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OPINION | OTHER THOUGHTS

Employment FiguresAre No Surprise

God has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust andashes. Job 30:19. Portals of Prayer, Concordia Publishing House,St. Louis

F RO M T H E B I B L E

By The Associated Press Today is Thursday, September 11,

the 254th day of 2014. There are 111days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History: OnSeptember 11, 2001, on America’ssingle-worst day of terrorism, nearly3,000 people were killed as 19 al-Qaida members hijacked four passen-ger jetliners, sending two of the planessmashing into New York’s World TradeCenter, one into the Pentagon and thefourth into a field in western Pennsyl-vania.

On this date: In 1714, the forcesof King Philip V of Spain overcameCatalan defenders to end the 13-month-long Siege of Barcelona duringthe War of the Spanish Succession.

In 1789, Alexander Hamilton wasappointed the first U.S. Secretary ofthe Treasury.

In 1814, an American fleet scoreda decisive victory over the British inthe Battle of Lake Champlain in theWar of 1812.

In 1857, the Mountain MeadowsMassacre took place in present-daysouthern Utah as a 120-memberArkansas immigrant party wasslaughtered by Mormon militiamenaided by Paiute Indians.

In 1936, Boulder Dam (nowHoover Dam) began operation asPresident Franklin D. Rooseveltpressed a key in Washington to signalthe startup of the dam’s first hydro-electric generator.

In 1941, groundbreaking tookplace for the Pentagon. In a speechthat drew accusations of anti-Semi-tism, Charles A. Lindbergh told anAmerica First rally in Des Moines,Iowa, that “the British, the Jewish andthe Roosevelt administration” werepushing the United States toward war.

In 1954, the Miss America pag-eant made its network TV debut onABC; Miss California, Lee Meriwether,was crowned the winner.

In 1962, The Beatles completedtheir first single for EMI, “Love Me Do”and “P.S. I Love You,” at EMI studiosin London.

In 1974, Eastern Airlines Flight212, a DC-9, crashed while attemptingto land in Charlotte, North Carolina,killing 72 of the 82 people on board.The family drama “Little House on thePrairie” premiered on NBC-TV.

In 1984, country star BarbaraMandrell was seriously injured in anautomobile accident near Nashvillethat claimed the life of the other driver,Mark White.

In 1989, the exodus of East Ger-man refugees from Hungary to WestGermany began.

In 1994, actress Jessica Tandydied in Easton, Connecticut, at age85.

Ten years ago: Parents andgrandparents of those lost on Septem-ber 11 stood at the World Trade Cen-ter site and marked the thirdanniversary of the attacks. Spc. ArminCruz became the first Military Intelli-gence soldier convicted in the AbuGhraib prison scandal as he admittedabusing inmates and received alighter sentence in return for his testi-mony against others. Svetlana

Kuznetsova overwhelmed Elena De-mentieva 6-3, 7-5 in the first all-Russ-ian U.S. Open final. Mike Leigh’s “VeraDrake” won the Golden Lion for bestpicture at the close of the Venice FilmFestival. Lyricist Fred Ebb died in NewYork City; he was 76.

Five years ago: On his first 9/11anniversary as president, BarackObama urged Americans to come to-gether in service just as they unitedafter the terrorist attacks. Anti-abortionactivist James Pouillon was shot todeath near a high school in Owosso,Michigan. (Harlan James Drake wasconvicted of first-degree murder in thekilling of Pouillon and the owner of agravel pit, Mike Fuoss, and sentencedto life in prison.) Death claimed Holly-wood writer Larry Gelbart at age 81and poet and punk rocker Jim Carrollat age 60.

One year ago: A car bomb torethrough a Libyan Foreign Ministrybuilding in the eastern city of Beng-hazi on the anniversary of a deadly at-tack on the U.S. consulate there aswell as the 2001 terror attacks in theUnited States. More than 1 millionpeople showed their support for Cata-lan independence by joining hands toform a 250-mile human chain acrossthe northeastern region of Spain.

