Beam Me Up, Scotty!

"I have accepted fear as part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says turn back..."- Erica Jong

"We are the change we have been waiting for."- Barack Obama

"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change."- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels and the troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because these people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."- Apple, Inc.

My wife and friends make a big deal out of my refusal to get into the twenty-first century.  But for me, change is hard.

 

Today presented another example of how I'm being left behind, as technology continues to plow ahead, making my fondness for nostalgia seem like soggy bowl of Quisp cereal.  There's a whirlwind of change blowing past my ears, making today's technology, fashion and vocabulary hard to grasp.

As part of La Crosse Kiwanis, I participate in Radio Days - held once a year at local radio stations.  We sell ads on the air as one of our service club's fundraisers.  I mention this, because it wasn't too long ago that disc jockeys would play 45 rpm records on a couple of turntables, then speak into a microphone while switching songs.  In the 60's, 70's and 80's, technology advanced from tape and eight-track cassettes to CD's.

This morning, while watching the "disc jockey" maneuver behind the microphone, I noticed he doesn't even need to be in the room anymore.  He can program his computer playlist ahead of time, schedule ads for specific times, add weather forecasts, and break away to sports updates all while sneaking a smoke outside the radio station building.  If I could push a button now and then, I could run the radio broadcast, and you wouldn't know the difference.

What is it about change that brings the excitement of new possibilities with dread of things no longer wanted?

I'm sure everyone - as they get older - looks back on their distant past with a certain amount of melancholy.  Just the other day, I was mentioning to my wife how as kids we used to get up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons.  Space Ghost, The Herculoids, The Mighty Mightor and Jonny Quest were worth getting up for on an early Saturday morning.  Today, we have the Cartoon Network, where you can watch every conceivable cartoon at any time of the day.  Family Video has the entire season of the Jetsons waiting to be rented.  Hell, they've probably made a movie by now.  No more going to bed early so you could get up to watch the exciting adventures of Dastardly and Mutley and their Flying Machines.  I'm sure those cartoons were horrible, but as a kid, I loved sitting right in front of the television set every Saturday morning.

I'm probably having the most trouble understanding cell phones.  There is nothing (right now) that represents change and cutting-edge technology like the cell phone.  I'm definitely old school when it comes to using my phone.  Looking at my cell phone statement, I see I was on it for all of ten minutes.  I view it as a badge of honor, since I know people who can't get out of bed without checking their phones first.

People tell me I should use it for business, but I'm generally able to make my important calls at the office.  However, I did pay the price last year, when I went on a sales call and couldn't find the business' address.  Of course I couldn't call him since I didn't have my cell phone with me, and there are no pay phones anymore.  Trying to explain why I missed my appointment with this client didn't go over too well when I talked to him an hour later from my office.

Whether it's the iPhone or Android, it doesn't matter - people have to have the latest.  J.D. Power and Associates recently said that people get a new cell phone every seventeen months.  That's incredible!  It probably has something to do with the introduction of the faster, improved times of 3G and 4G network capabilities, or the newest apps available on smartphones.

 

I'm pretending to know what all of that means, because I still have a regular flip phone (as opposed to a "smartphone") and it has none of those.  I used to tell my kids not to bother with text messages, because it would be easier to just call.  "Why would I want to call someone on my phone?" they would say.

Huh?  I guess that's the biggest change -- cell phones do so much more than provide the ability to call someone.  Today, smartphones function as a video camera, a portable media player, an internet client with email and web browsing capabilities.  Third-party application software allows access to games, reference libraries, GPS navigation, social networking, security and TV shows, films and music.  I'm guessing that means I can browse the web, leave messages, take pictures and listen to music.  All of which I do now anyway, but not on my phone.

Speaking of change, how many of us remember Michael Douglas in the movie "Wall Street" talking to a client with this huge portable phone (reminded me of an army radio from my days with G.I. Joe).  One of the first cell phones available was the 1984 Motorola DynaTac 8000x, which  hit the market priced at $3,995 ($9,237 in 2012 dollars) and weighed just under 2 pounds.  By contrast, today's iPhone can be bought for less than $350, weighs less than 1/2 ounce and is .4 inches thick.  Even I have to admit that the progress made with the cell phone is for the better.

