This being St. Patrick’s Day, we should have a bit o’ the Irish, including a video I first watched while eating corned beef at an Irish bar in Cuba City today in 1993 …
… plus Van Morrison …
No comments on Presty the DJ for March 17
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Tom Hefty, whom I met in my business magazine days, was one of the authors of Be Bold Wisconsin, one of the many reports that came out during the 2010 gubernatorial campaign saying the state needed to improve its business climate.
(That word “many” says all you need to know about the reign of error of Gov. James Doyle.)
Hefty revisits the state’s economy:
In 2010, the Be Bold Wisconsin report set a goal of making Wisconsin a top 10 state for starting or expanding a business. That seemed like a distant goal for a state that regularly had ranked in the bottom half of the class — sometimes in the bottom handful of states.
Two of the best new grades came in independent reports, one done by the Gallup organization and the other done by Paychex|IHS. Wisconsin is moving toward the head of the class.
In January, Gallup published its list of “10 Best (and Worst) States to Find a Job,” using its survey data from 2014. It surveyed 4,297 workers in Wisconsin.
The survey question was simple: “Based on what you know or have seen, would you say that, in general, your company or employer is hiring new people and expanding the size of its workforce, not changing the size of its workforce (or), letting people go and reducing the size of its workforce?”
The Badger State ranked fourth best in the country for finding a job, after North Dakota, Texas and Nebraska. Good company.
The Paychex|IHS Small Business Jobs Index also brought good news. Wisconsin again ranked fourth best, after Indiana, Texas and Washington. The small business data is particularly good news because Wisconsin has long ranked near the bottom in other indices of entrepreneurial activity.
In the March 2015 Manpower report released this week, Wisconsin had the third brightest job outlook in the nation, lagging only Idaho and North Dakota.
Other data pointed in the same positive direction. The year-end 2014 MoneyTree venture capital report produced by the National Venture Capital Association and PriceWaterhouseCooper showed the number of Wisconsin companies receiving venture capital at the “best level in two decades.”
The small business and venture capital grades are a result of a number of policy changes and program expansions. Wisconsin expanded tax credits for venture and angel investments. There are new venture capital programs. Even the neighboring states are noticing. A December report by national consultant Battelle for the State of Iowa notes: “Iowa should consider revamping (venture capital) along the lines of Wisconsin’s successful program.”
Economic statistics are frequently complex, confusing and sometimes contradictory. Partisans cherry-pick statistics to make their points. University of Wisconsin economists are most frequently negative about their home state. One UW-Milwaukee professor last month criticized Wisconsin as “surfing on the national recovery” — a difficult task in the cold Wisconsin winter.
Economists frequently are criticized for being indecisive, saying “on the one hand and on the other hand.” UW apparently has solved that problem by hiring only one-handed economists: left-handed.
There are three sets of jobs statistics — the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics employer report of job counts; the Current Population Survey, which generates the unemployment rate; and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages report. There are seasonally adjusted numbers and raw statistics. To complicate matters, federal agencies issue revised jobs numbers each month and after the end of each year.
One of the best ways to look at the state business climate is to look at the simple statistical rankings over a long period of time.
The national economy does set the environment for local economies. But there are major differences in state performance. Some reflect natural resources, historic industry mix, demographic changes and that important intangible — business climate. State policy does make a difference.
In 2009, John Torinus and I looked at Wisconsin’s economic record during the Doyle administration. “Wisconsin Flunks its Economics Test” was the conclusion. The state’s ranking for job growth was 32nd, hitting a low of 46th in 2006. By 2008, the state ranked 47th in five-year personal income growth.
At the end of 2013, we again looked at the report card. “A Passing Grade” was the conclusion. Wisconsin had improved in every national ranking of business climate, but work remained to be done.
The preliminary full-year jobs data for 2014 shows another step forward. The ranking for monthly job growth moved up 16 spots — to 19th from 35th in 2011. The latest quarterly growth rankings showed similar improvement.
Although the trends are positive, challenges remain for Wisconsin. The aging of the workforce and historic brain drain of college graduates are long-term problems. Nearly 10,000 college graduates leave the state every year, reflecting, in part, a mismatch between UW programs and workforce needs.
Wisconsin is moving toward the head of the class. What seemed like an improbable goal of becoming a top 10 state is already true on some measures. It is within reach on others.
Notice that all these comparisons are made against other states. Barack Obama sycophants who claim that Wisconsin’s economic improvement is because of his policies, not Walker’s, ignore this fact. The UW economists’ naysaying is probably directly the result of Act 10 and their having to pay for their Rolls–Royce benefits partially themselves, instead of the sweetheart deal they got before. In the opinion of those who count — businesses — Wisconsin seems to be getting better.
