Things Fall Apart

[Sherlock Holmes said,] “It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

“You horrify me!”

“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser."

— Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Living in South Dakota, and most of that time in a small town, I agree with Holmes' assessment 100%.  

I've related in many a blog the ins and outs of various government corruption and malfeasance, from EB-5 to Gear Up! to the death of Joe Boever, and more.

I've also sat in a courtroom and watched as a grandfather, convicted of molesting all four of his grandchildren, was given a slap on the wrist from a judge because the man "had an unblemished record."  

And then there's the petty stuff: small towns where "everyone takes care of each other", so they don't have to enforce the rules.  With predictable results:  people don't shovel their sidewalks unless they feel like it, a noted person (with money) was allowed to turn numerous private properties into private junkyards, and the memorable time when one man threatened to shoot anyone that set foot on his property.  And then complained because the volunteer fire department watched his house burn down. 

BTW, there's no feud like a small town feud, unless it's a small town church feud.

Back on January 13, 2019, in my post "What We're Best at Being Bad At", I said that South Dakota was really good at embezzlement. And we are. To quote myself:

"Besides grifting on the state level, there's also one heck of a lot of small potatoes embezzlement here in South Dakota, much of it fueled by gambling addiction and/or medical bills. $500 from the local VFW; $1,500 from a doctor's office; $2,500 from a nursing home. Interestingly, other than the public humiliation, the punishment is usually a slap on the wrist: the main penalty is to pay the money back and do community service. Rarely is there any jail time. Perhaps that's why it's so common…
But sometimes it's bigger: Just recently, up in Kingsbury County a family-run grain elevator has gone bankrupt because the family was hedging commodities and lost as much as $15 million of other people's money." (HERE)

At the time I didn't go into details, because so much of it was "gossip".  Well, it's now two years later, and "Jared Steffensen of the Arlington, S.D., area, pleaded guilty to theft by deception in his H&I Grain Inc. business, at a June 29, 2021, hearing at the Beadle County, S.D, courthouse at Huron. He speculated on grain trades, and then failed to pay millions to farmers. He and his wife, Tami, could face five years in the state penitentiary. His mother, JoAnn also pleaded guilty to a felony of failing to inform state regulators that her company was failing financially." (AG Week)

Former H&I Grain Inc. site at Hetland, S.D, original location for a family business that ran into legal trouble when Jared Steffensen of Arlington, S.D, accelerated speculation in grain trades, costing ~32 farmers and companies millions of dollars.
Photo taken May 6, 2019, Hetland, S.D. Mikkel Pates © Agweek

Citing“criminal mentality” (for one thing, the scam went on for months) and “lack of remorse,” Circuit Judge Kent A. Shelton sentenced Jared and Tami Steffensen each to terms of five years in state prisons and made them liable for restitution of $4,966,491.80 to farmers, as well as other costs. And had them marched out of the courtroom, in handcuffs, back to jail. (Ag Week)

But the neighbors know, in the words of Greg Albrecht, whose family lost more than a million dollars, "We're never going to see nothing out of it." And they probably won't.

And that's not the worst scam:

On November 4, 2021, Robert "Bob" Blom, a feedlot operator in Corsica, South Dakota (pop. 592) was sentenced to 91 months in prison after pleading guilty to a Ponzi scheme. Basically, he ran a custom cattle feeding operation in which he resold cattle he didn't have in inventory to investors, falsified invoices and used the money to pay back old investors.

He owes $24,282,865.94 to people he conned – life-long neighbors, who definitely feel that he's getting way too little for his crimes. "Was there any plea bargaining for me?" asked Rod Myer, a cattle feeder that worked with Blom for 14 years and was a victim in the case. "I hear a lot in the courtroom today on how Bob felt. Well, how do you think I felt?… There goes my life savings." (Argus)

That's TWO multi-million dollar peculations occurring in TWO rural counties in South Dakota.

Now here's the deal: if you live in Corsica, SD (pop. 592), in Douglas County (pop. 2,835), or if you live in Hetland, SD (pop. 46) in Kingsbury County (pop. 5,187), you know just about everyone in the entire county.  You went to school with them, to church with them, etc. You've known them all your lives.  You trust them. "A man's word is his bond" is a common saying.  A handshake could seal major contracts.  And suddenly, one family in each of these counties, in absolute cold-blood, screwed everyone - life-long friends and neighbors – out of their life savings. 

It's not even the money, as much as that hurts. As Jeff Hampton, a friend of Blom’s for over 50 years, said, "Bob should never see the light of freedom again — those are hard words coming from a friend.” Then he turned to Blom. “You’ve destroyed the trustworthiness of a man’s word.” (Ag Week)  And he only got 7.5 years in prison.  

Let's put it in perspective:

In South Dakota, you get drunk and kill someone in a bar-brawl, you can - and many do - get life without parole for 1st Degree Manslaughter.  If you hit and kill someone while driving drunk, at least 10 years.  (Does not apply to state officials driving late at night on rural roads who run into deer with glasses. They get misdemeanors. And complain about that.)  One recent case involved 4 young men who were all charged in the shooting death of a man named Jordan LeBeau. The actual shooter got 40 years, but Kevin Rice got 60 years - not for shooting the victim - but for not stopping the shooting.  (Argus)  

Meanwhile, financial crimes get a slap on the wrist. 5 years. 7.5 years.  You have to be Bernie Madoff to get a life sentence.  Otherwise...  Well, all those people shouldn't have trusted them, right?  We'll set up a payment plan.  And - sort of related - Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls recently finally admitted to not doing enough to stop Covid back in the beginning, when 1,294 workers got Covid and 4 died - and paid a fine of $13,000.  This is around $10 a survivor OR $3,250 per death, which tells you how much a meat-packing plant worker's life is worth.  

Watch your backs, folks. There is no Eden, and even in Eden there was a snake.  Why not in South Dakota, where we talk like Mayberry, and act like Goodfellas?  God, I wish I was joking.

Nature's Bounty?

One of the great things about this time of year is that, even after Halloween, people are racing to give you new ideas on ghosts, goblins, and how to kill people, with or without Nature's little helpers.  Two articles from Atlas Obscura leapt out to me:

First of all, consider the Manchineel Tree*.  Related to poinsettias, it's a nice looking tree, with fruit that looks kind of like the "little green apples" of the old Roger Miller song (older than dirt). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchineel#/media/File:Hippomane_mancinella_(fruit).jpg

BUT:

You might be tempted to eat the fruit. Do not eat the fruit. You might want to rest your hand on the trunk, or touch a branch. Do not touch the tree trunk or any branches. Do not stand under or even near the tree for any length of time whatsoever. Do not touch your eyes while near the tree. Do not pick up any of the ominously shiny, tropic-green leaves. If you want to slowly but firmly back away from this tree, you would not find any argument from any botanist who has studied it.  Supposedly it killed Ponce de Leon.  (Manchineel Tree)

Gives new meaning to the Genesis admonition "if you eat of the tree you will surely die."  Now I think that the average mystery writer can think of a couple of ways of utilizing the Manchineel Tree, with the help of say, some rubber gloves and mass disposal of all cooking utensils, and I'll just leave that idea simmering away in the back of your minds.

