The number one British single today in 1963:
The number one single today in 1970:
The number one British single today in 1976 replaced a single that had the title of the new number one in its lyrics:
No comments on Presty the DJ for Jan. 31
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Bill Lueders quotes Mark Grapentine of the Wisconsin Medical Society:
“It has been interesting to watch how there has been a lack of progress in an area where there seems to be a tremendous amount of agreement on the need to do something,” Grapentine says. Wisconsin remains the only state where first-offense drunken driving is not a crime, although the civil penalties include license suspension and substantial fines.
Two state lawmakers, Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, and Rep. Jim Ott, R-Mequon, plan to re-introduce bills to hike state drunken driving penalties. Darling aide Bob Delaporte said the bills have been redrafted “exactly the same” as last session, but could yet be revised.
One bill would make first-offense drunken driving with a high blood-alcohol content a crime, and raise penalties for a second offense. Another would make third and fourth offenses felonies, and increase the severity of subsequent charges.
Last time around, the bills were backed by the Wisconsin Medical Society and a law enforcement association. No lobby group registered in opposition and, according to Grapentine, no one spoke up at the hearings to say, “Oh, this drunk driving stuff, it’s not really a problem.”
But the bills went nowhere, due to what Grapentine calls “the dollar factor.”
Higher drunken driving penalties increase prosecutors’ workloads as well as county jail and state prison costs. A fiscal estimate from the state Department of Corrections put the cost of the bill regarding third and subsequent offenses at between $169 million and $204 million annually. Other agencies also weighed in, predicting higher costs.
Finances are a significant factor when, unlike the federal government, you cannot spend more money than you have. (By the legal definition of “balanced budget,” if not the actual definition.) You can talk all you like about the societal costs of drunk driving, but government isn’t paying those beyond the costs of law enforcement, medical services, and the cost of prosecuting and imprisoning those convicted of drunk driving. And the first and last of those increases if penalties for drunk driving are increased. For that matter, alcohol and drug abuse rehabilitation isn’t cheap either, and rehab has a high failure rate.
The drunk drivers who get the most media attention are those with multiple drunk driving convictions. (Including, recently, an Ohioan who picked up his 10th drunk driving conviction while driving through southwest Wisconsin. Before him, there was the man who on Labor Day was arrested for 11th-offense drunk driving, while he was out on bond on drunk driving charge number 10.)
It seems obvious that the current penalties for felony drunk driving (which begin with fifth-offense drunk driving) do not dissuade such people from driving drunk. Add to that group the surprising (at least to me) number of people arrested multiple times for driving after their driver’s license has been suspended or revoked. The only way those people apparently can be dissuaded from driving drunk is to physically separate them from any motor vehicle. That means locking them up.
There is a billboard on U.S. 151 near Presteblog World Headquarters that claims that a drunk driving conviction costs the drunk driver $10,000. I don’t know if this is correct (and I don’t intend to find out through experience), but if it is, that fact clearly isn’t dissuading drunk drivers either. You would think that one of those $10,000 tickets would dissuade someone convicted of first-offense drunk driving from picking up conviction number, but apparently you’d be mistaken.
(It’s analogous to one of the main problems with the death penalty — the inability of advocates to prove its deterrent ability. Most homicides are crimes of passion, which don’t fit the usual legal definition of first-degree murder. For the death penalty to be a deterrent would require much more widespread use — for any degree of murder, and possibly even such instances as homicide by drunk driving — with much less time between conviction and execution.)
Traffic tickets, including first-offense drunk driving, are civil forfeitures. The standard for conviction is strict liability, or “preponderance of the evidence.” The standard for conviction for criminal charges — misdemeanors and felonies — is, remember, “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The stiffer the penalties, the more expensive prosecution is, in part because the increased incentive to fight the charges.
