Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Debating Telecom Deregulation on Wisconsin Public TV

Friday, Wisconsin Public Television taped an eight-minute segment on SB 469, the telephone deregulation bill discussed at length on Waxing America last week.  Senator Jeff Plale, the lead co-sponsor, was on by landline phone from his South Milwaukee kitchen and I was in the Madison studio. It aired Friday night on the "Here and Now" program.

The segment is here.  My response to the familiar "level the playing field" argument was to state that the bill would "fire the referees." The protection of the competition that is available in the Milwaukee and Madison suburbs doesn't exist in many rural areas of Wisconsin, and doesn't extend to the elderly who will never use cell phones.  I asserted that rather than leave all phone services to marketplace discipline, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission should petition the FCC for jurisdiction over wireless services, which generate many complaints that the Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection is unable to address for lack of technical expertise.  Needless to say, Senator Plale did not agree.

This issue will not go away soon.

- Barry Orton

Cynthia Laitman: Goodbye and Thank You

Waxing America's friend and colleague Cynthia Laitman died last Friday after a hard-fought battle with brain cancer. From her obituary: "A buoyant and youthful spirit, Cynthia believed that anything was possible...She will always be remembered for her warmth and generosity, her wit and brilliance, her exuberance and unflagging optimism, and her great big heart. She set a rare example of courage combined with compassion that inspired everyone who knew her."  The full obit is here.

Back in 2007, Cynthia was the general behind TeleTruth Wisconsin, which she started to help fight the "Video Competition" bill and to counterbalance AT&T's "TV4US" astroturf efforts.  It was Cynthia who, upon learning that huge books of names of people who were supposed to be in support of the bill were provided legislators by TV4US, spent a day reading the names and was outraged to find her own, Paul Soglin, Ed Garvey,  and several legislators who were opposed to the bill.  The press conference she organized to publicize this fraud was priceless. Cynthia never seemed to listen when she was told it was a losing cause. Her response was always: "Here's what we're going to do next." 

Thirty years ago, Cynthia Laitman wrote the book on the devastating impacts of the widespread use of DES on millions of pregnant women. She was a longtime managing editor of the Annals of Surgery, and, according to family and friends, was always working to "fix the world."  The world is a better place as a result of Cynthia's hard work and spirit, and is a whole lot less fun without her.

- Barry Orton

"Free Holden Caulfield" - Learning To Question Authority

In his New Yorker blog, Hendrik Hertzberg wrote last week of his high school encounter with J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye."  Hertzberg remembers the "cool" English teacher, Mr. Perkins, who assigned the book to his Suffern, NY, eleventh-grade class. A few days later, school authorities confiscated the books and the next year Mr. Perkins was gone. But the spark was lit.

As for me and my friends, we were shocked. We were hurt. But we were also wildly excited—energized to the point of exhilaration. By the end of the day the whole school knew what had happened. For weeks afterwards no one talked of anything else. It was never clear exactly why the book had been banned. The word was that there had been pressure from the school board. Too many dirty words was one reason, that was certain—all those hells and goddams that Holden sprinkles throughout his story, plus (if I’m recalling this right) one solitary “fuck.” It’s not Holden’s word. He sees it scrawled on a bathroom wall (if I’m remembering this right), and he doesn’t like it any better than our school board did. I suppose that the dirty words were sufficient to stampede the school board, but we were sure that Holden’s real offense was what the school board presumably saw as his disrespect for authority and we saw as his insistence on deciding for himself which authorities were worthy of respect and which were not.

Anyhow, our clique made as much of a fuss as we could. Pooling our pocket money, we bought a whole bunch of copies of the Signet paperback (fifty cents each). Then we set up a table just outside the school grounds and hawked them. They went quickly. Instead of just one class reading “Catcher in the Rye,” half the school read it—not as a sullenly accepted duty but as an act of curiosity and rebellion, a rite of passage, an unexpected gift. For more than a few, it was the first time in their lives they had ever read a book on their own initiative. How could they resist, once their natural enemies had deemed it unfit for their eyes (and deemed them unfit to read it)?

Calling the 1959 experience " excellent preparation for what was about to arrive: the nineteen-sixties," Hertzberg was able to pinpoint a moment when his young development took an important turn, a "question authority" event.

