Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Mark Belling: Milwaukee's White American

Mark Belling is not "Standing Up for Milwaukee."

In a column on Wednesday, Millions can’t solve moral bankruptcy in central city, Belling launched into a two pronged attack attacking the city's black community and ridiculing Joseph Zilber's $50 million gift to strengthen Milwaukee neighborhoods.

For starters, the right wing commentator notes money already spent combating poverty and crime in the inner city:

How many billions in welfare, charitable programs and "investment" have been poured into predominantly black neighborhoods?

Then comes this gem:

Most blacks have tuned out white America...

Belling has a Milwaukee view, or perhaps a world view that makes him incapable of understanding the problems of poverty and crime and how to fix them.

For starters he knows nothing about Zilber's gift. An examination of the announcement reveals that the approach is significantly different than traditional efforts to institute change. It is community base building, not welfare.  It is economic development, not handouts.

Secondly, while Belling realizes that moral leadership is essential to improving Milwaukee, he has no clue as to how economic and social justice play a critical role in shaping community standards in Milwaukee or any other city around the world.

Zilber's gift is a challenge to Milwaukee leadership to add additional funds to a well crafted effort.

Milwaukee business leaders have a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to the city. They can sit on the sidelines with Belling, or they can learn about the fundamental principles underlying Zilber's commitment and open their own wallets.

As for Belling, he might want to tell us what he means by his "white America."

Remembering Those Who Cared - Med Flight

As the bodies of Dr. Darren Bean, nurse Mark Coyne, and pilot Steve Lipper are returned to Madison, I am struck by how wrong it is that people who care so much die while they are helping others.  The city of La Crosse sent them back to Madison with deserved recognition. 1,000 turn out for memorial convoy:

More than 1,000 community members watched today as La Crosse County firefighters and emergency medical personnel joined by the Madison Fire Department and Wisconsin State Patrol escorted the hearses of the three victims of a Saturday medical helicopter crash as a tribute to those who lost their lives,  photo by Dick Riniker, La Crosse Tribune

On Monday when I read the lede to Dave Wahlberg's article in the Wisconsin State Journal, Med Flight Tragedy,

More than 75 doctors, nurses, pilots and patients have died in medical helicopter crashes across the country in the past decade as the workers risk their lives to transport patients in need of medical care.

I don't know the period of time that covers, but whether it is ten years or twenty years, It is too many deaths.

I do not know that an investigation can accomplish anything. Perhaps the standards and the codes regulating these flights are as stringent as is reasonably possible. But here is one instance where an investigation, a study, of all of the crashes, not just this one, could be fruitful.

Wahlberg and Patricia Simms reported on Tuesday that,

• The Med Flight helicopter that crashed into a wooded hillside near La Crosse on Saturday night, killing its crew of three, did not have night-vision goggles and terrain warning technology as recommended.

• "The fact that they did not have this equipment did not compromise their ability to perform these missions safely," said Aaron Todd, chief executive officer of Denver-based Air Methods.

• Night-vision goggles could have helped pilots take action in 13 of the 55 medical helicopter crashes from 2002 to 2005, the NTSB said. Terrain warning systems, which can alert pilots 25 seconds before an impact, could have helped prevent 17 of the 55 crashes, the agency said.

Three wonderful men who were devoted to assisting others in the most critical moments cannot be returned.  We can make every effort to ensure that they and the 75 others who have died are not joined by other caregivers and patients.

Everyone deserves some answers.

Crumbling Dollar Lifts Wisconsin Blue Cheese

Another victim of the disastrous Bush economic polices and the war in Iraq is the absence of the finest European cheeses from swank east coast restaurants.  As the Village Voice reports, How Chefs Are Dealing With the Tanking Dollar: Getting creative with imported goods

Recently, I (reporter Sarah DiGregorio) realized that I could no longer afford my favorite stinky French cheese (not that I ever really could, technically)...

At Kellari Taverna...Greek feta, once crumbled over many dishes, is now only on the tomato salad..."It's killing us!" exclaims Gregory Zapantis, the Greek-born chef at Kellari Taverna. "A few years back, it was equal—one dollar to one euro. Now the euro is $1.60."

The concerned New York culinary reporter turned to an economist who specializes in wine economics to discover that, "... the government spends more than it has, putting us in hock to the Europeans, Japanese, and Chinese to pay for Bush's tax cuts and the war in Iraq."

But the inventive mid-town Manhattan chefs now turn to Bucky when times are tough, "Zapantis has fallen in love with the fish he gets from Long Island in the summertime. And he's happy to have discovered Wisconsin blue cheese as an unlikely alternative to feta."

Brittany Zimmerman Phoned - Reach Out And Touch Someone

Before Brittany Zimmerman died, her last effort was a telephone call. Brittany tried to reach out and touch someone.

The most important domestic function of government is to safeguard the innocent: those who need assistance when they cannot protect themselves. To establish justice and promote the general welfare.

Society tries to prevent crime. When it cannot, it offers assistance in many forms, including 911 services which we all pay for, in part, through taxes and special fees.

