Speed Gibson

Who Closed the Schools?

Did all those Wisconsin schools have to close late last week in response to the wildcat "sick out" the unions staged?  I'd like to think most teachers are better than this, staying at their post, enough present to preclude physical closure of the buildings.  I'm sure there were financial reasons involved as well, but not enough to keep Superintendent Speed from trying to keep my schools open.

I'd double and triple up the classes as necessary, and bring in every substitute in my Rolodex.  If some teachers has the temerity to question or complain, I'd tell them to take it up with their missing peers.

Later I'd send specific letters to the parents.  "Your child's teacher was among many who failed to report to work last Thursday and Friday.  As of yet, she has yet to provide a verifyable excuse or reason for her absence.  We apologize for this abbrogation of the trust you place in us.  And even though we did what we could with limited staff, we will obviously need to extend the school year to make up the academic time lost ..."  And to be fair: "We thought you should know that while you child's teacher was here as scheduled last week, we had no choice but to impose a consolidated class of 68 students on her to cover the as yet unexcused absences of other teachers ..."

Finally, I'd send this to the press: "We have hired Nero Wolfe to oversee an investigation of the large number of medical notes submitted with similar handwriting.  We intend to follow through where fraud or breach of contract is indicated, including the appropriate referrals to the state medical authorities."

 

Reviewing: MPR's Morning Edition

I last reviewed Morning Edition not quite five years ago.  The format of this 4 AM to 9 AM program hasn't changed, the first two hours basically just the national NPR feed and a little local weather.  And what I wrote then largely applies today.  But there was one big change: quality, as in down.  Let me give you a few examples.

One story told of a study of Gulf area victims of the BP oil spill.  They were stressed and anxious, clearly needing professional mental health professionals to help them.  Not mentioned was that many of these residents are out of work from an arbitrary Presidential order, in defiance of a court order in fact.  That the economy hasn't responded in general to the President's economic agenda was also not mentioned.  They need jobs, not grief counselors.

Another story about the Congressional battle over spending cuts focused almost entirely on closing tax loopholes (more revenue) and defense cuts.  What a surprise - not!  A later related story of President Obama's proposal to limit the charity deduction for high income filers pointed out that people also worried that Reagan's tax changes would depress giving, which it didn't.  The apple and orange detail overlooked was that Reagan was cutting taxes, with the top rates falling into the 28-31% range.  Yes, this reduced the net deduction, but you still paid less tax.  You could afford to be more generous and many were.  Under Obama's proposal, you'll simply have less cash, and no marginal discount on big donations.  Some discussion of the Alternative Minimum Tax should also have been included.

A feature on some Australian island claimed that Man-Made Global Warming (MMGW) would eventually put it under water, MMGW being unchallenged "settled science" to this reporter.  A later story claimed that storms increased in intensity the past 10 years, and that "thousands of computer simulations" ... "linked this to [MMGW]."  This is dishonest reporting, especially given the recent scandal of faked data.  The claim of increased intensity is also suspect in that no prior such claim has been found to have any basis in fact.  (That phrase "thousands of computer simulations" is very telling even from a journalism perspective.  Where's the editor / gatekeeper?)

Speaking of what BIll Kling called "credible, accurate news coverage," that fourth Borders store to be closed is in Maple Grove, not Maplewood.  Google it! 

The story of Florida walking away from one of President Obama's high speed rail projects had a tone of "What's Wrong with Kansas" incredulity throughout.  Why, even some Republicans were in shock when the Governor Scott said no!  It was a slap in Obama's face! 

I'll stop here, but I noted three more examples like the above, in just this one day.  "No rant, no slant!" claims host Cathy Wurzer.  "No clue, all skew" would be closer to the truth.  And there's another problem I noticed after listening to a detailed report on the Egyptian situation.  Yes, it was a bit naive about the role and future of the Muslim Brotherhood whom they portrayed like a college fraternity.  But otherwise, it was a good, comprehensive report.  The problem?  It was stale - old news, all of it a good three days old.  I learned nothing.  In my 2006 review I noted this as well, that after reading the newspaper, Morning Edition adds very little more to what you read, the least of the other morning news/talk programs I reviewed then.

Nothing showed this better than the fracas in Wisconsin.  On Feb 17th, Morning Edition had nothing but a headline until the 7 am hour, and they didn't get the story right until near the end of the show at 9 am.  Mostly this was Cathy Wurzer trying to adlib around the pre-recorded story and the pledge week activity.  Even her headlines were not consistent on this story.  As in 2006, I again find Cathy Wurzer just not good enough for radio, even public radio.

