"But Where is Everybody?"

Internationally renowned physicist Enrico Fermi was walking to lunch one day in the 1950s with physicist friends Edward Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinski, discussing recent UFO reports and the possibilities of interstellar travel.   

They all agreed that it was possible, but Fermi asked, "But where is everybody?"  It was a good question:  still is.  And there have been a lot of answers to it over the years:

Extraterrestrial life is rare or non-existent because it's hard to get life going. 

 It takes more than a warm bath of saltwater and a little electricity...  

Periodic extinction by natural events prevent it. 

 Think meteorites, gamma-ray bursts, massive volcanoes, etc. There have been many major extinction events on Earth that wiped out almost all life. And it could happen again.

Intelligent alien species who do exist haven't developed advanced technologies. 

 They're still in the Stone Age, or the Renaissance. Great art, no radio or rockets.

It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself. 

 How can that be? Well, here on this planet, we're trying to navigate between nuclear annihilation, human-caused climate change, faulty (to put it mildly) AI, population explosion combined with resource depletion, global pandemics, oh, the merry list goes on and on and on...

It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others. 

 Huh? Well, you could say that all of human history is a history of wars and conquest. 

PLUS:   "In 1981, cosmologist Edward Harrison argued that such behavior would be an act of prudence: an intelligent species that has overcome its own self-destructive tendencies might view any other species bent on galactic expansion as a threat."

Civilizations only broadcast detectable signals for a brief period of time. 

 So far, we've missed them.  

The Dark Forest Hypothesis: 

 There are aliens, but they are both silent and hostile. (see Liu Cixin's novel The Dark Forest).

Alien Life May be Too Incomprehensible

 This seems to me to be the most probable (and is the whole theme of Stanislav Lem's Solaris. See also "The Devil in the Dark" from the first season of the original Star Trek, where no one can recognize that the Hortha are living beings, a silicon based species). After all, alien life forms might not be carbon based, or look like us, and might even have transcended the physical and/or actually live in other dimensions...  Who knows?  For that matter, maybe they're the viruses that currently inhabit most of us.

Earth is being deliberately avoided or isolated:  

We're too dangerous, we're a slum, we're a simulated universe, we're a zoo, we're contagious.  Who knows?  

We're invisible.  

Meanwhile, I have a few questions back:

Why do so many people want to see aliens / UFOs?  What are we looking for?  Saviors?  Killers?  Something new to fall in love with?  Something new to conquer?  Something new to have sex with?  Something new to kill?  

Once you have your alien, what are you going to do with it?  

Once you have your alien, what is it going to do with you?  

I have a feeling that you'd be better off with Siri...

SIDE NOTE:

Headline of the day:  

1 monkey recovered safely, 42 others remain on the run from South Carolina lab. (SOURCE)

Necropants for Halloween

by Eve Fisher

So how badly do you want a lot of money?  What are you willing to do to get it?  And I'm not talking about the standard stuff:  trying to win the lottery, or marrying money or just finding a sugardaddy / sugarmamma, or starting a Ponzi scheme, or other financial shenanigans.*  I mean strange stuff...

Welcome to the world of the Nábrók , a/k/a "necropants" or "corpse britches", i.e., a pair of pants made from the skin of a dead human, which are believed in Icelandic witchcraft/folklore to be capable of producing an endless supply of money.  

A replica of a pair of nábrók at The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery & Witchcraft. At the right is the magical symbol that is part of the ritual and at its feet are coins. Bernard McManus from Victoria, BC, Canada - Necropants

Now you can't make a pair of these by turning into Hannibal Lecter or Buffalo Bill. No, it's both less criminal and weirder than that:

"The nábrók is obtained by first making a (mutual) pact with a friend that if either of them die, the other can use his corpse to make a pair of necropants. The deal is that, once one of them dies, after a decent burial, the survivor digs up the body, and flays the skin from the waist down so has not to puncture any holes. The freshly skinned pants must be worn right away, and it's said to grow on/into the person, until such times as he appoints to remove the pair in order to give to someone else." 

MY NOTES:  

This may be the worst tontine I've ever heard of.  So you're making a bet, with a friend, that you're going to live the longest.  So what stops you from offing your friend, or your friend from offing you?  Other than a distaste for graverobbing and flaying, of course. 

Where do you practice skinning a corpse? Is skinning a human like skinning a pig? (And no, I don't want to know how you know this unless you went to med school.)  Also, what does it smell like?  Is there a corpse smell or does it morph into you? 

Finally, the prurient among us obviously want to know if the winner's body is entirely in working order, and will Lilja casually mention to her neighbor Gudrun that 

"You know, it's strange, but ever since Einar died, Bjarni's thing has changed.  It's gotten... bigger.  Kind of.  And he's making this strange clinking noise when he walks...." 

Back to the facts: 

"There is no wealth-giving magic in the necropants yet, because in order to activate the charm, the person must steal a coin from a wretchedly poor widow, and this theft must be performed between the readings of the Epistle and Gospel during one of the three major festivals of the year (or "between the First and Second Lesson on... Yule, Easter, or Whitsuntide"). Then the person must deposit the coin into the pungur (translated politely as "pockets" but actually denoting "scrotum") of the necropants. Some say the wearer can also choose the time of theft to be carried out on the very next day after the pants are first worn. Afterwards the breeches will start collecting coins from the living, which the wearer is free to dispense with. However, he must be careful not to remove the original coin if he wishes to keep the magic effect intact."  

MY NOTE:  Robbing widows in church and scrotum pouches...  this is getting ridiculous.

"According to recent literature, a piece of paper inscribed with a magical symbol must be placed with the coin in the scrotum sack; this particular symbol being given the name "Nábrókarstafur".

"These pairs cannot be removed by its wearer until he is at his life's end, when he has to remove his pair and pass it onto another, otherwise, his corpse will be smothered by vermin and his soul will be damned."

MY NOTE:  You mean robbing a widow in a church doesn't damn your soul enough? 

"And a particular sequence must be followed. The wearer cannot simply remove and hand over the pants, but must do it one leg at a time. That is to say, he must first "doff" the pants off his right leg, and make his successor wear the right pant leg. At that point, his successor is committed to his fate; even if he tries to change his mind and take off the right pant leg, he will wind up wearing the left leg, regardless of his will."  (Wikipedia)

MY NOTE:  So basically, once you've made all the money and you're ready to die, you have to find a greedy schmuck and make them do the leg dance, but how the hell do you get that right leg off?  Is "doff" a secret code for flay yourself alive?  And think about the position you'd be in, with your successor has his right leg in your right leg's skin, which means... how is he going to get into your left?  

I'm sticking with lottery tickets.  

*Note that I did not mention robbing banks.  They don't have the cash they used to, there are cameras everywhere, and you're gonna get caught.  

BSP:

The latest Michael Bracken anthology, Janie Got A Gun, releases November 9 at the publishers HERE and, of course on Amazon.  In my "Round and Round", lifer Cool Papa Bell tells how Mildred, the penitentiary ghost, showed up for the holidays and took care of a lot of people's business... including a particularly nasty corrections officer.  

Happy to share space with Steve Liskow, Joseph S. Walker, John M. Floyd, Jim Winter and many more!

Also, coming soon, my "Lady With a Past" in Black Cat Mystery Weekly Issue #167!

"We’re back in Laskin, South Dakota, where police officer Grant Tripp is involved with the sexiest, most beautiful woman he’s ever known. But Megan’s a Davison, an ex-con is stalking her, and her ex-boyfriend wants Grant out of the picture. And then there’s the question of where she got so much money…"

Money.  It's always a problem, isn't it?

