On New Years Day this (last) year, I made a few predictions for 2009. It's a silly excercise reserved for people with some kind of media presence who think anyone cares what they think. It's also a reality check to see how well you are tuned in to an unpredictable world.
What'd I say? Oh...
Barack Obama will start his term with a tremendous amount of good will and support for his economic stimulus package – whatever it is – because too many people will want and need it to succeed. True, as far as it went, and the plan has had more positive effect than it has been given credit for. There is no way to know how much the injection of hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy stopped the deadly skid Obama inherited. Except that it did.
If Republicans get in the way on the basis of their usual petty nonsense, they will just dig a deeper hole for themselves. No "if" here. The Party of No has been remarkably unified in their opposition to any hint of grown-up, Democratic accomplishment. They are feeling pretty good about themselves right now, snuggled in the soft bosom of their alternate-universe talk-radio/Fox News circle-jerk, where Tea Bagging opportunists cavort with bad actors like Glenn Beck and bad legislators like Michele Bachmann. We won't really know how deep a hole they are digging themselves until the 2010 elections they have already declared won, when they pick up only a few seats in the House and one or two in the Senate. If they're lucky.
Barack Obama will start his term with a tremendous amount of good will and support around the world as he tries put the nation in a position to recover from the tremendous damage done by the arrogant, radical and reckless Bush administration...Not all of the damage is reparable, but Obama will have an advantage because of his background, because he has Clinton leading the effort and, most importantly, because he is Not Bush. Exactly right, his success in turning around America's image in the world exemplified by the premature awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. Obama's nuanced, intellgent juggling of America's responsibilities in the world has led to a lowering of the anti-American temperature around the globe. And he is certainly Not Bush. And Not Cheney. And Not McCain. And Not Lieberman. And that's all good.
Hillary Clinton won’t be home much as she jets around the globe on a mission to unruffle feathers and get America back to its deserved respected-leader status. Clinton has been Obama's secret weapon around the globe, as she has employed her remarkable talents in the service of American interests.
America and the world will breathe a collective sigh of relief when our brave troops start coming home from Iraq. Iraq? What Iraq? Bush's Stupid War continues to wind down as the focus of our anti-al-Qaeda campaign moves where it belongs; to Afghanistan, Pakistan and -- now, apparently -- Yemen.
Violence there will increase, as the kind of thugs who have always run that country make their move. In the end, Iraq will end up right where it started – with the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the country presiding over a brutal regime. The only difference between that guy and Hussein will be that Iraq will be a theocracy, aligned with Iran, and even more of a potential threat to Israel. Nice work, Bush. Recent celebrations of the success of Iraqi "democracy" in the continued propaganda campaign to validate Bush's Stupid War after-the-fact are drastically premature. When the dust settles in five or ten years, Iraq will be much more of a threat to Israel and our interests than it ever was under Hussein.
Obama will have a chance to appoint at least two Supreme Court justices and, unlike Bush, will nominate people with impeccable legal pedigrees and no discernable ideological tilt, except for the inclination to be fair, which is a lefty trait, anyway. Republicans and their wing-nut lap dogs will pretend they are all lefty socialists anyway, and the general public will ignore them and move on. Well, only one vacancy in the first year, but everything else was exactly right. The public was not impressed with the Republican's childish attack on Justice Sotomayor.
Obama will end the year with an approval rating in the high 60s or higher. Yeah, well, a bit off. Obama has met the perfect storm of 10% unemployment, an unprecedented echo-chamber of right-wing blather willing to tell any lie, and a bunch of snooty lefties who think they could do it better than he can. Under these circumstances, it's amazing he's hovering at 50%.
Talk-radio clowns will continue to be completely flummoxed by Obama’s success and popularity, and will suffer ratings problems as a result. By the end of the year, they will spend more than half their time talking about finances and sports. The wing-nuts found their groove by creating and latching onto the Tea Party concept, which found obnoxious voice for all the imbicles who hate and resent Obama for racist and other reasons. Their demogogory of health insurance reform, including (especially) scaring the elderly about "death panels", has been the most reprehensible performance by mainstream politicians since Florida congressmen like Joe Scarboro defended Bush's theft of democracy in that state in 2000.
Locally, the radio wing-nuts will shill full-time for Scott Walker’s campaign for governor. Their in-kind contributions will not be reported to the Government Accountability Board. Just wait. They are just getting warmed up.
The conversion from analog to digital television in February will be delayed when it becomes clear that the need for a converter box will take free TV away from millions of Americans who still don’t have the box and couldn’t figure out how it works if they did. The first of my predictions to actually come true, as the date was moved to June. Unfortunately, it has now taken place. All over the poor and underclass, TV showing nothing by snow are gathering dust in closets. Sadly, a little less Judge Judy for everyone.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will follow the lead of the Detroit Free Press and limit home delivery to three days a week. By the end of the year, the paper will stop pretending to have separate sections and fold everything into two sections; maybe one. The paper continues to be flumoxed by its crashing business model, but no limited home deliveries yet. The Local section has been folded into the front page on Monday. A four-page Business page here, a four-page Cue section there. And after the Packers finish their run this year, can a four-page Sports page be far behind?
The paper will resort to hysterical headlines and endless self-righteous campaigns, like its current one about drunk driving. The paper's various hysterical campaigns against drunk driving, BPA, backups at the Patent Office (wha?), and the inner-city child care industry (while those reaping millions of state dollars scamming the J-S precious "choice" school program remain uninvestigated) continue apace. Last Sunday, the paper spent three or four whole pages telling you how wonderful they were.
If something is missing from the paper, referrals will be made to the on-line edition. All day, everyday.