Today’s Birthdays: Actress BetsyDrake is 91. Former Sen. DanielAkaka, D-Hawaii, is 90. Actor Earl Hol-liman is 86. Comedian Tom Dreesenis 75. Movie director Brian De Palmais 74. Rock singer-musician Jack Ely(The Kingsmen) is 71. Rock musicianMickey Hart (The Dead) is 71. Singer-musician Leo Kottke is 69. ActorPhillip Alford is 66. Actress Amy Madi-gan is 64. Rock singer-musicianTommy Shaw (Styx) is 61. Sports re-porter Lesley Visser is 61. Actor ReedBirney is 60. Singer-songwriter DianeWarren is 58. Homeland Security Sec-retary Jeh Johnson is 57. MusicianJon Moss (Culture Club) is 57. ActorScott Patterson is 56. Rock musicianMick Talbot (The Style Council) is 56.Actress Roxann Dawson is 56. ActorJohn Hawkes is 55. Actress AnneRamsay is 54. Actress Virginia Mad-sen is 53. Actress Kristy McNichol is52. Musician-composer Moby is 49.Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is49. Business reporter Maria Bartiromois 47. Singer Harry Connick Jr. is 47.Rock musician Bart Van Der Zeeuw is46. Actress Taraji P. Henson is 44. Ac-tress Laura Wright is 44. Rock musi-cian Jeremy Popoff (Lit) is 43. BloggerMarkos Moulitsas is 43. Singer BradFischetti (LFO) is 39. Rapper Mr.Black is 37. Rock musician Jon Buck-land (Coldplay) is 37. Rapper Ludacrisis 37. Rock singer Ben Lee is 36. ActorRyan Slattery is 36. Actress ArianaRichards (Film: “Jurassic Park”) is 35.Actress Elizabeth Henstridge is 27.Actor Tyler Hoechlin is 27. Countrysinger Charles Kelley (Lady Antebel-lum) is 33. Actress Mackenzie Alad-jem is 13.

Thought for Today: “This will re-main the land of the free only so longas it is the home of the brave.” —Elmer Davis, American news com-mentator (1890-1958).

O N T H I S DAT E

YO U R L E T T E R S

MANAGERS Gary L. Wood

Publisher

Michele SchievelbeinAdvertising Director

Tonya SchildBusiness Manager

Michael HryckoCirculation Director

Tera SchmidtClassified Manager

Kelly HertzEditor

James D. CimburekSports Editor

Beth RyeNew Media Director

Kathy LarsonComposing Manager

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Weekly Dakotianestablished June 6,1861. Yankton DailyPress and Dakotianestablished April 26,1875.

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Melissa BaderCassandra Brockmoller

Rob BuckinghamRandy DockendorfJeannine Economy

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DAILY STAFF

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BY LINDA WUEBBENP&D Correspondent

I am getting old. No wait, my kids are upsetwhen I say that.

I’m getting older. They can’t denythat.

And when you are getting older,dealing with change is challenging andeven sometimes overwhelming atsome point.

After I had my knee surgery, I facedseveral facts about life as I had knownit. I couldn’t have come home withoutBob. The first few weeks were very dif-ficult and I even had to surrender someof the fine points of living I had learnedat my mother’s side.

Take, for instance, making a bedfrom sheets up. I was always taught tomake crisp corners and smooth cov-ers. After surgery, getting into bed withan immobilizer on one leg was interesting. Butfor Bob, it was simple, pull that sheet and blan-ket out from the corner of the mattress. It madelife so much easier but I kept seeing my motherbeside me, getting that corner just right. It tookme a while but I got used to it. We even let itloose still on both sides of the bed and only an-chor it in the center. Bob is a happy man — morefreedom and it seems such a silly thing.

I gave up a lot of idiosyncrasies I learned atmy mother’s side. I don’t iron handkerchiefs ormuch of anything anymore. I still rememberbringing the sheets in from the close line,smelling their sweet freshness, and watchingmom plop them on the ironing board for eitherher or me to iron.

What was the sense of that? You were goingto mess them up when you went to sleep, right?When I moved into my own home, I never ironedone sheet. I seem to be obsessed with sheets!

I will move on. In early spring I learned myhairdresser of 30-plus years was selling theirhouse and closing shop. Shear panic! Her hus-

band retired and the city life was beckoningalong with grandchildren. What would I do?

Both Bob and I used her haircutting in-homebusiness and we slowly counted the days untilthey left their rural home for town an hour away.

