The Folkbum Endorsement:
Bryan Kennedy for Congress

No, I'm not just doing this because Bryan's my first Blogads sponsor; I've had this post ready for a while and his ad's appearance just makes for good timing.

F. James Sensenbrenner has represented the northern Milwaukee suburbs and nearby rural areas almost as long as I've been alive. My mother was telling me last night (happy birthday, mom, if you read this, which I don't think you do) that the 17-year cicadas are expected any day now in Cincinnati, and that just served to remind me that I'm old. In other words, Sensenbrenner's had his time.

In fact, Sensenbrenner as often as not anymore seems to be phoning it in, almost literally. He has faced repeated complaints that he's out of touch, a career politician whose interests lie with the big-money donors who support him, and not his constituents.

The good news for Kennedy and the rest of us Democrats is that after the 2000 redistricting, Sensenbrenner's district is probably the only one now less safe than before. When his district was the 9th, his Democratic opponents (when he had one; many years he did not) averaged between 25% and 30% of the vote.

In its first turn as the fifth district, Sensenbrenner faced no Democrat at all, but the Constitution party fielded a basically unknown candidate who managed to earn more than 13% of the vote. And that was with Sensenbrenner barely paying attention the race! Any Democrat faced with a choice between a Republican and a Constitution party candidate may as well go home--the Constitution party is the far-right party considering running Roy "Ten Commandments" Moore for president this year. (All numbers from DC Political Report.)

But the new fifth includes parts of Democrat Tom Barrett's old district: Some of Milwaukee's near-north suburbs are very Dem-friendly. I mean, that 30% Dems used to get even without the Barret voters, plus 10 or 15% from a challenge on Sensenbrenner's right, would make it very close, without even much effort.

I think Bryan can even do better than that.

He's already nailed down many local Republican or non-partisan but moderate-right elected officials and business leaders. At the same time, he's sewing up labor and groups like Milwaukee for Democracy, the former Dean volunteers. If he can keep expanding a hold on the middle, perhaps exploiting Sensenbrenner's "DC-ness," while he holds on to the Democrats who are there and want a change, he can win easily. And if a third-party candidate does run to Sensenbrenner's right again, then it will be a blowout.

Bryan's got a solid, air-tight plan in place to do it, too. According to the numbers Kennedy is planning by, if the district votes for Kennedy exactly as it does for Democratic Senator Herb Kohl, then Kennedy will win. While he's not quite as progressive as Dean was, he's using Dean's game-plan to reach those Kohl voters. Word of mouth, shoe leather, and sweat are what's gonna win it for him, a real grassroots effort.

But Bryan Kennedy can't run a strong grassroots campaign unless he has, well, the grassroots. I know many of my three or four regular readers are local, and if you want to see Sensenbrenner gone, go sign up. If you aren't from around here, but want the Dems to re-take the House of Representatives this year, the this district is our best chance at a pick-up in Wisconsin. (I mean, Dems aren't even running a candidate against Petri or Ryan! Fools!) [see comments] I purposely have not linked to Kennedy's website so you'd have to look over on the right and click through on his ad.

And, not to be crass about it, but giv Bryan sum turkee, as Atrios would say. I get about 50 hits a day now, and if even ten percent of you clicked through and chipped in just $10, that would be a pretty significant thing for Kennedy's campaign.

Just remember--and I offer this to Bryan's campaign if he wants it for a slogan--F. James Sensenbrenner before he F.'s you.

My Dangerous Neighborhood

From the police blotter:

A front window was smashed and a sexual aid was taken from Fantasy Gifts, 2984 S. Chase Ave., at 4 a.m. April 28. Property loss and damage are estimated at $380.

This one's from the 'burbs, not my neighborhood, but still, well, I don't know:

Menagerie of 200 live animals found in apartment: 2 state citations issued alleging possession of wild game

Germantown - A stinking menagerie of about 200 live animals, including more than 70 ducks, a pair of alligators, snakes, rats, scorpions, toads and turtles, were discovered late Tuesday night in a Germantown apartment, authorities said.

Acting on an odor complaint from the manager of an apartment building on Park Ave. in Germantown, police found live animals and numerous animal carcasses in a freezer and decaying carcasses in an adjacent garage. Among the dead animals were raccoons, rabbits, opossums and squirrels. [. . .]

"She said they were car kills," Mitchell said of the carcasses. "I warned her that it is illegal to take dead animals off the side of a road."

"The dead animals were used to feed the live animals. and some were given to flesh-eating beetles," he added.

For good measure, one more from the 'burbs:

GREENFIELD, Wis. (AP) — The mayor of this Milwaukee suburb has withdrawn his demand that an alderman remove a female mannequin from his office, on the condition that the alderman keep his office door closed.

Mayor Timothy Seider commented in a letter Tuesday to Alderman Thomas Pietrowski after telling him earlier that numerous complaints had been made by female employees about the mannequin.

Seider said some of the workers consider the mannequin offensive and demeaning to women.

But Pietrowski described the mannequin clothed in a gray T-shirt and tattered jeans as a piece of art, and his attorney, Peter Earle, said it was protected free speech.

See? I'm normal. I really am.

TABOR

Our Milwaukee for Democracy (the DfA group here) is having our Meetup tonight. As I mentioned a few posts back, we are holding a 6 PM forum in addition to the usual Meetup. This month, we've got some guests in to talk about the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, or TABOR. My wife made a good point the other night (you can always count on her for that), that "Taxpayers' Bill of Rights" sounds like a good thing, and TABOR doesn't sound like anything at all, so how are we supposed to know that it's bad?