No matter what happens, the J-S will continue to find room to run 25-inches of Patrick McIlheran's blathering three days a week. By the end of the year, his tedious right-wing talking-point recitals will take up 25 percent of the available non-ad column inches. I think his column in the dead-tree edition are now down to two a week, but Paddy Mac continues to be the most fact-challenged, unaccountable, talking-pointed columnist in the paper's once-distinguished history. The Illusory One has made tracking McIlheran a hilarious special project, to everyone's benefit.
The Brewers spend money and, maybe, trade one of their young superstars to create a decent-enough starting rotation. Not quite. They could have got some decent arms for Corey hart or J.J. Hardy early in the season, but even they didn't see how far they would fall. The rotation was a mess all year.
Prince Fielder will come into camp having dropped 30 pounds. Wishful thinking, but what a year after a slow start.
Corey Hart will drop his at-bat country music for Nirvana and, this time, have a complete season. Ooops. Sorry.
National League pitchers will continue to be stymied by Ryan Braun, who will hit 45+ homers despite being the most-walked batter in the league. Not Braun -- Fielder.
The Brewers will win 90+ and win the division. No. Not enough pitching.
Despite strong lefty credentials and occasional accidental brilliance, Plaisted Writes will not be recognized by the Shepherd Express' Best of the Blogs page. An easy prediction.
Also, sometime this year, society page embarassments Boris and Doris will be invited to a party where no one but them shows up. They will write it up as a wonderful evening with Lou Fortis, Rip Tenor (as S-E mascot Art Kubalek) and other close friends. All true but the write-up.
Finally, although I didn't predict it, this has been an admittedly shit year for Plaisted Writes. I posted half as much as last year, even though there was plenty to talk about, and what I did write wasn't all that hot. My Blogger page tells me this is my 300th post. Here's to a better, more productive 2010.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
God Bless Us, Every One
One of my guilty pleasures on Christmas Eve day is driving around listening to old radio plays on WISN. For that one day, the primary purveyor of right-wing poison in Milwaukee gives their local and national chuckleheads the day off and runs three holiday-season radio plays from the late 1940s – “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “A Christmas Carol” and “Miracle on 34th Street”. It’s a trip back in time to a lost art form, featuring talented, familiar voices from the past. The material – smarmy and corny as it often is – is crafted for moderately intelligent, thoughtful people who might be in the market to think well of sponsors Campbell’s Soup (“Christmas Carol”) or Lux Soap (“Wonderful Life” and “Miracle”).
This Christmas Eve morning, the historic passage of health insurance reform in the Senate that I watched live on TV that very morning was on my mind as I took off for a long drive. Tuning to WISN looking to amuse myself with wing-nut hysterics about the vote, I instead found the “Christmas Carol” recording; hosted by the great Orson Welles and featuring the incomparable, crusty Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge, being led around by a bunch of ghosts.
I picked up on a detail I hadn’t noticed in the story before. During his tour of the Future, Scrooge is shown the Cratchit family in mourning over the demise of the sickly Tiny Tim. For some reason, Scrooge thinks he can do something about this if he is given the chance to go back to the Present and be a nicer guy. And, indeed, he does somehow “save” him from this apparent fate – according to Wikipedia (yeah, yeah, I know...but I don't pretend to know Dickens), Tim survives even to attend Scrooge’s funeral.
Now, what could Scrooge have possibly done to affect the length and quality of Tim’s life in such a dramatic way? What else but get the poor kid some damn health care? Dicken’s tale is set in pre-industrial, pre-nationalized health-care England, where the poor and (in Bob Cratchit’s case) underemployed were left to fend for themselves. The pre-ghost Scrooge was the epitome of the social Darwinist, more than willing to let the chips fall where they may on the unfortunate heads of the underclass; even unto death, inasmuch as it “decreased the surplus population”. After his fever-dream, he cares too much – at least about the poor he knows – buying more giant turkey than the Cratchit family can handle. And Tiny Tim must be saved. No doubt Scrooge headed straight to the health insurance exchange and got his employee on his plan (alas, with high deductibles – hey, Scrooge was saved, but not crazy).
If the Republicans, Tea Baggers and their purported intellectual enablers national and local were like Scrooge, we could say their salvation is only a nightmare (or history lesson) away. But they lack Scrooge’s internal consistency. Scrooge was a dick with his money because he thought he had to be – it doesn’t seem he was doing all that great either (certainly not as good as Barrymore’s other iconic role – Henry Potter). He just decided (at least for one night) not to make whatever success he did have on the back of his employee, the long-suffering Bob Cratchit.
Right-wingers, on the other hand, only care about one thing, and that is the reinstitution of their political power. They know as well as you and I do that the health insurance industry is an elaborate, bureaucratic scam designed to siphon money off of people’s (mostly) unavoidable misery. They know the small business people they pretend to champion are suffering under the crushing weight of health insurance policies that are costing more and paying for less.
They had a chance to do something about it when they were in power and didn’t even try. Now, the grown-ups in the room – the Democrats – are finally showing some leadership on the issue, and the shrinking GOP knows it cannot survive if Obama and the Democrats succeed in actually making millions of lives better. Even the weak, incremental, industry-friendly bill that passed the Senate is something that – like Social Security and Medicare – will be a landmark of positive government action that will solidify the Democratic Party as the Good Guys for another generation.
The power-mad Republicans and their fellow travelers know the long-range implications of Democratic achievement, which is why they have unleashed the most repulsive, demagogic campaign of lies and hyperbole in U.S. political history. From the constant screeching about socialism to putting the fear of “death panels” into our seniors, the disloyal opposition has become completely unmoored from reality, floating in its own fetid sea of phony facts, deliberate exaggerations and badly-acted hysterics. Using its all-too-convenient vehicles – talk-radio, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and their echo-chamber counterparts in the blogosphere – an alternate universe has been created where these people can talk to each other and at their vulnerable target demographic of fearful, stupid people. Most of their commentary would be laughed out of the legitimate media – and are, when they make the mistake of showing their sorry asses in the real world.
