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January 7, 2010
Page 3
Loving a piano recital
Hello,
You know, I was just thinking,
and Shirley has warned me about
that, that 2009 wasn't as bad a year
as a lot of people think. At least for
me. Oh, the markets went to heck.
but then, I'm getting pretty darn
used to that. The hay crop was
good, which I'm not used to. And
there were a few other bright spots.
I played golf in the desert of
Nevada. And played poker on the
east coast. I made more trips to
Oklahoma and Texas then I care to
remember. I saw the devastation of
the tornado, which just missed us,
and I saw how a community can
come together and rebuild.
But one of the highlights of my
year just took place a few days ago.
In Harding County, South Dakota.
I've told you about Harding
County before. It's the county that
always has the high wind warning
when you watch the weather. It is a
county that is short on topsoil, and
long on gumbo and sagebrush.
Sheep, cattle, jackrabbits, bald
eagles, prairie dogs, and hardy peo-
ple inhabit it. I've written to you
about the community efforts when it
comes to fighting fire, putting on a
county fair, and raising their kids.
I'm not sure if there is anywhere
else quite like it.
We went down last week to cele-
brate Christmas with Carm's family.
Oh, it was a few days late, what
with the stoma and all. But we were
lucky. It was the night of Gracy's
first piano recital. Yes, piano recital !
Hat Tips
By Dean Meyer
It was the night of
Gracy's first piano
recital. Yes, piano
recital! I knew that
would excite you!
I knew that would excite you!
Well, I admit. I wasn't real excit-
ed. I mean how could it compare
with poker and pinochle! But you
know what. it was magical!
It wasn't held in a concert hall.
Or even a school gym or anything
like that. No, we headed over to a
Jack's house across the Little
Missouri. The moon was shining
brightly off the snow of the past
week. Winds had died down so you
could see the few yard lights along
the way. Gage was watching for rab-
bits and trying to make sure I didn't
hit any. l did hit one, but I think it
was a glancing blow, because we
couldn't see him on the way home'.
When we drove around the drifts
and into the yard. there was a beau-
tiful log home decorated for
Christmas. And when you went
inside, it was magical. The good
china was set out. a bowl of punch.
and everyone brought a few snacks•
Chairs were lined up facing a baby
Grand Piano, backed by a flickering
fireplace (real wood), and
Christmas decorations decked ihe
halls. Really!
And the piano students were
there. Along with their instructor.
The boys and girls were trans-
formed into young men and women.
The girls wore black satin dresses
and heels. The boys had suits and
tics. The piano teacher had traded
her Carhart coveralls for a black
gown and gold jewelry. You know
how 1 dress. I fett little out of
place.
We sat there with friends and
neighbors, listening to Christmas
music, played from memory, by a
group of kids that was learning
more than music• There was a violin
number. Short songs. Long songs.
One young lady hld graduated to
lessons in Spearfish, and I think will
soon go beyond there.
As I sat there that night, it gave
me a good feeling. To see kids
learning that it can be cool to dress
up. That learning can be fun. That
you don't need a video game or an
i-pod to enjoy yourself. That the
distance between neighbors doesn't'
have to be measured in miles. I've
learned that before I guess, but
sometimes I need reminded.
l'm sure in the morning; the ties
were replaced with neck scarves,
the suits and dresses with coveralls.
1 would guess the piano teacher was
feeding cows. and the black gown
was hung back in the closet.
But for one old cowboy, thank
you. You made my Christmas!
Later, Dean
.,a-.
Merit selectic)n of judges may return coring and clJmate story started. His
N.D. Matters
By Lloyd Omdahl
If invited, Justice
O'Connor will talk
to states interested
in hearing about
the merit system
for choosing
judges, something
dear to her heart
since working on a
successful reform
effort as a state leg-
islator in Arizona.
Most of our judges - including a
majority of the N. D. Supreme
Court - got their positions through
appointment from a slate of nomi-
nees furnished to the governor by
a nominating committee.
To strengthen the new
appointees' hold on the office, the
Legislature in 1998 proposed, and
the voters approved, an amend-
ment to guarantee an appointee at
least two years in office before
standing for election. Being able
to run as an established incumbent
was intended to discoOrage com-
petition. It has worled. Three- I
A nation-wide effort to encour-
age states to change their methods
for selecting judges is being
launched by former U. S. Supreme
Court Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor, who is now chairper-
son of the O'Connor Judicial
Selection Initiative for the
Institute for the Advancement of
the American Legal System at the
University of Denver.
If invited, Justice O'Connor
will talk to states interested in
hearing about the merit system for
choosing judges, something dear
to her heart since working on a
successful reform effort as a state
legislator in Arizona.
Under the merit system, some-
times called the Missouri Plan, a
slate of nominees is presented to
the governor by a judicial nomi-
nating committee. The governor
appoints one of the nominees who
serves a fixed number of years
before being placed on the ballot
for acceptance or rejection by the
voters. If rejected, the judge is
replaced by a new gubernatorial
appointment.
Whether or not North Dakota
will welcome a visit by Justice
O'Conffor is a matter of conjec-
ture. Such an effort would require
the interest and leadership of poli-
cymakers. In the early 1960s, the
Legislature had that leadership
and made a serious effort at adopt-
ing the system. At that time,
Senator William Reichert of,
-- ,p
i!
Frosty the city
Overnight fog results in this scene on Jan. 4 in downtown Beach. (Photo by Jane M. Cook.)
Playing with Jello and deducing c limate change
Dickinson led the charge for con-
stitutional revision with the cor-
]'aerstone being a merit selection
system for judges.