There are other costs to stepping up enforcement or penalties. Police cannot pull over a vehicle for no reason; police must have probable cause — such as speeding, driving too slowly, driving at night without headlights, inability to stay in the correct lane, etc. Sobriety checkpoints are used in some states, even though they are an unconstitutional abuse of our Fourth Amendment rights. (Sobriety checkpoints treat everyone as guilty.) Police officers who are looking strictly for drunk drivers are officers who are not able to do anything else, such as deter crime in high-crime areas by driving or walking through the neighborhood.
Unless Wisconsinites want to increase enforcement to police-state levels, drunk driving seems to be one of those things that won’t be reduced by more laws, but only by cultural attitude change — by taking driving more seriously than merely getting in the car, turning it on, and leaving point A in search of point B.
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Today in 1917, the first jazz record was recorded:
The number one British single today in 1959:
The number one single today in 1961 was the first number one for a girl group:
Today in 1969, the Beatles held their last concert, on the roof of their Apple Records building:
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Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke is now my favorite Wisconsin Democrat (from WTMJ.com):
“Can I count on you?”
It’s the question Milwaukee county Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr., asks residents in a new radio spot about personal safety.
AUDIO: Click to hear the radio spot
“With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option,” he states.
Clarke tells residents personal safety isn’t a spectator sport, and “I need you in the game.”
“You could beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back, but are you prepared?”
Clarke suggests listeners take a firearm safety course and learn how to handle a firearm “so you can defend yourself until we get there.”
Suffice to say Clarke has upset many politicians in Milwaukee County. My source in Milwaukee reports that this is in part an issue between Milwaukee County government (the county executive and county board) and Clarke, who is, safe to say, considerably more conservative than both. Twice-failed gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett, mayor of Milwaukee, isn’t a fan of Clarke either. (There is little love lost as well between Barrett’s police chief, Ed Flynn, and Clarke. Flynn is one of the police chiefs who favors gun control; Clarke does not.)
Clarke’s specific issue with Milwaukee County government is that the county is trying to cut the Sheriff’s Department budget through, for instance, getting Milwaukee police to patrol Milwaukee County parks within the city. County boards and county sheriffs have an interesting legal relationship in this state — on the one hand, the county board sets the county budget, including the Sheriff’s Department, but (according to another sheriff I know) if a sheriff’s department exceeds its budget, the county has to make up that shortfall.
Some Milwaukee County police aren’t thrilled with Clarke either:
The Greenfield Police Dept. posted the following statement on its Facebook page:
-No Greenfield officers have been laid off or furloughed.
-Violent crime is down overall and in Greenfield
-Our response time to violent crime is less than two minutes
-The decision to arm yourself with a firearm is a very personal and private decision that should not be driven by fear that our officers will not respond to your calls for help.To which came this Facebook comment:
By the time you realize you have an intruder in your home you don’t always have even two minutes to wait for the police. Your family could be dead by then. I am a responsible, law-abiding citizen and I don’t want anyone taking away my right to defend my family. I have four children and a husband that I love dearly. If some psycho is pointing a gun at them, I want to have a gun to point back and use if necessary.One conservative blogger is less than impressed: Wigderson Library & Pub:
Okay, but the only layoffs and furloughs are in Milwaukee County Sheriffs Department, the “we” he mentions. Unlike other sheriff departments around the state, Clarke’s department doesn’t respond to 911 calls for home invasions. Local police departments are responsible for those calls. Clarke’s department is responsible for responding to calls in county parks, on the freeways, and running the county jail. …
This is about Clarke’s complaints about his budget, and he’s pandering to gun rights advocates to support him. Clarke is playing them for suckers and unfortunately a lot of them are falling for it.
Conservatives should be angry at Clarke for using taxpayer money for blatant political dishonesty instead of praising him for supporting gun owners. He may be right that you’re better off being prepared to defend yourself instead of waiting for law enforcement to arrive, but it has nothing to do with the layoffs and furloughs to his department.