But to accuse them of Scrooge-like behavior gives them too much credit. Scrooge at least could articulate the self-interest involved in his previous behavior. The Republicans can't articulate anything except "NO". If Obama was against health insurance reform, they would find a way to be for it. All they know is that if the Democrats succeed at something -- anything -- they lose (again). Succeed Obama did (or will, soon). Lose, they did, the Republicans, all standing together as a convenient and unfortunate whole.
Scrooge saw in the Future the unnecessary suffering and death of Tiny Tim and sought redemption through change. Republicans know a million avoidable medical tragedies are out there and have one word for them -- NO!
This Christmas Eve morning, the historic passage of health insurance reform in the Senate that I watched live on TV that very morning was on my mind as I took off for a long drive. Tuning to WISN looking to amuse myself with wing-nut hysterics about the vote, I instead found the “Christmas Carol” recording; hosted by the great Orson Welles and featuring the incomparable, crusty Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge, being led around by a bunch of ghosts.
I picked up on a detail I hadn’t noticed in the story before. During his tour of the Future, Scrooge is shown the Cratchit family in mourning over the demise of the sickly Tiny Tim. For some reason, Scrooge thinks he can do something about this if he is given the chance to go back to the Present and be a nicer guy. And, indeed, he does somehow “save” him from this apparent fate – according to Wikipedia (yeah, yeah, I know...but I don't pretend to know Dickens), Tim survives even to attend Scrooge’s funeral.
Now, what could Scrooge have possibly done to affect the length and quality of Tim’s life in such a dramatic way? What else but get the poor kid some damn health care? Dicken’s tale is set in pre-industrial, pre-nationalized health-care England, where the poor and (in Bob Cratchit’s case) underemployed were left to fend for themselves. The pre-ghost Scrooge was the epitome of the social Darwinist, more than willing to let the chips fall where they may on the unfortunate heads of the underclass; even unto death, inasmuch as it “decreased the surplus population”. After his fever-dream, he cares too much – at least about the poor he knows – buying more giant turkey than the Cratchit family can handle. And Tiny Tim must be saved. No doubt Scrooge headed straight to the health insurance exchange and got his employee on his plan (alas, with high deductibles – hey, Scrooge was saved, but not crazy).
If the Republicans, Tea Baggers and their purported intellectual enablers national and local were like Scrooge, we could say their salvation is only a nightmare (or history lesson) away. But they lack Scrooge’s internal consistency. Scrooge was a dick with his money because he thought he had to be – it doesn’t seem he was doing all that great either (certainly not as good as Barrymore’s other iconic role – Henry Potter). He just decided (at least for one night) not to make whatever success he did have on the back of his employee, the long-suffering Bob Cratchit.
Right-wingers, on the other hand, only care about one thing, and that is the reinstitution of their political power. They know as well as you and I do that the health insurance industry is an elaborate, bureaucratic scam designed to siphon money off of people’s (mostly) unavoidable misery. They know the small business people they pretend to champion are suffering under the crushing weight of health insurance policies that are costing more and paying for less.
They had a chance to do something about it when they were in power and didn’t even try. Now, the grown-ups in the room – the Democrats – are finally showing some leadership on the issue, and the shrinking GOP knows it cannot survive if Obama and the Democrats succeed in actually making millions of lives better. Even the weak, incremental, industry-friendly bill that passed the Senate is something that – like Social Security and Medicare – will be a landmark of positive government action that will solidify the Democratic Party as the Good Guys for another generation.
The power-mad Republicans and their fellow travelers know the long-range implications of Democratic achievement, which is why they have unleashed the most repulsive, demagogic campaign of lies and hyperbole in U.S. political history. From the constant screeching about socialism to putting the fear of “death panels” into our seniors, the disloyal opposition has become completely unmoored from reality, floating in its own fetid sea of phony facts, deliberate exaggerations and badly-acted hysterics. Using its all-too-convenient vehicles – talk-radio, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and their echo-chamber counterparts in the blogosphere – an alternate universe has been created where these people can talk to each other and at their vulnerable target demographic of fearful, stupid people. Most of their commentary would be laughed out of the legitimate media – and are, when they make the mistake of showing their sorry asses in the real world.
But to accuse them of Scrooge-like behavior gives them too much credit. Scrooge at least could articulate the self-interest involved in his previous behavior. The Republicans can't articulate anything except "NO". If Obama was against health insurance reform, they would find a way to be for it. All they know is that if the Democrats succeed at something -- anything -- they lose (again). Succeed Obama did (or will, soon). Lose, they did, the Republicans, all standing together as a convenient and unfortunate whole.
Scrooge saw in the Future the unnecessary suffering and death of Tiny Tim and sought redemption through change. Republicans know a million avoidable medical tragedies are out there and have one word for them -- NO!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Nod 2 Bob - Benefit for Hunger Task Force - TONIGHT
Join me and many other entertainers TONIGHT (Wednesday) as we pay tribute to the music of Bob Dylan at Linneman's Riverwest Inn, 1001 East Locust in Milwaukee's bustling Riverwest neighborhood. I have the honor to MC the show once again this year and get to play a set myself with a brand new talented band (including the Illusory One and Eric Blowtorch) at about 8:40. This is the 11th annual Nod to Bob, a benefit for the Hunger Task Force. Come early (the show starts at 7 and the place gets packed pretty quickly -- lines out the door last year) and stay late for a great night of music. See you there!
Religious Fanatics Infect Nation's Capitol
It seems patriarchical religious zealots who often favor medieval robes and rituals have descended on the nation’s capitol recently. Strategically placed in the offices of fearful congressmen and holding brow-beating sessions with parishioners not toeing the selective edicts of their secretive hierarchy, they seek to conform the nation’s secular laws to their random religious preferences.
