President Obama knows his history

And the health care industry reforms he proposed, is most certainly not “a Bolshevik plot.”

The president described it as being “pretty similar to what Howard Baker, Bob Dale, and Tom Daschle proposed at the beginning of this debate last year,” whom he said were “not a radical bunch.” Not anything like “socialism,” of which he was accused. In fact, there is a talk happening over in Madison called “The Left & Obama,” in which I hope my dear comrades will be gently told that at no time did the man we elected president promise single payer health care. It’s right to ask why he’s clinging to many Bush policies. Yet he’s also helping bring long-overdue passenger rail (absent sixty years!) to Wisconsin and the Midwest. This news came just as many respected business leaders came together to say that effective transit is vital to the region’s long-term economic success.

While the Bolsheviks are a thing of the past, nuclear weapons are still very much with us. That legacy of the Cold War still drains billions of dollars each year. (The Iraq wars are also relics of the Cold War that drain billions of dollars per month, but that’s another story.) President Obama and Russian President Medvedev are very close to signing a new nuclear weapons reduction treaty. We would still have many hundreds of nukes on hand, but the closer we get that number to nil, the better.

The president has shown few, if any traits of socialist inklings. He’s a fairly moderate guy. But this second year of his administration is off to a very good start.

And you thought local politics was in-bred

President Obama and Massachusetts senator-elect Scott Brown are (very) distant cousins, according to the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Makes me wonder who I’m related to!

Tommy for Senate is as Favre is for QB

As the honest and upright (if not slightly evasive) Terrence “Terry” Wall has dodged paying state income taxes, there’s been some mumbling (if not slurring) to get Tommy Thompson, the self-described man from “the great state of Wiscons” to run for Senator Feingold’s seat.

The future mayor of Elroy may want to pause before attempting to make himself into Wisconsin’s next Brett Favre.

Like the quarterback who can’t help but drag (or hurl) himself back in after one or two retirements, Thompson has tried to run for president, but was out in 2008 after the Iowa caucuses. (Tommy Thompson President Gifts still available through CafePress; act now!) Prior to that, he served as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under the George W. Bush administration. And he went to that job after setting up his home state of Wiscons’ to have a muddled morass of welfare “reform,” lower-quality schools, and a record budget deficit. In true politician style, he left town before the shit hit the fan, leaving his successor Scott McCallum to take the blame.

Tommy started to make big money while he was in D.C. Not all of it came from his post as Secretary of H.H.S. That didn’t pay too shabbily, earning just under $200,000 annually. But the real cash came from Thompson’s stock holdings in the VeriChip Corporation. Amid the destruction and overall corruption of the Bush II administration, Thompson’s dealings got little attention. Thompson had at least 150,000 shares of stock in Applied Digital, the one-time makers of the VeriChip, and oversaw FDA approval of their device. He would later join the company’s board of directors. Thompson demurred on his pledge to “absolutely” have an RFID chip implanted in his arm. Can’t blame him; there’s already enough ways to track people. And there are cancer concerns as well. Good stuff!

Tommy’s come a long way since being seen as a man of the people. His long record firmly argues against that sentiment. We have to remember that his administrations are responsible for leaving Wisconsin with its lowest bond rating ever and a $3.5 billion deficit. His time at HHS hardly seems to have been examined. And if he ran for the U.S. Senate, his financial disclosure forms would make for very interesting reading. His ties to the medical-legal-healthcare-industrial complex are deep. His résumé shows him now as a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld law firm, an “independent chairman” at the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, and president at Logistics Health. While the salaries at those firms are not known right now, you would hope that with all the cash he’s making there that he’s been able to find a few cents to contribute to the state of Wisconsin.

Stay in the private sector, Tommy. They’ve been very good to you. Don’t be another Favre.

And we’ll love you 4EVER Brent!

Will Apple change the world again today?

The electrified, computer-using world anyway.

ArsTechnica will be live blogging the “media event,” but I want to try to watch it live. There’s also this live blogging feed.

9:10 chance they’ll be unveiling their much-rumored “tablet” today. We’ll see what else comes of it.

Later: Yup. Gotta love The Register: “Steve Jobs uncloaks the ‘iPad’; World continues to revolve around sun.”

Growing Power’s Urban & Small Farm Conference, Sept 10-12, 2010

Thanks to the iconic Sweet Water Organics and Growing Power, Milwaukee is quickly becoming known as a center for urban gardening and urban farming. That’s to say nothing of the numerous community gardens and microfarms that are springing up all around town.