Well, for those of you not going to our Meetup tonight, here's some info on the proposed amendment (yes, it's a constitutional amendment), its history, and why it's bad.

In 2002, Wisconsin elected a Democratic Governor for the first time in 16 years. By the time Doyle was elected, Wisconsin was in a real quandry: billions in the hole, getting far less back from the feds than we paid in taxes, and among the worst in terms of how much we pay in taxes and fees overall (individuals, anyway--Wisconsin gives away the farm, sometimes literally, to corporations).

Whose fault was that? Well, the Bush economy was partly to blame, and, as I implied, the lax corporate tax structure was too. Even the very, very business-friendly Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted that "the state's tax laws for companies are so porous because of exemptions and loopholes that financial officers can play by the rules and still find many ways to duck taxes." [UPDATE: Monday's Journal Sentinel cited a 63%-37% ratio of tax revenue from individuals and from business. I wish I remembered, or could find again, what that ratio was in 1986, when Thompson first took the governor's reins.]

But much of the blame, in your humble folkbum's humble opinion, lies at the feet of Tommy Thompson and his very creative use of the veto, combined with asinine public relations stunts like issuing refund checks instead of fixing the devastating (and very draining) public schools financing system.

Republicans, though, newly emboldened by their fresh control over both houses in the legislature, if not the governor's seat, felt that the fault really lay with municipalities and local goverments being bloated, wasteful, greedy, and, most importantly, not them. Nooooo, wouldn't want to have to look at the culpabilty of business-friendly lawmakers now, would we? Can't get rid of those loopholes, no sirree.

Hence, the property tax freeze. The Republicans did their best to hamstring municipalities' abilities to raise necessary revenue. Governor Doyle vetoed the bill, and the veto stood in the state senate by just one vote. Beaten in that battle but not the war, many of the movement conservatives in the legislature have moved on now to TABOR. You know movement conservatism, right? That Grover Norquist "I'm not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub" conservatism that aims directly at every single social program--from Social Security to public schools--in attempt to make helpful government go away.

Katya Szabados at The Wisconsinite (a fine new publication out of Madison) did a story a couple of months back on ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, "a bipartisan membership association for conservative state lawmakers who share a common belief in limited government, free markets, federalism, and individual liberty." Many of Wisconsin's staunchest movement conservatives get both support (financial and otherwise) and ideas from this national network, and ALEC has had its hands in everything from school vouchers to anti-environmental legislation.

(This is scary: "[O]ne model bill [. . .] makes environmental protest a crime and increases penalties for animal rights or environmental groups that participate in activities 'with an intent to influence a governmental entity or the public to take a specific action.'" O. M. G.)

And ALEC has its hand in TABOR, too. One TABOR sponsor is state senator Bob "state-wide loser since 1994!" Welch, recently ALEC's Wisconsin chair and current opponent of Everyone's Favorite Senator™, Russ Feingold.

Katya Szabados writes it better than I could; allow me to quote her for a second:

TABOR would limit government spending to growth in population plus growth in inflation and require a two-thirds vote in both houses of the legislature to increase income, sales and franchise taxes. Wisconsin voters would need to approve tax increases or lift spending limits via referendum. The bill would establish a "rainy day" fund and send all surpluses directly back to taxpayers.

Wisconsin's TABOR is said to be based on a 1992 constitutional amendment in Colorado. [. . .] TABOR proponents claim it will make state government more accountable to the people and streamline state agencies, pushing them to be more efficient with less money. Lasee claims it is "the essence of Democracy" and "will require that elected officials explain what they're doing more often to the people they represent." [. . .] Opponents worry it could tie the hands of government faced with already tight budgets, leading to cuts in public services dear to Wisconsinites. Colorado officials, even some of those who advocated or voted for the legislation, are warning Wisconsin citizens to beware.

According to Phyllis Resnick from the Tax Center at the University of Denver, many companies consider Colorado "a nightmare to do business with" because of variable tax rates between counties. Wade Buchanan, President of the Colorado-based Bell Policy Center, a nonprofit public interest center, recently penned an anti- TABOR op-ed for the Wisconsin State Journal. In it, he concedes that TABOR sounds like a good idea, and that the majority of Colorado citizens agree with its primary tenants of limiting government expenditures and allowing citizens to approve tax increases.

However, Buchanan writes that TABOR "has shrunk Colorado's already-lean programs to anorexic levels. By 2000, Colorado had fallen to 50th in K-12 spending per $1,000 of personal income...spent less than most other states on public health care services (as a percent of GSP), was at the bottom in on-time immunization rates, was at the bottom in prenatal care, had the highest rate of uninsured low-income children in the nation, was almost last among states in high school graduation rates, ranked almost last in state investment in higher education and the arts, and had a growing list of unfunded highway projects." According to Buchanan, this occurred because, although personal income has grown since 1992, Colorado officials are faced with strict spending limits in the face of massive population growth along the Front Range. Higher incomes households are making enough to ignore cuts in public services, while the less wealthy are having a harder time.

My union president, Bob Lehmann of the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association, recently wrote that "all it takes is one built-in cost to rise at a rate faster than inflation (like health care), and the state will be forced to make significant cuts in other areas to offset the expenditure." Viola, mes amis. Let the shrinking and drowning begin.

The poor, the children, and the elderly are the ones hurt by drowning the government in a bathtub. If you're rich, you won't miss public schools because you can afford private ones. You won't miss the public transportation because you own a car or two or three. You won't miss the Medicaid because you can afford health care, elder care, insurance.