I cannot imagine a more poignant example of a 911 call than a person, life at risk, dialing for help, dialing for that life.

It is the very instant where they manage to dial the number but cannot speak out that we are expected to listen and respond. It makes for gripping stories and haunting movies.

For Brittany Zimmerman it was a cold, lonely reality.

Now comes the blame. First there is the dispatcher who became too busy and moved on to other calls and forgot about Brittany. Them comes the director of the 911 Call Center who did not help his agency's stature by implying there was no reason to apologize.

The fault is more complicated than that. There are a lot of capable 911 dispatchers who could fail under the same circumstances.  It is reminiscent of the constant reminders of problems in our nation's skies. Air traffic control: Safety concerns on the nation's radar: As controllers keep their eyes on the skies, mistakes and cover-ups are surfacing.

The system did not function:

• an overworked dispatcher.
• a policy that police only automatically respond to a silent 911 call from a land line, not a cell phone.
• a lousy system for linking cell phones to their location - with all of the telephone company/government spying, you would think that emergency dispatch centers could have the primary address of every cell phone number.
• underfunded critical government services (the 911 center is just one of many).
• a desire for simple solutions like blaming the dispatcher.
• and do not forget the morons who deliberately call 911 unnecessarily.

Government failed Brittany Zimmerman. Government failed all of us. In turn, the time consuming, boring task of making systems work, focusing on public management and administration does not appeal to either politicians or the public. 

In 2004 Dane County conducted a study of the dispatch center and the 911 system.  That study predicted significant failures if reforms were not instituted. That study is one of thousands floating around city and county halls, state capitols, and Washington D.C.

They still float.

We all failed Brittany Zimmerman.

Showering: Which Side Are You On?

I shower with my back to the shower head for two reasons. I shave in the shower and if I faced the shower head, all of the lather would wash off my face. Secondly, I find, as someone else mentioned, that when facing the shower the water hits your chest but does not easily roll over your shoulder down your back. With your back to the shower head, the water covers your back and very nicely comes over the shoulders and down the chest.

One morning I noticed that my back would start hurting as soon as I got in the shower. I finally figured it out. Standing in the shower with my back to the drain and the shower head, my heels were lower than my toes. A very unnatural position, which was causing the pain.

I mentioned this to Sara, who, of course, told me I was an idiot and that all normal people shower facing the water.

This got us into a debate which I left for you, the readers, to decide.

It was virtually a dead heat. 46.3% of Waxing America readers shower, back to the water, 46.1% shower  facing the water. Twice as many women shower back to the water as face it. Among the men it is almost even.

Shaving in the shower has little to do with direction or gender.

Probably the most significant finding is that almost three times as many men as women wasted their time answering the survey.

Mifflin Street Block Party - Revisited

The Mifflin Street Block Party approached and like clockwork the journalists called asking me for opinions, comparisons, and advice.  Boring.

It was sometime in the mid 1980's that I lost interest in the block party, as it lost its political content and purpose. There were some efforts in subsequent years to add some content, but face it, the block party is nothing more now than an excuse to get drunk and stupid.

As the 1990's appraoched, and I served as mayor agian, I lowered my expectations, accepted the party for what it was and just asked that behavior not be dangerous. That meant minimizing the fights, the trips to detox or the hospitals, and recognizing that the porches of one hundred year old buildings could not hold 67 pairs of stomping feet.

My age has nothing to do with this rather cynical assessment. Rather it is memories of my youth and quickly learned lessons that overconsumption of alcohol and other mind altering substances posed two undesirable outcomes: it ruined sex, and left a horrible headache.

This year, amidst the chaos of the 400 and 500 hundred blocks of Mifflin Street was the heartfelt effort of her family and friends to raise funds to honor the memory of Brittany Zimmerman.

While some students complained about the law enforcement, all I could think of was the incredible waste of money spent on the police presence. The several hundred thousand dollars spent on Mifflin Street and Halloween could pay for additional neighborhood patrols, or nursing services, or better snow removal, or a food pantry.

In the 1960's we ran up some significant overtime bills for police and sheriffs, not to mention the national guard, but it was not to party - it was political and that included the first Mifflin Street Block Party.

There is nothing wrong with a party.

The measurement of a great party is a grand time and the police not showing up.

Kentucky Derby Winner 2008

Update Monday May 5, 2008: For my post race comments: Big Brown - A True Champion

Update Saturday morning May 3, 2008 8:54 am: I changed my mind about the winner.  For those who care: Kentucky Derby Take Two - Cowboy Cal

For the past two weeks friends have asked who I like in Saturday's Kentucky Derby.

Face it, for a hardened horse player, the Kentucky Derby is not the way to make money - you have to start out figuring out who will win the race. Except for an occasional, very occasional,  good year, all it is good for is bragging rights.

