America the Beautiful

By 3rd Way

My grandmother was a lover of music.  At sometime in her life she decided to purchase a player piano.  After she passed I was lucky enough to inherit the piano. 

 

I have fond memories of visiting Grandma’s and pumping away at the piano while the family sang along.  It is kind of like karaoke nerded up a notch.  The problem is you can only listen to the same rolls so many times with the same enthusiasm.  We recently decided that Grandma’s roll collection should be expanded.

 

We scoured the catalogs and ordered the most appealing rolls out of the limited selection, Marvin Gaye, The Beatles, Ray Charles, and as a dutiful Folkbum contributor, some folk music (Simon and Garfunkel).  My favorite new roll is America the Beautiful.  I have always preferred it to the Star Spangled Banner.  I have never been fully comfortable singing a song with lyrics like “bombs bursting in air”.  America the Beautiful is also far easier to sing, there is no way I can hit the right notes on the way up to "laaaa-and of the free”. After learning all the lyrics to the song I am even fonder of it.  My favorite verse is this:

 

O beautiful for glory-tale 
Of liberating strife 
When once and twice, 
for man's avail 
Men lavished precious life! 
America! America! 
God shed his grace on thee 
Till selfish gain no longer stain 
The banner of the free!

 

I can sing those lyrics loud and proud.

 

In 1926 there was a push for America the Beautiful to become our country's national anthem. Instead, the older and more established Star Spangled Banner was chosen. On March 31, 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed a bill making the Star Spangled Banner the national anthem.  Several times there have been attempts, particularly when John Kennedy was president, to give the song legal recognition, as a national hymn, or as a second national anthem.

Presidential nominees have talked about improving our image abroad.  World opinion of us is based on perception of who we are and what we stand for.  Our culture says more about who we are than any foreign policy or aid package ever can.  Changing something as trivial as a song is not going to cause a cultural shift or convince a terrorist that we aren't an aggressor, but it will send a subtle message to everyone in the world that we want to change the way we do business.  I would be more comfortable with my culture if we all sang a song with themes of liberating strife and removing stains of selfish gain instead of a song with themes of militarism.

Taylor vs. Walker: The Next Debate

by capper

I have just received word that there will be a debate tomorrow, February 2nd, (that would be Groundhog Day except in Milwaukee County, where it will be Wally Weasel Day). It will be at approximately 12:30 p.m. at the NAACP Youth Council Forum, located at 2745 N. Martin Luther King Drive.

I will post an updated list of debates next week.

Give Peace a Chance

By Keith Schmitz

Humorist Andy Borowitz comes out every other day with great parodies of the news.

Here's one of them:

Hillary, Obama Get a Room
Candidates Bow to Request of Debate Viewers

After two hours of a televised debate that many pundits characterized as a love-fest, Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton confirmed today that they have gotten a room.

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton secured a room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, conveniently located near the Kodak Theater where the CNN debate took place.

The extraordinary announcement came on the heels of a request made by millions of television viewers, who emailed CNN last night urging the Democratic rivals to get a room.

In a joint statement released by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama this morning, the two presidential contenders said, “We have heard the voters loud and clear, asking us to get a room – and we have gotten that room.”

After the couple released a photo of themselves in fluffy white hotel bathrobes, there was a palpable sense of relief in Democratic circles that the two senators had in fact gotten a room.

“It was a little uncomfortable watching the two of them up there together, barely keeping their hands off each other,” said DNC chairman Howard Dean. “The sexual tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife.”

As news spread of the candidates’ decision to get a room, pundits speculated about what role former President Bill Clinton might play in such a room.

“I don’t see him playing a role there,” said Hillary biographer Carl Bernstein. “I think Bill Clinton respects the right of someone to get a room.”

Elsewhere, advisors to G.O.P frontrunner John McCain have urged him to stop speaking in that spooky voice.

Pop Goes The Weasel

by capper

Saturday is Groundhog's day. As you may or may not have known, Milwaukee has no groundhog. The resident groundhog at the Milwaukee County Zoo, Walnut, passed away last summer, and no replacement was brought in. This was even though there was more than seven months to find a suitable successor.

