In news likely only interesting to me:

My family’s origins are in Park Falls, Wisconsin. I’ve been told the Schneiders up there pretty much run the place. I have a sister who is attempting to write a family history, and through interviews dug up this little piece of trivia:

My great grandfather William lived in Park Falls and was a determined liberal Democrat. He openly despised Republicans. Supposedly, he ran for local office quite a few times and never actually won anything. However, according to family lore, John F. Kennedy actually visited Grandpa William in his home twice – once, during the 1960 campaign, and again after Kennedy was elected President. Apparently, a Park Falls Herald newspaper photo exists of the two of them together in my gramps’ home.

Here’s a photo my sis dug up of Grandpa Bill keeping it real – The resemblance is obvious, since this is how I wear my pants:

The Wisconsin State Journal today reports on a plaque being mounted at Sterling Hall to remember Robert Fassnacht, who was killed when anti-Vietnam War protesters bombed the University of Wisconsin-Madison building in 1970.

This prompted me to go back and revisit information about the bombing, and I ran across this State Journal website that compiled many of the original press accounts of the bombing and trial. Check out the media links on the left side of the page – some of it is truly chilling reading, including this passage:

In an April 1995 Wisconsin State Journal story, Karl Armstrong reflected on the bombing by saying, “It was something that tore the community apart. After the bombing, people stood back and took a look at the violence on both sides.”

Lastly, check out this guy, who was student body president at the time. Clearly, he’s a hippie, but he’s urging students to arm themselves in the wake of the bombing. His comments are incomprehensible.

I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in our office building that eats the Pearson’s Nut Rolls out of the vending machine in the basement. I can see where people would think they’re gross, but I’m a sucker for nougat.

Anyway, yesterday I noticed the price of said nut rolls has jumped from 70 cents to 80 cents.  That would be a 14.2% increase in one day.  Then I noticed a piece of paper taped to the top of the vending machine that explained it:

The surge in energy prices has made processing and transportation from our suppliers significantly more expensive.

So, the vending company is passing on the increase in gas prices on to me, a loyal salty nut roll consumer.  This is an outrage. Businesses should be able to recoup their operational costs on the backs of customers.  Isn’t Governor Doyle proposing banning the vending company from passing the gas price increase on to my snacks?

You can see the whole vending company letter here.

In the wake of rapper Ludacris being announced as a performer at Summerfest, I posted a semi-defense of rap music the other night. The blogosphere is still wrestling with the issue of “gangsta rap,” given the recent shooting of a four year old girl in Milwaukee. Some local personalities who I respect, some who I like, and some, well… some who have radio shows - are suggesting that there’s a link between Ludacris’ profane persona and the tragic shooting of Jasmine Owens. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s misguided to suggest somehow one has begotten the other, merely because they both happened in a close time period. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

Regarding Ludacris’ appearance at Summerfest, James T. Harris says:

I’m calling on Mr. Smiley and the Summerfest board to reverse their asinine decision. This is not the time to arm enemy combatants with weapons of ideology. That is what the rap culture is. An ideological weapon of mass destruction.

Milwaukeeans, Wisconsinites and who ever else reads this blog: It is time to view the culture of violence in a new light. We can no longer just be serious about this. We must take the problem personally.

It is time to live and or die by principles. Right now, children are dying for nothing at all. If we’re not careful, that’s what they’ll be living for, too.

As far as I know, Ludacris didn’t shoot anybody. Suggesting that he, a popular entertainer, is in any way responsible for violence on the street has it exactly backwards. That’s like blaming the importation of cocaine into the U.S. on Tony Montana. Jasmine Owens was shot by a criminal. And why people who usually abhor those who blame the criminal actions of individuals on society are now handing the killers a “rapper made me do it” defense is beyond me.

The nihilistic culture of violence and sexuality exists in our inner city, and Ludacris is holding a mirror up to that way of life so it can see itself. Ludacris is a byproduct of that culture – the culture is not a byproduct of Ludacris.

Rappers aren’t millionaires because they sell CDs to black people. Rappers gain fame worldwide because they sell CDs to white people. Suburban white kids eat this stuff up because it makes them feel “authentic.” If you looked at Ludacris’ record sales, I bet you’d see just as many CDs sold in Brookfield, Menomonee Falls, and Franklin as you do in Milwaukee. But where is the violence in those “white” communities? If Ludacris was such a negative influence, why aren’t all the white kids in Oconomowoc gunning each other down? I’be been listening to rap virtually my whole life – including some of the most objectionable – and yet I’ve miraculously avoided capping anyone in the ass.

