The number one single today in 1954:
Today in 1964, the Billboard Hot 100 could have been called the Beatles 14 and the non-Beatles 86, topped by …
The number one single today in 1970:
No comments on Presty the DJ for April 11
Month: April 2013
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Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker took the bold step of pledging the creation of 250,000 jobs during his first term in office.
How is Gov. Scott Walker doing? The MacIver Institute did some investigative reporting:
Wisconsin has 137,372 more private sector jobs than when Governor Scott Walker first took office in January 2011, according to the most recent data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which puts him past the halfway point towards his goal of creating 250,000 private sector jobs in his first term.
This information was contained in the BLS’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. That census includes detailed information from more than 96 percent of employers. This is much more accurate than monthly jobs’ reports, which are compiled by surveying a fraction of employers.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel used the same data to determine Wisconsin ranked 44th in private sector job growth from September 2011 to September 2012.
John Koskinen, Chief Economist at the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, confirmed the private sector job growth numbers uncovered by the MacIver News Service, “That’s literally true,” however, Koskinen said economists typically use the same month from different years to avoid seasonal variations in employment.
Although Koskinen might be uncomfortable comparing jobs numbers from January 2011 and September 2012, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin felt those two months strengthen the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story.
“The day Scott Walker took office, we were 11th in job creation. Now, we are 44th, and it is a direct result of both his inattention and his policies. Those have included massive cuts to job-creating investments in education, health care, technology, infrastructure and vocational training,”reads a DPW release from March 28, 2013.
DPW neglected to mention the fact that during that same timeframe, Wisconsin added over 137,000 private sector jobs putting Walker well on track to meet his goal by the end of his term. And although the chief economist for DOR is wary of using such a timeframe, Koskinen completely rejects the statement that Wisconsin is 44th in job creation.
During a presentation in March, Koskinen pointed out Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is consistently lower than the national average. Also, previously the BLS reported Wisconsin was losing jobs, only to have to revise those numbers later and admit the state gained jobs.
The Dumocrats failed to report that the last Democratic governor, James Doyle, presided over a single-year job dump of 121,000 jobs.
Do the math yourself:
Of course, the politically unaligned might point out that those 137,000 created jobs merely make up for Doyle’s 2009, with a few more jobs thrown in. The 15 percent of Americans who are either unemployed, less employed than they want to be, or are no longer looking for work because there are no jobs (look up U6 unemployment) want a full-time job and don’t care who gets credit for it.
Media Trackers asserts:
For Democrats who have spent the better part of the last two years attacking Walker on various issues, including jobs numbers, the news is a blow to their political messaging. If Walker is halfway towards completing his goal, that is no small feat considering the fact that Wisconsin employers still struggle with relatively high taxes and what some experts have said is a burdensome regulatory climate.
If Walker and legislative Republicans moves to cut taxes, streamline the tax code by eliminating tax credits for government-favored items, they may actually get to Walker’s job creation goal. The numbers show them to be well on their way.
That, however, is a big if, and one piece of evidence that this is not necessarily good news. (Independent of the most recent monthly county unemployment rates, which are definitely not good news.) The worst thing that could happen here is for Republicans to assume the job numbers mean the Legislature doesn’t have to fix our “relatively high taxes” and “burdensome regulatory climate.”
There is nothing “relatively” high about Wisconsin’s state and local taxes. To have the fifth highest state and local taxes in the country means taxes are too high, period. The last time we had a Democratic governor and Democrat-controlled Legislature, taxes increased $2.1 billion. The Legislature has not eliminated those tax increases, which is one reason why Wisconsin ranks a miserable 43rd in taxes on business (also known as “job creators”). The only people who feel that Wisconsin’s “regulatory climate” is “burdensome” are those who have to deal with state regulators (also known as “job creators”).
Moreover, this state has trailed the nation in per-capita personal income growth since the late 1970s. Yes, that dubious accomplishment goes back to the days when Patrick Lucey was the governor. Every governor since then, including Walker, has failed to improve that. That has everything to do with this state’s business climate and the state’s continuing hostility to business (also known as “job creators”).
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(This originally ran in Right Wisconsin Friday.)
A Facebook Friend posted this on his wall one week ago:
I’m seeing people on both sides of the gay marriage debate taking potshots at those of us who have principled reasons not to get drawn into their statist political dispute. Please understand that we don’t owe you the support you resent not getting. It’s perfectly reasonable for you to make decisions about what you’re going to support politically, but please don’t be arrogant enough to tell us that we ought to support your position. You have your reasons for taking your position in the conflict. We have our reasons for staying out of it. Please respect our right to come to a different conclusion than you’ve come to.
