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Cheapskating to Victory

August 30, 2010 / Christian / 0 Comments

Wisconsin’s own Stephen Hayes takes a look at Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker in the most recent Weekly Standard. Much of it will be familiar to those in Wisconsin who have been following the race – but an exchange Hayes had with Graeme Zielinski of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is most telling:

Graeme Zielinski, a former political reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who left his job earlier this year to become the spokesman for the Wisconsin Democratic party, wants me to know that Walker’s candidacy is based on lies and half-truths. “Generally, it’s our position that Scott Walker isn’t truthful about his record on just about anything.”

“When Scott Walker was in the legislature, he voted several times for budgets that included studies on high speed rail,” Zielinski explained. “If he was such an opponent of high speed rail, he wouldn’t have been in a tough election fight before he brought it up. He’s been a Johnny-come-lately to this.”

As it happens, I’d just read the transcript of an editorial board meeting with the Journal Sentinel from 2002 featuring Walker and his first opponent for the county executive seat, Jim Ryan. The two men agreed on many of the urgent issues facing the county, but one major area of disagreement concerned infrastructure. Ryan favored funding for a rail-based system in Milwaukee County. Walker did not.

He made two arguments against it—priorities and costs. “There are an incredibly large number of other infrastructure-based projects on the table that directly tie in the economic development that far outweighs the seriousness of just this rail-based system.” Walker was worried that federal subsidies would not cover the entire cost of the project and would, in any case, leave the county responsible for operating costs it could not afford. He makes exactly the same arguments today about high-speed rail.

So I pressed Zielinski about Walker’s supposed votes for high-speed rail.

“Was that one of those situations where he cast the vote for a huge budget so you can’t separate it out?”

“Yeah,” he acknowledged. “Absolutely.”

“So is it your view that the principled thing to do would have been to vote ‘no’ on the overall budget because it included studies on high-speed rail?”

“Well, he—he took some affirmative votes in committee that allowed—procedurally allowed those studies to go forward.”

That didn’t sound like a big deal to me, but if the spokesman for the Democratic party thought enough of it to make it his leading critique of Walker, I wanted to know more. Zielinski said he would send me details about those votes and then shifted to a broader critique, attacking Walker from the right.

“On spending, he’s increased spending by $380 million—more than any candidate in this race. On taxes, he raised taxes by 40 million bucks while he’s been here.”

I asked him about that number. “He raised taxes by 40 million bucks. The tax levy has gone up by $40 million.”

Of course, those are two different claims. The first one is false; the second one is true. The tax levy has indeed increased, but only because the county board repeatedly raised taxes over Walker’s veto. I pointed that out to Zielinski.

“He signed those budgets. He signed those budgets.”

“But they were passed over his veto.”

A four-second pause and then:

“Spending went up by 380 million bucks. And if his argument is ‘I couldn’t do anything,’ then how can he do something about high-speed rail? ‘Well, I was helpless about increasing spending by 35 percent but I’m not helpless on high-speed rail.’ That doesn’t square.”

Zielinski then warmed to the theme of making Milwaukee County sound something like Rome, or at least Detroit. “The parks are in ruins. The county buildings are in ruins. Services are in ruins.”

Of course, when things go wrong in Milwaukee County, it’s Scott Walker’s fault. When things go wrong in the City of Milwaukee, it’s never Tom Barrett’s fault.

Read the whole thing here.

Rebel Without a Pause: Behind the Scenes With Paul Ryan

July 13, 2010 / Christian / 2 Comments

Here at WPRI, we seem to be writing about Paul Ryan a lot. People are probably starting to wonder if our acronym stands for the “Wisconsin Paul Ryan Institute.”

But much like Ron Burgundy, Ryan is kind of a big deal. People know him. (I was unable to determine whether his apartment smells of rich mahogany.) So I was enlisted to write a lengthy article about his life in Washington, D.C. – which required me to make a trip out there in May to follow him around.

On May 4^th, I showed up at Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee, ready for my flight out to D.C. I was dressed as I normally am when I fly – jeans, untucked shirt, baseball cap, and about a week’s worth of beard. Sitting in the airport, I noticed then-U.S. Senate candidate Dick Leinenkugel walk up to the gate. A few minutes later, I saw gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker settle in nearby. Shortly thereafter, Ryan himself joined Walker. It then dawned on me that I was on the Tuesday morning flight that all the politicians take to get to D.C.

I walked up to Walker (who was heading to D.C. for a campaign event) and mentioned what a star-studded flight this was. I told him I fully expected Lady Gaga to show up in the airport. (He laughed, although I would think more highly of him if he didn’t know who Lady Gaga was.)

Despite being in the same place dozens of times, I’d never actually spoken to Ryan. I started making small talk with him, then mentioned that I thought we were scheduled to have dinner together that night. Suddenly, he looked concerned that this guy dressed like a hobo talking to him might be crazy. He started frantically scrolling through his schedule on his phone, and said “oh yeah, I guess we are… Not dressed like that, I hope.”

(I was thinking that when I showed up at his office, I should actually wear two suits at one time, just to show him how committed I was to dressing respectably.)

My time at the Capitol with Ryan is pretty well detailed in the article. When we first met, I asked him if he even knew who I was – he said he had read some of my commentaries. I actually felt bad about this – he should be busy fixing the world, not reading my ribald blog posts. (Among the ones I guarantee he never read is this one featuring Ryan, in which I speculate as to what it would be like today if congressmen were allowed to endorse products, as they did in the old days.)

When Ryan was in closed door meetings, I went out and wandered around the Capitol and the Longworth House Office Building. The building is triangular, with high ceilings, long halls and green marble floors. On a few occasions, I spotted lobbyists standing outside congressional offices staring at the floor, muttering to themselves. They were no doubt practicing what they were going to say during their meeting in order to convince the attending congressperson to spend my money. I’d actually almost prefer the lobbyist just punch me in the face and take my wallet on the spot. Then at least the feds wouldn’t get their cut off the top.

The halls of Longworth are also populated with a bloused armada of comely young women, hired no doubt because of their detailed knowledge of economics and foreign affairs. Usually not far behind one of these women is a member of Congress, working hard to make it look like wherever they’re going, it’s really important. Male congressmen are usually easy to spot – they’re the ones whose hair color would be laughed at if they worked anywhere but at the U.S. Capitol. I’m convinced that if male members of Congress stopped buying men’s hair coloring products, the American economy would suffer a housing market-style collapse.

Some of the faces of these Congress members are vaguely familiar; ironic, since somewhere out there in a small slice of America, each one of them are famous. It’s hard to believe that each one of these congressmen are actually 600,000 people looking to have their voices heard in Washington. (Although not literally, as they would need bigger pants.)

I stopped at the Longworth cafeteria to buy a soda, and when the portly African-American woman working the register rang me up, she told me it’ll be “150 dollars.” Then she chortled heartily, and said she’s just kidding – it’s only a dollar fifty. It’s a good joke – I felt like I was the first one she’s ever used it on – and it immediately made her a lock for the title of “friendliest federal employee in America.”

As I sat and sipped my Diet Coke, I saw Democratic Wisconsin Representative Steve Kagen, from the Green Bay area. For the record, we did not speak – in case he goes back home and brags to his constituents that he insulted me, as he is wont to do. (In 2006, Kagen claims he personally insulted President and First Lady Bush at a meeting for freshman members of Congress. In a strange twist, the fact that the story was false made him look even more like a classless jerk.)

Oddly, a few minutes later, I just happened to stumble upon an outdoor press conference given by Democratic Wisconsin Congressman Ron Kind. The Wisconsin legislators appeared to be everywhere. Kind was speaking to the media, pushing a “keeping kids from being fatties” bill. Since Washington is essentially a swamp (both figuratively and literally), Kind was clearly wilting in his suit under the heat and humidity.

At other points during the day, I was escorted around by Ryan’s Budget Committee press secretary, 25-year old Marquette University grad Conor Sweeney. Sweeney took me down to the Budget Committee office, which is tucked into a dark corner in the basement of the Cannon House Office Building. As ranking member of the House Budget Committee, Ryan essentially has two offices – his eight-person member office, and another 15-person budget office, which resides in a dank dungeon in the bowels of a different office building. The cramped office is missing ceiling tiles, and rusted pipes jut out from the walls. It resembles a crack den. A television above Sweeney’s desk flickers on and off as the reception fades into fuzz and pops back. Sweeney proudly declared this office “the birthplace of the roadmap.” I took a picture for the Smithsonian.

Later, we had to go find out where the new House media room was, in advance of Ryan’s interview with MSNBC later in the day. Brightly colored Media Room A has been recently renovated – a podium stands atop a stage in front of American flags; about 50 media chairs sit in front. It makes sense that Congress would revamp their media room – they need to spend money to allow them to go on television to convince the American people that they need to spend more money.

Sweeney mentions that Ryan is conducting an interview with Fox Business Channel’s John Stossel in one of the side rooms on Thursday. The best thing about doing an interview with Stossel is that you never have to worry about him being late – his gigantic mustache gets there ten minutes before he does.

As I mentioned in the story, I was actually at the Capitol the very day that a Wisconsin political giant, liberal Congressman Dave Obey, announced his retirement. As a political observer in Wisconsin, I felt like I should attend, just to say I was there. But I also felt somewhat guilty – I have plenty of Democrat friends back in Wisconsin who would have killed to be there to see this – and yet it’s me, a conservative who opposes pretty much everything Dave Obey stands for, who gets to see the announcement in person. (At the press conference, I saw my own congresswoman, Tammy Baldwin, which made it a clean sweep as far as me seeing Wisconsin Democrats. Granted, I’m not a mind reader, but Baldwin seemed shocked and a little disoriented at the news that Obey was stepping down.)

In the piece, I mention that late in the day, we made our way to a speech Ryan was giving to a group of investment bankers at the Newseum. Ryan drove himself, Seifert and me to the speech in his green 2003 Chevy Tahoe (built in Janesville, of course). The power locks are broken, and Ryan complained that it would cost $400 to fix them. (Which, even if it wasn’t true, kind of seems like a story a congressman would want told about himself.) He is an extraordinarily adept District of Columbia driver, darting in and out of traffic as if he drove a cab. (Incidentally, the only people that love America more than Paul Ryan are Washington D.C. cab drivers.)

During the ride, we discuss baseball. Ryan mentions that his dad was in the same University of Wisconsin-Madison fraternity as former one-legged Milwaukee Brewer manager Harvey Kuenn. Ryan says he’s only thrown out one ceremonial first pitch – at an American Legion game (it was a little high, but over the plate), but he has an encyclopedic knowledge of other famous politician first pitches. And he is bipartisan in his criticism of awkward politician throwing motions.

In order to get an opposing view on Ryan, I made a few calls to Democrats – and actually landed an interview with Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (who happens to be the second most powerful member of Congress at the moment.) His staffer, former Wisconsin native Stephanie Lundberg, graciously set up ten minutes for me to talk to him by phone. (I opened the discussion by thanking him for hiring Wisconsinites in his office – it’s helping keep our unemployment rate down.)

