Alien – The Director’s Cut

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In Search of An Agenda

By John Hughes In February of next year, the people of Milwaukee will elect a new Mayor to preside over our city in what promises to be an era of accelerating change. With the role of leadership more crucial than ever, the agenda set during this election, which will frame the debate among voters, is still emerging. In previous issues, Vital Source put four questions to mayoral candidates Tom Barrett, Sandy Folaron, Martin Matson, John Pitta, Frank Cumberbatch and Tom Nardelli. We believe the candidates’ answers to these questions reflect some of the leadership style which they would exhibit if elected. This month, we continue our candidate forum with Marvin Pratt, Vincent Bobot, and David Clarke. For those interested in comparing and contrasting the answers of all the candidates, see the other articles on this website. 1st District Alderman and Common Council President Marvin Pratt will serve as interim Mayor beginning in January, when Mayor John Norquist steps down. He has been an elected official since 1987, and prior to that spent 15 years working in city government. He is a United States Air Force veteran, and holds the rank of major in the U.S. Army Reserve. Vincent Bobot recently resigned as Municipal Judge in Milwaukee’s First District. A former assistant city attorney, he also spent 20 years with the Milwaukee Police Department. He received a Purple Heart Award in 1976 for courage in the line of duty. David Clarke has served the Milwaukee Police Department for 24 years, during which he was commanding officer and captain of the intelligence division. He was appointed Milwaukee County Sheriff in March of 2002, and elected to that post in November of the same year. 1. What specific steps will you take to make the police chief more accountable to the people of Milwaukee? Marvin Pratt: By mid-November our city will have a new chief of police. That woman or man (Ed. Note: Nan Hegerty has been officially appointed at press time) will continue to be challenged to not only keep our streets safe, but to build upon and improve police-community relations. Although under present state law the Fire & Police Commission appoints the chief of police, I believe the key to ensuring that the chief is “more accountable to the people of Milwaukee” is by giving the Mayor the power to hire — and, if warranted — dismiss the chief. Communication is essential. The Mayor, the Chief and the community must take ownership for the type of public safety measures that are enacted. As Mayor, I will work with our next chief to hold regular meetings at the district station level with command staff and residents to discuss concerns and questions about crime. The Police Department’s Community Services initiatives such as PAL (Police Athletic League) are positive, ongoing efforts that, as your Mayor, I will continue to actively support. Vincent Bobot: When I’m elected Mayor the first thing I would want everyone to know is that we are part of a team. […]

Pieces of April

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Eat, Drink, and Be… Healthy?

By Jan Wolfenberg With the holiday season fast approaching, thoughts are turning to festive foods and yummy treats. So often we think that foods that are fun, festive and delicious can’t also be healthy. Not true! Many people incorrectly assume that healthy eating is, by definition, low fat eating. My definition of a healthy food is one that is as close to its natural state as possible. The less processing, the better the food is. “Foods” that can’t be found in nature, or that contain a mile long list of ingredients, are best avoided. While we may fudge a bit (pun intended) on our normal eating patterns during holiday feasts, there is no reason that the foods you choose can’t be both unbearably delicious and healthy too. Let’s start with the main course. Turkey is a perfectly healthy food, if you eat meat. It’s high in good, complete proteins and relatively low in fat. There is a downside however (isn’t there always?). To quote Leslie Valentine of EnvironmentalDefense.org: “… most turkeys (and chickens) sold in this country are routinely fed antibiotics to compensate over-crowded, stressful and unsanitary living conditions and to make the birds reach slaughter weight slightly faster. It’s estimated that more than two-thirds of all antibiotics used in the United States are fed to healthy animals, including turkey flocks.” Needless to say, this isn’t a healthy diet choice. But what can you do? Buy organic. Organic turkey farms ensure the amount of space each bird gets, the access to the outdoors, and the quality of the feed, as well as the absence of chemicals and antibiotics. You can find organic turkeys at natural food stores, at some grocery stores and online — although you’ll need to be prepared to spend more than usual. For those who don’t eat meat, there are vegetarian choices available at health food stores. Tofurky and The Great Unturkey Feast are just two examples. They consist of flavored tofu formed to look something like a turkey breast. I won’t tell you they taste just like turkey, because, frankly, they don’t. I tried one of these ersatz turkeys last year. I’m afraid it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. So this year, I’m going to make a different vegetarian main dish. Who really needs turkey, with all the other trimmings that accompany the bird? To make the rest of the meal healthier, make things from scratch when you can, read labels religiously when you can’t, and choose real foods that are as minimally processed as possible: Bake whole sweet potatoes instead of candied yams. Anything in a can has fewer nutrients than the fresh version, and the marshmallows don’t add anything beneficial. Some brown sugar isn’t a bad thing, and gives that sweetness everyone loves. Veggies — Make lots! Vegetables can be prepared in so many ways. Use all the colors too, as the more color, the greater the quantity of vitamins. And it looks so pretty too! If you must have the classic […]

