Race, Politics and Easter

It’s Easter Sunday and the topic du jour is race. The old ad used to say “You don’t have to be Jewish to like Levy’s Rye Bread” (maybe it was a New York thing), so perhaps you don’t have to be Christian to appreciate the irony of the moment. Barack Obama was forced to deliver a speech on the subject of race because he has been buffeted by charges of poor judgment for maintaining a relationship with his preacher, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Radio, television and YouTube listeners and viewers have been barraged by clips of Wright railing against the inequities of our white-dominated society and even asserting that our nation brought 9/11 on ourselves through our actions around the world. I thought Obama was faced with a “Sister Souljah” moment, similar to when Bill Clinton needed to repudiate one of his core constituencies in order to prove his independence and character. But once again Obama proved that he is possessed of a remarkable intelligence and sophisticated appreciation of the powerful tensions tearing at our divided nation. He delivered a speech in Philadelphia last Tuesday that rejected Wright’s words but placed them in the context of our nation’s great but imperfect history. We should not forget or ignore that history, he said, but neither should we be poisoned by it. It is a history that has left scars on many people of many colors, faiths and bckgrounds but it has also taught us that we have the means, through our system of government and the power it bestows on “We, the People,” to right wrongs and continue the process of constructing a “more perfect union.” Obama delivered a great and timely speech that brings to mind Lincoln’s Second Inaugural when the 16th president called on the nation to look beyond the Civil War and begin the process of healing and reconciliation. Of course, Lincoln did not live long enough to preside over a nation at peace, Reconstruction was marked by unfortunate abuses and racism persisted through the Jim Crow years of the 20th century and even in today’s post-Civil Rights era. It remains to be seen how this election year will play out. But once again former President Bill Clinton revealed himself to be more interested in exploiting race for political advantage than in serving as one of the nation’s and his party’s senior statesmen. His comment that he hoped the nation would have two candidates in the general election able to focus on important things and not be distracted by the ugly and divisive issue of race was a transparent and shameful attack on Obama. Obama went on to deliver speeches on the economy and foreign affairs but the Wright controversy continues to dog him. Conservative talk show hosts are gleeful that they have been provided with ammo to challenge Obama’s patriotism by associating him with Wright. It’s ridiculous and offensive but it’s a free country. Race has also made an unfortunate appearance in the campaign for Wisconsin Supreme […]

OMG Check Out This Bracket!

It’s March madness, baby! The competition leading up to the Final Four and the NCAA basketball championship has evolved into one of the most entertaining sports events of the year. And with Wisconsin and Marquette playing well and still alive as of this writing (Wisconsin has already advanced to the Sweet Sixteen while Marquette is battling tough with favored Stanford in the second half). But this being Wisconsin, ya gotta check out the bracket competition developed by the Washington Post. They started with 64 of the finest beers in the nation and are letting their discriminating readers decide which brews advance. I’ll drink to that. And while I’m raising a glass in tribute to the MSM’s WP, one of the twin titans of newsprint, let me also suggest that you have a look at the Post’s fact checker feature which examines the dubious claims of the various campaigns and grades them on a scale of Pinocchios for untruthfulness. Hillary Clinton’s assertion that she made a trip to Bosnia because it was too dangerous for Bill and that she dodged bullets at the airport earns the highest rating of four Pinocchios. Apparently, the comedian Sinbad was on the trip with her, as were print and broadcast reporters and they’ve called her on her whopper. Who knew Sen. Clinton had a Rambo complex?

March 20th-Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks @ The Pabst!

STEPHEN MALKMUS and THE JICKS! MARCH 20@THE PABST! VITAL is sponsoring Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks on Thursday, March 20th at The Pabst Theater! This indie show is sure to please, and as always, VITAL will be setting up a table chock full of great stuff, including giveaways to other great shows! Our fun and friendly staff will be happy to load you up with copies of our March issue, stickers and tote bags, if you play your cards right. It’s good stuff, so come and check us out! More information available online!

WUWM 89.7 FM – Milwaukee Public Radio Presents Radio Lab

Milwaukee Public Radio invites you to join an intellectual investigation. For one week in April, WUWM presents Radio Lab, public radio’s award-winning series about wonder, discovery and big ideas. Radio Lab is produced by WNYC, New York Public Radio. The one-hour documentaries will air the week of April 7 – 11 at 11 a.m. Co-hosted by veteran reporter Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad, Radio Lab is a science show for people who don’t think they like science. These days, science coverage is largely reduced to either a sexed-up, politically-charged controversy or a dry, lifeless, technical summary of academic findings. Radio Lab breaks the mold, re-creating – with joy, wonder and humor — the thrill of “Aha!” moments in scientific breakthroughs. Abumrad and Krulwich unearth the implications of the latest scientific findings, bump into surprising stories, traverse philosophy, history, and culture, and converse with some of the scientists doing the real work along the way.The result: a potent elixir of real science, first-person storytelling and radio theatre, all wrapped up in some of the most innovative sound design ever to spill out of the radio. Since 1964, WUWM 89.7 FM – Milwaukee Public Radio has been part of the UW-Milwaukee family and has been serving as southeastern Wisconsin’s premiere public radio source for news, information, and entertainment programming for 37 years. WUWM is listener-supported radio that is licensed to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents and operated by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Letters and Science. Listen on-air at 89.7 FM or on-line at wuwm.com.

