folkbum's rambles and rants

A Serious Concern

Dear Fellow Democrats,

I write you today because if I fail to act, I am doing Democrats a disservice.

Recently, I wrote my opponent, Doug LaFollette, a letter asking him if he would join me for a handful of debates, so the people of Wisconsin, in particular our fellow Democrats, would have the opportunity to hear our respective plans for the office.

This week I received an e-mail refusing my invitation to debate. What alarms me and why I am choosing to speak about this is his unacceptable reasoning for turning me down. He wrote:

"Indeed, such debates might only serve to give the Republican candidate for this office ammunition for his campaign." - Secretary of State Doug LaFollette

Excuse me?

To tell Democrats we should remain silent out of fear the Republicans will attack our positions is exactly why we need new leadership in the Secretary of State's office - and why it is time for Doug LaFollette to go.

I pledge to you I will never compromise myself for the sake of convenience or out of fear. I will always stand up and fight for the people of Wisconsin and for the values we share as Democrats.

I am challenging our 28-year incumbent because he has refused to speak out in the face of a dozen years of Republican majority in the State Legislature and Congress, five years of the most corrupt Presidential Administration in history, curtailed freedoms, threatened liberties an illegal war waged which has cost 2,570 American soldiers their lives.

And Doug wants us as Democrats to keep quiet, so Republicans don't have "ammunition?"

With what is at stake, Democrats should not have to settle for this type of weakness from any elected official who asks us for our support.

This year is too important. We need Democrats who are ready, willing and able to stand up to Mark Green, John Gard and George W. Bush.

I will. Doug LaFollette has said he will not.

As I said at the convention, you don't get our vote just for being a Democrat. You earn our vote by being there for other Democrats.

I look forward to continuing to earn your support as we get closer to the September 12 primary. Please call me, email me, write me, or talk to me in person with any suggestions or advice you might have.

Thank you,
scot
Ross Across Wisconsin

Labels: Scot Ross

by folkbum. I'm really going to stop blogging now and let my guests take over. I promise.

A new analysis out today of Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriots Fund--and the leadership PACs of eight other potential 2008 Democratic candidates--shows that Russ is appealing to the same kind of small-dollar donors that a lot of us remember (and a lot of us were) from Howard Dean's quixotic 2004 run. No one else even comes close to the kind of success Russ is having in that regard.

Craig Gilbert's got the story in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

As he explores a 2008 presidential bid, Sen. Russ Feingold has raised a little more than $2 million this year, putting him ahead of some potential Democratic rivals and well behind others. But in one respect, Feingold's fund raising sets him apart. Unlike any other '08 prospect in his party, his early money is coming mostly from small donors.

In the first half of 2006, the Wisconsin senator raised 62% of his funds from people giving $200 or less, a much higher share than any other potential candidate. His total of roughly $1.3 million in small donations is topped only by Hillary Clinton, by far the dominant Democratic fund-raiser. [. . .]

Feingold's recent campaign filings offer a glimpse into his likely strategy: to tap the growing, Internet-fueled power of small donors, who propelled Democrat Howard Dean in 2003 and pumped more than $200 million into the last presidential campaign, according to one study of small donors in the 2004 election.

"The strength of (Feingold's) candidacy will depend on his catching a wave powered by Internet donors, much like the Dean wave," said Michael Malbin, a campaign finance expert who helped write that study. "I think it's impressive to have a following of small donors this early," said Malbin, who noted that even Dean began his campaign by raising mostly large contributions, as most presidential hopefuls do early in the election cycle. [. . .]

Spokesman Trevor Miller said more than 25,000 people this year have given to either Feingold's Senate committee or his political action committee, the Progressive Patriots Fund. Miller would not say what share of Feingold's small donations have been made online, which costs a campaign little. In an interview last month, Feingold expressed confidence that if he ran, he'd be able to tap the growing potential of the Internet as a fund-raising tool.

"I think it would explode if we went in that direction," he said. One small example of how that can work occurred in March, when Feingold came out with his well-publicized proposal to censure President Bush over wiretapping. March remains the best month ever for Feingold's political action committee; it took in a little more than $280,000. In only one other month has the committee taken in more than $200,000. [. . .]

A small-donor strategy fits into Feingold's political style (he co-wrote the 2002 campaign finance reforms), and it would also seem to be his best shot politically at building a fund-raising base. He lacks the national networks of big-name Democrats such as Clinton and Kerry and is not the sort of powerhouse fund-raiser among large donors that Warner is turning out to be.

This graphic has them all; note that only Kerry and Clark have more than 25% of their donations from small donors:


In one sense, I think Feingold's early small-donor strength is incredibly impressive. While it may be true that he's not pulling in Hillary or Warner kind of dough, the small-dollar donors are sustainable--something not true of people who can give $2100 in one shot. If Russ can keep tapping those donors, he'll be able to make up a lot of ground later.

But in a second, larger sense, this also speaks to the broad appeal of Feingold's message; people aren't donating to him because they are big-money folks who want to back a winner, but rather because they are your average joes who like what Russ has been saying and doing. Russ's support for presidential accountabilty and universal health care, among other things, resonates with voters. That's something not all of the people beating Feingold in the money race can say.

Whether or not Russ can win (two divorces, anyone?) is a completely separate question. But right now, it looks like Russ has everything in place that he needs to build a broad movement. I, for one, look forward to watching it take shape.

Labels: Craig Gilbert, Russ Feingold

by folkbum

No, I am not among them. However, congrats to current guest-poster Stephen Paske, who did make the cut. Looks like a good list.

Labels: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Keith Schmitz

As warned, lots of senior citizens are hitting the Medicare donut hole where their drug coverage suddenly goes away. The New York Times this morning points out that sometime this year over thee million of the people on the plan will find they will have to come up with the money to cover the drugs they need to live.

And for many GOP the chickens will be coming home to roost. If we go by the averages, most of these seniors will see the trap door open up around say, November.

To make matters worse for themselves, the conservatives fell into their own fantasies of the power of consumer in the medical market.

Melvin A. Kinnison, 65, of Huntington Beach, Calif., a retired deputy sheriff with diabetes and prostate cancer, said: “The drug benefit was fine for a while, until the doughnut hole came around. It was a total surprise. Nobody ever explained it to me.”

As any economist will tell you, power in the market comes from information. Imagine your 85 year old mother trying to negotiate the labyrinth of details of the new Medicare plan overlaid with the fear that a screw up could affect the benefits – and you trying to explain it to her.

But now the real power will come from the payback from these seniors who love to vote against the politicians duplicitous in this scheme.

Lawmakers do not defend the coverage gap as sound health policy. Rather, they say, it was a way to limit the cost of the new program while providing some benefits to almost everyone, comprehensive coverage to low-income people and generous catastrophic coverage to people with high drug costs.

For many of these lawmakers such as Mark Green they should have thought beyond the urging of K Street lobbyists to come up with a plan that could have done a better job of covering seniors. What is amazing is the beltway bubble these people live in where they had no idea how this would play at home.

In the Wisconsin gubernatorial election and many close Congressional races across the country these seniors will not let these lawmakers forget who gave them the job in the first place. Work the numbers. About over 8,000 people will be digging into their own pockets at Walgreens and CVS. That could eat into Jim Sensenbrenner's margin, and Bryan Kennedy would have to be foolish not to cash in. And though Bryan keeps a trim profile, he will not pass up on this donut.

Labels: Medicare

by Stephen Paske

In all the talk about the need for health-care reform, I've noticed that many times people forget to mention a BIG part of the health-care problem, and one that is growing, OBESITY. Consider this snipit from a June article from U.S.A. Today:

Private health insurance spending on illnesses related to obesity has increased more than tenfold since 1987, according to the first research to quantify the trend.
The growth in obesity has fueled a dramatic increase in the amount spent treating diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol and other weight-related illnesses, says the study, which is published today in Health Affairs, an online journal of health policy and research.
Overall, employers and privately insured families spent $36.5 billion on obesity-linked illnesses in 2002, up from an inflation-adjusted $3.6 billion in 1987. That's up from 2% of total health care spending on obesity in 1987 to 11.6% in 2002, the latest year for which data are available.
On average, treating an obese person cost $1,244 more in 2002 than treating a healthy-weight person did. In 1987, the gap was $272. Private health insurance spending on illnesses related to obesity has increased more than tenfold since 1987, according to the first research to quantify the trend.
The growth in obesity has fueled a dramatic increase in the amount spent treating diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol and other weight-related illnesses, says the study, which is published today in Health Affairs, an online journal of health policy and research.
Overall, employers and privately insured families spent $36.5 billion on obesity-linked illnesses in 2002, up from an inflation-adjusted $3.6 billion in 1987. That's up from 2% of total health care spending on obesity in 1987 to 11.6% in 2002, the latest year for which data are available.
On average, treating an obese person cost $1,244 more in 2002 than treating a healthy-weight person did. In 1987, the gap was $272.

Here's the million dollar question for me. If I have an accident, I pay more for Auto Insurance. If I smoke, I pay more for life insurance. If I build a house on a flood plain, I pay more for fire/flood insurance. Why don't I pay more as an individual for health insurance if every third meal of mine includes a Big Mac and a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese? According to this article it costs $1,244 more to treat an obese person (I'm presuming annually) than a person my weight, yet if I have typical private sector plan I'm paying the same deductable and same premium.

Now certainly there are exceptions. There are thyroid and gland problems that are a medically sound cause for obesity. But in over 90% of cases, the real problem is that American's choose not live healthy. We talk about going after the companies, we talk about a more socialized approach, but how come nobody ever talks about waging a serious battle against the epidemic of obesity in this country?

Quite frankly I think that one way to ultimately lower health-care costs in this country would be to offer incentives for people to live healthy, and to punish those who never watch what they eat. At least then the cost of treatment would be more fair for those who have healthy lifestyles when they do have a health-care need. Why not incorportate some sort of tax that goes to a health-care slush fund each time somebody purchases a quarter pounder with cheese? And why not a tax credit of some sort for anyone that registered and had a finishing time for a local 5K road race, or for someone who logs an hour at the gym three times a week.

I think a lot more people would actually use those gym memberships if everytime they logged an hour at the club they got $5 back. And if fast food burgers were 50-cents more expensive, at least if Sloppy Joe ate 20,000 of them there'd be $10,000 in the health-care slush fund straight from his pocket to help pay the cost of treating his heart attack.

Perhaps this is all too complex. Perhaps it's just too much in the way of overregulation. But if somebody has a better idea I'd love to hear it.

Labels: Health Care, Obesity

Muddying the Stem Cell Argument
by Keith Schmitz

Frank Rich hit it right on the head last weekend in the New York Times when he said that Bill Frist no doubt changed his position against stem cell research when he saw the polling and found the support to be "eye-popping."

You can bet the GOP realizes that Jim Doyle has a nice big horse to ride back to the Governor's Mansion with the stem cell issue. Even with the disegagement of the electorate, many people recognize the potential that lies in embryonic stem cell research. Heck, many Republican business people also recognize the potential that this technology offers in furthering Wisconsin as the "third coast" in bio-med research; a potential that not only benefits the labs and bio-pharms directly involved but a whole host of suport businesses as well.

So get set for a flurry of conservative columnists sweating away to claim things aren't what they are and diversionary tactics such as labeling Doyle's latest campaign ad as misleading to fit in with their "the governor is dis-honest" frame. The Journal has pitched in on this one big time.

Case in point is Rick Esenberg's op-ed in this morning's Journal.

I don't have time to research or refute all the howlers, but his essay is a bit conflicted -- a hallmark of much of his work.

Let's take one. He assails the popularly held asertion that there are 400,000 surplus embryos
from in vitro fertilzation clinics. Us supporters of stem cell research maintain that if the anti-abortion crowd is so concerned about these "people" being destroyed in the quest for cures, then flushing them away eventually is not exactly death with dignity.

Esenberg claims that a Rand study says there are 11,000 embryos. Just a quick hit here. That's still a goodly share of "people," just over the size of my home town Port Washington. You still have to flush even that small number away if you arn't going to apply them to science.

Then Rick goes on to bring help from the left by "quoting" a Mother Jones piece by Liza Mundy that says, despite what stem cell supporters say, the parents do not want to give the embryos they helped create for stem cell research.

The way Rick puts it from the article:

It seems that, in overwhelming numbers, they cannot bring themselves to destroy the embryos or to turn them over for research because, whether they be "lives" or "potential lives," creating them for destruction seems wrong.

Well, we do have the internets (damn that Al Gore!) and you can read the article for yourself (no link provided in the Journal).