Sir Edmund Backhouse, or How to Destroy an Empire

by Eve Fisher

Back when I was first studying Chinese history, I kept running across two men who together wrote books that were almost impossible to obtain (pre-internet days), but were one of the primary references for many, many other books, especially textbooks:  

• J.O.P. Bland and Edmund Backhouse (1910). China Under the Empress Dowager: Being the History of the Life and Times of Tzŭ Hsi
• J.O.P. Bland and Edmund Backhouse  (1914). Annals & memoirs of the court of Peking: (from the 16th to the 20th century
• J.O.P. Bland and Edmund Backhouse  (1913). "Secret Annals of the Manchu Court 1. The Story of the Precious Pearl"

These memorialized the life of the Empress Dowager, Tzu Hsi (now spelled Cixi - 1835-1908), and the Manchu Court during her reign (1861-1908), a life of total power, decadence, curious ceremonies and customs, and fairly constant murder.  Fascinating.  Obsessive to those who read them back in the 1910s, because China was a closed country to almost everyone.  There were very few non-Chinese who could actually speak and read the Chinese language, and of those who could, most were eccentric British.  One of the most eccentric was Sir Edmund Backhouse (1873-1944).

Backhouse was one of those who was a failure at home, but a roaring success in China.  Fleeing to China after a nervous breakdown at Oxford, he learned Chinese and became a translator for (London) Times correspondent George Morrison.  Morrison had been sent to report on a country whose language he didn't know.  (This happened more often than one might think, especially back then.)  This meant that Backhouse could feed Morrison pretty much anything he wanted about the Court and the Dowager Empress, especially if it was negative.   

Dowager Empress Cixi and women of the American Legation

NOTE:  No one in Britain really wanted China to have a strong ruler, for the simple reason that after winning the two Opium Wars, Britain had China in a vise.  The Treaty of Tientsin forced the Chinese government agreed to pay war reparations, open almost all ports to European commerce, legalize the opium trade, and grant foreign traders and missionaries rights to travel within China. It also gave the British the right to preside over the Chinese Customs Office (i.e., taxes and tariffs).  The British got the first slice of all that money, which meant a tidy profit, and no one wanted that to stop.

SECOND NOTE:  The British had long been propagandized about how primitive, barbaric, and decadent the Chinese, with their sophisticated 3,000+ years of culture, language, and civilization, were.  After all, it excused ramming opium down their throats, and taking all the land, power and money they could grab. Some of the other foreign translators contributed to the propaganda, most notably Karl Gutzlaff (See my old SleuthSayers article "The Drug Smuggling Missionary of the Pearl River"), whose writings and later speeches back in London (attended by Karl Marx) showed how desperately the Chinese needed missionaries and help.

Backhouse, who claimed to know many influential people in the Forbidden City, provided the Times with a Dowager Empress who was "a woman and an Oriental... on the one hand... imperious, manipulative, and lascivious" and on the other "ingenuous, politically shrewd, and conscientious."  And a lot of emphasis was put on the imperious.  For example, in The Secret Annals as the Dowager Empress and the Guanxu Emperor fled the palace during the Boxer Rebellion, the Emperor begs to have his favorite concubine, Precious Pearl, come with them, but the Dowager Empress has the eunuchs throw her down a well.  

NOTE:  There is no proof that this ever happened.  In fact, it's much more likely that it was Backhouse's retelling of the classic poem The Song of Everlasting Sorrow about the Tang Dynasty Consort Yang Guifei, forced to commit suicide by the Imperial Guard for her cousin's leadership of the An Lushan Rebellion.  One of the most famous star-crossed lovers stories in Chinese history, Yang Guifei's story has been told over the centuries as poetry, operas, plays, films, television series, and even a video game.

But we cannot forget the lascivious, either.  Backhouse's Empress had plenty of sex, and not just with other Chinese but with supposedly Backhouse.  In China under the Empress Dowager, Backhouse claimed she called him to the Forbidden Palace for sex "between 150 and 200 times.”  You will, I hope, not be surprised that it was thoroughly debunked, and its major source, the Diary of His Excellency Ching-Shan, was proved to be a Backhouse forgery.  Sadly, that did not happen for fifty years, and Cixi's reputation was a muddy swamp in Western eyes and historiography.  

He was also a conman. In 1916 he presented himself as a representative of the Imperial Court and negotiated two fraudulent deals with the American Bank Note Company and John Brown & Company, a British shipbuilder. Neither company received any confirmation from the Imperial Court. When they tried to contact Backhouse, he had left the country. After he returned to Peking in 1922 he refused to speak about the deals, and nothing apparently ever happened to him. (Wikipedia)

By WW2, he'd become actively fascist, collaborated with the  Japanese occupation, and hoped for an Axis victory. Sadly, he died before he could discover how poorly he had chosen sides.

Whew.

Forgery, fraud, fascist:  so why did his name keep coming up in the bibliographies and notes? 

Well, for one thing, by 1923 Backhouse had shipped eight tons of Chinese manuscripts to the Bodleian Library (the main research library of Oxford University). The Library described the gift: "The acquisition of the Backhouse collection, one of the finest and most generous gifts in the Library's history, between 1913 and 1922, greatly enriched the Bodleian's Chinese collections."  And since these ms. were in the Bodleian, they must be true, and so were repeatedly cited by other historians.  It took about twenty years for people to really question them, and it wasn't until 1991 that historian Lo Hui-min proved conclusively that China Under the Empress Dowager and the diary it was based on were Backhouse forgeries.  No wonder Western views of the Dowager Empress and China were so negative for so long.  

There's a long history of various diplomatic corps members sent to foreign lands to represent, negotiate, placate - whether they knew the language or not.  It still happens, leaving the diplomats in the hands of translators.  Who knows how much of the history we think we know was conjured up by translators who had their own views?  After all, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Ambassador to South Vietnam, did not speak Vietnamese.  He did speak French, which meant he could communicate with the South Vietnamese elite, but did that really give him the true picture of what was going on?  And George H. W. Bush spoke no Chinese when he was appointed Chief of the US Liaison Office in China (1974-75), which made him the de facto Ambassador.  

Oh, there's also the dicey history of missionaries' histories of places they went to convert.  Perhaps the most obvious one to question is that of St. Gregory of Tours (538-594 AD), Bishop of Tours in the Frankish Merovingian world.  He and one other person, Fredogar, are the only sources for Frankish history during that period, and what a period it was:  rampant violence, Arian heresy, regular miracles by true Catholics, constant war, fratricide, and of course, an evil queen, specifically Fredegund, Regent for Clothair II, who gives poisoned daggers to two clerics with which to assassinate Clothair's rivals, Childebert and Brunehild, and orders the successful assassination of Bishop Praetextus of Rouen while he is praying in his church.  She is evil, through and through...  Yes, The History of the Franks holds the attention:  but the question is, is it true?   

Meanwhile, time for some true BSP!

The latest Michael Bracken anthology, Janie Got A Gun, is available for preorder at the publishers HERE.  In my "Round and Round", lifer Cool Papa Bell tells how Mildred, the penitentiary ghost, showed up for the holidays and took care of a lot of people's business... including a particularly nasty corrections officer.  

Happy to share space with Steve Liskow, Joseph S. Walker, John M. Floyd, Jim Winter and many more!

Also, coming soon, my latest story, "Lady With a Past" in Black Cat Mystery Weekly Issue #167!