The Manchineel tree (Hippomane mancinella) is found in the Caribbean, Central America, the northern edges of South America, and south Florida. Florida, of course, is host to other toxic plants, including the spotted water hemlock, (Cicuta maculata, a/k/a spotted parsley, spotted cowbane, and the suicide root) which looks like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicuta_maculata#/media/File:Cicuta_maculata.jpg

Occasionally mistaken for parsnips, this is considered to be North America's most toxic plant. "A quarter-inch of the stem is enough to kill a person" according to naturalist and botanist Roger Hammer, a naturalist and botanist. Unfortunately for us all, the range of the spotted water hemlock is the entire freaking United States, and I can show you a lovely crop growing up along the Big Sioux River here in Sioux Falls.

Or perhaps it's actually cow parsnip (Heracleum maximum), which grows everywhere, and is tall, herbaceous, and looks like a much larger, taller, thicker Queen Anne's Lace (daucus carota, a/k/a wild carrot).  According to Alaska's Poisonous Plants, 

"The sap of this plant contains various phototoxic chemicals that can make the skin (especially light skin) extremely sensitive to sunlight and more prone to sunburn. Skin contact with juice from the plant followed by exposure to sunlight can cause dermatitis, which can range from a mild, red rash to severe skin blistering."

Well, I'm not going to wade in to find out.  But people actually ate cow parsnips and lived.  From Wikipedia:

"The young stems and leafstalks were peeled and usually eaten raw, while early American settlers cooked the plant.[25] In terms of taste, texture, and nutrients, the peeled stalks resembled celery, which gave rise to the common name "Indian celery". The natives were aware of the toxic effects of the plant, knowing that if the outer skin were not removed, one would get an "itchy mouth" or blistering skin.[4][26] Pregnant women were warned away from the flower bud stalks to prevent newborns from asphyxiating when crying."

And this leads to (me, at least) the eternal question, how in the world did humans learn to eat some of this stuff?  

Take ginkgo seeds, from the ginkgo tree.  The ginkgo is the oldest living tree species on earth, an actual “living fossil” that's existed in their current form as far as the Middle Jurassic Period, or 170 million years ago (my emphasis added).  And they're very popular.  Their green fan-shaped leaves are aesthetic and pleasing, and turn a beautiful gold in autumn.  They can grow anywhere, through anything.  But a lot of people are severely allergic to their pollen, and their fruit stinks - "like vomit-laced poop" - and is inedible. (I would strongly advise against ginkgo supplements, no matter how hard they're pitching you.)  What you can eat is the cooked nuts - after a long, involved process requiring gloves and other precautions. And even then, the nuts contain trace amounts of a neurotoxin that can cause nausea and headaches, so you should only eat 10 nuts a day.  (Atlas Obscura)

But ginkgo is a more or less a garnish food.  What's even more fascinating to me is when people take something that is absolutely poisonous and transform it into edibility through a long, involved process of grinding, boiling, rinsing, leaching, etc. - how in the world did they survive to find out that the product would be edible?  Think about acorns and cassava.  

Acorns have bitter tannins, which interfere with the ability to metabolize protein. In order for humans to eat them, they have to be chopped and then soaked in several changes of water, until the water no longer turns brown. This can take several days. After that, they can be ground up and used like flour.

And there's manioc, a/k/a cassava.  Cassava root has cyanide in it, so it obviously has to be prepared carefully. Sweet cassava should be peeled, chopped up small, boiled until very tender, and the cooking water discarded. Bitter cassava (which is often grown because the animals won't eat it) has to be soaked in water for 4–6 days, boiled until tender, and then all the cooking water discarded.

Well, people aren't eating many acorns anymore, but cassava is the main carbohydrate for much of Africa and South America.  And people are still getting poisoned by it:  In 2017, 28 people died in Venezuela from cyanide poisoning from being sold raw bitter cassava roots instead of sweet cassava roots.  (They look alike, apparently.)  (El Pais)

Either way, whether it's ginkgo seeds, cow parsnips, acorns or cassava, what runs through my mind is a Monty Python routine:  

"Nuts, roots and seeds! Nuts, roots and seeds! Come and get your fresh nuts, roots and seeds!"

"Hey, there, my husband tried that root.  Took one bite and dropped dead, he did."

"Well, madam, we don't guarantee safety. You could try cooking it."

"Cook it? You didn't say nothing about cooking it."

"Haven't you heard? Everything's better if it's cooked. Or ground up a bit."

"My Aunt tried that. Ground it up cause she'd lost all her teeth. Took one bite and she dropped dead, too."

"Well, I've heard that some people are chopping it up, and rinsing it a few times first."

"How many times do you rinse it?"

[Shrugging] "Trial and error. Depends on the root. You got any relatives you don't like to try it out on?"

"Well, there's me husband's crowd from the shore. Bunch of clam eaters."

"And if that doesn't work, you could boil the hell out of it, and then drain it all off."

"It all sounds like an awful lot of work. Don't you have any potatoes?"

"Not for another three thousand years. Meanwhile, you get this right, and you could have a nice bowl of tapioca pud for your tea."

"Well, I suppose it would make a change...  I'll take two. But mind, if this doesn't work, I'm sticking with cattails."

Happy post-Halloween!

*Political Sidenote - the Manchineel tree is so toxic I propose calling Joe Manchin "Manchineel Joe".

How To Cook A Wolfe

The September 6, 2021 New Yorker Food Issue featured reprints of articles from cooks/writers such as M. F. K. Fisher, Anthony Bourdain, and Susan Orlean, as well as Chapter 6 of Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin, which is about a dinner party with perhaps enough pirozhki for even my insatiable appetite for tiny savory pies.  

But the article that rang my bell, blog-wise, was Adam Gopnik's Cooked Books.  Originally published April 9, 2007 as "What's the Point of Food in Fiction?" it starts off with this proposition:

There are four kinds of food in books: food that is served by an author to characters who are not expected to taste it; food that is served by an author to characters in order to show who they are; food that an author cooks for characters in order to eat it with them; and, last (and most recent), food that an author cooks for characters but actually serves to the reader.  (New Yorker)

 Now it is true that most books have food in them.  The glaring exception being, of all things, The Tale of Genji, 1066 AD, which has endless detailed descriptions of clothing, handwriting, perfumes, flowers,  ghosts, and sex.  But the only mention of actual food is medicinal, when a woman asks a lover that he please not stop by that night since she still reeks from eating garlic, believed to cure colds.  

But most of the time, food is a way of giving the characters something to do, or a reason to get together.  Especially if someone's going to be poisoned by foxglove in the sage dressing, fish paste in the sandwiches, or just hit with a frozen leg of lamb that will be roasted later on with (I hope) rosemary and garlic.  