This was written in response to last week’s inundation on Facebook of the support-of-same-sex-marriage symbol, a pink equals sign upon a red square, which same-sex-marriage supporters were using as their profile photo. The alternative logo was a white equals sign over a rainbow.
The observation that begins this piece could have been written well before Tuesday, however. Bumper stickers announcing the car owner’s political beliefs, or buttons announcing the wearer’s beliefs, far predate Facebook profile photos or memes, or Twitter hashtags. And buttons with punchy sayings or symbols predate bumper stickers because they predate cars.
Facebook and other social media give people the ability to put into symbolism the title of NBC and ABC commentator David Brinkley’s autobiography, Everyone Is Entitled to My Opinion. Of course, a photo or a pithy bumper-sticker slogan is not a logical argument; it’s a nonnegotiable demand. It is not possible to create a logical, factual argument (for instance, the “right” to marriage, for heterosexuals or homosexuals) within a one-quarter-square-inch space on a computer screen or part of the rear bumper or a window of a car.
I come from the People’s Republic of Madison, where people are so open-minded their brains fall out of their skulls. I became inundated with other people’s politics as soon as I became a UW student. In Madison, free speech rights include the right to run out onto the Camp Randall Stadium field during the playing of the National Anthem (specifically, at “and the rockets’ red glare”) before a nationally televised football game to stage an anti-nuclear “die-in” before a presidential election.
Go to any college town or any other liberal enclave and you will see Obama–Biden bumper stickers, the message of which is “We Won, You Lost, You Suck, Die.” Some printer in Madison is making a small fortune printing bumper stickers seeking to “Recall Walker,” “Indict Walker,” “Imprison Walker,” etc. (I suppose “Deport Walker” and “Assassinate Walker” are somewhere in the proofing process.)
As someone whose professional skills include award-winning headline writing, and as someone who blogs, I can appreciate catchy slogans. As someone who believes arguments based on fact and logic are superior to emotionalism, I find Facebook photo politics unconvincing, yet annoying.
This is the fault of liberals more than conservatives. Radical feminist (as self-described) Carol Hanisch is credited for popularizing the phrase “The personal is political.” (That’s a game conservatives can play too, as demonstrated by the efforts by some to de-Google themselves as a protest against Google’s commemorating Easter with Cesar Chavez’s face.) I assume bumper stickers on cars of conservative or libertarian drivers followed as a collective response to the lefty bumper stickers.
In both leftward and rightward cases, this is the logical result of too large government, to which both Democrats and Republicans contribute in different areas. And given the (lack of) respect for property we’ve seen during Recallarama, a bumper sticker is an invitation to vehicle vandalism. (That said, the National Rifle Association-member sticker might have some repellent use.)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was quoted (though the phrase predates Holmes) that “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” Having someone’s political beliefs jammed into your face — sitting in traffic behind a Toyota Prius festooned with various lefty bumper stickers, or various Facebook sloganeering — violates our right to free expression, as in our right to not express ourselves on every political movement or issue. It’s also an excellent example of our self-centered-to-the-point-of-selfishness society that some people believe their opinion trumps everyone else’s, including the rights of those who choose not to have an opinion, or choose not to pay attention to someone else’s opinion.
This may seem to be a strange position for someone who writes opinions every day to take. But my blog, steveprestegard.com, is there for people to read or not, and to agree with or not, as their choice. The same applies to Right Wisconsin. The only way to avoid the obnoxious Facebook face is to de-Friend them. (Which I considered doing before the equals signs started going away.) The only way to avoid the obnoxious bumper sticker is to obliterate the offending vehicle with your much-larger-than-theirs pickup truck.
The in-your-face Facebook profile photo actually prevents political discussion. In response to the pink-on-red equals sign, some people posted a cross, indicating to them that marriage is intended by God to be between a man and a woman. Others created an equal sign indicating a different sort of equality — revenues (should) = spending. Still others replaced the equal sign with two parallel guns, or two parallel strips of bacon.
There are interesting arguments for same-sex marriage on the part of conservatives. I’ve read arguments against same-sex marriage written by homosexual people. In neither case will you make an argument by sloganeering, or symbolizing. The writer at the beginning of this piece chose to not participate in the pro-vs.-anti argument because he has a right to be left alone, and he probably didn’t feel like being accused of being homophobic (an accusation hurled against basically everyone who dared express an opinion in favor of traditional marriage), or anti-Christian.
The First Amendment seems to me to include the right to not be drowned in others’ political opinions when you are not interested in seeing or hearing them.
