EB-5, Islam, legislative religious posturing, philosophy, racism, and hemp—those are among the topics that got you talking the most on this blog in 2015!
Below are the twenty posts on Dakota Free Press and its predecessor blog Madville Times that drew the most comments over the past year:
| post |
comments |
blog |
| Feds Say South Dakota Too Corrupt to Use EB-5 |
383 |
DFP |
| L’amour Est Plus Fort Que La Haine… Et, Apparemment, Que L’islam |
356 |
MT |
| Legislature Casts Most Important Vote Ever(!!!) On Toothless Resolution |
332 |
MT |
| Family Heritage Alliance Bringing Josh Duggar To Pierre… Because Jesus! Stardom! |
298 |
MT |
| Blog Philosophy: Truth, Virtue, and Creating Civil Discourse |
288 |
DFP |
| Beerchucker Gets Disorderly Charge; Duffy Says Social Media Blew Up Racism Allegations |
246 |
MT |
| Medical Cannabis Petition Kicks Off June 18 in Sioux Falls |
240 |
DFP |
| Medical Marijuana Billboards Up In Sioux Falls; Legislative Advocate Harder To Find |
225 |
MT |
| Medical Marijuana Backers Hiring Last-Minute Circulators at $25/Hour—Who’s Footing the Bill? |
223 |
DFP |
| Thune, Rounds Participate in Effort to Undermine Foreign Policy Toward Iran |
218 |
DFP |
| USCIS Termination Notice: Bollen, Benda, GOED Broke EB-5 Rules |
214 |
DFP |
| Flandreau Whacks Weed For Now |
193 |
DFP |
| Indian Activists Take Grievances to Philip; O’Connell Pleads Not Guilty in Rapid |
182 |
DFP |
| SB 77: Breastfeeding Everywhere! |
182 |
MT |
| Ryane Oliva, Steve Allender, and Hitting “Publish” For All Time |
177 |
DFP |
| Federal Judge Rules South Dakota Gay-Marriage Ban Unconstitutional |
174 |
MT |
| Chinese EB-5 Investors Sue South Dakota and Joop Bollen for $18,550,000 |
172 |
DFP |
| Vaccines, Cigarettes, Freedom, And Ignorance |
169 |
MT |
| Standing Rock Petition Seeks Vote on Industrial Hemp; Enviro/Econ Data Mixed |
162 |
DFP |
| Fox Picks Ten Pageant Participants; Recent Entry Not a Disqualifier |
160 |
DFP |
I take particular joy in seeing that a post titled in French could draw the second highest comment total all year long. Thank you for your tolerance of world languages, and for your vigorous and intelligent discussion of these topics and everything else in the South Dakota Blogosphere!
The least you could have done was introduce pictures of Brigitte Bardot in her prime for those of who don’t speak the language. Then you could have mentioned Roger Vadim-her lover and then to irritate wingnuts,you could have spoke about Vadim and every wingnut’s fantasy woman Jane Fonda. I’ll bet even Grudz can cuss in French after hearing Fonda’s name.
Speaking of Duggars,they have their own airplane and flew to Illinois recently to visit the molestor in rehab for Christmas.
Tolerance? Spoiled gringos. From showing food pics on Instagram around the world I’ve found it’s amazing how fluent people in Europe and Asia are in English. We could try harder to be part of the world and not think we’re best, all the time.
Cory,
It is interesting how your top 20 differs from Powers at the Dump Site, the Argus Leader, and the Rapid City Journal. The two newspapers lead with the sensational headlines while Powers is a jumble of whatnot.
I think it is fair to say that your readers have more depth and are more curious about the world.
2015 was a sad year for South Dakota, murder and death of government officials and their family, unchecked corruption of Indian education money an the continued saga of EB-5 barely register on other websites top ten stories of 2015.
Can Democrats make South Dakota a better place, unfortunately we won’t find out until November 2016.
