What can I say about the recurrence of violence in my environs here on the southwest side except that maybe President Obama could spare some of the Afghan surge of 30,000 extra soldiers for these parts. [...]
You read that right! Blaska's Blog salutes our commander in chief and wishes him all success in his plan to defeat the forces of evil once and for all -- up to a point, of course. [...]
This post includes Brett Hulsey's e-mail and web site. Give this arrogant ideologue a sharp taste of democracy. Tell him you do not intend to surrender your property rights or your liberties whenever anyone yells "Environment" in a crowded theater. [...]
Have a happy Thanksgiving. This has been a most interesting year for your BlaskaBlogger. Suffice it to say he does not take for granted the life the good Lord has given him. [...]
The results are in. The people have spoken at two public hearings conducted by the Dane County Lakes and Watershed Commission last week on the so-called Dane County Waterbody Classification Project. [...]
Stopped by the Dane County Lakes and Watershed Commission hearing Tuesday night at the Verona Senior Center to testify against the so-called Dane County Waterbody Classification Project. [...]
To the ramparts! Prepare the boiling oil! Even Ruben Mamoulian has been released from the dungeon for active duty. Stately Blaska Manor, historic and gracious seat of the Blaska Policy Research Center and Experimental Work Farm, is in the gun sights of the collectivists. [...]
It is over for the Democrats in Wisconsin. The report card is in on the Jim E. Doyle-Mark Pocan-Mark Miller state budget. The Pew Center for the States, as disinterested party as you can find, puts Wisconsin among the 10 states whose government is in the worst budgetary shape. [...]
My hands are bloodied and bruised for I have been engaged in a pitched battle here at the Blaska Policy Research Center and Experimental Work Farm with my arch-enemy. No, not Bicycle Boy. Something far more sinister (if possible) and fecund: <i>Rhamnus cathartica</i>. [...]
Even my wife was appalled. Friday morning I used the publicly subsidized airwaves to good purpose. I called for Gov. Jim E. Doyle to mobilize the National Guard and deploy it in Milwaukee's public schools. Joy Cardin, the gracious host of Wisconsin Public Radio's Week in Review program commented, "We'll'" [...]
Leave aside estimates that only 5,500 passengers will ride the Dane County commuter train. Forget that each trip will need to be subsidized to the tune of $40+. Never mind that the train doesn't really go anywhere that buses can't already take you and more cheaply. It's the dishonest way [...]
We now have a president who is purely the product of the government sector. As blissfully ignorant of how to create wealth as any Progressive Dane collectivist. That divide is showing up as Obama socializes the American economy while Europe steps back from the enervating socialist experiment. [...]
What a difference a year makes in American politics! As Tommy G. Thompson would say, "Isn't it great to be a Republican!" And you know what, kids? It really is! You should try it some time.' [...]
In my last blog, I opined that Barbara Lawton owes her supporters and her political party an honest reason for her <i>volte face."</i> Absent that, "speculation is bound to continue" for her sudden decision last week to quit the race for governor." [...]
They're calling themselves "Cave Men and Women." They are the opponents of the proposed $250 million Dane County Regional Transit Authority. Like any self-respecting refuseniks in this day and age of the tax tea parties, they have their own T-shirts. But they were there first.' [...]
I'm talking to the same people who went into high dudgeon for making Nixon's enemies list and wore that honor like an Oxford don's chevrons. I'm talking to people who get fainting spells when the local library puts Tropic of Cancer on the restricted shelf. [...]
Great interview with Andrew Breitbart in Saturday's Wall Street Journal. Who? Andrew Breitbart. He's the guy who disseminated (but did not create) the videotaped sting operation that revealed Acorn to be an immoral, ends justify the means organization. [...]
Missouri native Rush Limbaugh joins a syndicate seeking to purchase the woeful St. Louis Rams pro football team and you'd think the Klan was burning a cross on the south lawn of the White House.' [...]
An economics professor from Georgia Tech once told an annual National Counties Association convention in Washington D.C. that a president dealing with the economy is like the rodeo bull rider: lurching and sprawling for 10 seconds before he is thrown off and trampled then applauded for his wonderful job of [...]
