A good question from Bruce Murphy of Milwaukee Magazine: why do “virtual schools” get the same amount of money per pupil that other “choice” schools get from the State? “Virtual schools” have no building to pay rent or a mortgage on and none of the normal expenses you’d expect from [...]
If you’re tired of listening to the TV stations who are on DEFCON 1 because we’re about to get snow - in Wisconsin! in December! - you might want to take your mind off that and enjoy the a time when commercialism went hand in hand. Disco Star Wars!
Yes, it’s [...]
Wisconsin businessman, philanthropist, and community leader Shel Lubar is making news again by advocating for Milwaukee County Government to be “blown up”.
Lubar has a less-nuanced view on the topic: Get rid of county government and turn over the services to the state, cities or new special purpose districts for parks [...]
From the latest edition of the Sheperd Express: (towards the bottom)
Jerk of the Week County Supervisor Lynne DeBruin“Jerk” is too strong of a word to describe Supervisor Lynne DeBruin for her votes on the Milwaukee County Board, but we are extremely disappointed with her for caving in to pressure from [...]
Every afternoon, one of the dead horses that conservative talk radio show host Mark Belling beats is “his” idea that former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson should run for the Senate against three term incumbent Russ Feingold. I have a feeling that he harps on it so much because if Thompson [...]
Off deer hunting for the weekend and trying to avoid the shutout again this year
Have a good weekend!
[...]Cool ad for the United We Serve and NFL Play 60 campaigns.
Although because it shows the President of the United States, who at the time happens to be Barrack Obama, some conservatives will no doubt jump on it as another attempt to “indoctrinate” kids through a socialist message like “WORKING [...]
While (as of 10pm) the Journal Sentinel still doesn’t have anything up about what happened at the County Courthouse today regarding the County Board dealing with the County Executive’s vetoes, I do have some thoughts and news about what happened today.
At the end of the day, some critical programs and [...]
That is not a title I use very often to say the least…
Some of you know my brother Jonathon either by meeting him in person or through his occasional comment here on my weblog. He’s been in the Army for 12 years, served in Iraq and currently holds the rank [...]
UPDATE Sunday 4pm:For those interested, the Barrett for Governor web site is at [www.barrett4wisconsin.com] I expect it’s in the process of being expanded as we speak.
So at long last, the months of speculation are over and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett will be officially announcing his candidacy to become the [...]
My latest column for MilwaukeeMoms.com is available here. “From latch key kids to helicopter parents”:
But I still see a lot of parents out there who insist on hosing their kids down with Clorox every time they touch the handle of the shopping cart or use the swings at the [...]
Happy Friday! Fall has apparently returned to Milwaukee, just in time for Thanksgiving. In case you have been able to dodge the onslaught of “Holiday” advertising, you have 40 shopping days left before Christmas. On this day 53 years ago, the Supreme Court declared Alabama and Montgomery, Alabama laws requiring [...]
To friends and family who have served and continue to serve today, happy Veterans Day.
[...]The Park People in cooperation with Zilli’s Coast restaurant and the Milwaukee County Parks Department are having a “party with the Park People” event this Thursday to celebrate the recent gold medal for management the Parks Department received as well as raise awareness for the Milwaukee County Park system.
The best [...]
In prepping for a presentation I’m giving later this week, I ran some numbers about how much of my property taxes go to the County and specifically to Milwaukee County Parks. Some may find it as interesting as I did and perhaps reconsider all the chicken little rhetoric about how [...]
As I wrote a few weeks ago, the County Board was considering a study to explore the possibility of extending employment benefits of County employees to their domestic partners.
Today, the entire Board approved the measure 13-6, which makes the County Executive’s threat to veto it a moot point since [...]
Democrats win two seats in Congress from New York and California, Republican win two Governor’s mansions in New Jersey and Virginia in the off year election yesterday. Like most elections, it was nearly a split decision.
I hadn’t paid too much attention to any of the elections that were held yesterday, [...]