And as we all know, this has been a less than fun winter. In fact, as I write this post, the Weather Service as just changed the snow advisory to a winter storm warning, with 6-8 inches expected, and even more by the lake.

To help ease people's fear that this winter will never end, Scott Walker has taken bold and decisive action. No, he didn't get us a new groundhog. Instead, he privatized the service in a no-bid contract to Weasels'R'Us. The new mascot you will be seeing Saturday is Wally Weasel (pictured on the right).

Unfortunately, there were a few setbacks to Walker's plan. First, the contract turned out to be more expensive than planned, and much more expensive than it would have been to let a County-owned groundhog do the job. To make up for the expense, Walker cut sixteen busroutes, and denied food stamps to 439 people.

The other unforeseen consequence is that Wally won't tell us what kind of winter we will have yet to face. Instead, if he sees his shadow, we will have eight more weeks of Walker. If he doesn't see his shadow, then we will only have to face 56 more days of him.

We are also waiting for verification, but there is suspicion that Ma Brawler will be asking for an independent investigation for the posibility of nepotism.

Walker Has No Shame

by capper

Way back on December 28th, the Walker campaign sent out an email in the guise of being a letter from Walker's wife, Tonette. The email reads (bold emphasis hers, colored emphasis mine):

I know how busy you are in the middle of the holidays, but I encourage you to read this important message. As the wife of Scott Walker, I know how hard he works for Milwaukee County and how passionately he cares for the prosperity of our great community.

Scott understands the enormous tax burden we face, and with each budget that he has submitted, has kept his promise to hold steady the property tax levy. He also works diligently to create an environment that retains and attracts jobs and residents. We have made incredible progress over the past six years, and Scott continues to work to restore safety, affordability, and pride to our community. Now, the old political machine in Milwaukee is back in action and working to stop our efforts. Our main opponent has publicly stated the need to spend $1 million to smear Scott's positive record of reform. In fact, outsiders such as Governor Doyle and special interest groups in Madison and even Washington, DC are gathering loads of cash to influence our election in April. They desire a politician they can control and want to go back to the time when the County Executive wasn't held accountable. We cannot let this happen, which is why your help is so important.

Will you join Scott in standing up against the political machine that is working to undo all the progress we have made? I ask that you consider contributing $250, $100, or even $50 to help Scott's campaign. The liberals will stop at nothing to defeat Scott, and we must have the resources needed to set the record straight. Your contribution today will ensure that he is able to spread his positive message of growth to all corners of the county. Please help us by clicking here.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Tonette Walker

Now we return to today, and in the political blog of JSOnline, we see this:

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker today reported a campaign fund balance of $567,058, more than 4 1/2 times that of his challenger, state Sen. Lena Taylor.

Taylor (D-Milwaukee) reported a cash balance of $124,192. Both figures covered the second half of 2007.

The figures were provided by the campaigns, who also were filing them with state and local elections boards.

Walker, who has held his job since 2002, raised $350,418 for the period to $128,712 for Taylor.

Oh yeah, those evil outsiders are just pouring the cash into Taylor's campaign.

It's bad enough that Walker is a proven liar, but does he have to drag his wife down with him?

If you want to help get this liar out of office, please contact Senator Taylor's campaign through this link.

From the "Giving Credit Where It's Due" File

by folkbum

I'm no fan of Peter DiGaudio--most of you know that. However, he has done something nice for me, and I'm taking a time out from our regularly scheduled liberal fantasia to say a public thank you.

Yesterday, capper linked to this thread at Badger Blogger, about the Thomas Paine Democracy Network. I made a comment there, and one of the Cheddarsphere's--well, there is no nice word to describe him; let me try again. One commenter there, pcd, as he so often does, decided to throw caution, logic, and English grammar to the wind to accuse me, of all things, of sock puppetry.

I may be a fat, bald, pinko commie tool, but I do not, in fact, stoop to the level of, say, John Lott.

The confusion seems to come from the fact that Blogger knows me as Jay Bullock and Haloscan and WordPress know me as folkbum. I don't think there's anyone who reads me regularly or irregularly who would possibly think of those two identities as separate. I mean, if you look at the header of this blog, there's nary an inch between the the two names equating them. This very post, as all my posts, has the folkbum byline atop it and the Jay Bullock attribution (from Blogger) below it. Most importantly, you'll never find me posting under both names, anywhere, at the same time, trying to act as two different people--the definition of sock puppetry.