"We’re back in Laskin, South Dakota, where police officer Grant Tripp is involved with the sexiest, most beautiful woman he’s ever known. But Megan’s a Davison, an ex-con is stalking her, and her ex-boyfriend wants Grant out of the picture. And then there’s the question of where she got so much money…"

Headline Junkie

by Eve Fisher

"Minnesota man gets 33 years for fatally stabbing his wife during Bible study."
(SOURCE)

"California Gets Earliest Snow Advisory in Nearly Twenty Years" (And it's bringing a month of rain with it! (SOURCE)

"For 57 days this fall, Earth will have a second moon"  An asteroid is expected to make a “horseshoe path” around Earth over the next two months. (SOURCE)

"Jurors help detain a man who flees a Maine courthouse in handcuffs" - GREAT video. (HINT: Fleeing in handcuffs is harder than it looks)
(SOURCE)

Absolutely brilliant:
Florida Man hides in chest, uses whiteboard to evade deputies: PCSOCredit: PCSO

Good news, for once:
"Boy abducted from California in 1951 found alive more than 70 years later" (LINK)

"Kentucky judge shot and killed in his chambers by sheriff, officials say."
So far, no idea what they were arguing about, but it must have been a doozy...
(SOURCE)  

Meanwhile, this is another irate sheriff's way of dealing with the judge situation.  Dyer County, TN, from 1983:

BTW, I remember that, at the time, there was another article about it, which referred to the sheriff having stolen the judge's "favorite sheep".  Not even gonna go there...

"This Mummy Cheese is Full of Ancient Secrets" (LINK)

Okay, fine it's kefir made from sheep and/or goat's milk.  But what inquiring minds want to know is why was it sprinkled on and around mummies' heads and necks?  

"Is Morder Based on the Himalayas?"  (LINK)

"In Tolkien’s world, the Himalayas transform into Ephel Duath, the Mountains of Shadow; and the Tian Shan into Ered Lithui, the Ash Mountains. And the circle-shaped Pamirs are the same shape and in exactly the same corner as the Udûn of Mordor, where Frodo and Sam originally tried getting into Mordor, via the Black Gate.”

And after all, this was all part of the British Empire until the late 1940s...  

Headline Junkie will be back again!

Sleeping Giants: The Canton Native Asylum Story

I finally read Rene Denfeld's "Sleeping Giants" (thanks Janice!) and it's a strong, strong book.  Especially since there are so many non-fictional places like the abandoned site of "Brightwood, a supposedly progressive facility for disturbed children and youth".

Back at the end of August, the annual Honoring Ceremony put on by the local Keepers of The Canton Native Asylum Story was held to remember the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians in Canton, South Dakota. Over its 30 years of operation, it housed 374 Native inmates from across the U.S. 

The Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, since torn down

The original intent was good: provide treatment and housing for Indigenous people suffering from mental illness. (And to provide some federal dollars for a very impoverished area.)  But it turned into a prison, with little or no due process in courts that remanded Native Americans to its care, and almost no mental (or any other) health treatment. And most of the Native Americans sent there (from over 50 different tribes) were not insane, and were incarcerated against their will.

Over 120 of them died, and were buried in unmarked graves. More on that later.

The Indian Appropriations Act of 1900 funded the project. The main building was constructed for around $42,000. It was a terrible place, and during the Dust Bowl and the Depression, it was actually advertised as a tourist attraction:

People from "as far away as Chicago and St. Louis, to come see the crazy Indians, and they would actually do a narrative on the train. We have actually, and that's part of what we'll talk about, a description of what they would say as they drove by on the train. They would explain how this was a state-of-the-art place, and the Native Americans were being given everything wonderful, while that wasn't happening. I mean, the hospital was empty. They had a microscope in it, that's it. There was no surgical equipment, nothing. It was used to house coal.

They were not fed, they were chained to the beds. The toilets, they had state-of-the-art plumbing, wasn't used. They just had chamber pots and chained to the beds, and in South Dakota summer heat, the windows closed and barred. So you can imagine. And then the coal dust everywhere, it was a nightmare.

But the downstairs rooms apparently were kept, although with no furniture, eyewitnesses have told us, fairly clean, just Native Americans sitting. Harry Hummer who was the superintendent had a couple days a week you could come and visit, and you could buy your souvenir spoon or your souvenir teacup and plate or some dolls that were made there. Postcards, there are postcards all over that we're able to find, so you could prove that you had been there and seen the crazy Indians."  (SOURCE)

A1929 federal investigation detailed deplorable conditions and poor record keeping. The asylum was later closed during the period of 1933-34 and the hospital was demolished, and the land given to the city of Canton.  Since it was public land, it couldn't be sold, so it was eventually turned into a golf course. The cemetery lies between the fourth and fifth fairways. "Golfers often play just feet from the graves and sometimes walk over unmarked graves when retrieving balls that land out-of-bounds." But this year a new fence has been built around the cemetery that will, hopefully, cut down on their intrusion.  (SOURCE)

Marker, complete with names of the deceased (LINK)

As in Denfeld's "Sleeping Giants", there's so much evil and violence in the story of the Canton Insane Asylum, and all that's left are two markers, put up by the government.  It's enough to break your heart - but at least some people are doing the best they can to remember the victims, and remind people what happened out there on the prairie...

*****

BTW, speaking of golf courses, one of the times my husband and I went to Canada, we visited the [Anne of] Green Gables farmhouse in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.  Beautiful place, and historically very well kept.  Except for the Green Gables Golf Club next door.  When established, the club offered to take on the Green Gables farmhouse to make it their clubhouse but, thankfully, there was a backlash, and that did not happen.  As it is, the golf course runs right along parts of the walking trail around Green Gables.  Which was fine.  Didn't think anything about it.  But, walking along with a group of fans, young tween girls and their mothers, we experienced some golfers cussing a blue streak right by "Lovers Lane" (see below and read the novel).  Kind of killed the mood.

Not evil, but careless.  Careless about where they are, and who might be around them.  And that is part of the problem.

And now for some BSP:  Proud to say I'm one of the authors in Michael Bracken's latest anthology Janie's Got a Gun, available for pre-order HERE.

In my story, "Round and Round", a ghost walks the halls of prison with an agenda of her own...  

Three Grifters, Off to Fleece the World...

(With apologies to "Moon River")

I've said more than once that South Dakota's favorite mainstream, non-sexual crime is embezzlement. From the small town bar to state government to federal grants, a lot of money disappears. Sometimes people die, although those are usually ruled suicides if the sum is large enough. So South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley ruled that EB-5's Richard Benda's death in a field - shot in the stomach with a shotgun - was a suicide.  And Gear Up!s Scott Westerhuis killed his family first, then set his house on fire, and then turned the gun on himself. (There was also a safe that apparently developed legs, trotted off like a pig, and has never been found...) I've written about these before.  (Benda and Westerhuis)

But over the last month, we've had three big cases of embezzlement that each involved someone in State Government who was somehow put in charge of monitoring their own finances. That's a pretty neat trick to pull off, and I'm surprised that more people haven't thought of it...

Embezzler #1:

Sixty-eight-year-old Lonna Carroll is charged with two felony counts of aggravated grand theft for embezzling $1.8 million from the South Dakota Department of Social Services over the last 13 years of her employment. Specifically, from foster care funds.

“The defendant was the employee making the request for assistance for a particular child. Once the request was made, she had also reached the position of being that supervisory approval,” Jackley said. “So she was the requesting person and the supervisory approval.”

Once the money was approved, Carroll intercepted the check, placed the funds in a bank then transferred the money to her own account in a different bank.

