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Mayor Dave
Dave Cieslewicz may no longer officially be the mayor of Madison, but he still has a thing or two to say about life. Around here we still like to call him Mayor Dave. Is out of respect for the two terms he served proudly as our fearless leader? Is it because he was able to solve the Halloween weekend problems on State Street? Is it because he just a nice guy? No, no and no. The real reason is quite simple. Two weeks before the election we bought him a really kick-butt Triple M jacket and we spent a lot of money embroidering Mayor Dave just above the left pocket.
The big political news of the week was Ron Paul's surprisingly strong second place finish in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. Paul responded on election night with a fiery speech about the Federal Reserve. Let me tell you something. There's nothing that gets a crowd more fired up than a seventy-six year old guy yelling about monetary policy.
JON HUNTSMAN
The most disappointing showing came from Jon Huntsman, who matched Mitt Romney Eddie Bauer shirt for Eddie Bauer shirt right down the line, but still finished a distant third. Everyone seems to see the writing on the wall except Huntsman himself, who said that his 17% bought him a "ticket to ride" down to South Carolina. Sure, Jon, but you know what? South Carolina, she don't care.
ROSE BOWL BOUND BAD
On the sports pages, associate UW athletic director John Chadima resigned suddenly this week amid vague reports of some impropriety when the Badgers were in Los Angeles preparing for the Rose Bowl. The UW is being tight-lipped about what happened. He may have killed a man or he may have been caught wearing green (the color of the Oregon Ducks) or it may have been something in between. I'm betting on something in between. We'll know sooner or later or it's possible the closed-door investigation will yield little and we'll be told there's nothing to see here and we should all go on about our business.
WALK(ER) OF SHAME
Somebody that actually is being charged with something is a former top aide to then Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker. Tim Russell and his long-time partner apparently took trips to Hawaii and the Caribbean with funds that were intended for events honoring veterans who spent time in place like Iwo Jima, Iraq and Afghanistan. I guess Russell and his pal wanted to honor them by spending time in places like Maui and St. Thomas. If that wasn't creepy enough, it turns out that investigators turned up child porn on the computer of Russell's companion.
There's no evidence that Walker knew about any of this, but if the shoe were on the other foot wouldn't Republicans be screaming that a Democratic governor was responsible for judging the character of the people he hired? If I were a member of an organized political party they might be making that kind of not-altogether-unfair claim. But I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.
MOTHER AND CHILD REUNION
Finally, the "aw" story of the week was a mother and daughter being reunited after 77 years apart. The mother is 101 and the daughter is, well, 77. Reports indicate they started arguing immediately.
That's all I've got for now, kids. Have a good weekend.
The holiday wars continue in the Capitol Rotunda. The conservative group Wisconsin Family Action put up a nativity scene and the Freedom From Religion Foundation responded by applying for a permit to put up their own "solstice scene" with "prominent figures" who they claim will be "slightly blasphemous". Enough already. Just take the whole circus down, sweep up the needles and put up a display featuring the Peanuts characters as they did in Costa Mesa, California.
Speaking of the circus, Dane County wants to ban elephants from the circus when it comes to town in February and because that one is too easy to mock, speaking of elephants, for pure entertainment you just can't beat the Republican presidential candidates. On this week's show Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman were voted off the island, one because he was a ladies man and one because he was nobody's man. (Huntsman didn't get invited to the first GOP debate this week (there were two) because he didn't meet even the low required threshold in the polls. He suffers from sanity, which is not playing well with the Republican base right now.)
Rick Perry continued to be fact-challenged, this time about the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. Perry said we didn't need eight activist judges. I guess he means we need at least one then. He went on to get Justice Sonia Sotomayor's name wrong, referring to her as "Montemayor." But, hey, it's tough to keep all eight names straight.
But the screw up of the week goes to Mitt Romney who tried to make a $10,000 bet with Perry on the nationally televised debate. (He'll also offer you a million dollars to sleep with your wife. See "Indecent Proposal" with Robert Redford.) This struck a chord with people. You know, people who aren't worth $200 million. If he had bet five bucks, people would say that that was a regular guy bet. If he had put up a million dollars people would have recognized it as a lame attempt at a joke. But what the ten grand bet made people think was that $10,000 to Mitt Romney is like ten dollars to you and I. This was not good for his campaign, but it was good for Newt Gingrich, the new front-runner.