music is love.

By Laura Martin Music is love. Not a very popular David Crosby song, but an excellent summation of what music is to me. Everyone has those bands that they turn to in order to ease the pain of life or to celebrate the joy. For me, CSN&Y is such a band. A few years back, I left the comfort of my Milwaukee home in pursuit of a Master’s degree in Philadelphia. Born and raised in Milwaukee and the surrounding area, Philadelphia was quite a change for me. Fast cars and faster people gave me a bit of culture shock. I felt lost and a little depressed, and was even playing games with my own mind about how to justify getting out of town as fast as possible. A few months after my arrival, I saw that CSN&Y was coming to Philly for a reunion tour. I was thrilled. Since I had not been in Philly long, I couldn’t find anyone to go with. That, however, was not going to stop me from experiencing the blissful energy that they emitted. I hopped in my jeep and drove across town to the First Union Center. A bit scared and crazily excited, I walked up to the ticket line. True to CSN&Y’s message, the feeling in the air was of love and unity. Immediately, my fear vanished as I interacted with people of all ages and walks of life, sharing excitement about experiencing CSN&Y in their first North American tour since 1974. Although members of the group had gone their separate ways, their charisma had stood the test of time. I found my seat with minutes to spare. As the band came on stage, the audience roared in anticipation of the opening song. Before they even began, you could feel their energy move over the crowd. They sang songs old and new. True to their nature, they sang songs about the political and cultural upheavals of today and years gone by. One of my personal favorites was Stand and Be Counted, which encouraged the eager audience to go out and make a difference. Another new song, Seen Enough, spoke with passion of the disgust one feels about the problems of a society too obsessed with self. They also sang classics like Suite: Judy Blue Eyes and Teach Your Children. The evening proved to be more than I’d even hoped for. Having felt lost in a new city, without a personal compass or a friend to call my own, my energy and commitment to see through the goal of finishing my degree was renewed. My strength was inside me the whole time. The words of these four musicians reminded me of where to look. I have always been the kind of person that tries to spread the love and joy our universe has to offer. At times, I get discouraged by the hatred and fear I see in some people. After this concert, I was completely recharged and have remained so to this day. […]