Side note:  While Gopnik mentions James Bond's (a/k/a Fleming's) obsession with food, the quote I remember best is Felix Leiter's discourse on martinis in Thunderball.  I read it in junior high, sitting in the back row during some godawful boring assembly.  Now I'd already had a martini or two (this was the summer my mother worked her way through the Bartender's Manual with interesting results for all), and didn't like them:  I was too young, and favored Cuba Libres.  But the passage stuck with me.  The trouble was I was reading the entire Bond series at the time (a thing, like work my way through the Bartender's Manual, that I never plan to do again), and I couldn't remember which one it was. But here it is, found at last: 

The Martinis arrived. Leiter took one look at them and told the waiter to send over the barman. When the barman came, looking resentful, Leiter said, “My friend, I asked for a Martini and not a soused olive.” He picked the olive out of the glass with the cocktail stick. The glass, that had been three-quarters full, was now half full. Leiter said mildly, “This was being done to me while the only drink you knew was milk. I’d learned the basic economics of your business by the time you’d graduated to Coca-Cola. One bottle of Gordon’s Gin contains sixteen true measures – double measures that is, the only ones I drink. Cut the gin with three ounces of water and that makes it up to twenty-two. Have a jigger glass with a big steal in the bottom and a bottle of those fat olives and you’ve got around twenty-eight measures. Bottle of gin here costs only two dollars retail, let’s say around a dollar sixty wholesale. You charge eighty cents for a Martini, one dollar sixty for two. Same price as a whole bottle of gin. And with your twenty-eight measures to the bottle, you’ve still got twenty-six left. That’s a clear profit on one bottle of gin of around twenty-one dollars. Give you a dollar for the olives and the drop of vermouth and you’ve still got twenty dollars in your pocket. Now, my friend, that’s too much profit…”  

But moving along, back to Gopnik and cooking from/ with/ in/ off the books.  First, I find it sad that he never mentioned Fanny Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe, which combines murder, friendship, race relations, my favorite lesbian couple (outside of Angela Thirkell's Hampton and Bent) in all of literature, and a lot of cooking.  Ms. Flagg even provides excellent recipes for everything except - well, read the book.  Those fried green tomatoes really are delicious.  But maybe it was too low-brow for Gopnik.  

On the other hand, he likes Robert B. Parker's Spenser, who does cook a lot.  The thing is, to me, I was never interested in any the dishes Spenser made.  And his constant production of cornbread was always a mystery to me, when a light, flaky buttermilk biscuit is just as easy to make and tastes better with gravy.  

Another author Gopnik didn't mention was James M. Cain, which is a shame, because Mildred Pierce is both my favorite of all his works, and the one that finally taught me how to make those light, flaky buttermilk biscuits with the simple line: "She made pie crust, for biscuits."  100% correct.  All you have to do is make a short pie crust made with baking soda and buttermilk, barely knead it, and cut thick.  

BTW, Cain often seems to describe every meal the hero or heroine has, which makes sense considering how many of his novels are set in hard times.  He also uses food and sex kind of interchangeably. 

In The Postman Always Rings Twice, Frank's first meal at Nicks' diner is "orange juice, corn flakes, fried eggs and bacon, enchilada, flapjacks, and coffee", and it's Cora who makes the enchiladas.  She's hot in more ways than one.  

In Mildred Pierce, Mildred is an excellent cook, but it doesn't hurt that she uniforms her staff and self in "sharkskin dresses, of a shade just off white, white with a tint of cream in it, and... little Dutch caps... Always vain of her legs, she had the dresses shortened a little. Now, she hurriedly got into one, put on her Tip-Top shoes, stuck on the little cap... she looked like the cook in a musical comedy."  It works:  her ex-husband Bert and her first ex-lover Wally eye her legs and her restaurant, but it's her current lover, gentleman ne'er-do-well Monty Beragon, who takes her home:  "I've been looking at that damned costume all night, and with great difficulty restrained myself from biting it. Now, get it off." 

 In noir, sex and food and ambition are all wrapped up as tight as Cora's enchiladas.

Of course, when we talk of detection and food, we have to talk about Nero Wolfe, whose life revolves around books, orchids and food:  solving mysteries at high prices is how he pays for them.  I have a copy of The Nero Wolfe Cookbook (by Rex Stout and the Editors of the Viking Press).  And I've read a lot, if not all, of the Nero Wolfe stories and novels.  

A few things leap out:  

Nero Wolfe was as obsessed with eggs as Anthony Bourdain.  Eggs burgundian, coddled eggs, eggs au buerre noir, apricot omelets, bacon and apricot omelets, strawberry omelets, shirred eggs (one scoop of flour away, I hate to tell Wolfe, from toad in the hole), clams hashed with eggs, forty minute scrambled eggs, etc., - none of which I have made, because I need a Fritz to make something that time-consuming that early in the morning.  Nor have I nor will I ever make my own scrapple, brioche, or green tomato jam.  And Fritz puts sugar in his buttermilk biscuits - Anathema!  

Stan Hunt © The American Magazine (June 1949) – Wikipedia

Also, frankly, Fritz often overdoes the richness:  the flounder swimming in cheese over buttered noodles is enough to make Gunter Grass' Flounder choke on his sorrel.  And there's ingredients you can't even hope to find today in most American butcher shops, much less grocery stores: kidneys, tripe, turtle steaks, quail... and starlings?

Of course, things used to be different.  In my childhood I remember seeing kidneys, liver, gizzards, and brains for sale right there in the meat counter at Safeway. Grossed me right out. Now you have to ask at the local if they even have liver, and they'll look at you funny. (And they do not carry songbirds, thank God.) 

Also, Wolfe - or Fritz - never seemed to have heard of sweet red peppers, which certainly existed prior to modern times.  Green peppers show up in recipes where they never should, including Fritz' Hungarian Goulash (p. 94), which I have made, replacing the green peppers with red, and using a strong Russian vodka in place of Polish vodka.  It was pretty good, served with buttered noodles, Celery and Cantaloupe Salad (p. 35), Tomato Tarts (p. 51), Corn Cakes (p. 80), and Blueberry Grunt (p. 59).  We had 10 for dinner, including ourselves, and we all ate well.  But I have a feeling that Fritz would have served more unctuous side dishes than we did.  What Nero Wolfe really needed with every meal was a side of lipitor.  

And, looking over the cookbook, and the novels, I have to agree with what Archie Goodwin said in The Final Deduction:  

“At the dinner table, in between bites of deviled grilled lamb kidneys with a sauce he and Fritz had invented, he explained why it was that all you needed to know about any human society was what they ate. If you knew what they ate you could deduce everything else—culture, philosophy, morals, politics, everything. I enjoyed it because the kidneys were tender and tasty and that sauce is one of Fritz’ best, but I wondered how you would make out if you tried to deduce everything about Wolfe by knowing what he had eaten in the past ten years. I decided you would deduce that he was dead.”

Ya think?

---

PS - Some people have asked about the on-going shenanigans in South Dakota, from the further fallout of the Pandora Papers, to the current investigations (two!) of our Governor, to the apparent race to see how many state legislators can get a DUI covered up, to the SD Senate Majority Leader's son, who got almost $750,000 in coronavirus relief funds for a SD business which was actually located, operated, and paying (some) taxes in Texas - fear not, eager readers.  All shall be revealed.

Pandora's Box

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Last week was our Governor's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week, as the following stories broke wide open:

(1) Governor Noem's daughter flunked her appraiser's test so our Governor met with her daughter and the supervisor of the state employee who oversaw her application in a closed meeting. The result was that the daughter got her license and the employee was "encouraged" to retire. Gov. Noem has been tapdancing as if she's in a house infested with cockroaches trying to explain that none of this had anything to do with political pressure, just an attempt to "streamline" the process of becoming an appraiser, and "eliminate barriers to licensure". At least for her daughter. (AP News) (Meanwhile, someone on the appraisal board has since leaked that the daughter flunked her test 4 times, not once.)

(2) Corey Lewandowski. Read it all here: (The Bulwark; The Daily Beast) BTW, Ian Fury, Noem's official spokesperson, said “Corey was always a volunteer, never paid a dime (campaign or official)." To which I instantly responded, "So, you are saying that he did it for love."

(3) AG Ravnsborg (the one who hit a deer with glasses, remember?) has referred Noem’s use of the state plane for various things (private trips, campaigning for Trump, fundraising, etc.) over to Government Accountability Board for review. (Dakota News) Considering that Noem's been calling for Ravnsborg's impeachment / resignation (to be fair, so have we all), this may end up being filed under Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold.

