This must have been quite a concert at Shreveport Auditorium in Shreveport, La., today in 1955:
No comments on Presty the DJ for April 2
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Tuesday is Election Day. Again.
There are two statewide races, for the Supreme Court and for Superintendent of Public Instruction.
I wrote about the former race the day of the primary election. The reason you should vote for incumbent Pat Roggensack is that you are much more likely to get the correct result from Roggensack than from Ed Fallone.
Among other things, Fallone appears to have issues with the truth, as chronicled by Collin Roth:
In 2010, Heidi Fallone appeared in a television ad for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett. The ad attacks Scott Walker for a position on stem cell research and concludes:
“Scott Walker says he would ban stem cell research in Wisconsin. That’s right, ban it.”
There was only one issue with the ad. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s PolitiFact deemed Heidi Fallone’s statement to be completely false. …
Ed Fallone serves as the President of Wisconsin Stem Cell Now, a stem cell advocacy organization. When the opportunity presented itself to attack Scott Walker on the stem cell issue, Heidi Fallone jumped at the opportunity. And when the ad was deemed completely false, it was Ed Fallone who was forced to back track for the ads claims.
Quoted in the Associated Press, Ed Fallone said that “Walker’s statements that he opposes embryonic research but that adult research is just as promising make it hard to know exactly where he stands.” But not knowing where a candidate stands and willingly having your wife and fellow Board member participate in an ad that charged Walker with wanting to “ban stem cell research” is very different.
Rick Esenberg adds this observation:
Supreme Court candidate Ed Fallone’s recent – and only – ad states that Judge Roggensack “refused” to hold Justice David Prosser accountable for his altercation with Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. The statement is combined with text suggesting that Roggensack declined to do so because she and Prosser are “allies.”
This is an extremely unfair attack. Roggensack recused herself because she was a witness to the incident in question. In doing so, she followed the traditional rule that a person cannot be a judge and witness in the same case. …
The same ad claims – through a combination of voiceover and text – that what Fallone has dubbed the “Roggensack rule” is “legalized bribery.” In fact, Roggensack supported a rule that says that a legal campaign contribution or independent expenditure would not – by itself – require recusal. A judge remains free to recuse if she thinks that a particular contribution or expenditure has undermined her independence or created an unacceptable appearance of bias. This is consistent with longstanding practice on the court. …
Ed Fallone is, of course, free to disagree. He may prefer a rule that automatically calls for recusal whenever someone potentially interested in the outcome of a case – a party or a lawyer or a group that prefers the law to move in a certain direction – makes a contribution or spends money. But to call these things “bribery” reflects a lack of the care and precision we expect from judges. A contribution – without more – is not bribery as anyone with even a passing familiarity with the legal concept of bribery knows. …
But here’s the sticky part. Is candidate Fallone willing to live by the rules that he would impose on others? For example, he has received substantial support from labor unions and others with a vested interest in invalidating Act 10. Indeed, it is almost certainly the case that the attack ad he is now running could not have been produced or put on the air without that support.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Yet Fallone has not – as far as I know – refused to say that he will recuse himself from any case involving Act 10. If substantial campaign contributions or expenditures constitute legalized “bribery,” he ought to be willing to do so.
I was lukewarm on the Superintendent of Public Instruction race. I am loath to vote for someone as deeply embedded in the education establishment as Tony Evers is. I also am loath to vote for Evers given that he clearly doesn’t grasp that, based on the 2010 and 2012 elections, Wisconsin voters demand more accountability, more choice for their children, and more cost-effective public education.
I was not, however, going to vote for Evers’ opponent, Don Pridemore, until I read this:
Rep. Don Pridemore (R-Erin), candidate for State Superintendent of Schools, on Thursday vowed to eliminate the Department of Public Instruction’s policy concerning allowable mascots.
“Under my leadership, DPI will not force policy onto the school districts where one bureaucrat has sole power to determine the fate of a school mascot,” Pridemore said. “This policy does not consider community standards, traditions or cost. Having one person to make a decision does not allow for due process or a public hearing. In my opinion it is unconstitutional and a great example of a bureaucracy that’s out of control.”