The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors took public comments on the proposed budget for the County at Washington Park Senior Center for three hours last night, with most of the crowd of 500 showing their support for parks, pools, mental health services and their jobs.
I [...]
Here are a few pictures and a quick video I slapped together of the kids and their costumes before we went out to trick or treat last night. The Tinkerbell costume Emerson has on I sewed myself, including the little footies, and I have to say I’m quite pleased with [...]
I’ve learned that of the 170 Milwaukee County employees who will be fired today because of a budgeting error by the administration, 55 of them will be County Parks workers.
Even though the Parks are one of the most popular public services in the County, even though they’re one of [...]
UW Milwaukee pays just under $100,000 per year to the County for remote parking for students and staff at the lakefront. If the plan to put parking meters on Lincoln Memorial Drive were to be approved, UW Milwaukee would pull that money away from the County according to Vice Chancellor [...]
Conservative talk radio was just a twitter yesterday with the news that Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton would be dropping out of the race for Governor in Wisconsin. WISN’s Mark Belling in particular was quite over the top in predicting a “landslide” win for Republican Scott Walker several times on his [...]
In a somewhat surprising move, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton has withdrawn from the race for Wisconsin Governor. Here’s the official statement:
You know better than any my confidence in Wisconsin people, and in our resilience in a time of crisis, and in our capacity to innovate new ways to shape a [...]
Good news from the personnel committee of the Milwaukee County Board: they’ve initially approved a study to look at providing domestic partner benefits for County employees.
The board’s Personnel Committee approved a measure on a 4-2 vote to draft revisions to the county’s health plan to include the benefit, which is [...]
Tech week apparently rolls on here on my blog, because as you may know, Windows 7 launched yesterday. It’s the latest in a series from Microsoft that promises that this version will be so much faster, more secure, and less prone to crashes than the last.
Basically, the same marketing script [...]
I had a bit of a scare over the weekend and it wasn’t of the Halloween variety.
Being the responsible computer user that I am, I back up my computer (and Jenny’s) with regularity to an external hard drive just in case anything were to happen to our laptops. We have [...]
To celebrate last week’s “Gold Medal” award for Milwaukee County Parks by the National Recreation and Parks Association, there’s going to be a party tonight at the Mitchell Park Domes on 27th Street with food, music and fun. I’ll be there on behalf of the Park People, so stop by [...]
I’ll come up with a way to have them show up automatically sometime soon, but I’ve got a few new posts from my “Modern Milwaukee Dad” blog at MilwaukeeMoms.com this week:
Sending kids home whether it’s swine flu or sniffles Breaking up is hard to do when switching schoolsHave [...]
Remember when conservative talk show radio hosts spent days on end back in late February yelling into their microphones, “WOULD OBAMA JUST SHUT UP!” because the stock market was tanking? Good times. Their argument at the time was the market was tanking because it had no faith in his economic [...]
Congratulations are in order to Department of Parks, Recreation, and Culture Director Sue Black and all her dedicated staff!!
Milwaukee County Parks system has won the very prestigious “Gold Medal” award for Excellence in Park and Recreation Management from the National Recreation and Park Association. Great news and a huge honor.
More [...]
10:50am update: They win!
Within the hour, we should know whether or not the Milwaukee County Parks department has won the prestegious “Gold Medal” from the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration. The award is being given out at the National Park and Recreation Association Congress in Salt Lake [...]
As usual, Jon Stewart hits the nail on the head. Saturday Night Live comedy skit gets “fact checked” while little else on the network does.
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c CNN Leaves It There www.thedailyshow.com Daily ShowSo my question of the day is this:
Bigger explosion this morning: NASA bombing the moon, or conservative heads as Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize?
Meanwhile, the Taliban and conservatives are united in their criticism of President Obama winning the award.
And didn’t anyone from NASA ever see the most recent “Time [...]
A proposal from several County Supervisors is circulating which will not only keep County pools open, but actually improve upon them, deserves serious consideration:
Joined by dozens of frequent pool users at Pulaski Indoor Pool this morning, Milwaukee County Supervisors Marina Dimitrijevic, Johnny L. Thomas, John F. Weishan, Jr., and Chris [...]
