Once Again Proving that Reality is Stranger than Fiction

In case you're wondering why I haven't been on the SleuthSayers much lately, I had cataract surgery on each eye, one on one week, and the other 2 weeks later, and an endless supply of eyedrops in between and going on, as far as I can see, until mid-August.  

The surgery actually wasn't as bad in one way as I feared it would be. But they put me (and everyone else) in a giant chair (well a chair made for people much taller and bigger than me), a surgical chair, and that wheeled around, lowered, sat up, flattened out, etc., like a hospital bed. But the top of my head just reached the  bottom of the headrest, and while they brought me a pillow, it all just didn't fit. (I've found the same thing with today's furniture, again, all made for giants, which is why I go furniture shopping at the Hotel Liquidators store.)

Meanwhile, the surgery itself was fascinating for a young adult of the early 70s.  Besides the endless eyedrops, after scooting down to the headrest like a caterpillar (if only I had transformed into a butterfly by the end of it!) I was taped down to the headrest (and, btw, my arms were also encased like a caterpillar; and yes, there was a part of me that thought instantly of the movie Coma).  

And then things happened.  No pain, no scalpels, but it definitely was psychedelic. A group of what looked like rocks, different colors, that changed, and vanished and came back and did that some more.  And then it was over. And they sat me up and rolled me back. Two hours and they were done. My eye dripped all the way home, and all evening along with my sinuses were dripping. But it was done. Ditto the other eye.  

Meanwhile, things did not slow down just because I was seeing fuzzy: 

For the criminally minded, we've had the usual weekly/twice weekly arrests of child predators and child porn. We've had a lot of hit and runs of late. And we had two beheadings in South Dakota this year:

• Yankton, South Dakota (January 2025): Craig Allen Nichols Jr. was charged with murder and manslaughter after the decapitated body of his girlfriend, Heather Bodden, was discovered in her apartment. Bodden's head was located in a trash bag inside the apartment, along with bloody clothing and weapons. Nichols had a history of prior arrests and had been recently released from a mental health facility.  Well, he's in jail, he's going to prison, one hopes to the mental health unit.  
• Clark, South Dakota (July 2025): Bowen Fladland was charged with the murder of his mother, Marlene Fladland, after her decapitated body was found in their front yard. He allegedly admitted to assaulting her, kneeling on her neck until she was deceased, and then using a tool to remove her head. Fladland had a history of domestic violence against his mother, including a prior aggravated assault conviction.  He's in jail, and he's going to prison, probably to share the prison's mental health unit with Mr. Nichols.

Then again, they both might get the death penalty. If so, they'll still end up in prison in Sioux Falls.  

BTW, is this a new trend in murder?  

Anyway, speaking of prison, our prison task force is finalizing a location in Sioux Falls for a new state prison with a $650 million budget (which is after 3 cities turned us down for the new prison), our legislature passed a ban on sanctuary cities (we have none), and the state ended the fiscal year with a $63 million operating surplus, which will be set aside for a rainy day, and when that comes, we still won't see any of it. I know South Dakota.

We also had 200 new laws come into effect as of July 1, 2025.  

My least favorite:  Senate Bill 100, which allows college students to conceal carry firearms on campus if they have an enhanced permit. 

“There is a lot of concern that we’ll see in coming time that it is unfounded and that we can get along just right, honoring and respecting our Second Amendment rights the way they were intended,” Governor Larry Rhoden said. God only knows what that sentence means. 

All I know is that all of my fellow retired colleagues from SDSU agree that we are SO glad we are no longer teaching, because there's a percentage of students (small, but enough) who are unstable and have a tendency to go off like a firecracker. Plus most of us taught a class or two in the Rotunda, which was just what it sounds, a rotunda containing pie-shaped classrooms with tier after tier of seats for students, leading down to the poor teacher at the bottom, who was a standing duck if one of those unstable students decided to exercise their "Second Amendment rights the way they were intended."

My favorite is HB 1067 which defines the term “must” to mean a mandatory directive and does not confer any discretion in carrying out the action so directed. And then goes on to say that "shall" means the exact same thing.  Soooo glad that's cleared up. 

And another polygamous sect has taken over the compound in rural Custer County, about nine miles southwest of the small town of Pringle, blends into the landscape just like other properties in the southern Black Hills that used to belong to the Warren Jeffs group of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS). Thankfully, Mr. Jeffs is now serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for sexual assault on a child. 

But there's apparently more where he came from, and this time it's the Order, – aka the Kingston Order, the Kingston Group, the Davis County Cooperative Society (DCCS) or the Latter Day Church of Jesus Christ (LDCJC), and while they're not officially affiliated with the FLDS, they practice most of the same stuff:  polygamy, incest, child abuse, child labor violations and fraud, according to the Associated Press.  (LINK)  

BTW, if you want to see the place, some of the buildings at the property have recently been posted as available for rent on Airbnb.  

Sigh…

Well, at least I can see better.