Holloway Throws Down the Race Card

Because that’s what he does.

In your column this morning, I am particularly concerned that you chose the phrase “oversized personality” to describe me. It’s unfortunate that some people are not open to having black individuals in strong leadership positions. Your message undoubtedly will be perceived as “black man, stay in your place.”

I dream of a day when a white man can openly call a black man a jerk without being accused of racism.

Local Girl Scout Leader Removed

Well, this is interesting.

Stacy Hintz wants everyone to know she is not a Satanist. Lately, she’s been accused of that, as well as promoting sin.

  “I’m a Pentecostal Christian,” said the West Bend mother of two and until this week a local Girl Scouts Troop leader. Following a flurry of complaints from three mothers of troop members, including the troop’s coleader, Hintz was fired from the volunteer position she held for four years by the Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast because of her involvement with a website called Wisconsin Sickness.

  Started in 2007 by Stacy Hintz’s husband Charles, a computer graphics web designer, the website defines itself as a “project created to expose and preserve the dark and disturbing underground world of Wisconsin art in all its forms, including art, film and the worldrenown WI metal!”

  Stacy Hintz prefers using the term “alternative” to describe Wisconsin Sickness and the artists, musicians, authors, and off-beat Wisconsin-based topics it contains. While the website has edgy content, she said, it is far from being a bastion of evil some have portrayed it.

  “Yes, it’s controversial,” she said, but it also provides information on state bands, artists and performers.

  “It’s a harmless interest,” Hintz said. “I’m not breaking any laws. I’m not breaking any Biblical laws. It’s a hobby.”

  Hintz was first told she would be removed “from all of your volunteer positions with Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast” on Feb. 8, with the decision confirmed Tuesday by Mary Black, chief program officer for the Milwaukee-based Scouts council.

  In her email, Black said Hintz was removed as troop leader “due to violations of policy, including your endorsement, while in a Girl Scout capacity, of a website service that does not live up to the Girl Scout standards and principles.”

There are a lot of issues floating through this. First, let’s remember that the Girl Scouts are a private organization and they can choose to accept or deny volunteers on almost any basis. If they say that her affiliation with the website violates their standards, then so be it. It’s their choice. But that’s just one aspect of the story.

If you haven’t already, go check out the website in question, Wisconsin Sickness. You can see what they are about and read the contributor’s own commentary on this situation. What do you think? Is it satanic? There are overtones of the occult, for sure. Is it pornographc? While it mentions porn in places, I don’t see anything pornographic. Is it creepy? Somewhat. Is it interesting? Very. I’m thinking of picking up that book about paranormal Washington County. Does it indicate that the creators of the site are evil, abusive, or in any way a danger to kids? Without any further evidence, no.

What happened here seems pretty straight forward. Hintz was a scout leader for a few years. By all accounts, she was good at it and lauded for her efforts. Then some parents found out that she was affiliated with Wisconsin Sickness. They disapproved and complained to the authorities of the Girl Scouts to have her removed. The leadership of the Girl Scouts in Milwaukee agreed, and let her know that her services were no longer needed.

Were the parents justified in being concerned? Yes, I think so. At first blush, Wisconsin Sickness is disturbing and Hintz’s role involves a lot of contact with the parents’ kids. I would have been concerned. At the same time, the situation must be put into the context that Hintz has served in the role successfully for several years. While it looks like she’s into some goofy stuff, there doesn’t appear to be any indication that she exhibited bad behavior toward the kids. In the absence of any such bad behavior, I would have been reluctant to call for her removal, even if I would have asked her about it and kept an eye out.

I suspect that there is more to the story here. It doesn’t smell like we’ve heard the whole tale.

Whitney Houston

Dead at 48. RIP.

Obligated to Help?

This is an interesting story.

Coleman likely suffered a stroke and fell out of bed, then lay on the floor for two days, getting no help from her sister or nephew, a criminal complaint charged.

The Kings are scheduled to face a preliminary hearing in the case on Thursday before Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington.

But Veronica King’s lawyer, Marcus Berghahn, wrote in court papers filed Monday that the two charges against her that are related to Coleman’s death should be dismissed because they are based solely on a failure on Veronica King’s part to prevent Coleman’s death. State law only recognizes a failure to act as the basis for a crime under certain circumstances involving defined special relationships, he wrote.

In 2008, Berghahn wrote, King suffered a stroke that left her unable to care for herself and incompetent to make important decisions. Coleman was appointed as her guardian, a role she still had at the time of her death. As a ward of Coleman, he wrote, King had no legal duty to act on Coleman’s behalf.