Great news for the Brewers in 2010: “The Hoff” has been resigned to the Brewers.
Hoffman, who turns 42 next week, had 37 saves and a 1.55 ERA with the Brewers this season, pushing his career saves total to 591, the major league record.
Hoffman will earn $8 million next season, and [...]
Outside today’s “rally” held by Citizens for Responsible Government, it got a bit ugly.
The incident seems pretty unprovoked to me, and just like the report says, I wonder where the guy who caused the incident ran off to? A big question is who was he working for or representing at [...]
Literally!
Emerson gets up on stage
Emerson with the band
Emerson and I were at the first “Music under glass” concert of the season last night in the Mitchell Park Domes and she was doing such a great [...]
Tomorrow the International Olympic Committee will decide which city will get the 2016 Summer Olympics.
I’ve been saying for years that this could be the once in a lifetime chance for Milwaukee that most cities only dream about. The financial benefits to Milwaukee, not to mention the prestige associated with the [...]
I’m happy to announce that I’ve been asked, and very happily accepted, to write a weblog at MilwaukeeMoms.com from the perspective of a “dad blogger”.
The first post is up under “Modern Milwaukee Dad” and kind of explains the angle I’ll be going for while writing from the perspective of [...]
In the latest example of conservative talk radio show bucking that pesky concept of reality, WISN 1130 morning host Jay Weber spent a segment of his show this morning making the case that “Support for Obama Care is falling.”
Today the Kaiser Family Foundation released a poll showing that despite [...]
I rarely will write much about television shows or mass media in general for a couple reasons. First, my TV experience is mostly limited to sports broadcasts and HBO original series (True Blood, Six Feet Under, Deadwood) and second, because most of what’s on the thousands of channels we are [...]
There’s an interesting story in yesterday’s Journal Sentinel about the Milwaukee Police dept hanging out around a local gun store and pulling over some people after they’ve visited because the gun store in question is providing the vast majority of weapons used in gun crimes in Milwaukee. This, predictably, has [...]
County Executive Walker released his proposed budget for Milwaukee County in 2010, and while there’s a lot to digest, I was able to look through the Parks, Recreation and Culture portion of the budget and have noted some highlights below. The proposed budget for the parks in 2010 is $13,869,004, [...]
It’s going to be a big week for the Milwaukee County Parks system.
Thursday, County Executive Walker will propose his upcoming County budget and parks are one of the many areas where big cuts are expected. Parks supporters across the County are hoping for the best at this point but planning [...]
Some signs from the anti-Obama/Government/Health Care tea party protest in Milwaukee yesterday… The crowd didn’t disappoint, and sure enough the Obama = Hilter comparison was there.
Aside from the signs, it was a decent sized crowd. The vast vast majority of the people in attendance were over 50 and white. At [...]
This is unfortunate.
A fight broke out at the tea party rally today in Milwaukee, at least one person was injured.
I had left before the altercation, but Renee Crawford posted this on her weblog:
I hear a commotion. I looked up and saw an angry mob of angry white men [...]
All the big players in modern conservatism, Malkin, Joe the Plumber, Americans for Prosperity, right wing talk show hosts, etc.. will be at Milwaukee’s lakefront to have an intelligent debate about the future of health care in America.
…with their “Obama is a Nazi”, “Next time we’ll bring our guns!” and [...]
Irony alert! Anti-Government protesters going to anti-government rallies last week demand better government provided services! Talk about a sense of entitlement! I guess the socialist public transit was a hit with tea party patriots…
The Texas Republican on Wednesday released a letter he sent to Washington’s Metro system complaining that the [...]
Hard to believe it’s the latter half of September already! Mexico celebrates it’s independence day today, not to be confused with Cinco de Mayo… Although I’m sure some clever beer executive is trying to work out a catchy phrase like “Drinko of Cinco” and turn another ethnic holiday into nothing [...]