Sadly, my interview with Hoyer didn’t make the final cut (it was essentially replaced by my discussion of Peter Orszag, White House Budget Director.) But here’s what appeared in the original piece:

Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who considers himself to be a Paul Ryan fan, disagrees with this approach. While Hoyer told me Ryan was “bright, principled, and effective,” he also questioned whether a “supply side” proposal like Ryan’s would work. “It’s been proven that supply-side economics don’t work,” said Hoyer, adding that “Reagan and Bush supply-side policies got us into a $4.86 billion deficit.” Hoyer did praise Ryan for his “courageous” stand, saying, he respected Ryan’s “intellectual integrity in putting forth his solutions and directions with are intellectually honest.”

I finished my final exit interview with Ryan on the morning of Thursday, May 6^th, at 9:00 AM. While I talked to him, a security guy came through his office, checking things out. I asked Ryan what that was all about. He mentions that his next meeting is with the head of the World Bank. This blew my mind. So at some point, Ryan’s schedule looked like this:

9:00 to 9:30 – Christian Schneider, lover of pizza

9:30 to 10:00 – Head of World Bank

Keep in mind – at this point, Greece was literally in flames. The European economy was imploding – and I blame myself. I took too long asking Ryan about what his favorite Wisconsin Dells water park was.

I had to be out of my hotel room at noon, but my flight home didn’t leave until 4:00 or so. So I just decided to hang out in the airport all day and begin writing the story. As I sat there with my giant headphones on, I saw a tall figure walk up next to me – I looked up, and it was Ryan, once again on my flight. Seeing I was dressed the same way I had been on the flight out, he shook his head at me. “At least you shaved,” he said.

***

In closing, I wanted to thank Ryan and his staff – Kevin Seifert, Conor Sweeney, Sarah Peer, and Andy Speth among them – for helping me out with the story. Couldn’t have done it without you folks.

Also, the magazine cover painting of Ryan was done by Nathaniel Gold, whose outstanding work can be found here at his website.

Here’s one of our rejected caricatures of Ryan:

Did I Play Against Allen Iverson?

April 13, 2010 / Christian / 3 Comments

I just watched \No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson,” ESPN’s outstanding “30 for 30” documentary. It’s truly an example of what can happen when a network gives a great director the freedom to make the movie he wants. Iverson has always been one of my favorite players – if you can stomach the multiple arrests, he’s one of the baddest men on the planet. I wish I was as good at my job as he was at his (and had as many neck tattoos in the process). Plus, I was living in Blacksburg, Virginia at the time of the bowling alley incident featured in the documentary – so I recall the controversy going on at the time.

But during his whole college and pro career, one question has always been nagging at me: Did I play against Allen Iverson?

A bit of an explanation of my limited basketball career is warranted here. I was always short and hopelessly skinny. When I graduated high school, I weighed maybe 135 pounds. (A television station in Ethiopia actually had a telethon for me.)

$\"\"$ After playing ball my entire childhood, I was cut from my high school’s freshman team. I was so angry, I signed up to play on a church league team where I vowed to take it out on the other kids that weren’t good enough to make their freshman teams, either. My signature play was to bring the ball up and shoot it. When the other team caught on, I’d switch it up and let someone else bring the ball up and pass it to me. Then I’d shoot it.

As it turns out shooting was the one thing I could do. As my dad always told me, “there’s always a spot on a team for a guy who can shoot.” I spent almost every waking moment at the court by my house, heaving up one three pointer after another. I always envisioned whatever girl wasn’t talking to me at the time sitting in the front row as I drained a long game winner. And since no girls ever talked to me, that amounted to about 1.3 million game winners in the span of four years. (Occasionally, I was joined in one-on-one games by a former Milwaukee prep star known as My Dad, whose rough old man play left me with loose front teeth more than once.)

My sophomore year, I made the junior varsity team, but rarely played. I was, as is known in the business, the “human victory cigar” – when I came into the game, it was likely already decided. But that didn\’t shake my confidence. I recall one time in practice, I dribbled the ball from end to end on a fast break and jacked up a three-pointer. My coach blew the whistle and chastised me for not letting the defense we were working on set up. “You’d have to be a hell of a player to take that shot, anyway,\” he yelled, sarcastically. Next time down the court, I stopped at the top of the three-point circle and heaved up another shot. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, SCHNEIDER?” he barked. “I just heard the part about you having to be a hell of a player to take that shot,” I said. He smiled. And I still never played.

The competition in Northern Virginia at the time was pretty good. We played Grant Hill, who was starring at South Lakes high school (he’s a year older than me.) Current ESPN analyst, North Carolina Tarheel and longtime NBA player Hubert Davis often played pickup games at a court near my house. The scene was sprinkled with other guys who went on to play Division I ball (we played some 6 foot 9 guy that went to Stanford, but I can’t remember his name. Stanford probably can’t, either.)

But it wasn’t until a trip down to Virginia Beach after my sophomore year that my eyes were opened as to what competitive basketball really was. Old Dominion University has a team basketball camp every summer, where high school teams travel down together to the campus for a week of instruction. Most of the teams there were from the Hampton/Virginia Beach/Norfolk area, which is one of the most fertile athletic areas in the United States. Michael Vick is from there. Bruce Smith is from there. Lawrence Taylor. Alonzo Mourning (who set the state record for blocked shots against my school when I was in 8th grade.) Golfer Curtis Strange. (It’s true. Meant to be funny, but still true.)

$\"\"$ It should also be noted that of the twelve teams in attendance, there were five white guys – total – at the camp. And three of them were on our team. Now, I was certainly no newcomer to the racial realities of basketball. My school is currently 37% white and 26% African-American, due to a large number of middle class black military families that lived nearby. (I also have my school’s racial makeup to thank for introducing me to Go-Go music, a unique D.C. style that gives the people more bongos than they can handle.)

At courts near my house, I was often the last one picked based almost exclusively on my skin hue. Our team had traveled into Washington, D.C. to play some of the schools in the city, where the stands featured exactly zero white faces. Our biggest rival, T.C. Williams High School (of “Remember the Titans” fame) had become a majority black school by 1990, with a large percentage of their students living in tough economic circumstances. When we played them, be actually had to be accompanied to the locker room by hired guards. (T.C. Williams also had to move their football games from Friday night to Saturday afternoon, as their fans occasionally got a little trigger happy during the night games.)

But once we stepped on the court with some of these teams that came from areas like Hampton and Norfolk, it was a completely different story. We weren’t playing rich-boy Northern Virginia basketball anymore. We lost our first game by something like 80-20. By our third game, we ended up passing the ball back and forth for minutes at a time to avoid being completely blown out.

But then there was one game that I can’t forget. I was guarding a point guard who was probably my height at the time (about 5 foot 7). He had a bandage wrapped around his shooting hand. At one point in the game, he dribbled the ball up and passed it off. I felt a screen hit me from behind. When I wheeled my head around to look at where he should have gone, he wasn’t there. He had completely disappeared. A fraction of a second later, I turned all the way around and looked at the rim. I saw his bandaged hand six inches over the rim, catching an alley-oop and dunking it. I must have stood there, stunned, for what felt like 10 minutes. I\’ve never seen anything like it before or since. It was a world-class athletic move from a guy not old enough to drive a car.

It was only a few years later that it occurred to me that it’s possible I was playing against a future NBA hall of famer that day. (And it wasn’t future Milwaukee Buck Joe Smith, who was there with his Maury High School team.) After all, almost all the teams there were from Iverson’s area. On the negative side – I’m 3 years older than The Answer, so if it was him, he was 13 or 14 years old at the time – which makes the athletic feat I witnessed even more implausible.

The real answer is that I’ll never know if I played against Allen Iverson. Maybe he was at the camp but on a different team altogether. Maybe he was back in Hampton, playing on an asphalt court. But I have to admit, I kind of like not knowing whether he was there. So at least I know there was at least a chance.

Incidentally, our team actually went on to the state tournament the next season. I even managed to get into a game, get fouled a few times, hit 5 of 6 free throws, and get mentioned in the Washington Post. So we were actually a good team – just not Virginia Beach good.

(SIDE NOTE: Rather than actually going on dates and stuff, my friends and I spent an inordinate amount of time filming ourselves dunking on a hoop outside my friend Dennis’ house. Please, come bask in the awkwardness with me:)

Wisconsin: The Repeal Deal

March 29, 2010 / Christian / 0 Comments

The ink had not yet dried on the final letter “a” of “Barack Obama” before Republicans began calling for repeal of the massive national health care reorganization bill the president had just signed into law. This seems to be a politically shrewd move for the national GOP, as public opinion polls routinely show widespread opposition to the bill.

Leading the call for repeal is someone who had been one of the bill’s fiercest critics in the months leading up to its passage – newly minted national star Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. In 2010, only Lady Gaga has rivaled Ryan in terms of national media exposure (and it appears that her only talent is her uncanny ability to avoid wearing pants in public.)

Ryan has smartly re-framed the health care repeal movement, urging lawmakers to “repeal and replace” the recently enacted law. He rightly recognizes the need for Republicans to push actual ideas, rather than being cast in their usual role as nattering nabobs of negativity. In fact, Ryan can be credited as the single reason the GOP at the national level is no longer seen merely as the “party of no.” (Although just saying no to this health care bill may prove to be a political gold mine for Republicans.)

While Ryan’s visage may be new to political observers nationwide, his willingness to fight for repeal of an unpopular law isn’t new to Wisconsin at all. In fact, the Dairy State was the driving force behind one of the most famous repeal efforts in U.S. history. In 1932, it was Wisconsin senator John J. Blaine who drafted the resolution to repeal prohibition, ending over a decade of despair for thirsty Wisconsinites.

In retrospect, it seems crazy that Wisconsin – of all places – would agree to adopt a prohibition on alcohol. Yet on January 17, 1919, Wisconsin became the 40th state to ratify the 18th Amendment. (This came well after the 36th state, Nebraska, ratified the amendment, making it official.)

It is well documented that Milwaukee is very much a city founded on the strength beer industry. In the 1840s, German immigrants flooded to the city, making it the beer brewing capital of the United States. But soon, many immigrants from New England, a stronghold of temperance, began moving to Wisconsin. These new Puritan immigrants, coupled with a World War I-related anti-German backlash that swept through America, gave the temperance movement strong influence over public policy – even when that influence threatened Wisconsin’s most popular industry.

Even when the Volstead Act (the 18th Amendment’s enabling legislation) took effect, Wisconsinites didn’t actually believe the law would stand. In 1922, The Milwaukee Telegram predicted the law would never stand, even as it was going into effect. Ninety year-old Jeremiah Quin wrote the following in opposition to the imposition of prohibition, in language that may be familiar to opponents of the recent health care bill:

blaine “The manner in which attempts are made to enforce this law is offensive to me as it must be to every man of spirit. From the observations of political movements for more than half a century, I conclude that this form of prohibition will not continue; it is producing a daily increasing reaction against the policies in force. It is the manner, not the morals, that is offensive.”

Naturally, once enacted, prohibition became wildly unpopular in Wisconsin. It virtually killed the breweries in Milwaukee, some of which began to make “near beer,” while others shifted over to making ice cream, soda, and cheese. When Schlitz Gardens closed in 1921, the Milwaukee Journal yearned for the days when the entertainment venue attracted such luminaries as New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson (who was running for president at the time, and reportedly refused to actually drink a beer.)

In the pages of the Milwaukee Sentinel in February of 1932, Gunnar Mickelsen offered up this erudite defense of drinking, and why Wisconsin was a miserable place without it:

“Now, it is our theory that Milwaukee was happy because it talked. The urge to hold conversation, to communicate ideas and experiences is one of man’s major motivations. It is behind most of his endeavors and his works. Deprive him of the privilege to talk and you rob him in no small measure of his ambition to do.

