Big Tent Circus

On Being an Only Child

2011-11-23T14:33:00.000-06:00

Some people think it is great to be an only child because when we are younger, only children have the best toys, games and clothes. Because my birthday is near Christmas, my presents continued for weeks.

Some call only children selfish. I have been both selfish and self-absorbed. I never felt selfish when I was fortunate to be among any of my 15 first cousins, my friends or when I was with my grandparents in Marshfield. I often seek the company of others to avoid loneliness.

I was not always among friends, my cousins or with my grandparents. I did not know any better. My father was an only child, too. This is one reason why I am a father of two siblings. I loved becoming a step-father to three children. I still miss them.

My mother doted on me. I gradually became uncomfortable with her attention. She is a retired teacher. The whole world is currently made up of Kindergarten students no matter how old they are. I have heard her tell many new acquaintances how wonderful I was at three or four. As she ages, her memory problems become more acute. She seems not to remember that I drove her to Orlando every day when my Dad had two separate artery surgeries to head off stroke. He was concerned when stroke felled a neighbor and one of his uncles without killing them.

When he is well, he is her caretaker. As an only child, he holds grudges so white-knuckled that he nurtures resentments I might forgive. His dislikes how my mother has slid. He has disliked my first wife since 1984. Of my two sons, the one who looks like her could do nothing right. The one who looks like me could do nothing wrong. If my father passes away first, I will have to go to Florida to care for my mother and allow her to live her remaining days independently in their family home. I dislike the South.

There are many things that I buy that are like my grandparents in Marshfield and not like the things I associate with my parents as consumers. It is weird to be with my parents because their buying habits are still the same. My grandparents always had brown bread, crunchy peanut butter, strawberry jam and chocolate ice cream. My parents still buy white bread, creamy peanut butter, grape jelly and vanilla ice cream.

Now I chiefly see my cousins from the Twin Cities. Once in a while I see my cousins from Algoma or from California. Now I scan pictures others do not seem to possess because as an only child, I seem to have pictures of them as children my mother kept in albums.

An Atheist Recalls

2011-10-26T16:30:00.000-05:00

As far as I can remember, everyone I knew professed to be a Christian. Like many, I was baptized as an infant. I went to School on Sundays even as a high school senior. Confirmed at 13, I spent many Saturday afternoons at Confirmation classes.

Despite this, I asked Jesus into my heart one day at a Christian book store I entered one snowy day en route to a department store to buy the new Black Sabbath album. Like many, this event changed my life. I went to Bible Study with older Jesus Freaks, even though I had to ride there on a bicycle because I was still too young to drive.

I went to a Methodist Youth Fellowship canoe trip in northern Wisconsin and sang a few times with the choir, sitting next to a good singer. Later, I became president of Methodist Youth Fellowship. I organized the youth of the church to vote to retain the pastor who took us on the canoe trip. Adults, however, discharged him.

In college, I wore silver cross necklaces. I went through several because the chains were not sturdy enough. As a young adult, I had to change my diet when I ate with observant Jews. I worked for the world’s nicest Muslims during Ramadan. They brought me wonderful homemade food after sundown. Even the door alarm code was an Arabic word.

I converted protestant denominations for my first wife. My children were baptized in this denomination and one of them played the baby Jesus one Christmas. She and I edited the church newsletter and worked in the nursery together. My second wife and I were married in a different denomination, where I attended Bible Study. I own both a New International Study Bible and a famous daily devotional book by Oswald Chambers. When I moved back to Wisconsin, I only attended church for Good Fridays and Easters. I have attended weddings, funerals and meetings of alcoholics in churches.

Oddly, it was volunteering at a faith-based food pantry where my long faith started to be shaken. One volunteer called for death to gays based on the Old Testament. This especially shook me because an AIDS activist in Africa was killed by HIV-deniers on this very day. A second said gays were outside the love of God. I thought immediately of gays and lesbians that I know have faith in God; some are ordained. A third made a joke at the expense of lesbians. A fourth said the story of Genesis makes clear dinosaurs and people existed together and that science that says otherwise is simply wrong. This view is common among fundamentalist Christians.

A friend suggested I read a New York Times best selling book by well-known atheist Christopher Hitchens. Yes, I know that he is deathly sick but has not recanted his atheism, insulting believers. I have read three books and numerous articles since that first one. I think the jealous, wrathful God of the Old Testament is the God of what we now call ethnic cleansing. Most of the misery of human existence is the result of theism, including worshiping Gods that no longer exist. Almost all exiting religions believe in a virgin birth. I am not as gifted a reader as John Stuart Mill, as organized as David Hume or as good a writer as Mark Twain, to cite just three well-known atheists.

Many of my friends still believe in God. I would never want to insult those who show their faith every day. Some, however, live awful lives because they think one confession would give them eternal life and not eternal damnation. A nearby church left on my door a night-light and self-promotional Christian literature. They meant well.

No, I did not seek to become an atheist. I will always treat others as I hope to be treated. I will never become militant about it. Militants will not rest until they wring every single shred of religious meaning from public space.

Lansing Anniversary

2011-07-30T14:46:00.001-05:00

It is nearing 25 years since the fateful decision to take a position in Lansing. I never guessed it would be the first day of 17 years serving the citizens and taxpayers of Michigan. We tend to think success is the collision of preparation and opportunity. For me, there was also economic desperation.

For two years, I worked in Central Hall at little Hillsdale College in Michigan when I met the woman who would become my first wife. After I ran for Congress in Wisconsin in 1984, we moved back to her native Michigan. A Journalism graduate of Michigan State University, Sarah Michaelsen was pregnant with Jens Michaelsen, too. I had interviews for great jobs I was fortunate not to get in Cleveland, Flint and Toledo. We lived in poverty in Hillsdale while I worked at a gas station in Jonesville. After Jens was born, I took a job at an advertising agency in Jackson for more money and challenge.

What finally bore fruit were fan mail and a request to meet Michigan Republican Chairman E. Spencer Abraham. I was summoned to Lansing to meet with him. Suddenly, running for Congress was an advantage, not something to hide. I must have won him in 15 minutes because he sent me to meet with Political Director Jane Hershey, later Mrs. Abraham. She spent 30 minutes with me and offered me a job but it only paid what I was making in closer Jackson. I said no for the first time ever but she suggested I meet with Jerry Crandall, then leading Senate Republican media relations. She called him to say I was coming.

I went into the Farnum Building for the first time to meet Crandall. I must have won Crandall, who had nothing open, but called John Kost in Policy. I spent nearly a half hour with Kost. When I drove back to Hillsdale, I felt pretty good about four meetings in a day in Lansing.

Soon the telephone rang. It was Kost. He offered me a job. It was 50 percent more than I was paid in Jackson. I was glad to take the offer. Then the phone rang again. My beloved Grandpa Porter was nearing death. I went from euphoria to worry. The littleness of Jens, one week old, meant we could not drive 10 hours in hope of seeing him before he died.

I called his room at the hospital. My Grandma answered and said he was asleep. I mistily explained the situation and to let him know how much I love him. She said he knew but she would tell him I called. Her voice broke; it had never broken before so I knew his condition was grave. I hung up and then I sobbed. I quit at the advertising agency soon, starting the two weeks notice clock.

He died the next day, however. I called Kost to explain and to forestall my start date until October. Between the funeral in central Wisconsin, having to stop often to feed and change Jens both ways, progress would be slow. My cousins and I were pall-bearers.

I ascended rapidly through aptitude and desire in policy, even becoming coffee czar. I still think of state governments as 50 laboratories of democracy and it is not an empty phrase to me as it is to others. Friends I made during my almost five years at the Senate Republicans are still life-long friends, regardless of partisan affiliation. I remember the first time I met Saul Anuzis, John Arundel, Lisa Babcock, Dawson Bell, Anne Boomer, Jerry Crandall, Gale Cutler, Dave Doyle, Gary Garbarino, Vern Ehlers, John Engler, Heidi Grether, Jeff Holyfield, Carol Marcinkowski, Jeff McKelvey, George McManus, Anne Mervenne, Jill Murphy, Gary Naeyert, Rick Pluta, Gary Reed, Dennis Schornack, Joe Schwarz, Tom Shields, Norm Shinkle, Jurgen Skoppek, Jon Smalley, Marc Speiser, Dave Waymire and Dan Wyant. They are just a few I know personally in social media. I remember the first day I met John Reinemann, who was then a graduate student at the University of Michigan but from my native Wisconsin. Like me, he was a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Eric Michaelsen was the first baby born under a new Senate Republican paternity leave. I so loved my job, I walked daily in all types of Michigan weather from my parking spot in the dirt lot by the Library of Michigan. I even took public transportation so Sarah could have our only car. Other cool jobs, friends, shocking suicides and better parking spots came later but I never regretted the fateful decision that first took me to Lansing.

Wisconsin Interests Shopping for Venues

2011-06-28T14:02:00.000-05:00

Smarter people than me described the behavior of conflicting groups escalating their interests to higher authorities as “venue shopping.” News that Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices allegedly had a physical altercation is more venue shopping.

Because Wisconsin Democrats are in the minority in both chambers of the Wisconsin state Legislature, liberals tried to obstruct legislative action on Governor Scott Walker’s budget repair bill and impact on collective bargaining. Stymied by legislative creativity, losers in the legislative arena sought an injunction by a judge in Dane County. All of this was venue shopping.

Interest in the pivotal 2011 election for a new term for Justice David Prosser was expensive and narrow. Election losers demanded another venue with a hand recount in all Wisconsin counties. They still lost.

Losers in the Dane County ruling appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. They narrowly won. Aggrieved parties have looked to appeal to a friendlier court. This is now a harder strategy because police and fire unions have been peeled away by the Walker agenda from their previous tight coalition. Sometimes interests only threaten venue shopping.

Liberal activists gathered recall petitions targeting six Republican Wisconsin Senators, not for corruption in office but for casting a vote for the Walker agenda. Conservative activists targeted three Democrats for fleeing to Illinois. This is more venue shopping.

Now losers want to pour cold water on the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling by shopping around a story that Justice David Prosser choked Justice Anne Walsh Bradley before the vote. This is odd because former Assembly Speaker David Prosser is even more civil than me. The faction of Prosser had the votes. The faction with Anne Walsh Bradley did not.

Sometimes I am accused of being a smarty pants. I even discussed research methods with a server in Baton Rouge who was a doctor candidate in Economics. To quote Martin Luther: “Here I stand. I can not do otherwise.”

Twin Cities Trip

2011-06-21T14:54:00.001-05:00

My second cousin, whom I have “met” only on social media, graduated from high school. This autumn, she will start at a private college. I was invited to attend her open house in Saint Paul.

I jumped at the chance to visit her house. I have not been to the Twin Cities in 30 years. I have never met the high school graduate or any of her siblings. Her father and I are among 16 first cousins. I have not seen her Mom or Dad since our Grandma’s 1996 funeral in Marshfield. Her Dad and I were among the pallbearers.

I have spent time with all of his siblings and met most of their children. Her Dad and I are not just cousins. Among all the cousins, he is closest in age to me. There are pictures of us together as babies, toddlers, children and teenagers. I remember going to his father’s funeral when we were still children..

I talked with my cousin quite a bit. He told me things about himself I never knew, such as his ability to jump high enough in high school that he could put his whole elbow above the rim. He remembered many things that I had forgotten. For example, I had forgotten I introduced him at 1977 Marshfield high school graduation open houses as my cousin from Australia. He always has slain me. His delivery is still mock seriousness.

His mother was at the open house. My aunt did not know I was going to be there. She invited me to come to her cabin on Richter Lake in Taylor County when my cousin Lynne and her daughter are there. Like my son, Eric and my cousin, Judy, Lynne teaches public school. Lynne lives in California. I have never met her daughter.

I had forgotten how much I like the Twin Cities. When I was freshly graduated from college, I pursued employment in Minneapolis. The Cities are so unlike Madison in a couple of ways that I dislike about living in Madison again. My preferences are no secret.

Madison is both the whitest and most leftist place I have ever lived. Moderates like me are shamed and lectured. When I lived in Michigan, my moderate views did not stand out. People of color were local news anchors, journalists, Republicans and lobbyists. My views would not stand out in a big place like the Twin Cities. People of color were at my cousin’s open house. So were children of Michelle Bachman.

I have a network of family and friends in the Cities. Saint Paul is a state capital. Maybe I’ll start to look there for employment again.

Predicting the Kohl Seat

2011-05-26T15:27:00.000-05:00

Many Wisconsin citizens have opinions about U.S. Senator Herb Kohl announcing that he will not seek another term in 2012. Kohl was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1988 to succeed the late Bill Proxmire. He would be 81 at the end of another term.

Some predict who the major parties will nominate to succeed Kohl. I am no exception to this. I would remind you that I predicted that State Senator Julie Lassa (D-Stevens Point) would take the free shot as Democrat nominee against Ashland County Prosecutor Sean Duffy in WI-7 in 2010. Although I targeted my “home” district, I hoped Duffy would win some couties in Lassa’s district. I never expected he would beat her so easily.

Many presume that the Democrat nominee to succeed Kohl will be former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold or Milwaukee Mayor Jim Barett. Both lost statewide in 2010. I think this is wrong.

Feingold might run but he will lose in a crowded Democrat primary for an open U.S. Senate seat. Former Congressman and dermatologist Steve Kagen (D-Appleton) will open his checkbook to enter the race. The winner and elected by a narrow margin to become the next U.S. Senator will be current Congressman Ron Kind (D-La Crosse). He will benefit from the turn-out of Wisconsin votes for President Barack Obama. Kind would have to have a singular terrible campaign manager to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Unfortunately for Kind, there is no shortage of losers. He could always hire staff from Klopfenberg, Feingold or the people who squandered large majorities in the Wisconsin Capitol or in the U.S. House.

Some thought Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) would leave leadership in the U.S. House to run for U.S. Senate. Some people think Wisconsin Attorney General JB Van Hollen should run. All you have to do is see how much JB loves his wife and how much they treasure their children to know that he would never give up either.

There will not be a Republican primary. If Tommy Thompson is serious about running for U.S. Senate, he will win the Republican nomination in a walk. I have loved Tommy since he was Wisconsin Assembly Minority Leader and mispronounced my name, perhaps confusing me with my father. I served Governor John Engler of Michigan when Thompson was Governor of Wisconsin. Although Engler was better at public policy, he was never as good a public speaker and retail politician as Thompson. If Thompson runs he will get 49 percent of the vote because most people who voted for him have retired and moved to lower-tax states with better weather like my parents.

He was still Governor when I first drove the newer four-lane highway that had been called Bloody 29 from head-on collisions when it was only two lanes. Younger people do not associate the road with Thompson.

Others are poised to enter the race if Thompson opts out. Former Congressman and home builder Mark Neumann (R-Nashota) can spend his own money. Former State Senator Ted Kanavas (R-Brookfield) wants to raise his name identification again. Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader (R-Juneau) has a free shot in 2012. They would be lucky to get 40 percent of the vote.

Sure, I admit time could prove me wrong. If the Democrats err by nominating Congressperson Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison), this is the only way that a Republican becomes U.S. Senator.

Comparing Outsized Media Personalities in Lansing and Madison

2011-04-21T14:30:00.000-05:00

Many know that I lived in Lansing for 17 years so I know many who are still working journalists and were once journalists before their current occupations. Married twice to Journalism graduates of giant public universities, I have written for pay since 1981. Thus I know something about media personalities.

Although there are many media celebrities in Michigan, there is no personality that is a bigger media conglomerate than Tim Skubick. Armed with a tape recorder and a microphone at the Capitol, Skubick was syndicated on radio. I have seen Skubic as a commentator on local commercial television. Skubick was the voice of halftime shows at Michigan State University when I went to Badger games. Of course, he is the long-standing moderator of “Off the Record” Friday night on Michigan Public Television. I have watched it on-line in Madison.

Madison has two media personalities that are similarly ubiquitous. One is Channel 15 weatherman Charlie Shortino. He is not just a host of the Channel 15 morning show and does the local component of Al Roker, he is a frequent public speaker. Shortino does weather on local commercial radio. Shortino has even been a celebrity server at the World’s Largest Brat Fest near the Dane County Coliseum.

Compare Shortino to Neil Heinen. Heinen is as reliably politically correct as Madison itself. He writes predictable columns in “Madison” magazine. Heinen has a Sunday morning public affairs show that I never watch because it has poor production values and softball questions of small guests. To Heinen, mob rule is democracy and Wisconsin voters were to blame for electing Governor Scott Walker and firing the heroic Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.

Although busy, Skubick was never too busy to talk with me. Shortino would never be too busy. If Heinen were on fire, I would not urinate on him to put the fire out.

Recalling Recall

2011-02-28T21:31:00.000-06:00

Recall of Democratic State Senators has been a huge part of my life and career. As a result, I investigated the possibility of recalling the Wisconsin Democratic State Senators who eluded the call of the Senate by absconding to Illinois. This results in the Wisconsin Senate lacking quorum to act on Governor Scott Walker’s budget repair bill.

I lived and worked in Lansing, Michigan’s capitol, from 1985 until 2002. In 1983, Senate Minority Leader John Engler led the recall of two Democrat State Senators who voted for their Governor’s hated 38 percent increase in Michigan’s state income tax. Both were replaced by Republicans and John Engler became Majority Leader. After losing to Dave Obey in my native Wisconsin in 1984, I joined the Majority Caucus staff in Lansing in 1985.

For several subsequent elections, the Senate Majority was only two seats so a Republican loss would result in a tie, broken by the Democrat Lieutenant Governor. I was assigned to perform opposition research, policy development, media relations and more pedestrian assignments for the top targeted seats in 1986, 1988 and 2000. All but the most political assignments like doing doors, making vote calls or providing ballot security were expected to be done on state time. Things that were rewarded with my promotion in Michigan would earn me prison time in Wisconsin.

What is the law regarding recall of Wisconsin State Senators? In 1926, we passed Article 12 of Article 13 of the Wisconsin Constitution. It provides for a recall petition anytime after the first year of an elected term. The petition needs at least the signatures of 25 percent of the vote for Governor in the last election. This is a huge hurdle so recall is not taken lightly.

If valid signatures are filed, a recall election happens in six weeks. If there are more than two candidates, there is recall primary. If a candidate receives more than 50 percent in the primary, the candidate wins.

Because I live in liberal Madison, my State Senator is a safe Democrat during normal times. Absconding to Illinois to escape quorum and resulting in the lay-off of state workers means that it is not normal times now.

Killing for Religion

2011-02-14T13:31:00.002-06:00

Is there a possibility that the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek will lead to fundamentalist Muslims seizing power like in Iran? Although Egyptians are comforted that the military is supposed to help make the transition to democracy, Egypt had become more fundamentalist even before the demonstrations. I was struck by how many veiled women were shown on television celebrating the fall of Mubarek. Fundamentalist Muslims killed Mubarek’s predecessor, Anwar Sadat.

Pakistanis have recently stoned and beaten members of minority religious sects. The Indian city now known as Mumbai was a city that was home to several religious communities so fundamentalists from Pakistan attacked it. In some fundamentalist Islamic countries, unmarried couples without chaperones have been killed.

In Iraq, Sunnis and Shia kill each other and everyone can kill Christians with impunity. It was typical when the Afghan Taliban dynamited the huge Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, forbade television and hosted Osama Bin Laden. Israel is less about democracy and more about religion. Fundamentalist Jews killed Menachem Begin. I am old enough to remember when Beirut was the Paris of the Middle East before civil war between rival religious militias turned it into a mess of pock-marks and Christian Falangists attacked refugee camps on orders from Israeli Aerial Sharon.

Religious authorities promise various wonderful things in the hereafter but they always want to control current behavior. Most religious traditions promise especially wonderful benefits from martyrdom.

I have been volunteering at a food pantry for the hungry in Madison so I am around what I perceived as nice Christians a lot. I am in demand there a lot because I am physically stronger than most volunteers and know most of the New Testament of the Bible. I was shocked to hear some of them call for capital punishment for people who are gay or call peaceful Muslims worshipers misled by the Devil. The same day that I heard a call for capital punishment of gays, a gay activist was killed by intolerants in Uganda.

I think there are people of good will in the faith community. I would always be willing to go to churches for weddings, funerals and baptisms but I have gradually come to the view that God did not create people in His image, but that leaders of faith created God in the image of people to control behavior in this world. I would never become a militant Atheist like the Freedom From Religion crowd; I will never forgive them for putting the fence around the donated statue of Christ in my hometown.

Petition for Redress of Grievances

2011-01-10T11:15:00.000-06:00

Weird news that Jared Loughner opened fire at a Tucson public appearance by U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and shot her and killed several others is a reminder that unhinged people sometimes go postal. He has more in common with the Columbine and Virginia Tech shooters than political assassins who have specific targets. Those of us who have served the public have always joked about the lunatic fringe, full Moon periods and foil hats.

Is it the result of social discourse gone awry? I think it wrong to read too much into it. It is true that the 24-hour news cycle purges moderate voices into more extreme voices on both the left and right. The left blames the right for influencing the shooter; the right blames the left for blaming the right. It is all too predictable.

When Gabrielle Giffords was sworn into office after she won another term, she read the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Sometimes we focus too much on the establishment clause or the right of free exercise of religion. Less understood is the right of people to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances shall not be abridged. Calls for enhanced security of U.S. Representatives and Senators might mean that no one can publicly disagree with someone elected to serve us. I can remember when anyone could enter the U.S. Capitol. Already it resembles an armed camp in the Third World.

Many know how long I have served the public. I have met with disturbed, homeless and those with poor hygiene who arrived without an appointment in Michigan and Wisconsin. I feared for my personal safety in public service only once. It was in Michigan. It was not Detroit, Flint or Benton Harbor; I always felt a sense of safety in those although many do not. I lifted weights about three times per week so I was a fit 200 pounds from 1992 to 1996. We are not talking about moments when my heart raced driving towards the sun going toward Lake Huron, going home from a long day in Pontiac or spinning out of control on new snow in Delta Township streets.

No, my threat of physical harm came in Midland in 1995 when I was a Michigan Tax Tribunal Hearing Referee adjudicating property tax assessment appeals. Petitioner was deranged and a friend of Oklahoma bombing facilitator and Thumb farmer Terry Nichols. I was asking questions about his case and somehow he got behind me. He told me how easy it would be to kill me by snapping my neck. I do not remember how I ruled in his case but it is unlikely that unless there was a mistake of fact that he prevailed.

I needed to get some information from the Midland County Equalization Director on a different case and mentioned this petitioner. I was informed that he had threatened to bring automatic weapons to kill people in county government.

Right of people to peaceably assemble shall not be abridged. The key words are Peaceably Assemble.