First off, Mundy accepts the existence of the large number of frozen embryos, from of all places a "rand consulting group" study. She puts the number in fact at 500,000.

She then goes on the talk about those parents. Yes, one of their feelings is to preserve their embryonic progeny. But this of course is no conservativeworld and it turns out that these parents are much more conflicted than what Esenberg claims.

According to the study led by Dr. Robert Nachtigal:

Couples, (the research) found, were confused yet deeply affected by the responsibility of deciding what to do with their embryos. They wanted to do the right thing. All of the 58 couples in his study had children as a result of treatment, so they knew, well, what even three-day-old embryos can and do grow into. (Nachtigall is currently studying a much larger sample of couples, where both egg and sperm come from the parents. It should answer the question of whether couples who use donor eggs are in any way distinct in their thinking about embryos.) “Some saw them as biological material, but most recognized the potential for life,” Nachtigall told colleagues at the asrm meeting. “For many couples, it seems there is no good decision; yet they still take it seriously morally.”

And that is not to say the previous study that you will find in the article is invalid, which found:

...many patients begin in vertro fertilization with some notion about how they will dispose of surplus embryos. (The choices come down to five: use them; donate them for research; donate them to another infertile person; freeze them indefinitely; or have them thawed, that is, quietly disposed of.)

Brace yourself, you will see more of these op-eds as we approach the election with lots of poorly researched assertions. My only hope is that the Journal editorial page does a better job of fact checking.

The GOP knows full well that the stem cell issue will make a difference in this election like it did earlier this year in the New Jersey special election for Governor, and as it will across this country. In the process, they will be willing to sacrifice this very important research for their usual short term gain. Don't let them do it.

Labels: Rick Esenberg, Stem Cells

by Ben Masel

The House of Representatives Wednesday night passed legislation mandating that schools and libraries receiving federal funds or discounted rates under the Universal Access statutes block social networking sits such as Myspace, Friendster, and Xanga.

Dubbed the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), the bill gives the Federal Trade Commission 120 days to enact rules further defining "Social Networking Sites" but it's my first impression that the prohibition would kick in immediately on passage in the Senate and signing by the President.

The 410 "Ayes" included all of Wisconsin's Representatives, with only 15 Democrats voting against. rollcall

Some interesting snips from the floor debate

MR DINGELL:...
The simple fact of the matter is this legislation was sprung on us. I am told that it was written last night. We barely saw it before the process on the floor started. And the committee process, which enables us to look at legislation in a sound and responsible way, and the committee process, which enables us to work together to put good legislation on the floor, legislation which is carefully thought out and which the wisdom of all of the Members is brought to bear on the question, is not something which we find in the process in which we are now engaged.

So now we are on the floor with a piece of legislation poorly thought out, with an abundance of surprises, which carries with it that curious smell of partisanship and panic, but which is not going to address the problems.

We have a piece of legislation on which we have less than an hour to talk, and we have no opportunity whatsoever to amend the proposal. We can vote ``yes'' or we can vote ``no.'' Well, most Members, I suspect, will do the politically wise thing, and I will join them in it, and that is, I am going to hold my nose and vote for this legislation in the full awareness that it is not going to address the problem at all and that it is a political placebo for a very, very, serious problem...

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act, because it sends the wrong message to our children, our parents, teachers and librarians. The bill would curb Internet usage as a means to protect children, a counterproductive method to achieving such an important goal.

Rather than restricting Internet usage, parents, teachers and librarians need to teach children how to use our ever changing technology. The information age in which we live offers so much potential to our children, if they know how to use it...

Mrs. BIGGERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a cosponsor of H.R. 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act...

...It is easy to see why networking Web sites are popular among teens. A recent poll by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that 87 percent of those aged 12 to 17 use the Internet on a regular basis. Of this 87 percent, approximately 61 percent report having personal profiles on networking Web sites like MySpace, Facebook or Xanga.

Presuming Mrs. Biggert (an Illinois Republican) is correct, why would Dem Representatives want to alienate over half of todays teens, who after all, will be joining the electorate soon? This bill would not stop any sexual predator from finding victims. At best, by limiting access to those teens who log on from locations other than schools and libraries, it would make them work incrementally harder to find kids willing to meet them. Measure this against the cost of restricted access, and there's no real benefit.

Earlier this week I created a Myspace presence for my campaign, and have found it quite effective, with several bands contacting me with offers to distribute campaign literature at their shows, etc.

With just a week left before the campaign season adjournment, it may be possible to stall this assault on free speech in the Senate, but only if someone there is brave enough to use the available procedural tricks to slow it down. Russ? Herb? C'mon, this one's not as tough as the Flagburning Amendment.

cnet story slashdot discussion

Labels: Ben Masel, Censorship, MySpace

by folkbum

A lot of the right Cheddarsphere--and blogosphere as a whole--have been up in arms lately about Howard Dean. I mentioned Dean in the post below, and, if you're a liberal blogger of the same vintage that I am, you probably have some of the same rose-colored memories of those heady days that I do.

I bring this all up because Glenn Greenwald posted yesterday a long excerpt of a Dean speech from February of 2003, a speech in which he made more accurate predictions about what would happen in Iraq than members of the Bush administration ever did.

Which leads me to ask my right-Cheddarspherean friends: Are you so mad at Dean all the time because he was right and you were wrong? I don't know what else explains it . . .

Labels: Glenn Greenwald, Howard Dean

by folkbum

Any minute now, I will probably be marking my second appearance in USA Today (the first is here). I did a long interview last week with education reporter Greg Toppo, who contacted me for a story about teachers who blog.

I haven't really given the subject a lot of thought, except as it relates to me and my own situation. But, especially during and after the conversation with Toppo, I've been considering what I do, and how that's different from what many other teachers do.

The NEA Today did a story about teacher bloggers last September that began to touch a little bit on the issue:

Many teacher blogs look like personal diaries and serve as virtual lounges, a place to kvetch and share inspiration with colleagues [. . .].

The stories your colleagues could tell… and do! More than ever, under the anonymous cover of the Internet, teachers are downloading their daily frustrations, aggravations, and occasional satisfactions. "It's the first thing I do when I get home," says La Maestra, author of A Contar, the daily tale of a bilingual educator in Texas. [. . .]

For La Maestra or Ms. Frizzle or Posthipchick, the blog isn't just a teaching tool, aimed at motivating students. It's a way to remember the details of their jam-packed day, turn on their inner comedian, and activate their politics. After a day spent basically alone--well, except for those 34 kids--the blog serves as a welcome way to decompress, says the pseudonymous Ms. Frizzle.

It's cheap therapy--and it's particularly valuable for new teachers. You might not want to tell Mrs. Delaney in the next room that you dearly wish you'd looked twice at an accounting degree--but you can freely tell your tales of woe to strangers, who often offer a bit of nonjudgmental advice.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that those bloggers don't sound like me at all. I have said before that for me, I have a big, bright, red line that I do not cross. I don't talk about "school." Sure, I talk about education. I even talk about what's happening in the district. But I don't use this blog as a way to decompress or connect with colleagues (though I know many of my fellow MPS teachers do read me) or ever--ever--reveal anything personal about colleagues, students, or parents.

Greg Toppo was very interested in that in his interview. In fact, one of his first questions was, "You aren't anonymous--tell me about that." Apparently, he'd mostly been talking to teachers who don't use their names, and told me I was a rarity. He asked if I were worried about repercussions, and I told him that no, I had a strong union that I trusted to support me. Besides, I said, the superintendent knows who I am and what I think of the way he's running the district. He would have fired me years ago if he'd wanted.

Toppo mentioned one anonymous teacher in particular, First Year Teacher (who is now well beyond her first year). He read to me, incredulously, from this post, which is FYT's unsent letter of resignation after a particularly horrible year. Here's a piece of it:

First, there is a dangerous man in room 134. I have referred to him as Jackass, mostly, but you know who he is. I know that you are aware that he is tracking his female students menstrual cycles on a sheet of paper at his podium because I have told you this. I am certain that you know he also keeps a picture of a female student on his whiteboard and has been observed kissing it by students because, again, I have told you this. At Field Day recently he also laughed along side some male students as they stood behind a female teacher making comments like "This is the best view around!" and "Booty, booty, booty, booty, rockin' everywhere!" He has spit in the face of some male students, pushed a boy into the door, made fun of the accents of Hispanic students, and held votes as to whether students would be punished or made fun of. Again, I made you aware of each of these activities, though you've done nothing about it. I'm not sure how you sleep at night knowing you have allowed this man to be here for two years and are now planning to write him a "shining recommendation" though you aren't allowing him back here. It seems obvious that he is just going to go to another school and behave the same. It is people like you that make child abuse an easy crime to commit. You might want to deal with your issues concerning this.

You see my point.

There are any number of reasons why I would never write the above paragraph. The most obvious one is that you, the reader, know who I am and a clever Googler can figure out where I teach, opening the district up to a tremendous lawsuit. Additionally, while I have on occasion written that unsent-letter sort of thing, I know that the whole point behind those is the catharsis of writing, not the letting people see--and, while the principal may never have seen it, putting it on the blog is still a step beyond what this process calls for.

Most importantly, though, in a situation like the one FYT describes, the correct answer is not to post it in a blog, but to call the police, or, at least, social services. Telling the principal is the right first step but, when that principal doesn't follow through and I know that students' health and well-being are in danger, I have to act beyond sitting here and typing.

Greg Toppo, perhaps following the "there must be two sides, and they must disagree" model of journalism, wanted me to condemn FYT for this, and the "diary" style of teacher-blogging in general. And, yes, I believe that there is some exposure under FERPA in situations like those, but I also told Toppo that, you know, that isn't my style and I would never do it, but they made their choice. I would like to think that these teachers--some that I read and many, like FYT, that I don't--are smart enough people to know FERPA and to know, especially after three or more years of doing this kind of blogging, where their own lines are, and how not to cross them.

I figured out, over the course of my conversation with Toppo, why there is a difference between me and many of the other teacher-bloggers out there, and it has to do with why I started blogging in the first place. For me, blogging was never about having a diary or a journal or some other chronicle of my life. Yes, I occasionally bring on the personal, but I didn't start this blog as a way to keep in touch with friends or document the thousand mediocrities that are my daily life.

I started this blog to be political. I was brought to blogging, like a lot of Democrats who started in the first half of 2003, by Howard Dean and his campaign for president. The more other blogs I read, the more I thought, "Hey, I could do that." Even when writing about education elsewhere, such as at the defunct Open Source Politics or a blog a few other Milwaukee Public Schools teachers and I started to provide some alternative, positive views of our profession and union, I was more about the issues in education, the politics of it all. I never wanted, nor have I ever tried to have, the kind of blog where I talk about students--their lives, their foibles, their performance. (The exception is if the students are news, as when a student of mine won a Gates Millennium Scholarship recently). I don't even use this space to talk about lessons, activities, or units to bring into the classroom.

The personal was never political enough for me to blog about. And the early surrender of my anonymity meant, if I ever did get around to doing a different kind of blogging about teaching, there would be tremendous consequences. Hence, my big, bright, red line.

I don't know when the USA Today story is running; rest assured, I will tell you when I see it.

(An aside: Toppo asked me about maybe sending a photographer in case the story were to run with an accompanying picture--you know, photograph the the teacher-blogger in his natural futonian habitat. It confused me at first, as I'm sure others--such as First Year Teacher, linked above--are both more telegenic and more elemental to the story he's writing. Only after I hung up the phone did I realize that he asked me because I'm the only one not trying to stay anonymous!)

Labels: Education, Meta, Teaching, USA Today

Auf Wiedersehen Wal-Mart

Hi bloggerville and all you wingnuts looking in, I'm Keith Schmitz (krshorewood), happy to be here and pitch in while Jay's busy. I am with the mighty Grassroots Northshore, am currently with the group pushing to bring Air America to Milwaukee, which I will talk about from time to time, and am even on the board of a statewide business organization and can count many conservatives as my friends. After years of being bored and spolied by being represented by Tom Barrett, I am now part of the captives under F. Jim Sensenbrenner.

Hope I can in a small way inform most and irritate the rest. Here goes.

Say what you will about the Germans, but aside from kicking off a war or two they are basically good sense people. Something has to work or they don't use it.

Case in point Wal-Mart. They are saying good bye to Germany.

Turning lemons into big box lemonade, CNN quotes a retail industry watcher who lauds the move:

"It's a brilliant decision by Wal-Mart," said Love Goel, CEO of Growth Ventures, an investment firm focused on retailers. "Korea and Germany's retail market is too competitive. Secondly, consumers there really aren't aligned with Wal-Mart's core value proposition of offering bottom-barrel prices."