(Not Just) Another Bar on Water Street

By Raymond Johnson A new building is under construction on Water Street, and Milwaukeeans interested in contemporary design should smile. Mike Goldberg is developing a narrow slot of land at 1129-1131 N. Water St. into a restaurant/lounge named Terrace Bar to be operated by Nick Howell, founder of Cush and owner of Sauce. After running into opposition from Milwaukee Ald. Paul Henningsen and neighboring bar owners, the new building is finally underway — in part due to recent changes to the city’s zoning code. The zoning changes have been in the works for years, and it seems that Terrace Bar will be one of the first beneficiaries. The old code would have required the building to have eight on-site parking spaces. The new code, passed by the Common Council in May 2002, allows the parking requirements to be met by leasing spaces off-site within 700 feet. The code was revised for precisely the reasons that Terrace Bar is being built without a variance — to allow new construction on smaller lots, on which including parking would be prohibitively expensive. It’s unfortunate Goldberg has to deal with parking at all. When the city revamped the code, it did not go far enough — it should have done away with parking requirements altogether. They are artifacts of a time when accommodating automobiles dominated the minds of planners. Milwaukee should be getting out of the business of regulating off-street parking, and let market forces decide the appropriate amount and cost for it. The new zoning code is a step in the right direction, but hopefully not the last. The Starbucks of ancient Egypt? In addition to parking fears, neighboring bar owners seem to fear the contemporary design. Their attorney, Michael Whitcomb, compared the new design to putting a Starbucks next to the Sphinx. Huh? Howell clearly doesn’t share the old guards’ concerns. At Cush, Paige Heid created a comfortable minimalism of blank walls, plywood floors and cushy backless seats. For Sauce, Howell partnered with the Design Office of Catherine and James Donnelly, who designed the glowing translucent wall enclosing the kitchen. At Terrace Bar, Howell will have a contemporary two-story building with a rooftop terrace. The materials will be concrete, steel and glass. The north and south walls, a stacked-bond concrete block, provide a raw, yet clean frame for the space. Behind the bars, individual blocks are rotated 90 degrees to project from the wall where liquor bottles will be kept. Two large garage-style doors (one for each floor) will make the entire place an open-air bar during warmer months. The interior will be unusually open and spacious for such a narrow building. A long stair running much of the length of the north wall is the reason. The two stair landings, termed “pods” by Jeremey Shamrowicz of Flux Design, will act as mezzanine floors. The pods were built by introducing columns into the narrow building, which does somewhat compromise its openness. Albion Group, the architects for the project, could have hung these […]

Best Wines for Your Feast

By Nathan Norfolk Not only will there be turkey, there will be leftover turkey. This is often the sad reality of Thanksgiving: morphing from a holiday feast into weeks of monotonous poultry. Even the most dedicated carnivore can be reduced to thoughts of vegetarianism after his tenth cold turkey sandwich in half as many days. But there is hope. There are more wines that compliment plain old turkey than just about any other meat. Some reds are right. Cranberry sauce and stuffing aside, the logical accompaniment to Thanksgiving dinner is Pinot Noir. These are lighter-bodied red wines that won’t contribute excessive texture that can give poultry a cloyingly dry taste. If you have deep pockets, spring for a 1999 Burgundy, (which is French Pinot Noir). The layman can forego this route and avoid spending forty-plus dollars by picking up a simple Pinot Noir from California or Oregon. Erath 2001 Pinot Noir ($14) from Oregon is light to medium bodied with a juicy berry-ish fruit and a soft, dry finish. For a Pinot Noir with real character, Apoyo 2000 ($14) from Sonoma County has earthy flavors of tea and stewed fruits, and aromas of rainy fall days. It sounds crazy, but Pinot Noir can exhibit many peculiar yet enticing aromas. Some would even argue that it’s at its best with a slight chill. You don’t have to freeze the stuff, but ten minutes in the refrigerator gives it a nice crispness. And a little chill might help convince those squeamish about red wine in the first place to give it a try. Trying to please everyone is the catalyst for most holiday anxiety. Fortunately, when the time comes to find a wine for your Thanksgiving feast, there are many options. Pinot Noir isn’t the only red that pairs with turkey. If you crave something on the spicier side, try an inexpensive Italian Chianti such as Badiola ($9). It’s light and fruity, but has a pleasant tangy acidity that will perfectly compliment a peppery stuffing. Red Zinfandel works just as well. Rosenblum 2001 Vintner’s Cuvee XXV Californian Zinfandel ($10) is spicy with bright raspberry and cherry fruit and a subtle vanilla finish. If a full-bodied red is a must, skip Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. They will generally be too dry and tannic for most birds. Australian Shiraz, on the other hand is hearty, yet has a soft plum-like fruit. It would marry with turkey or less conventional Thanksgiving fare like Cornish game hens or a pork roast. Wynn’s 2001 Coonawara Estate Shiraz ($12) is firm and chewy, with a plummy fruit and a touch of white pepper. But if white is the thing… Of course there is also white wine. The most overlooked whites on the market today are Rieslings. Wine Spectator’s Matt Kramer calls Riesling, “the next really big white.” Rightfully so, Riesling is grown all over the world and has very high yields, which makes it easy and cheap to produce. It’s hard to think of a better white wine […]

