The Presteblog

Just in case you come upon this ...

2011-10-10T12:39:00.002-05:00

... you really want to go to steveprestegard.com.

Movin' out

2011-06-01T00:00:00.008-05:00

Effective immediately, this blog is moving over to presteblog.wordpress.com.

Posts up to this one are still here, but you'll find that posts from this blog are also at presteblog.wordpress.com.

Bookmark and enjoy.

Presty the DJ for May 31

2011-05-31T06:00:00.013-05:00

We started with jazz yesterday, so it's worth noting that today is the anniversary of the release of the first jazz record, "Darktown Strutters Ball":

Ray Stevens' "Gitarzan" reached number eight today in 1969 ...

... the same day John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded "Give Peace a Chance":

Johnny Paycheck, who sang something everyone who's ever worked for a living wanted to say at at least one point:

Mick Ralphs played guitar for Mott the Hoople ...

... and Bad Company:

John "Bonzo" Bonham, drummer for Led Zeppelin:

This Corey Hart is not the Brewers' centerfielder but the two-hit wonder of the 1980s:

Presty the DJ for May 30

2011-05-30T06:00:00.026-05:00

Two more Beatles anniversaries today: "Love Me Do" hit number one in 1964 ...

... four years before the Beatles started work on their only double album. Perhaps that work was so hard that they couldn't think of a more original title than: "The Beatles." You may know it better, however, as "the White Album":

Birthdays today start with Benny Goodman, who asks us to ...

Guitarist Lenny Davidson, one of the Dave Clark 5:

Drummer Nicky "Topper" Headon of The Clash:

Since we've already mentioned one woodwind player, we should mention another — today is the anniversary of the death of saxophonist Paul Desmond, who collaborated with Dave Brubeck for this classic:

Presty the DJ for May 29

2011-05-29T06:00:00.017-05:00

This is more a pop than rock anniversary: One of the two funniest songs Johnny Cash performed, "One Piece at a Time," hit number 29 today in 1976:

Birthdays start with Gary Brooker of Procol Harum:

Bassist Mike Porcaro of Toto:

Drummer Mel Gaynor of Simple Minds:

Here is a varied career: David Palmer played drums for ABC ...

... and AC/DC:

Today is also the anniversary of the death of Jeff Buckley, who drowned today in 1997:

Presty the DJ for May 28

2011-05-28T06:00:00.023-05:00

Paul McCartney must like releasing albums in May. Today in 1971, he released his second post-Beatles album, "Ram," which included his first post-Beatles number one single:

Birthdays today include Papa John Creech of the Jefferson Airplane:

Gladys Knight:

John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival:

Roland Gift of the Fine Young Cannibals:

Kylie Minogue:

Presty the DJ for May 27

2011-05-27T06:00:00.023-05:00

Today in 1975, Paul McCartney released "Venus and Mars" (not to be confused with "Ebony and Ivory"):

Birthdays include April Wine drummer Jerry Mercer:

Left-wing singer Bruce Cockburn:

Bass player Pete Sears of Jefferson Starship:

Neil Finn played for Split Enz ...

... and Crowded House:

Alice in Chains drummer Sean Kinney:

Venturing capital, or, If not this, then what?

2011-05-26T07:00:00.001-05:00

When people on opposite sides of the ideological divide are skeptical about something, you too should be skeptical. (When they agree on something, you should also be skeptical, but that’s a subject for another day.)

Milwaukee Magazine’s Bruce Murphy and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Patrick McIlheran are similarly skeptical about the venture capital bill in the Legislature. So is Thomas Hefty, who has for years campaigned for a better business climate in this state.

One reason for our business climate problems is the small amount of venture capital — money invested in companies that usually fit in the “high risk/high reward” investment category. Promoting venture capital was part of nearly every economic development study conducted in 2010 in advance of the election.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:

The program is called the Jobs Now Fund and represents part of the $400 million Wisconsin Jobs Act. It aims to jump-start job creation in Wisconsin by promising $200 million in future tax credits in exchange for $250 million raised from insurance companies.
The money would be invested in Wisconsin businesses through management companies known as certified capital companies, or “CAPCOs.” …
In written testimony submitted for the hearing, Tom Hefty, the former chief executive of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Wisconsin, called the program “the largest special interest Wisconsin tax cut in history masquerading as an economic development initiative.”
The $200 million in tax credits would never have to be repaid to the state. The payback, supporters say, would come from the job creation and business growth that would result from the investments.

There is no question this state needs more business investors. Not only have we lagged the national average in personal income growth for the past three decades, but we are low on business start-ups as well. (And for all the left’s braying about the evil “rich,” Wisconsin has very few people who could be defined as really “rich,” which helps show the state’s economic problems as well. The fact that the really “rich” can be named by those who pay attention to such things shows we don’t have nearly enough of them.) The question is how to encourage business investment, particularly in the fast-growth companies that were meant for venture capital.

Wisconsin Technology Council President Tom Still explains how the bill would work:

The bill would create two funds totaling $400 million under the umbrella of a new Wisconsin Venture Capital Authority. The complementary funds — the Jobs Now Fund and the Badger Jobs Fund — are designed, respectively, to address Wisconsin’s short-term and long-term investment needs.
The proposal builds on the success of the widely acclaimed and often duplicated Act 255 Tax Credits, which were passed in 2005 and enhanced in 2009. Those tax credits have helped enhance early-stage investing in Wisconsin — but largely at the “angel” capital level, thus creating a need for follow-up investing by venture capital firms in emerging companies.
The credits helped spawn angel networks across Wisconsin, and those networks have dramatically increased both the number of deals and the dollars invested in those deals. But many angels are tapped out. They need “exits” — company mergers, acquisitions or venture investments — to recoup their money. And the companies in which those angels have invested are struggling to survive.
Senate Bill 94 would create the Wisconsin Venture Capital Authority and two funds:
The Jobs Now Fund is envisioned as rapid-response fund. It would issue $200 million in tax credits to insurance companies over time in return for investments in certified capital funds. The tax credits would be for 80% of the value of the investments made, so $200 million in credits could attract $250 million in investments. The credits could not be claimed for a minimum of five years, so the money would be put to work well before the credits are paid. It would invest only in Wisconsin companies that meet specific guidelines. In other states, this approach is called a “certified capital company,” or CAPCO, approach.
The Badger Jobs Fund is the longer-term tool. It would invest in qualified venture capital funds on a “fund of funds” basis. The authority could issue up to $200 million in private placement bonds for the Badger Jobs Fund, with the bonds supported by investment returns, the incremental growth of state tax collections from financed companies and contingent tax credits. Bonds would not be a debt of the state, and no more than 15% of the funds could go to any single venture capital firm. For every $1 a qualified venture capital fund receives from the Badger Jobs Fund, it would need to raise $3 on its own.

Murphy goes so far, commenting on the Journal Sentinel story, as calling the Jobs Now Fund a scam:

… the law allows the CAPCOs to keep all the money invested in them by the state, plus 80 percent of the profits generated. Critics have called it a “massive corporate giveaway,” [reporter Kathleen Gallagher] writes.
One new point in her story is a Minnesota study of Wisconsin’s earlier CAPCO program, which found that rather than increasing it may have actually displaced the total amount of venture capital funding in Wisconsin. …
The language of the bill is quite convoluted, and most legislators never understand it. I’d love to hear a detailed explanation of the Wisconsin bill by its sponsors, Sen. Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac) and Rep. Gary Tauchen (R-Bonduel).
The CAPCOs have a set game plan and typically grab all the state funding before any real venture capital companies can get a dollar of it. “Local venture capital people often support the bill because they think they’ll get the money,” says [Rutgers University Prof. Sass] Rubin. “But they never do. It’s a con.” …
Rubin cites an earlier law passed in Wisconsin, a 25 percent tax credit for angel investors, as a far more sensible way to go. “It’s just enough money to encourage investment, but you’re not screwing up the market and becoming the only reason they invest.”

Rubin’s aforementioned position happens to dovetail with a previous Murphy column that describes CAPCOs thusly:

Wisconsin previously passed a CAPCO bill in 1998 which created a $50 million venture capital fund. Normally, experts say, a venture capital fund attracts money from investors, invests it in start-up companies and then returns the principal plus 70 to 80 percent of the profits to the investors. But under the CAPCO model, the state was the investor and got nothing back: None of the profits flowed back to it, and none of the principal was returned.
The state Legislative Audit Bureau found it cost $90,000 per job for that CAPCO program. That’s an outrageous cost, but actually better than the experience in most states. Florida spent $150 million and lost 150 jobs. New York spent $280 million but lost 88 jobs.
A study done for the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds found that state subsidized CAPCOs gained “10 times the return” of unsubsidized companies.

One problem is that your favorite lefty (go here and find the list under “Left” for starters) inevitably describes anything that promotes business development, including business investment, as a giveaway for the “rich.” The same people President Obama has been ordering to hire more employees are the same people accused of trying to run the state (the Koch brothers, owners of Georgia–Pacific, one of this state’s largest employers), ruin the state (any business that objects to the overregulation of the Department of Natural Resources), or rob the state (any business person who complains about the state’s tax hell, as in the fourth highest state and local taxes in the U.S.).

Tax credits for business should not be used because businesses should not be taxed on their income. The benefits of a profitable business — employees being paid, customers being served and contributions made to their communities — are sufficient to our society if a business was not taxed on any of its income. And businesses don’t pay taxes anyway; every tax assessed on a business — corporate income taxes, personal property taxes, payroll taxes, and taxes to fund Unemployment Compensation, among others — is part of what the business charges for its products or services. Every dollar of cost government dumps upon a business means one less dollar that can go into employee salaries, into owner dividends (and half the households in this country are in the stock market, directly or indirectly), or back into the business.

McIlheran identifies the specific problem and the general solution:

The plan would offer $200 million in future tax credits to insurers not because anyone likes them but because they’re giant pools of investment money. They’d put up the cash, $250 million, that other management companies would parcel out to entrepreneurs, and the tax credits would ensure they wouldn’t lose their shirts. The credits are a lure, nothing more.
Still, why the special inducements? Why the tax gimmicks, which are what high-tax, regulatory hells offer? Why not stick with the program of making taxes more reasonable generally and regulation more rational for all? Sen. Glenn Grothman called it “the most dubious giveaway I’ve seen since I’ve been in the legislature,” and Tom Hefty, Mr. Business Climate, calls it suspect. Experts get quoted by the Journal Sentinel as saying it’s a deal of dubious worth.
Hit the brakes. Read the prospectus carefully, as they say in those ads, because if forgoing future tax revenue is to be considered an investment in luring capital to Wisconsin start-ups, it isn’t an investment that state lawmakers have spent enough time examining.

The “tax gimmicks, which are what high-tax, regulatory hells offer,” were the preferred approach of the Doyle Administration. They worked well for the companies that were able to take advantage of them. They were better than no tax incentives at all, but the state’s business climate certainly did not improve during the 2000s. Had the state’s business climate improved at all, then the trend of per-capita personal income growth trailing the nation’s, which started during the Patrick Lucey administration (for those ignorant of Wisconsin political history, Lucey was governor in the 1970s), would have ended during the Doyle administration. It hasn’t.

There is also a potential problem with any kind of state-sponsored venture capital approach that has been demonstrated by the alternative energy industry in the past few years. The Obama administration has offered huge amounts of tax credits to encourage use of wind and solar power and other green energy technology. People and businesses take advantage of the tax credits, and then when they expire, business drops off the face of the earth, so to speak. And one should hesitate when the government anoints a preferred business sector (in the present case, any business with the word “green” in its title), because government operates on politics and not on what is the best potential investment.

I do not believe the proponents of this bill are trying to perpetuate a scam on the state. I think there are reasonable objections to what they propose that are more meaningful than the reflexive anti-business attitude we’ve seen in this state for far too long. It is, for one thing, easier to pass one bill than to pass an entire program, contained within several pieces of legislation, to eliminate business taxes, cut personal income taxes, reduce regulation and defang the regulators. That is what needs to happen in Wisconsin.

Presty the DJ for May 26

2011-05-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

Another Beatles anniversary today: Their "Beatles 1967–1970" album reached number one today in 1973:

Levon Helm, drummer for The Band:

Verdan "Phally" Allen, keyboard player for Mott the Hoople:

Gary Peterson of guess who? The Guess Who:

Stevie Nicks:

Lenny Kravitz, who though he records in this century sounds as if he recorded about 40 years ago:

Au revoir

2011-05-25T07:00:00.005-05:00

Less than three weeks ago, a group of Ripon families invited 27 French students into their homes.
Even though it seems like they just got here, they left Tuesday morning. I have rarely had an experience where time went by that fast.

You've read about the activities they've done, including an unscheduled activity Sunday night — a tour of our basement bathroom/tornado shelter during a tornado warning. (The National Weather Service confirmed two tornadoes in Kingston and Markesan, which were headed in this direction Sunday night.)
One thing I can report is that apparently the entire candy supply of Ripon as of Monday night left for Paris Tuesday. Moritz stuffed his suitcase full of Nerds and Pop Tarts, in exchange for the French chocolate he presented his host parents.

Moritz's last day in Ripon started with breakfast — a really large breakfast ...

... followed by a going-away ceremony at Murray Park/Quest Elementary School:

And then they departed for Mitchell Field in Milwaukee with a police (and K-9 dog) escort.

Based on interviewing the kids Sunday for the Ripon Channel Report, the baseball game was high on the popularity list. They went to things they perhaps didn't think they were going to — in several students' cases, the Cub Scout Pack 3735 year-ending carnival — but the kids all proved their adaptability by hanging around with each other while their host families engaged in activities more age-appropriate, perhaps, for those younger than the French students.

I can't personally attest to this since I didn't do any foreign-exchange activities as a student, but I've never heard anyone who did regret the experience. And truth be told, hosting Moritz for nearly three weeks wasn't an imposition at all; that's how well he fit in.

There were genuine tears among the students and a few of the host parents Tuesday morning. There certainly are ways to keep in touch — the Internet, Skype, cellphones, etc. — but one reality of life is that you never really know what the future will hold. I think we'd all like to keep in touch. Whether host families and their guests actually will be able to keep in touch remains to be seen. But I think it's unlikely anyone involved will forget the French Adventure.