Republicans in Charge in Wisconsin Again

2011-01-03T14:20:00.001-06:00

Like many raised elsewhere in Wisconsin, I voted for U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin State Treasurer Kurt Schuller. They all won.

Some of my liberal Madison friends are in a state of shock and denial. How dare voters in other counties fire U.S. Senator Russ Feingold? How dare Republicans win elections as Governor, majorities in both Wisconsin legislative Houses, and State Treasurer? How dare voters fire Dr. Steve Kagen and not choose Wisconsin State Senator Julie Lassa to replace Dave Obey?

How dare Scott Walker keep his promise to kill the rail plan from Milwaukee to Madison? How dare ousted Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker turn down state employee contracts? Many are silent about springing former Assemblyman Jeff Wood from the Chippewa County jail where he is serving a sentence for repeated intoxicated driving offenses so the employee contracts could pass by one vote in the Assembly.

How dare the Fitzgerald brothers be Speaker of the House and Majority Leader in the Senate? How dare Assemblyman Robin Vos and Senator Alberta Darling rule the Joint Finance Committee and declare the state should live within means again?

For most of my life, the Wisconsin Senate, Governor, Attorney General, and Congressmen around Green Bay have been Republican. When I was a boy, I was photographed with Seventh District Congressman Melvin Laird, a Republican. I was afraid that I would not live to see it again.

Defending Assange

2010-12-23T16:20:00.000-06:00

WikiLeaks personality Julian Assange is free from imprisonment because his rich friends threw his bail to get him out of jail. If he is extradited from Britain to Sweden and found guilty of sexual assault, that is the type of offense that even zealous Assange defenders should not forgive. However, there is the possibility the charges were a conspiracy of intelligence agencies. I never thought that I would rise to the defense of WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks has embarrassed the United States. The U.S. Department of Justice is out to get Assange for Wikileaks publishing embarrassing U.S. Department of State cables. Who would have guessed that there is corruption in Afghanistan, Russia and Pakistan? Is anyone surprised that the President of Yemen told his people that U.S. drone attacks on al-Quaida targets in Yemen that the bombs were Yemeni?

It used to be that newspapers like the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and other daily newspapers competed to scoop each other. The New York Times published the Pentagon papers of Daniel Ellsberg. The Washington Post parlayed a third-rate burglary at the Watergate into bringing down a U.S. President. Now the grey ladies are chiefly the lapdogs of the spin cycle of a Democratic Administration. They were stern critics of the government only when George W. Bush was President.

WikiLeaks stepped into this void and has exposed official corruption around the world. Assange is only a visible figurehead of a bigger organization of editors, fact-checkers and network administrators. Is he anti-American? Does anyone else remember when Rupert Murdock was accused of this?

When it suited their purpose, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hectored the Chinese and Iranians to allow greater Internet freedom. Now that their own ox has been gored, they mean to crack down on the same Internet freedom. Do as I say, not as I do.

What will this mean to my friends who post Internet complaints about the Transportation Security Administration, U.S Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner, the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment or the gun-toting part of the Second Amendment? It might only be permissible to blame Republicans in the future to escape official blocking like the U.S. government has waged against WikiLeaks.

Vilifying Assange is a convenient mask for how the U.S. Departments of Defense and State forgot how to expose moles it developed when the USSR was spymaster. Espionage is bigger than Assange. The U.S. government prefers not to think about spies from China, India, Israel, Pakistan and stateless fundamentalist Islam, for example.

Treating American Air Travelers like Potential Criminals

2010-12-07T10:02:00.002-06:00

It is no secret that I flew round trip from O’Hare in Chicago to Honolulu, departing for Hawaii two days before Thanksgiving. There were two reasons for my going to Honolulu: it was the 55th wedding anniversary for my parents and my older son serves at Pearl Harbor and I had not seen him since he was 21. He is now 25.

At O’Hare, Transportation Security Administration personnel were overwhelmed by the number of travelers who were leaving in mid-morning, including me. I never know what to expect when I fly so I wear slip-on shoes, nice socks and if I have a carry-on bag, it usually is a lap-top computer. I already had my driver license in my shirt pocket to be compared with my boarding pass.

It was a long flight from Phoenix to Honolulu against the Jet Stream. It was weird to have to sign a mandatory state Department of Agriculture form about whether I was bringing flora or fauna to Hawaii before we landed. I was glad to show my driver license to the guard to board a U.S. Navy vessel tied up at Pearl Harbor after surfing at a U.S. Navy beach.

My experience on the return flight on November was unexpectedly awful. Agents seemed to be working for the Transportation Insecurity Administration. For those who remember when I was fat, I am now thin and my belt, that has almost no metal, holds my pants up. I had to remove my belt and wallet. I had to lift my hands in a full-body scanner and my pants fell down. I am afraid that made me snap.

When I was in seventh grade, there was a picture of Kareem Abdul Jabbar as a Milwaukee Buck in the Milwaukee Journal. Kareem had both middle fingers raised at the referee. I thought of this picture when I raised my arms, both middle fingers extended. The Transportation Insecurity Administration agent called this gesture was unnecessary. Of course, it was unnecessary. It was unnecessary to remove my belt. Stunned by the bald stupidity of this remark, I smiled at him.

“How many terrorists has TSA caught?” I asked, knowing that he was only implementing a stupid policy made in Washington. I answered my own question by making the zero sign. He leapt to the defense of his agency. I know that TSA has denied permission for soldiers returning from the long trip from Afghanistan to use the airport restroom because there were firearms on the airplane, for example.

Unstated was that I was flying to Phoenix to lead a jihad against illegal aliens. That would be ironic because Arizona already has a jihad against illegal aliens. Also unstated was that they had me confused with some other terrorist that is also a middle-aged, near-sighted Danish-American. I fly often enough that I do not want to be on a No Fly List like friends with more common American names or more ethnic names.

Twentieth Anniversary of John Engler Election

2010-11-06T14:39:00.000-05:00

Lost among the transition plans by election winners and indefinite plans of losers is the anniversary that many still mark: the twentieth anniversary of the election of John Mathias Engler as Michigan Governor in 1990.

Late polls published Sunday before the election showed two-term Governor Jim Blanchard coasting to a third term against Senate Majority Leader Engler. However, Blanchard had repeatedly antagonized the late Detroit Mayor Coleman Young. Engler had established a working relationship with Young. It was early Wednesday morning before we discovered Young did not deliver his machine votes for Blanchard.

Hours later, I wrote an impassioned letter offering my services to the Governor-elect, whom I had known for five years. I was a supervisory policy specialist to members of the Senate Majority. In 1990, I was a strategist for candidates who won Senate seats and drove from Saginaw, where I worked from when polls opened until ballot security, to the Engler party at the Lansing Radisson. I expected to be asked to lead public policy.

I was summoned to Engler’s Senate office Thursday. Engler’s lieutenant asked me to head Correspondence. My poker face deserted me. Correspondence is blue-collar grinding stuff, unlike the white-collar policy world. Then Engler came in and said he wanted me to do this and then do something else. I accepted, despite my misgivings.

For the rest of the transition period, I wrote work diagrams, job descriptions and recruited talented young writers to help me. I thought we were ready when Engler was sworn in.

I was wrong. Blanchard left Engler a huge budget deficit so strong medicine was needed to cut spending except aid to education. That meant aid to arts institutions, welfare for able-bodied childless adults and under-utilized and over-staffed mental hospitals had to go. All had influential fans, many who thought that they were personally responsible for electing Engler.

The phone rang non-stop because receptionists did not know where to send people complaining about issues or that needed help. Angry letters poured in, sometimes with enclosures. A gift of plastic dog turds adorned my computer. I renamed the division “Constituent Services” because “Correspondence” confused callers.

My writers and I had to answer ringing phones before they went to voice mail, reflecting poorly on Engler. They did not have time to write in 40 hours per week so they started turning in 60. I started turning in 80 hours per week, including opening and routing mail, meetings of the senior staff and greeting those who arrived without an appointment. Piles of manuscripts required editing several times per day. We improvised stock paragraphs and letters.

Triage of ending welfare for childless single adults was imperfect. Some died and the blame was leveled at Engler. The Secretary who closed some mental hospitals was threatened with arrest. A protest tent city sprang up at the Capitol and Jesse Jackson spoke.

Eventually, early furor subsided, and we all did our jobs better. We looked forward to hard stuff. I could decide when I could not decide and would seek help from other staff directors or even Engler.

Engler was elected to two more terms, but I moved on to do policy and constituent relations at a Cabinet agency and then for a Michigan State Senator. Sometimes, Engler would send a constituent my way. Term limits enacted by voters forced him out in 2002.

Engler is now Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Manufacturers. I am still close to my old employees and colleagues on his staff as Governor. Some will be summoned by newly-elected Republicans.

Some will perform jobs they never expected. True believers, they will be unable to reject them. For me, I hope to be summoned by new Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

Where Were You on 9/11/2001?

2010-09-11T14:50:00.001-05:00

For the generation of my parents, the defining question was “Where were you on December 7, 1941?” For my generation, the question had been “Where were you on November 22, 1963?” For some, the question had been “Where were you when Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed?”

I have been reading “Ghost Wars,” for which author and Washington Post reporter Steven Coll won wide acclaim when it was published in 2004. Ghost is what Soviet conscripts called the Afghan guerillas. It could also refer for our hunt for elusive radicals. “Ghost Wars” tracks the unhappy history of Soviet and U.S. adventures in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and the rise of the type of fundamentalist Islam that found expression that we know as September 11, 2001.

Like many, my office turned on CNN on 9/11 when they reported that an airliner accident had struck one tower of the World Trade Center. While we watched, another airliner veered in and struck the other tower and burst into flames. It became clear that it was no accident.

Shortly after that, a plane struck the Pentagon. There had been internal debate about the target of the plane that was steered into the ground by a passenger uprising over Pennsylvania. Some wanted to attack the White House but it was well-known as a no-fly zone protected by fighter planes and surface-to-air missiles so it was targeted for the U.S. Capitol.

We almost always close the barn door after the horse has already fled. Attacks against U.S. targets have been foiled by the enlarged U.S. Department of Homeland Security and local law enforcement agencies. Threats have become so desperate like the shoe-bomber, Christmas Day in Detroit and the foiled Times Square plot. Those who fly have had the weird experience of being treated like potential criminals. They have to remove their shoes and demonstrate that their cellular telephones and laptops work. Some of my friends have had the unfortunate experience of sharing the same name as people on the terrorist watch list.

I have been subject to an electronic wand because I was flying one-way without carry-on luggage to Orlando to help when my father had surgery. I was not sure when he would be well enough for me to fly back. It led me to conclude that they had me confused me with some other middle-aged, near-sighted Danish-American terrorist leading a holy war for separatism in Florida.

In the name of enhanced security, we surrender civil liberties Americans treasure. Cell telephone providers have been asked to report the location of all their subscribers. Most have resisted. My cell telephone provider is the German Post Office, so I doubt they would ever cooperate with Washington. Libraries have been asked to turn over borrower records.

Ironically, “Ghost Wars” might appear on a watch list.

Just another storm

2010-08-24T14:53:00.001-05:00

During the 2005 Hurricane Season, Hurricane Ivan came ashore by Gulf Shores, Alabama. I was living in Birmingham and working at a convenience store. Ivan was a soaker driven by wind when it reached us.

When it started to rain, we went to a huge store near our house to see what we could get. They were out of ice, water, bread, batteries and any rain wear. It rained without stop for a week; we lacked electricity for eight days. No refrigeration, lights or air conditioning. It was primitive as can be, like Gilligan’s Island. We could not get any more gas in our cars because modern pumps run on electricity. At my store, all the candy melted and everything in the freezer became warm.

We were watching footage of people reporting when Hurricane Katrina came ashore. It seemed to have hit central Mississippi and missed New Orleans yet again. Waveland, Mississippi, was obliterated. Shrimp boats were in trees. It was a giant slow-moving storm. Of course, there was wind and rain in New Orleans. People had once again left New Orleans for a false alarm.

We could hardly believe it when the levees started to let go, and water from the Industrial Canal became a toxic stew in a great deluge. We started to see license plates from Louisiana around Birmingham.

For a few days, we could hardly believe what we were seeing on TV. The storm ripped many holes in the Superdome roof. As awful as the conditions were at the Superdome, it was worse at the Convention Center. We could hardly believe senseless looting, but then we became concerned about days without food, water, hygiene, electricity or medical care. Where was the Mayor of New Orleans? Where was the Governor of Louisiana? Where was the National Guard? Where was the resource of Federal government? There was not assistance but only plenty of blame to go around.

For me, my esteem for President George W. Bush took a dive from which it never recovered. The Federal Emergency Management Administration response to the crisis in New Orleans seemed like five lies in one. In Mississippi, FEMA rescued Governor Haley Barbour, who had personally delivered water and got the electricity restored. Only when Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen and Louisiana National Guard General Russell Honore took charge did things improve in New Orleans.

We went to a football game in Baton Rouge after the storm. On the trip, we drove through Mississippi. Many trees had blown down and exit signs had blown away. Blue FEMA temporary roofs were a common sight. There were 12 people in the two-bedroom Baton Rouge apartment on my step-son. Then we drove to New Orleans, which still had those Coast Guard marks on houses. Dumpsters and campers were in front of houses everywhere. The French Quarter was recovering, but employees had trouble finding a place to live.

Of course, it is better five years later. It is not coincidental that New Orleans has a different Mayor, Louisiana a different Governor and the U.S. a different President. It is not coincidental that Mississippi gave their Governor another term. They will all make different mistakes.

Middle East Peace, God Willing

2010-08-23T10:31:00.000-05:00

Only God and Allah can make Israel and the Authority of Palestine negotiate what is billed as a two-state solution. It is about West Bank settlements and right of return. The lion also can lay down with the lamb. It is just that the lamb will not get much sleep.

President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Middle East envoy George Mitchell all said that the Arab League signed off on this deal, to be concluded in one year. They were all optimistic that this prospect would yield results and marginalize hard-line factions. Other one-year deadlines have come and gone with no results.

Principal negotiators are thought to be Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu and Authority Prime Minister Mahmood Abbas. Let us reflect that Abbas has the first name by which the Prophet is sometimes called. So this time, negotiations to be augmented by Israel neighbors King Abdullah of Jordan and President Hosni Mubarek of Egypt. The countries of the European Union will be represented by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Why would we think this process would succeed when other failed? Netanyahu has a fragile Majority and so does Abbas. Abdullah presides over a country that his father, King Hussein, expelled Palestinian refugees. Mubarek faces the kind of unrest at home that claimed the life of Anwar Sadat. Tony Blair might need Brussels to approve it. Let us reflect that Barack Obama has already been made weak by rampant U.S unemployment and a debt crisis that makes Greece look like a model of financial responsibility. Far from the stated goal to marginalize hard-liners, this process oddly strengthens them.

I say this as a realist about negotiations between Israel and Palestine. I hate the fact that Iran-backed Hamas rules Gaza. Add Iran as someone who has the capability to turn Israel into a lake of fire and Israel is surrounded by two existential threats.

In 2003, I wrote that Russia had just sold 10 surface to surface missiles to Iran. Now Russia has sold enriched uranium to Iran. Biological agents from their stock might be next. Russia is no friend of Israel or Palestine. Russia also uses natural gas as a weapon against countries of the European Union. Only Russia benefits from continued chaos between Israel, Palestine and the U.S.

Knee Pain for Me is No Joke

2010-06-30T15:18:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I told a candidate that when I have been effective for a full day of campaigning, I gradually work up to it. This is for parades, too. At first it is four hours, then six hours. Gradually, I work up to 8 hours, then 10 hours.

Usually by an Election Day, I can start before the sun comes up and go about 18 hours. I can sleep Wednesday. I realize I am not as young as I was in 1990, but I was in Saginaw for a State Senate candidate before the sun rose and left after dark, then stayed at the improbable John Engler Victory Party until early Wednesday.

Why I gradually work up to a full day of campaigning is that my right knee has been repaired by surgery. It usually does not give me trouble when I gradually work it out. Sometimes I strengthen it through sports, but I often push off with my left foot.

Yesterday was 10 hours. There was nothing gradual about it and there was a lot of walking. Today, it is painful but fortunately my knee is not swollen as it has been in the past. This is why I no longer play contact sports or run on uneven ground.

More on Wisconsin Driving

2010-06-23T16:15:00.001-05:00

Early on Father’s Day morning, I drove to Marshfield. There was hardly any traffic on what is now called I-39. To me, it will always be 51. If the Wisconsin Highway Department was serious about a Highway 10 bypass, no one would have to slow to a crawl through Junction City, Milladore and Auburndale. It is still faster to take 10than the old route on back roads from Mauston.

I drove past 2104 S. Palmetto Avenue, 1101 W. 8th Street, where Connors live on 5th Street, other houses where friends had lived, what had been my Junior High School and Jesus on the Ball. I saw Mr. Berry, who was my teacher for Shakespeare as a high school senior when my attitude was terrible. I had lunch at Chip’s, which is now on South Central Avenue. There are other stores at their former location at Upham Street and North Central Avenue. I got gas at a family location on South Central Avenue. I was flooded with memories all the places I went. Some were good and involve friends. A few were terrible.

I was overcome by sleepiness during the trip back. For an hour, I slept and used the facilities at the rest area near Westfield. When I got on the road again, it was about 1 p.m.

Everything about traffic had changed; the road was now crowded. People who had been up north for the long weekend were driving home. The speed limit on I-39 and I-94 is 65 mph. I was driving 71 mph. People with Milwaukee dealership stickers on their autos or Illinois plates sailed past me. On I-94, State Police had pulled over several speeders. I said out loud, “It serves them right.”

Flash forward to Monday. I can feel my blood pressure rising because I am driving in Madison again. It is not yielding to pedestrians and bicycles; one simply accepts this as part of driving in Madison. No, it is other drivers. Some older drivers can barely see over their steering wheels, drive 15 mph below the posted speed limit and never use turn signals. In other places, Toyota with Stock Car decals are the danger car to watch; here it is the Subaru Forester with liberal decals. It does not matter how far I park from the front door of the place I am going. As I am exiting the car, someone is trying to park next to me. Invariably, it is an older driver.

My second wife joked that I drove like an old man because I drove defensively, looked far ahead to anticipate trouble and only drove seven mph above posted speeds. I still do that. The difference in Madison is that there are too many cars on roads that are too small to accommodate them. It is really hard to be defensive when other drivers are so offensive.

Prince of a Guy

2010-06-09T15:43:00.002-05:00

Joran van der Sloot, 22, erred when he allegedly broke the neck and robbed Stephany Flores, 21, in a hotel room Lima, Peru, and then fleeing to Chile in May. Hotel security cameras show them entering together than van der Sloot leaving alone four hours later. Ricardo Flores is a Peruvian celebrity because he parlayed fame as a former race car driver into entrepreneurial success and political activism. Van der Sloot was extradited back to Peru, where he is still being held and questioned.

Van der Sloot was infamous as the key suspect in the 2005 Aruba disappearance of Mountain Brook high school senior Natalee Holloway, 18. Only Brookies, with their sense of privilege and wealth, would take their senior trip to Aruba. Van der Sloot denied being complicit in Holloway’s disappearance, but tried to extort $250,000 from the Holloway parents to tell them how she died and location of her body. The father of van der Sloot, an Aruba politician and attorney, can not shield him now, having died in February.

In 2008, Dutch television crime reporter Peter de Vries captured hidden-camera footage of van der Sloot saying that after Holloway collapsed on the beach he asked a friend to dump her body in the sea.

Peruvian police found him in possession of a laptop computer and bills in 15 foreign currencies, including Bolivian, Cambodian and Thai. Also in 2008, de Vries reported that van der Sloot was recruiting women in Bangkok for sex work in the Netherlands.

If van der Sloot killed Asian girls and disposed of their bodies, they would not be missed or mourned. If van der Sloot is found guilty in the death of Flores, he faces 35 years in prison in Peru. He will have company, 117 Dutch criminals already serving time in Peruvian jails.

He might as well trade admission of guilt in Holloway for time in prison in Aruba.

Wisconsin State Treasurer: Forward, Not Backward

2010-06-02T14:37:00.000-05:00

Many Wisconsin voters do not care about electing a State Treasurer. This is why we should care.

It is not yet too late to stop making the Wisconsin State Treasurer the shrinking office that it has become. We elected our first State Treasurer in 1848. Some were clinkers; some were gems.

Scandal-plagued Democrat State Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass has drawn a 2010 Primary challenge in her own political party. On the Republican side, Scott Feldt, aide to former State Treasurer Jack Voight, faces restaurant manager Kurt Schuller, who pledges to abolish the office. Delegates to the Republican State Convention in Milwaukee endorsed Feldt. Some think Schuller should belong to a third party because he is not a member of any county Republican party.

In other states, the State Treasurer audits the books of state government. If Wisconsin adopted this standard, the Governor would not borrow from one fund to cover a deficit in another fund without the State Treasurer knowing about it. This is true whether the Wisconsin Governor and State Treasurer are from the same or different political parties. The State Treasurer was Treasurer of the Wisconsin Investment Board, which is now dominated by people the Governor appoints.

There was a time when the Wisconsin State Treasurer was the only official chosen by voters to wear the green eye-shade. We think of financial derivatives as bringing down banks too big to fail, but the largest Wisconsin banks failed in 1901 and took the uninsured deposits of small savers with them. The Wisconsin State Treasurer made them post a bond as a condition of depositing state cash in them.

No state disbursements were made without the control of the Wisconsin State Treasurer to insure that the state lived within its means. It was the State Treasurer who collected what were new taxes on motor fuel and tobacco. After the repeal of Prohibition, the State Treasurer also collected tax on liquor and beer sold or brewed in Wisconsin. Wisconsin’s State Treasurer regulated all these activities, too. The State Treasurer was custodian of money paid to the University of Wisconsin, state school aid, the state highway fund, the general fund and state worker pensions.

Most of these functions were gradually turned over to other state departments in the late 1950s. All checks issued by the State of Wisconsin still carry the laser-printed facsimile signature of the State Treasurer, including income tax refunds.

It is not as if the Wisconsin State Treasurer does not have current functions that touch the lives of people. The State Treasurer invests extra cash from participating local governments through the Local Government Investment Pool, has custody and records for unclaimed property act and general escheat laws, runs Wisconsin college savings plans and sits on a few state boards related to the financial health of state and local governments.

However, policy for the Local Government Investment Pool and college savings plans are set by the Wisconsin Investment Board. It also runs our medical malpractice fund, which Governor Jim Doyle grabbed to paper over a deficit. He was sued by people who pay higher medical malpractice premiums as a result. If an independent State Treasurer were still on the Wisconsin Investment Board, political appointees would not have dared to grab those funds and attorneys would not be enriching themselves by arguing for each side.