If such an organized effort was put forth by Islamic clerics or Buddhist monks, investigations would be held as to why our elected leaders are holding audiences with such obvious fanatics, much less reshaping essential legislation to meet their unyielding demands. But these are representatives of the Catholic faith. Those not unduly impressed by their paternalistic zeal to keep women underfoot will be struck like so many of their cloistered nuns wielding metal rulers.
I know these people. I have spent more time on my knees in the service of various Vicars of Christ (mostly John XXIII, as I recall) than most of the right-wing commentators that use Catholic doctrine to beat up on those who would dare to let a woman control her own body. Sure, it was mostly back in the ‘60s, when I was a kid, a dedicated altar boy throughout grade school, back when we had to go to Mass every morning before class. I sang the ritual cants and even played in some of the first guitar Masses at the small parish in my small town.
Back then, the only politics the church involved itself in was a quaint notion of social justice. We gave lip-service to the poor, while spending most of our money on vestments and gold chalices. There was even an anti-war tinge back during that ugly Vietnam thing.
But now, the Catholic church is in the middle of a hard-right swing, careening around in political circles like a bull in a Holy Hill gift shop, slapping down any politician who would dare show independence or common sense on issues related to women’s health. When the House of Representatives was debating a health insurance reform bill a couple of weeks ago, a conservative German “pope” headquartered in Rome sent various functionaries (called “bishops”) – all, incidentally, carrying some fine health coverage – scurrying across Capitol Hill in an effort to scuttle the legislation if it dared to allow coverage for reproductive services, even in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the woman (read: incubator). The foreign, medieval effort was scarily effective, weakening and almost killing the bill.
This week, comes word that one of the scions of the Catholic family that has done more for the church’s historical goal of social justice than any other in the nation’s history – Patrick Kennedy – has been informed by one of the costumed clerics that he shall not be allowed to receive the sacrament of Communion until he toes the religious party line on the disfavored right of a woman to control her own body. “If you freely choose to be a Catholic, it means you believe certain things, you do certain things,” declared the bishop. One wonders what would happen if, say, Keith Ellison, the congressman from Minnesota who happens to be Muslim, would receive such a threatening directive from one of his religious leaders. You would hear the screeching all the way from here to Mecca.
But, we allow the Catholics to interfere in the most important issue of our time on the grounds of their narrow, male-centered campaign to rid the women of the world of their right to choose. “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament,” Florence Kennedy famously said. Such irony is lost on the Soldiers of Benedict as they fan out to undermine social justice in the guise of protection of the “unborn”, even at the expense of the lives and health of adult women. Jesus famously threw the money-changers out of the temple. It’s time for someone to throw the medieval prelates out of the Capitol.
If such an organized effort was put forth by Islamic clerics or Buddhist monks, investigations would be held as to why our elected leaders are holding audiences with such obvious fanatics, much less reshaping essential legislation to meet their unyielding demands. But these are representatives of the Catholic faith. Those not unduly impressed by their paternalistic zeal to keep women underfoot will be struck like so many of their cloistered nuns wielding metal rulers.
I know these people. I have spent more time on my knees in the service of various Vicars of Christ (mostly John XXIII, as I recall) than most of the right-wing commentators that use Catholic doctrine to beat up on those who would dare to let a woman control her own body. Sure, it was mostly back in the ‘60s, when I was a kid, a dedicated altar boy throughout grade school, back when we had to go to Mass every morning before class. I sang the ritual cants and even played in some of the first guitar Masses at the small parish in my small town.
Back then, the only politics the church involved itself in was a quaint notion of social justice. We gave lip-service to the poor, while spending most of our money on vestments and gold chalices. There was even an anti-war tinge back during that ugly Vietnam thing.
But now, the Catholic church is in the middle of a hard-right swing, careening around in political circles like a bull in a Holy Hill gift shop, slapping down any politician who would dare show independence or common sense on issues related to women’s health. When the House of Representatives was debating a health insurance reform bill a couple of weeks ago, a conservative German “pope” headquartered in Rome sent various functionaries (called “bishops”) – all, incidentally, carrying some fine health coverage – scurrying across Capitol Hill in an effort to scuttle the legislation if it dared to allow coverage for reproductive services, even in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the woman (read: incubator). The foreign, medieval effort was scarily effective, weakening and almost killing the bill.
This week, comes word that one of the scions of the Catholic family that has done more for the church’s historical goal of social justice than any other in the nation’s history – Patrick Kennedy – has been informed by one of the costumed clerics that he shall not be allowed to receive the sacrament of Communion until he toes the religious party line on the disfavored right of a woman to control her own body. “If you freely choose to be a Catholic, it means you believe certain things, you do certain things,” declared the bishop. One wonders what would happen if, say, Keith Ellison, the congressman from Minnesota who happens to be Muslim, would receive such a threatening directive from one of his religious leaders. You would hear the screeching all the way from here to Mecca.
But, we allow the Catholics to interfere in the most important issue of our time on the grounds of their narrow, male-centered campaign to rid the women of the world of their right to choose. “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament,” Florence Kennedy famously said. Such irony is lost on the Soldiers of Benedict as they fan out to undermine social justice in the guise of protection of the “unborn”, even at the expense of the lives and health of adult women. Jesus famously threw the money-changers out of the temple. It’s time for someone to throw the medieval prelates out of the Capitol.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Walker Undermines Courthouse Security
Scott Walker isn't a County Executive -- he's a cartoon. Every statement, every proposal, every budget he's made since he took advantage of Tom Ament's misfortune to gain an office he never would have otherwise has been an unserious joke, meant only to strike poses for the right-wing base he thinks is going to advance his blind ambition to be Governor. When Walker proposes something, you know it's not going to happen -- the only question is who is going to be the adult that fixes the mess.