Unfortunately, we live in a state--and a country as a whole--where, as Howard Dean ineloquently pointed out by referencing the confederate flag--many people who are not rich vote against their own economic interests. The very Republican rural parts of Wisconsin will get killed by TABOR, while our legilslature sits by and does nothing to actually resolve the issues it faces, namely by aiming at corporate tax fairness.

I know you're probably sick of hearing me do this, but I'm going to plug Tim Carpenter again. Not only is he procedurally trying to kill TABOR in the senate, he's also been trying for years as a state legislator to force Wisconsin to close up those loopholes, and to add corporate accountability laws, so that we don't offer a company a huge break if they end up offshoring their jobs. Short of that kind of legislation, we will never have tax fairness and real relief for the taxpayer in Wisconsin. TABOR is an illusion, a sound-good piece of rope with which to hang ourselves.

Sell Out

I asked, and a few of you answered. So I'm selling out. Now you--yes, you!--can advertise yourself or your product or your service right here on this very blog.

Just look at that Blogads box over there. So empty. So forlorn. And a damn sight cheaper than Atrios.

And speaking of ads, what do you all see in the GoogleAds box at the top of this page? I see an empty box, and have for a week or two. I just wonder if the rest of you get anything. I would upgrade to the Blogger premium service to get rid of the thing, but they have been "retooling" their "offerings" for a long time now, and aren't selling it anymore. Sigh.

And in this corner . . .

I do not watch "Iron Chef" (I'm more of an Alton Brown kind of guy), but I am aware of the concept. It's kind of like the demolition derby--or maybe ultimate fighting--of cooking shows. That's a bit tricky for me because I grew up (culinary TV-wise) on Jeff Smith and Caprial and Julia Child, and I didn't even go to demolition derbies as a boy.

Anyway, now I find myself part of something similar: Iron Blog. The Chairman invited me, and, after much a little persuasion, I have agreed to be Iron Blogger Democrat.

Basically, what that means is that I will be "challenged" once a month or so by anyone who wants a piece of me. The Chairman picks a topic and the challenger and I go at it. There are judges--very wise and quite attractive judges, I may add--who will, after a week of back-and-forthing between me and the challenger, declare a winner.

And you, lucky suckers that you are, get to watch.

There are three other Iron Bloggers: Iron Blogger Green is Robin from Left-OverAnger; Iron Blogger Republican is John Cole of Balloon Juice Rosemary Esmay, the Queen of All Evil; and iron Blogger Libertarian is Vinod Valloppillil. I don't know when exactly we'll be under way, but if you've ever wanted a head-to-head with me or anyone else, this is your chance.

Music stuff, and a question

So, the two or four of you who have been following this blog since time immemorial (or, more accurately, last May--I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary!) may remember that for a while I wanted to devote more of this space to talking about my music than I have. In fact, posts about my music to date: 0.

Sure, here and there I've pitched a gig or two (check here for the next one) or talked about music a little, but very little about writing, performing, or anything of the like.

So I'm making a solemn pledge to work on doing that more, since this summer, when I'm not busy trying to elect congressmen, I will try to do more writing than I have, and I'll try to talk some about the process. I promise.

This is inspired by three things. First, the show linked to above is a group effort with the other members of the songwriters' workshop that I belong to. They've been together more than three years now (maybe four), and I've been hanging with them since January 2003. I think my writing has improved considerably since then, mostly in terms of melody and rhythm. I am not and will likely never be a great singer, but working with them has given me the guts to try to be more adventurous with my singing and, consequently, with my melodies.

Second, after mp3.com closed last December, I wasn't sure what to do about an on-line music host. As it turns out, GarageBand.com offered all the premium mp3.com users a home, and I took them up on it. I added the link a few days back there on the right, but here's another one. Remember: I warned you that I am not a great singer!

Third, Mustang Bobby (of Bark Bark Woof Woof), an accomplished playwright, has been doing a "Writing on Writing" series. The first one is here, but he has new ones about once a week. I figure, heck, if he can fill space on his blog about his writing, then so can I.

Now, the question, and I really need your input here: Should I join BlogAds, and take advertising from Good Liberal Causes, or keep this blog ad-free? I mean, I'm not going to make a ton of money here, but I could take ads if I wanted. Please comment in the, er, comments below.

How-to

If you've ever wanted to see a good fisking, check out what Ed Brayton does to a dim wingnut at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, which he linked to from The Panda's Thumb.

DfA, MfD, Etc.

It's been well over a month--maybe even two, now--since I've mentioned Howard Dean. It's not because I don't like him anymore, or because I now worship only at the House of Kerry, but because there are some wounds you just don't poke at until they're pretty well healed.

First of all, there's a bat:


Every contribution to that bat will go to support Dean-inspired candidates around the country this fall, including my friend Tim Carpenter. (He still doesn't have a web-pay option, but that should be coming soon.)

Second of all, the Milwaukee for Dean group, like, I imagine, a lot of other Dean groups around the country, has re-constituted itself as Milwaukee for Democracy. That link is still just to our Yahoo! group, as we don't have our own site set up yet. We're hoping to do that soon, mostly because, obviously, I'm not blogging enough already and I need a new MT-based blogging home.

But we're also now well on our way to becoming a force in local politics. We do have a 270-strong email list; we have candidates banging down our metaphorical doors asking for help; and we have started doing an additional monthly meeting besides the Meetup. We are hosting a forum now every month starting at 6:00 on the Meetup evenings at the Meetup location. In April, we had a history professor from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who is probably the formost expert on the local economy. He gave us some pretty scary stats and suggestions for dealing with Milwaukee's near-Detroit status.

