My lucky Solidarity Tee does its job and comes through for JoAnne Kloppenburg

When I went to bed last night I kept on the lucky Solidarity Tee that helped her close the gap. She still was behind by 576, as I recall. By the time I checked my computer this morning she was up by a couple hundred, only awaiting the "Late Mills" tally. When the count came in, Prosser only picked up 2 additional votes, and her lead held up.

What an amazing tribute to all the people who fought so hard and turned out at the polls. When will it sink in on the Republicans how much Fitzwalker really cost them? With control of both houses of legislature, and conservative Supreme Court for good measure, Wisconsin was theirs to redistrict. Now we're three recalls away from redistricting going to liberal Supreme Court. Kiss Wisconsin goodbye in 2012, Republicans!

The recount is bound to be contentious, but our "Katherine Harris" is Democratic Secretary of State Doug La Follette. And since Wisconsin has relatively clean election -- Republican spin to the contrary -- election results tend to hold up in recounts.

I'll be wearing my Solidarity Tee as needed, just to make sure.

Does this look like a person to you? Me neither. Local voters agree, pass referendums by huge margins.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United, corporations are "persons" with free speech rights that can't be regulated -- not only that, but "persons" on steroids, since there are restrictions on political giving by real, live people. We saw how that worked last fall, when a flood of corporate money -- including lots of money from the Koch brothers, both directly and indiretly through "third party" advertising -- helped turn the tide for Scott Walker and Ron Johnson.

Does the Constitution need to be amended to overturn the Supreme Court decision? Yesterday that question was put to voters in two local referendums.

Voters in the city of Madison and Dane County are among those who saw a referendum question asking whether they support amending the U.S. Constitution. The question asked voters whether they support amending the U.S. Constitution to no longer recognize corporate political spending as free speech. The wording varies on the ballots, with different language crafted by the Common Council and county board. The referendum isn't binding.

In the city of Madison, voters supported the referendum with 84 percent voting yes. In Dane County, voters also voted yes on the referendum, with 132,236 votes in support and 37,893 against it.

The local referendums were part of a national effort, Move to Amend, that seeks to overturn the legal doctrine that corporations are "persons." Looks like we're off to a good start.

My favorite of the films we saw at the Wisconsin Film Festival was "Bill Cunningham New York"

"Bill Cunningham New York" was my personal favorite of the films T and I saw at the Wisconsin Film Festival.

I gave it a "5" on my tear-out Audience Award Ballot. Enjoyed it on so many levels. Among other things, watching the 80-plus-year-old Cunningham tool around the streets of New York on his Schwinn is a great reminder that you're only as old as you think you are.

Cunningham is the last staff photographer at the New York Times to shoot film, and since he was well into his seventies when newspapers started converting to digital, he would seem to be entitled.

To watch him dance around his subjects with his Nikon FM2 is a lesson in why some people still prefer mechanical film cameras to digital. The FM2 is no longer made, but it was a relatively inexpensive Nikon that took the full range of Nikon lenses. Most pros used the much more expensive F series, but a few used the FM2 as a second body, as it was small and tough and durable and would still work if the battery for the meter died. For Cunningham, it was all he ever needed or wanted after stepping up from the Olympus Pen F half-frame with which he started taking photos of street fashion.

Still going strong in his eighties, and still using a bicycle to get around the city, Cunningham is a joy to watch working because of his obvious delight in what he does and the deftness with which he captures his vision. The camera supports his working style perfectly. There is no digital lag. There's also no lag for metering and focusing. He's shown shooting with what looks like a 35mm medium wide angle lens that he has prefocused. All he has to do is bring the camera to his eye and instantly click the shutter. It's real "decisive moment" street shooting.

At night, at the charity events and society galas he also photographs for the Times, his working method is equally simple and effective. He doesn't bother with high ISO film, wide open aperture shooting with all the depth of field issues that creates. He simply stops down to a medium aperture and shoots with a small, handheld off-camera flash.

He's insistent on getting his vision into print exactly the way he sees it. It's fun watching him bully his art director into laying out his photos on the computer exactly the way he wants them. The rest of the time, whether on the streets of New York or documentating the rich and famous, he has a disarming personal modesty. When he calls the film lab, this man whose photos are awaited eagerly each week by thousands of people around the world says, "I'm the guy who comes on a bike. You're developing some film for me..."

"Bill Cunningham New York" just went into limited theatrical release, so maybe it will come back to Madison. If not, you should be able to see it soon in video or on Netflix. It's treat for anyone interested in graceful aging, fashion, street photography, the New York Times, photography and/or all of the above. And to give it added timeliness, there's that funny business about David Koch.

I'm with the Zombies: We cannot rest in peace as long as Scott walks all over Wisconsin

I loved the Zombie Walk Against Walker in Madison Saturday. It was truly poignant to see all these tormented souls in their desperate search for brains in a state whose Republican leadership seems to have none.

We're coming up on one big election Tuesday. If you haven't voted absentee already, be sure to make it to the polls Tuesday. The choice is clear. As the Zombie on the right points out, there are two possible courses of action. You can come alive April 5 and vote for Kloppenburg. Or you can vote Republican (a vote for Prosser is a vote for Walker in this nonpartisan election) because personal responsibility is for other people.

Want to see more Zombies? Check out my Flickr set.

David Koch's worlds collide at Film Festival. Anger in Fitzwalkerstan -- what the booing was about.

David Koch exists in two different worlds. One is Fitzwalkerstan, where he is reviled as the rich puppet master advancing a crude right wing agenda by financing such proxies as Scott Walker and the Tea Party. Then there's the world of New York City, where he lives and has until recently been widely respected as a civilized patron of the arts and culture and also a generous donor to cancer research. The two worlds intersected briefly at the Thursday night screening of "Bill Cunningham New York" at the Wisconsin Film Festival.

The documentary focuses on photographer Bill Cunningham, 80-plus and still going strong, whose street fashion photos have appeared in the New York Times for more than 30 years. He also photographs charity galas for the Times. At one of these charity events, it might have been at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I'm not sure, Cunningham -- who seems to get on well with people from all walks of life -- is introduced to David Koch and starts to take photographs of him with other charity patrons. Then there's a cut to the pages of the Times, where there's a whole layout of Cunningham's photos of Koch meeting and greeting fellow members of New York high society.

As it dawned on the audience what they were looking at, a chorus of hisses and boos erupted -- aimed not at Cunningham, whom the audience loved, but at Koch. It was a strange moment. A couple years ago, when the film was shot, few people outside New York had ever heard of David Koch, and those who had were mostly unaware of his politics. When the film was made, this brief passage was just another example of Cunningham's working life amidst the New York glitterati. Now events -- not in the city where it was shot, but in the city where it was being screened -- have given it a political significance that scarcely existed before.

Who knows? Maybe one of these days David Koch be facing boos in New York as well.

Meg Hamel talks about Bill Cunningham, obsession and the Wisconsin Film Festival

In introducing "Bill Cunningham New York" last night, Wisconsin Film Festival Director Meg Hamel ays you didn't have to be into fashion to enjoy the documentary about the New York Times photojournalist and photographer of street fashion. Hamel says she enjoys it as a documentary about the 80-plus-year-old Cunningham's obsession with his art. She also notes how obsession seems to be a theme of a number of documentaries at the Festival. I loved the movie, will post more about it when I get a moment.