Presty the DJ for May 25

2011-05-25T06:00:00.027-05:00

Two unusual anniversaries in rock music today, beginning with John Lennon's taking delivery of his Rolls-Royce today in 1967 — and it was not your garden-variety Rolls:

Ten years to the day later, the Beatles released "Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany, 1962," which helped prove that bands don't need to be in existence to continue recording. (And as we know, artists don't have to be living to continue recording either.)

Meanwhile, back in 1968, the Rolling Stones released "Jumping Jack Flash," which fans found to be a gas gas gas:

The short list of birthdays includes Mitch Margo of the Tokens ...

... and Klaus Meine of the Scorpions:

Another edition of Same Song Different Artists:

To vacation, or to work

2011-05-24T07:00:00.001-05:00

My definition of seasons is closer to the meteorological definition than the calendar definition. But not completely.

I have determined that, in Wisconsin at least, summer runs from the Memorial Day weekend to the Labor Day weekend, fall runs from after Labor Day to the Thanksgiving weekend, winter runs from Thanksgiving to Easter, and spring runs from Easter to Memorial Day weekend. (Which means that we had a really, really, really long winter this year, but you knew that already.)

That means that summer is beginning at the end of this week. School is a couple of weeks away from ending for the school year, depending on how many snow days you’ve had.

That brings thoughts of vacation for kids. And for the news media, that brings stories asking why Americans have so little vacation compared with other countries. CNN.com frowns:

Besides a handful of national holidays, the typical American worker bee gets two or three precious weeks off out of a whole year to relax and see the world — much less than what people in many other countries receive.
And even that amount of vacation often comes with strings attached.
Some U.S. companies don’t like employees taking off more than one week at a time. Others expect them to be on call or check their e-mail even when they’re lounging on the beach or taking a hike in the mountains.

(One wonders what CNN’s vacation policy is for its employees.)

This question has economic impact in Wisconsin. The license plates may say “America’s Dairyland,” but tourism is one of the state’s top three employers, and most of that tourism spending is coming up. (For proof, watch Illinois travelers try to navigate around the U.S. 41 construction in Oshkosh this weekend.)

This kind of story presents enormous opportunities for America-bashing among Americans. Someone namedNomadic Matt, writing about why Americans don’t vacation overseas, managed to bash government, the media and ourselves in just two paragraphs:

Americans are just scared of the world. I mean really scared. Maybe even petrified. In this post-9/11 world, Americans have been taught the world is a big scary place. There are terrorists outside every hotel waiting to kidnap you. People don’t like you because you are American. The world is violent. It’s poor. It’s dirty. It’s savage. Canada and Europe are O.K. but, if you go there, they will still be rude to you because you are American. No one likes us.
Even before 9/11, the media created an environment of fear. If it bleeds, it leads right? Prior to 9/11, the media played up violence at home and abroad. Pictures of riots in the foreign streets, threats against Americans, and general violence were all played up to portray a violent and unsafe world. After, 9/11, it only got worse. Politicians now tell us “they hate you” as former NYC mayor, Rudy Guiliani, did during his campaign. It’s US vs. THEM!!!

Those two paragraphs border on parody, but they’re not without some validity. It is true that Americans are much less multilingual than other countries. (Our French foreign exchange student, who leaves today, speaks at least four languages.) Government’s efforts to protect us from the next 9/11 — the Patriot Act, color-coded terrorism warnings, the fourth-degree sexual assault gang known as the Transportation Security Administration — have not made Americans feel safer, have they? For whatever reason(s), the adventurous spirit that propelled our ancestors to leave their homes for an uncertain future in the New World has been replaced by a desire for familiarity and security, financial and otherwise. (Of course, the prevalent attitude in Europe seems to be that every American has shot at least one other American in the past 12 months, so fear based on ignorance is not unique to this country.)

Americans are accused of believing the world revolves around this country. That’s because … the world doesrevolve around this country, like it or don’t. Combine military, economic and political power, and the U.S. is still number one, like it or don’t. The number of people trying to move to the U.S. far outweighs the number planning on permanently leaving.

Nomadic Matt refrains from America-bashing long enough to point out:

Most family vacations in America are to other parts of America. Why? Because the U.S.A. takes up a whole continent and we have all the world’s environments in our states. Need beaches? Head to Florida. The tropics? Hawaii. Desert? Arizona. The cold Tundra? Alaska. Temperate forests? Washington. This attitude is best summed up by a response I got from a friend in Iowa: “Why would you want to go to Thailand? It’s far and scary. If you want beaches, just go to Florida.” Americans simply don’t see the need to go anywhere else when they can do it all in their country …

One difference between the U.S. and the rest of the world is the latter’s dependence on mass transit. In this country, the largest percentage of vacations are by family car. As much fun as, say, buying a Porsche and opting for European delivery would be, the number of Americans who drive on an overseas vacation is quite low. (Probably due to the stories others will tell you about the quality, or lack thereof, of other countries’ drivers.) So if you travel outside the U.S., you are dependent on the train or bus travel schedule, in addition to the airlines’ travel schedule. (And those who fly on business will tell you the more you fly in the post-9/11 world, the less you like the experience.) A lot of Americans prefer transportation independence.

More generally, part of the reason Americans vacation less, I believe, is genetic, believe it or not. Our ancestors came to this country to better themselves. Those Europeans then and Latin Americans, Asians and other minorities now who come here believe they will have better lives here than where they came from. What that does equal? Work, including more than one job in many cases. Those not interested in improving their lives (perhaps because they felt their lives were pretty good anyway) never came here.

Related is the concept that Americans like to work. One reason to go into business is to make more money (you hope); another is to be more in charge of your own destiny. Another is to be able to do what businesses do in the places where they have facilities — serve their customers, employ people, and contribute to their communities. As the CNN story admits:

Working more makes Americans happier than Europeans, according to a study published recently in the Journal of Happiness Studies. That may be because Americans believe more than Europeans do that hard work is associated with success, wrote Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn, the study’s author and an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Dallas.
“Americans maximize their… [happiness] by working, and Europeans maximize their [happiness] through leisure,” he found.

I assume that part of the harrumphing about us not-enough-time-off Americans has to do with your attitude toward not just work, but your current work situation. (I came to the conclusion that most journalists are anti-business because, well, as a work environment journalism puts the “fun” in “dysfunction,” and journalists probably assume that most workplaces are like theirs.) If you’re not doing what you want to be doing, or if you’re in an undesirable work environment (however you define that), or if you feel undercompensated (however you define that) for your work, then you’d probably prefer to be anywhere else other than work.

One reason I have not been sympathetic to public employee unions in their attempted coup d’etat to reverse the Nov. 2 election results is because of the number of business owners I know. Most businesses don’t have many employees, and making a profit (the most important thing, the thing without which nothing else happens, for any business) is hard. Unlike public-sector employees, business owners’ work hours vastly exceed 40 per week. They work nights and weekends and holidays. Their employees get vacation time; they often don’t, or if they do, they are the ones emailing and calling back to the office.

Another reason for lack of vacationing that parents figure out is the cost, in numerous ways, of vacations. Much, but not all of it, is financial. On the one hand, for parents to go off on their own vacation and leave the kids with someone else seems irresponsible. But given the bickering that takes place among our children on a typical day, to be blunt the idea of listening to their arguing for several days with no alternative outlet for the adults — you can’t tell the kids to go outside when you’re in a van between destinations — doesn’t sound very appealing. (How my parents put up with that with my brother and me is beyond my ability to comprehend.) Even if the kids get along, based our experience from a three-day wedding trip to Indiana last year, American military units have an easier time deploying than our family does going anywhere overnight. Vacations are really for the kids, not the parents; put another way, parents never get real vacations until the kids leave home.

In the current economy, the tourism industry has promoted the concept of a “staycation.” Even before today, I’ve taken weeks of vacation without planning on a major trip. And other than not having to get up to go to work, I can’t endorse the concept, seeing as how that kind of “staycation” inevitably involves doing things you haven’t previously had time to do (usually some kind of house project), or taking the kids someplace you wouldn’t otherwise choose to go.

The stereotypical school summer vacation — days where nothing other than lunch and dinner is on your schedule — is disappearing for kids, too. Those who believe Americans don’t get enough vacation time are countered by those who believe that American students aren’t in school enough. Chinese students are in school about a month longer than Americans, and the Japanese school year runs from April to March (with breaks between trimesters). Throw in where American students’ test scores compare to other countries’ students, and the conclusion is that more time in school would equal better test scores. (That is an assertion not necessarily proven by evidence, similar to the assertion that more money spent on schools is supposed to lead to better results.)

Our kids’ summer schedules include summer school, baseball, Scouting summer camps and trips to grandparents. (All except the first by their choice, I point out.) Wisconsin summers are so short that if I were to travel outside the U.S., I would (1) want it to be during a period of usually crappy weather here (2) in a place that has better weather than here. And that runs smack into school for the kids.

Economists will tell you that there are always trade-offs. Having children is the largest trade-off, a trade-off the scope of which no parent-to-be realizes. That trip where you and your significant other jet-set yourselves through Europe? Not happening in your lifetime, mom and dad. Home ownership is much more valued in this country than in other countries; the trade-off is that frighteningly large number that represents the sum of 360 house payments. And many trade-offs are trade-offs you don’t even realize you’re making at the time. While I would never argue against the value of going to college, there is that matter of post-graduation student debt, which encourages graduates into the work world as soon as possible.

And what if you actually like your work? (I wrote three years ago that you should never love your job, because your job doesn’t love you.) Supposedly on our deathbeds we won’t regret not having working more. But many business owners I’ve met over the years don’t believe they’ve worked a day in their lives; that’s how much they enjoy doing what they do — serving customers, seeing the people they’ve hired grow in their skills and accomplishments, being able to make a positive difference in their communities, and so on. Employment is a two-way street — no one is entitled to a job, and certainly not a particular job; but no employer is entitled to a specific employee either. Each has to agree to meet the needs of the other; when that doesn’t happen, either an employer excuses an employee from further work, or an employee leaves for a better opportunity.

If you think you get too little vacation time, maybe the problem isn’t in your vacation time, but in your work.

Presty the DJ for May 24

2011-05-24T06:00:00.026-05:00

Two Beatles anniversaries today:
1964: The Beatles make their third appearance on CBS-TV's "Ed Sullivan Show."
1969: "Get Back" (with Billy Preston on keyboards) hits number one:

Meanwhile, today in 1968, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful were arrested for drug possession.

Birthdays today start with Bob Dylan:

Derek Quinn, guitarist for Freddie and the Dreamers ...

... was born the same day as Sarah Dash of LaBelle, who was born two years before the eponymous Patti LaBelle ...

... who was born the same day as this one-hit wonder, who claimed to be ...

John Ilsley of Dire Straits:

Red Rider drummer Rob Baker:

Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes:

A pause to ponder punditry

2011-05-23T07:00:00.004-05:00

An oddity about my current employment situation is that I have never been this popular as a pundit before now.

On Friday, I was on Wisconsin Public Radio. The previous Sunday, I was on "Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes," andEaster Sunday before that. The week before Palm Sunday, I was back on Wisconsin Public Radio. I have had more blog entries posted at WisOpinion.com now than I had when I was at the late Marketplace.

One reason is that my policy (even before March 30) has been to always accept media invitations. (A former colleague of mine called me a "media whore," and Sykes called me a "media ho," and to both I'd say I resemble those remarks.) Visibility is important (particularly when you're looking for your next job) in the 15-minutes-of-fame media universe. Almost no one knows me outside of Wisconsin, but thanks to the Ideas Network, the state's oldest TV station and this and my previous blog, I have some level of notoriety among the opinionators statewide.

Part of the reason is that, with this new blog, I'm writing m0re original pieces than at Marketplace. Depending on how busy my week was, I'd write between one and three original pieces, and the rest of the week would be taken up with repeating posts of others that I liked or found provocative or at least interesting.

Since I have this blog linked to Facebook (as well as LinkedIn and Twitter), I assume the people I have now Friended (including, it seems, most of the members of the La Follette High School Class of 1983) and vice versa will find out that, wow, Presty is really a right-winger. (I've been a proud member of Hillary Clinton's Vast Right Wing Conspiracy since the 1990s.)

The thing, however, is that (1) I am perfectly capable of not talking about politics (the phrase "the personal is political" did not come from the right side of the political aisle), and (2) I have no problems arguing ideas because ideas are supposed to be argued, and the way one improves the process of delivering opinions is to debate opinions. And, now that I think of it, there is a (3): If you don't like a blog entry, don't read it.

For those who haven't read this blog before and wonder where my libertarian/conservative/anti-government ethos came from, it came to me at, of all places, church Sunday. (Yes, there was church Sunday, because The Rapture didn't happen Saturday.) The priest was talking about the PBS documentary "Freedom Riders," about the civil rights movement in the South in the 1950s and 1960s. I didn't see much of it, but I've seen videos and photos of police officers beating on protesters, bullwhips, police dogs, tear gas, etc., against nonviolent protesters.

Here's the punch line: The police were hired by a police chief who was hired by the duly elected representatives of the Southern city of your choice. Orval Faubus, George Wallace, Lester Maddox and the other racist governors were all elected by the citizens of their state. (In Wallace's case, Alabama's solution for their gubernatorial term limits was to elect Wallace's first wife, Lurleen, as governor.) People who lacked any rational evidence beyond their own prejudice voted for politicians who created and enforced Jim Crow laws and stuck a giant middle finger at the U.S. Constitution, one hundred years after the end of the Civil War.

That is the face of democracy. So is interning Japanese Americans during World War II because, you know, there were just too many Americans of German descent to lock up all of them in internment camps. Your federal governmentinjected black men with syphilis just to see what would happen to them. The Vietnam war has both parties' fingerprints all over it. Some municipal governments in this country think it's perfectly OK to take land away from its rightful owners because the politicians think they have a better use for that land. (And the U.S. Supreme Court stupidly reinforced government's right to eminent domain under the abominable Kelo v. New London decision.) And I live here in the birthplace of the Republican Party, whose founders started the GOP in an era where most Americans either thought slavery was a good thing or was none of their business.