The $10,000 bet thing made Newt look more like a regular guy. The kind of regular guy who gets $1.8 million to not lobby Congress. He's also a regular guy who believes that something called electromagnetic pulse could eliminate civilization in a matter of seconds. Romney may be the kind of guy who wears tassels on his loafers, but Newt's the kind of guy who wears tin foil on his head to keep away the gamma rays. Republicans have a choice now: preppy or spooky?
The Newt also promised this week to stick up for marriage, an institution he believes in so strongly that he's tried it three times.
In the sports pages this week it was reported that tests showed that Ryan Braun may have used performance enhancing drugs that lifted his testosterone to sky high levels. Teammates said they noticed something was going on when the normally fastidious Braun started leaving empty beer cans around his locker, belching frequently, scratching himself and constantly snapping guys with towels. Braun says it's all a misunderstanding and I actually believe him.
Also in sports, this week the Los Angeles Angels sealed their ten-year deal with former Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols. Over a decade Pujols will get the state of California. Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Brewers, a small market team, can only offer their own slugging first baseman, Prince Fielder, Kenosha and some parts of Racine. As nice as those communities are, expect Fielder to get the Loop, the Gold Coast, Highland Park and the Cubs will probably toss in Palatine just for good measure.
In international news Britain was once again the skunk at the tea party when Prime Minister David Cameron refused to go along with a German and French plan to bolster the euro and with it the European economy. When he got home his coalition partner Nick Clegg told him that if the Tories didn't want to go to the party in Brussels well fine, but he intended to be friends with the neighbors even if Cameron wanted to stay home and watch cricket.
And Russian oligarch Vladimir Putin seems to be losing his grip on power, facing street protests and now his first serious challenger in the billionaire Russian owner of the New Jersey Nets Mikhail Prokhorov. In contrast to the nastiness of American politics the two Russian rivals immediately expressed concern for the other's safety.
"It would be unfortunate," Putin said in a press conference while adjusting his tie, "if anything untimely should happen to my good friend Mikhail. Like he's driving down a mountain road and his brakes should suddenly give out or he's walking down a street and a box of anvils should fall on his head. This would be tragic, but if it should happen it would be an accident."
Prokhorov, who learned a thing or two in New Jersey, responded that he too was concerned about the health of his rival, especially with so many people these days wandering into cement and then finding themselves trying to swim in the Moscow River.
That's all I have for now. Have a good weekend, kids.
Any week that features Newt, the Herminator, Blago and The Donald at the top of the news is going to make The Week in Review write itself.
So, let's start with Herman Cain "suspending" his presidential campaign after checking in with his wife about some stuff. In this case read "suspend" without the "susp". Polls show his supporters, disappointed in allegations of multiple cases of sexual harassment and at least one lengthy affair, are now switching their allegiances to Newt Gingrich, who has admitted to affairs as well as serving his fist wife with divorce papers as she lay in a hospital bed fighting cancer. So, this all makes perfect sense.
Of course, Newt helped his case immeasurably by being among the first to accept Donald Trump's summons to appear on his debate show. If Newt wants to turn around his image for quirky arrogance there's no better way to do it than to get cozy with The Donald.
But let's level with the American people here. Despite the GOP base dumping the Herminator to date Newt, they know that Mitt is the guy they'll eventually marry. Sure, they're going to sleep with every flat tax bad boy (and girl) they can find before they face the inevitable, responsible, heavy decision to hook up not with the man they love but with the man who has the best chance of getting them a really nice big white house in Washington. Mitt Romney is as inevitable as death and taxes and you know how Republicans feel about taxes.
One man definitely not running for president is former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who got 14 years in prison essentially for talking like a wise guy. I don't know. Seems harsh to me. I mean the guy didn't break any unions or consider hiring thugs to disrupt peaceful protests. Just sayin'.
The New York Times article on Blago's sentencing held one of the more curious lines in any news story this week: "The sentence was… tougher than those for previous Illinois governors convicted of crimes." So in the sentencing category of Illinois Governor Corruption this is a pretty stiff one. You can imagine a mom, years from now, taking her daughter on a tour of the state house in Springfield and as she reviews the busts of governors she tells her child, "Look honey, there's George Ryan! He was a great governor of our state. He only got six and a half years. With time off for good behavior!"
