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Posts tagged with wisconsin

UW–Syllabus

I was under the impression we were required to make our syllabi publicly available. However in response to an open records request from an allegedly conservative political group, the University of Wisconsin System says not so much:

UW officials contend that university course syllabi are not public records because they are subject to copyright, and therefore exempt from production under Wisconsin’s open records law.

“We’ve long held that those syllabi are not subject to open records requests,” said David Giroux, spokesman for the UW System. He confirmed that the schools the NCTQ queried did indeed deny the group’s requests for information.

Perhaps we are only required to make them available to the university community?

I always post the syllabi for my courses on my website.


1.5 Tons of Signatures Filed for Walker's Recall

1 million signatures. Looks like we’re going to do some more voting…

“It is beyond legal challenge,” said Ryan Lawler, vice chairman of United Wisconsin.

Living in Wisconsin has been great for my election day photography (via Wisconsin Forward).


Milwaukee City Hall

Milwaukee City Hall

3rd Street AKA Old World Third AKA Dr Martin Luther King Drive doesn’t touch Lake Drive. This has been bothering me for a while. Not to take anything away from Justin Vernon when Bon Iver, Bon Iver has been named Pitchfork’s Album of the Year, but just to provide a service to out of town listeners. Holocene might feature a “deliberately specific reference,” but to an imagined place (presumably located in Milwaukee). And of course, perhaps that’s the point. Anyways, I love Bon Iver, Bon Iver. I loved seeing the songs performed live this summer and I love listening to the album again and again… and again. A great choice by Pitchfork for album of the year. UPDATE: New Wave Polly Pocket reports that there is a “3rd and Lake” in Eu Claire, Wisconsin. Of course. Mystery solved. UDATE 2: Foiled by Instapapering? Justin Vernon on myths, mystery, meaning, and his triumphant self-titled album: Pitchfork: There are so many specific things from your life on this new album— like mentioning the house where Brad and Phil Cook lived in Wisconsin at Third and Lake on “Holocene”— what are they all communicating together? JV: I’m not sure how any images on a record fit together, but they are coming from a specific place. “Holocene” is a good example. The whole second verse is about those years in Eau Claire but the first verse is this weird amalgamation of the darkness that came with those times. I set that verse in Milwaukee because it’s a dark, beer-drunk place. Even though I didn’t spend a lot of time there, it’s a good metaphor for those darker times. And guess what adults do on Halloween in Milwaukee? They get blind drunk and try to forget about their childhoods. We were going through ideas for a video for “Holocene”, and we thought it should be adults trick-or-treating where children are handing out their past dreams. Pretty dark. The last verse fast-forwards to two Christmases ago, spending time with [brother/co-manager] Nate during an ice storm, smoking weed. They aren’t as subjective as songs I used to write, but they work together in a conglomerate sense. I feel like I need to slap a “myth busted” watermark on this image…

3rd Street AKA Old World Third AKA Dr Martin Luther King Drive doesn’t touch Lake Drive.

This has been bothering me for a while. Not to take anything away from Justin Vernon when Bon Iver, Bon Iver has been named Pitchfork’s Album of the Year, but just to provide a service to out of town listeners.

Holocene might feature a “deliberately specific reference,” but to an imagined place (presumably located in Milwaukee). And of course, perhaps that’s the point.

Anyways, I love Bon Iver, Bon Iver. I loved seeing the songs performed live this summer and I love listening to the album again and again… and again. A great choice by Pitchfork for album of the year.

UPDATE: New Wave Polly Pocket reports that there is a “3rd and Lake” in Eu Claire, Wisconsin. Of course. Mystery solved.

UDATE 2: Foiled by Instapapering? Justin Vernon on myths, mystery, meaning, and his triumphant self-titled album:

Pitchfork: There are so many specific things from your life on this new album— like mentioning the house where Brad and Phil Cook lived in Wisconsin at Third and Lake on “Holocene”— what are they all communicating together?