Democracy is flawed, and our government is flawed — indeed, every human institution is flawed — because humans are involved. The Constitution was written not just to design our government, but to protect us from our government. The Bill of Rights gave the citizens the rights to free expression and ownership of guns and against unreasonable search and seizure and self-incrimination. Leave it to democracy, and as the saying goes, 51 percent of the people can vote to imprison 49 percent of the people.

I know who I don't want responsible for upholding or enforcing my rights. Ruth Conniff of The Progressive was perhaps more revealing than she thought she was being in Friday's discussion about voter ID. When I pointed out the list of things for which an ID is required, including getting a library card and cold medicine, she retorted that there is no constitutional right to buying cold medicine.

I had no idea Conniff was such a strict constructionist. That to me says that to Conniff, y0ur rights — such as your right to the medical treatment of your choice — are whatever the government says they are. (The pro-abortion-rights movement better figure out that the same government that gives the right to an abortion can take that right away.) If Conniff represents the prevalent attitude in the People's Republic of Madison, that would explain why I hate my hometown. (Which has changed, and not for the better, since my high school days anyway, as demonstrated by the first drive-by shooting at my high school shortly after I left Madison.)

This is not, by the way, an argument in favor of the GOP since the GOP infringes upon different rights from the Democrats. If you like government's stealing your money through taxes and wasted government spending, be a Democrat. (If you like government's stealing other people's money through taxes but not yours, you're a hypocrite.) If you like government's interfering with your personal life, be a Republican. If you like neither ... what is the answer to that?

Before Jesus Christ's birth, the psalmist wrote in Psalm 146:3, "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help." If you're expecting help from the government, regardless of who's in charge of that government, you've gone to the wrong place.

What new blog? The apocalyptic event known as my joining Facebook was accompanied by advice to move my blog to WordPress. At the moment, I'm posting on both while I evaluate which works better for my purposes. One or the other, or maybe both, can be accessed via Twitter, my Facebook page or LinkedIn. You have been warned.

Presty the DJ for May 23

2011-05-23T06:00:00.012-05:00

Today in 1969, the Who released their rock opera "Tommy" ...

... two years before Iron Butterfly disbanded over arguments over what "In a Gadda Da Vita" (which is one-third the length of all of "Tommy") actually meant:

With another short list (evidently parents of future rockers weren't doing much in October), here is another cover twofer, the latter of which comes from someone who made an entire career out of covers:

"Le National Weather Service a émis ..."

2011-05-22T20:40:00.001-05:00

Because we always like to entertain our guests:

Earlier today the National Weather Service suggested the chance of severe weather, including tornadoes.

The first wave of storms came this afternoon, with (as photographed by Erica Dakins) storms well north of Ripon:

So we went to Cedar Ridge Ranch for the farewell party, where food was eaten, horses were observed and video was shot for the next Ripon Channel Report (coming to a TV near you if you're a Charter Cable subscriber in the Ripon area).

We had been home not one minute when our weather radio went off to report:

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SULLIVAN HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
NORTHWESTERN FOND DU LAC COUNTY IN EAST CENTRAL WISCONSIN...
SOUTHERN GREEN LAKE COUNTY IN SOUTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN...

* UNTIL 830 PM CDT

* AT 742 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO. THIS DANGEROUS
STORM WAS LOCATED NEAR MARKESAN...OR 15 MILES SOUTHWEST OF RIPON...
AND MOVING NORTHEAST AT 45 MPH.

* THIS TORNADIC STORM WILL BE NEAR...
GREEN LAKE AROUND 755 PM CDT.
RIPON AROUND 805 PM CDT.
ROSENDALE AROUND 810 PM CDT.

So at least at the Prestegard house our French Adventure guest got to see what Americans who live in or near Tornado Alley do in tornado warnings: Head to the basement.

The storm went south and east of Ripon. If there was a tornado (and someone from Markesan apparently called the Green Lake County Sheriff's Department to report a tornado going over his house), it missed here.

But at least we got to see a rainbow (which you can only sort of see in this photo):

Une veille de tornade

2011-05-22T14:25:00.001-05:00

It looks like the (two-days-before) farewell party for our French Adventure students may be enlivened by ...

... a Tornado Watch until 10 p.m.

Presty the DJ for May 22

2011-05-22T07:00:00.009-05:00

Well, now that Matthew 24:36 trumped Family Radio ...

Today in 1965, the Beatles found that "Ticket to Ride" was a ticket to the top of the charts:

The short list of birthdays includes Specials keyboard player Jerry Dammers:

Patrick Morrissey of Depeche Mode:

Time for a twofer from this past week:

Presty the DJ for May 21

2011-05-21T07:00:00.006-05:00

One strange anniversary in rock music Saturday.

In 1968, Paul McCartney and Jane Asher attended a concert of ... Andy Williams:

Eleven years later, not McCartney, but Elton John became the first Western artist to perform in the Soviet Union.

Four years later, David Bowie's suggestion reached number one:

Birthdays start with Ronald Isley, one of the Isley Brothers:

Animals guitarist Hilton Valentine:

Bill Champlain, who sang for Chicago, the greatest rock band in history ...

... although his tenure with the band was during its late-'80s-and-onward descent into ballad hell, instead of:

Leo Sayer was born a year later:

Roger Hodgson of Supertramp:

Molly Hatchet keyboard player (who knew they had one?) John Glavin ...

... and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch were born the same day:

Just in case, thanks for reading

2011-05-20T07:00:00.016-05:00

The subject of this post requires its own soundtrack:

Family Radio has been broadcasting and advertising that the end of the world will occur Saturday at 6 p.m. wherever you are.

RBR.com reports:

According to a fact sheet published on the group’s website, this is what is about to happen: “On May 21, 2011 two events will occur. These events could not be more opposite in nature, the one more wonderful than can be imagined; the other more horrific than can be imagined. A great earthquake will occur the Bible describes it as ‘such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.’ This earthquake will be so powerful it will throw open all graves. The remains of the all the believers who have ever lived will be instantly transformed into glorified spiritual bodies to be forever with God.” The rest will be “thrown out upon the ground to be shamed,” and will experience “horror and chaos beyond description.”

There will be an interim period running from 5/21/11 until 10/21/11, when Family Radio says final destruction of the Earth take place.

The Family Radio website notes that it is still accepting donations, and although its donor computer operation is said to be undergoing maintenance, the group says it has representatives on hand to process donations from call-in givers. It accepts credit or debit cards.

So any ministers reading this apparently need not bother to prepare a sermon or homily for Sunday.

I pointed out in selecting Family Radio my "Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes" Loser of the Week that evidently Family Radio was unfamiliar with Matthew 24:36, which readeth: "But of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."

Oh, but Harold Camping, owner of Family Radio, has an explanation:

In the Bible a wise man is a true believer, to whom God has given a profound trust in the authority of the Bible. True believers have been in existence since the beginning of time. But the timeline of history as it is revealed in the Bible was never revealed to the hearts of the true believers. For example, throughout most of the church age it was generally believed that Creation occurred in the year 4004 B.C.
However, about 35 years ago God began to open the true believers’ understanding of the timeline of history. Thus it was discovered that the Bible teaches that when the events of the past are coordinated with our modern calendar, we can learn dates of history such as Creation (11,013 B.C.), the flood of Noah’s day (4990 B.C.), the exodus of Israel from Egypt (1447 B.C.) and the death of Solomon (93l B.C.)*
However, it was not until a very few years ago that the accurate knowledge of the entire timeline of history was revealed to true believers by God from the Bible. This timeline extends all the way to the end of time. During these past several years God has been revealing a great many truths, which have been completely hidden in the Bible until this time when we are so near the end of the world.

(The essay gets more creative from there, believe me.)

So Camping is, similar to Matthew Harrison Brady (that is, William Jennings Bryan) in "Inherit the Wind," a believer that the Earth is only tens of thousands of years old. I am neither a scientist nor a theologian, but it seems rather presumptuous to limit God to a 24-hour day, does it not? The Episcopal Church, to which I've belonged for a decade, describes itself as a tricycle of Scripture (the big wheel), tradition and reason. And there is no real reason that evolution is incompatible with God's creation.

The minister who married my wife and me claims that there is only one verse of the Bible, John 3:16, that does not require an additional verse to back it up. Matthew 24:36 has two — Mark 13:32 ("But of that day and that hour knows no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father") and, from my favorite book of the Bible, Acts 1:7 ("And he said to them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power"). Moreover, the quoted words of Jesus Christ would seem to have paramount ranking as a source of information for Christians, would they not?

A Brief History of the Apocalypse has a listing of predictions of the end of the world dating all the way back to 2800 B.C. A real wave of apocalysomania took place in 1000 A.D., which I guess would have been Y1K. (I remember Y2K, when driving back home after a sumptuous not-really-millennium meal we listened to that paragon of reason, Art Bell, report about mysterious blackouts. Bell somehow neglected to mention that the University of Wisconsin football team's going to back-to-back Rose Bowls must have been a sign of the end times.) And we've had predictions of the end practically every year since 1972. (No, Richard Nixon's reelection was not one of them, but at the University of Wisconsin, Ronald Reagan's reelection was.) Before Pat Robertson was claiming that 9/11 and hurricanes were divine retribution, he predicted the end of the world would take place in the fall of 1982. (Breaking up with my first girlfriend and losing my job in the same week seemed like the end of the world, but it wasn't.)

I recall two specifically. In 1978, Pope Paul VI died, and then his successor, John Paul I, died a month after becoming pope. Newspapers at the time noted the legend of St. Malachy, an Irish priest who wrote down descriptions of every pope from Peter forward. When the list of popes runs out, the legend has it, our time runs out. And there is only one pope left on the list, Benedict XVI's successor, who by the way is supposed to be the Devil incarnate. (That should make the next College of Cardinals meeting after Benedict's death really interesting.)

The other prediction, in 1982, was not exactly a prediction of the end, but of galactic disorder caused by all the planets in this solar system lining up. Leonard Nimoy narrated an episode of "In Search Of" that warned of the calamity on the way. Nimoy's most famous character, Mr. Spock, would have pointed out that such a theory is illogical because the planets are not all on the same plane. (To which Dr. McCoy would have contributed, "How do I know? I'm a doctor, not an astronomer!")

The planetary alignment previously occurred Feb. 4, 1962; astrologer Jeane Dixon predicted that the Antichrist would be born the next day. (Which means the Antichrist is actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.)

Remember the earthquake that destroyed Taiwan and created the tsunami that killed millions May 11? You don't, because the prediction of someone named Professor Wang didn't happen. Of course, this year is less than half over, so we may still enter the Photon Belt (no, that was not an episode of Star Trek) before the end of the year.

The next prediction of our doom is Dec. 23, 2012, according to the Mayans, whose calendar runs out on that day. (So don't bother getting Christmas presents next year, and you can skip gassing up the snowblower, when by then gas should be about $14 a gallon.) But if that prediction isn't accurate, there are plenty of others waiting in the wings. For instance, back in 1960, Science magazine predicted that on Nov. 13, 2026, the world's population would reach infinity.

Steve Media: All Steve, All the Time

2011-05-20T06:30:00.019-05:00

Less than a week after my latest "Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes" appearance, I was on the Ripon anti-slavery walk (the Little White Schoolhouse, the Abraham Lincoln statue at Ripon College, a cemetery where an ex-slave is buried, etc.) with my oldest son when I got the call from Wisconsin Public Radio. I'll be on WPR's Joy Cardin show with Ruth Conniff of The Progressive Friday at 8 a.m.

As always, Wisconsin Public Radio’s Ideas Network can be heard on WHA (970 AM) in Madison, WLBL (930 AM) in Auburndale, WHID (88.1 FM) in Green Bay, WHWC (88.3 FM) in Menomonie, WRFW (88.7 FM) in River Falls, WEPS (88.9 FM) in Elgin, Ill., WHAA (89.1 FM) in Adams, WHBM (90.3 FM) in Park Falls, WHLA (90.3 FM) in La Crosse, WRST (90.3 FM) in Oshkosh, WHAD (90.7 FM) in Delafield, W215AQ (90.9 FM) in Middleton, KUWS (91.3 FM) in Superior, WHHI (91.3 FM) in Highland, WSHS (91.7 FM) in Sheboygan, WHDI (91.9 FM) in Sister Bay, WLBL (91.9 FM) in Wausau, W275AF (102.9 FM) in Ashland, W300BM (107.9 FM) in Madison, and of course online at www.wpr.org.

Meanwhile, Charter Cable subscribers in Ripon can watch the new (as in it didn't exist before Monday afternoon) Ripon Channel Report this weekend starting Saturday at 9 a.m. The Internet being what it is, The Ripon Channel's Kenton Barber captured the taping Thursday afternoon.

The video may also be online this weekend, complete with weather forecast.

Presty the DJ for May 20

2011-05-20T06:00:00.040-05:00

Today is famous in rock history for two reasons. The second was in 1980, when drummer Peter Criss quit Kiss. The first was in 1967, when the BBC banned the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" due to its alleged drug references:

Birthdays start with soul singer Shorty Long, who warned people that ...

Who is Jill Jackson? She was the Paula of Paul and Paula, the former of whom (whose real name wasn't Paul either) sang to her:

Joe Cocker did one of the best covers of all time, a song so nice he covered it twice (with Leon Russell on piano):

One wonders if James Henderson, lead singer of Black Oak Arkansas, was Jim Dandy to the rescue:

Mr. Mister keyboard player Steve George:

Oconomowoc native Jane Wiedlin, guitarist for the Go-Gos:

Today is the birthday (in separate years) of John and Susan Cowsill of the Cowsills:

John Cowsill also played drums on this '80s one-hit wonder:

Apparently I am a sign of the apocalypse

2011-05-19T08:00:00.038-05:00

Judging from the reactions, I am one of the few people that, until yesterday, was not on Facebook:

OMG Hubby has finally joined Facebook. Friend him NOW!

FB will NEVER be the same

How did you do that...John still won't!

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! 12/21/2012 is soon approaching! and yet another sign...Steve is on Facebook

HI! i see facebook won again...

But now I am. I found out that there was no one by my name on Facebook, so if you do a search for my name, you are guaranteed to find me. (I am also on LinkedIn, and you can see from the right side of this page that I am Presty1965 on Twitter.)

Until now I had assumed that Facebook was, well, too social for, you know, a business magazine publisher/editor/pundit. Then I was advised by someone considerably more savvy than I in social media (you know who you are, Todd, and thanks) that if it were a country, Facebook would be the third largest country in the world. (I wonder if Facebook is run any better than countries one and two ... or for that matter this one.)