And

(4) The Pandora Papers:

By now, you'd have to be under a rock not to have heard about the Pandora Papers, leaked documents from a coordinated, global investigation of how the wealthy and powerful store millions of dollars in secretive trust funds, leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and reported on by the Washington Post and other partners. Naturally, the state which leads the list in housing these very dicey funds is South Dakota.

"South Dakota now rivals notoriously opaque jurisdictions in Europe and the Caribbean in financial secrecy. Tens of billions of dollars from outside the United States are now sheltered by trust companies in Sioux Falls, some of it tied to people and companies accused of human rights abuses and other wrongdoing." (Washington Post)

Now I am proud to say that in one way, I actually broke this story, on SleuthSayers, back on June 20, 2012. It's just that no one listened. As the once and [probably] future AG Marty Jackley once told me, "Call me when there's a crime." To quote myself:

And the latest hot businesses are shelf corporations. These are entities that are created by lawyers incorporating a bunch of corporations that exist in name only—no assets, no employees, and no board members except the agent filling out the paperwork. (It’s sort of like the residency corporations, who have an owner and a person doing the mailings, and that’s it.) Anyway, if you want to start a business, you pay a fee to the incorporator, and you’ve got a corporation. And you the purchaser get complete anonymity. And no taxes. And no accountability. The following is a pitch from Corp95.com: https://corp95.com/

“South Dakota is one of the best kept secrets in the corporate formation world. The state has NO corporate income or franchise taxes. Their annual fees are minimal ($50 per year) and they allow for the most privacy of ownership than in any other state. South Dakota is a low key environment and does not require that its businesses maintain any physical presence in the State. Formation is fast and requires a minimum of personal information. You will pay no more and sometimes less than some of those states that claim to offer privacy but do not actually do so. Why form your company in a state that claims to have no taxes, but then charges high fees to compensate for this. South Dakota truly does offer the most privacy at a very reasonable ongoing fee. Call us at 800-859-6696 and let us provide you with the details for formation of your business entity in this friendly state.” The Wild West Continues (my emphasis)

Corp95 is still making the same pitch, and has been joined by a host of other sharks looking for chum.

But the whole thing started with the late, great[ly interesting] multi-elected Governor "Wild Bill" Janklow, who changed South Dakota law to allow all kinds of things that just weren't allowed in other states. For example, in the 1970s Citibank, which had invested heavily in credit cards, was going bankrupt what with high national interest rates. South Dakota was in a major recession. Citibank promised 400 jobs RIGHT NOW if Janklow abolished the "anti-usury" laws that South Dakota (and all other states) had, so he did - in a single day.*

Seeing the success of that repeal, Janklow went on to deregulate trusts. Back in the 17th century, 'judges fought back against a permanent aristocracy by creating the “rule against perpetuities”, which limited the duration of trusts to around a century, and prevented aristocratic families turning their local areas into mini-kingdoms. In 1983, Janklow abolished the rule against perpetuities and, from that moment on, property placed in trust in South Dakota would stay there for ever.'

“It’s a clean industry, there are no smokestacks, we don’t have to mine anything out of the earth or anything, and they’re generally good paying jobs,” said Tom Simmons, an expert on trust law at the University of South Dakota, when we chatted over coffee in central Sioux Falls. Alongside his academic work, Simmons is a member of South Dakota’s trust taskforce, which exists to maintain the competitiveness of the state’s trust industry. “Janklow was truly a genius in seeing this would be economic development with a very low cost to the government,” he said. (By “the government”, he of course means that of South Dakota, not that of the nation, other states or indeed other countries, which all lose out on the taxes that South Dakota helps people avoid.) The Guardian

Anyway, the ICIJ's and Washington Post's reporting focuses on two Sioux-Falls based trusts: Trident Trust, an international company that opened its Sioux Falls office in 2014, and the South Dakota Trust Co., created by a founding member of Janklow's task force in 2002.

Details from the Washington Post and ICIJ investigations include:

• The family of Ecuadorian brothers William and Roberto Isaias created trusts with South Dakota Trust Co. in 2012, soon after the brothers were convicted of embezzling government bailout money for their failed bank. Their conviction was later overturned.
• Family members of Carlos Morales Troncoso, the former vice president of the Dominican Republican, opened several trusts with Trident in 2019 that contain $14 million in personal wealth and shares of a sugar company. The company is "accused of human rights and labor abuses, including illegally bulldozing houses of impoverished families to expand plantations."
• Federico Kong Vielman, a powerful businessman from Guatemala, moved $13.5 million to Trident 2016. His family is linked to a former dictator and gifted free hotel stays to a former Guatemalan president, likely in exchange for "political favors." U.S. labor officials have accused his family's palm oil company of underpaying workers and exposing them to toxic chemicals. U.S. environmental authorities later found the company released pollutants into a river and the issue was resolved in an arbitration panel.
• Guillermo Lasso, president of Ecuador, opened two new trusts with Trident in 2017 after his country made it illegal for public officials to store assets in tax havens and as media reports questioned his interests in a bank in Panama.
• José “Pepe” Douer Ambar, a businessman from Colombia, had a trust with Trident. He settled a case with the U.S. government after an investigation found he was involved with "a vast enterprise to sell drugs in the United States and launder the proceeds."
• Horst Happel, a business leader from Brazil, created a trust with Trident in 2018. Happel settled a case with the Brazilian government after allegedly colluding to underpay local farmers. He also settled a case with the U.S. government after he allegedly violated limits on futures trading.
• Christopher Pallanck was formerly married to Cleopatra Cameron, an oil heiress from California who put millions in a Trident trust. Pallanck was granted full custody of their children and Cameron was ordered to pay child support. Trident successfully argued to the South Dakota Supreme Court in a 2017 case that it didn't need to pay out the child support, SDPB previously reported.

"Trident told the Post it complies with all regulations and cooperates with authorities. South Dakota Trust Co. declined to comment on its individual clients but told the Post it exceeds review standards by screening clients for criminal activity and legal or regulatory concerns. Bret Afdahl, director of the South Dakota Division of Banking, told the Post that the state audits trust companies and can penalize firms that do not meet standards, such as confirming the identities of all customers. He said foreign clients and assets receive extra scrutiny." (NPR) (my emphasis)

HA HA HA HA!!! Remember Paul Erickson (former Vermillion, SD Republican operative) and Maria Butina (the Russian spy who loved him and the NRA)? They founded two LLCs which were obviously shelf corporations. Bridges LLC was set up in 2016, and Medora Consulting LLC in 2018 - both "located" in an apartment complex in Sioux Falls, both without any stated purpose or partners. But may well have been laundering money from Aleksandr Torshin and an as-yet unidentified Russian oligarch with a net worth Forbes estimated to be about $1.2 billion. (Vox) Nobody, as far as I know, ever checked into them.

Still it's all harmless, right? Just a place to park money, and it's their money, and someday I might win the lottery, so we need this, right?

"Well, here is an example from one academic paper on South Dakotan trusts: after 200 years, $1m placed in trust and growing tax-free at an annual rate of 6% will have become $136bn. After 300 years, it will have grown to $50.4tn. That is more than twice the current size of the US economy, and this trust will last for ever, assuming that society doesn’t collapse altogether under the weight of this ever-swelling leech.

