Paul Soglin: Waxing America

AT&T's U-verse in Wauwatosa: "Fire to the Node"

Maybe somehow you missed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's story last week by Rick Barrett:  "AT&T Replacing Batteries - Device Blamed in U-verse Equipment Cabinet Blast in Tosa."

You probably didn't see the pictures from the 'Tosa Fire Department in telecom blog LightReading, but you should. Here are a couple:

 
Even Wigderson got in the act: "Cable Competition Could be Deadly."

But the best line came from Jeffrey Hevey, the Wauwatosa fire marshal:

"It's not like these things are blowing up left and right every day," he said. "Would I want to set up my granddaughter's play set next to one of these cabinets? Probably not. But if I were mowing the lawn, I wouldn't be looking over my shoulder, worried that the thing is going to blow up."

But Christmas Eve, when you're not mowing the lawn? Not to worry. AT&T told us last year, when these were exploding in Texas, that its testing showed the problem was a manufacturing defect and an isolated event, and the batteries were safe and stable.

Or maybe not.

 

-Barry Orton

Another War; Another Recession. Whatdidyah Expect?

Last  spring I used my limited abilities in forecasting the economy and predicted a stock market crash. Now almost a quarter of my retirement account is in cash (I wish all of it was.). I felt stupid during the summer and the fall as the stock market climbed and climbed.

For the second time in my lifetime a stupid, foolish war built on lies not only wrecked havoc with another country but it is destroying the American economy.

It does not take a rocket scientist to get it right. The other shoe is going to drop, it always does. The only question was when.

Go on take 10% of your income and set it on fire, throw it down the toilet, or just rip it up. And just for good measure, borrow a lot of money and rip it up too.

It is so simple. You cannot destroy your resources and your assets. Imagine the homes and schools that might have been built. Billions of dollars - now that is stimulation for the economy.

Every bomb we dropped on Vietnam was another $5000 thrown away. Every time a bomber took off another 500 students could go to college - for four years.

The Johnson and the Nixon Administrations convinced the American people they could have guns and butter while the national debt grew. Then to compound the waste and the inflation, the oil embargo followed.

The ideologues said that Carter created the problem and that Reagan solved it. The problem was created by the waste of war and an inflationary rise on fuel prices. That sounds familiar. It simply took time to work itself out. Bonzo could have been president in 1982 and the economy would have recovered.

Now history repeats itself. Though this time we get the benefit of the war and the skyrocketing oil prices taking place simultaneously. So it only took only six years to ruin the economy instead of ten.

And the stimulus package is wothless. A $600 tax rebate in my hands is not going to fix the economy.  Take the money and invest it in needed public infrastructure that will stimulate private investment.

The puboic sector should spend it on projects that will stimulate signifcant private inestment. There I said it. The government should spend more money.

Update 1:45pm :  Jim Rowen notes the impact of a budget  on municipal budgets:  If Real Estate Values Fall Across the Board.....

Then there is the impact on the State budget.  As one of our commentors says, that may be even more significant. The decline in income tax collections and sales tax collections will be devestating.

Green Bay's War on the First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Green Bay - area native The Recess Supervisor nails the nativity nonsense at Green Bay City Hall over at the Political Playground here, here and here. His best stuff is in the comments:

Sadly, Green Bay has always been a city ruled by petty, parochial overlords who have no interest in doing anything other than preserving their fiefdoms... It'd be unfortunate if readers thought that this local government lunacy was new in Green Bay. It's not. It's been happening for decades...

...Green Bay's problem is that is has such low expectations of itself that anytime it eats its dinner without spilling all over its shirt, it's considered a major victory.

- Barry Orton

The Tempest: Bicycles and Snowstorms

Last week Bill Lueders, the News Editor of Isthmus and I chatted after he emailed me that "inquiring minds" wanted to know if I had taken a right turn, emulating John Dos Passos.

One of the problems of the 1960's, and every generational movement, before or since, for that matter, is the determination to define each act in moral, absolute terms. There is little room for discussion of relative importance or impact, and less room for dissension within the movement.