The Legislature submitted the
idea to the voters in 1966. It was
rejected, with 47 per cent voting in
favor and 53 per cent against. The
election was so close that the
Legislature resubmitted the ques-
tion in 1968. only to have it reject-
ed again by 44 to 56 per cent.
While we don't have the full-
blown Missouri Plan, our selec-
tion system is pretty close to it.
I hope you played with your food
Roc Doc
By Dr. E. Kirsten Peters
when you were young. Perhaps you
experimented at some point with
pushing a drinking straw through
Jello. If you twisted the straw as you
r
'1
removed it from your food, you I I Of all the places/
could sometimes trap a column of
/
gelatin in the straw. You then had [ where geologists ]
the Choice of either blowing the i can core the Earth, /
Jello at a sibling or, if your parents
were at the table, gently squeezing [ our favorite spot is /
the gelatin out of the straw onto [ peat bogs. That's /
your plate with your fingers.
Geologists take samples of [because peat is the ]
ancient muck and mire in a way ]first step in the long ]
similar to kids playing with Jello.
We bang pipes down into the soft ] geologic process of ]
Earth of lakebeds or peat bogs, pull [ producing coal,, and [
them up, and push out nari:ow
columns ofnmd inside. The muck is [ geologists are inor- ]
composed of ninny, many layers
that go btck in time.,We geo!,ogists I dinately fond of all
call tiffs ,activity "coring, and I fossil fuels. /
although its physically tough work,
I
J
it's no more complex than jamming
straws into Jello. cataloging.
The reason geologists make Pollen is surprisingly sturdy
cores of mud is that low spots on the stuff. It will remain intact toy literal-
Earth, can record the climate of ly thousands of years, lying in a
Earth s past. Evidence geologists layer of muck, waiting for a geolo-
get from coring lakebeds and peat- gist to come along, core it, and iden-
bogs has taught us just how fie- tify the plant that produced it.
quently both regional and global cli- If you have allergies, you know
mate changes, pollen is blown around on the
A Scandinavian geologist got the slightest breeze. That's the basic
fact that makes pollen much better
than twigs or leaves for telling us
past climate. Pollen reflects all the
plants in a whole region.
If you know the identity of the
whole range of plants in a region,
you know pretty well what the cli-
mate must have been like, both in
terms of temperature and precipita-
tion. (Think of gardening "zones.")
And once you've described the
pollen from a core. you can make a
carbon-14 date of a twig and assign
a specific age to the climate you've
been able to deduce.
Ancient pollen makes it crystal
clear that climate varies again and
again over whole regions on Earth.
name was Lennart von Post, he
lived and worked around 1900, a,d
he was the first geologist to careful-
ly :investigate what cores of muck
could reveal about past climates.
Of all the places where geolo-
gists can core the Earth, our favorite
spot is peat bogs. That's because
peat is the first step in the long geo-
logic process of producing coal, and
geologists are inordinately fond of
all fossil fuels. So it was quite natu-
ral that yon Post started coring the
ancient remains of plants and mud
layers that make up .the peat of
southern Sweden.
Little fragments of twigs and
fourths of our judges faqe no com- I leaves dan be preserved in peat, and
petition in elections ?,'
• ! f. "," if" you can identify/ the species of
Wth a vast majority of ou
• ' ' . . -plant that produced such material
ludges already being appointed
• " ...... ',i' you have your first clue about pabst
going to the merit system would be I "matP i inn .. D ........
!- ch...a. .n a reg .... Vo .... s ......
a short sty But it could be a hard1 , ....
" P" to work dentffymg uch bts of old
sell, iven the North Dakota cul-l 1 nt but .........
• i p a s, ne also naa me wit [o
tural bent for Ion,, ballots Our cul-i . ,.., ,. .... • .... ; ,. .... h .
" i look d.I. UI5 I.HkICHt IIIIIK;; LIIIUUII ¢t
ture suggests that all issues ought!'
. , . ".'' , ./" ," . f;l microscope. What he dscovered
to De ueclaeo on me oass o. r
ago. That era was much warmer
than today.
Some of the great shifts in cli-
mate were global in scope, some
were only regional. And just to give
us all nightmares, some of the
biggest shifts in temperature
occmTed in just 20 years or so -
well within a single human lifetime.
Studying past climates demands
strength in the field, patience in thor
lab, strong eyes for microscope
work - and plenty of couraze, too.
The simple but brutal factis that.
major and minor climate change is
woven into the fabric of the Earth
itself.
Just for example, in northern
Europe where von Post first worked,
there have been ten major climate
intervals in the last 15,000 thousand
years. Each of these shifts was sub-
stantial.
The warmest era - when oak
forests covered the lowland of
Sweden was what we :eologists
, was that he could identify ancient call "the Optimum," the bahny
majority rule when judges are sup-:; pollen in the layers of peat he was times of about 6,000 to 8,000 years
posed to be chosen, not for their ff
popularity but for their faithfulness {:',t
to the law and the constitution, i
If we were honest, we would
admit that most of us lack the I
information and the understanding !i
that is required t° 'nake rati°nal ii i
Calu ......
872-3755
NO'lrHINC MOIII(| i fordetailsl
LIKI NIWSPAPER
ADVIERTISING. ...... '
iii ; i ,i,
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decisions on the qualifications of}
judges. The knowledgeable mem-'
bers of nominating colnmittees:
and governors are better able to
assess the virtues required for that i
office.
The best coverage of
the area's news, sports
and community events!
You'll find it here!
'Bu,mn Court Prom
(Dr. E. Kirsten Peters is a native
of the ruralNorthwest, but was
trained as a geollogist at Princeton
and Hari, ard. Questions about sci-
ence or energyfi)'Jiaure Rock Docs
can be sent to epeters@wsu.edu.)
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Playing
The Princess & the Frog