My only gripe is how distracting it is to have dinner with someone who is always looking at their phone, or watching people stutter-step with their heads down while walking and reading a text message.

As an ex-journalist, I still enjoy reading newspapers.  There has always been something rewarding being able to feel newsprint between my fingers.  The snap of a newspaper always draws my attention, as does the smell of ink coming off the pages of  The La Crosse Tribune or The Wall Street Journal.  I could say the same thing about books, now that e Readers have become so popular.

This spring, after much agonizing and gnashing of teeth, I gave up my subscription to the local newspaper.  This is still causing some disappointment as I enjoyed eating breakfast with my early morning browsing of the sports section and opinion pages.  While I still get The Wall Street Journal, I'm frustrated by the fact that I have to wait until after lunch before it's delivered to my office.  Most of the paper's "news" is old news by the time I get it thanks to the internet and talk radio.

I read somewhere that newspapers have lost more than half their readers, ushering out newspaper reporters, publishers and printers.  The shift is to online and niche publishing.

An editor for The Virginia Pilot recently said, "Ultimately, a lot of the media outlets are already shifting either in part or in total to the Internet. I think in the near future you'll see a lot of virtual newsrooms, where you won't even have the big costs of having the office space."   He continued, "You'll have people working from their cars, working from laptops, cell phones and PDAs, and you'll never see them in the office."

All of which means I will be getting my news from a computer on my kitchen table instead of newsprint on my fingers as part of my morning routine.

Fashion is another mystery to me, and it's getting worse the older I get.  Take sagging, baggy pants for example -- is there something I'm missing here?  Why would anyone want to broadcast their ignorance of style and reputation by wearing something clearly designed to showcase their "street" mentality?  Rumor has it that baggy pants originated in prison where inmates were given pants without a belt; the same for shoes without laces.  And yet we have somehow gotten to the point where teenagers want to mimic the thug look to impress .... (women? other guys? ex-cons?)  At least they're still wearing underwear.

My wife was witness to a minor accident the other day where a vehicle jumped a curb and hit a picnic table.  When the young man climbed out of the car, the first thing he did was pull his pants up from around the bottom of his butt.  I'm almost thinking the reason he jumped the curb was because his pants where hanging around his ankles, and he couldn't find the brakes.  As she talked to him, he kept pushing his pants down, then back up again.  He would walk a few steps and his pants where ready to slide down to his knees.

Next to rap and tattoos, the fashion sense of a lot of young people today leaves me wishing for the good old days of "A Rebel Without a Cause."  Suddenly jeans, a white tee shirt and leather jacket don't look so bad.    At least James Dean and Natalie Wood had a cause I could relate to.

Once in a while it works out that some things are too good to change.  This past weekend, some friends and I found ourselves downtown La Crosse in a bar called The Casino.  This is a bar that has hung a neon sign in the window that says "Lousy Service" for the past 30 years (maybe longer).  Most bars that I went to in my college days don't exist anymore.  They either burned to the ground, or were replaced with new, hip discotheques that were replaced by grunge bars that were replaced by sports bars.

It didn't take long to realize that not much had changed at the Casino -- if you closed your eyes, you could still smell the sour beer and stale cigarettes.  In a way, the place still looked the same.   Same curved seats, same music that you can't hear anywhere else, still no television and the same desperate women trying to pick you up.

Thank God some things never change.

The Snows of March

Now that the WI Badgers have lost in basketball, I can wander from the television set long enough to enjoy the nice weather we are having this year.

For the past two weeks, we've experienced some of the warmest weather on record (at least within our lifetimes).   The flowers are blooming and the buds on bushes and trees are popping like its early May.  I think of places like Washington D.C. and Mackinaw Island which have festivals for the blooming of cherry blossoms and lilac bushes.  Something tells me they won't have anything to look at beyond April.

