Only a Man Would Come Up With That Idea

One of the assumptions that you hear during some debates is that "If women ran the world, there would be no wars, no starvation, schools would be better and the environment would be cleaner".  The argument being that women are more collaborative and less driven by the need to prove that they are better than each other like men often do.

That came to mind when I read about the Netflix documentary about the "Mercury 13".  If you are not familiar, the "Mercury 13" was a privately-funded project that sought to train 13-women to fly into space in the late 1950's--should NASA decide that it wanted to have female astronauts as part of the Mercury program.  Of course, the "mean men" at NASA put the kibosh on the idea--even after the Soviets put a women into space in 1963.  But the documentary got me thinking "What if the gender roles had been reversed--and it was women running government at the time of the Space Race?"

Make no mistake, as much as we Americans like to talk about our "spirit of adventure" and "man's innate sense of exploration", the reason the US put such a high priority on space travel in the 1950's and the 1960's is because the guys in the Soviet Union were beating us--and we couldn't handle being "number two".  You know why we haven't gone to Mars--even though it was in NASA's long-range plans in the 1960's?  Because no other guys are trying to do it--so we don't have to worry about not being first.

But imagine if women were running the show in the 50's and 60's and someone from the military or science fields had said "I think we should spend the modern equivalent of 200-billion dollars over the next decade to send 12-people to the moon.  And we should do it using giant machines made up of parts that are going to fall into the ocean, drift around in space forever, and get left on the moon itself so that none of it can ever be used again.  Oh, and on some of the missions we are going to send a car along so we can drive on the moon--and then leave the car up there.  What do you think?"

What woman that you know would sign off on that plan?  Instead, they would likely give you the laundry list of things that need to get done around your own place before you think about going off to some other world to "explore" or "colonize".  "If you get the oceans cleaned up and there is still some time and money left over, then you can think about going to the moon."

Instead, you had Eisenhower and Kennedy with their testosterone-filled plans for "winning the race to space" that got everybody gung-ho about putting men into orbit and eventually driving around on the moon--no matter how little "sense" that makes.

Questionable Timing

As someone who assists in the stewardship of public resources by keeping an eye on how government entities function, there is a certain sense of satisfaction in seeing two former administrators at UW-Oshkosh criminally charged with misconduct in officer for illegally binding taxpayers to debts accrued by a private entity and making secret payments to cover up that activity.  But there is something in the timing of the criminal charges against former Chancellor Richard Wells and former Vice Chancellor Tom Sonnleitner that doesn't quite pass the smell test.

First, there is no doubt that Wells, Sonnleitner and Foundation personnel conspired to defraud the UW System.  If administrators were allowed to give banks assurances that the schools would repay debts accrued by their foundations, Wells and Sonnleitner would have told UW System officials they were doing that for several projects funded by the foundation around town.  And if the University was allowed to fund the Foundation, they would have made those payments clear in accounting records--instead of using bookkeeping tricks hide the transfers.

But the legal procedure used to right this wrong has been backwards from the start.  It has made no sense to file a civil lawsuit against the administrators--especially since they would never be able to repay the 11-million dollars that was improperly transferred to the Foundation.  And by going the civil suit route, it appeared the State was initially saying that there was no grounds for criminal charges.  I'm sure the UW System was also more than happy to avoid criminal charges, as it just makes for more bad publicity--especially when they for years have been saying there's "no money to put into classrooms"--yet their leaders in Oshkosh come up with 11-MILLION to funnel into questionable building projects.

But then the UWO Foundation decided to go bankrupt--and is trying to stick the UW System--but more correctly, taxpayers--with the bill for their irresponsible borrowing.  And after a federal judge tossed out the State's argument that Wells and Sonnleitner were acting outside of their authority in creating the financial mess--it appeared that we the taxpayers are going to get stuck with the bill.  And that is why I believe the Department of Justice has decided to file criminal charges against the two.