In the linked Badger Blogger thread, pcd even attempts to attach another commenter's comments to me--those of "Roasted Peanuts," who's been a regular at Badger Blogger as long as I can remember.

Anyway, Peter has been working tirelessly to disabuse pcd of the notion, and for that, I thank him.

Your Tax(Freeze) Dollars At Work

by capper

In today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , it is being reported that Milwaukee County could be on the hook for $80 million dollars. The reason for this is due to ongoing violations of a court order to clean up the county jail and to adhere to the state law regarding processing people that have been arrested and are to be booked.

In 2001, the courts found the jail to be in violating people's civil rights due to the deplorable condition and the long lengths of time before they are being processed at the booking part of the jail. In the course of the next five years, the Sheriff's Office has violated the stipulation they agreed to in regards to how the prisoners are being treated by some 16,000 times.

Sheriff Clarke, who is responsible for jail operations, bears the blunt of the blame for this problem. It is up to him to find a way to meet this stipulation. Perhaps he was too busy writing memos telling his staff not to leak those memos, which of course, ended up getting leaked any way. Or maybe he was just to busy preparing his defense for the numerous other lawsuits his department is facing--from its own staff.

To be fair to Clarke though, one must wonder how much of the blame goes to Scott Walker, who has repeatedly cut the Sheriff's Office's budget. It is hard to do a job when you don't have the proper equipment, training or resources needed to do it.

So now it appears for the price of a few dollars per year, the county might be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars. The question must be asked: Does this fall under Safe, Affordable or Pride?

For a more in-depth (and better written) review of the matter, with links dating back a considerable amount of time, please visit Milwaukee Rising.

Billboard Update

by capper

First, let me say that I noticed I forgot to include the promised link to the web page for the Thomas Paine Democracy Network. Here is the link. I apologize for the inconvenience.

As I stated in my previous post on this matter, the campaign for Senator Taylor denied any involvement. To verify this there is also a posting on Wisopinion.com Wispolitics.com (my error):

TAYLOR CAMPAIGN SAYS ANTI-WALKER BILLBOARDS NOT HELPFUL

A spokesman for state Sen. Lena Taylor's Milwaukee County exec campaign says a billboard campaign against incumbent Walker launched by a third-party issue group is "outside the control of the campaign"and not helpful to her bid.

"We've seen how races get hijacked by outside groups, and that's bad for candidates and it's bad for voters," said Taylor's campaign manager, John Zapfel. "This is something that we don't think helpsLena."

But Walker campaign spokesman Tim Russell said the Taylor campaign has also benefited by polling conducted by Progressive Majority on itsbehalf and that the Taylor campaign has picked up on and used the themes and information the outside efforts have generated.

"Their claims that from their perspectives it doesn't help them don't ring true to me,' Russell said.

A YouTube video posted by the Thomas Paine Democracy Network, a 501c organization, shows several variations of billboards up in theMilwaukee area that address a county issue and end with the tag line,"I blame Scott Walker." The group is registered to Todd Rongstad, a consultant known for launching aggressive attacks. He was the subjectof a successful defamation lawsuit brought in 2004 by state Dem Sen.Julie Lassa over a mailer.

An e-mail sent to supporters by the Walker campaign told supportersthese "are the types of people that Lena Taylor and Jim Doyle are using to attack Scott Walker."

The campaign said the billboards show that outside groups are"preparing to open the floodgates in their attacks."

Russell noted that the source of the outside spending is unlimited and cannot be traced.

"This is not the way that we think campaigns should be run," Russell said.

Zapfel said it's likely other outside groups will crop up, and not just ones opposed to Walker.

"We just want to run a campaign for Lena to win no matter what these outside groups do," Zapfel said.

But Russell said Walker's raising and spending through his campaign,and he knows of no third party groups gearing up to support Walker.

"I know of nothing going on outside of that," Russell said. "In fact, I would discourage it."

