Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Rod Nilsestuen Will Be Missed

When I first came to Wisconsin in January 1980, one of the first road trips I took was to Whitehall, the Trempealeau County seat. There was a mild snowstorm (6-9 inches), and my new boss, Art Krival, insisted that I needed to go meet some folks who had built a cable television cooperative there and help plan its local access channel structure. The snowstorm would help Art decide whether I had the right stuff to stick at the UW-Extension, and the meeting would give me a sense of what I was getting into. We stayed mostly on the road, and the folks I met included the coop's manager, Rod Moen, later State Senator Rod Moen, and a father and son who had helped to organize the coop, Gerhard and Rod Nilsestuen.

I don't remember adding much to the discussion, but I must have said something useful, because the Trempealeau Cable Coop folks kept asking me for advice and assistance.  I wound up working with Rod Moen on any number of issues over the years, and as Rod Nilsestuen rose to head the Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives and later the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, we periodically connected on telecommunications consumer topics and more recently on farmers' market development.  The last three years I worked often with Rod's son Joel, a key aide to Senator Kathleen Vinehout, on cable and telecom legislation. Working with three generations of the same family over 30 years is a privilege one doesn't get too often in a lifetime.

Jane Burns in the Wisconsin State Journal has a good summary story on Rod's tragic accidental death here. Some good tributes to Rod are here, here and here. Update: Bill Berry's Cap Times tribute.

Condolences to his family.  May his memory be for a blessing.

- Barry Orton

Gulf Oil Spill, A Test for Voters: Which Rand Paul Horse Do We Back?

If there is one message from Rand Paul, it is that we have too much government regulation. We all know where he stands and we all know that he needs to bob and weave, especially in light of:

Bad cement jobs plague offshore rigs

Federal regulators don't regulate what type of cement is used, leaving it up to oil and gas companies. The drillers are urged to simply follow guidelines of the American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group.

Far more stringent federal and state standards and controls exist on cement work for roads, bridges and buildings...

...An AP review of federal accident and incident reports on offshore wells shows that the cementing process has been implicated at least 34 times since 1978. Many of the reports, available from the U.S. Minerals Management Service that regulates offshore wells, identify the cause simply as "poor cement job."

Rand Paul is going to switch horses and get off the nag that brought him through the Republican Senate primary in Kentucky. No more decrying government regulation, in all instances.

Now Rand Paul will acknowledge that there are moments when proper and reasonable government regulation is appropriate. That is a horse of a different color.

While Rand Paul navigates this shady steed through the troubled waters he will choose the most convenient road to victory. That is not a challenge.

The challenge is for the voters to decide if they are going to buy this ride by the seat of his pants.

Cymbalta: Brilliant and Manipulative TV Commercial Hurts

There are a lot of offensive television commercials that make one push the 'off' button on the remote control, but Cymbalta may be the best.

These people are brilliant. Spend a few minutes a day watching their commercial and you cannot help but become depressed. The woman's droning voice accompanied by the images infects the happiest person with misery.

If people do not need your product, manipulate them and make sure they do.

The Cruel Irony of Earth Day: Lesson Learned, Or Not

Clearly the environment is far better off as a result of Wisconsin's Gaylord Nelson's efforts to create Earth day. Unfortunately the challenges grow with time.

Oil rig blast prompts environmental concerns

As the Coast Guard searched for 11 crew members missing after a drilling rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, authorities turned their focus to controlling an oil spill that could threaten the fragile ecosystem of the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts.

The Deepwater Horizon had burned violently for nearly two days until it sank Thursday morning.

And here in Wisconsin  from the Associated Press:

Wis. renewable energy bill dies on Earth Day

As outdoor lovers celebrated Earth Day's 40th anniversary, state lawmakers pulled the plug on a bill that would have set aggressive new renewable energy standards.

The state Senate finished its two-year session Thursday without voting on the bill after Democratic leaders balked at reports that the measure would drive up utility rates. Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, D-Weston, has signaled for days the measure had little support.

Earth Day Looking Into the Future : Earth Day at 40

Forty years ago Tom Smith was a University of Wisconsin student. He was also the student organizer for the first Earth Day event which kicked off on April 17, 1970 and ran for an entire week.

Today Professor Thomas W. Smith is organizing the anniversary Earth Day at Forty. It is a good thing that some things do not change.

Then, as now, Tom was kind enough to invite me to speak Tuesday at Monona Terrace. It was a heady experience sharing the dais, on the eve of Earth Day, Tuesday night April 21, 1970, with Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), Senator Mike Gravel (D- Alaska), Boyd Gibbons, Secretary to U.S. Council on Environmental Quality and of course the rock band, Oz.

