On the Other Hand with Kevin Woster

18/10/2023

Couple things: 1) A Republican friend said this morning that the second House vote rejecting Jim Jordan as speaker kept him from changing his registration.

He has been a registered Republican for half a century. But Jordan as speaker would be the last straw, he said.

I don't want Jim Jordan to be speaker, either. But if I were going to switch my Republican registration -- a mostly pragmatic one that gives me a say in selecting Republican primary candidates in South Dakota -- based on "last straws," there were two that were a lot more motivational than Jordan as speaker could ever be:

2016 and 2020, when the GOP selected Donald Trump as its presidential nominee.

And I'm pretty sure there's another one of those "last straws" coming in 2024.

And 2) A Democratic friend and I were talking this morning, before my chat with my Republican friend, and we agreed that if old joltin' Joe Biden can keep shuffling carefully forward through the 2024 presidential election, he'll beat Donald Trump. Again.

My friend and I are both in our 70s. And we also agreed that Biden has probably accomplished more and received less credit for it during one still-not-finished term than any other president of our lifetimes.

15/10/2023

OK, let’s “talk” a bit about Dusty Johnson and the Jordan thing.

I intend to do it politely. Perhaps you will, too, although I expect some of you will choose other options.

So what about Johnson’s nominating speech for Jim Jordan as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives? What are we to think when a decent, reasonable South Dakotan — a guy who voted, despite the wishes of many in his party’s base, to certify the 2020 election win by Joe Biden — gives his seal of approval to a man who was called a “legislative terrorist” by former GOP House Speaker John Boehner?

My first thought was, “Aw, Dusty, how could you?”

My second thought was that maybe a guy I respect was right when he said the Jordan endorsement proves Johnson is willing to give up his soul to advance in Republican politics.

Except that, well, I’m always a little hesitant to talk about the condition of other people’s souls. Keeping track of my own is difficult enough.

I’ve seen plenty of comments on social media about Johnson and his Jordan speech. Some were thoughtful. Others were the kind of angry attacks that bring lots of heat and little light to a discussion. I didn’t care for most of those.

I liked a gentle jab in a social-media comment by my Facebook friend and, I’d like to think, actual friend Wayne Gilbert, who wrote: “Dusty my boy, we hardly knew ye.”

It’s a takeoff on the old Irish ballad “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye” about a soldier badly disfigured by war. So it’s both light hearted in the way Wayne uses it and deadly serious in its more common anti-war message.

Maybe here it can be considered an anti-politics message, at least as politics is played by many in the U.S. House today.

Indeed, I had thoughts similar to Wayne’s when I heard Johnson was sort of taking the public lead in promoting Jordan for speaker: “Who are you and what have you done with Dusty?”

Then I thought: Is that just what happens to people in D.C., sooner or later. Or, is he just trying to get a stalled process in the House moving again.”

How do you do that? Well, these days if you’re a Republican, you probably have to work with some pretty hard-right members of the GOP conference. Jordan, a founder of the ultra-right Freedom Caucus, used to be about as hard right as it got in the House. It’s a little scary to consider the fact that he isn’t on the far outside fringe anymore.

There’s a sub-wing of hard-right, well, um, I want to say “nuts” but that would be unkind. So how about idealogues? Let’s say that. They ended up controlling the ugly process that finally selected the last speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and drove the effort to give McCarthy the boot.

Next to Matt Gaetz and his like, Jim Jordan looks, well, not quite so rabidly right-wing.

Which is faint praise indeed.

Johnson told some news organization last week that: “Jim Jordan is gonna give us the best opportunity to get things done during the 118th Congress. This is an unruly bunch."

The idea of Jim Jordan as speaker of the House still scares me. And it might not happen. As Johnson pointed out, the Republicans in the House are an unruly bunch. Especially some of them.

So when I peek through the reality scope and into the makeup and workings of today’s U.S. House, I can kind of see why Johnson pushed the process a bit.

Here’s what he said about that when I reached out to him by text:

“The House of Representatives is shut down. Our government literally can’t act. This is a crisis.”

I wouldn’t disagree. Would you?

Johnson continued:

“The unreasonable far right shut everything down over a speaker they couldn’t stomach. Now centrists are willing to keep it shut down over a speaker they can’t stomach. I believe the first action was irresponsible. The second action seems not terribly dissimilar from the first.”

