Crystal Ball for 2014
25 predictions that are certain (well, maybe) to come true this year.
Looking into my crystal ball for 2014, in the 168th year of this city’s history, I can see the stars aligning in unexpected ways. Let us take the year as it reveals itself, month by month, and consider the portents and events to come.
January: Tom Barrett declares he is tired of the West Side where he has lived his entire life and just plain sick of his West Side friends and his West Side thoughts. “I want to be a hipster,” the mayor declares. He moves to Bay View and begins drinking Belgian beer, wolfing sweet potato fries and hanging out with Tony Zielinski. The latter move in particular has City Hall insiders grumbling that the mayor has “lost his mind.”
In what is interpreted as a direct reaction. Common Council President Willie Hines announces the formation of an Exploratory Committee to consider running for mayor. “I am really truly seriously considering throwing my hat in the ring,” a hatless Hines announced.
In a completely unrelated announcement, Greater Milwaukee Committee leader Julia Taylor tells the city that the group has been renamed the Pretty Good Milwaukee Committee, or PGMC. “Why let great be the enemy of good — or even of fair to middling?” Taylor quips.
The naming contest for Colectivo settles on the Exotic Coffee Co. “We like its evocation of rare coffees from afar,” says Fowler, “and it might also make a nice name to sell to a chain of strip clubs… Just kidding,” he adds with a chuckle.
March: The Shepherd Express publishes a book-length collection of its many and unvaried anonymously written attacks on County Executive Chris Abele entitled “We Hate Chris, and We Especially Hate His Film Festival That We Used to Run.” County Supervisor John Weishan buys the first copy, make that 50 copies, and distributes them in the courthouse.
Abele announces that he will retire his endlessly-repeated phrase “this is not personal,” to describe some change intended to reduce county board power. “The truth is, I hate those SOBs,” he confesses.
April: Democratic candidate for governor Mary Burke announces her very first stand on the issues. “I hereby declare I am in favor of good government,” she tells the press.
For the first time, Wisconsin Conservative Digest Publisher Bob Dohnal offers a factual basis for one of his assertions. The effort is so taxing he falls asleep for the rest of the year.
May: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel opens a new cafeteria for all the people who comment at jsonline, so that they can really have a food fight. Meanwhile the newspaper’s “No Quarter” columnist Dan Bice announces he is resigning and will become a beach bum in Hawaii. “‘I’m tired of being the one-man dirt patrol,” Bice confesses. “I’d like to get really clean, I mean like scalded-with-lava clean.”
Talk radio host Charlie Sykes takes a morning off, telling his shocked listeners, “really I have nothing to say.” It is later revealed his Republican talking points had not been delivered that day.
June: Sheriff David Clarke announces he is laying off every deputy and using the money saved to arm every citizen and flood the county with public service messages urging them to shoot intruders on sight. “Let’s face it, the officers never answer a distress call on time, whereas the homeowners are already there, so what could be more sensible?” Clarke explains.
July: Ald. Bob Donovan announces he will hold meetings across the length and breadth of the city on the topic of crime and safety. “I have a vision of lighted alleys on every block in Milwaukee,” he rhapsodizes. Ald. Bob Bauman creates a new city committee, the Bob Bauman Committee, that will mercilessly grill every developer in town.
August: Urban Milwaukee President Jeramey Jannene buys a Corvette, burns his county bus pass and starts bombing around town and looking for hot women. “Transit schmansit,” Jannene quips, “it’s time I discover my inner road hog.”
September: Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn proposes to create a series of rotating police headquarters in the surrounding suburbs, so the administration can be closer to all the police officers who have moved out of the city. “With the proper, computerized, real time data on officer movements, we can easily make this work,” Flynn notes.
October: The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance issues a report entitled “A Few Things It’s Okay for Government to Spend Money On.” Miffed board members fire WisTax President Todd Berry.
After years of providing reliable quotes to his journalistic brethren on the people’s right to know, Wisconsin Freedom of Information President Bill Lueders changes his mind. “Frankly, the press are not synonymous with the people,” he admits. “Sometimes the press are just a pain in the butt.”
November: Gov. Scott Walker defeats Mary Burke with 50.5 percent of the vote and declares this is “a mandate” from the voters to toughen the laws against union members, who will now be shot on sight.
County Board Chairwoman Marina Dimitrijevic wins election to the state assembly and immediately announces she will undertake a four-county series of listening sessions with all the people outside her district. “I believe they would have voted for me if they had the chance,” she explains.
Willie Hines announces that his exploratory committee has finished its explorations: “I truly appreciate their input and have decided I will not make a decision at this time as to whether I will run for mayor.”
December: Just before Christmas, Milwaukee County War Memorial executive director David Drent informs the community that the War Memorial will henceforth begin to actually serve veterans. “Not that I don’t like being the headquarters for the Rotary Club,” he confesses, “but we are called the War Memorial.”
Gov. Walker announces he will run for the state supreme court, saying he’s the only candidate who can defeat hated liberal Ann Walsh Bradley. “I believe I can simultaneously handle the jobs of governor, U.S. President and supreme court justice,” a bullish Walker declares. “After all, I got a solid C in poli sci at Marquette.”