*See the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vSUdN2jLEk
*See the group's website: http://thomaspainedemocracynetwork.wordpress.com/

Also, Michael Horne of MilwaukeeWorld left this comment on Sykes' posting on the subject:

I spoke to Lena Taylor about this. I also spoke with Les Johns, her advisor who volunteered, without asking, that the billboards came as a surprise to the campaign. I accept their word. I wouldn't trash Rongstadt too much, except perhaps for ideological inconsistency and unseemly opportunism. He's the best in the business at integrating images and succinct messages. However, this is not his best work. Scott Walker is such an easy target that I sense Todd isn't being challenged at all.

I also spoke with a Tory Griffin, from PEOPLE, the political arm of AFSCME. Mr. Griffin also stated that his organization has nothing to do with these billboards.

UPDATE: Daniel Bice of MSJ has added even more questions to who is responsible for the billboards.

"Congratulations [...] on the expansion of your ecological experience."

by folkbum

That's the conservative response to global warming. Warm-weather species moving north to where you are? Congratulations on the expansion of your ecological experience, they say.

Can you imagine a few years from now? Malaria spreading across Eurpoe and the midwestern US. Congratulations on the expansion of your ecological experience.

The shoreline moves to where, for example, millions of people used to live in Bangladesh. Congratulations on the expansion of your ecological experience.

Great Britain freezes because melting polar ice fills the waters around the islands. Congratulations on the expansion of your ecological experience.

Feel free to add more in the comments. I have to brave the -5 degree weather to get to work now.

More Fischer-ana

by folkbum

The story so far.

Conservatives agree (well, a conservative) I'm not crazy or a liar.

A citizen journalist puts a real journalist to shame. Twice.

The State Of The County

by capper

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker gave his state of the county speech today. I could paraphrase it to saying "If it ain't working, don't fix it." JSOnline has their own version of it:

Walker says county is on right track

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker lays out a cautious but upbeat agenda today in his 2008 "State of the County" speech, calling for progress on old efforts rather than unveiling any new approaches.

Walker says he'll keep pushing to shift the county's mental health complex to the vacant St. Michael hospital, to cut a deal to sell County Grounds property for the proposed University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee engineering center, to build a new airport runway and to shift work-release inmates to global positioning system monitors. He makes his remarks today at the Hope Christian Schools, 3215 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

All those efforts are in the planning stages and with the exception of the runway expansion, all have generated some friction with the County Board. In a copy of the speech, however, Walker keeps the tone light and makes only scant mention of the board.

He hails the financial recovery efforts of the Milwaukee Public Museum by noting he and County Board Chairman Lee Holloway "stepped up" and jointly appointed a committee to draft a fix, which included an extra $14 million in county support over 15 years.

Walker mentions the board just twice, when he notes the net result of his annual budget tilt with county supervisors has been an annual tax levy increase of "just a little over 2%." That's been due to his insistence on keeping a steady levy, he says.

With the April general election less than three months off, Walker uses his annual assessment mostly to tout past accomplishments. He faces state Sen. Lena Taylor in his bid for a second full four-year term. He was first elected in 2002 after the county pension scandal.

"Overall, plenty of good things took place during this past year," Walker says. "It gives me hope for the future of Milwaukee County."

New construction was up last year, Mitchell International Airport hosted more travelers and AARP hailed Milwaukee as a great place to live, Walker notes. The county park system celebrated its 100th anniversary and a zoo fund-raising effort raised $30 million, Walker says.

Safety, a major theme of Walker's re-election campaign, gets a plug in his speech. He supported Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr.'s summer effort "to occupy the lakefront," for a second year, Walker says.

Senator Taylor's campaign also has her statement on Walker's speech:

STATEMENT ON WALKER’S STATE OF THE COUNTY ADDRESS

MILWAUKEE — John Zapfel, Campaign Manager for Lena Taylor, issued this statement today following Scott Walker’s State of the County address Tuesday
morning:

“This morning, Scott Walker painted a very rosy picture of the state of the ilwaukee County in his address. For those of us living here, we know the reality is different. Residents are underserved and county government is mismanaged. Our transit system is no longer cost-effective for riders – a result of service cuts and fare hikes. Our parks have all but deteriorated. Just this month, the Journal Sentinel called attention to inefficiency and low employee morale in both the public aid office and at the House of Correction.