Since I have this blog linked to Facebook (as well as LinkedIn and Twitter), I assume all the people I have now Friended and vice versa will find out that, wow, Presty is really a right-winger. (I've been a proud member of Hillary Clinton's Vast Right Wing Conspiracy since the 1990s.) The thing, however, is that (1) I am perfectly capable of not talking about politics (remember that the phrase "the personal is political" did not come from the right side of the political aisle), and (2) I have no problems arguing ideas because ideas are supposed to be argued, and the way one improves the process of delivering opinions is to debate opinions. And, now that I think of it, there is a (3): If you don't like a blog entry, don't read it.

Les aventures Français

2011-05-19T07:00:00.044-05:00

It is hard to believe — mon dieu! — that the Ripon French adventure is more than half over and less than a week away from being over.

You read that Moritz arrived in the overnight between May 5 and May 6 ...

... and was to do whatever his host family did in addition to the other activities planned for his class.

Put the two together, and his weeks have included going to two different churches (ours plus a confirmation ceremony at another church), going to Michael's baseball practices and Boy Scout meetings, seeing minor league baseball ...

... playing minigolf (followed a week later by bowling at the same place) ...

... going to Lambeau Field and the state Capitol, swimming and skating at the same place ...

... going to one of Ripon's best known employers — Rippin' Good Cookies — on a walking tour of the city ...

... Crazy Dress Day at school Wednesday ...

... and, you know, school. (He has homework, which is more than I can say of his host.)

His schedule still includes a farm trip, a trip to the Wisconsin Dells (what the French might call un piège à touristes if they have such a phrase), a going-away party at a horse ranch Sunday night (at which if he's not careful he might end up on TV), and then his actual departure Tuesday morning. It would be worth flying back to Paris with the class merely to see their zombie-like states the first couple of days back in France.

The experience shows, for one thing, the technological miracles we take for granted. The first photo in this blog was shot at 12:04 a.m. after the students had arrived, with my cellphone. I emailed the photo to his parents in Paris; they got it sometime after 7:04 a.m. Paris time through the Internet, satellites and who knows what else. A week later, his parents called Moritz ... from Rome to my cellphone. (Paris and Rome are in the same time zone.) Moritz talked to them in the lobby of the Oshkosh 20th Avenue YMCA.

As I mentioned earlier this month, it amazes me that 11-year-old kids are international travelers. (Moritz was watching CBS-TV's "The Amazing Race" season finale, in which the final contestants were in a museum in Rio de Janeiro. Moritz looked up and casually said, "I've been there.") Moritz's school, L'École Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel, is the largest nondenominational private school in France, so one might expect its students' families are reasonably well off, but there is the issue of whether 11-year-olds are mentally and emotionally ready for different cultures from theirs. From what I've seen, these kids obviously are.

Tuesday will be a hard day. The biggest problem we've had with Moritz is making sure we choose the right vehicle for the activity, given that my car seats five, which is one too few for everyone. (The skating and bowling involved extra people; fortunately Jannan's minivan seats seven.) Other than that, he's fit right in, including eating my spaghetti sauce and lasagna. (I was told lasagna was his favorite food, but only his mother's lasagna; that was proven untrue two pieces later.) He's quieter than his host siblings, but his host siblings are pretty much a nonstop run-on sentence. And he is so laid back that he hasn't objected to anything we've dragged him to so far.

The experience has been (pardon my high school French) "formidable!" I hope we keep in touch with Moritz, and I'm thinking we'll be doing this again in a few years if circumstances work out.

Presty the DJ for May 19

2011-05-19T06:00:00.042-05:00

Three events in rock — well, music — history are of note today:
1958: The soundtrack to the musical "South Pacific" went to number one and stayed there for 31 weeks. The film version starred Mitzi Gaynor, who looked very much like my mother a few years later.

1960: DJ Alan Freed (mentioned in this space last week) and eight others were indicted for payola.
1979: Eric Clapton married Patti Boyd, the former wife of George Harrison and the muse for the song "Layla." The song lasted much longer than the marriage.

Birthdays today are led by Pete Townshend of The Who:

AC/DC drummer Phillip Rudd:

Two members of Blood Sweat & Tears: trombonist Jerry Hyman and saxophone and flute player Greg Herbert:

Bass player Dusty Hill of ZZ Top:

Ramones lead singer Joey Ramone (born Jeffrey Hyman, so he must have been adopted by the Ramone family, right? Right?):

When I started opposing the drug war

2011-05-18T07:00:00.017-05:00

As I age, I’ve discovered that I am prone to getting sinus infections from the bug du jour, from things growing, or from wherever else, thanks probably to my amazing luck in inheriting bad sinuses from both of my parents. I rarely go to my doctor for treatment, because I don’t believe in running to doctors every time I get a malady, and I certainly don’t believe in taking antibiotics to fix every cold I have.

The only thing that provided real relief for my sinus maladies is pseudoephedrine, found in such products as Sudafed, Mucinex D and Claritin. I’ve tried several alternatives, but products with pseudoephedrine are the only thing that allows me to breathe without causing excessive drying (a problem for those of us who wear contact lenses), or the other effects of antihistamines. Pseudoephedrine has been used for years for those who suffer from allergies and prefer not to take medications that induce drowsiness.

But pseudoephedrine is one of the ingredients of methamphetamine, thus requiring, in the mind of legislators continually running for reelection, bold and decisive action to prevent the ill among us from getting relief without running to the doctor … I mean, to protect us citizens from the scourge of meth-heads invading Wal–Mart for ingredients for their next fix.

2005 Wisconsin Act 14 requires that pseudoephedrine be sold only by pharmacists or employees working under registered pharmacists, and that no one can purchase more than 7.5 grams within a 30-day period without the approval of a physician, dentist, or veterinarian. The pharmacy is required to get photo ID from the buyer, and must record the buyer’s name and address and how much he or she purchased; those records must be kept by the pharmacy for two years. Similar legislation was passed by Congress as part of the renewal of the Patriot Act in 2006.

This law — unanimously passed in the Senate and passed 92–6 in the Assembly, which means there is bipartisan blame — is an inconvenience, to say the least, to the ill, in addition to being a burden on business. In the week I started at Marketplace in 2008, I (1) was barred from purchasing the correct medication because the pharmacy was closed even though the store was open; (2) had to have my wife get it with the usual legal third degree, and (3) stood in line at another pharmacy with other sick people so that I could buy a medication that does not require a prescription. Can’t sleep because you can’t breathe? To quote a former coworker of mine, then it sucks to be you.

I suppose I should be grateful that I can still get pseudoephedrine, since Oregon, where this began, makes pseudoephedrine available only by prescription. As it is, cold medications with pseudoephedrine are now not available in any store that doesn’t have a pharmacy, which includes most grocery stores and convenience stores — a case of government telling businesses what they can and cannot sell to their customers. Some countries are phasing out pseudoephedrine. Drug manufacturers have also removed pseudoephedrine from some cold medications or replacing it with phenylephrine, which does not work.

This is all because meth is the current popular target in the “war on drugs”: “With the help of the press, they're once again frightening the public with tales of a drug so seductive it instantly turns masses of upstanding citizens into addicts who ruin their health, their lives and their families,” wrote the New York Times’ John Tierney in 2005, when state legislatures were falling over each other trying to regulate pseudoephedrine. This is the same non-thinking that has helped turn flying into such a drill-holes-into-your-skull experience, when grandmothers and babies are subject to random searches because they could be terrorists. A 42-year-old man who can barely breathe apparently is a potential meth-head, so let’s inconvenience everyone and invade the privacy of the ill for this supposed wave of the use of the popular drug of the day.

The rationale, as always, is that, to quote Hillary Clinton, “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.” Or, to quote U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh (D–Indiana), who sponsored the Senate bill, “Your ordinary, law-abiding citizen isn’t going to object.” Evidently Bayh feels no need to be bothered by constitutional rights.

Or whether pseudoephedrine overregulation will actually work. Just one-fifth of the meth in this country is domestically produced, which means this law will do almost nothing to combat meth use. There is always a way for the motivated druggie to get more drugs — in the case of meth, from Mexico (whose organized crime has gotten quite a shot in the arm, so to speak, from efforts to curb domestic production, according to the New York Times), or by purchasing the ingredients on the Internet.

This, as usual, does nothing to curb the demand for illegal drugs. And, as always, the Law of Unintended Consequences applies: Burglaries in one Iowa county “skyrocketed,” according to the New York Times, after a state crackdown on large meth labs, since what cost $50 to make on a stovetop ended up costing $800 to $1,500 on the street. And the more profit there is in an illegal activity, the more incentive there is to commit crime to support or fund that illegal activity.

Using the same logic, the state should ban alcoholic beverages, since alcohol leads to drunk driving. Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t have written that, since a Missouri legislator in 2007 proposed similarly heavily regulating a key ingredient in crack cocaine … baking soda.

This is an issue of the trade-offs between societal liberty and safety (which has been happening since before 9/11, but has been more noticeable since 9/11) more than the personal freedom to use the controlled substance of your choice. It is also an issue of the effectiveness of those trade-offs. Infringing on everyone's liberty to not particularly improve safety is not a trade-off we should be making.

Presty the DJ for May 18

2011-05-18T06:00:00.010-05:00

The first rock related birthday is Big Joe Turner, whose blues song "Shake Rattle and Roll" has only been rerecorded a bazillion times:

Glen Hardin of the Crickets, Buddy Holly's band:

Born on the same day are William Wallace (no, not the "Braveheart" guy) of the Guess Who ...

... and Rick Wakeman of Yes:

Feliciano "Butch" Tavares of, well, Tavares:

Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo:

Today is also the anniversary of the suicide of singer Ian Curtis of Joy Division, who committed suicide at 23 in 1980:

Finally, a moment of silence for Lawrence Welk, who died today in 1992:

Patrolling the state budget

2011-05-17T07:00:00.005-05:00

Three years ago in Oconto, I met state Sen. Dave Hansen (D–Green Bay), who made a valid point about those of us who believe government spends too much money.

Hansen correctly pointed out that many people advocate that government spend less money without saying what they specifically prefer less government spending.

My proposed budget cut would not only save money, but provide a particular and popular function of government much more efficiently: Eliminate the Wisconsin State Patrol.

The State Patrol is an oddly designed function of state government, because the State Patrol is not a law enforcement agency in the same way that county sheriff’s departments are, or for that matter state police departments in other states. The State Patrol, which is part of the state Department of Transportation, “enforces criminal and traffic laws, conducts criminal highway interdiction programs, and helps local law enforcement agencies with traffic safety, civil disturbances and disasters (natural and man-made).”

In other words, the stormtroopers of the state highways enforce the laws created by the busybodies in Madison and Washington, including mandatory seat-belt laws at a time when any idiot ought to realize they are safer wearing belts than not, to ridiculous levels, such as, in one case I was told by a trusted source, ticketing someone for driving 3 mph — yes, 3 mph — faster than the speed limit. The State Patrol also operates the state’s truck weigh stations, which rarely seem to be open whenever I drive past them.

State troopers (the State Patrol is authorized to have 399 of them) are sworn police officers, but they have no police responsibilities that aren’t related to motor vehicles, and they are legally subordinate to the county sheriff. (Like all bureaucracies, though, the State Patrol is looking to grow itself, having created a K–9 unit for which it had no legislative authorization. And like other bureaucracies, the State Patrol has a public relations arm that distributes news releases and creates pretty-looking reports in which it takes credit for things for which it doesn’t deserve credit, including a drop in traffic crashes.)

The State Patrol might have more of a reason for existence if its jurisdiction were limited to the state’s four-lane highways, the most traveled roads in the state, but that is not now the case. There is no evidence that crime in Wisconsin (particularly crime of a statewide nature) is at such a level as to warrant expanding police powers to the State Patrol, either.

Other than inspecting tractor–trailers and operating the State Patrol Academy, there is nothing the State Patrol does that county sheriff’s departments don’t do, and could do more efficiently with dollars the state currently spends on the State Patrol. That is already occurring in one place, in fact: The State Patrol is really the State-Except-Milwaukee-County Patrol, because the State Patrol has no responsibilities to patrol Milwaukee County freeways, and if they don’t patrol the freeways of the largest metropolitan area in the state, what is their purpose?

The State Patrol has done two things that stood out over the past year: (1) What appeared to be most of them patrolled the roads around the PGA Championship in August, and (2) they provided security at the State Capitol during Protestorama earlier this year. As for the latter, you won't be surprised to know state troopers are unionized. They should not be, since no government employee should be in a union, and the protests of earlier this year demonstrated why. Moreover, do you really want law enforcement intervening in a political dispute?

Interestingly, I've talked to a lot of people about this idea over the past few years — elected officials, political observers, and taxpayers. I've yet to have a single person who didn't have some direct connection to the State Patrol say that this was a bad idea, particularly the part about giving the money the state spends on the State Patrol to county sheriff's departments. (Perhaps that State Patrol PR arm isn't working so well after all.)

At this point, I’d like to tell you that the state spends X dollars on the State Patrol. I can’t do that, because the State Patrol’s budget is well hidden within the Department of Transportation budget. I do know that county sheriff’s departments, which are responsible for their own counties instead of the whole state, would spend dollars being used on the State Patrol more wisely. In fact, that already happens in Milwaukee County, which gets $3 million in state funds to patrol Milwaukee County freeways.

Gov. James Doyle once proposed creating a state police force under the Justice Department, which would have combined the State Patrol, the Justice Department’s Division of Criminal Investigation, and the Department of Administration’s Capitol Police and State Fair Park Police. Such a department perhaps could include the University of Wisconsin police departments on the Madison, Oshkosh, Eau Claire, Milwaukee, Parkside, Platteville, Stout and Whitewater campuses. (I’ll pause while you mull over that bureaucratic snarl.)

