As you know, I am a fan of adult beverages. (I’m drinking brandy as I write this.)
Also as you know, I am not a fan of the totally unnecessary state budget goodie that is supposed to help MillerCoors at the expense of Anheuser–Busch, but will instead hurt craft brewers.
I am happy to read that (according to the Wisconsin State Journal’s Beer Baron, several Republicans, including Sens. Glenn Grothman (R–West Bend) and Pam Galloway (R–Wausau) and Rep. Steve Nass (R–Whitewater) have contacted Gov. Scott Walker and asked him to veto the provision of the state budget that bans breweries from owning beer distributorships. I am not happy to see that Sen. Luther Olsen (R–Ripon) voted for the provision on the Joint Finance Committee, although Olsen had company.
A Capital Times story about the budget provision quotes Marc Buttera of O’So Brewery in Plover, who would be banned from selling his own beer at his on-site store. That is ridiculous and a good reason by itself for a gubernatorial veto.
In addition to the other reasons to oppose this — namely that it is wrong for government to take sides to promote one business at the expense of its competition, no matter which party’s idea it is — this item, which has zero fiscal impact on state government, does not belong in the state budget. I’ve written repeatedly over the years that policy matters that do not have state fiscal impact should be debated as separate bills, not thrown into the state budget. If it’s wrong for Democrats to do it, it’s wrong for Republicans to do it too.
Walker’s office can be contacted at 608-266-1212 or govgeneral@wisconsin.gov. My suggestion would be to keep your comments about the beer provision, and not throw in other budget thoughts (this means you, Da Union).
Two weeks ago, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote two interesting, yet contradictory in a sense, pieces about what’s happened in Madison since Gov. Scott Walker took office.
The first story looks at the national impact of Walker’s effort to defang public employee unions’ ability to extort taxpayer dollars — I mean, curtail public employee unions’ collective bargaining rights. (Which the Supreme Court did Tuesday.) The Journal Sentinel’s reporting is potentially worthy of Pulitzer Prize consideration, and I predict someone some day will write a book about this, which will have copies in every public library in the state and approximately 112 readers nationwide:
Within days, Madison became the epicenter of protest, with demonstrators flooding the Capitol and filling the Square, thrusting a statewide story onto the national stage. …
But some recalcitrant GOP senators, including [Senate President Michael] Ellis, would soon find themselves pressured from the right by TV ads financed by the state arm of Club for Growth, a national conservative group that joined efforts to push Walker’s bill. …
Protest crowds built dramatically, as did national attention and the media interest. …
“We had a revolution to plan,” said Rich Abelson, head of AFSCME District Council 48, the Milwaukee-based public employee union. His union and others had long sparred with Walker. Emails showed that on the day of the Democrats’ departure, national union officials were offering talking points to Democrats to explain their absence. …
Labor leaders, state and national, as well as Democratic Party officials, stayed in close touch with the senators even as they worked to keep the protests going — and growing.
Ellis’ role is interesting:
In early February, Walker met with Senate President Mike Ellis, an independent and cantankerous Republican, fiscal hawk and son of a paper mill worker-union leader from Neenah.
Ellis wasn’t shy. He implored Walker to drop the collective-bargaining piece of the bill before it went public and undermined Walker’s early legislative successes.
At that point, according to Ellis, the plan on the table would have ended all collective bargaining except for firefighters, police and troopers — a broader plan than Walker ultimately introduced.
“My God, this is going to cause a firestorm,” Ellis told Walker. …
Ellis caught wind of what was happening when he spoke with Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R–Juneau), who already had been talking with the administration.
“Fitzgerald came in to tell me and said, ‘You better sit down, you’re not going to believe what I’m going to tell you,’” Ellis said.
“‘He’s going to do away with all unions,’” Ellis quoted Fitzgerald saying.
Ellis’ prediction was surely correct, even if obvious. Fitzgerald’s was not, because the government cannot “do away with all unions,” whether Fitzgerald was referring to “all unions” or public-employee unions. (Unfortunately in the latter case.) Whether a private company’s employees choose to unionize is up to that company and its employees and no one else. That company’s customers do have the right to vote with their business over whether they support union businesses or not. There is no such choice for taxpayers with governments and their unionized employees, which is why taxpayers should have the final say in collective bargaining rights, or the lack thereof, of the employees whose salaries they pay with their taxes.
The other story takes a curiously nativist tone over the source of Walker’s reform proposals:
Did Walker develop the idea himself, after years of clashing with organized labor as Milwaukee County executive? Or did he get help from conservative think tanks or advocacy groups?