Well guess what Wal-Mart, you could have competed in Deutschland. It's easy. Don't mess with their culture. And as far as bottom-barrel prices, the average German is looking for quality goods and a quality lifestyle.

Don't get me wrong. what does right Wal-Mart does well. But this is a consumer economy and we need consumers to make it run. With this retail giant being the largest employer in the country paying some of the lowest wages in the country, it is major polluter -- of the market.

This Germanfest weekend it's sehr gut to a country that knows how to stand up for itself.

Labels: Wal*Mart

The Business Journal is runing one of those meaningless online polls asking whom you'd vote for in the Wisconsin governor's race. Notice that no independent candidates are listed.

Labels: Jim Doyle

The Best Quote of the Year Edition
Hunter: "French sucks, for a lot of different reasons but mainly because I tried to learn it in high school, only to learn at the end that I had been taught Canadian French, which is pretty much like trying to learn how to play the oboe and finding out there's been a dead guy's thumb crammed inside it the whole damn time."

1. "Soulful Shade of Blue" Neko Case from The Tigers Have Spoken
2. "All Along the Watchtower" U2 from Rattle and Hum
3. "Marty and Lou" Peter Mulvey from The Knuckleball Suite (A close runner-up for Best Quote of the year: "These days, these days, I tell you. These days, it's all about the monkeys.")
4. "Unfamiliar Moon" Vance Gilbert from Unfamiliar Moon
5. "The Boxer" Simon and Garfunkel from The Best of . . .
6. "Black Boys on Mopeds" The Nields from Bob on the Ceiling
7. "When" Patty Larkin from Regrooving the Dream
8. "A Moment of Clarity" Carley Baer from Still Life
9. "Twilight" David Gray from Lost Songs
10. "Kissing in the Car" Jennifer Kimball from Veering from the Wave

Labels: FRT

Guest blogger Steve Paske here. For once I'm going to resist the urge to argue against my fellow educators on the subject of what we should be paid. Though normally quite moderate, an article in my home State Minneapolis Star Tribune (I just returned from overseas and am with my parents for a few days), has brought out my left-leaning side on the gay marriage issue today.

It seems that the Washington State Supreme Court upheld the State's ban on gay marriage on Wednesday. Now here is an issue where I just don't understand Conservative logic. And remember that in any good arguement with a Conservative you will hear the line, "Conservative's arguements are based on reason and logic, liberal arguements are based on emotion."

But let's look at the logic behind the decision made in Washington State. In defending the Court's decision to uphold the ban, Justice Barbara Madsen wrote,

"The gay marriage ban is constitutional because the Legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival."

Essential to survival! I believe if I were to check out current world population figures there would be about seven billion people on the planet today, including about 300-million in the U.S.A. But by virtue of the conservative logic of this decision, we're to believe that human existance would be threatened if we allowed the marraige of gays.

One word: Absurd! For Justice Madsen to insinuate that the legalization of gay marraige could even put a dent in the birthrate is insane. Even if it did have a dramatic effect, let's say a 5% drop, I fail to see how that would hurt the State of Washington in any way.

The fact is that those who argue that gay marriage should not be allowed are generally basing their arguments on an emotion called faith. While I respect the rights of Christians to consider the act of homosexuality as immoral, I fail to see why their view of morality is what gets to dictate legislation.

This issue is precisely the reason we have a separation of Church and State. The founding fathers (who no doubt conservatives would point out, must have disdained homosexuality) wrote the Constitution in a manner that would protect the rights of individuals that didn't quite fit in with the most popular beliefs of the day.

In my opinion the only way to justify a ban on gay marraige would be to prove that it harms society, and to prove it in a logical way. Clearly the Court is stretching logic when it argues that homosexual marraige be outlawed because of the effect it might have on procreation and the survival of the species. If it's more kids they want I will happily volunteer to be a part of that process. And in that process there is no need to discriminate against people who are gay.

Labels: Gay Marriage Amendment

by folkbum

Chris Bowers at MyDD today points us to a study by CNN that tried, crazy as this sounds, to determine how close any given state was to the average of all states nationwide. Guess who's least abnormal?

Wisconsin!

From the CNN story:

The Badger State comes closer than any other to state-by-state averages on 12 key measures, according to a new analysis by CNN Polling Director Keating Holland that takes a fresh look at U.S. Census data.

"For years, politicians who put the presidential calendar together have wrestled with the question of which states really are the most typical or more representative of the country," Holland said. "Here is one way to determine that."

Holland identified 12 key statistics--four that measure race and ethnicity, four that look at income and education, and four that describe the typical neighborhood in each state--and added up how far each was from the figures for the average state on each measure. Holland said he chose these 12 different categories because "they have a strong impact on the political landscape in every state." [. . ]

So, what makes Wisconsin so special--or, to put it another way, what makes Wisconsin so average? It is about as close to the average state as you can get on most of the 12 measures included in this study.

For example, let's take the number of college graduates who live in each state. Wyoming is dead center among all 50 states, with 30.22% of its population holding a college degree. In Wisconsin, the number is 30.24%.

Or take housing values. On a state-by-state basis the median housing value, in North Carolina, is just over $111,600. The median housing value in Wisconsin is roughly $111,500. The Badger State is also fairly close to the state-by-state average on population growth, home ownership, population density, and the number of blacks and Hispanics who live there. The number of whites and blue-collar workers who live in Wisconsin is much further away from the average state's figures on those measures, but not enough to keep the Badger State from claiming the top spot.

Bowers wonders, upon looking at the full rankings, how they are mathematically possible:

The scale for the study was 0.0 to 50.0, with 50.0 being the most average. However, thirty-one states composing roughly 60% of the national population came in with scores below 25.0, which I suppose would be the "half-average" score. Overall, the median score for the study was around 20, a full 20% below "half average." Also, eight states were more "non-average" than Wisconsin was "average." My question is, how exactly does it work out that over half of the nation is not representative of the nation as a whole?

That is a good question, but perhaps not an unsurprising one coming from a resident of the very non-average state of Pennsylvania, which ranked 19th.

My question is, what do you think Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce will think of this? They love surveys that rank states for stuff.

Labels: Fair Wisconsin, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce

Posted by grumbleberries
Regardless of how one may feel about the right for gay people to get married and Marriage Amendments, this type of amendment would, for the first time, write discrimination into the Wisconsin Constitution. The forces behind this amendment are without a doubt proponents of discrimination who will not give up ever! I have been around long enough to know that one cannot reason with religious zealots and I have no interest in doing so. I am very concerned, though, when a group that is called the American Family Association sends out this action alert that attacks gay/lesbian/bi/trans students, the National Education Association and this country's teachers.

I did not attend the NEA RA this year so I am strictly speaking as an experienced teacher who has seen just about everything in 30 years service. The AFA position on homosexuality in schools seems to be to completely ignore its existence. To insist that teachers and support staff not attempt to understand what approximately 10% of our students are going though would be tantamount to malpractice. Students are in classrooms every day working though what for them is a very confusing time sexually. GLBT populations have a very high rate of suicide, and are the targets of extremely cruel bullying. Are teachers supposed to ignore this type of behavior? One would only have to witness one such act of bullying in order to realize the immorality of the bullies. Sadly, there are those in the so called American Family Association that are be functioning as adult bullies. The AFA's position is immoral regarding these children. Thankfully, the National Education Association is being the adult on this issue.

The NEA, I am certain, is a proponent of all families that are an emotionally stable and healthy place for children to grow up. Teachers and support personnel welcome any family who wishes to become involved in their son or daughter's education. I have seen many marriages between "one man and one woman" that unfortunately have not been positive places for kids. Sexual, physical and emotional abuse is much more common than the AFA and their postcard image of families would like to admit. Unfortunately, many children who grow up abused eventually become the abuser. Failing to acknowledge and intervene in student problems in today's schools is a serious mistake and would continue the cycle. Schools are much more than reading, writing and arithmetic. A moral family orientated society would make sure that every student received a great public education.

Lastly, the AFA stated that the NEA refused to back a resolution concerning sexual contact between students and staff. In mentioning this, they seem to suggest that teachers and staff support sex with students. This insinuation truly exposes the AFA as NUTS! Thank goodness there are LAWS that prohibit sex with minors! Anyone crossing this line deserves the fullest prosecution of the law. It is ridiculous to insist that the NEA weigh in on something as illegal and immoral as this? Is it necessary that we continue to reinvent the wheel concerning everything in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Pledge of Allegiance. Come to think of it doesn't the Pledge conclude with "with liberty and justice for ALL". One would hope that all students have the same rights. I wish this was all just a bad dream!

Labels: American Family Association, Education, GLBT, National Education Association

Posted by grumbleberries

No kidding! In a Washington Post article the U.S. Treasury Department just figures out that taxes may have to be raised or program cuts made to finance the Bush tax cuts. I don't know why they just didn't just ask Ms Penelope Puddleduck from Park Falls six years ago!

Labels: Taxes

Posted by grumbleberries

Besides stating that a statewide candidate would be guest blogging, Jay also said that lesser known bloggers would also contribute. I hope that you'll welcome me as a new voice in the blog world.

First off, I'd like to thank Jay for the opportunity to guest blog at folkbum. I am honored to have been asked to help out while Jay spends some time pushed away from the keyboard.

As I am not as well known as Ben, I thought my first post should give the reader a little background about me so that you may have some idea of my frame of reference. I have been a long time lurker in the blog world and an occasional commenter. I recently started my own blog which can be found here. Being an educator for thirty years, the topics that tend to catch my eye and occupy my mind are those that are related to education and politics, but I really don't restrict myself. Whatever is making me grumble on a particular day is likely to end up in my blog. Jay has given us free reign so I look forward to this opportunity at folkbum.

Labels: Meta

Jay promised you guest blogging from a statewide candidate, and you weren't really expecting Mark Green, were you?
I'm jumping in quick to promote a mudwrestling match tonight, I've goaded Jessica McBride into having me as a guest on her show on WTMJ at 8:15.

In other news, the criminal charges I'd faced for collecting ballot access signatures at the Memorial Union at UW Madison on June 28 have disappeared. I showed up for my scheduled court date Monday and found nothing on the calendar. I headed to the District Attorney's office, where DA Brian Blanchard (who's unopposed for re-election) came out himself to let me know he wanted no part of the action.

I'll be filing civil actions against the Union, for violation of my campaign's free speech rights, and the individual UW Police officers for excessive force (pepperspray) and false arrest.

The Wisconsin Union Directorate has always held themselves out as a "private membership organization," able to exclude whoever they wish, and any activity they wish. It'll be interesting to see whether they hire private counsel, or as is their usual practice, avail themselves of taxpayer salaried University attorneys.

Labels: Ben Masel, Jessica McBride, UW Madison

I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but somehow I ended up on the email distribution list of Bob Dohnal, publisher of what may be the most awkwardly-formated website (well, not counting Time Cube anyway), the Wisconsin Conservative Digest.

It's kind of fun, actually.

For example, all the kewl kids are talking about the Digest's "survey" this week, but I got the email touting it more than a week ago. I just thought the thing was so laughable it didn't need to be talked about. For example:

The questions were about current events and Conservative leaders. We wanted to find out how the people felt about these issues that are not fairly addressed in the mainstream media.

1. Should we immediately withdraw from Iraq?
There have been several referendums on this issue plus the President is supposed to be wildly unpopular on this issue so that I expected pretty much of a split on this question. I was wrong--95 percent of the respondents wanted us to stay the course. [. . .]

6. Rate Jim Sensenbrenner, poor, good or excellent.
Since Sensenbrenner has been involved in many contentious issues the last year, I thought he might get some bad marks from people in this area, but only four percent gave him a poor while 83 percent gave him an excellent.

This is the sort of thing that should make waves, right? I mean, dozens of bring-the-troops-home referenda passed last spring, yet 95% of the people polled here want us to stay the course?

The humor, of course, is provided by the juxtaposition of the seriousness with which Dohnal treats the results and the demographics of the survey itself: "Surveys were sent out," Dohnal writes, "to GOP leaders, members of the Heritage Foundation, subscribers to Human Events and other miscellaneous leaders throughout the state." So there you go--straight opinion on all the issues that don't get fair treatment in the mainstream media, as viewed by those outside the mainstream--who in some ways pride themselves on being outside of the mainstream.

We're through the looking glass, people.

But I'm not done; merely laughing at the thing is not enough. There are also issues raised here that need addressing, some seriously. For one, Dohnal flat-out lies in his commentary to this question:

5. The SAGE program is a program that lowers class sizes in low income areas. The question was, whether or not we should put more money into SAGE so that we can enlarge the CHOICE program in low income areas?
The teachers union has been successful in telling everyone that lower class sizes means better results, even though testing does not bring that out. Support for SAGE received a positive vote of 35 percent--65 percent were opposed to putting more money into SAGE.