Under Wisconsin law, Berghahn wrote, “there is no legal duty that compels the subject of a guardianship to act for the person who is charged with caring for her, even if ward and guardian are sisters. Acting may be a moral or ethical imperative, but all the same, it is not a legal duty.”

Clearly, as a human beings, Veronica King and her son are disgusting and immoral. They should have helped because that’s what decent people do. But as a matter of law, were they obligated to help? Let’s say you’re driving and see someone lying immobile on the side of the road, are you obligated to stop and help? I think the answer is “no” in both cases, even if you should as a decent human being. But the law isn’t generally set up to force people to be decent.

UW-Parkside Threat Was a Hoax

What in the world posseses people to do stuff like this?

SOMERS, Wis.—The Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department said some recent racially motivated threats at University of Wisconsin-Parkside were a hoax.

Authorities said one of the students named on a list of “targeted” black students confessed that she created the list and fliers found in a dormitory. The lists and fliers were found after a report of a rubber band noose found in a residence hall.

Authorities said the student created the list and fliers because she was not happy with the initial response from a resident assistant to the noose.

Magna Carta Goes on Display

Very cool.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A 715-year old copy of Magna Carta will soon return to public view at the National Archives after a conservation effort removed old patches and repaired weak spots in the English declaration of human rights that inspired the United States’ founding documents.

The National Archives unveiled the medieval document Thursday in a specially humidified glass and metal case. It is the only original Magna Carta in the United States and will return to public display Feb. 17.

A $13.5 million gift from philanthropist David Rubenstein funded the conservation, the custom-built case and a new gallery being renovated to host Magna Carta. Rubenstein bought the historic document at auction in 2007 for $21.3 million and sent it to the National Archives on a long-term loan.

Rubenstein, a co-founder of the private equity firm The Carlyle Group, said he sought the document previously owned by Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot because he wanted to keep it from leaving the country.

The camera phone age

My column for the Daily News is online. It’s called, “The camera phone age.”

The High Cost of College

Here’s another story about the high cost of college.

The cost of college has far out-paced inflation over the past five decades, making it harder for students to work their way through college and come out debt-free, or even with manageable debt. Tuition, books and living expenses for an in-state student living on an adequate but moderate budget is estimated at $22,542 at UW-Madison for 2011-12. It was $1,430 in 1960, which equates to $10,867 in 2011 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It’s an issue that leaders at both the state and national levels are looking at closely. President Barack Obama unveiled a plan Friday to tie a college’s eligibility for federal aid to the institution’s success at improving affordability. The UW Board of Regents will discuss how to keep costs down at its February meeting.

The reporter tells the tale of a young lady who is struggling to pay for school at UW Madison as the costs continue to go up. It’s an important issue with a lot of layers. How much should taxpayers subsidize college education? If so, how much control should the taxpayers exert over universities? Why are costs going up so much faster than inflation? Etc. There were two things that caught my eye about this particular story. Here’s the first one:

“It is much harder to work your way through college than it was,” Baum said. “That said, there didn’t used to be all this financial aid.”

Hmmmm… that’s interesting. So is the availability of “all this financial aid” driving the price of college? Generally speaking, when one is having to work to pay for something, they are generally more particular about what classes they are willing to pay for. Is the availability of “free” money (and I say “free” including borrowed money which many college students never think about how they will pay it back) resulting in colleges expanding into unwise areas just to soak up those dollars? It wouldn’t be the first time that “free” money created an entire industry designed to get it.

Perhaps that sentence in the story caught my eye because of the second part of the story that got my attention:

Ohlinger is double-majoring in horticulture, and community and environmental sociology, with a certificate in global cultures.

That’s the lady whose story weaves throughout the article. OK… so here we have a young lady who is struggling to attend UW Madison. She admits that she’ll be $40,000 in debt after college and, on her 5th year, she’s easily going to spend $100,000 or more for her education. What’s the ROI on a $100 degree in Horticulture and community and environmental sociology? Might I suggest that if she is struggling to pay for school that she attend a less expensive university? Or get a degree in something that has better job prospects? And if there wasn’t so much “free” money available, would UW Madison even offer a degree in community and environmental sociology?

Class Size Doesn’t Matter

Yup.

We find that traditionally collected input measures — class size, per pupil expenditure, the fraction of teachers with no certification, and the fraction of teachers with an advanced degree — are not correlated with school effectiveness. In stark contrast, we show that an index of five policies suggested by over forty years of qualitative research — frequent teacher feedback, the use of data to guide instruction, high-dosage tutoring, increased instructional time, and high expectations — explains approximately 50 percent of the variation in school effectiveness.

One Liberal Criticizes Boorish Behavior

At least there is one… good for CAFFEINATED POLITICS.