We inadvertently went to Tosafest last Friday and I snapped a few pictures of the kids enjoying their favorite part of the evening.
I think the marshmallow on a stick was the bargain of the night. $0.50 each, low mess, and high satisfaction!
[...]When is 1.5 million more like 50,000? When it’s ultra-conservatives trying to inflate the number of people who showed up for an anti-Government, anti-Obama, anti-manythings march in Washington D.C. yesterday.
Conservative activists, who organized a march on the U.S. Capitol today in protest of the Obama administration’s health care agenda and [...]
Poll numbers go down, and in this case poll numbers go up for Pres. Obama on his handling of health care. 52% isn’t a huge number, but it’s going from being behind on the issue by 7 points to being ahead by 14. That’s a big swing.
The day after Mr. [...]
I was listening to the radio when this happened, but the video gives the sad sad state of way many Republicans are approaching the Health Care debate: shouting and heckling the President.
It’s one thing for this kind of inexcusable behavior to happen at a town hall meeting, it’s another for [...]
It’s nice to realize that while the calendar may say September, the thermometer is saying “summer” lately. As a fan of mid 70’s and sunshine, I couldn’t be happier with the way summer is coming to and end. Happy 9/9/09 day. Somewhere in the world, a nine pound nine ounce [...]
Good example of how volunteers can help with our natural areas when the funding from County Government just isn’t available:
A volunteer cleanup effort this week removed 150 tons of logs and debris clogging the approach to Estabrook Dam, saving county taxpayers some $20,000.
But the cleanup of a debris-clogged spillway, a [...]
Ever since I’ve had children of my own, stories of neglect and abuse by parents have had a greater impact on me. The latest is from Wauwatosa:
Wauwatosa police say a 44-year-old Cornell man left his 14-month-old daughter alone in a Wauwatosa hotel hot tub while he drank beer and talked [...]
It’s shaping up to be quite a week.
Carter and Emerson officially started the new year at their school today. Emerson is officially in K4 now and Carter got moved up to the secondary toddler room. Dropping them off this morning was a little chaotic to say the least.
Tomorrow, students [...]
It’s shaping up to be quite a week.
Carter and Emerson officially started the new year at their school today. Emerson is officially in K4 now and Carter got moved up to the secondary toddler room. Dropping them off this morning was a little chaotic to say the least.
Tomorrow, students [...]
This is what apparently passes for discourse on the public airwaves from some conservative talk show radio hosts. I’ve called out Mark Belling’s racist, boorish and misogynistic rants in the past (Like the time he compared women who breast feed their infants to “sows”), so his latest rant against [...]
Rep. Gwen Moore has another challenger in the 2010 election. Samantha Carter, running as an Independent, has announced her candidacy for Wisconsin’s 4th Congressional District. Her website is here. I’m all for more hats in the ring as I think it elevates the discourse and it’s always great [...]
Rep. Gwen Moore has another challenger in the 2010 election. Samantha Carter, running as an Independent, has announced her candidacy for Wisconsin’s 4th Congressional District. Her website is here. I’m all for more hats in the ring as I think it elevates the discourse and it’s always great [...]
Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele on Fox news yesterday:
“And if you want an example of bad public policy, just look at the situation with our veterans, when you have a manual out there telling our veterans stuff like, ‘are you really of value to your community,’ you know, encouraging [...]
Jenny and I were able to pop off to California over the weekend to attend the wedding of our friend Andy. It was a nice mini-vacation, and good to see some friends we hadn’t hooked up with for a while.
For the first time in nearly five years, I didn’t choose [...]
After a nice few days off the grid, we’re back in service and heading back from here:
[...]I rarely will point to Rep. Barney Frank as someone who should be setting the message on any issue, but his response to a woman comparing Pres. Obama to Nazi’s is just about right on. Indeed, what planet does she spend her time on?
I’ve always found it fascinating to watch [...]
With all the history - much of it modern - of violence against American Presidents, I feel like these people showing up at Presidential events armed to the teeth with semi-automatic assault rifles is a troubling trend.