And that's how she eventually, after her retirement, was caught. "DSS converted to a different record-keeping system. A subsequent report filed by the state Department of Legislative Audit documented dozens of instances where checks from DSS were deposited at American Bank & Trust in Pierre, and later that same day cash was withdrawn from the accounts." So they looked into it and... 

The rest will be told in court.  (LINK)

Embezzlement #2:

Sandra O’Day worked for the South Dakota Department of Motor Vehicles in a supervisory capacity. She is suspected of creating fake car titles and using them to secure almost $400,000 in auto loans. Jackley says she created titles for campers without motors because they are not reported to the national registry.

“Once a false title was created, that title was taken to either a bank or credit union and a loan was taken out to somebody else, with the use of that as collateral. Once the loan was secured and the money, she then went and destroyed the fraudulent title.”

The DCI investigation led to the discovery of 13 forged car titles between 2016 and 2023. Since O’Day has passed away, no charges will be filed. According to Jackley, there is no evidence that anyone else was involved. KELOLAND News asked Jackley if the state could be on the hook to repay the loans to the banks and credit unions.

Because she was in a supervisory position, Jackley says O’Day could adjust VIN numbers, which allowed her to create the titles she would eventually destroy. Because of the statute of limitations, the DCI investigation only goes back to 2016. Jackley believes O’Day may have created even more fake titles as far back as 2011. (LINK)

We will probably never know the whole truth about this one - how many titles, how much money, because O'Day died in February, 2024, and Attorney General Marty Jackley has closed the case.  

Embezzler #3:

Lynne Hunsley, who served as a revenue supervisor in the Department of Revenue, was placed on administrative leave by department leadership within the last two weeks as she faces charges that she, too, falsified vehicle titles.

Interestingly enough, Hunsley worked for O'Day, and took over her position when O'Day retired in October, 2023. (I guess she learned from the best.)  This story broke only last week, so we're waiting on a lot more information.  

Meanwhile, A Blast From the Past:

A long time ago, I wrote about a place called MyDakotaAddress in Madison, SD, which was one of those online sites where permanent RVrs could become citizens in South Dakota (and other states with no income tax) through the simple means of spending the night at a South Dakota campground and then paying a regular monthly fee.  From my blogpost back in 2012:

This is only one of multiple little store-front operations that allow a person, in exchange for a yearly / monthly fee, to establish South Dakota residency and thus avoid paying state taxes in the state in which they actually live. They provide a SD mailing address, and help people obtain your new SD drivers license, SD vehicle registration and voters card.” They collect the mail and send it on, send on absentee ballots for voting, and basically allow a lot of people to “live” in South Dakota, thereby avoiding property taxes in their home state and perhaps avoiding other things as well. Who’s to say that the name they give is their real name?

 

Now, this is all fraudulent: It’s mail fraud, voter fraud, tax fraud… But, when I investigated it and brought it to the attention of all my state officials, I was told there was nothing illegal about it, and to contact them “when a crime had been committed.”  (The Wild West Continues)

Well, a crime was committed.  BIG crime.  Car theft.  In 2018:

A ring of savvy car thieves in New York exploited a bureaucratic weakness by registering many of their ripped-off Lamborghinis and Range Rovers in South Dakota, a state that lets people register out-of-state vehicles by mail and wasn’t thoroughly checking to see if they were stolen, the FBI said.

…In all, the group stole about $3.1 million worth of vehicles, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan. The heists included the theft of five 2017 Nissan Titan pickups taken from a dealership in Tallahassee, Florida, and a Lamborghini Huracan stolen in Miami, according to court documents.

…According to the FBI, [alleged ringleader Marvin] Williams registered 43 vehicles with the South Dakota Division of Motor Vehicles using false documentation. At least 10 of those vehicles had been reported stolen, authorities said.

"I have reviewed records obtained from the SDDMV, which show that MARVIN WILLIAMS, the defendant, who resides in Connecticut, has registered approximately forty-three vehicles in South Dakota, with the SDDMV, on behalf of himself and others, and has submitted false documentation, including false titles with invalid VINs, to the SDDMV to do so. In contrast to other states, prior to this investigation the SDDMV conducted fewer or no checks to confirm authenticity of VINs and lawful ownership in connection with registration of vehicles" [FBI Special Agent Kevin M. Gonyo, Complaint, USA v. Marvin Williams et al., U.S. Southern District Court of New York, 2018.11.06, p. 6].  (LINK)

Now I can't help but look at Sandra O'Day's career in forged car titles and wonder... was she involved?  Did she copy-cat?  Will we ever find out?  

And also, will anyone in our Legislature consider making it illegal for someone to both purchase and approve their own purchases?  One would hope so:  However, in Davison County, they're talking about merging the Auditor's and Treasurer's Offices into one.  Great idea! Save money!  

But Chief Deputy Auditor for Davison County James Matthews is concerned about the removal of checks and balances that would come if roles combine. “In our current status quo system, we have an elected treasurer and an elected auditor and our offices take each other’s work at the end of the month and are able to balance all the accounts to check each thing to the penny,” Matthews said. “With one office, you eliminate that checking of balance of both independent offices, working together to ensure that all the finances are accounted for and to prevent fraud.” (LINK)

Bingo.  

South Dakota, where we talk like Mayberry and act like Goodfellas...  

  

 

Four Stories and Two Hotdishes

Every morning, I watch Good Morning America for about half an hour while I eat my breakfast, mostly for the news scroll they provide at the bottom of the screen.  There's always something to catch my attention, something that isn't necessarily covered in prime time anywhere.  

For example:

"2,300 Pounds of Meth Hidden in Celery in Georgia Farmer's Market."  

Well, that certainly gave me something to munch on mentally while eating my peanut butter toast.  

Which Georgia Farmer's Market?  (Forrest Hill, right outside of Atlanta).  

Why celery?  Wouldn't it would be easier to hide the meth in the cauliflower?  

Who brings enough celery to a farmer's market to hide 2,300 pounds of meth?  

Were they actually planning to sell the celery as well as the meth? 

Did someone pick up a stalk of celery, notice the meth, and ask if that cost extra?

New Zealand food bank distributes candy made from a potentially lethal amount of methamphetamine

"A New Zealand charity working with homeless people in Auckland unknowingly distributed candies filled with a potentially lethal dose of methamphetamine in its food parcels after the sweets were donated by a member of the public.

"The charity’s food bank accepts only donations of commercially produced food in sealed packaging, Robinson said. The pineapple candies, stamped with the label of Malaysian brand Rinda, “appeared as such when they were donated,” arriving in a retail-sized bag, she added."
(LINK)

Wow. Someone went to a lot of trouble, individually wrapping meth in candy wrappers...

And why? Especially since they were given away.  Did they think they were going to get more customers? For meth or for Rinda?

Haven't been able to find an update on this story yet, but I'm keeping an eye out.

"Hippopotamuses can become airborne for substantial periods of time, researchers discover."

So of course I instantly thought of the dancing hippos in Disney's Fantasia. Some images never leave you...

Now I don't know about you, but I would cheerfully watch airborne hippos for 'a substantial period of time'.  A steeplechase? I'm there for it.  "Le Corsaire" ballet?  Oh, yeah.  Hippo v. Seabiscuit?  Bring it on.

So I was saddened to learn that, while hippos trot, not gallop, their airborne time is only about 0.3 seconds.  (LINK)

And, if you can figure out how to slow this video down, you can probably see it:

Tim Walz Accused of Lying About His White Guy Tacos!

I love this story and the whole meltdown that's going on in a certain sphere.
(LINK)

Apparently, no one in certain circles has ever heard of "joshing", i.e., making gentle fun of oneself.  Nor do they know squat about Norwegian Lutheran Culture.