Among the proposed victims of the political document he calls a budget and his grandstanding vetos are the mentally ill, bus riders, lakefront tourists, park users and the entire community, who will suffer increased crime because they no longer have the benefit of the rehabilitation efforts by the highly-successful Community Justice Resource Center. Also high on Walker's let's-beat-them-up-for-political-gain list are county employees, who will have to suffer through unbargained "furlough" days, and the citizens who expect the services the employees, on random days, will not be around to perform.
And then there are the county employees in the Courthouse itself that Walker doesn't want around at all. Those would be those who maintain and protect it. Of course, since Walker spends as little time there as possible -- and, when he does, he spends all his time on the phone with wing-nut radio hosts -- what does he care if the place is cleaned or secure? He probably figures he can get the Merry Maids in there for the $125 a week he plops down to get his house in Tosa cleaned and save money by not having all these annoying county cleaners all over the place.
But, of most concern to me as a daily visitor to the Courthouse is his attack on the security staff that have gotten people in and out of the building since early this decade. After 9/11, everyone in the country responsible for public buildings went nuts. In the Courthouse, they put metal detectors at the entrances they left open and closed many others (the Ghandi statue at the MacArthur Square former entrance stares at three permanently locked doors). It took a while to get the system working -- a fellow lawyer and friend of mine once refused to take off his shoes while entering the building, spurring the current system of security passes that get us trusted regulars in the building without the petty indignities suffered by the thousands of visitors who come to the Courthouse everyday.
The veteran security staff gets us passed through and the citizens screened in a pleasant, efficient and professional manner. I am terrible with names in the first place, but I know their faces and they know mine. Besides waving me in, I can see them dealing with the county residents who come to the Courthouse to conduct business; perform jury duty; attend court hearings; get licenses; drop small claims cases on unsuspecting neighbors; get copies of deeds, birth and death certificates, etc. They are absolutely superb in getting people through the metal detectors and directed to where they are trying to get to in the complicated three-building Courthouse complex.
Proposing bringing in third-rate security goons from Bob's Security Service or whatever it would be is insane. The only people who would support it -- other than Bob -- are people who never come to the Courthouse and have no idea what it takes to make the security system efficient and competent. That would be people like Scott Walker and his roving band of goofballs, who are only concerned with scoring vapid political points and couldn't care less about making the county government work.
The Courthouse is one of the few places where almost the entire community has to appear at some point or other for the important or mundane business of life. The visting, taxpaying citizens should be greeted by permanent professionals who have a stake in getting them through and keeping the building safe. The security staff at the Courthouse entrances have grown into a talented bunch who represent our county well. To lose them to the greedy political ambitions of a opportunistic punk like Scott Walker would indeed be a tragedy.
Among the proposed victims of the political document he calls a budget and his grandstanding vetos are the mentally ill, bus riders, lakefront tourists, park users and the entire community, who will suffer increased crime because they no longer have the benefit of the rehabilitation efforts by the highly-successful Community Justice Resource Center. Also high on Walker's let's-beat-them-up-for-political-gain list are county employees, who will have to suffer through unbargained "furlough" days, and the citizens who expect the services the employees, on random days, will not be around to perform.
And then there are the county employees in the Courthouse itself that Walker doesn't want around at all. Those would be those who maintain and protect it. Of course, since Walker spends as little time there as possible -- and, when he does, he spends all his time on the phone with wing-nut radio hosts -- what does he care if the place is cleaned or secure? He probably figures he can get the Merry Maids in there for the $125 a week he plops down to get his house in Tosa cleaned and save money by not having all these annoying county cleaners all over the place.
But, of most concern to me as a daily visitor to the Courthouse is his attack on the security staff that have gotten people in and out of the building since early this decade. After 9/11, everyone in the country responsible for public buildings went nuts. In the Courthouse, they put metal detectors at the entrances they left open and closed many others (the Ghandi statue at the MacArthur Square former entrance stares at three permanently locked doors). It took a while to get the system working -- a fellow lawyer and friend of mine once refused to take off his shoes while entering the building, spurring the current system of security passes that get us trusted regulars in the building without the petty indignities suffered by the thousands of visitors who come to the Courthouse everyday.
The veteran security staff gets us passed through and the citizens screened in a pleasant, efficient and professional manner. I am terrible with names in the first place, but I know their faces and they know mine. Besides waving me in, I can see them dealing with the county residents who come to the Courthouse to conduct business; perform jury duty; attend court hearings; get licenses; drop small claims cases on unsuspecting neighbors; get copies of deeds, birth and death certificates, etc. They are absolutely superb in getting people through the metal detectors and directed to where they are trying to get to in the complicated three-building Courthouse complex.
Proposing bringing in third-rate security goons from Bob's Security Service or whatever it would be is insane. The only people who would support it -- other than Bob -- are people who never come to the Courthouse and have no idea what it takes to make the security system efficient and competent. That would be people like Scott Walker and his roving band of goofballs, who are only concerned with scoring vapid political points and couldn't care less about making the county government work.
The Courthouse is one of the few places where almost the entire community has to appear at some point or other for the important or mundane business of life. The visting, taxpaying citizens should be greeted by permanent professionals who have a stake in getting them through and keeping the building safe. The security staff at the Courthouse entrances have grown into a talented bunch who represent our county well. To lose them to the greedy political ambitions of a opportunistic punk like Scott Walker would indeed be a tragedy.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Say Goodbye
At the close of the official set last night -- before the epic multi-song encore -- Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band ripped through a riviting "No Surrender". With photos from the band's career projected up behind them, they made the subtle explicit. "There's a war outside still raging/You say it ain't ours anymore to win," he sang, as they celebrated the life of the band as they put it -- for now and probably forever -- loudly to bed.