Anyone remember the snow?

My wife thought it would be fun to look back on past months of March and even April when the weather wasn't so nice-- unless you like snow skiing, snow shoveling and ice fishing.


Here are a few of the storms:

March 13-14, 1997 - West Central / Northeast Wisconsin - Snowstorm - 12 to 28 inches. Twenty-eight inches at Wautoma in Waushara County.

March 8-9, 1998 - Southwest / Central - Blizzard - 8 to 12 inches. Wind gusts reached 40 to 60 mph at times, causing frequent whiteout conditions. The heaviest snow total was 11.7 inches at Muscoda.

March 18-19, 2005 – West-Central – Winter Storm – 18 to 23 inches in a swath from southern Buffalo County to western Jackson County, with 12 to 15.6 inches in La Crosse County.  The maximum of 23 inches occurred in northwestern Jackson County.

March 13-14, 2006 – West-central to North Central – Winter Storm – 17 to 32 inches of heavy, wet snow swath from St. Croix County northeast to Iron County.  Thundersnow enhanced the accumulations.  In Iron County, Gile measured 32 inches while Upson had 27 inches.  In Ashland County, Mellen gathered 27 inches.  Very poor visibility resulted from gusty winds around 30 mph, and drifting resulted in hundreds of accidents.  Locals said it was the worst storm since the 1980s.

March 21, 2008 – Southern Wisconsin – Winter Storm – 6 to 18.5 inches in a wide swath from La Crosse to the Milwaukee to Kenosha area.  The West Bend Port Washington-Milwaukee area picked up 12 to 18.5 inches.  West Allis had high honors with 18.5 inches, 13 to 15 inches fell in the Kenosha area, and 14.8 inches piled up west of Beaver Dam.   Some convective bands of heavy snow were
reported.

Just last year, we had this:

March 22-23, 2011 – Northern and central portions of state – This late season winter storm resulted from a strong area of low pressure interacting with a cold air mass in place across the upper Midwest.  Moderate to heavy snow fell late the 22nd, continuing into much of the day on the 23rd, bringing 5-10” of snow to the Northern half of the state.  Thunderstorms developing in Iowa moved Northeast into colder air, resulting in locally heavy snow with numerous reports of thunder and lightning.  This resulted in higher totals across Northeast parts of the state where 12-18 inches fell.  Sleet and freezing rain mixed in for central parts of the state with some heavy ice accumulations.  Gusty Easterly winds produced near blizzard conditions for Northeast parts of the state and also helped to bring down a 2,000 foot media broadcast tower near Eau Claire in combination with heavy ice accumulations.  Green Bay recorded a two day storm total of 17.8 inches, the biggest snowstorm in over 120 years and the 3rd largest recorded snowstorm. In fact, this resulted in the first winter Green Bay had had 3 major snowstorms producing 10 inches or more of accumulation!

And let's not forget April:

April 27-28, 2002 - Northeast Wisconsin - Snowstorm - 8 to 20 inches. A late season
storm brought significant heavy, wet snow accumulations in a narrow axis from
Florence to Merrill.  Most of the snow fell within 12 hours as a heavy rate with
numerous reports of thunder and lightning.  Elcho received the most snow with 20
inches of accumulation.

So we need to enjoy the warm weather while we have it.  And I'm not jumping on the global warming wagon either (just look at some of those storms from the past few years!)  Weather can -- and will change.  I suspect our 70 degree forecast won't last for much longer.

Why?  Because it wasn't in the forecast on March 2-4, 1881 when Southern / Central Wisconsin was expected to receive up to 2 to 4 feet of snow.   Drifts of snow could reach 20 feet.

So don't put those shovels away just yet.

Expect The Disrespect In March

The University of Wisconsin basketball team has achieved much since Bo Ryan took over a perennially bad team, which had experienced the joy of March Madness only seven times since 1898.  Dick Bennett, head coach of the Badgers between 1995 and 2000, left the Badgers in a better position when he retired a few months into 2001.

