According to a source, the Market Basket, a little corner store on East Mifflin St was robbed earlier this afternoon. The store was also robbed last month, and the employees suspect it was by the same man.
The media should have more on this story soon.
Erik Paulson, who “can’t take it [my poor understanding of ASM] anymore,” has an enormous post up on the politics behind the Student Tenant Union, its successor, the Student Tenant Resource Center. This relates to recent discussion we’ve had about the Madison Property Rating Website.
The Madison Property Rating Website, ie the Tenant Rating Website, ie the Landlord Rating website, is an independent project of the separate from the STU/STRC. Originally proposed by Eli Judge, (see 2:00 into the video) ASM ultimately took the plunge and allocated funding for its creation in the 2008-2009 school year (I think about $8000) and put in about $2300 to run it in the 2009-2010 (July 1 to June 30th, 2010) school year. For the 2010-2011 budget that ASM is currently discussing, the operational money remains about $2300. Obviously, the isn’t up and running yet, but hopefully the final understandings can be reached in the University soon and ASM can actually spend the money, and the site could be up and running late this spring. Ideally, there’d be a good advertising push by the MPR Oversight Board, and people would start actually rating Landlords, so the website is useful in the Fall of 2010, when potential renters will start to actually need it.
What’s hard for me to understand is where the $2300 figure came from. ASM approved $5000 to fund the project –– but that was last session, and for the project to regain the money it would have to be re-approved. What am I missing? Erik?
Twenty Dane County supervisors sent a letter to UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin on Friday questioning the university’s process for deciding whether monkey experimentation is ethical.
In the letter, the supervisors asked whether that committee, the All-Campus Animal Care and Use Committee, is the right body to look into ethical questions.
The first signature on the letter was from none other than our tireless student advocate Wyndham Manning.
Ignoring Manning’s ineptitude, which I am very surprised Johnson would want anything to do with via an endorsement, what does the County Board think is going to happen? Biddy Martin is going to go to this debate of semi-qualified people, form a steadfast conclusion on one of the trickiest area of applied ethics, and end all primate research on campus, costing the University tens of millions of dollars?
Time for a new strategy guys.
I recently sent an email to Michael Johnson, a candidate for the 5th district seat on the Dane County Board of Supervisors. I asked for an update on his campaign, and I told him I was specifically interested in how he would evaluate the incumbent, Wyndham Manning, a member of Progressive Dane who has been relentlessly criticized by the Badger Herald editorial board for his absence from meetings and policy (I am currently awaiting a response from Manning on what he has done during his two year term of office). I also asked Johnson if he would seek Manning’s endorsement.
Regarding Wyndham; I believe has done a respectable job as our County Supervisor here in the 5th district, maintaining a strong presence on the issues of his predecessor, Ashok Kumar, such as fair housing and equal rights. I think the problem that he ran into is the amount of time and energy needed to be a strong advocate on the board, and even the more mundane things like securing rides to his meetings further out in the county, which I believe contributed to his high number of absences. Overall, I think history will respect his contribution to Dane County as an elected official. Things I would do differently are really just connecting the popular social and political movements that I have worked with on campus and in the community to the halls of power so that they District 5 representative can have the power and unity of these movements to support their legislative efforts. Wyndham’s background is more connected to Madison’s cultural and musical circles, not so much the activist ones, so lacking that formal connection I think made him different from Ashok, so he came at the job differently, but to each his own. I did seek his endorsement, and he is enthusiastically supporting my efforts, including going door to door with me; I also received the support of his predecessors, Ashok Kumar(06-08) and Ech Vedder (98-06), as well as their city counterparts in District 8, Austin King(03-07) and Todd Jarrell (01-03).
But he also said the following:
Good morning. Snow is a welcome alternative to the cold, dry wind. High of 28, low of 17. Perhaps the most appetizing brunch yet provided by Eating in Madison A to Z, courtesy of Jacobson Brothers. Of course, when I generally start my day out with a bag of Doritos I usually go classic nacho cheese. What flavor is that below?
White House summit comes up with plan to protect Great Lakes. What will the Supreme Court do to stop it?
Say it ain’t so Marlin! Rep. Schneider admits he exaggerated the number of complaints he received over CCAP, the online database that he is trying to restrict.
Cognitive Dissidence thinks the system should be cleaned up, so that it can’t be misinterpreted –– and there will be less than 22 complaints.
According to the State Journal, which is awful mad about Schneider’s fib, CCAP gets between “3 million and 5 million page views per day.” It gets between half and 5/6 the hits as there are people in the state?
Alec writes on District 5 and gives the 101 on the two candidates. If you’re wondering if the current occupant of the seat, Wyndham Manning, is still alive, he apparently is; he emailed me recently telling me that he would answer my questions soon.
A worthy point-counter-point topic in the Herald: Should UW offer certificates in “written communication,” which would allow you to display your experience in writing-intensive courses? Joey Labuz vs. Jason Smathers.
Student Tenant Resource Center may be zero-funded. Come on guys, get your act together.
It’s not currently illegal to “manufacture and use false academic credentials”?
Guy that left legislature 23 years ago is making another go at it. The Cap Times is pumped. They’re going to trust a former health insurance exec?