Springsteen was serious and joyful at the same time, all night long. Starting off with the celebration of the mysteriously interesting "Wisconsin night" of "Cadillac Ranch" and ending almost three hours later with a soulful rendition of Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher", he was a man on a mission. No "Are You Loose?" tonight because he wasn't; savoring the last moments of the most-talented band of rock musicians to ever come together by draining each perfect note from every player ready to give it to him. After three more shows -- in exactly a week -- this tour will be over, with nothing further planned.
But it wasn't just about the band. Springsteen also engaged his other partners in his life's work -- his fans -- in every song. He pointed to various people in the crowd all night long, waving "hi", pretending like he was encountering long lost friends. He also gave up his body more than he has since he was crawling up the aisle during "Spirits in the Night" back at the Uptown in his famous first trip here in 1975; running down the side of the crowd to a small riser in the middle of the floor and letting the crowd in the front pit pass him back up to the stage during "Hungry Heart". Always the earnest populist, Bruce knows his strength as a showman has always derived from his abilty to connect, and he made the most of it this night.
The centerpiece of this show was the end-to-end playing of Born to Run, one of the greatest albums ever made. The idea of playing a whole album is an interesting one in concept, but less so in practice. Sure, you get eight of the best songs in anyone's catalog, in their original context. But the spontaneity of a usual Springsteen show is out the window for 50 minutes as one song follows the other. Also, some of the treatments of the songs have changed so much through the years -- I'm thinking of "10th Avenue Freezeout" -- that you wonder why it was ever placed between "Thunder Road" and "Night" in the first place. "Born to Run" seems jarring in the middle, unless you remember that it led off Side Two back when there were two sides to an album and you had to get up and flip the thing over. After watching the same exercise to much the same effect the night before at the Steely Dan show -- Royal Scam, all the way through -- I think I'd just as soon these guys go back to trying to surprise me.
Which he did, after he got back in control towards the end of the set. "Into the Fire", the most explicit of the The Rising's 9/11 songs and "The Rising" itself set a surprisingly serious tone before the "No Surrender" pseudo-finale.
But the highlights were both in the encore, with a long "Kitty's Back" and "Rosalita". During "Kitty's Back", Bruce led the individual band members in their solos, giving guest trumpeter Curt Ramm some extra time to stretch out and giving pianist Roy Bittan his full attention for a solo that must have gone on for over two minutes. It reminded me of the first time I saw him at the Bomb Scare show back in '75, when he left the stage and sat in a seat in the first row while he just admired his band. There was something he wanted to get from Bittan last night, and he was getting it. Again, savoring the moments.
With old age, Clarence's health, Max Weinberg's TV career and numerous projects pulling the E-Streeters in different directions, they'll never put this thing together again. Since they reunited from the last major break in 2000, Springsteen and the band has produced some of the greatest concerts of their career, as the strength of The Rising as a record and the incredible Rising tour gave them a momentum that carried them all the way through to last night.
They've done all they need to do and said all there is to say. There ain't no more, and there doesn't have to be. Springsteen will be out with various solo projects and maybe he'll be able to cobble together a better replacement band than he did in '92 or stumble into another interesting project like the Seeger Sessions. But Springsteen with E Street Band was a once-in-a-generation happy accident, both for him and for us. And they shared the results with us last night, one more time, with joy and pride and passion.
UPDATE: The most pleasantly chaotic moment of the night is up on YouTube. After the first bow, Bruce sees a sign for "Living Proof", a song about the joys of fatherhood from one of his non-E-Street projects in the misbegotten early '90s. The band acted like they never played or heard the song before (if so, what's this?) and they fumbled around like a rehearsal until they found the groove -- or a groove, anyway. Bruce holds up 1, then 4, then 5 fingers to let the band know where he is in the I-IV-V chord progression. It was an interesting way to watch he and the band work. The next song was..."Kitty's Back".
Springsteen was serious and joyful at the same time, all night long. Starting off with the celebration of the mysteriously interesting "Wisconsin night" of "Cadillac Ranch" and ending almost three hours later with a soulful rendition of Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher", he was a man on a mission. No "Are You Loose?" tonight because he wasn't; savoring the last moments of the most-talented band of rock musicians to ever come together by draining each perfect note from every player ready to give it to him. After three more shows -- in exactly a week -- this tour will be over, with nothing further planned.
But it wasn't just about the band. Springsteen also engaged his other partners in his life's work -- his fans -- in every song. He pointed to various people in the crowd all night long, waving "hi", pretending like he was encountering long lost friends. He also gave up his body more than he has since he was crawling up the aisle during "Spirits in the Night" back at the Uptown in his famous first trip here in 1975; running down the side of the crowd to a small riser in the middle of the floor and letting the crowd in the front pit pass him back up to the stage during "Hungry Heart". Always the earnest populist, Bruce knows his strength as a showman has always derived from his abilty to connect, and he made the most of it this night.
The centerpiece of this show was the end-to-end playing of Born to Run, one of the greatest albums ever made. The idea of playing a whole album is an interesting one in concept, but less so in practice. Sure, you get eight of the best songs in anyone's catalog, in their original context. But the spontaneity of a usual Springsteen show is out the window for 50 minutes as one song follows the other. Also, some of the treatments of the songs have changed so much through the years -- I'm thinking of "10th Avenue Freezeout" -- that you wonder why it was ever placed between "Thunder Road" and "Night" in the first place. "Born to Run" seems jarring in the middle, unless you remember that it led off Side Two back when there were two sides to an album and you had to get up and flip the thing over. After watching the same exercise to much the same effect the night before at the Steely Dan show -- Royal Scam, all the way through -- I think I'd just as soon these guys go back to trying to surprise me.
Which he did, after he got back in control towards the end of the set. "Into the Fire", the most explicit of the The Rising's 9/11 songs and "The Rising" itself set a surprisingly serious tone before the "No Surrender" pseudo-finale.