I criticized bicycling, in the dark, in a vicious snowstorm, with roads already difficult to navigate because of ruts in the snow and ice bonded to poorly plowed streets Bicycling Madison Style: As Dumb AS It Gets. I did not criticize any of the following:

• biking in subfreezing temperatures
• winter cycling
• ice biking or biking on snow packed streets
• bicycling in heavy traffic or streets poorly designed for bicycle safety
• biking in the dark

Yet it brought an avalanche of replies, over two hundred to my three posts. The replies are interesting. There were a significant number who focused on riding bicycles in the winter and the rights of cyclists. No quarrel here.

Several people noted that they had no alternative form of transportation - that for one reason or another there were no alternative means of transportation. I suggest that they do the same as anyone else stranded in a storm - either stay put or find an alternative means of transportation. The point does not change - biking in a dangerous storm after dark, with those kind of road conditions, is not worth risking your life.

Many of the comments were in defense of bicyclists' rights, accompanied by a torrent of criticism against drivers who do not respect the bicyclists' space. There was no one word in my posts conceding one inch of the space on the roads that rightfully belongs to those of us who use two wheels.

Lastly there were the posts on the environmental benefits of using a bicycle and a wave of attacks on carbon producing vehicles.

Excuse me for not using gasoline and spewing carbon emmissions (sic) when my commute takes less time by bike, is healthy for my body, and is far safer.

And that is the redefined essence of the debate.

While I criticized a specific act under specific conditions, my comments were taken as an assault on a life-style on a conscious environmental, political, social, and economic decision made by many readers. I had attacked their way of life.

It did not matter to them that my focus was a narrow specific circumstance.

And the rebuttal was more than just a defense of biking under winter conditions.  Note, that if you read all the comments, there are very few that actually defend riding in the snowstorm that prompted the debate.

Upon reflection, the furor was to be expected. Constantly under assault from the opposition, in this case motor vehicles, some bicyclist took any criticism on their own as an attack on themselves, on their culture, their way of life, and their core values.

A critic of any use of a bicycle, no matter how specific, must be a right wing, gas guzzling, carbon producing, cranky old man.

Those responses were interesting. Individuals who probably believe they are free of discriminatory bias launched an attack based on age. Others proudly announced their moral superiority. Some insisted that their right to access the public thoroughfare was absolute, regardless of the danger to their own personal safety.

All of us leave a carbon footprint. It is a matter of degree. It is virtually impossible to escape being a party to the exportation of jobs, a global economy that depresses wages and increases the need for carbon fuels, and incredible amounts of waste.

Just as individual acts contribute to solutions, so do larger local or state acts such as recycling programs, or national acts such as limiting carbon emissions. In the entire scheme of things, bicycling in dangerous snowstorms is an extremely modest contribution, and when balancing the value of human life, unnecessary.

As for the conservative, John Dos Passos part, I suggest reading posts at Waxing America for the past two years on :

• opposition to the war in Iraq dating back to 2002 -before it began
• a fierce attack on the Patriot Acts and defense of civil liberties
• defense of the rights of the most unpopular people to speak
• a hearty defense of consumers' right including criticism of the AT&T sponsored legislation to undermine the pubic when it comes to cable TV
• the right of Americans to freely walk the public streets without having to pay a toll
• Criticisms of Republicans and Democrats who tolerate torture
• Support of public education from the assault of right wingers who wish to privatize everything
• Support of labor unions

Bicycling Madison Style: As Dumb As It Gets Part II

It appears there is some mild disagreement about the wisdom of bicycling in a 5 inch snow storm. The comments from some indicate that more than one bicyclist fell without a helmet:

• Bicycling down a snow-and-ice covered street? Pretty dumb. ..here's a difference between the idiot who slides down a busy street and the person going to and from work via (thankfully) plowed bike paths. You should try a little harder to see that distinction. Response: I have no problem with bicycling on plowed or unplowed paths. Have fun. Bicycling on University Avenue among the cars (not in the plowed bike lane), or Mills Street, is another matter.