Note: Steve Prestegard’s profile photo on Facebook is currently rotating among the three cool Steves noted in the film “The Tao of Steve” — Steve McQueen, Steve McGarrett of “Hawaii Five-O,” and Steve Austin of “The Six Million Dollar Man.” Along with his own handsome visage and graphics supporting, depending on the season, the Brewers, Badgers and Packers. -
The number one single today in 1965:
The number one album today in 1976 was Peter Frampton’s “Frampton Comes Alive,” the best selling live album in rock music history:
The number one album today in 1993 was Depeche Mode’s “Songs of Faith and Devotion”:
Birthdays start with one-hit wonder Sheb Wooley:
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Proving that good ideas do not have a specific partisan label, there is Rep. Leon Young (D–Milwaukee), as reported by the Wisconsin Reporter:
Seven days of actual debate does not a full-time Legislature make, and it’s certainly not worth the $49,943 annual salary paid to Wisconsin lawmakers,Rep. Leon Young says.
So the Milwaukee Democrat is floating an idea to make a Wisconsin legislator’s job a part-time gig – and he would slash lawmakers’ pay by 75 percent, to $12,000, as part of the deal.
“If you want to be streamlined, and both parties, especially Republicans, have always talked about saving money for the state, saving taxpayers, if you’re sincere about that, sometimes you have to look at your own house,” Young said Thursday.
Using data from the Assembly Chief Clerk’s office, Young said the Assembly only met in session for 34 days during the 2011-12 biennial session – including just seven days last year.
Yet a report from the National Conference of State Legislatures categorized Wisconsin as one of 10 states in which legislating is essentially a full-time job, requiring 80 percent or more of a lawmaker’s time.
States in that category pay their lawmakers more – an average of $68,599 each including salary, per diem and other benefits, as of 2008, according to the report.
There’s also an additional staffing cost: States with full-time legislatures have an average of 8.9 staff members per lawmaker, versus 1.2 per lawmaker in legislatures that operate part time. …
The Reporter’s follow-up notes …
Alan Rosenthal, a Rutgers University political scientist and expert on state legislatures, said there’s “no evidence that I know of that full-time legislatures work better than part-time legislatures.”
“I think it’s likely that … full-time legislators do devote more time (to the job) because they have support, they have staff support and district office support, probably spend more time dealing with constituents and constituent services,” Rosenthal said.
“I think the largest part of that, the reason for full-time legislatures, is that legislators wanted to do politics full time,” he said. “That’s what they like.”
Such as Rep. Bob Jauch (D–Poplar):
Jauch called Young’s plan “a childish proposal.”
“It is maybe based on how hard (Young) works, but it doesn’t reflect the effort that I think most lawmakers, full or part-time, do,” Jauch said.
Young brushed off the criticism.
“Sometimes when you want to change government, streamline it, make it more efficient, you’re not always going to make people happy,” he said.
The Reporter notes that Young’s proposal is a constitutional amendment, which requires two consecutive sessions of the Legislature to approve it and a majority of voters to vote for it in a statewide referendum.
If the Republicans are serious about smaller government (and whether they are is an open question), the GOP should immediately jump on this. (If I were a Republican in the Legislature I’d double-down by reducing Young’s salary proposal by $12,000.) In fact, the GOP should jump on any and all ideas that reduce the size of government — for instance, combining the jobs of lieutenant governor, secretary of state and state treasurer into one position.
If the GOP doesn’t, Democrats can argue that Republicans say one thing about reducing government, but don’t follow through. (That’s along with the embarrassing number of Republicans who could reasonably be described as professional politicians — that is, they have done nothing other than run for or hold office.)
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The number 15 British song today in 1966 was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards:
The number one single today in 1966:
The number one single today in 1977:
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Something happened to me last week that has never happened to me before now.
I got a phone call telling me that a friend of mine had died.
Frank Bush was 25 years older than me, and he had been ill for some time, so that wasn’t particularly surprising news. I’ve had high school classmates die, and people who were in the UW Marching Band when I was have died, so it’s not as if death is an unexpected thing at my age.
I didn’t meet Frank until 1999, the second year I was announcing Ripon College basketball on the radio. He had been at the same Ripon College games I’d attended or broadcasted previously, because he was the scoreboard operator at Ripon’s Storzer Center for many years. That was where Frank got to witness, over consecutive seasons, a coach from the same visiting college ejected twice — the first time the coach was told by the referees to sit on the bus, the second time the coach got ejected before the game started.
I was the number three college basketball announcer until announcer number one decided to go to divinity school to become a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran minister, and announcer number two got fired after the following football season. (I worked Ripon football and basketball for nine highly enjoyable years, including two state champion football teams, with the fired announcer. That, however, is a later story.)