It’s simple – because the culture comes first. Fatherlessness. Poverty. Lawlessness. Those are the problems that face our inner cities – rap music just packages those themes and markets them to the world. In fact, much of rap music emplores African-Americans to rise up against the tide of racism to succeed. If rappers were so influential, why hasn’t that happened?

There’s plenty of sewer-grade entertainment out there for white people to consume, and some of it is very popular. When Quentin Tarantino movies feature sadistic violence and drug use, we write it off as entertainment. When the group Slayer “sings” the following on their CD “God Hates Us All,” nobody bats an eye:

Slayer actually played in Milwaukee in July of 2006, and no faces ripped off or bullets in the f***ing heads were reported. But why do we tolerate this garbage from white artists? Because it’s white kids listening to it – and we presume that white kids know wrong from right. Culture comes first.

Ludacris is an easy target, and one that’s tangible. Ergo, we pressure Summerfest to get rid of him, and we feel we’ve accomplished something. The scourge of absent fathers, drugs, and failing schools are intractable problems without concrete answers. So while we may all feel good that people willing to pay their money to go see Ludacris won’t be able to, in the end we really haven’t accomplished anything but self-gratification.

One could argue that I’m setting up a false choice – that you can’t object to Ludacris’ lyrics if you’re not willing to also propose a panacea to cure all social ills in the black community. That’s certainly not true – obviously, the content of a lot of rap is galling, and people are free to object. But this train left the station a quarter of a century ago for rappers, and it ain’t coming back. The Ludacris song bloggers are linking to as an example of his lyrics (Move, Bitch) is six years old. Remember when Bill O’Reilly urged a boycott of Ludacris a few years ago for signing a deal with Pepsi? Ludacris’ big punishment was that he became one of the most popular rappers of this century and had a prominent role in a movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture (Crash).

I’m not defending all of what Ludacris or any other rapper says, how they portray women and drug use, or anything else. Obviously, a lot of it is garbage, and it certainly doesn’t do anything positive for society. But not only are there going be rappers like Ludacris for the rest of our lives, there will always be kids willing to buy their music. In the grand scheme of things, rappers aren’t even a blip on the screen of the cultural challenges we face. The only hope that we have is that we’ve done a little parenting by the time it hits our kids’ ears.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my kid sister was deployed to Iraq as a physical therapist for detainees. We’ve been swapping e-mails since she went over there, and I thought the most recent one was pretty interesting. This was in response to my questions about how much security she gets when treating the detainees, how they’re treated, and what she does to keep busy:

Well, before we got deployed we had to make a “prosperity plan” of things that we wanted to accomplish while we were here in Iraq…well my #1 priority is starting/finishing my doctorate, working out more/losing 20 lbs, flossing daily, and one of the big ones is remembering birthdays and other special occasions/sending out cards. So I succeeded so far!

We do have security with us at all times. In addition, they get searched on their way in to the hospital, they are in restraints the whole time unless I feel it necessary that they need to be removed to do an exam. The other day I did a whole knee exam, wrapped his knee up and was sending the guy on his way and then he wanted to stop and lecture me about why America is a problem. My first reaction was to defend the US and explain to him why it is such a great country, and if he hasn’t been there to see it for himself then he should just shut it, but I refrained and just sent him on his merry way.

On one hand the detainees do have it rough – they are stuck in these compounds with very little to do but sit on the dusty ground, although they do have soccer, volleyball, and table tennis to keep them occupied. However, they are getting paid $300/month and are able to make free cell phone calls home and even able to webcam with their families…well my internet connection isn’t even fast enough to accomodate webcam yet, so in some respects they have it better than me!

I am always interested in the story behind their injuries and why they are here – I might have mentioned before, but there is a guy with a new leg amputation in the hospital right now that lost his leg while setting up an IED. He was using his cell phone as the trigger device and he was just about done when his wife called him and it went off. There is also a 15 year old whose IED went off prematurely, and he lost one arm and the entire left side of his abdomen. There are also detainees that are in the hospital due to violence in the compounds – one corrupt Iraqi policeman that was suffocated to death by other detainees and then resuscitated in the hospital. Just this week we had our first death – a detainee that was stabbed repeatedly by other detainees and was brought to the hospital DOA.

She’s also taken up photographing camels, and has a broad portfolio of pictures she keeps sending me.

UPDATE: I thought about this a little more, and I’m kind of starting to feel bad for the guy blown up by the phone bomb. We’ve all gotten nagging cell phone calls from our wives, but I think that one takes the cake. I mean, here you are, doing your job, trying to blow up some Americans, and his wife probably called him to tell him for the fourth time to get some milk on the way home from work. She probably nagged him some more when he showed up at home with no legs.

