Here in Wisconsin we measure snow in Walker Recall Units

Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the Recall's so delightful,
And since a Million wrote "No!"
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Got 4-7 WRUs today. More on its way the next few days. Good omen!

"Balanced" media reporting gave Scott Walker a free ride in the 2010 election. Will the same thing happen in the recall?

The signatures have been turned in. A million Wisconsin voters have demonstrated that the more they learn about Scott Walker, the less they like him. They don't want him as their governor anymore.

Actually, if voters statewide had known a little more about the real Scott Walker, he probably would not have been elected. But 2010 was the year of Obama fatigue and a bad year for Democrats in general. The the state's mainstream media didn't help -- especially their "on the one hand, and on the other hand" style of "balanced" reporting. Making the difference between truth and falsehood a mere matter of opinion, or equating minor exaggerations with major whoppers, tends to put both sides on an even footing, giving unscrupulous politicians like Scott Walker -- and Joe McCarthy many years before -- a free ride.

Scott Walker did not campaign on a union-busting agenda. There were union members who voted for him in good faith. And some people who weren't union members but nevertheless believed in fairness and collective bargaining also voted for him. His actions came as a total shock to many of the people who voted for him, even though they came as no surprise to the people who had been following Walker and knew his track record. This widespread feeling of betrayal is why Wisconsin is going to hold its first gubernatorial recall election. The failure of the state's mainstream media to probe deeply enough before the election helped pave the way.

One of the most egregious examples of this was this big cover story about the gubernatorial race in Isthmus several weeks before the election by Bill Lueders and Jack Craver, titled Tom Barrett and Scott Walker are lying! Our candidates for governor say the other can't be trusted. Our analysis confirms it. It was not one of the Madison weekly's shining moments.

The article had a veneer of scrupulous objectivity in treating both candidates as equally given to prevaricating and by portraying them as pragmatic centrists who would govern from the middle no matter what they said about each other. I thought the "they're politicians; they're all liars -- what do you expect?" tone was juvenile, superficial and sensationalistic. The story seemed irresponsible, given the real differences in the two candidates that anyone who researched Walker's and Barrett's careers in any depth would have known.

Everyone knows the American public has a low opinion of politicians. What's sometimes overlooked is why. And the biggest reason is the politicians themselves — not what they do, necessarily, but what they say about each other.

Take, for example, Tom Barrett, the Democratic nominee for Wisconsin governor. This is what he says about his Republican rival, in TV ads: "Scott Walker: Can't trust him with our money; can't trust him to tell the truth."

Probably can't trust him around little old ladies either. He might accost them on the sidewalk to steal their marble rye.

The first paragraph is downright wrong. The biggest reason the public has a low opinion of politicians is not because they say nasty things about their opponents (that's often sort of fun to watch, if truth be told -- take the hapless GOP presidential candidates and their endless debates, for example). The public has a low opinion of politicians because they don't keep their promises and all too often sell out to the highest bidder. Sound like anybody you know?

I don't know about stealing bread from "little old ladies" -- but Walker certainly took away healthcare and pension benefits that had been agreed to in good faith in collective bargaining. And then he took away collective bargaining, as well. Not bad for the "career politician" who was "unlikely to fundamentally revamp state government."

In truth, neither Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett nor Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is a confident visionary with a plan to solve all of the state's woes. And neither is a bumbling incompetent of low moral character.

Both, rather, are career politicians who've mostly played it safe and can claim only modest achievements. Neither is likely to fundamentally revamp state government or find painless solutions to endemic problems, as they promise.

Now the governor who wasn't really going to change much of anything is headed for a recall election. Why? Well, some people really like him a lot. Some people think he's really terrible.

That's the impression I get from reading The Polarizer: A look at what makes Scott Walker tick in the Wednesday Capital Times -- again by Bill Lueders. This time he's not comparing candidates. Instead, he reports competing Republican and Democratic views on Walker's character and governing style, quoting numerous politicians in both parties, friend and foe. Some say he's courageous and visionary. Some say he's stubborn and unwilling to compromise. Etc., etc. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but once again, it's a kind of faux even-handedness that focuses on competing opinions with very little reporting about the underlying facts. For example, Lueders quotes State Sen. Glenn Grothman.

Grothman alleges that Democrats are creating a false sense of crisis over what he feels are reasonable reforms. All that's really happened, he contends, is that some public employees, himself included, have had to take a "mild cut in take-home pay."

Sure, some school district administrators are complaining. But Grothman can't remember a time when they weren't. What's new, he says, is that he's heard from a few superintendents who are optimistic about the future.

What are "some school administrators" complaining about? What's been the real impact of the Walker budget on local schools? Who's so "optimistic," and why? The article doesn't say.

