You weren’t expecting motor home racing? The BBC’s TopGear (far superior to the American version) probably didn’t start a new sport, but …
… you probably weren’t expecting airport vehicle racing either.
No comments on Just what, not why
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Today in 1966, Jan Berry of Jan and Dean crashed his Corvette into a parked truck in Los Angeles, suffering permanent injuries.
The number one single today in 1969:
Today in 1975, David Bowie announced, “I’ve rocked my roll. It’s a boring dead end, there will be no more rock ‘n’ roll records from me.”
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Proving that there is more than one side even on the right, Right Wisconsin has two points of view about the Milwaukee Bucks (you know, the NBA team — you have heard of them, right?) and whether they should get a new arena to replace the aging (by pro sports standards) Bradley Center.
Whether you like it or not, by the economic standards of professional sports the oldest arena in the National Basketball Association is an economic airball for the Bucks. When the Bradley Center opened, the four most famous NBA arenas were the Boston Garden, the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., the Spectrum in Philadelphia, and Madison Square Garden in New York. The Celtics, Lakers and 76ers are all in new arenas (the Garden and Spectrum aren’t there anymore), and Madison Square Garden was gutted so that Knicks games are more fan-friendly and more lucrative to the Knicks’ owners.
Not only does the Bradley Center have too few revenue generators compared with the Packers’ Lambeau Field, the Brewers’ Miller Park, and the Badgers’ Camp Randall Stadium and Kohl Center, it wasn’t designed well in the 1980s. Having attended games there, I can personally attest there are two sections of seats that have good views — the lower level seats inside the basketball court end lines. The lower-level end zone and corner seats are awful, and the upper-level seats are in Racine, Johnson Creek, West Bend and the middle of Lake Michigan.
Section 221. 
Section 400. Savvy Pundit explains the pro-replacement side:
Milwaukee is one of only 28 cities in the world who have an NBA franchise. You would think that would be a matter of pride, and something that the leadership of a city would jealously protect. Indeed, this week we’ve seen stories of the lengths to which the city of Sacramento and it’s Mayor, Kevin Johnson, are going to defeat the full court pressure to steal their team being put on by Seattle.
Mayor Johnson – a former NBA all-star – has led the effort to keep the Kings in Sacramento, personally pushing through measures that will have the City of Sacramento contributing $258 million to the construction of the new arena, and even taking city ownership of the new facility. …
Contrast this with the City of Milwaukee, where our own Milwaukee Bucks face an uncertain future due to an aging arena. Mayor Tom Barrett has largely been invisible on the issue.
The one notable time he did poke his head out of his hole on the matter it was to state that he would draw a line in the sand and oppose plan that didn’t require that someone else solve the problem. Quoth the Mayor: “I cannot support a City of Milwaukee or Milwaukee County only financing plan [for a new arena].”
Now, I get it that the Mayor would prefer to have someone else pay for the new arena. But the simple fact is, at the end of the day this is a Milwaukee problem and it’s going to require a Milwaukee solution. In terms of regional or statewide fan appeal, the Bucks are not the Packers.
They are not even the Brewers. Losing the Bucks would be a sad thing for the whole state, but it would be a real and devastating economic loss for the City of Milwaukee, for the city’s image, and for the vitality of its downtown entertainment and hospitality businesses. For the suburbs and outstate communities, the Bucks are a “nice to have.” For Milwaukee they are a “need to have.” Whether he likes it or not, this one is going to fall on Mayor Barrett. His city is the one at risk. His leadership is on trial. And his effort is going to have a lot to do with whether the Bucks are a part of Milwaukee’s future or just part of a proud and ever more distant past.On the opposite side is Patti Breitigan Wenzel:
There is no way around it, the presentation given by Martin Greenberg at the forum on a new arena sounded like an opening argument in a case to win full public financing for the complex.
“Herb Kohl will not participate in this debate,” Greenberg said. “But there are three statements he agrees with. First, the time is now to finance and replace the Bradley Center; two, he (Kohl) will make a significant contribution to the construction and three; Milwaukee’s chances to keep an NBA is not robust without a new arena.”
Then Greenberg added the kicker – “Why should Kohl’s money lead the way when other cities have fully publicly funded their arenas?”
Places like San Francisco or Foxboro or Houston.
Owners expect their home cities to provide a competitive place for their teams to play,” Greenberg said. “A quid pro quo for obtaining and maintaining a professional franchise. The public must do the same and Kohl shouldn’t be required to do so. No public investment, no arena, no Bucks.”
A little blackmail there, Mr. Greenberg? …
What about the other pressing matters Milwaukee and the region are facing? A failing school system, a dysfunctional behaviorial health system, lack of intergovernmental cooperation that would be needed for any type of public financing plan to even come to fruition.
But we should be grateful to Herb Kohl that he has deemed us worthy to be the home of his multi-million dollar sports franchise? Especially since he won’t even deign to tell us how much he is willing to pony up for his portion of a new arena.
I say there is a lot more talking to do and common ground to be found before we forge ahead with this gift.
And shouldn’t the owner of the team participate in the debate? Or are the Bucks going to follow Mayor Barrett’s lead and just passively watch how this unfolds?
A couple points about Wenzel’s piece: The “other pressing matters” are not really about money, at least in the first and last cases. Milwaukee Public Schools is the worst school system in the state and one of the worst in the country. No amount of money will repair MPS. The issue of intergovernmental cooperation is more about political will than about finances.
