First Thursday In September 2010
One last day in a series of four-day weeks. This retired guy is happy to see that. Less money vs. more serenity and serenity wins. I’m laying in supplies for a cold winter. Maybe I’ll paint something to make it look as if I accomplished something this summer. Oh wait, the Walworth County Fair is on. I haven’t been there for a few years.
Don’t think I’ll be blogging much this weekend. Need to seize the last of the good weather.
- Letters to the Freeman editor.
- I count six college football games on the TV schedule tonight. Huzzah!
- Lots of wailing an gnashing of teeth about Wisconsin’s placement in the new Big 10 alignment. One of the reasons that Minnesota, Iowa and Northwestern are considered “traditional rivals” by many Wisconsin fans is that we always had a pretty good chance of beating them. I think the new alignment means that the Badgers have a pretty good chance of getting to the Big 10 championship game on a semi-regular basis if they can beat OSU. What I don’t like is the championship game in Indianapolis. They don’t deserve it.
- Wigderson comments on the bull Bull recall.
- Thursday Sound Off.
Outgoing Senator Feingold Packs ‘Em In At American Legion Convention
When the New York Times calls an incumbent Democrat’s race a “toss-up”, he’s in trouble.
We Need A Meteorite Strike In Waukesha
Look at the free publicity the Town of Mifflin is getting for a meteorite strike by an”ordinary chondrite meteorite.”
I propose that the Waukesha Common Council approve funding for a device or devices designed to attract a meteor strike somewhere near downtown. Make it out something which can be painted. Just in case, you know?
We’d probably want something like this sculpture near the Shanghai World Financial Centre:
As opposed to this one in south Australia:
Because we don’t want to attract just an “ordinary” meteor, either. Something extraordinary, so we can have a bigger display at the Field Museum. Think of the publicity. We could have a display at the Waukesha County Museum. Just as soon as they open that Les Paul exhibit.
September 1, 2010
Yes, I said September. You thought I was kidding when I said summer was ending, didn’t you? Like most deaths in the family, it’s always too soon. The skies are cloudy and the neighbor’s driveway is damp, so in line with most past Septembers, it’s raining. There’s college football galore in store, starting tomorrow night, I think. “To everything, turn, turn, turn…”
- Good News: The Clarke Hotel paid its property tax bill. Our investment is safe for a little while longer.
- Good News: Those train horns are not the result of anyone screwing up.
- Good news: Buy Seasons in New Berlin wants to expand. I went by there this weekend. Muskego’s new Super WalMart is down there and I’m already jealous because I think it looks better than our’s. Maybe because they haven’t finished grading the parking lot at our’s.
- Mixed News: I need to find somewhere to take some old 13″ televisions.
- Mark Belling has some harsh words for the WCTC Board.
- Wednesday Sound Off.
Last Day of August 2010
Slept poorly because of a stressful workday. Dreamt of rescuing small dogs who fell from balconies.
- Church and Chapel forgot to renew and got fined and suspended for committing cremations without a license. Talk about a smoking ban.
- A new restaurant in downtown Waukesha.
- Tuesday Sound Off.
Last Monday In August 2010
Without comment, I offer you President Obama on the left, Ex-President Bush on the right. (Via Hit and Run)
Made my annual trip to St. Sava for Serb Fest on Saturday. I’m Croatian on my Dad’s side, so I’m in technical violation of my heritage when I go there, but as an American, I find the Serb and Croat cultures inseparably intertwined. Besides, they all look like me, so I fit in. I am constantly amazed that there is such a substantial and mostly invisible subculture of native-speaking Serbians in Milwaukee. Like many Hispanic immigrants on the south side of Milwaukee, assimilation does not seem to be their major concern.
What I like about my Balkan heritage, besides the 10W30-like coffee and yummy nut roll is “Kolo”. It is my main reason for attending. I always like going to Serb Fest on Saturday night to watch up to what seems like a hundred people (males and females from 8 to 88) dance in a large spiral in a bar/shed. It must be great exercise as each “song” seems to last 20-30 minutes. It is, to me, an expression of great joy by all involved.
