finished unpacking the last of the boxes, except for the one that says "Clothes Jim will wear when he gets back to 160." I'll let you know when it is time to open that. Don't hold your breath.

Now, I have time to blog. And I have things to say. So I'm going to say them here. On Prairieblog. It's not a fancy blog, and if it seems worth it, I'll call my friend Kalvin down at K2 and have him fix me up with a more modern one. This'll do for now. If you want to comment, my e-mail address is jimfuglie@hotmail.com. I've learned that a Hotmail e-mail address is a code word for unemployed/retired. Those of us who use them no longer have an employer to provide us an e-mail account. I say, "Good for us!"

I'll try to write here a couple times a week. Try. Lillian and I are going to travel some. Maybe I can learn to post from a Blackberry. We'll see. I'll probably write a bunch about politics, since that is what I know. I'll write about traveling, and about North Dakota. History and current events. And other things I'm interested in. Today, it's politics. Here we go.

Jim