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Garland S. Tucker III writes in National Review:
Much is being written today about the Republican party’s urgent need to find “the next Ronald Reagan.” With Governor Scott Walker’s recent rise in the polls, many pundits have rushed to dismiss his chances because “Walker is no Reagan.” But, hold on a minute. Are the pundits missing something here?
The two most successful Republican presidents in the last century were Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan. A serious look at the two of them sheds light on the current question of Walker’s viability as a presidential candidate.
Different as Coolidge and Reagan were in looks and personality, there were striking similarities between these two men and their presidencies. Success for both was marked by significant reductions in income taxes and domestic spending, strong economic growth in the private sector, reelection by huge margins, and the trust and affection of the American people.
As Fred Barnes has written, “When Ronald Reagan took down the portrait of Harry Truman in the Cabinet Room at the White House and replaced it with one of Calvin Coolidge, the press treated it as act of meaningless eccentricity. It wasn’t. Reagan had been an admirer of Coolidge for many years. For him, the change of portraits had real meaning. Their experiences, their values, even the issues that most engaged them were the same for Reagan and Coolidge.”
They both were above all men of character. Coolidge embodied the classic New England virtues upon which the Republic was founded: hard work, independent thinking, lack of pretense, sense of duty, perseverance, scrupulous honesty — these were the bedrock upon which he had been raised in rural Vermont and upon which he built his political career.
Reagan came from a modest Midwestern background. He exhibited an honest openness and total lack of pretense that were a bit old-fashioned but also deeply appealing to the American people. The public instinctively believed that Reagan would tell them the unvarnished truth and that they could trust him.
Modern pundits seem not to appreciate the importance of these traditional virtues. Could it be that the liberal voters of Wisconsin saw something in Walker that the sophisticated opinion leaders missed? When Walker looked the people in the eye and said, “I kept my promises,” they believed him — and reelected him.
Contemporaries often dismissed the New England puritan and the Hollywood B-grade actor as intellectual lightweights. Howard Dean’s recent sneers at Walker’s lack of academic credentials were reminiscent of the attacks on Coolidge and Reagan.
The guiding tenets of governing for these two presidents were quite similar. Both believed the role of government was appropriately limited by the Constitution. They were equally convinced of the creative power of individual initiative. Coolidge explained, “I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. That is the chief meaning of freedom.” Similarly, Reagan famously admonished, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
Walker’s message is similar — and clear: “I believe that smaller government is better government.”
Two similar events were of seminal importance in the careers of Coolidge and Reagan. In 1919, as governor of Massachusetts, Coolidge was confronted with a bitter police strike in Boston. He labored for weeks to avoid a showdown, but when the police union leaders called a strike, Coolidge acted decisively. He issued the following terse statement that resonated around the country, swiftly ended the strike, and catapulted Coolidge onto the national stage: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime.” When faced with a crippling strike by the air-traffic controllers in 1981, Reagan quoted Coolidge’s statement and acted similarly. Both men rejected the conventional wisdom of their political advisers, and history proved them right. Coolidge and Reagan did not require public-opinion polls to tell them what to think or how to act.
Here the parallels are obvious. Walker’s famous showdown with the public unions elevated him onto the national stage. The liberal press was confident that this confrontation with the unions would be the end of Walker, but the Wisconsin voters felt differently. The manner in which Coolidge, Reagan, and Walker handled their respective crises won the admiration of the American people.
Despite the sobriquet “Silent Cal,” Coolidge was an expert at communicating his message. The first president to utilize radio, Coolidge consistently employed terse one-liners that resonated with the public. Americans recognized Coolidge for what he was — a straight-talking, common-sense conservative who, in the words of one commentator, “never wasted any time, never wasted any taxpayers’ money, and never wasted any words.”
Although Reagan’s personality was very different from Coolidge’s, he was widely hailed as “The Great Communicator.” Both men were able to get across to the people a handful of basic conservative principles.
Walker’s style of communication seems to fall somewhere in between Coolidge’s and Reagan’s. While not so sparing of words and quirky as Coolidge, he is not the natural communicator that Reagan was. However, the main point the pundits seem to be missing is that Walker’s personality and message do come through forcefully to voters.
Finally, Coolidge and Reagan were politicians of civility. One of Coolidge’s guiding political principles was “I will not attack an individual” — and he didn’t. Similarly, Reagan issued his famous Eleventh Commandment, forbidding speaking ill of any fellow Republican. In William Buckley’s words, Reagan was “almost certainly the nicest man who ever occupied the White House.”