Paul Ryan says we’re headed for fiscal crisis.
Press keeps pressuring Sheridan to explain travel expenses. Did they come courtesy of a lobbyist? He’d have to be an idiot…
These are the students who want to be on ALRC. A La Follette applicant, a former Herald writer…it’s a fun read.
And of course, the Edgewater “wins a round’ by getting a zoning change approved which will allow it to be closer to the lake than other buildings.
At least 20 members of city government. The following are the 20 highest paid city employees. Anything surprise you? Something sticks out to Brenda Konkel, and it’s not just that a bus driver made $160k last year.
John Nelson, Bus driver, $159,258
Dean Brasser, Comptroller, $151,551
Noble Wray, Police chief, $143,585
Michael May, City attorney, $143,434
The Badger Herald has once again shown its disregard for human decency and compassion by publishing the complaint the Overture Center filed against the AEPi fraternity, whose members graciously gave up their Friday night to drink and have sex for charity.
The numerous allegations seem to imply that the alcohol consumption and love-making were not done in the name of B’nai B’rith, the international Jewish charity for whom AEPi raised $2,100 that night. The accusations of rude behavior and name-calling, one of which comes from a coat-check employee who says several members called her “a bitch,” also miss the point that the fraternity members were simply delegating orders to subordinates for the sake of the mission. While these employees were profiting off a charitable cause, the fraternity brothers’ only payment was dizzying inebriation, a nauseating hangover and a sexually transmitted infection.
According to the director of Madison Symphony Orchestra, who clearly could not handle being close to the grit that accompanies community service, “the fraternity was disgusting and they left trash all over the place.” The one valid complaint came from an employee who found a male and female having sex in a men’s stall. It hardly seems like the couple’s sex was contributing to the cause if it was done in private, however, their sexual indiscretion is very likely due to the copious amount of alcohol they publicly consumed for B’nai B’rith.
OK, kind of in a hurry today. We’re dropping between 28 and 16 degrees. Brunch…umm…feed yourselves today.
I’ve been waiting on this story for a while. I was restricted from publishing it for fear of outing my source but it looks like the Herald beat me to it. Letter from Overture Center director alleging misconduct by the AEPi fraternity at a social event. The lewd contact is great, but the multiple complaints of “being treated like servants,” and “condescending attitudes” are the most poignant.
A weak payday loan regulation bill surfaces. Assembly speaker under fire for relationship with payday loan lobbyist and unfiled campaign finance reports.
And how often do people get their angry letters to politicians published in the press? Open records is great. Look for Mark Pocan at the bottom of the article. An interesting intra-party clash over payday loans –– surprising to see Pocan go after another Democrat for voicing skepticism Sheridan and his treatment of the issue.
100,000 unemployment benefits are on the line in the coming weeks unless Congress does something for Wisconsin.
Obama cuts 1/3 of the funding for the Great Lakes initiative.
The Cardinal opinion page has a sexy new design.
Editorial: Don’t let your grades get in the way of your education.
Tuition to rise at Eau Claire.
What’s going on this week Kristin?
“And it is the sort of win-at-any-cost politics that Wisconsinites have always rejected,” writes an editorial board that clearly has never heard of a guy named Tailgunner Joe McCarthy.
From Brooks’s column on big-time college sports in the NYT on Friday.
Several years ago, I arrived in Madison, Wis., for a conference. It was Saturday morning, and as my taxi got close to campus, I noticed people dressed in red walking in the same direction. At first it was a trickle, then thousands. It looked like the gathering of a happy Midwestern cult, though, of course, it was the procession to a football game.
The analysis that follows I could not agree with more.
In a segmented society, big-time college sports are one of the few avenues for large-scale communal participation. Mass college sports cross class lines. They induce large numbers of people in a region to stop, at the same time, and share common emotional experiences.
The crowds at big-time college sporting events do not sit passively, the way they do at a movie theater. They roar, suffer and invent chants (especially at Duke basketball games). Mass college sports are the emotional hubs at the center of vast networks of analysis, criticism and conversation. They generate loyalties that are less harmful than ethnic loyalties and emotional morality plays that are at once completely meaningless and totally consuming.
Just another reason to never minimize the importance of athletics.
Just a few days ago I wrote about how Obama was setting up Paul Ryan as a Republican straw man. Now Republicans are catching on:
In just a week, Ryan had gone from being seen as the smart conservative whom Obama might take seriously to being seen as the symbol of how Democrats believe Republicans would dismantle the social safety net if the GOP took control of Congress.
Republicans believe the criticism was a setup.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), an ally of Ryan’s and a collaborator on the plan, said the Democrats’ playbook was obvious: Obama elevated Ryan’s plan in order to methodically break him down. Democrats dismantled the road map point by point over the past week, framing it as a radical shift back to George W. Bush economics.
The Sconz | asmwatch on Wyndham Manning speaks…a… |
 | Alec S on Wyndham Manning speaks…a… |
 | Kyle Szarzynski on Wyndham Manning speaks…a… |
 | lukas on Wyndham Manning speaks…a… |
| Alec S on Wyndham Manning speaks…a… |