It was all so wasteful and unnecessary. Abolishing the office might strike a chord with angry voters. However, the cure for the failure of Democracy is more Democracy, not less.

Michaelsen Passes Baton to Sean Duffy

2010-05-07T14:10:00.000-05:00

It has been gratifying and a little embarrassing to me how many people have expressed interest in my running again for U.S. Congress now that Dave Obey has retired. All some people know about WI-7 is that I ran for it in 1984 and that I wrote an amusing little article about it in the November 1989 American Spectator.

My time to run for U.S. Congress has passed. I hope Ashland County District Attorney Sean Duffy will be the next Congressman in WI-7. Duffy has things I never had. He has been elected several times. He is photogenic and has a photogenic family. He can raise money. He has people I really like working for his campaign. I will do what is asked of me to help him. I have the advantage of being from the more populous part of his district.

Duffy is a candidate because people believe in him. I was an accidental candidate in search of believers. When State Senator Walter John Chilsen chose not to run for U.S. Congress in 1984, I stepped forward. I did not regret running for U.S. Congress. It played a key role in my working for Programs & Policies in Lansing and being one of the better campaign operatives for winners to the Michigan Senate and U.S. Congress. Losing allowed me to help winners better.

In his farewell announcement, Dave Obey said how he, Morris Udall and Henry Reuss stood up to President Ronald Reagan. Apparently, Obey could not help invoking three people who are long dead. I think Bart Stupak announcing he would not run again after he sold out his Right-to-Life principles for health care reform had a profound impact on Obey, who had been an abortion foe like Stupak had been.

The districts of Obey and Stupak had been previously held by Republicans Melvin Laird and Bob Davis, respectively. They will turn Republican again in 2010.

Dane County Murder Irony Department

2010-05-03T19:32:00.000-05:00

Dane County has so few murders that each one is sensational. One hopes that this is not going to change, but two recent murders suggest that 2010 will not be a good year for what some consider metropolitan Madison.

A killer waited in Stoughton for the early May 1 arrival of Dwayne Williams, 26, his girlfriend and their toddler. Williams was killed. Williams was no stranger to police because he was pistol-whipped in late 2009 by assailants who demanded drugs. Williams was arrested for burglary in 2002 and cocaine possession in 2005. Before Saturday, Stoughton had not had a murder since 1989.

Without a sense of irony, the Wisconsin State Journal unveiled a special report May 2 about heroin use in Dane County. The headline on the special report dwarfed the headline about the murder in Stoughton. What a surprise to learn that heroin comes across the porous border with Mexico, goes to Chicago and then to Madison! What a surprise to learn that addicts might turn to crime to support their habits!

On April 28, Antonio Perez was outside on a break from his job at Webcrafters on Fordem Avenue when he was slain in a drive-by shooting which was gang-related. Madison police have said they are afraid that it will touch off a gang war. Like many, I consider Webcrafters to be on Sherman Avenue near the Esquire Club.

Many of us are sad that the deaths of Kelly Nolan and Brittany Zimmerman remain unsolved years later. It would be awful if either were killed by drug addicts bent on violence or property crime.

Wisconsin and Illinois are the only two states which forbid law-abiding citizens to carry concealed firearms. Wisconsin’s Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has ruled that we can carry in a holster in the open but I would prefer not to test this in the Worker’s Paradise because I have seen no one else carry openly here. I will consider carrying weapons, however, if folks like me start to be killed in cross-fires this year.

Friends and FB “Friends”

2010-04-27T14:30:00.000-05:00

As many did, I joined FaceBook to keep in touch with my children because they currently live in Honolulu and New Orleans. Then it gradually became their mother and my relatives. My FaceBook friends gradually grew to include people from Michigan, Virginia and Wisconsin that were important to me but I never see very often.

I lived in Michigan for 17 years. I am now Facebook friends with Jack Hoogendyk, George McManus, Michelle McManus, Mike Rogers, Bill Schuette, John Schwarz and Norm Shinkle.

I have known Hoogendyk since he was on the Kalamzoo County Board and I worked for a State Senator whose district was all of Kalamazoo County. I helped to elect George McManus to the Michigan State Senate in 1990. George is an uncle to Michelle, who is running for Michigan Secretary of State. I have known Schuette since 1984, when he upset Congressman Don Albosta and I failed to upset Dave Obey. Schuette is running for Michigan Attorney General, was Michigan Department of Agriculture Director and then was a State Senator. Rogers was a Senate Majority Floor Leader before he became my Congressman. I helped elect Schwarz to the Michigan Senate in 1986 and to U.S. Congress in 2004. Shinkle was Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. His license plate “No Tax” was famous.

Michigan Senate colleagues regardless of party I have befriended are Saul Anuzis, John Arundel, Lisa Babcock, Richard Barclay, Kurt Berryman, Anne Boomer, Denise DeCook, Gary Garbarino, Brett Henderson, Bill Kordenbrock, Bill Knutson, Brett Marr, David Marvin, Lisa McGraw, Jeff McAlvey, Anne Mervenne, Colleen Pero, Dan Pero, Gary Reed, Dennis Schornack, Mike Severino, Brad Snavely, Marc Speiser and Dan Stouffer. I am friends with a few people I supervised and those who are or were in the Michigan Press Corps.

My FaceBook friend list has taken on a life of its own. I am friends now with people I never knew and with people I see around Madison often.

I am bombarded with requests to become fans or a member of this or that politician or cause but usually draw the line at this, however.

Unexpected Trip to GOP Events in Northeast Wisconsin

2010-04-22T13:49:00.000-05:00

It was an unexpected pleasure to have State Treasurer candidate Scott Feldt call me Friday, April 16 and ask if I would go with him to Lincoln Day events Saturday in Oconto County and Marinette County. It has been my good fortune to have been involved in the Feldt campaign in ways that I have mastered but also learned new skills.

The event in Suring was early afternoon. The event in what I consider historic Peshtigo was in the evening. I had never been to either place so I jumped at the chance.

At both were a number of old friends who are candidates, serve them or are in the Wisconsin Legislature now, like Brett Davis, Jeff Mursau, John Nygren and Roger Roth.
Davis and Roth are running for other jobs. I have heard the speeches of Feldt, Superior Mayor Dave Ross and Terence Wall so often that I could give them as surrogates. It is always a pleasure to see and hear Dave King, Republican candidate for Secretary of State.

It was my pleasure to be able to drive back from Rosendale to Madison while Feldt slept. It reminded me of a conversation with Eugene McCarthy while I drove him from Hillsdale College to Detroit Metro Airport. To me and many others, he will always be “Clean Gene.” McCarthy was recounting that when he was driven from the airport by a student, his driver was a student interested in talking with him. His driver seemed not to pay attention to traffic and it was a frightening experience for McCarthy. The student asked him how he could get started in politics. “Learn to drive,” McCarthy said.

Learn to drive and read a map, indeed.

Tax Day Rally at the Capitol

2010-04-16T13:52:00.000-05:00

Joining at least 10,000 people at the State Capitol on April 15 for the Tea Party, it was the first time I ever joined a protest rally at the seat of a state government. The rally for Taxed Enough Already was a time to see who was there and to hear from speakers.

I took public transportation from the Hill Farms Transportation Building to the rally because I knew driving and parking would be awful. Just as I arrived, I ran into Wisconsin legislative staff members and Mrs. Dave Ross. I saw Terence Wall, Mark Neumann, Senator Scott Fitzgerald and Representative Scott Gunderson. I saw the Scott Walker presence but I did not see Walker.

When I was in state government, such protests were a nuisance and not important. In Lansing, protests by organized labor and the tent city protest against Governor John Engler were annoying and made it hard to get to work and leave. The only rally I attended at the State Capitol was Kris Draper, Darren McCarty and the Stanley Cup. In Madison, both loud and weird were the protest by illegal aliens and the counter-protest by skinheads.

Frankly, I was astounded by some speakers, not what they said but who they were and how they said it. Two speakers were WSAU-AM radio talker Patrick Snyder and Pastor David King, the Milwaukee pastor who is running for Wisconsin Secretary of State. When I was a kid in central Wisconsin, television came from WSAU and WAOW in Wausau but no one I knew listened to WSAU-AM instead of the hipper Wausau station WIFC-FM.

I actually came to see and hear Tommy G. Thompson. Thompson has been known to me since I ran for U.S. Congress in 1984, when he was Assembly Minority Leader. I moved to Michigan and began serving John Engler in 1985. Tommy was elected Governor of Wisconsin in 1986 and John Engler was elected Governor of Michigan in 1990. They were both reformers. I have been at events with Thompson since 2006 and I was at the rally when he announced for President at the Tommy G. Thompson athletic center at Bishop Messmer High School in Milwaukee.

I think most of us thought that he would announce a run for U.S. Senate, especially because all the points about U.S. Senator Russ Feingold ended with, “It’s wrong for America. It’s wrong for Wisconsin.” It was a barn-burner of a Tommy speech. Thompson was always a better speaker than Engler, no offense to my friends who wrote for Engler. Thanks to some of us, Engler was better than Thompson in writing.

Flash forward to 2010. New anger over unemployment, taxes and deficits might bring new voters to Republicans in autumn or it might not. Democrats who dominate the Wisconsin state legislature do not seem to get it, pressing to raise taxes, energy bills and find new avenues of voter fraud. It is wrong for Wisconsin.

Mark Neumann might be a good Governor of Wisconsin. Scott Walker will win the primary if Neumann fights it all the way to September. It will not be fun to run state government in 2011 with the structural deficit we face.

Extremism in Support of “Virtue”

2010-04-08T13:52:00.000-05:00

After five suicide bombings Monday targeted the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, State Department flack P.J. Crowley called it the work of extremists. They, however, were striking a blow for what they perceive as virtue.

Consider the bombings in the Moscow subway system. The suicide bombers were women whose husbands were killed by the Russians in their military adventures in Chechnya, Dagestan and South Ossetia. It is no wonder that one of the bombings was under Lubyanka, home of what was formerly the KGB.

Such extremism is nothing new. Consider the total war practiced against civilians in resisting cities by the Mongols, George Sherman’s March to the Sea, American bombing of cities that had no strategic value during World War II. Consider the mindless homicidal mania of the Viking berserkers, the Japanese against Marines and the U.S. Navy during World War II and the genocide in Rwanda.

It is too bad that the targets are not repressive, paranoid and corrupt regimes. If the goal is regime change, there should be bombings in North Korea, Burma and China. China has been repressive of minority rights, especially against Tibet and Muslim areas. The so-called Great Firewall prohibits posting protest videos to the Internet and searching for topics like the Tiananmen Square tanks. The mine disaster shows that journalists will go where news occurs. Everyone knows corruption is rampant in China, but even protesting wins you a prison term or worse.

Extremists are not what they used to be in the U.S. People who are in favor of the right of law-abiding people to carry firearms, who put Republican stickers on their automobiles or who worship God have been called extremists by liberals as if there is a Timothy McVeigh, David Kouresh or the anthrax mailer in all of us. The real American extremists may have a cache of automatic weapons, bomb-making material or belong to apocalyptic religious cults.

Professor Stanley Kutler says to me that with which he assumes I disagree although I agree with him. I hope the government is not keeping track of our public library habits. I have withdrawn what could be considered subversive books and videos by traditional liberals. I have read an article about how the government can get from our cellular telephone providers information where our telephones are and whom we have called. They do not need a warrant. Some cell providers and legal groups seek to enjoin this.

Extremism in support of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution should not be equated with people who wish us ill. We surrender more of our liberties in the name of security every day.

Defending My Dream

2010-03-03T20:25:00.000-06:00

Hundreds of my closest friends will gather at Chula Vista on March 12 for the 3rd Annual Defending the Dream seminar, sponsored by the Wisconsin Chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP). They will hear from national and international leaders on strategies for influencing the policy debate and helping to elect good candidates. Some speakers will be friends from Madison. Because I am a friend of AFP, I have received invitations to attend.

As much as I would like to attend, there are two people scheduled that I would never pay to hear. Those are Steven Moore, leader of the Club for Growth and Grover Norquist, free market guru and founder of AFP. I try not to hold grudges against people. I make an exception for them.

Club for Growth raises money for conservative candidates. It is like Emily’s List, except for conservatives. Club for Growth also helps candidates run against people they label RINOs, Republicans in name only. In 2004, I helped an old friend, Dr. Joe Schwarz, run and win election to Congress in Michigan to succeed former Congressman Nick Smith, beating four more conservative candidates. In 2006, Club for Growth united behind former State Representative Tim Walberg, who won the primary. Walberg was ousted by Democrat Mark Schauer in 2008. Follow me here: Club for Growth ousted the moderate and their favored guy was defeated by a Democrat. They only take credit for ousting Schwarz, who is seeing patients again.

Norquist is more personal to me. I had not written for American Spectator for five years. I was a self-employed writer in Lansing when a scandal broke in 1993 that was awful and improbable. When Democrat Dominic Jacobetti of the Upper Peninsula was chairman of the Michigan House Appropriations Committee, the House Fiscal Agency was his personal fiefdom. It was populated by Democratic appointees, including director John Moberg. At least $1.8 million allegedly went to Moberg, his staff and his friends. One of these was caught selling weapons to Croatia in the scandal, worst Michigan had seen in 50 years. Reporters from the Detroit News won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage.

Was this not sensational? I queried the American Spectator about writing 500 words on this scandal and was informed that Norquist was already writing something about this. As a Spectator subscriber, I waited in vain for this. He did no such thing but cost me a month of groceries for my two children.

There is also a public policy reason why I do not like Norquist. It is possible that ATR began as a conduit for funds that flowed to Norquist from helping Jack Abramoff's clients. Norquist financed grass-roots lobbying campaigns that look like free-market solutions but really protected existing Indian casinos from competitors. Abramoff was convicted and Tom DeLay lost his seat in this scandal. Having an AFP seminar in Wisconsin Dells, where the Ho-Chunk Casino is located, is awful symbolism to me.

Good Riddance to the Vancouver Games

2010-03-02T17:27:00.000-06:00

No more advertisements for the official credit card of the Olympics. No more advertisements for the cell phone partner or the fast food partner of the Olympics.

No more made-up sports that are supposed to appeal to young people used to X games, such as moguls, snowcross, aerials, and half-pipe. Vancouver had so little snow that it needed to be trucked and made. The electric green Zambonis at the speed skating venue showed that they made the ice worse, not better.

The International Olympic Committee has already decided that women should not ski jump anymore. Because the women’s hockey competition is mostly between the United States and Canada, there is danger that the Vancouver competition will be the last time women play hockey in the Olympics. Maybe other countries should make more of an effort but the result is what matters. U.S. women and Canadian women were a combined 90-5 until they faced each other for the gold medal. They had previously taken away women’s softball from the Summer Games. The Olympics is the only place where women can play fewer sports each year.

I also think it was a mistake letting professionals compete in the Olympic Games. Yes, the Russians and the Soviet bloc were paying their athletes, using the fiction that they were in the Army. This was true of ice hockey, swimming, basketball and other summer and winter sports. It was always cool when college kids played for the U.S. in basketball and ice hockey. Now our professional athletes can beat your professional athletes in hockey, tennis and basketball.

So when the Winter Olympics move to Russia, they will not need to make snow. The time change is so bad for the United States compared to Vancouver, that most sports will not be carried live.

Hockey Town

2010-01-24T21:52:00.000-06:00

Many people consider Detroit to be Hockey Town. Some people consider it to be the Twin Cities. For me, it is Madison.

Some are fans of the National Hockey League, especially because they have family and friends who play professional hockey. Some parents have children who play youth or high school hockey. For me, it has always been college hockey. Not just any college hockey but University of Wisconsin hockey.

It does not matter to me whether it is the men or women playing hockey. It does not matter to me what the outcomes are. It was wonderful when the UW men beat Denver January 23 in Madison and it has been wonderful that the UW women are near the top of their sport.

Hockey fans are not like fans of other sports and I am fortunate to live in a hockey town again.

Official Sponsor of this Team, League or Report

2010-01-11T16:22:00.000-06:00

Corporate sponsorships are apparently hard to find. Not content with naming stadiums and race tracks, putting their name and logo on race cars, sport team uniforms, shoes and those signs in athletic venues, they are now naming other things.

This is the cellular telephone or credit card Halftime Report. These highlights are the package delivery air and ground highlights. Network sports personalities have to plug new movies like guests on talk shows. It is the Heisman Trophy presented by a car company. Beer company advertisements rework classic National Football Association highlights to put their light beer cans in the hands of spectators. How long ago were beer cans banned at sporting events because of cans being thrown on the field? Was there a light beer when Vince Lombardi coached the Green Bay Packers? How about when the Pittsburgh Steelers played at Three Rivers, not Catsup Company Field?

Now college football teams face off in a corporate name bowl game formerly known as a different corporate name bowl game. There is an official frozen pizza of University of Wisconsin athletic venues. When the Badger hockey team used to score sufficient goals, it was free ice cream for everyone. I suspect it was formerly Babcock Hall ice cream. Now it is free frozen custard for everyone because a frozen custard company sponsors University of Wisconsin hockey events.

It is going to get worse as the Super Bowl approaches. Already many sponsors are the official sponsors of the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League. This or that company will be the official sponsor of the Super Bowl. Halftime has already been named for a corporation. Maybe they can get the Who to change their name to the Network Company Who. I am reasonably sure that their songs at halftime will be politically correct. “I Can See for Miles,” not “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

It will be worse when the Winter Olympics start. Every company will be the official sponsor of the U.S. Olympic Team, Olympic venues or the Olympics as a whole.

Some corporate sponsors became politically incorrect. Stock car drivers competed for the cigarette company cup. The Formula One championship was another cigarette company cup. Race cars have been purged of sponsorships by beer companies and tobacco companies, even smokeless brands. The venue where the Houston professional teams play was named for a company that turned out to be a corporate pirate. More products will become politically incorrect as corporations gobble each other up.

We should not begrudge anyone who employs people or turns a profit. Advertising is part of this formula for success. There is no reason, however, why there needs to be an official frozen pizza of University of Wisconsin sporting events or why there will be an official carbonated beverage of the U.S. Olympic Team.

Mad as Hell

2009-12-30T14:14:00.000-06:00

Although “Network” is an older film, I had never seen it. Howard Beale urges viewers to open their windows, lean out and yell, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Although most of the events depicted in the movie are from the 1970s, they could be now. There was massive unemployment, unpredictable fuel supplies and institutions in America were being gobbled up by foreign ownership. Network sports and entertainment programs are still used to divert people from problems.

The Tea Party movement is people saying, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Network news tries to marginalize this movement. Local media tries to marginalize critics of the Madison Edgewater project and plowing the roads in Madison. A number of cars here have liberal stickers on their bumpers.

A car I followed yesterday had a really different sticker. “I Miss Reagan,” it said. “So do I,” I said out loud. The danger to Democrats in Wisconsin and nationally, is that many will say on Election Day, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Packer Shortcomings

2009-12-20T22:33:00.000-06:00

Shortcomings of the current Green Bay Packers were on display against the Chicago Bears and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The punting of Jeremy Kapanos, the kicking of Mason Crosby and questionable challenges by Coach Mike McCarthy squander the efforts of Aaron Rodgers and his big play receivers. Against the hapless Chicago Bears, offensive play calling almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Run, run, run, punt.

Under general manager Ted Thompson, the Packers only build chiefly by drafting players. They have drafted well, especially on defense, but other teams draft, sign free agents and pick up proven players on waivers. This is the way the Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints were built. This is how the Green Bay Packers were built when they won the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Reggie White, Charles Woodson, Desmond Howard, Andre Rison. Only Woodson remains.

No Fun League says that I should not be able to comment on what everyone already knows. Only die-hard Packer fans think that things are fine if the Packers make the play-offs. If they miss the play-offs, it is because other teams are more imaginative.

I’m Shocked, Shocked That These Are Funny

2009-12-18T11:17:00.000-06:00

There are a few movie, television and radio gags that I giggle every time I hear them or even think of them.

I have seen “Casablanca” at least 30 times. While we think of it as a drama, Claude Rains has the funniest lines. “I am shocked, shocked to learn that there is gambling going on here.” “He brings the bill. I tear up the bill. It is most convenient.” “We will be there at 8.” “I’ll be there at 10.”

“Why did you come to Casablanca?” “I came here for the waters.” “What waters? We’re in the desert.” “I was misinformed.”

Abbot and Costello doing “Who’s on First?” kills me. Slappy and Skippy Squirrel parody it with the Woodstock “Who is first” routine. I have seen “Duck Soup” a dozen times and there is not a bit that I do not find laugh out loud funny.

“Gentlemen, you can’t fight here. This is the War Room.” “Dr. Strangelove.” Steve Gutenberg sweats profusely as a week-end anchor in “Broadcast News.” They pull out a blow dryer to blow some of the sweat away.

W.C. Fields playing golf. I think it is the “Big Broadcast of 1934,” best known for the young Bob Hope singing “Thanks for the Memories” for the very first time. Fields is followed by a dozen caddies carrying giant bags. He throws clubs away. “Too long. Too Short. Too Medium. Caddy, hand me that putter.” Or playing pool with the curved cue.

When Buck Henry hosted “Saturday Night Live,” they did a bit that has stayed with me for years. It is a royal reception and guests are introduced. The Earl of Sandwich who invented cold cuts and Lord and Lady Argyle, who wear matching socks. Then announced are “Lord and Lady Douchebag.”

We do not need to tell the joke to get the punch line. The agent is stunned and says “That’s a hell of an act. What do you call it?” “The Aristocrats.”

2009-11-10T10:01:00.002-06:00

Thank a Veteran

There has never been a time when we should not honor the service of our men and women who have served our country. I am especially sensitive to this because I am a proud Navy Dad.

Does he face threats? All who serve face threats, whether the threat comes from a lone gunman or a drunk driver on land or an accident at sea. Is he safer than people his age serving in Iraq and Afghanistan? Absolutely, he is.

We may have disagreed over the policy or political decisions that resulted in our men and women in uniform being sent into harm’s way. We should never mistake policy for our honor of the men and women called to serve.

I am fortunate to know many who served in World War II and Korea. Among the people I know from World War II are someone who flew with the Flying Tigers and then off American aircraft carriers after Pearl Harbor, someone who drove landing craft to dislodge the Japanese from the Aleutians and a medic attached to the Sea Bees in the South Pacific. Among the Korean Conflict veterans are my own father, someone who stepped on a mine and a veteran of the Chosin Reservoir.

More plentiful are veterans of Viet Nam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq. Veterans of the Cold War are plentiful.