By John Hughes Daisy Cubias, poet, activist and educator, sat in her cozy Milwaukee living room and, amidst her tumble of heavily accented words, told me of murder in her native El Salvador. “They Just Vanished.” “My family was killed; my brother, my sister, my brother-in-law. This was during the 1980s. We didn’t see the murders, but Duarte’s death squads were torturing and killing at that time. Duarte was the puppet President installed by the United States, propped up by Mr. Reagan. And Duarte had a push against the Catholic Church back then, because the Church was teaching liberation theology, the revolutionary liberation of the people. Duarte and Reagan didn’t want the people to learn their rights. “My brother and his friends were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. They just vanished. Over 100,000 people were killed like that during the Duarte regime. And then my sister and her husband were driving to an embassy to try to appeal to get out of the country, and they were gunned down. El Salvadorans, Americans, I don’t know.” Footing the bill for murder. Having immigrated to the United States in the mid 60s, Daisy wasn’t always certain of what was happening in the country of her birth. And worse yet, she was helping to foot the bill of the slaughter of thousands back home with her tax dollars. “That whole time was very hard for me, because I didn’t know what was going on exactly. I had moved to New York in 1966, and then to Milwaukee in 1970. But I was in Milwaukee, and my tax money was killing my own family. “So, my job was to educate the American people. I was in an organization, oh, I can’t remember the name of it. We were advocating to senators, congressmen, everybody who wanted to hear. Schools, colleges, churches. I am against war. It destroys people, dreams, families. It is the desire to have power over you, to grab wealth. And so I talked about that.” She speaks these words in a matter-of-fact tone. Before addressing this subject, she has been exuberantly cheerful and warm. Now she is slightly hushed, neither melodramatic nor noticeably angry. I ask Daisy if she feels rage against America, for having taken her tax money to kill her family. “No. The people of America didn’t do it. The U.S. government doesn’t listen to its own people. America, with all its faults, is the best country to live. We could do better. During that time, the El Salvadoran people were killing each other, with the help of the Americans. But, that is all in the past, and I live in the present. “Now, in El Salvador, it is a mixed government. It’s okay. Not as bad as before. At least we’re not killing each other.” Daisy’s Labor of Life. Daisy has dedicated much of her life to the service of others. For several years she worked with Cuban immigrants, helping orphaned young people from ages 17 to 21 settle in […]