Mine wasn't a book (although I read "Catcher" in my teens and thought it was pretty cool), or a school board's overreaction (although the Bayonne, NJ, school board was reactionary and anti-intellectual),  or even November 22, 1963 (although I cannot ever forget that day and weekend). It was a steady diet of listening to Jean Shepherd on the radio late at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. Known now mostly as the voice and writer of "A Christmas Story," Shep was the guy who corrupted the minds of hundreds of thousands of pimply know-it-all kids, and entertained many late night workers from firehouses to restaurant kitchens throughout the east coast via powerhouse New York radio station WOR. We've written about Shep before here on Waxing America. There's a great book dedicated to the genius who never quite found the success he sought. But Shep's rants did provide excellent preparation for the nineteen-sixties.

- Barry Orton

DOT Verona Road Meeting Fish Fried at Allied Drive

I was curious about the Wisconsin Department of Transportation plans for a free fish fry in the Allied drive neighborhood where they planned to roll out some plans about the Verona/Beltline interchange. DOT: Free Meal At Public Meeting A Mistake

In an effort to boost participation, the DOT offered a free fish fry and child care to residents using taxpayer money that comes from the gas tax.

The DOT said Thursday that partly because of a WISC-TV report on the free meal and negative feedback, taxpayers will not foot the bill for the free food. The DOT said an anonymous donor will pay for it instead.

All of this brought to mind comments I heard at a neighborhood meeting I attended at Allied  Drive around 2004. I was surprised when some neighborhood residents expressed support for the massive rebuild of the interchange which would significantly impact their area, and not all positively.

When I asked why they expressed support for the project, the responses was unanimous. "The DOT is the only government agency that came in here and asked us what we wanted before they began making plans for our neighborhood."

A lot has happened in Allied Drive since 2004. That statement may be dated. After all,  other government agencies and non-profits were part of some significant changes in the area and did some listening themselves.

Without passing judgment on the changes at Allied drive or the propriety of the DOT paying for a fish fry and babysitting, which is a critical need to get parental participation in an area with lots of small kids, there is a lesson here.

It is good to listen.

Wisconsin Telephone Deregulation Redux

We already saw this movie more than two years ago.  State legislation that sweeps aside longstanding telecommunications regulation because "technology and marketplace changes make government oversight obsolete and increased competition will save consumers money and create jobs." AT&T and its industry cohorts write the legislation and everyone finds out what it means later. Then, after it goes into effect, surprise, the benefits flow to the industries, not to the consumers. And more jobs go away.

The Capital Times calls the story "Deregulation without representation:"

For the second time in less than three years, telecommunications giant AT&T is involved in crafting major deregulation legislation at private meetings in the state Capitol. Consumer advocates, meanwhile, appear to lack a seat or voice in the process.

The situation seems similar to the role AT&T and other cable providers played leading up to the cable deregulation bill of 2008. The company had a key role in drafting that bill, then entered the cable market soon after with its U-verse package that includes digital cable.

Now, the telecommunications company is working with primary sponsor Sen. Jeff Plale, a Milwaukee Democrat, to craft a bill that will essentially bump it and other telephone utilities to a less-stringent rung of the regulatory ladder.

The bill, SB 469, would strip much of the Public Service Commission's oversight over old-fashioned landline telephone service from the statutes by creating loopholes through which even the largest phone providers could fit.  The Capital Times' Jessica Van Egeren, new to the Capitol beat, nailed this story, citing the drafter's notes from the Legislative Reference Bureau and identifying the specific fingerprints on the bill.

A meeting Nov. 11 in Plale’s office included Andrew Petersen, director of external affairs and communications with TDS; William Esbeck, executive director of the Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association (WSTA); that group’s attorney, Judd Genda with the law firm Axley Brynelson; and AT&T attorney David Chorzempa. Plale is the sponsor of the Senate version of the bill and Rep. Josh Zepnick, D-Milwaukee, is the sponsor of the Assembly version. Records do not indicate whether Zepnick was in attendance at the November meeting.

E-mails and other correspondence between those at the meeting and Plale’s staff show slashes or check marks next to sections of the proposal that attorneys for AT&T and the WSTA suggested should be changed.

“It’s like lawmakers looked around and said, ‘These are the companies affected. So sit down with the drafters and make a bill,’ ” says Barry Orton, a UW-Madison telecommunications professor. “The public interest isn’t represented. How could it be? Nobody was there to represent them.”