“It’s time for new vision and new leadership to address the very real problems facing Milwaukee County, and as County Executive, Lena Taylor will help us get back on
track.”

Billboardmania

by capper

The Scott Walker Campaign sent out an email bulletin decrying:

We have learned that a group that calls itself the Thomas Paine Democracy Network has prepared a series of billboards that it will be spending tens of thousands of dollars on placing throughout Milwaukee County.

They then included this link to the Thomas Paine Democracy Network which shows some of the billboards in question. The Walker folks were also kind enough to include this brief video:



The newsletter ends with a plea for contributions and volunteers. It seems counterintuitive to me that if someone is running for political office, that they would want to say, "Hey, look! They're showing how I really screwed things up. Please support me." But then again, I've never accused Walker of being politically savvy.

The political action committee that put up these billboards is connected to Todd Rongstad, an infamous political activist with a spotted past history, including some unsavory attack ads and being sued for his antics.

Well, it appears Mr. Rongstad may not have learned any lessons. As Patrick Dorwin shows us, using some technological savvy that is way beyond me, that Rongstad had used the computer systems of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, at least in part, to produce the web site and the video. In the comments section of that same posting, a commenter named Calvin, also does some good research to find a link between the Rongstad family and how they might have gotten access to the school's computer system.

I sincerely hope that they continue their research and report any illegal activities to the proper authorities. Politics is dirty enough without this kind of garbage being tossed into it as well.

That said, Patrick is wrong on two accounts.

First, he writes:

...They all have little sayings, such as “Cutting Para-Transit Services for the Physically and Visually Impaired” and all of the ads end with “I Blame Scott Walker.” The fact is, para-transit was not cut, and as a matter of fact, the user side subsidy cost to the clients have not even been raised in years.

This is a false statement. Transit routes were cut. And seeing as that the para-transit routes follow the transit routes were then also cut. Patrick is also incorrect with his claim regarding the user side subsidy. While it is indeed true that the passengers of the para-transit system have not seen an increase in years, it is also true that Walker has proposed an increase in every single one of his budgets. Furthermore, it would be a sin of omission not to mention that fact that the main reason that the fairs did not increase, or that the transit cuts were not even worse, is the simple fact that Senator Lena Taylor had gotten millions of dollars from the last state budget to come to Milwaukee County, as event he Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was forced to admit.

The other false assumption that Patrick made, based on the inference made by the Walker campaign, is that Lena Taylor was behind these billboards.

I called her campaign headquarters today, and I spoke with John Zapfel, her campaign manager.

I asked Mr. Zapfel about these billboards, and if the Senator's campaign was funding them. He told me that neither Senator Taylor, nor anyone involved with her campaign, are involved with Todd Rongstad, or with the Thomas Paine Democracy Network.

(Note: Given the nature of the first billboard shown on their webpage, it occurred to me that it could be AFSCME funding this. I have tried to get in contact with PEOPLE, the political activist arm of AFSCME, but did not get through to anyone yet. I will keep the reader informed of any further developments.)

I asked Mr. Zapfel about the Senator's position towards the billboard ads. He told me that the Senator and the campaign are not pleased with the involvement of outside actors in this campaign. He further added that it brought up unpleasant thoughts of last year's race for Supreme Court when WMC wielded so much influence in that race.

He further told me that Senator Taylor will not be asking for the removal of the billboards, as that she cannot influence the way that committee chooses to spend their money. He also stated that they are expecting other outside influences to weigh in against her campaign. He said that Senator Taylor's campaign will continue to use their strategy to win this race on the issues and her plans to bring a brighter future to Milwaukee County.

For those of you who feel that Senator Taylor should still distance herself from these billboards, I would also expect that you would demand Scott Walker condemn the racist remarks made by Mark Belling in his GMToday column dated January 23, 2008.

Well, I don't have cancer!

by folkbum

But yesterday afternoon the dermatologist froze a big chunk of my cheek off--to scare away a pre-cancerous area--and now I have a blister the size of Toledo.

Of course, if I'd known the solution involved freezing, I could have just waited until tonight and stood outside for a while.