May's pre-Meetup forum will feature Milwaukee Assemblyman Jon Richards and someone from the Institute for Wisconsin's Future to talk about the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (which is far eviler than it sounds) and how we can help stop it. Then the Meetup will feature planning for events supporting the House candidates we've endorsed (the endorsements aren't public yet, though) and Russ Feingold for Senate.

So, to inspire real comments (what happened to you guys? You used to be so verbose!), I will ask a specific question: Were you a Deanista? If so, what's happened to your Meetups? If not, would the kind of Meetup I described appeal to you (since it's not all Howard Dean anymore)?

Another example of "It's OK if You're a Republican"
(but not if you're Republican Guard)
(with bonus additional rant!)

I called him "the Whopper" for a long time because he's a friggin' liar. Karen Hughes gives him a run for the money, though, lately, but even so, the man seems to have no clear sense of what actually comes out of his mouth. I remember being livid that he could say, in front of Kofi Annan!, that Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in, and that's why we invaded. And today, some more stuff that I just could not make up even if I were more paranoid than I am:

PRESIDENT BUSH: A year ago, I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we'd accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein. And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq.

Now, we know that the Whopper gets his news from "people who don't editorialize," rather than, you know, news sources, so it might not have come as a surprise that he didn't know that U.S. troops have been caught running torture chambers and rape rooms or that there are more than a thousand Iraqis in graves from U.S. action just this month.

But no! The Whopper actually knows about the rape rooms and torture chambers, because just minutes after saying there are none in Iraq anymore, he is faced with a question from a reporter about the torture. "I shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated. Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people. That's not the way we do things in America. And so I--I didn't like it one bit."

It would make my head explode, if I had that kind of cognitive dissonance going on.

(To be fair, U.K. troops may be torturing as well--but these allegations have been being made for nearly a year now!)

And, because he can't just screw up once, he says this:

There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily--are a different color than white can self-govern.

First of all, I guess we should be glad that the Whopper was standing next to Fellow White Man Paul Martin of Canada when he said that, instead of, say, the aforementioned Kofi Annan. Or any one of the leaders from just about any other country in the world.

And where the hell does he get off implying, anyway, that this is a white country? This is how you know he's not really from Texas. You run into far fewer non-whites at Andover* and Yale, and in the Texas Air National Guard (or at your apartment building full or ambitious secretaries, or on your trips to pick up South American "tropical plants" <cough>coke</cough>, or working for white federal candidates in the south) since minorities disproportinately went to Viet Nam instead of the Guard--fewer strings to pull, don't you know. (* In the 1960s, anyway. Dscount the picture there on the homepage.) Combine that with the clearly phony accent, and the campaign-prop ranch, and you've got a huge chunk of lie carved into the Whopper's very biography.

Anyway, I'm rambling (as is my wont). I'm hungry, it's been a long, gray day, and the leader of the god-damned free world can't find an intelligent thought in his head with a flashlight, both hands, and Dick Cheney pulling the strings.

Terrorists: Criminals or Soldiers?

In addition to All Things Considered (just below), I caught the last six or eight seconds of Talk of the Nation on the drive home this afternoon. One of the guests was Adam Charnes, who was a lackey in the Ashcroft DOJ and a former clerk for Justice Kennedy. From the little bit I heard, it sounded like he was responsible for taking the Bush Administration's side in the discussion about today's Supreme Court case featuring American citizens Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi. Bush declared the two "enemy combatants" and that, I guess, voids the warranty: No attorneys, no rights, no nothing while they await, in Kafka-esque limbo, whatever legal proceedings are going to happen. Charnes said something, though, that got me thinking.

One of the closer-to-legit reasons the Bush team plays "Blame the Clenis™" is that the Clinton Administration saw terrorism, especially threats of terror attacks within the U.S., as a law-enforcement issue. Bush and crew treat all terrorism, within the U.S. or not, as a military issue. (I'm not saying it's fully legit. Just closer.)

Part of the problem with the Bush team is that it's living in the 1980s. The Enemy™ was That Big Country Over There. Massive. Iconoclastic. Far away. And just as bogged down in bureaucratic bogging-down-stuff as we are. If the attack is coming, they think, we'll see it coming because The Enemy™ is something so titanic we can't miss it. That's why Condi Rice can't recognize a national security threat unless the terrorists spell out the date, time, place, and delivery method. But we stopped living in that world more than a decade ago.

In one of the most inadequate of the fistful of inadequate responses that a military approach leads to is the wholesale declaration of hundreds "enemy combatants" by Bush, and the warehousing of them at Gitmo. Some of them, like Yaser Hamdi, were caught on an actual battlefield; others, like Jose Padilla, were just at the airport. In either case, calling terrorists "enemy combatants" opens up cans of worms that just shouldn't be open.

See, I remember way back when, Howard Dean had a new one ripped for him when he let slip that Hamas terrorists were soldiers in a war. Again, this may be an "it's okay if you're a Republican" moment.

Worse, you have to start wondering exactly how far they will go with this. What are the characteristics of a terrorist group that make its members "enemy combatants"? They obviously don't have to be foreign nationals or apprehended in combat, as the cases under review right now show. Does it have to be a foreign-based network, like Al Qaeda? How about a network that has just a foreign cell or two? What if, for example, Aryan Nation had a couple guys in a cabin in Saskatchewan--would we be able to arrest your friendly neighborhood skinheads as enemy combatants?