Dohnal's assertion that the teachers union is lying to you is itself patently false. As this Department of Education summary indicates, the results of low class sizes are real and documented. Even here in Wisconsin, a team of non-partisan researchers reported (.doc) that there is a real and lasting advantage to SAGE classrooms.

More importantly, Dohnal spends the most ink (pixels) on State Senator Tom Reynolds. Dohnal is a consultant on Reynolds' campaign, and he can't believe anyone would dis his boss. Reynolds gets prominent placement all over the Digest, and Dohnal plugs the man all up and down the page. Here's the question from the "survey":

7. Rate Sen. Tom Reynolds, poor, good or excellent.
The same with Sen. Tom Reynolds. He has been heavily attacked by both the special interest for his votes against the automatic tax on gas, the ethanol mandate and the minimum markup laws amongst others. Spivak and Bice, the left wing loonies from the Milwaukee Journal have strongly made vicious, personal smears against Reynolds and his family, mainly because Dan Bice is strongly opposed to any Christians that are also conservative. We figured that this would show up in Reynolds' results. They didn't seem to have any effect as Reynolds only got a five percent poor rating while receiving a 70 percent excellent. Remember, some people will never rate other politicians as excellent, reserving those only for the Ronald Reagans of this world. It is obvious that no one would beat Reynolds in a primary as the Conservatives are strongly behind him.

Nothing like trying to make the silk purse. My question: At what point does Dohnal's use of his media outlet to promote his employer start to become an issue?

And, perhaps more snarkily, if wingnut Tom Reynolds can only gather 70% in a wingnut survey, how much trouble is Tom Reynolds in? And this is as good a time as any to remind you of Reynolds's opponent (who is not my employer), Jim Sullivan. You can contribute there or through my ActBlue page.

***

The kewl kids, by the way, who beat me to the party:

• Xoff was first, wondering, if the Spice Boys are left-wing loonies, what that might make him.
  
  
• Paul Soglin uses Dohnal's orbit to reassure himself: "Occasionally," he writes, "we may be confused on the left, but we have not lost our equilibrium or our sense of direction."
  
  
• One Wisconsin Now's Jon Kraus conducted his own survey:

  One Wisconsin Now would like to announce that based on our own survey of
  “Wisconsin residents”, 100% of people we polled believe that the Wisconsin Conservative Digest survey is very out of touch with reality. Never mind that in this case we define Wisconsin residents as One Wisconsin Now’s 5 person staff, the margin of error is 0%.

All of that humor pales in comparison, of course, to Bob Dohnal's closing:

In the case of the democrats [sic], they have the nutty fringe that want to preserve every tree, eliminate God from the world, and are Socialists. It's hard to keep them happy, so they might run over to the Greens and vote. In the case of the Republicans, you have to energize the "hook and bullet" guys who drive pickups and SUVs, plus your "Right to Life" groups. The candidates who talk about the things that really matter to the voters will get them out and win. Those issues are basically the ones that affect their homes and families, their jobs, their autos, and their hobbies. If you get caught out in the Netherlands talking about the gold standard, and other esoteric problems you will go home empty handed.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go save some trees.

UPDATE: Ben at Badger Blues uses Dohnal as a jumping-off point for a longer, more thoughtful post.

Labels: Bob Dohnal, Jim Sensenbrenner, Jim Sullivan, Student Achievement Guarantee in Education, Time Cube, Tom Reynolds

Patrick McIlheran asks an astute question today:

He retired at the age of 50, after working at the company since the age of 20, and expects [General Motors] then to pay for his health care for the rest of his life, say another 30 years. Under what rational system does a company make such a promise?

Problem is--you knew there'd be a "problem is" as soon as you saw "astute," didn't you--McIlheran declines to answer his question.

The answer to the question of what kind of system promotes promises like that is this one. The American system.

Employer-based health insurance developed as a by-product of the post-war years, as US companies sought to sweeten the deals they offered potential employees, to make sure they got good ones. This situation is uniquely American. It exists nowhere else in the world, and, as the US has faced down a festering health care crisis for well over a decade now, the rest of the (Western) world has more doctors, higher satisfaction rates, universal coverage, and far cheaper costs than we do. And now employers are shedding benefit packages left and right, including at GM. Where will health coverage come from when the employer-based system dries up, and there's no good universal system to take its place?

Chickens, roosts, etc.

McIlheran, as is his wont, blames the union and the whiny worker he cites in that piece. In the meantime, some of the rest of us are talking about potential solutions instead of snarky questions.

Labels: Health Care, Patrick McIlheran

For a variety of reasons, August is going to be a busy month for me, and if it were just me behind the controls, posting would be light and even non-existent for long stretches.

Luckily, it won't be just me behind the controls, as I'm planning to bring in some guest bloggers, starting this week, to take up the slack. Some of them you'll recognize from the comments around here; some are just people I know from the 3-D and 2-D worlds. I still have a few invitations out, so I can't say who all is on the list just yet, but I can assure you that at least one candidate for state-wide office will be posting at least a little bit.

Oh, and since I still have room for a few more, let me know if you might be interested. I'm looking primarily for people who don't already have well-traveled blogs of their own, and who will keep up with some of the topics I tend to write about.

Labels: Guest Bloggers

I have met Bryan Kennedy's new campaign manager exactly once. In the brief conversation, I told her that Bryan needed to be on the air--and all he needed to air were 30-second spots of F. Jim Sensenbrenner being himself.

Because, when I read stories like this one, I have a hard time believing that the sensible people of Wisconsin's fifth congressional district would want to keep re-electing the putz.

Labels: Jim Sensenbrenner

Any recommendations?

Ah, the joys of home ownership . . .

Labels: My House

In the last couple of weeks, I've been teaching a little bit of journamilism with some students at Marquette's Upward Bound program: This week, they've been writing op-eds, and last week, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Bob Purvis came out talk about what his job as the night police reporter entailed. But we never talked about headlines.

Which might be too bad, since more people read headlines than anything else in the paper--certainly more than the articles below them. A good headline can tell a whole story, though, so sometimes it's not the worst thing that no one reads the article. A bad--or misleading, or biased--headline can also tell a story, often a very different one from the story attached to it.

Take two headlines from two consecutive days' worth of Journal Sentinels: Campaign funds tallied today: Doyle expected to top Green in fund raising and Green raises more than Doyle this year: But governor is still sitting on bigger war chest.

One of the classic blogosphere tropes is outrage, feigned or real, that the media is biased or partisan against candidates or otherwise out to get us. I don't think that is usually true; I think more often that the media just isn't always as good as it could be.

And this headline story, I think, illustrates that point.

Below that first headline about the "tallies," which ran in yesterday's paper, was a story about what was known and expected at the time the article was written, which was, as you might guess from the headline, before the two candidates for governor submitted their campaign finance reports. If all you read was the headline, which indicates that Democrat Jim Doyle was expected to out-fundraise Republican Mark Green, you would think that the consensus or conventional wisdom or position of the experts cited in the article was that Doyle would raise more money in the reporting period than Green. However, the article says nothing of the sort, and even hints at the opposite:

By all accounts, when campaign finance reports are filed today, U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-Green Bay) will have less money available than the man he wants to replace, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.

The question is how much less. That will be among the things watched today by political analysts, pundits and--of course--the opposing campaign.

Since the last reports were filed in January, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker dropped out of the GOP race and a state procurement official was convicted in federal court of steering a state travel contract to a Doyle campaign donor.

"Once Walker got out of the race, you'd expect most of the Republican money would be flowing (to Green)," said Joe Heim, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. "If Doyle has raised substantially more money, that would not be a good sign for Green." [. . .] With Walker in the race, Republicans were splitting their money between him and Green.

Combined, the two raised more money than Doyle did in the second half of 2005, $1.3 million to $1.1 million.

I won't get into all the reasons why Walker and Green might have been able to collectively outraise Doyle in the last half of 2005, but the article, neither in the quoted bit here nor after that, never finds anyone to say that the trend would change, and that Democrats would out-contribute Republicans for the first half of 2006. Even that opening sentence doesn't say it--all it says is that Doyle would still have more money in the warchest than Green and, given his head-start on fundraising (one of the reasons the flow of cash has slowed in the last year), that shouldn't have been a surprise.

But, to be clear, the headline explicitly said, "Doyle expected to top Green in fund raising" for the reporting period, not in funds available.

Maybe, you might be thinking, I'm splitting hairs, and I should just get off my horse and go back to bed. But I don't think so. See, I think the headline game here is an expectations one: With the first story, despite no expert, pundit, or campaign official in the article saying so, we have the expectation that Doyle will outraise Green.

In the second headline--which completely and accurately reflects what the story below it in today's paper says--we find that that is not true, and Green outraised Doyle by some $59,000, or about 3.5% more than Doyle.

But now everyone who reads the headlines, or who reads the stories without noticing that they sometimes contradict the headlines, can shake their heads and wonder what's happening to Jim Doyle. "Wasn't he supposed to raise more money than Green?" they can ask. "I thought he was expected to do much better," they can say.

And, voilà, Jim Doyle's campaign is in trouble, all thanks to the headline expectations game.

Labels: Jim Doyle, Mark Green, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Scott Walker

I realize it's been a while since I've had my stuff together to do this. Sorry about that.

The Long Time No See Edition

1. "If Love is not Enough" Peter Mulvey from Rapture
2. "The Drunkard" Dan Frechette from Lucky Day
3. "Fortissimo Wah" Jay Farrar from Sebastopol
4. "I Can See Your Aura" Erica Wheeler from Almost Like Tonight
5. "Nobody Girl" Ryan Adams from Gold
6. "Party Generation" Dar Williams from End of the Summer
7. "99.9 F°" Suzanne Vega from 99.9 F°
8. "Scotch and Chocolate" nickel Creek from Why Should the Fire Die?
9. "New Amsterdam" Elvis Costello from The Very Best of
10. "Jugband Blues" Pink Floyd from A Saucerful of Secrets

Labels: FRT

It has been ten years since I finished college. As I start thinking about the class reunion, I realize that, while I may have minor infamy in a small circle of the blogosphere that I can brag about, some of my classmates have done some really cool stuff:

While the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program has one stated goal—visits for prisoners and their children—Troop 1500 goes far beyond that, taking a holistic approach to the mother-child relationship.

Since its inception in 1998, Troop 1500 has brought some 50 girls together to discuss their hopes, fears and aspirations—both with their mothers and among themselves. Troop 1500 not only facilitates regularly scheduled visits with the Scouts and their moms, but has tackled the difficult and fragile psychological issues of prisoners and their children.

Begun and led by social worker Julia Cuba of the Girl Scouts of the USA’s Lone Star Council, and evaluated by Dr. Darlene Grant, an associate professor of social work at the University of Texas at Austin, Troop 1500 makes a group visit to the Gatesville Women’s Prison once a month. Back in Austin, the troop stays active with weekly meetings, allowing Cuba to keep close tabs on the girls’ family life, school and social activities, as well as their mothers’ progression through the penal system.

Once a month, Troop 1500 also meets for group therapy, giving the girls a place to express themselves and support one another in a structured and supportive environment. When the mothers matriculate from prison, their daughters stay on with Troop 1500 as long as they like, serving as mentors and role models to their friends and new members.

Addressing the emotional needs of these at-risk Scouts has paid remarkable dividends. In a 2003 Texas Monthly interview, Cuba said that 96 percent of the girls in Troop 1500 have stayed in school, and 98 percent have stayed out of the penal system.

My classmate Julia and her troop are the subject of a documentary, too, and there are more details about that at the link. Good for her. Good for them.

(And in a bit of odd worlds-collideness, my mother-in-law did work very similar to this in the Denver area up until a year or so ago.)

Labels: Beloit College, Julia Cuba

I used to think that former US Secretary of Education Rod Paige had more gall than anyone else ever to hold that position. After all, he presided over a "Texas Miracle" that everyone--including, almost certainly, Paige himself--knew was an absolute and utter hoodwinking, but which became the basis for No Child Left Behind. However, current DoEd Secretary Margaret Spellings is giving Paige a run for the money in the gall department.

After the report showing that private schools are no better than public schools squeaked meekly out of the DoEd in last Friday's document dump, Spellings had the nerve yesterday to stand next to Republican members of Congress and announce a proposal for a national voucher program. These vouchers would, of course, send students from their public schools into the private ones that we now know won't teach them any better, at a cost to taxpayers of $100 million.