.. updated to add: At this point, I should remind you that I got rid of that thing because I have health insurance to pay for preventive care. There are tens of millions of Americans who would have let the thing fester until their faces fell off because they couldn't afford the treatment out of pocket, or they wouldn't have seen a GP for a physical, and so on.

What makes me so much better than those tens of millions?

Invest in the Future

By Keith Schmitz

For anyone considering the future of progressives, there is one major reason why the Obama campaign makes sense.

It is quite clear as the campaigns move along, Barack Obama has been inspiring and activating the youth vote and bringing out volunteers under the age of 30.

While good news for his campaign, it bodes well for the progressive vote down the line. As the Reagan election proved, the new voters who turned out for him have been in the pockets of conservatives for a generation to come.

Should Obama take the nomination, it is clear that the campaign will put voters in the bank for Democrats and progressives for years to come.

Speaking of residency

by folkbum

I live near what must be the most-robbed bank in the city. I can't even remember how many times it's been robbed in the last year--must be at least four, maybe five. Sheesh.

Elsewhere on the Internets I ask about MPS residency

by folkbum

The fact is, Bearss signed the exact same contract that I did when he came to work for MPS, the same contract thousands of others have. He knew exactly what the contract said about living in Milwaukee as a condition of employment, and he admittedly engaged in a "don't ask, don't tell" dodge of that exact provision of the contract. [. . .] Would we be lionizing Bearss so much if he had broken some other part of the contract?

A Packer Post You Can Sink Your Teeth Into

by capper

Ever since the Packers lost last weekend, there has been continuous coverage and analysis going on in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and around the blogosphere. Many reasons and excuses have been offered up to explain away the loss, of what seemed like a sure win. These included the Pack being out-coached, Favre getting too old, not enough attempts at running the ball, and so forth.

One of the biggest complaints was the lack of a pass rush by the Packers defensive line. Today's JSOnline Packers blog might have the reason for that lack of pressure by our front four. It wasn't lack of skill, but maybe lack of focus? Worried about other things, more important things?

Way too much information from Ruegamer
By Greg A. Bedard
Sunday, Jan 27 2008, 01:37 PM

Green Bay - Not sure if this story made the rounds when New York Giants center Grey Ruegamer was with the Packers. but it's worth repeating (and will be repeated and repeated during Super Bowl week:

Castrating a lamb with your teeth is a pretty simple procedure, really. Grey Ruegamer knows. “You grab the forelegs and pin them to the ground, and then you grab the back legs and throw them on their back,” Ruegamer said.

And when the, uh, target area is exposed, “away you go. It’s the way the Basques do it.”

Ruegamer, a former Arizona State All-American who will return for Super Bowl XLII with the New York Giants, became a practitioner when a family friend, who is Basque, asked for extra help on her working sheep and cattle ranch outside Las Vegas, Nev., where Ruegamer grew up.

A good number of Basques have settled in Nevada — there once was legalized gambling on jai alai, a sport played almost exclusively by Basques, in Las Vegas — and the rancher had about 200 head of young sheep that needed attention.

“I was hesitant,” Ruegamer said with a laugh. “But it is what it is. She needed help. There was beer. Good times. It was worth it.”

Can't say as I blame the defensive line at all on this one. I just hoped he remembered to brush and floss.

Are we seeing the death of negative campaigning?

by folkbum

I am the furthest thing from an expert on such matters, but I am noticing two trends related to the Democratic primary process so far.

1. The polls of primary states (New Hampshire, South Carolina) have been way off from actual results, while polls of caucus states (Iowa, Nevada) have been dead-on. This is the opposite of how things usually go.

2. The negative campaigning seems to be failing--and that may well be what has caused number one.

Consider New Hampshire: In the week before the primary vote, Hillary Clinton had an emotional moment--she teared up, but did not actually cry--at a diner. The media was harsh, and her opponents (and surrogates) were hardly less so. John Edwards let loose with "I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve," and Barack Obama laid a "you're likable enough" on Clinton at a debate. As a result of this pummeling, many of the voters in New Hampshire (17%) made up their minds in the last few days, and Clinton won those, even though the pollsters had shown all the momentum heading Obama's way.