Compare these two 4.5 minute segments with what Bob Davis provided the next morning.  He had sparkling, informative interviews with a Milwaukee newspaper editorial writer (11 minutes) and a Milwaukee talk radio host (and former teacher) (9 minutes).  Tom Emmer and callers (some liberal) added still more insight.  The MPR focus was on the protests, which Davis correctly notes always seems to obsess the media, from Cairo to Madison.  KTLK looked at the whole issue: the history, current situation, and the numbers themselves.  MPR did "he said, she said" reporting from the protest.  Davis and guests read the bill.

I truly was expecting better.  But all I heard was an operation going through the motions, thinking that their calm delivery of thin stories is enough.  My grade this year: an unqualified F.

 

Law Enforcement

I have a question.  Suppose Wisconsin does enact a law limiting their public unions' collective bargaining to wages only, up to the inflation rate.  How do you enforce this?  You as a school board offer the teachers union the maximum raise, i.e. whatever the Cost of Living index allows.  They quietly say no publicly but let it be known privately that the change to benefit A or work rule B is unacceptable to them.  What do you do?  Can you impose a penalty for inactivity, like Obamacare does?

Bear in mind also that we're dealing with people like the Wisconsin 14, who quit the game when it suits their cause.  If the union stages a wild cat strike mid year, are you willing to fire everyone and rebuild, the students idled for weeks?  The protests in Madison will escalate with large contingents of rented support brought in.

Instead, maybe we should focus on what we can enforce, like eliminating the automatic payroll deduction of union dues.  Even I question the propriety of limiting the scope of collective bargaining, but this reform is proper and overdue.  The collecting of dues should be the responsibility of the union, not the public.  The union would have to listen more closely to its members.  The rank and file are certainly not 100% DFL but the current system allows the leadership to act as if they are.  Maybe some discussions as to whether some subjects should pay better than others might finally come up.

OK, I'll admit it.  I also like the idea of the union leadership having to learn another private sector concept: Accounts Receivable.

 

We Have Spoken

A drive on Main Street in Maple Grove takes you past two large stores going out of business.  Ultimate Electronics is liquidating outright.  Borders Bookstores is reorganizing under bankruptcy protection, closing many under-performing stores including four of its seven Twin Cities locations, including Maple Grove.

Ultimate Electronics is the latest Best Buy competitor to fall, something that puzzles me and many others I know.  Highland Electronics salespeople were the best, most product knowledgeable I can remember.  Best Buy has continually taken the opposite track.  Ultimate's staff was also better trained and its prices comparable.  Even Circuit City was a tad better in my humble opinion.  But Highland, Circuit City, and now Ultimate are gone, leaving the redoubtable Best Buy the winner.

As I said, I'm puzzled, but that's all.  It was a fair fight.  The market has spoken.  We, the consumers, have spoken.  We were not willing to pay the higher prices it would have taken to keep the others profitable.  Contrast this with our public schools.

Many of us live in cities served by multiple public school districts or otherwise have several "competing" schools nearby.  If one of them falls out of public favor, does one of them close?  Can we take our business elsewhere?  Just asking.

 

Take My Union, Please!

May I ask why Wisconsin public school teachers felt it necessary to lie to their employers about being sick, then risk being spotted protesting in Madison?  Yes, the leglislation being proposed by the newly elected Republican majorities and Governor will have a significant effect on them.  It is a net pay cut and it makes further negotations for pay increases more difficult.  And while both sides are engaging in word games, yes, it is union-busting.  But again, why was it deemed so necessary to react in person?  Where was the union?

Were I a member of this union, I would want to know how my union allowed this situation to develop in the first place.  It is expected practice and strategy for public employee unions to control both sides of the bargaining table and historically nobody has done this better than the public school teachers unions.  But now in Wisconsin, once so reliably a blue state, the birthplace of ASCFME, that has suddenly come undone.  Another thing that has come undone is the schools themselves.  Milwaulkee's black Fourth graders score lowest in the country.

In just two years, the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) and AFT-Wisconsin (AFTW) have suddenly lost both their political clout and favorable public opinion.  Was this just a consequence of national politics, the continuing failures of the Obama Adminstration?  As a catalyst certainly, but not fundamentally.  These unions should have seen this coming and made some preemptive moves, like actually leading an effort to get benefits in line with other states.  What could have been a thoughtful debate is now a crisis of hard choices.

Worse for the unions, the public is finally getting an education on how well compensated WEAC and AFTW members really are.  They already knew about the poor test scores in far too many schools, the achievement gags in far too many districts, and the near impossibility of replacing anybody involved.  They wish they had weekends and summers off, too, not to mention over five weeks off during the academic year.  They wish they could work less than 8 hours a day as some investigative reports have shown.  They wish they could retire at 55, largely at somebody else's expense.  It's a profession not without its challenges and frustrations, but in most subject and geographical areas there is no teacher shortage whatever, even with overly restrictive licensing.  And now the numbers about the pay itself including some embarrassing anomalies are a subject of national conversation, let alone at Wisconsin coffee shops.