What use are actions if he can’t talk about them later? The man’s ego who is satisfied at the mere doing, without telling others or hearing their praise or criticism, is a rare fellow. The happiest persons are those who have something to say, know how to say it, and are given the opportunity to do so.

Beer and wine make for conversation. There is in liquors of mild alcoholic persuasion that which quickens the flow of the thoughts in a man’s cranium, loosens a notch the belt about his reticence, and releases upon his tongue the fruits of his meditations. It is for precisely this reason that men have resorted to alcoholic drinks as a means to make their companionship more vivid and happy.”

Mickelsen, no matter how specious and entertaining his logic, had some important people in his corner. One of these individuals was Republican U.S. Senator John J. Blaine of Wisconsin, who made the repeal of prohibition his personal mission.

Modern Progressives would bristle at any comparison between the conservative Paul Ryan and John Blaine, despite their shared desire for repeal of unpopular federal laws. Blaine, while a Republican, was a steadfast Progressive and a loyal follower of Robert LaFollette, Sr. Born to a farmer with egalitarian beliefs, Blaine’s disabled left arm forced him into professions other than the family farming business. After attending college, he went on to law school, becoming involved in the Progressive wing of the Republican Party. By 1902, he was in Robert LaFollette’s inner “Madison ring” of Progressive confidantes.

Blaine was elected Wisconsin attorney general in 1918 before serving three terms as governor. When his hero, LaFollette, died in 1925, a fight broke out to replace the legend in the U.S. Senate. Blaine struck a deal to support Robert LaFollette Jr. for his father’s U.S. Senate seat, in exchange for campaign help against incumbent Senator Irvine Lenroot in 1926. Blaine defeated Lenroot, and quickly became a thorn in the sides of both Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. (In his first session, Blaine voted with the Republican majority in the senate only 35% of the time, or less than any other Republican.)

While Blaine was a forceful advocate for the use of the federal government to overcome the hardships of the Great Depression, it was his opposition to prohibition that finally forged his name in the history books. His fierce opposition to the 18th Amendment grew out of his progressivism – he saw prohibition as a recipe for public corruption and didn’t believe it was enforceable. He also didn’t believe it was the government’s role to enforce morality, saying, “I am opposed to prohibition as a matter of principle. I think it is wrong. I think any legislation that undertakes to regulate purely personal habits of individuals is wrong.” He believed that prohibition fostered “an orgy of official corruption in national affairs never before equaled in this country.”

In every session he served in the Senate, Blaine introduced a resolution to repeal prohibition. It wasn’t until the 1931-32 session (his last, incidentally) that his resolution was adopted and sent to the states for ratification. He lost his seat in a Republican primary in 1932, and died two years later at the age of 58.

While Paul Ryan is the face of the modern “repeal” movement, he isn’t the first Wisconsin elected official to face down the federal government in opposition to an unpopular law. American society changed forever because of John Blaine’s willingess to fight for your right to party. (College students all over Wisconsin can be seen honoring Blaine’s memory every weekend by getting hammered and singing “Sweet Caroline” at the top of their lungs at bars.)

Even with Blaine’s tireless work and public opinion at his back, it still took over a decade to repeal the 18th Amendment. (Furthermore, prohibition prevented individuals from doing something they wanted to do – drink – while the current health care bill forces many people to do something they don’t want to do – purchase health insurance.) It remains to be seen whether Ryan can effectively channel public sentiment in the same way.

Why Congress is Wigging Out

March 1, 2010 / Christian / 0 Comments

When men start to go bald, they basically have two options: they can man up, accept their fate and buy an expensive car, or they can try wearing a ridiculous toupee.

(I guess a third option is to get hair plugs – like they do in the Hair Club for Men. I love their ads, because they promise that I can go jet-skiing with my new hair – which is awesome, because I didn’t know how to jet ski before.)*

The thought process behind men wearing wigs is fascinating. They recognize that it looks ridiculous – there isn’t a person they pass on the street that doesn’t go “whoa – look at that rug!” But they do the internal calculus and determine that the fact they’re obviously wearing a toupee is preferable to the horrors of seeing the top of their scalp.

The examples of this are myriad. Everyone knows Elton John is a member of the Bald Brotherhood; yet he still shows up in concert wearing wigs that look like they formerly belonged to a cast member of “High School Musical.” Everyone seems to have forgotten that Jeremy Piven had less hair at age 28 than he does at age 43. And John Travolta’s ridiculous hairline goes up and down more often than John Edwards’ zipper. Yet all of them have determined that this is a better look than going natural.

(Incidentally, this is comparable to women who think having obvious plastic surgery is preferable to the horrors of aging naturally. Poor Meg Ryan, formerly as beautiful as the Mona Lisa, now looks like a Picasso.)

Members of Congress seem to be picking up on this meme. Congress’ favorability ratings barely hover above “having your lips stapled to a gorilla.” The American public is now fully aware Congress is incapable of creating jobs. Voters know that the House and Senate are going to raise their taxes and at the same time create government deficits as far as the eye can see, at the same time unemployment is in the double digits. (The chance that we all speak Chinese in 20 years currently stands at about 35%.)

And yet they have taken this dead animal carcass known as “health care” and stapled it securely to their heads. They think ramming through a government takeover of sixteen percent of the American economy is preferable to the way the public sees them now. Democrats in Congress honestly believe passing a partisan bill crafted in secret will give them the image makeover they need to maintain their large margins come election time.

When the health care takeover bill passes, your congressperson is going to come back to you brandishing their vote as if they’re a co-worker who magically gained a full head of hair overnight. They’re going to tell you that doing something was better than letting nature take its course. Yet unbeknownst to them, they will become even more of a laughingstock than when they started. Sadly, the cover Steve in human resources seeks only hurts him; the cover Congress is looking for could bring down the American economy.

So say it loud, my bald brothers – it’s nobody’s first choice to lose your hair, but trying to rectify it can make it worse. A lesson Congress should learn before they creep out voters for good.

NOTE: Be looking for the second portion of this series, “Why global warming is like a mustache.”

(Incidentally, when Congress does decide to purchase their toupee, I demand they do it at Morrie’s Wigs.)

* – Other popular strategies include “bald guy who grows a beard,” “bald guy who works out a lot,” “bald guy who wears sunglasses on the top of his head,” “bald guy who wears stylish hats,” “bald guy with lots of tattoos,” and “Michael Stipe.”

The Flying Gallardo Brothers Edition (July 16, 2009)

January 25, 2010 / Christian / 0 Comments

Okay, before I get started, let me pimp my blog real quick. There, that was harmless, wasn’t it? Oh, and if you haven’t listened to my podcast with Trenni Kusnierek last week, there is a hole in your life.

Before I expose my links, a few thoughts:

If you’re a Brewers fan, you have no doubt seen videos of Yovani Gallardo’s family sitting in the front row of his games against the Astros, enthusiastically cheering him on. They, honest to God, seem like the most fun group of brothers ever. They all look exactly alike, each with a more outrageous mustache than the other. I demand that the Brewers start leasing them out to events – you’re telling me your kids’ birthday party wouldn’t be 80% more fun with the crazy Gallardo Brothers party in attendance? Bring the Flying Gallardo Brothers to your next keg party, and you could charge 20 bucks a head, easy. This is my plea to the Brewers organization – THINK ABOUT THIS.

I learned on the Twitter that the MLB All Star game was Tuesday night. Seemed to be a decent showing for Prince Fielder and Trevor Hoffman, but after going 0-for3, Ryan Braun ran into the dugout and demanded that the NL All Stars trade for better pitching.

After the game, the Twins’ Justin Morneau whined that the Canadian National Anthem was played via audio recording. SUCK IT UP, FRENCHIE – Isn’t that reasonable payback for us having to watch Michael J. Fox on those MLB commercials? We made Seth Rogen a millionaire, but they just want more, more, more.

This caption contest for a Braunie and Prince picture will depress you.

Tom Haudricourt stops the presses with this molten hot scoop: The Brewers are looking to play well in the second half of the season. In the meantime, Buster Olney is hiding out in Doug Melvin’s mustache, waiting for trade news.

I know the new Republican talking point is that President Obama throws like a girl (FYI, THIS is how you throw out a first pitch), but I think we need to be more critical of his attire. I mean, seriously – ’80s-style baggy jeans? Who told Obama that it was appropriate to throw out the first pitch dressed as Sinbad?

Since I’m a politics guy, I have to throw this in: Obama says Supreme Court Justice Nominee Sonya Sotomayor “saved baseball” by ordering MLB players back on to the field in 1995, following the players’ strike that cost us a 1994 World Series. Not so fast, says Bob Costas:

Oh, and having solved the economy, job losses, home foreclosures, health care, and the wars in the middle east, Congress is going to fix the BCS system.

I have two NFL jerseys hanging in my closet: Brett Favre and Michael Vick. Which is more embarrassing to wear in public? Discuss.

Speaking of Favre, I am rooting for John David Booty to bleed him dry for the right to wear number 4 for the Vikings. Make him pay more than $100,000, and we’ll forget all about the fact that you have a serial killer name, John David Booty.

From what I understand, during the tailgating for one of the Twins-Brewers games at Miller Park, one moron was spotted wearing a Favre #4 Vikings jersey. There is no judge in Wisconsin that would convict anyone arrested for beating that idiot to a pulp. As my friend Stephen Thompson routinely says, the whole Favre saga is akin to your parents getting divorced, and your dad filming porn with your mom\’s worst enemy and making you watch. I actually think that’s a bit understated.

The NBA’s summer league is underway, and if you want to watch it, you have to buy some kind of internet package at NBA.com. Young Money is turning some heads early. In watching the video, his body language is clearly influenced by Allen Iverson – of course, that might be a byproduct of the fact that he wears #3. (Which I thought the Bucks retired out of respect for Shawn Respert for being the worst draft pick in franchise history.)

Here’s a list of players in the league – of local note, Jerel McNeal, Wes Matthews, Joe Krabbenhoft, Marcus Landry, Clay Tucker, and Alando Tucker are all on teams. It appears former Badger Greg Stiemsma is on the list too, but I\’m not sure if that means he’s on a team, or he was the first viewer to subscribe to the internet package.

If you have to publicly declare something you do isn’t racist, it’s at the very least a little racistey.

The British Open starts today, but wait – you’re only supposed to call it “The Open.” Maybe Justin Morneau complained that calling it the British Open left Canadians out.

If you managed the Cubs once, getting the job managing the hapless Washington Nationals would seem like a dream job to you, too.

Friday Night Lights is only going 2 more seasons, and Connie Britton says they’re not even starting to film Season 4 until this September. Oh, and please God, let Mad Men start again. (It does on August 16th.)

From an article discussing the gay community’s reaction to the movie Brüno:

“There were many gay people in the audience, some notable Washington gays and lesbians, some of whom are involved, peripherally or otherwise, in “the movement.”

From now on, I demand to be identified as “notable heterosexual.”

If you’re playing golf with this guy, you may want to make sure you’re hitting your own ball.

Incredibly, alcohol may have been involved.

I might be the most potent man alive.

I SAID A TIGER RIDING A HORSE, PEOPLE!