"If the richest members of society are able to pass on their wealth tax-free to their heirs, in perpetuity, then they will keep getting richer than those of us who can’t. In fact, the tax rate for everyone else will probably have to rise, to make up for the shortfall caused by the wealthiest members of societies opting out, which will just make the problem worse. Eric Kades, the law professor at William & Mary Law School, thinks that South Dakota’s decision to abolish the rule against perpetuities for the short term benefit of its economy will prove to have been a long-term catastrophe. “In 50 or 100 years, it will turn out to have been an absolute disaster,” said Kades. “Now we’re going to have a bunch of wealthy families, and no one will be able to piss away that wealth, it will stay in the family for ever. This just locks in advantage.” (The Guardian)

And every year "the legislature passes an annual bill supporting the industry, following updates by a task force that holds unadvertised meetings to discuss trust laws around the world." Nice. (Dakota News Now)

And, of course, some South Dakotans are making money off of it. USD Law Professor Tom Simmons says “A lot of my students are working in the trust industry, they’re great jobs, they enjoy them and they are raising families in South Dakota, where otherwise they may have left." (Kelo-TV) Really? according to Republican State Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, 500 people are employed in South Dakota's mysterious trust industry, which is 0.1% of total SD employment. (And I'll bet most of them are administrative assistants making $25-40K.) There are also "Help Wanted" signs everywhere you turn in Sioux Falls, so I think 500 people could find other work in South Dakota as we get going with "BUST THE TRUST" slogans, signs, legislation…

But, but, but…

1. This is a nice state, full of nice people, who would never do anything wrong;
2. This is a nice state, full of nice people, who would never be so impolite as to raise a ruckus no matter what. (Most South Dakotans avoid conflict as if it were an unsedated colonscopy)
3. This is a nice state, full of nice people, which is why we can have basically a one-party government with no accountability, no transparency, and no public access, because what could possibly go wrong?
4. This is a nice state, full of nice people, but we're freaking broke (again), because we don't have a big labor force, we don't have any taxes (other than sales and property tax), and all the big money we get seems to go in other people's pockets or just freaking vanishes (EB-5, Gear Up, and probably a few of these secret trusts), so we have to get money from somewhere, and we just won't look into it too deeply BECAUSE

1. This is a nice state, full of nice people, who would never do anything wrong. (Repeat on an endless loop.)

$50.00 a year, folks, and this too can be your dream LLC in South Dakota, where we talk like Mayberry, but act like Goodfellas.

*The elimination of usury laws led to the meteoric rise of T. Denny Sanford, who founded First Premier Bank, which made its name and its money on being one of the major subprime credit card providers (high interest - try 79.9% on a $300 credit limit in some cases - to those with low credit ratings ). Mr. Sanford, currently [semi-]retired, is the patron of Sanford Health (formerly Sioux Valley Hospitals & Health Systems), and much, much, much more.

The Neverending Saga

Many of you, and even myself, had thought that the Ravnsborg saga had come to a miserable squibbling end, but the saga continues.  Back in January 27, 2020 at the Aberdeen City Council meeting our Attorney General Jammin' Jason bragged – and I am not joking – "One thing I'm good at, it's driving" (see Here).  This quote has not held up well.  Besides killing Joe Boever on that fateful September 12, 2020 night, JJ has racked up some speeding tickets. His latest was on August 23, 2021, four days before his plea deal:  

Footage from a deputy sheriff’s body camera shows Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg being pulled over for speeding in Pierre last month.

“Good evening,” the Hughes County deputy says.

“Good evening,” Ravnsborg responds.

“The reason I stopped you is because you’re doing 57 in a 35. Any reason for your speed?” the deputy asks.

Ravnsborg, driving his personal vehicle, hands over his insurance and registration but says he’s missing something.

“Yeah, I don’t have my license with me,” he says.  (NPR)

BTW, here in South Dakota, the unwritten rule of speeding is that you can go 5-10 miles above the 55/65 mph speed limit in between towns (there's a lot of fairly empty land in South Dakota), but when you hit town you go the speed limit.  57 in a 35 mph zone means AG JJ was driving almost 60 mph in a city - the capitol city of South Dakota.  And without a license.  This really is straight from the "you can't make this up" files.  We all breathlessly await what kind of fine he'll get.  If any.  

Then again - people are pissed.  

Governor Kristi Noem and the South Dakota Department of Public Safety handed the full investigation file over to to South Dakota Speaker of the House Spencer Gosch. Noem is pressuring the Legislature to impeach Ravnsborg.  (Here)

Secretary of the Department of Public Safety Secretary Craig Price, in a cover letter to Gosch that also was released, summarized the report, and sharply criticized the prosecution:

“In my opinion as a 24-year law enforcement officer, and in the opinion of the highly trained highway patrol officers involved in this investigation, Mr. Ravnsborg should have been charged with 2nd Degree Manslaughter,” Price wrote. “The prosecution team was well aware of that position. The South Dakota Highway Patrol stood ready and willing to provide expert testimony regarding the crash and the facts of this investigation at trial, a position that was also made clear to the prosecutor.”  (Mitchell Republic)

Meanwhile, the South Dakota Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Chiefs' and Sheriffs' associations said in a joint press release on Friday, that "we are unified in requesting Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg resign as South Dakota Attorney General.  Ravnsborg’s involvement in the death of Joe Boever on September 12th have resulted in a lack of confidence in his ability to effectively carry out his duties as the chief law enforcement officer in South Dakota.  We are not commenting on the pending criminal case or impeachment process as we recognize his right to due process."  (RCJ)

And he still might not get impeached:  From The South Dakota Standard: 

A powerful insider told me last week that most of them have no special feelings for Ravnsborg. He is not one of them, and they hold no regard for him. But he is a Republican, and it will produce bad publicity for him, the state and the party.  Frankly, they just want it to go away as quietly as possible. If that means Ravnsborg serves until the end of 2022 — based on the belief that he will not be renominated for a second term, much less elected to one — that is what they would prefer.

Maybe.  But people are really pissed.  

Meanwhile, though, I've been thinking about something else which relates to the death of Joseph Boever and many other mysterious deaths in South Dakota, something that links them all, that seems plausible enough, until you start counting it all up - and that is the accusation or ruling of suicide.

Back on November 1, 2004, Morgan Lewis, German professor at Northern State University in Aberdeen was found dead at the doorway from a gunshot wound to the back of his head. Obvious homicide, right? And the coroner did call it a homicide. "But a year and a half later, it was declared a suicide, After a year and a half of haggling among officials, the police declared it a suicide. This declaration was made after some kind of expert organization was called in to examine the case. The report of that organization on which the decision was based was withheld from the public."  (Northern Valley Beacon)

Pro tip: It's almost impossible to commit suicide by shooting yourself in the back of the head.

Or by shooting yourself with a shotgun to the gut (in a lonely field, btw), as was determined by then  Attorney General Marty Jackley about Richard Benda, who - as soon as he was declared dead by suicide - was blamed for embezzling all the missing money in the EB-5 visas for cash scandal in 2013.  

(NOTE:  EB-5, the only immigrant program in the US that allowed a person to buy citizenship for $500,000, is officially, for now, dead, having not been renewed by Congress in June.  See HERE)

And I still don't buy the "shot his family and himself and set fire to the house while the safe walked out the door like a pet potbellied pig" with regard to the Westerhuis tragedy.  