So what’s a guy to do? Well, as that sage old Republican state Rep. George Mortimer of Belle Fourche liked to say from time to time when things dragged on too long on the floor of the South Dakota House: “Let’s do something, even if it’s wrong.”

Maybe Jim Jordan for speaker is that something, even if it’s wrong. He seems wrong to me. But what are the other options for Johnson and other rational House Republicans?

Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the majority leader in the House, narrowly beat Jordan in a secret party conference ballot earlier last week. But then Scalise withdrew from contention for the speaker’s spot when it became clear he couldn’t get the needed 217 votes — out of the total of 221 GOP House members — to win on the House floor.

Scalise was unlikely to get any Democratic votes to make up for lost Republicans. Jordan seems even less likely to get Democratic help.

Scalise is a milder version of Jordan, but like Jordan he voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results. If Scalise wasn’t conservative enough for some in the Republican Conference, you have to wonder who will be? Jordan? And will he be acceptable to the more moderate Republicans?

We’ll soon find out. And one thing is certain, Johnson will be in the middle of it.

He probably won’t be deep enough in the middle of it to be considered for speaker himself, which is an idea that KELO’s Bob Mercer raised on Twitter a couple of weeks back.

“Is it too early to float the name of U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson as the next speaker of the U.S. House?”

Those who ridiculed Mercer’s question didn’t consider it fully. It had merit. Johnson has obvious speaker potential. And in today’s version of the U.S. House, he is already among the leaders in rational conservatism. He’s vice chairman of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus and chairman of the House Republican Main Street Caucus.

And just as important, perhaps, he’s not a member of Jordan’s Freedom Caucus.

My response to Mercer’s question on the idea of Johnson being considered for the speaker spot was: “They could do a lot worse, and almost certainly will.”

To me, Jim Jordan is a lot worse.

And yet, I can kind of understand why Johnson rose to support him, if for no other reason than to pump some gas into the sputtering engine that is the U.S. House of Representatives.

And did Johnson’s speech also elevate his standing within the Republican Conference and help his political career? Maybe, although sticking your head up above the fray these days seems like a dangerous thing politically.

Johnson touched on that in our text exchange:

“We have a republic where seemingly everyone is more comfortable with an emotionally satisfying ‘no,’ rather than an imperfect and difficult ‘yes.’ This is true on every issue of consequence — spending, security, health care, immigration, opening the House. Presenting rational solutions to any of those problems will earn scant accolades and a multitude of attacks from every direction.”

He continued:

“It makes it easy to understand why more citizens and officeholders spend their time complaining rather than solving. Quite the doom loop we’ve built for ourselves.”

How do we get out of that cycle of negative actions and reactions? It’s hard for me to believe that Jim Jordan, who so often relies on angry rhetoric and personal attacks instead of thoughtful outreach toward compromise, is the answer.

But given the state of the House these days, who is?

�

11/09/2023

If there was ever any doubt — and there wasn’t — that it wasn’t going to be my crowd, it was settled by the t-shirt worn by the first guy I met Friday outside of The Monument.

It read: “The media is the virus”

I’m pretty sure the guy didn’t mean social media, where “going viral” is a fairly common and often-desirable occurrence.

I’m pretty sure he was talking — through his shirt — about the mainstream media. Me, in other words, although I’m not quite as mainstream as I used to be.

There were many other message t-shirts and signs and stickers there, of course.

They included:

“Mean Tweets 2024”

“Try that in a small town”

“Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my President”

“Mean tweets and $1.87 gas”

One sign that was taped to a light pole outside of The Monument complex here in Rapid City showed the sinister-looking, now-infamous mug shot of Donald Trump above the words: “Wanted — For President of the United States of America”

At one of the Trump gift shops set up across the street from The Monument there was the same sinister-looking mug shot with: “Never Surrender” and t-shirts for sale with the same picture and slogan.

And, of course, “Let’s Go Brandon” and, “He Won: You Know it. I Know it” and, well, all the old Trump-lover favorites, with a few new ones.

There were the protest signs, too, including: ‘Never Trump: Make America Decent Again” and “Trump 2024 — Years in Prison” and “Insurrectionist Rally at the Monument.”