I hear that Pope Benedict XVI is already declaring Barack Obama a saint. No, the guy is not even Catholic but the Pope hopes he will become one. (Pa-DUMM!) [...]
You know autumn is here by the vibrant colors and high temperatures in the 40s. Expecting a killing frost any evening now. The current cold, wet spell heralds what I grew up on the farm knowing as Indian Summer but in Madison these days we call Indigenous Peoples' Summer.' [...]
The last place I expected to see some good common sense is in an Isthmus movie review. But Marjorie Baumgarten, an unfamiliar byline to me, holds Michael Moore's latest picture show, <i>Capitalism: A Love Story,</i> in the contempt it has so richly earned. [...]
We've been reading about the proposed Edgewater Hotel expansion fueled by $16 million in tax incremental financing that the mayor and the biz community are advocating. And what kind of extra jobs would the hotel expansion provide? Largely, table busing jobs and parlor maids.' [...]
In my never-ending search for Truth, Justice and the American Way I have stumbled -- like Jeff Wood doing a sobriety test -- on an odious web site called "Screw Liberals." [...]
Why was the mainstream news media so slow to pick up on Obama's energy czar, ACORN corruption, and the tea parties? The Washington Post's ombudsman concedes that the Post (and MSM in general) don't really do a good job of covering conservatives.' [...]
There are two kinds of politicians. Those who run to <i>be</i> somebody and those who run to <i>do</i> something. I opined, on a recent Wisconsin Public Radio <i>Week in Review</i> program, that Jim E. Doyle was one of the former. [...]
At the risk of causing fainting spells among my liberal friends, three cheers for "the adult son" of Peter and Mei Chin who dispatched an intruder inside their home in Fitchburg's Seminole Hills Tuesday. [...]
We are having the most delightful weather -- like sauvignon blanc, so clear and refreshing -- and I have been out enjoying it. The weather and the white wine. [...]
Brenda Konkel was burrowed face down into her laptop computer at Falk elementary school on August 26 for the "Neighborhoods Restoring Safety" meeting when I approached. [...]
I ate two grilled hamburgers, heard some good rap music (not gangsta) and talked to some nice people. I stayed clear of the dunk tank, for which I was nominated by more than one attendee. As Bob Uecker might say, “Ah these fans! They love me."" [...]
In 18 years as a working daily newspaperman I learned that conflict makes news. I've spent the 19 years since unlearning that trite journalistic trope.' [...]
I have not talked much about race in these blogs. Nor will I. Sure enough, Lisa Veldran, president of the Meadowood neighborhood association, has injected the race issue like a plague bacillus into the bloodstream of a very healthy event. [...]
Madison's public schools are bleeding students to surrounding districts -- particularly Verona, Monona, McFarland and Middleton -- because parents want to escape the Madison schools' drug abuse, violence, gangs and negative peer pressure.' [...]
There's a basketball hoop at Orchard Ridge Park off Flad Avenue that is right under some neighbors' noses. Some boys are mouthing the M-F word and now the neighborhood association is petitioning the city to move that hoop.<br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26610"><b>Part 10: One landlord at a time</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26623"><b>Part 11: What would our' [...]
How does one keep up community standards without wearing out the keypad on your cell phone with calls to the police? In my sit-down with Chief Wray, I wanted to know: how far can we go? [...]
My father was a World War 2 vet, a farmer, and a state legislator. As he approached his 80s he kept a small-bore Smith ' Wesson in the glove compartment of his gas guzzler. He had spent his whole life in control and did not intend to become a victim' [...]
Brent Midelfort keeps a 9 mm bullet next to the personal computer in his property management office, a reminder of the bad old days when he first moved onto Reetz Road at the eastern edge of Orchard Ridge 12 years ago.<br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26566"><b>7. Treating yourself poorly</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26584"><b>8. Generous to [...]
Section 8 combines the worst of both worlds: Uncle Sam's deep pockets administered by the City of Madison's bleeding hearts.<br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26562"><b>6. Saying 'We love you'</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26566"><b>7. Treating yourself poorly</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26584"><b>8. Generous to a fault</b></a><br> [...]