JV: I’m not sure how any images on a record fit together, but they are coming from a specific place. “Holocene” is a good example. The whole second verse is about those years in Eau Claire but the first verse is this weird amalgamation of the darkness that came with those times. I set that verse in Milwaukee because it’s a dark, beer-drunk place. Even though I didn’t spend a lot of time there, it’s a good metaphor for those darker times. And guess what adults do on Halloween in Milwaukee? They get blind drunk and try to forget about their childhoods. We were going through ideas for a video for “Holocene”, and we thought it should be adults trick-or-treating where children are handing out their past dreams. Pretty dark. The last verse fast-forwards to two Christmases ago, spending time with [brother/co-manager] Nate during an ice storm, smoking weed. They aren’t as subjective as songs I used to write, but they work together in a conglomerate sense.

I feel like I need to slap a “myth busted” watermark on this image…

“  When the flame is red, it’s warm weather ahead. When the flame is gold, watch out for cold. When the flame is blue, there’s no change in view. When there’s agitation, expect precipitation.” — Poem for the flame atop the Wisconsin Gas Light Building (via Molly Snyder)

Does Wisconsin Require Apple Pie to Be Served with Cheese?

Nope. But…

The 1935 Laws of Wis., ch. 106 came close; it required serving a small amount of cheese and butter with meals in restaurants (effective from June 1935 to March 1937). … that was the first Wisconsin law with a sunset provision, i.e. a legislated ending time.

BTW, Apple pie and cheddar cheese is awesome.


MKE Love from London Newspaper

The Guardian: “Milwaukee: Chicago’s cool baby sister.”


Wisconsin 2010 Gubernatorial and 2011 State Senate Recall Elections In sports, I’m against the idea of a moral victory. But I don’t think the Wisconsin Democrats earned a moral victory yesterday. Across the 6 state senate districts, the Democratic challengers facing incumbents took an average of 2.33 percentage points off of the vote share that Scott Walker won in 2010 in the face of Barack Obama’s approval numbers going from 47% in November 2010 to 41% this week (according to Gallup). National conditions don’t suggest a favorable climate for Democrats right now. This wasn’t a random sample of Wisconsin districts. The deck was stacked against the Democratic challengers by current national forces, by the presumed quality of the incumbents that were being faced (Republicans who won elections in the Democratic climate of 2008), and the relatively conservative nature of the districts they were competing in. The Democrats might not have taken control of the State Senate, but they certainly over-performed reasonable expectations we might have had for them. N.B. I grabbed this bit of data from Craig Gilbert who runs a table heavy, but still great blog about Wisconsin politics. UPDATE See also Charles Franklin who looks like he has more precise data which suggest that districts 8 and 10 were also both districts that improved for the Democrats. UPDATE 2 The New York Times gets it.

Wisconsin 2010 Gubernatorial and 2011 State Senate Recall Elections

In sports, I’m against the idea of a moral victory. But I don’t think the Wisconsin Democrats earned a moral victory yesterday. Across the 6 state senate districts, the Democratic challengers facing incumbents took an average of 2.33 percentage points off of the vote share that Scott Walker won in 2010 in the face of Barack Obama’s approval numbers going from 47% in November 2010 to 41% this week (according to Gallup). National conditions don’t suggest a favorable climate for Democrats right now.

This wasn’t a random sample of Wisconsin districts. The deck was stacked against the Democratic challengers by current national forces, by the presumed quality of the incumbents that were being faced (Republicans who won elections in the Democratic climate of 2008), and the relatively conservative nature of the districts they were competing in. The Democrats might not have taken control of the State Senate, but they certainly over-performed reasonable expectations we might have had for them.

N.B. I grabbed this bit of data from Craig Gilbert who runs a table heavy, but still great blog about Wisconsin politics.

UPDATE See also Charles Franklin who looks like he has more precise data which suggest that districts 8 and 10 were also both districts that improved for the Democrats.

UPDATE 2 The New York Times gets it.

Vote Today.

Vote Today.