But it didn't take much to improve upon a record as dismal as Wisconsin's.  Back in those days, going to the NCAA post season wasn't the highlight of our season -- occasionally beating a powerhouse like Illinois, Michigan State (I have a friend who likes to remind people that we were the last college team to beat Magic Johnson) and Ohio State served as the pinnacle of that achievement.

Much has changed since 2001, when Bo Ryan took over.  In the 11 years since Bo was introduced as the new coach, Wisconsin has gone to the NCAA tournament eleven times.  It has won or shared the Big Ten title three times.  Won the conference tournament two times.

With an overall record of 242- 91, Bo has a 73% winning percentage.  Within the conference, where Wisconsin has never finished lower than fourth place, he is 120-48, which is the second best record in the conference among active coaches (Ohio State's Thad Matta is first).

I mention all of these stats, because despite Wisconsin's success on the basketball court, hoops prognosticators continue to dismiss the Badgers as a team that will be upset in the first or second round.  It's fashionable to pick teams to upset Wisconsin. In typical fashion, ESPN's Myron Medcalf had this to say about the Badgers in the College Basketball Nation Blog--

"Badgers will go home early.  I'm picking Montana over Wisconsin... (their) offense has stalled multiple times in recent weeks.  Even though the Badgers are capable of neutralizing any offense, they've had problems capitalizing due to their own inconsistent offense.  Montana will be ready... plus Will Cherry (16 points per game) can match Jordan Taylor.  Grizzlies will advance."

Yet despite the repeated calls for a quick Badger demise, if you look at the Sweet Sixteen appearances since 2000, here's how Wisconsin ranks:

Duke 10
Kansas 8
Michigan State 8
North Carolina 7
Kentucky 7
Wisconsin 6
UConn 6
UCLA 6
Syracuse 6
Arizona 6

Even more impressive is the fact that Wisconsin has done it with only one McDonald's All-American.  No other team on that list has had fewer than five.  So not only is Wisconsin getting to the sweet sixteen, but they are doing it with far less talent.

Later this week, Wisconsin takes on Syracuse in another Sweet Sixteen appearance.  Wisconsin is seeded 4th, while Syracuse is the East Region's number one seed.  So naturally the Badgers are being dismissed before the tip-off.  Seth Davis, on CBS Sports, said right after Bo and his boys dispatched Vanderbilt,  that it's a bad match-up for Wisconsin.  Syracuse likes to play zone (that's all they've played in over 36 years), and Wisconsin won't be able to consistently shoot the 3 ball.

Now, I'm realistic about Wisconsin's chances, so I realize we have a tough game ahead of us.  But it just shows the bias these television analysts have when they dismiss us before the Badgers are even back to their team locker room.  No high flying dunks, no NBA-caliber players, no chance.

Jordan Taylor leads the Badgers

It's actually very easy to see why they have this bias.  For many of them, basketball is meant to be a fast paced game, with fast breaks, Sports Center slam dunks and incredible shooting.  The athletes on Duke, Kentucky and North Carolina are one-and-done players with dreams of playing in the NBA.  They play exciting basketball, even if it comes at the cost of turnovers, poor defense and egos the size of New York City.  But are they good for the game?

I was listening to the Dan Patrick radio show where an interesting point was raised about the state of college basketball.

Dan said, "I don't enjoy the game anymore.  College basketball is all about the coaches.  The faces of the game belong to John Calipari (Kentucky), Billy Donovan (Florida), Jim Beiheim (Syracuse), Tom Izzo (Michigan State), Roy Williams (North Carolina), Bill Self (Kansas) and Mike Krzyzewzki (Duke).  It's not about the players who play the game."

He continued, "I always enjoy and want to follow a player's progression.  I'd love to see Anthony Davis as a freshman, then see him as a sophomore, to see how his game has improved.  I don't get a chance to see what he can do as a sophomore, because he's gone after his first year.  And that's the problem with college basketball -- you don't watch during the regular season because you don't know who these players are.  You watch them for two weeks in March and they're gone.  Say hello to them and goodbye -- all in the same season."

