The cars are gone from the parking lot where once it was always hard to find a space. The lights are out. Even the "Store Closing, "Everything Must Go," and the "Everything 30% to 50% Off" signs are gone now. Where there used to be a thriving bookstore and community hangout for book lovers, there's now just the darkened hulk of an empty building.
The bad news: The parent company that practically serves as a case study of corporate mismanagement -- from its acquisition by Kmart, through the corporate retailer's clueless bungling, through its spinoff as a series of ever less successful financial houses of cards -- went into Chapter 11 on Feb. 16, when it also announced the closing of 226 of its stores, including this one on University Ave., the bigger and seemingly more successful of two in Madison.
The good news (for some): A judge on Friday chose Earth Day to okay a plan for Borders Group Inc. to pay executives and other high-level employees more than $6 million in bonuses. You know, the usual stuff about the bonuses being necessary to keep key talent from jumping ship during bankruptcy. And so it goes.
The good news was that Amazon will allow Kindle users to borrow books from more than 11,000 U.S. libraries later this year through the libraries' Overdrive system. The Kindle was the only major e-reader that hadn't worked with the system. Now it will not only allow library patrons to read library ebooks on their Kindle, but they'll be able to write notes in the margins that only they can see, using Amazon's Whispersync technology. Other patrons won't see the notes, but when the person who wrote the notes takes the book out again (or chooses to buy it), the notes will be there for them.
The bad news that the Madison Public Library's new LINKcat electronic card catalog system was down all day and into the night (it still seems to be down as of this writing), just days after going live on Monday. But this was not the library's fault. Their website noted it was part of a much larger failure.
ALERT: LINKCAT HAS BEEN DOWN SINCE EARLY MORNING ON THURSDAY APRIL 21. THIS IS DUE TO A SERVER PROBLEM THAT IS AFFECTING HUNDREDS OF WEB SITES. WE WILL POST UPDATES TO THIS PAGE AS SOON AS WE HAVE THEM.
Cloud computing -- the idea of moving computing power and storage from the desktop to massive servers in the cloud has been sold recently to both individuals and corporations as a more reliable form of computing, because it provides 24/7 access from anywhere and supposedly reliable backup. But now organizations are and individuals are confronted by a dramatic example of the downside of cloud computing.
Me, I just want to be able to find out if the book I reserved the other day has come in.
We don't know how this thing will turn out. There have been so many crazy surprises and completely unexpected developments littering the Wisconsin political landscape this year that anything can happen. In a normal political year, with a normal election, a 7,000-plus vote margin would seem to be impregnable. As political scientists and other experts never tire of reminding us, recounts seldom shift more than a few hundred votes in an election like our Supreme Court race. But this is not a normal year, and there are too many unanswered questions that will never be answered without a recount -- and the special investigation Kloppenburg also requested.
JoAnne Kloppenburg made the right decision. The Prosser camp and their allies tried to mock and ridicule her into giving up her right to a recount, calling it a major waste of taxpayer money, but she called their bluff.
Justice Prosser's representatives have called efforts to clear up questions about this election a "drama" and a "circus." Actually, it's called American Democracy.
I shot this clip as a personal souvenir of what may turn out to be a historic moment, or perhaps just a footnote to history. Either way, JoAnne Kloppenburg is a courageous woman who has put principle above doing the easy thing. She'll now be confronted by the full fury of the right wing spin machine, and she needs our support. Click here for a video clip of her entire statement. Or you can download it here as a pdf.
Early news reports focused almost exclusively on Kloppenburg's call for a recall, which was her right under state law. But I was more intrigued by her call for an investigation.
I am also calling on the Government Accountability Board to appoint a special investigator to professionally, thoroughly and completely investigate the actions and conduct of of the Waukesha County Clerk.
A recount alone will not answer the questions that remain about what really happened in Waukesha County when Clerk Kathy Nickolaus "found" the extra votes that put her former boss, David Prosser, over the top.
An independent investigation needs to occur to get to the bottom of what the Clerk did, when and why. The timing of her various statements and actions including a day and a half delay in notifying any responsible party about a county vote total she knew to be incorrect, the absence of any reasonable basis for her explanations, the prior knowledge by conservative bloggers contrasted with the complete absence of knowledge by the canvas board until a press conference... all raise significant question's about the Clerk's conduct and her handling of the public trust. We must have a full and complete investigation by a trained and independent investigator.
Perhaps the investigation will answer another question that's been on my mind since this whole shabby affair came to light: Republicans usually want government to be managed in a more businesslike manner, yet in the business world somebody with the track record of apparent incompetence Nickolaus has accumulated over nearly a decade would have been fired long ago. Yet she has been reelected twice. Why does her particular form of incompetence make her so popular? Inquiring minds want to know.
One person was paid to be there Saturday -- the speaker who addressed the 500 or so Tea Party members who were bused in to the Capitol. Her speaking fee was said to be in the $100,000 range, but it's hard to say for sure, since the people who paid her aren't talking. After she spoke at a California state university campus about a year ago, documents that might answer the question were shredded.
Sarah Palin titled her memoir "Going Rogue," but Saturday she seemed more to be going Vogue -- that shimmering silvery thing she wore on stage seemed pretty fancy for the occasion. But then, if you're a speaker who pulls down a reported $100K for a canned micro-speech that runs well under half an hour, you do have a certain image to maintain. It was the crowd that went rogue. Vocal anti-Walker, anti-Palin and pro-union demonstrators far outnumbered the former Alaska governor's Tea Party audience and made their voices heard. Conservative estimates had the Tea Party outnumbered 5-1. More realistic estimates had them outnumbered 10-1.
You would never know from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's account, which, remarkably, contained no numbers, and which overemphasized the Tea Party at the expense of the people at the Capitol who were actually making themselves heard.
Madison — In the same venue where Gov. Scott Walker was pilloried for weeks, Sarah Palin on Saturday defended Walker's legislative move against public employee unions, excoriated President Barack Obama and even baited fellow Republicans.
The former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential nominee spoke outside the Capitol to a tea party rally and to drum-beating protesters, who were whipped by sleet and near-freezing temperatures nearly one month into spring.
By reducing the anti-Palin and anti-Walker crowd to a few "drum-beating protesters" the story totally distorts the tone of the event. Nice PR for Palin, but hardly good journalism. One more example of the decline of a once-great newspaper.