MKE’s Alterra boasts 2nd and 3rd at Barista Competition!

After months of preparation Justin Teisl and Scott Lucey, baristas at Alterra Coffee, won second and third places, respectively, at the 2008 Great Lakes Regional Barista Competition (GLRBC), held in Milwaukee’s Third Ward, March 14th-16th. The GLRBC is one of ten annual regional barista competitions held nationwide and is designed to encourage and recognize professional achievement in the art of espresso beverage preparation and service. Baristas representing over 15 coffee companies from Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Minnesota prepared and served espresso-based drinks to a panel of six judges. Each participant was evaluated according to the taste and quality of the beverages, technical skill, presentation, and the ability to prepare three rounds of espressos, cappuccinos, and signature drinks in 15 minutes or less. Teisl and Lucey, experienced baristas as well as trainers for Alterra employees and wholesale accounts, made it to the final round of competition after beating out over 30 other participants. Both had a final score of 599.5, with Teisl gaining second place by scoring more top marks overall. Justin Teisl has been with Alterra since 2001 and works at the company’s Riverwest café on Humboldt Boulevard. He is a recent graduate of UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of Fine Arts and was the artist responsible for creating the trophies presented to the GLRBC’s top 3 finalists. Scott Lucey has worked at Alterra’s Prospect Avenue café since 2002, and began training other employees in 2005.

My words aren’t as good as his

It’s 2AM and I’m drunk and finished

Greed and the Wisconsin Supreme Court

If you’ve been in front of a television recently, you’ve probably seen those ads trying to influence the election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Incumbent Louis Butler is being challenged by Butler County Circuit Judge Mike Gableman. Gableman is the bobblehead who allegedly bought his seat on the bench and Butler is the alleged criminal coddler. For years and years candidates for state Supreme Court conducted low-key campaigns awash in decorum and highfalutin legal principles. But that was then and this is now. Over the last two contests, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business group has decided to spend an inordinately large amount of money to elect candidates to the state Supreme Court who are friendlier to business interests. Last year, the group spent big bucks to elect Annette Ziegler to the court, despite the ethical lapses that led to her being sanctioned for failing to disclose her ties to a bank that was involved in a case before her. Now it is throwing its girth into a campaign to unseat a respected incumbent on the court by attempting to portray Louis Butler as soft on crime. The business leaders who have signed off on this transparent effort to make the court more pliant to the state’s wealthy corporate interests should be ashamed. This isn’t about crime, this is about greed. Newsweek did a fairly comprehensive analysis of this race and cited “uncanny parallels” between the election in Wisconsin and the plot of John Grisham’s novel, “The Appeal,” where business interests fund attacks on an African-American member of the state Supreme Court in Mississippi. In both cases, the business groups falsely accuse the sitting justice of acting to release a convicted sexual predator. The Greater Wisconsin Committee, a liberal advocacy group, has responded to these horrid attacks with ads questioning the challenger’s record on crime. To his credit, Butler has called on all third party groups on both sides to “stand down” and allow the candidates to make their own cases. Unfortunately, challenger Gableman has engaged in his own outrageous attack campaign which is drawing fire from the state’s good government groups, including the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign , Wisconsin Judicial Integrity Campaign Committee, Common Cause and Citizen Action, for false statements and misrepresenting Butler’s record. But those fine, upstanding folks at the WMC definitely deserve a dubious achievement award for acting so selfishly and egregiously on behalf of the state’s wealthiest interests. Former Madison mayor and liberal blogger Paul Soglin is engaged in a personal campaign to call the members of the WMC to account for this greedy behavior. The members of the WMC board are ultimately responsible for this reprehensible slander of Justice Butler. These business executives probably support token good causes and are undoubtedly regarded as respected pillars in their communities. But they shouldn’t be able to hide behind the relative anonymity of the front group they control. How can we expect citizens to have faith in our government when the groups with the deepest pockets […]