There were maybe two or three dozen folks carrying those signs along Fifth Street and sitting in the shade of an awning nearby. I knew one of them, Paul Sauser, who was a copy editor at the Rapid City Journal when I worked there. And I recognized a couple more.

I wasn’t outside The Monument with plans to cover the big Republican bash inside, which was to be highlighted by Trump’s speech. I didn’t have a ticket, or want one. They said later that he spoke for almost two hours. I doubt I could have stood it.

I just stopped outside to get a feel for the event, and the people there.

The pro-Trump folks numbered in the thousands — 7,000 or so, I guess. I watched quite a few of them file in the east door of The Monument, heading for the ice arena where the GOP event was held.

I noted at least one broadcast news outlet Friday reported that the event had “sold out The Monument.” Well, it sold out the ice arena, which has a capacity of 7,000, depending how the event is configured. The bigger Summit Arena, which wasn’t used, holds more than 10,000.

Could they have sold that out? Who knows?

One of the people heading into the event was a guy I’ve seen at sporting events and at the YMCA for years. And lately, he has been part of the Y support staff, helping people with workouts and things. We don’t know each other but always smile and greet each other when we meet.

Yesterday he strode past me on the sidewalk without acknowledging me. Maybe he didn’t see me. There was a lot going on. A lot of faces. A lot of colors and movement. But when I saw him there was a gap in the crowd. There was nobody between us and we were only 15 or 20 feet away.

He was wearing a shirt that read: “Very Fake Media”

I was a little surprised and a lot disappointed by the shirt. The pejorative “fake media,” when applied to the mainstream media of this nation as Donald Trump loves to apply it, is itself fake. A fake allegation, founded largely on fiction, much of it created by Trump, the master of fiction presented as fact.

Most members of the mainstream media — which I use in reference to professional news outlets and staffers — are committed to accuracy, fairness and facts.

I saw a number of those folks hard at work on Friday. They included KELO-TV reporter Dan Santella, an O’Gorman High grad — Creighton and Georgetown, too — who started work at KELO in 2014 when I was the station’s western South Dakota reporter.

Dan is a good newsman and a good man. As professional news folks do, he was covering the story as fairly and accurately as possible. We don’t always accomplish that goal perfectly or even as well as we’d like to. But that’s always the goal. And most of us come pretty close most of the time.

Calling something “fake news” doesn’t mean it is. Calling us the “Fake Media” or the “Very Fake Media” doesn’t mean we are.

Since she became governor, and especially since she came under the spell of Donald Trump and the influence of non-resident political operatives, Kristi Noem has developed an affection for the “fake news” trope. And sometimes it makes her look bad.

Take the time last year when Noem tweeted “Literal News from the liberal media” about stories of a 10-year-old r**e victim who, because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, was taken from Ohio to Indiana so she could get an abortion. Conservative commentators and some lawmakers attacked the report as fake news.

(Wouldn’t it be nice if people waited to know at least some of the facts before ranting about something?)

Not long after Noem joined the chorus of conservative attacks with her tweet, a 27-year-old Guatemalan national living in Ohio was arrested and charged with ra**ng the girl when she was 9 years old. Gerson Fuentes eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of r**e and was sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

So, not such fake news after all. Just horrible, horrible news that was true.

Since the Trump event, I’ve been thinking about Noem and her powerful affection not just for Trump but also for the Trump-style rhetoric. As I've written before, it's something that seems to have developed since she was in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Yesterday on Twitter, Stu Whitney of South Dakota News Watch offered this 2015 quote from Noem regarding Trump: “His principles and values don’t align with mine, and his offensive nature wouldn’t serve us very well in the presidency.”

That seemed like the truth. And it seemed like the truth as it was spoken honestly by the person I thought Kristi Noem was. My, how times and people can change. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say how times change and what people reveal about themselves.

This is what Noem said Friday night, as she introduced and endorsed the man who inspired an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol aimed at blocking the peaceful transfer of power in our nation:

“It is my honor to present to you the man in the arena. He is a man of significance. He is the leader, the fighter our country needs. He has my full and complete endorsement for president of the United States of America. I will do everything I can to help him win and save the country.”

