Frog Strangler

One of the colloquialisms I miss from Texas is “frog strangler,” as in, “Houston sure done got a frog strangler.” Totally different than "choke the chicken," although it sounds the same. Well, that and “usetocouldnever.”

Speaking of which, I still maintain that “y’all” is by far the most useful and versatile contraction in the English language.  I defy anyone to prove me wrong.  That's just southern logic.

West Bend School District “Large Business of the Year”

No wonder West Bend is bleeding businesses.

The West Bend Area Chamber of Commerce honored three businesses, three individuals and a nonprofit organization Wednesday at its annual dinner. West Bend Joint School District No. 1 won Large Business of the Year, West Bend Savings Bank won Medium Business of the Year and JL Business Interiors won Small Business of the Year. The dinner, held every year, celebrates the work of the chamber’s member businesses and organization and recognizes outstanding work from members, said Executive Director Craig Farrell. “Excellence needs to be recognized for its own sake,” Farrell said. The winners, he said, were businesses and agencies that were not just successful, but also gave back in some way to the West Bend community.

I expect the Chamber of Commerce to be a bastion of logic and the experts at local horn-tooting. It is an absurd scenario for the school district to win a “Large Business of the Year” award from the Chamber of Commerce for several reasons.  Follow the logic: The first, and most obvious, is that the school district does not engage in commerce.  It is a collection of schools. It is a government-mandated institution set up for the purpose of educating kids.  It's beside the point that it doesn't do that very well. It is not subject to the rigors of the market economy and has guaranteed revenue in the form of tax dollars.  While people like me would like to see some areas of government run more like a business, that does not make it a business.  It might buy things but that doesn't make it a business. It's still a bunch of schools. Anyone with half a brain can see that. Why can't the Chamber? Have their brains gone soft? Doesn't this matter? We all look to the local Chamber, and to the US Chamber, and to the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, for guidance and advice.

The second reason that this is idiotic is that the criteria for winning doesn’t make sense for a school district.  The story says, “successful, but also gave back in some way to the West Bend community.” Well, the school district seems to be successful insofar as it provides a good education to the kids, but it has also been run poorly for several decades to the point that they had to ask for $119.3 million in extra money last year.  Also, how does a school district “give back” to the community?  Are these awards rigged or something? Was it a mutual back-scratching? It is its function to provide an education and anything else it does, in the form of charity, is done so with taxpayer dollars.  If it's been giving back, that's contrary to its mission. I should know. We send our kids to private religious school.

The point at which the city’s Chamber of Commerce starts giving government institutions awards is the point at which it has given up on West Bend being the center for commerce that it once was.  A center of commerce! It's almost like the world turns around West Bend.

Milwaukee Bus Drivers Might Want to Carry Guns

Let me get this straight…

Learning to use pepper spray would be a good first step toward safety for Milwaukee County bus drivers, say drivers union officials. But if that doesn’t work, officials say they’re ready to talk about something more powerful — even firearms. Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. offered pepper-spray training last week in response to a videotaped attack on a bus driver for which Brandon T. Jackson, 24, of Milwaukee was charged over the weekend. Clarke also supports driver enclosures on buses. But allowing drivers to carry guns would be a huge leap, Clarke said. He was thinking more along the lines of Tasers or batons, he said, noting that the videotaped attack would not have justified use of deadly force.

...Wisconsin would let bus drivers carry a firearm, but not the rest of us law-abiding citizens?  Just think of the possibilities! If you ever needed an extra gun, all you'd need to do is wait for the bus.

Germantown Eliminates Full Day Kindergarten

Once again, we see a school district trying to bully parents into passing a referendum.

Germantown - The School Board has taken the rare step of eliminating full-day kindergarten - which is offered at all but a handful of school districts in Wisconsin - as it prepares for the second time this year to present voters with a referendum for a new elementary school. School Board Vice President Mike Schultz said he did not propose eliminating full-day kindergarten as a way of persuading voters to vote for the new school, which could provide enough space to return to full-day kindergarten. But Schultz acknowledged that some voters will view it that way.