Kohl’s presence in this little drama illustrates, perhaps to your surprise, the state’s historically bad business climate. According to Forbes magazine (as reported by Small Business Times), the richest Wisconsinites, and their positions on the Forbes 400 billionaires list, are:
- 56: John Menard, of Menards (pronounced “Menar!”), net worth $6 billion.
- 142: Diane Hendricks, of ABC Supply, $2.9 billion.
- 151: H. Fisk Johnson, Imogene Powers Johnson, S. Curtis Johnson and Helen Johnson-Leopold, all of S.C. Johnson, $2.7 billion each.
- 170: Herbert Kohler and Kohler family members, $2.6 billion.
- 190: James Cargill II, one of the owners of Cargill, $2.4 billion.
- 285: Judy Faulkner, founder of Epic Systems in Verona (not Madison), $1.7 billion.
That’s it. Herb Kohl is not on that list. Mark Attanasio, who purchased the Brewers from the Selig family, isn’t on that list either, and he’s not a Wisconsinite anyway. (Not a single Wisconsin name came up to purchase the Brewers from the Seligs when the Seligs finally sold the team.) The fact there aren’t more Wisconsinites on the Forbes 400 proves that you can’t make big money in Wisconsin. because of our high taxes (fifth highest state and local taxes in the country, and eighth highest business taxes in the country) and, as Menard can attest, our pervasively anti-business attitude in government and in our culture. (Too many Wisconsinites believe rich people became rich by stealing, and not enough Wisconsinites start or own businesses.)
Two people on that list have sports connections. Menard owns a racing team. Kohler owns the two golf courses, Whistling Straits (home of the 2010 PGA tournament, and a fine experience a day there was) and Blackwolf Run. Kohl, meanwhile, already gave $25 million to build the University of Wisconsin’s Kohl Center, a much better place to watch basketball. Jane Bradley Pettit, who donated the money for the Bradley Center, is dead. Name another Wisconsinite with the financial wherewithal and the sports interest to purchase the Bucks and contribute significantly to a new arena.
There is no white knight to rescue the Bucks when Kohl decides to unload the franchise. Neither Barrett nor, apparently, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele will lift a finger for the Bucks. The suburban Milwaukee counties were none too pleased at paying the 0.1-percent sales tax to build Miller Park, and Miller Park is used twice as often as the Bradley Center for Bucks games, with more than twice the nightly attendance. (A sales tax referendum, which the Packers used to get the 0.5-percent Brown County sales tax to fund the early-2000s Lambeau Field improvements, would not pass in any county near Milwaukee, and not in Milwaukee County either.) I don’t see Gov. Scott Walker spending any political capital to keep the Bucks in Wisconsin.
When an out-of-state market hungry for pro basketball is ready to deal, the Bucks will leave Wisconsin, and most Wisconsinites won’t care.
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U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R–Kentucky) went to Howard University, reports London’s Guardian:
Founded in 1867, Howard University was one of the few schools where blacks could receive degrees after the Civil War ended. The school also played an integral part of the Civil Rights movement, and its student population remains predominately black today. …
Few young minorities know the history of the Republican Party “chock full of emancipation and black history”. He talked about his passion for ending mandatory minimum federal sentencing for non-violent possession of drugs because they ruin the lives of kids who just make bad decisions. It was one of the most heavily tweeted and applauded lines of his speech.
Paul tackled some 30 minutes of tough questioning ranging from Malcolm X to the Environmental Protection Agency. When asked by a former Obama intern how he felt about voter ID laws, Paul said he didn’t think it was a burden for people to show a driver’s license to maintain the integrity of the polls, but didn’t approve of 100-page literacy tests Democrats forced blacks to take during reconstruction to suppress their vote. …
Most striking was Paul’s response to a question from a young man who said he “wanted a government that helps him and pays for his school”. Paul used this opportunity to emphasize his belief of the hazard of government over-reach. Paul warned the student that when government spends money it doesn’t have and sells our debt to China, this limits school loans and creates an economy where people can’t get jobs when they become college graduates.
Going backwards in time, Paul reminded the crowd the GOP has always been the party of civil rights and voting rights, but also the party of limited government. “When some people hear that, they tune us out and say: he’s just using code words for the state’s right to discriminate, for the state’s right to segregate and abuse. But that’s simply not true.” Paul used the 14th amendment guaranteeing all Americans citizenship and equal rights regardless of race as an example of such egregious injustice that requires federal involvement. …
He said after the Great Depression and Civil Rights Act, blacks wanted “economic emancipation” and began voting Democrat because Democrats promised “unlimited federal assistance”. He added: Republicans offered something that seemed less tangible-the promise of equalizing opportunity through free markets. After nearly 50 years of Democrat policies, Paul argued the evidence shows that big government is not a friend to African Americans. He pointed to persistent high unemployment among blacks, presently 13.3%, nearly twice the national average, blacks trapped in failing schools and their declining wealth.
Before the speech, I asked a young man, who was a sophomore, why he was there. He said to listen but he didn’t feel Paul “was in his best interests”. He never articulated what those interests were, but when I asked him when was the last time President Obama had spoken on campus since he became a student, he replied: never. Obama hasn’t spoken to Howard students since 2007, when he was campaigning for the Democrat nomination and Hillary was leading in the polls among black Americans. Howard students should ask themselves who’s showing up and asking for their vote, and who’s assuming they have it.”
Maybe it’s about time we all reassess blind allegiance to ideas that are failing our children,” said Paul. While the senator was referencing America’s education system and the benefits of school choice, I think that was the theme of his speech. “As Toni Morrison said, ‘write your own story. Challenge mainstream thought,’” concluded Paul.
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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:
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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:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 