And if he doesn’t win? Will she help him foment another insurrection aimed at overthrowing our system of government? Will she support and promote his lies and attacks on the rule of law?

In the near term, will she be selected to join him — this man whose “principles and values” didn’t align with hers eight years ago — as his vice presidential candidate? That’s what she seems to be working for these days.

And she doesn't mind taking a swing at other Republicans in the process.

Friday night Noem appeared to call out John Thune, Mike Rounds and Dusty Johnson for not attending the Trump rally. She didn’t name them, and she didn’t really have to. It was pretty clear who she meant.

Thune, Rounds and Johnson represent the bruised, badly outnumbered remains of a Republican Party that had its roots in the spirit of Lincoln. It was a party that carried on in mostly decent ways through imperfect but generally well-intended leaders like Ford, Reagan, Bush and Bush.

The party, also, of Thune, Rounds and Johnson.

Oh sure, those guys play politics, sometimes in ways I don’t like. And we can argue the pros and cons of their preferred policies and the way they promote them in Congress. But in general they operate in a rational, respectful way that is aimed at upholding the rule of law and its application across this land.

The exact opposite, in other words, of the way Trump operates.

But Thune, Rounds and Johnson are in the minority these days in the party of Trump. It’s a party in which more than 70 percent believe the groundless assertion that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election by manipulating voting systems. And in at least one poll, more than 50 percent of Republicans said they believe the ludicrous assertion that the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol was perpetrated by liberals, not Trump followers.

How do you deal with that? You hunker down a lot of the time, as Thune, Rounds and Johnson do. But they have also at times voted and spoken out in ways that angered Trump and his more passionate supporters. And they didn’t show up to fawn over Trump on Friday. That was an honorable act that will cost them with their base.

It didn’t go unmentioned by Noem Friday night. Here's what she said, as quoted by Seth Tupper of South Dakota Searchlight and others:

“Let me be clear. There are many who choose not to be in the arena. Many who take the easy path. Who criticize. Who don’t show up for our party, our country, or our constitutional rights. They don’t show up for you when it really matters. They didn’t even show up tonight to welcome a former president of the United States to South Dakota.”

Interesting that she would use the “showing up” thing. Because Rounds, Thune and Johnson were showing up for their party and state and, in Thune’s case, their nation years before many people outside of Hamlin County had heard of Kristi Noem.

And they showed up following the Capitol attack, after the Trump-inspired insurrection put them and other members of Congress in jeopardy, to do their jobs and certify the legal-and-fair 2020 election results.

As for taking the “easy path,” there is no easier path in the Republican Party these days than the Trump path. Those who choose another path face torrents of criticism, personal attacks and primary challenges. In some cases, they also face threats from Trump lovers who have, along with the former president, hijacked the GOP and the ideals for which it once stood.

When Thune, Rounds and Noem were mentioned on the big screen at the ice arena Friday, they inspired boos and jeers from the crowd. The Republican crowd.

The easy path? Hardly.

It is Noem who travels the smooth highway of modern-day GOP love, while Thune, Rounds and Johnson continue along the rocky road of reasonable dissent against an insurrection-inspiring former president. And they’ve been on that road for a while.

Friday, though, the president was in town. And Noem apparently decided it was time to slam the no-shows. Or maybe it was suggested by someone in the Trump camp.

Why then and there? I wondered that in an ongoing text string about politics and other issues with three friends.

One, a guy who grew up Republican but is really more of a Libertarian-style independent these days, said: “Bashing them doesn’t hurt her in South Dakota and it helps her with Trump. Plus, she was sneaky about it in not naming them. It’ll be just a little less sticky that way.”

Another, a Democrat who has worked elections for a number of Democratic candidates, said: “She’s running for VP. That’s her full-time job right now.”

It might not be full time. But it sure seems to be quite a bit of it.

�

03/09/2023

Thanks for you "crowd sourcing" participants in the previous update on the Brockhouse collection for helping me put together this blog. The audio from my conversation with Lori Walsh on In the Moment last week should be embedded in the blog story something after the holiday weekend:

Kevin Woster dives into the Brockhouse collection controversy.

30/08/2023

Sitting in the living room watching the 6 p.m. news (5 p.m. here) on KELO-TV a little while ago, I agreed aloud with Sioux Falls Mayor Paul Tenhaken: "Not a priority."