Today’s fun fact: In 1949, both the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox sent scouts down to Birmingham to watch a promising youngster named Willie Mays. Both declined to sign him because he was black. In fact, the Birmingham Black Barons were actually affiliated with the Red Sox, but they refused to purchase his contract, as pitching coach Larry Woodall said Mays wasn’t the “Red Sox type.” And thus, Mays was denied the chance to play in the outfield with either Ted Williams or Joe Dimaggio because he was black. If we continue to praise teams like the Brooklyn Dodgers for being so “open minded,” shouldn’t we also continue to deride the teams that were the most notoriously racist? Maybe ESPN should throw this fact in when they devote every minute of their air time to covering Boston and New York.

Finally, today’s music: Considered by some to be the worst video ever made. On the other hand, in case you missed the ’80s, it sums the whole decade up in about 3 minutes.

Brett Favre: The Man Who Never Learned the Value of Hate (July 29, 2009)

January 25, 2010 / Christian / 0 Comments

The Ego has landed.

It appears I can now go back to the adult theater and retrieve the “Favre 4 Ever” towel I gave them to assist in cleaning up after shows. Although both the towel and Favre’s reputation may be equally and irrevocably sullied at this point.

On Tuesday, Favre announced that he wouldn’t be playing for the Minnesota Vikings in the upcoming NFL season. At least he said it until he un-says it. Vikings fans can now look forward to the Sage Rosenfels Era, which is only slightly less anticipated than “The Love Guru 2.”

After 8 months of coverage, it may seem that every angle of this story has been thoroughly dissected. For instance, each Green Bay fan has had to go through the shock of learning that their infallible idol of 17 years was a self absorbed, narcissistic, jerk. (For example, check out this idiot with the bad haircut, who actually went on public television to say things like “Favre’s class, every day guy demeanor and toughness made him the best spokesman for Wisconsin we could ever dream of. And it can never be taken away from any of us.” I am now going to slam my head in my car door repeatedly.)

Finding out Brett Favre is a pompous ass is like finding out Darth Vader is your father. Or that Adam Lambert is gay. The trauma caused by knowing the last 17 years of your life is a fraud makes you think nothing is real. God is Dead. Charlie Sheen and Michael Jordan star in underwear ads together. In The Breakfast Club, they never actually eat breakfast. The combover remains an acceptable hairstyle. Nothing makes sense anymore.

But there’s a disconcerting point about the Favre saga that expands well beyond just his endless Hamlet routine. Favregate reminds us once again how disconnected players are from the experiences of the fans. I mean, Favre decided he wanted to come back to the Vikings. Let me repeat that – THE VIKINGS. One of the teams so reviled by Packers fans that merely mentioning their name in some quarters 200 years ago could have led to your tongue being cut out. (Or, in modern terms, withholding cheese curds from a Packer fan for 3 consecutive days.) My daughter is already aware that she will never date any young man that dares to wear a piece of Viking or Bear paraphernalia in my house. (Thankfully, she has held true to this rule, but only because she’s 5 years old.)

The problem is, players see other teams as potential employers. Fans see them as sworn enemies. Nothing is more galling than seeing Brewers and Cubs yukking it up on the field before the game. This is like finding out Seinfeld and Newman were secretly lovers.

In today’s sports, players are millions of miles removed from the fan experience. Just ask my wife, who walked in the room and encountered me doubled over in pain after watching Brewer Jeff Suppan give up a grand slam to the rigor mortis-inflicted Washington Nationals. Think anyone on the team felt as bad as I did? Imagine, for example, Ryan Braun going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts. He would be forced to drown his sorrows in a hot tub with four Bacardi Rum shot girls. Someday, he’ll probably have to go on the DL from all the paper cuts he suffers from bathing in $100 bills.

Not so in the old days, before free agency and big money. My Dad likes to tell the story of the day he rode his bike by Warren Spahn’s house, only to see one of the greatest lefthanded pitchers of all time out mowing his lawn. Warren Spahn! And the players used to actively buy into rivalries, since free agency didn’t allow them to skip from franchise to franchise in search of a richer deal. Jackie Robinson, then of the Los Angeles Dodgers, actually decided to retire when he found out he had been traded to the hated San Francisco Giants.

But now Brett Favre can’t even muster up enough effort to hate the Minnesota Vikings. It’s really not that hard to hate – I hate people because they have crazy sideburns, or because they drive too slow, or because they write checks in line in front of me at the grocery store. Surely Favre can muster up enough distaste for a team that took cheap shots at his knees for 17 years. I mean, come on Brett – let the hate FLOW.

I suppose I can cling to the theory that Favre hated the Vikings so much, he decided to string their fans along and crush their dreams at the last minute. It seems only slightly less plausible than the theory that Dick Cheney was controlling the 9/11 planes via remote control, but it makes me feel better.

In other news…

When rumors started circulating that the Mariners were offering Wisconsin native Jarrod Washburn in exchange for prized shortstop Alcides Escobar, I laughed them off. After all, if Escobar was too much to offer up for the Blue Jays’ Roy Halladay, he certainly had to be too much to offer up for a 35 year old with a lot of miles on his arm (although his 2.59 ERA is impressive.) But what is troubling about this Washburn-Escobar article is that it doesn’t contain a line like, “Melvin fell down laughing and urinated on himself when he heard the offer,” or the more desirable “upon hearing the offer, Melvin cordially invited the Mariners to engage in intercourse with themselves.” Could this have actually been in the works?

It would seem that having a stud shortstop in waiting like Escobar would actually depress the trade value for a guy like J.J. Hardy, who I (probably mistakenly) still think might have some value. But if you\’re a team looking to trade for Hardy and see that the Brewers have their shortstop of the future in waiting, why would you pony up much at all, knowing they almost have to get rid of him eventually? Even fantasy baseball players know this trading trick – along with trying to get your fellow owner as drunk as possible and throwing in a worthless player from their favorite team to sweeten the pot. (I once inexplicably heard the phrase “Oh, you’re adding Matt Mieske? Then it’s a deal!”)

It would seem that Mike Cameron might actually be the most marketable trade bait at this point. Good power, great outfielder, still has some speed, and a great guy in the clubhouse. For some reason, he’s enjoyed a Robert Downey Jr.-like career resurrection in Milwaukee. Prior to coming to the Brewers, Cameron averaged one home run per 24 at bats for his career – then, in 2008, at age 35, he began hitting a home run every 16 at bats, and hasn’t stopped. Maybe joining a bowling league and eating a steady diet of cheesy grillwursts has revived his youthful vigor.

(It should be noted at this point that we just passed the one year anniversary of Wisconsin State Journal columnist Tom Oates’ proclamation that C.C. Sabathia was “out of reach” for the Brewers, followed up a week later by his adamant declaration that the Brewers needed Sabathia NOW! After they actually traded for him.)

Speaking of Doug Melvin, is there another case in professional sports where a team’s General Manager looks exactly like their mascot? Has anyone ever seen Melvin and Bernie Brewer in the same room? Is Bernie the one taking calls from other GMs from up in the Chalet?

I can imagine the following phone call:

Receptionist: “Brewer front office. This is who? J.P. Ricciardi from the Blue Jays? Yes, Mr. Melvin is in, but wait… someone just hit a home run, and he’s heading down the slide. Can he call you right back?”

At least Melvin would have someone else to blame for Jody Gerut.

More Brewers: As hard as it is to fathom, is there a chance that Bob Uecker is actually underappreciated in Milwaukee? Sure, he’s been ubiquitous here for 30 years – but have a look at this video of Uecker on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1984. (I’ll wait right here.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLPKXUb25vU

It’s not just “sports” funny – it is legitimately funny, by actual comedian standards. Seth Myers from Saturday Night Live called that clip a “clinic” in deadpan comedy. Not only is Uecker one of the funniest guys in sports, he may legitimately be one of the funniest comedians working today. And we have the chance to listen to him on a daily basis. It is truly an honor.

In my last column, I offered up a suggestion to the Brewers marketing division – fly the wildly entertaining Gallardo Brothers up here and make them local celebrities. It appears my plea went unheeded. So I’ll try again.

A few weeks ago, when I was sick as a dog on my couch, I watched a good 14 straight hours of old World Series highlights on the MLB Network. And as the years go on, you can slowly see the quality of fans’ attire devolving. Up until the mid 1960’s, people actually got dressed up to go to games – suit, tie, and the whole deal. Now, people show up to games dressed like they’re going out to change their oil. How classy would it be to have “wear a tie to the game” night, like the old days? Everyone has at least one dignified outfit to wear to a game. It shows class, and reverence for the past – something baseball is always pushing. (The only problem I forsee would be that on those nights, women wouldn’t be able to vote for All-Star Game starters.)

Of course, everyone is down on certain Brewers for having subpar seasons – Bill Hall, J.J. Hardy, Corey Hart, and Manny Parra among them. But lost in the shuffle is the inexplicable greatness of Craig Counsell, who has hovered around the .300 batting average mark for nearly the whole year. (In a national broadcast two years ago, Geoff Jenkins let the world in on the fact that Counsell’s nickname was “The Grumpy Rooster,” a fact that I demand be repeated on TV broadcasts on a nightly basis.) Counsell’s drastic improvement has come at age 38, and directly following seasons in which he batted .220 and .226. In fact, given his historical track record, I dare say if Counsell ends up batting over .300, it will be one of the most impressive Brewer achievments of all time – right next to Molitor’s 39 game hit streak and John Jaha’s streak of going three straight days without a drunk driving arrest.

Jason Kendall: Dead Catcher Walking (Aug. 5, 2009)

January 25, 2010 / Christian / 0 Comments

(Reminder: you can follow me on Twitter at @Schneider_CM)

We all love Brewers’ catcher Jason Kendall for what he is – he’s a gritty old guy who busts his tail, looks like he eats shards of broken glass for breakfast, grows funny beards, and marks his forearms up with cool tattoos. He’s exactly what we want in Milwaukee – a blue collar guy with a stare so intense, it looks like he’s constantly trying to avenge the death of his childhood family pet. If you worked in the same office with Kendall, you’d be afraid that if you accidentally ate his egg salad sandwich from the fridge, he’d tear your arms off and make you eat those, too.

But while all the things Kendall is are important, it is what Kendall isn’t that makes the most difference to the Brewers. Put simply, he isn’t a major league player anymore.

It hurts to say, but Kendall’s career has been dead for two years, but nobody seems to have noticed. (The sport equivalent to “Weekend at Bernie’s.”) In the first nine years of his career, all with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Kendall hit .309, making the All Star team three times (even after suffering a horrific ankle break in 1999). As recently as 2004, his final year with the Pirates, Kendall hit .319, with a respectable OPS (on base plus slugging) of .789.

Then, after being traded from the Pirates to Oakland, Kendall’s career at the plate has cratered. After joining the Brewers in 2008, Kendall has, simply put, been the worst offensive everyday player in the major leagues. His at-bats are so horrible, it often leaves television viewers at home flipping the channel to find something more comfortable to watch, such as a live human birth.

Baseball Prospectus keeps a statistic they call VORP – Value over Replacement Player – that measures how many runs a specific player contributes to a team relative to an average player at that position. According to this standard, Kendall ranks butt naked last among catchers in the National League, with a VORP of -8.5. In other words, Kendall actually costs the Brewers nearly 9 runs per year over just any nameless stiff they could plug in the catcher position. (Kendall ranks 89th out of 90 players to play catcher in the major leagues this year, just ahead of Dioner Navarro of Tampa Bay.)

