Abandoned Milwaukee factory becomes a fish farm

Sweet Water Organics is the name that is emblazoned upon a marvelous story of urban reclamation. Once an abandoned factory and an industrial slum, the site has been transformed into a thriving an urban farm, where they grow fish and vegetables in the same structure. WUWM did a story on the farm back in July, and now the Bay View Compass has checked in with a feature story on the plant.

It is hard to articulate that extent to which the site has been so completely transformed. Instead, I’ll use pictures. Here is the building prior to the renovations performed by the new owners:

A depressing place. Cold and lifeless.

But here it is after work had begun:

You can tell the difference that new windows made even by just looking at the fourth picture. Light pours into the building now. It’s a welcoming place, about to become something wonderful.

And here it is today. Photos below are © Bay View Compass:

It’s alive! And that’s wonderful. I have had some sprouts from their facility, so I know the system works for that. Hopefully the fish will come through in good form, and perhaps a winter farmers market will spring up there late this fall. I look forward to it all!

And in the mean time, I’ll be enjoying things that have come from our gardens at home, such as the broccoli shown below… (it’s the one on the left.)

Pictures of Eastbrook Orchestra At Washington Park Bandshell

Local blogger Dan Cody has taken some wonderful pictures of a concert by the Eastbrook Orchestra at the Washington Park Bandshell. Milwaukee County’s parks are still enjoyed by an overwhelming majority of the county’s citizens, and have long been an asset that draw and keep people in Milwaukee. Washington Park is located at 1859 N. 40th Street on Milwaukee’s west side, and has four concerts at the bandshell in the month of August.

Don’t just enjoy Dan Cody’s sublime pictures; take in a show at the Washington Park Bandshell. We don’t want to promote any one band over another, but you may be interested in seeing the beloved band De La Buena at the Bandshell on Wednesday, August 5.

[MCF] Milwaukee County Receives Much Needed Help, More On The Way?

This is a fantastic piece of news for Milwaukee County! According county supervisor Theodore Lipscomb, who is chairman of the county board’s Task Force on Economic Stimulus, nearly $67 million dollars in stimulus funds have been approved for the County, and the County has applied for an additional $130 million.

This could have an extremely positive effect for all the people of Milwaukee County. To think, the county executive was trying to block the aid from coming in!

Pentatonic scale in motion; New type of galaxies discovered, and a comet hits Jupiter

In parts of the world where people are not obsessed with their own gardens or how their county of residence is going down in flames, they apparently do other things, such as play music or perform amateur astronomy. I’m a fan of both, which makes these two web findings all the neater.

First, do you remember Bobby McFerrin? He’s best known for his early 90s hit, “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” The man is a musical genius, despite what you think of that song. His mastery of music is showcased in this brief video of Bobby McFerrin demonstrating the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation, at the event “Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus”, from the 2009 World Science Festival, June 12, 2009. If the pentatonic scale sounds familiar, it is the scale best known in America as the basis of blues music. But it’s been known around the world long since before the blues began. What’s impressive is that if you play blues chords on an instrument, such as A7/D7/E7, they will roughly fit with what McFerrin and the audience were singing. (h/t to Helen!)

Second, there have been two striking discoveries in astronomy within the past few days. First, the new kind of galaxies. Word came out about a group of volunteer astronomers who have worke together to analyze data, and found that a small number of galaxies that were “between 1.5 billion and 5 billion light years away, are 10 times smaller than our own Milky Way galaxy and 100 times less massive. But surprisingly, given their small size, they are forming stars 10 times faster than the Milky Way.” [SpaceDaily.com] What that means is they existed when the universe was relatively young, and their small size was no deterrent from creating stars. And they have what I think is a fairly rare color in space — green. The galaxies appear to be little green peas, hence the name “Green Pea galaxies.” (To be fair, this has been in the works for some time, but I read about it today.)

Word of this newly discovered type of galaxy came out shortly after the story about a single amateur astronomer’s discovery of a hole in Jupiter’s clouds. Apparently, the gas giant took a direct impact by a comet. The aforementioned amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley of Australia watches Jupiter every night, and was stunned to see a prominent black spot that had not been there before. He soon alerted NASA, who had not seen this, and they concluded that it was likely that a comet that was about a kilometer wide and traveling at 135,000 mph (60km per second) smacked into the Jovian atmosphere. Let’s thank old Jupe for taking this one for us. I’m pretty sure that if it had hit Earth, I wouldn’t be sitting here typing this right now.

Forget Scott Walker’s birth certificate — what about Patrick McIlheran?

There’s been a rightful storm about Scott Walker’s actual place of birth. Oh, sure, Paddy Mac claims to be a good American standing up for what’s right. His column has an achingly clever name to make us think that.  But how come he hasn’t printed his own birth certificate

Save The County Farm and Fish Hatchery!

As urban farmers, we pride ourselves on advancing our cause, but, we are not the first by any means. Milwaukee County has been doing this for a long time through its prisoner farm program — which faces the axe if two top County officials get their way. The proposals to shut down the prison farm, the fish hatchery, and the many other county agricultural stations are not new. But, we need your help to keep them from being sacrificed.