That's what he said about the what-to-do question on the Brockhouse collection, which is a whole bunch of stuffed big-game animals shot a whole bunch of years ago in a whole bunch of places overseas by hardware-store owner and international hunter Henry Brockhouse.

Well, I did more than agree aloud with TenHaken. I also wondered aloud to my wife: "Why would anybody want to shoot a giraffe?"

But that's a question for another time, I suppose. Still ...

Or a zebra? Geez.

Yeah, yeah, another time.

For now, the fuss over the arsenic-tainted stuffed critters (the arsenic seems to be the main reason the display has been closed) seems, well, overblown -- from this vantage point all the way across the state, at least.

I'm not saying the news media is hyping it. News folks tend to respond to public interest or outrage or demand, although we can sometimes pay more attention to five or six really angry people than we should. And you could argue that it's none of my business anyway, since I don't live in Sioux Falls.

But I lived in there for 12 or 13 years, working as a reporter, which gets you close to a community. I have close relatives there. I like the place, a lot. So I feel invested enough to run off at the mouth a bit, through my fingertips on this keyboard.

It has been, oh, 30 years or so since I've seen the collection of stuffed animals in the Delbridge Museum of Natural History at the Great Plains Zoo, where you can actually see some really cool living animals.

As I recall, the Brockhouse stuffers were nicely done and impressive enough, if you're impressed by such things. But the city clearly wouldn't create such a display today. Like the mounts themselves, the idea is outdated.

And beyond that, a giraffe? A zebra? A baby zebra? Geez.

Yeah, yeah, another time.

For now, I honestly don't care -- gazing across the state -- what Sioux Falls does with the collection. But if it is to be preserved for display, and if the arsenic issue is to be fixed, it seems like private sources should do the preserving and the fixing and the paying for the preserving and fixing.

And then those private sources should find a place to put it. A place not at the Great Plains Zoo.

Sioux Falls taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for any of it, beyond maybe in assisting the relocation or, in the alternative, paying for the disposal. Nor should it be the object of much time and attention for TenHaken and other public officials in the state's largest and most dynamic city, where there are oh so many more important things to address.

As TenHaken rightly said, it isn't a priority, and shouldn't be.

Which is about all I have to say on the subject, except for this:

A giraffe? Seriously?

28/08/2023

Here's the proposal: using a spear -- which I assume means a speargun in most cases -- to take rainbow trout in Black Hills reservoirs.

What do you think? Yes or no?

At the recommendation of its staff, the state Game, Fish & Parks Commission has proposed a change in regulations that would allow spears to be used to take rainbow trout in reservoirs of the Black Hills Fish Management Area.

The GF&P staff says it will expand opportunity to take rainbows -- which in lakes are basically all stocked fish -- without a negative biological impact.

The Black Hills Fly Fishers oppose the proposal, saying it will reduce the number of large rainbows available to hook-and-line anglers and give divers armed with spearguns the advantage. It could also lead to the spearing of brown, brook and other trout, accidentally or on purpose, and impede hook-and-line anglers as divers claim productive fishing spots for their spearing.

The commission proposed the change last month and will take action after a public meeting at its next meeting Sept. 7-8 in Watertown. There will be a public hearing on Sept. 7 before the commission takes a vote on the issue.

Comments must be submitted by Sept. 4 by the way. Here's the web address for that: https://gfp.sd.gov/forms/positions/?mc_cid=230bb65bf8&mc_eid=fd5d752da5

If you want to testify before the commission, send notice with your full name, city of residence, topic and who you are representing (an organization or yourself) by 1 p.m. Sept. 7 to [email protected]

Maybe you don't want to send a comment or speak to the commission. but do you care about the propsal to allow rainbows in Black Hills reservoirs to be speared? If so, what should the commission do?

Hunting, Fishing or Camping in South Dakota? The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks' website has the outdoor related information you need. Buy your license, apply for a big game tag and reserve your campsite on-line.

28/08/2023

https://listen.sdpb.org/opinion/2023-08-25/stopping-to-think-about-an-especially-shy-turtle-an-endangered-plant-of-the-nebraska-sandhills-national-wildlife-refuges-and-birds-that-prefer-a-horizontal-landscape

Kevin Woster takes a trip to the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge and elsewhere in the Sandhills.