Pridemore thus earned my vote. In addition to being an example of misplaced outrage (schools choose mascots based on their positive attributes — in the case of Indian nicknames, strength, endurance and courage), the controversy over, around here, the Chieftains, Braves, Flying Arrows and others is an ideal example of mandates from afar egged on by the professionally aggrieved. (No, I do not care one bit about the feelings of those who complain about Indian mascots, anymore than Stoughton cared about my feelings when the Vikings nickname was adopted.)
Indian nicknames are not the biggest issue of this state. Evers, however, is an excellent example of the Tyranny of the Expert that infests state government. DPI is, not surprisingly, a captive of teacher unions, as demonstrated by its prevailing ethos: (1) Give us more money, and (2) leave us alone. We would not have a statewide school report card were it not for the Legislature’s actually insisting upon accountability in return for the billions of dollars the state sends every year to public schools.
The only people whose opinions should count in the schools are parents and taxpayers. Evers represents neither.
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Priority number one for new UW–Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank, according to John Torinus:
There is a growing concern that part of the state’s laggard economic performance can be put at the doorstep of its flagship campus. The massive taxpayer inputs to that powerhouse campus don’t seem to match the outputs.
Put succinctly, the state has been losing GDP share for four decades or more. And it’s not getting better. The state ranks in the bottom ten year after year in job and business creation. …
Those graduates need jobs, and that comes from business creation. Even the jobs on the public side depend on business creation, the ultimate source of supporting tax dollars.
When the economy lags, businesses cut back on job creation, but cuts often follow on the public side not long afterward. That’s true almost everywhere, except in Madison where the public ranks grow in good times and bad times, under Democratic governors or Republican governors.
Maybe it’s that bubble around Madison that saps the urgency for growing the economy. Even there, though, the Madison economy hasn’t kept up with othr metro areas that are home to major research universities. …
Among her initiatives could be these:
- Focus the campus on entrepreneurship in the mode of Stanford, Utah and MIT. We pale in comparison. Academic R&D, patents and licenses are great, but the payoff for citizens comes from business creation and the resulting job creation. Make the effort statewide.
- Engage foundations affiliated with the UW in business startups. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation gave her a leg up, a starting point, last week by teaming with the state pension fund to launch a $30 million venture fund for IT startups. Great. But what about other foundations, like the UW–Madison Foundation with more than $2 billion in assets? Other foundations also could make alternative investments in the intellectual property of the state.
- Lead the way back to the Wisconsin Idea. The time-honored state concept of pulling together the state’s best experts on different public policy issues should appeal to Blank, whose academic and government career centered on public policy. Since [former UW System president Katherine] Lyall and Gov. Tommy Thompson, that methodology has withered. Instead, cocooned governor staffs have dominated policy making. Organizations like Competitive Wisconsin have had to step into the gap.
- Engage the private sector, standard operating procedure at Stanford, Utah and MIT. Take a page from UW–Milwaukee Chancellor Mike Lovell, who is getting that interaction into high gear. UW–Madison lags other Big Ten universities on industry-supported research.
- Do a strategic study of the various departments, centers and institutes on the campus. Many of the centers that should be leading the thinking about the economy and driving innovation are invisible. What is the role of UW– Extension, for example? Where are the La Follette Institute and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy? We need a replacement for the late Don Nichols, who led pieces of economic thinking about Wisconsin.
- Use public policy expertise to look at the under-managed benefit structure for university employees. Tens of millions of dollars could be saved for better purposes if public employees were on the same kinds of plans as private sector employee. That’s where the money is. Don’t complain about budgets until you have done so. FYI: that can be done while IMPROVING health care.
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Today is April Fool’s Day. Which John Lennon and Yoko Ono celebrated in 1970 by announcing they were having sex-change operations.
Today in 1972, the Mar y Sol festival began in Puerto Rico. The concert’s location simplified security — it was on an island accessible only by those with tickets.
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Today in 1949, RCA introduced the 45-rpm single to compete with the 33-rpm album introduced by CBS one year earlier. The first RCA 45 was …
Today in 1964, the Beatles filmed a scene of a “live” TV performance before a studio audience for their movie “A Hard Day’s Night.”
In the audience: Phil Collins.