Obviously, Dan Patrick is talking about the "elite" teams like North Carolina, Kansas and Kentucky.  Because some of the other teams that have been bracket busters -- VCU, Butler and Northern Iowa -- are usually loaded with juniors and seniors.  You can tell, and it's not unusual for these mid-major teams to make a run in March because they have played together for a long time.  They know each other and have improved their game beyond high school and traveling AAU teams.

As I listened to Dan talk about everything that's wrong about college basketball, all I could do was think about how different Wisconsin basketball is.  If he wanted to get to know players, he should follow Jordan Taylor, Ryan Evans and Josh Gasser.  Watch Taylor go from a 13 minute (1.6 points per game) player as a freshman to a 36 minute (14.7 points per game) player as a senior.

The Big Ten Network has a terrific program called The Journey, that showcases various players on each Big Ten team throughout the season.  You find out a lot more about these players -- like their childhood dreams, post college aspirations, the grueling therapy needed to overcome injuries, the time spent on studying, and the heartbreak of losing a close game.  Perhaps if the media spent more time getting to know the players and coaches there would be more interest in the game.  And more respect for teams like Wisconsin and what they do.

I doubt that Wisconsin will ever be thought of as elite.  To gain that moniker you need to win national championships.  Until we can recruit better players willing to stay for three or four years, it will remain a reach for Wisconsin to make it past the Sweet  Sixteen or Elite Eight.

There's some good basketball to watch if you get away from the one-and-done crowd.  The talking heads on CBS and ESPN may not respect our game, but that's only because they don't watch.

I'll be watching on Thursday.  I hope we prove them wrong (again).

The New McCarthyism

Some of you may be too young to remember Joe McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin between 1947 and 1957.  He was noted for claiming that certain members of our government were either Communists and Soviet spies or sympathizers.  Ultimately, when most of his claims went unsubstantiated, he was censured by the United States Senate.  The term McCarthyism was used in reference to his practices, in particular anti-communist activities.  Today, there is still disagreement over whether his anti-communist accusations were true.

While Senator McCarthy may have failed in his attempt to convince others of his fear of communists in Congress, he did provide fertile political substance and tactics that would be used in politics (by both Republicans and Democrats) for the next half century.

Lately the term is used in reference to reckless and unsubstantiated claims against the character and/or patriotism of political opponents.  These attacks are usually a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public.  Recent examples of this "New McCarthyism" can be found today in the following situations:

. Suspension of ACORN funding after its abuse of federal funding
. Activities against suspected terrorists, mostly Muslims (following 9/11)
. Collection of emails opposed to Obama Care by the White House
. Bashing corporate travel by banks and Wall Street during the 2008 recession
. Blaming a "climate of hate" for the shooting of Arizona congress woman Gabrielle Giffords

The left has been using New McCarthyism to paint conservatives with a broad brush for some time.  If you can stomach it, watch MSNBC, CNN, HBO, Comedy Central and Saturday Night Live or listen to the left's version of talk radio -- Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Randy Rhodes and Mike Malloy.  Not a single day goes by when the right isn't wrongly characterized as being misogynistic, homophobic, racist or anti-Semitic.

Not surprising, it has influenced national media outlets like ABC, NBC and CBS.  Taxpayer-supported PBS and NPR have been documented on my blog for having their own bias towards conservatives, including the character assassinations of recent political candidates Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain.

Within the last few days, however, the left has taken its version of McCarthyism to new heights, with its conservative "war on women" campaign, spearheaded by the hypocritical assault against talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh.  I think most of us have heard what happened.  Rush -- in a poorly worded attempt to show absurdity by being absurd -- called Georgetown Law School student Sandra Fluke "a prostitute and slut."  Rush's description, which was meant to illustrate how we were paying someone to have sex (tax payer support of contraception), was greeted with near universal condemnation.

Went too far?