Let's keep in mind some of what Republicans have proposed not spending money on (from both Congress and Bush):

• Special Education: $500 million proposed cut
  
• Title I, the program which targets aid to poor and minority students: $400 million proposed cut
  
• Education Technology State Grants: $300 million proposed cut
  
• Teacher Training Grants: $300 million proposed cut
  
• Even Start, an early-childhood program: $100 million proposed cut
  
• Upward Bound (which I'm teaching this summer): $300 million proposed cut
  
• Arts in Education: $35 million proposed cut
  
• Loans, grants and scholarships to college students: $300 million proposed cut
  
• After-school programs: $900 million proposed cut
  
• Vocational Education State Grants: $1.1 billion proposed cut

That is not a complete list, of course, but I think it should give you some sense of where the GOP's priorities are. The programs listed above are tested and proven programs for enhancing the quality of and access to education all across the country. Yet the Republicans are not interested in programs that provide support and assistance to the poor or minorities--or that might help (gasp!) members of the teachers unions improve the quality of their instruction. They only seem willing to support religious and private schools, knowing that those schools' ability to teach the students using those vouchers is not better (and knowing that the accountability is non-existent) than the public schools'.

Remember what I said here? Ignorance of reality in service of ideology is the ultimate state of being for much of the GOP. This is further proof of that if I ever saw it.

There's additional response to Spellings and the GOP's proposal all over the place. Some of the best I've seen has come from People for the American Way, Jim Horn, and Don Byrd, whose links are worth a read, too.

Labels: Education, Special Education, Student Loans, Title I, Vouchers

• NUMBERS: The fundraising numbers are in for Wisconsin's 8th Congressional district, with (no surprise here) Republican John Gard leading the way:

  Gard, the Assembly speaker, raised nearly $265,000 in the second quarter this year and had $882,000 in the bank as of the end of last month, according to new campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Since the start of his campaign for the House seat being vacated by Rep. Mark Green, Gard has raised $1.35 million [. . .]
  
  His Republican rival for the party nomination, state Rep. Terri McCormick, raised $11,000 for the three-month period, and had less than $3,500 in the bank. McCormick has raised a grand total so far of $58,051 and has lent her campaign more than $66,000, for full tally of $124,436. [. . .]
  
  Democratic candidate Nancy Nusbaum, the former Brown County executive, pulled in nearly $188,000 during the last quarter and finished the period with about $340,000 in cash. She has raised a total of $632,247 and also has lent her campaign $225,000, which adds up to more than $857,000 for her effort.
  
  Fellow Democrat and Appleton physician Steve Kagen's largely self-funded campaign had $772,000 on hand at the end of the period, with Kagen raising just under $44,000 for the quarter. The owner of a chain of allergy clinics in the Fox Valley, Kagen has lent his campaign $1.45 million. Grand total in money raised or lent for Kagen: $1.58 million.
  
  Jamie Wall, the third Democrat in the race, raised $88,099 for the quarter and had $417,305 in the bank. Wall is a business consultant and former state development official who lives in Green Bay. He's raised a total of more than $600,000 and lent more than $100,000 to his campaign for a grand total of $715,694.

  Kevin of the conservative Lakeshore Laments blog provides more detail on all the filings: Gard, McCormick, Kagen, Nusbaum, and Wall.
  
  I'm a little disappointed our candidates aren't doing quite as well as Dems in other high-profile races, but I am glad to see that, combined (including Kagen's $1.45 million loan to his campaign), we've significantly outraised the Republicans.
  
  You can visit the websites of Kagen, Nusbaum, and Wall to contribute, or, through my ActBlue page, you can give to the WI-08 general fund--money that will be dispersed to the winner of the September 12 primary.
  
  
• MORE NUMBERS: Steve Kagen has a new poll showing him winning both the primary (by 30+ points!) and the general against presumed Republican winner John Gard. You can see the SpiceBlog take, or you can read what Xoff found in Hotline.
  
  
• DECEPTION: Speaking of the Spice Boys, they note in today's paper something else that Xoff beat them to--Gard's campaign misled both the workers and the management at an Appleton firetruck plant, where they were filming for a commercial. From the paper's article:

  One of the workers, a 50-year-old employee with 10 years at the company, told us this week that a friend who also works at Pierce approached her about appearing in the video because the camera crew needed another woman. The woman, who asked not to be identified because of concerns for her job, said she read lines for the camera about how Pierce makes "all kinds of firetrucks for governments, for Iraq, for all over the world."
  
  This is where things get tricky.
  
  The woman, a political independent who said she votes for whoever appears most honest, said she and her friend assumed that the tape was for use by Pierce. The company runs videos on flat-screen televisions at its plants so visitors can see what is being done at each. The videos are updated from time to time.
  
  During the hour that it took to film the spot, the woman said, no one told her or her friend the real purpose for the video. [. . .] What's more, a Pierce spokeswoman said this week that the Gard campaign never asked for permission to tape its employees saying anything. Ann Stawski said the camera crew was given the OK only to get some footage in a Pierce facility for use as a "backdrop" in an ad.

  Now that the flap has been raised, Gard rightfully will not use the workers' words in his commercial. Still, I think it raises some ethical questions about the way Gard is running that campaign, or at least about the suitability of the production company. If there's more like that going on, we could have a real problem with--and a real national spotlight on--Gard's deceptive campaign practices.
  
  
• STUPID SNARK: However, I have to point out my favorite part of the Spivak and Bice article about the deceptive filming:

  Only after the filming was over were the two given a waiver to sign. The woman said she signed it quickly without reading the form because she had to return to her job doing detailing work on the trucks. Her friend signed hers but then asked to see it again so she could read it.
  
  "She said, 'That (video) was for John Gard,' " the woman recalled her friend remarking. "I said, 'Who the hell is that?' "
  
  She explained, "I didn't even know who was running for the Senate."
  
  Um, Gard is running for Congress, actually.
  
  "See how much I know."

  See how much they know: The last I checked, the Senate was a part of Congress! See we have this bi-cameral legislature with two bodies that make up the Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate.
  
  So there you go, folks: I read the Spice Boys, so you don't have to.

Labels: John Gard, Spivak and Bice, Steve Kagen

On Sunday, I posted a long series of links and commentary about the Milwaukee Public Schools, and I included a reference to--and quoted from--what I called "an unsigned op-ed" about the MPS residency requirement.

When I first read that op-ed--it was some time before I got around to linking it--I thought it had had Patrick McIlheran's name in the byline. So when I wanted to dredge it up, I first searched through his old columns, where I could not find it. Then I Googled his name and keywords like "residency" to find it, which was also fruitless. When I did find it and finally re-read it, I thought it was in his style, even. But since there was no name on the page I would link to, I didn't feel I could make the attribution.

But last night I got an email from a reader who thought he remembered McIlheran's name on the original--and thought so independent of my telling anyone about it. Still, without a physical paper in hand from that day or some other evidence, I left it alone.

While researching the story below, however, I read Bruce Murphy's June 27 Milwaukee Magazine column, where he notes (way at the bottom):

On Sunday, columnist Patrick McIlhern compounded the error in a column arguing that residency may need to be reconsidered.

The date and the content match; we have a winner.

The question is, why was that piece stripped of its byline? I'm willing to believe accident, but it'd be nice to have some answers.

Labels: Bruce Murphy, Patrick McIlheran

I have a half-finsihed post about P-Mac and the economy, but I'll let it simmer a while longer while we talk about vouchers.

McIlheran (gotta make sure he knows I spell his name right) blogs today about Milwaukee Magazine columnist Bruce Murphy's new piece. In that column, Murphy mentions the Department of Education study I wrote about on Saturday, using its good news for public schools as a jumping-off point to write his own version of McIlheran Watch. Murphy calls McIlheran a parrot for simply repeating Republican talking points instead of thinking critically. While I have long considered that a key element of the McIlheran Formula, apparently when Murphy says it--and misspells P-Mac's name--it ruffles the man's feathers. (rimshot) Here's MacIlheran:

What [Murphy]’s doing is droning on about school choice, saying something about how nothing’s certain about it or some such. He takes some time out to cite me as being a party ideologist on the subject because of a column I wrote last October in which I said suburban Republicans have little to gain from supporting school choice and in fact pay some price.

My logic, and it stems from what several nonpartisan political observers have mentioned to me, is that the program arouses opposition from teachers unions statewide, even prompting that union in three successive elections to campaign against suburban and outstate lawmakers who back school choice. Meanwhile, the program directly benefits no one in any suburban or outstate area--its aid goes entirely to parents and children in Milwaukee. In fact, groups opposed to school choice have long contended--incorrectly--that school choice in Milwaukee costs the rest of the state’s schools money. [. . .]

Whatever. He says I’m not cynical enough. Then he goes and says I have a thing for Republicans because I referred to “mayors from nice Republican places” in an ironical aside about local officials who didn’t like the Taxpayer Protection Amendment. In which case, it wasn’t a case of his being admirably cynical but of perhaps being insufficiently conscious while reading.

This is what makes my task here so easy: It's not just that P-Mac is partisan--I would be nothing less were I cursed with his job--it's that he doesn't learn, and he undercuts his own arguments so terribly much. Let's start with the whole matter of whether or not choice costs or benefits the rest of the state.

I've explained to McIlheran before that, in fact, for one biennial budget cycle, legislators did fund the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program's vouchers by reducing general aid to all districts in the state--in fact, costing most non-Milwaukee districts money. The "contended" link from McIlheran's post goes to a page from the People for the American Way's website, which is an archived html version of a 2002 study--a study that was accurate at the time it was completed, and which now I can't even find by looking through PfAW's Public Education section. I wonder if he's kept this page bookmarked for just such an occasion when pretending the past is the present would make him look good?

Actually, he's trying to contrast the PfAW study with a contemporaneously old Journal Sentinel article (the link on "incorrectly") that supposedly disproves it. Let's compare, shall we?

PfAW: Prior to the 2001-02 school year, when the legislature essentially created a separate line item in the general budget for the voucher program, half these costs were subtracted from state equalization aid to the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), and the other half was taken away from the aid for Wisconsin’s other 425 school districts. If MPS and other districts wanted to recover the lost revenue, they would have needed to raise local property taxes.

Journal Sentinel: Under a system in place for the past two years, the state gets the $49 million for vouchers by reducing the aid it pays to each school district in Wisconsin. Half the money comes from aid to Milwaukee Public Schools, the other half from aid to other districts. Districts can raise property taxes to replace the lost aid. In estimating its overall aid package, the state assumes all districts will do so, said Russ Kava, an analyst in the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Since state aid is proportional to the total of local property taxes around Wisconsin, the higher taxes mean a larger pool of state aid. [. . .] Combining the deduction for choice and the bigger aid pool, MPS has a net loss of $22.1 million. Other districts, together, have a net gain of $5.8 million, although nearly 240 individual districts outside Milwaukee have net losses.

Where is the contradiction? Is it that districts besides those 240 had net gains--gains that came only from raising property taxes to offset losses? Maybe. In either case, PfAW was accurate when it said vouchers took money from other districts; I was accurate when I pointed it out to P-Mac in February. And if McIlheran is trying to say that higher taxes for state taxpayers is an overall boon . . . well, that might require even more of an examination of his conservative credentials.

What about now?, you might be asking, recognizing that it's not 2002 anymore, and suburban and outstate Republicans are no longer eager to tinker with the funding formula. Do vouchers hurt or help school districts outside Milwaukee? The best way to answer that might be to consider what would happen were the program to vanish. Luckily, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau did just that; it became the basis for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's neglected pleas last winter to adjust the funding formula. Seth from In Effect has posted the LFB's letter here (.pdf), and it makes it pretty clear: If the voucher program vanished, and all the students in the progam ended up at MPS, the state's other school districts would lose between $74 million and $121 million in state general aid. That money would either have to be made up by property tax increases--as happened in the 1999-2001 biennium--or by cutting services drastically.

Knowing that, I would like to see McIlheran's explanation for how he can write (from his original October column, as quoted by Murphy), "suburban Republicans’ support for school choice has been pretty selfless. None of that money flows to their constituents.” They know the school districts they represent would suffer were choice to end. Period. Regardless of whether any choice money flows into their districts. (Don't forget that Alberta Darling keeps trying to change that.) They will not run to the Democrats' aid--to Milwaukee taxpayers' aid--knowing that the end of the voucher program would spike taxes for their constituents. It may have been true in 2001, when that Journal Sentinel article was published, that supporting choice would hurt suburban Republicans. But it is now now, not then.

Be nice if McIlheran learned that.