It’s not as if this fancy pants statistic tells us anything we didn’t know just by using our own eyeballs. It appears that when batting, Kendall is using a bat made of balsa wood. The chances of seeing a Kendall extra base hit are about the same as the chances of seeing a yeti riding a unicycle by your house while smoking a pipe. When teamed up with Mike Rivera, Brewer catchers have hit zero home runs this year. Has any team ever gone a full season without a single combined home run from a specific position? (That’s a legitimate question – I couldn’t find a statistic on that.) UPDATE: Answer in the comments section.

“Baseball people” would counter that Kendall plays catcher, a position from which offense isn’t necessarily expected. (“People like me” would respond that he has actually managed to be the absolute worst at a position where no offense is expected.) So he must be some kind of defensive dynamo, right?

Not exactly. Kendall was run out of Chicago Cubs’ locker room after he managed to throw out only 5 runners out of 57 that attemped stealing – an execrable percentage of 9% runners caught. His time in Milwaukee hasn’t been much better, as he has caught only 21% of would-be-base stealers.

That leaves us with the last place a catcher can go when his skills completely leave him – the argument that he calls a great game. If so, he’s been calling great games for a Brewer team that currently has the second worst ERA (4.84) in the National League, with only the laughing stock of the league, the Washington Nationals, behind them. If the Brew Crew replaced Kendall with Whoopi Goldberg behind the plate, the Brewers ERA rank could only drop one more spot. (As this is being written, Kendall is orchestrating a 9-earned run masterpiece from Yovani Gallardo.)

Sure, there are plenty of disappointing players on the Brewer roster – Bill Hall, Corey Hart, J.J. Hardy, et al. Those guys get the most criticism, only because they have actually shown flashes of potential. Kendall gets a free pass because nobody expects him to hit it past the pitchers mound. (Which provides an important lesson in your life – never do anything well, as you will be expected to do it well all the time.)

To recap: the Brewers have an aging catcher who costs them 15 runs per year on offense, and who is captaining one of the worst starting rotations in the majors. Dr. Jack Kevorkian goes to prison for mercifully euthanizing patients, yet Jason Kendall roams free after quietly killing the Brewers. Where’s the justice? And isn’t there some random Molina roaming the earth?

***

Last week, I sang the praises of Craig Counsell, and how impressive it would be if he actually managed to hit .300 this year, improving his average by nearly 80 points at age 38. My buddy Matt pointed out how predictable this was once The Grumpy Rooster changed his batting stance.

You may recall that in the past, Counsell used to stand completely upright and spastically wave his bat around with both hands over his head, as if he just mainlined three Red Bulls. Nobody in the league had a stance like this – and yet, apparently, it took until we elected an African-American president for Counsell to make the connection that this bizarre stance may have actually contributed to his paltry hitting. It’s almost as if Counsell had been playing the last 10 years wearing red high heels, then decided to give wearing cleats a try. Shouldn’t fans have some kind of redress for a player being so stupid? Some kind of class action lawsuit perhaps?

In my Friday night co-ed softball league, we play with five guys and five girls. Often times, we can’t scrounge up enough girls to play, since girls actually have more important things to do than play softball (like going to bars and ignoring me). In the event that we only have 4 girls in the lineup, when the 5th girl’s spot comes up, they just count it as an automatic out.

As weird as this sounds, I pretty much figure this is how other teams pitch to the Brewers. They just count Bill Hall’s spot as the automatic out. They just imagine that the girl that normally hits in his spot is out at a sorority formal or something, and just count Hall’s at bat as a strikeout. In fact, other pitchers probably get irritated that they have to go through the formality of actually having to throw him the required three pitches to strike him out. The sight of Hall walking back to the dugout will be a familiar one in the next few weeks, as Corey Hart sits out following the dangerous surgical procedure he underwent to have his creepy beard removed.

Other notes:

I know sports are supposed to teach kids lessons about life, but not like this – while watching golf with my 5 year old daughter this weekend, she asked me what “erectile dysfunction” was. They cram so many boner pill commercials into golf telecasts now, it’s almost a PG-13 affair. What’s funny is that golf is the last sport you’d expect to have to shield your children’s eyes from, given all the trouble other athletes are getting into. (My daughter knows future Packer Michael Vick as “The guy who is mean to dogs.”)

If they have enough money to blanket network golf coverage with all these ads, can you imagine how many of these pills they’re selling? Next time you see a 60+ year old guy at the mall, there’s legitimately a 50% chance he’s hopped up on wiener pills, walking around aimlessly, gazing at teenage girls in the same way Wile E. Coyote gazes at the Roadrunner and sees a giant buttery turkey leg. This has zombie movie written all over it.

But after watching all these grumpy wiener ads, it’s starting to dawn on me – I might be their target audience. If that’s the case, I might just start taking cyanide pills.

ESPN’s strategy is easy to figure out: they try to get an otherwise indifferent public to care about a specific story, then just beat it to freakin’ death until their network becomes virtually unwatchable (see Favre, Brett.) This has been the case with the Plaxico Burress gun trial – can you name me more than 3 people outside the metro New York area who have given this issue more than 3 seconds’ worth of thought? The guy took a gun into a bar (something that happens every day in Wisconsin), and ended up hurting only himself. And now, we get a full day’s worth of interview clips from teammates about the role of Antonio Pierce, who helped Burress to the hospital. It’s ridiculous – if Burress played for the Kansas City Chiefs, one wonders if the story would make the network at all.

Here’s a really interesting story from NPR about the guy who invented the box score.

Any guess why they don’t have “Kiss Cam” at WNBA games?

One of the articles from the “Best American Sports Writing 2007” compilation came from a blog just like this one. It goes into great detail regarding the famous Gas House Gorillas versus Teatotallers game in 1946. It is brilliant – although a little long.

The 10 Most Ridiculous Packers Items on eBay (Sept. 16, 2009)

January 25, 2010 / Christian / 0 Comments

So we all got excited on Sunday night watching the Packers graciously accept Jay Cutler’s gift wrapped win. Football season is upon us – it’s time to ignore your wife and kids, wear the jerseys of players 15 years younger than you, stare blankly at fantasy stats on your computer all day, and scream expletives at the television for 12 straight hours on Sundays. Seriously, if an alien dropped in on America between August and January, they would immediately deduce two things:

1. All Americans gather in front of their televisions every Sunday night to take their orders for next week from Al Michaels, and:

2. This magic elixir known as “alcohol” gives the jersey-wearing old men universal knowledge, and grants them power to speak extemporaneously about any worldly topic loudly and forcefully.

Perhaps you feel you are ready for the remainder of the season. You have your Packer jerseys, inflatable seats, and cheeseheads at the ready. Yet according to eBay, you have yet to scratch the surface of the wondrous products available to a rabid fan base.

What follows is a list of the 10 (or so) most ridiculous Green Bay Packer related items on eBay. Sure, the online auction site is full of what you would expect: jerseys, hats, obscure Packer football cards (Ingle Martin rookie card, anyone? Care for a Craig Newsome framed card? Longing for the simpler days of the George Teague era?), and Packer Mr. Potato heads. (No – wait: that’s actually pretty cool.) You can even buy a piece of one of Brian Brohm’s”game worn” jerseys, although it is unclear which game he wore it in. I think they mean he wore it while playing Madden ’09 once.

In any event, here’s the list.

1. “GREEN BUD PACKER” T-SHIRT

Like the Packers? Like marijuana? Then this is the shirt for you – flawlessly integrating the famed Packer logo with the famed image of a bong. Of course, if you own this shirt, you will rarely actually make it out to Lambeau Field to show it off, since remaining on the couch and ordering junk on eBay always takes precedence when the Golden Girls is on.

2. MIKE HOLMGREN “LEADER OF THE PACK” HARLEY DAVIDSON FIGURINE

Sadly, you’re out of luck on this one – someone inexplicably just paid $60.00 to acquire this treasure. So congrats to the big winner – on getting the statue, and for wearing your “Green Bud Packer” shirt for the fourth straight day.

3. BOTTLE OF VINCE LOMBARDI BOURBON

Last week, I complained bitterly about the use of Saint Vince’s visage to sell products. And now, we have a bottle of “Vince Lombardi Bourbon,” with an atrocious hand drawn picture of Lombardi wearing an expression that closely resembles what the coach’s face may have looked like if he knew someone was using his name to sell this crappy booze. (The ad says the artist has “masterfully captured Coach Lombardi in all his glory!)

Actually, this bottle is proof that Heaven doesn’t exist – if it did, Lombardi would have struck this guy with a lightning bolt by now. Oh, and if you’re interested in more of the artist’s execrable Packer art, here’s some for you.

4. GREEN BAY PACKER WOMEN’S UNDERWEAR

This item is deemed by the seller as “incredible.” As if it is beyond human comprehension to imagine a pair of underwear emblazoned with the Packer emblem. Perhaps we need some kind of supercomputer to put it into understandable terms for us. Incidentally, this particular pair is size “large,” – we actually just got word that all the “junior miss” sizes have been purchased by Mark Chmura.

(There’s a scene on Family Guy where Quagmire attempts to buy a pair of women’s underwear, but it cannot be repeated here.)

In other women’s undergarment news, this item also graces the pages of eBay:

GREEN BAY PACKERS WOMEN’S SPORTS BRA AND SHORTS MEDIUM

I should warn you – this item is a clever trick. Everyone knows that no woman who leaves the house wearing any Packer-related clothing has ever exercised. You’d be better off buying a giraffe a bowling ball.

(Footnote: As a lifelong Packer fan, I can make these loving jokes about other Packer fans. Much like Eskimos can only make jokes about other Eskimos.)

5. 1972 BURGER KING JOHN BROCKINGTON ICE MILK CUP

Someone just paid $39 for a fast food cup that’s been sitting in someone’s basement for 37 years. Ironically, after his playing career ended in 1978, Brockington lost boatloads of money after investing in a Ponzi scheme that went belly up and after investing in a nutritional supplement company that was found to have caused several deaths. So there was likely a point where you could have an ice milk actually served to you at Burger King by John Brockington.

6. VINCE LOMBARDI SIGNED CHECK

Another Lombardi item – for the low, low price of $1700.00. Someone once wrote that John F. Kennedy always paid for dinner with a check, knowing that the restaurant owner would never dare cash a check with his signature on it. So he ate for free for years. It’s likely Lombardi got the same treatment in Green Bay for the entirety of his tenure.

Strangely, if you look at the check closely enough, Lombardi used it to purchase a “Slap Chop.”

7. AUTOGRAPHED WILLIE WOOD / HERB ADDERLY JERSEYS

These signed jerseys are noteworthy only because of the accompanying photos on the ads:

“You know, I was wavering back and forth on whether to pay $150 for a signed Willie Wood jersey, but then I saw the picture of the GIRL IN THE BIKINI HOLDING IT, and I thought to myself, ‘any jersey quality enough to be held by an almost naked girl at a trade show is definitely good enough for me.’”

Gives “Willie Wood” a whole new meaning, don’t you think?

8. DIRT FROM LAMBEAU FIELD

I know what you’re saying – how do we know that it’s actually “the soil that brought the Packers home six NFL titles,” as the ad suggests? THERE’S A CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY, JACKASS! In fact, if you don’t believe it comes with a certificate, I can make one and print it up right here on my computer. Maybe that’ll keep you from shooting off your mouth, smart guy.