That was a pretty good August, I think. Long, hot and steamy as August should be. These last two days of August are like a bonus gift included by the manufacturer to thank you for your order. They’re useless trinkets, like an avocado slicer or an egg separator, but they’re free, so you drop them in your “junk drawer”, rather than just throw them away. I wish I had off to enjoy them but I’m in the last of my four-day weeks for a while.
I didn’t watch much of the Beck rally on Saturday. Beck’s a Mormon and what I saw and heard resembled a large-scale version of what happens when you let a Mormon missionary into your house when he comes to your door. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if you choose to do so but I have my own vision of faith, so most of the time I don’t wish to have someone else tell me their’s. Hence the sign on my door which says “No Solicitors”, the welcome mat which is upside-right only if you’re standing inside the house and the small feeling of satisfaction I get when I tell unwelcome visitors, “Get off my porch.” I don’t control much in this world, but I still control who comes inside. Anyway, I’ve watched Beck’s TV show and he’s often pretty good at giving a different look at history than you get from liberal educators. I wish he had stayed more with that instead. Perhaps it wouldn’t have worked in such a large venue because a quarter million people couldn’t see his blackboards.
- In short, he’s a televangelist and he does no harm in small doses.
- I generally like Sarah Palin but her voice can be annoying when she’s loud.
- The biased reporting on the event (including the utter lack of any mention of the event in the Sunday Journal Sentinel) is evidenced in this post. Question everything you see in TV news or read in any paper. Take nothing at face value, not polls, not pictures, nothing.
- Wigderson has an e-mail conversation with Mayor Scrima about the possible painting of the city hall art work.
- Kenosha police seem to be taking the enforcement of the smoking ban to an extreme. The bar was closed and the doors were locked. Doesn’t the property at that point become something other than a business? Like, say, private property? I question the constitutionality of the bust. I question the Kenosha police as to whether all the other crime in Kenosha has been prevented.
- Here’s the bar.
- I think this is the future for smokers.
- It’s not about the smoke. It’s about the erosion of personal property rights. It’s about my right to tell people to get off my porch. From smoking bans to the abuse of eminent domain in Greenfield and Franklin and Milwaukee, property belongs to the government, not the owner. It’s not your property, not this time, but it could be tomorrow. Your don’t control much in this world and soon you won’t be able to control who comes inside.
Sunday Art: Van Gogh and Teasdale
Starry Night Over the Rhone (September 1888)
September Midnight
BY SARA TEASDALE
Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.
The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples,
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence
Under a moon waning and worn, broken,
Tired with summer.
Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heavy.
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,
While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.
A Billboard in Watertown
During my morning readings, I found a quote from C.S. Lewis:
Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth, and you will get neither.
Here’s a quote from Huckleberry Dumbell: The best thing about having faith in a higher power is the absolute, unshakable knowledge that you will eventually be proven right.
Saturday Paper
Enjoying your weekend? Beautiful weather.
- All four city high schools won their football openers last night. I’m no expert, but I don’t remember that happening for a while. Waukesha West was so dominant that it made the front page of the Journal’s on-line edition.
- Watch. They probably all won last year’s openers. I think I’m a good sports fan because I have a short memory. I don’t remember who the NCAA football or basketball champs were last season, for instance.
- Whitewater won Division III football, didn’t they?
- Dan Vrakas, the Waukesha County something or other has a guest editorial about something. Budgets or something.
- Pete Kennedy talks about the endless summer of road construction in Waukesha. It’s rare to see anyone actually working on the Wisconsin Avenue project.
- Je$$ica McBride about Kee$ha, $crima and $cott Walker. It looks like the mayor made the right call on the pop tart appearance.
- Owen Robinson gives you a good run-down on the GOP primary for Lt. Governor. I’m going to vote for Kleefisch because Brett Davis is a symbol of what’s been wrong with the Wisconsin GOP and I know as much about the other guy running as I know about Kee$ha. Since the Lt. Governor has no real duties, I’m hoping that Kleefisch could act as a competent chief of staff for a Republican governor.
- Letters to the Freeman editor.
- Saturday Sound Off.