• And a 2 ton SUV spewing out Carbon and other particulates, gobbling up gallons of gasoline to take one fat ass down to the convenience store for his beer and potato chips is? A cyclist may be putting his or her life in danger but that person is not threatening you or destroying our planet. Response: Didn't your mother tell you that two wrongs do not make a right?

• That said, with the proper tires and technique, you can easily, and safely, navigate Madison's roadways - and without impeding traffic. Sorry, bicycling in last night's storm was neither easy or safe. The bicyclists were struggling to stay on two wheels. Do as you please on the bike paths and lanes, plowed or not.

• You know, some people ride their bicycles for a living. Maybe they should just collect unemployment money from the government rather than work. Response: If there is no public transit or ride sharing available, staying home is a lot better than being dead.

• How have you outfitted your winter vehicle, with winter specific tires to keep you from inconveniencing anyone for even a second I hope, cause anything less would be an unconscionable dereliction of cicvic duty, and grounds for being shot....Response:  my car is front wheel drive; the tires are all-weather specifically purchased to handle Wisconsin winters.

• But you should consider putting your energy toward complaining about something with more merit than those who happen to have a higher tolerance for "inconvenience" than yourself. Response: My inconvenience is of little consequence. A dead bicyclist bothers me a lot.

• After all the gas is depleted, alternative modes of transportaion such as biking will not be ridiculed or its proponents insulted by the likes of you. Biking is a very legitimate mode of transportation...go read up on biking in Amsterdam or other bike-friendly cities. Learn how encouraging communter biking can lower city taxes by requiring less ploughing of huge swathes of roadway to accommodate unrealistic and pampered motorists. Including yourself. Response: I do bike. Thousands of miles a year. Minneapolis to Chicago. When I was not working at home, I biked to work (11 miles each way) when it made sense. Most of Madison's bike paths, including the first major one - the Lake Monona loop - were either constructed or planned during my tenure as mayor. Biking in a 5 inch snow storm with a sheet of ice already on most streets is stupid in Madison or Amsterdam.

• Um, don't you think it's a bit inadvisable to be *driving* in these conditions? If you're so convinced you're going to skid into a cyclist...Response: No, I am worried about the bicyclist skidding in front of a car or truck.

• How is it that *so* much vitriol is aimed at cyclists who do little harm other than endangering themselves ... Response: Maybe you are right. If the bicyclist dies, when skidding under a truck, it is their problem.

• Paul Soglin = (Cheney + Grandpa Simpson + Bush) - George Will = Aggressive, crotchety idiot, albeit liberal. Response: duh.

• You are a true fucktard for posting a rant like this. Take your SUV and ram it up your bunghole. Response: readership IQ for Waxing America is rapidly plummeting. Maybe we should do a less divisive issue like creationism (No) and the theory of evolution (Yes).

• Bikes have equal rights on the road with all other vehicles. Response: Yes they do. And I'll call in the first motorist who encroaches on a bike's space or pulls out at an intersection. But it does not impart wisdom to those who biked in last night's storm.

• Get some exercise, asshole, Response: I do. I love biking.

• ...A cyclist, especially when the weather is so crappy, is only going fast enough to hurt himself AND is doing far less marginal harm to the health of all....Response: Wrong.  Dead is more than marginal harm.

• If you can't control your car, stay off the road. Response. sound advice. I can control my car; what about the bicycle that is not controlled which was clearly the case Tuesday night in more than one instance.

• ...it takes serious commitment to commute by bike under those conditions...Response: Are you sure that is a matter of commitment?  Or is it some kind of macho death wish?

Bicycling is a great sport and an excellent way to commute. Bicycling in winter has its merits. No one needs to remind me of cars that encroach on a bicyclist's space. I have been almost run over more than once and I am a good defensive rider. Going out in Tuesday's storm was stupid.

Also riding without a helmet is stupid.