Last night, terrorists broke into my house and forced me at gunpoint to watch “Music and Lyrics,” a romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. After the movie was over, a disorienting sensation came over me – I realized that I actually now liked Drew Barrymore. After a lifetime of abhorring every movie she came within 20 miles of, suddenly I found myself taken. Maybe I just need to rent “Charlie’s Angels” to get my life back.

This is disquieting, to say the least. When I awake on Friday, I find it equally plausible that I will:

1. Be a woman
2. Be running the Sharpton for President campaign, or:
3. Not find mustaches funny anymore.

As for the movie itself, it really wasn’t all that bad save for a preposterous ending. I think I actually even liked it more than my wife, who has “Volver” all queued up for us this weekend.

George Will takes on Wisconsin’s minimum markup law on gas in this column today.  He says:

Pelosi and others who just know, evidently intuitively, the “fair” price of gasoline must relish what has happened in Merrill, Wis., where Raj Bhandari owns a BP gas station. He became an outlaw when he had what seemed, to everyone but the state’s government, a good idea. He gave a discount of 2 cents per gallon to senior citizens and 3 cents for people who support local youth sports programs.

But Wisconsin’s Unfair Sales Act requires retailers to sell gasoline for 9.18 percent above the wholesale price. The state’s marvelously misnamed Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection has protected consumers from Bhandari’s discounts by forcing him to raise his prices. Some customers now think he is price gouging.

Some Wisconsin legislators are considering changing the Unfair Sales Act to allow retailers to discount gasoline to benefit things those legislators think should be benefited. In Madison, Wis., as in Washington, D.C., it is considered eccentric to think that government should butt out, let people buy and sell as they please, and let markets equilibrate.

Yesterday, a motion was offered in the Legislative Joint Finance Committee to remove the requirement that teachers in the Milwaukee Public Schools live in the borders of the city.  The motion failed with all the Democrats on the committee voting against it.

In 2006, Scott Niederjohn and Mark Schug wrote an instructive report on the teacher residency requirement, and argued for its elimination.  That report can be viewed here.

Volumes have been written about the societal impact of music and lyrics, and I wouldn’t even pretend to know where to start. But seeing as how I have been of rap for as long as I’ve owned a tape player, I thought I’d toss in a couple of moderately-considered points, given the recent controversy surrounding rapper Ludacris’ upcoming appearance at Summerfest.

I will concede off the bat that rap music may have a different meaning to me than it does to its target audience, African-American males. I’ve always been a white suburban Catholic kid with two parents that drilled me – often painfully so – with lessons of right and wrong. I’ve always consumed rap music, rather than allowing it to consume me. I’ve always been able to compartmentalize it as mere entertainment. That being said, there’s nothing Ludacris or anyone else today that’s doing anything that hasn’t been done for 20 years in rap music.

I don’t listen to much anymore, because not much of it is really any good. Outkast, The Roots, Rhymefest, Ghostface Killah – all making quality contemporary hip-hop. Rap music is a young man’s game, and the themes don’t really interest me all that much. But while the lyrics often are foul and ignorant, the overall theme of youthful rebellion is one that is attractive to young people. The overarching theme of rap is a swagger and confidence that appeals to people – in rap, you can say all the things you want to, but can’t. Ludacris exists because old, white conservatives hate him. And the more he can do to offend the old folks, the more popular he will be. Take him out now, and we’ll be having this same discussion about someone else a year from now.

But for normally right-thinking people, rap music provides escapist entertainment, just like any other numbers of mediums. The academy award for Best Picture last year went (deservedly) to The Departed, a movie featuring foul language, drug use, illegitimate pregnancy, and a boatload of grisly shootings. Yet nobody is picketing the outside of the theaters showing it. The best television show I’ve seen in the past few years has been The Wire, which certainly depicts inner city life in an unflinching manner. I concede that each of these examples are miles ahead of Ludacris in terms of artistic value, but each are also replete with the same glorification of sexuality and violence found in rap music.

Furthermore, there’s plenty of “white” music that deals in the same themes as rap. Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” managed to become one of the cultural landmarks of the 1990s, despite its refrain of “I want to f*** you like an animal.” In the late ‘90s, teenage boys flocked to see appalling rap-metal bands like Limp Bizkit, whose lyrics make Ludacris sound like Camus by comparison. Yet no protest of any kind took place, with the exception of people with taste. It wasn’t until Eminem started ridiculing homosexuals that he ever got any public attention.