Reader J provided another dramatic example in the comments. (Thanks, J -- I missed it at the time.) This is an editorial in the Capital Times 6 weeks before the election: Two honorable men: Barrett and Walker. Read it and weep. What were they thinking?

I like Isthmus and the Capital Times. They are liberal media in Madison's most liberal city. They're hardly pro-Walker. Other media, especially the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, played a much larger role in Walker's victory in 2010. But all the mainstream media in Wisconsin were guilty of under-reporting the real differences between an extremist Republican with a secret agenda passing himself off as a moderate and his opponent, a Democratic politician who really was a moderate.

When Walker's policies provoked an unprecedented grassroots uprising, the mainstream media were caught by surprise and have been playing catch-up ever since. Twitter, Facebook, other new media and citizen journalists have all played a growing role in covering the protests and the recall movement.

But new media can't do it all, and once the recall campaign begins, the mainstream media will once again play a pivotal role. Scott Walker will have a huge financial advantage. Will he be able to buy his reelection? How the media cover the campaign will help decide that question. I hope they've learned from the last time around.

What Walker didn't know about librarians and other thugs

I took this photo during the protests last March. A lot has changed since then. The recall petitions have been turned in. The thugs have spoken.

What Scott Walker never understood was that when you threaten librarians, you don't just threaten librarians; you threaten their families, their friends and neighbors,and all the people who respect and rely on them for the services they provide. When you threaten teachers, you don't just threaten teachers and their families; you threaten the children they teach, their parents and grandparents and their friends. When you threaten other public employees, you don't just threaten them; you threaten the entire community. When you bust unions, you threaten all workers. And when you threaten to cut medical care for the poor and their children, you threaten the fabric of decency that holds our society together.

It all adds up to a lot of people -- far more than the million who signed the recall petitions. Scott Walker takes comfort from the fact that (slightly) more people voted for him than signed the petitions. He shouldn't. After all, far more people voted for California Gov. Gray Davis than signed petitions to recall him, but he lost the recall election to Arnold Schwarzenegger nevertheless.

Scott Walker still doesn't understand, but he will eventually. There are just too many thugs.

For most of us, $374,327 in speaking fees would be a nice annual income. For some of us, it's "not very much."

It's time to get rid of SOPA and PIPA and start over. And first, actually read the Constitution.

I hadn't realized the Wikipedia blackout to protest SOPA and PIPA was starting right on the dot at midnight, so I encountered it within minutes of the site going dark while trying to check something out (among other things, the action made me aware of just how often I use Wikipedia during the average day, what an essential function it has come to provide.) I immediately sent off emails to my congressional peeps, though I couldn't get through to Sen. Ron Johnson then, and still can't now. I keep getting this message -- "Sorry, the web page you have requested is experiencing technical difficulties" -- which I guess is a message itself.

The protest is definitely having an impact. Sen. Marco Rubio announced he would no longer support the act he had cosponsored. Others seemed sure to follow. Meanwhile, RIAA, which has lobbied heavily for the bills along with MPAA, sent out a breathtakingly obnoxious, misspelled tweet and dug its head further into the sand.

Sure, Internet piracy is a problem, but SOPA and PIPA aren't the solution. Remember the Vietnam-era phrase "We had to destroy the village to save it"? Hollywood and the recording industry seem to be saying, "We have to destroy the Internet to fix it." And the problem is largely created by their own foot-dragging response to technological change.

If sheet music publishers had taken the same approach to technological innovation as RIAA and MPAA, the recording industry would never have gotten off the ground in the first place. After all, why buy sheet music for your piano when you can just play a recording?

We need to get back to the intent of the Constitution, which authorized copyrights and patents in the first place.

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

We've gotten further and further from that balance between the rights of creators and the needs of society as a whole. ("Limited times" has also been stretched beyond recognition.) As a result, intellectual property law today primarily protects the rights of corporations rich enough to throw their weight around in perpetuity.

In contrast, we should once again "promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts," as the Founding Fathers intended. The Internet should not be held hostage to corporate greed.

Of course it snowed in Madison the day they turned in the signatures of 1 million Wisconsin voters to recall Walker

The grassroots uprising against Scott Walker and his Republican majority in the legislature began 11 months ago in the snows of 2011. Appropriately enough, it snowed in Madison today, the day 1 million signatures are being turned in to recall Gov. Scott Walker -- along with Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four state senators, including Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. A heartfelt "thank you" to everyone who helped make this possible -- with a special shoutout to Lori Compas, without whose efforts Fitzgerald would not have been recalled.