If the issue of who must repay the bad loans goes to a jury trial, the defense for the Foundation can use plenty of legal arguments to sway a jury that Wells and Sonnleitner--while not acting in the best of faith--weren't doing anything "illegal" in guaranteeing loans and secretly helping to make payments.  But criminal convictions against the two could carry a lot of weight in the minds of those who might be asked to determine who really is to blame for this mess--and who should be made to foot the bill.

Undoubtedly, the charges against the former administrators will be reduced to misdemeanors and nobody will be spending any time behind bars.  But it remains to be seen if real justice--the Foundation being made to repay its own debts--and not the taxpayers of Wisconsin who had nothing to do with the swindle that created this fiasco--will come to pass.

The "Other" Event City

It turns out the city of Oshkosh is not the only one in Wisconsin dealing with being the "Too Many Events City".  An article in yesterday's edition of the Capital Times details how the city of Madison is being overwhelmed with demand for services, street closures and park takeovers on a scale even worse than what Oshkosh is dealing with.

The paper cites an astounding 384 events that will force the closure of streets or restrict access to public parks in 2018 alone.  Add to that Madison's penchant for protests, rallies and marches--which the city does not require permits for in order to adhere to the First Amendment--and you almost daily occurrences of needing to block off streets, provide police security and re-route public transportation.

Madison has so many event requests they have had to form a special committee just to review special event permits.  And city staff are assigned to coordinating all of that activity--much like the hiring of the Special Events Coordinator here in Oshkosh--funded by the permit fees that the city looks to raise every year. 

Part of the problem in Madison is that each neighborhood thinks it has to have its own "Festival"--each with street concerts and food vendors and pretentious wine tents.  And since we need to create as many divisions between ourselves as possible nowadays, there are a lot of "neighborhoods" that those living there probably didn't even know existed.

Festival fatigue in Madison is also taking on a "socio-economic" angle.  The city's Racial Justice committee is among those fed up all the events because bus routes are detoured on a weekly basis for much of the year.  Precious on-street parking for locals is taken up by festival attendees.  And free public parks are taken over on multiple weekends, limiting access.  It's ironic that in "celebrating diversity", the upscale white folks from the suburbs do nothing more than inconvenience the minorities they are trying to "celebrate".

Just like in Oshkosh, the real cost of "event mania" is on city services--as overtime in the Madison Police Department has increased by 50% in just the past two years.  The Police Chief is calling for a sharp reduction in the number of festivals and special events--or at least a moratorium on new permits.  But as more letters are added to the LGBTQ alphabet--and more "social injustices" demand protest and "awareness rallies"--the likelihood of that happening is remote.

Maybe we should get back to the days where we'd have a few friends over for a backyard barbecue on a Saturday afternoon--instead of thinking we need to invite 5,000 people over to enjoy bad reggae cover bands and questionable food truck edibles.

Don't Believe Everything You Hear

The police and fire scanner in our Newsroom is an integral tool for the job we do--allowing us to monitor emergency situations throughout the listening area.  Owning a scanner used to be a rarity.  There were always a few people around town that might purchase one for their homes or have one of those old school multi-band radios that would allow you to tune in one of the emergency frequencies like you tune in your favorite music station.  But the internet has brought websites and smart-phone apps that stream scanner feeds for free--and almost anyone can monitor police and fire calls in their homes, at work and even in the car.

But not everyone grasps the nuances of live police and fire dispatch activity.  And that was borne out this week as rumors of a school shooting here in Oshkosh spread like wildfire on the internet.  Oshkosh Police, the Winnebago County Sheriff's Department and our newsroom were receiving calls from people that "heard" police were dealing with a shooting at a bank on Emmers Lane and that the gunman was at Oakwood School.  Posts to that effect were shared on social media pages--including some that monitor scanners and post what people hear in real time. 

Mixed in with the angry responses about guns and the "thoughts and prayers" posts were a few level-headed comments about how nothing about this was being broadcast on local media outlets.  As you might expect, hearing a call about a shooting at a school or a bank would certainly warrant immediate coverage not just by those of us at WOSH but most of the Green Bay television stations--which also monitor scanner activity throughout the Fox Valley.  But the big difference between those of us in the "traditional media"--and those who think they "break news" in the "new media" (or "citizen journalists") is that we go out to make sure something is actually going on.