Walker displays the same modest, self-deprecating attributes that were at the core of both Coolidge and Reagan. A frequent assessment is, “Walker’s just too unassuming — too nice — to be president.”
If the GOP can nominate a candidate for 2016 in the Coolidge–Reagan mold, the party — and the country — will be well served. Scott Walker might just be that candidate.
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The number one British single today in 1959:
Today in 1964, the Beatles set a record for advance sales, even though with 2.1 million sales the group would argue …
The number one single today in 1967:
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Today being the Ides (Ide?) of March, let’s begin with the Ides of March …
… an outstanding example of brass rock.
Today in 1955, Elvis Presley signed a management contract with Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, an illegal immigrant from the Netherlands who named himself Colonel Tom Parker.
The number two single that day:
The number one British album today in 1969 was Cream’s “Goodbye,” which was, duh, their last album:
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The texting shorthand term “smh” (“shakes my head”) didn’t exist in 1955 because texting didn’t exist in 1955.
But surely “smh” was invented for things like this: Today in 1955, CBS talent scout Arthur Godfrey made a signing decision between Elvis Presley and Pat Boone.
Godfrey chose Boone.
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While sitting in the dentist’s waiting office during our oldest child’s dental appointment, I picked up an ESPN Magazine, and found a story about Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive that included …
Perhaps the window into Ranadive’s basketball soul — the spot where math, velocity and fire come together — can be found in a mostly empty arena in Nevada, on a snowy Tuesday night in late December. It’s the Idaho Stampede against the Reno Bighorns, the Kings’ entry in the NBA Development League, and there’s some weird science taking place on the court.
“One of the first things I did after getting the team was to say I wanted a D-League team,” Ranadive says. “In Silicon Valley, you have a lab. In basketball, I wanted a lab.”
The Bighorns are coached by the boyish and enthusiastic David Arsenault Jr. — he’s 28, so the boyishness comes naturally — who formerly worked as an assistant for his father at Division III Grinnell, a program known for attention-seeking scoring exploits such as Jack Taylor’s 138-point game in 2012.
When Arsenault interviewed for the job, he impressed with his willingness to pick up an unconventional system and drop it whole into the pro game. Asked to diagram a few plays, Arsenault started at one end of the court and finished at the other, à la Coach Ranadive. “I’d never seen anyone do that,” says Kings assistant GM Mike Bratz. Asked what he would do with 7-foot-5, 360-pound Sim Bhullar, a human obelisk the Kings were committed to playing in Reno, Arsenault said, “I can use any player who can do something well.”
The Kings told Arsenault they wanted to play fast and wanted to play differently, and he said, “Just how fast and how different do you want to be? Because I can probably play faster and more different than anybody in the country.”
The Bighorns press full-court, constantly seek steals and shoot primarily 3s and layups. Ideally, a shot is taken within 12 seconds. Midrange jumpers are discouraged, and players shuffle in and out, five at a time, in 90-second to two-minute shifts. The Grinnell approach — grandly called The System — is the perfect type of reinvention for a man like Ranadive, who came to basketball with no preconceptions.
“You’ve got to unlearn some things to play here,” says Bighorns point guard David Stockton. Asked what his father, John, thinks of it, David says, “He thinks it’s a little weird.”
The Bighorns scored as many as 174 points and allowed as many as 169 — in the same game. They made 31 3s in another. The intent is to speed up the game — “championship speed,” Arsenault calls it — and force turnovers by luring the opponent into the same pace. It’s a chaotic blur of overplays, easy dunks and pull-up 3s. No game has anything resembling a coherent throughline; a 20-point lead can become a 10-point deficit over the course of three or four rough shifts. It’s equal parts exhausting and entertaining, the combined fever dream of Jamal Crawford and J.R. Smith, or precisely how you’d envision basketball would be played if a meth lab sponsored a team.
“We get to do things there you’ll never do on an NBA floor — ever,” D’Alessandro says. Is this the positionless ideal? There are no guards, forwards or centers. Instead, positions are designated by defensive assignment: on ball, left wing, right wing, interceptor and safety. The basket is routinely left unguarded as Bighorns players overplay passing lanes.
Bhullar plays safety, to protect the hoop, and his shifts often force the Bighorns to play four-on-five offense. He simply can’t cover the court fast enough to play both ends, especially when things are going well and possessions last less than 10 seconds. (When he does get there, he’s nearly unstoppable at the rim.)