Last week it was a guy out East who had a holstered handgun, yesterday [...]
Just to clear up any rumors out there, Carter is committed to signing as quickly as possible if and when the Brewers draft him in the future.
At two years and four months, he’s already got a heck of an arm. I bought Carter his first baseball glove yesterday and he [...]
There were two major stories that broke over the weekend in Wisconsin politics. First, Mayor Barrett was assaulted last night leaving the state fair when he confronted a man who was trying to assault another woman. He was apparently beaten with a metal pipe and will be in the hospital [...]
Happy Thursday, and to all you southpaws out there, happy International Lefthanders Day. Now.. anyone have a scissors handy?
The effort to recall Sen. Jim Sullivan has failed. I’ve been following this since the start, and since the start I’ve also been saying this was just a [...]Below I have some highlights from today’s health care listening session with Rep. Gwen Moore who represents the 4th Congressional District of Wisconsin. I apologize ahead of time that it’s a bit rough and choppy but I didn’t have a ton of time tonight to edit the video I had [...]
Update Wednesday morning: I’ve posted a wrap up of the listening session including video here.
First things first: There is a difference between voicing your opinion and having a dialogue with your elected officials and showing up at events to disrupt them by shouting down the elected officials to prevent [...]
Happy belated birthday to childhood friend Jamie Langenbrunner, NHL star who plays forward for the New Jersey Devils. Our families were very tight when we lived in Northern Minnesota before we moved out west, and I still have a newspaper cut out of me and Jamie and a few [...]
Except for a few touch ups and painting screens, the house painting is pretty much done. Yay! While it took a bit longer than I originally planned, mostly due to unscheduled maintenance discovered while scraping, finishing up the entire house and only taking 5 full days off to do it [...]
Glad to see some pressure being put on over the top rhetoric from conservative talk show hosts trying to drum up ratings from a small minority of viewers who salivate over that brand of garbage.
OAKLAND, Calif.–Three companies who run ads during Glenn Beck – NexisLexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble [...]
The Brewers won their first series in a month last night against the National Leagues best team: the Dodgers. It’s the kind of series that can turn around a season, but the Brewers need to stop playing down to the competition in August if they’re to have a shot at [...]
Although it’s directed at the flat out ridiculous Washington Post’s attempts at “viral” video and their “Mouthpiece theater”, this spoof video pretty much sums up my feelings about where the journalism industry is heading when it commits more resources to frivolous video shorts than it does to actual reporting.
I’ve [...]
Although it’s directed at the flat out ridiculous Washington Post’s attempts at “viral” video and their “Mouthpiece theater”, this spoof video pretty much sums up my feelings about where the journalism industry is heading when it commits more resources to frivolous video shorts than it does to actual reporting.
I’ve [...]
Wow. Be proud birthers, here’s your leader making the case for your movement.
I think the best way to put this ridiculous story to rest is to continue to have people like Orly making the case.
[...]It’s the first Monday in August which means Lollapalooza in Chicago is just days away! Also today is the birthday of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. The future hall of famer is 32.
Today is the first day in which same sex couples can file for domestic partner benefits. This is a [...]Happy Friday! On this day in 1970, the British Royal Navy officially stopped the practice of providing a daily ration of rum or “tot” to it’s sailors. Yes, 1970. Yo ho ho…
As predicted, the “Recall Gov. Doyle” effort has failed. Getting people involved in the political process is always a [...]It’s been a few days since I posted an update about the status of my excellent painting adventure that started nearly 10 days ago. Here’s a quick before and after picture of the front of the house which should give a good idea of how we’re doing:
[...] The folks at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel just can’t stop themselves. Interesting to know that despite laying off another 25-50 employees in it’s newsroom, including those who write the about half the content of the daily paper, they’re still committed to the production of frivolous web videos. The latest?
Behind the [...]
As usual, it was a great time at last night’s “Concert at the Shell” which is held in Washington Park every Wednesday. Last night, we were treated to the only symphony orchestra performance of the year, and Eastbrook Orchestra was very impressive.