That is one of those ideas that seems good in theory until you consider one fact: That statewide police department would be run by the Attorney General. Doyle, who was elected attorney general in 1990, and his one-term successor Peg Lautenschlager grossly politicized the Justice Department as Democrats seem to want to do. The history of Democrat Kathleen Falk, a former associate attorney general and public intervenor (the taxpayer-funded anti-development bottleneck that no longer exists), indicates that that would have continued had Falk not (fortunately) lost to Republican J.B. Van Hollen in 2006. (Unfortunately, though that position doesn't exist, there is an assistant attorney general whose job is to harass businesses over picayune environmental law disputes. That person's name? Joanne Kloppenburg.) Doyle and Lautenschlager did nothing to assist actual working law enforcement, but did wander off into areas that, whether or not you agree with their positions, were not about law enforcement.

Those who are not conservatives should be concerned as well about law enforcement being run by elected officials. (Am I saying sheriffs shouldn't be elected either? That's a valid argument, in fact; at a minimum, sheriff positions should not be partisan offices. Enforcing the law should not depend on whether the chief law enforcement officer is a Democrat or a Republican.) We all know that elected officials pander to voters. That reality makes one wonder if the law can be enforced fairly and effectively by someone who does what politicians do to keep their offices.

It is one thing to have a statewide investigative force for crimes of a statewide or specialized nature. (The Division of Criminal Investigation could be said to serve as Wisconsin's FBI right down to the "special agent" position names.) That is not what the State Patrol does. Either the State Patrol should have its responsibilities expanded, or it should be disbanded. In an era of state budget crises that are bigger than widely believed but not rampant statewide crime, the latter is the preferred route.

Presty the DJ for May 17

2011-05-17T06:00:00.030-05:00

First, for those who believe the British are the height of sophistication and are so much more couth than us Americans: This was the number one song in the U.K. today in 1986:

The chicken is not having a birthday. Pervis Jackson of the Spinners is:

So is drummer Bill Bruford, who played for Yes, King Crimson and Genesis:

George, one of the Brothers Johnson:

Turn up your speakers to get the full effect of Eithne Ni Bhraonian, better known as Enya::

Dave Abbruzzese, drummer for Pearl Jam:

Finally, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails:

With our short playlist today, consider these two versions of the same song:

In case you missed it ...

2011-05-16T07:22:00.003-05:00

My appearance on "Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes" on WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee can be seen here. The show featured breaking news (Herb Kohl's upcoming retirement, which pushed school choice off the agenda) and a guest who forgot to take off his visitor name tag before the open. (That's called a "continuity error" in film.)

The other thing is that this might be the last "Sunday Insight" show (among other things) of all time ... if this guy is right. (See the Winners and Losers segment to see what I mean, or read this blog Friday.)

After Kohl

2011-05-16T07:00:00.051-05:00

U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl (D–Wisconsin) announced Friday that four terms in the U.S. Senate was enough. (Which means you can ignore this.)

Kohl was in the Senate for four terms, you ask? How can you tell?

Part of me says I shouldn't be critical of Kohl for two reasons. First, he did note $25 million of the $72 million cost for the University of Wisconsin's Kohl Center, one of the premier college sports facilities in the U.S., particularly compared to the UW Fieldhouse, which had great views from the front of the upper deck and little else to recommend it.

Second, Kohl probably didn't do any damage to the country, unlike former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D–Wisconsin), whose McCain–Feingold campaign finance deform bill ushered in the era of the nasty campaign ads we all enjoyed in 2010 and violates the First Amendment. Better inaction than the wrong action, I suppose.

Having written that, Kohl was sort of the unflavored gelatin of Wisconsin politics — inoffensive for the most part, yet ineffective. I wrote in the 1990s that with Kohl's lack of noticeable accomplishment for the state and Feingold's fixation on campaign finance deform, I wondered when Wisconsin gave up the right to have U.S. senators.

When asked Friday about what he considered his greatest accomplishment in his political career, Kohl pointed to the Marinette Marine Littoral Combat Ship project. That is an important project for Marinette and Northeast Wisconsin, but (assuming the U.S. Navy buys more than one) it is not a project one would think would be on the top of the list of a senator who first arrived in Washington in 1989.

I covered the 1988 Senate race when candidates would come to Lancaster. That included exactly two Democrats, Ed Garvey (yes, this Ed Garvey), who had narrowly lost in 1986 to Republican Sen. Robert Kasten, and Secretary of State Douglas La Follette. The other Democratic candidates were former Gov. Anthony Earl, who had been upset in 1986 by then-Assembly Minority Leader Tommy Thompson, and perennial candidate Edmond Hou-Seye. Kohl did not deign to show up in Lancaster; I don't recall if Earl did.

Kohl's sole qualification for office was his millions of dollars as part of the Kohl family of Kohl's grocery stores and Kohls Corp. department stores. Kohl nonetheless won the Democratic primary with 47 percent of the vote, and then got 52 percent of the vote against Republican Susan Engeleiter in the general election.

I was assigned to write an editorial endorsing Kohl because of his business experience. That must have impressed some Republicans as well because I recall a group calling itself "Republicans for Kohl" consisting of some older male Republicans. I was not sure if they were convinced of Kohl's business experience or turned off by Engeleiter's gender.

That business experience part is one of the ironies of Kohl's career. At no point was his name attached to something remotely pro-business — that is, something that could benefit all businesses, not just business sectors in current favor such as alternative energy firms. Business tax cuts (not breaks)? Regulatory reform? Employment law reform?

His voting record (which ultimately is the only thing any politician should be judged upon) was standard Democrat, which is odd for someone who had enough money that he didn't need national Democratic support. No Democrat you've heard of ever ran against him after 1988, and he would have crushed any Democrat who did. Yet, like Feingold, Kohl listened to only Democrats back in Wisconsin, and could not be accused of being a moderate. Which is one reason why Democrats cannot be accused of being pro-business; their voting records get in the way of their rhetoric.

Kohl's future replacement was topic one on WTMJ-TV's "Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes." The big question was whether U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R–Janesville), who would be the instant favorite if he decided to run, will try for the Senate, which he's believed to be interested in, or if he would stay in the House of Representatives, where he theoretically has much more power as the House Budget Committee chairman. Everything on the right side will flow from whatever decision Ryan makes.

(Regardless of Ryan's decision, ponder this: Ron Johnson, whom few had heard of even a year ago, will be the senior senator from Wisconsin in January 2013.)

If not Ryan, another candidate might be Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who has won two statewide elections.

Another candidate I'm skeptical about is Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, who I think isn't well known enough statewide. I don't think Assembly speakers are good candidates for higher office anyway, given the experiences of GOP speakers David Prosser and John Gard, who were collectively 0 for 3 in congressional elections — as leaders of majority parties, they tend to be controversy magnets.

Kohl's departure adds another headache for Wisconsin Democrats and their supporters, regardless of what they say. Democrats either are being or will be asked to financially back (1) Joanne Kloppenburg's quixotic quest to get elected to the Supreme Court by invalidating votes; (2) Democrats involved, on the offensive or defensive side, in state Senate recall elections; (3) President Obama's reelection efforts in this (supposedly) swing state; (4) whoever decides to run against freshman U.S. Reps. Sean Duffy and Reid Ribble; (5) efforts to retake the Legislature in 2012; and now (6) whoever runs to replace Kohl.

The obvious Democrat to run is Feingold, largely because he (and his most fervent supporters) has acted as though Feingold's birthright was taken away from him when he lost Nov. 2. Senator Left Ear was simultaneously a phony maverick and ineffective on issues that actually matter to Wisconsin voters, which is why they fired Feingold Nov. 2. His "listening sessions" were an excuse for his leftist allies to claim that government is not big enough (to which Feingold agreed on such subjects as single-payer health care). It is faint praise that no one would accuse him of being two-faced; based on those who had to deal with him, if he disagreed with you, you might as well have been talking to the door.

Assuming Feingold doesn't challenge President Obama in the Democratic primary (a persistent rumor since his loss), I have to believe Feingold will run. Almost as likely, and absolutely likely if he doesn't run, is U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D–Madison), who will be making a huge mistake if she does run because, while she can probably be elected to Congress from the People's Republic of Madison indefinitely, she is unlikely to do well in the conservative parts of the state, which will be able to find at least three reasons to not vote for her. (Her party is one, where she's from is another, and you can guess about number three.) Another name from the People's Republic is Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, who has, however, already lost two statewide races — the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2002 and the attorney general race (after knocking off incumbent Peg Lautenschlager) in 2006.

The Democrat who should run but is probably 50–50 at best is U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D–La Crosse), a former Kohl aid. Kind represents the Third Congressional District, a swing district bordered by the Mississippi River. Kind, who would have been a better candidate for governor than Tom Barrett, is that rarest of things, a 2010 Democratic winner. The latter half of the 50–50 is that, like Baldwin but for different reasons, Kind would be giving up a safe Congressional seat for a not-at-all-assured result in November 2012.

The craziest suggestion I've read — which means: Go for it, Democrats! — is that someone from the Fleeing Fourteen should run. This suggestion, forwarded from The Capital Times' John Nichols, is the result of the delusion that Wisconsinites widely oppose Gov. Scott Walker's budget reforms. Had that been the case, we'd be talking about Supreme Court Justice-Elect Joanne Kloppenburg, instead of Kloppenburg the Meaningless Lawsuit Machine, and Democratic Sens. Dave Hansen, James Holperin and Robert Wirch wouldn't be facing recall elections this summer. Apparently the closer you get to Madison, the farther away you get from reality.

Johnson, interestingly, is a model for Democrats in this election. Not because of Johnson's ideology (the only reason liberals read Atlas Shrugged is so they can denigrate it), but because of Johnson's backstory. The mythology of Wisconsin politics is that we like mavericks or, in the case of Feingold, politicians who seem like mavericks though they are not. This is one of those periods (which seem more numerous than they actually are) where being an insider is a bit of a disadvantage. People regardless of ideology are disgusted by politics more by the day, and someone who seems outside the process — as Kohl was in 1988, as Feingold (who defeated two Democratic opponents who vastly outspent him) was in 1992, and as Johnson was in 2010 — is probably the ideal Democratic candidate in 2012. As Marquette University Prof. John McAdams said on WTMJ radio Friday, you don't know that person yet.

Presty the DJ for May 16

2011-05-16T06:00:00.028-05:00

Today in 1980, Brian May of Queen collapsed while onstage. This was due to hepatitis, not, one assumes, the fact that Paul McCartney released his "McCartney II" album the same day.

Today's rock music birthdays start with someone who will never be associated with rock music: Liberace, born in West Allis today in 1919.

Actual rock birthdays start with Isaac "Redd" Holt of Young-Holt Unlimited:

Nicky Chinn wrote this 1970s classic: It's it's ...

Roger Earl of Foghat ...

... was born one year before Barbara Lee of the Chiffons ...

... and drummer Darrell Sweet of Nazareth:

William "Sputnik" Spooner played guitar for both the Grateful Dead ...

... and The Tubes:

Richard Page of Mr. Mister:

Krist Novoselic of Nirvana was born one year before ...

... Miss Jackson if you're nasty:

Finally, Patrick Waite, bassist and singer for Musical Youth, which did this '80s classic, dude:

Presty the DJ for May 14-15

2011-05-14T07:00:00.008-05:00

Saturday's birthdays start with Harry "Chick" Daugherty, trombone player for Spike Jones:

Bobby Darin (for whom my father's band, the first rock and roll band in southern Wisconsin, played as Darin's backing band in Madison -- according to my father the piano player, Darin was very exacting, which made playing for him not necessarily a fun experience):

Jack Bruce, bass player for Cream:

Gene Cornish, bass player and singer for The Rascals:

Derek Leckenby, one of Herman's Hermits:

David Byrne, the front man of the Talking Heads, chronicled in perhaps the best concert movie of all time, "Stop Making Sense":

Tom Cochrane, first of Red Rider, then with his one solo hit:

Bruce Johannesson, better known as C.C. Deville of Poison:

Michael Inez, guitarist, bass and sax player for Ozzy Osbourne ...

... and Alice in Chains:

Saturday is also the anniversary of the death by electrocution of Keith Reif of the Yardbirds:

Sunday (the 23rd anniversary of my graduation from the University of Wisconsin, for those who care) features three Beatles anniversaries -- the first meeting of Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman (who, for those who don't know, became Linda McCartney), which was one year before McCartney and John Lennon appeared on NBC-TV's The Tonight Show starring guest host Joe Garagiola, which was two years before the Beatles' last album, "Let It Be," was released in the U.S.

Well before all that, Sunday is the birthday of folk singer Trini Lopez ...

... and Little River Band guitarist Graham Goble (not sure where he is in this video) ...

... and Uriah Heep bass player Gary Thain ...

... and Brian Eno, who played keyboards for Roxy Music and U2 ...

... and Toto's Dennis Fredericksen ...

... and composer Mike Oldfield, whose name you may not recall, but you probably recall his best known work:

Skål

2011-05-13T08:00:00.002-05:00

I was the editor of Marketplace Magazine for 10 years. If I had to point to one thing that demonstrates improved quality of life since I came to Northeast Wisconsin in 1994, it would be ...

... the growth of breweries and wineries in Northeast Wisconsin.

The former of those two facts makes sense, given our heritage as a brewing state. The latter is less self-evident, since no one thinks of Wisconsin as having a good grape-growing climate. Some snobs claim that apple or cherry wines aren't really wines at all. But one of the great facets of free enterprise is the opportunity to make your own choice of what food and drink to drink. (At least for now, though some wish to restrict our food and drink choices.)

Wisconsin’s historically predominant ethnic group (and our family's) is German. Our German ancestors did unfortunately bring large government and high taxes with them, but they also brought beer. Europeans brought wine with them, since they came from countries with poor-quality drinking water. Within 50 years of a wave of mid-19th-century German immigration, brewing had become the fifth largest industry in the U.S., according to Maureen Ogle, author of Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer.

Beer and wine have been more durable than government, having survived “progressive” and anti-alcohol efforts to wipe it out during Prohibition. (One anti-alcohol type wrapped temperance and World War I anti-German sentiment by proclaiming, "The worst of all our German enemies are Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz and Miller.") Beer and wine are also more durable than newspapers, specifically the 2008 Gannett efforts to shame all of us into stopping drinking.

One of the more interesting classes I took at the University of Wisconsin was a class in UW’s Botany department, “Plants and Man.” Besides being one of the first users of multimedia presentations (he used two slide projectors during lectures), the professor, Tim Allen, talked about, of all things, brewing and winemaking:

“You learn about biological processes, you learn about infections, you learn about being careful, being clean—all things that are crucial to science,” says Allen. “As well as learning a useful skill. Brewing is legal and a wholesome activity.”