The liberal news media likes to talk about people coming to Madison "for a better life." And in most cases, they are walking into the welcoming arms of open-minded, liberal Madison.<br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26555"><b>5. Not lowering our standards</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26562"><b>6. Saying 'We love you'</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26566"><b>7. Treating yourself poorly</b></a><br> [...]
At the Wisconsin Youth Co., just south of Park Ridge neighborhood, "Big Tony" Travis oversees hip-hop dance contests, football and school tutoring.<br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26552"><b>4. A chat with Madison Police Chief Noble Wray</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26555"><b>5. Not lowering our standards</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26562"><b>6. Saying 'We love you'</b></a><br> [...]
Paging James Monroe. He is a religious man who disdains the denominational approach that can divide religionists. That does not mean that he is non-judgmental.<br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26547"><b>3. 'And I am keeping him hungry'</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26552"><b>4. A chat with Madison Police Chief Noble Wray</b></a><br><a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26555"><b>5. Not lowering our standards</b></a><br> [...]
The troubles in Meadowood and elsewhere are a continuum. The filthy language, littering, vandalism, intimidation, drugs, gangs, killings are all part of the same continuous loop.<br>
Previously in this series:<br>
<b><a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26510">1. 'He could go either way'</a></b><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26535"><b>2. 'Lord of the Flies'</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26547"><b>3. 'And I am keeping him hungry'</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26552"><b>4. A chat [...]
As chief of police, Noble Wray is entitled to wear civilian clothing -- a suit and tie. But you never see him in anything other than a uniform.<br>
<b><a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26510">Part 1: 'He could go either way'</a></b><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26535"><b>Part 2: 'Lord of the Flies'</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26547"><b>Part 3: 'And I am keeping him hungry'</b></a><br> [...]
It's boom times for fence builders and mean dog breeders here on the Southwest side.<br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26510"><b>Part 1: 'He could go either way'</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=26535"><b>Part 2: 'Lord of the Flies'</b></a><br> [...]
Brian Frick, president of the Park Ridge neighborhood association, says he'd be happy to meet me for coffee if he could get a good night's sleep. The night before, an all-night party kept him awake. About 60 people were playing music, drinking in the street, smashing bottles, using drugs, and' [...]
Officer Hanson's domain consists of about 250 housing units -- and many of those are owner-occupied, single-family residences. It is a patchwork of neatly trimmed, immaculate yards next door to hard-packed bare dirt lost to the litter of empty bottles and snack food wrappers. Littering brings a $298 ticket but' [...]
No, not Stately Blaska Manor. This notice of drug activity was forwarded to me by Ald. Thuy Pham-Remmele and it is good news, indeed. Our Madison West District Police made a bust on Balsam Road Thursday. That takes one thug off our streets and into the sheriff's house downtown -- [...]
I am a big fan of Madison Police Chief Noble Wray. The man must walk a tightrope between an ultra-liberal Common Council, an increasingly restive population of crime and quality of life victims, and -- I suspect -- the better instincts of his own uniformed officers. [...]
I was wrong. I admit it. Miranda-ize me and make me do the perp walk. Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president of the United States and therefore, is not qualified to be a heartbeat away. [...]
Comedian and role model Bill Cosby has taken dead aim at the scourge of victimhood. Cosby has written, with Harvard psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint, a blueprint for black and white, alike, to cure the metastasizing pathologies that are destroying many of our Madison neighborhoods. [...]
The Meadowood Farmers' Market is not actually in Meadowood at all. It is located at Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ, which is several blocks from "the troubles" but maybe that is good. Some of my neighbors might feel like going there -- on safe ground, so to speak --' [...]
The gangsta look inherent in the low-riders thing is akin to a suspicious lump or unusual bleeding. It's an early warning sign that needs attention, stat! Or, we could wait until he empties his chamber. Might be too late, then. Might be. [...]
The Jerry Lewis impersonator at The Capital Times has written one of the wackiest, nuttiest editorials of all time. It is such a treat that I had to bring it to a wider audience. [...]