Murphy's column will eventually be archived here, so if the link above doesn't have a McIlheran story to it (scroll down), try this one.

Labels: Bruce Murphy, Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, Patrick McIlheran, Vouchers

I don't have a lot of time for this this morning, but I wanted to write briefly about Shark and Shepherd blogger Rick Esenberg's op-ed on stem cells. He promised me that I would hate it, and, while I think "hate" is too strong a word for my reaction, I think he misses a major point when he writes about "embro-destructive research" in this morning's paper:

While the battle over terminology is part of the political give-and-take, it threatens to obscure what is at stake. The debate is not about whether science or research is good. It isn't even entirely about whether it is good to cure diseases.

Rather, the issue is what ethical limits we ought to place on curing diseases. For some, this is a religious question. Proponents of embryo-destructive research and cloning argue that this ought to take it out of the realm of public debate. One can imagine the bumper stickers. "If you're against killing embryos, don't clone one." "Keep your laws off my lab." [. . .]

And human life is what this debate is about. In countenancing embryo-destructive research and cloning, we would be (and, to some extent, have been) crossing a line that has not yet been crossed--at least outside of Nazi Germany and a few other totalitarian states. We would, for the first time, be permitting the creation and destruction of distinct human entities for research. [. . .]

There are "scholars"--some holding prestigious chairs at Ivy League universities--who argue that infanticide can be justified because a newborn is no more self-conscious than a fetus. She has no more ability to reason and has not yet come to be aware of and to value her own life. If science comes to tell us that the creation of infants (perhaps genetically altered to prevent higher thought) are just the thing for the treatment of a disease, do we permit it?

Aside from the slippery-slope argument with no basis in fact--and, for that matter, the oblique Dr. Mengele reference--Rick is trying to make the point that scientists (and possibly US Senators) who are calling for more stem cell lines to research than those in play back in 2001 are using language to mask what they're really up to. Rick, a lawyer, uses some misdirection of his own: "Keep your laws off my lab" distracts us while he frames the debate for himself with that whole "embryo-destructive research and cloning" thing.

But even while doing so, Rick misses a serious point about the current state of embryonic stem cell research--and embryos in general--in this country. There are, by most news accounts I've seen, about 400,000 embryos cryogenically frozen right now, whose parents, having no further need of them for fertility treatments, are just leaving them sit. Many of those parents want to allow scientists to use those embryos to start new stem cell lines of research, replacing the sometimes-unusable lines scientists were restricted to back in 2001.

And the 400,000 embryos, if they don't get used for science, will be destroyed.

So there's the real frame: I don't care if you call it "embryo-destructive" or not, Rick, as long as you acknowledge that, in the end, those embryos will be destroyed anyway. You have to answer for why destruction with the benefit of bolstering scientific research is worse somehow than destruction out of wastefulness.

To me, there's no language that can mask that hole in your argument.

Update: Go read Mixter. Her post is excellent.

Labels: Mixter's Mix, Rick Esenberg, Stem Cells

Via Barbara O'Brien, we learn of the poor right-wing blogger who complained that Democrats have "[n]o solutions, plans, or solutions, etc...."

This, my friends, is why I will always have a job: The world will never run out of a need for English teachers.

(To be non-partisan: I did get an email yesterday from Doyle-Lawton asking me to "Watch ouf first TV ad.")

Labels: Blogging, Grammar

Take it. They're only as good as we tell them to be.

. . . and how many of us will select "blogger" for the "Occupation" question?

Labels: WisOpinion

Here's an omnibus post of things I've been holding onto for a while about MPS

• A month or so ago (I told you, a while) the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran an article on a study about the Milwaukee Public Schools' residency requirement:

  The residency requirement for teachers in Milwaukee Public Schools hurts the quality of education in MPS, and the state Legislature should step in to end it, two professors say in a report from the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute being released today. [. . .] "The teacher residency requirement deters many otherwise qualified teachers from pursuing employment in MPS," they wrote. "The effect, over time, is a decline in teacher quality." [. . .]
  
  Reacting to the report, Sam Carmen, executive director of the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association, said the union has opposed the residency rule since it was created. In 2004, it proposed modifying it to allow teachers to move out of the city after seven years with MPS and to create financial incentives for teachers to buy homes in the city. The proposal went nowhere, but Carmen said he expected the subject to come up in negotiations on a contract for 2005-'07, which have not yet gotten serious. [. . .] Schug and Niederjohn were skeptical of how serious the union is about ending residency. They said the rule works to increase the political strength of the union and of union-backed members of the School Board because it increases the ranks of teachers voting in elections. [. . .]
  
  "While no single factor can fully explain the discrepancy in teacher quality . . . between MPS and the rest of the state's school districts, the teacher residency rule exacerbates MPS' recruitment and retention problems," they said.

  Problem is, the study is crap:

  Shrewd readers of the MJS know that any time the word "study" appears in a headline or subhead, odds are said study will have been issued by a "think tank" funded by the right-wing Bradley Foundation. [. . .] In this case the tank in question is the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. Who are they? [. . . A] group opposing residency also is pushing vouchers and has generally been an ideological opponent of the public school system.

  A better critique of the study's content comes from Milwaukee Magazine's Bruce Murphy:

  Given the report’s emphasis on retaining experienced teachers, the most obvious question would be: How many teachers quit MPS because of the residency requirement? As it happens, the authors, professors Mark Schrug (UWM) and M. Scott Neiderjohn (Lakeland College), have an answer: A mere 5% of the 4,699 teachers who left MPS since 1992 said it was because of the residency requirement. That’s such a small number that it completely undercuts the report’s conclusions.
  
  Perhaps realizing that, the researchers buried this information on page 14 of the study and left it out of the executive summary, the two-page run-down that begins the report. Researchers are well aware that reporters rarely read beyond the executive summary. Sure enough, [article author Alan] Borsuk left out this key statistic.
  
  Union and administration officials will tell you that most teachers leave MPS in the first couple of years on the job, long before they reach the level of experience (five years) this report thinks is so critical. Salary and job conditions are crucial for these young teachers, not the residency requirement. [. . .]
  
  The rule could be eliminated at any time through collective bargaining, and Mayor Tom Barrett argues that that is the correct way to handle it. By contrast, if the Legislature ends the rule, there will be no giveback from the union in negotiations, the city would lose thousands of middle-class taxpayers and a precedent would be set for other unions (like the police) to ask for similar legislation.
  
  In the meantime, whether you’re for or against such legislation, the latest “study” – and the story reporting on it – doesn’t offer much insight.

  The paper followed their article up weeks later with an unsigned op-ed:

  The real cost of the rule, Schug says, is not only in losing qualified teachers, it's in never getting many to begin with. Get rid of it, and we'll see better job candidates, just as happened in Philadelphia and other places that recently abandoned residency rules.
  
  He and Niederjohn, by the way, say it's up to the state to lift the requirement. The teachers union, while formally opposed to the requirement, has little incentive to bargain it away during labor negotiations. If its members must live in Milwaukee, they are also Milwaukee voters, presumably sympathetic to union-backed School Board candidates. This would increase the union's control over the board, particularly in low-turnout elections. The union has pooh-poohed the argument, but Schug says it's one reason such a failed policy could survive so long.
  
  He may be underestimating how much policy-makers fear a middle-class exodus, though he's not unaware of it. The study says these fears are unfounded. Many teachers have little incentive to flee their Milwaukee neighborhoods, which are generally stable or appreciating. And those who do sell likely will hold out for a good price, meaning they'll be replaced by a new homeowner who's also middle-class. "I don't see this mass exodus," says Schug. [. . .]
  
  Schug's right that if the city wants a bigger middle class, it needs to woo one rather than treating teachers as possessions never to be surrendered. The genuine attractions of our city can do this, if only authorities can put a lid on thuggery and fix its schools.

  I'm opposed to the residency rule, as I do know that it does sometimes keep good teachers out of the district. I actually liked the union proposal in the last round of negotiations to require residency for seven years with district assistance in find and buying a home. It had to be dropped, of course, as the contract went to arbitration after the district refused to settle.
  
  On the other hand, Brew City Brawler has the right idea: The study's authors (and the MJS editorial board) never miss the chance to slam the union and blame the schools for the decline of the district. With friends like that . . .
  
  
• I am in favor of both this (if done smartly) and this (if done delicately). However, I've been in the district long enough not to expect that.
  
  
• Here's another one that shouldn't surprise anyone:

  Milwaukee Public Schools will get an estimated $7.3 million less in state aid than it predicted when district officials put together their budget this past spring. That means when the School Board gives final approval to the budget in the fall, MPS will likely have to make up for that $7.3 million by increasing the property tax levy - or make cuts after the school year has already started. [. . .]
  
  Typically the state provides school districts with aid estimates in the spring, according to Tom Back, the acting manager of financial planning for the district. But this school year it did not provide those estimates until early July, meaning MPS relied on its own estimates when putting together a budget proposal in April. [. . .]
  
  The overall budget of more than $1.1 billion is down $10 million from last year's budget. It will increase health and nutrition programs for students, and also provide funds for stepped-up enforcement against drugs and weapons in the schools. The number of district teaching jobs has dropped 14% over the last four years.

  Our enrollment is not down 14% in four years. According to DPI, our 2001 enrollment was 97,985; our 2006 enrollment (Excel file linked on this page) was 92,395. By my count, that's a change of only about six percent. I suppose it's possible that in 2001 we were carrying a whole lot more teachers than we needed. But I doubt that it was enough to justify the massive cuts we've seen in the last four years.
  
  
• Another unsurprising story:

  According to "Public Education and Black Male Students: The 2006 State Report Card," put out by the Massachusetts-based Schott Foundation for Public Education, Wisconsin fared the worst in the nation on what Schott calls its Education Inequity Index.
  
  The index looks at the difference between the 2003-'04 graduation rates of black males and white males. School districts and states with the highest dropout rates for black males and the largest gap between the graduation rates of white males and black males rank the highest - or worst - on the index.
  
  In Wisconsin, the gap in the graduation rate was about 47 percentage points, with about 38% of black male students graduating as opposed to about 84% of white males. No. 2 on the index was New York, where the graduation gap was 38 percentage points.
  
  The situation was similarly dire for Milwaukee Public Schools - among the five worst U.S. school districts with enrollments of more than 10,000 black male students, according to the report. Only 34% of black male MPS students graduate from high school, as opposed to 64% of white males, the report says.
  
  The consequences of what the report calls a "widespread, deep systemic failure to educate African-American males as efficiently as their White counterparts" include high unemployment, high imprisonment rates, little chance to attend and graduate from college, and unstable families.

  I'm not going to rehash everything I have ever written about this issue; suffice it to say that I am unwilling to place all of the blame where the paper and the repot seems to want to--on teachers and schools. What the report calls "consequences" of such a gap, I (and other professional researchers) call the cause of the gap.
  
  Additionally unsurprising about the story is that it was on the front page, like all bad news about the public schools. The good stories and studies that show Wisconsin schools and MPS in a positive light are always buried somewhere in the back.

Labels: Education, Milwaukee Public Schools

Here's one for all you supporters of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, who agitate against the Milwaukee Public Schools and for expansion of the voucher program. As it turns out, public schools outperform--or at least perform as well as--private schools on most fourth- and eight-grade measures.

In a Friday newsdump, the Department of Education released a a report (.pdf) that compared the results of fourth- and eight-grade reading an math tests between public and private schools. The report was competed last year, but, because its findings didn't really fit the ideological leanings of the administration, it went through six months of extra review and scrutiny, with all kinds of qualifying labels attached inside the report to minimize the significance of the findings.

Here's the New York Times from this morning:

The study, carrying the imprimatur of the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the Education Department, was contracted to the Educational Testing Service and delivered to the department last year.

It went through a lengthy peer review and includes an extended section of caveats about its limitations and calling such a comparison of public and private schools “of modest utility.”

Its release, on a summer Friday, was made with without a news conference or comment from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, the union for millions of teachers, said the findings showed that public schools were “doing an outstanding job” and that if the results had been favorable to private schools, “there would have been press conferences and glowing statements about private schools.”

This study is similar, both in results and in how it was treated by the feds, to one I mentioned in passing last January, that found that students at charter schools, as well, typically do worse, or at least not much better than, their counterparts in the public schools.

What's important about this study for those of us in Milwaukee, though, is the way it was done. There is absolutely no question that if you look only at raw scores, private schools do much better than public schools. I won't deny that, and no one on my side should. The reasons for this are widely-known: Private schools tend to attract better students with wealthier parents, and private schools tend to have the ability to say no when someone undesirable (say, a special education student) asks for admission. Public schools have none of those options; schools like mine have to take any student who walks in the door, and we are held accountable based on that student's performance regardless of where that student comes from.