United Wisconsin called this the most participated-in recall effort in American history. It's not hard to see why. The successful drive to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in California, which eventually propelled Arnold Schwarzenegger into office, drew less than a quarter as many signatures relative to state population.

In the first heady days of the Walker revolution, his supporters dreamed of his being nominated the GOP vice presidential candidate and perhaps president someday. Now, a year later, he's looking at the ashes of his political career. Poetic justice for the man who became Milwaukee County Executive following the recall of the previous incumbent. Funny, he wasn't talking about out-of-state recall support back then. He was talking about the will of the people. Now he's facing the wrath of the people.

What goes around comes around. Today we're giving Scott Walker his layoff notice.

Scott Walker has always been better at talking a good game than playing it, better at killing jobs than creating them, and now it's his own that's on the line.

There already were protests against Walker when I took this photo on Nov. 20, 2010 -- less than three weeks after his election, and more than a month before he was inaugurated. He wasn't even governor yet, but he had already provoked a day of statewide protest against his determination to turn down $800 billion in federal money for high-speed rail -- along with all the jobs that money would have created. Other states that would receive the money instead were vocal in their thanks.

Walker bulled ahead even before taking office. He so cowed outgoing Gov. Doyle that he didn't even try to seal the deal in his remaining days in office but instead put the rail project on hold. After that, it was just a formality for Gov. Walker to turn down the funds officially. It was a foretaste iof what Walker would go on to do in his first year in office. At the time, it was hard to imagine what he could do that was worse than turning down $800 million in free money. But with his blitzkrieg union-busting budget offensive Walker showed he knew exactly what he could do that was worse, and he did.

But he and his Republican cronies underestimated the people. Last summer we recalled two Republican state senators. Today signatures are being turned in for the recall of four more, including the majority leader, and it just takes one victory to take back the senate. And for the first time in Wisconsin history, the required signatures and then some are being turned in to force the recall of both Gov. Walker and Lt. Gov. Kleefisch.

Scott Walker is getting his layoff notice today. Sure, the severance formalities will take awhile to work out, but the search is on for his successor, and it's just a matter of time.

It's true: You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

On to the election!

MLK Day 2012: The choice is as clear as it ever was

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. -- Martin Luther King Jr., "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

I spent a haunting morning at Arlington National Cemetery several years ago. In front of these poignant reminders of the tragic toll taken by this nation's wars, I came across these dead leaves that had fallen next to a new acorn. They seemed symbolic of the basic choice faced by America as a nation. We can choose life, or we can choose death.

On the day that we honor Dr.King, people frequently quote from his "I Have a Dream" speech, and it's undoubtedly one of the great speeches. But repetition has worn off some of the edges. It's often invoked as a platitudinous call to universal brotherhood without reference to the social injustice Dr. King was addressing. The Riverside speech is less frequently quoted and has not suffered the same fate. It was a tough speech at the time, one that lost him the support of much of white America when he bluntly warned that the U.S. could not win the fight for social justice at home while waging endless war abroad. It's still a tough speech. The choice is clear. We can choose life, or we can choose death.

If you've never heard the speech, you can hear it at the link. If you have heard it before, listen again. It's a powerful reminder of the challenges we continue to face today.

Pioneering photojournalist who today is remembered only as a best-selling writer of fiction (and as a rich socialist)

Jack London's fame now rests mainly on his fiction. "Call of the Wild" has never gone out of print. But in his time he was also known not only for his colorful lifestyle, but for his photojournalism. He was also an accomplished photographer, and his photos appeared with his stories in newspapers all over the world. This is from "The People of the Abyss," a pioneering book of photojournalism published in 1903 about the London poor. London became rich from his writing and was also a socialist, but he was no limousine liberal -- he had been poor in his youth, and he had an easy personal rapport with the poor, a visceral human sympathy, that other photographic chroniclers lof the time acked. He lived among the poor, spent nights walking the city streets with them and spent a night in a workhouse. These men are sleeping in a park early in the morning after walking all night so as not to be arrested for vagrancy. London left thousands of prints and negatives, and some of the best are collected in Jack London, Photographer.

One of the biggest stories covered by Jack London the photojournalist was right in his own backyard. His photos of the San Francisco earthquake were striking compositions by someone who was photographing familiar scenes rendered surreal and chaotic by the tragedy. Many were reprinted all over the world.

Yet today, few remember London's work as a photographer. His prints are stored in the Huntington Library, and his negatives are stored by the California State Parks system in the Sonoma Barracks. Authors Jeanne Campbell Reesman, Sara S. Hodson and Philip Adam have performed a real service by rescuing some of London's photographs from the dustbin of history and making them accesible to the public.

Snowboat

Winter the way it's supposed to be. Wingra Boats, Madison.