Build the Fence!

We're spending bajillions to build a fence to paper over the symptom of people sneaking in because of our broken employment laws. Personally, I'd rather the feds fix the root cause but that is off point.

The point is if you are going to build a fence, use a design different from the one highlighted in the two videos in linked to from this article. 18 friggin seconds to the top with nothing but hands and feet. Unbelievable.

Green Bay 2012 Districts

Here are the initial proposals. New direction has already been provided to the county planners from what I'm hearing. My understanding is that the next iterations should start downtown and work out from there. None of these county supervisory map proposals include city council incumbent addresses. I mean, cmon, how hard is it to do that courtesy for the largest municipality within the county?

Alders from some districts are already run ragged-- especially in the near downtown districts where buildings are older, resident turnover is higher and education levels are lower-- there are weeks that Alders end up spending more hours on council work, constituent services, outreach and doing the necessary monitoring to stay on top of what's going on at city hall than they do or would do on a full time job. It happens in fits and starts but some weeks those with full time day jobs are doing pretty much nothing but work from morning til night. When done right, I'm positive that serving on the Green Bay City Council easily violates minimum wage laws.

The mayor apparently has a different perspective and sent a letter to the county board requesting that the city council be reduced to 11 districts. Consensus among the councilfolk I happened to chat with so far seems to be to increase the size of the council by two to 14 and bump the board up by three. People want to maintain the same districts for the city and county. Why? DeWane, Nicholson, Theisen, Haefs, Zima, Buckly, and VanderLeest both serve or have served on both and like the old way because you can win two jobs by campaigning in one district. I think it's stupid but it's a political reality and no one with the required political juice has the will or, in my view, wisdom to work to change it. Personally, I say who cares what the county districts look like the city should just draw it's own and the county can, if it chooses, adopt those.

Earth Week in Green Bay

Get out there and do something for the future generations who will use this little blue marble we all share. Maybe we'll see each other at an event.

Long Life and Sugar

Walter Breuning died the other day. According to Guinness, he was the oldest living person. Seems like he was an interesting fellow. One of his suggestions for long life was to eat only two meals a day.

I'd like to know how much sugar he ate.

Jim

My friend Jim loves bicycle physics and teaches Engineering for U.W. Stout through NWTC. If you want to learn how to design and build physical things, Jim's the guy I recommend you talk to.

Patch Tuesday

Yesterday was the most recent occurrence of what has become known in the I.T. industry as Patch Tuesday. There look to be some pretty bad security holes plugged by today's release. If you are a Windows user a trip to windowsupdate.microsoft.com is in order.

Evolution of Cities

A friend from the Detroit area once said to me, "We all say we're from Detroit but nobody actually lives, you know, in Detroit." I thought he was exaggerating. Maybe not, this is brilliant work. Think of those red areas where, "everyone left". Empty houses rotting. Billions (trillions?) of taxpayer purchased infrastructure going unused. While Green Bay isn't perfect, I'm glad that our city pays attention to and works to prevent downtown and near downtown abandonment.

Life can be hard...

...even for the rich. Obviously different people focus on different perceived problems but everyone feels uncertainty and doubt. I suppose a given brain has a certain capacity for worry and suspect the focus of that worry generally moves along a hierarchy as more basic needs are met or unmet.

I find myself thinking of the Serenity Prayer.

Kindness and Honesty

My mom shared a lesson with me she learned while serving in the USAF, "It's better to be kind than that right." Frankly, I agree. But what about when pressed and kindness and honesty there is a conversational fork in the road? My view is that honesty has to win out, no matter the hurt feelings.

This guy isn't dissembling away from being unkind, he's endorsing mass lying to tear down other perspectives. The culture wars are alive and well. Politics execution is built on finding common ground amongst the majority and move the legislative ball forward. You don't have to agree with other peoples perspectives, but it's simply intolerant to not bother to understand and appreciate why they hold those beliefs. There is a huge difference between honest grass roots activism and astroturf. Even the name American Majority attempts to imply that those who disagree are somehow less American. The rich are funding this crap and honest conservatives are getting sucked in to this movement to tear down basic economic stabilizers and supports for the poor.

Pickles and Peanut-Butter

Everyone advises waiting a little longer but, but, but, I'm so excited! Aside from a pickle and peanut-butter sandwich or two the dietary shifts aren't so strange. Nugget seems to like what daddy likes, especially chocolate milk.