Now consider South Carolina: The polls all showed Obama winning, but not by the massive margin that he did. One very real possibility for the discrepancy is that Obama took a beating in the last week from Clinton and her surrogates, including Bill Clinton. And, indeed, late-deciders went for Obama at an even greater rate than they did for Clinton in New Hampshire.

So what's the lesson? Democratic voters--as opposed to the Democratic activists (using the term, er, liberally) who show up to caucus--seem to have decided to reject negative campaigning. They are taking their cues from the attacks, yes, but to move in the opposite direction, against the attacker rather than the attacked.

Maybe now they'll address the substance of my post

by folkbum

In the post below, I included the line, "What we [bloggers] get most exercised about is stuff that a lot of people would consider dumb." I was not thinking specifically about any one thing, but here's a question for you:

Which of these do you think people in the real world would get most upset about?
A. a public figure who is both staff member for a state senator and a minor media player who regularly engages in rude, disrespectful, juvenile behavior on a NOW blog to the extent that the NOW editor has been complained to, the state senator has had an open-records request filed, and many of the figure's comments, some including such underhanded slime as a private citizen's contact information, had to be deleted
B. one word in one tangential sentence in a blog post about said figure

Hah! Trick question! The answer in the real world is most likely C, neither of these.

But since you're reading this, I will assume that you have read blogs before, so you probably already know that for bloggers, the answer is, in fact, B.

In a post last week about Kevin Fischer, the character described in choice A above, I wrote this sentence: "When a conservative has irritated both Wigderson and Dooley, you know there's something wrong with him." Note my choice of words there--irritated. I could have, but did not, walked out to one extreme there, with something more like upset, angered, horked off, blew the lids off of, or anything of that nature. I could have moved toward the other extreme: bothered, perplexed, flummoxed, puzzled. But I didn't. I went with irritated. Both of those bloggers had, at some point in recent months, taken the time out of their busy schedules blogging about such important matters as the Dallas Cowboys and the Unparalleled Threat To Humanity That Is Al Gore to take a swipe at Kevin Fischer. Regardless of how the two of them may have intended said swipe, both saw something Fischer had done and were sufficiently moved to note Fischer's behavior. And I called that irritated, in a sentence that was literally parenthetical to my argument.

Oh. My. God. You would think the world had just ended. They made comments demanding a retraction and I updated the post to posit that my interpretation of their posts about Fischer was being disputed. Apparently, that was not enough. The two then took to their indignant keyboards (Wigderson and Dooley) to post a collective 750 words about my one.

In the process, the fact that Kevin Fischer, a noted public figure who associates himself with Sen. Mary Lazich at the top of every NOW post he makes (and he
apparently has admitted to writing many of the posts that appear under the senator's name at Lazich's own NOW blog*), is on occasion the very definition of a Blogger Behaving Badly, seems to have slipped right over Dooley's and Wigderson's heads. Here's Dooley:

I have no issues with his content and I find it charming how he gets revved up on something, he may post 2 dozens posts on the same subject a day.

And, for the sake of completeness, here is the entire comment Wigderson made about Fischer's behavior:

I don't yet have an opinion.

Got that? 750 words between them, and the best they can muster is that they find Fischer's antics "charming" if they have an opinion about them at all.

Wigderson was kind enough to name a blogging concept after me, the so-called Bullock Rule, which is something about how a blogger can redirect criticism of anyone's behavior by pointing out how the other side does it, too. I propose the Wigderson Dodge: When a blogger avoids commenting on the substance of the post if he finds one careless word he can take issue with instead.
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Keep up with all your Fischer-ana at Whallah!

* If Fischer writes many of the posts appearing under Lazich's name at NOW, it makes me wonder if Fischer was actually the one who posted this post, which reprinted a letter from Rep. Steve Nass demanding a retraction and an apology from Rep. Jim Krueser for "despicable" statements. That would make for very delicious irony, wouldn't it?

Newsflash: You Are Not Poor

by folkbum

I mean, I don't think this ought to be much of a surprise, but I think it will be to some. I seriously think that often in the world of blogging, we forget that we do not actually live in the real world. What's important to us is not necessarily important to most people, for example. What we get most exercised about is stuff that a lot of people would consider dumb. We think out opinions matter. And so on.

