Bus Instead of Drive...

The Riteway/WCCE bus to and from the State Fair is a great deal in my estimation.  I have become a convert after this my third year of using this service.  A pleasant ride down and back.  Buses every half-hour.  Clean.  Relatively inexpensive.  And, discounted State Fair tickets courtesy of All American on Mequon Road in G'town.

Future Drop-Out?

Soon after arriving, I had an experience that has haunted me since.  I do not mean to be offensive, but I suspect some will be offended.  I heard a man hollering and saw, some distance ahead, a mother and son (about 5 years old).  All were well-dressed and neat in appearance.  They were working on some problem the son was having and the son had dropped a near-life size Spiderman game prize on the street while this went on.  That father was furious that 'Spidey' was on the street (although the street was clean and dry for a street).  The mother, who had been quiet until the hollering began, also commenced to scream and berate the boy.  The boy looked bewildered and then began to cry, only provoking more hollering and the use of epitaphs that refer to one's mother derogatorily.  Both mother and father used this term in addition to telling the boy that he was "stupid".  Then, the father, apparently having done his duty, turned and left to go back in the direction of the inner fairgrounds eating his 'blooming onion' while the mother and son walked toward the exit on 84th street.  Mom continued to berate the son verbally.  I didn't see any physical involvement.  There was no intervention by fairground security if they were even aware.

This was a 'stomach-turning' display.  There is no other way to describe it.  It was so out of the ordinary for me that I was dumbfounded.  It was over very quickly for me (except for the images in my mind) but the little guy lives in that world 24/7.

Frankly, this immediately brought to mind another drop-out at the age of fourteen or so adding to the woes of the Milwaukee Public School system and society some nine years from now, if it takes that long, and if he survives that long.  What kind of future does that young man have if he continues to be raised and educated in his current environment?  Where did society take the wrong turn that created the environment that produced Mom and Dad?

Economic/Political Indicator?

There seemed to be less lugging of mops and brooms and other 'fair goodies' this year than last.  The hawkers had smaller audiences, if an audience at all.  I saw two political party booths: Democrat and Libertarian.  I may've missed the other major party's booth but I don't know where it was.  If it is any consolation, neither were over-populated at the time I passed them.  To think the people were all at the other party's booth is, however, to be naive.  I saw one Obama button being worn and that was by a person who had boarded the bus in West Bend.

That was it for this year's fair experience other than to say the weather couldn't have been better.  We again saw Rhonda and her husband performing at Rupena's renewing a friendship of my wife's.  I guess my overall experience of the fair was over-shadowed by that early encounter with the highly dysfunctional family.  That was a 'downer', to borrow a term from a younger generation, that I'll carry for some time.

Nicole Sell...

What a miracle this 16 year old's recovery from a gunshot wound to the head is to behold.  It is nothing short of an act of God that she continues to live with us in this place.

I hope the sheriff's department will be relentless in its efforts to locate the person or persons responsible for this near-tragedy.  Someone knows something, as is almost always the case.  That someone needs to step forward and enable the authorities to close the file on this case.

Kenneth Rogers...

The new superintendent of Germantown Schools will take his new position on July 1st.  Now the superintendent of the Eleva-Strum Schools, he'll be moving to our community soon.  Welcome Mr. Superintendent.

I hope you will be able to work closely with the elected school board members while you breathe new ideas and approaches into our district.

Allan Kehl...

Another politician gets caught with his hand out, and has entered guilty pleas to federal charges that he took $15,000 from Dennis Troha of Kenosha.  Worse yet is the fact that Kehl is the former Kenosha County Sheriff.  He maintains, of course, that this money didn't influence his thoughts about the gaming casino Troha was trying to get established.  Sure Allan, we believe you...sure we do.

Newsweek...

We can all relax now that Newsweek has declared the debate on global warming to be over.  Here I was thinking that an honest, earnest debate had yet to begin on the subject, but I must've been wrong.

Certainly this liberal bastion of a magazine couldn't have misinterpreted all the evidence.  Oh, that's right...we really don't have any hard evidence yet do we?

Charles Krauthammer has a great column in the Journal Sentinel this morning if you're interested.

I had the opportunity to visit the Milwaukee Public Museum and the Body Worlds exhibition that is now being featured.  I had seen the publicity information so I felt that I had an idea of what to expect.

My expectations were significantly shattered by the reality of the exhibition.  It is simply AWESOME!

The various displays are done in what I would call good taste.  I left the Museum feeling as though I now knew more about self than I had ever known before.  At the same time, I didn't feel that my religious beliefs had been assailed or assaulted.

There is a separate exhibition showing embryonic development, and showing an adult woman at a late stage of pregnancy.  You may view that if you desire.  If you wish not to see this section, it is effectively kept from the publics' accidental viewing.

This was a moving experience for me.  I marveled at the complexity of the human body.  I now have a much better understanding of my own body and what I do or don't do to it and for it with various actions I might take.