But the highlights were both in the encore, with a long "Kitty's Back" and "Rosalita". During "Kitty's Back", Bruce led the individual band members in their solos, giving guest trumpeter Curt Ramm some extra time to stretch out and giving pianist Roy Bittan his full attention for a solo that must have gone on for over two minutes. It reminded me of the first time I saw him at the Bomb Scare show back in '75, when he left the stage and sat in a seat in the first row while he just admired his band. There was something he wanted to get from Bittan last night, and he was getting it. Again, savoring the moments.
With old age, Clarence's health, Max Weinberg's TV career and numerous projects pulling the E-Streeters in different directions, they'll never put this thing together again. Since they reunited from the last major break in 2000, Springsteen and the band has produced some of the greatest concerts of their career, as the strength of The Rising as a record and the incredible Rising tour gave them a momentum that carried them all the way through to last night.
They've done all they need to do and said all there is to say. There ain't no more, and there doesn't have to be. Springsteen will be out with various solo projects and maybe he'll be able to cobble together a better replacement band than he did in '92 or stumble into another interesting project like the Seeger Sessions. But Springsteen with E Street Band was a once-in-a-generation happy accident, both for him and for us. And they shared the results with us last night, one more time, with joy and pride and passion.
UPDATE: The most pleasantly chaotic moment of the night is up on YouTube. After the first bow, Bruce sees a sign for "Living Proof", a song about the joys of fatherhood from one of his non-E-Street projects in the misbegotten early '90s. The band acted like they never played or heard the song before (if so, what's this?) and they fumbled around like a rehearsal until they found the groove -- or a groove, anyway. Bruce holds up 1, then 4, then 5 fingers to let the band know where he is in the I-IV-V chord progression. It was an interesting way to watch he and the band work. The next song was..."Kitty's Back".
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The Company They Keep
I don't know about you, but I always thought that the concept of "guilt by association" has gotten a bad rap. I think you can judge a person -- certainly a politician -- by who they choose to hang out with and use to advance their political careers. In fact, as secretive and unknown as some of these people are, sometimes that's all you have.
Take right-wing darling Rep. Paul Ryan from Janesville. Ryan has been a rising star in the Republican galaxy for some time now, if only because he is one of the shrinking party's' few congressional members who can appear on TV without triggering the gag reflex. At least that's what I hear from others. I still have throat trouble when I see his slick head of hair and boyish smirk appear on yet another talk show, but then I have always had trouble laughing and swallowing at the same time. If you want a good laugh, check out his recitation of the GOP's health care "plan" to maintain the status quo. It's a riot.
Anyway, in this morning's paper it is reported that Ryan has caught some flack from his constituents for attending an event presented by the Federation for American Immigration Reform. FAIR has been called out by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its racist leaders and funding sources, but continues to be one of the many questionable places where Republicans like Ryan go to soak up attention and contributions. You might even feel sorry for GOP glory-hounds like Ryan who have to patronize the well-funded rapid-right activists in Washington to gain street-cred with their dwindling base. I mean, you can't swing a stick in a room full of those people without hitting someone who is racist, homophobic, anti-feminist or some form of offensive.
For his part, Ryan blamed his FAIR appearance on a radio talk show host in St. Louis. It's an interesting defense. I suppose if Charlie Sykes invited Ryan to some other slimy greed-fest with a cast of unsavory charactors -- Citizens for Responsible Government comes to mind -- Ryan would go and blame it on the radio guy if somebody with any sense found out about it. This is the way it works with Republicans these days, I guess, getting jerked around on a chain by wingnut radio hosts to take full advantage of the hours of free political advertising mainstream radio currently provides the GOP.
We should take the "guilt by association" meme and move it to its next logical step. It seems incompetent part-time Milwaukee County Executive and full-time gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker has a free pass to call in to any right-wing radio show in the state any time to promote his candidacy. It happens on almost a daily basis, on shows large and small.
If the wingnuts are going to get that involved in the campaign, they should be held up to scrutiny themselves, and Walker should be held to account for the company he keeps. Hey, Scott Walker -- when you spent a half-hour getting stroked by Mark Belling, did you sit around with him during the breaks and tell wetback jokes and talk about how to prevent obnoxious minorities from creating another Crimeville? Tell us, Scott, do you agree with Sykes that black leaders like Al Shaprton should be referred to as "pimps" and that Lee Holloway is a "thug"? All of these are fair questions, I think. And, if the answer is "no" to each, what are you doing hanging around people like that?
Actually, the problem may be for the radio squawkers hanging around with Walker. Do they really want to be associated with someone who would soak up all these in-kind political contributions from your radio stations without reporting it on his campaign forms?
Take right-wing darling Rep. Paul Ryan from Janesville. Ryan has been a rising star in the Republican galaxy for some time now, if only because he is one of the shrinking party's' few congressional members who can appear on TV without triggering the gag reflex. At least that's what I hear from others. I still have throat trouble when I see his slick head of hair and boyish smirk appear on yet another talk show, but then I have always had trouble laughing and swallowing at the same time. If you want a good laugh, check out his recitation of the GOP's health care "plan" to maintain the status quo. It's a riot.
Anyway, in this morning's paper it is reported that Ryan has caught some flack from his constituents for attending an event presented by the Federation for American Immigration Reform. FAIR has been called out by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its racist leaders and funding sources, but continues to be one of the many questionable places where Republicans like Ryan go to soak up attention and contributions. You might even feel sorry for GOP glory-hounds like Ryan who have to patronize the well-funded rapid-right activists in Washington to gain street-cred with their dwindling base. I mean, you can't swing a stick in a room full of those people without hitting someone who is racist, homophobic, anti-feminist or some form of offensive.