Union leaders, Democrats and liberals see a conspiracy in which right-wing groups saw an opening and pushed the changes here and elsewhere across the country.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R–Juneau) said [in late May] that it was Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels who may have provided the template for Walker’s proposal. On his second day in office in 2005, Daniels rescinded collective bargaining for state workers. …
In Wisconsin, bill drafters at the Legislative Reference Bureau said the detailed instructions on the final version of the bill came from Walker’s Department of Administration. A chain of emails backs that up. There is no indication in the extensive file of any influence or input from outside groups. …
Many union leaders point to David and Charles Koch, billionaire brothers well known for their support of conservative causes. Koch Industries, which has extensive operations in Wisconsin, contributed to Walker’s campaign through its political action committee.Others cite the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. The conservative group drafts model legislation on myriad issues and offers it to members for use in state legislatures around the country. The group has received financial support from Koch Industries.
That would be Koch Industries, the employer of more than 2,500 Wisconsinites, by the way. In other states, private-sector empl0yment is a good thing — preferable to government employment, in fact, given that the economic impact of government jobs is blunted by the cost of those government jobs. In Wisconsin, not so much, according to the protesters in Madison.
Another ingredient in the conspiracy theory recipe is the American Legislative Exchange Council:
ALEC spokeswoman Raegan Weber said the group does not have anti-collective bargaining legislation among its portfolio of legislation.
“ALEC has model legislation that simply states that employees have a choice to join, or refrain from joining, a union,” she said, adding neither Walker nor any lawmakers consulted with the group on the measure here.
However, in a January interview with The New York Times – before Walker’s proposal was unveiled – Michael Hough, director of ALEC’s commerce task force, said the group was spreading collective-bargaining proposals from state to state.
Wisconsin political geeks like to see Wisconsin as a political leader among the states. Inevitably this so-called leadership is either nonideological (direct election of U.S. senators and primary elections) or “progressive,” including income taxes and aforementioned public-employee collective bargaining rights. (The latter was signed into law by Gov. Gaylord Nelson, who as a U.S. senator founded Earth Day on the same day as Vladimir Lenin’s birthday.) Wisconsin’s Progressive movement was started as a response to stick it to evil railroad executives, and state politics has pretty much followed the screw-the-productive-class little red book for more than 100 years. One result is that this state has some of the worst finances of any state in the U.S.
Good ideas and bad ideas observe no borders. Other states’ government and politics have followed the novel concept that the function of government is to perform government services, not to employ people, redistribute wealth, or effect and promote trendy social change. The state Constitution includes the advice that “The blessings of a free government can only be maintained by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles” — advice that was ignored within 50 years of its writing.
Most states have some sort of spending or taxation limits. Neither the writers of the Wisconsin Constitution nor any Legislature since statehood saw fit to enact such taxpayer-protection measures. As a result, despite $2 billion in tax increases and the fourth highest state and local taxes in the U.S., Wisconsin is near the top of the states in GAAP deficits, consecutive fiscal years of GAAP deficits, and state and local government debt, in addition to being in the bottom half of states in bond ratings.
The time to return those aforementioned fundamental principles, which are not exclusive to Wisconsin, is now. The previous Legislature’s and governor’s ignorance of “frugality and virtue” led us to enough red ink to drown the entire state. For the most part (though not entirely), the current Legislature and governor are working to drain the red-ink swamp and prevent the next red-ink flood.
It is said that you should write about what you know. So I shouldn’t be writing about being a father, because after being an official father for more than 11 years, I still don’t know what I’m doing. (I didn’t write a Mother’s Day column because I know even less about being a mother.)
Particularly now, of course. My father worked for 40½ years at the same bank, though with three different names and at at least three different locations. My sixth different job ended March 30, so since then our three children have had a stay-at-home dad. (I should teach them to tell people that I am a journalist. The definition at the UW School of Journalism of a “journalist” was “an out-of-work reporter.”)
On the other hand, this nearly-three-month employment pause hasn’t been all bad. I have been able to go on field trips with all of my kids this spring — to a cave with Dylan, bowling with Shaena, and the state Capitol with Michael. Last weekend, I went to church camp with Shaena, and I can truthfully say I have spent worse three days. (I wasn’t the only unemployed father there, although we were the only father–daughter duo.)
I know three things for sure: (1) once you’re a parent, you are never not a parent, at least until the parent–child relationship ends in death (and if the parent is the dead one, probably not even then); (2) there is no substitute for being there, whatever “there” entails; and (3) the most important thing a father can do is to be an example of how to act as an adult.
