Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Dunkirk in the Kentucky Derby and Then I Hide

I have not had a decent Kentucky Derby since I spent the morning of May 5, 2001 wandering around muttering "Monarchos and Invisible Ink."  The $2 exacta paid $1229 and the $2 trifecta with Congaree paid $12,238.

Now with all I have learned, I am going to violate the very first principle of handicapping the Kentucky Derby. In fact I am going to violate three of them. Not only has my horse failed to go a mile or more as two year old, he has failed to win a race as two year old, and in fact he did not race as a two year old.

Dunkirk won his first start on January 24, 2009, won his next allowance race and then finished second to Quality Road in the Florida Derby.

Everything we know about the Kentucky Derby says this horse lacks the seasoning, the experience, the conditioning to go the grueling mile and a quarter.

Dunkirk is the only horse in the Kentucky Derby who ran in the Florida Derby after Quality Road dropped out with a foot injury. The Florida Derby was a great race. The pace was demanding. I could not look at myself in the morning if I passed on Dunkirk and it won.

Dunkirk on top with I Want Revenge, Pioneerof the Nile, Papa Clem, West Side Bernie and maybe Friedan Fire. That $2 trifecta will cost $40. Then I will make some trifectas with I Want Revenge on top, using Dunkirk second and third, with the others for $16.

And some other bets.

Things To Do The First Saturday in May

Things to do the first Saturday in May:

• Go for a bicycle ride to Paoli
• Grab a trash bag and pick up litter along the Beltline
• Walk in the UW Arboretum
• Watch the Kentucky Derby
• Rake the lawn
• Hang out on State Street
• Go to the Brewers game
• Check out the Wisconsin River
• Nap on the porch after cleaning the gutters
• Write a letter to your parents
• Spend the day at a Chicago museum
• Bike to Chicago
• Help Habitat for Humanity build a home
• Study for finals
• Make a healthy lunch and picnic in a Madison park
• Go for a run
• Paint a friend's house

Update: OK. I am humbled. I am not sure about killing fish but the Farmer's Market should be on the list.

Editor's note: Both the Dane County Farmers' Market and the Westside Community Market are open Saturday.

Arlen Specter Always Uncomfortable, Never a Leader

The problem for Arlen Specter (PA) and the Democrats is that this man who knows better will probably be as uncomfortable as a Democrat as he was as a Republican.

Arlen Specter's  jump to the Democratic Party surprises no one. For the past half dozen years it was clear that Specter was uncomfortable with the Neocons and right-wing zealots in his party. The addition of one more vote in the Democratic column is all he brings, along with his desk and chair.

Over two years ago we posted Arlen Specter Makes a Deal: Sells Out The Constitution for Power. At the height of one of the Constitutional crises presented by the out of control Bush White House that had no recognition of civil liberties, Specter made a lot of noise about freedom and then collapsed:

Specter went into negotiations with the White House and his own party, knowing that his chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee was at stake. He caved.

...It is hard to believe that the Arlen Specter of the nineteen-eighties—the maverick who defied his party on an issue of the magnitude of the Bork nomination—would have considered yielding on a question as fundamental as habeas corpus ...

He destroyed the foundation of Anglo-American jurisprudence and took us back to the days of the Star Chamber Courts.

...Specter is hoping the courts will restore the rights of the detainees to bring habeas cases. “The bill was severable. It has a severability clause. And I think the courts will invalidate it,” he told me. “They’re not going to give up authority to decide habeas-corpus cases, not a chance.” Others are less sure.

When you look at Specter's record on all matters Constitutional in 2006, the man has no shame. He signaled all year that he was unprincipled and shallow.

Unlike most of the Republicans in power at the time, Specter knew better as to what was right and what was wrong. Like all of the Republicans, he failed to show any leadership.

Specter is as good as those who surround him. He is not a leader.

That is why he choose to be a Republican in the first place, that he why he failed to lead during the Bush Constitutional crisis, and that is why, faced with sure defeat as a Pennsylvania Republican, he switched parties.

What power he gathered was through seniority, not command.

His vote is welcome; his addition to the majority is welcome.

Never count on him to lead.

Milwaukee Brewers Defeat Pirates at Miller Park

Last night Bill and I got to the Brewers' game when we unexpectedly had access to some club box seats. As the years go by, I am more comfortable supporting the Brewers. This season, having Ryan Braun and Corey Hart on my fantasy league team does not hurt. Hart needs to lose the beard. Or grow a real one.

