South Dakota

There is a famous quote on smoking that goes “Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you have lost a very important part of your life.” This quote is humorous yet dark in context. In 2010 our state of South Dakota past a referendum smoking ban (also known as Referendum 12) to support the health of the citizens of our state. According to BallotPedia “The referred law broadens the State’s ban on smoking to apply to all restaurants, bars, package liquor stores, Deadwood casinos and video lottery…

Ever since I was a little girl I have fantasized about living in South Dakota. I don’t know necessarily what appealed to me about living there, but it was always my dream. Maybe it was the idea of green grass swaying in the wind, or buffaloes freely roaming around. Being a small town girl, I’ve always been looking for a change. When my family took a vacation to South Dakota, that was what it took to confirm my dream. Having a family of six, car rides were never too comfortable. We were all…

The October of 1998 in North Dakota was the start of a string of murders. The victims were women of ages ranging between 22 and 29, with petite frames, blond hair, and fair skin. Most of the women were regulars at local bars and were known to be of the wanton sort. The suspect’s profile can be built based on the crime scenes. Family Background The suspect may have targeted women of this specific appearance (22-29-years-old, petite, blond hair, and fair skin) because of their resemblance to a…

The Badlands is in the Southeastern corner of South Dakota, located to the East of the Black Hills. It was declared a national monument in 1929, and then was declared a national park though an act of congress in 1978. (Stoffer 2) The park is most known for its rugged, desolate appearance, with jagged rocks and interesting formations. The core of the “badlands” (meaning the “badlands” associated with Badlands National Park) is part of a dissected plateau region bounded by the Cheyenne River (to…

William Ury’s The Third Side is about conflict management, fighting and conflicts are natural and normal aspects of life. Ury explains that violence is not inevitable, there is an alternative to being violent, and that is the Third Side. Violence and war is not inevitable, we don’t have to fight and kill each other off. The Third Side offers a promising new way you will view conflict going on in the world and around us. The Third Side is our community that we live in and our surroundings. It…

Population: mortality. 0.208% of all deaths in South Dakota are linked with chronic kidney disease, or 156 of 75,000 deaths; this means that the person could have died from other reasons, but the patient did have chronic kidney disease (Midwest Kidney Network. Dialysis Deaths, 2015), (South Dakota Department of Health. At a Glance in 2014, 2015). Nationally, 0.0149% of all deaths are from some stage of chronic kidney disease, meaning that the death is as a result of this disease (Center for…

national issue occurred in a remote corner of North Dakota over the construction of a new 1,200-mile pipeline across Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. It is a great fear to the tribe in the Standing Rock Reservation that if the pipeline is to be built in this location near Missouri river a leak is probable. If an oil spill were to happen, it will not only destroy the water supply for Standing Rock Reservation but it would also destroy 50% of South Dakota's potable water supply. The risk is too…

Marquart talks about how some even feel their only job is to connect the more interesting states to each other. Marquart explains, “This is the way I recently heard a comedian describe the column of states that holds down the center of the country—the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma—a region that spawns both tornadoes and Republicans.” The midwestern states are too often used for jokes and for postcards advertising an average middle class family. Marquart uses past experiences to describe…

The Flint Water Crisis depicts the inevitable consequence of allowing the continued construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. The polluted water calamity is flooding one of Michigan’s poorest, blackest cities. This disaster is littered with racism and the detrimental results of poverty. The city is approximately 57 percent black and terribly poor; it’s citizens have been consuming and interacting with water that contains enough lead to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s definition of…

The continued mistreatment and discrimination against Indigenous people is apparent in light of the Standing Rock protests taking place in North Dakota. Oil companies in North Dakota seek to put a pipeline near Standing Rock, which will ruin water supplies and sacred tribal sites. Although these companies say it will be safe, they altered the location of the pipeline from a city center to Indigenous lands. Protests have continued to take place since April 2016. The protest signifies what has…