Bad Night in Beall

2009-11-07T16:55:00.002-06:00

Although it is about 2.5 hours for me each way, I drove to Marshfield on Friday, November 6 to see the Tigers take on the visiting Merrill Blue Jays in the third round of the WIAA Division 2 playoffs. Like a few schools two or three hours from Marshfield like Antigo, Rhinelander and Shawano, Merrill had left the Wisconsin Valley Conference. It cost the outlandish sum of $4 to go to the game.

There were flashes of brilliance from current Marshfield quarterback Luke Accola and his big receivers on the Tigers. Ultimately, however, they could not contain the relentless running attack of Merrill and were defeated 21-3. They were fortunate to avoid being held scoreless.

Six things stood out for me. First, the Tiger band was not in uniform and did not take the field at half-time. We were never out of uniform at a game. Second, the band left after half-time on a relatively warm night but we always stayed to the bitter end no matter how lop-sided the score or how cold the night was. I was fortunate to play a reed instrument. Brass players had more embouchure trouble in the cold.

Third, if there are Marshfield cheerleaders, they also left at half-time. Merrill cheerleaders made a pyramid at half-time. Fourth, as I left as the game clock hit less than a minute, I heard the Antigo band fire up their fight song, Illinois Loyalty. I confess I sang the Marshfield lyrics, which I had forgotten until that very minute. Illinois Loyalty was the fight song for Marshfield High School for more 50 years, until Marshfield changed it to “Eye of the Tiger.” Illinois Loyalty was the fight song was at Purdy, at the current Middle School and for many years at the school on Becker. Most of us did not need music to play it.

Fifth, most students I saw stayed at least until the gun sounded so that has not changed. Sixth, I was at the back of the student section. I’m kind of a tall guy and had the advantage of being on risers. The student ahead of me must have been six foot seven or eight.

I bought two hooded sweatshirts in black and orange for the price of one Badger sweatshirt in Madison in the former El Sombrero. It was some consolation for the time and gasoline it took me to attend. However, I will stay closer to home for high school athletic contests.

Stop the Democratic Bleeding

2009-11-07T10:41:00.000-06:00

President Barack Obama’s November 4 trip to Wisconsin might have only been partially about education policy. It might have been to coax incumbent Wisconsin Governor James Doyle to pull a Brett Farve and declare himself a candidate for re-election in 2010. Failing that, he still hopes to convince Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett or Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk to declare for Governor. Maybe Congressman Ron Kind will still pull a Brett Farve after making the Shermanesque statement that he is staying in Congress.

Obama’s home state of Illinois is in the weird position of being the only Midwest Great Lake state run by Democrats surrounded by Republican governors. Scott Walker has the Republican nomination already almost locked up and will be Governor barring a Democratic miracle. Minnesota has Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty. The only drama in Michigan will be Republican nominees in crowded primaries for Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State. Either Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard or Congressman Pete Hoekstra trounces Democrat Lieutenant Governor John Cherry in early polls. Indiana has Republican Governor Mitch Daniels.

This would not have looked so dire had Democrats prevailed over Bob McDonnell as Governor of Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey on November 3. 2009 might be a precursor of 2010, when most Governors, a third of the U.S Senate and all members of the U.S. House face voters.

Jimmy Carter coined the term “Misery Index” for inflation and unemployment in his campaign against President Gerald Ford and then it came back to bite him as Ronald Reagan defeated him for President in 1980. The U.S. Senate Majority also swung to Republicans. The Misery Index does not favor Democrats now and there is no likelihood things will improve by the 2010 election. When what should be low is high, those in office have a way of being voted out of office.

It is a center-right country, especially in the Midwest. In 2008, college kids and minority voters put Obama over the top. Some of them are unemployed or underemployed now and increasingly they see Republicans as the change we can believe in. Add that to the middle-class victims of the Misery Index and the Obama voting majority is now fickle and receptive to a new message of hope and change.

Acorn Shows Common Phases of Denial

2009-09-22T20:09:00.002-05:00

When several offices of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) were stung by hidden cameras of James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles seeking tax and housing help to run a prostitution ring including bringing underage prostitutes from El Salvador, the response of Acorn illustrates common phases of denial.

They missed the first, which is the limited hang-out of dirty laundry. It works especially well for politicians, but it can work for non-profit organizations, too. It acknowledges liabilities, coming forward with a partial list. It inoculates against charges about what is hung out. It could have been used when O’Keefe and Giles stung the Baltimore office. Acorn could have inoculated themselves against further damaging stings. That Acorn chose not to hang-out when they could have done so is an error in keeping what might have been a one-day story alive for weeks.

Next is “we did not do it.” Because the evidence was just too large in this case, this phase was not possible. The third phase is “we did not do it and the people who say otherwise are scoundrels.” Acorn seized on this phase, blaming O’Keefe, Giles and the vast right-wing conspiracy of Fox and talk radio. Acorn surrogates say that O’Keefe and Giles are doing the bidding of racists who hate President Barack Obama. Acorn has lurched from this to the fourth phase: “we did it, but it is not what you think.”

Acorn CEO Bertha Lewis has said the tapes were “indefensible actions of a handful of employees” and warranted an independent review of the group’s procedures. “We have all been deeply disturbed by what we’ve seen in some of these videos. I must say, on behalf of ACORN’s Board and our Advisory Council, that we will go to whatever lengths necessary to reestablish the public trust. For nearly forty years, ACORN has given voice to communities, and gotten results. Right now, our nearly 500,000 member are working their hearts out for quality, affordable healthcare for every American and to help stop the foreclosure crisis. We must get this process right, so the good work can go forward.”

Implicit in this statement is the first phase, too, limited hangout. It is too late for that; it is like slamming the barn door after the cows have already fled.

The fifth phase is real reform: “We did it and it will not happen again.” It is deeds, not mere words. The U.S. Government is helping them to get to this phase. The U.S. Senate voted 83 to 7 to prohibit the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development from giving taxpayer funds to Acorn. The U.S. Census Bureau has dropped Acorn from partnership in the 2010 census.

One should not be surprised if the Acorn board of directors jettisons Lewis in a symbolic move to save the organization and she becomes some sort of czarina in the Obama Administration.

Knee-Slappingly Funny People

2009-09-08T21:59:00.002-05:00

There are a number of people that say and write things so hysterical that I can’t control myself, laughing out loud even when decorum says I should not. I have three laughs: the explosive guffaw, the giggle and the hiss. Increasingly the hiss is reserved for people who have known me for more than 30 years.

Among people in Madison, WIBA-AM morning host and stand-up comedian Mitch Henck is one of these. As a radio host, he is not only funny but callers to his show, especially Rob are funny, too. Bill Richardson is funny as is Brian Schimming. They have different styles. Christian Schneider is funny because he pokes fun at himself.

Emeritus Professors W. Lee Hansen and Stanley Kutler are funny. Lee is usually kind which makes his funny moments funnier, especially when he uses economic analysis to diagnose big and little ills. Kutler is kind and thoughtful but his humor is irrepressible. Among current professors, Charles Franklin is a scream, especially because he acts as if he is not.

State Representatives Phil Montgomery , Robin Vos and Mark Pocan are funny, too. Big Phil’s delivery is so dry. Robin Vos can not hide his sense of humor. Mark Pocan is never afraid to make fun of himself.

Elsewhere in Wisconsin, a few people crack me up. Among the people I have known for a long time, Andy Connor, Dennis Farnsworth, Jerry Langfeldt and Paul Johnson have different styles, all of them funny. Bob Uecker’s stories make everyone laugh.

Elsewhere, when Mark Steyn substitutes for Rush Limbaugh, Steyn is funny. He cracks jokes and then reprises them when you least expect it. His writing is the same way.

There are a couple of writers that I consider funny. One is P.J. O’Rourke. Another is R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. at American Spectator. O’Rourke lampoons weighty subjects; I loved “Parliament of Whores.” Bob Tyrell has a different style: he has the style of H.L. Mencken rolled together with Ambrose Bierce.

I have my moments of funniness but I am better as a straight man, letting others have the best lines.

Thirtieth Anniversary of the Pivotal Event of Our Generation

2009-08-31T08:41:00.000-05:00

We did not think so at the time. No one could escape the news of it but none of us thought it would change everything. It seemed too trivial

It was the fodder for newspaper cartoonists from coast to coast. Inexplicably, some electronic news outlets found fuzzy footage of the event, involving the President of the United States both unguarded and in a remote location.

This President had let military men and civilians captured and potentially executed by Islamic radicals. National unemployment was soaring. Foreclosure was rampant. Turning on the printing presses of the U.S. Mint to paper over a deficit resulted in runaway inflation. People should drive less, buy more fuel-efficient cars and turn down their thermostats in winter to use less energy.

President Barack Obama has learned from this example. Photographers are banned from Martha’s Vineyard, so as not to be caught in an unguarded and remote location doing something potentially embarrassing. The President uses his children like human shields, shaming the press into making them off-limits except to trot them out when it is his political purpose to do so.

U.S. military men and civilians have been captured and executed by Islamic extremists. National unemployment is soaring. Foreclosure is rampant. There is the potential of turning loose the printing presses of the U.S. Mint. People should drive less, buy more fuel-efficient cars and turn down their thermostats in winter to use less energy.

When Jimmy Carter used the canoe paddle like a weapon to fend off the swimming “Killer Rabbit,” it was a symbol of how events had got away from him. At some time, Barack Obama will do or say something that will be more damaging to him than saying the Cambridge police acted “stupidly” or that Washington elites went “wee-wee.”

Wisconsin’s Lame Duck

2009-08-18T10:23:00.000-05:00

News that Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle will not seek another term in 2010 makes him a lame duck until his successor take the oath. He will now have less influence over state spending and state policy than he had before the announcement.

Doyle could read polls like anyone. A liberal poll showed his approval rating at 43 percent. Another poll showed him at 34 percent, a Bush-like rating. Raising taxes to fix the current deficit angered taxpayers, the same-sex benefit registry angered some who voted to define marriage as between one man and one woman, and Wisconsin has lost 123,000 jobs in the past year. Doyle was not helped by the resignation of the Governor’s chief legal counsel, Chandra Miller Fienen, for not being licensed to practice law in Wisconsin.

At his remarks at Randall School, Doyle said he “intends” to serve out his term. When a public figure says he “intends” to do something, it means the exact opposite. Doyle would leave early for a Presidential appointment or to head a liberal interest group, letting Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton become Acting Governor.

There is irony here. Doyle became Governor in 2002 with less than 50 percent of the vote. Scott McCallum was never the choice of former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson for Lieutenant Governor but beat his top choice in a primary. Thompson never talked his brother Ed out of running in the 2002 General Election. Ed Thompson took enough votes from McCallum to elect Doyle. Acting Governor Martin Schreiber was defeated by Lee Sherman Dreyfus in 1978.

Among Democrats, Lawton will be hurt if other elected liberals declare. If Congressman Ron Kind runs, he has the General Election advantage of being a moderate and not being from Milwaukee or Madison. These traits do not help win the Democratic Primary Election, however. The Mark Green suit shows that Kind can not apply Congressional campaign funds to running for Wisconsin Governor.

Republican candidates jockeying for Governor are Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and former Congressman Mark Neumann. I would guess another one or two moderate to conservative Republicans, such as State Senators Mike Ellis and Glen Grothman, will soon declare for Governor. Someone will mount a non-traditional campaign like Dreyfus or working at a job per day like former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander.

Other members of the Assembly and State Senate will also announce that they will not seek another term. The announcement of Doyle not to seek another term as Wisconsin frees them to make a similar announcement but to help pick their successors.

A Little Revolution Now and Then

2009-07-23T21:57:00.000-05:00

Many Iranians continue to defy authority by taking to the streets to protest the results of their election for President. Some figures in the revolution against the Shah now think that the revolution has been hijacked by autocrats. The state-sponsored slogan is “Death to America,” like it is still the 1970s. Sometimes the crowd chants, “Death to dictators.” As the Who said, “Meet the new boss/ same as the old boss.”

Revolutions do not have to be as bloody as the French under Robespierre or the Russian under Lenin. In mature democracies, voters will often take out their frustrations at the polling place.

Israel often exchanges one party in power for another. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown may be swept out of office by a newly-energized Tory party. Dissatisfaction with the status quo in France led to the election of Nicolas Sarkozy.

With soaring unemployment and tax increases, state voters around the Great Lakes may broom Democrats and replace them with Republicans. When what should be down is up, those who are in power have a way of becoming out. Republicans may pick up seats or seize control of the lower houses in Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio. Republicans might win Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of state in Michigan. The exception among Great Lakes states is Indiana, where Republicans rule and a revolution could favor Democrats. Hoosier Daddy, indeed.

Washington is not immune from revolution. Historically, the party in control of the White House loses seats in Congress in the first election after President. In 2010, Democrats who won Congressional seats in areas that voted for McCain in 2008 face voters for the first time. It will be a referendum on TARP, the stimulus plan, health care reform and record deficits.

They called it the Republican Revolution when Newt Gingrich wrested control of the U.S. House of Representatives from Democrats in 1994. They called it the Reagan Revolution when Dutch toppled Jimmy Carter and Republicans seized control of the U.S. Senate in 1980.

1980 and 1994 seem like ancient history now. There will be another Gingrich and another Ronald Reagan to lead the GOP to another revolution. Maybe it will be John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mike Huckabee, Mike Pence, Mitt Romney or someone who has not emerged yet.

A new spirit of freedom is sweeping the world and the nation. A little revolution now and then is a good thing.

Wisconsin: Alabama of the North?

2009-07-13T10:22:00.000-05:00

Wisconsin lags neighbors Illinois and Minnesota in jobs and personal income, wrote Thomas Hefty and John Torinus, Jr., in a guest column in the Opinion section of the Wisconsin State Journal on Sunday, July 12. Iowa’s per capita income is less but job creation is three times ours.

With per capita income falling to 85.6 percent of the national average, Wisconsin’s income is about equal to Alabama’s. The authors conclude, “We need to build a more competitive economy or reconcile ourselves to being the Alabama of the north.”

Alabama of the north? I lived in the real Alabama for four years. Let me expound why Wisconsin will never be the Alabama of the north. In some ways Wisconsin is superior to Alabama but in some ways Wisconsin is inferior.

For all the griping about Wisconsin’s tax system, Wisconsin’s sales tax exempting groceries and the Wisconsin’s income tax so-called zero amount (income below this amount is not taxable) and credits for property taxes and other things are progressive, taxing the have-nots at a lower rate than those who have more. Alabama levies sales taxes on all groceries and even the poor have to pay income taxes. By soaking the poor and favoring the rich, Alabama often has budget problems.

The two pay very different property tax on primary residences. Alabama homeowners gripe when they pay more than $1,000 on a house worth $300,000. Depending on municipality, Wisconsin homeowners might pay $7,000 on the same house.

The unemployment insurance systems could not be more different. Wisconsin’s system is an unemployment shock-absorber. One could argue that Wisconsin’s unemployment benefit of 67 percent of previous earnings up to a maximum of $363 might be improved by paying a lower percentage or putting in a waiting week but the benefit level helps those who lost their jobs. In Alabama, the maximum benefit level is $255 per week, 30 percent less.

The public higher education systems could not be more different. Wisconsin’s system of four-year universities, two-year schools and technical colleges is enrollment-based. All of Alabama’s four-year schools are within 90 minutes of Birmingham. Technical colleges are legislative pork; there is a technical college in nearly every legislative district.

Alabama, however, leads Wisconsin in job creation by a wide margin. Wisconsin poured money into Janesville and Kenosha in a vain attempt to keep ill-fated auto plants open. Alabama has built plants to make sport utility vehicles for Mercedes and Honda, and engines for Toyota and Hyundai. They have trees and water so the paper mills that have closed in Wisconsin are open in Alabama.

High-technology jobs tend to be clustered around Huntsville, put on the map by Werner von Braun and led by the University of Alabama – Huntsville. Huntsville is ironically located near Madison, Alabama. All of the four-year schools excel at technology transfer and many jobs are an easy Interstate drive to Atlanta and Nashville.

If Wisconsin were to follow Alabama’s example, new jobs would be clustered in western Wisconsin and between Racine and Kenosha. Madison is nice but irrelevant, if not actively hostile, as a center of commerce. The capital of Alabama, Montgomery, is twice as large as Madison even though it has half as many state workers. For all the historic hoopla about Rosa Parks, there is hardly any public transportation but parking downtown is plentiful and cheap.

Wisconsin is not the Alabama of the north, then. It was a nice concluding remark by Hefty and Torinus but it ultimately fails.

A Day of Remembrance

2009-05-25T12:00:00.002-05:00

A Day of Remembrance

We are simultaneously mournful and lucky that men and women in the service chose defending our liberties and values in conflicts from the French and Indian War to Iraq and Afghanistan, whether we agree with the conflicts or not. Some died in the conflicts; others died years later. My grandmother, a genial member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, always described Memorial Day as Decoration Day. The idea was to decorate graves of veterans and war dead.

We should honor the service of those who wear America’s uniform now or who have worn it in the past. My father and my favorite University of Wisconsin Economics professor served abroad during the Korean War but a former UW football player was at the Chosin Reservoir and was lucky to make it back. I am fortunate to know people who served during World War II who are still doing OK. One flew with the Flying Tigers before Pearl Harbor and flew from American carriers after. One was a Medic with the Seabees in the Pacific. One drove landing craft at the bloody battles to dislodge Japanese troops from Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands.

In 2002, I met a man who was making copies of his 1942 high school yearbook. There were 34 boys in his high school senior class. They all enlisted. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy. The other 33 enlisted in the U.S. Army and were all killed in Italy.

Most know that I have a child in the U.S. Navy on an attack submarine at Pearl Harbor. He is far safer than my friends who currently serve in Iraq and Afghanistan but there is always an element of danger when people don the uniform. Ask the people entombed on the USS Arizona if they felt safe until the unexpected attack on December 7, 1941.

Sacking Speaker Pelosi Now American Tradition

2009-05-18T08:58:00.000-05:00

Was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) briefed on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, such as water boarding, or not? When? Current Central Intelligence Agency Leon Panetta and former Director Porter Goss have a different version of events. Pelosi read a parsed written statement repeatedly at her weird press conference, blaming the CIA.

The CIA says they discussed interrogation techniques in general and the methods used on Abu Zubaida in particular with Pelosi in September, 2002 and again in February, 2003. It is now hard to remember how aggressive the CIA was and how compliant Congress was in the wake of 9/11.

Zubaida was probably only a member of al-Qaeda in his mind and that of his interrogators. He was unlike Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a high value capture at the center of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the 1998 bombings at the U.S. Embassies in Africa, the 9/11 attack and the murder of Daniel Pearl. Like his friend Ossama bin Laden, Mohammed fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. Mohammed was captured in Karachi by Pakistanis in 2003.

Smelling Pelosi blood in the water, the press feeding frenzy has started. If Speaker Pelosi stepped down in favor of #2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer (D-MD), it would be in the new American tradition of sacking a sitting Speaker of the House.

It was not always thus. Previous Speakers of the House served for 10 years or more until Jim Wright (D-TX) succeeded Tip O’Neill (D-MA). Wright resigned his job in 1989 under an ethics investigation for avoiding limits on gifts related to his book deal. His successor, Tom Foley (D-WA), lost his seat in the Republican House landslide election of 1994, catapulting Newt Gingrich (R-GA) to Speaker.

By 1998, Newt had lost his mojo and resigned as Speaker. Bob Livingston (R-LA) was unanimously elected to succeed Newt. Then porn publisher Larry Flynt broke the story of Livingston’s affair so he never served as Speaker of the House and House Republicans chose Denny Hastert (R-IL) as Speaker. Hastert was Speaker for eight years until Democrats regained the House Majority in their landslide of 2006. Pelosi turned back Hoyer for Speaker of the House.

Can Pelosi hold onto Speaker or is she too damaged by changing her story too often? She was convenient for President Barack Obama because she was so liberal, he looked like a moderate. Now she is caught in a war of words with a former House Democrat, Leon Panetta. This is an unneeded and unwanted distraction from the job of Speaker, focuses attention on the past and not the future, such as putting more troops into Afghanistan and conducting more military tribunals. He also does not want the compliant press becoming newly aggressive toward him.

House Democrats would be right to sack her.

Kemp and Michaelsen

2009-05-04T21:08:00.001-05:00

News that Jack Kemp has passed away is personal to me. Kemp was a big part of my personal and professional life.

Many are familiar with his story. Success as a quarterback for the Buffalo Bills translated into becoming Congressman from Buffalo. He acquired a national reputation as a champion of tax cuts, enterprise zones and more freedom for all, including welfare recipients and people living in public housing projects. He called himself a “bleeding heart conservative” and was glad to carry a message of hope and change to black and Latino neighborhoods. He ran for President to succeed Reagan in 1988, became Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare for the winner, President George H. W. Bush. Kemp was the candidate for Vice President when Bob Dole ran for President in 1996.

I wrote a paper on supply-side economics in a class at the University of Wisconsin in 1980, mentioning Kemp.

Kemp never called names. He was always positive, always glad to work with Democrats to solve problems. When I worked at Hillsdale College from 1982 to 1984, we used one of his quotes from a speech he delivered there in many campus publications.

When I was a candidate for U.S. Congress from Wisconsin in1984, I attended a National Republican Congressional Committee training seminar in Washington. Kemp was one of the speakers. His friend and star Chad Everett was with him.

I moved to Lansing in 1985 to be a policy advisor to the Michigan Senate Republicans. In the Michigan 1988 primary, I voted for Kemp for President. I was also elected a precinct delegate in Eaton County. The George Bush campaign counted me as a Bush delegate, but I was pledged to Kemp. The Eaton County Chairman was my friend Saul Anuzis, then chief of staff to the Kemplike Sen. Dick Posthumus.

I met the woman who would become my wife through a Jack Kemp fan club in 1993. Many of us thought Jack Kemp should be the Republican nominee for President in 1996 and that Elizabeth Dole, not Bob Dole, should be the candidate for VP. That would have been about attracting swing voters, not just mobilizing the base.

Although it is perfect hindsight, this would have been a pivotal moment for America. We might not be lamenting how far the Republicans have fallen. Had Kemp been President, hope and change would have been Republican ideas.

Two Wisconsins Now

2009-03-30T19:48:00.001-05:00

One Wisconsin Now and Greater Wisconsin Fund is paying for some political advertisements against Dane County Executive candidate Nancy Mistele. The advertisements distort Mistele’s record as a member of the Madison School Board and suggest that the listener call the Mistele campaign office and tell her we do not need her kind as Dane County Executive.

What are One Wisconsin Now and Greater Wisconsin Now? How are they funded?