(see my SleuthSayers posts "A Little Light Corruption" about both the Benda and Westerhuis cases HERE and my "Halloween Ain't Over by a Long Shot" update on the Westerhuis case HERE)

And, of course, Mr. Ravnsborg planned to use the "victim threw himself into my car and through my windshield" suicide defense.  If Ravnsborg hadn't done a plea deal, and he'd gotten away with the suicide defense, that would have been the fourth high-profile death in South Dakota declared a suicide while the rest of us stand around with our mouths open going, "WTF?"  

Which makes me wonder, how many more "suicides" in this state... weren't?  

I might have to do a little research.  If I do, I'll let you know what I find out.

Dying Drunk and other Victorian Habits

I read an article a while back called "Time to Reread 'Anna Karenina'" on (of all places) The American Conservative, just to see what their take on it was and it was:

"The reader watches as Anna, a brilliant socialite with a respected husband and a smart young son, falls from grace: she nearly dies in childbirth of her illegitimate daughter; is cast out of all polite society; is isolated from her son, family, and friends; drives herself mad imagining her paramour is in love with other women; and, ultimately, commits suicide. Through all this, Anna refuses to repent her decision to be unfaithful. If there’s one idea Tolstoy wants you to come away with, it’s that affairs have consequences."  And then goes on to blame feminism because reasons.

Now yours truly, a/k/a Every Volume Eve, knows that almost every author who has ever written about  adultery generally comes to the conclusion that affairs have consequences.  Even Casanova occasionally knew he went too far.  She also knows that Tolstoy had enough issues with sexuality to keep generations of Freudians on 24/7 therapy alert, but the essayist apparently didn't.* 

Nor, apparently, did he know that Anna Karenina was no feminist, but she was a drug addict.  He certainly didn't mention it. Specifically morphine. When she gave birth to that illegitimate daughter, which almost killed her, the doctor gave her morphine because that's all they had back then for pain, etc. As the novel progresses, so does her addiction, until she can't sleep, go out, or do anything without morphine.  Other people in the novel (such as her sister-in-law Princess Oblonsky, a/k/a Dolly) notice her addiction, and warn Vronsky, who knows already, but no one can figure out what to do. And the night before her suicide, Anna pours her "usual dose" of opium, and the next morning, takes a little more, and goes out and hurls herself under a train.  (Sorry if I spoiled the ending for you.)

Basically, Anna Karenina is a damn good portrait of addiction in action. True, the references are brief, often subtle, sometimes euphemistic, but they would have been perfectly clear to a Victorian audience.**  I think some of it is that most modern readers don't think in terms of Victorian ladies - even Russian Victorian ladies - being drug addicts. (Somehow humans always think sex, drugs, and wild music are modern.) But they were.  

For example, a common event in Victorian literature and memoirs is someone's illness and death.  Along the way, they're generally given either a cordial or an elixir. Both were primarily alcohol, mixed more or less with opium (whether it was called morphine or laudanum) or cocaine (Sherlock Holmes wasn't the only one on "a seven-per-cent solution"). Laudanum, "a tincture of opium mixed with wine or water" that's been called the 'aspirin of the nineteenth century,' was the primary painkiller available. It was recommended for a broad range of ailments from cough, diarrhea, rheumatism, 'women's troubles', cardiac disease and even delirium tremens. (VictorianWeb) When Oscar Wilde said, "I am dying as I have lived: beyond my means," he was drinking champagne on his deathbed by prescription. In fact, cordials for the sick and dying are mentioned in so many Victorian novels that I've decided most Victorians died drunk and/or high.  

Cordials were also given to babies, especially when they were teething, colicky, etc.  Godfrey's Cordial (a/k/a "The Mother's Friend") contained one grain of opium per two liquid ounces, and those two ounces were mainly alcohol.  It was notorious for being responsible for infant deaths, but it was just so handy, and it did shut the little darlings up.  So it got used.  A lot.  (Citation)  

Then there were tonics.  Most children, adolescents, and women were given and/or took tonics to "build up their strength" and/or keep them "regular":  the most famous of these, of course, is Lydia Pinham's Vegetable Compound, which was made up of an almost modern recipe of herbs (including black cohosh) suspended in alcohol.  (see here)  ("Just a spoonful of whiskey makes the medicine go down...")

And of course, there was paregoric (camphorated opium tincture), widely used to control diarrhea in adults and children. This is what Beth March takes in Little Women (it's referred to solely as "camphor" there but everyone at that time would have known it was paregoric) when she suspects she's caught scarlet fever from the Hummell family.  She also takes some belladonna (on doctor's orders!), which is a tincture of deadly nightshade, and can do everything from blind you to kill you.  All things considered, I'm amazed that Beth lived as long as she did.  

Calomel (mercury) was used to treat everything from mumps to typhoid fever, and all of women's gastrointestinal troubles. Since mercury softens the gums, it was also given to babies for teething.  In real life it cured nothing, but it caused a lot of mercury poisoning, which had long-term consequences, especially in the babies.  Part of the reason you rarely read of a man being treated with calomel in a novel is that it was also used for syphilis, so to mention it as a treatment was to basically declare that he was an immoral rake, and pity his poor wife.  (In real life, see Lord Randolph Churchill, Winston's father.)

Cocaine lozenges were recommended as effective remedies for coughs, colds and toothaches in the Victorian era, not to mention indigestion, melancholia, neurasthenia.  Holmes was not the outlier that Dr. Watson would have us think.  

With all that laudanum, cocaine and alcohol floating around, the list of Victorian addicts is long.  Besides Anna, there's Anne Bronte's Lord Lowborough in the The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (she apparently studied brother Bramwell and copied his addictions with microscopic accuracy) to Dracula. (Addiction is addiction, folks, and Dracula certainly has all the symptoms, including using everyone and everything around him to get his next fix of that sweet, sweet stuff.)  Wilkie Collins used opium to good effect in both The Moonstone and The Woman in White).  

And in real life, there's Elizabeth Siddal, Gabriel Dante Rossetti's wife, who died of an overdose of laudanum in 1862, while Rossetti himself became a chloral hydrate addict. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge also got high, which should surprise no one who's read Kubla Khan:

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning started taking laudanum for pain when she was 14 years old, and only managed to give up her addiction 30 years later, after her marriage to Robert Browning, when she realized that otherwise she would never have children. 

And none of this was considered illegal or particularly immoral, as long as you could earn a living, have children, carry on in society, etc.  

Today we live in a world in which the demarcations are clearly marked:  legal / illegal drugs; prescription drugs / illegal drugs.  But in the Victorian world those markers didn't exist.  You could buy anything, use anything legally.  The Victorians might be tightly buttoned when it came to sex, but with drugs and alcohol, there were no limits, other than morality and social standards, and to be honest, those were also much more fluid than ours.  Except for a few cranks like Bronson Alcott, everyone drank.  (For one thing, only a madman would drink Thames or Potomac or any river water.)  And when it came to pain and sickness, everyone took drugs.  Hard drugs.  It was all they had.

---

* Proof? The Kreutzer Sonata, Pierre's first marriage in War and Peace, and the fact that Tolstoy sired 13 children while declaring the swinishness of carnal love and the institution of marriage.  But then Rousseau had 4+ children and put each and every one of them in an orphanage, while writing the 18th century classic on permissive child education, Emile. So there's was a lot of hypocrisy around.  BTW to those who believe Mrs. Tolstoy was entirely to blame, just a reminder that Sophia copied and edited the manuscript of War and Peace (1,225 pages) seven times from beginning to end at home at night by candlelight after the children and servants had gone to bed, using an inkwell pen and sometimes requiring a magnifying glass to read her husband's notes.  