On the international front Germany has told Greece, Italy and Spain to clean up their rooms and mow the lawn before they'll get a dime of their allowance and this time they mean it. For their part, Greece, Italy and Spain have told Germany to lighten up for once, take an afternoon off, sit in a café, sip a nice Chianti and nibble a little cheese and they'll feel better about everything. German Chancellor Angela Merkel doesn't like their attitude, but I mean what's the worst thing you can expect Germany to do to Europe if they get really mad? Oh. Yeah. Well, let's hope they work something out.
One plan being floated at the European Union is to invest in Packer stock. The team is making only the fifth offering ofstock in the team's 92-year history. Each share costs $250 plus a $25 handling fee, it does not appreciate in value, no dividends are paid and it cannot be sold. In other words, it's still a better investment than Greece.
I myself am a long time owner of the team, since Dianne bought me a share at the last offering in 1998. Ever since then I've been actively involved in the operation of the team, providing Coach McCarthy with real time advice as I watch the games on TV and offering my thoughts on player moves to General Manager Ted Thompson as I read the sports page. I don't want to claim full credit for the team's recent success, but it does feel good to be part of the ownership group.
On the local level Kaleem Caire, head of the Urban League, was told by the Madison School District that his plan for a charter school aimed at improving the achievement levels of minority kids was too expensive. So, he got the cost down below the level the MMSD asked for. You'd think they'd be happy, but you'd be wrong. Now he's being told that the school isn't expensive enough because he got there by not going with union teachers.
So he's got a tough choice to make: hire union teachers and come in with a cost that the School Board won't accept or come in at a much lower cost without union teachers, which the School Board won't accept. Next the MMSD is going to put several million dollars under one of three identical hats and then mix them up really fast on a table in front of him. If he picks the right hat he gets to open a school! If he doesn't, well, he still gets one of those really cool Madison School & Recreation t-shirts. So, really he and the kids he's trying to help are winners no matter what.
And finally, at the 17th annual world climate change conference in Durban, South Africa the U.N. reported that greenhouse gasses had reached record levels, yet there were no representatives at the conference from the Obama administration and no members of Congress attended. However, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) did send a five minute video essentially insulting the attendees and crowing that efforts to slow the production of green house gasses were dead in the U.S. And, in fact, few heads of state from any nation attended this year's conference. Finding that meeting the Kyoto Protocol is really hard, world leaders now say that they're going to just recommend a tripling of sunscreen production by 2015 and they're calling on Jimmy Buffet to release a new album of beach party songs.
Well, that's all I've got for now. Have a good weekend, kids.
About a week ago Congress passed a resolution reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the national motto.
In a press release God said He was touched by the gesture.
"Look," He said, "It's not like I've been doing humanity a lot of favors lately. And I don't just mean the earthquakes. Earthquakes are what I do. It's expected. And the Greek situation, well, the Greeks have been screwing up for millennia. I used to have them on top of the world, but they've been pulling stuff like this for centuries and so they get what they get. And making Herman Cain a serious presidential candidate, come on people, even your God's gotta have a sense of humor.
"No, what I mean is the really tough stuff. I support Obama, I really do. But until he gets his shit together unemployment ain't going below 9%. You can take that to the bank. And the NBA? Please. I sent you guys a warning shot a few years ago with hockey, but nobody seemed to care. Somebody's gotta end the greed and pay attention to the common fan who's paying the bills. Am I right?
"But anyway, there's seven billion of you now (and by the way when I told you to be "fruitful and multiply", I didn't mean like rabbits, geez) and when you've got to pay attention to even the fall of the smallest sparrow, well, stuff gets mucked up. So, what I want to say is I'm grateful for the trust that the United States Congress has shown in me, even though, frankly, I'm a big supporter of separation of church and state. And, so, to show my gratitude I'm going to move their approval rating up from 9% to something in the low double digits.
I don't want to brag, but the numbers won't let me lie. Dianne and I got a new television the other day. This is big for us as we generally wait for our friend Jeff to get the latest technology and then give us his hand me downs. This puts us somewhere between five years and a decade behind in technology but that deficiency is made up for by the freeness of the
television set.
Not this time, though. The Brewers are marching all the way to the Series, I'm sure of it. The Packers are dismantling every opponent. I want to see the Badgers play for the national championship on the big screen. And I'm looking forward to not being able to watch the Milwaukee Bucks lose basketball games on this television if their season is cancelled (and if there is a God it will be).