Milwaukee’s New Cellulloid Heroes

Everybody’s a dreamer and everybody’s a star and everybody’s in show biz, it doesn’t matter who you are. —The Kinks It’s the story of an event that’s long overdue. Of an idea whose time has finally come. It seems like a natural phase in the evolution Milwaukee’s urban identity, something the city and its leadership would have embraced years ago. But bringing to life the Milwaukee International Film Festival has been die kampf, in large part, of Dave Luhrssen and Louis Fortis. Long recognized as one of the city’s culture tastemakers, Dave Luhrssen is a lover of film. As Arts and Entertainment Editor of Shepherd Express, Luhrssen has had the luxury, as the weekly newspaper has grown, to hand off the lion’s share of the writing to the legions of freelancers who contribute the majority of the section’s weekly coverage. But he prefers, for the most part, to review the films himself. So it’s not surprising that an International Film Festival would be his brainchild. Not that he and Fortis, Shepherd Express Publisher and festival co-founder are the first to try. According to Luhrssen, “several people in the past decade have floated the idea. I know of two groups who got to the talking point, meeting with people, etc. but never got very far.” A film festival may seem like one of those things we should just “have,” especially for a city spoiled by public spectacles like Summerfest, the Big Bang and even the Circus Parade. But staging an event of this magnitude is no picnic. “To do this, you really need a group of people with a financial platform to stand on,” says Luhrssen. “It’s enormously expensive. It’s very hard for it to come to life from within a coffee shop with interesting people who have good ideas. It needs the kind of support that comes from access to the right groups and the pockets to support up-front funding.” So in the spring of 2002, Dave and Louis, after months of toying with the idea, batting it around over coffee and floating it to a few trusted colleagues, decided to get serious. Destination: Mid by Midwest But as the planning got underway, the question went beyond what (a film festival) to what, exactly. That Milwaukee filmmakers would be featured was never in question. But how to showcase them in such a way that the festival would attract the overall attention it deserved and be of interest a broad audience was a bit of a challenge. The duo, along with Programming Director Jonathon Jackson, came up with a brilliant solution. The festival would include a regional competition, now called Mid by Midwest, featuring the work of filmmakers specifically from the region. This would give the festival a one-of-a-kind programming track (this is the only festival in the nation to feature the work of Midwestern filmmakers) and create a logical place in which to spotlight Milwaukee filmmakers specifically. “It was one of those really obvious things” says Dave. “Like, why didn’t […]

Power is Paradise… ?

By Paul McLeary Earlier this year, political theorist Robert Kagan published a mostly harmless little book, Of Paradise and Power, that likely set neoconservative hearts aflutter. The thesis is pretty straightforward: After WWII, as the United States set about the task of becoming the global constable, Europe was given respite from its far-flung military adventures while it rebuilt its cities, repaired its economies and got to work rewiring its badly bruised psyche. As a newfound peace and prosperity took hold throughout Western Europe, Europeans became increasingly tied to a newfound pacifism, while the United States was forced to do the requisite military “heavy lifting” required to keep communism in check. The upshot of all this is that Europe and the United States cannot see eye to eye when it comes to matters of flexing some military muscle. Europe has cultivated a desire for diplomacy over conflict, while the American postwar experience was defined by a nuclear staredown with the Soviets and hot wars with Soviet-sponsored regimes and far-flung military outposts. The current disagreement over the need to go to war with Iraq is, according to Kagan’s reading of history, merely the latest example of the “Europe is from Venus, the United States is from Mars” point of view shared by the neoconservative movement. Embrace Democracy or We’ll Kill You. To grasp the full irony of Kagan’s thesis, one must understand where he is coming from. He’s a bright light in the neoconservative movement, which is mostly made up of disillusioned former leftists and Trotskyites who have moved sharply to the right and now call for a robust American military response to perceived threats throughout the world. Kagan feels that the United States has the right to intervene in the internal affairs of foreign nations, to build democratic regimes and secure U.S. interests. Irving Kristol, often considered one of the founders of the neocon movement, defined, in part, the basic precepts of neoconservatism in the August 25, 2003 issue of The Weekly Standard: “[The concept of] world government is a terrible idea, since it can lead to world tyranny. International institutions that point to an ultimate world government should be regarded with the deepest suspicion … for a great power, the ‘national interest’ is not a geographical term, except for fairly prosaic matters like trade and environmental regulation. A smaller nation might appropriately feel that its national interest begins and ends at its borders, so that its foreign policy is almost always in a defensive mode. A larger nation has more extensive interests. And large nations, whose identity is ideological, like the Soviet Union of yesteryear and the United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns. Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from non-democratic forces, external or internal. No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary.” Sound familiar? This line of thought has come to epitomize the philosophy of the Bush […]