Folks, you have to understand that, up here in the Midwest / High Plains area (including both Minnesota and the Dakotas), there is indeed a Northern European (which we often call Norwegian Lutheran, in gentle joshing fashion) food culture that largely eschews seasoning.  Up here, "hot" means the actual temperature of the food, not the spice. 

"Church Basement Ladies Pale Food Polka"

For example: lutefisk, a/k/a "The piece of cod which passeth all understanding" (and no, I did not make that up).  I have been invited to lutefisk dinners, which are a highlight of the Christmas season, and do not attend, because lutefisk is basically warm fish jello. With the lutefisk comes lefse (riced potatoes mixed with flour, salt, butter and cream, cooked like thin potato tortillas, and served with butter and sugar), boiled potatoes, and (if you're lucky) the one bit of color on the whole plate:  red Jello.

Now while I hate lutefisk, I have really leaned into hotdishes.  They're filling, they're easy to make, they're comfort food in the long, long, long winters.  And they are standard fare at funerals, potlucks, and other church gatherings.

The main point of a hotdish is that they are a full meal in a baking dish: a protein and a starch, mixed with canned soup and sometimes a frozen / canned vegetable.  Tatertot hotdish!  (Generally ground beef in mushroom soup with - you guessed it - tatertots for the topping.)  Chicken with biscuits! Tuna noodle casserole! Turkey noodle casserole! Swedish meatballs in white gravy!

NOTE:  True Swedish meatball gravy has beef broth and a dash of nutmeg in it.  Mmm...  Exotic.

And more endless iterations of hotdish, using cream of mushroom soup, cream of chicken soup, cream of celery soup, cream of ____ soup, topped with biscuits or mashed potatoes or tater tots.  Of late, some people have also been doing spaghetti bake, with tomato sauce and a thick coating of mozzarella cheese.

Here's a classic Chicken and Biscuits Hotdish passed down through the ages (thank you Dark Ally!), in my modern variation (i.e., the onion and mushrooms):

1 can cooked chicken, drained and chopped fine 

1 can cream of chicken soup 

1/2 cup of milk 

1 onion, sauteed with 1 package of mushrooms chopped 

Pinch of sage 

Mix the above together and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes. 

Turn the oven up to 400 degrees. 

Open can of biscuits, and put biscuits on top of chicken hot dish 

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the biscuits are brown.

Now here's Tim Walz' Award-Winning Taco Hotdish:

1 lb ground turkey
1 large red bell pepper (or two medium ones)
1 yellow onion
1 can sliced black olives
1 can diced mild green chilies  
1 bottle taco sauce (medium)  
1 16 oz sour cream
1 bag of frozen tots
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
3 cups sweet corn
Cherry tomatoes
Green onions
Shredded iceberg lettuce
Paprika
Chili powder
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Dice the onion and bell pepper into 1-inch dice and sauté in 1 tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper for 15 minutes, until tender. Remove onion and bell pepper and set aside in a mixing bowl. Brown turkey. In a small bowl, mix 2 teaspoons each of paprika, chili powder, onion powder and garlic powder. Add half of the mixture to the turkey while browning. Reserve the other half of the mixture to sprinkle over the tots prior to baking. When finished, add the turkey in with the sautéed onion and bell pepper. Add black olives, sweet corn, chilies, taco sauce, 2 cups of cheese, and sour cream. Stir mixture until combined. Pour into a baking dish and sprinkle the remaining 2 cups of cheese on top. Add tots on top of the mixture and more cheese. Sprinkle spice mixture on top of tots. Bake in a 400-degree oven for 45 minutes or until tots are crispy and golden brown. After removing from the oven, sprinkle with shredded lettuce, green onions and diced tomato. Serve with sour cream, hot sauce, avocado, cilantro or your favorite taco topping.

NOTE that all the seasonings are "mild" or "medium".  Ain't no jalapenos in this hotdish. You want hot sauce? Cilantro? Avocado? Put 'em on top!

Anyway, that's the Church Basement Ladies way!

You can see the whole musical on YouTube, too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IEFkHAsOZs

Bridge of Birds

One of my favorite historical fantasy / thriller / mystery novels of all time is Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds: A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was. I read it when it first came out in 1984, and almost immediately went right down to my local bookstore and ordered it (no Amazon then, folks!) in hardcover.

Why my love of this book? For one thing, the pace never slackens, the cultural and historical references are impeccable, there are enough twists and turns in the plot to make almost any modern thriller look really unsurprising, and there are characters that you will never forget. It's chock full of Chinese mythology, fairy tales, and history. And best of all, it is so witty and hilarious that, no matter what happens, you can't help but laugh at least once a page, and often more. But then I have, like one of the two heroes, Li Kao, "a slight flaw in my character."

The narrator, Number Ten Ox, the tenth son of a peasant family, is without guile, but willingly does what Master Li tells him to, from (after an exhausting, grueling, and hard first quest) relaxing in the bedroom of the concubine of the town miser (Miser Shen), to killing... well, quite a few villains.

Ten Ox is the one who tracks down Master Li when all the children of the village of Ku-Fu between the ages 8-13 fall into a coma plague, thanks to the two pawnbrokers of the village (Pawnbroker Fang and Ma the Grub) who have decided to get and keep ALL the money in the village by poisoning the mulberry leaves so all the silk worms die. The pawnbrokers fake their own deaths, and we meet them again and again and again... (as in real life, so in fiction.) One of my favorites is when the pawnbrokers go forth with "his mother's ashes", and on the road, they spot the cow.

"Mother!" he screeched. "My beloved mother has been reborn as a cow!".. The cow's eyes were streaming with tears of joy as she lovingly licked the bald fellow's skull. "Mother! What joy to see you again!" he sobbed, kissing her hairy legs. What choice did the farmer have? ... He was only a gentleman farmer, and he was quite surprised when he was informed that cows always weep when they lick salt...

"Lies, all lies!" screamed Pawnbroker Fang.

"We demand compensation for slander!" howled Ma the Grub.

Or Doctor Death:

We walked through the open door into a room that was littered with carcasses, and where a little old man with a bloodstained beard was attempting to install a pig's heart into a man's cadaver while cauldrons burped and kettles bubbled and seething vials emitted green and yellow vapors.

Doctor Death sprinkled the heart with purple powder and made mystical signs with his hands. "Beat!" he commanded. Nothing happened so he tried yellow powder. "Beat, beat, beat!" He tried blue powder. "Ten thousand curses why won't you beat?" he yelled and then he turned around. "Who you?" asked Doctor Death.

"My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao and there is a slight flaw in my character, and this is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox."

"Well, my surname is Lo and my personal name is Chan, and I am rapidly losing patience with a corpse that absolutely refuses to be resurrected!"

Doctor Death is trying, desperately, to resurrect his late wife. "Don't worry, my love, I'll have you out of that coffin in no time!" He is also a wonderful source for the Elixir of Life, which will surely allow you to live forever, unless, of course you get the distressing side effects, so it's best to try it first on a cat, a crow or a cow... Just in case... It fells an elephant in 20 seconds.

Then there's Henpecked Ho, the unfortunate husband of the Ancestress' daughter, and who one day has finally had enough of living with a mother-in-law who is a 500 pound genocidal maniac. Almost as ancient as Li Kao, the Ancestress, is still waiting for grandchildren and decides Number Ten Ox will be a good son-in-law. In her already prepared schoolroom for the grandkids is written:

HEAVEN PRODUCES MYRIADS OF THINGS TO NOURISH MAN;
MAN NEVER DOES ONE GOOD TO RECOMPENSE HEAVEN.
KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!