So we took the plunge and actually purchased a new television set. We consulted experts first, which included the aforementioned Jeff who never got around to giving us an old flat screen of his (thanks a lot, Jeff) and Terry who works with Dianne and knows all things electronic as well as all the lines to all the Godfather movies. We were advised by these guys in the know that 60 hz just wouldn't be enough and that we needed 120 hz to watch sports. Well, that was obvious enough.
Sixty just won't do it for the fast moving action of golf, for example. A guy needs 120. But I blew way passed them when I sprung for not 60, not 120 but a full, rockin' 240 hz. Yeah, baby. How fast is 240? I'm told you see things on your TV before they actually happen in real life. I swear to God, it's true. Not only is our new TV faster than Mitt Romney changing his mind on health care, but it also offers us a full sized picture!
That's right, we now have one of those slick flat-screen jobs that shows you stuff that's happening on the bottom and at the ends of the screen. This is good because we've been tired of watching just the tops of scores and other useful information as it scrolls just out of sight below our old screen. "Dear, did that just say, "Tornado in Dane County, take cover now!?" or did Toronto beat the Diamond Backs?"
Also, we've been noticing that some of our favorite shows feature actors who are speaking but not actually on our screen thanks to their location to far stage right or stage left. Sometimes we got half their faces. Sometimes in documentaries for example you'd learn that that half face belonged to "…berg", who was apparently with "…niversity" in "..sylvania". Now we'll see it all and see it really fast. Is this a great country or what?
I Am Not 60 by Mayor Dave, posted Oct 10 2011 6:58AM
I finished the Run for Literacy on Sunday with a time just under an hour for the 10K. Pat Gallagher was the race starter. I was commenting to a friend afterwards that I thought that my time was pretty okay for an old guy like me. She replied, "Old? What are you, 55?" She was trying to be kind. Problem is, I'm 52.
So, what she really thought was that I was 60. This is because of the "Rule of 5" that everybody knows. When you make a comment about someone's age you always figure how old you think they really are and then subtract five years just to be safe. If you're talking to a woman you might actually discount another two or three years just to be doubly safe.
When my friend said she thought I was 55, she was actually thinking I was 60. I'm trying to put the best spin on this that I can. Under an hour is a decent time for a 52 year old guy. It's a good time for a 55 year old guy. But it's really a good time for a 60 year old guy. There. Now I feel better.
When I was mayor I used to love to eat at the Mexican cart on the corner of the Square and MLK Blvd. It was fast, cheap and good and I liked to believe it was good for me too. But since April, for some reason, I've found myself at home for lunch more often. Go figure.
So, today, on What's Cooking With Former Mayor Dave, I'd like to offer my recipe for a simple, quick, fresh, delicious, and inexpensive lunch. Here's what you do. You get yourself some good crusty bread. I like white bread for this, but whole wheat works well too. You toast the bread in a toaster oven until it's just crispy enough so that the olive oil you're about to sprinkle on top doesn't soak in. (Don't have a toaster oven? You're screwed. You need to get yourself a toaster oven. Stop here and run out and buy one. They're cheap. I'll wait.)
Ok. Got the toaster oven? Good. Then, after the olive oil layer cheese on the bread. Fresh Mozarella works best, but today I didn't have any so I used a nice Parmesean instead. Worked just fine. Now put the cheese-covered bread back in your fancy new toaster oven and toast until the cheese melts and starts to brown just a little.
Then get some fresh tomatoes from your garden. What, you don't have a garden? What's the matter with you? Don't you know all urban hip people today have a garden? You listen to Triple M but you don't have a doggone garden? Stop here and go to the store or better yet the farmers freakin' market and buy yourself some nice fresh tomatoes. The tomatoes are the whole point of this recipe. This is the end of the local tomato growing season and if you don't enjoy these suckers now you'll have to wait another ten months to see anything resembling a fresh tomato worth eating.
Ok. Got the fresh local tomatoes? Good. Slice them up and sprinkle them with some kosher salt and some coarsely ground fresh pepper. Don't have kosher salt? Ya know, you're really starting to try my patience. Yes, you can use plain old table salt, but it won't be nearly as good. But I don't have time to wait, so just use the damn table salt. Fine.
Place the tomato slices on top of the cheese and put it back in your great new toaster oven (wasn't that a bargain?) for, how the hell should I know?, maybe two or three minutes, so that the tomato melts a little down into the cheese and gets nice and warm.