25/08/2023

These days in observing politics, I can find at least some satisfaction in little things.

Or things that seem little.

Small victories, I suppose you could say. Like the fact that former President Donald Trump is coming to Rapid City for an appearance Sept. 8 and none of our three members of Congress will join him.

Not Sen. John Thune. Not Sen. Mike Rounds. Not Rep. Dusty Johnson.

Gov. Kristi Noem will be there, of course, further solidifying her position in the mutual admiration society she has with the guy who tried, among oh so many other things, to overturn the results of a legal and fair presidential election.

But our congressionals? Yeah, no, not going to do the Trump dance.

Previous engagements, the stories go. And maybe that’s true. Who knows?

But if somehow political eras could meld and the former president coming to town was Ronald Reagan, do you think our entire Republican delegation would stay away? Of course not. Bush 41? No way. Bush 43? Very unlikely.

But Donald Trump? Oh, dang, that appointment calendar is just plumb full. Shucks.

I love that.

How about you?

12/08/2023

During a short March 2020 press conference, Gov. Kristi Noem said "should" 13 times. Seth Tupper analyzes the inaction packed into that word and its legacy.

12/08/2023

https://listen.sdpb.org/opinion/2023-08-11/the-most-transparent-governor-in-south-dakota-history-well-only-at-the-appropriate-time

Kevin Woster responds to the governor's criticism to his story in the South Dakota News Watch.

05/08/2023

How's the recycling going at your place?

Kevin Woster takes a tour of the Rapid City Regional Recovery and Landfill Facility

14/07/2023

https://listen.sdpb.org/opinion/2023-07-13/fallen-heroes-bridge-will-keep-story-of-of-sam-jorgensen-and-his-sacrifice-alive

Kevin Woster details the story of Sam Jorgensen and the bridge now named in his honor.

06/07/2023

Last night was the perfect fireworks display for us.

We watched it -- or some of it, rather -- out the window of our living room through a gap in the neighbor's trees across the street, pausing an episode of Ted Lasso to check out the exploding colors over the Executive Golf Course.

About 10 minutes into the display, with the pyrotechnics still illuminated the sky, we went back to Ted Lasso. Ten minutes of fireworks once a year is plenty for me.

This morning I was thinking about fireworks again after I read somewhere that Gov. Kristi Noem is again asking the National Park Service for permission to have a fireworks display at Mount Rushmore, this time for the 2024 July 4th celebration.

This has been asked by Noem and answered by the NPS several times.

You'll remember that Noem hosted then-President Donald Trump for an Independence Day celebration on July 3, 2020, with fireworks, even though the National Park Service had previously ended the displays because of environment and wildlife concerns, traffic and safety concerns, wildfire worries and objections from indigenous people.

Native American protesters and their supporters turned out to oppose among other things, the fireworks display that year and had a confrontation with law enforcement.

Since Joe Biden came to the White House in January of 2021, the NPS, rather than Noem, has had its way on the fireworks. That included winning a federal court action brought by Noem at both the district and appeals-court levels.

The most recent NPS rejection of Noem's fireworks request came last January. Now Noem is requesting fireworks again, this time for the 2024 Independence Day celebration. Presumably nothing has changed with the NPS, and won't unless or until a Republican is in the White House.

I don't think I ever attended a fireworks display at Mount Rushmore. If I did I've forgotten it. I did watch a Fourth of July fireworks display at the memorial once with my wife, from Black Elk Peak.

What I remember most was how small the fireworks seemed from up on South Dakota's highest peak. It was wonderful to be in that sacred place, putting the world and things like fireworks displays in their proper perspective.

Of course, you don't need fireworks at Mount Rushmore for that perspective. Just hike up Black Elk and have a look around, anytime.

And you really don't need fireworks at Mount Rushmore to celebrate this nation's independence. Each year at the memorial there are indigenous performers, presidential re-enacters, military musicians and the traditional evening lighting ceremony.

Which is all pretty cool and much more appropriate.

The fireworks? All they do is offend many indigenous people and bring threats to public safety and the environment.

Oh, and they bring controversy, too, lots of it.

So there's really no good reason to push the fireworks issue -- unless, of course, controversy is what you really want.