One Wisconsin Now and Greater Wisconsin Fund are 527 Political Action Committees, PACs. It makes “independent expenditures,” so there is putatively a wall of separation between them and the campaign of Kathleen Falk, the incumbent Dane County Executive. I say “putatively” a wall, because 527s usually make the negative attacks so that a campaign can be positive. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is the most famous 527 and no one dos not associate it with the campaign against Senator John Kerry of President George W. Bush.

One Wisconsin Now is interlocked with the Greater Wisconsin Fund. Money given to one is sloshed over into the other. About half the money given to One Wisconsin Now comes from within Wisconsin and the rest from somewhere else. Only about one-third of the money given to the Greater Wisconsin Fund comes from within Wisconsin. Most of the money comes from national union, liberal and Democratic PACs.

If I can figure this out, why can watchdogs like Wisconsin Common Cause and the Wisconsin Democracy Project not mention them without criticizing contributions to right-leaning 527s? They only say, “A pox on both your houses.”

I suspect One Wisconsin Now and the Greater Wisconsin Fund is buying advertisements against Nancy Mistele for two reasons. One is that Mistele is gathering too much momentum against Falk for their comfort. More mainstream voters believe that Falk prevaricated or worse on the 911 center and supports raising taxes to pay for a commuter rail system that few will ride. The second is that re-electing Kathleen Falk buys time for her to run for another office, like U.S. Senate when octogenarian Herb Kohl retires or U.S. House of Representatives if incumbent Tammy Baldwin runs for the Kohl seat.

There will be no appointment for Falk in Madison or Washington and it is unlikely she could get a private sector job that pays as well as Dane County Executive. She has alienated many Madison liberals, including her defeat of former incumbent Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager before losing to Republican J.B. van Hollen and Governor Jim Doyle, whom she challenged in 2002 and was an early supporter of President Barack Obama. The best chance of Falk is by a campaign for a higher office.

There are two Wisconsins now. There is the Wisconsin of One Wisconsin Now, the Greater Wisconsin Fund, commuter rail, taxes and Kathleen Falk. Then there are the people who work hard to make ends meet, pay their taxes and support Nancy Mistele.

Obama’s Valentine to the Iranian People

2009-03-23T20:05:00.003-05:00

Like a clock that does not run, President Barack Obama is only right twice per day. So his Persian New Year message to the Iranian people on March 20 was one of those times.

The Iranian government and especially Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad underestimated the ability of Obama to deliver a message directly to the Iranian people with Farsi subtitles. The timing was the beginning of the festival of Nowruz, a 12-day holiday that marks the arrival of spring and the beginning of the next year on the Persian calendar. Ahmadinejad and his advisors are not the first people to underestimate Obama and his communications ability.

“We have serious differences that have grown over time," said Obama. “My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.”

Obama is lucky to follow George W. Bush again, who labeled Iran a country in the “Axis of Evil,” but drew no distinction between Ahmadinejad’s nuclear ambitions and the people of Iran. Obama’s approach is both carrot and stick.

Obama said, “The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right -- but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.”

The response of the Ahmadinejad government was both immediate and extreme. Washington must stop accusing Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons and supporting terrorism, charges Tehran denies. What they do not deny is Iran’s desire to destroy Israel.

"Obama has talked of change but has taken no practical measures to address America's past mistakes in Iran. If Mr. Obama takes concrete actions and makes fundamental changes in U.S. foreign policy toward other nations including Iran, the Iranian government and people will not turn their back on him," press adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr told the state-run English-language Press TV satellite station.

The danger for Ahmadinejad is that the Iranian people may turn their back on him when they could vote again for reformers. That is the real value of the Obama message.

New & Improved Links

2009-02-16T16:25:00.000-06:00

A few regular visitors will notice that I have purged links to content that is almost never updated and added links to content which changes daily. Those who visit only when I post something outrageous and newsworthy will not notice.

There are new Wisconsin links and national links. New Wisconsin links are No Runny Eggs, Jo Egelhoff, Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, Recess Supervisor and Fighting Bob. I did not add more liberals because I find them mean and predictable. Sometimes contributors to Fighting Bob and Truth Dig get that way. My friend Paul Soglin is willing to offend both liberals and conservatives but is rarely mean.

Both Shark & Shepherd author Rick Esenberg, a current law school professor and Stanley Kutler, a retired law school professor who sometimes posts on Truth Dig, are smarter than me on legal issues. Not that it takes much to be smarter than me.

Among my national links, I have added Mark Steyn, Truth Dig and Andrews America. When Mark Steyn substituted for Rush Limbaugh, I found him so ironic and funny. I consider John Andrews, who I have known since 1981, to be a friend and mentor.

The ironic thing is that Kutler and Andrews are associated in different ways with the Nixon Administration. Andrews was a young speechwriter in the Nixon White House. It was Kutler who sprung the White House tapes in 1996. Andrews is mentioned three times by Nixon and is taped appearing in the Oval Office only once. Other speechwriters were Ray Price, Pat Buchanan and Bill Safire.

Barack Obushma

2009-01-27T09:16:00.000-06:00

Expectations of those who flocked to Washington and tuned into television around the country for the Inauguration of President Barack Obama are so high, they are bound to be disappointed by the Obama Administration.

Expectations were similarly high for George W. Bush to be transformative in 2000. He worked with Democrats as Governor of Texas so many thought a new spirit of bipartisanship was coming. The Bush Administration squandered opportunities to reach out to Democrats in Congress and were buffeted by events at home and abroad. They failed to privatize parts of Social Security instead of pushing for immigration reform. Then the unexpected events of Hurricane Katrina, the attacks on 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq completely changed the nature of the Bush Administration. They came to Washington to change it and ended up being changed by Washington.

Events are also against the Obama Administration, which is largely peopled by Clinton retreads. Congressional Democrats have priorities which will outlast Obama. Republicans could find their footing again as the party of ideas. If the Obama Administration becomes incremental in its approach to policy, it dashes hopes by supporters for sweeping change.

The Great Depression started with a Wall Street panic worsened by raising taxes and barriers to imports. President Obama and Congressional Democrats could make things worse. On the other hand, federal deficits undermine the ability for President Obama to deliver on expensive promises. Democrats are in a box and risk alienating supporters. Hostility of Obama and Congressional liberals to life and gun rights means that voters for which these are important will be more motivated in the next election.

During the campaign, Joe Biden was criticized for saying that the new President would be tested by a manufactured crisis and that it would not be clear that President Obama was right. “Gird your loins,” he said, sounding less like a candidate for Vice President than an eccentric uncle. It is a dangerous world; maybe a rogue nation will exert power over a neighboring democracy or there will be an attack on American soil. Obama will close Camp Gitmo in a year and take 16 months to remove combat troops from Iraq. They are in danger of figuratively hanging the “Mission Accomplished” sign on an aircraft carrier.

Liberal voters hated George W. Bush, but the continuation of Bush policies at home and abroad by President Barack Obama could result in him becoming Barack Obushma.

Falk’s 911 Albatross

2008-12-15T09:19:00.000-06:00

On the last day of her life, University of Wisconsin senior Brittany Zimmerman, 21, called 911 from her cell phone about noon on April 2, 2008. She was knifed to death in her apartment near campus a short time later.

Police arrived nearly an hour later when her fiancée found her lifeless, bloody body. Zimmerman’s death and the failure of the 911 system to dispatch officers sooner shocked both Madison and her hometown of Marshfield, Wisconsin.

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk repeatedly denied that there are any problems at the 911 center and said Zimmerman hung up on 911 operators. Falk defended 911 Director Joe Norwick until Falk announced she will seek another four-year term in 2009, when she suddenly announced Norwick’s “retirement.”

Even now Falk says a nationwide search for a 911 director resulted in Norwick being selected. This is hard to believe because Norwick was the chief Dane County Deputy to former Dane County Sheriff Gary Hamblin. It is more likely that Hamblin could arrest someone in Falk’s family and the price was continued employment for Norwick. Norwick was unable to tell the Dane County Board how many calls the 911 center received per month after Zimmerman’s death.

Falk’s version of events and repeated denial that the 911 system erred in handling the Zimmerman call appear to be lies. Local reporters have heard the tape of Zimmerman’s call when the warrants in her case became unsealed in error. A struggle and her screams are plain in her call.

The Zimmerman call was cited as the public blackest eye and Falk the leading public enemy in an Isthmus reader poll but the 911 center has mishandled more calls. Two escalating noise complaints came from neighbors of Lake Edge Park between 9 and 10 p.m. on November 11 with no officers sent. A call came about 11 p.m. that there was an unconscious man in the park. There had been a fight and one of the combatants was dead.

Although Falk is wearing the 911 albatross around her neck, her announcement to seek another term in the April 2009 election scared off other Democrats. Mismanagement of public safety and the 911 system are key issues in the campaign of Nancy Mistele against Falk.

Falk’s response to Mistele, a former Dane County school board member, was to say that Mistele lost twice and is an extremist. Most know Mistele lost twice trying to topple Democrat State Senator Jon Erpenbach, is in the private sector and is a moderate Republican. Other candidates are possible.

Apparently Falk forgot that she also lost twice. While serving as Dane County Executive, she lost for Wisconsin Governor in 2002. In 2006, Falk beat the incumbent Attorney General in the Democratic primary before losing to Republican JB Van Hollen, angering some liberals. It does not seem like Falk really wants to be Dane County Executive. Some consider her to be an extremist on environmental and social issues.

Neighborhoods in Madison that considered themselves safe are increasingly plagued by burglary and violence. Falk is only one more bungled 911 call from what many consider a politically fatal third strike.

Raising Taxes a Resort Wisconsin Democrats Will Visit

2008-12-04T21:55:00.000-06:00

Wisconsin’s estimated current $5 billion deficit defies quick fixes. It did not happen overnight. However, a report from the union-dominated Institute for Wisconsin’s Future and the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families says it can be fixed in one year by delaying some tax cuts, raising others and taxing things that are not taxed now.

The report calls it “tax reform,” but it is really a menu of tax hikes. Other states facing such large deficits might ask state employees to work one free day per week, offer early retirement or extend a fiscal year to another quarter to improve revenue. Wisconsin, the report says, is not trying to raise enough revenue so we should pay higher taxes.

Democrats, who now have a majority in the Wisconsin House and Senate thanks to union money and volunteers, say that raising taxes that you and I pay should be a last resort. That is a Wisconsin resort which Democrats will visit.

How did we get here? When Jim Doyle was elected Wisconsin Governor in 2002, Wisconsin faced a $3.2 billion shortfall. Doyle blamed it on former Governors Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum. Low-hanging spending fruit was picked. Gradually, the Doyle Administration “borrowed” from other funds to paper over subsequent operating deficits. Last year, the Governor and legislature raised fees $763 million on registering cars, getting vital records, dry-cleaning clothes and applying to public universities.

The big ticket tax hikes put forth in the report are raising the state sales tax to six percent ($850 million), extend the sales tax to business and professional services ($468 million), bring back the sales tax on motor fuel ($403 million), eliminate state income tax refundable credits ($321 million), eliminate the marriage credit ($275 million), increase the top rate of the state income tax from 6.75 percent to 7.75 percent ($180 million) and reinstate Wisconsin’s inheritance tax ($120 million).

In my case, whatever I save from lowering the state income tax in my bracket could be more than offset by higher sales taxes. A Princeton University study says Wisconsin citizens with higher incomes than mine vote with their feet to leave the state to be replaced by citizens with lower incomes. That means that tax increases will never yield as much as promised.

Families struggling to pay bills, buy food and put gas in the car, cut back where they can. Increasing their taxes penalizes them and increasing taxes on their employers might cause more workers to lose their jobs, too. Republicans will find new backbone in the minority to stand with families. Raising taxes is a sure way for Assembly and Senate Democrats to become the minority again in 2010.

UW Football: Ending with a Whimper

2008-11-16T22:33:00.000-06:00

The turning point of this University of Wisconsin football season was the second half of the game at Michigan. The Badgers squandered a 19 point halftime lead only to lose that game.

Wisconsin’s Homecoming victory 27-17 over Illinois and 35-32 over Minnesota were reminders of how the Badgers have so dashed expectations in the 2008 season. So this team is bowl-eligible at 6-5. Big deal. Four wins were against non-conference patsies and a blow-out of hapless Indiana.

The Badger offense can not sustain time-consuming drives to wear down superior Big 10 defenses and scored mostly on field goals by Philip Welch. This means that the defense is on the field too much. Although the Badger defense is good, they have a tendency to give up the big play, especially against the spread offenses which now dominate the conference.

Previous Badger football teams found new ways to win close games. This team finds new ways to lose. Home field advantage meant little this season. True, the Badgers kept it fairly close to Ohio State before losing badly to Penn State. The drama of the Badger Band this year mirrored the drama on the field. Jump Around, indeed.

I am old enough to remember when the Badgers coached by John Jardine were bad enough to open the seasons of college football powerhouses. The home game scores were so one-sided that everyone came to see the band and stayed for the Fifth Quarter even if the buzz had worn off.

As I said, I’m looking forward to the end of the football season so we can again focus on men’s and women’s hockey. Basketball is here.

Say Nothing against Obama

2008-10-12T21:58:00.000-05:00

Most people have now seen the rants by angry voters at a John McCain town hall meeting in Waukesha on Thursday, October 10, urging McCain to be tougher against Barack Obama and his associates at the third and final Presidential debate. Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, other Obama surrogates and the mainstream media have described the anger and fear of the election of Barack Obama as racist at best and threatening at worst.

Many liberals blame conservative talk radio hosts for whipping up this anger. There are some who believe everything that entertainers say about Obama and Joe Biden on the radio, just as many liberals believe everything that is posted against McCain and Sarah Palin on the Internet.

Because I live and work in a non-partisan Madison establishment, I am surprised when people without prompting express to me their hatred for McCain and Palin. They have even turned down change involving Alaskan quarters, which are the newest state quarters issued. There is no value in arguing or letting these people know that I am a Republican. Only other Republicans and a few colleagues know that I have attended the last three Wisconsin Republican conventions and that I have a McCain sticker on my car.

It is true that the electoral map seems to be trending for Obama. If Obama wins the Presidency, there would be no shortage of mischief Congressional Democrats could wreak upon job providers and our economy. If this results in my paying less in taxes while others I love pay more, then it is typical Democratic class warfare.

In general, though, I am not afraid of a President and Congress controlled by leftist Democrats. Nothing galvanizes us in the opposition like being shut out of power. When Jimmy Carter was elected President in 1976, the House and Senate were controlled by Democrats. This led to the election of President Ronald Reagan and a Republican Senate Majority in 1980. When President Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992, the House and Senate were controlled by Democrats. It led to the Republican takeover of the House and Senate in 1994.

A couple of weeks ago, I drove northwest of Medford for a family gathering. Starting about in Waupaca along Interstate 39, I never again saw a single Democratic sign. If Obama wins Wisconsin, it will because their campaign turns out more votes in population centers than McCain does in the suburbs and the small towns.

Democratic voters tend to be fair weather voters and a smaller voter turnout tends to favor Republicans. I still hope for blowing and drifting snow on Election Day in Wisconsin.

Have Democrats Learned Nothing?

2008-08-26T08:59:00.000-05:00

Choosing Delaware Senator Joe Biden to be the Vice Presidential candidate by Illinois Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama was an electoral mistake for several reasons. The last two unsuccessful national Democratic tickets were two Senators, even though one was already a sitting Vice President. Obama could have chosen a Governor or someone else with management experience.

Although Democrats believe that the ticket of Vice President Al Gore and Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman should have won in 2000 had the Republicans not “stolen” Florida, Gore-Lieberman ultimately lost to a Republican ticket which featured Governor George W. Bush of Texas and Wyoming Congressman Dick Cheney. In 2004, Democrats nominated two more U.S. Senators, Kerry-Edwards against Bush-Cheney.

Why do Democrats keep nominating U.S. Senators even though they do not win? Democrats keep trying to recreate the coalition that was successful in 1960, when Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy chose Texas Senator Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. Winning Texas was more crucial to making Kennedy President than Kennedy’s celebrated victory over Republican nominee Richard Nixon in the televised debate.

When Democrats won the White House in 1992, they broke out of the habit of nominating two U.S. Senators. They chose Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and Tennessee Senator Al Gore.

Choosing someone like Biden, who has served in the U.S. Senate since 1973, undermines the Obama message that Washington is broken and change is about the future. It is also hard to imagine a Vice Presidential candidate who makes Barack Obama look younger and inexperienced, being old enough to be Obama’s father. Joe Biden has a long record of public service, speaks in public better than Obama, made disparaging statements about Obama when Biden was a Presidential candidate and is a gold mine for opposition researchers.

Republican nominee and Arizona Senator John McCain will nominate a running mate last. It is unlikely that McCain will choose a running mate who does not have executive experience.

By choosing Joe Biden, Barack Obama might have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Journalists for Obama

2008-07-31T09:12:00.000-05:00

Writing in the July 14 National Review, Weekly Standard contributing editor Noemie Emery compares how symbiotic the relationship was between Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy and the press and that now the press has become the cheering section for Barack Obama. Emery’s article can be found at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_13_60/ai_n27925970.

Roosevelt and Kennedy cultivated relationships with journalists of their day and became President at 42 and 43, respectively. Both had aggressive personalities, came from successful business families and had a history of military service. Roosevelt had San Juan Hill; Kennedy had PT 109.

Now many journalists have become so effete and self-important, they are ceaseless in their indictments of the evil Republicans and the values of Americans in flyover country. Many journalists came from humble origins to rise through education and experience to their positions.

When they look in the mirror, they see Obama as a reflection of themselves. No experience in the military or business, they believe that Americans cling to guns and religion out of bitterness. A rise from humble origins through education at Ivy League Schools, Obama is just like them – cool, distant and a critic of the status quo.

Roosevelt and Kennedy were never depicted as the second coming of the Messiah with a halo over their heads. It is journalist cheering of everything Obama does and says that makes it seem as if he is divine.

Madison’s Traffic Problems

2008-07-27T21:42:00.002-05:00

Madison has some unusual traffic problems even in summer with most of the University of Wisconsin students away for the summer. It will be worse when the college kids return.

I have lived all across the country, including in cities that dwarf Madison. I also have driven on several college campuses. Madison’s traffic problems were especially noticeable when I drove to central Wisconsin and back, arriving in Madison near bar time on Saturday. Clusters of pedestrians were jay-walking at random.

When the college students return, they pose unusual traffic hazards. Jay-walking students now have their eyes and ears glued to cellular phones instead of watching out for cars. A number of foreign students appear to have obtained their driver licenses by correspondence courses because they seem not to know how big their cars are to drive or park.

Although operating autos safely on the Beltline is an area of emphasis in public service announcements, speed and using turn signals is still random. The speed limit on most of the Beltline is 55 mph. I usually drive 60 mph and am often passed on both the right and left by people driving at least 70 mph.

I work on Mineral Point Road near the Beltline. I currently take the Beltline to work to avoid the construction backup at Mineral Point and Gammon. When there is no road construction, I can get to work in 10 minutes by taking Mineral Point Road. The posted speed limit on Mineral Point is 40 mph. Some drive 50 mph but some drive 30 mph. This is also true of University Avenue between Whitney Way and near campus.

What especially galls me when I am walking is the sheer number of those riding bicycles on the sidewalk. I am not heartless; I am fine with parents and little kids riding on the sidewalk. When I was a student, a lucky few were bicycle enforcement officers, empowered to write tickets for riding on the sidewalk, blowing through red lights and riding in an unsafe manner. Bicyclists operated safely to avoid tickets.

Tickets seem in short supply in Madison for autos and bicycles operated unsafely, however. Police in Madison seem to have their hands too full to respond to anything but accidents instead of preventing them.

Missing Some Things about the South

2008-07-15T23:46:00.001-05:00

I lived in the Deep South for four years. There are some things I miss, but others not so much, in Wisconsin-speak.

Chiefly, I miss the food and drink. Even the best barbecue in Madison is not nearly as good as third-tier barbecue in the South. I miss Community Coffee with chicory. (Yes, I could buy it online.) I miss going to the grocery store, using a buggy instead of a cart, and choosing among two or more brands of sweet tea. I miss the guitreau at Mike Anderson’s with an appetizer of gator bits. I miss fresh hush puppies. I miss Milo’s and real Popeye’s chicken with fresh red beans and rice as a side.

I miss “y’all” instead of “you guys.” Collective is “all y’all.” I miss Baptist pastors who make invitations. I have yet to see an “altar call” in the North. I miss being called “Tiger” because I am wearing purple and gold in Louisiana. I miss Tiger Stadium, which is easily three times louder than Camp Randall.

There are a few things I do not miss. When I first moved to the South, I thought “Sir/Madam” was a sign of respect. Now I know it is rote superficial politeness. In the North, it is replaced by real politeness that seems rude by Southerners. I do not miss how far right Republicans were in the South, where symbolic religious issues often take the place of solving real problems. I was considered a liberal because I was insufficiently extreme. I do not miss voting on long tables with no privacy.

I do not miss people who tailgate at 90 mph on the interstate, then dart suddenly right and down an exit. I do not miss cars and people festooned with Alabama, Auburn, NASCAR Numbers and Christian Fish.

More than anything, I do not miss the weather in the South. It was usually too hot for my Northern blood. In the South, a hot day might be 100 and children and the elderly are warned not to go outside because the air quality is poor. In the North, a hot day might be in the high 80s but a cold day might be -40. I prefer four seasons to the green and brown seasons.

“Over the land of the free and the home of the brave”

2008-07-03T21:31:00.002-05:00

July 4 for many Americans is a beery day of sports, food, boating and fireworks. Historically, of course, July 4, 1776, is the date we declared our independence from Great Britain when this was a risky proposition.

It is such an American holiday. Because it falls on a day off, I will get holiday pay even though I am not working. On the last Independence Day, my younger boy, Eric, was out of the country.

This July 4 has special significance for me because Jens Michaelsen is at sea, not at home on Oahu. Actually, he will be under the Pacific Ocean for several months with more than 100 of his closest friends. While his service is safer than those who serve on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not without risk. He is serving on a boat that was launched and decorated for service during the Cold War before he was even born.

We all weep for the family and friends of those who become casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those of us who are parents never want to bury our children. Some who serve in the Middle Eastern have marked several Independence Days there. However, they are all volunteers.

Jens is a volunteer, too. He enlisted shortly before he was 18 and turned 23, also at sea. Here is a recent picture of him with his girlfriend.

Arrest in One of Three Big Unsolved Madison Murders

2008-06-28T03:48:00.000-05:00

Madison police chief Noble Wray announced Friday that Madison police have arrested a suspect in the murder of hospital equipment salesman Joel Marino. Adam Peterson, 20, was arrested in the metro Twin Cities area. His father told the media that Peterson attended the University of Wisconsin briefly.