On a perfect summer night, there were lots of [...]
Michael Horne at Milwaukeeworld.com, as usual, does some great writing and asks some tough questions about the Milwaukee County’s foray in to the world of pension obligation bonds.
What are pension obligation bonds? Basically it works like this: You realize you don’t have enough money in your bank account to [...]
UPDATE 9:00am Tuesday: Media columnist Tim Cuprisin has confirmed via Twitter that he’s also leaving the Jounal Sentinel. So there’s another column gone.
–
It’s amazing to me that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel continues to commit resources to cover “Miss Beer Cart Wisconsin“, among other trivial topics like “eggs frying on [...]
Getting back to work after a week off is always fun. Only 1200 unread emails to go!
The painting continues. The base coat is 99% done at this point, the rest is waiting on a ladder tall enough to reach certain spots. We’re now on to the detail work and are [...]
It’s hard to believe, but today is me and Jenny’s sixth wedding anniversary! She’s an amazing woman, a wonderful wife and loving mother.
Traditionally, this is the “iron’ anniversary, but we’ve agreed that this year it will be the “pigment” anniversary.
[...]The painting of the Cody house continues.
After a morning of rain and still no base color applied, I decided to go out and get a new Wagner power spray painter in hopes of catching up on my mission to repaint our house in 10 days.
Despite the warnings of one of [...]
I’m taking the week off of work to repaint the outside of our house. Money is tight for everyone these days and instead of dropping five large on someone to just do it for me, I decided to dedicate a week of time in the pursuit of “do it yourself”. [...]
Russian history was forever altered on this day back in 1918 when the entire Romanov family, Nicholas II his wife and their five children, were executed. Ironically July 17th is also the day Catherine II had her husband Peter III of Russian assassinated back in 1762. On a much lighter [...]
The news for Milwaukee County Parks in the upcoming budget is not good, to put it mildly. In his effort to impress supporters outside of Milwaukee County in his bid for Governor, County Executive Scott Walker has put forth a devastating budget proposal for the Milwaukee County Park system that [...]
Hard to believe we’re now in the latter half of July already! Seems like summer just got here, doesn’t it? Special birthday wishes to Chicago’s most famous 5 year old are in order: Millennium Park was opened on this day back in 2004.
Update on the “Recall Doyle” effort that [...]The latest budget proposal from the Walker administration for social services in Milwaukee County is getting out of hand:
Cuts proposed for social programs in 2010 stunned and angered Milwaukee County supervisors Wednesday, who said the county’s poorest and most vulnerable residents would bear the brunt.
The county’s Health and Human Services [...]
It’s Wednesday which means it’s “Music at the Shell” at Washington Park tonight. It’s shaping up to be a beautiful evening, and there’s no better way to celebrate the beginning of the end of the work week than by heading to the park to enjoy a free concert by the [...]
It’s Wednesday which means it’s “Music at the Shell” at Washington Park tonight. It’s shaping up to be a beautiful evening, and there’s no better way to celebrate the beginning of the end of the work week than by heading to the park to enjoy a free concert by the [...]
While it’s a totally non-scientific way to determine popularity, it was interesting to see the reaction the politicians got in yesterday’s Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee. I was right across the street from the main set of bleachers near Coast and the reaction the crowd gave to County Exec. Walker, [...]
Happy Friday! I’m looking forward to the Dodgers coming to town for the final series before the All Star break. This could be a huge series for the Brewers and hopefully they’re able to take a few games from the best team in baseball. Speaking of [...]
Bastille Days, one of the better ethnic festivals of the summer in my opinion, begins today in Milwaukee and happens to coincides with the anniversary of the first French Prime Minister being appointed on this day in 1815. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1st Sovereign Prince of Beneventum, or as he [...]
Believe it or not, one of the primary purposes of my weblog several years ago was to post photos and video to share with family and friends. Over the 4th I got a fair amount of heat from said family and friends that I don’t post pictures of the kids [...]