We all went to school together. Bobwas in a band with her brothers. She al-ways knew how to cut that cowlick Iseem to have. She cut all my children’shair. Yep, shear panic!

Of course, one can’t discount thepsychological relationship one haswith beauticians, barbers and bar-tenders. All the stories told are ab-solutely confidential and secrecy issworn forever. And why do we spill ourguts to someone chopping our hair offwith sharp instruments in thesepostage-stamp salons? What’s the at-traction?

Trying to be reasonable, I don’thold it against her husband. I realize

there is a time for everything and also a place. Anew beautician was out there somewhere. Boband I watched our hair getting longer and eventu-ally broke down to make an appointment. Wepored over telephone books and grilled friendsabout their cutter. I needed to make an informeddecision but Google could not help me this time.

We finally found what we thought would be asuitable candidate and made appointments.Guess what? It turned out great. Sight unseen,she cut and trimmed so all hairs fell into place —tada!

Maybe it wasn’t about how well our old beau-tician cut our hair but more about the time spentwith an old dear friend. It was quality time andthat is hard to find these days.

So good luck, old friend! Here’s to all thegreat and enjoyable conversations about the olddays, our husbands, our children, our grandchil-dren, our hopes, dreams and tragedies in life.May you find someone else you can share withfor the rest of your beautiful life.

Writer’s Block

Rollin’ With The Changes

Linda

WUEBBEN

BY ROBERT B. REICHTribune Content Agency

Detroit is the largest city ever to seek bank-ruptcy protection, so its bankruptcy is seen asa potential model for other Americancities now teetering on the edge.

But Detroit is really a model forhow wealthier and whiter Americansescape the costs of public goodsthey’d otherwise share with poorerand darker Americans.

Judge Steven W. Rhodes of the U.S.Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern Dis-trict of Michigan is now weighing De-troit’s plan to shed $7 billion of itsdebts and restore some $1.5 billion ofcity services by requiring variousgroups of creditors to make sacri-fices.

Among those being asked to sacri-fice are Detroit’s former city employ-ees, now dependent on pensions andhealth-care benefits the city years beforeagreed to pay. Also investors who bought $1.4billion worth of bonds the city issued in 2005.

Both groups claim the plan unfairly burdensthem. Under it, the 2005 investors emerge withlittle or nothing, and Detroit’s retirees havetheir pensions cut 4.5 percent, lose some healthbenefits and do without cost-of-living increases.

No one knows whether Judge Rhodes will ac-cept or reject the plan. But one thing is for cer-tain. A very large and prosperous group close bywon’t sacrifice a cent: They’re the mostly whitecitizens of neighboring Oakland County.

Oakland County is among the 10 wealthiestcounties in the United States with populations ofa million or more residents.

In fact, Greater Detroit, including its suburbs,ranks among the top financial centers, top fourcenters of high-technology employment, and sec-ond-largest source of engineering and architec-tural talent in America.

The median household in the County earnedmore than $65,000 last year. The median house-hold in Birmingham, Michigan, just across De-troit’s border, earned more than $94,000. Innearby Bloomfield Hills, still within the Detroitmetropolitan area, the median was close to$105,000.

Detroit’s upscale suburbs also have excellentschools, rapid-response security and resplen-dent parks.

Forty years ago, Detroit had a mixture ofwealthy, middle class and poor. But then itsmiddle-class and white residents began fleeingto the suburbs. From 2000 to 2010, the city losta quarter of its population.

By the time it declared bankruptcy, Detroitwas almost entirely poor. Its median householdincome was $26,000. More than half of its chil-dren were impoverished.

That left it with depressed property values,abandoned neighborhoods, empty buildingsand dilapidated schools. Forty percent of itsstreetlights don’t work. More than half its parksclosed within the last five years.

Earlier this year, monthly waterbills in Detroit were running 50 per-cent higher than the national average,and officials began shutting off thewater to 150,000 households whocouldn’t pay the bills.

Official boundaries are often hardto see. If you head north on WoodwardAvenue, away from downtown Detroit,you wouldn’t know exactly when youleft the city and crossed over into Oak-land County — except for a small signthat tells you.

But boundaries can make all thedifference. Had the official boundarybeen drawn differently to encompassboth Oakland County and Detroit —

creating, say, a “Greater Detroit” — Oakland’smore affluent citizens would have some respon-sibility to address Detroit’s problems, and De-troit would likely have enough money to pay allits bills and provide its residents with adequatepublic services.

