The four poor presidents have endured thousands of commercial indignities since their likenesses were carved on Mount Rushmore by Gutzon Borglum. Now a Florida company called Proshade has come up with the craziest yet.

Proshade says it'll give the National Park Service $4 million for the rights to deck the presidential quartet with their hip sun visors for one summer. NPS hasn't even dignified the offer with a reply.

This week, Rapid City voters will decide whether or not to allow Wal-mart to rezone property along Highway 16 on the way to the monument. It's an unrelated issue, except that it's a sign of "money talks" and "sprawl be damned" in the Hills.

Less than a hundred miles north, some Sturgis rally profiteers want to create a big new outdoor campgrounds and bar near Bear Butte, one of the Lakota Indians' most sacred sites. Even non-Indians oppose further spreading the Sturgis sprawl.

Someday soon we'll all want Proshades on our foreheads to blind us from the bland commercialism that is currently sweeping across America.

This is the USA. Property rights and economic freedoms are sacred. Capitalism is a beautiful thing when it is man-sized and has some ethics. But big corporations, too often, become blind to anything but making money for the short-term. It's not even a good longterm policy for their workers and stockholders; it's certainly harmful policy for America. If only we would all vote with our pocketbooks; their town-wrecking policies would change overnight.

ON CELEBRATING MEMORIAL DAY



Hod Nielsen is an octogenarian who continues to write some of the best sports articles you'll find for the Yankton daily paper. He is the only journalist in the U.S. to have been inducted into both the Sportswriters and Sports Broadcasters hall of fames. But this weekend he didn't have ballgames on his mind. This is what he wrote:

"Please bear with me. We, in these United States, will celebrate Memorial Day. I must admit that it is a sad day for me. My thoughts go back to WWII days from 1941-45. That's a long time ago, but sometimes it's like yesterday.

"In the late summer jof 1942 our outfit -- which included 27 pilots, all bright, college-trained young men in their early 20s -- was sent to join the Mighty Eighth Air Force in England, an area that was constantly under fire from Hitler's Nazi forces.

"When the war was over, there were still seven of those young pilots left. Twenty of my comrades-in-arms were lost forever. In addition, my younger brother Bob, who was a pilot of an 8th AF B-17 bomber, had been shot down and killed in a raid over the Rhine River.

"I think of those guys a lot -- but particularly on Memorial Day. I think of the 21 sharp young Americans, all with great ambition and the talent to make it come true -- but none of them ever had a chance, none saw their 25th birthdays.

"For me, Memorial Day is important -- and because sports was important to each of these hereoes in their own way, it has particular importance, too."

I won't be writing until after Memorial Day, as my mother-in-law Laurette Mulloy died this morning after a long, long illness at age 85. She was born in Lyman County and was a distant relative to the rich rogue rancher Murdo McKenzie. Though certainly a loving mother to eight kids (and she even seemed to tolerate me as the years passed), she had a glint of old Murdo in her eyes.

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive they may find....

What will they find about the year 2005 that's worth remembering in 2525, as the old Zager and Evans hit song asks?

Will they remember who started our biggest industries or who was elected to highest office or who made the most money or owned the most land or won the biggest race or shot the biggest deer?

If history is any indicator, the answer is no. They'll remember a sector of our South Dakota society that gets little attention today: those who practice the arts. That point found full agreement among panelists at the Ben Radcliffe Day economic development forum on Saturday. Scott Parsley of East River Electric asked, "Who do we remember from the ancient Greeks? The businessmen? The political leaders? More likely, we remember the artists."

Sioux Falls Mayor Dave Munson agreed that the arts get too little attention in our state. He said his city's leaders have finally realized that art and culture can really help to attract good businesses and workers.

Oscar Howe, Frederick Manfred, Dan O'Brien, John Green, Josh Spies, Harvey Dunn, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Gutzon Borglum, Ruth & Korzak Ziolkowski -- those are some of the names that may still be remembered if the panelists' theory is right.

But through eternal night
The twinkkling of star lights
So very far away
Maybe it's only yesterday.

I spent last Saturday on the Dakota Wesleyan campus, the site of the Farmers Union's annual Ben Radcliffe Day. Here are some random things I heard and learned:

* Senator Larry Pressler, the keynote speaker, recently traveled to China. He noted in an aside that a Chinese politician could not be elected if he or she professed a belief in God but could and should be versed in the teachings of Confucious which advocate service to mankind and leading a good life. In America, Pressler noted, a politician probably cannot be elected to high office without professing a belief in God. But perhaps, said the retired senator, the two beliefs are not so very different.

* Senator George McGovern quipped that he used to always say, "It's not how many years you've lived but how you lived the years ... but now that I'm 83 I don't say that anymore!"

* Ben Radcliffe, the longtime farm leader, spoke emotionally about today's immigration issue. At age 91, he offered a lot of historical perspective. He questioned how an immigrant nation can so quickly forget its roots and values.

* DWU President Bob Duffet noted that the McGovern Library and accompanying public service center will be finished in the fall. A gala dedication is planned. The exterior is nearly complete; it is a very handsome addition to campus.