What about terrorists that are entirely home grown? If Timothy McVeigh had done what he did under Bush's watch, would he be in Gitmo right now? If a couple of teenagers with a linux box hack DoD computers, would they be held incommunicado in windowless rooms for two years?

I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the internet, but I think I know what's coming. I would not be surprised if the court draws a narrow line, claiming that Hamdi, as he was captured in hostile combat in Afghanistan, really is an enemy combatant, despite his American citizenship, and therefore Open Seasonable. Padilla, on the other had, was just getting off a plane at O'Hare, and the court may well declare him to be a law-enforcement problem.

Even so, none of this will resolve the fundamental problem that the Bush administration has when it comes to fighting terrorists. Tom Schaller summed it up perfectly: These guys only have a hammer, so every problem looks like a nail. And if civil rights happen to be in the way, well, just remember--we're at war.

From the Outbox

From: folkbum
Date: Wed Apr 28, 2004 5:47:21 PM America/Chicago
To: All Things Considered <atc@npr.org>
Subject: David Brooks/ Dick Cheney

Wednesday in your regular segment featuring David Brooks and E.J. Dionne, Brooks rightly corrected host Robert Siegel when he claimed Vice President Dick Cheney had questioned John Kerry's military service record in a speech Monday at Westminster College. Brooks said that in fact Cheney had been questioning Kerry's voting record on military spending and whether the senator supports various weapons systems.

David Brooks--and your listeners--should know that those remarks from Cheney open the door to a serious pot-and-kettle situation. Cheney may be a hawk now, but he
lambasted President Reagan as a leader in the House of Representatives for not cutting military spending back in the 1984. More recently, as Secretary of Defense to the first President Bush, Cheney oversaw deep cuts in military programs.

I guess wanting to cut military funding is another one of those things that is only okay if you're a Republican.

folkbum
Milwaukee, WI

What a difference an hour makes
(edited and updated 4/27)

I was going to title this post "Even Local Fox News Sucks," but then I watched the second hour of the local broadcast (yes, a full hour of local news at nine and a half hour at ten!) of the local Fox afilliate's news and a swear to Jeebus it was like watching a different channel.

This afternoon, my teachers' union had a rally to encourage the school board and superintendent to actually, you know, bargain on our contract, which expired last June. (And it's working: Since news of our planned rally broke, the district offered a new version of its BOHICA health-care package and the superintendent himself is back at the bargaining table for the first time in fourteen months.)

Anyway, I pulled media duty, and was assigned to the local Fox guy. They actually mic'ed me and followed me around for a while after the interview. The interview went off without a hitch: I was on message and, I think, friendly and accessible. Our union president was interviewed just before me and, I have to tell you, he has more message discipline than even I do. He hit all the right points: An unsettled contract does nothing to encourage new teachers to enlist or keep the good ones we have; a focus on benefits leaves issues around what happens in the classroom off the table.

And then rally, rally, yay, yay, petition, rally. Probably 1500 people out. Lots of hot dogs. Bad '80s music from the DJ. Tents. All good. (Local print media coverage here.)

So I rush home to set the TiVo to tape the 9 and 10 editions of the local Fox news, cause there's nothing funner than seeing yourself on TV. And after the 9:00 story ran, I was incensed.

It began with Smiley Guy and Hair Woman standing around the studio (the 9:00 news is the, er, casual news). They flashed some stats about the budget the superintendent presented (here's the budget story), including the inflammatory proposed increase in the property tax levy. Then Smiley Guy mentions that we're negotiating our contract--not that it's long-expired--and that asking us to pay for our health care has got us mad. "And, can you believe this?" Smiley Guy asks. "Teachers pay nothing right now for their health insurance!"

And then they go to the video, with nothing of me, and their focus is entirely the angry demonstration. The reporter repeatedly referred to the several hundred protesters, rather than the thousand plus there for the rally. The few moments of our chanting "We want the board!" out of the half and hour we waited in the auditorium before the school board meeting was what made the air, of course, as well as the one moment our union president said that this rally was the chance for teachers to say they were "silent no more." Throw in the outgoing school board president's wondering whether paying teachers is a good use of our money (I'm paraphrasing), and you got yourself a horribly negative hit piece.

Folkbum not pleased.

But I watch the 10:00 piece anyway, prepared to be just as mad, and it was a completely different report, from the content to the tone. First of all, I got plenty of face time, getting in all the right points about the teachers who are leaving and a sense of optimism that maybe now we can settle the contract. The reporter still referred to what we were doing as a demonstration, but this was a much more balanced report, noting some actual facts about the negotiations and a much better quote, too, from our union president. In all, this report spent much more time on the effects of this protracted bargaining process on teachers and the classroom. The reporter even ended the spot with a dig at the school board, saying that at the moment, the board has no intention of getting involved in the negotiations.

Folkbum pleased.

Sarah wondered whether they had demographics telling them that their 9:00 and 10:00 audiences were completely different. I wonder if they didn't get some calls. Or maybe they just are fair and balanced, but not all at once.

(Update, 4/27: One teacher who was at the rally told me today that a board member told her that the bean-counting technocrats running the district's negotiations specifically requested that the elected board stay out of the negotiations and have been purposefully keeping the board in the dark about the proceedings.

Plus, last night's school board meeting was the one where they re-shuffle committee assignments and elect new officers. There is a long history of partisanship and division on the board, and this time the board elected a union ally as president. Plus another powerful new ally joined the personnel and finance committee, averring that "the money is there" and that he would "go over that budget line by line." More news on the board's doings here.)

Hah


You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Via Misc. Karen, whom I found trolling the bottom of the Ecosystem.)