9. MINT AND RARE Reggie White Campbell’s Soup Ad

We all know the elusive Reggie White was hardly ever photographed, and virtually never stooped to selling products. Which is why we should all thank eBay user “azusboy” for unearthing such a rare treasure – an actual photo of Reggie White in his Packer uniform selling Campbell’s soup from – I hope you’re sitting down – a newspaper insert from 1997. As clearly indicated in the ad for this rarity, “These ads were printed on thin paper and inserted into Sunday newspapers. Because they were on such thin paper, they were fragile and easily damaged.”

You see, he has gone the extra mile and cared for this item much as the Library of Congress maintains the original copy of the U.S. Constitution. A team of archivists likely cared for this document 24 hours a day for the past 12 years so it would find its way to your home in mint condition. If you don’t purchase this newspaper insert, you might as well be urinating on this guy’s lawn for all the work he’s done for you.

Alright, enough. You get the idea.

10. HANDICAPPED PACKERS LOGO

Finally, some ingenious Bears fans decided they would take the Packer logo and make it into… wait for it… A handicapped logo!

(I’ll give you a couple minutes to pick yourself off the floor and catch your breath from all the belly laughs you’re likely letting out. Incidentally, the name of the company is “O-Chit,” which tells you we’re dealing with some real Mensa candidates here.)

Here’s a tip for Bears fans, considering what happened Sunday night – take one of these handicapped logos and send it to Brian Urlacher to put on his car. I hear he’ll be needing it for the rest of the season.

OH YES I DID!

Of course, there’s plenty more: eBay boasts over 240 pages of Packers-related items. I didn’t even mention the $500 replica 1996 Super Bowl ring you can buy. What could possibly be the reason you’d want one of these? If you consider yourself to be a member of that team, then you’re a douche. Otherwise, people will think you paid Eugene Robinson $100 for his ring so he could score some hookers and perhaps a Mike Holmgren on a Harley statue.

But the best parts of eBay, naturally, are the ridiculously hyperbolic headlines people give their products. Take, for instance, your run-of-the-mill “We’ll Never Forget You Brent” t-shirts that seem to be all the rage these days. This guy’s headline reads thusly:

Never Forget Funny Brett Brent Favre Packers Shirt XL

“Now wait a minute – I wanted to get myself one of these ‘Brent Favre’ shirts, but I couldn’t decide which one. But HOLD ON – this one is CLEARLY MARKED ‘FUNNY.’ I think I should probably go with that one over the thousands of other guys selling shirts that say the same damn thing. I need to buy the FUNNY version.”

The other, more disturbing, trend is that easily 30% of the Favre memorabilia dealers on the internet continue to spell his name “FARVE.” Honest to God, people – if you can’t spell his name after 17 years, you might as well give up. I know more than a decade ago, the state legislature had a big debate about the high school graduation test. I propose the following: Get everyone in a room, and ask them if they can spell “Favre.” If they can’t, they are clearly incapable of learning anything. We should then ship these people out to their own city where they can’t make the rest of us any dumber. (I believe Illinois has such a place, which they call “Joliet.”)

Other stuff:

Between 1994 and their resurgence in 2004, there were some thin years for the band Green Day. That’s why their 1998 video for “Nice Guys Finish Last,” which attempts to lampoon the old NFL Films videos, went virtually unseen. But check it out – they’re obviously making the “Green Bay” – “Green Day” connection, with moderate results. But it’s still kind of bizarre to see this popular band pay tribute to your team.

Obviously, nobody watches the NFL Network on Saturdays, since everyone’s watching college football. So here’s my solid gold idea to get people to watch the network when the NFL isn’t on:

Take players from the same NFL team whose former college teams are playing each other that Saturday, put them in the same room, throw a camera on them, and let the magic happen. You’re telling me you weren’t interested in the trash talk between Ryan Grant and Charles Woodson before the Notre Dame/Michigan game last week? Think any sparks flew between Clay Matthews and A.J. Hawk before USC-Ohio State? Watching them view the game together would be can’t-miss television. Most of these guys are world class trash talkers – and the look of dejection when a player’s team goes down would be priceless. This could be my favorite hypothetical show.

Also….

Former Viking center Matt Birk is donating his brain to science for concussion research. In related news, Aaron Rodgers is donating his mustache for awesome research.

Finally, yesterday the Bubbler conducted a “Who am I?” contest in honor of former Wisconsin Badger and 8 year NFL Veteran Jerry Wunsch. It reminded me of a story I believe I once heard Barry Alvarez tell that may or may not be true:

Before one of the Badgers’ games, Alvarez brought in the Reverend Jesse Jackson to talk to his team. Jackson went on at length about his relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his commitment to the civil rights movement.

When Jackson finished talking, he asked the team if anyone had any questions. Wunsch raises his hand, and Jackson calls on him. Wunsch asks, “what was it like to hit three home runs in a World Series game?”

Alvarez yells out, “THAT’S REGGIE JACKSON, YOU IDIOT!”

Packers Fans Need Love Too (Sept. 24, 2009)

January 25, 2010 / Christian / 0 Comments

As fans, we use the Packers for myriad purposes. We watch the games on the weekend to escape our real lives, where we’re constantly harassed by overpaid bosses, smelly co-workers, and oil change employees that pester us incessantly to buy all the worthless extra add-ons. We use Packer games for social events – as an excuse to get a group of friends together, and eat and drink until your arteries begin legal divorce proceedings against you.

Yet few people actually use the Packers for one of their most valuable purposes: to spark true love. In fact, once you’re married, many wives view sports as the primary antidote to romance. But if you play your cards right, you, too, can use the Packers to find a woman who is willing to officially declare herself an eligible receiver… OF YOUR LOVE.

In fact, merely listing yourself as a Packer fan is the first step to finding true love the same way Grandma and Grandpa did – by posting a personal ad on Craigslist. All across Wisconsin, the lovelorn masses are taking to the web to find that special someone. Their passion is so raw, not even spelling and punctuation can contain their priapic prose. And their affinity for the Packers is what they are banking on to lure themselves just the right suitor.

Here are some of the highlights from actual Craigslist personal ads in which the owners identify themselves as Packer fans:

If you’re in Eau Claire, here’s a 54 year old male seeking companionship from another male. Of course, there’s no problem with that – only, he says he’s both a Packer and Viking fan – which is actually more gay than the fact that he’s seeking companionship in the arms of another male.

For coming out of the closet, this guy deserves our respect. For liking both the Vikings and Packers, he deserves to be thrown off the roof of a Hardee’s.

Now if you’re a straight male in Eau Claire, you most certainly should look into this delicate flower of a woman – whose profile simply must be reproduced here in its entirety for you to get the full effect. Lay back and let the awesomeness of this wash over you as you soak it in:

I love football. Packers of course. Eli manning is my favorite player tho. I drink often enough. blue moon is my poison. I play a mean guitar hero. and kinda ok at D.D.R. I like chillin fishin cruisin booze cruisin but i dont do the drivin when i drinkin. My favorite show is secret life of the american teenager and my favorite movie is across the universe. favorite song is All i Want by Staind. If you havent heard it you should. My eyes are blue my hair is bonde…naturally. Right now its dark brown. I an 5 feet 3 inches tall on a good day usually i only amount to 5 foot 2. I broke my left ankle when i was 16 and now my foot flops around like a fish cuz i stretched a tendon…and i have a pinched nerve on my back right next to my right shoulder blade. I have alot of piercing ears nose other things. i have a really up beat personality i am usually high on life. i hope to be a probation officer or some other type of corrections work while working on going to law school and do the whole lawyer thing and i hope that one day to be a d.a. i know its a big dream but im going to make it happen. if you cant tell i am very confident when i comes to most things. Im am a great person but i wanna be greater than what i already am.

Are you hot yet? SHE HAS A FLOPPY FOOT! But don’t get her drunk, because she “dont do the drivin when I drinkin.” However, fortunately for you, she is a PACKER FAN, which she hopes pretty much cancels everything else out. So congratulations – you have found the one woman in Wisconsin who roots for the Packers, so don’t let this one wriggle off the hook, boys.

(Of course, as with everything else on the internet, this profile could be fake. This personal ad, in which a Milwaukee man claims to be seeking a female Packer fan with LONG BRACES ON EACH LEG (real… or pretend?) most certainly is bogus. Just like Barack Obama\’s birth certificate. (Let’s be honest – there are certain things the internet just can’t make up!)

Some Craigslist users supply multiple photos on their profiles so you can get an idea of what they look like. For instance, this Packer fan lawyer from Milwaukee (who, based on his write-up actually seems like a pretty nice guy) supplies this photo of himself:

But, just in case you don’t get the full idea of what he looks like, he throws in this completely different bonus pic:

Glad he cleared that up. (He also supplies a third photo, of his all-access pass to a Jethro Tull concert. So there’s that.)

Speaking of pictures, this young lothario from South Milwaukee, fresh off the disappointment of the Packers loss to the Bengals, decided to take to the internet to find a classy woman to console him:

So all cl seems to be is black women or trashy white women. Thats fine and all but i like asian women. If there are any asian women in milwaukee or the milwaukee area that like attractive athletic white guys hit me up and lets talk. Ive included a pic. Please dont reply to me if you arent asian or a woman. Put ASIAN in the subject so i know your real.

You see, women of South Milwaukee, this guy is all about class. He doesn’t settle for “trashy white women.” Which is why he decided to include a photo of himself shirtless – to attract ladies that enjoy the finer things. And who, apparently, are Asian.

(Chances of any Asian-American woman actually responding to this idiot with an e-mail that has the word “ASIAN” in the subject line: negative 43%. Under new legislation being circulated around the capitol, this personal ad might actually qualify as a hate crime.)

Other Packer fans on Craigslist aren’t as discriminating. Take this guy in East Madison, who’s “looking for a football watching buddy.” He’s a progressive lover – not “not hung up on age, race, or how tall you are.” He does, however, follow up by saying he doesn’t like “like people who want to smoke around me or who are heavy.”

As we all know, when dating, it’s important to keep an open mind about race, religion, and looks. Just as long as they’re not a fatty.

Speaking of fatties, this Packer enthusiast from Appleton would like to roll one and smoke it with you. In order to hook up with this young man, you must be willing to “indulge in the reefer,” and “like jam bands/hippie music.” (Or as B.J. Raji calls it, “Tuesday.”) He also likes his woman “with a little meat on her bones,” so all you supermodels who started e-mailing him after you read the first sentence need not apply. Fortunately, I think we found the guy who bought this t-shirt off eBay last week:

While you’re blazed up in Appleton, you can stop by this guy’s house to watch the Packers and the Cubs. Describing himself as a “huge cuddler” and an expert at giving back massages, this guy fills his profile with his entire life story – given how many exclamation points and smiley faces he uses, the chance of you wanting to hit him with a shovel after a half hour stands at about 98%. This “gender Judas” throws the rest of the world’s men under the bus, asking women not to judge him based on “the actions of the majority of his gender,” then throws out about fifty words to describe him and his ideal mate. He caps his tome off with a phony picture of him sleeping on a park bench:

Moving on.

While combing through Packer-related personals, a certain brand of man began cropping up: the guy with tickets who’s looking to use them to purchase a date with a woman. I believe there’s a name for women who accept payment to go on dates, but I’m drawing a blank right now as to what it is.

