Tonight's mayor and council candidates' forum here in Spearfish was mostly what you'd expect from a local political event: mostly gentle questions, mostly general answers, mostly nice things said about Spearfish and Spearfish people.

And then Mayor Jerry Krambeck called candidate Dana Boke a "snollygoster":

I need to share with you that my opposition shot the first bow across the boat. I can hardly even pronounce it, Dana. "Ollie-garchie"? I'm not certain what it is, I had to look it up. And it says "a government in which a small group exercises control, especially for corrupt and selfish purposes." Dana, I'm offended with that comment. You've got it on your website, and you've mentioned it many times.

If you truly believe this, you need to look up something. It's called a "snollygoster," because I think this describes what type of government that we're going to have if you're the mayor of the city of Spearfish [Mayor Jerry Krambeck, candidates forum, Spearfish, SD, 2013.03.27].

Snollygoster. Snollygoster.

I welcome my longer-memoried readers to submit their examples, but this is the first time I've heard anyone call anyone a snollygoster in South Dakota. What did Krambeck just call Boke?

A politician who will go to any lengths to win public office, regardless of party affiliation or platform.

One of the earliest references comes from the Columbus Dispatch in October 28, 1895 which defined the term as "a fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform, or principles, and who… gets there by sheer force of monumental talknophical asumnancy" [Teagan Goddard's Political Dictionary].

Various sources note snollygoster may originate from the German schnell (fast) and geist (ghost). Hmm... John Kerry got swiftboated... did Dana Boke just get swiftghosted?

And if Boke beats Krambeck, will we replace oligarchy with snollygarchy?

I'll have videos of the complete forum, mayoral and council candidates, up later tonight for your enjoyment. I'll embed the snollygoster video here.

Snollygoster. Snollygoster.

Update 22:40 MDT: Here's that video! After finding his closing statement, Mayor Krambeck says the magic word at 1:17.

And in the technoliterary irony department...

#roadshow MT @crawford4congress: POTUS needs to focus on solutions, not soundbites tinyurl.com/arcxzae

— John Boehner (@johnboehner) February 26, 2013

President Obama also posts his four-trillion-dollar savings plan on Twitter.

The Guardian looks across the pond and finds the Colonies' State of the Union addresses getting "dumber":

Click to access The Guardian's cool interactive graphic, with details on reading level of each State of the Union Address

Those bubbles show the relative word counts of each State of the Union address (which before FDR was called the President's Annual Message to Congress). We see notably larger word counts for most of the 1800s and early 1900s, largely because Presidents from Jefferson through Taft submitted written reports instead of marching up Pennsylvania Avenue to give Congress what-for in person. Compare the big 20th-century outlier, Jimmy Carter's last State of the Union address, a written report of 33,287 words, the longest such Presidential message.

The Guardian writers derive their "dumber" accusation from the other key data represented in this graph, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of each State of the Union address. The last two centuries show a distinct downward trend in grade level, from James Madison's 21.6 (which suggests even a post-doc would struggle to have grasped what this Founding Father was getting at) to Barack Obama's current average of 9.2 (which means all of my high school students should be able to follow along). Only George Bush the Elder scores lower, at 8.6. George W. Bush, whose intellect we often assail, beat his dad, Obama, Clinton, and LBJ with a 10.0.

This quantitative analysis of one set of specific and arguably useless Presidential messages does not suggest that either our Presidents or the electorate are getting dumber. The fact that Kristi Noem's entries in the Congressional Record have a higher Flesch-Kincaid grade level than Al Franken's proves that Flesch-Kincaid does not measure intellectual capacity. Flesch-Kincaid measures syllables per word and words per sentence. A two-century trend of shorter words and sentences may represent a more inclusive, democratic mindset, with Presidents increasingly aiming their words not just at Washington elites but at the general public.

Flesch-Kincaid grade level for this blog post: 9.53. That puts me between Obama's 9.2 and Bill Clinton's 9.8... still among the top five easiest-reading Presidents.

On the good side, Rep. Rev. Scott Craig (R-33/Rapid City) recognizes he's wrong about at least one thing in his school-gunslinger bill:

Democrat Rep. Paula Hawks asks question about definition of "interface" with police force. Craig agrees with problem of that language #sdleg

— SD Democratic Party (@SoDakDems) January 23, 2013

Remember that Rep. Hawks used to grade student papers for a living. She knows sloppy writing when she sees it.

As I pointed out when Craig's HB 1087 hit the hopper, "interface" is a toothless, meaningless word. If he's going to let school boards hand out guns to any willing, untrained adult, he at least needs to clarify what information school boards need to share with their local police.