And she lives by what she preaches. Until one day, thanks to Li Kao and Number Ten Ox, Henpecked Ho realizes that an axe can be an excellent relative remover. When he dies, successful, his last words are

"Immortality is for the Gods. I wonder how they can stand it."

Of course, there is a major villain in the piece, the Duke of Chi'in, a thinly disguised Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (259-210 BC) whose empire barely survived three years after his death. He left a holocaust of victims behind him and a mausoleum that (in real life) is the source of the famous terracotta warriors. And in the novel... well, his one and only punishment is death.

The Duke of Ch'in has an Assessor (the ultimate tax man), Key Rabbit, who is married to a peasant girl, Lotus Cloud, who has "fallen victim to insatiable greed." Every man who meets her falls in love with her except for Li Kao, who again explains "I have a slight flaw in my character."

There's a fairy tale about the Star Shepherd and Jade Pearl, the Chinese version of Psyche and Eros, and Jade Pearl's mentor and guardian, the Queen of Ginseng.

There's the story of how a stretch of the Great Wall called the Dragon's Pillow was built 122 miles away from the rest of the Great Wall, on orders of the Ruler of Heaven, the August Personage of Jade, who delivered the plans in a dream to the builder. And of Wan the soldier, buried in the Dragon's Pillow to guard it for all eternity from his lonely watch on the Dragon's Tower.

There's the… oh, there are so many stories... and they all intertwine and mingle.

Jade plate,
six, eight.
Fire that burns hot,
Night that is not,
Fire that burns cold,
First silver, then gold.

And the ending is a knockout, that rises for a whole chapter in a glorious symphony in words and images, and mixes, somehow, laughter with wet eyes, and is totally satisfying. That is rare.

The beautiful Bridge of Birds was climbing slowly toward the stars, and a great song was spreading across China. Faster and faster we sped through the sky, and on the ground below the peasants were running from cottages and lifting little children in their arms to gaze at glory.

"You see?" said the peasants. "That is why you must never give up, no matter how bad things may seem. Anything is possible in China!"

Indeed it is in Bridge of Birds.

Shelley Duvall in Three Women: An Homage to Ambiguity

Shelley Duvall died in her sleep (apparently from complications of diabetes) on July 11, at age 75. She was quirky, different, hard to peg down, and an incredible actress, producer, director, and writer. And she made it seem effortless.

Think The Shining. Kubrick made everyone do endless takes in almost all his movies, and he was especially hard on Shelley, in order to "break her." Jack Nicholson told Empire magazine later he thought Duvall was fantastic and called her work in the film, "the toughest job that any actor that I've seen had." She later said that "For the last nine months of shooting, the role required her to cry 12 hours a day, five or six days a week, and it was so difficult being hysterical for that length of time".

She could also do a performance simple as a folded napkin: see her journalist in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Or Dixie in Roxane.

I think the director who understood her best (other than herself in Faery Tale Theatre) was Robert Altman. He cast her in seven movies: Brewster McCloud, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Thieves Like Us, Nashville, Buffalo Bill & the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, 3 Women and Popeye.

Pinky Rose: I wonder what it's like to be twins.
Millie Lammoreaux: Huh?
Pinky Rose: Twins. Bet it'd be weird. Do you think they know which ones they are?

3 Women is my favorite Altman movie. I love the cast, the weirdness and the dreaminess coexisting with the banal reality of so much of the dialog, and so much of working-class life. Harassing and nit-picking bosses, indifferent and cliquish coworkers, and a full-time job that pays so little you still need a roommate to pay the bills and keep food on the table in a one-bedroom apartment. Whatever car you're driving, you'll be driving it until it finally gives up the ghost, and then no one knows how you'll replace it. That, my friends, is real life.

Duvall's Millie Lammoreaux wants more. She reads all the magazines on how to dress, how to decorate, how to act, how to be more attractive to men, and tries to make all of that real. She has no idea that she's trying too hard, is more desperate than she knows, and is a shallow bore. Her coworkers at the health spa (and yes, there are twins there) and the doctors she "lunches with" in an attempt to find a boyfriend ignore her; her fellow apartment dwellers make fun of her (especially when she slinks down the stairs to hang out at the pool in a long, hooded cover up…). Only she and Pinkie Rose think she's wonderful.

Pinky Rose: You're the most perfect person I've met.

Millie Lammoreaux: Gee. Thanks.

Sissy Spacek's Pinkie is an awkward, naive, Southern girl, who latches on to Millie like a limpet, if a limpet could flatter, adore, and imitate. Until the accident, when Pinkie nearly drowns, and when she finally returns, her personality has changed completely.

And then there's Willie. To me, Janice Rule's Willie is the real mystery of the movie: so heavily pregnant, so thoroughly clothed, almost entirely mute (but what she does with her eyes!), painting endless murals of alien-looking naked humanoids with massive penises and / or assaulting, screaming, murdering and dying on all the pools in the area – including her own. As for why she's still with Edgar, that drinking, swaggering, target shooting, womanizing has-been Western stunt double… Well, sadly, that isn't that weird. We've all seen Willie and Edgar in real life.

"Do you think they know which ones they are?"

I don't know. Do any of us really know who we are? Deep down? Remember when you were young, and you ran with a pack (or were kept or rejected from running with the pack) – and the pack really looked, talked, acted all alike so that the adults often couldn't tell one from the other. Could the pack individuate, or was that the point of keeping the pack pure? To drown in the collective?

NOTE: Speaking of drowning, there's a lot of water in 3 Women, and you can interpret it any way you like. Millie and Pinkie work a spa where they spend most of their time providing water exercise and baths. Everywhere has a pool. Dreams begin and end with water. Jung's collective unconscious? Life in the womb? Ursula LeGuin's "The Social Dreaming of the Frin"? You pick.

Some people have said they find the movie misogynistic. I don't see it that way. Each woman in 3 Women has their own character, and the actresses themselves were allowed to develop them. Altman let Spacek and especially Duvall improv a lot of their dialog. Duvall wrote Millie's diary and planned her recipes:

"I got this whole book of recipes that I'm keepin'. And I list 'em by how long they take to make. You know, if you only have 20 minutes, you just look under 20 minutes... and it tells ya all the kind of things that you can make in that amount of time."

I have heard versions of that conversation in real life.

And Millie's dress, always caught in the car door. It started off as a mistake, but Altman didn't reshoot the scene, and kept as a signature through the whole movie.

"Do you think they know which ones they are?"

I don't know, any more than I know what happened to Edgar, or how / why / when the three women end up the way they do. That's half the fun of watching 3 Women more than once. It's a mystery, like dreams...

And I like dreams. And ambiguity. Knowing your version of the ending, but also knowing it could be something else. Also from the "your guess is as good as mine, but I'll probably stick with mine" list:

• 2001 A Space Odyssey – We've only been arguing about what the hell it means for 56 years and counting...
• Solaris – (the 1972 version by Tarkovsky, PLEASE)
• High Plains Drifter - 1973, is he real or is he a ghost?
• Picnic at Hanging Rock - 1975, One of my top ten ever since the first time I ever saw it. Been watching Peter Weir films ever since.
• The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey - Australian, 1988 - another one of my top tens.

What's on your list?

Everybody Knows...

The small town or village has long been a popular site for mystery fiction, especially murder.  And, of late, for supernatural, spooky, sinister things.  Mayberry meets Twin Peaks meets Stranger Things.  That kind of thing. 