One thing he said that stuck in my mind during the adult-beverage lectures was to look for quality over quantity — that two bottles of a really good beer are preferable to a six-pack of lesser beer. (That’s also the reason I don’t drink light beer.) I meet no one’s definition of a beer or wine snob, but I avoid the more common beer labels (i.e. Miller Genuine Draft over Miller Lite, and Michelob over anything with “Bud” in its name), particularly Old Style beer (the most common contents of the college party quarter-barrels I attended), of which I drank enough to resolve to never drink it again after graduation. (I also vastly prefer bottles to cans.)

Old Style, of course, was brewed by the late G. Heileman Brewing Co. of La Crosse, which also brewed my first favorite beer, Special Export. (Both Old Style and Special Export are now brewed by Miller for Pabst, the labels’ owner. Pabst also owns Blatz, Colt 45 Malt Liquor, Lone Star, Old Milwaukee, Olympia, Pearl, Rainier, Schaefer,Schlitz and Stroh’s.) Special Export was the beer of choice at home when I reached legal drinking age, so I drank it until the formula changed sometime around 1990.

(Interesting side fact: Several beer Web sites actually “card” users — if you’re not 21, you can’t get into their Web site, I suppose because of the national 21-year-old drinking age. At 18, you can vote, marry, sign legally binding contracts and die for your country, but until you’re 21 you can neither drink nor access beer Web sites.)

I come from a long line of brandy drinkers, which shouldn’t be a surprise in Wisconsin. My grandfather drank brandy and cola. My father drinks brandy and seltzer. My Polish Minnesota relatives were shot-and-a-beer types, although the shot was brandy and not whiskey. I drink the official mixed drink of Wisconsin, the brandy old fashioned made with sweet vermouth. (Except during my in-laws’ large Christmas celebration, where the order of the day is their brandy slush. Since I wandered into that tradition, we now have our own separate brandy slush recipe.) The black sheep of the family are my aunt and uncle, who make the world’s greatest Bloody Marys.

My alcohol choices are influenced heavily by my sweet tooth. (Call me a philistine, but my wine preferences lean toward sweet whites.) Soon, I will be looking for Leinenkugel Summer Shandy, beer with a lemonade taste. I also like wheat beers, red beers, and even dark beers when I’m feeling, well, brilliant. I was going to replace the Summer Shandy with Leinie’s Apple Spice until Leinie's discontinued Apple Spice and replaced it with Fireside Nut Brown. I have yet to delve into the world of home brewing, because I have enough to do in my life as it is. (More power to those who brew at home.)

There was great irony in the purchase of Anheuser–Busch, this nation's largest brewer, by InBev of Belgium in the late 2000s. Some argue that Budweiser helped wipe out dozens of regional brands; others argue that Budweiser helped wipe out dozens of regional brands that were almost indistinguishable from Budweiser. Ogle (who has a beer blog) points out that, after Prohibition, per capita beer consumption didn't reach pre-Prohibition levels until the mid-1970s. Edward McClelland wrote on Salon.com that, while in 1960 this country had 175 traditional (not micro) breweries, within 45 years (45 years of beer on the wall?) there were just 21 breweries.

Anyone 10 years or older than I am can regale you with interesting stories as the answer to this question: What is the worst beer you’ve ever had? McClelland points out that Anheuser–Busch’s attaching itself to television and sports took it from number four to number one among U.S. breweries, wiping out smaller competition in the process. An honest appraisal, though, might make one think that the survivors were those who didn’t just have more financial, distribution or marketing horsepower, but made a better, or at least more consistent, product than many smaller labels. (You walk into any McDonald’s restaurant in the U.S., and you will get the same Quarter Pounder as at the next McDonald’s, or a McDonald’s 1,000 miles away.) A good tipoff is when a beer is known not for its quality, but its lack thereof.

The trend in the reduction of traditional breweries has been countered by the rise of the microbrewery, or “craft brewery,” including, in Northeast Wisconsin, Fratellos and Fox River Brewing Co., Hinterland, Stone Cellar, Titletown and others. (McClelland notes that the U.S. had eight microbreweries in 1980; 25 years later, the number had jumped to more than 1,300.) The parallel trend is the rise of the small winery, including, in Northeast Wisconsin,Captain’s Walk, Door Peninsula, Kerrigan Brothers, LedgeStone, Orchard Country, Parallel 44, Red Oak, Simon Creek, Stone’s Throw, Trout Springs, von Stiehl, Woodland Trail and others. (The winery list, incidentally, has doubled since I did a story about Northeast Wisconsin’s wineries in June 2001.)

At this point, those readers who don’t drink (and you are perfectly within your rights to abstain) might look at this as an exercise justifying drinking, as if those of us who enjoy the taste of alcoholic beverages or enjoy the stress-relieving effects of adult beverages are less moral or less pure of heart. That belies the reality that stress-relieving activities, of which drinking is one, have existed as long as stress has existed.

Washington Post columnist George Will, not a writer noted for humor, wrote perhaps the second funniest thing he has ever written (the first was his suggestion that football combines the two worst features of American culture — violence and committee meetings) when commenting on Investors Business Daily’s report on InBev’s purchase of Anheuser–Busch:

The story asserted: “The [alcoholic beverage] industry’s continued growth, however slight, has been a surprise to those who figured that when the economy turned south, consumers would cut back on nonessential items like beer.” “Non what”? Do not try to peddle that proposition in the bleachers or at the beaches in July. It is closer to the truth to say: No beer, no civilization.

That’s not columnist hyperbole. Will refers to Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic — and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, about a cholera epidemic traced to the drinking water in a particular London neighborhood:

“The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself. As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial population bottleneck. For much of human history, the solution to this chronic public-health issue was not purifying the water supply. The solution was to drink alcohol.”
Often the most pure fluid available was alcohol — in beer and, later, wine — which has antibacterial properties. Sure, alcohol has its hazards, but as Johnson breezily observes, “Dying of cirrhosis of the liver in your forties was better than dying of dysentery in your twenties.” Besides, alcohol, although it is a poison, and an addictive one, became, especially in beer, a driver of a species-strengthening selection process.
Johnson notes that historians interested in genetics believe that the roughly simultaneous emergence of urban living and the manufacturing of alcohol set the stage for a survival-of-the-fittest sorting-out among the people who abandoned the hunter–gatherer lifestyle and, literally and figuratively speaking, went to town.
To avoid dangerous water, people had to drink large quantities of, say, beer. But to digest that beer, individuals needed a genetic advantage that not everyone had — what Johnson describes as the body's ability to respond to the intake of alcohol by increasing the production of particular enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenases. This ability is controlled by certain genes on chromosome four in human DNA, genes not evenly distributed to everyone. Those who lacked this trait could not, as the saying goes, “hold their liquor.” So, many died early and childless, either of alcohol’s toxicity or from waterborne diseases.
The gene pools of human settlements became progressively dominated by the survivors — by those genetically disposed to, well, drink beer. “Most of the world’s population today,” Johnson writes, “is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance for alcohol.”

So the next time you order beer, just tell your companions that nature wants you to drink beer. (I drink gin — always Tanqueray — and tonics in the summer due to my fear of scurvy and malaria. A bartender once told me that Tanqueray doesn’t cause hangovers, and so far, he’s been right.) Or repeat this quote attributed to John Ciardi: “Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.”

There is something viscerally satisfying about a good wine accompanying a good meal, or a bottle of beer in the company of friends. Taverns, after all, were where much of the business of the beginnings of this nation were conducted. And if you’re a parent, it is absolutely essential that your children see you and your spouse enjoying adult beverages responsibly.

Benjamin Franklin has been quoted as approving of both beer and wine as “proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” The actual quote is: “We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.” Then again, he certainly enjoyed ale from time to time.

Another Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, pointed out, “Beer, if drank in moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit, and promotes health.”

Cheers. (Or perhaps, for our German ancestors, “prost.”)

Coming to a TV, then website, near you

2011-05-13T07:00:00.002-05:00

I will be a guest on WTMJ-TV's "Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes" Sunday at 9:30 a.m.

Those whose TVs are in range of channel 4 in Milwaukee can watch Sunday, while others can watch online at www.620wtmj.com sometime Monday morning.

Subjects will include the big news of the day, U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl's retirement, and whether the Wisconsin political scene can get any more intense than it already is.

Presty the DJ for May 13

2011-05-13T06:00:00.117-05:00

First, a program note: Given the length of the weekend artist listings and the speed of the computers and Internet connections of some readers, we're expanding Presty the DJ to the weekends.

This is a famous day in rock history: Today in 1965, the Rolling Stones recorded "Satisfaction" ...

... and "Paint It Black":

Birthdays today begin with Ricardo Valenzuela, better known as Ritchie Valens:

Another singer gone too soon, Mary Wells:

Two birthdays in the same band: harmonica player Richard "Magic Dick" Salwitz and bassist Danny Klein of the J. Geils Band:

Pete "Overend" Watts, bass player for Mott the Hoople:

Danny Kirwan, one of the early members of Fleetwood Mac before Fleetwood Mac started selling records:

Peter Gabriel, whose departure from Genesis coincided with Genesis' selling records too:

Paul Thompson, drummer of Roxy Music:

Return to Janesville?

2011-05-11T15:17:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the United Auto Workers has not given up on convincing General Motors to reopen its Janesville assembly plant.

GM plans to "add or keep 4,000 jobs in the U.S. by hiring new employees or calling back furloughed workers" over the next 18 months. GM plans to spend $2 billion at 17 plants in eight states. Besides Janesville, GM has as options the late Saturn plant in Spring Hill, Tenn. (remember "A new kind of company, a new kind of car?" That turned out to be less than half right), and a Shreveport, La., plant GM had planned to close.

The Janesville closing -- production ended in 2008, and the plant closed in 2010 -- hit a lot of Wisconsinites personally. The father of a high school classmate of mine drove 40 miles one way every day from up the street in Madison to Janesville to work at GM. We owned a Janesville-built Chevrolet Caprice, which lasted more than 130,000 miles at a time when hitting 100,000 miles was a big accomplishment. Manufacturing is obviously a big part of Wisconsin's economy, and car manufacturing in particular has a certain status that manufacturing of other things doesn't have. So the closing of the Janesville GM facility and the Kenosha Chrysler engine plant, both in 2010, felt bad, whether or not it made business sense.

That last sentence is the first of several questions that come to mind. Back in 2008, Catherine Madden of Global Insight, said GM "simply has too many facilities in the system, if you look at where its [declining] market share is today."

It's been apparent for many years that GM's main problem was not the quality of its cars, but the quality, or lack thereof, of its P&Ls. Through their combination of sales incentives, loss leaders (as in small cars) and the few vehicles on which they made money -- in GM's case, pickup trucks and SUVs and, interestingly, the Corvette -- the Big Three sought to make money on volume, a formula that only worked as long as the automakers had a lot of sales volume. That formula fell apart in 2008, leading to GM's bankruptcy and Chrysler's sale to Fiat.

If any automaker is to make money in the future, it will have to do by building fewer vehicles more profitably. Big Three cars used to have a reputation for poor quality. (Unfortunately, I can attest to that in at least two cases.) Poor build quality has been substantially reduced, in part through design and in part through improvements in manufacturing quality. That means cars last longer, so people replace them less often. The profit-through-volume model runs out of gas when that happens.

Lakeshore Laments doubts GM's profitability:

Would I like to see Janesville re-open? Absolutely, but I seriously wonder if GM has the capability, not to mention the revenue and cash flow from its post-bankruptcy operations to make re-opening Janesville a possibility instead of a pipe dream. Simply put, a lot of GM's numbers are not adding up.

A review of quarterly GM 10Q SEC filings reveals that, over the past six months, GM's cash and cash equivalents has gone down from $27.5 billion at the end of 3rd quarter 2010 to $21 billion at the end of 1st quarter 2011. GM continuing its old habits of burning money may be part of the reason its share price is stuck below the IPO price of $33 and well below the $53 per share needed for taxpayers to be paid back on the portion of money put in during the Obama term.
GM seems to be focusing on politically driven public relations campaigns (as also demonstrated by the Chevy Volt hype) rather than on maximizing profits. Investors should be wary if the trend continues.

If the above numbers are true, they indicate that General Motors is still bleeding cash. Such finances don't seem to warrant re-opening the Janesville plant for the long-term.

GM's profitability is a bigger issue than any concessions the UAW says it's willing to make to reopen Janesville. This may look like a drive down the same path of Mercury Marine and Harley–Davidson, both of whose unions agreed to givebacks to keep their Wisconsin facilities open.

But what would be built in Janesville? To respect history, GM should bring back the aforementioned Caprice (which is still being built in Australia and the Middle East), which it plans to sell to law enforcement agencies, but for the entire marketplace. GM made a huge error in killing full-size rear-drive cars in 1996, a mistake Ford is about to repeat by finally ending production of its ancient (as in first built in 1979) Ford Crown Victoria. Irrespective of $4-a-gallon gas, there is still a market among police departments and taxi companies for body-on-frame rear-drive cars. (The Dodge Charger, now appearing in a rear-view mirror near you, is not as large as the Crown Victoria.)

It’s unfortunate, but a fact of life, that workers bear the brunt of bad decisions made by management. I think GM erred by not offering diesel engines in their SUVs, which would have resulted in better fuel economy, even at, in 2008, 70 cents per gallon more than unleaded. GM was the only one of the Big Three to manufacture its own diesel engine, instead of getting outsourced diesels — Ford's previous truck diesel was made by Navistar, and Dodge's is made by Cummins — until Ford started producing its own diesel engine for its Super Duty pickups. (It's taken more than a decade for GM to undo the damage created by its first move into diesels, a product so bad that it is credited for having damaged the entire market for diesel cars in North America. Not until GM got its Detroit Diesel division to build a V-8 for pickups and the Suburban did that stigma start to go away.)