You know you've thought it

Via The Talent Show, I have found the wonderfully named (and persuasive) JohnKerryIsADoucheBagButI'mVotingForHimAnyway.com. If you still need convincing, this is the place to go. It's still "under construction" in places, but what he's got now is good.

Happyeth Birthdayeth

In the bard's honor, I made my very own Quizilla quiz:
What Shakespeare Play Are You?

Two for one

I did not actually break my thumb with the bungee cord this morning (don't ask), but it makes it hard to type. So, one each: A Quiz! and a Bottom of the Barrel.


Which Nigerian spammer are You?

(Thanks to Art-Machine. Take this one. Seriously. I laughed all the way through it.)

As for our Bottom of the Barrel contestant today (a quick reminder of the BoB rules: I take the lowest of the low Insignificant Microbes in the Ecosystem and give them a link here, along with something nice to say) is number 10029, Alien Landscape: "Observations concerning the strange creatures that dominate this planet called Earth."

Ken (the main page contains all posts since January 1 of this year--and it scrolls like it!--but there is no convenient "About Me" or anything to make it easy. I had to read, a lot, to figure it out. I shouldn't really say much, since I don't have an "about me" either, but, then again, I'm not last in the Ecosystem) is another of them conservatives, newly moved to Texas for, apparently, the tax benefit. At least, that's celebrated in the April 15 post.

It's hard to say nice things about the conservative bloggers, especially when they're wrong as often as Ken is, despite some occasional disagreements with Bush and even at least one nice Grover Norquist dis--which means, I think, he's got a much more libertarian bent. I will say this, though: When our alien observer (and he does seem to be from a different planet occasionally, like advocating hover cars and such) makes his arguments without hyperbole and with research and historical example.

Again, though, he's often on the wrong side. Take his January 2 post, cleverly defending the obscenely rich as those who "beta-test tomorrow's everyday mass-market items. When they start buying a new toy, the profits fuel further development, which leads to better and less expensive versions. [. . .] So the next time you hear someone decrying 'income inequality,' remember that income inequality is what gives us our beta testers, and reflect that unless the government finds an excuse to prevent it, those toys you envy the rich for having will one day be yours." Aside from the fact that I haven't gotten my Lear jet yet, Ken neglects the thrust of most arguments arguments against obscene wealth (well, the ones I make, anyway). It's the ever-increasing stratification that presents the problem.

Or, more recently, about the war, Ken actually says this: "[I]f the occupying foreign power is bringing liberty where there was none before, then freedom-loving people who know the score will welcome the occupation[. . .]. [A] successful occupation would be to the Iraqis' benefit even if it never ends or produces any sort of local democracy, and those who try to cause the occupation to fail do not have the best interests of their fellow Iraqis at heart and are deadly and dangerous enemies to Iraqis as well as Americans." Because, apparently, We Know Better. I wonder if Ken is as shocked as Rummy that there are no flowers.

Showing his libertarian bent, he makes the argument that regulation--from FDA to minimum wage--really hurts employees and consumers, robbing us of choices we could otherwise make. "Please, sir. Let me flip burgers for you and you only have to pay me a dollar. That's all I need to afford those drugs that they sell without rigorous testing to see if they're safe!"

My thumb hurts. Sigh.

Columbine: Five Years and a Day
(I was hoping it would be just five years, but I've had a busy week.)

On April 20, 1999, I was substitute teaching for the Milwaukee Public Schools, long-term in the building where I finally landed a real job and have been teaching since.

I first learned of the shootings in Littleton, Colorado, from NPR in the car after school on my way to my second job at a Sylvan Learning Center (subs don't get paid that well, and we were living beyond our means on Milwaukee's posh East Side). The news was shocking for two reasons: first, obviously, because of the scope and magnitude of the tragedy, but also because I had been paying close attention to news of such shootings, and there had been nearly a full year without one.

The reason I spent that 1998-1999 school year subbing was that I left the full-time teaching job I held for the 1997-1998 school year. I taught in a suburban Milwaukee high school, a school I have much maligned in other places and so won't name. (I also often malign the Milwaukee Public Schools, but I now have the equivalent of tenure, so I don't care so much.)

That school was almost exactly like Columbine. It was also almost exactly like Heath High School, in West Paducah, Kentucky, where three students were killed in December of 1997. Or Thurston High School, in Springfield, Oregon, where Kip Kinkel killed two and injured dozens more in the cafeteria in May 1998.

That's not why I left the school--there is a whole mosaic of issues surrounding my departure--but I was always keenly aware of the school's sdemographics as the death toll elsewhere (and media frenzy about the issue) rose at a staggering clip.

At my school that year, a year that was punctuated with news of these shootings (though not Columbine yet), there was not a single student of color. At all. The district was really almost exurban, with a few poor farming communities (and a few poor students), but mostly house farms and warehouse churches. A handful of my students had moved out there from the city recently enough to still be interesting, but most of the kids were vanilla in the worst way. Everything was someone else's fault, they lived in a very white box that they never left, and they had no conception of just how insular their lives were.

The only thing, I sometimes think, that might have sufficiently shaken them up, would have been a school shooting.

Did I know kids like Kinkel, or Harris and Kliebold, who I really thought could go through with it? I don't think so. But there is no doubt: If I were going to die at a school, that's the kind of place where it would happen.

The funny thing, of course, is that now I teach in Milwaukee, a city not known for its peaceful, idyllic streets. The murder rate is about 4 times the national average. Violent crime is a constant threat, it seems. And yet, I feel utterly safe here in this urban, majority-minority population school. Far safer than those days in the winter of 1998 when every other day, it seemed, some school shooting or another was in the news.