I am getting old. My views on certain aspects of the game have not changed:

• Three and one half hours is too long for a nine inning game even if a total of 15 runs were scored.
• With the thousands of square feet of electronic signage, the Brewers cannot maintain a viewable display of all other games, the scores and who is pitching.
• We entered through the club box entrance, a mistake and made our way to our seats without once crossing the path of a hawker peddling scorecards. I suppose with everything else the fan needs to buy, scorecards are an outdated waste of trees.
• The game was competitive and enjoyable since the two teams play on a comparable level.
• Watching Prince Fielder leg out a triple was fun. His agility around first base shows substantial  improvement.
• When Ryan Braun was hit by a pitch in the at bat following the home run, I wondered how often that happens:
  • What percentage of batters are hit by a pitch each season in the modern era?  
  • What percentage of batters are hit by a pitch in their next appearance following a home run?  
  • What percentage of batters are hit by a pitch who follow a batter who just homered. These are important questions.  
• Artificial stadium noise sucks.
• The brat was great.
• Watching Trevor Hoffman was worth the price of admission. He owns the ball park. He stands on the mound and he is all business. He does not use trash talk or stares to intimidate. His confidence is enough.

Rural High Speed Internet: Industry Wants To Let the Marketplace Prevail. Good Luck With That.

Monday's Wisconsin State Journal reports that Rural residents without high-speed Internet struggle to keep up

...wireless service isn’t available everywhere, either, leaving thousands of rural Wisconsin homeowners, entrepreneurs and farmers still clamoring for high-speed Internet service..State Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, said he has fielded hundreds of complaints from constituents who still can’t get connected. "I’ve got kids who can’t access the Internet to do their homework," Schultz said. "That’s intolerable."

In the 1930's, progressive forces supported regulation of the telephone and electric power industries requiring service providers to wire rural America and low income communities that the utilities deemed otherwise unprofitable. Further, the Rural Electrification Act subsidized co-ops that brought power and phones to the farm communities of America.

Until last year, Wisconsin took the same position on the regulation and buildout of cable television systems. That position was reversed when the legislature deregulated the cable industry, saying that it agreed with the free market neocons, that the marketplace would take care of things.

It will take a major reversal for the state government to weigh in and require Internet service providers to build a high speed system that provides access to unprofitable areas of the state. The existing telecommunications providers, which includes cable companies, are already lobbying to assure such a reversal won't happen.  Rural residents better get used to dial-up service and forget about participating in the information economy.

Paul Ryan Has Some Explaining To Do - To The Right. Ask Ozzy Osbourne

It is time to invite Ozzy Osbourne as the featured speaker at a evangelical teen rally for celibacy and saying 'no' to drugs.

It is amazing that highly touted Republican talking head Paul Ryan from Wisconsin's First Congressional District, was invited to be the poster boy for the April 15th Tea Party.

Paul "No European Socialism Here" Ryan was the darling of the crowd of 5,237 on the Capitol Steps in Madison. This was a boisterous crowd clamoring for the heads of those who spent taxpayers' hard-earned dollars. The purpose of the rally was to protest government spending and the use of their tax dollars for the bailout.

Paul Ryan was one of ninety-one Republicans who voted for the Emergency Economic stabilization Act of 2008 - The Bailout.

As one talking head on Fox would say, "What you say Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling, Americans for Prosperity, the MacIver Institute, and All Children Matter?"

New York Yankee Faltering Is a Delight

It is early in the season but after seventeen games the New York Yankees are in third place in the American League East, three games behind the Toronto Blue Jays.

As the season picks up and Alex Rodriguez returns, the Yanks will become more competitive and probably sit atop the division by the All Star Break.

In the meantime for those of us who hated the Yankees since the 1950's, yesterday's loss to the Boston Red Sox was delightful. The Yanks took a 6-0 lead only to fall behind 8-6 after five innings.  Then they rallied to take a 10-9 lead after 7 1/2 innings of play.

The highly paid Yankee relief corps failed, giving up a three run homer to Mike Lowell in the seventh inning and a three run double in the following inning.

George Steinbrenner must have been furious.

Good.

Happy 80th Birthday Maureen Arcand

On Thursday ,April 30, 2009, Madison will celebrate Maureen Arcand's eighteenth birthday. It will be held at the Goodman Community Center, 149 Waubesa Street from 4:30 to 6:30 with a small program at 5:30 pm. I first met Maureen over forty years ago.

Maureen is a community activist, an organizer, and an advocate.

For me she is more than that. 