The topic of the potential economic stimulus package that Congress and the president are pushing to try to save us from a recession has raised a side issue that I've noticed previously. Most proximally, it was Chris (yes, that same guy) complaining about the proposed give-backs here (spelling and punctuation intact):

What rebate once again they means tested the rebate so my family will not receive it.

I am sure that people who don't actually pay taxes will some how get this rebate but we wont.

Wealth redistribution is all this is plain and simple

I recognize that Chris is primarily complaining about income redistribution, but the fact is that his complaint sounds, to my plebian ears, more like whining. Two things to note:

1. The proposed stimulus package starts phasing out "rebates" to people at the $75,000 level for individuals and $150,000 for married couples. That his household isn't eligible for the "rebate" suggests an income level over $150,000*.
   
2. The total number of households in this country earning $150,000 or more is less than 6%.

As I noted in the comments there, it's hard to feel sorry for someone in the top 6% of households. Even moreso, it's hard to see how a $1200 check from the feds (or said check's absence) is going to significantly change his family's purchasing power. If a family earns $44,389 (the national median), then maybe $1200 would be a big deal. For Chris and family--while it would certainly be welcome, I am sure--it would be a drop in the proverbial bucket.

But it reminded me of several other threads I've seen recently around the Cheddarsphere, of people who just seemed flabbergasted that not everyone in the country earns as much money as they do. Here are two examples from the grandpappy of conservative Wisconsin blogs, Boots and Sabers.

1. In a post about the "fix" to the Alternative Minimum Tax that went through last December, a commenter calling himself TD was very defensive about being labeled upper-middle class. Apparently, he was in danger of being socked by the AMT, and our good friend Scott Feldstein had pointed out in the thread that "the AMT was going to hit upper-middle class Americans." TD's own perception of his personal economy was such that he couldn't possibly be upper-middle class. And yet, the vast majority of households who would have to pay the AMT fall into the top 20% of households in income. I'm not sure where one draws the line for upper-middle class, but I would have to believe that the top fifth of households would be included there.
   
2. There was a thread earlier this month in which Owen complained (while ignoring the real substance of the study that he posted about) that researchers labeled two groups in their study "wealthy" and "poor." The dividing line was set at, it seems, $37,000 for a family of four. That's nearly twice the federal poverty level, but, as we know from above, not much below the median household income of $44,000. Owen's beef was, it seems, with the semantics. But he wasn't complaining that a household at almost twice the FPL was still called "poor"; no, it was that people just below, at, and just above the median were suddenly "wealthy." But here's the newsflash again: People in the middle fifth of income in this country (about $35,000 to about $55,000) are not exactly poor.

Perhaps when you live someplace like West Bend, as Owen does, your perceptions of normal can get distorted. In the WB (see data here and
here), the median household income is about $55,000--at the dividing line between what nationally is the middle and the fourth quintile of income. It is, in fact, more $20,000 over the median income of my current zip code in the City of Milwaukee. It is more than $30,000 higher than the median income of the zip code we lived in before we bought this house. The number of people living below the federal poverty line in my old zip code is nine times that of West Bend. And my old zip code was not the worst in the city: One zip code over, and the median household income falls down to the poverty level. In West Bend, more than 60% of households earn more than $60,000 annually; in 53206, less than 15% of households do. That's still not the worst zip code in the city.

I'm not sure where, exactly, Chris lives. He is welcome to plug in his own zip code to the ZipSkinny website and see what he gets.

You should probably do your own, as well, and start thinking about how well you do relative to 53206, or to the FPL. It may open your eyes just a little bit.

* Chris has posted about his being a stay-at-home dad; it's possible that if he earns no income at all and paid no payroll taxes, then his family's income could be as little as $75,000 per year to meet his description of having earned too much to qualify for the "rebate." Even so, that places his income in the top %25 of US households. He wasn't clear on that point so, like a good blogger, I worked with assumed data that makes my point better. :) It should also be noted that the "rebate" is "phased out" at the higher incomes, so his family may still get a check, albeit a smaller one.