Players taught to work for a good shot are now asked to redefine their definition. A 25-foot jumper five seconds into the shot clock used to be a bad shot, but now a bad shot is a 12-footer after four passes. The System is great fun, but leave your conscience at home. Through it all, Arsenault stands on the sideline, silent and stoic, aware that whatever happens on the court is out of his control.
“I’ve never understood something,” Arsenault says. “If you’re limited based on location or recruiting or being a small-market team or just not being able to get some of the best players, why be the poor man’s version of everybody else? Why not try something new?”
Asked to describe Ranadive’s involvement with Reno, Arsenault says, “He’s the guy who is promoting the whole creative thought. He’s the mastermind behind the whole plan.”
And what exactly is that plan?
Arsenault pauses, his face stuck in a rictus of hesitation. To this point, he’s had the timing just so. He starts to answer, stops, shrugs and finally says, “That’s the million-dollar question.”
Readers of this blog are familiar with Grinnell and Arsenault’s father, also named David. Grinnell plays an immensely entertaining style of basketball to watch, and entertaining though really hard work to announce. It would be interesting to see that kind of system with some NBA teams. It would also be interesting to try that at the high school level, though you have to have the right kinds of players (basically guards who can shoot) to play that system in high school, and you’re unlikely to have that every year.
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The number one single on both sides of the Atlantic today in 1960:
Today in 1965, Eric Clapton quit the Yardbirds because he wanted to continue playing the blues, while the other members wanted to sell records, as in …
The number one single today in 1965:
Today in 1967, the Beatles hired Sounds, Inc. for horn work:
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If you read this immediately upon publishing (and why wouldn’t you?), assuming I’m not running late I am on the way to the Resch Center in Ashwaubenon for the WIAA state girls basketball tournament.
I have two games to announce today — Barneveld vs. Fall River in Division 5 at 1:35 p.m. (to which you can listen here), and Cuba City vs. Fond du Lac Springs in Division 4 at 6:35 p.m. (to which you can listen here). If either wins, I announce their state championship game Saturday (to which you can listen here).
(It’s a bit illogical that given that creeks are smaller than rivers, Fall Creek is a bigger school than Fall River. I’m not sure what the over–under will be of my saying “Fall Creek” when I mean “Fall River” and vice versa.)
Next week is the 100th annual WIAA boys basketball championships, or at least the 100th anniversary of the tournament (held by Lawrence College, now University, in Appleton) that the WIAA recognizes as the first state tournament. That is not this …
… that is the 1966 WIAA quarterfinal between Grafton and number-one-ranked Madison East at the UW Fieldhouse. (It’s too bad there’s apparently no sound. I’m not sure about this, but given the rarity of the last name I’m pretty sure I covered the son and daughter of one of the East players, both of whom played for La Follette two decades later.) There was only one class in those days, and there was no girls tournament at all. And I’m sure I watched this, though I was nine months old. Other than the Packers (and my father’s swearing at the ineptitude of the post-Glory Days Packers), state is the first sporting event I remember watching, every March without fail.
State is sometimes called The Dance because, well …
Just as state is the pinnacle for a high school basketball player, announcing state is the pinnacle for a high school basketball announcer. (The trick is to get people to watch the game, but turn down the sound and listen to your broadcast.) I’ve done two state basketball games, one involving the boys counterpart to the Cuban girls. Earlier that day I announced two undefeated teams, 10 days after I announced one of those undefeateds against another unbeaten team in their regional final.
Readers know about my second trip to state, the excellent adventure that was the 1982 state championship. Since then I’ve gotten to watch state, cover state as a newspaper reporter and editor, and announce state. And I’ve covered teams that got to state and lost (which means they still got to state), and got to state and won.
My most unexpected state basketball trip (which weirdly paralleled my most unexpected state baseball trip two years later) was the 1987 Madison La Follette girls team that finished the regular season 9–11. But after an easy regional semifinal win, a regional final win in overtime (the third overtime win over Madison East, which finished above La Follette in the Big Eight), a win over conference champion Madison Memorial, and a win over the team that beat La Follette to go to state the previous year, there I was on Thursday afternoon (which was about 30 degrees colder than the previous Saturday) in the Fieldhouse covering a state game I never expected to cover.
I’m old enough to remember when state had three classes, with Class C starting Thursday and Friday daytime sessions. Then they created Breakfast at the Fieldhouse, moving all of Class C to Friday morning, with the first game tipping off at 9:05 a.m. Then they expanded to four divisions, with Division 3 Thursday and Division 4 Friday starting at 9:05. And now they have five divisions, with fewer state games (and thus lower gate receipts) than the old four-division days, because Division 1 had eight teams and the other divisions four teams each.