Client #9 in this saga is this guy from Green Bay, who claims to have “first row” seats to Packers games, and tells women to call him “if they like what they see.” Of course, if there was much to see, he wouldn’t have to bribe them with front row tickets. (There’s an 80% chance these tickets are in “first row” of the folding chairs in his mother’s basement.)

Even better is this guy, who also craves female companionship at a Packer games. In a bid to lure a “lady packer fan,” [sic] he expresses his desire to go to the game with a “fun paacker-fan girl.” Only this guy… wait for it… EXPECTS THE WOMAN TO HAVE THE TICKETS.

That’s right, ladies, it’s a double winner for you. Not only do you get to go to the game, you get the profound honor of supplying this guy with a ticket. What Packer hottie with a spare ticket wouldn’t jump at that chance? Oh, and just to show you he’s on the level, he supplies a picture of his shirt:

That should clear up any misgivings you might have about going to a game with a complete stranger.

As one works their way through Craigslist ads, another type of personal ad comes up: the aggrieved lover. The person who obviously just got their heart ripped out and they go into WAY too much detail explaining what happened.

Take this 28 year old Packer fan from Madison:

Hey. I got out of a very disfunctional relationship about four or five months ago. The girl was still on my mind and in my heart. We started talking a little bit after a tragedy that affected both of us. Feelings for this evil woman started stirring again. But then I got punked. She was just screwing with my head to hurt me and it worked. Now I\’m feeling lonely as ever… I have a lot to say and no one to say it to. My ex said that no one will ever love me again. I hope she\’s wrong. Are you out there?
My computer is currently in the shop, but I can check email from school or from my phone. Please dont be involved in any sort of ambush directed at me, as I wouldnt put it past some people in this messed up world. Thanks for reading my post.

Holy crap – what well adjusted, attractive young woman wouldn’t jump at that chance?

There are plenty of men and women who make this same mistake. It’s as if you can tell exactly what horrible things happened to them in their last relationship just based on what they don’t want from their new partner. Stuff like:

“I’m looking for a man with a good sense of humor who won’t have sex with my sister right upstairs while I’m downstairs eating my Chef Boyardee ravioli and watching Dancing With the Stars! Serious inquiries only.”

One other trend that pops up among Craigslist personal ad users is that it’s almost always men who mention the Packers in their personals. A few “women seeking men do,” (with floppy feet, as noted above) and only one “woman seeking woman” popped up. (There was one woman seeking an “Ebony and Ivory” relationship with another woman, but I sincerely doubt that was a reference to Eddie Lee Ivery.)

However, the one “woman seeking woman” Packer ad that surfaced is noteworthy primarily because it can’t be reprinted here in this column. Just read it yourself and make sure you have a cold shower nearby. Good Lord. (Deep breath.)

As is demonstrated above, single Packer fans need not suffer in silence anymore. They can simply take to the internet and find the best online romance the web has to offer. No longer do they have to find Packer love the old fashioned way: by leaving your part time job at Boston Store, running for State Treasurer, taking expensive trips on the taxpayers\’ dime, hiring all your relatives in your office, then using your newfound and unexpected position of authority to meet Donald Driver and grab his ass:

And now that you have secured a date from the best the internet has to offer, here’s my last tip (as if I haven’t given you enough already:) Make sure to play this song for your date – since no woman can resist the sheer sexual power of a jheri-curled mullet:

This One’s For the Ladies: The Crazy Days of the Milwaukee Does

January 25, 2010 / Christian / 0 Comments

As Americans, we’re very selective about the women we allow on TV. When it comes to our viewing habits, we go to extraordinary lengths to save ourselves from the horrors of having to see average looking women. As a general rule, if you’re a woman who happens to not be hot, you are only allowed on TV under the following circumstances:*

Your child has flown 200 miles in an out of control balloon.
You are a prostitute with a debilitating drug addiction, and hilarity ensues while you proposition an undercover police office on “COPS.”
You are Nancy Pelosi. (Or Harry Reid.)
We just found out your neighbor is a serial killer, and there are cameras at your front door ready to ask you if you ever saw anything suspicious – like your neighbor carrying dead bodies to the curb on trash pickup days.
You are confused about which one of the possible 23 men fathered your child, and you have turned to the nation’s leading paternity authority, Maury Povich, to settle it in the privacy of national television.
You are in the WNBA.

Lately, the last one has been in question. America’s basketball league for women, the WNBA, is foundering financially. Propped up for more than a decade by the NBA, attendance is nearly nonexistent. (If Osama bin Laden wanted to guarantee he’d never be found by U.S. authorities, he could just regularly attend Atlanta Dream games.) Some teams have outright folded, while other teams have resorted to playing in casinos and turning their uniforms in corporate billboards. It appears the league is on its last legs.

$\"\"$ The prospects for a viable women’s basketball league in America weren’t always so dour. In 1978, the first wave of young girls reaping the benefits of federal Title IX legislation began to grow up, and sought a place to continue their athletic careers. (This was only a couple of years before Sarah Palin started showing off her fresh moves for the Wasilla High girl’s basketball team.) During this period, women’s basketball specifically was at a high point, with the U.S. women winning a silver medal in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal (finishing second only to the powerful Soviet Union team.)

This provided the impetus to start the what is believed to be the first Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL) in 1978 – and Milwaukee was at the forefront of the movement. At the time, Brew City was a basketball hotbed – Milwaukee was only a year removed from Marquette’s national championship, and the Bucks had lost in the Western Conference Semifinals the year before. The Milwaukee Does (obviously a play on the “Bucks” of the NBA) were one of the league’s founding franchises. In fact, the WBL’s first game was played before 8,000 fans at the Milwaukee Arena, with the Does losing 92-87 to the Chicago Hustle.

Even in its nascent days, the WBL carefully cultivated its image for the American public. Despite being 40% African-American, black players were rarely seen in league advertising and promotional items. The players’ sexuality was often used in an attempt to draw viewers. Even the Milwaukee Does’ logo featured a mascot in short shorts sticking her tail invitingly in the air. (Sadly, the Milwaukee Bucks were never able to capitalize on the raw sexuality of Paul Mokeski.)

$\"\"$ Perhaps the most stark example of the league selling sex to draw viewers was demonstrated by comely 1979 league co-MVP Molly “Machine Gun” Bolin of the Iowa Cornets. Bolin, an Iowa schoolgirl legend and teenage mother who once scored 83 points in a high school game, also sought to be the league’s pinup girl. She caused a controversy around the WBL when she posed for a Farrah Fawcett-like poster that featured her in short shorts and a mini-tank top, obviously an attempt to catch the attention of more male fans. Later, Bolin appeared in a poster in which she menacingly toted a machine gun while wearing her Cornets uniform.

(Bolin was coached in the WBL by former Marquette standout Dean Meminger, and the Cornets franchise was owned by George Nissen, who owned a trampoline business. Nissen purchased a customized $30,000 Greyhound bus for his players that he called “The Corndog.”)

(Editor’s note – In 1981, Sports Illustrated writer Roy S. Johnson wrote a glowing article about Bolin, saying “if beauty were a stat, Molly Bolin would be in the Hall of Fame.” Let’s not get crazy, Roy S. Johnson. Bolin was attractive, but attractive in a “’70s women’s basketball player kind of way.” Much like people think Shaquille O’Neal is a world class comic just because most other NBA players are misanthropes, Bolin was certainly aided by the plain looks of her peer group. In any decent high school, she still would have been the girl all the hot girls call to go out just because they need someone to drive.)

Double editor’s note – in the ‘70s, you couldn’t be considered a super babe until you showed up on a poster. Certain women became household names solely because of their presence on high school boys’ walls. We need to bring back the babe poster, for the sake of our youth.)

The league’s attempt to sell its players’ sexuality had a flip side, as well. Many franchises went to great lengths to hide the fact that their players were lesbians. It is undeniable that lesbians played a historically vital role in promoting women’s basketball. Yet in 1978, America obviously wasn’t nearly as accepting of homosexuality as it is now. When the WNBA’s Sheryl Swoopes announced in 2008 that she partook of the Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name, it was about as shocking as Dwyane Wade announcing he’s black. (That doesn’t mean that the WNBA isn’t still trying to shake the perception that its players and fans are lesbians – some teams in the league still won’t do the popular “kiss cams” on their jumbotrons for fear that young fans might actually see women kissing. Which is really the only reason people still get Cinemax.)

But in 1979, gay female basketball players weren’t accorded the privilege of living their lives in the open. In “Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women’s Basketball,” authors Pamela Grundy and Susan Shackleford detail the travails of Mariah Burton Nelson, who was released from the San Francisco Pioneers for merely attending a gay pride parade. She never played regularly in the league again.

$\"\"$ As the authors point out, the WBL was a double-edged sword for these players: it gave them the opportunity to do what they loved for a living, but at the cost of having to publicly hide who they really were. (Semi-interesting trivia: the Pioneers were partly owned by Alan Alda.)

Despite the excitement over the first league game in Milwaukee, the Does remained mired in the league’s cellar for their two years in the league. In 1978-79, they went 11-23, following up with a 10-24 season in 1979-80. For a portion of the second year, the team was coached by Larry Costello, who also coached the Bucks in their inaugural season, winning an NBA championship with the team in 1971. Costello later resigned, saying he wasn’t being paid by the franchise.

Yet despite being the home to minor stars like Olympians Anne Meyers and Nancy Lieberman, the league struggled mightily to draw fans. It didn’t help that reporters were banned from locker rooms (since they were almost always male), leading many to simply ignore the league altogether. Meyers, with the richest contract in the WBL at $100,000 per year, would later garner media attention for attempting to try out for the Indiana Pacers of the NBA.

During the league’s first two years, several teams folded in mid-season, as franchises were hemorrhaging money. The league’s players were subjected to long bus rides, empty arenas, and their paychecks bouncing. The Does attempted to fold in the middle of the 1979-80 season, but the league deemed them too important to fail, so the WBL came up with money and new ownership to save the franchise.

But it wasn’t enough. The Does folded after the ’79-80 season, and the WBL as a whole lasted only one season beyond that. The league’s financial troubles came to a head in 1981, when members of the Minnesota Fillies walked off the court in Chicago to protest the fact that they weren’t being paid.

It didn’t help that the WBL suddenly faced competition from the Ladies Professional Basketball Association (LPBA), which stole a chunk of the WBL’s market and players even as their teams were already struggling financially. Bolin took her 32.8 points per game to the Southern California Breeze of the LPBA, which agreed to pay her the princely sum of $30,000. Ironically, the LPBA folded after only a few games, and many of its players returned to the WBL.

The league finally closed its doors after the 1981 season. As it turns out, the Does ended up being groundbreaking in one respect – they donned uniforms of purple and forest green well before the Bucks changed to those colors in the 1990’s. In fact, the Bucks have recently begun holding “basketball basics for women” seminars featuring former Does player Joanne Smith.** (Bucks fans are hoping the team changes these seminars into tryouts, as the Bucks badly need a shooting guard.)

As for the WNBA, their league is learning many of the same lessons taught to us by the WBL. It appears the market for professional women’s basketball hasn’t grown, even with the substantial financial backing of the NBA. (And, presumably, because not enough of their players have been posing with machine guns.)

For more information on the WBL and Milwaukee Does, check out the WBL Memories Webpage and “Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women’s Basketball,” by Pamela Grundy and Susan Shackleford.