GM’s gas V-8 engines have Active Fuel Management, which turns off half the cylinders when not needed, when attached to automatic transmissions, but I suspect buyers remember GM’s first crack at that, the V-8-6-4 on 1980s Cadillacs. (And not fondly; Time.com called the system “the Titanic of engine options. The cars jerked, bucked, stalled, made rude noises and generally misbehaved until wild-eyed owners took the cars to have the systems disconnected.”) The Chevy Tahoe and GMC Yukon have a hybrid system option based on shutting off and restarting the engine when needed (i.e. in traffic), which seems to me antithetical to long engine life. GM dragged its corporate feet on equipping its cars and trucks with six-speed automatic transmissions (the more gears you have, the better a vehicle will perform, in both acceleration and in fuel economy), and pretty much eliminated manual transmissions, which still get better fuel economy (in the hands of the right driver), on vehicles bigger than subcompacts.

GM pushed trucks and SUVs because GM made much more money on trucks and SUVs than they did in cars, and particularly small cars. The aforementioned Spring Hill plant was the exclusive home for GM's Saturn to build small cars. Unfortunately, there was nothing Saturn built that was particularly better than its Japanese competition. (I can speak with authority on that, having test-driven and rejected their SC2 and SW2 due in large part to the noise of their twin-cam engines.

People bought Suburbans and Yukons because they felt a need for them — either to pull boats or campers, or just because they preferred their roominess and their higher driving position to smaller cars. Those smaller cars, incidentally, are the result of increasingly stringent fuel economy standards, which helped kill off large rear-drive cars, and particularly station wagons, in this country; an SUV is nothing more than a station wagon body on top of a truck chassis. SUVs weren't subject to those fuel economy regulations, so those who wanted a vehicle more like the old big cars (for instance, tall people) voted with their feet and purchased SUVs. If they wanted small cars, they purchased small cars from companies that had more experience in designing, building and selling them -- Toyota, for instance.

There are lessons from the Janesville closing for both workers and for government. The days of having the same employer for your entire career (40½ years in my father’s case) are over. The days where someone can make $54,000 (the average GM Janesville assembly line worker's salary by 2008, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) after walking into the plant with your only marketable skill being your work ethic are over too.

The GM closing obscured a couple of interesting facts about Janesville. The Wisconsin State Journal in Madison pointed out in 2008 that GM had fewer employees in Janesville than Mercy Health Care. By 2008 86 percent of new jobs in the post-9/11 recovery were created by companies of 100 or fewer employees, and 65 percent of new jobs were created by companies of five or fewer employees. GM and its suppliers total 6.3 percent of the jobs in the Janesville area, half of the total at GM's peak in Janesville, so it's obvious that economic development officials in the Janesville area did in fact get the message years ago. As Doug Pearson, the former executive director of Chamco, the nonprofit Oshkosh development corporation, pointed out, "If you've got 50 small companies, it's a lot less likely you're going to have something that's going to affect all those companies."

What is French for "tornado warning"?

2011-05-11T08:24:00.002-05:00

The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center just posted these, shall we say, interesting looking maps for today:

The first map shows a 15 percent probability for the component parts of severe weather, high winds (50 knots, or 55 mph) and hail of 1 inch or larger. The second map shows a 5 percent probability for tornadoes, which doesn't seem like much, but in meteorology (and in math, duh), 5 percent is more than zero.

For what it's worth, AccuWeather thinks the threat will be slightly south of here:

But the Weather Channel thinks the entire state is at risk for severe weather today:

We'll see who's right. We may also find out how the hosts of French foreign exchange students lain to their guests why they have to go to the basement. (To answer the question in the headline, one online translator says it's "avertissement de tornade," which looks more like an advertisement for a tornado or an advisory for a tornado than a warning about a tornado.)

Tyranny of the enviroexpert

2011-05-11T07:00:00.020-05:00

My blog Monday on Red Fred Clark may have made you think that, among other things, I am skeptical about the value of the Progressive Era in Wisconsin politics.

Which you may think odd for a graduate of, yes, Robert M. La Follette High School in Madison. (For some reason, our sports teams were named the Lancers, not the Fighting Bobs.) Voting reforms like direct election of U.S. senators, primary elections and referenda were indeed worthwhile reforms. The ballooning growth of government --- in response to actual problems, it should be noted -- and the reflexive distrust of business and the "rich" (that is, anyone with more money than you) stand as progressivism's less positive contributions to the body politic.

Another feature of the Progressive Era was the concept of "government by expert." To a point, it makes sense to, for instance, have experts in forestry oversee conservation efforts, as Theodore Roosevelt hired. But the executive branch, which manages the government, is not the legislative branch, which is supposed to make policy.

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel column by outdoors writer Paul A. Smith opines that the environment in Wisconsin is going to hell because of -- the horror! -- politics:

With an eye to scientific resource management, William Aberg, Aldo Leopold and contemporaries helped create a nonpartisan conservation commission in Wisconsin in the late 1920s. The idea was to keep politics out.

"Conservation cannot afford to enter the political arena as a candidate or partisan." said Aberg, a Madison attorney, former chairman of the Wisconsin Conservation Commission and 2000 inductee in the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame.

Though Aberg was a prominent Republican, he was adamant about keeping politics separate from resource management.

Leopold, the lauded University of Wisconsin professor and author, expressed his contempt for politics in his book "Round River": "I believe that many of the economic forces inside the modern body-politic are pathogenic in respect to harmony with land." ...

Oh, those robber baron capitalists ... whose tax dollars pay the largest share of government costs.

Smith has for a long time advocated for returning control of the Department of Natural Resources to the Natural Resources Board and away from the governor. Gov. Tommy Thompson gave himself (with legislative approval, of course) the authority to name the DNR head in 1995, despite the opposition of Attorney General James Doyle. Gov. James Doyle, however, decided to keep Thompson's appointment ability.

But with the "Wisconsin is open for business" mantra espoused by the administration, to say many in the conservation community are wary is an understatement.

The legislature has made others nervous by introducing and moving quickly on several measures, including AB99, a deer hunting bill that would take away the DNR's ability to use Earn-A-Buck regulations and T-Zone antlerless deer hunts.

"At some point in Wisconsin history, our citizens decided there needed to be one more buffer between elected officials and our natural resources, and that is the NRB," said Christine Thomas of Stevens Point, board member since 2004 and dean of the College of Natural Resources at UW-Stevens Point, speaking at last week's board meeting in Madison. "In my opinion, this board is one of the best things about Wisconsin."

Thomas made it clear she'd prefer the legislature stay out of conservation issues. Although most on the board argued for more aggressive herd control measures for 2011, it eventually approved a 2011 deer hunting season format without Earn-A-Buck and without an October gun hunt for antlerless deer.

"We live in a democracy, and the people will have their say at the end of the day," Thomas said. "But when it comes time to make a tough decision, this board looks at all the information and over time has done what's best for the resource. You don't know what you get out of the political process."

No, we know exactly what we get out of the political process -- democracy, as messy and slow and occasionally disagreeable for your tastes as it is. What we get out of the political process is representation of the voters and taxpayers, some of whom, it may surprise Thomas to know, see, for instance, revitalizing the state's economy as more important than following the whims of the (unelected) Natural Resources Board.

Smith quotes Herb Behnke of Shawano, who was appointed to the first state Natural Resources Board in 1968, but inadvertently identifies as a virtue something that is not:

Most DNR regulations are made by "administrative rule." When the legislature gets involved and passes a law on a conservation issue, it makes it "virtually impossible to change it back," Behnke said.

"I know lawmakers think they are making some lobbyists and voters happy, but it's not the way to go," Behnke said.

Legislation by administrative rule is in fact one of the worst features of Wisconsin government. When the Legislature passes a law, like it or not, a majority of the voters are represented, and when the voters decide they are no longer being adequately represented, legislators are involuntarily retired. (See Nov. 2, 2010.) No one in this state has voted for anyone to serve on the Natural Resources Board, and no one in this state who doesn't work for the DNR has ever authorized the hiring of anyone in the DNR. For that matter, no non-legislator has ever approved of the state's spending $86 million per year to take land permanently off the tax rolls in the name of conservation, either.

This is one of those cases that proves the political principle of expediency -- the correct level of government to solve a problem is whatever level of government will solve the problem in your preferred way. I have yet to read an environmentalist suggest electing the Natural Resources Board, or an every-other-year statewide authorization referendum on the Knowles–Nelson Stewardship Fund-financed state land grab.

Smith decries politics in the environment:

The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is crumbling; Wisconsin has been negligent in finding a solution for the future. It will require political involvement.

But items such as deer hunting regulations are best left to the DNR and NRB.

Politicians look after their own interests, principally re-election. That's the way the system works.

But the resource is better served when objective, well-informed people apart from the political process look after it.

In other words, pay up, you ignorant taxpayer, and shut up.

I don't expect an outdoors writer to admit this, but conservation and the environment is one of many, many issues we entrust to our elected officials. It is important -- for one thing, tourism and agriculture are two of the state's biggest industries -- but it is not the most important. It is, for instance, difficult to drive to some part of the 16 percent of land in this state that is owned by a unit of government if you don't have a job. It's hard to spend money on fishing or hunting equipment if you don't have money for outdoors equipment because your state has trailed the nation in per capita income growth for more than three decades.

Presty the DJ for May 11

2011-05-11T06:00:00.002-05:00

This must have been interesting to watch: Today in 1972, John Lennon announced on ABC-TV's Dick Cavett Show that the FBI was wiretapping his phone. (Lennon's, not Cavett's.) This was when the federal government was stupidly trying to deport Lennon. (Those who are not skeptical about the federal government, whoever the president is, are not paying attention.)

Birthdays today begin with Eric Burdon of the Animals:

Bassist Les Chadwick, one of the Pacemakers of Gerry and the Pacemakers:

Claude "Butch" Trucks, drummer for the Allman Brothers:

And for those who watched MTV when MTV actually had music videos, happy birthday to Martha Quinn ...

... on which (back when MTV played music videos) could be seen videos of the Art of Noise, whose Jonathan “J.J.” Jeczalik has a birthday today:

Two deaths of note today: First, Lester Flatt of Flatt & Scruggs, which wrote and recorded:

And Bob Marley:

#41 to #24: How?

2011-05-10T07:00:00.114-05:00

Readers of the late Marketplace of Ideas column and blog know that I kept regular watch over the various state business climate comparisons.

That is something one would expect a regional business magazine to do. My following the state's business climate, however, dates much farther back than my arrival at Marketplace in 1994. Ten years earlier, I wrote about the state's business climate and perceptions thereof for a term paper in my introduction to state government course at the University of Wisconsin. (Foreshadowing, perhaps?)

In the nearly two decades since then, state business climate comparisons have become what one might call objective subjective science. Most of the comparisons use objective rankings, but which rankings are important, and to what extent, is of course a subjective decision. Every ranking I have ever seen uses taxes (personal and corporate, plus property and sales taxes, and exemptions to all), but other factors also are included depending on the survey, including per capita gross domestic product or income growth, business startups, unemployment rates, quality of labor force (including education thereof), regulatory and legal burden, percentage of unionized workers, worker compensation insurance costs, and quality of life comparisons.

In the 10 years since I started professionally following business climate comparisons, two things became apparent: (1) Wisconsin, with rare exception, ranked in the bottom fourth of business climate comparisons regardless of who conducted the comparison, and (2) said comparisons were always criticized by either Democratic politicians or their fifth column in the media or blogosphere under the rationale that low rankings were criticisms and therefore invalid.

One example of truism number one was last October's ranking by Forbes magazine, which placed Wisconsin 43rd. Forbes' comparison used two other comparisons, the Pollina Corporate Real Estate site selection survey, which ranked Wisconsin 46th, and the Tax Foundation's State Business Climate Index, which ranked Wisconsin 42nd. Another was Chief Executive magazine's survey of "More than 500 CEOs" who "considered a wide range of criteria, from taxation and regulation to workforce quality and living environment," in which Wisconsin came out 41st in 2010.

Earlier this month, Chief Executive released its 2011 comparison, in which Wisconsin jumped from 41st to 24th, the highest positive jump of any state. Wisconsin is mid-pack in the Midwest, below Indiana (sixth, up from 16th), Iowa (22nd, down from 17th) and Missouri (23rd, up from 26th), but above Minnesota (29th, up from 31st), Ohio (41st, up from 43rd), Michigan (46th, up from 48th) and Illinois (48th, down from 45th). Texas ranks best, and California ranks worst.

This is great news that, however, begs this question: How did Wisconsin jump that high?

First, Chief Executive's methodology:

We asked CEOs to consider three criteria: Taxes & Regulation, Workforce Quality and Living Environment. In most companies, the CEO makes the ultimate decisions about where to locate and/or expand the business, making his or her perceptions of each state critically important.556 CEOs completed our detailed survey, which was conducted between Jan. 14 and Feb. 1, 2011. They were each asked to provide their selections for the 4 best states for doing business and the 4 worst states for doing business. ...

Chief Executive also asked CEOs to provide ratings for the states that they ranked, as well as other states for which they had opinions, along 3 key criteria: 1) taxes and regulations, 2) workforce quality and 3) living environment. They were asked to rate the states on these criteria using a 1-10 scale, with 10 = outstanding, 5= average and 1= poor.

Wisconsin ranked 33rd in taxation and regulation, 11th in workforce quality, 20th in "living environment," 33rd in 2005–09 state gross domestic product growth (2.72 percent less than the national average), 21st in unemployment rate (2.2 percent better than the national average), 26th in domestic net migration rate (people moving in vs. people moving out), 19th in state government debt per resident ($3,707), and 10th highest in state and local tax burden.

The Chief Executive story doesn't talk much about Wisconsin other than to note its 17-place improvement. More generally, the story says:

Business leaders graded the states on a variety of categories grouped under taxation and regulation, workforce quality and living environment. “Do not overtax business,” offered one CEO. “Make sure your tax scheme does not drive business to another state. Have a regulatory environment and regulators that encourage good business—not one that punishes businesses for minor infractions. Good employment laws help too. Let companies decide what benefits and terms will attract and keep the quality of employee they need. Rules that make it hard, if not impossible, to separate from a non-productive employee make companies fearful to hire or locate in a state.”

Not surprisingly, states with punitive tax and regulatory regimes are punished with lower rankings, and this can offset even positive scores on quality of living environment. While state incentives are always welcome, what CEOs often seek are areas with consistent policies and regulations that allow them to plan, as well as intangible factors such as a state’s overall attitude toward business and the work ethic of its population.