In the late ’90s and early 2000s, the Ripon radio station carried all of the Ripon College football games and nearly all of the basketball games. (I did announce a game in Utah, though I could never convince them to send me to California to call tournament games.) The first year, the radio station made a deal with the local Ford dealership where we would drive demonstrators to games within the state. (That got us into trouble when we mentioned the large gas tank of the Ford Excursion we were driving one game.)
Which leads to Frank and Steve Story Number One, the day the boiler stopped working inside Van Male Field House on the campus of Carroll College (now University) in Waukesha. (Oddly enough, the day was nice enough that we briefly considered dropping the top on the Mustang convertible we were driving.) It may have been colder inside the gym than outside; fans were wearing coats. During one commercial, I could hear a vacuum cleaner running in the lobby. And so when we came back from commercial, I announced, “Back at Van Male Ice Arena …” Frank stopped laughing about five minutes later.
Frank and I got along immediately. Later that season, we were announcing a Ripon doubleheader against Monmouth College. I helped my then-pregnant wife up the bleachers, and Frank looked at Jannan and said, “Is this man molesting you, ma’am?”, to which I replied, “Too late, Frank.” That day ended with a bizarre five-point play to win the game — in order, basket, foul, technical foul against the Monmouth coach (his second of the month against Ripon), and three free throws.
That season ended with two Ripon NCAA men’s basketball tournament games. The first was at Ripon, against St. John’s of Minnesota. (For a variety of reasons, Ripon probably will not host an NCAA playoff game for as long as the current Division III postseason format continues.) That was the game where Frank earned our name for him: “WHERE’S THE FOUL?” Later at the season-ending banquet, I introduced ourselves by saying that we prided ourselves on professionalism and neutral detachment, and then played a highlights tape that proved otherwise, including “WHERE’S THE FOUL???” at least twice. (Frank thought all officials had it in for Ripon. He was, of course, correct.)
The next season featured the epic Operation Krispy Kreme. Sitting at work one day, I read a Wall Street Journal story about the cult of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Krispy Kreme had no stores in Wisconsin, but there were four in the Chicago area, including one sort of on the way from Lake Forest to Jacksonville, home of Illinois College. So I told Frank that we needed to stop at Krispy Kreme on our way out of Chicago between halves one and two of our Lake Forest–Illinois College marathon.
By the time we left, I had a list the length of my arm of Krispy Kremes to get, from Jannan’s coworkers, who had heard of Krispy Kreme and had made orders. The Lake Forest men’s game went into overtime, which made me concerned that we wouldn’t get to the Krispy Kreme before closing time at midnight. We did get there, with 20 minutes to spare, and the place was full. Frank always marveled at how I was able to eat doughnuts, drink coffee, talk on the phone and drive a stickshift. We arrived at Jacksonville at 3:40 a.m. I got back to Ripon at the following 3:25 a.m.
Working with Frank I developed an affinity for working with partners older than me. In addition to making me feel younger than I actually am, the old guys have forgotten more about local sports than most people know. They provide great perspective in comparing teams and players of the present to teams and players of the past. And the best ones keep up with what’s going on now instead of, to quote Jethro Tull, living in the past.
I thought the Frank and Steve show was over after I took a job at a college not named Ripon, and the radio station discontinued doing college games. We fed him, he entertained the kids who knew him as Uncle Frank, and he brought over car books and magazines for me to read. Frank and I figured out that we had more in common besides sports — interest in cars, so we went to the Iola Old Car Show and the Milwaukee Auto Show. Frank had worked for several car dealerships over the years, and the stories he told about hot cars he got to drive made me envious. For another, Frank unsuccessfully tried to get his employer, Mercury Marine, to hire me. Frank moved to the Twin Cities, had a heart attack and resulting septuple bypass (so of course I told him he had more bypasses than the Twin Cities).
Then The Ripon Channel, which hired me to announce Ripon High School games (starting with a good place to start, the 2003 Ripon football season, which ended with a big gold trophy), decided to start doing Ripon College games as well. We did only home games, and no postseason games (because there were no home postseason games), but we still made sure we had a good time doing it. And then our audience expanded (theoretically) worldwide when the Midwest Conference started livestreaming games, which meant the Frank and Steve Show went (theoretically) worldwide. I like to think that Frank and I did the best broadcasts in the conference because we were not students, we therefore knew what we were doing, we prepared for games, and, well, one of us tried to be, if not neutral, then at least not outrageously biased. (We were also told in a memo the Midwest Conference sent to us announcers to respect the officials’ decisions on the air. I’m not sure Frank read that part.)