Marino was stabbed January 27, 2008, in a quiet working-class lakeside neighborhood. He bled to death en route to a nearby hospital emergency room. The killer left behind a backpack, a hat and a knife in a rush to escape. DNA evidence from the objects matched Peterson.

Meanwhile, Kevin and Jean Zimmerman are suing Dane County and a 911 dispatcher for dropping their daughter Brittany’s cell phone call shortly before she was murdered. Wray said there is not current DNA evidence tying Peterson to Zimmerman’s murder.

Marshfield native and University of Wisconsin molecular biology and immunology student Brittany Zimmerman, 21, was murdered before noon on April 2 2008, in her West Doty Street apartment. It is known that she called 911 just before she died. Zimmerman then either hung up or operators hung up on her; this may never be known. Operators at the 911 system neither called her back nor sent police officers to the Global Positioning System location which all cellular phones now provide. The dispatcher in question was transferred to a county child support agency and might have government immunity for work in the 911 center.

It is likely that a homeless man broke into Zimmerman’s apartment to steal and that she surprised him, leading to her being stabbed. The wrongful death suit by her parents says Madison did not curb homeless people in Zimmerman’s campus neighborhood, Dane County knew it did not have enough dispatchers and they were not trained well. Isthmus reported months ago that dissatisfaction and employee turnover at the 911 center were both rampant. Poor training was cited by many who left.

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk has been dogged by contradictory comments about the Zimmerman call and the 911 system. So has Joe Norwick, director of the Dane County 911 system. At a County Commission meeting after the Zimmerman death, Norwick did not to know how many calls were made to the center monthly and how many are from cell telephones or landlines. Wray, irate about the 911 center not dispatching police to the Zimmerman scene, has pointedly asked how many calls for help in Madison did not result in police being notified. Falk has expressed confidence in Norwick, a former deputy sheriff.

It is possible that Falk and Norwick will receive subpoenas to testify in a Zimmerman trial. That would be embarrassing to both and it would not be surprising if each turns on the other to assess blame.

We are also coming up on the one-year anniversary of the murder of Kelly Nolan, 22. UW-Whitewater student Nolan disappeared from State Street near bar time on June 23, 2007, triggering a national man-hunt similar to that for Natalee Holloway, when she disappeared in Aruba. Nolan’s decomposing body was found in the woods near Oregon, Wisconsin, about a week later. It is not known if there was DNA evidence.

There are other unsolved murders in Madison but murders on campus or downtown explode the myth that Madison is somehow immune from this violence. It is comforting to those of us who are harsh critics of Madison liberals that an arrest was made in the Marino case. Now the Nolan and Zimmerman cases demand attention.

A Remembrance of George Carlin

2008-06-23T09:22:00.001-05:00

News that George Carlin has passed away moves me to remembrance. He was more than a comedian to me, although I found him funny. When I was about 11, I bought “Class Clown.”

As an actor, he was also important in the lives of my children. When Jens and Eric were little, they watched “Shining Time Station,” the PBS show which included the animated Thomas the Tank Engine stories. It featured a mother and her children living at a train station run by a character called Mr. Conductor. For several years, Mr. Conductor was Ringo Starr. For a couple of seasons, Mr. Conductor was George Carlin.

When Jens and Eric were a little older, we watched the two Bill and Ted movies. In “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, George Carlin plays Rufus, sent from the future to keep Wyld Stallions together.

Among the bits of “Class Clown,” were the seven words you can not say on television. That would be fuck, shit, piss, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits. It was in Milwaukee that Carlin was arrested for using them in public. When I hurt myself or when I discovered that my kids had thrown away the operating system on my Macintosh, I would explode in the seven words out loud or abbreviate it just to fuck, shit, piss. My kids heard this so often, they started to abbreviate it FSP. When I was in public, I would think it without saying it out loud.

Although George Carlin has passed away, he lives on in me and in the lives of my children.

Happy Birthday, Petty Officer Michaelsen

2008-06-22T22:38:00.001-05:00

My older son, Jens, is 23 today.

People who know ask if I have sent him a card and present or called him. Jens has asked his grandparents and me to resist sending him a card or presents until he is back on shore in early July. I have bought a card and picked out presents.

I have not called him. Although he has great cellular phone coverage, the signal does not carry to underwater in the Pacific Ocean. If you are so inclined, you can send birthday greetings to Jens at michaejm@bremerton.navy.mil

Was Tamara Greene Killed by Kwame Kilpatrick?

2008-06-20T08:52:00.000-05:00

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was in his first term and Tamara Greene, a stripper known professionally as Strawberry, allegedly performed for a party at the Mayor’s mansion in September 2002. Supposedly, Mrs. Kilpatrick had been out of town and came home unexpectedly and confronted Greene. In this theory, Greene was executed because she knew too much about sex, politics and power in Michigan’s largest city.

What is undisputable is that Greene died in a hail of drive-by gunfire about 3:40 in the morning on April 30, 2003. In the driver seat, she was shot 18 times; three shots were fatal. Her boyfriend, Eric “Big E” Mitchell was hit by five bullets but he survived. The bullets were .40 calibers, fueling many to believe that the killer was a Detroit police officer. Detroit police are armed with a .40 caliber Glock.

There are problems with this conspiracy theory, however. There is no evidence that Greene ever performed at the mansion or that Mrs. Kilpatrick walked in on the party. A number of weapons fire .40 caliber bullets but Glocks are common on the mean streets of Detroit. Nevertheless, the conspiracy theory survives because of Kilpatrick’s legal problems, which is recounted better at http://spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13016. Some believe that Kilpatrick fired Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown because he headed an investigation of the mansion party and Greene’s death.

This is news again because a judge in the suit brought by Greene’s relatives against the city for failing to book her killer asked for homicide files and text messages related to her death. Detroit says the pagers used in 2003 were discontinued in 2004 and there are no longer any records of text messages. Detroit also fought turning over the files, saying police have new leads.

Detroit police say they have new leads, five years after the crime? In 2003, Detroit was in the grip of a murderous rampage which periodically plagues big American cities. Greene was Detroit’s homicide number 113 of 366 in 2003. About half were never solved, including hers.

This is what we know from corroborated testimony by Mitchell and another stripper who was present at a party in Southfield, a suburb just across Eight Mile Road from Detroit. Greene danced for drug dealers, thugs and well-known street toughs in early April 2003. A short man with a light complexion and a record for selling cocaine wanted to have sex with Greene. When she refused, he blackened both her eyes. A giant of a man, Mitchell fought with the smaller man and prevailed.

Greene’s leased BMW was shot-up about a week after the party. Her replacement Buick was idling in gear in front of Mitchell’s home in Detroit when she died so it meandered down the street. Mitchell said he saw an arm with a light complexion holding a pistol out the window of a passing sport utility vehicle and dove for cover in the foot well.

A professional hit would not have left Mitchell alive as a potential witness if Greene was the intended target. Whoever fired the shots sped off instead making sure Greene and Mitchell were both dead, which is why the killing looks more like retribution for the Southfield party and less like a professional job by Detroit police.

Don’t They Get It?

2008-04-26T17:14:00.000-05:00

An item in the Local section of the Wisconsin State Journal said a Madison driver was arrested for operating under the influence (OWI) and operating a motor vehicle without a license. He has been convicted four times for driving under the influence. With last Saturday’s stop, he has a total of three OWI charges pending.

He has seven OWI charges? That means he has driven drunk more times but he was only caught seven times. Each of these times, he was supposed to have an alcohol usage assessment. Current state law should send you to prison after the fifth conviction, sooner if you cause injury or death to someone else.

There are other drivers who have multiple OWI charges. According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, there are about 23,000 drivers with three or more convictions. They also say that the median Blood Alcohol Content level of those convicted of OWI is .017, more than twice the legal limit. Wisconsin Mothers Against Drunk Driving says that 50 percent of all Wisconsin traffic deaths are alcohol-related.

Most of us who live in Wisconsin have driven to or from a place when we should not. Most of us have driven at a time when few cars are on the road and so far or fast so that we have never had an accident. It is not a driving problem, however; it is a drinking problem.

Unfortunately, it is something I know about. I was a binge drinker in college in Madison but I did not have a car in college. I was 22 and working in Minnesota when I was picked up for DWI for the first time in 1980. Driving school reduced the charge. I had a DWI in Virginia about a year later, which was knocked down by my attorney to reckless driving when I went to driving school and AA for six weeks. I became much more responsible.

After my divorce, I gradually lost control of my drinking. My final DWI came in Michigan in 1997, when I received my best and most honest alcohol assessment and was “sentenced” to AA for one year. I have been continuously sober since Jan. 18, 1998. If I never have my first drink, I will never have 20. I do not mind being around people who are drinking, which in Madison is just about everyone.

I had three charges of driving drunk before I became sober. How do people have many OWI convictions and are not able to realize that their problem is alcohol, not driving?

Sex, Lies and Evidence

2008-04-13T21:28:00.000-05:00

Just when one thought nobody could be as foolish as former New York Governor Eliott Spitzer, two sex scandals in Michigan have Democrats there reeling. I lived in Lansing for 15 years and I have never seen anything like it.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick had an affair with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty. Usually, what consenting adults do behind closed doors would not matter so much except Kilpatrick is guarded by 50 Detroit police officers. Among big city mayors, such a large security detail is unusual.

This affair came to light in a police investigation of the security detail and irregularities in the Mayor’s Office. Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown was fired. In a deposition related to Brown’s firing, both Kilpatrick and Beatty said under oath they were not romantically involved. Inconvenient evidence included more than 1,000 amorous text messages between Kilpatrick and Beatty on Detroit equipment. In public, Kilpatrick said Brown was fired for cause. Other text messages from Kilpatrick asked his staff to retroactively come up with reasons for Brown’s ouster.

Brown and another fired officer were awarded $8.4 million. Outside counsel at the trial cost Detroit taxpayers another $845,000. Kilpatrick and Beatty have been indicted on charges of conspiracy, perjury and obstruction of justice. Kilpatrick has been seen with his wife. Beatty is no longer his chief of staff and is looking for work.

Kilpatrick is the son of U.S. Representative Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, a Detroit Democrat. Kwame Kilpatrick’s rise has been meteoric, becoming Detroit Mayor at only 31. Now public sector union leaders have called on him to resign and a recall petition has been filed. Brown is mulling a race for Congress against Kilpatrick.

Michigan Democrats were reeling from the charges against Kilpatrick when another sex scandal unfolded. Tom Athans, husband of U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), was questioned by police in Troy, a Detroit suburb, after leaving a motel where he gave $150 to a prostitute for a sex act. Troy police were trying to break up a prostitution ring and do not prosecute customers who cooperate, as Athans did when police stopped his Cadillac Sedan Deville. In the motel room, police found sex toys, condoms, a laptop and $431 in cash.

If Athans were only the husband of a U.S Senator, it would be embarrassing to the couple. However, Athans is also a key figure in liberal talk radio. He was formerly vice president of pre-bankruptcy Air America and CEO of Democracy Radio. He now heads Talk USA Radio, based in Washington.

If this happened to a Republican or a figure in conservative talk radio, it would dominate the news. There would be calls for resignations and Congressional hearings.

Athans said he found the prostitute on Craig’s List. It is not certain which is more embarrassing to Athans: falling into a Troy police sex sting or paying only $150 for a prostitute. At least Spitzer spent more than Athans. It seems like the City of Detroit, however, has spent so much thus far that Spitzer’s amount looks paltry.

“Damned Dirty Apes”

2008-04-08T09:11:00.000-05:00

News that Charlton Heston has passed away moves me to reflection. He was an actor who played historic figures such as Moses, El Cid, Jonah Ben Hur, Cardinal Richelieu, John the Baptist, “Chinese” Gordon, Michelangelo, Marc Antony and Henry VIII. He won the Oscar as Best Actor in 1959 for “Ben Hur.”

I have not seem all of Heston’s films. I have seen many several times, including seeing “Ten Commandments,” “Three Musketeers,” and “Planet of the Apes” in movie theatres.

Madison liberals tend to remember him as a conservative and President of the National Rifle Association. They tend to forget that he was President of the Screen Actors Guild and a civil rights activist before many of them were born.

John McCain: Back from the Grave

2008-02-05T23:57:00.000-06:00

Nothing has surprised me more than the rebound of John McCain’s campaign from near bankruptcy last fall to front-runner status after wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and several states on Super Tuesday.

I have been a McCain supporter since he did some campaign events for Joe Schwarz for Congress in Michigan in 2004, Schwarz having been the chair of McCain’s upset of George Bush in 2000 and also my friend since 1986. Schwarz, McCain and my older son also have the US Navy in common.

The McCain campaign never responded to my snail mail offering to volunteer as needed. Things looked so bleak and under-funded at Team McCain last fall that I scraped the McCain sticker from my car. I was prepared for someone else to win the Republican nomination for President, such as Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani.

It annoys me that conservative pundits talk about McCain as if he is not a conservative Republican, with a lifetime rating of 82.3 from the American Conservative Union and a recent rating of 88 percent from the National Taxpayers Union. They tend to focus on the 10 percent of items with which they disagree with him instead of the 90 percent where they do agree. They talk about him wanting to close Camp Gitmo or end waterboarding as if he had never been a prisoner of war and never undergone torture.

Despite endorsements by major political figures and newspapers, I think it is not true that McCain is the choice of liberals, party insiders or big government conservatives. He is still refreshingly insurgent and able to reach across the aisle to work with the other party, unlike the current President or the two surviving Democratic candidates for President.

Mike Huckabee’s contribution to this race is both the quip that he wants to be the guy with whom you work, not the guy that laid you off, and siphoning off enough value voter support that Romney might have otherwise won.

It would not surprise me if Mike Huckabee becomes the Vice Presidential nominee. He is not a political hitman in the style of Dick Cheney and his value to the ticket would be to attract value voters who felt taken for granted by Bush/Cheney.

Can John McCain raise enough to be competitive with the Democratic nominee? He probably can.

Wisconsin Voters Deserve an Earlier Presidential Primary

2008-01-14T22:26:00.000-06:00

Wisconsin’s presidential primary was early on the calendar and crucial for candidates running for President for more than 100 years. Wisconsin often was the history-making difference between winning a party nomination for President and losing it. However, so many states have moved their primaries ahead of Wisconsin on the 2008 calendar that Wisconsin’s primary has faded to nearly irrelevant in picking the next President. Wisconsin should move up its date calendar to be more important in 2012.

Wisconsin voters deserve it. The Wisconsin primary was created in 1903 while Fighting Bob LaFollette was Wisconsin Governor, the nation’s second. The Wisconsin primary was famously the end of the road for presidential candidate Wendell Willkie in 1944. John Kennedy beat Hubert Humphrey in the landmark 1960 primary. Morris Udall narrowly lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Wisconsin’s presidential primary did not move from its current date of the third Tuesday in February, yet many presidential candidates skip Wisconsin now except to raise money and identify volunteers until the general election. Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, says Wisconsin’s primary may not matter to picking party nominees for President in 2008. How did this happen?

Presidential primaries and caucuses in 28 states in addition have now jumped ahead of Wisconsin on the 2008 calendar. Twenty-three of them will have primaries and caucuses on Super Tuesday, including states with really large numbers of convention delegates like Illinois, California and New York. This year the date of Super Tuesday is February 5, 2008. Wisconsin’s primary is February 19, 2008.

The 19 states which moved ahead of Wisconsin after 2004 said that their early position would make them more important and that their heavier minority populations make them a better indication of presidential viability than smaller states with small populations of minorities such as Iowa, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Eighteen of the states which jumped ahead of Wisconsin originally had their presidential primaries so late, they had ironically become unimportant in picking a nominee for President.

Leaders in the states of Florida, Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina moved their primaries and caucuses to January. This resulted in Iowa and New Hampshire vaulting to early January to remain first in the nation. The result is that enough party delegates are up for grabs that now presidential candidates can build insurmountable leads to become party nominees even before Wisconsin votes.

It is possible that with so many candidates for President from both major parties in the race, no clear front-runner might emerge on Super Tuesday, which would make Wisconsin’s primary pivotal again. Franklin says it is unlikely but it is possible that two candidates in each party might still be in the race by Wisconsin.

If Wisconsin moved its primary date ahead of Super Tuesday, major party rules would work against Wisconsin. Democratic Party rules say that the presidential primaries in Florida and Michigan, held before Super Tuesday, will not count for picking any convention delegates. Republican Party rules say that they can pick only half their convention delegates at their early primaries. The winners of Florida and Michigan could end up losers in closed deliberations by party insiders.

Special party rules are in effect for Nevada and South Carolina in January to provide regional and ethic balance, however. Wisconsin could join with one of those states to restore the historic importance of the Wisconsin primary. No such special approval would be needed to move the Wisconsin primary to Super Tuesday.

If the past is any guide to the future, more states will move to Super Tuesday before the 2012 election for President. If Wisconsin’s primary does not move forward on the calendar, Wisconsin’s primary will matter less with every future election for President.

Eight Resolutions for 2008

2008-01-02T09:32:00.000-06:00

Many make resolutions on January 1 because of the convenience of setting goals for the ensuing year. For most of my life, I have avoided making New Year Resolutions.

Why I am making resolutions this year is because I am unhappy with my life, unlike in the past. I will also turn 50 during the first week of January 2008. There is not a better time to make resolutions or to make better behaviors new habits. I am making eight resolutions for 2008. It would not be the end of the world if I fall short of my goals.

Some set unreasonable and contradictory goals for which they are sure to fall short. Quitting smoking and losing weight are common. Resolving to drink less while roaring drunk is typically a strategy for failure. Knowing this while making resolutions, I will try to avoid setting up goals that are self-contradictory.

1. Get and open snail mail every day. I have a tendency to only open my mail box when it is convenient for me to do so. There is so much junk mail that it piles up rapidly and my little apartment mail box becomes too full to open, which is a hardship on USPS personnel.

2. Contact my parents and children by email, telephone and letter when I am thinking about them, which is often. I will not contact them only when it is convenient for me, which is rare.

3. Look for my next job two hours every day. There is nothing about my life which would not be improved by better hours, more professional challenge, more money, opportunity for travel and a newer, better automobile.

4. Exercise for 30 minutes every day to improve my flexibility, endurance and appetite. When the weather improves, this could be an hour every second day because I prefer to play sports outside.

5. Play sax for an hour on the days when I do not work. This would be good for my wind and dexterity. If I become good again, returning to playing in public would be satisfying. Get new reeds and a book of jazz standards.

6. Clean my apartment for an hour every day that I do not work. I do not need to live in clutter and squalor.

7. Eat better. Eat more fruits and vegetables and fewer fatty foods. Drink more milk. This goes with Resolution numbers four and five.

8. Make more friends. Be the kind of friend who is known as reliable, kind and thoughtful, not just when I need a favor. Let them know I think about them.

Money and Wisconsin Politics

2007-11-25T11:39:00.000-06:00

Is there too much money in Wisconsin politics?

Many Wisconsin “good government” groups, like Common Cause, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and the League of Women Voters, all advocate reforms in how election campaigns are financed.

It galls them that Wisconsin’s two-year state budget was 101 days late. They do not care that it was Wisconsin Assembly Republicans and Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch who went to the mat to avoid massive state tax increases on Wisconsin families. Never mind that Wisconsin government does not shut down when the budget is late, unlike most states. They see special interest groups behind everything the Legislature does.

They say that the full-time Wisconsin legislature does nothing and that a ban on campaign contributions from PACS, limiting campaign spending or public financing is the key to success. Some Wisconsin legislators, especially the minority and majority leaders of each chamber, are really full-time. Some have other jobs to provide for their families on the days in each week when they are not in Madison. Wisconsin legislators are paid about $47,500 per year plus a per diem of up to $77 per day on legislative business.

That sounds like a lot, but Wisconsin’s legislative salary is actually the lowest of nine full-time state legislatures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Let’s look at the legislative pay of our neighbors. Illinois pays legislators approximately $57,600 and they get a per diem of $125 on session days; Michigan pays about $79,600 per year plus a sum of $12,000 from which they draw a per diem.

There are three effects from banning PAC money, limiting campaign spending or public financing of elections. First, incumbency would be enhanced, because incumbents have an advantage in lists, official mailings to raise name identification and district connections. Potential challengers could not raise money to offset these advantages. Second, as legislators retire, they will be replaced by union activists, retired persons with pensions and millionaires who can all afford to run. The Wisconsin legislature would become more liberal and tax-friendly, run by people who would not serve long enough to develop expertise in public policy so lobbyists will become more influential, not less.

Finally, money is a type of free speech. That was the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo. When money is outlawed, only outlaws will have money. In-kind donations or secret contributions will soar. Disclosure of campaign contributions from any source and amount is healthy for a democracy.

When government reformers propose strong medicine to drive money out of political campaigns, watch your wallet.

Alabama Football Saint or Sinner?

2007-11-16T22:03:00.000-06:00

High school and college football is a religion in Alabama. There are only two seasons: football season and talking about the next football season. So successful at winning football games, Hoover High School head coach Rush Propst has been a saint to many.

Hoover is a growing affluent suburb of Birmingham and Hoover High School is the older of two public high schools there. Hoover won four straight state championships from 2002 to 2005. In national rankings of elite high school football teams, the Hoover Buccaneers have been ranked as high as fourth. A number of former Hoover stars play on college teams now and a few have made it to the National Football League.

Due in part to this success, MTV aired two seasons of “Two-a-Days,” a documentary series focusing on Propst, Hoover players and their friends both on and off the football field. Think “Friday Night Lights” with real people, not actors. Requests for Hoover Buccaneer paraphernalia poured in from all over the country. Hoover’s game with elite John Curtis High School of metropolitan New Orleans was televised nationally on ESPN’s high school sports network.

Now Propst has apparently fallen from sainthood. In addition to forfeiting four games this year for using an ineligible transfer player, Propst abruptly resigned the coaching job he took in 1999. However, he said that he should remain Hoover’s head coach throughout the 2007 high school playoffs and then be an administrator paid his approximately $101,000 annual salary until the end of August 2008. Although the average teacher in Alabama makes about $40,000 per year, the Hoover School Board has often caved in to Propst and granted this request. They also agreed to give Propst a $141,000 annuity when he leaves.

What did Propst do to land in such hot water? Allegations include grade-changing for academically-challenged football players and spying on their rival Vestavia Hills Rebels at practice. Propst boosters tend to blame the charges on fans of the other Hoover high school, the younger Spain Park, which is not nearly as talented in football, and view the minority of school board members that does not want Propst to coach any more Buccaneer games as Spain Park Jaguar partisans.