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The number one single today in 1957 was the first number one rock and roll single to be written by its singer:
The number one single today in 1963 …
… which sounds suspiciously similar to a song released seven years later:
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Today is Good Friday.
This is the time of year when the energy level of Christian ministers drops toward zero. Palm Sunday features one version of the Passion, starting with Jesus Christ’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem and ending with his crucifixion in a conspiracy of the Jewish authorities and the Romans. Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, relates the story of the Last Supper, which simultaneously was a Jewish Passover meal (because they were all Jews) and the first Christian Eucharist. Good Friday relates a different version of the Passion starting after the Last Supper.
Good Friday is followed by the Easter Vigil, after sundown of the Sabbath, one day after Joseph of Arimathea found a tomb in which to bury Jesus. Easter morning dawns, and Jesus’ female followers visit the tomb to finish the burial, only to see that there is no body. By Easter evening, the supposedly dead Jesus is appearing to his disciples.
The four versions of the Passion differ on some details — was the cock supposed to crow once or twice after Peter denied Jesus three times? — but the essentials can be found in each, and with more commonality than one might expect for an event recorded by four different authors.
One of my favorite parts of the story is chapter 24 of Luke, when two disciples, one named Cleopas, walking to a village named Emmaus, arguing over what they had been told had happened since Good Friday, get a mysterious visitor who asks them what that’s been going on. (Or, to paraphrase “Jesus Christ Superstar,” the visitor asks them to tell him what’s the buzz, tell him what’s happening.)
CLEOPAS: “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that have happened there in these days?”
VISITOR: “What things?”
CLEOPAS: “The things concerning Jesus the Nazarene, a man who, with his powerful deeds and words, proved to be a prophet before God and all the people; and how our chief priests and rulers handed him over to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. Not only this, but it is now the third day since these things happened. Furthermore, some women of our group amazed us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back and said they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.”
Imagine being the fourth set of ears in that conversation. Of course, the mysterious visitor is able to clear Cleopas’ and his traveling companion’s minds about what they had heard, because, well, he was there for all of it.
The books of the New Testament after the Gospels show that following Jesus Christ was not only unpopular, but dangerous in the years after the Resurrection. Being a Christian is probably not dangerous today, at least in this country (although it certainly is elsewhere in the world), but living a truly Christian life isn’t particularly popular today either, as shown by who’s going, or not, to church these days.
For one thing, living a truly Christian life means your understanding that you’re not in charge, while being given a lifelong assignment (yes, responsibility without authority):
Matthew 28:18–19: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
Mark 16:15: “… Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”Which means what? One suggestion comes from N.T. Wright’s Simply Jesus:
The Beatitudes are the agenda for kingdom people. They are not simply about how to behave, so that God will do something nice to you. They are about the way in which Jesus wants to rule the world. He wants to do it through this sort of people — people, actually, just like himself (read the Beatitudes again and see). The Sermon on the Mount is a call to Jesus’ followers to take up their vocation as light to the world, as salt to the earth — in other words, as people through whom Jesus’ kingdom vision is to become a reality.
Wright’s last chapter tries to bridge the gap between social conservatives, who believe in avoiding sin yet confronting sin in others, and what Catholics call the “social Gospel,” Christ’s call to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and so on, in ways unlikely to satisfy hardcore adherents to those supposedly competing visions.
For those who think that’s challenging, add this: Helping others is not something to be left in the hands of government or nonprofit organizations. That’s your job as a Christian. It’s also your job as a Christian to live a virtuous life; it is not your job to call out others for (what you think are) their failings when you have failings yourself.
None of that is easy, which I suspect has a lot to do with why churches are shrinking in attendance. (Except, it seems, the nonaligned churches that don’t seem to ask very much of their attendees. Humans generally and Americans specifically seem to prefer easy and happy to reality.) The Bible does not promise Christians an easy, trouble-free, all-happy-endings life. Lent ends with Holy Week, but if it seems as though life is one big Lent, well, maybe there’s a reason.
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The number one British single today in 1963 may make you tap your foot:
Today in 1966, Mick Jagger got in the way of a chair thrown onto the stage during a Rolling Stones concert in Marseilles, France.