Last Friday In August 2010
I’m not an artist but I don’t believe an artist creates a piece and then “sets it free” for the new owner to “improve”. I think they may say something silly like that, but they don’t really mean it. If they wanted it colored, they would have done it themselves. I thought Ted Turner’s “colorization” of the black and white movies his company owned was a travesty, for instance. There would have been no Film Noir if the movies had been in color. Orson Welles had access to color film when he made Citizen Kane. He made it in black and white. Do you think Michalangelo was capable of painting La Pietà if he had thought Mary would look better with a little rouge on her cheeks?
While I don’t mean to imply that a concrete wall sculpture in Waukesha’s city hall is comparable to one of the great works of sculpture in the history of man, I do mean to say that the artist decided at the time he designed it that it would not be painted. To paint it now would be to violate the artist’s vision. Besides, if you paint it, then you need to repaint it, which will cost me even more money. Clean the sculpture periodically because it’s probably dirty after all this time but leave your paint at home. The mayor has no portfolio of artwork which I know of to show he has any artistic talent at all. He should just paint the freaking halls using the money he’s supposedly putting into that supposed “Better Day” account of his.
- Muskego’s got a nice festival and St. Sava’s in Milwaukee is nice, too. Go. Enjoy your last summer weekend.
Last Thursday In August 2010
I’ve had an attack of apathy, but I don’t care. Today’s Dilbert captures my mood exactly.
- A “spending revolt” bus stopped in town. Pastor David King from Milwaukee is running for Wisconsin Secretary of State. I don’t know who else is running but Mr. King has a garnered quite a following from his frequent speaking appearances at Tea Party rallies.
- Wigderson makes a strong case for retaining Sheriff Trawicki.
- These people have forgotten that our Septembers are rainy and cold.
- Waukesha School Board member Steve Edlund sends a press release:
The Waukesha School District was approved by the state Commissioners of Public Lands, State Treasurer, Dawn Marie Sass, Secretary of State, Douglas La Follette, and Attorney General, J.B. Van Hollen to exceed the state land trust fund loan amount limits by $10 million dollars. Absent from the released minutes was a stated purpose for the $15.6 million dollar loan, that being to retire a loan from JP Morgan with it’s assets invested in worthless CDO’s as part of the OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefits) investment transaction.
If the loan is approved by the Waukesha School Board, liability for the principle and interest of worthless debt will be transferred from the district’s trust fund, created to payout retirement benefits for district employees, to our taxpayers, essentially doubling the employee benefit package debt for the term of the loan.IF we would be successful in litigation over these investments the loan could be retired early. Also note that the district’s trust fund has a moral obligation to repay around $40 million+ to DEPFA Bank Our district’s trust fund had borrowed approximately $50 million from DEPFA to invest in what is believed to now be worthless CDO’s. The $15.6 million interest only loan was borrowed by the district under revenue limits and was to be repaid from earnings of the trust fund. The note, now due in September 2011, was to be refinanced. With the CDO’s now worthless and have no collateralized value, the state land trust fund became the easiest and least expensive institution to borrow money from.
Wouldn’t Wisconsin be a wonderful place to conduct business if all consumers and businesses in Wisconsin had this level of borrowing power? After all, taxpayers are covering the debt for the district with their houses (think property taxes) as collateral.
- Wait, we took out a loan to get money to invest? That’s not how it’s supposed to work. That’s like borrowing money to go to the casino.
Wednesday Opinions
Proof that summer has ended includes the increasing rate of leaf drop from the black walnut in the back yard, the first day of school for students at Waukesha County Technical College and the 54° temperature outside this morning. In fact, the batteries in the Chronicle digital indoor/outdoor thermometer might need replacing because it had switched itself from Farenheit to Centigrade overnight and showed the current temperature outside to be 12. A portent if I ever saw one.
- Mark Belling has opinions about train stations in Wisconsin and the redneck-like behavior of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (i.e. “If the police have been called to your house more than once because your dogs are biting people, you might be …”).
- Conservative Brian Fraley has a guest opinion about the Brookfield train station in particular.
- Local Republican writes a guest editorial on outgoing Senator Feingold with predictable results.
- Letters to the Freeman editor on multiple topics.
- Wednesday Sound Off.