Spain Park, however, has had nothing to do with Propst’s major public problem; he has fathered three children out of wedlock in another town. He denies being romantically involved with a current Hoover assistant principal. So far there has been no comment from Tammy Propst or the couple’s children in Hoover.

In tearful testimony to the Hoover school board, Propst admitted that he had made mistakes. However, he blamed the charge of grade-changing on a principal who got the boot this summer and a zealous assistant coach. He blamed another assistant coach for spying on the rival. Propst portrayed himself as the victim of turmoil, noting there have three Hoover school superintendents, six Hoover high school principals and three Hoover mayors in eight years as if he and his boosters had nothing to do with any of this.

When “Two-A-Days” aired, Propst apologized repeatedly for using salty language on the program. Apparently, swearing on MTV was the least of his transgressions.

Tiger Ghost of the Past

2007-10-07T11:23:00.000-05:00

My parents, who live in central Florida, came to Marshfield this weekend for my mother’s 55th MHS class reunion so I drove up to see them. While I was there, I went to the Homecoming game on Friday.

I had not gone to a Marshfield High School football game in 30 years. I have some impressions of Homecoming. Marshfield is ablaze in fall colors. Trees near one end zone still drop leaves into Beall Stadium. Closing off the area under the stadium and a permanent concession stand were overdue.

First, there is no longer a Homecoming parade. Because I knew this, I left Madison for Marshfeld about noon. Second, the opponent was not from the Wisconsin Valley Conference. It was Medford, which I suppose was scheduled to guarantee an easy win for Homecoming. It is too bad the Red Raiders had not been informed of this arrangement.

Marshfield had superior athletes to Medford at almost every position. After spotting Medford to a 6-0 lead (Medford must not have a reliable kicker because they always went for a two-point conversion), the Tigers ripped off first down after first down as the huge Marshfield line opened running lanes en route to their only lead of the night, 7-6. The Tigers gave the ball away seven times on five interceptions, one of which was run back 88 yards for a touchdown, and two fumbles. The Tigers gained only 36 yards and one first down in the second half. Medford did not have as many skilled athletes as Marshfield but they did enough to win 26-7.

It reminded me of how unpredictable the Tigers were when I was a student and my friends were players. The Tigers were usually .500. The 2007 Tigers are 4-3 now and will probably miss the WIAA playoffs. It is a reminder that football is called “play,” that players are students and that they are fine young men who will benefit from discipline and teamwork throughout their lives regardless of the outcome.

Third, I was amazed that there did not seem to be Marshfield cheerleaders. I sat on the visiting side so admittedly my vantage point was not the best. Medford had no cheerleaders.

Fourth, I was surprised by the Marshfield High School band. The current drum major is a tremendous showman but the band members are not good marchers; some walk on their heels. Good bands walk on their toes. Admittedly, I am spoiled by living in Madison because the University of Wisconsin band is so good and high school bands here have former and current drum and bugle corps members.

The band left the field with more than five minutes left in half time. They did not play Marshfield’s alma mater nor did they play Medford’s school song. (Medford fans sang their own fight song a capella.) The drummers stayed on the field to play a cadence as the band left but the band did not march out to the waiting busses; they walked out.

Don’t get me wrong: I am glad I went to see my parents. I am glad I went to the game, especially because admission is still only $3, but it might be 30 years before I go again.

Michaelsen Children Now on Two Sides of the Pacific Ocean

2007-09-03T00:10:00.000-05:00

Eric Paul Michaelsen, now 20 and a junior at Kalamazoo College, called me on the morning of August 31 to say he was leaving for Japan. He will be there through March 2008. This will be the third time he has been to Japan but the longest stay. He will be one of many Michigan students at the university in Hikone, which is a city in Shiga Prefecture.

The Japanese call their states prefectures. With Japan’s largest inland lake, Shiga has a sister-state relationship with Michigan and the capital, Otsu, has a sister-city relationship with Lansing, Michigan’s state capital. Shiga includes the historic Japanese capital, Kyoto.

Usually, I have to call Eric to talk with him. He will always be my younger child, glad to help, whether the chore is cleaning behind the oven, picking up dog droppings in the yard or serving as my chauffer when my car broke down in Lansing early this year.

Both of my sons, Jens and Eric, have worked, too. For several years, Eric was a paper boy in Lansing. He has delivered pizzas and worked retail. In the summer of 2006, he was a Park Ranger at a Michigan state park. Last summer, he was a janitor at Kalamazoo.

Eric has always been more like me than his older brother, Jens. Like me, he was an actor in high school drama productions, is a word and picture guy and speaks a foreign language. Like me, he is a fan of old movies. Like me, he has a tendency to act smarter than he really is, using big words when little words will do. A friend of Jens coined a phrase that stuck to Eric: EGB. Eric Genius Boy.

Eric is majoring in Japanese and English. My stated preference was that he should attend the University of Wisconsin to study Japanese, but Kalamazoo College was closer to his home in Lansing. Michigan State University was too close.

Jens is in Hawaii; Eric is in Japan. It is ironic that they are now separated by the largest ocean in the world after being nearly inseparable as children.

What Happens in Pascagoula Doesn’t Stay in Pascagoula

2007-08-23T10:18:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday, a fire at the aging Chevron refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, temporarily sidelined one of the 10 largest oil refineries in America. Although Chevron says most of the refinery is undamaged, it has not restarted yet.

I knew this because my oldest stepchild, John, is working on yet another expansion of the Chevron facility. John is an LSU grad in Construction Management so he, for example, can look at blueprints and calculate the volume of concrete needed. The firm’s employees were evacuated when the fire broke out. He’s OK but his truck smells like burning chemicals inside.

The Pascagoula refinery celebrated its fortieth anniversary in 2003 so many of the pipes carrying crude are old. It makes gasoline and jet fuel, among other products, from crude oil. That transformation requires heat at approximately 1400 degrees F. As news of the fire spread, the price of oil jumped $2 per barrel to $71 on commodities exchanges.

Hurricane Katrina showed how shutting only a few refineries can make a large impact on prices American consumers pay for gasoline and heating oil. As the refineries and oil platforms near the Gulf of Mexico struggled to recover after Katrina, American politicians asked if we had enough oil refining capacity.

Because of stricter environmental standards, there has not been a new refinery built in the United States since 1976, while the number of oil refineries shrank dramatically from 301 to 149. Refineries which still exist have to try to run near full capacity to keep up with American demand. Some areas require special gasoline formulations to reduce auto emissions, which drives up prices everywhere.

Self-serving statements from the National Petroleum Refineries Association say that American oil refinery capacity has increased. “With the amount of new capacity U.S. refiners have added at existing facilities since 1994, it’s as though the industry has been building a new, world class refinery each year,” said Charles Drevna, executive vice president of the association. He says refining capacity has increased by 177,000 barrels per day.

If it is true, should not the price of gasoline and heating oil be lower? The U.S. Department of Energy tracks oil refinery output. While the amount of gasoline supplied by American refineries is about 285 million barrels per month, the amount of refinery capacity devoted to gasoline production has fallen by 10 percent from 1983. The amount of fuel oil produced by American oil refineries has fallen by five percent since the record high production of about 135 million barrels per month in 2001.

As we witnessed after Hurricane Katrina and the Pascagoula refinery fire, American refineries are fewer in number so a disaster at even one drives up crude oil prices. Even tiny swings in the price of crude oil increase the cost of finished products consumers buy. Expect candidates for President of the United States from both major parties to argue for more oil refineries or at least repeal of the laws of supply and demand.

Wearing Politics on Your Sleeve

2007-08-14T23:02:00.000-05:00

Without even thinking about it Monday, I pulled on one of my Mark Green for Governor campaign tee shirt to go to make a deposit at the credit union branch down the street in the Hill Farms state office building. Hill Farms is also the headquarters of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

One of the items I was depositing at the credit union was my Wisconsin income tax refund. Let’s reflect on how incompetent the Wisconsin bureaucracy is that I am getting my 2006 income tax refund in the middle of August 2007. However, maybe the slowness was deliberate. Slowness in issuing refunds might be a decision by political appointees to make the case that people who file paper returns should have to pay a higher fee: a tax on paying taxes. Under Wisconsin’s income tax laws, I could not file electronically in 2006 because I was a taxpayer in another state in 2005. Those who filed electronically got their refunds long ago.

When I needed to title my car at Hill Farms during the gubernatorial campaign, I waited about two hours until my number was called. Others were waiting just as long and were still waiting when I was done. It was all I could do not to go to my car and start handing out Green campaign literature to people who were grousing about how long they were waiting. Of course, it is not permitted to campaign on state property. Make Wisconsin great again, indeed.

But I digress. Everyone turned to look at my shirt; you could almost hear the vertebrae cracking, but no one commented. Contrast that experience to when I wear a Mark Green shirt to private businesses such as the grocery store. People will make unsolicited comments such as “I voted for him.” Because hardly anyone has seen a McCain sticker on a car, I often get comments about that, too. Navy veterans comment about the Navy Dad sticker.

Sometimes I go to the credit union near downtown at the corner of West Washington Avenue and Regent Street, where I often run into people I know. On one of those visits in early 2007, I ran across Chris Green, Mark’s brother, who works in Madison. Ironically, that very day I had eliminated Chris Green from my cell phone’s speed dial. I gave Mark Green 10 to 15 days in 2006, which is why I have a couple of Mark Green for Governor tee shirts.

Because it is Madison, I see a fair number of shirts for Democratic candidates for President and bearing anti-Bush slogans. Mark Green for Governor is politically incorrect.

I Came, I Saw, Iraq

2007-07-28T22:52:00.000-05:00

Julius Caesar said about Gaul, “Veni, vide, vici.” I came, I saw, I conquered. It was elegant in simplicity. There is nothing elegant or simple about Iraq, however, nor do we seek to conquer it.

Americans and American politicians are polarized. Some want the troops pulled out of Iraq as soon as possible because our troops are targets and our very presence in Iraq creates a fertile recruiting ground for terrorists. Some want to stay the course and fight terrorists far from American shores. There is a disconnect between Democrat and Republican candidates for President of the United States. Democrats only talk about ending American troop presence in Iraq; Republicans only talk about the war on global terrorism, including al-Qaeda.

It is indisputable that American casualties in Iraq are far lower than in other conflicts such as World War I and II, Korea and Vietnam. That is cold comfort to the loved ones of those killed and wounded in Iraq’s random violence. It is almost a cliché to say that we won the war but are losing the peace. The shock and awe of the military campaign has given way to shock and awe by insurgents.

Might the troop surge work while the Iraqis prepare to fight their own battles? Of course it might. American troop presence certainly keeps Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions from wholesale slaughter of each other. Instead, it is only retail factional slaughter.

What if the troop surge does not work? If we pull out of Iraq, will there be a bloodbath between Shiites and Sunnis or led by neighbors such as a mostly Sunni Syria, a mostly Shiite Iran and an anti-Kurd Turkey? Will Iraq as we know it dissolve in the type of ethnic cleansing we saw between Hutu and Tutsi tribes in Rwanda, between ethnic Serbs and Muslim Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia or which is still occurring with disturbing frequency in Sudan?

Perhaps it will; perhaps it will not because a pan-Arab force or a stronger central Iraqi government will emerge. Perhaps Iraq should never have existed as a country at all. Iraq was one of the countries created by the British and the League of Nations from the defeated Ottoman Empire’s huge Middle East holdings after World War I. Americans should not shed blood without end to preserve an old mistake of geography.

We do not have to surrender in the war against global terrorism if we withdraw troops from Iraq. We will instead have the resources to respond disproportionately to terror threats wherever they arise. We will also have the resources to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. Veni, vide, cecedi. I came, I saw, I killed.

Newtonian Laws of Legislative Bodies

2007-07-17T21:43:00.000-05:00

A type of Newtonian law governs the actions and inactions of legislative bodies, such as the Wisconsin legislature and Congress. It is not Newtonian in the physics and gravity sense, although some of those laws about motion and force seem to apply, too. Instead, think of them as Michaelsen’s Laws of Motions.

During the course of a long career in higher education and government, I have observed some phenomena that fit proverbs often coined by others. Many are also true of organizations in the private sector.

1. Success has many parents but failure is an orphan

This is as true now as it always was and is independent of issues because in state and federal legislative bodies, coalitions rise and fall around issues. The corollary is there is nothing we can not accomplish if we do not care who gets credit.

2. Nothing focuses attention like a deadline

Don’t believe it? Consider state and federal budgets. The legislative branch of government will have long public hearings at which many people speak or read verbatim from prepared remarks and in which elected officials engage in long soliloquies. However, the budget has to pass before the fiscal year begins to avoid government shutdowns, payless government worker paydays and interruption of services to those who receive assistance. There is also a flurry of activity near the end of a legislative session. In the private sector, approaching deadlines often mean all-nighters or racing to meet express delivery deadlines.

3. Even a clock that doesn’t work is right twice per day

We all know people with whom we disagree most of the time or who never seem to do anything of value. Once in a while, those people are right.

Because we disagree with them and they have cried “Wolf” so often, we tend not to believe them when there is a wolf approaching. The corollary is that even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally, so even a nut is right sometimes.

4. You dance with the one who brought you

We are shocked, shocked when the organizations that helped elect legislators and members of Congress influence the type of legislation they sponsor or shape their positions on bills and amendments.

In the private sector, this means that the client base and the person who hired someone might influence his or her job performance. We take that for granted. Elected officials are no different in this respect.

5. We can disagree without being disagreeable

This is not a generational issue, as many think, nor is it necessarily going along to get along. Some Wisconsin legislators and members of Congress, associations, lobbyists and their ilk disagree vehemently on fundamental issues. There are members of the Wisconsin legislature who could not disagree more that are personal friends. Some agree on ends and disagree on means. Former House Speaker Tip O'Neill and President Ronald Reagan could not disagree more on means but they were great friends. Lobbyists that oppose each other are often friends, too.

It is nothing new that liberals and conservatives are at the throat of each other. Disagree with one of the less amiable members and they will label you stupid, a tool of the most evil opposition they can name and a waste of oxygen. Mean-spirited rhetoric is unfortunately nothing new in the public arena. Compromise is not in the lexicon of the self-righteous regardless of party label.

Contrast that with the private sector. People who are direct competitors have so much in common that they are great friends. They do not wish that their competitor’s spouse and children leave them, their house burns down and their pet dies.

Happy Disindepence Day

2007-07-05T21:43:00.000-05:00

July 4 for many Americans is a beery day of sports, food and boating but I worked a few hours at a retail job in Madison. When I worked on July 4 in the American South, customers would often share a plate of food from home. Barbecued ribs, chicken and fish were common with baked beans, potato salad and some home-made sweet tea. Now that I am Up North again, I might have anticipated the offer of a bratwurst, kraut and an ear of corn but no such offer was forthcoming. Southern hospitality is not just a cliché.

I wished people a Happy Independence Day. It is such a uniquely American holiday, celebrating our declaration of independence from Britain in 1776 when it was a risky proposition. The response by most Americans was “you, too.” I pulled a chair outside to watch the Madison fireworks display against the night sky.

Madison is also home to many foreign-born students and workers. Most born elsewhere who are not naturalized U.S. citizens clearly were not expecting a holiday greeting and did not know what to think. Most probably date their independence to throwing off their home country’s colonial oppressors even though many traded one repressive regime for another. As the Who said: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

It was a hot day for Madison; it was sunny and about 85. I went to the grocery store for some items. As I left, a woman wearing a niqab walked in. A niqab is what Americans think of as a burka. It is full face covering with slits for the eyes. She was also wearing a full-length black gown. She bowed to how hot it was by wearing sandals. I see many hejabs worn even by native-born Americans (as a father, I am picturing this lecture: “As long as you live under my roof, you will follow my rules”) but I had never seen someone wearing a niqab before. She was leading a little bareheaded girl.

I did not wish her a Happy Independence Day. A religious society that requires her to wear a niqab in public does not believe in independence of thought and action. What kind of message does her public apparel send to the little girl?

America prides itself on being a free society with a division between religion and state. Are we too tolerant of the intolerant?

Doctrinal Purity & Minority Status

2007-07-03T08:10:00.000-05:00

Although I admire and largely agree with Republican Wisconsin legislators elected in the Wisconsin counties of Washington and Waukesha and the conservative talk radio hosts and bloggers who cater to them, they have been drinking their own wine.

Many are figuratively willing to throw more moderate Republicans elected in other counties under the bus, threatening to field more conservative Primary Election challengers to them. Instead of concentrating on the 85 percent of issues on which moderates and conservatives agree, they focus on the 15 percent where they disagree. Some have talked about toppling leaders they perceive as moderates.

They believe the lesson of the 2006 election Republican bloodbath is not a Newt-like Contract with Wisconsin of lower taxes, more opportunities and government reform, but more leeches. What elected them in Washington and Waukesha, however, is not always the same as that which elects Republicans in other counties. As Speaker, Newt understood this and did not always insist on doctrinal purity.

They have failed to consider three other inconvenient facts. First, backing an unsuccessful Primary Election against an incumbent is a risky strategy. If the incumbent is returned, retribution will be swift. Second, because Wisconsin’s primary is so late, fending off a primary challenge diverts resources from the General Election. It would be hard cheese if the Republican incumbent, with whom they agree 85 percent of the time, were replaced by a Democrat with whom they might agree 15 percent of the time. Third, if toppling leadership were easy, the U.S. Senate would no longer be led by Harry Reid. It is wrong to underestimate the power of caucus leaders to punish and reward.

Madison’s Vang Pao Elementary School: On and Off

2007-06-21T08:22:00.000-05:00

In the mountainous region of Laos, the Hmong people were American allies during the Vietnam War. They rescued downed American fliers and attacked convoys moving supplies from North Vietnam to the Viet Cong along the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos. It is likely that Vang Pao’s “Secret Army” also carried out covert missions in neighboring Vietnam. Some Americans believe that Vang Pao financed arms and leadership though the opium trade with either the knowledge or complicity of the Central Intelligence Agency.

It is undisputed that the CIA recruited Vang Pao because he had already become legendary as a guerilla fighter against the Japanese during World War II and against the French during their ill-fated efforts. When the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam and the Communist Pathet Lao swept to power in Laos in 1975, the U.S. Congress cut funds to the “Secret Army” and many were killed by Communists. Vang Pao led survivors to Thailand and then to North America.

Public and private U.S. relief agencies settled many Hmong people in the Midwest. There are so many Hmong people in Wisconsin, they are the third largest minority group in the state and the largest in many individual state cities. Official Wisconsin state notices and signs are often in three languages: English, Spanish and Hmong.

To please the Hmong community, the Madison School Board voted unanimously to name a new elementary school for Vang Pao, who is regarded by older Hmong people as a cross between George Washington and Ho Chi Minh. Some other Madison public schools are named for Cesar Chavez, Samuel Gompers and Malcolm Shabazz. Hmong community leaders in Madison have already participated in the ceremonial ground-breaking.

When the Hmong people are seen as victims, the tendency by social liberals is to give them something symbolic but when they are viewed as U.S. allies in Vietnam, their anti-anti-Communist reflexes kick in. Misgivings by older Madison Vietnam war protestors about the possible Vang Pao history of drug trade, forced conscription of children and summary executions were ignored. Now 77, Vang Pao has raised millions of dollars among Hmong refugees in the U.S., issuing colorful certificates allowing the bearer to return to Laos in the future when the Communists are no longer in power.

Recent events have made the Madison School Board squirm. In early June, Vang Pao and eight co-conspirators were charged with trying to buy hundreds of AK-47s, shoulder-fired missiles, mines and explosives to topple the Communists who still rule Laos. Their mistake was trying to obtain the arms in California, where they were stung by federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigators posing as arms dealers.

Among older Hmong people, attempted shipment of weapons from California to Thailand to be used by dissident Laotian soldiers and mercenaries against the Communists in power actually increases Vang Pao’s stature in their eyes. There have been polite rallies for Vang Pao in front of federal courthouses in several American cities.

About 10 days after the indictments, the Madison School Board unanimously reversed itself to not name the new elementary school for Vang Pao. They are considering naming the school for the neighborhood where it will be located or for retired Madison school administrators and or other celebrities who are still alive and have the possibility of embarrassing them, too. They forgot that most schools are named after someone who has been dead for decades.

If Vang Pao were already dead, the naming decision would have stood. However, he has cheated death many times on the battlefield and in assassination attempts in the U.S., probably ordered by Communists in Laos. For someone who has been so close to death so often, facing federal conspiracy charges is probably less troubling to Vang Pao than to Madison liberals.

A Tearful Farewell

2007-06-03T22:06:00.000-05:00

My older son Jens Michaelsen stopped to stay overnight with me in Madison on his way to Seattle, Washington. It was great to see him and hard to see him go. We were both choked up and we hugged several times.

Until he arrived late in the evening on May 31, I do not think I have seen him in person since he graduated from the United States Navy Nuclear Power Training Command “A” school in Charleston, South Carolina in 2004. During the four years that Jens was in Charleston, we talked about once per week by telephone. That is about to change.

United States Navy Electrician’s Mate 2nd Class Jens Michaelsen will be flying from Seattle to Pearl Harbor to join the Pacific Fleet. He will be serving on a Los Angeles-class attack submarine; one of these, the USS Dallas, was immortalized in Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October.” Even the best cell telephone service does not have coverage underwater in the Pacific Ocean. He will celebrate his 22nd birthday at sea in about three weeks.

I can not think of either son without remembering what they were like as infants, toddlers, school children and the young adults they became. Jens was a far better athlete than I was. He was a great soccer and baseball player until the age of about 10, when he became a devoted inline skater. He became a very good swimmer in high school.

It was in math and science where Jens really stood out from his classmates, yet he never flaunted his academic success. I was sitting with some other parents at the swimming awards banquet. When he received a special award for having a 4.0 grade point average, the gasps were audible.

Now Jens is employing his math and science acumen for us. At the Navy Nuclear Power Training Command, Jens was exposed to instructors and classmates that were smarter than him.

How do you know when nuclear propulsion specialists are doing their job well? When there are no reactor accidents. The United States has not lost a nuclear submarine since 1963, when the USS Thresher was lost with all hands in the Atlantic Ocean when a seawater leak shut down the reactor.

Losing the USS Thresher was huge blow to the father of the nuclear fleet, Admiral Hyman Rickover. It was a bigger blow to the 129 hands that were lost at sea and their loved ones. It is a reminder to all submariners that service underwater is not without risk.

Between Iraq and a Hard Place

2007-05-26T00:06:00.000-05:00

Increasing polarization between those who want to bring the ground troops from Iraq either immediately or say they want a time-table for withdrawal and those who want to stay the course and say a time-table tells the insurgents that they are winning alienates the American people who have conflicting feelings about the war. This polarization is exploited by candidates for President who play to their respective bases. Political posturing makes compromise difficult.