November 2003

Dear Readers, I’m always hesitant to hail new heroes, especially when all I have to go by is a single action. With that disclaimer, my new hero (not displacing Chief Tonasket out there in Washington) is Nathaniel Heatwole. If you’ve been living in a box, Heatwole is the 20-year old Massachusetts lad who loaded a couple of Southwest Airlines flights with dangerous contraband like boxcutters and bleach on several occasions from February to September without getting caught, then told the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) about it by email on September 15. A month later, when they finally got around to reading it, they contacted Heatwole at the phone number he left them. He was promptly arrested and now faces up to ten years in prison. He claims he committed an act of civil disobedience out of concern for a lack of real airport security. The Fed, naturally embarrassed, is dying to prosecute him to the full extent of the law. U.S. Attorney Thomas DiBiagio has made his position perfectly clear. “This was not a prank. This is not poor judgment,” DiBiagio said. “This is a crime… ” Right he is. But what, exactly, is the nature of the crime? And, one could argue, who committed it? Also from the “scary but true file,” George Bush recently told Brit Hume in a Fox News interview that he doesn’t bother reading the news. It’s so bizarre that I have to print a portion of it here: HUME: How do you get your news? BUSH: I get briefed by Andy Card and Condi in the morning. They come in and tell me. In all due respect, you’ve got a beautiful face and everything. I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who probably read the news themselves. But like Condoleezza, in her case, the national security adviser is getting her news directly from the participants on the world stage. HUME: Has that been your practice since day one, or is that a practice that you’ve… BUSH: Practice since day one. HUME: Really? BUSH: Yes. You know, look, I have great respect for the media. I mean, our society is a good, solid democracy because of a good, solid media. But I also understand that a lot of times there’s opinions mixed in with news. And I… HUME: I won’t disagree with that, sir. BUSH: I appreciate people’s opinions, but I’m more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world. HUME: Mr. President, thank you very much. Indeed. I don’t even have anything to add to that. Except that the hair on the back of my neck won’t lay down. Maybe some gel or something would do the trick, I don’t know. By now you’ve probably heard that the letters […]

When the Leaves Fall from the Trees

By Ben Merens This month, SCP welcomes guest author Ben Merens. Lucky will return in December. If you are inspired by parenting and would like to contribute a future column, send Lucky an email at slightlycrunchymama@yahoo.com. My two-year-old daughter and I were talking recently about birthdays. Actually, the discussion began when she asked me to tell about the day she was born. I tell her about mom being in the hospital and calling dad in the middle of the night. (The doctor had planned to induce labor on Friday afternoon. But she fooled us and chose to leave the womb very early on that Friday morning). I tell her about holding her after she came out of mom’s tummy and how we put her under a warm lamp because she was kind of cold when she was born. And then I tell her how mom fed her and told her “I love you” right away. And I tell her about how it snowed on her birthday and we all spent the day in the quiet of the hospital room… just the three of us. We all took a nap together. And then she came home. She loves to hear the story. And I love to tell it. Then I ask her. Do you know when your birthday is? She surprised me by saying “Yes I do!” “Oh really, and when is it?” I asked, anxiously awaiting her response. She is smart enough to tell me when she doesn’t know the answer to a question. So when she said she knew when her birthday was, I knew she’d say something that made sense to her and maybe to me. But I couldn’t imagine what that would be. I was quite sure, however, that it wasn’t going to be November 10th (her actual date of birth). “When the leaves fall off the trees Dad,” she said triumphantly. She smiled with the pride and satisfaction of knowing the answer to such an important question. But how did she manage to come up with this? I wondered. Then I realized that last year during the weekend of her birthday I was raking leaves into several piles in the back yard. And when the day of her party turned out to be a balmy 50 degrees and sunny, she and her friends ran outside and jumped in the leaves until the piles had been completely dispersed, as if they’d never existed. So, that is why she knows her birthday is “when the leaves fall from the trees.” There is something so innocent about the answer. So pure and real that I marvel at the simplicity of it. For my daughter, the month of November doesn’t even exist. But the change of the seasons is as real as she is.