The title and artist are the same for the number one album today in 1969:
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After my rather unpleasant hour debating Democrat Christine Bremer-Muggli on Wisconsin Public Radio Friday, I got this Facebook message:
It’s always a pleasure to hear you on Joy’s program, but I’m disappointed in you for not correcting your nemesis on this morning’s WPR show when she incessantly spewed out an oft-repeated fallacy about Governor Walker’s level of education. Christine said – no less than five times – that Scott Walker “does not have a college education.”
That is a blatant lie.
Scott Walker went to Marquette for four years. Folks who want to criticize him would be accurate in saying that he did not earn a degree from that university.
That’s a fact.
It’s not my intention to defend the governor; but instead, I’m pointing out the truth in the midst of the rhetoric. Christine spewed out misinformation, she said it with authority, portrayed it as fact, and nobody called her on it.
To say that Walker “did not get a college education” after sitting in a class room for four years is beyond comprehension.
Also, it’s offensive to all the people in the world who were alternatively educated — home schooled, Internet classes, or even the school of hard knocks.
What about Abe Lincoln, who never went to college but eventually became a U.S. president? Bill Gates dropped out of college because he was too bored with the standard way of learning and became a self-made billionaire! Many very successful people never “got a college education,” including Mark Twain, Frank Sinatra, Michael Dell (Dell computers), Thomas Edison, Ernest Hemingway, George Washington, Andrew Carnegie, Orville and Wilbur Wright, and Steve Jobs. Where would we be without these very influential — and dare I say “educated” — people?
I can argue with nothing our listener/reader wrote, other than to add to her list a president who never got to college. I don’t think my WPR opponent will kick out Harry S. Truman from her party, but by her Friday standards he wasn’t qualified to be president. Nor was Abraham Lincoln.
As numerous unemployed college graduates can attest, a college degree guarantees nothing other than the fact you met the degree requirements of the institution. (The same can be said about master’s degrees, doctoral degrees, and yes, law degrees. The University of Wisconsin, from which my bachelor’s degree was earned, has among its alumni a large number of Ph.D.s working as Madison taxi drivers and waiters.) That means you attained the required number of credits by passing the required classes in the required subjects, including one or more majors and minors. Period. A college degree does not guarantee or demonstrate extraordinary intelligence, and it certainly does not prove wisdom.
It’s ironic, if you think about it, that a representative of the supposedly diverse, inclusive, tolerant, nondiscriminatory political party demonstrates a noted lack of tolerance toward someone with fewer degrees than her, beyond her willful falsehoods about Walker’s education. Then again, the diversity of the Democratic Party doesn’t include ideological diversity. (Bremer-Muggli respects neither the Second Amendment nor Article I, section 25 of the state Constitution either, but that’s hardly a surprise.)
One can ask if my microphone-hogging WPR nemesis actually intended to insult every listener without a degree, not to mention every potential legal client of hers without a degree. The charitable would assume the answer is no; she only intended to insult Scott Walker specifically and Republicans and non-liberals (including certainly myself) generally.
That makes her a victim of what Charlie Sykes calls Walker Derangement Syndrome, or the more scientific term, Reagan/Thompson/Bush/Walker Disease. Democrats believed, and believe in the latter’s case, that, respectively, a two-term president elected by larger margins than any of his Democratic successors, the longest-serving governor in Wisconsin’s history, our last two-term Republican president, and our current governor were, and in Walker’s case are, simultaneously stupid and evil. The victims not only spit contempt upon those who won, in order, two presidential elections, four gubernatorial elections, two presidential elections and a gubernatorial and recall election, they spit contempt upon those who voted for them.
Yesterday at work, for instance, I got an email from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin that could be described as slanderous toward Walker were it not for the fact that as a matter of law public officials generally cannot be the victims of slander. None of what the Democrats’ Baghdad Bob sent has a thing to do with issues facing this state. Other than possibly The Capital Times, Isthmus and some other Republican-hating publication, no publication would run this agitprop. Given the results of the 2010 and 2012 elections, the Democrats’ PR strategy, such as it is, isn’t working.
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Today in 1964, the Beatles were the first pop stars to get memorialized at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum …
… while in the North Sea, the pirate Radio Caroline went on the air:
The number one British single today in 1970:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 