But the truth is - sorry fans! - there's not many covens, although there's plenty of huddling over a Ouija Board or a Tarot Deck, just for the frisson of getting a message...  And there's usually one person in that huddle who's secretly manipulating the messaging, because it's easier than you might think, and it's fun.  They're not a witch, just a control freak.  Lots of those in a small town.  

There's also always at least one person who believes that there is a Satanic coven that's manipulating all the kids. ("Why else would they be doing drugs and having sex and leaving graffiti all over the school bathroom?  We never did that!"  No, you got drunk, had sex, and left graffiti on rocks at the local park.)  And everyone seems to have a pet conspiracy theory, from flat-earth to aliens really do greet every President who's elected...  And some are weirder than that. 

But I pity any alien, demon, or hostile alternate dimension who tries to go up against the Boss Bull and/or Boss Cow of any small town:  if you've ever tangled with either, you know that Logan Roy has nothing on them.  They're just far more polite during the fileting.  

BTW, the Boss(es) are rarely the Mayor, sometimes not even Councilmember (city or county), because why should they have to do all that scut work?  Endless meetings and paperwork are not that appealing, when you can sit home with a phone and a drink and tell people what to do from afar.  

As to crime, there's a lot more murder in fiction than in reality.  In reality,  there're lots of drugs, theft, especially embezzlement, vandalism (usually teenagers but not always), drunk & disorderly with or without assault, simple assault, sexual assault, and, finally, murder, which happens just infrequently enough for people to say, "I'm shocked, shocked!  That kind of thing doesn't happen here."  

Note:  Embezzlement is very common because the actual pay in small towns is pathetically low for almost all jobs, with no health insurance, which leads to a lot of medical debt.  And ever since gambling became legal, with slot machines in every bar, there are a lot of gambling addicts.  Hope springs eternal and all that.  Interestingly, most people who embezzle are caught (Though it often takes a while), but very few actually go to prison for it.  It's mostly restitution and fines, maybe a brief jail sentence.  And, as I said in a prior post, they're usually rehired in the same town, because there's not a sizeable job pool to draw on.  

There are also a lot of drugs.  Not just marijuana, but meth, heroin, and fentanyl.  The Boss' (grand)son or (grand)daughter has been known to be the major drug dealer.  Or victim.  Or both.  

BTW: For those who move to a small town and want to get "in", there are a few paths:

• Born and/or marry into an old family - Antebellum antecedents in the South, pioneers in the Midwest / West.  Money and / or land (in abundance, especially out West) helps considerably.  
• Wealth - Start a business that brings lots of money to the community, and you will soon have power, clout, and probably a spouse for you and/or your children from one of the "old families".  
• Freakish charisma and likeability can also work pretty well.  Of course, it can always evaporate, and then you're back on the bottom again, if not run out of town.

BTW, Boss Bull and Boss Cow are sometimes - but not always - married, not always to each other, and often can't stand each other.  But they do know perfectly well how to work with each other to stop anyone else from replacing them and their minions.  For one thing, they often don't take the obvious leadership positions, but pass those on to Useful Idiots.  

Ironically, Useful Idiots almost never realize they're useful idiots.  The Dunning-Kruger effect is a real thing, and applies to more than knowledge.  Generally Useful Idiots are elected to the top positions in town or church or boards because s/he will be easily manipulated, and will take all the blame for when things go wrong.  But s/he actually believes that s/he is the best person for the job, and popular because of her/his wisdom and expertise.  They are almost never undeceived.  I know one small town where the mayor was reelected time and again with no opposition and thought it proved the people loved him, but it was because Boss Bull or Boss Cow had made it clear to everyone that he was the one who'd been chosen.  

The Bosses also generally have at least one Court Jester around at all times.  These are people who will do anything to ingratiate themselves with one or another of the Bosses.  Compliments, fawning attention, praise:  the Boss can hit the worst hook you ever saw, and they'll say, "Great shot! Shame that gust of wind came up" - you know the type.  Constant errand running, "helping out", etc.  And, depending on the age, youth, attractiveness, etc., there might be sex...  Of course, when the fit hits the shan, so to speak, it's never the Boss' problem.

Speaking of Boss Bull and Boss Cow, the one person they never mess with is the Encyclopedia - s/he knows the history of everything, everyone, and where most if not all of the bodies are buried, while being discreet enough to keep from being murdered her/himself.  At least in real life. Fiction kills them off all the time, which is one of the reasons why "Midsomer Murders" is so popular. 

The Bosses also (almost) never mess with are people who can actually do things they want done.  The locksmiths, mechanics, gardeners, carpenters, roofers, plumbers, electricians, dentists, doctors, nurses, ophthalmologists, etc. ... they are all actually useful, and so are left alone to do their jobs.  

Just don't get too uppity. 

And don't try to take over for the chosen Useful Idiot and run for office.  

And don't be stupid, be polite and helpful and smiling. Always.

And make sure, when moving to a small town, you find out as quickly as possible who the Bosses are.  

*****

BSP!  BSP!  BSP!  

Thanks to Barb Goffman, my story "Sophistication" appears in Black Cat Weekly #149, available at Wildside Press or Amazon.

Hi Mark Thielman!  Good to see we share a cover and a magazine!  And love your story, "Dramatis Personae!"

Triple Homicides - Twice! And a Flood

(Gov. Noem's pet slogan, more appropriate
than she's ever been able to grasp)

Well, it's back to crime in South Dakota, and we've seen a lot of it lately. Besides the usual child molesters and child pornographers (at least one a week, most of them not living in Sioux Falls, just so you know it's not all centered in the city), the drug crimes, and miscellaneous crap, we've had two triple murders within two weeks. And no, no one's calling them a "mass shooting" because you have to hit 4 victims to be a mass shooting. But I'm sure that, given enough time, someone will up the ante and put us into the big leagues.

First Shooting

So, this is what happened: On May 23^rd, Jay Ostrem (former mayor of Centerville, SD, pop. 946, where everyone lived) 's wife and a guy named Paul Frankus were all drinking together when Mr. Ostrem was passed out. While he was asleep, Paul forcibly kissed her and exposed his genitals to Mrs. Ostrem (and/or rubbed his penis on her).

Five days later (Monday, May 28th), after some more drinking (the police smelled alcohol on his breath when they arrived), Mrs. Ostrem told Ostrem about the incident, and he went "raging out of the house". She said she had no idea that he had weapons in his car, but he did. (I find Mrs. Ostrem's last statement disingenuous, but that's just because I find it hard to believe that she never saw or noticed an "AR-style rifle" in the back seat or the trunk.)

Anyway, he stormed across the street, where Paul Frankus, 26, Zach Frankus, 21, and Timothy Richmond, 35 were, barged in and started shooting. Zach Frankus called police at 9:44 p.m. Monday to report that his brother had been shot by "a guy from across the street" and that the shooter had gone back home. Apparently Ostrem came back, because while Zach was on the phone with the dispatcher he said that he had been shot, too, and then stopped talking. (I have no idea when Mr. Richmond was shot.) (Yahoo)

When Ostrem was arrested a short time later, there was an AR-style rifle on the ground near him, he had a handgun in his pocket, and he smelled strongly of alcohol.

This being South Dakota, an anonymous contact told me that Ostrem was known for drinking and mental instability. Records also show that he was not squeaky clean sexually:

He'd been sued for sexual harassment in federal court in 2010, while serving as mayor of Centerville, by former Police Chief Rachel Kopman, who claimed she’d been subjected to unwelcome sexual comments for more than a year before her dismissal as chief. The suit was settled in 2012. (Source)

He was also a law enforcement officer in Wyoming for two decades, where there were a couple of gun-related incidents while on duty and at least one lawsuit. (Wyoming)

Ostrem is being held on a $1 million cash bond, which tells me that no one in tiny Centerville trusts him. Good.