Frank occasionally had to sub for me as well because I was sometimes triple-scheduled, since I was calling high school games with one announcer, Ripon College games with Frank, and for one season Marian College hockey games. I had work obligations one night, so Frank and his old partner (who was doing high school games) did two games in Beloit. Driving home after work, I enjoyed listening to the two announcers whose combined ages were approximately 130.
The one thing we didn’t get to announce together was baseball. And that’s too bad because baseball on the radio is a storyteller’s dream. Frank called Ripon Tiger baseball in 1988 when the Tigers won their first state championship. Before the Tigers’ 2000 state tournament (when the 2000 Tigers duplicated the 1988 Tigers’ and 2011 Tigers‘ feats), the radio station carried the bottom of the seventh inning of the 1988 Class B championship game. With the score tied 3–3, Ripon’s Scott Young walked and stole second base. The catcher then failed to field a pitch, Young ran to third, and kept going. And as Frank described it, “He’s gonna run, he’s gonna run, he’s gonna score!”, but he was so shocked that his partner had to announce that Ripon had just won their first state baseball title. Frank and I, along with Jannan and one-month-old Michael, watched the 2000 title, and our two boys and I watched the 2011 title. We tried to find a radio station to have us announce the 2010 American Legion regional tournament in South Dakota, but we were unsuccessful.
Frank was from Webster Groves, Mo., whose high school has one of the longest running rivalries, against Kirkwood, Mo. Frank always let me know how the Webster Groves–Kirkwood game went. (Frank was born one year after Harry Caray’s oldest son, Harry Jr., more well known as Skip. I’m not sure Frank ever met Harry, but he knew Skip from high school.) Frank joined the Air Force after he graduated from high school, and the Air Force sent him to Truax Field in Madison. That’s what got him to Wisconsin. I knew most of the Madison history he lived through; he mentioned a couple of bars on Madison’s Northeast Side the last time I talked to him.
Frank was on Ripon’s Police and Fire Committee, where he immediately had a run-in with one of the senior committee members. (Frank was not one to suffer fools silently.) After the meeting, he called the mayor who had appointed him and said, “I thought you were my friend.” Frank also served on Ripon’s Park Board. If there’s a sport Frank didn’t help with in Ripon, I’m not aware of it.
Another fact not widely known: Frank was involved with boxing, and announced Golden Gloves boxing on WBAY-TV in Green Bay. Frank told the story of one of his sons being bullied by a RHS football player, and Frank’s offering to the player’s coach to settle it by having his son and the bully meet in a boxing ring. The bully swung and missed on his first punch, and, well, he never got another punch in.
Frank moved down to St. Louis to be close to his remaining sister. She died last year, and he was in the process of settling her estate. He had talked about moving back to Wisconsin, but he became ill shortly after that.
I’m told a memorial service will be held in Ripon later this year. He touched a lot of lives in Ripon, and beyond.
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The Sun of London reported Friday (capital letters and bold font theirs):
ROGUE state North Korea today sparked fears that it could trigger a nuclear strike as early as next WEDNESDAY.
Crackpot Kim Jong-un’s regime today issued a chilling threat to British diplomats warning them to get out of Pyongyang.
Alarmingly the North Korean government said it would not be able to guarantee the safety of embassies from April 10.
Russian diplomats have also been advised to evacuate. …
It is still unclear why next Wednesday has been set as a deadline – but it is sure to spark fears despot Kim Jong-un will launch an attack after that date.
This week South Korean workers employed in factories in the North were also told to leave by April 10. …
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has pledged to tone down pronouncements about its military build-up after the crisis on the Korean peninsula threatens to spiral out of control.
In recent days, the US has flown two B-2 stealth bombers over South Korean and announced an expansion of missile defence systems in Alaska and Guam.
But rather than encouraging North Korea to back down, the US’s military movements have prompted even greater threats and belligerent rhetoric from Pyongyang. …
Some US analysts expressed alarm over the intensity of the North’s threats. Centre for Strategic Studies senior adviser Victor Cha said: “The rhetoric is off the charts.”
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Today in 1967, John Lennon took his Rolls–Royce to J.P. Fallon Ltd. in Surrey, England, to see if it could paint the car in psychedelic colors. The result three months later:
The number one single today in 1973:
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Today in 1956, the CBS Radio Network premiered Alan Freed’s “Rock and Roll Dance Party.”
The number one single today in 1958:
Today in 1962, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards met someone who called himself Elmo Lewis. His real name was Brian Jones.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 