Understand that I’m not giving advice in that previous paragraph. There are some things where you have to learn by doing, and being a father is certainly one of them. There is no how-to-be-a-father book that any soon-to-be-father will grasp.
1. Basic biology: A man produces hundreds of millions of sperm every day. Each of these sperm contains (half of) the genetic blueprint for a different person. The slightest physical movement changes the position of sperm.
2. Therefore, any change in my life prior to my children’s conception would have led my children not to exist. If I had crossed my legs differently, or walked to the frig, or even chuckled an extra time, the sperm would have been rearranged, negating my children’s existence. I might have had different children, of course, but they wouldn’t be the ones I have.
3. Like most parents, I have a massive endowment effect vis-a-vis my children. I love them greatly simply because they exist and they’re mine. If you offered to replace one of my sons with another biological child who was better in every objective way, I’d definitely refuse.
4. Therefore, if you offered me a “do-over” on any aspect of my life prior to my children’s conception, I would refuse, for it would mean that these specific children would never have been born.
5. Since I wouldn’t want to change any event prior to my children’s conception, I have nothing to regret. And since I have nothing to regret during this period, I don’t regret anything. …
If you think this is just my egghead way of saying “Happy Father’s Day!,” you’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. What I’m really saying is that if you love your children just because they’re the ones you got, you have a special reason to be happy every day. After all, you can survey your whole life before your last child’s conception and honestly say: “It all happened for a reason. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
I read such things, realize that the opposite political side from mine believes there are too many people on this planet, conclude that more children means you have the opportunity to outnumber your enemies, and conclude that we should have more kids. And then I have days where I think that three children was three too many.
I wrote a great tribute (or at least readers said it was) to my parents on their 50th wedding anniversary Jan. 7. Unfortunately my former employer chose to kill the blog on which it was posted, so those who read that blog might get some repetitive material here.
My parents didn’t have nearly the normal-to-the-point-of-dull childhoods my brother and I had. (I’ve chosen to not delve into details, in part because it seems that my grandparents were perhaps better grandparents than parents.) At their 50th wedding dinner at Christiano’s in Wautoma, my parents told me the sequence of their meeting:
Mom was a contestant at the Miss Wisconsin-USA pageant. Dad apparently did some piano work for or with her tied to the pageant.
Then they ran into each other at the Badger Candy Kitchen on the Square in Madison. Dad had been to the dentist, so he drooled chicken noodle soup. Nevertheless, they had a dinner date …
… which consisted of fish sticks and French fries, because that was all Dad could afford, and probably because it was on a no-meat Friday in the pre-Vatican II days.
The period between before their wedding and when I arrived on the scene was about a 400 on the scale of stressful life events. Dad, who was a member of southern Wisconsin’s first rock and roll band, was seriously injured in a fatal crash on the way to a show. Two years after they married, Dad’s mother died of a stroke at 49. And then, not long after their third wedding anniversary and less than a year after Dad had graduated from UW–Madison and got his first real job, their first son died a month before his second birthday. Such events in marriages today, particularly the last one (and, non-parents, you cannot know what that would be like), are grounds for divorce today.
The older I get, the more I recognize common traits in both my father and myself, irrespective of our common body types (though I am taller and heavier and far more nearsighted). I’m sure you’ll be shocked — shocked! — to know that we’re both rather right-wing, although I think I am more libertarian than he is and, thanks to my years in the news media, can articulate arguments better. (To complain, for instance, that UW football coach Bret Bielema is not a great coach requires actual evidence thereof.) He and I also have enjoyed dealing with bad backs, although in my case it’s amazing how better my back gets when I’m less of a fat blob.
I also think that, even though he was in one of the most establishment lines of work there is, we share the same slyly subversive attitude toward authority. I have said for years that if I had done one-tenth of what he did when I was in my teenage years, well, I’d still be grounded today. He survived several different bosses, including out-of-town and out-of-state bosses, each of whom, I’m sure, thought they knew Dad’s job better than Dad did.
Many readers may have had difficult relationships with their own fathers. I’m happy to say that has truly never been the case with either of my parents. Which is pretty remarkable given how argumentative their oldest son was as a teenager. (As if that’s changed, my family says.) I compare myself to him and generally measure up in almost nothing — in ability to keep a job, patience (though he wouldn’t be considered patient, I’m on a whole ‘nother level of impatience — put it this way: I understand this sentiment perfectly), mechanical or around-the-house ability, athletic ability (he was a state champion relay-runner; I played trumpet in the band of a high school state basketball champion) and other areas.
