SCOUTING REPORT | Planting a Liberty Tree, trouble in survivalist paradise, election info, fishing for veterans
A weekly digest of interesting local, state, national and even international developments
America’s 250th South Dakota Commission hosted the planting of a “Liberty Tree” at the Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre on May 26. The event marked one of the celebrations taking place this year to honor the country’s 250th anniversary.
The original Liberty Tree was an elm in Boston in the runup to the American Revolution, back when that city had a rebellious streak against authoritarian government. Patriots would gather near the tree to discuss politics, and at one point hoist an effigy of the Earl of Bute and the Prime Minister, the Lord George Grenville, into the tree. The earl and lord were the British politicians blamed by colonists for championing the Stamp Act, a tax on the American colonies, according to State Historical Society Assistant Director David Grabitske.
Bute – pronounced Boot – was conveyed as a boot with a green sole. A skeleton was also part of the effigy, Grabitske said.
SURFACING: Black Hills microbe discovery reshaping carbon capture research
What began as a deep-underground discovery of carbon-eating microbes in the Black Hills is now being adapted for use above ground to capture emissions from factories and power plants.