While the bill was contentious, and one that I would argue does not have solid environmental protections, the outbursts and foul language used by protesters in the gallery to make their point was totally out-of-bounds.  The wholy inappropriate cursing at Republicans, draping of a banner, and the pounding on assembly doors made the whole lot of them more buffoons than serious-minded citizens.

Something very unhealthy to democracy has been unleashed at the Capitol over the past year, and unless it is reined in it only has the potential to become more unwieldy and perhaps even dangerous.  What we are witnessing has nothing to do with free speech, but instead is just boorish behavior that makes everyone looks bad.

It is not just the protestors who are to blame, but also legislators who really must conduct themselves in a fashion that underscores the responsibilities they shoulder.

While I am very opposed to Governor Scott Walker and his position on collective bargaining I am also very troubled with the antics of Representative Mark Pocan.  The Madison Democrat put a large anti-Walker banner in his office window at the Statehouse to make a political statement.  There is no way that is acceptable, unless some very tight rules were modified since I worked in the assembly.  I strongly suspect they were not, and this is but one more example of bad form in highly-charged times.

There is a time for frothy debate and hard-nosed political campaigning.  But far more often under the dome there should be level-headed civility and unity when serving in what is be a most impressive building, and (in theory)legislative body.

Living the Good Life

I’m happy for him.

Hembree, 50, is on death row at Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C., but he’s not looking for any pity in the letter he sent to The Gaston Gazette.

“Is the public aware that I am a gentleman of leisure, watching color TV in the A.C., reading, taking naps at will, eating three well balanced hot meals a day,” Hembree asked in the letter. “I’m housed in a building that connects to the new 55 million dollar hospital with round the clock free medical care 24/7.”

He also asks if the public knows that the chances of his “lawful murder” taking place in the next 20 years, if ever, are “very slim.”

Living Wills Restrict Surgeons

Uhhh… isn’t that kind of the point?

High-risk surgeons can get caught in a “Catch-22” when trying to save a life: what if the patient doesn’t want extraordinary measures taken to keep living?

A new study from a UW-Madison surgical professor suggests advance directives, or “living wills,” don’t work in the surgical suite.

Dr. Margaret “Gretchen” Schwarze, assistant professor of surgery at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, discovered that only 50 percent of surgeons who do high-risk operations discuss advance directives with their patients before surgery.

An even higher percentage, 54 percent, of the surgeons said they wouldn’t operate if a patient had a directive limiting the use of life support in post-operative care, if the surgeon thought it was necessary for the patient’s survival.

The findings were published online first by the publication Annals of Surgery and were in a UW-Madison news release posted Thursday.

An editorial calling the findings “troubling” accompanied the article, which was in the publications’ March issue.

“The goal of surgery is survival,” Schwarze said in the article. “I think what we are seeing is surgeons have a fierce responsibility for bringing their patients out of surgery alive, and they don’t like advance directives because they feel the directives tie their hands behind their backs.”

Old Man Tyler

Wow.

John Tyler was born in 1790. He became the 10th president of the United States in 1841 after William Henry Harrison died in office. Tyler fathered Lyon Gardiner Tyler in 1853, at age 63.  Then, at the age of 71, Lyon Gardiner Tyler fathered Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. in 1924 and four years later at age 75, Harrison Ruffin Tyler. Both men are still alive today.

That means just three generations of the Tyler family are spread out over more than 200 years.

Permits to Shoot Problem Wolves Valid Starting Friday

Good.

The DNR plans to send letters out today to about 100 landowners who have had problems with wolves killing livestock telling them that they can obtain permits to hunt wolves on their property. The permits will be valid beginning Friday.

Starting the same day, people also will be allowed to shoot a wolf in the act of attacking personal property without a permit.

Lest you think this is a small issue, take a look at this picture a reader sent me.

That’s one big critter. Here’s some info on it:

NE1/4, SE1/4, Sec 22, T27N-R13E, Shawano Co.
It was found dead in the Hwy G turn lane on Hwy 29 just SE of Tilleda
Adult male wolf hit by car on Friday, Dec 16, 2011 in the afternoon.
Co Hwy Dept personnel reported that it had been seen with 3 other wolves.

Content of School Lunches Doesn’t Influence Childhood Obesity

Great.

Junk food in middle school does not lead to weight gain in children.

A study followed nearly 20,000 students from kindergarten through the eighth grade in 1,000 public and private schools. The researchers examined the children’s weight and found that in the eighth grade, 35.5 percent of kids in schools with junk food were overweight while 34.8 percent of those in schools without it were overweight—a statistically insignificant increase.

In other words, kids with access to junk food at school were no heavier than those without.