To that, a comment:
The Milwaukee city police department has issued 3 furlough days to 1500+ officers to be scheduled in 2013 … 4500 manpower days or 12 fewer officers on the street every day.
Getting folks to think about and take an active role in their own defense is not a radical viewpoint. It’s a highly relevant discussion to have in our current political environment where the Democrat-controlled federal government is both brainstorming new ways and dusting off tired old ideas aimed not at preventing another Sandy Hook, but incrementally moving us towards a disarmed society.
Is there an aspect to this that serves Clarke’s politics? Perhaps, but given the fact that what he is saying is true, what’s wrong with that? He is an elected official and PSA’s are nothing new. Considering the apparent fact that well-informed people like you didn’t know about MPD’s 2013 furloughs tells me that Clarke’s PSA informing them of that reality is doing a service to the public. Barrett/Flynn would prefer to keep their constituents disarmed and in the dark.
Barrett has an odd relationship with his police officers and firefighters. He proposed Fire Department cutbacks that the firefighters opposed. He criticized the public employee collective bargaining reforms because they excluded police and firefighters. It makes you wonder (not for the first time) how smart a politician Barrett is, because voters haven’t exactly been sympathetic to emergency services cuts anywhere since 9/11. (Bill Clinton figured that out before 9/11; you may recall his 100,000-police-officer initiative while he was president. Clinton figured out that voters want even Democrats to be tough on crime.)
If Clarke is on one side and Barrett and the Milwaukee County Board the other, I’m on Clarke’s side. Barrett’s record as mayor remains largely accomplishment-free, as was the case during Recallarama Part Deux. I also have no respect for politicians — or, for that matter, police management — who espouse denying us our constitutional rights, even in the name of crime control.
The New Adventures of Jean Nicolet provides perspective from the other end of Interstate 43, or the future-Interstate U.S. 41:
Today, the number of people ‘packin in their purse, their pants or in their pockets is large: Why else would we be called Green Bay Packers? Our famous chant of, “GO PACK GO!“ is part civic pride – and part public service announcement: a not-so-gentle reminder that all law-abiding citizens should go Pack; go get ready! …
Wisconsin’s new Conceal/Carry Law is helping people pack; more citizens than ever are ‘packin, or planning to. Last year, 151,577 Packers applied for a conceal and carry permit (138,000 have been approved so far). Last year, 106,448 hand guns were sold in Wisconsin – a 124% increase from the 47,373 sold in 2007. Those numbers – which will continue to grow as politicians continue to chip away at the Second Amendment – are on top of an already well-armed citizenry. (MOST, however, probably won’t apply for a conceal/carry permit.)
Our citizens are also good shots, and educated about gun usage. Hunter Safety Courses are in the High Schools. Rifle and pistol ranges flourish up here; gun clubs in every community are like surrogate Community Halls where many people regularly meet, and greet, and eat… but it’s not all social: They DO get down to the business end of a Gun Club –they practice shooting their guns.
The uncomfortable truth is that police are not necessarily able to respond within seconds to any call, even violent calls, if something else is going on. People who live in college towns know that people of capacity diminished by ingestion of regulated beverages have been known to show up where they’re neither expected nor wanted. Ultimately, your safety and your family’s safety is up to you, not anyone else.
Daniel Mitchell passes on a Washington Times report on the interesting results of a Fox News poll:
Question 46 in the wide-ranging survey of more than 1,000 registered voters asks if there is a gun in the household. Overall, 52 percent of the respondents said yes, someone in their home owned a gun. That number included 65 percent of Republicans, 59 percent of conservatives, 38 percent of Democrats and 41 percent of liberals.
But on to Question 47, addressed to those with a gun in their home: “If the government passed a law to take your guns, would you give up your guns or defy the law and keep your guns?”
The response: 65 percent reported they would “defy the law.” That includes 70 percent of Republicans, 68 percent of conservatives, 52 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of liberals.