That's not to say I succumbed to the media hype: I knew well, and often argued with people (sometimes even my students), that children are far less likely to die in school than in their parents' cars on the way to or from school. But, like the Season of Gary Condit, or the Summer of Shark Attacks, or the Year of JonBenet, the media had one story for a long time, and that was how anti-social, maladjusted, oft-teased kids were all set to kill your child at school tomorrow.

But then, respite. That summer was, of course, free of school shootings. And the next fall. Anniversaries of various shootings came and passed without nary a puff of gunpowder. And then the unthinkable happened. Columbine was followed, of course, exactly one month later by yet another shooting, at Heritage High School in Conyers, Georgia.

Yet the images that we all have from these shootings, the trauma that we all feel at least a little but of tucked somewhere in the backs of our minds, is all Columbine. Columbine was, if you will allow the stretch here, the 9/11 of school shootings: not the first, not the last, but the most horrific and lasting.

There was not quite the same walking-around-numb feeling on 4/20 or 4/21 that there was on 9/11 and 9/12, but I certainly remember, at least in the high school setting where I was working, a sense of sobriety and somberness that transcended the usual routine, for both staff and students. But at that urban school, that under-served, under-resourced, and under-performing school in the central city, there was absolutely no sense of additional danger.

That's not to say Milwaukee Public Schools students don't have conflicts, don't bring weapons to school, don't fight. They do. They do a lot. But in MPS--at my school, anyway--there is never random violence. Period.

If there's a fight in the hallway, it's between students who have been building up to it for some time, not against victims chosen by chance. I know that when a student brings a weapon, it's usually because they feel that they need protection from a specific person or people, not because they could walk up and down the hallway and attack just anyone. Teachers, especially, who always seemed to be targeted in those school shootings, are almost never the target of intentional violence here. If one of us gets in the way breaking up a fight, we might take a punch (it's happened to me), but the kids just don't come after us. Again, I felt then, and still feel now, safer at school than many other places.

There's an irony to that, I guess. It is, however, an important point to stress: Schools, up to and including urban schools, are safe.

People have mostly calmed down about the issue of school shootings (even though they still happen) and it is no longer driving news cycles or school policy. But out of that spate of school shootings in 1997-1999 came something else that I need to touch on just a little bit before closing this commentary, and that's Zero Tolerance.

Zero Tolerance is the kind of thing that, in theory, it's hard not to get behind. I mean, who doesn't want to keep weapons and drugs and other such evils out of our schools? (The big fight right now at my school is about hats and cell phones. Eeeeee-vil, I tell you.)

But Zero Tolerance, like any inflexible policy, is a bad thing. Besides all the now-too-familiar silly things we hear about (students severely punished for carrying, say Scope or Tylenol; or any of the other dozens of nightmares), it disproportionately affects minorities like the students at my school.

Thankfully, many schools and districts are moving away from it. If I had more time, I'd throw references at you about that, too.

Anyway, I've rambled on enough, as is my wont. But I figure all of you who come around here regularly expect that by now. Back to work . . .

If Saturn really wanted me in their family . . .

. . . then their waiting lounge would have free wireless access. Then I could have blogged from there today.

My trusty (ish) 97 SL2 had a mysterious recurring fuse-blowing problem. Apparently, it resurfaced while we were in Mexico--the car was staying with Sarah's grandfather, and it wouldn't start to come to the airport to get us. This was not great news to hear after Our Horrible Flight™, including terrifying winds on the way down into O'Hare and an hour and a half in the plane on the tarmac in Philly. (Again, I'm not sure I saw Atrios. It would help of he'd just tell us who he is and get it over with.)

So anyway, this afternoon was at the Saturn dealership, where they took $170 worth of labor time to take apart my dash and replace a $12 wire.

So, on the trip, I did much good eating, lounging, sleeping, and reading. In fact, I read five whole books. That almost makes up for the books I don't read while school is on and I have other things to do. In order of much I liked them:

That Old Ace in the Hole, by Annie Proulx. Funny in the right places, sentimental in others, and with bronc-riding monks. Really.
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Friend, by Chris Moore. This is the kind of book that, had I read it in high school, would have made me feel rebellious. But now, some of it just seemed contrived. I won't give away the ending, though . . .
Plainsong by Kent Haruf. Very bleak. I read it first--in one day, mostly on the plane on the way out. Very bleak. Bleak.
The Peter Principle, by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, which I re-read for a particular project.
Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer. Not anywhere near as good as the Harry Potter series.

I did not sunburn, nor did I succumb to any intestinal distress. However, some bug or something kept biting me and I have welts on my legs the size of a ten-peso coin. And they itch something awful.

I am, though, very tired. Busy weeks ahead for this boy. Perhaps more later on my travels. For now, one last thanks to JD, who fought dental surgery and John Ashcroft to be with you as stunt folkbum last week. Anytime you feel the itch, Jeff, just let 'er rip!

Mr. Ashcroft: Tear Down that Wall

The "9/11 Commission" is undertaking some of the most critical tasks in the war on terror. These 5 republicans and 5 democrats have, for the most part, placed country over party in undertaking the crucial job of determining what went wrong in the months and years leading up to 9/11. Nothing in the Commission's final report will bring back those we lost that day, but it is imperative that the Commission over turn every stone to see if we can learn anything that may help prevent another disaster of that proportion.