I made my own small effort by introducing a resolution in the city council that proposed banning the internal combustion engine. That went nowhere.

I suggested using methane as an alternative fuel. That is finally making some progress.

Our fledgling movement to create a pedestrian, bicycle, and transit mall of State street took a small step forward as the blocks between Park Street and Lake Street were shut down for fair exhibitors.

Unfortunately the issues, as learned over the past four decades, are even more challenging. The oceans rise from global warming and those oceans are filled with thousands of square miles of floating debris, mostly plastics which are gradually degrading from the effects of sun and water into the seas that feed much of the world's population.

At the time, Senator Nelson was asked who could we afford to clean up the environment. He responded by asking "How could we not afford to clean the environment?'

Today our society is divided. One side looks at the externalities. They examine the  price of contamination that entire nations pay for an unregulated environment.

The air and the water are not free. Not when the cost of obtaining clean air and water is mounting daily for most people.

For centuries, in every nation it was recognized that while a stream might run through private property the landowner had no right to poison the water that an entire community needed for survival.

It is time for modern society to conserve that principle. That is what I will say this coming Tuesday. Some things do not change.

 

Kindergarten: Early Childhood Development or Baby Sitting?

The first kindergarten was founded in the United States in Watertown, Wisconsin in 1856 by Margarethe Meyer Schurz.

The first comprehensive municipal program of certification and training for child care schools was started in Madison in 1974.

Over the years, depending upon the nature of the program or the organizational structure, we might refer to the instruction of children five years and younger as early childhood development, day care, or kindergarten.

No matter what the title, we can be proud of the decision of the Madison Metropolitan School District Board's decision to institute kindergarten for four years old as a success. Madison schools to begin 4K in 2011-2012

The Madison school board on Monday deadlocked 3-3 on approving a four-year-old kindergarten program for 2010-11, but voted 5-1 to implement it for the following school year...

...Seventy percent of Wisconsin school districts already have four-year-old kindergarten, touted by supporters as a way to give all students, regardless of income, a preschool experience that better prepares them for success in elementary school and beyond.

While much progress was made in the past century and a half in understanding the importance of early childhood development and success later in life, there are still the skeptics. The documentation of the success is irrefutable.

When we invest wisely in children and families, the next generation will pay that back through a lifetime of productivity and responsible citizenship.

Opponents to the program have three arguments, two of which are pure nonsense. We hear that the early educational training does not work and that kindergarten is no more than baby sitting.

Come on, say what you really mean - "I do not want to pay for the program no matter how effective."

Earthquake: The Big One Can Happen Here...And It Will

On Tuesday when the earthquake struck Haiti, the History Channel was airing a show about earthquakes, specifically the Earthquake in the Heartland

The 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes (centered in southeast Missouri) rank as some of North America's most catastrophic natural disasters. Stretching more than 160 miles, a system of earthquake faults lurks beneath the Mississippi River basin, loaded and ready to erupt. And it's happened before... But it wasn't just one event. Multiple shocks were experienced over the next three months--the largest caused the Mississippi to flow backwards. No earthquake sequence has lasted so long, produced so many shocks, nor created such astonishing phenomena on land and water. The New Madrid Fault remains a seismically active area and experts expect a repeat. The only question is when...

Tragically when it occurs, those areas likely to be hit the hardest will remain unprepared.  In recent years, new construction from St. Louis to Memphis, the largest urban areas in the fault area, has improved standards, but as we have seen all over the world, infrastructure failure is inevitable.

Add to that the break down in communications that plagues every disaster from the recent tragedy in Haiti to hurricane Katrina or the systems failures between governmental agencies in thwarting the terrorist attack Christmas Day, and we will not minimize the horrid outcome.

Ironically, here in the United States, unlike Haiti or Indonesia, we have the resources, both financial and organizational to contain the consequences of these natural disasters.

But we need to keep taxes down, even if the long range costs justify preparedness.

The irony is that much of the investment in infrastructure, health systems, and communications will serve us well year inand year out, not just when the big one hits.

Medical Genius Rush Limbaugh Praises Mandatory Health Insurance, Health Care Reform

A special thanks to Ordinary Jill (Jill Sixpack) who posted a comment to yesterday's post Rush Limbaugh Proud to be Medical Idiot.

I had noted that Limbaugh had praised the health care he received on Hawaii, saying,"I don't think there's one thing wrong with the United States health system," but failed to recognize that not everyone had access to such quality treatment.