But because Detroit’s boundary surroundsonly the poor inner city, those inside it have todeal with their compounded problems them-selves. The whiter and more affluent suburbs(and the banks that serve them) are off the hook.

Any hint they should take some responsibilityhas invited righteous indignation. “Now, all of asudden, they’re having problems and they wantto give part of the responsibility to the suburbs?”scoffed L. Brooks Patterson, the Oakland Countyexecutive. “They’re not gonna talk me into beingthe good guy. ‘Pick up your share?’ Ha ha.”

Buried within the bankruptcy of Detroit is afundamental political and moral question: Whoare “we,” and what are our obligations to one an-other?

Are Detroit, its public employees, poor resi-dents and bondholders the only ones whoshould sacrifice when “Detroit” can’t pay itsbills? Or does the relevant sphere of responsibil-ity include Detroit’s affluent suburbs — to whichmany of the city’s wealthier resident fled as thecity declined, along with the banks that servethem?

Judge Rhodes won’t address these questions.But as Americans continue to segregate by in-come into places becoming either wealthier orpoorer, the rest of us will have to answer ques-tions like these, eventually.

Robert Reich is Chancellor’s Professor ofPublic Policy at the University of California atBerkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Centerfor Developing Economies. His new film, “In-equality for All,” is now out on iTunes, DVD andOn Demand.

The Bankruptcy Of Detroit

Robert

REICH

Tabor CelebratesTabor Chamber of Commerce

Thanks to everyone whovolunteered and helped withthe 125th South Dakota State-hood Wagon Train program,meal, facility preparation andany other aspect in preparingfor this event in Tabor. We werehonored to host the wagontrain on their first night oftravel.

A special thanks to the St.Wenceslaus Altar Society forpreparing and serving theCzech meal, the Legion andAuxiliary and all others whohelped prepare and serve thebreakfast and to Father StevenJones for a special blessing.

Appreciation is also given to

Alison Carda, the Alexa andAshley duet, the Bon HommeColony girl singers and LorettaKortan and the two rings ofBeseda Dancers for providingthe entertainment, and to Den-nis Povondra who coordinatedthe program.

Thanks also to Joe Sy-rovatka for use of the haymeadow, the Tabor Fire Depart-ment for supplying water, theTabor Blue Birds and the BonHomme School for use ofequipment, and the Town ofTabor for use of its park and as-sistance.

We hope you enjoyed thefestivities showcasing our localarea and will come back to visitus again.

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE (Sept. 8): August job figures re-leased by the U.S. Department of Labor late last week showed apallid increase of 142,000, the lowest since last December. Unem-ployment dropped 0.1 percent to 6.1 percent, due largely, how-ever, to people dropping out of the workforce. The percentage ofAmericans working, 62.8 percent, fell also.

The jobs and workforce figures are disappointing, but perhapsnot surprising in light of another report released by the FederalReserve to the effect that during the years since the recessionstarted America’s rich have continued to get richer and the in-comes and wealth of the middle class and poor have continued todrop.

For the top 10 percent of American families, incomes rose byan average 10 percent between 2010 and 2013. For the other 90percent, incomes did not rise or actually fell. For the bottom 20percent, incomes fell by an average 8 percent. For the top 10 per-cent of families, wealth grew to $3.3 million per family.

President Barack Obama, citing the negative impact on the U.S.economy of income inequality, called it “the defining challenge ofour time,” but has done almost nothing about it except talk. In themeantime, the share of wealth in America held by the top 3 per-cent of the population rose to 54.4 percent in 2013, from 51.8 per-cent in 2007.

One means of fixing this problem, an increasingly significantdrag on American economic growth, would be a courageous ap-proach to tax reform on the part of the president and any mem-bers of Congress not owned by wealthy campaign donors. It ishard to be optimistic about prospects for such action. It is in thecategory of change Americans can’t count on.

W R I T E U S n Make your feelings known! Write to the PRESS & DAKOTAN on a topic of the day, in re-sponse to an editorial or story. Write us at: Letters, 319 Walnut, Yankton, SD 57078, drop off at319 Walnut in Yankton, fax to (605) 665-1721 or email to views@yankton.net.