With Senate Bill 109, Senator Stan Adelstein (R-32/Rapid City) seeks to add "gender preference" to the list of discriminatory practices that local governments may investigate under SDCL 20-12-4. Since pastoral politicos Scott Craig (R-33/Rapid City) and Steve Hickey (R-9/Sioux Falls) are selling House Bill 1087, their school-gunslinger bill, as an affirmation of local control, they will surely get on board with this measure to allow local governments to better protect the human rights of their constituents.

Oh, wait, that's odd: when I check the sponsor lists, I don't see Craig or Hickey crossing over to sponsor SB 109. Of HB 1087's 29 sponsors, only two, Senator Adelstein's neighbors Senator Craig Tieszen (R-34/Rapid City) and Senator Mark Kirkeby (R-35/Rapid City), who have signed on to SB 109. Evidently putting kids in danger of more accidental firearms discharge as a fearful response to something that almost never happens in South Dakota is a higher priority for Craig, Hickey, and 25 other legislators than the discrimination that happens against homosexuals every day in our fair state.

The Robbinsdale Radical supports SB 109, but notes with curiosity that the bill also strikes the word "sex" from the amended statute and replaces it with "gender." If we need to make a distinction, "sex" refers to the all that biological stuff; "gender" refers to the social constructs we pile on top of sex. "Gender" used to refer strictly to grammar, the distinction between masculine and feminine (and, in Russian, neuter!) nouns and adjectives. In the 1960s, feminists started to appropriate "gender" to make the point that a lot of what we associate with sex is determined socially, not biologically.

I won't get too deep into the weeds here (but who knows what will happen in the comment section!). I will note, though, that if we replace "sex" with "gender" in this statute, we may technically open the door for a woman to discriminate against a man by making lewd comments about the bulge in his blue jeans. "My client was making no reference to his socially constructed gender identity," a statute parsing lawyer could argue. "My client was simply noting with approval the size of his sex, his physical package."

Mr. Price's concerns are less graphic and more (1) legal and (2) anti-puritanical:

...I do not understand why you did not use the legally standard terms "sexual orientation" and "sexual preference", instead of the vague terms "gender" and "gender preference". I believe these terms weaken the law and in my opinion would make it difficult to align South Dakota law with Federal law and local laws that already exist in South Dakota (for example, in the City of Brookings).

Are we so repressed in the state of South Dakota that we no longer can call sex sex? [Curtis Price, "In Which I Ask Sen. Adelstein: Why No Sex?" Robbinsdale Radical, 2013.01.18]

South Dakota statutes are already peppered with references to both "sex" and "gender". A quick text search finds "sex" appearing much more frequently than "gender". Consider: we prosecute sex offenders, not gender offenders. (Actually, I'm prosecuting gender offenders on my semester exams, when students write le musique instead of la musique.) Specific to SB 109, our statutory chapter on human rights, from which the chapter on county and municipal protections of human rights takes its definitions, defines unfair and discriminatory practices in terms of "sex", not "gender".

I look forward to hearing the Senate Local Government erupt in feminist critique of language. I also look forward to our legislators overcoming that debate and passing Senate Bill 109.

Good grief! I check in from France to read important text from my Congresswoman, and this is all Kristi Noem can give me?

Families across South Dakota have begun to take down Christmas trees and kids are getting ready to start a new semester at school. It’s hard to believe another holiday season has come and gone, but as we prepare to ring in the New Year, it’s a good opportunity to pause and reflect upon the past year and to set goals for the next.

I continue to feel blessed and honored to serve the people of South Dakota every day. Although the struggles and challenges our country faces often weigh heavily on my mind, I am optimistic that 2013 will bring positive change. I remain committed to getting a Farm Bill passed so that our agriculture community can plan for next year’s crops and will also work to provide additional certainty and stability to our economy and fiscal future.

But as we look at what’s to come, it is also good to reflect on what we’ve accomplished... [Rep. Kristi Noem, press release, 2012.12.28].

Ouch, ouch, make the stupid stop! It's bad enough our college-graduate Congresswoman clumsily repeats her trite thesis statement. It's worse that she can't even follow through on her own chosen words. She promises to discuss "accomplishments," but she fails to list any. She talks about votes but not about laws passed or policies implemented. She talks about the House working "diligently," but she doesn't say anything that "work" has accomplished. (As I learned in the classrooms of Dean Koster and Joe Austin, work equals force times distance; if you aren't moving, you aren't working.)

Rep. Noem mentions her support for government-run health care at the Hot Springs VA, but she ignores her failure to accomplish any change so far in the VA's plan to close the Hot Springs facility. She mentions her newfound crusade to undermine Michelle Obama and all of us parents by putting the USDA "on notice" over its efforts to make kids healthier by controlling portion sizes and eating more greens, but she hasn't gotten the USDA to change course to offer bottomless cheesy tater-nugget casserole buffets every day or offered any rational, research-based counterplan for feeding our kids well.