Jill made a more important point about the access to health care in the state of Hawaii:

Limbaugh is, indeed, an idiot. Hawaii is significantly different from the rest of the U.S. in that, for the past 35 years,it has required that employers provide health insurance for all employees working more than 20 hours a week (important in a tourism-based economy, in which many workers are part-time). As a result, going into the current recession, Hawaii had one of the nation's lowest uninsured rates and enviably low health insurance premiums for employees (their share is capped by law at 1.5% of their annual wages). The Senate version of federal health insurance reform legislation specifically exempts Hawaii. The state has truly served as a laboratory for health care reform. Unfortunately, it has also demonstrated the dangers of tying health insurance to employment, as the recession has severely strained the system that worked so well for decades. (emphasis added)

Rush Limbaugh Proud to be Medical Idiot

Rush Limbaugh is carted into a Hawaii hospital with chest pains and is discharged two days later, physicians declaring that there is nothing wrong with his heart.

Limbaugh then declares his health is fine - and so is the nation's health care system,

Turning from his health to politics, Limbaugh declared Friday he got the best health treatment in the world "right here in the United States of America."

"I don't think there's one thing wrong with the United States health system," Limbaugh said.

Limbaugh comes to this conclusion based on one instance of medical treatment.

That Limbaugh is deficient in the logic department is well documented, but that he does not understand the health care system is what makes his conclusions so dangerous.

Limbaugh, who has access to the best health care system, is privileged. He has the resources and the access to the best health care system in the world.

The problem is that there are tens of millions of Americans, some with health insurance, who do not have that kind of access.

In 1983 the President's Commission of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research submitted their report to President Ronald Reagan.

In the accompanying cover letter of transmittal they noted:

In examining the special nature of health care, we discern in our country’s traditional

commitment to fairness, an ethical obligation on the part of society to ensure that all

Americans have access to an adequate level of care without the imposition of excessive burdens. This obligation does not require that everyone receive all health care that he or she may want or even all that could conceivably be of benefit. Instead, it is a moral responsibility to see that adequate care is accessible, a commitment that recognizes the competing claims on available resources of other worthwhile social goals.

 

The obligation we have described is one of all to all not a special standard that

applies only to the poor. This does not mean, however, that the Federal government need be involved in the health are of all Americans. Most people rely on their own resources and insurance for health care; and charitable institutions and state and local programs contribute to making the benefits of health care widely available. Thus, in practical terms, the responsibility that ultimately rests with the Federal government is to make sure that those who otherwise could not obtain adequate care are able to do so and that the costs of care are shared equitably.

 

Glenn Grothman Comes to Snowball Fight With A Squirt Gun

I love Wisconsin politics.

Glenn Grothman, the Republican Wisconsin State Senator from West Bend just slipped on the ice, stepped into a puddle, and gave Waxing America a gift that will keep on giving for years to come.

Grothman, critical of city of Madison plowing efforts this month, suggested that there were external consequences as a result of the limited snow removal effort December 8th and 9th:

Saying Madison officials are endangering citizens' access to their state government and university, Grothman said Tuesday he's drafting a bill that would strip the city's ability to set policies for salting and plowing its main roads and give that authority to the state Department of Transportation...

The Senator must be reading Waxing America, where for years we continue to hammer home two progressive points:

• There is a larger societal benefit when government spends taxpayers dollars effectively on development and maintenance of public infrastructure and human capacity.
• The evaluation of any program must go beyond the silo that represents its budget. Funding public transit, is a 'loser' but it saves a considerable amount of money by avoiding additional road construction and maintenance.

It is our fervent hope that after two decades of Republican control and intimidation of most of Wisconsin government, Grothman and his colleagues learned something.

Next time they wail about taxation and government spending, these legislators should look at not just the costs, but also the benefits of public programs. Senator, this applies to more than snow removal, it applies to:

• public education
• environmental legislation that protects the air, land , and water in Wisconsin
• investment in cultural activities
• water and sewage systems
• sanitation and recycling systems
• and a myriad of other governmental functions

Senator, welcome to the real world and remember, Waxing America is committed to:

A candid examination of right-wing politics and the Democrats who play along and the horrid liberal policies designed to assuage the moderates but end up irritating everyone. And other stuff. 

First, it is true that Madison uses about 150 pounds of salt per lane mile where the rest of the state averages 300 pounds. Keep in mind that for forty years Madison effectively used 200 pounds. There is no reason to return to 300 pounds; there is a happy medium.

Secondly, salt application was only a small part of the problem. The most significant reasons for the failure was the lack of staff and equipment.

Glenn Grothman should have the good manners to follow Ed Garvey's blog, FightingBob.com, "Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?"

Next time Grothman enters the fray uninvited, he should come armed for the battle.

The hypocrisy of Grothman calling for state interference in local government is not worthy of comment.