Mitchell adds:
These results don’t tell us why people would defy the government, but the poll I conducted suggests that a plurality of Americans support the Second Amendment because they want the ability to resist tyranny.
I’m also happy to see that most Americans understand that gun bans are a very ineffective way of fighting crime. Heck, they realize that we need more guns in the hands of law-abiding people.
In other words, ordinary Americans have a lot more common sense than the buffoons in the media. They know that you get less crime when you increase the expected cost of criminal behavior.
Just bitter clingers. Right, Barack?
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Today in 1942 premiered what now is the second longest running program in the history of radio — the BBC’s “Desert Island Discs”:
What’s the longest running program in the history of radio? The Grand Ole Opry.
Today in 1968, the Doors appeared at the Pussy Cat a Go Go in Las Vegas. After the show, Jim Morrison pretended to light up a marijuana cigarette outside. The resulting fight with a security guard concluded with Morrison’s arrest for vagancy, public drunkenness, and failure to possess identification.
The number one British single today in 1969 was its only British number one:
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On Friday Charlie Sykes said nice things about this blog, specifically what I wrote Thursday about the proposed $330 million state tax cut, which, at 27 cents per day, is too small for anyone to notice.
Sykes pointed out that a larger tax cut would be demagogued by the Democrats. He is correct, and as proof my work inbox had a press release from the Wisconsin Democratic Party needling Gov. Scott Walker for claiming the state surplus of $419.7 million that, by the standard upon which Walker criticized Gov. James Doyle, wasn’t in balance either.
That would be the legal standard of cash-balance instead of the actual standard of balance by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The Democrats’ statement, while correct, is wildly disingenuous, proving that Wisconsin Democrats believe in fiscal sanity only when it’s politically convenient. Democrats cannot point to one single budget during the Doyle administration that was GAAP-balanced. While during the 2000s one-third of the states had GAAP deficits in any budget year during that decade, Wisconsin is one of the few that had GAAP deficits every year of that decade.
Doyle, remember, managed the fiscal feat (if you want to call it that) of budget-cycle and structural deficits despite his $2.2-billion tax increase. Sykes passed on the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute‘s painstaking, and painful, listing of all the Doyle tax increases.
When Walker inherited an immediate deficit of nearly $150 million and a $3.6 billion structural deficit as he took office in January 2011, Democrats denied the deficits’ very existence. Not a single Democrat — not Doyle, not Tom Barrett, not Jon Erpenbach, not Tim Cullen, not Kathleen Vinehout, not Peter Barca — admitted the state’s fiscal trainwreck, let alone advancing an alternative approach to fixing it. So if I were a Republican I would not give a damn what Democrats have to say about state finances.
The proposed $330 million tax cut, however, remains insufficient. A tax cut of any size, which means more money in your pocket instead of Govzilla’s, is better than the alternative, of course. But a 27-cent-a-day tax cut will not provide any incentive to create jobs, invest, or even increase consumer spending. What will someone invest in with an additional $2 per week in take-home pay?
That size tax cut doesn’t come close to making up for Barack Obama’s Social Security tax increase enacted at the start of this year. (Which will directly lead to the next U.S. recession this year.) And then there’s the proposed $600 million in annual tax and fee increases to fund the state Department of Transportation’s wish list.
Republicans will not be able to legitimately claim they cut your taxes if government takes more money out of your pockets, whether that’s by higher gas taxes, the odious proposed per-mile GPS-measured fee, or any other function. At an absolute minimum, any tax cut needs to exceed whatever WisDOT is able to get through the Legislature.
The better goal is the aforementioned $2.2 billion, the Doyle tax increases. The fastest way to do that is to eliminate the corporate income tax, which in 2010 was estimated to bring in $1.63 billion. Whatever businesses in this state choose to do with that $1.63 billion — increase employee pay, hire more employees, increase owner dividends, or invest back into the business — will be preferable to $1.63 billion for state and local governments to waste. (People with brains know that businesses don’t pay taxes anyway; their customers do, so a business tax cut is a consumer tax cut.)