Oh, those brilliant/lucky Clintons

The Clintons have always been brilliant politicians, possibly among the most amazing in all of American history. Bill’s got a little narcissistic egg on his face at the moment after his recent over-indulgences on his wife’s campaign trail, but he’ll pull back and be fine in a few years when America once again remembers the good times under his presidency. He’s golden, so no need to worry about him – as a nation we apparently live to forgive him, and I say that as a person who’s lived long in that camp, and in regards to many things, probably always will. I admit I can’t quite get past the unsolved mystery of Vince Foster, but maybe I’m just a conspiracy nut. I’m sure all those crime scene photos went missing due to a simple clerical error. It happens all the time. I digress, but not really. You have to admit that his death couldn’t have come at a better time for the beleaguered couple, at least as the whole Whitewater ordeal ended up playing out. No matter what the truth, now merely an unfortunate footnote in the storied history of Bill Clinton’s presidential legacy, Foster’s death caused Ken Starr and crew to jump all over its irregularities, adding to the confusion of an already impossibly convoluted mess and drawing attention away from the facts of the investigation. For the record, I am NOT accusing the Clintons of arranging for Vince Foster’s death. I’m just saying they’re lucky. And I’m reminded of old Vince because of another extremely lucky thing that happened to Sen. Clinton’s presidential campaign this week. In case you’ve been sleeping under a rock and have somehow seen my blog but not the news, former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro has stepped down from her post as a surrogate and Clinton finance committee member after making some rather awkward remarks about Barack Obama’s race advantage. In short, she asserted that if Obama were not a black man, he wouldn’t be doing as well as he is. Then – horror! – she refused to apologize, instead resigning from the campaign so she could continue to speak out against what she sees as a sexist media bent on running Hillary down because she’s a woman while being swept away by the grand notion of a black president. Think about it. Ferraro is 72 years old, her personal political halcyon days long past. She’s a loooong time friend of the Clintons with a decent reputation and she looks like that grandma who still gets her hair and eyebrows done every week. She’s got name recognition but nothing to lose. And now that she’s gone Ronin, she’s free – even expected – to say things Hillary would never get away with. Lucky for Clintion, at the least. Possibly brilliant. Only time will tell, or not. Some mysteries are better left unsolved.

A Stunning Fall

One of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies is when George Bailey, Jimmy Stewart’s character in Frank Capra’s great Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, pleads with a group of customers at the savings and loan not to withdraw all of their money. George says the money isn’t in the vault, it’s helping build their neighbors’ homes and start their businesses. He eventually persuades them to only take out what they need, thereby allowing the bank to remain open. But, for me, the “money shot” is when the sound of fire trucks or ambulances or police cars distracts the crowd and everyone moves to the window to see what’s going on. Our attention is riveted by the crisis in the bank but they can’t help but turn their gaze to the street. Which brings me to the news that uber-prosecutor turned New York governor, Eliot Spitzer, has been implicated in a sex-for-money scandal. Nothing sucks up the public’s attention more than a story that combines sex, scandal and celebrity. And when the celebrity in question is a stuffed shirt politician who has made a career out of prosecuting wealthy businessmen who were caught stealing, cheating or otherwise taking advantage of their high positions in society, well, the hypocrisy is stunning and overwhelming. While the story is unfortunate in that, once again, parents are having to explain terms like “prostitution” and “call girls” to their children who happen to be watching the news with them it brings some relief to those of us who have been overdosing on the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. After yesterday’s Mississippi primary, which was won decisively by Obama, the next contest isn’t until April 22 in Pennsylvania. There will continue to be news relating to the presidential contest, most notably the expected resolution of the imbroglio involving the Florida and Michigan delegation to the Democratic convention. But this amounts to something of a news blackout for six weeks. Six weeks! Of course, locally we have important elections coming up on April 1st including the Wisconsin Supreme Court race between incumbent Justice Louis Butler and challenger Mike Gableman. But the Spitzer story is filling a void with the overwhelming power of a raging tide (sorry, sorry, sorry!). Spitzer announced his resignation today. Some will say he should have stayed and defended himself since this is such a personal matter and, after all, Bill Clinton didn’t leave office after he was involved in a sex scandal. But Clinton’s Affaire Lewinsky did not break any law (though, of course, he was charged with perjury for denying the relationship in grand jury testimony) and the campaign to impeach Clinton was such a political witch hunt. Spitzer was caught in an investigation launched by the IRS and the FBI based on the unusual transfers of funds that he was using to funnel money to the “escort service.” Arguably, the investigators expected to find evidence of a bribe or other form of public corruption and were […]

Be a part of Luckystar Studio’s MAIL ART SHOW! DEADLINE is 4/5!

You draw it, paint it, silk screen it, spray paint it, throw a stamp on it and we’ll exhibit it in Wish You Were Here! This limited-run exhibit will be held during the very popular Spring Gallery Night, Friday, April 18, through the West Side Artwalk, April 25 & 26. The envelope, postcard, package or crate is your is your canvas! 1. Draw it, collage it, print it, stamp it, sculpt it, photograph it, etc. 2. Ship it! (USPS, UPS, Fedex, Bike Messenger, etc.) 3. Luckystar will exhibit it! Note: Do not price artwork. Art will be sold at a flat rate with proceeds from the sales to be used to cover cost of the exhibit and reception. All artwork becomes property of Luckystar Studio. Luckystar will not accept the promotion post cards from galleries or artists as mail art. Deadline: April 5, 2008. Enter now! Have some fun!

Seed Cycles by Sally Kuzma @ Villa Terrace Arts Museum

Seed Cycles at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum has been extended through April 6. After collecting various plant specimens, Sally Kuzma uses a simple computer scanner to upload the images of plants, such as corn, soybeans, sunflowers, lilies and garlic to create a digitally manipulated piece of art. The details of each plant are shown intimately, along with their colors and patterns. Read VITAL art critic Judith Ann Moriarty’s review of the show.