Second Shooting:

About a dozen people were having a regular bonfire party (food and beer) on June 6th in a quiet residential neighborhood in Sioux Falls that went on into the early hours. Somewhere along the line, Justin Cody Rackley, originally from Texas, who moved to South Dakota in 2020, came to join them.

Anyway, Mr. Rackley came to the bonfire armed with a handgun, because ________ (fill in your own reason here)

When the police arrived at 2:45 a.m., there were three adults shot to death (Daniel Carl Kemnitz, 43, Kellie E. Reaves, 43, and Michael A. Thompson, 34, all of Sioux Falls), and two other victims who had non-life threatening injuries and were taken to the hospital.

NOTE: The only prior on Rackley's South Dakota record is a simple assault charge in 2020, BUT prosecutors said he also has a criminal record in Texas. He's being held on $3 million cash bond, so obviously no one trusts him to not do a runner. (LINK)

Apparently, this was a fairly regular bonfire gathering, with people coming and going throughout the night. From the Go Fund Me page for Kellie Reaves: "a strange man showed up to their bonfire and attacked her home with gunfire which left her and two others without a chance of survival." (Thank God all the children were asleep indoors.)

Neighbors Angela and Joe Windstead, who live next door, told the Argus Leader on Saturday afternoon their internal cameras caught the sound of 16 shots, three of which were muffled. They turned the footage and audio over to police, they said.

Joe Winstead also said he saw his neighbors sitting out around a fire at about 9 p.m. at the house that's now a crime scene. "They were out there most of the night," he said. "I know I got up once or twice in the middle of the night to use the restroom, and they were still out there. But like this morning, we went out front, and there are two vehicles that were there that we've never, ever seen there before."

The Winsteads said they've known their next door neighbors for about seven years. "She's a wonderful gal, with a wonderful man," Angela Winstead said Saturday afternoon of Reaves. "We've had absolutely zero issues. She's the one neighbor we clicked with, and she's the only other neighbor on our block that was really our age when we moved in."

Investigating Officer Nyberg said the incident does not appear to be a crime of passion or a robbery. "That's why we're trying to track down anybody that was there at the time that it happened to see if we can't flesh out some more information," he said.

Rumor mill:

"The shooter was an acquaintance of one of the victims. He was a stranger to everyone else. The shooter and a victim (high school friend of the homeowner) ran into the homeowner and her friend at the gas station and were invited over.
"He said something racist early on but dropped it when called out. He repeated it later and things escalated.
"I was told by a victim's family member that a survivor had the shooter pinned for an hour before the cops arrived and was repeatedly punching the shooter/fighting to keep him down."

MY NOTE: This might be Kellie Reaves' "heroic significant other, Dusty Miller" (see Obituary) and if so, the punching is, to be frank, fine with me. And it would explain the mug shot below.

"Even the victims' families still don't have a ton of great, reliable information. This is a senseless, horrible situation."

Amen.

Writer's Analysis:

As a story, the first one is kind of obvious: grouchy old man with guns and a drinking problem whose wife told him one of the neighbors assaulted her… so off he goes and kills everyone who was in the house. Excessive, but at least there's a motive. And it could be worked a number of ways: wife and neighbor had been having an affair for a while. Everyone's an out of control alcoholic, and things escalated that night. The old man had other reasons for wanting the neighbor dead and got his excuse. The real victim was one of the others in the house, but people would buy the motive of a sexual assault. I mean, you can see a number of ways to twist it up, build the tension, etc.

It's the second shooting that's frustrating, because there's no motive other than (perhaps) being called a racist. And it's all so random. I think writers and the reading public hate random crimes unless they're incorporated in with something that does have meaning. Is a hot tempered guy from Texas who packed a gun and lost it when being called a racist enough? I think a major change in motive or an in depth background would be required to write this one. As it is, it's a real reminder to not invite people you meet at the gas station over to a party.

BTW, The last time Sioux Falls had a homicide that involved three or more victims was 1973, when a family was found deceased in their home. There were four victims, and the suspect took their own life. (Argus)

Oh, and we had an almost shooting:

June 17, Jason Matthew Palmer, 49, of Sioux Falls was arrested for shooting a rifle at a 12 year old and 17 year old who were talking and playing outside. He got upset, walked out, fired the rifle once, and went back inside and barricaded himself indoors. I guess that's one way to get arrested. (DakotaNewsNow)

Rain, Rain, Go Away…

Last week, we had 16 inches of rain in Sioux Falls and most of Southeast South Dakota (some places had more), with a cloudy one day break in the middle that did nothing to improve our depression or our apprehension. Flooding started almost immediately. I grabbed some groceries on the non-rainy day, and scurried down to Yankton Park to see what it looked like: the port-a-potties were already tipped over on their side, bobbing in the water, and all I could think of was, "I hope they were emptied before this hit."

There are small towns that are still flooded and will be until the Big Sioux and the Small Sioux rivers quit cresting.

A railroad bridge collapsed down in Sioux City, Iowa from the strength of the rushing floodwaters. The Big Sioux River crested at 45 feet, seven feet higher than the prior record. (LINK)

Roads are buckled from the raging water.

Fields are flooded, meaning the crops are lost.

They closed Falls Park in Sioux Falls because it was way over its banks, and idiots were going down there to film it, trying to get out on the rocks, etc… One idiot wanted to go swimming in it. I saw the video, and all I could think of was let him experience Darwin's Law for himself.

Meanwhile, our Governor finally got back from her trip to Washington, D.C., and headed straight for the camera at one of the wealthiest spots per capita in South Dakota, Dakota Dunes, and North Sioux City, SD. Her press releases have been regular, urging everyone to report their damage to the South Dakota Office of Emergency Management, because "We have to have a loss — in order to qualify for FEMA — of $1.6 million worth of property damage." (LINK) She also said her top priority would be the area around McCook Lake, where the residents are complaining that “McCook Lake was sacrificed for the benefit of North Sioux City and Dakota Dunes. We don’t really think that’s fair.” (LINK)

June 24^th, 2024, view of flood damage that occurred the previous night
at McCook Lake in southeastern South Dakota. (Courtesy Dirk Lohry)

Yesterday, Governor Noem says she will NOT call out the South Dakota National Guard to help with clean up or disaster relief:

Noem said counties must request assistance from the National Guard. The governor then decides if it should be warranted.  “That’s usually a very crisis situation. And the National Guard is extremely expensive. So, if you do activate the National Guard, then the local county has to pay for that response.  We have to be wise with how we use our soldiers. And this was a situation where our community was pretty well prepared, and that wasn’t necessary to activate them at this time."  (LINK)

I think more of us might buy this line except that Noem has sent our National Guard down to Texas three times in the last three years, spending $1.3 million of our taxpayer dollars each time.  So, Texas gets to use our "extremely expensive" soldiers, but we don't?  Former South Dakota Governors have sent the National Guard out for other floods...  

Meanwhile, all that water headed south, and will end up in Nebraska.  

And the storms themselves went east, into Minnesota, where one result is that the Rapidan dam in southern Minnesota had a partial failure, and may fail completely.  The National Guard has already been activated in Minnesota to respond to flooding.

Sigh...

It's hot, it's humid, the heat index Tuesday went up to 105, and the mosquitoes are biting.

But my hollyhocks are blooming!

And how's your week been?