...If approved by lawmakers, the bill would give AT&T the option to no longer be classified as a “telecommunications utility,” a designation that means AT&T and other “TU’s” would no longer be obligated to provide service to all areas of the state, would no longer have to report profits and expenses to the Public Service Commission, and would no longer have to receive rate-change approval from the PSC.

Essentially, businesses founded as landline telephone companies would no longer be regulated — as they have been for more than 100 years — as utility companies.

...Opponents argue that while technology is changing and more companies now provide more bundled services that include phone, Internet and cable, the legislation would mean consumers who are older, less affluent or in rural areas with spotty cell phone coverage will not be guaranteed service. They also argue that full regulation of an industry and the ability of consumers to file a complaint with the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection over poor service, for example, are drastically different levels of consumer protection.

“This bill just isn’t appropriate given the number of people that still use phone (land) lines,” says Charlie Higley, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board. “It’s great that people in many areas can use and have access to new technology. But there are still plenty of areas where cell phone use is spotty and people need (traditional) phone service.”

Much more to come on this. (Sigh.)

- Barry Orton

Yahoo Provides Links to Olympic Rubbish

I still use Yahoo. Well, I did.

While I switched search engines long ago, I use the internet service as my homepage because I like the access to sports, business news, and my email accounts.

Not any more. Several months ago I noticed the flamboyant and exaggerated headlines 'above the fold' usually accompanied by pictures. The link usually was to the silliest and least important news of the day.

Exaggeration and hyperbole are the words that come to mind.

Saturday and Sunday Yahoo went over the top. Here are a collection of a few of the rotating stores Yahoo provided regarding the Olympics. Often the subject mentioned was the topic of just one paragraph in a much longer, but still irrelevant story. Notice that three of them involve security issues and have nothing to do with athletic achievement.

Bye Yahoo.

 Tense moment after first US gold  -her father, Tom, who couldn’t wait to celebrate with her. Doing so proved treacherous. As he bounded the gate, a security guard tackled him, unaware who he was.

Skier's husband detained -Hormell went to Cypress to watch his wife train for moguls and was turned away at a security checkpoint for not having proper credentials. He then snuck around security and into the venue so he could see the training. Shortly thereafter was found and detained by security for over an hour.

Serious threats made against Johnny Weir Though there are no indications that any of the verbal and written threats from extremists were credible, Weir's decision to stay in the more secure village was an obvious choice. 

On Air gaffe confuses Canadians    Terry Fox is a Canadian legend whose cross-Canada run, the Marathon of Hope, inspired Canadians while raising money for cancer research. Michael J. Fox is a Canadian actor who starred in the legendary "Back to the Future" trilogy and has become an advocate for Parkinson's disease research. They're pretty easy to confuse for each other. Right, NBC?

Olympian defends swimsuit photos   U.S. Olympians Hannah Teter and Lindsey Vonn...they train like madwomen to be the best in snowboarding and skiing respectively. A nice byproduct of that training is that they have gorgeous, athletic bodies, and both women are comfortable showing off those bodies.

Toyota: Continuous Improvement and a Quality Culture are Fragile

In quality circles the word is that to produce an outstanding product there must be continuous improvement and there must be the proper environment - one that is not smug and confident but one that is humane, educated, and open.

Toyota was such a company for most of our lives. The recent troubles are a reminder that the best of organizations can become complacent and overconfident.

Time magazine presents: What Went Wrong at Toyota:

When weak signals started coming out in 2002, Toyota's top management wasn't listening. By then, the heroic stage of Japan Inc. was over; parts of its business culture had become sclerotic. Compared with the nimbleness seen in Silicon Valley, Japan's manufacturers and their systems began to be seen as inflexible, too removed from a changing global economy to adapt. Analysts describe a Toyota management team that had fallen in love with itself and become too insular to properly handle something like the current crisis. "The reaction to [the situation] is a very Japanese thing," says Kenneth Grossberg, a marketing professor at Waseda University's business school in Tokyo. Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University Japan, says Toyota's managers don't understand how sensitive the American public is to auto-safety issues. "Their focus on the customer has been nonexistent," he says. "Toyota is famous for having an arrogant culture. They're so used to dealing with successes that when they have a problem, they're not sure how to respond.