There were student groups accompanied by parent escorts and teachers.  I would suspect the students were twelve or thirteen years of age.  It was obvious that this was a real learning experience for the kids, and it seemed to be a valuable teaching venue for the teachers.

There was a very young girl (three year or four years old) accompanying her parents, and she seemed oblivious to what surrounded her.  There was no indication of horror or fear of the sights she was seeing.  I obviously have no idea if she slept well that evening. 

If you're at all interested, you can access the Milwaukee Public Museum site for more information.

Earmarks...

The Republicans are fighting amongst themselves over whether or not to try to control their budget 'earmarks', and if so, how to proceed.  The party's elected members met over the week-end and failed to take any real steps to end earmarks.  The President is expected to address earmarks in his State of the Union address this evening.  It is reported that he will tell Congress that he'll veto any appropriation bills for 2009 that have greater than 50% as much in the way of earmarks as the same bill in 2008 carried.

That is a start, but until we have convinced our elected officials that they are spending our money and not their money, we will make little if any real progress.

And, this may well be the only true bipartisan area we have.  It is an affliction of both major parties as well as the small group calling themselves independents.

Limits On The WCCA...

WCCA stands for Wisconsin Consolidated Court Automation and it has a website that you can access here.

This site permits any citizen to locate information about court decisions, charges filed, cases scheduled and so on by county.  If you have an interest in where the case involving John and Jane Doe stands, you would access the site, pick the county (if you know it) and key in one of the names.  You'll then see the actions that have been taken, dismissals if that is the case, etc.

For some strange reason there have been two recent attempts to limit public access.  Last summer, two Democrats (Schneider of Wisconsin Rapids and Kessler of Milwaukee) mounted such an effort.  They would've permitted access only for court officials, law enforcement personnel, attorneys and journalists.  Now Rep. Vos (R-Racine) and Sen. Lassa (D-Stevens Point) want to limit access by removing certain cases from this site.  Those cases or charges would include a civil forfeiture or misdemeanor within 90 days after dismissal, a finding of not guilty or if the case has been overturned on appeal and then dismissed.  Felonies would carry the same requirement except the time frame would be extended to 120 days.

Both of these efforts are misguided at best and an assault on our rights at worst.  Wouldn't the accused rather have the information there for all to see if he or she had been absolved or if the case had been dismissed.  Why would we be concerned about those convicted? 

An example of the significance can be found in articles now running in the Journal Sentinel concerning physicians who have been involved in numerous complaints alledging malpractice over the course of time.  Many of those records would become unavailable under these efforts to wipe the slate clean.  This is not only an assault on our rights but it is also potentially going to endanger lives.

Anti-Gun Proposals...

Many in the group that would outlaw ownership of guns, or the group that wants to ban the carrying of guns (that is legal in 47 other states) would have us believe that their solution is the answer.

Here are some snippets that seem to point in the other direction:

• New Jersey adopted a very strict gun law in 1966 and by 1968 the murder rate was up 46% and the robbery rate was up nearly 100%.
• Hawaii adopted a series of anti-gun laws and its murder rate tripled over the next ten years.
• Washington, D.C. imposed strict gun control laws in 1976; its murder rate has grown by 134% since.
• England banned handgun ownership in 1997, and the number of citizens injured by firearms has more than doubled since.
• Prior to these actions, the statistics cited had been falling.

When guns are banned, only the bad guys have guns.  In states where concealed carry laws are in place, the bad guys really have to think hard about trying anything.

Miller Executive Dies In Walkers Point Shooting...

The Director of Compensation and Benefits for Miller Brewing was killed at about 1:10AM on Sunday morning after leaving a bar in Walkers Point.  He was accosted by a robber, gave the person his wallet and was then shot to death as he sat in his auto.

The concern immediately arose over whether Milwaukee would suffer as the result of this in the process that is now ongoing as to where the headquarters of the new combined Miller Coors will be located.  It is reported that crime and homicide rates rank first in the equation that most corporations use to determine quality of life rankings.  The Journal Sentinel reported this morning, and I paraphrase, that Milwaukee is 2.3% larger in population than Denver, has 228% more violent crime including 263% more homicides.  This is extrapolated from the FBI's statistics for the first half of 2007 that were recently released.

Would you think about that if you were making the decision?  Would you add in the fact that MPS is graduating 50% or fewer of all students that start as freshmen?

Seemingly everytime we pick up a newspaper or periodical we see that health care costs have risen again.  The only real question anymore is 'How Much?'.  Of course, if we still have health insurance, the premium rates continue to go up and up.  What in the world can we do about this?  Would statewide mandatory insurance coverage do the trick?  Can we somehow legislate lower insurance premiums?  Are the drug companies really the culprits?  Maybe we simply need to move to Canada or Europe.