Now cut up some fresh basil. I know. You don't have a garden. Look, you can just skip the fresh basil. You don't really need it anyway. But it adds a nice flavor and serves as a lovely garnish to contrast with the red tomato and the golden cheese. But what do you care? You don't even have a garden and you didn't have a toaster oven until I made you go buy one, so why should you care about presentation?
No, just shove the stuff in your mouth, but be careful so you don't burn yourself with the hot tomato.
So, here's how I messed up my first assignment as a park ranger. As a volunteer ranger on Stockton Island in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore this August one of my daily duties was to report the morning weather readings back to the main park headquarters in Bayfield. At eight every morning I'd raise the American flag on the shore and then walk out to the dock and use a device called a Kestrel to get the temperature and the wind speed. I'd also have to figure out the direction of the wind and estimate the wave size.
At 8:15 headquarters would call for the "morning weather roundup". Rangers on eight different islands would report their weather conditions on the radio so that everyone on that frequency, maybe a hundred people, could hear what was going on. And my island always went first. So, on Friday, August 19th I dutifully took my readings and waited, a little nervously, for the roundup to begin. "This is Bayfield. Morning weather roundup. Stockton?" the dispatcher called out. I cleared my throat, then proudly reported that the winds were out of the west at five knots, the skies were partly cloudy, the temperature was 70 degrees Fahrenheit (I threw in "Fahrenheit" just to sound more scientific and official, never mind that if it had been 70 degrees Celsius we'd be on the surface of the sun) and the waves were one to three feet.
I felt pretty good about my first performance, though I did somewhat regret the specification of "Fahrenheit", thinking maybe that was a bit over the top and pretentious. While making a mental note about that, I heard the dispatcher call my station again. "Bayfield here. Stockton?" Somehow they didn't hear me. So I had a chance at redemption on the Fahrenheit issue. I delivered my report again, this time dropping the Fahrenheit, but slipping up again slightly when I signed off. See, you always finish by repeating your personal call number, which in my case was 504. But you're supposed to only use numbers. So, you say "five-zero-four," not "five-oh-four."
Well, I screwed up and used the "oh" instead of the "zero." While I was making another mental note of this I heard the dispatcher say, "Stockton. Negative contact." And she went on to the next island. I was mortified. How could this be?! My first solo performance on the morning roundup lost somewhere in the stratosphere between Stockton Island and Bayfield. Worse, all my new colleagues on those other islands and in Bayfield could hear that I, 504, had dropped the morning weather roundup ball.
I was sure the other volunteers on the radio were thinking, "What's the deal with 504? We heard he had an awfully nice bottle of Scotch out there. Did he get into it pretty deep last night? Or did he just decide to sleep in? Too good for the morning roundup, 504? We heard about you. Big shot former something of somewhere. Well guess what Watson, out here in the real world of twenty-two picturesque islands you get up early – by 8 AM – and you go down to the dock and you raise the flag and you take your damn Kestrel readings and when Bayfield calls your name you report in proudly, clearly and on time.
Learn your lesson, big shot former something or other." When the dispatcher completed her run through all the other stations, she returned to me for one last generous offer of redemption. "Stockton???" I could tell the irritation in her voice was now tinged with the dawning of concern. Relieved at the opportunity, I recited my report perfectly this time. No superfluous use of "Fahrenheit", no mistaking "oh" for "zero". I nailed it. Ten point zero. Even from the Russian judges.
Then I heard the crackling reply from Bayfield. "Stockton negative contact. That completes the morning roundup. Have a good day." "WAIT!" I thought. "I reported in. I did! Third gosh darn time, in fact. Sure, the first two had minor flaws and yeah, the mention of Fahrenheit was unnecessary and maybe a little officious, but still to reject my entire report on the basis of that was just unfair. C'mon Bayfield, I'm a volunteer. Give me a break!" I grabbed my radio again. "Bayfield. This is 504. Can you read me?" No response. "Bayfield. 504 here, Can you read me?" Nothing. It was like talking to a Tea Partier about the need to raise taxes. No response. And my colleagues in the field, my fellow volunteers on the other islands, who had all reported in so successfully (although I did feel that 503 was a little verbose and I detected a hint of hesitation in 508's voice because I don't think she was sure of her four knots out of the Southwest), what must they be thinking?