Action list item #6: Promote positive values. Abandon the victimology message. Get the education and faith communities to pro-actively preach empowerment, self-respect, consideration of and responsibility to others -- to balance off the over-emphasis on “rights.� [...]
I did manage to attend the first hour of Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's summit meeting Wednesday morning. I had to leave before the second hour in order to make a previous commitment. [...]
Several landlords have invited the mayor to take up residence on our troubled streets so that he can experience firsthand what many of our neighbors must put up with in their daily lives. [...]
Several landlords have invited the mayor to take up residence on our troubled streets so that he can experience firsthand what many of our neighbors must put up with in their daily lives. [...]
Much like when his village in Italy watched Roberto Benigni win the Academy Award, all throughout Orchard Ridge the cheer went up: "Blaska is second best! Blaska is second best!" [...]
I got to think sitting in the back of a squad car is one of the safer places you can be in Meadowood these days. If Karamee Collins Jr. had been in the backseat of a squad car Tuesday night, he might still be alive. At least the boy would [...]
Another shooting, another homicide late Tuesday night in the Balsam/Russett Road area. Before 10:15 p.m. last night a teenager was shot in the 5800 block of Balsam Road -- a day and a half after police held a press conference in the neighborhood asking for witnesses to step forward on [...]
Elections matter, the Democrats are always telling us. So now we have Democrats ruling the roost in the State Capitol, having finally captured the State Assembly last fall. For the first time in 20 years they control both houses of the Legislature and the governor's office. Aren't we lucky!' [...]
While the nabobs are busy writing obituaries for America's conservative party, Republicans are lighting birthday candles and singing rousing fight songs. While the punditocracy clucks "whither the Republican Party -- the new Whigs?" those of us on the righteous Right are winning back large swaths of the population. [...]
While the nabobs are busy writing obituaries for America's conservative party, Republicans are lighting birthday candles and singing rousing fight songs. While the punditocracy clucks "whither the Republican Party -- the new Whigs?" those of us on the righteous Right are winning back large swaths of the population. [...]
"Basford's Spin City" is <i>Isthmus</i>'s attempt to abate the ire of the torch-bearing mob, incensed that the bastion of Leftist exposition would allow your congenial host to challenge the one true (but unexamined) faith. [...]
These days when we go to the Meadowridge branch public library here on the southwest side of town we tell our loved ones, "Cover me, I'm going in to return a book."' [...]
Hey, why not? That's the Madison way, isn't it? Throw it up against the wall, see if it sticks. Watch the recipient stammer, deny, invoke past good deeds, swear to no incorrect thoughts, do a Winston Smith.' [...]
Will wonders never cease?! Now my old boss Dave Zweifel, a lifelong proponent of government as the employer of first resort, has jumped aboard the "right-sizing" bandwagon -- even though said bandwagon seems to be stuck in neutral. [...]
So the Madison Common Council has reinforced the supposed "right" of children to congregate unsupervised by any responsible adult until late at night (11 p.m. weeknights, midnight Fridays and Saturdays). No, the little darlings, neglected by their parents (should they be lucky to have a set), remain beyond the reach [...]
So the Madison Common Council has reinforced the supposed "right" of children to congregate unsupervised by any responsible adult until late at night (11 p.m. weeknights, midnight Fridays and Saturdays). No, the little darlings, neglected by their parents (should they be lucky to have a set), remain beyond the reach [...]
Well, what can I say. The Madison Common Council this week took one giant step backwards. Instead of strengthening our juvenile curfew laws, it "liberalized" them. [...]
Thuy is incredibly popular here on the southwest side of town -- and not just in the 20th Aldermanic District. She is a folk hero for organizing two community meetings in the summer of 2007 that changed this city's direction. She will not be silenced. She won re-election unopposed for [...]
Been some big changes here at the Blaska Research Center and Experimental Work Farm. Basically, I have come back from the dead. How is that for a post-Easter theme? No, I do not expect to ascend bodily into heaven any time soon, but I was getting pretty ripe. [...]