I listed all this to illustrate how carefully a teachers union must manage its message lest taxpayers suddenly know enough to demand action, as Wisconsin voters did last November.  They must also recognize when they go too far, creating an unsustainable pension system for example.  You can proactively be part of the solution today or leave it for others to solve without your input tomorrow, as is the case here.

In my opinion, Wisconsin teachers are not wrong to oppose parts of Wisconsin Governor Walker's proposals as going too far, taking undue advantage of the situation.  But first they had better do a "card check" to see if they're affiiliated with a union saavy enough to take him on.  Walker may actually be doing them a favor by breaking their current unions that have so clearly let them down.

 

 

Health Update

It's February 18th, my birthday and the two month anniversary of my heart attack. And as of this morning, I marked off another 5 pounds lost since my last update.  As you can see to the right, I have 25 pounds left to get my Body Mass Index (BMI) down under 30.  I will then be merely overweight, not clinically obese, a line I think I crossed somewhere during college.

I'm happy to report that I continue to have no further symptoms.  I will "graduate" from my outpatient therapy next Wednesday.  I "passed" a stress test last week that my cardiologist will review with me next Tuesday.  I had blood work this week that my regular physician will review with me next Thursday.  My cholesterol was an amazing 111, LDL just 53.

I'm out walking again, too, now that the weather is finally abating.  I finished the Page neighborhood of south Minneapolis this past weekend and I'll finish Ventura Village near downtown tomorrow I think. 

Life is good, thanks to all the good people around me.

 

We Are All Cheeseheads Now

The Democrats have once again "risen above principle."  By now I assume you've seen Wisconsin's own "Gang of 14" Democrats sneak out of the Capitol, out of Madison, out of Wisconsin.  Having no ideas that would preclude the hard choices offered by those who do, they were soon found huddled in a Rockford, Illinois motel.  As I understand it, this leaves the Wisconsin State Senate one short of a quorum.  It's yet another incident that makes me question if the modern day Democratic Party truly believes in democracy.

By now you have read several excellent posts on this here at True North.  At this moment, Bob Davis is also providing some excellent converage and perspective I will constrast with MPR this weekend as part of my continuing series reviewing Twin Cities talk radio.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has opened the door, but Wisconsin may well be where the public employee unions finally lose not only the local battle but public sympathy nationwide.  Taxpaying voters, some even public union members themselves, are increasingly aware and unhappy with the dispartities between public and private sector pay and benefits, only some of which they are even aware.  The unions risk much in inviting more probing coverage that would reveal far more.

Most important for now, though, is that Wisconsin Governor Walker, the Legislature, and the people who elected them stay resolute.  They will be called many names, disparaged by many adjectives, and quite possibly in a few cases, be physically threatened or worse.  But the battle is going our way.  The Democratic party has conceded the argument by fleeing.

Many of us in Minnesota are with you in Wisconsin.  We will need your example to fight this same battle here.  We are all Cheeseheads now.

 

It's One for you, Nineteen for me

We all expected that new fourth income tax bracket in Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton's 2011 budget.  But I didn't expect him or any Democrat try to hit many of these victims a second time with an allegedly temporary surtax.  And I really didn't expect to see him hit a subset of these a third time if they happen to be physicians.  Or reach across the borders to tax non-residents who retired out of state, who happen to still own property here.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the true face of greed.  Don't make the truly hard choice of challenging and confronting your union buddies who, if you must single out someone, are clearly the most responsible for the current situation.  Just make up a story about not paying an unspecified fair share and let majority rule work its will.  "95% of tax filers will see no tax increases" says page 21 of the Governor's Budget Presentation.  For every Peter that Dayton would rob there are 19 Paul's whose collective needs somehow justify his action and most in the DFL agree.

But not all, judging by the weak applause just the new top bracket drew in the Governor's State of the State address recently.  Senator Ann Rest (D-45, New Hope) has all but said no already, for example.  And the Republicans are showing no weakness in their new majority ranks.  Dayton knew all this going in, so maybe this is just theater, a cheap "well, I tried" for  his hard Left supporters.

But this year, I'm going to take extra exception to this arrogance and avarice.  I'm alive today because one of Dayton's second class citizens, just a cardiac surgeon, that's all, saved my life this past December.  I'm sure she had many great teachers and professors along the way, but I'm equally sure that debt has been paid and then some.  She no doubt has made additional payments in kind filling out frivolous government paperwork and complying with overbearing regulations.