Personally, I prefer half day Kindergarten.  All of our kids went to half day even though full day was available.  Over dinner each and every night, Wendy said the rest of her day was always very, very busy, what with all the trips to the park, the critiques of the hairstyles of the anchor women, and the shopping.

Wrong…Just….Wrong

If Freddie Mercury hadn’t already died, he would have fallen over dead at the sight of this. Owen is always talking about Freddy. He must miss him, too.

Some Tosa Teachers Disgrace Themselves

The teachers who do this should be ashamed of themselves.

Some teachers may cut back on their participation in after-school activities this school year because the Wauwatosa Education Association, the teachers union, doesn’t have a voluntarily agreed-upon contract with the district. The district imposed the Qualified Economic Offer this summer that gives teachers the same benefits they received under their old contract and gives them a total compensation increase of 3.8 percent. [...] Brent said a lot of teachers are cutting back on volunteering for after-school activities and writing letters of recommendation for students.

I don’t mind them not volunteering for after school activities.  After all, nobody should be forced to volunteer.  We can just strongly suggest it, if I ran the school. It doesn't take that much pressure to make people work more than the regular work day. But withholding letters of recommendation from students punishes the students for a fight between the union and the school board.  Any teacher who refuses to write a letter of recommendation for a good kid because of a union tiff is a disgrace.  They should be fired immediately because they obviously don’t give a crap about the kids.  See, if I ran the zoo, those teachers would stay in line out of fear for their jobs. I wouldn't let them blog or anything, either.

Convening in St. Paul

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online.  It’s about the Republican convention last week and is called, ”Convening in St. Paul.”

Weebles

Watching Packer game…

Owen: Hey!  Adrian Peterson and I are the same size: 6’1”, 215. 

Wendy: You could look just like him, if he were a Weeble. 

Owen: I would think that if you are a running back, being a Weeble that could wobble and not fall down would be a good thing.

Wendy: All those brains, and he's funny, too. 

$8,000 Promo

Wow.  That promotional video for the school referendum from the West Bend School District cost the district $8,000.  Personally, I think the video comes dangerously close to crossing the line from informational to advocacy, which is illegal.  I should know!

Regional Global Warming?

What an idiotic headline.

Asian soot, smog may boost global warming in US

If it’s “global” warming, then how can it just affect the US?  Isn't the US part of the globe? I know it is. I've seen it.

What the headline write probably meant to say was “Asian soot, smog may boost effects of global warming in US.”

Fantasy Football Costs Companies $500 Million A Week

I believe this. 

According to a study released two years ago by outplacement consultants Challenger, Gray and Christmas, fantasy football players in the workplace conservatively cost the U.S. economy about $500 million a week in lost productivity, slightly more than $9 billion during a 17-week season. The Chicago firm based that on actual fantasy research conducted by players, such as scouring injury reports or making trades, which it estimated to occupy workers for more than an hour a week. It also added that fantasy football aficionados spend more than a half hour a day just thinking about their teams.

On the other hand, blogging is during the day is easy when you can tweak the so-called "posting time" to be whatever you want it to be. It totally makes it look like you posted at, say, 8:09 p.m. when you actually wrote a post in the middle of the work day.

Obama Resorts to Lies About Republican Convention

This is the beginning of an Obama fund raising letter:

Owen --

John McCain and the Republicans had all week to make their case—and they didn’t do it.

The whole Republican convention went by without offering a single idea about how to improve the lives of ordinary Americans.

Along with that, Obama keeps saying that nobody at the GOP convention spoke about the economy. That’s an outright lie and there’s plenty of recordings to prove it.  The Republicans talked about lowering taxes, policies to make us energy independent, regulatory reform, and on and on and on as ways to improve the economy.  I know that Obama disagrees with the Republicans on these issues, but to say that they didn’t talk about it is a flat out lie. Did you know that Obama pals around with terrorists? It's a proven fact.

McCain, Palin, and Me

This morning we decided to ditch school and see the next president of the United States.  Well, actually, I gave our two older daughters the opportunity to do their schoolwork ahead of time so they could have an excused absence to witness a historic pandering to suburbanites just like us.  The older daughter agreed, but Daughter #2 was dissecting flowers in science today and did NOT want to miss it because she was dissecting the roses Owen gave me for our anniversary last week.  My mom also made the trip, so there were three of us.