Granted, all the goth and rap-metal concerts aren’t accompanied by much of the violence and shooting deaths that have been seen at rap concerts. This is where my understanding might diverge from an African-American rap fan. In many fatherless inner city homes, there may not be the teaching and discipline I received growing up, so many of the anti-social themes might sink in to minds that didn’t have anyone to teach them better. There might be more of a proclivity to actually live that lifestyle if one isn’t exposed to any alternative. But whether rap music reflects the African-American community or whether the African-American community reflects rap music is anyone’s guess.

Sadly, complaining about foul rap lyrics now is just a signal to the black community that white people are completely out of touch with their situation. If I were African-American, I would be skeptical of any white person that acted like they just learned – GASP! – that there was swearing in rap music. I might wonder what else about black culture those white people had been ignoring for the last quarter-decade. I’d also laugh at all the attention Ludacris is getting, since there are rappers that are a lot raunchier and less talented that could be made examples of.

The most salient point about modern rap music is the one often discussed after the Don Imus controversy – that it’s hypocritical to call for Imus’ firing when rappers are selling millions of records by degrading women. Naturally, the rules of society take into account the context of the message and ethnicity of the messenger when deeming something appropriate, when in fact none of those qualifiers should make any difference.

Will I be attending the Ludacris concert at Summerfest? Ummm… no. I hope for everyone that it’s peaceful. But if it’s not, I would tend to blame the people who instigate the violence, rather than the artist who is there giving those people what they want.

Today, the Wisconsin Legislature’s budget-writing committee took up the contentious issue of K-12 school funding.  School funding is the single largest appropriation the state makes, eating up nearly half of all state general purpose expenditures.

One of the most contentious elements of the school finance formula is the level at which the state allows local school districts to increase spending on a per pupil basis.  The state sets a limit ($257 for 2006-07) that school districts can increase their per-pupil spending.  Then the state fills in some of that increase with state aids, and the remainder is made up through increased property taxes.

Under Governor Doyle’s proposed budget, the revenue cap was set to increase $264 in 2007-08 and $270 in 08-09.  Legislative Republicans objected to this spending increase, and offered a motion to limit the increase to $100 per pupil.  If a school district wanted to go above that limit, they could do so by holding a referendum.  This approach would save the state money, but would reduce the increase school districts received.

Naturally, Democrats on the Joint Finance committee took exception to the motion.  Democratic Senator Bob Jauch said, “I have a hard time understanding the Republican compulsion to take a meat axe to the children of this state.”  Committee Co-Chair Russ Decker said the proposal was like “putting a gun to the head of public education and to students.”

Given this hyperbole, it’s instructive to look at how different the two plans actually are.  In 2005-06, the average shared cost (amount state and local governments spend) per pupil was $9,169.  The 2006-07 revenue cap adjustment added $257 to that number.  That would then be the per-pupil baseline for the upcoming budget.

Below is a chart of total proposed per-pupil spending in 2007-08 under the Doyle plan and under the Republican Joint Finance motion:

When put in context with total per-pupil spending, you can see the gap isn’t really all that large.  And remember – the GOP plan increases school spending by $100 per pupil.  However, even this small gap means millions in lost potential new revenue to school districts.  But to say that a motion to limit the increase in school district spending is “taking a meat axe” to our children is entertainment at its best.

 UPDATE:  WisconsinEye has begun broadcasting Joint Finance proceedings.  Senator Jauch’s statements can be viewed here, starting at about the five minute mark.

Last week on Wisconsin Public Television’s “Here and Now” show, my friend Jamie Kuhn argued that the movement to require photo identification for voting in Wisconsin is a broad Republican plot to suppress votes.

The producers asked me to come in and film a rebuttal, which I did this week. I think both of our commentaries represent the pretty standard arguments for and against photo ID. Have a look.

Here’s Jamie’s:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhDYuKI9nI8]

Big trouble in the Town of Thorp, where a new nude dancing establishment has drawn the ire of local residents. Many long-time residents are objecting to the opening of Chubby’s, a new “gentleman’s club” in the Town (and nothing says “gentleman” like a guy throwing money at a woman to see her chest.)

I was most amused by the reaction of local mother Kristine Rudnick:

Kristine Rudnick, a mother of four boys who has lived near the Chubby’s site for 26 years, fears club owners will be lenient on keeping underage patrons out.“I am scared to death,” Rudnick said. “I have a 17-year-old. What stops him from going to the parking lot and looking at the prostitutes.“He already saw a stripper and told his friends she had a nice body. He found that exciting,” she said.

That sound you heard was Rudnick’s 17 year old son jumping off a bridge out of embarrassment. Can’t imagine he’ll hear about that at school. MOM!

The article concludes with this epic passage:

“The strip club will cause friction in marriages and the area will see a steep increase in divorces. There is nothing we can benefit from this,” Nitz said.