I hope you don't need a trip to the Emergency Room to realize what a load of tommyrot this fair share nonsense is.  I hope you don't need a job from one of these "fortunate" ingrates, one of whom is kind enough to sign the front of my payroll check every two weeks.  You'll of course want just a mediocre broker that makes less than $ 100,000 a year, not one of those shrewd, exploitative types that might make their clients twice as wealthy.

"We're all in this together," said former State Senator Becky Lourey of health care a few years ago.  But when it's time to pay for it, that's different.  That's not right.  That's why I'm a Republican.

 

Reviewing: KTLK Mornings with Bob Davis

Most of us are more than familiar with Bob Davis from his KSTP days.  Many of us are pleased to hear him again in his new gig on the generically named "KTLK Mornings" program, 6 to 9 AM on KTLK 100.3 FM.  Apparently management doesn't want to spend money rebranding with each change of morning host, alas, a frequent event in this most competitive of radio time slots.

But morning radio is the biggest problem here.  Davis was initially hired as a 10 pm to midnight host, kind of like T. D. Mischke, who now hosts that slot on WCCO 830 AM.  It is his first, best destiny as he himself has hinted when describing his sleep management.  He's not a morning person, but professional enough to do what's required.

More to my point, most of us cannot listen to morning drive for extended periods.  But Davis holds seminars that go longer, so it is frustrating to pull into work knowing you'll miss the remainder of a good topic.  On the other hand, his old 10 pm slot interfered with my sleep management, so I'm a bit ambivalent here.

The rest of the broadcast remains intact, with the same news, weather, and (sigh) traffic report segments and times, as detailed previously for Chris Baker.  It's just different content, more serious, more depth, less humor, less sports.  From the few days sample I've recorded, I'd say it's a bit more local as well, which I personally like. Put it all together and you get an excellent dissection of Governor Dayton's state of the State speech.

But Davis does get a little preachy at times, not always careful enough to say "this is what I think" instead of proclaiming "this is what you should think."  Bloggers, yes we do this all the time I suppose.  So do certain hosts like Rush Limbaugh, no question, but I don't mind it there.  So I'm not really certain why this is bothering me a little, but it does.

But all in all, welcome back Bob Davis, a solid B in my grade book.

Next up: Minnesota Public Radio (91.1 FM).

 

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

For once, I encourage you to buy a copy of today's (2/13) Sunday Minneapolis Star Tribune.  Its top story is a "Star Tribune Exclusive" meaning not online, at least not yet.  "We're feeling trapped" is the headline, a quote from one of several beleaguered Minneapolis homeowners.

It's a great article, with both the human and factual sides well-presented, and without the sarcasm blaming the usual suspects.  A sidebar, Public pay, benefits set off new 'Civil War', gives addtional perspective, part of a series aptly titled "The Reckoning."  This, too, is excellent journalism, again blending the human and statistical facets, on both sides.  Consistent quality like this could get me to re-subscribe.

On one hand, I feel sorry for these homeowners, many being squeezed out of homes by dramatically higher property taxes.  No matter what happens at the Capitol, they will go higher still even as property values continue to fall and the pace of foreclosures remains unabated.  "Should I stay or should I go" is the question for many, not an easy choice for those now under water in their mortgages.

But on the other hand, some of these longer term homeowners, well, they had it coming.  Whether uninvolved, under-informed, or foolishly trusting of the big city liberals that have brought cities (and their school systems) to this brink, they were asleep at the switch.  Are there any Republicans, even an Arne Carlson RINO on the Minneapolis CIty Council?  No, just 12 DFL and 1 Green.

Not counting independent (and was he ever!) Charlie Stenvig, Minneapolis has had but one Republican mayor since World War II, P. Kenneth Peterson, 1957-61.  The DFL has run everything else, too, including the Minneapolis Public Schools, the worst in the state.

As the Star Tribune articles showed, the property tax burden has shifted significantly from most commercial / industrial to residental.  Part of that was legislation, enacted when business taxes were getting ridiculously disproportionate.  But you don't have to drive the streets of Minneapolis very long to see all the closed, idle, and under-used non-residential property no longer paying significant property taxes.

As Sue Jeffers has chronicled more than once, Minneapolis isn't exactly business friendly.  My parents told me of the shock when General Mills moved its headquarters out to Golden Valley in 1958.  Cargill, allegedly unhappy with city leaders' over-regulation soon moved out as well, to Minnetonka.  And the exodus of Target has begun as well, to Brooklyn Park where they have plenty of room to expand should Minneapolis not get the message.

It's time for the people of Minneapolis to wise up.  In a budget of $1.36 billion of which the police account for around 11% and the Local Government Aid less than 2%, don't fall for these false choices like more taxes or fewer police.  If you insist on voting for Democrats, you're in no position to complain.