There are many in the automotive industry enjoying the problems at Toyota. Such smugness will not last long. First, most U.S. businesses and governmental agencies never reached the success of Toyota and secondly, and more importantly, odds are that Toyota will correct their management problems and be back as strong as ever. Maybe stronger.

Democrats Fail Again - 36% Cap On Interest Rates Is Obviously Too Restrictive

For years I refused to contribute to both the Democratic Assembly and Senate Campaign Committees.  The handling of payday loans is a reminder why I very selectively donate to Democrats.

This week's compromise on the payday loans is a clear cut example of the problem. The New York Times reported:

The plan would not cap the annual interest rate that lenders could charge on loans, unlike a previous bill that would have limited them to 36 percent.

That fairly well describes the situation as to how the Democrats stand on this issue. For those who need additional  edification:

 Rep. Donna Seidel, D-Wausau, said the cap would have gone too far in choking off credit for borrowers struggling in the economic downturn by essentially wiping out the industry.

What is wrong with wiping out the industry? As for the borrowers, allowing this usury practice is no favor. Wisconsin borrowers did just fine when interest rates were capped at 18% and these predatory lenders were not fishing in Wisconsin waters.

Maybe the legislature could figure out some innovative ways to fix this problem along with greater support for financial literacy programs.

 

 

Great Historic Find, Revealed Only Here: Carl's

Faithful readers of Waxing America know we bring you critically acclaimed stories, keen analysis and otherwise obscure but culturally informative knowledge that you would never get at Daily Kos or the Huffington Post.

Through dedicated scholarship and the good fortune on checking pictures from the Facebook group Jeffrey Manor, Chicago Il. Memories of Growing Up In Jeffrey Manor we bring you this priceless and impossible to duplicate photograph from the collection of Arnold L. Stern, the original Carl's:

While stuffy politicians and yuppies argue over preserving lake views, and upper east side swells swoon over some Frank Lloyd Wright design, we ordinary folk recognize historical places when we see them.

Sadly, age and the dyes of the 1960's no longer provide accurate portrayal of the garish reds but you get the point.

The relocated Carl's can be found conveniently located at 83rd and Jeffrey.

When I wrote A Chicago Hot Dog Review for Madison Worth Your Time...

I know my hot dogs; I have eaten them for almost sixty years. I ate them on the south side, west side, and north sides of Chicago. I ate them in the suburbs and in the ball parks. (No Chicago ball park ever served a real Chicago hot dog.) I ate them at Fluky's, Stash's, Big Herm's (he had only one good arm), Little Herm's (two good arms), a dozen places on Dempster or off of Western, more on Damen*, and all over Stoney Island. (The best was next to the Avalon Theater.) And I have a heart by-pass to prove it.

 Eddie Omens wrote in about this sanctuary near the Avalon Theater:

Carl's.....in the 50s......Very small place... warm steamy...The old guy ( it was Carl) who made the hotdogs wore glasses that were always so steamed up, I don't know how he could see to put the stuff on the hot dogs....He lined them up on a piece of wood that had door handles to keep the steamed buns in the correct position to dress them.....wrapped in paper and a bunch of fries.....25 cents each.....Oh yes A nehi....Orange drink.....I wish I had a couple now....Eddie Omens in San Diego

 

For those who need more imagery: More Chicago Hot Dogs - The Pickle and Mushy Buns (Ugh)

 

Madison High Speed Rail Station - Airport, East Wash or downtown-UW campus?

With all of the discussion about high speed rail between Madison and Milwaukee, I missed the report which identified the best place to locate the local station.

I know there is lot of discussion about the Dane County Regional Airport. I also caught the suggestion that there be an alternative or additional stop at the tracks across East Washington and First Street.

I assume that airport station has three advantages:

1. It facilitates the train moving on to the Twin Cities by not diverting it downtown.
2. It gets the rail passengers to their connecting flights out of Madison.
3. The high speed rail passengers can then shift to a local rail system which is already moving passengers from downtown Madison/UW campus to the airport.

That is good if that is the best scenario given the needs of the high speed rail passengers.

I curious as to what the passengers want. Can someone direct me the study which shows the destination for the majority of passengers and surveys of the needs of potential passengers?

How realistic is it that the train will proceed to the Twin Cities in the decade after the Madison-Milwaukee route is completed?

Are the high speed rail passengers going to use the airport?

How realistic is the local rail system to downtown Madison for the airport?