And that was the case on Monday afternoon--as my reporter Morgan Schultz, after getting calls from people saying they "heard it on the scanner", called me to take a quick run out to the "scene of the crime" to confirm what those people thought they heard.  As it turned out, it was a normal day in the Oakwood neighborhood.  Further "scanner traffic" about the "shooting" came across on the Training Frequency used by Winnebago County law enforcement and emergency personnel for just such a situation.  But if you are listening on a scanner app--or reading posts on a Facebook page--you likely wouldn't know that.  And yet, rumors continued for so long that Oshkosh Police finally had to issue a press release on their own social media sites reminding everyone that it was a training exercise taking place up at FVTC in Appleton--not even in Oshkosh.

If you are a scanner afficianado, take some advice from a long-time professional listener: people who report things to police get it wrong--a lot.  In my time here, I've criss-crossed parts of Winnebago County looking for the "plane that the caller believed crashed in a field by their house" during EAA.  Or waited for dive teams to be dispatched to spots on the ice that the "caller thinks a car went through because the lights disappeared".  And I've talked to plenty of officers responding to "shots fired" that turned out to be fireworks.

The next time you see on the internet a post about something heard on the scanner, consider if the person providing that information left their house to confirm that--and if they plan to issue a "correction" when it turns out to be a misunderstanding.

Weapon of Choice

I would like to credit the Canadian people for their thoughtful and measured response to yesterday's mass killing in downtown Toronto.  Ten people died, another fifteen people were injured in this latest incident--but few, if any, chose to focus on the weapon used in the attack.  It would have been easy to do, given that the same weapon was used in an attack that killed three in Germany earlier this month, and had been used against anti-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. Eight people died in a similar attack in New York City last October.  Fourteen died and 100 were injured in Barcelona, Spain in August of last year.  A dozen people died in separate attacks like this one in London on the same day in June of last year.  Twelve were killed--another 50-injured in a similar attack in Berlin, Germany in December of 2016 and who can forget the 86-killed and hundreds hurt in the same way in Nice, France in June of 2016.

It would have been very easy for Canadians to call for immediate bans of the weapon used in Monday's attack given its track record.  But instead, they chose to focus on the man responsible for wielding that weapon in such a dangerous way.  Nobody blamed the opposition party in Parliament for "not doing enough" to stop such attacks.  Toronto police weren't taken to task to failing to "enforce the laws already on the books to prevent such attacks from happening" with that weapon.  Canadian school children stayed in class yesterday--and likely will again today--and will not take to the streets to call for their ability to use the same weapons to be taken away from them--and anyone else that happens to own one.  And they did not point out that yesterday's weapon is by far the most likely way they are going to die as a teenager.

No advocacy groups for the use of yesterday's weapons were branded "terrorist organizations".  The manufacturer of the weapon is not going to be sued by the family members of the victims.  The business that sold the weapon will not be vilified   Nobody is calling for incredibly expensive infrastructure in every Canadian city to "make sure this can never happen again".  I haven't seen anyone question why someone would even need a weapon of that style or size--when smaller, less-dangerous models are fine.

Of course, much of that is due to the fact that the weapon used in the Toronto attack--and all of the ones I listed previously--is a motor vehicle.  A rental van to be exact--like was used by Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City and was used by the first World Trade Center attackers. 

More Americans die due to motor vehicle use than firearms every year.  Car crashes are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers.  More people are injured by vehicles every year than are injured by guns--even though there are more guns in the US than there are motor vehicles--by an estimated 50-million.  Now, they are more commonly being used for mass killings--especially in places that have taken great steps to limit all access to firearms.  And yet, no one in Canada or here in America will make a single suggestion to protect us from vehicles.  Perhaps it is because we have learned to accept the inherent risk in having motor vehicles in our society--even if very bad people use them to harm us--or very good people make mistakes in handling them.