** They also often miss the rather plain reference to birth control in Ch. 23.

One Dark Night

Vanity Fair has done a damn good job of summing up the situation with regard to South Dakota's Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg (pronounced Rounsberg), who on September 12, 2020, more or less at 10:22 PM, swerved over on the side of the road and hit what he is still claiming he thought was a deer.  Instead, it was a man:  Joseph Paul Boever.  Mr. Boever went flying into the air and into Ravnsborg's windshield, leaving his glasses in the front seat of Ravsnborg's car.  Which Ravnsborg never noticed until investigators told him about it. 

Hyde County Sheriff Mike Volek came out after Ravnsborg's 911 call that night, checked the area over, found nothing, and then gave Ravnsborg a ride to his home. There he loaned the AG one of his personal vehicles to drive to Pierre. At no time that night did the sheriff give our AG a sobriety test. The next day an alcohol test showed no alcohol in Ravnsborg's system, which is exactly what you'd expect from a test given 15 hours later.  

(Above:  The Highmore Road at night.  BTW, the victim was carrying a lit flashlight.

Vanity Fair)  

Five months later, Ravnsborg was finally charged with 3 misdemeanors: careless driving, driving out of his lane and operating a motor vehicle while on his phone. Maximum sentence $500 fine each and 30 days in jail, and we all knew that there was no way he would ever, ever, ever serve a day in jail. The obvious thing to do was plead guilty, pay the fine and go on his merry way.  

But he wouldn't. And nobody in South Dakota has been able to figure out why.  

Instead, his attorneys - as you may remember - tried to defend the AG by saying that the victim was attempting to commit suicide by throwing himself in front of Ravnsborg's car. A number of people quickly pointed out that this plotline literally came straight from the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, where a man threw himself in front of one of the heros in order to send him to prison for murder.  (Soap)  

And his trial started tomorrow.  Except!  Ravnsborg is going to take a plea deal tomorrow, according to his attorney, and put an end to the whole show.  (News)  So why now?  Why not before?  Who knows?  

But:  The gag order ends after the plea deal. Back in February, Governor Noem had called on Ravnsborg to resign and then the investigators' interviews with Ravnsborg were released by the South Dakota Department of Public Safety (undoubtedly with Noem's permission).  Ravnsborg's attorneys, understandably enough, were furious at this tainting of the pool, and got a gag order on any further information, interviews, evidence, that might be in the record. After the plea deal, all of that can come out in a tsunami.

And:  In 2022, Governor Noem and AG Ravnsborg's are up for reelection.  Marty Jackley, the former AG, has already announced his plans to run against Ravnsborg.  And I'm willing to slap a five on the table right now saying Jackley will win.  

Because:  Let's just say Ravnsborg doesn't have that many friends in South Dakota. Each and every one of us knows that he got special treatment all the way:

• The Sheriff himself came out, and gave him a ride home, loaned him a car, and gave no alcohol test on the night of the crash.  
• The investigation took almost 5 months, during which Ravnsborg was never arrested, booked, or had to post bail.  
• Three misdemeanors.  Three misdemeanors.  Three misdemeanors.  There are people sitting in prison for vehicular manslaughter.  

(Yes, there are people who say, "Well, he's innocent until he's proven guilty", but if you ask them what would have happened if they'd hit a person and left them for dead, almost all say, "Oh, I'd be in jail.  If I was Native American, I'd be in prison right now."  We know how the deck is stacked.)

Also:  Boever's widow has filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Ravnsborg.  (See above about the tsunami of evidence waiting for the end of the gag order.)  (Argus)

Also:  There was a significant cry in last year's legislature for Ravnsborg's impeachment. But the result was a 57-11 vote to suspend further impeachment action until the criminal case against him is resolved.  Well...  

Meanwhile:  Right before Ravnsborg hit Boever, he'd been reading an article on a right-wing website about Biden and corruption and China.  The cell phone data proved that.  Now last I heard, you're not supposed to read while driving even if it is a dark night on a lonely road where you really don't expect anything but deer to be.  And we all know that.  So, from the very beginning, if Ravnsborg would have been willing to admit that he had been driving distracted, and missed seeing Boever on shoulder and hit him.  Or if he'd at least given a press conference at any time saying "I cannot express my sorrow and my heartbreak at the death of Mr. Boever.  It was not deliberate, it was a horrible accident, and I will always regret that night," etc. - if he'd done that, he just might have kept his reputation and his career.  But I think it's shot.  He ran away.  He kept his mouth shut.   He admitted nothing.  

All it takes is one dark night to ruin everything.  And Mr. Boever is still dead.

(Memorial on Highway 14 for Joseph Boever.

Vanity Fair)

Back Inside

I spent the July 31/August 1st, 2021 weekend inside the pen doing an Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) workshop for the first time since January, 2020.  (Allan couldn't join me, because of his health.  He's doing fine, but the long walkways and those damn stairs would kill him.)  

A lot's happened at the pen since March, 2020, when the pen was locked down:

• The warden, deputy warden, and a few other officers were "walked out" in July, 2021 after an anonymous complaint about numerous problems at the penitentiary, including nepotism, sexual harassment, shoddy equipment, lack of safety regulations, etc., reached the Governor's desk.  (HERE)  "The investigation is on-going" is what we hear from Pierre.  What we hear on the ground is "no one here knows what the hell is going on, or what the investigators are looking into or for, the place generally has the air of a hornet's nest that was just kicked wide open, and no one knows how/when this is going to end."  I believe the technical term for what's going on is a shitstorm.  

• But they're hiring.  Send in your application today!

• On July 27, Governor Noem ended the mask mandate at the pen to "improve staff morale".  Not surprised, not thrilled, but also wish she would remember that the virus came into the pen in the first place through the staff.  And the Delta variant is here and about to be everywhere (see Sturgis, below).  Of course, our Governor doesn't believe in any of that.  

• On August 5, Sturgis officially began, although the bikers started arriving way before that.  Over 700,000 are expected.  Since our state's population is 880,000, Sturgis almost doubles the entire population of South Dakota for the duration.  Our Governor appeared for a press conference on Monday (Aug. 9) in Sturgis, riding her horse, wearing her cowboy hat and carrying a flag.  Rode that horse up on stage and said, “Welcome to South Dakota.  Welcome to freedom.”  So there's that.  Sigh. 

• NOTE:  Actually, the last thing you should probably say to 700,000 bikers is "feel free to do anything you damn well please", because some of them are Bandidos, Diablos, Hells Angels, etc., and they will take you up on it, and you probably won't like it.  But of course, I'm sure Noem has a security detail...
• Anyway, yeah, since we're already in a surge, we're all expecting a Hokusai of a wave coming in, and sooner or later, masks are going to be back at the pen.  

Meanwhile, back at the pen, I'd forgotten how young many new prisoners are.  And I'd almost forgotten how bouncy young meth-heads are.  Somewhere along the line, someone had bought a bunch of "Light Up Silicone Squishy Chicks" to use as giveaways at one of the prison family pow-wows to the little kids.  There were leftovers, and they got stashed in with the AVP supplies, and when they were found - well, they are cute, fun, and hilarious, and they hypnotized at least two of our attendees.  Which might have been the point.  I looked them up on Amazon:

And I quote from the ad:

Balls light up when squeezed, also helps relieve stress and develop child’s motor skills.
☛:A soft stretchy puffer ball that lights up, easy to use and easy to play, good for kids and adults.
☛: Amazing Flashing Puffer Ball Chickens, super fun to play with!
☛: Great stress reliever for adults and children: Release all of your tension at once!
☛:This product can be used as a stress relief toy, it can also be used as samples for display. It's durable and can [be] used for a long time.  [My emphasis.]