I am forwarding a link to this with a bit of vested interest: I am on the board of directors for Milwaukee County First, a new 501(c)4 non-profit organization that is devoted to stopping the decline of Milwaukee County, restoring its assets and services to their former first class status.

Please find out who you can call to oppose this by reading our blog.

As an urban farmer, I know there are few things that bring more peace to the soul than having your hands in the good dirt we have here in Wisconsin. Closing the county prison farm is foolish, to say the least. Just look at the sheer number of people it feeds — and imagine the cost of providing that food from third parties. It’s unthinkable. It must ot happen.

Journal Sentinel edges toward…

It must be hard to be in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newsroom right now. I know it’s been tough at the Capital Times over in Madison, and its bigger cousin the State Journal hasn’t had it much easier. I still remember talking to SJ’s beloved columnist George Hesselberg after his column got iced back in 2004 — the logic of that move was ponderous, to say the least. Eliminate one of the most-read and beloved parts of your paper? Sure…

Now the hammer falls on Journal Communications. Employees are being laid off in droves. Business Journal of Milwaukee has the full sad story.

Both Journal Communications and Capital Newspapers (nee Madison Newspapers) had the bright idea of coming out with faux alt-weeklies back in 2004. Alas, neither succeeded in the long run, and both papers are now history. Neither seems to have helped their parent company stay afloat.

As someone who has been in the publishing business, and occasionally plays a reporter in various newspapers, part of my heart is still with the journalistic community. It’s a hell of a time to be in the field now, and a far cry from the day when newspapers seemed as steady and reliable a field as you could wish for. While I’m still a foreign party to most of the Milwaukee journalist scene, part of me cringes when I read about cuts at any paper. If it’s a hometown paper, that’s even worse. People that I know — be it in person or via Facebook — are affected.

As someone who has a face for radio and a voice for print, but whose fingers ache from blogging, not many options are left. God knows Indymedia doesn’t pay. Good thing I’m a history major, huh?

Getting a copy of my birth certificate; am I still a real American?

Milwaukee County has some obtuse requirements to get a marriage certificate. For some reason, you need to have both your birth certificate and your Social Security card. I’ll also need a “filed copy of the final judgment of divorce,” as I had one of them happen. But it’s the birth certificate that’s the real item of interest. How can they know at the county courthouse that I’m showing them the real certificate? I did get one from Johnson County, Kansas, and it looks a lot like the slightly disintegrated original that I have. But it’s not the original. And if I show that to the people at the courthouse, well, they might not accept it. They’ll look at me, maybe squint a few times, and say, “Are you sure you were born in the United States? Your ancestors, if they really were Hessians, you know, they came from Germany. Or actually, Prussia, if it was Prussia back then. You know, that’s not America, son. I’m afraid we can’t give you a marriage license until you can prove you’re a real American.”

Normally at this time I’d whip out the new copy of my birth certificate. But nowadays, with all the “birther” mania sweeping the nation like some hyper-patriotic strain of swine flu, that doesn’t work. “No, son, I’m sorry, this is not the original. Why won’t you show us the original?” Well, I’d say, I have my passport right here. You have to be an American citizen to get one. “It’s fake. I can tell by looking at it.” (I actually have yet to remove it from my pocket at this time.)

But back to reality. (Hmm, no “birthers” here…) Why on earth does the County require people to have both their birth certificate and their Social Security card to get a marriage license? If the two parties seeking the license are willing accomplices applicants, that should be all they need. Instead of making this easy for me, though, the County requires me to do a bunch of paperwork to get some odd little slips of paper that I don’t have. It seems Milwaukee County wants us to fly out to Vegas, where we would not need these slips of paper, and spend money out there rather than have a nice little event here in Milwaukee and keep the money local. The way Scott Walker tells it, Milwaukee County won’t be worth the scrip it issues when the buses are cut by successive thirds and the parks are privatized. It would help keep money in the county if these rules were not in place.

But things are under way. I’ll get a new Social Security card next. So far, no one has cast doubt upon the validity of my passport or my (new) birth certificate.

A little biodiesel makes my TDI a very happy car

Thanks to the Gurnee Fuel Stop, I have biodiesel in the tank again! My car runs much more quietly and smoothly on any ratio of biodiesel to petro-diesel. As the Fuel Stop appears to be the closest place I can get biodiesel without finding out how to enter a local co-op, it may be in my best interests to make it a habit of visiting my future in-laws at least once every two months or so. We can take I-94 down to scenic Chicagoland and then take the more leisurely Highway 41 back up north and pop in the Fuel Station for a quick fill. That works for me!

(And if anyone in the Milwaukee area is willing to help me get biodiesel more locally, let’s talk. I am reachable via Gmail, uid:haazah.)

Batshit crazy “Birther” “movement”

When I first heard about the “Birthers,” I thought it was an obnoxious anti-abortion movement. But no, this was the people who think President Obama is not a U.S. citizen.

If he’s not, I think it would have come out long ago.

But I digress.

There’s a claim that the president has spent “millions” on blocking the release of his birth certificate. Whose millions? The federal government’s? Where is the proof of this?

This is from the “movement” whose chief lawyer Charles Lincoln was disbarred in 2004 in no less than three states and convicted of a felony in one of them (Texas).

To reclaim a tasteless bumper sticker that I used to see: Obama won. Deal with it.