Also riding two abreast with on-coming bicycles in narrow areas such as the Causeway bridge is stupid.

Bicycling Madison Style: As Dumb As It Gets

You know what they think of us in Milwaukee - Madison is populated with tree hugging, tofu snorting, sandal wearing (winter too), calcified hippies who do not know the 60's are over.

I defend our city, mightily.

Until this week.

Readers of Waxing America know I pedal with the best of them and am the first to protect the interests of bicyclists against aggressive drivers, errant dogs, and dangerous street litter and potholes.

The bicyclists who braved the week's second storm should be taken out and shot. Spare them and the poor driver, when they skid on treacherous streets and slide under the wheels of a truck delivering fresh vegetables.

I will give them a pass on the first storm. Not because it was not forecasted (it was), but because every one gets a little giddy and reckless with the season's first major storm.

As I drove by the bicyclist on University Avenue and then the one on Park Street, it became evident that Milwaukee is right. Madison, as a community, needs some guidance. Confirmation of all this was clear as I headed up Glenway and saw city crews meticulously plowing the bike path at the top of the hill.

Guys, the one hundred block of Standish Court looks like the start of a new ice age, glacier included, and that was before tonight's storm.

As for the idiot on the moped on Mills Street, causing a 28 car back up as he crawled along at 3.7 MPH, I'd like to take the business end of my snow shovel and replace his seat.

None of the bicyclists were wearing those stylish clip-in sandals.

Sweden Has PaintBall Guns, Invasion Imminent; Halliburton, Burger King Gets $7 Billion Contract

After eight years in office it is clear that we misunderstood George W. Bush. At first we thought he was running the student government or the fraternity house. The recent revelation that Iran's nuclear program was not restarted after suspension in 2003 leaves only one conclusion.

The Bush White House is run by thugs who plan to funnel every tax dollar they raise into the hands of Halliburton and the war profiteers with their scandalous no-bid contracts.

The entire Grover Norquist "shrink government" ploy was designed to divert their real intentions.  After all, no presidential administration in history has spent so much money, so fraudulently, so wastefully, and with such deadly results.

I don't know who thinks Bush has an ounce of credibility left, but those who do need therapy.  Badly.

As for Hallibutron or Burger King, which does not return change in real money to soldiers who purchase their products at the Iraq airport,* all of these companies need to be shaken upside down until every cent is drained from their fat wallets.

Sweden had better be careful.

*U.S. Troops Order Comfort, With Fries on the Side: Soldiers Looking for a Taste of Home Make for a Booming Business at Iraq's First Burger King

...The restaurant probably owes much of its success to its location. The sprawling, heavily fortified airport complex, the nerve center of the U.S. military's operations in Iraq, provides a captive clientele of more than 6,000 soldiers, plus contractors and other civilians. In addition, Washington dignitaries fly in and out, and all mail for U.S. forces in Iraq arrives here...

...Of course, only U.S. bills are accepted. Instead of giving coins as change, the restaurant gives out cardboard chips worth 25 cents each, redeemable at the post exchange.

The Tragedy That is California Education and Now Wisconsin

A trip last week to Los Angeles and San Francisco served as a graphic reminder of the rise and fall of public education in the state of California since the adoption of Proposition 13. The enactment of that law after a 1978 referendum created an unfair tax system, taxing property not on its use, its present value, or its potential for development, but the assessment on the day it was purchased.

The result not only creates an imbalance in taxation but it strangles deprives government of needed revenues. The most important example is California public education. In the three decades following World War II, California public schools were the best in the nation. Now they are among the worst.

Within California, test results and rankings of their schools show a clear delineation along economic lines. Schools in wealthy communities score the best. Obviously, schools in low income areas do poorly.

Starved for adequate funding, each school is dependent upon activist parents and community leaders to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each and every year. It is no surprise that the poorest communities fail miserably at this semi-privatization of education.

One impact of Proposition 13 was, in part, to privatize the schools. Public schools cannot survive without private resources. The same thing is occurring in Wisconsin where restraints on school expenditures from public funds results in continued fundraising. Some communities like Madison centralize the fundraising for the entire district so that all schools share equitably in the private monies.