 

Depends on who's using it.  One of our participants played so hard with his - Gollum and The Precious had nothing on him - that it deflated, and all its lights went out, and he was known as "chicken killer" for the rest of the day.  However, sweetness and light returned when - lo and behold! - the next morning the chick had re-inflated to light and life and squishiness.  Amazing stuff.   

Seriously, it takes a long time to get a boy's brain back into some semblance of order after meth, and it doesn't help that there's no real treatment at the pen.  They have drug/alcohol classes, but only an hour a day.  And often nothing until they're 6 months away from being released.  Then it's back to the cell-halls where they're bouncing off walls again.  More and earlier would be helpful.

BTW, right now there's no AA / NA at the pen, (1) because Covid disrupted everything, and (2) also partly because you have to be able to pass a background check, and there is a certain percentage of AA / NA attendees who are prison graduates and so unable to host them.  Ironically, they would be the best at it, because they would understand the situation right down to its core.  (Zoom meetings aren't allowed, for security reasons.)  

But the workshop went really well.  There's hope.  A lot of hope.  And many of the graduates came back for the Refresher the next weekend.  

I'm also back doing the Lifer's Group.  We're currently working on trying to get some new legislation written before the next session begins January 11, 2022.  (South Dakota has, I believe, the shortest legislative session in the country - 38 working days - and I'm still making up my mind as to whether that's good or bad.)  Here in South Dakota, all life sentences are life without parole, and you can also get a life sentence for first degree manslaughter.  So the Lifer's Group is working on: 

(1) Ending life sentences for first degree manslaughter - remember, manslaughter is "the unlawful killing of a human being without express or implied malice." (Merriam-Webster)  So why should they get life without parole?  

(2) Changing life sentences so that only certain crimes would get life without parole:  first degree murder, certain criminal sexual conduct, terrorism, etc.  

Wish us luck.  And if you know any good constitutional lawyers who would like to volunteer their time, send me their names. 

On a more fun note, the Lifer's Group has a Religious Enlightenment Conference and a Talent Show to plan.  

Oh, and for those of you who might be in the neighborhood, the Lifer's Group will have a lot of artwork in the Tallgrass Recovery Art Show at the Post Pilgrim Art Gallery, 2121 E 10th St, Sioux Falls, SD.  The Opening is on Friday, August 27th at 7:00 PM.  Come on down and join me!

It's good to be back.

Pro Tips

Luck has a lot more to do with success in life than most people want to admit.  Which is exactly why most trust fund babies are "born on third base and think s/he hit a triple."

But even luck has its limits:  If you never write anything, you'll never get published, because last I heard the "Secret Arts Patrons Society" (a/k/a SAPS) have quit going around door to door paying random strangers for ideas.

See above if you never submit anything.  

Sometimes it takes all day to write one decent sentence.  That's all right.  There's always tomorrow, when you can rewrite it and make it better.  Or make it worse.  You never know.  

BTW, read all the really good literature you can get your hands on, but also keep some really bad books* around, so that when you're really depressed, you can remind yourself how bad writing can get and still get published.  You may not be Stephen King or John LeCarre, but you can do better than this.  Hope!

*No, I'm not providing a list - I don't need that kind of hate mail. 

BTW, when you do hit the writing zone, and the words flow out like water, it helps to keep the following items handy:

• Something to eat
• Something to drink
• A squirt gun full of water so that if anyone tries to interrupt, you have something with which to drive them away.  Sort of works on cats, too.

If someone is keeping two sets of books, they're doing something illegal.  They're also probably keeping that 2nd set as insurance against their boss.   

Speaking of insurance, the more ads you see for an insurance company, the less likely you'll ever get a claim paid, because those ads are all paid for with your premium checks.

This probably also works with all those pharmaceutical, bank, and investment firm ads.  

If everyone is "deep state", there is no deep state, and the person telling you that is probably themselves bat-s*** crazy, with a side of fries.

This works with anything else where it's said, "Everyone is… i.e., "Everyone is crooked" means, "I'm a corkscrew."

If someone offers you a bribe, they're doing something illegal.  They're also making a comment on your morals and your intelligence that I personally believe deserves defenestration.  

Any scheme that soaks the ultra-wealthy in the name of riding out the apocalypse / doomsday in style is fine with me, but it takes great panache to continue the grift for 14 years and still not have built anything but an extra-large barn with a lot of guns.  (Hell, I knew a guy who had a bunker with land mines in his property and all from his own funds. And he was picky about who he'd allow in when The Day came.)  Meanwhile, Barrett Moore is still raising money for his Haven.  (See Here)  Of course, Jim Bakker is still selling survival gear (HERE).  I have been assured by those who have watched his ads that Bakker tells his customers that they can take the 60 meal bucket (600 calories per meal, which is a hell of a lot less than McDonalds - you're gonna get svelte!) and when it's empty, turn it into a personal toilet. Pro tip:  There is a lot of money to be made from the Doomsday business.  

Although I still want to know how many true Doomsday preppers would be satisfied with a 600 calorie meal?  That's one Big Mac, no fries.  

It's never a good idea to hold an exorcism in a public place, but Home Depot?  

"Police in Lackawanna County announced they broke up a reported 'exorcism' that happened inside a Home Depot, in Dickson City Tuesday." The group was performing an exorcism for the dead trees in the aisle, i.e., the lumber. I want names, church affiliation, and how many beers went into this decision. (News) 

It's never a good idea to spread a pandemic among your own constituents, but as we all know, the GOP and various media outlets have been ignoring that pro tip for quite a while.  Recently, however, Fox News "It's all a hoax!" pundit Sean Hannity, Senator Tommy Tuberville, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy and others have been begging people to get the vaccine.  My personal theory is that (1) lawsuits are coming and (2) they've begun to realize that, in the immortal words of Barry Hughart, "Corpses cannot pay taxes!" (Bridge of Birds) Nor can they be signed up for monthly or even weekly payments to the politicians or PACs or media outlets. Well, you can sign them up, but they won't pay.  Keep your customers alive.

Speaking of keeping customers alive, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is August 5-14, with of course a few days on either side of that to get "ahead of the crowds".  Projected attendance this year is over 700,000.  Meanwhile, South Dakota Covid cases are rising fast:  the Delta Variant, of course.  Since for some reason I doubt that all 700,000 rallygoers will be fully vaccinated, masked, and socially distanced, the pro tip is either get a lot of health insurance or STF home.

Finally, if you happen to be driving late at night and looking at your cell phone and hit a man and kill him and the sheriff doesn't give you an alcohol test and instead loans you his personal car to drive yourself home and the alcohol test is given the next day and no charges are filed for months and when they are they're three misdemeanors and you can pay $1,500.00 and make it all go away and you have the money because you're the State Attorney General, the pro tip is DO IT.  And quit blaming the victim.

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BSP:  "The Sweet Life" is in the current issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

And because you know that you've always wanted to read a mystery where Mrs. Elton of Emma is the detective, determined to catch the killer, especially if it's Harriet Smith, my "Truth and Turpitude:  Murder at Abbey-Mill Farm" is in the current issue of Crimeucopia: The Cosy Nostra, now available at Amazon.com.