Hence, the report's methodology. From the report itself:

In grades 4 and 8 for both reading and mathematics, students in private schools achieved at higher levels than students in public schools. The average difference in school means ranged from almost 8 points for grade 4 mathematics, to about 18 points for grade 8 reading. The average differences were all statistically significant. Adjusting the comparisons for student characteristics resulted in reductions in all four average differences of approximately 11 to 14 points. Based on adjusted school means, the average for public schools was significantly higher than the average for private schools for grade 4 mathematics, while the average for private schools was significantly higher than the average for public schools for grade 8 reading. The average differences in adjusted school means for both grade 4 reading and grade 8 mathematics were not significantly different from zero.

The researchers did not simply make two bar graphs and see which one was taller. They looked at what happens when similar students go to public and priate schools by accounting for demographic factors. This allows researchers to say that students with a particular demographic profile would do very well in either a private or public school. A private school that, by its admission policies or because of the popluation it serves has a greater percentage of those students, will do better than the public school down the way without such a high saturation of them.

For Milwaukee, the question of whether the MPCP is truly effective in increasing student achievement rests not on whether private schools in general outperform public schools, but whether individual students would achieve better in the voucher school than if they had stayed in MPS. This study, though not about Milwaukee specifically, suggests that generally, there is no benefit to moving to a private school and, in fourth grade, at least, students in private schools might be at a real disadvantage.

I know that I have complained previously about the kind of sampling and demographic matching that this study did; my complaints, then, however, were in a different context. That context was one of "holding voucher schools" accountable, which is not at all what a statistically-sampled look at voucher schools would do. It would only tell us--as this new Deptartment of Education study does--in general whether the voucher schools were doing any better or worse than the public schools. The whole point of accountability--at least, in my point of view, the point of view of the Milwaukee Public Schools, the point of view of the state Department of Public Instruction, and the point of view of the DoE and No Child Left Behind--is that parents and the community can see how well or poorly individual schools do with their students. No sampling study can ever tell a parent whether the voucher school or the public school in her neighborhood is the better place for her child.

What a study like the one reported today can tell us is whether it is a good idea to keep soaking the Milwaukee taxpayers and siphoning money away from the public schools to keep funding an unaccountable shadow system of schools of indeterminate quality.

I have for a long time said no, it's not worth it. This study confirms that.

(Via Maha.)

Labels: Private Schools, Public Schools

Here's an article that may well take you the whole weekend to read. It's from the June Harper's, and it quite well explains the times we're living in. It's called Stabbed in the Back, and in it you can learn German, history, and sociology all at once. The article is long, but the payoff is great:

Who could possibly believe in a plot to lose this war? No one cares that much about it. We have, instead, reached a crossroads where the overwhelming right-wing desire to dissolve much of the old social compact that held together the modern nation-state is irreconcilably at odds with any attempt to conduct such a grand, heroic experiment as implanting democracy in the Middle East. Without mass participation, Iraq cannot be passed off as an heroic endeavor, no matter how much Mr. Bush’s rhetoric tries to make it one, and without a hero there can be no great betrayer, no skulking villain.

Go read the whole thing.

Labels: Stabbed in the Back

I am not an expert on the "Plame-Gate" mess. I mean, I hardly write about it at all, and when I do, it tends be lame comparisons to TV shows.

I am, however, an expert on beating back the lies and distortions of Wisconsin bloggers, since, you know, someone has to do it.

When Bob Novak published his column this week, he finally spilled some of the beans about what he--conspicuously silent for years--has been up to in the much-scrutinzed case surrounding the outing of CIA agent Valerie (Plame) Wilson, whom Novak named in another column way back in July of 2003. The Nov-ster was the first to print her name and note that she was a CIA analyst, a revelation--combined with his later naming of the front company she supposedly worked for--that jeopardized work on Mid-East weapons of mass destruction.

The new column provides some new information--the name of two of three of his government sources--but most of the info is stuff that even casual observers of the Plame Game have probably already heard. For example, there's the fact that he claims to have learned Plame's name from Who's Who in America. Fine; I'm willing to believe that his unnamed Bush Adminisration source told him that Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA--the same CIA that sent Wilson to Niger where he learned that Administration claims of Iraq trying to buy yellowcake uraium were false, and that the infamous "16 words" in Bush's 2003 State of the Union were misleading at best. At which point, Novak flipped open his copy of Who's Who in America to the Wilson section and saw this (.pdf), which does in fact list Wilson's wife by her maiden name, Plame.

The problem is not, of course, that Novak put Plame's name in his column, nor even that he identified her as Wilson's wife. None of those things were secret. The problem is that her status as a covert operative for the CIA was a secret, and the revelation of her name--as well as Novak's subsequent naming of the front company she worked for--blew the cover of one US operation to stop the proliferation of WMD in the Middle East. (In the post below, I opted for a bad example of the Bush Administration interrupting one of its own investigations for partisan political purposes in the AQ Khan case; I could have used this one.)

Whether or not you buy the Who's Who story, one thing is clear: The book does not say Plame was a CIA operative, no matter what FOX News commentators might say.

And, of course, the Right Cheddarsphere is not far behind. From Peter DiGaudio, Wednesday:

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak admits he learned that Plame, husband of noted Bush basher and Democratic operative Joe Wilson, was an analyst for the CIA from Wilson’s entry in Who’s Who in America.

That’s right. Who’s Who in America, not some nefarious plot by Dick Cheney and Karl Rove to “out” a covert agent in retaliation for Wilson’s activities. [. . .] In short, much ado about nothing.

Did you catch that? In complete contravention of what Novak actually said--as well as in complete contravention of the facts of the case--Peter dismisses the whole Plame affair as "much ado about nothing" based on the untrue assertion that Who's Who had outed Plame, not Novak. That's right; despite the fact that Plame was unquestionably covert, and that her neighbors didn't even know she worked at the CIA, Peter (and, apparently,a FOX News commentator) believes that she and Joe Wilson were so stupid as to have noted it in Who's Who.

I think this is all part of the undying lie that outing a CIA agent, as Novak did at the behest of his administration sources, is no big deal (much ado about nothing, so to speak). How anyone can believe this, I don't know. All the attempts, even in plain contradiction of the facts, to try to say that she wasn't undercover or at least not deeply, or that Aldrich Ames gave her name to the Russians, or whatever, is to try to make the investigation into how the outing happened seem illegitimate.

Remember that the one idicted person from the investigation so far was not, in fact, indicted for the outing, but for the cover-up; lying to the FBI and prosecutors is a crime no matter what you may be talking to them about. Even if no one is ever indicted for blowing the cover of a CIA agent to the press--and saying that she is "fair game," according to Chris Matthews--there is still something wrong (and suspicious) about an administration-organized cover-up. There's also something creepy about an operation hatched by the vice president (see his hand-written notes here) to get one guy just because that guy speaks out against the adminsitration. That sort of thing shouldn't be happening in this country, whether you think Wilson was right or not in what he said.

One thing I do know, though: Peter DiGaudio is most certainly not right in what he wrote. But, as he said in response to my comments telling him that, it will be a cold day in hell before he admits it.

Labels: Bob Novak, Joe Wilson, Peter DiGaudio, Valerie Plame

I don't have a lot of time for posting today (or reading, for that matter), but I wanted to point out that it has now been a week since that filthy liberal rag, the New York Daily News, published details of an active and operational international investigation into a terror plot to attack New York City.

As usual, those treasonous, traitorous liberal bloggers from the Cheddarsphere jumped all over the story, trumpeting from their seditious websites all of the operational information that the government wanted to keep secret in an attempt to save American lives. Now that the program has been compromised, the government has lost a valuable anti-terror tool. A fellow patriot writes:

It is not, of course, merely the leaker who "compromised the FBI's relationship with some foreign intelligence services," but also the Daily News for publishing the story.

Those treasonous snakes on the left are just gloating that the press have revealed yet another of our government's programs for trying to keep the terror off our shores, and reveling in the fact that the press has put us in danger as a result.

I mean, those commie sympathizers and al Qaida lovers on the left ought to all be hanged, with the Daily News editors first in line for the gallows.

This is America. Love it or leave it, people--don't help the terrorists find new ways to kill us all.

(The preceding, of course, is snark; in reality, the conservative bloggers linked above only denounce the "liberal" press--and go after lefty bloggers--when they reveal information that might make George Bush look bad. The New York Times and other papers--unlike the Daily News--don't actually publish information to compromise foreign intelligence sources. Unlike, say, the Bush Administration.)

Labels: media, Terrorism

(Updated below.)

You know, every time I think about continuing to catch up on stuff I skipped last week, something new crops up. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's resident member of the fantasy-based community is back from his summer vacation. I don't know if he got too much sun, or if he's celebrating Bush's visit to Milwaukee this week, but he has certainly left the rose-colored glasses on.

One post Tuesday is all about how great it is that we're adding $300 billion to our national debt this year. He somehow thinks this is good news.

He's not the only one. New nemesis The Game is exultant:

Conservatives believe that if you lower taxes to a certain point, you actually get MORE in tax revenues because people have more money to spend, they buy more stuff, buisness makes more money, they hire more people to make more stuff, and so on...

But since liberals don't believe that...explain how Bush's tax cuts for the rich have collected MORE taxes FROM the rich?

The comments to that post degenerated into an argument over Social Security, but Game kept begging that his liberal commenters to admit that Bush's tax cuts have been a rousing success.

And that's McIlheran's point, too; the title of his post, after all, is "Argument's Over," saying "The tax cuts didn’t destroy America. Can we move on to the next issue, please?" Well, no, America isn't destroyed. But consider that, even after the good economic news of the week--that the deficit would be but $300 billion, not the close to $400 billion projected--we still learned that the deficit would in fact be the fourth-largest deficit in the history of the country. (Deficits 1-3 are, of course, Bush's from 2004, 2003, and 2005, in that order.) In fact, Bush himself predicted during his first campaign that there would be a surplus of more than $500 billion this year, not a deficit.

I do not understand how a loss of more than 800 billion dollars can be considered anything other than an abysmal failure.

What's more, according to the New York Times, "many independent budget analysts note that overall revenues have barely climbed back to the levels reached in 2000." So, sure, yeah, the tax cuts haven't destroyed anything, but they certainly haven't shown anything like that graph on the napkin: The argument actually was, to remind the goal-post moving Patrick McIlheran, that cutting taxes would increase revenue faster. That hasn't happened; I suppose we can say that argument's over now, too.

McIlheran isn't done there, though. He completely undercuts his own arguments (or, rather, those of the Heritage foundation, which he cites). He writes,

That is, CEOs got fat paychecks and their investments did well--because, in part, of the tax cuts that spurred the economy. As Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl put it, “Lower tax rates increased the incentives to work, save, and invest, and as a result the economy has grown faster.”

And when it grows, people earn more and pay more in taxes. Of course.

My head hurts from that spin. Let me see if I get this straight: The extra revenue you're celebrating comes "from 'the tippy-top of the income scale,' with Americans who have investments earning handsomely from capital gains"--money grown from money earned by people who have money. Yet you (and Heritage) say that this is evidence of more "people" at "work"? There's no "work" in capital gains. This increase in income is not being enjoyed by the "people" but by the few. It's John Edwards's "Two Americas" personified (and read that link to see how conservtives distort economic figures to pretend tax cuts help cure poverty better than social programs).

Actual economist Brad DeLong has two posts deflating some of the some of the ill-advised celebrating among the likes of McIlheran. First, he notes that even former Bush shills see bad times ahead; next, he takes apart Larry Kudlow, approvingly linked by McIlheran, who is also abusing economic figures to imply that things are moving more hummingly than they are.

Yes, the argument's over. The evidence continues to pour in that Bush's economic policies have neither helped the vast majority of Americans, nor have they done anything close to what they promised to do for us.

Update: Barbara O'Brien reminds me of something I thought I remembered but didn't have tim to check on this morning: The original 2006 deficit estimate was probably inordinately high on purpose. That means when the deficits no one but the Bush spinners expected didn't arrive--as expected--they claimed victory. Reminds me of Lisa Simpson:

Lisa: I could say that this rock keeps tigers away. You don't see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: I would like to buy your magic rock.

Labels: Patrick McIlheran, The Game, US Deficit

Xoff has already pointed to this from the Doyle-Lawton folks:

During his visit to Milwaukee tonight to raise special interest cash for Mark Green, George W. Bush tried to explain what qualities make a good Governor – but he missed the mark between those qualities and Mark Green’s record.