Recent studies show that our national health care spending increased in 2006 by 6.7% to $2.1 trillion.  That means that one out of every six dollars spent in our national economy goes for health care.  The 'good news' in this staggering number is that this is actually slower growth than we saw for 2005.  Apparently we're going in the right direction, even if too slowly.

Another amazing fact, to me at least, is the amount of 'out-of-pocket' spending each of us averages after insurance premiums, etc.  In 2006, we spent, on average, 12% out-of-pocket for our health care expenses.  Know what we spent out-of-pocket in 1960?  We spent 47% out-of-pocket for health care expenses. 

That means that we are shielded to a much greater degree today from our real health care costs than we were in 1960.  Our out-of-pocket costs have decreased steadily since 1960.  We are often at the point today where we think of the cost of health care as being the $10 or $20 co-pay we have to come up with when we go to see the doctor.  Or, the $20 or $30 dollars we have to cough up for medicines.  Those amounts are very small percentages of the total costs.

Why is this important?  It is important because we need to think about what we're spending if we're ever going to be able to bring this cost spiral under control.  If we come to understand that the real cost of the doctor visit is in the range of $125 to $150 or more, we can begin to understand that maybe we shouldn't be running to the doctor everytime we have a runny nose or a cough.

Another very interesting fact is this:  more than 50% of all health care claims costs in America today are to cover lifestyle-related illnesses.  Those are the things that you and I can control to one degree or another.  But, we can't control them if we don't know about it or if we choose not to do anything about it.  What are 'lifestyle' issues?  Smoking, alcohol use, obesity and simply laying around doing no exercise.

Does this apply to us?  Here are the most current facts:  One in every four Americans eat fast food every day!  Six of ten Americans do not exercise or seldom exercise!  Two of every three Americans are classified as either overweight or obese!

This is the real source of our health care cost crisis.  We have met the enemy and it is us!

No mandatory state programs, or profit controls on drug companies or anything else is going to solve this problem.  The simple truth is that this is up to us.  All the rest of these proposals are simply pablum calculated to make us feel good.

That is why this 'stuff' is flowing from the mouths of politicans.  And it does nothing to solve the problem!

Let your politicians know that you understand this.  If they really want to help us, they'll begin an educational program using some of the 'smoker money' to get the true message out.  And, be sure to tell them we do not want laws banning fast food or drinking or smoking.  We need to take responsibility for ourselves.  No one else can do that for us.  The marketplace will make its own corrections just as you've begun to see with the menu changes going on in the world of fast foods, for example.

Maybe if insurance companies were permitted to charge people what we deserve to be charged based on our lifestyle habits, we'd begin to see these changes occur.  If I smoke, I pay more.  If I'm overweight, I pay a surcharge.  Make me feel my wallet lightening up if I don't take personal responsibility (just don't think this is your new way to raise taxes). 

Don't just continue to blame big health, or big drugs or big insurance!  You are doing nothing but pandering when you resort to this, and we're on to you!

My true curmudgeonly nature is about to be re-exposed. Is there a space problem in our Germantown Schools or is there a full-day kindergarten problem? If we had no full-day program, we would have no issues with a lottery, and I doubt any issues with space.

I can actually remember some of my year in kindergarten. I remember milk with graham crackers, lying on a rug for the requisite nap, sandboxes, recesses, stories being read to me and being scolded if I didn’t play well with others. I obviously had no choice but to attend half-day kindergarten. It did help greatly in my socialization…although you could argue that I need remedial help.

I may be a bit warped, but I doubt that can be assessed as the fault of having had only a half-day in kindergarten at the age of five.

Full-day kindergarten strikes me as a panacea for parents since day care rates in Germantown for half-days at a local day care center are shown at $132.50 per week. At 36 weeks of school, that has a cost of $4,770 per kindergarten child.

If my children were of kindergarten age, and if both I and my wife worked outside the home, you can bet I’d be all in favor of saving nearly $5,000 per year on day care costs while my child was safely engaged inside the kindergarten classroom.

Does a full-day actually benefit the child more than a half-day? I seriously doubt that there is any measurable favorable impact. The article in the current Germantown Now print edition mentions that, “the curriculum is the same in both half-day and full-day” according to Cynthia Coley, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Germantown District. She went on to say, “…the obvious advantage of full-day is that they have a longer time to investigate and explore those concepts”.

I understand that the student has a longer time to investigate and explore, but I don’t think the attention span of the average five-year old really permits their attention over such a time span.

Does full-day kindergarten cost the taxpayer more money than half-day. The obvious answer is yes. I don’t know if the state gives districts more for a full-day student than a half-day student. I would not be surprised if that were the case. I do know that teachers have either been stretched to cover these hours or that teachers have been added to cover these hours, or a combination of both. I do know that there is some operational cost impact.

No matter the answers to these hypotheticals; full-day kindergarten costs more; full-day students’ parents benefit more; the taxpayers suffer more. Why are we tasked to help offset day care costs for parents?