This is one reason Texas has consistently held the No. 1 position since 2005. It gets strong marks in all areas important for business creation, and has the second-lowest taxes in the nation. The state has created more jobs than any other—about 250,000 last year. Not surprisingly, it also enjoys the highest inward net migration rate of any state.

Interestingly, that first excerpted paragraph would not appear to describe Wisconsin. "... regulators that encourage good business" instead of punishing "businesses for minor infractions"? Three letters: DNR. If "good employment laws" include the ability for a worker to decide whether or not to join a union, well, that doesn't describe Wisconsin either. Those who claim that Wisconsin's corporate income taxes aren't that high usually ignore Wisconsin's high personal income taxes, and the owners of S corporations and other corporate bodies are assessed the corporate income taxes that are assessed on C corporations.

There is one difference between Chief Executive's 2010 comparison and its 2011 comparison. That difference took place between the 2010 and 2011 surveys, on Nov. 2:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who confronts one of the nation’s worst pension underfunding problems, is using the prospect of insolvency to push for significant pension reductions. In his move to end public sector collective bargaining to get control of the state’s budget, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker made Chris Christie appear reasonable. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels slowed state government payrolls to the point where Indiana has the nation’s fewest state employees per capita. In addition, while at least 35 states raised taxes during the recession, Indiana cut them.

These are some of the actions that encourage business leaders. As another CEO respondent remarked, “We need some political backbone to control spending, address out-of-control debts, and use common sense on environmental and other governmental regulations. Quit demonizing businesses. Who do they think provide real jobs?”

In Wisconsin before Nov. 2, the answer to that last question might as well have been: Why, public sector employee unions, of course! While that may indeed be the correct answer in the People's Republic of Madison, it is not in the rest of Wisconsin. But voters Nov. 2 noticed the state's poor economy, and may have actually noticed the fact that per capita income growth has trailed the national average since the late 1970s, and voted for change.

Some change has occurred. WISN radio morning host Jay Weber asked his listeners after the Nov. 2 election what they wanted the new governor and Legislature to do, and got a lengthy list. The items on the list that pertain to business climate include (accomplishments in boldface):

5. Repeal combined reporting and pass a package of pro-business legislation.(done)

7. Kill off the Regional Transit Authority Board. Don’t create any boards that have taxing authority. (soon)

8. Bring back TABOR or some taxpayer bill of rights.

9. End the minimum markup law

14. Allow school districts to negotiate for health insurance on the free market. (done, as part of collective bargaining changes)

15. Create a rainy day fund from excess or unexpected revenues that pour into the state coffers during boom times. (only talk of this so far, so far as I know)

16. Eliminate the state income tax on retiree pensions to help keep them in Wisconsin.

17. Freeze the property taxes of retirees to keep retirees in Wisconsin.

18. Move on reasonable Tort reform. (done, but we could go further in the future)

20. Ten percent across the board pay cuts for all state employees. (lets call this done, as part of collective bargaining changes)

24. End early retirement for public employees, so they can no longer live off of a state pension longer than they ever worked at the job.

25. Change the state law to make MATC and other tech school boards elected positions and accountable to the taxpayers. (Lazich, Darling are on it..vote not pending, though)

26. Reinstitute the QEO for teacher pay. (Again, call it done, Walker’s fixes are better)

41. Review and repeal the so-called ‘smart growth’ environmental requirements and restrictions, which have hit the point of absurdity.

That is not a bad list for merely four months of work (apparently enough CEOs have noticed what has been done, or at least a change in attitude from Madison, to make 17 places of difference) , but it's not nearly enough. For that matter, going from the bottom quarter to mid-pack isn't enough. We do not have lower income taxes, we still have too many employees at all levels of government (fewest government employees per capita -- now there's a goal worth pursuing), we still have too much spending and too much debt in all levels of government, and we have not defanged the regulators. Changing the Department of Commerce to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. may help.

Walker tweeted that his goal is for the state to have the nation's best business climate, which will not happen as long as we have anti-business Democrats in this state. (And as long as the state Democratic Party remains in thrall to the public employee unions, the last pro-business Democrats in Wisconsin will remain Democrat-turned-independent Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer, the Manitowoc County executive, and before him Gov. Patrick Lucey, who signed into law the machinery and equipment property tax exemption.)

The aforementioned part about "consistent policies and regulations that allows them to plan" poses a future problem for Wisconsin. The right people are in charge on the Capitol Square now, but at some point Democrats will recapture state government. The last time that happened, we got $2 billion in tax increases. Merely repealing past tax increases is an incomplete answer; tax increases must be largely prevented from happening in the future, which is why the inclusion of a Taxpayer Bill of Rights-like mechanism in the state Constitution is imperative.

Improving one state business climate ranking is one step. Many, many, many more steps are needed.

Presty the DJ for May 10

2011-05-10T06:00:00.043-05:00

You may remember a couple weeks ago I noted the first known meeting of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Today in 1963, upon the advice of George Harrison, Decca Records signed the Rolling Stones to a contract. Four years to the day later, Stones Keith Richard, Mick Jagger and Brian Jones celebrated by ... getting arrested for drug possession.

I noted the 51st anniversary May 2 of WLS in Chicago going to Top 40. Today in 1982, WABC in New York (also owned by ABC, as one could conclude from their call letters) played its last record, which was ...

Four years later, the number one song in America was, well, inspired by, though not based on, a popular movie of the day:

Birthdays today include Antoine "Fats" Domino:

Henry Fambrough of the Spinners:

Danny Rapp of Danny and the Juniors:

One word: Donovan:

Graham Gouldman, bassist for 10cc, was born one year ...

... before Jay Ferguson, who was in Spirit before his 1½ solo hits:

Ron Banks (who headed off to Rock and Roll Heaven, where you know they've got a hell of a band, one year ago) of the Dramatics:

Today is also Paul Hewson's birthday. Who? You too know him:

Who is Fred Clark?

2011-05-09T07:00:00.092-05:00

The Ripon Commonwealth Press performed a valuable act of public service last week by interviewing state Rep. Fred Clark (D–Baraboo), who wants to defeat Sen. Luther Olsen (R–Ripon) in the 14th Senate District recall election sometime this summer, when Clark stopped by the newspaper office.

Before we continue, two points you've read here. First: No elected official should be recalled from office for one vote. Recalls should be meant for elective officials' misconduct in public office, such as, oh, bugging out of the state to prevent a vote they're going to lose. Second: Olsen is going to win the recall election for several reasons because, for one thing, he's never faced a Democrat, which means that no Democrat between 1994 and 2008 felt they could defeat Olsen.

The headline starts things off: "Clark: Philosophical differences mark distinctions between himself and Olsen," which could also read: "Philosophical differences mark distinctions between Clark and Olsen's Senate district."

Red Fred's website claims that his being "a contractor and small business owner, and rural farm resident, serves him well as a representative to a rural area." I wonder how often he'll mention in the truncated campaign that he used to work for the Department of Natural Resources, which is not exactly popular for more reasons than I have time to list in this "rural area." Maybe Clark's definition of "rural Wisconsin's progressive tradition" (hence my "Red Fred" reference) works in the Baraboo and Wisconsin Dells areas; it is unlikely to go over as well in the rest of the 14th Senate District, a majority of whose voters do not see government as the be-all and end-all of their lives.

The people who do see government as the be-all and end-all of their lives — and Baraboo is just 40 miles away from the People's Republic of Madison — would include Clark's endorsers in his 2010 reelection, a list that includes AFSCME, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, the Clean Wisconsin Action Fund, the National Association of Social Workers, the Wisconsin Laborer's District Council, the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, Wisconsin Progress, the Wisconsin State AFL–CIO — organizations that do not represent the mainstream of 14th Senate District thought, based on past election results.

Clark asserts that "Sen. Olsen did not represent his district," without giving any evidence that Olsen did, other than, one assumes, assertions from Clark's buddies from AFSCME, the AFL–CIO and teacher unions. "He failed to do that on one of the most important issues a lot of people have seen in a generation," as if public employee collective bargaining rights (which he calls a "fundamental human right," irrespective of that right appearing nowhere in the U.S. or Wisconsin constitutions) are more important than the state's Lake Michigan-size vat of red ink.

What would be amusing if it wasn't so pathetic is that Clark appears to have no better answers for the state's godawful finances. Consider:
• "We have a structural deficit; we have to address that. We can't tax our way out of it; we do need to make cuts."
• "I do not disagree that many public employee unions had bargained for benefit packages that were unaffordable."
• "I firmly believe that everything should be on the table. ... I always believed that we need to be doing something to lower costs of benefits. Did we need to require [public employees] to contribute more to health care benefits? Yes."
• "I'm not a proponent of raising anybody's taxes, but a lot of people aren't [paying what they are supposed to be paying]. We should fund the Department of Revenue more to have more examiners."
• "The change I talk about is not getting us there; it doesn't get even get us halfway" to the $2.5 billion budget deficit.
• "We've made more commitments ... than we can really support. ... We need to ask the public — how much do you want to invest to" keep those commitments.

The summary of these quotes is that Clark didn't like what Olsen voted for, but Clark doesn't have better answers than what Olsen voted for and Clark voted against. Clark's union buddies believe the solution to our fiscal disaster area is to raise taxes, which Clark eschews if you believe the Commonwealth Press story.

The last time Clark's party controlled the Legislature and the governor's mansion, the Legislature increased taxes by $2.1 billion, yet managed the novel feat of significantly worsening state finances. The last complete fiscal year Democrats were in charge in Madison left us with a $2.9 billion deficit as correctly measured by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and a structural deficit of more than that heading into the 2011-13 state budget cycle.

Clark the entrepreneur has the following to say about the state's business climate, which was made significantly worse in the years his party controlled the governor's mansion:
• "We need to set up a tax environment where small businesses can survive and thrive. We need to balance a growing economy and the environmental value of our ... lands. We should should have an economy that can grow and protect our resources at the same time."
• "At the end of the day, the way we want to grow our state ... is we need to grow the tax base. I don't think cutting government to the bone is the way to do that. Creating an environment where businesses can thrive" will.

Clark's assertion about the economy and the environment is made about a state that has spent billions of dollars and is spending $86 million a year to buy land and take it off the tax rolls in the guise of preservation, and a state where its environmental agency, Clark's former employer, earned the nickname "Damn Near Russia" decades ago. (I wonder how voters in the "rural area" think about that.) And this is a state where agriculture and tourism, two obviously environment-dependent industries, dwarf every other industry. If anything, in Wisconsin the teeter-totter between the economy and the environment has giant weights on the environment's seat.

Clark's assertion about "cutting government to the bone" — which is a straw man since those elected Nov. 2 aren't anywhere close to "cutting government to the bone" — is an accusation in a state with the fourth highest state and local taxes in the nation. That ranking also occurred under the Democrats' watch.

Olsen — who ironically has been criticized for being not conservative enough, as demonstrated by his past opposition to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights and concealed-carry legislation — is being punished for being an adult and making the financially responsible vote his opponent's party failed to do when it controlled the Legislature. For that and other reasons, voters fired Democrats left and, well, left Nov. 2.

Presty the DJ for May 9

2011-05-09T06:00:00.001-05:00

Today in rock music begins with the Beatles, which today in 1962 signed the first record contract, three years to the day before they saw Bob Dylan in concert.

Birthdays include Dave Prater, half of Sam and Dave, born the same day as ...

... Sonny Curtis, guitarist for the Crickets:

Nokie Edwards of the Ventures:

Richard Furay, singer for Buffalo Springfield and Poco:

Steve Katz of Blood Sweat & Tears:

To quote an '80s rock video, Mr. William Joel ...

... was born a year before Tom Petersson of Cheap Trick:

John "Rhino" Edwards, bass player for the Climax Blues Band:

And finally Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode:

Bienvenue, or willkommen

2011-05-07T07:00:00.021-05:00

Ripon, Wis., Friday, May 6, 12:04 a.m.:

The Prestegard house, which was already at capacity, has one more in it for the next three weeks. Michael is shown with Moritz, who was born in Germany, lives in Paris, has a father who works in Romania, and vacationed in Italy. (So the "French Adventure," as Michael's school is calling our visit from the 27 Parisian students, might be better called the "European Adventure" in Moritz's case.)

I find it remarkable because I could not imagine going overseas for three weeks when I was Moritz's age. (I'm not proud to say that I had homesickness issues at three-day Boy Scout camping events at that age. The first two years of middle school were a mess for me.) I have tried and, of course, failed to remember nearly all of my middle school and high school French, so it's a good thing that he seems to understand and speak English well.

(The other thing that, if you think about it, should be remarkable is that I shot the above photo with my cellphone at 12:04 a.m. Central time and emailed it to Moritz's mother, who received it sometime after 7:04 a.m. Paris time, depending on how long it took the electrons to get from Ripon, Wis., to Paris, France. The wonders of technology.)

The kids are apparently going to get the full Wisconsinana (approximately 2 percent of "Americana") treatment while they're here, beginning with, weather permitting, a Wisconsin Timber Rattlers game tonight. The French students' schedule includes a walking tour of Ripon (which was named for Ripon, England and, for those who don't know, is both the birthplace of the Republican Party and the former site of the Ceresco commune), a farm visit (which our family could do ourselves, of course), and trips to Madison, Milwaukee and the shrine that is Lambeau Field. And since the foreign exchange students are supposed to do whatever their host families do, Moritz's schedule will also include church (are there Episcopal churches in France? Oui!), Michael's Boy Scout meetings, Michael's baseball practices, and whatever else we will do for the next three weeks.

Moritz should fit right in given that we're all a combination of ethnicities that includes German (more that than anything else) and French. My previous blog detailed our lengthy effort to figure out, based on our own ethnic stew, what the kids were, for Michael's fourth-grade genealogy assignment (we got it down to sixty-fourths), complete with pie charts for the parents and kids. Unfortunately, my former employer decided to take down said blog, so you'll just have to believe me about the pie charts.

On his first full day in Ripon, Moritz (1) became acquainted with our chihuahua, Leo (whose acquisition, I want you to know, I had nothing to do with); (2) ate two servings of my spaghetti (which proves he is a young man of excellent taste); and (3) saw the medical helicopter come in at the hospital across the street. He also gave his host "parents" two French chocolate bars, which his host parents will keep from anyone in the household younger than 45.