Preposterosity

Where’s my spot in the new arena?

/ Steve Hill / Leave a comment

Dear Wisconsin politicians,

Thank you for your wonderful work in keeping our state’s priorities straight in these difficult End Times. Few understand the need for a new professional basketball arena and helping those who can’t help themselves, but your tenacity has helped fight off greedy teachers, parents and others who would divert our critical public dollars into frivolous indulgences like education.

Now that we’ve taken $250 million in state funding out of the UW System and invested that exact amount into the new Milwaukee Bucks arena, I was wondering if you would help me reserve my spot in the new arena as my reward for supporting this public-private partnership. Even though, as a faculty member in the system, I am a pig in the public pantry, I’ve seen the light.  I want you to know what I’m willing to do before I become homeless.

Look, you and I know that when it comes to disasters, Wisconsin’s woes aren’t quite the same as Katrina was for New Orleans — after all, Louisiana will recover some day.  So your strategy is a good one; why not spend what we’ve got on good, wholesome fun while we wait for the apocalypse?

As you already realize, many faculty are already jumping ship while the rest of the state is just trying to tread water in a whirlpool. You, on the other hand, have sagely provided us with a spanking new arena at the bottom of the drain, and that’s good enough for me.

Despite your tacit admission that Wisconsin will be toast in a few years, I’m sure that you guys, as responsible stewards of our public finances, have an appropriate exit strategy with the Bucks and the NBA.  I bet you have a strategic community-relations plan that includes contingencies for opening the arena to victims of catastrophes.  Stuff like floods, tornados, or an unprepared workforce that will devastate our state’s economy and hasten mass homelessness. Continue reading →

Another sure-fire way to save Wisconsin’s budget

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Just pay the taxman, you deadbeat. Who do you think you are -- Popeye? (YouTube link)

Just pay the taxman, you deadbeat. Who do you think you are — Popeye? (YouTube link)

Dear Wisconsin Legislators:

I have been reading about your proposed $25 tax on the purchase of new bicycles in the state, but I have an even better idea: tax people for disagreeing with you.

Sure, a bike tax is a brilliant way to help kill everything from people to nature to clean air by encouraging the dirty, unhealthy and economically critical habit of driving uninsured deathtraps along our deteriorating highways and bridges.  It’s also a cleverly subtle attack on the profitability of the family business of our last Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

But there’s so much more you can do to reach your social and economic goals.

Seriously.  Until you can finish discouraging the populace from thinking, why not make everyone pay for disagreeing with you?  Something along the lines of $2 per reasonable idea ought to be plenty as a start.  Let’s call it the Rational Thought Tax.

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Satan, Senators, and State Parks

/ Steve Hill / Leave a comment

Summer is the time to get out and enjoy the state parks — particularly if you’re in Wisconsin, because there’s no telling how much longer some of them are going to be around.

The family at Copper Falls State Park in Northern Wisconsin. The state couldn't kill the park through mining permits, so it looks like it's trying through defunding.

Our family at Copper Falls State Park in Northern Wisconsin. The state couldn’t kill the park through mining permits, so it looks like it’s trying through defunding.

Sound exaggerated?  Consider that Alabama has reckoned on closing 15 of its state parks, leaving only seven for the public to enjoy. Given that Wisconsin will remove all tax support for the parks, it’s reasonable to assume that some, if not many, of our 50 or so* state parks won’t be open when the next legislatively manufactured budget “crisis” rolls around in two years.

It’s crucial to note that the seven parks that would survive Alabama’s short-sighted proposal are those that have “consistently made a profit” over a three-year period, according to the state parks director.

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Today’s preposterous idea: fossil fuel subsidies

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floodAS

Click here to see Austin-American Statesman flood coverage.

Watching reports of yet another massive flood in Texas, part of the extreme climate events that are increasing in frequency, I am reminded of two or three previous “historic”  floods I lived through in what used to be my home state.  I still have lots of family members in Texas — thankfully all safe, but all of whom were affected one way or another by the extraordinary amounts of rainfall over the holiday weekend.

A few of them still don’t buy into the notion of climate change or its relationship to fossil fuels.  I expect most eventually will, as the Katrina effect takes hold, but this post isn’t for them, at least yet.  It’s a reminder for the rest of us to continue chipping away, as best as we can, at the intransigence of our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and especially, politicians.

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An infuriating day, but potatoes will save Wisconsin

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A day that started off wonderfully, in a class with some remarkable sixth graders, ended with news of yet another pay cut in disguise for Wisconsin state employees.  In honor of our civic-minded state legislators, I therefore offer my newest post category — “Preposterous Ideas” — and simultaneously introduce the term “general strike” to my blog, which has heretofore not hosted that particular term.

But this isn’t about a general strike, which isn’t at all preposterous.  No, it’s about potatoes, which are indeed.

Let me back up a little bit, because I want to put in a few good words for the sixth-grade classes of Tiffany Reindl and Kim Boden at Jefferson Elementary School in Stevens Point.  Ms. Reindl teaches my son’s class, and I had the honor of spending Monday and Wednesday mornings visiting with both groups to talk about journalism (see bottom of this previous post).

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