It is now indisputable that Saddam Hussein, his sons and his Baath party administration used rape, torture and murder to tyrannize the Iraqi people. Saddam behaved as if he still possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction after using nerve agents against the Iranians and the Kurds. After the first Gulf War, the U.S. encouraged the Shiites to rise up against Saddam and he put down this rebellion brutally. It was for this crime that he was hanged.

Hailed as liberators when we deposed Saddam, our attempt to be an occupying army has not gone well. Some of our children, parents and spouses have come home in boxes. Others have been severely wounded to come home to Walter Reed and other Veterans Administration hospitals that have poorly served them.

In the 24-hour news cycle, we have become so sensitive to immediate gratification. We think American losses as staggering but they pale in comparison to losses in World War II, the Korean conflict and the Vietnam War. Iraqi civilians are killed in droves by what has been called a sectarian civil war but there are so many factions, it is more properly understood as civil strife. If we pull out of Iraq, this killing will intensify as rival militia death squads round up the usual suspects.

Only former Wisconsin Governor and presidential candidate Tommy Thompson has proposed a reasonable Iraq policy. First, the people of Iraq need to vote on a referendum if the U.S. military should stay or go. If they no longer want us, we should go. Second, Iraq’s 14 districts should elect governments so Iraqis will gravitate to Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish areas. Third, Iraq’s oil revenue should be divided between the federal government, provisional governments and the Iraqi people, like in Alaska.

In the early going, Thompson has self-destructed in remarks about gays and Jews. He will not be considered a running mate by a Republican nominee because he has yet to hit double-digits anywhere outside Wisconsin. It is more likely that Thompson will remain in the more lucrative private sector and asked to lead international and domestic missions.

The Iraqi parliament is already wrestling with the future of oil revenue distribution because Iraq’s current oil wells are in Shiite and Kurdish areas and pipelines are frequent insurgent targets. Polarization is even more dramatic in Baghdad than in Washington and compromise is just as elusive.

Expectation of Privacy vs. Duty to Warn

2007-05-20T21:03:00.000-05:00

Those of us who have worked in full-service and self-service copy centers are expected to guard the privacy of customer documents.

After all, we would want people to guard our Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and trade secrets. I have often told those copying sensitive documents not to leave the copies face up, leave the originals on self-service copy machines or shred accidental or bad copies. It is not permissible to make color copies of money, bonds, stamps and ID cards or any copies of copyrighted material to which the person who seeks copies does not own the rights.

I have seen otherwise sensible people succumb to variations of the Nigerian Bank Scam, faxing their Social Security Numbers and bank account information to claim international sweepstakes they never entered or biting on the potential of getting rich with the help of a person they have never met in the Ivory Coast. If I see them about to do this, I feel a duty to warn them.

There were two cases in which I absolutely refused to help persons and warned them that what they were seeking was illegal. A foreign friend and naturalized citizen wanted help making two-sided color copies of airline tickets, which is sort of like making two-sided color copies of money. Hispanics who barely spoke English wanted my help scanning a vehicle title and changing the Vehicle Identification Number. Squealing to the authorities never entered my mind.

The six who conspired to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey ordered a VHS tape of people shooting guns and making jihadist statements converted to a DVD. When the employee who was charged with making the copies realized that these were potential terrorists, he contacted the authorities. Thus began a 16 month FBI surveillance of the Fort Dix Six.

Some employers would not celebrate this tip or guard the worker’s identity, as this particular employer did. Some employers would look for an excuse to terminate this worker for not guarding customer confidentiality.

Wisconsin: A One-Plate State?

2007-05-18T09:47:00.000-05:00

At the Joint Finance Committee, a motion to make Wisconsin join the list of one-plate state passed 9-6 yesterday. It made less news than issuing drivers licenses to illegal immigrants.

Opponents worried that law enforcement needs two license plates so that they can see from the front if a driver is wanted or a car is stolen. Rep. Kitty Rhodes said it made possible phoning in tips when a driver was driving erratically due to drunkenness or other possible distractions. Proponents said it could save money.

Current one-plate states include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

Of course, Wisconsin would move to a one-plate state after I moved here from living in a series of one-plate states and had to sink bolts into my front bumper because the holes on the bumper did not match the holes on the license plate.

The New New New Chrysler

2007-05-16T10:22:00.000-05:00

News that Daimler Benz is selling money-losing Chrysler Corporation to private investment firm and turnaround expert Cerberus Capital Management fills me with mixed feelings. Chrysler lost about $2 billion last year. Cerberus will pay $7.4 billion for the company. Cerberus turned around the Merwin’s department store chain, Air Canada, GMAC, and the car rental firms Alamo and National. They have lave slashed employees and brought companies out of bankruptcy. This is their biggest deal yet.

I lived in Michigan for about 25 years. Everyone knows people who work for the Big Three or for the industries that supply them and decisions made by management and the United Auto Workers dominate Michigan news. Employee ownership plans means that Dearborn is full of Fords, Flint is full of Buicks and Lansing is still full of Oldsmobiles. The Detroit Red Wings have a wheel on their jerseys. The Detroit Pistons are named for an engine part.

The old Chrysler Corporation meandered from building muscular cars to building big, bloated gas-guzzling boats when the OPEC embargo nearly killed it. The New Chrysler was bailed out by federal loan guarantees and headed by Lido Iacocca when Chrysler introduced the K Car and the Minivan. The new New Chrysler was created by Daimler Benz acquiring Chrysler. Now the acquisition by Cerberus is the new new New Chrysler. I was hoping Detroit financier Kirk Kerkorian would buy the corporation.

Daimler ownership has been a mixed blessing. Chrysler and Jeep make distinctive vehicles with superior engineering. They are more fuel-efficient. Unfortunately, the best Chrysler executives retired or were forced out by Daimler. The time from concept to development became longer, not shorter, and the company became less nimble. Many were suspicious the Germans were running Chrysler into the ground because their focus was on making and selling Mercedes Benz models. Daimler selling Chrysler to Cerberus Management is an admission that they made a mistake when they acquired Chrysler. Good riddance to Dieter Zetsche.

I have owned four Chryslers which are a microcosm of the company. The best was my first car, a 1966 Chrysler Newport. My first car after college was a 1977 Plymouth Fury, which was a Wisconsin Department of Transportation car my father bought at a state vehicle auction. Even though the energy-saving speed limit was 55 mph, I would often cruise at 85-90 mph with the assistance of a radar detector. People thought I might be a state trooper because they drove Plymouth Furies and they all slowed down and moved to the right lane. The transmission let go near Elkhart, IN, in a driving rainstorm and the car was never right after that. When I sold it, I had owned it less than four years. In movies from that era, like the “Blues Brothers,” the appearance of late 1970s Plymouth Furies means a car pile-up is coming.

I bought a 1992 Dodge Spirit in 1997 because it was cheap and had low mileage. It got nearly 30 miles per gallon of gasoline. I totalled that car in an accident in 2000 and the insurance settlement was more than I owed. I replaced it with a 1995 Plymouth which was cheap, had been a fleet car and had low mileage like the Spirit. Like the Spirit, it was a newer version of the K Car. This car has needed one major repair after another. Gas mileage is about 25 miles per gallon but it fell as low as 10 miles per gallon before another major repair. I’ve taken to calling it the Disclaim. When I am rid of it, it will be the Exclaim. I hope to never own another Chrysler. Mail offering special financing on new Chryslers goes straight into my recycling bin.

My parents and I have mostly owned General Motors vehicles. My children have only owned General Motors vehicles. My next vehicle will probably be made by General Motors.

“A Nation’s Horse” II

2007-05-11T11:32:00.000-05:00

NBC, having produced “Barbaro: A Nation’s Horse” and lined up advertisers, showed their documentary Saturday, May 5 in prime time.

Over a syrupy soundtrack was footage of Barbaro’s greatest wins, pulling up with a shattered leg in the Preakness, and slide from successful surgery to illness and death months later. Narrator Bob Costas, Roy and Gretchen Williams, trainer Michael Matz , jockey Edgar Prado and others must have called him a “special horse” and a “gifted athlete” at least 20 times. Barbaro was compared to Triple Crown winner Man O’ War.

It has been surprising to me how much interest has been expressed on websites about when the program would air on NBC and how many have tributes to Barbaro. It is such a relief that a DVD of this program is available from NBC Sports for only $19.95 so fans can beat a dead horse again and again.

The hero of this story is not Barbaro but Matz. Matz not only walked away from a fiery airplane crash but he saved three children in 1989. He went on to win a silver medal for equestrian jumping at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta and carried the U.S. flag at the closing ceremonies. The documentary, because it was about Barbaro, does not mention it was the third Olympics and first medal for Matz, that the medal was a team medal shared with two others and said only he had retired from jumping to go into racing. Actually Matz was at the pinnacle of equestrian jumping; he was U.S. national champion six times and retired as the all-time money winner in jumping.

Captain Brian Freeman was not as fortunate as either Barbaro or Matz. A West Point graduate, Freeman trained with other Olympic hopefuls from the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation. Freeman began as a bobsled brakeman teamed with Olympic medalists and then started competing in skeleton. He never made it to the Olympics and he never will. He retired from active service but his reserve unit was called up and sent to Iraq. At 32, he was killed in a firefight near Karbala.

A documentary of Freeman’s sports competition is not available from NBC Sports. However, it would not surprise me if “Seung-Hui Cho: America’s Killer” is in development for NBC’s Infotainment Division.

Graduating Class of 2007

2007-05-04T15:17:00.000-05:00

Soon the University of Wisconsin-Madison will graduate its senior class. Drivers near campus will have to dodge young people in caps and gowns. Some of them will soon start good jobs or have been accepted to graduate and professional schools. Proud parents will be driving slowly around town and turning randomly because they are not quite sure how to get where they are going.

I understand their pride in their children’s achievement, mixing their memories of childhood and this new chapter in their lives. My older son is their age and looks forward to the adventure of a new job.

In addition to the Wisconsin alumni sticker on my car is a sticker that really stands out in liberal Madison. It’s not “Kerry-Edwards” or “Attack Iraq? No.” but here it seems to be just as political. It’s “Navy Dad.”

A math and science whiz, Jens Michaelsen is starting the fifth year of an eight-year commitment to service. After four years at the Navy Nuclear Power Training Command – two as a student, two on staff – he will be flying to Pearl Harbor this month to serve on a nuclear-powered submarine. He is a Petty Officer Second Class, which makes him the equivalent of a Sergeant. Jens will be 22 next month; “Accelerate your life” is not just a U.S. Navy recruiting slogan.

My kids went to a high school in Michigan similar to Madison East. Inexplicably, Jens never sought admission to college in Michigan and rebuffed recruiting efforts by the University of Illinois. While in high school, I took him on campus visits to the University of Wisconsin - Madison and Auburn University. If he had gone to college, he would be graduating this year and it would be me driving around town slowly and turning at random.

Jens will have an undergraduate degree, courtesy of Uncle Sam, and can use his Montgomery GI Bill education benefits to attend graduate school. He knows that I now discourage him from going to the University of Wisconsin - Madison, despite the school’s leadership in Nuclear Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, because I perceive Madison as being hostile to servicemen and women.

We all empathize with those who have loved ones serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and we weep for those who are casualties. Calling for ground troops to come home is qualitatively different than opposing Selective Service registration and service recruiting, however. The 53 organizations in the Madison Area Peace Coalition, including Progressive Dane, think Jens was wrong to enlist. They want to keep military recruiters out of Madison’s high schools so other young adults don’t make his “mistake.”

Not every high school students wants to go or can afford college right away. Madison liberals seek to deny them the ability to choose the military as an option to minimum wage jobs and unhappy college experiences.

“A Nation’s Horse”

2007-04-29T18:41:00.000-05:00

Not Seabiscuit, who came from nowhere to provide a needed diversion to people suffering from the Great Depression and to win the legendary match race against Man O’ War, the winner of the Triple Crown. Not Secretariat. Not even Affirmed.

No, NBC’s shameless run-up to the Kentucky Derby was the infotainment feature “Barbaro: A Nation’s Horse,” which was supposed to air on Sunday April 29. It was pushed to cable by the New York Rangers double-overtime win over the Buffalo Sabres in their Stanley Cup quarterfinal.

I’m sorry Barbaro shattered his leg on national TV at Pimlico, where the second race in the Triple Crown is run. I’m sorry that despite heroic measures to stabilize his leg, he never really recovered. I’m sorry he had to be put down.

But let’s get real. Barbaro was a horse bred for racing and could have looked forward to a retirement of stud service. He was owned by wealthy horse nuts Roy and Gretchen Jackson and Barbaro was one of 15 to 25 thoroughbreds they have in training at any time. They have owned 25 horses that have run in the Kentucky Derby, five each which finished second and third. Their horse won the English steeplechase equivalent of the Kentucky Derby on the same day that Barbaro won. They sold that winner and another horse for more than $2 million each.

Was he really a nation’s horse? Did we lower our flags to half-staff when he died?

Da Games

2007-04-16T13:54:00.000-05:00

Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games will fail when the Selection Committee meets in October 2009. Why? It is Chicago and not as exotic or as beautiful as Rio, Prague, Madrid, Tokyo or Rome, it’s competitors.

This won’t keep Illinois Governor Rod Blagjovic, who has had the kind of ethical challenges that so far have eluded Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, from raising millions to grease the palms of Committee members and put a happy face on Chicago. Constructing an Olympic Village and stadiums would reward his political contributors. Presidential candidates will soon advocate bringing the 2016 Summer Games to Illinois.

The Olympic Games have never been held in South America. The choice of Rio means that there will not be the weird tape delay problem for American television viewers and advertisers which plagued the Summer Games in Athens and Melbourne and will plague the forthcoming Summer Games in Beijing.

Rio needs the housing and employment that construction would bring. Chicago would be totally confused by Team Handball, too.

My Big Adventure with Tommy & Newt

2007-04-05T12:38:00.000-05:00

Former Wisconsin Tommy Thompson had already announced on ABC-TV’s “This Week” program on Sunday that he was formally declaring as a Republican candidate for President of the U.S.

As a result, the faithful and those who felt obligated to attend the first Wisconsin declaration by Thompson April 4 at Bishop Messmer High School in Milwaukee already knew that he was in. Nevertheless, the affection and pride for Tommy was great. There were at least 1,000 in attendance, more than half of which were students at Messmer and the allied Catholic elementary schools. Media trucks lined up outside Messmer beamed the images all across the state.

Fitting for a former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy spent much of his half-hour speech talking about health and health insurance issues. His Iraq plan will be stolen by candidates in both parties. It is a far better plan than Sen. Joe Biden’s forced Iraq partition plan, for example.

It starts with an Iraqi referendum on American presence. “If they say yes, we have a mandate to stay. If they say no, we will bring the troops home.” Second is election of state-like governors in the 18 Iraqi provinces. “Sunnis will elect Sunnis, Shiites will elect Shiites, Kurds will elect Kurds,” he said. Iraqi people will gravitate to provinces headed by leaders they trust. Third, give everyone a stake in the oil revenue: 1/3 to the federal government, 1/3 to the provinces and 1/3 to “every man, woman and child in Iraq,” similar to the Alaskan Dividend Plan which distributes a share of oil revenue in that state, so that Iraqis will hold their government leaders accountable.

Messmer was an obvious choice, both literally and figuratively. The school has prospered under Milwaukee’s schools of choice plan, which Thompson championed. The student body is mostly black and both the elementary students and high school students wear uniforms. High school attendance is 98 percent. About 90% of Messmer graduates attend college. The high school junior who sat next to me said he intends to attend UW- Madison and become a dermatologist. The gym where we sat is newer than most of the school and is named the Tommy G. Thompson Athletic Center.

Tommy, naturally, praised the school as an example of what No Child Left Behind really means and as President, there will be a thousand Messmers across the country.

Thompson flew to events in Iowa and New Hampshire later in the day. His strategy is to win Iowa to show legitimacy and to raise money from many sources. So far, Tommy has raised money from his long-time supporters.

Later that day, I heard former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich speak at Monona Terrace in Madison. He was the final speaker on the Business Day in Madison, an annual production of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state business advocacy group.

Gingrich’s audience couldn’t have been more different than Thompson’s. Many people wore suits and there were no black faces. There were about 500 in the crowd, including several who have already given the maximum contribution to Thompson.

Although Gingrich’s speech was billed as “Saving Lives and Saving Money” as founder of the Center for Health Transformation, his hour-long speech was vintage Newt the visionary and policy critic. Only Gingrich could tie models of explosions of knowledge and technology with bureaucratic intransigence by government and health insurers, calling on them to offer health savings accounts and incentives for wellness.

Scientists say knowledge will grow 10 or 20 times in the next 25 years, so much that we might as well be living in the age of Sir Isaac Newton, he said. In his speech, Gingrich tied together innovations in technology in on-line overnight package delivery monitoring with the failure of the government to track undocumented workers and it would be cheaper for the government to send FedEx packages to all illegal aliens to conclude some states are paying a lot for poor health outcomes.

He likened the critics of the range of choice of Medicare Part D to private plans and opportunities for seniors to save money on prescriptions drugs to a Medicare cruise, on which all choices of cabins cost the same or a Wal-Mart where only people under 65 can gain admittance even if they work there.

Gingrich was lavish in his praise for Tommy as Governor and presidential candidate, calling him an innovator and a reform Governor, as important as Mike Leavitt in Utah and John Engler in Michigan. It was interesting that he cited Leavitt, who is Tommy’s successor as Secretary of Health and Human Services. No one mentioned Leavitt’s decision that very day to not grant a continued waiver for Wisconsin’s SeniorCare prescription drug benefit.

Gingrich is a conglomerate. He writes books which are variously manifestos and leadership studies. He has a 527 PAC called American Solutions for Winning the Future and mentioned the scheduled workshops on September 27, the 30th Anniversary of the Contract with America. He is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He created the Center for Health Transformation and Gingrich Communications. All maintain separate offices in Washington, Atlanta and Miami. They schedule Gingrich but Gingrich has always been a one-man band. If his speech is any indication, he doesn’t separate those organizations in his own mind.

A number of the people who have already declared for President are not acceptable to conservative activists. Newt is, and even undeclared he nevertheless finishes high on straw polls. Gingrich says he will make a decision about candidacy on September 30. It also is why many support a Fred Thompson candidacy. Some wags have called for a Thompson-Thompson ticket, with Fred and Tommy. It is clear that Wisconsin prefers Tommy to be at the head of the ticket.

The Progressives Are Right

2007-04-01T14:46:00.000-05:00

How could I have been so wrong in advocating ideas to empower citizens seeking lower taxes, protection from crime, and a range of customer choice? I have been guilty of Thought Crime.

Teacher unions put educating kids first. If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. Charter schools and vouchers only cream the best students, leaving the public schools serving the worst students and the developmentally disabled.

Bush lied, people died. University of Wisconsin lecturer Kevin Butler was right: 9/11 was an inside job. Walter Reed was run by Halliburton.

Madison needs a streetcar. Progressive Dane is right. Personal autos are a symbol of the repression of the moneyed class and urban sprawl. Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz deserves re-election over Ray Allen. Madison’s smoking ban protects workers in bars and restaurants from second-hand smoke. All of Madison’s drinking water is pure; even manganese levels are within federal standards. Now all employers in Madison should have to offer sick leave to even part-time workers. Landlords should have to install LCD bulbs in common areas.

I am lucky to be represented in Washington by dedicated leaders such as Tammy Baldwin, Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold. Governor Jim Doyle is right to seek a tax on hospital beds, $1.25 more per pack of cigarettes, a fee for filing taxes and a tax on Big Oil for exploiting Wisconsin drivers without passing the tax on to them. Of course, the Doyle Administration does favors for big donors but Doyle is still less corrupt than former Governor Tommy Thompson.

My long friendship with the Van Hollen family blinded me to what a good Attorney General Kathleen Falk would have been. I am fortunate that she is still managing Dane County. Now Wisconsin’s more centrist State Supreme Court should be tilted in favor of Trial Lawyers. It is crucial to elect Madison liberal Linda Clifford over the ethically-challenged Annette Ziegler. People don’t kill, guns do.

Those are just a few of the issues and candidates about which I have been wrong. I love Big Brother.

April Fool!

British Marines and Iraq’s WMD

2007-03-30T19:46:00.000-05:00

Iran’s seizure of 15 British sailors and marines who were operating in Iraqi territorial waters is the latest gambit in decades of dispute between Iran and Iraq over the Shatt Al-Arab waterway. Control over the Shatt Al-Arab triggered the Iran-Iraq War and Saddam’s use of nerve gas against Iran.

Iran has often tried to wrest control of the Shatt Al-Arab from Iraq. This boiled over into the Iran-Iraq War, which sporadically flared from 1980 to 1988. Convinced Iran’s military was in disarray following the Iranian revolution, Saddam Hussein tried to seize Iranian oil fields in 1980. The Iranian counter-attack was so successful that Saddam responded with at least 14 attacks of nerve gas against Iranian troops and civilians, causing massive casualties.

Using weapons of mass destruction against Iran and the subsequent failure of Saddam to renounce their use in the future led to American intelligence reports that Saddam currently had WMD, a pretext to the American invasion.

The Shatt Al-Arab is a 120-mile area where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers empty into the Persian Gulf, creating a swampy delta similar to the area in Louisiana where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The Shatt Al-Arab provides access to the ports of Kuwait, Iraq and Iran. The Iraqi port is the city of Basra, a Shiite Muslim city patrolled by British troops. Iraqi control over the Shatt Al-Arab has denied direct water access to Iran’s principal oil port Abadan. Iran built terminals closer to the Persian Gulf for international trade.

The disarray is Iraqi now, which is why Iran wants to enlarge control over the Shatt al-Arab. In a part of the world where recriminations often last centuries, there is also lingering resentment of Britain for carving up the map of the Middle East. Britain has also often led an international commission controlling the Shatt al-Arab since the 1935 treaty. British intelligence MI-6 is also thought to have partnered with the American Central Intelligence Agency in toppling Iranian nationalist Mohammed Mosaddeq after he led a Hugo Chavez-styled nationalization of British Petroleum assets and replacing him with the Shah in 1954.

The Iranians have released forced confessions by some captured Britons hoping to be freed. Pro-Iranian statements did not save Americans from enjoying Iranian hospitality for 444 days. Then, as now, some parts of the Iranian bureaucracy say the hostages will soon be free; other parts say probably not.

Almost forgotten in the international community’s reaction to Iran’s abduction of the British serve personnel is the potential assignment of Britain’s Prince Harry to Basra. If 15 British sailors and marines are pawns in the dispute over the Shatt al-Arab, how much more desirable would capturing a British Prince be?