This week on his national radio program Rush apologized -- in his words he had "sunk to the level of liberals" and that he didn't mean harm to Sandra Fluke.  In typical McCarthyism fashion, the left -- including the aforementioned media, as well as members of Congress -- is calling on advertisers to boycott his show, and for Rush to step down from his hugely popular show.  To date, 12 advertisers have chosen to do so, and a handful of radio stations have dropped his three hour broadcast.  Sandra Fluke has refused to accept his apology, since such action would signal the end of this fabricated controversy.

This is nothing new for Progressives.  The left has been calling for the Fairness Doctrine as a way of silencing political dissent since conservatives began dominating talk radio.  Unfortunately, Rush's outburst has only intensified the left's determination.

In addition to the attacks on Rush is the left's demonizing Catholics as aggressors trampling a woman's "right" to contraceptives.  The whole war on women's rights started as a political strategy to frame the conservative right as a bunch of good 'ol boys who want to take contraceptives away from women.  It was classic politics -- initiated by ABC's George Stephanopoulos when he asked Mitt Romney during a a Republican debate if states had the right to ban contraceptives.  Shortly after, President Obama took to the podium to announce that through Obama Care, contraceptives were going to be made free to all women.  The debate -- and pressure on Catholic institutions to provide them -- came full circle with the testimony of Sandra Fluke.

As I mentioned earlier, the New McCarthyism is an attempt to influence (censor) political behavior by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public.  If you didn't know better, you would think women were losing their ability to buy birth control, much less affordable birth control.  None of which is true.  They may be losing touch with reality, but certainly not their ability to enjoy sex without the threat of unplanned pregnancies.  Which is the main goal of this argument about contraceptives.  The left looks at families -- in particular children -- as a disease.  Abortions are a backup to those who require contraceptives to make it through law school.

On a final note, I'd like to point to the hypocrisy of the left while trying to intimidate the voting public on the matter of Rush and Sandra Fluke.  It was laughable to listen to President Obama's news conference today when some "reporter" asked him what he thought about Rush's "prostitute and slut" comments.

His response:

"I don't know what's in Rush Limbaugh's heart, so I'm not going to comment on the sincerity of his apology.  What I can comment on is the fact that all decent folks can agree that the remarks that were made don't have any place in the public discourse."  He called Fluke he said, "because I thought about Malia and Sasha (his daughters) and one of the things I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about... and I don't want them attacked or called horrible names because they're being good citizens."

Maher -- see you in hell

The hypocrisy in Obama's response is his avoidance of Bill Maher, who contributed $1 million dollars to Obama's re-election.  Maher, a foul-mouthed little man, well-known militant atheist and one of America's nastiest talk show hosts, is unapologetic about saying the following:

George Bush - "retarded child emperor" and "terrorist's wet dream"
Catholics - "child-abusing religious cult' with a pope that "used to be a Nazi"
Rush Limbaugh - "Why couldn't he have croaked from (Oxycontin) instead of Heath Ledger?" and "Do it (repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell) because it will make Rush Limbaugh explode like a bag of meat dropped from a helicopter.  Do it because it will make Sarah Palin 'go rogue' in her pants."
Glenn Beck - "When we see crazy, senseless deaths like this, we can only ask why, why couldn't it have been Glenn Beck?
Sarah Palin - "Sarah Palin screaming about death panels?  You know what, Sarah, if we were killing off useless people, you'd be the first to know."  He recently called her "a dumb twat" and dropped the C-word in describing the former Alaskan governor.
Michelle Bachmann - "She's not a mean girl.  She's a crazy girl with mean ideas."  He compared Palin and Bachmann to "boobs" and "Two bimbos."

Get the idea?  This man makes his living with this "comedy act", then makes a million dollar donation to Obama.  And the president is silent on the issue, with his hand out, eagerly taking donations for this year's election.

Don't expect the media to ask Obama about calling Bachmann, Palin, Bush or Beck to see if he defended their good citizenship.  Because he didn't.  It's politics as usual for the left and their supporters in the mainstream media.

McCarthyism is alive and well.