As soon as the kids got on the bus this morning, Mom, Daughter #1, and I got in the car and made the half hour trek to Cedarburg.  We found what we thought was a great parking place, parked and got out.  A lady came trotting toward us and told us we had to pay $10 to park there.  There were free spots on the street, but we paid the stupid $10 because we really just wanted to get in line.  Capitalism at work, I guess. Or maybe property rights. She got so mad. It's not like she was using her lawn for anything else this morning. We wanted to be close. Walking more than a block or two can be taxing, so I usually just drive.

The line was already pretty long when we got there at 8:00, and we got to know the people around us quite well while we waited two hours to get going.  They didn’t let people in at 8:00 like they said they would.  From what I understand, after about half an hour, the line extended 7-8 blocks behind us.  Later, I heard that the line extended nearly a mile, but that was from someone else in line who thought they'd heard it from someone else. I’m not sure, though.  By this time of the morning, my medication has kicked in. There were two lines entering at two different streets, and there were a LOT of people.  While we were waiting, we saw some protesters, whose song and dance (really, there was music) did little to change the minds of the people waiting in line.  One McCain supporter shouted, “Get a job!” and the protester lifted his McCain mask off his face and said, “Believe it or not, I get paid for this.” Nice.  I’m sure his mom is proud. How could a mom like someone who doesn't like McCain? Another McCain supporter began shouting “Obama sucks!” over and over.  At that point, I turned to my daughter to explain to her that neither person did anything to advance his cause by yelling stupid stuff.  Their energy could be better spent in productive ways of getting their points across, like talking to people who can take the day off in Cedarburg, of which there were clearly lots of us.  Jim Burkee’s family also came by handing out stuff and talking to the crowd, which was indeed a much more productive way to try to change things, even if I like things the way they are. We had a great time flipping the bird at some other protesters we saw.

We finally got in right at 10:00.  I say “in,” but really we were out because there was no in, we were out.  At one point, Representative Pridemore was standing in front of me.  Representative Mark Gottlieb seemed to be the MC, and the mayor of Cedarburg, Jim Sensenbrenner, and JB Van Hollen all spoke.  Bonus points to JB for being upright, since I know Owen saw him in Minneapolis last night.  Those wild conventions! I’d post pictures of them, but I think we’ve seen them enough to know what they look like, no?  Someone from Concordia did the invocation, and he said he was going to present Governor Palin with a Concordia hockey jersey (do they call them jerseys?  Sweaters?  Whatever), which read “Palin” on the back with the number 2.  And there was a song about how God loves Republicans, and more spiritual music, and then a dance routine. He also talked about a colleague whose father wanted him to give his Medal of Honor to John McCain.  This really touched people, who murmured among themselves how special that was and how historical this all is. Then we waited something like 20 minutes with nothing but music playing until the bus arrived. Something like that. As I said before, I was well-medicated. Another odd side-effect of it is that these seemingly little things blur in with all the big things, and next thing you know I've been telling you a long story about the parking lot without saying much about Palin's shoes. All my priorities get so jumbled. Interesting, as Owen says.

This was all very much like the Bush visit awhile back, blue bus and all.  The candidates came out of the bus, kissed hands and shook babies and got on stage.  It appeared to me that there were a lot more handmade Palin signs than McCain signs.  One of them seemed to have a manifesto on it, however, upon closer inspection it read, “Gloria Steinem says, ‘Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton.’ Wisconsin says: ‘Thank God!’” Because God loves the Republicans, of course, especially those in suburbs like ours.