* An afternoon panel on economic development interestingly took a detour into state tax policy. Many people in the audience and on the panel thought the current tax system is actually holding back progressive economic and educational change. That was a twist: the general thinking has been that our low taxes have attracted industry. But one pundit noted, "There's still quite a lot of empty space out here so apparently the existing strategy isn't quite as successful as some might think."

* On the same panel, everyone agreed that South Dakota's rural areas give the state much of its culture and personality and that great efforts must be made to strenghten the rural economy -- including Sioux Falls Mayor Dave Munson, who said the 14 million people who shop at the Empire Mall each year certainly don't all live in Sioux Falls. "We need each other," he said.

This is a serious matter. I'm not trying to be funny. Junk cars parked in old shelterbelts have great educational value. In fact, the lack of them these days may be one of the reasons why our schools are having troubles with certain kids. A story in the Pierre Capitol Journal reports that Hughes County wants to get tougher on people who park junk cars in their trees. They may as well burn down the school house too. How's a kid supposed to learn?

When I was growing up in Yankton County, my brothers and I couldn't afford to go to town and buy a car. The thought never crossed our mind. And dad, though he had only an eighth grade education himself, was smart enough to not buy us one even in the years when he could afford to. He knew the value of hands-on learning.

When we wanted a car, we kept our eyes peeled on the farm shelterbelts around the James River valley. If we found a model we liked, we pulled into the yard in dad's faded red GMC pickup truck, a log chain hanging out the back bumper, and asked the farmer if he'd sell it. Right away, we learned about negotiation and salesmanship.

Usually we were able to buy the car for $10 to $25. We bought Nashes and Ford Customs and big boat-like Buicks. We pulled each one home and then tried to determine why it had been parked. With parts list in hand, we went to the junkyards around Yankton or back to the shelterbelts. We learned mechanics, teamwork and how to cuss.

Once the car was operable, we learned the principle of sharing: whoever's toughest gets the keys. I didn't get to drive until all the others left home.

Our biggest success story was a '51 Dodge sedan. Actually, dad handed that particular one over to us when he and mom got a '63 Ford. My oldest brother Mark had just enrolled in a welding class in high school, so before the sun set that day we cut the top off and drove over to the neighbors to give our friends a ride in the night air. It was our first convertible! Their mother took one look at the Dodge -- its doors and upholstery were still hot and smoking from the ferocious welding -- and she locked her boys in the house. "Go away from here!" she yelled from her kitchen window. That day we learned that a man's greatest dream may be some neighbor woman's nightmare. It was a meaningless lesson, but then so was algebra and art history.

Today's disadvantaged youth wait for mom or dad to buy them a car. Or they get a job at the burger joint and work night and day so they can afford payments, insurance and $3 gasoline. The poor kids. I feel like inviting them out to my farm ... where I keep a few cars in the trees just for educational purposes.

Only Guard Unit in Iraq; Now Four Are Lost

John Foresberg of the 147th, treating a wound on a boy in Iraq.

There was a pallor over the Mitchell community on Saturday as mourners attended services in the Corn Palace for Gregory Wagner, who was killed in Iraq. He was the fourth to die from the Yankton-based Charlie Battery 147th Field Artillery Unit. The unit, 151-strong, is the only S.D. National Guards outfit in Iraq at this time.


Skies were cloudy over the Corn Palace as citizens said goodbye to a soldier.

It's sad and puzzling that our government continues to fail in supplying the young soldiers with badly needed supplies. Fortunately, private citizens are doing what they can to fill the role of the Pentagon. For example, Troy Mebius of the 147th told his dad in Wessington Springs that they badly needed spotlights, drills and bits to maintain and refit the armor plating on their vehicles. The 147th's role is to train the Iraqi police force so you can imagine how important armor is to their survival.

Terry's dad spread the word, and very soon the Wessington Springs community shipped spotlights, drills and bits which arrived a week later. The soldier, in a thank you note to the local paper, said the supplies will make their job safer.

We continue to send magazines to soldiers in Iraq and Afganhistan at no charge. If you have a relative or friend serving in those trouble spots, email their APO mailing address to us and we'll add them to our list. Email to bernie@iw.net.

From the Wessington Springs True Dakotan

A lot of letters mailed from jail are probably quite interesting. Lowell Stanley, a Wessington Springs furniture and antique dealer, bought an old dresser and found a letter from 1956 that was mailed from Stockton, Calif., to a girl in 'Springs. It reads in part:

Hi sweetheart. Well I guess you know where I am. I'm in the Stockton County jail only it's for something I didn't do. Pop made me stay in the car while he cashed the foney checks. I'll probably be here until I'm 21. After that if I'm convicted on forgery charge it will be two years extra. Wait for me. I love you very much, and by the time I get out you will be eighteen and we can get married. Honey I have to go now but write real soon. Yours forever, Fred.


Lowell, in a letter to the True Dakotan, said the letter leaves you with many questions. Was he innocent? Did she wait? The only clue is that she must have saved the letter.