In the meantime, while some taxpayers can point to significant savings, the quality of education suffers at greater expense to all of us, particularly those dependent upon a well educated workforce.

If there are problems with the public education system, then fix it. Ensuring failure was not a wise choice.

University of Wisconsin: Sifting and Winnowing, Stem Cells, and Demagogues

University of Chicago President Robert Maynard Hutchins: 

Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible.*

News Item, July 12, 2006: Nass Seeks Resolution To Fire Barrett

Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, is sponsoring a resolution in the Assembly calling for the UW-Madison to fire a controversial lecturer. The resolution condemns Kevin Barrett's theory that the United States was behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and chides Provost Patrick Farrell for allowing Barrett to teach his course on Islam this fall.

News Item, September 1, 2006:

Researcher, grants leaving UW for lack of partner benefits

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is facing a hit to its pocketbook and brainpower after a researcher announced that he is leaving because of the state's refusal to provide domestic partner benefits.

News Item, November 20, 2007  UW researcher reports stem cell breakthrough

The UW-Madison researcher who grew the world's first human embryonic stem cells in a lab has performed what he considers an even greater achievement: creating similar cells without using or destroying embryos.

It will be interesting to see how those who exploited the Barrett story push their faces onto the front pages of the local and national newspapers and television screens to capture attention on the new breakthrough in stem cell research. 

Universities are complicated places. Divergent views are expressed every day on more subjects than legislators have press releases. The oddity, the silly, and the blasphemous often attract more attention than the profound.

In this modern era, there are politicians more concerned with votes and power than learning. They gladly compromise a great university.

High sounding legislative committees mete out fiscal punishment rather than furthering academic inquiry. The talk show hosts, and the legislative parrots they feed, will continue to repeat their political tripe.  All the while, the  University of Wisconsin stands alone in the Big ten in not providing partner benefits to faculty and staff.

Meanwhile, the damage to the state continues so long as we do not recognize the rights of all, regardless of sexual identity or preference. The damage to the state continues so long as the UW's fiscal heath is in the hands of charlatans.

Now, in the shadow of the bashing that has gone on for the past two years, I am sure we will see those who attempt to exploit the stem cell research to prove a political point: embryonic stem cell research was unnecessary.  That, sadly, is an erroneous unscientific conclusion that will only further confuse the matter.

*Perhaps, a  more profound observation from Hutchins:

The three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty.

Wisconsin Legislators Back Badger Fans; Tackle Big Ten Network Problem By Issuing Hard-Hitting Press Release

"I was misquoted."  Actually, I wasn't misquoted in the story, but the headline appeared to quote me saying something I never said.

The Capital Times story yesterday on two legislators' press release regarding a bill they wanted to have drafted to offer a solution to the Big Ten Network non-carriage problem quoted me accurately:

A legislative proposal to solve the stalemate between the state's two biggest cable companies and the NFL Network and Big Ten Network is nothing more than political grandstanding, said a UW-Madison professor of telecommunications who follows cable issues closely.

"The state can't force its way into a negotiation between two private companies," said Professor Barry Orton, who advises many communities in their dealings with cable companies. "This bill would have zero impact. It's just a chance for legislators to look like they care about their constituents."

Is there an actual bill?  Nope. Just an idea that won't work:

Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, and Rep. Kitty Rhoades, R-Hudson, said their bill, which hasn't been written yet, would establish an arbitration system to settle disputes between the sports networks and cable companies.

No way the state could force arbitration on two greedy entities fighting over the fans' dollars.

The press release worked well, though.

But the headline?  Oy: "Football TV bill 'Phony'"

The subhead was better: "UW Prof: Pols talk, but can't force a deal"

When a newspaper uses quotation marks, it would be useful if that was actually what was said, not a headline writer's characterization of what was said. I would never say that the bill was "phony."  Nonexistent, maybe. But not "phony."

- Barry Orton