The remainder should go into personal income tax cuts, enough to substantially reduce Wisconsin’s ranking as number four in state and local taxes. How should this be “paid for”? How about this radical thought: Create a 2013–15 state budget that is smaller than the 2011–13 state budget. A tax cut that people do notice should be able to generate more economic activity, with the added benefit of helping to Obama-proof the state’s economy as much as doable.
There is another issue, which fuels the cynicism of those who claim that Republicans aren’t really interested in reducing the size and scope of government. Had legislative Republicans done the right thing and passed permanent constitutional limits on year-to-year spending for all levels of government early in the 2011–12 Legislature, the Legislature could be voting on those constitutional spending limits in this session of the Legislature, and then sending it to referendum. Given that voters voted to have Republicans represent them in 2010 and 2012, there is a good chance a Taxpayer Bill of Rights-like mechanism would then become law, preventing legislators of any party from stoking the fires of our state’s tax hell.
Wisconsin is one of the few states with no spending or taxation controls in its Constitution. Some spending controls have been included in state budgets, but since one Legislature cannot bind a future Legislature, those controls go away at the whim of someone like Doyle, who eliminated the Qualified Economic Offer control on teacher contracts, which eliminated school boards’ ability to control the largest part of school budgets. (Of course, given Walker’s replacing Doyle and Act 10, eliminating the QEO turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory for public employee unions. In fact, Act 10 turned out to be the last victory for municipal public employee unions, many of which no longer exist outside of law enforcement unions.) Nor did Republicans change state law to require GAAP-balanced state budgets, when every unit of government other than state government is required to have GAAP-balanced budgets.
Voters voted to have Republicans represent them in 2010 and 2012. There is no guarantee that voters will vote to have Republicans represent them in 2014 if they simply act like Democrats who spend and tax slightly less.
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Today in 1956, Elvis Presley made his first national TV appearance on, of all places, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey’s “Stage Show” on CBS.
The number one album on both sides of the Atlantic today in 1978 was Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours”:
The number one single today in 1984 was banned by the BBC, which probably helped it stay on the charts for 48 weeks:
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The number one single today in 1962:
The number one single today in 1973:
The number one British single today in 1979 does not make one think of Pat Benatar:
Today in 1984, Michael Jackson recorded a commercial for the new flaming hair flavor of Pepsi:
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The number one single in Great Britain today in 1961 included a Shakespearean reference:
The number one single today in 1965 included Jimmy Page, later of Led Zeppelin, on guitar:
Today in 1970, John Lennon wrote, recorded and mixed a song all in one day, which may have made it an instant song:
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When we were here one week ago, we were learning all the places that a Steve can be found in entertainment, including the Steve trinity in the movie “The Tao of Steve” — Steve McGarrett, Steve Austin and Steve McQueen.
For some reason, “Man of Action” makes me think of a TV series that had no Steves in it …
… although to have an action series (which, as you know, comprises the majority of my lifetime non-sports TV viewing) requires the appropriate theme music, from one of the masters of action TV themes:
“Man of Action” implies an infinite number of required skills to be able to contribute to wherever or whatever the action is. (Happily, all the required skills and clichés can be found here.) That implies a present or past military career, particularly in covert operations — an Army Green Beret, a Navy SEAL, some armed service’s intelligence branch, etc.
Our hero should also be able to subdue antagonists in more traditional fashion:
To demonstrate intellect, our hero, like Thomas Magnum and both McGarretts, should have a service academy background. (Shockingly, “Magnum P.I.” never had a character named Steve in it.) Magnum was a Naval Academy graduate and, as we found out in an early episode, a quarterback while at Navy. (Think Roger Staubach, who won the Heisman Trophy at Navy, served five years in the Navy, and then played for the Cowboys for 10 seasons.)