South Dakota gets no happy new year from Congresswoman Kristi Noem. We get more of her same sloppy Newspeak, words that mean nothing, empty platitudes and lies disguised as farm-wife wisdom. From my family to yours, Kristi (another trite formula with which you ought not sully your official policy writing), cut the baloney (the way the school lunch program did) and legislate.

Once again, I find myself wanting to respond to wingnut conservative blogger Brad Ford. Alas, since Ford is as bad a writer as Secretary of Agriculture Walt Bones, it's hard to formulate a coherent response. Both Bones and Ford appear to write from within an agenda-padded cell that keeps them from getting out and testing their words for logical consistency, narrative coherence, or civilized decency.

But as a teacher and a patriot, I feel obliged to respond.

Ford's latest obtuse rant opens by advocating kingship ("that is the governmental model of both the Old and New Testaments"). He then grumbles about how kingship continues to operate in South Dakota:

In some states like South Dakota, the concept of “kingship” partially survives in choosing candidates who can claim kinship to long-rooted or “historical” families.  The continuity with the past may be illusory, but who cares.  The same holds for a candidate’s agricultural connections.

But perhaps merit should be championed–to the exclusion of blue-bloodedness, homestead family ties, ranching or farming, race or ethnicity, or other identities [Brad Ford, "Merit, Carpetbaggers, and South Dakota Politics," The Right Side, 2012.12.15].

Ford's solution: carpetbagging à la Hillary Clinton. Ford seems to call for South Dakota Republicans to recruit Tom Clancy, Bruce Willis, or Mel Gibson to run for South Dakota's Senate seat.

Wow. This from a Republican whose party argued publicly that South Dakota native Matt Varilek wasn't South Dakotan enough to represent us in Congress because he'd gotten a college education and traveled the world.

Ford supports his argument by concluding with a link to a video by Mike Carroll, a black man who calls blacks who voted to re-elect President Obama "slaves," "savages," "bubblehead Negro[es]," and "monkeys." The video is consistent with Ford's previously expressed racist views. But how it justifies recruiting Mel Gibson to run for Senate from South Dakota on "merit" against M. Michael Rounds's bluebloodedness or Kristi Noem's farm and ranch ties escapes me.

There are three logical explanations for Brad Ford's ramblings. I offer them in ascending order of simplicity and plausibility:

1. Ford is offering public-service ink blots, vague pen spillage that invites us to find our own patterns and meanings.
2. Ford is a provocateur, saying wild things he doesn't mean to drive traffic to Gordon Howie's Web village.
3. Ford is a substandard thinker and writer.

I vote for #3.

Walt Bones can't write:

It seems that our Holiday Season has been commandeered by the “Fiscal Cliff” discussions in Washington, DC. I’m not sure who “Cliff” is but judging by the rhetoric I hear, they must be referencing Cliff Clavin the infamous know-it-all from the “Cheers” program. He always had this penchant for coming up with some of the most obscure facts at the most (in)opportune moment. He may have not been fast enough on the buzzer for the “Jeopardy” show, but he surely was armed with a plethora of facts, figures, and numbers [Walt Bones, "Cheers," State of South Dakota press release, 2012.12.13].

Thus reads the first meandering, useless paragraph of five semi-random observations from our Secretary of Agriculture. I can't tell if he's trying to dismiss the fiscal cliff as an annoying sideshow or setting up an extended metaphor, but it doesn't matter, because he doesn't mention either cliff in any of his subsequent paragraphs to tie his thoughts together.

Secretary Bones suggests that the federal government can solve its problems by acting like South Dakota:

I think the discussion is really simple and the answer is one that our State and our farmers and ranchers have figured out a long time ago . . . . you can’t spend more than you earn [Bones, 2012.12.13].

This contention is hilarious, of course, since South Dakota spends 84% more than it earns in its state budget in the form of handouts from Uncle Sam. It also contradicts the philosophy of Bones and his boss Governor Daugaard who support handing millions of dollars to big dairies and other corporations just for doing the work that the free market will sufficiently reward on its own.

Secretary Bones then jumps to thanking the House and Senate Ag Committees... who still haven't passed a Farm Bill. Bones seems to think that federal support for agriculture is somehow deficit-neutral and has already done its share for fiscal responsibility. I would counter that ag programs won't have done their share to reduce the deficit until they retroactively declare the Noem family's three-million-plus in farm subsidies to be loans and demand repayment.

Bones then calls agriculture a rock (not a cliff), declares himself an eternal being, and wishes us all a blessed holiday, which I take as an expression and advocation of his religious faith on my dime. Grrr.

I don't mind public officials who disagree with me. But Bones's holiday column is an exercise in the Noem school of wasted ink.