Speak up, Ruben. Spit it out, Mamoulian. E? Eeee? … Are you trying to say “e-lection?†Oh, that's right! There was an election this week. Well, dammit, boy, give me the news. I see, like Tom Hagen, you had to take a drink first. [...]
<i>The Capital Times</i> has endorsed The Kathleen for re-election as protectoress in chief of Dane County's lands with high-water tables. Surely the bullfrogs are croaking their approval. ("Rib-it. Rib-it.") Also: Alder Thuy seeks an earlier curfew.' [...]
The teachers union? Change agents? Only in the sense of "fork over your change." That is why I think that Rose Fernandez has a better than even chance of defeating teachers union toady Tony Evers. [...]
Call me a dinosaur. If the world comes down to one last print periodical, I will find it, order up a coffee and a blueberry scone, and enjoy a Saturday morning with my quality newsprint. [...]
James E. Doyle got a lot smarter when he was elected governor. <i>The Capital Times</i> is throwing a hissy fit that the incumbent has changed his mind about the virtues of removing one of the largest and most consequential state departments from his appointed cabinet. [...]
Unreported, until this post, is The Kathleen's -- and Dane County's -- continuing nightmare: continued fall-out from the failures of the county's emergency communications center. Now the parents of another victim of the center's malfeasance are bringing legal action. [...]
O.K., class, time to take stock. Or, as the comedian Henny Youngman might have said, “Take my stocks. Please.†(All of my cultural references seem to be at least 30 years old.) [...]
Remember The New President's pledge to get the U.S, the hell out of Iraq? So, he's keeping up to 50,000 troops there into the foreseeable future, even while acknowledging that our forces in Iraq had "succeeded beyond any expectation," and that Iraqis themselves have made significant political progress, and that [...]
This is America voting with its money. Not the money that is expropriated from them but their discretionary funds, or what is left. These are big investors and small, heading for the hills. Retirees and retirement funds as well as venture capitalists. Burying their money in Mason jars under the [...]
It happened again. Another major federal stimulus/rescue/bailout/pump-priming/giveaway. The response? More flushing sounds from Wall Street. More evidence that government can try to ride the bucking bronco called "the economy" and another lesson that the beast will not be saddle broken. [...]
Hurry up and read this blog! Make that Evelyn Wood course pay off! Like John Madden's fast-actin' Tinactin, the word of the hour is Act Fast. Not wisely, not thoughtfully, but <i>fast</i>!' [...]
I suppose I get my delightful mean-spiritedness from My Old Man. Yes, that's it: it's genetic. I can't help myself. A deviant chromosome makes me mean. I'm a victim! [...]
One of the great pieces of journalism done hereabouts in a long time is Vicki McKenna's interview Thursday afternoon on WIBA radio with a former abortionist. [...]
We know about Ilsa Lund and Victor Laszlo, and their rendezvous at a certain fictional cafe in Casablanca. My guess is that few of us are aware of the heavy resistance to Adolph Hitler's murderous reign within the Third Reich itself -- or that so much of that resistance was [...]
I am feeling good about this new year of 2009. Mostly, though, I'm shocked that it is 2009. I was amazed when we hit 1984, that being the title of the George Orwell book we read in high school. Gobsmacked when we reached 2001, the year of the Space Odyssey. [...]
The Kathleen's re-election strategy is pretty obvious. The embattled county executive is going to conjure up a carnival spook house of goblins and gremlins so that she can avoid debating the issues. [...]
It amazes this former journalist, as Bill Lueders insists on calling me, that the <i>Chicago Tribune</i> is nearly bankrupt and that the <i>New York Times</i> is worth no more than its Manhattan real estate. Paul Soglin is reporting (can we use that word, Bill?) that once-flourishing Lee Enterprises, $48/share as [...]
Unlike the previous and subsequent entries in the <i>Vacation</i> series, this one has a big heart. No dead aunts are strapped to the top of the family station wagon. This one is believable -- well, almost. It pays homage to <i>It's a Wonderful Life</i> as Clark Griswold plays 16 mm [...]