In his speech at tonight’s $1,000-a-plate dinner, George W. Bush said, “a governor has got to make education the number one priority of the state.”

Governor Doyle’s already done that, doubling financial aid for college students and stopping the Republican Legislature’s proposed cuts of hundreds of millions to public education.

Mark Green voted to cut student aid and voted funding for basic educational services for low-income students.

As Xoff notes, Green was in fact the deciding vote on some of those education cuts, and it seems highly unlikely that Green would stand up to a Republican legislature next year to meet Tommy Thompson's promise of 2/3 funding for K-12 education.

Moreover, House Republicans, of which Green is one, continue to be on the warpath against education. The new Elementary and Secondary Education Access and Opportunity bill is a killer. Here's just a snippet of what it does (read the whole document at the link, and note my emphasis):

The bill cuts No Child Left Behind (NCLB) for the second year in a row, nearly $500 million (2.1 percent) below FY 2006 and $1.5 billion (6.2 percent) below FY 2005. Schools are getting less than they received in 2006, 2005, 2004 and even 2003, as the government asks them to do more. The bill falls $16.4 billion short of our NCLB funding promises in FY 2007, creating a cumulative shortfall of $56.8 billion. [. . .]

The bill freezes Title I formula grants, denying extra reading and math instruction for an additional 3.7 million low-income children. [. . .] The bill cuts the federal share of IDEA to 17 percent. Congress promised to pay 40 percent of the costs of educating 6.9 million students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA). Instead, the federal share will continue to decrease from 18.6 percent in FY 2005 and 17.8 percent in FY 2006 to 17 percent in FY 2007. An additional $1 billion would be needed to restore the federal share to its FY 2005 level.

The bill fails to pay for NCLB teacher quality mandates, by cutting teacher training grants by $300 million. [. . .] Education Technology State Grants are eliminated ($272 million in 2006 and $496 million in 2005). NCLB authorized $1 billion to help teachers make the most effective use of classroom technology. These education technology grants help schools, universities and technical colleges share classes through regional and statewide distance learning networks, provide online professional development for teachers, and assist schools in keeping up with ever-changing technologies. Schools in AR, AZ, DE, MD, MI, MN, MO, ND, NH, OR, VT, and WI are especially impacted by the bill's elimination of education technology grants because their states do not have dedicated funds for technology.

The bill specifically hurts Wisconsin's technology education (but we have to keep software companies like RedPrairie!) and directly affects the ability of the state's only failing district--the Milwaukee Public Schools--to do what it neds to do through further cuts to Title I and IDEA funding. The mark-up goes on to note that the House Republicans are even cutting programs the Bush requested and promised to deliver. Clearly, the president feels that education is more important than House Republicans do. Mark Green is one such House Republican, and he has not distanced himself from this bill in the month since its introduction. And if he votes as he usually does--party line above all--he will endorse it and support it when it hits the floor.

That's why, when Bush said we need to elect a governor who would make education a top priority, he clearly was not thinking of Mark Green.

Labels: Education, George W. Bush, Jim Doyle, Mark Green

It's happened before, once or twice. Grothman had the signatures but isn't running against Herb Kohl. That means there no chance to use the "Something good from the bottom of the barrel" slogan--or any of the other slogans--here.

I'd write more, but Blogger is telling me there's a scheduled outage any second now.

Labels: Glenn Grothman

It's ironic or something--or perhaps I jinxed it--but I was just thinking the other day how, unlike so many of the other seminal or enduring bands to come out of the drug-addled 1960s, Pink Floyd has been lucky that all of its members were still around and kicking. And, I suppose, if you don't count Syd Barrett, who hadn't been in the band since 1968, that's still true. But if you count Syd--and I do--it's not true anymore. (And David Gilmour's looking pretty pasty lately, too, isn't he?)

Which raises two questions: One, what bands is that now true for? Are there any?

And two, which one's Pink?

(First found via Babblemur.)

Labels: Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett

"If everyone collecting signatures gets 'em to me at the office by 5:00, then I'm in."

Steven Walters:

Grothman said he won't make a final decision on whether to run against U.S. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) until "maybe tomorrow, around noon."

"I circulated papers, but it doesn't necessary mean anything," Grothman said Monday afternoon. "I have to circulate papers." [. . .]

Grothman said he truly is torn, because for every adviser urging him to run there is another one telling him he would be crazy to do so. Both sides are "pretty persuasive," he added.

When I got the news that Grothman was running--Saturday evening--my source told me that his family, one of whom was trying to get her (my source) to sign nomination papers, was sure he was running. There's no suspense, except in whether the signatures get there on time.

Labels: Glenn Grothman

I'm still catching up a bit, but I wanted to make sure I got in today with a couple of posts from former Madison mayor Paul Soglin who, as I predicted, had some words for Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the pro-business, anti-tax lobby here in the state. WMC makes a habit of touting studies that claim Wisconsin's business climate is horrible (their solution: cut taxes!); I kind of think they have just the one press release, and all they do is change the name of the study on it.

In this post, Soglin wonders why WMC didn't mention a particular study:

BHI's Competitiveness Report attempts to identify the qualities that allow some areas to excel in income generation and the qualities that prohibit other areas from attaining the same level of competitiveness. This question quickly leads on to others: How can these qualities be measured? What standard should be used to determine whether a state is competitive or not? Indeed, why is it even interesting to measure competitiveness? {. . .] Wisconsin ranks a lofty 16th in this report in 2005.

Top third, eh? Ususally conservative groups talking about Wisconsin in the top third mean tax burden, or maybe per-pupil spending down to your local public school. But here we are, competitive and ready to rock any business who wants to drop by. Soglin also makes some good points about why we don't rank higher--and not all of them have to do with high taxes.

In this other, more damning post, Soglin points out the idiocy of WMC and similar groups nation-wide. Well, maybe not idiocy, but certainly their ideological blindness:

I decided to see if other states had similar outfits bashing, smashing, and lashing out in an effort to smear their state government, in a sinister, malevolent effort to shift taxes to ordinary citizens. [. . .]

My methodology is flawless. I used only studies offered by right-wing foundations, or the shill front groups trying to disgrace the home state. I took seven studies and looked at the bottom 12 or 13 states in each ranking. The studies covered taxes, so called 'tort reform', overall taxes, business taxes, and the overall cost of doing business.

The finding is very simple.

78% of the states are ranked in the bottom quarter in one or more of the studies.

In other words, throw a dart at a map of the US and you'll almost certainly hit a state where some group or another (in Wisconsin, it's WMC) is claiming that their state is in the bottom quarter for economic competitiveness or tax climate or something. And in every case, those groups will sound their one note: Cut taxes!

When do we get so sick of this transparent crap that we stop listening? Soon, I hope.

Labels: Paul Soglin, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce

I do get email sometimes; in fact, sometimes the ones with pictures are the most interesting. This week's pictures--the ones that weren't spam, anyway--included this one of Wisconsin Attorney General candidate Paul Bucher. From my correspondent:

I just sent you a picture from my cell phone account of Paul Bucher riding on top of the trunk of his convertible after the Cedarburg parade on the 4th [of July]. The funny thing is - this was 30 minutes after the end of the parade and a mile north of the parade route. His car was PACKED with people - probably 8 in total. When I originally pulled behind them, they had Paul Bucher for AG signs on display. I think one of them saw me behind them with my camera, because they immediately pulled over and Paul jumped down into the seat.

Funny how a candidate for Attorney General doesn't seem to think the seat belt laws mean anything.

When I'm leaving school at the end of the day, I try to time my leaving such that I don't have to deal with the traffic ceated by 16 and 17-year-old bad drivers, and their passengers, who feel that driving off from the high school is a perfect time to do a little display for your friends, both in and out of the car. Often, they're hanging out windows or riding on hoods, blaring music.

My correspondent says nothing about music, but I do wonder if that may have been the only thing to distingush Bucher's joyride from your average teenager's. Of course, the teens aren't running around pretending to be big law-and-order types, either.

Labels: Paul Bucher

I've been avoiding the internet for most of the day, having just now gotten to see the TiVo'd World Cup Final (congrats, Italy). I'm hoping maybe to get a little more blogging done this week than last. Some notes:

RIP, Frank Zeidler.

No matter how many emails you 9/11 conspiracy theorists send me, nor how "overwhelming" you say the evidence is that 9/11 was an "inside job," I still say you're all nuts. I may write more later this week--not to debunk, which is done well enough elsewhere, but to try to explain why.

Along those lines, Dave has an urgent question: Have the allegations of government involvement in [Buddy] Holly's assassination been conclusively disproven?

Labels: 9/11, Frank Zeidler, World Cup

So there's this mess among the right (see local righties The Game and DiGaudio for examples; see Hunter or, especially, Glenn Greenwald for a thorough explanation) over the New York Times's having published, in its travel section, a spot on some place in Maryland where Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney have vacation homes. There's a picture of Rummy's driveway and some mention of the security camera hidden in the birdhouse. Ack! TMI for those terrorists!

Your response is probably much the same as mine: Whatever.

The right, though, sees this as 1) pushback against the administration for its condemnation of the Times's revealing reportage lately (neglecting that a puff piece like that is done weeks in advance) and 2) an opportunity to play vigilante. This includes the rightie blogger who called for his readers to "hunt them down [. . .] grab for the golden ring." That's not funny, I know. Apparently, the FBI is on that guy.

But what's funny is the confirmation from Rumsfeld's office that, in fact, the article had been cleared, and that Rummy, personally, had okayed the photo.

Does Rummy always talk in questions? Yes. Is it annoying? Hell, yes.

[SecDef Director of Public Affairs Holleen] Wheeler declined to directly discuss the question of his security, saying that it was something they don't discuss as a rule. But she said: "Did it affect the Secretary's schedule in any way? No. Does it affect in any way how he does his business? No."

Does everyone in his office talk that way? Yes!

Labels: Donald Rumsfeld

So there's this lecturer in the University of Wisconsin system, who is quickly getting a reputation not for knowledge and expertise in the subject taught, but rather for outspoken political views--views that some people consider to be outside of the mainstream and perhaps a disqualification for teaching, at least at taxpayers' expense.

That person, surprisingly, is not Jessica McBride, whose unfettered and occasionally bitter partisanship is the antithesis of good journalism.

The target here is a guy named Kevin Barrett, who is a member of the "9/11 Scholars for Truth" (no link to those nutballs from me), a group that does not believe the official story of what happened in September 11, 2001, and instead advances patently false theories about explosives in the World Trade Center towers and government involvement in the plot.

Let me be clear, in case the "nutballs" comment above was not enough: I despise the 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

But I've seen two things going on from the press and the Right Cheddarsphere regarding Barrett that I also don't like. One is the smearing of the left generally for conspiracy theories like this among some fringe nutball element. The left generally, Democrats particularly, me specifically, hate these guys. For one thing, they're wrong; watch "moonbat central," the Daily Kos, when someone posts a 9/11 conspiracy diary. Immediately, the post fills up with hundreds of comments, almost all of them from the sane people telling the conspiracy theorists both why they're wrong and where they can stick their baloney. I keep a special bookmarks folder around just in case I happen on them first.

For another thing, these conspiracy theorists distract from reasonable questions about both the Bush administration's pre-9/11 anti-terror activities (hint: there were virtually none, despite warnings by the Clinton administration, a very clear prediction by Hart and Rudmann, and, of course, that PDB) and post-9/11 reactions. There is a conversation to be had, there, and it is not helped by people claiming the towers fell by controlled demolition with Dick Cheney at the switch.

The second thing I've noticed is that the right seems unwilling to believe that anything else barrett believes or does could possibly be within the mainstream, or any good at all. Notice that I didn't--and have never, as far as I remember--called for McBride's ouster from UWM, even though I don't think she practices what she should--if she's doing it right--be preaching. The irony is, of course, that the person leading the charge--catapulting the propaganda, if you will--against Barrett is Jessica McBride. Dave Diamond, in what may be my favorite post on the matter so far, snarkily calls for her ouster:

McBride is saying that she's OK with a taxpayer-funded university firing an untenured instructor for their political beliefs. You know what you have to do, Chancellor Santiago; science demands a test of this hypothesis!

I don't endorse that, though I do think that, as Tim Rock suggests, Barrett needs the kind of fair treatment that McBride gets: This guy isn't teaching "9/11" (though some on the right probably don't see the difference between that and "Intro to Islam," a course he is teaching), where we know he's off-base. Let's see if he can do the job he was hired to do before we drive him out.

After all, I'd hate to see--and so would some conservative blogger/ radio hosts I could name--a purge of the UW system based on how outspoken one is in one's politics.

Labels: 9/11, Jessica McBride, Kevin Barrett