When I got to college age, Dad bought a collectible car — a 1962 Chevrolet Impala convertible — and we went to car shows with it. Those car shows also awakened my interest in, well, music older than I am, including what I’ve heard of the band in which Dad played piano:
Note the poor posture of the piano player.
(This band resulted in two brushes with greatness. The first was when the band played as the backup band for Bobby Darin in a Madison concert. Dad says Darin was a perfectionist and thus not the greatest musical experience. The second was when he was working part-time for a Madison music store when he was called to set up an organ at the new Dane County Coliseum, which was hosting Ray Charles in its first concert. The organ player invited Dad to watch the concert backstage. The organ player did not tell him, however, that at some point Charles was going to thank the organ-installer, and hey, why don’t you come out and play a song with us, Steve? Sadly, Dad remembers none of his unscheduled Walter Mitty experience.)
We’ve taken a couple of trips together. The first and most Israelites-bugging-out-of-Egypt-like was when he and I, several Boy Scouts and our Scoutmaster went to the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. (Dad commented that he hasn’t been that weight since, and I had to point out that I haven’t been that weight since about one month out of college.) It was an epic trip, starting with the first day, when our arrival in Manhattan, Kan., coincided with what appeared to be the arrival of Armageddon. (Put it this way: It isn’t supposed to get dark at 6 p.m. on Independence Day.) Anyway, we survived not just the first night (instead of going to a what-would-have-been-flooded campground, we slept in the basement of a Manhattan Scoutmaster who just happened to be at the same Pizza Hut we were at), but the entire trip with no one dying or killing each other.
I’ve also been on two baseball trips — the first with Dad and a childhood friend of his, the second with my parents, where said childhood friend joined us. The first was Madison-t0-St. Louis-to-Cincinnati-to-Chicago-to-Milwaukee; the second was supposed to be two spring-training games in Arizona, but turned out to be just one because the first was rained out. Dad was upset about the first, but I thought sitting at a sports bar with the two of them was quite enjoyable.
One of my favorite afternoons when I was in my last term at Marketplace was when he and I interviewed two Portage County microbrewery owners. I specifically invited him because I wanted him to see what I do. He ended up doing at least as much talking as I did, but that was fine; I just sat back and wrote down the answers from the microbrewers.
My parents served as examples. Not once did I ever witness my father ever say anything derogatory about my mother to someone else, or vice versa. Dad taught classes on Wednesday nights to young bankers, which showed me that if you need to augment your full-time income, you figure out how to. I suspect he made more than one career sacrifice in favor of his family, but he never complained about it. My parents aren’t what I’d consider overly demonstrative toward each other, but that, I guess, allowed us to take the fact that they loved each other for granted. And how do you learn about how to be a husband? From your own parents.
Those reading this from Facebook will note that my profile picture is Dad’s photo for Father’s Day weekend. I’m taller than he is, and I’m a lot taller than my mother, but I still look up to both of them.
Here is a recipe for winning a state baseball championship:
Have on your roster a pitcher who will be playing for an NCAA Division I baseball team next season.
Have an overwhelming offense.
Have the two state games on the same day instead of their original schedule.
Make sure my oldest son goes to the game.
Two servings of item 1 and items 3 and 4 were part of the formula for Ripon’s 2000 state championship, the first sporting event Michael attended, at one month old. (He says he doesn’t remember it.) The 2000 team had two Division I pitchers, Dan Konecny, who went to Northwestern, and Jed Dolske, who went to UW–Milwaukee.
The four menu items — with Michael accompanied by younger brother Dylan — were the formula for Ripon’s 2011 state championship, particularly the second item. Ripon scored 60 runs in its six postseason games — 19 in their two regional games, 21 in their two sectional games, and 20 in their two state games. The Tigers’ margin of victory in their six playoff games was, in order, three, seven, five, six, eight and 10 runs. The margin of victory is not supposed to expand as a team goes deeper in the playoffs and plays theoretically better teams. To win a state championship game through the 10-run rule should be practically impossible given that the four theoretically best teams in a division are at state. And yet Ripon’s state championship win over Spooner 12–2 ended after six innings, and with a couple of sixth-inning hits, could have ended early in the 8–0 semifinal win over Green Bay Notre Dame as well.
I was not in Ripon in 1988 to see Scott Young’s Mad Dash home from second base on a passed ball in the Tigers’ 5–4 Class B championship win over Kimberly. (Frank Bush’s call on WCWC radio ended with “He’s gonna run, he’s gonna run, he’s gonna score!” And then partner Bob Lukoski had to tell the world that Ripon had won state because Frank was, for one of the few times in his life, speechless.) I was in Ripon in 2000 to see the 3–2 eight-inning win over Whitewater and the 8–5 win over Park Falls to win the 2000 Division 2 title.