But an all-around action hero can’t be a musclebound Terminator-type. In track and field, the winner of the Olympic decathlon is considered the best athlete in the world. So think of Bruce Jenner in his heyday, minus the 1976 long hair and bizarre stepfamily.
One thing a Man of Action must be able to do is be able to drive or fly anything. That means our hero must come from the aviation wing of his armed service. Our Man of Action has to have cool wheels, in keeping with my formula that cool theme music + cool wheels = something I’d watch. I would suggest a Corvette and a four-wheel-drive pickup or SUV, but choose for yourself.
“Man of Action” also implies someone who can be comfortable in numerous environments — someone who can use his mind or his body equally well to defeat the evil du jour. That suggests James Bond …
… or another James who hasn’t been born yet:
Both Bond and Kirk fit for their capabilities in another area of “action” …
But, in order to keep viewer interest, Man of Action can’t be tied down to anyone. (Which gives the producers the ability to cast the Babe of the Week.) A dog and/or cat would humanize him, though.
The “Magnum P.I.” template has obvious upsides here. Man of Action would be able to investigate (the P.I. side) and then do something about them (the military background) without being constrained by, you know, laws.
(I did not watch, and therefore haven’t mentioned, “MacGyver” or “Knight Rider” because the former sounds like a liberal’s idea of a hero — no guns — and because talking cars are something to avoid.)
But P.I.s have been overdone to the point of charring. It’s time an underappreciated — more like unappreciated — action type become an action hero: the journalist. (I’ll pause until you can control your laughter.)
One of the characters in my favorite newspaper movie, “Deadline USA,” says, “A journalist makes himself the hero of the story. A reporter is only a witness.” Since Man of Action needs to make himself the hero of the story, Man of Action can be a journalist, and in this e-era, the medium doesn’t matter since everything’s multimedia anyway.
There have been two journalist/superheroes — Daily Sentinel publisher Brit Reid and Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent. This piece is about an action hero, not a superhero, but clearly the fiction world has been remiss in casting as an action hero someone who doesn’t fit the stereotype of journalists as, well, Oscar Madison. (Is that a reporter’s notebook or a pistol in his jacket? Good question. Too late, the bad guy discovers that Man of Action isn’t holding a Nikon D7000 camera; it’s a rocket launcher. Imagine a journalist who starts an interview and then ends it by shooting or otherwise permanently subduing the interviewee.)
You might look at these previous paragraphs and conclude that we’ve come up with Mr. Perfect, and therefore not a very sympathetic character. Two things are necessary to save our hero from hubris — first, the writing of the show, because that’s what makes people watch a TV series, and second, that don’t-take-yourself-too-seriously personality that was part of the most iconic action TV characters, such as Bret Maverick, Jim Rockford, and Thomas Magnum (whose character was once described thusly: “Women liked his looks and men didn’t feel threatened because he seemed like the kind of guy you’d love to have a beer with”).
It should go without saying that our hero’s writers must make him speak well — clever and witty, yet stone dead serious or menacing when necessary. That’s where someone like the late great Stephen J. Cannell is necessary. (How did I forget him in my paean to Steves last week?) Steven Bochco, creator of “Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law” and “NYPD Blue,” might help. (Missed him too last week.)
Another important facet is Man of Action’s boss, foil, assistant, inside contact or similar role, like Bond’s M, Rockford’s father or police Sgt. Dennis Becker, Magnum’s Jonathan Quayle Higgins III, or Mr. Finch in “Person of Interest,” or Noah Bain, the title character’s supervisor in “It Takes a Thief.” It has to be a subordinate character, since this is “Man of Action,” not “Men of Action.” (Unless, like “Kresky,” a main character gets added later.) He might need more than one, in fact — a military/government boss type, a police insider, his ostensible journalism outlet supervisor, and so on.
This would, of course, be the original-programming centerpiece of Steve TV. Would anyone watch?
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 