Here’s Growing Power’s text about the conference:

Come to Milwaukee and help grow the good food revolution. Hosted by Growing Power—a national organization headed by the sustainable urban farmer and MacArthur Fellow Will Allen—this international conference will teach the participant how to plan, develop and grow small farms in urban and rural areas. Learn how you can grow food year-round, no matter what the climate, and how you can build markets for small farms. See how you can play a part in creating a new food system that fosters better health and more closely-knit communities.

Pre-conference workshops: One-day intensive workshops will be held September 8th and September 9th at Growing Power’s International Training Center.

• Understand how non-profit organizations can work cooperatively with city and state governments, as well as for-profit and non-profit agricultural enterprises.
• See how to create successful farm-to-school initiatives by drawing on Growing Power experiences in Milwaukee, Madison, and Chicago.
• Learn how to grow relationships with corporations that can help support locally grown food initiatives.
• Discover how to create and utilize renewable energy in local agricultural systems.
• Learn about the development of multi-story vertical farms.
• Find how social justice and food justice can be fostered through the local and regional farm system.
• Visit successful small farms in the Milwaukee metropolitan area.
• Enjoy food grown by local and regional farmers and prepared by local chefs!
• Over 2,000 participants expected with opportunities to network and mingle
• Exhibit hall available

•~•~•~•~•~•

I hope to attend part of the conference. This is an exciting to be alive, and the urban food-growing movement is such an exciting movement to be involved with!

What -gate suffix will this get?

CNN: 4 men charged with U.S. Senate office infiltration in New Orleans

“A conservative activist who made undercover videos of the liberal community-organizing group ACORN was one of four men charged Tuesday with attempting to illegally access and manipulate the phone system in a district office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.” — CNN.com

Watergate Revisited? Or just a humble break-in?

What did he know, and who did he work for? How far up a yet-invisible chain does this go?

Serious felony charges, yes. Serious fines, yes. A future in talk radio? Quite possible.

Nearing a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia

Good news on the international front: the U.S. and the Russian Federation are nearing a new nuclear weapons reduction treaty to take the place of the expired START treaty. According to Reuters,

“A top U.S. official indicated earlier this month that they would resume on January 25, and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday he expected an agreement would be reached soon once negotiations resume at the beginning of February.”

It is expected that the new treaty would “nuclear warheads on each side to between 1,500 and 1,675, and the number of delivery vehicles [e.g. airplane, submarine-, or silo-based missiles] to between 500 and 1,100.”

It’s not clear what will happen with the proposed U.S. missile defense system. It’s been a thorn in the side of U.S.-Russian relations since the Bush administration announced their pursuit of said systems, and President Obama has been played a cool hand on whether or not they would be further pursued.

Either way, we still have more than enough nukes to kill every person on the face of the earth. Having less is better for everyone.

Happy birthday Macintosh!

Like it or not, love it or leave it, the Mac changed the world on this day in 1984. Its effects continue to deepen and multiply today. We’ll see if Apple introduces a cousin of it on the 27th.

“1984 – The first Apple Macintosh, today known as the Macintosh 128K (pictured), went on sale, becoming the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface rather than a command line interface.”

If you’re old enough to remember Kohl’s Food Stores, you’ll appreciate this.

Yes! I am!

Or if you never saw one before but still appreciate seeing what happens to oddly shpaed buildings when their original occupant leaves, you will appreciate the blog The Arch, Repurposed: Old Kohl’s Food Stores.

Who wants to race me to see about getting up a picture of the one at about 3318 3333 S. Howell Ave. in Milwaukee?

I think there was one on the 6900 block of N. Santa Monica Blvd. in Fox Point, but it appears to be gone now.

Happiness–only known after trauma, or death?

A few weeks ago, I got an invitation from my friend and colleague Michael Timm to write an essay for Milwaukee Anthropologist, an online liberal arts magazine “for general audiences” that he edits and produces.This sixth issue tackles the question What is happiness and how do we get it?

I think most of you know the story of what happened to me. Mike eloquently summed it up in his introduction to this issue of the Milwaukee Anthropologist:

“When a drunk driver crashed into Jason Haas, the impact sent shattered glass into his eye, his brain into shock, and his life into pieces. Almost a decade later, he’s picked up those pieces and considers himself lucky to be alive—but he reminds us of the ancient wisdom of the Greek [wise man] Solon that perhaps one’s happiness should not be measured at all, if at all, until after one is dead and one’s legacy clear. When Haas woke up from a coma after six weeks lying in a hospital bed, he believed part of him had died. But the part that elected to seize life again has since earned a degree, participated in his community, and started a new home. Is he a happy man?”

Happiness–only known after trauma, or death? by Jason Haas

Mike speaks very well of me, and I thank him for that. And yeah, it’s a frigging miracle that I’m alive. I’m celebrating it right now by enjoying some red wine and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Devils. It’s really nice to be here!