I name my good friend Lar as the winner of the 2015 Prodigious Award.
http://pre11.deviantart.net/a65a/th/pre/f/2013/308/b/4/commission__shaundi_hates_shaundi_by_idle_minded-d6t38hy.png
gravy taters as expectorant: priceless.
If one has temptation to characterize South Dakotan’s as kind, community-spirited, or “nice” reflect on the fact that Sioux Falls police issued over 1800 snow-lane parking tickets and towed at least 82 cars. Also reflect that Rapid City’s mayor is re-engaging commission talks on snow-lane parking. Folks putting their selfish interest over community too frequently are the way in this state – as also evidenced by Cory’s lead blog posts in 2015. South Dakotans are many things things but not “nice” or selfless.
“Truth”. yup. my last word on 2015. cory’s top story. power lies about it’s transgressions. rounds got elected by lying, by SDGOP lying, by daugaard’s administration covering up a story of lack of oversite and cronyism in EB5 state business.
the redford /blanchet movie is a final media effort to get our “kids” to look up and understand Bush and family covered-up george’s military privlege during war as an elite 1%-er. simple as that. all the republican/corporatist believers that get drippings from the republican plate, have no scruples. at all. ever. WINNER TAKES ALL. republicans are playing for keeps. 1% is all that matters.
stand up people. this is the fight of our lives.
Gen Y Millennials!!-don’t let them do this to you.
see:
Bush exploited family connections to become a Texas Air National Guard and avoid serving in Vietnam, and that he also went AWOL for over a year of that service — facts which the film implies might have changed the public’s perception during a very tight initial election year. “What is the story?” posed Redford, “We never found out, so this, 15 years later, is the chance to really tell the story fully and let the public see it and judge for themselves.” http://variety.com/2015/scene/vpage/truth-cate-blanchett-robert-redford-mary-mapes-dan-rather-1201613419/
It is 2:26 AM Jan 1,2016(CST)-do you know where your children is? Happy freakin’ New Years everyone.
Roger, interesting that you compare my list with Pat’s and that Sioux Falls paper’s.
Notice that Pat deemed Annette Bosworth as the #1 story of 2015. On my blog, you readers didn’t place her in the top 20 for comments (she did have highly commented stories at #21 and #28) or in the top 35 that I just posted for most-viewed stories for 2015 (her biggest story here placed #50 for views). Pat put “The Westerhuis Murder Investigation” at #10, focusing on the crime-of-the-week nature of the story and downplaying the corruption and public policy aspects of the story that (rightly) drew the most attention here.
The most-clicked stories on the SF paper list are heavy on crime, mayhem, and weather. Their top story, about the FBI files on McGovern’s love children, didn’t bear much on discussion of current policy. Neither did their #2 (Full Throttle burning down), #4 (it rained a lot in Sioux Falls on August 27), #5 (it snowed a lot on Nov. 20), #7 (13th Rally death), #9 (Brandon housefire kills homeowner, firefighter), and #10 (car-motorcycle crash). The Westerhuis deaths made #8, but here, readers were looking for the personal tragedy/mystery crime side, not hard reporting revealing the corruption and misuse of public dollars. #3 was the non-fatal shooting at Harrisburg HS and #6 the big employee turnover at Trail King and boss Bruce Yakley’s blaming of lazy millennials. That suggests a clear divergence of interests between general readers and the subset who come here.
Hmmm… maybe I should keep that in mind before recommending too hard that candidates focus on the issues readers find of interest here. I think candidates should focus on the issues you readers give the highest stats to, because you readers do bring a depth and curiosity, as Roger says, that deserves respect. But if we’re making 30-second pitches and bumper stickers, we have a lot fo educating to do to get folks interested in real public policy issues.
John, I suspect those committed to myth-making could dismiss the suggestion that my 20 most-commented stories are evidence of something other than SD nice by dismissing me as a nattering nabob of negativism. I will admit that I complain more than I praise, but that’s one of the points of blogging and good journalism in general: we don’t need to be comforted with assurances that we’re all nice people; we need to be alerted to what we’re doing wrong so we can learn how to be better people.