For his part, Ryan blamed his FAIR appearance on a radio talk show host in St. Louis. It's an interesting defense. I suppose if Charlie Sykes invited Ryan to some other slimy greed-fest with a cast of unsavory charactors -- Citizens for Responsible Government comes to mind -- Ryan would go and blame it on the radio guy if somebody with any sense found out about it. This is the way it works with Republicans these days, I guess, getting jerked around on a chain by wingnut radio hosts to take full advantage of the hours of free political advertising mainstream radio currently provides the GOP.
We should take the "guilt by association" meme and move it to its next logical step. It seems incompetent part-time Milwaukee County Executive and full-time gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker has a free pass to call in to any right-wing radio show in the state any time to promote his candidacy. It happens on almost a daily basis, on shows large and small.
If the wingnuts are going to get that involved in the campaign, they should be held up to scrutiny themselves, and Walker should be held to account for the company he keeps. Hey, Scott Walker -- when you spent a half-hour getting stroked by Mark Belling, did you sit around with him during the breaks and tell wetback jokes and talk about how to prevent obnoxious minorities from creating another Crimeville? Tell us, Scott, do you agree with Sykes that black leaders like Al Shaprton should be referred to as "pimps" and that Lee Holloway is a "thug"? All of these are fair questions, I think. And, if the answer is "no" to each, what are you doing hanging around people like that?
Actually, the problem may be for the radio squawkers hanging around with Walker. Do they really want to be associated with someone who would soak up all these in-kind political contributions from your radio stations without reporting it on his campaign forms?
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Jerks of the Week
As if to prove how petty and irrelevant he is to the film fesitval business, Shepherd Express publisher/editor and Charles-Foster-Kane-syndrome sufferer Lou Fortis uses the formerly-interesting Expresso column in his newspaper this week to try to piss on the Milwaukee Film Festival that replaced his vanity-based Milwaukee International Film Festival. It was an embarrassing effort that resulted, as these things often do, in the pee running down his legs and soaking his shoes.
Under the headline "Issue of the Week", Fortis' paper mentions the MFF for the first time; claiming that the first year of the new festival "failed to generate the excitement [well, for Fortis and Dave Luhrssen, maybe] and attendance of the original and very successful [of course it was successful -- just look at it now] Milwaukee International Film Festival". Fortis gloats that the last year of the MIFF -- which might still be active if he and Luhrssen had only gave up control and allowed the appointment of an independent board -- enjoyed a "45% greater attendance than this year's event."
Still, an impressive 20,000 attended the event, one of which, you would hope, was Dave Luhrssen. Luhrssen's supposed love of independent film was exposed as a fraud when he failed to cover or even list the films in the festival in the S-E. If he showed, maybe he would have learned something about cinema itself, or at least bumped into some other critics who could have given him some badly-needed pointers for his own bland, often incomprehensible film reviews. While Luhrssen ignored the independent films and pounded out tripe about Hollywood product like "Bright Star" and "The Informant!" during the weeks of the festival, much better writers in the Journal Sentinel (your welcome, Duane) and places like OnMilwaukee covered and promoted the films in the festival. Luhrssen used to cover and promote the films in "his" festival like he was in the midst of film rapture. Was it about the "love of cinema" or his, Fortis' and the S-E's self-promotion (and finances)? I think we now have our answer to that one.
The real film-lovers are the dedicated culture-builders like Chris Abele, who justifiably moved their money away from Fortis' ego-enhancement project and built an independent festival to go along with the independent film it celebrates. "The numbers speak for themselves," writes Fortis in his snide jibe at the MFF -- and, indeed, they do. The numbers go something like this: 20,000 people celebrated independent film in Milwaukee for a couple of weeks in theaters all over town. 2 people -- Lou Fortis and Dave Luhrssen -- spent those two weeks hunkered-down in their bunker, plotting revenge and lawsuits; putting out their dreary 56-pages-and-shrinking lame excuse for a weekly paper.
Under the headline "Issue of the Week", Fortis' paper mentions the MFF for the first time; claiming that the first year of the new festival "failed to generate the excitement [well, for Fortis and Dave Luhrssen, maybe] and attendance of the original and very successful [of course it was successful -- just look at it now] Milwaukee International Film Festival". Fortis gloats that the last year of the MIFF -- which might still be active if he and Luhrssen had only gave up control and allowed the appointment of an independent board -- enjoyed a "45% greater attendance than this year's event."
Still, an impressive 20,000 attended the event, one of which, you would hope, was Dave Luhrssen. Luhrssen's supposed love of independent film was exposed as a fraud when he failed to cover or even list the films in the festival in the S-E. If he showed, maybe he would have learned something about cinema itself, or at least bumped into some other critics who could have given him some badly-needed pointers for his own bland, often incomprehensible film reviews. While Luhrssen ignored the independent films and pounded out tripe about Hollywood product like "Bright Star" and "The Informant!" during the weeks of the festival, much better writers in the Journal Sentinel (your welcome, Duane) and places like OnMilwaukee covered and promoted the films in the festival. Luhrssen used to cover and promote the films in "his" festival like he was in the midst of film rapture. Was it about the "love of cinema" or his, Fortis' and the S-E's self-promotion (and finances)? I think we now have our answer to that one.
The real film-lovers are the dedicated culture-builders like Chris Abele, who justifiably moved their money away from Fortis' ego-enhancement project and built an independent festival to go along with the independent film it celebrates. "The numbers speak for themselves," writes Fortis in his snide jibe at the MFF -- and, indeed, they do. The numbers go something like this: 20,000 people celebrated independent film in Milwaukee for a couple of weeks in theaters all over town. 2 people -- Lou Fortis and Dave Luhrssen -- spent those two weeks hunkered-down in their bunker, plotting revenge and lawsuits; putting out their dreary 56-pages-and-shrinking lame excuse for a weekly paper.
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