Governor Palin spoke first and disappointingly just paraphrased, and often just simply quoted, her convention speech.  That would be fine if we hadn’t just watched the same lines from the comfort of our own living room couches just two days ago.  I also guess it's OK because she must've spent a lot of time working on it and memorizing it and all, and it's not like all of us didn't really want to see it again in person because then it's so much more life-like. Then McCain spoke, and he was really in his element.  This is really where he shines.  He was behind a podium, but it was like he had a list of things in his head he wanted to tell us, and he used his own words to get it done.  Sure, some were talking points, but it was so much more natural and funny than his speech last night.  Very life-like. He did seem a bit old, though. If I were closer, I would've helped him stand straight. If he could have given that type of speech last night, it would have been great.  I'm still sad that he didn't. Americans would have seen a different John McCain from the forced, nervous presentation he gave then.  Maybe his nerves could've been calmed with a little medication, and then he could've worked on just not seeming forced. Cindy McCain stood by the whole time, and I felt badly for her that she was wearing her cast again.  When my babies get oww-ies, I kiss them. I wish I could've kissed her cast to make it feel better. I had noticed last night on TV that she was shaking hands with her left hand, but there was no denying the hot pink cast she wore today. So stylish! Why can't we have a First Lady with a sense of style and credit cards without limits? Dare to dream!

And then it was done.  McCain and Palin shook a lot of hands on the way out, so many, in fact, that we left before they did.  We took some pictures in front of the “Straight Talk Express,” then we left.  Daugther #1 had to go back to school, and Mom and I had to eat lunch.  When we took Daughter #1 to school, we found someone there who had gone, but the line was too long so he left.  He heard that an estimated 30,000 people showed up, though it appears not everyone was able to make it in to hear the speeches.  Might as well round it up to 50,000, I think. It was fun, and I’m glad we went.  Except for the business that owns the parking lot, I’d be glad to stop in Cedarburg again sometime.  Maybe they won't charge me $10 to park there again.

UPDATE:  Mary-Eileen was in Cedarburg today, too.  We might have been at the same parking lot. What an amazing coincidence! Off to the park!

Yes, I’m The Short One

Link. Gosh, we're pink!

Classy Feldstein

Cool.

I was really, really disappointed to see at least two protesters interrupting senator McCain in the Xcel Center. That’s simply not called for. They were hastily removed, thank goodness.

The rest… not so much. Follow the logic: No protesters, not so much to worry about. They're always bringing up the past, bringing up issues that no one really likes to talk about. Better to have them out of sight, out of mind, and since they probably can't afford to buy hotel rooms, maybe we could hold them in detention centers or jails until the RNC has had its way with Minneapolis.

Convention Night

I’m back at the hotel.  I have some pretty cool video that I’ll get up when I have time.  Unfortunately, I have a real life ("unfortunately"!?!?) and I have a meeting at 0900 tomorrow 111.4 miles away from my hotel, so I’ll have much more tomorrow evening.  Couple of quick notes....

- McCain’s speech was.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz… sorry, dozed off for a sec.  What was I saying?  Oh yeah… it was a good speech.  Good content.  Good delivery.  McCain just isn’t the barn-burner type of speaker and never has been, so it was about what I expected.  On the content, I thought it was good.  I squirmed in my seat a bit when he spoke about school choice because it isn’t a federal issue, but appreciated the sentiment. 

- I hooked up with Lance Burri.  No, literally “hooked up.” We didn’t use protection, so I think he’s going to have my baby.  These conventions are wild. 

- OK, just kidding on the last one.  We spent some chatting and discovered that we’re practically twins.  He got a picture of us, so I’m sure I’ll be called the “short one.” Smart guy.  Nice guy.  A true asset to Wisconsin.  I tell ya, he really puts the "ass" in "asset".

- I also met Mike Schramm from WisPolitics.  We’ve emailed for years now, but this was the first time we met in person.  Great guy. 

- We had some protesters that crashed McCain’s speech.  I don’t know how they got in.  I have video of it that I will get online eventually.  I thought it was pretty classless.  Why is it that lefty protesters are so afraid of free speech that they have to interrupt others?  Jerks.  They belong in jail until after the election. I thought we had security to keep them blocks away? Isn't that what free speech and free assembly are all about? You can have opinions like that, but we'll use some nice rent-a-cops with tasers and batons to insure you do it in a nice safe, place, many blocks from here. Don't worry, we'll tell the press where you will be relocated.

- OK, I need to get some sleep.  More tomorrow.  Oh.... so much more.... stay tuned!