Karen Koltis, who operates a mental health clinic in Stanley, says she has already seen effects of the new business.“It makes my heart bleed knowing the corruption that is occurring and that I might not be able to help,” Koltis said. She said that on Monday a young couple came to her facility seeking counseling because of the strip club.“She was crying because her husband might go there,” Koltis said. “They are truly hurting and destroying this community and that is not fair to us God-fearing people.”

Just having a strip club near your house causes divorce? I would think a more realistic cause of divorce is having a wife that’s so crazy, she actually thinks having a strip club in the town affects your marriage in any way.

Can you imagine this poor guy whose wife pulled him into counseling because she thinks he might go to the strip club? If this guy actually agreed to go see a marriage counselor, then this woman has nothing to worry about. I would have paid the counselor by stuffing a wad of singles into her underwear.

Just imagine what’ll happen when Kevin Bacon rolls into town and starts dancing.

Sensational column by Patrick McIlheran today detailing some of the school plans being circulated to push for “adequate” school funding in Wisconsin.  Naturally, any plan demanding “adequate” funding necessarily assumes the amount we currently spend on education is “inadequate.”

This “inadequate” level of funding would be news to the U.S. Census Bureau, who lists Wisconsin has having the 13th highest level of per-pupil spending in America in 2004 at $9,226 per student (see table on page 11 of linked document).  This is nearly $1,000 more per pupil than the national average, which is $8,287 per student.

10 of the top 11 spending states are in the Northeast – New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maine, and Washington, D.C.  And if you want to put your kids in the D.C. school district, where funding is closer to “adequate,” then be my guest.

McIlheran says:

Of course, school spending has risen faster than inflation or Wisconsinites’ income over the past decade or so, especially thanks to referendums letting districts blow the caps. Still, the difference is why districts constantly say they’re cutting even while Wisconsin taxpayers spend 5% more a year on average on schools.

Fixing this means tinkering. The biggest motive for larger change is that, simply, some people don’t think we’re spending enough of our income on schools…

Teachers in Wisconsin complain justly that their raises are paltry, but it’s because spending on benefits, at 57% above the national average, is eating the budget. When taxpayers stop seeing double-dip pensions, as in Milwaukee, or a union-run quasi-monopoly on insurance, they might be inclined to spend 25% more on schools overnight.

Until then, no go. If we change things to jack up spending without fundamentally altering how the money’s spent, it just shifts pain to taxpayers – for no gain.

Someone had sent me the “adequacy” report about a month ago, and I hadn’t yet waded through the 177 pages telling me why my taxes needed to go up.  So thanks to McIlheran for doing so for us.

I just finished reading “The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton,” by Washington Post White House correspondent Peter Baker.  It details the impeachment process of of President Bill Clinton, with some fascinating behind-the-scenes details on partisan strategy and maneuvering.

The book talks a great deal about how Clinton was able to remain popular despite his prolonged legal troubles.  In fact, his womanizing actually became his greatest asset, as he was able to relate to regular voters – he had “real people” problems that the public could understand.  It goes to show that the American public is a forgiving lot – even to the point where if you can show you’ve overcome some vice, it can be a strong talking point in your favor.

That’s where I think the Republican presidential candidates can step it up a little bit.  They’re all seen as vanilla (both literally and figuratively), rehearsed, and lacking “real people” skills.  Mitt Romney is like a cyborg sent from the future to dispense conservative talking points.  You can almost see the smoke coming out of his ears.

Of all the GOP candidates, John McCain comes the closest to being unpredictable, but not necessarily in a good way.  During an upcoming debate, there’s a reasonable chance that McCain runs over to Mike Huckabee, reaches in his chest, pulls out his beating heart, and vows to meet him at the gates of hell.

That’s why I think it’s in some Republican contender’s best interest to utilize the Clinton blueprint – show that you have some personal failing that you’ve overcome, which makes you more of a real person.  In fact, I’m rooting for one of the candidates to actually develop a vice during the campaign.

Think how fun it would be at the next debate if Sam Brownback pulled out a bottle of Wild Turkey and started sucking it down in mid-answer.  Jim Gilmore could fire up a bong, take a hit, and start explaining what the economy has in common with “Dark Side of the Moon.”  He could then announce he’s going into rehab, but he’s stopping at Taco Bell first.  Think how much cooler Tom Tancredo would look if he answered while smoking luckies.

Of course, the Democratic frontrunners (Clinton, Obama and Edwards) already have the personal stories of overcoming adversity.  One is trying to become the first minority president, one is trying to become the first female president, and one is married to Bill Clinton.