That's a Bad Look

At first, I thought it was some kind of a joke.  LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers showed up for game three of their playoff series with the Indiana Pacers in Indianapolis Friday night with identical gray suits.  Identical all the way down to the pants legs failing to come to the top of the shoes.

In LeBron's case, the pants were a good four or five inches short--allowing you to see pretty much all of his dress socks.  What made it look even worse, was that he was wearing some kind of high-top boot--and the pants still weren't long enough.  So I figured that it was some kind of inside joke that would make the players and coaching staff laugh and relaxed for Friday night's game (which the Cavs still lost).

But then, my wife and I attended a "gala event" in Madison at Monona Terrace on Saturday night and what did I see but young guys wearing suits that also did not come to the top of their shoes.  They decided to "accent" this ludicrous look by wearing bright colored socks so that the pants length deficiency really stood out.

This is apparently the "new look"--looking like you don't know how to buy clothes that fit properly.  It was also at the "gala event" that I noticed that the suit jackets were way too short.  Gone is the cut that allowed you to just curl your fingers under the bottom of the coat.  The new "hip" style is to have the coat barely go past your waist--so that your butt sticks out of the bottom.  Add to that sleeves that don't even come to your wrist and you have the look of someone that is wearing his younger brother's suit because he doesn't have one.

The incredible "shrinking" of men's fashion actually started awhile ago with something called the "slim fit".  It played off of "skinny jeans" for women that somewhere, men decided would look good on them too.  But when you have actual thigh muscles, "slim fit" makes you feel like you are wearing compression tights instead of dress pants.  There is also the matter of "leaving nothing to the imagination" in another anatomical area that I won't get into much detail in this forum.

Hopefully, the "short suit" as I've taken to call it will be as much of a fad as the leisure suit and bell-bottoms were during the fashion disaster that was the 1970's and we can get back to looking like there isn't a world-wide fabric shortage going on that prevents tailors from using enough cloth to properly dress guys.

Baby On Board Everywhere

"History" was made yesterday as Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth brought her ten-day old infant daughter to the floor of the Senate to cast a vote.  Senate rules had to be amended for the occasion--as until now, children were barred from a place where representatives of the people vote on the most-important matters facing our nation.  Now, the place where Republican Senator Charles Sumner castigated Democrat Stephen Douglas over the immorality of slavery--and where Democrat Robert Byrd conducted a one-man, 14-hour filibuster of the Civil Rights Act is no different that the PlayLand at your local McDonald's.

Liberal women's groups would tell you that bans on children in the workplace are archaic attempts to keep females out of the workforce or to prevent them from advancing within the corporate structure.  But men too are bringing kids places they--plain and simple--don't belong.  Upscale restaurants, movie theaters, bars, theme parks--no longer do parents ask themselves "Does a baby (or a child of any age) really belong here?"

When a male Senator asked what if there are ten babies on the floor of the Senate someday--Senator Amy Klobuchur of Minnesota said "that would be wonderful".  Really?  Ten babies throwing a fit while the Senate is trying to debate something like gun control, or environmental policy would be "wonderful"?  Or would debate have to be stopped while the children are comforted or lulled back to sleep?

If anything, babies and kids in the Senate will become nothing more than props for the cameras of C-SPAN or the news channels.  "I have brought my three-year old grandson here today so that he can say he was here when the Senate passed this historic measure".  Or conversely, "If you vote for this bill you are ensuring that my 3-week old daughter will die a horrible death" will become "human talking points" for the theater that is modern politics.

Senator Duckworth has (for now) promised to spare her fellow lawmakers from dirty diaper changes inside the Chamber (which, when you think about it, would have actually been a fitting metaphor for modern politics).  If I was in the Senate, I would move to amend the rules to allow the use of noise-cancelling headphones--as those were invented for the sole purpose of drowning out the sound of crying babies and children that business travelers have had to put up with on airplanes.