*For some reason, this same aesthetic standard doesn’t apply to men on TV. They’ll let any guy on TV, no matter how ugly. Here’s proof:

$\"\"$

** – My friends and I have always had debates about whether it’s better to date a girl who knows a lot about sports versus one that knows nothing. (An argument stated magnificently by Davy Rothbart in this GQ column.) I’ve always believed I’ve been more compatible with girls who didn’t know anything about sports. (Actually, I couldn’t be very picky – I generally decided I was “compatible” with a girl if she had a pulse, more than three teeth, and wasn’t on parole.) It sounds great in theory – having something as important as sports to relate to with your girlfriend – but isn’t it nice if your significant other has the ability to make you a more complete person by illuminating new areas of your life? And big boobs?

Can the GOP Win a Statewide Election in Wisconsin?

December 4, 2009 / Christian / 8 Comments

In this week’s Isthmus, my friend and colleague Marc Eisen explores a very topical point: whether a Republican gubernatorial candidate can win in Wisconsin. After all, it has been since 1984 that Wisconsin has voted for a Republican presidential candidate, and since 1998 that it elected a GOP governor.

In his conclusion, Eisen posits that it may be ultra-liberal Dane County that decides the election. He says:

All this boils down to a curious brew in Wisconsin. Republican candidates who pull too hard to the right just can’t win a statewide election. They’re buried by the huge Democratic margin in Dane County…

Dane County’s hyper-Democratic turnout could be a dream killer for conservatives in 2010. What could counter it is a pervasive sense of economic insecurity next fall. Worried voters will look for candidates who they feel can turn things around. That alone could make conservatives triumphant.

But is that true? Do statewide democratic candidates rack up insurmountable vote totals in the City of Madison and Dane County?

When explaining statewide Wisconsin elections to people, I’ve always simplified things by arguing that liberal Dane County and Conservative Waukesha County cancel each other out. Then, it becomes an electoral battle between the City of Milwaukee and the State of Wisconsin. But am I right?

Let’s take a look at Dane vs. Waukesha Counties in the 2006 gubernatorial election, between Jim Doyle and Mark Green:

	Doyle	Green	Difference	GOP %
Dane	149,661	58,302	91,359	28.0%
Waukesha	61,402	112,243	-50,841	64.6%
			40,518

		Total votes	2,161,700
		% of total	1.9%

As can be seen above, Doyle out-polled Green by 40,518 votes in the two counties. (Doyle won Dane County by 91,359, and Green won Waukesha by 50,841.) That margin accounts for 1.9% of the total statewide vote. Doyle eventually won statewide head-to-head with Green with 53.7% of the vote.

Yet there’s an important point to be made here: 2006 was a heavily democratic year. With the War in Iraq still on the minds of voters in the state, Doyle beat Green handily, Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate lost 4 seats (and their majority), and the State Assembly, in which the GOP had once held a double-digit lead in seats, came within a hair of switching to the Democrats. (It eventually did in 2008.)

If the polling that we’re seeing now is correct, 2010 looks to be more ideologically balanced than the last two elections. Perhaps Republicans may even have an edge, with the economy still in bad shape and voters turning against sweeping health care reform.

So let’s look at a more balanced election, and how the two counties match up in non-Democratic avalanche years. Take the last Attorney General election, in which Republican J.B. Van Hollen narrowly edged Kathleen Falk:

	Falk	Van Hollen		GOP %
Dane	138,507	72,348	66,159	34.3%
Waukesha	55,609	118,343	-62,734	68.0%
			3,425

		Total Votes	2,124,467
		% of total	0.2%

In this more balanced matchup, it is clear that the two counties essentially did cancel each other out. Between them, Falk ended up with a net gain of a scant 3,425 votes – or less than .2% of the statewide vote.

So if we do see a more ideologically balanced election, this seems to be more representative of what we’d be looking at. Dane and Waukesha Counties duel to a draw, and Milwaukee and Wisconsin face off to pick the victor.

In the 2010 gubernatorial election, this is made even more interesting by the fact that the two most likely candidates are both local government officeholders in Milwaukee (Scott Walker and Tom Barrett.) So, depending on how they split the vote in their home territory (and Walker should do much better than GOP candidates of years past, seeing as how he’s won 3 countywide elections there as a conservative), it will most likely come down to that last fish fry in Osceola.

(And yes, I am aware that Mark Neumann is still in the GOP field for governor, but there’s a better chance of Liberace showing up and playing at my next birthday party than there is of Neumann winning the GOP nomination.)

The Gay Marriage “Smoking Gun”

November 30, 2009 / Christian / 9 Comments

Back in August, we profiled Dan Mielke, who is running against Sean Duffy for the Republican nomination to take on long-time Democratic Congressman Dave Obey in 2010. When we last left Mielke, he was discussing his qualifications for office:

Mr. Duffy is “more of a polished, celebrity-style politician,” Mr. Mielke said. “I’ve got a beard, and I’ve worked my whole life.”

With the issue of whether Mielke has a beard being settled, he’s now moved on to what he believes to be the “smoking gun” that’s going to take Duffy down: the issue of gay marriage. Over the weekend, Mielke posted the following video (unironically titled “Sean Duffy Exposed), which purports to be “evidence” that Duffy supports gays settlin’ down:

UPDATE: The original video was removed from YouTube for copyright infringement, as it included video from the original movie. It has been replaced by this interesting Mielke campaign video, in which he describes the scenes himself:

Now you may watch that and say, “that just looks like a guy being supportive of one of his gay friends.” And I think you’d be right. It seems to be a stretch to expect people to watch that video and come away with the impression that Duffy is somehow the Adam Lambert of Wisconsin politics.

In fact, Mielke may be accomplishing the opposite of his intention with this video. He might actually be strengthening Duffy’s position in the general election. (And make no mistake, Duffy is going to win this primary – despite being beardless.)

First of all, it seems that public opinion is going to eventually shift over to being in favor of some sort of legal recognition of same-sex unions. A recent WPRI poll found:

“42% of people 18 to 35 favored legalizing gay marriage, compared to 24% of 36-to-64-year-olds and 15% of those 65 and older. Civil unions, but not marriage, were favored by 29% in the younger group, 33% in the middle group and 34% in the older group. But 40% of the older group opposed either possibility, compared to 36% of 36-to-64-year-olds and just 28% of adults 35 and younger.”

As the older voters move on and younger voters show up more reliably at the polls, it seems likely that policies will eventually change at is applies to gay marriage.

But even beyond that – Mielke’s message is essentially “Sean Duffy is fair and open-minded.” And that’s the kind of endorsement that Duffy couldn’t pay enough money for in the general election. It’s almost as if Mielke is on his payroll. Maybe Mielke’s next move is to accuse Duffy of being too critical of the failed stimulus plan – or to hammer Duffy for being opposed to higher taxes. (In a bizarre section of his website, Mielke actually does criticize Duffy’s position on abortion. Apparently, properly recognizing that Congress can’t just pass a bill making abortion illegal makes Duffy a “RINO.”)

I’ve always thought that this is the next step in competitive campaigns – getting paper candidates to run for office that make the frontrunner look better. If you’re running a serious campaign, why not pay some guy to run against you and serve as your foil? It would actually be good practice for Congress, where Representatives spend all night in an empty chamber having fake “debates” with each other for the benefit of the C-Span cameras. (These usually involve two members of the same party asking each other questions like “Congressman, how is it possible that you can be so insightful about health care?”)

On a final note, I think it’s pretty classless that Mielke would use clips of Duffy’s wife to attack Duffy. That is all.

If It’s Broken, Let’s Break it More

October 5, 2009 / Christian / 3 Comments

Last week, I wrote a commentary detailing how, rather than keeping health care costs down, government programs usually grow much more rapidly than expected. As an example, I used the BadgerCare program, which, after implementation in 1997, grew much faster than anyone anticipated. Within several years, the Legislature had to start scaling back benefits in order to keep the program going after membership in the program doubled in the span of 6 years.

Today, we get news that Governor Doyle’s new “BadgerCare Plus” program is suddenly short on cash. As a result, new registrants to the program will be suspended, leading to waiting lists of up to 20,000 people, by Doyle’s own estimate.

Ironically, this rationing of government health care leads Doyle to the head-scratching conclusion that somehow what we need is MORE government health care:

The heavy demand for the program over the last 3½ months highlights the need for national health care reform, Doyle said.

“I believe we must make sure that people have health insurance,” Doyle said. “We have done everything we can in Wisconsin. We have stretched all boundaries and still there are people falling through the cracks.”

So on the SAME DAY he announces his own health care rationing, Doyle calls for even more of the same, only at the federal level. As if this new federal program would contradict the evidence that his own state program has provided us – that such a program would do nothing to keep costs down, and only serve to drain citizens of their tax dollars. This is like arguing that the problem with the corrupt Wisconsin Shares program is that it isn’t adequately funded.

Seems Like as Good a Reason as Any

August 27, 2009 / Christian / 0 Comments

The other day, an article showed up in the Washington Times that argued the GOP is going to mount a serious challenge to long-time Democratic Northern Wisconsin Congressman David Obey. They mentioned the frontrunner as District Attorney and one-time MTV “Real World” star Sean Duffy. The article says “it is thought” that Duffy would be the first reality show participant to join Congress – obviously oblivious to Flavor Flav’s two terms in the U.S. Senate.

But the highlight of the story comes at the very end, when the article dutifully mentions the GOP longshot candidate, Daniel Mielke. Mielke gives his rationale for why voters should support him:

While the state party is not taking sides in the Republican primary, the tension between the two Republicans is evident.

“I think we need a candidate who is electable. I believe I’m that candidate,” Mr. Duffy said.

Mr. Mielke countered that his unpolished style would play better with voters disillusioned by Mr. Obey’s work on the stimulus bill.

Mr. Duffy is “more of a polished, celebrity-style politician,” Mr. Mielke said. “I’ve got a beard, and I’ve worked my whole life.”

You hear that voters? HE HAS A BEARD.

Certainly a good enough reason to support Mielke’s hirsute candidacy. Although if Mielke wins the primary, he’d have to go against Dave Obey, who…ALSO HAS A BEARD. It would be a Old-timey Northern Wisconsin Beard-Off.

Although clearly, Obey’s beard isn’t good enough to earn him a spot in the Wisconsin Historical Society’s “Great Beards of Wisconsin” online exhibit. (That’s not a joke – it actually exists.)

Eat your heart out, Edward Thomas Owen!

(Full disclosure: I am an occasional beard wearer myself, although I have not accepted any campaign contributions from my beard.)

Christian Schneider

Author, Columnist

Search results: "me 35" (page 3 of 8)

Cheapskating to Victory

Rebel Without a Pause: Behind the Scenes With Paul Ryan

Did I Play Against Allen Iverson?

Wisconsin: The Repeal Deal

Why Congress is Wigging Out

The Flying Gallardo Brothers Edition (July 16, 2009)

Brett Favre: The Man Who Never Learned the Value of Hate (July 29, 2009)

Jason Kendall: Dead Catcher Walking (Aug. 5, 2009)

The 10 Most Ridiculous Packers Items on eBay (Sept. 16, 2009)

Packers Fans Need Love Too (Sept. 24, 2009)

This One’s For the Ladies: The Crazy Days of the Milwaukee Does

Can the GOP Win a Statewide Election in Wisconsin?

The Gay Marriage “Smoking Gun”

If It’s Broken, Let’s Break it More

Seems Like as Good a Reason as Any

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