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I would hope that my brother would at least have the good taste to get a Viper instead of a Corvette. It has a V10, not a V8, and everybody knows 10 is a bigger number than 8. And with the side mounted exhaust, you can burn the ankles of those pedestrians trying to walk and enjoy this city. Ha! Fools!
But Garrick, when they are towing the Viper into the shop for the 80th time, he’ll smack his hand to head and say: “I could have had a V-8”
HILARIOUS! ROFLMAO!
JUNE is going to be a HOT MONTH!
**Buys bullet proof UNITARD and waits for the fun.**
bruce, don’t ever leave us!
thank you for my NEW YEAR 2014 smile!
bruce, loved this and i laughed out loud. will be interesting to see what the usual guys say.
Where’s Bob Donhal’s comment? Has he already fallen asleep? That one made me laugh loud enough to wake up my daughters!
My friends laughed out loud – This was great , these things could happen in Wi.
Bruce,
Thanks for waking me up, was planning on sleeping till the Global warming melts the snow. Are you guys helping those research ships out of the ice that Al said would not be there , in the Antarctic?.
My resolutions are: Wait for the Leftists in Milwaukee to explain why Milwaukee is the 9th poorest city in US, in top ten for violent crime and now, according to Right Wisconsin in the top ten worst run cities
. With all good wishes to Bruce, who helped stop the raid on the pension funs by electing Scott Walker and placing him on the road to the presidency, the Left has run the city into the ground, chasing businesses to Waukesha county where they thrive, leaving only the Leftists that want to milk the businesses instead of feeding them.
Does the Left have any solutions besides encouraging Barrett to get a judgeship and take Flynn with him, putting Clarke into Mayor’s office.
WE have lost millions of kids cause MPS cannot teach them to read and now instead of fixing the obvious problems. You want to build a train instead of getting needed buses, spend 500 million dollars building an arena for a lousy basketball team and another half billion on other toys instead of building a jail and filling it with all of these thugs that the DA and the judges shelter cause “there is no such thing as a bad thug”.
Finally having this website for my daily laugh is better than Prozac.
Do not forget to visit the facebook site: “Wisconsin Conservative Digest” for info on the Wisconsin Conservative Leadership conference on 3/22 in Tosa.
As for MPS, we have lost mmillionsof doog kids since Reynolds/Barbee ruined the sytem. Last of course is the lack of good trnsportatin in the city cause Barrett/Murphy and com. want to buils a little choo choo train to go around in a circle, just like the Lionel I had in 2n grade.
I have a laugh and kick out of all of these except two. Scott Walker will fall finally to Mary Burke and also lose any shot at higher office and Sara Geenen will win the democratic nominee and take the State Assembly over Marina Dimitrijevic. Another nice one would be Charlie Sykes accidentally chokes on his own lying deceitful tongue.
With a new Governor Wisconsin finally takes the healthcare money and federal funding to help it’s citizens it has been dneied under the Walker Regime.
I gotta meet that “Wis Conservative Digest” guy. He sort of… DISSOLVES at the end.
To make it easy for most of you just beginning to study Milwaukee’s problems. Entry in 24/7 wallst.com:
#10 Milwaukee, pop 599,000, credit, not good, violent crime 10th highest, unemployment 10.1%, 57% youth,
Place more importance on building a choochoo train that goes in circles rather than buying new buses. also wants to build a 500 million dollar arena for a horrible basket ball team than cannot fill up the present one without giving away tickets for $5, and 500 million on other toys like parks, museums.
Best thing to do is to ask Obama to appoint Barrett a judge and put David Clarke into the Mayor’s job, he seems to be the only one interested in solving the crime/violence problem.
Milwaukee: 10th worst run city in nation!!!!! C’mon Leftists explain this while at the same time the sheriff’s dept and the state are amongst the best run.
The foolish idea that a new downtown arena/entertainment complex would ONLY serve the Bucks is just that, FOOLISH. A new arena/entertainment complex would be a REGIONAL asset, serving as an epicenter for big time entertainment draws for the metro area. The Bradley Center was a very nice Ice Hockey arena in 1988, but it is a very poor facility for basketball, concerts, and other entertainment draws as it lacks the necessary seating layout and back room support spaces to truly serve its primary occupants. To assume that it only serves to host the Bucks is short-sighted. Milwaukee could gain many top-flight performing acts with a new arena and earn the local businesses a significant uptick in revenues in the process. If built correctly as an entertainment complex, (see: Orlando’s Amway Center, Indianapolis’ Bankers Life Fieldhouse) the new arena could be the center of a major-destination entertainment district on the west side of the river bringing in tons of money to current businesses as well as drawing interest in new business.
You only need to look at the racists conservative suburbs that are nothing but takers and leaches on the city to realize why Milwaukee is in the state is in.
What a joke, the state best run? Only if you gave Walker and his cronies money and to get that empty blouse Kleefish to “love me more”.
WED you are a joke.
Octopussy: You would spend 500 million on an arena for a worthless basketball team instead of on fighting crime and new buses. No wonder Milwaukee is in such bad shape. We can keep the Bradley center to sue for the rest of the stuff and push our two Div. I teams.