In the last few weeks the Commission's work has clearly bruised some egos - both democrat and republican. But, some have been able to put their egos aside for the good of the nation. Others, however, have shown a willingness to put political survival ahead of the Commission's efforts.

Case in point is Attorney General John Ashcroft.
(note- as a current DOJ employee it is important to note that I write here as a private citizen and my views expressed here are solely my own and do not represent the views of the DOJ)

Already scorned by the Commission and testimony from key witnesses, the man whose job is to search for truth and justice came to the stand and demonstrated that his primary aims on that day were self-preservation and to undermine the Commission's credibility.

With amazing temerity, the Attorney General took the stand and, instead of putting ego and partisanship aside for the good of the nation, Attorney General Ashcroft unleashed an offensive against a respected Commission member temporarily disrupting the Commission's fact-finding mission.

Witness after witness, democrat and republicans alike, have consistently concluded that no single problem could have been addressed in time to unquestionably stop the 9/11 disaster. But, the Attorney General, in amazing arrogance contradicted the bipartisan consensus established up to that point by trumpeting that he had found THE cause for our failure to prevent Osama Bin Laden's attack on DC and New York City.

In what can only be described as kabuki political theater, and bad kabuki theater I might add, the AG summoned his inner drama queen and proclaimed that THE cause for the 9/11 letdown was a so-called "legal wall" built up to prevent intelligence investigators from sharing information with criminal investigators. The AG's soliloquy continued on with the declaration: "Somebody built this wall. ... Full disclosure compels me to inform you that the author of this memorandum is a member of the Commission." Then with self-congratulatory smugness, the AG whipped out a 1995 legal memorandum penned by Commission Member Jamie Gorelick when she was Deputy Attorney General in the Justice Department, which described "the wall" and set forth restrictions on information sharing between intelligence and criminal investigators. Ashcroft called memo "the single greatest structural cause for the September 11th problem.'' In short, Ashcroft's show and tell act attempted to blame Gorelick for 9/11.

Unimpressed, Republicans on the Commission trashed the AG's performance. Commissioner Slade Gorton, a former Republican senator from Washington, rebuked Ashcroft by noting, the Bush Justice Department, led by Ashcroft, actually ratified the existence of "the wall," by noting in its own secret memorandum on August 6, 2001, that "the 1995 procedures remain in effect today." Republican John Lehman, former Navy secretary under President Reagan, also defended Gorelick. "Jamie Gorelick has made a very good contribution and she's one of the really savvy, nonpartisan of the bipartisan members," Lehman said. Chairman Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, state that in his mind, Gorelick, is "one of the finest members of the commission, one of the hardest working members of the commission and, by the way, one of the most nonpartisan and bipartisan members of the commission." Kean went further and rebuked calls for Gorelick's resignation from the commission saying "people ought to stay out of our business." Kudos to these Commissioners for not being blinded by the AG's stage show. Of course, demonstrating that to some party comes before country, Kean is now being attacked by the right wing slime machine for simply telling the truth.

As Attorney General, with a large staff of learned legal minds, surely Mr. Ashcroft knew, or should have known - and absolutely could have known with a wee bit of research - that in 1978, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). FISA established a secret intelligence court and relaxed the standard Fourth Amendment rule requiring "probable cause" when the government sought search warrants for the "primary purpose" of gathering foreign intelligence. Over the next several years, officials and courts gradually fashioned the "wall" keeping these two spheres largely separate. Indeed, the AG should know that this wall existed during the Reagan Administration and the First Bush Administration. He should know because his own Justice Department eventually - after 9/11 - sought a ruling from a special appeals court that helped eliminate the wall. In that very ruling, the Court, specifically noted that: "It is quite puzzling that the Justice Department, at some point during the 1980s [i.e. the Reagan years], began to read the statute as limiting the department's ability to obtain FISA orders if it intended to prosecute the targeted agents, even for foreign intelligence crimes."

Surely, someone on the AG's staff read the court's opinion? Surely, someone on his staff could have informed the AG that Ms. Gorelick did not serve in the Justice Department in the 1980s. Someone let him down. We certainly can't expect the AG to know all this publically available information himself, right? Wrong. Mr. Ashcroft is a shrewd man. The only reasonable conclusion that can be reached, given all the legal staff at his disposal and his own wealth of knowledge, is that the AG omitted this relevant history of "the wall" from his testimony in a partisan attempt to discredit Ms. Gorelick.

Such a silly stunt is both juvenile and disappointing. Perhaps Mr. Ashcroft should tear down the partisan wall dividing his duty to serve the public and his desire to serve himself and his party. Indeed, all witnesses should check their egos and partisanship at the door and let the Commission do its job. The American people are not well served by these types of antics and attempts at obfuscation. Luckily, in this instance, we had Mssrs. Kean, Lehman, and Gorton to set the record straight since the AG was obviously unwilling to do so himself.

Greetings from the Island!

Well, it seems JD is doing a fine job keeping you all busy, so I will not take up much of your time (plus I'm paying by the minute here), except to say that my batteries are indeed charging, and I'm a little freaked out by the new updates to Blogger. Certainly not expecting that while on vacation . . .

I'm purposely not keeping up with politics while away, so if anything big happens, I'll have to find out later. The advantage, of course, is that I get to keep my hair. That, and these Spanish language keyboards make it real easy to type a ñ. Tee hee!

Anyway, I am working on a project, probably for publication at Open Source Politics, while I'm away. And I will have a nice trip report for those of you anxioulsy awaiting to hear if I saw Atrios during the layover in Philly (short answer: I don't know) or wondering what the weather is like here. In the meantime, keep enjoying JD's work!