Maureen  is an adviser. She knew the realities of the world of social and economic justice. Her body of knowledge and strategic thinking meant she also knew how to implement her goals and plans. It not only served her well, but it assisted those of us working with her.

Thank you Maureen.

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I have a meeting at 4:30; I hope to be there before the festivities end.

Madison's Challenge: Dilapidated, Tired Old Housing - Now What?

Two articles this week, one about economic development in Isthmus, Madison Cozies up to business, and the other Preserve or Raze? City neighborhood groups at odds over east side homes points to the dilemma Madison faces as it wrestles with the future of downtown neighborhoods.

Many of the frame two and three story housing that was built in the isthmus between 1890 and 1930 are worn and cannot survive another generation. Little of this housing is of historic value, though collectively much of the housing provides more than shelter, as block by block these buildings constitute neighborhoods.

The newly elected alder from the second District understands the problem. From The Capital Times:

One of the buildings, a two-flat at 606-608 E. Johnson St. built in 1921, has had a second-story room added over its porch, an addition that is now "literally falling in on itself." Many of the other houses on the block, most of which were built between 1850 and 1920, have had similar alterations and are in poor shape.

"You get in these houses, and it's just ridiculous," Maniaci said.

photo: Mike DeVries/The Capital Times

There are two sets of conflicting values.

There is the desire to preserve housing that  costs the neighborhoods and the city government very little. For the owner, it does not make economic sense to invest in buildings where there is  "plumbing held together by duct tape, wiring that was not up to code, roofs leaking, chimneys leaking, furnaces not working,"

Then there is the longstanding Madison commitment to end urban sprawl but oppose higher densities in the older parts of the city. Little mention is made of how the proposed higher densities that come with new development will slow the sprawl and make public transit systems more efficient.

As a longstanding supporter of both the city's Landmarks Commission and the Urban Design Commission, I now question their decision making. There must be an element of reality in recognizing the value of the underlying land, the competitive market forces for the property owner, and the inefficiency, not to mention the dangers, of attempting to salvage firetraps.

The Isthmus article addresses the conflicts between neighborhoods and developers.

In Madison, says developer Bertler, much of the problem is that neighborhood groups are simply too powerful and the NIMBY philosophy dominates.

"A lot of neighborhoods have got more power than you and me in the city," he says. "It's a fight. The neighborhoods, they've got so much power they can literally say, we want the buildings to look like this, or we don't want underground fueling."

Again as someone who contributed significantly to empowering neighborhoods, I see what has gone wrong.

Neighborhoods should be at the heart of decisionmaking as to how the city grows and evolves. That said, someone has to then balance the needs of neighborhoods with the needs of the entire city. A balance of all of the interests and values is necessary. That no longer happens.

Instead there appears to be a tacit understanding that a neighborhood decision is tantamount to a veto. This, of course, is in the interest of every alder and neighborhood from a self-centered perspective. After all, if we support one neighborhood's opposition to a project today, the same principle will apply when we look for allies in our section of the city.

When Randy Alexander proposed a seventeen story building on Lake Street between State and Langdon Streets, the city answered with just as outlandish response by slapping a five story height limitation on the square mile running over to Wisconsin Avenue.

All of this is coming to a head with several city long range planning studies. If presents trends continue, there will be a lid placed on development, which will only further undermine private investment, drive up housing costs, and lead to more sprawl.

 

Disclosure:  I continue to work with developers in the downtown area who are impacted by these decisions.

 

Enter Waxing America Tea Party Capitol Square Crowd Contest

On April 15, 2009 a coalition of right wing groups held their Tax Day Tea Party, On the website hosted by Americans for Prosperity there is the claim:

"It is estimated that over 8,200 attended the Taxpayer Tea Party in Madison, Wisconsin on Wednesday, April 15th".

Thanks to all that attended to make this "the largest rally on the Wisconsin State Capitol Steps since the 1960's anti-war protest".

While more responsible parties estimated the crowd as closer to 5,000, Waxing America finds the claim that this was the largest State Capitol Steps rally since the 1960's somewhat suspect.

Here are the contest rules.

1. Make any number of entries as you please.

2. Identify a rally larger than 8,200 since January 1, 1970.

3. The winner is anyone who can name the most such rallies.

4.  Parades do not count; marches do.

5. The winner gets a free lunch with me at the Nitty Gritty in the month of May.

6. There are no ties. The earliest entrant with the most number of rallies wins.

7. I can adjust the rules as the contest progresses.

8. Entries must be submitted by midnight May 8, 2009.