Here is the problem:

• Every horse in the race is asked to do something they never did before.
• Few of them have raced against one another more than once.
• They come from all over the country and despite Beyer 'figs,' comparing the varying racing surfaces distances, and weather conditions is a daunting task.
• This year the matter is complicated by three additional factors:
  • Many of the horses raced on artificial surfaces and handicappers are still having difficulty adjusting to the changes in time and pace.  The horses and jockeys are having an even greater problem.
  • The Wood Memorial had an extremely fast pace.
  • The Blue Grass had an extremely slow pace. Those last two races make it difficult to assess the fitness of about six of the entries.
• Rarely does the best horse win the race.

Anyway, I have not had a solid Derby since 2001 when I spent that Saturday morning walking around muttering "Monarchos and Invisible Ink, Invisible Ink and Monarchos." They went on to run 1-2, Monarchos winning,  with Congaree third. The $2 exacta paid over $2,458 and the $1 trifecta paid $6117.

Again, I have not has a winner since.

Undaunted, I offer up Smooth Air despite the fact that he was not 100% at the beginning of the  week.  As Andy Beyer noted, as strong as he looks, Big Brown just does not have the seasoning to go the distance with the furious pace.

I plan to mess around with Colonel John, Z Fortune, Bob Black Jack, Gayego, and Recapturetheglory in the gimmicks.

Flying Over Wisconsin

Spring is the best time of year to fly over Wisconsin. The other seasons provide an inviting landscape but spring is the best.

On the hills and in the valleys you see the contour lines of rich brown, freshly turned soil. Then come the neat rectangular green fields of winter wheat and alfalfa accompanied by creeks, a few ponds, and adjacent fields of cows. Some fields are still flooded from the winter snow and spring rains.

To Madison's west in Montfort are two rows of wind turbines, one longer than the other.  The neatly laid out farms with their accompanying towns and villages make all the sense in the world.

As we approached Madison the sprawl began. The farms were continually interspersed with residential development. The problem is not the amount of housing or even the size of the homes. It is the lack of compactness.

Another Wisconsin Chart Topper: Drunk Drivers

The story is no surprise to those of us who have experience in dealing with the problems of Wisconsin drunks - drivers or not.

Wisconsin, Upper Midwest, Leads U.S.in Drunk Drivers

Wisconsin leads the way. The federal government estimates more than a quarter of the state’s adult drivers had driven under the influence. Rounding out the worst five are North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota.

The most important point of the story is:

Eric Goplerud, research professor at George Washington University Medical Center, said cultural and demographic issues probably have a role in the higher rates of driving under the influence in certain states.

During the fourteen years I served as mayor it was evident that our state's culture was a significant contributor to the problem, especially among young people. I recall a sexual assault witnessed by a dozen students. There was no prosecution since the dozen witnesses and the victim were too drunk to account for the events.  Or the police raid on a party where two very attractive coeds, miles from their dorm, were too drunk to find their way home.  (And they were not very attractive under the circumstances.)  The only question was whether the young men who had plied them with liquor or the women were better candidates for the detox unit.

The right of passage to adulthood is paved with excessive alcohol consumption at an early age. The cultural mores erroneously convey to teenagers that it is admirable to consume large quantities of alcohol, and that there is a correlation between sexual virility, prowess, and performance and acting stupid while under the influence.

We can continue to pass legislation protecting all of us from drunk drivers and enforce that legislation.  Real change will come, however, when we change the culture: high school parties, football games, and Saturday nights too drunk to have a good time in bed.

Turkeys, Cougars: Chicago Makes Badgers Look Like Mice

Having a fondness for cats, wild and not, I was deeply saddened to learn of the Chicago police shooting the cougar. As the Boston Herald reported, Cougar killed in Chicago may have journeyed from South Dakota,

Mayor Richard Daley supported the police use of lethal force in a news conference Tuesday morning.

"Now, I just want to tell you, if the cougar attacked a child, they’d sue the city because the police officer didn’t do their job," Daley said. "I didn’t see a neighbor run out and grab it and say, ‘Oh I love you’ and bring it in the house."

Phooey. Or as Daley's father might have said, "Balderdash."

But on the heels of the turkey attacks on Madison area postal workers it does not make us look good. Which led the Wisconsin State Journal's Doug Moe to enter the fray, Gloves come off in turkey fight in his own combat with Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass:

John Kass, a Chicago Tribune columnist of my acquaintance, has written a column questioning the courage of Madison postal workers.

On Wednesday, Kass mocked the mail carriers who have been attacked by wild turkeys while trying to deliver mail on Madison's West Side...

Kass responded Wisconsin comes up short in cougar-sexy turkey bout

What's tougher? A slinky cougar in Chicago? Or a gang of sexually addicted gobblers desirous of the bare, hairy legs of Madison mail carriers? Must I even answer that question?
...So I have no sympathy for such beasts. Meanwhile, the Madison turkeys have committed acts so heinous that their behavior has wreaked havoc with the mail and caused widespread turkey-sexual panic among shorts-wearing Wisconsin men.

Wisconsin, you don't need some confused turkey lovers. You need a few Chicago cops.

Doug Moe has made an honorable and noble attempt to defend our honor. But face it, Kass and the Chicagoans have us. It is a losing battle.

None of this would have happened if someone had simply blown away the turkeys.