The format doesn’t matter, because thanks to what the WIAA calls the Magic of March (because “March Madness” is copyrighted), you get moments like these:
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Christian Schneider observes how well liberal Madison serves its black residents:
Last November, when a grand jury in Ferguson, Mo. refused to charge police officer Darren Wilson with the shooting of black teenager Michael Brown, Madison Mayor Paul Soglin was ready with a statement. “Here in Madison let us use this moment to reflect and redouble our efforts to create the best community for all Madisonians,” Soglin said. “The time is now to ensure equity in education, employment and housing.”
On Monday of this week, Soglin stood, megaphone in hand, trying to explain to a group of 1,500 largely black protesters why one of his police officers had shot Tony Robinson, an unarmed black teenager. Soglin, a progressive standard-bearer first elected Madison mayor in 1973, pathetically tried to pass the buck to Republicans in state government for cutting state school aids. He was frequently shouted down by protesters yelling, “Murder!”
It was a rare time when a progressive mayor had to face the very type of racial animus he has spent a career fomenting. White liberals often think they have a monopoly on race relations in America, frequently using racial issues to drive wedges in the electorate and bolster their own standing.
Yet by almost any measure, decades of pure, uncut progressivism have done nothing to mend the racial divide in a liberal playground like Madison. It’s good that Soglin thinks the time is “now” to ensure equity in education, employment and housing, because his track record on all the above has been miserable for 42 years.
Nary a conservative exists on the city council or school board, and yet according to one study, African-Americans are eight times as likely as whites to be arrested in Dane County. As I noted last week, 10% of black children in Madison public schools are proficient in reading. In 2011, the unemployment rate in Dane County was 25.2% for blacks compared with just 4.8% for whites, leading one magazine to ask whether Madison was the “most racist city in America.”
And yet by listening to progressives, one would think Republicans are the only party wrangling with a race problem. It is why U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, a Milwaukee Democrat, can charge with a straight face that her home state is the “Selma of the North” because Republicans favor a photo ID requirement to vote — a policy favored by strong majorities of blacks. Of course, Moore’s hyperbolics are merely an attempt to absolve herself of culpability — she was first elected to the state Legislature in 1989, and has yet to pass any successful “let’s make Milwaukee not the Selma of the North” legislation. It’s not like Milwaukee has been governed by Newt Gingrich for the past 50 years, It has been liberals who have overseen the city’s decay.
And yet when Republicans such as U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan try to make inroads to improve the plight of inner city residents, they are quickly swatted down with charges of racism. Earlier this year, when Republicans proposed a slate of reforms to rejuvenate depressed areas of Milwaukee, they were accused of “pimping” the city’s residents.
But in Madison, Soglin remains the clown prince of cluelessness. In a column written shortly after Ferguson, Soglin blamed the city’s racial troubles, in part, on ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft, and laid the city’s devastating income gap at the feet of stores such as Amazon and E-Bay. Former police chief Noble Wray, himself African-American, showed a firmer grasp of the situation when he told blogger David Blaska, “We do have a strong migrating population from Chicago that really does impact this city from a crime standpoint.”
But in Madison, solutions don’t count, only liberal posturing. It is why the school superintendent attended the protest while hundreds of middle and high school students walked out of class on Monday, and then sent buses to pick up the students downtown after the march. Statistically, only 10% of the black students skipping school on Monday can read proficiently, but evidently it was more important for them to protest the shooting of a felon who allegedly attacked a police officer called to prevent Robinson from strangling someone. No Justice…no Math!
That’s not to say that progressives are any more culpable for racial unrest — but we should stop this charade that lays racial divisions at the feet of conservatives. If there were a magic progressive program to hold down violence and keep young black men from being shot at the hands of police, Milwaukee and Madison would have tried it by now. Instead, it remains an intractable problem — for everyone.
Madison schools have the biggest achievement gap between white students and minority students in the state. Milwaukee’s social pathologies are well known, and Madison’s have been revealing themselves since drive-by shootings started in front of my high school a few years after I left Madison for good. Madison hasn’t had a non-liberal mayor (though some have been more liberal than others) since Soglin first took office in 1973. The only remotely less-than-liberal Milwaukee mayor was John Norquist, who was smart enough to realize that Milwaukee students needed better alternatives than the disaster that is Milwaukee Public Schools.
It seems rather racist to suggest that blacks care less about crime than whites. We have not heard the skin color of the victims of Tony Robinson’s armed robbery, nor of the person he was alleged to have battered. But blacks are much more often the victims of crimes committed by blacks than whites are.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 