Perhaps because I saw the 2000 team, I was a bit pessimistic about the Tigers’ chances of getting to state, particularly after their 9–6 regional semifinal win over Winneconne. (Perhaps the Wolves will consider themselves the second best team in Division 2 given that they got the closest anyone got to beating Ripon in the playoffs.) Jordan Jess, who will pitch for Minnesota next season, hadn’t seemed to have pitched all that well in his two postseason games, and the Tigers have had some defensive adventures this season. And of course offensive production should drop as teams go farther in the postseason and face theoretically better pitching.
Perhaps it was that the weather finally stopped sucking in the postseason. Perhaps the postseason schedule is more conducive to quality play than the regular season. (The Tigers played no games between April 18 and April 29, then played four games between April 30 and May 6, then played one game May 11, then played five games between May 18 and May 24.) More likely, this shows what I know about pitching, which, to quote the old baseball phrase, is only that I can’t hit it.
The Notre Dame win occurred not Wednesday night as originally scheduled, but Thursday morning thanks to Wednesday’s rains. (Note to the WIAA: Scheduling six games in one day works only if (1) the weather cooperates and (2) there are no long or extra-inning games. Wednesday’s originally scheduled semifinal would have started after 11 p.m. had the WIAA not decided to reschedule.)
Jess was a bit discombobulated, discovering upon his arrival at Fox Cities Stadium that he had left his short-sleeve shirt at the hotel, according to Fox Sports Wisconsin. But Jess could have pitched in anything from his pajamas to a tuxedo and would have won Thursday. He was basically two feet (the distance away from second baseman Ben Pulvermacher where the only base hit Jess gave up went) away from throwing a state tournament no-hitter. He had to settle, if you want to call it that, for a one-hit shutout, walking three and getting 13 of the game’s 21 outs via strikeout.
I watched the game on FoxSportsWisconsin.com, and Jess looked unhittable to me, with the diagonal break of his pitches from the top of one side of the plate to the bottom of the opposite side of the plate. It’s one thing to try to hit a ball when you know where it’s going and the question is how fast it will get there; it’s quite another to try to hit a ball that is on the wrong plane when you swing at it. Assuming he doesn’t suffer injuries or have a Steve Blass-like allergy to throwing strikes, he’ll be pitching in some league somewhere into his 50s.
State championship games are won by whichever team has the best number two pitcher, since coaches usually throw their top pitchers in the semifinal under the theory that if you don’t win the semifinal you’re not going to get to throw your top pitcher in the championship. Polcyn’s six-inning pitching line — four hits, one earned run, no walks, seven strikeouts — makes one think that maybe Division I teams might want to take a late look at him too.
On offense, the state tournament was, believe it or not, a marvel of offensive efficiency. Ripon scored eight in the semifinal and left four runners on base. Ripon scored 12 in the championship game and left three runners on base. Ripon hit into one double play on the day. Every offensive starter had at least one hit or scored at least one run or drove in at least one run. In a stadium not particularly friendly to home run hitters (the power alleys go 385 and 405 feet), Ripon hit three home runs. And keep this factoid in mind: A freshman, Peyton Bryden, had three hits and two RBI in the two state games.
The Tigers to be most pleased for are the four senior starters — Jess, Polcyn, Jesse Ehrenberg and Ben Wetzel. They have played football, basketball and, along with senior Brady Bauman, high school and American Legion baseball together. They were the second best American Legion Class A baseball team in the nation in 2009. At state, they were a collective 15-of-29 with 13 runs (two by Jess’ semifinal courtesy runner, Kyle Minch) scored and 11 batted in. And on the mound, Jess and Polcyn gave up one earned run in 13 innings, combining for 20 strikeouts against three walks. Think they wanted a gold trophy?
Talent, of course, goes only so far. Coach Dan Jonas now is half of the Two State Title Coaching Club with former football coach Rick Kelm. Jonas sounded Thursday night as if he considered himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth to work with this team. Assistant coach Howard Hansen is switching gears to co-coach American Legion baseball starting this weekend with a team that, with additions from sectional finalist Green Lake, might be considered to be a favorite in Class A. (Which is as brilliant an observation as saying that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.) Teams do not put trophies in trophy cases without quality talent and coaching. And state championship trophies take up a lot of space in trophy cases.
Since 2000, the Tigers have won two state football titles, two state high school baseball titles, one American Legion state baseball title and one state track title, plus one state individual wrestling championship (Blake Roemer in 2005). If you like high school sports, this would seem to be a good time to live in Ripon.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 