I suspected that their contempt for me had now melted into concern. What had become of good old 504? Perhaps, after dutifully raising our nation's flag and conscientiously taking his Kestrel readings at precisely the assigned hour our brave 504 heard a rustling in the trees nearby. Heedless of the danger, 504 went to investigate, combing through the thicket and coming face to snout with a very large black bear, a young frightened camper-child in its claws. Calmly, 504 distracted the massive animal with a handful of blue berries he had picked for his breakfast. As the bear moved in for the berries, he dropped the youngster. 504 leapt past the bear, swept up the child and tossed her to her frightened, but now relieved, parents who had just arrived on the scene to witness his heroism.
But the bear, now feeling duped and embarrassed, took after our courageous 504. He was last seen retreating into the thicket, the bear in hot pursuit and 504 using his very own life as bait to pull the ravenous animal away from the campers 504 was sworn to protect and back into the deep, deep wilderness. What selflessness! What heroism! Do the Nobel people give awards for such things? Posthumously, of course. I was having these thoughts when something occurred to me. I looked at the channel on my radio. Was I supposed to be on channel 3 or channel 2? I switched the radio to 2 and tried again. "504. Bayfield?" "This is Bayfield. Go ahead, 504."
For a moment I thought about making something up along the lines of the bear story. But I just fessed up. "My apologies, Bayfield. I was on the wrong channel earlier." My humiliation echoed over the islands. I am now convinced that generations of park rangers will mark time with this event. A decade from now, reminiscing about some event, a ranger will ask, "did that happen before or after the 504 wrong channel incident?"
Nice Save by Mayor Dave, posted Jul 29 2011 2:45AM
Okay, so it wasn't the setting sun warming the Capital dome. It was more like the fluorescent lights casting a cold glow on the cinder block walls. But, hey, the "Concert on the Square" went on despite two nights of rain in a row.
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra performed inside the Alliant Energy Center Thursday night, usually home to the dog show and that kind of thing. It actually worked out pretty well, though I wouldn't recommend it as a regular venue. There's something about the actual Square that makes the concerts there something special.
But soprano Susanna Phillips, who usually performs at the slightly more plush Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center and WCO Maestro Andrew Sewell were good natured about the whole thing and they delivered a great performance in the surprisingly accoustically not as horrible as everybody thought it would be Alliant Center. The real heroes of all this were WCO Executive Director Doug Gerhart and the folks at Dane County who made this happen in less then a day.
As of 8:30 this morning there was going to be no concert. Susanna Phillips would have gone back to New York after performing only in her hotel room shower and we would have missed Samuel Barber's "Knoxville: Summer 1915" and Aaron Copland's "Hoedown" from Rodeo. I also would have missed the tuna fillet for dinner, which was very nice even in artificial light.
It actually turned out to be a nice demonstration of the Madison spirit. A little rain in the forecast? Just move a major production involving dozens of musicians, sound equipment, vendors, and tables and chairs to seat thousands of people to a venue you didn't know was available ten hours before the performance. No problem. It was good work by a lot of dedicated people and thousands of us in the audience appreciated it. But let's hope for sunshine for the orchestra's last Capitol performance next week.
Over the years, I've acquired a taste for Scotch whiskey. Not just any Scotch, but single malt Scotch. One of the advantages to losing my job was that my friends knew this about me. So, to console me on my loss, many bottles of single malts arrived on my desk or appeared on my door step.
When the City Attorney brought me one on my next to final day in office I said, "Great! Something to do on my first day of unemployment!" I exaggerate a little here. Scotch is best enjoyed slowly and in small quantities. "Two fingers" worth is just about right. (The two fingers should be measured along the glass horizontally, not vertically.) And, like the local food movement, good Scotch comes with a good story.
For example, one bottle I received in compensation for losing the best job in the world was The Glenlivet Nadurra 16. This stuff is aged 16 years in "first-fill American oak casks." And if that's not impressive enough they "omit modern chill filtering." Why, yes they do. Obviously the advantage here is that it "preserves intact the full flavour of the malt." Note the "u" in flavour. You pay more for this. It's colour (anouther "u", another five bucks) is described as "bright gold", though "a gentle haze may appear when water is added." It's "nose" (the way it smells) will remind you of "a fresh summer-like medley of floral and sweet spice aromas."
And finally when you get around to drinking the stuff it will have the "sweetness of soft fruits and honeyed flowers". Wow. Now that'll take the sting out of not being Mayor of the best place on earth. I thought of this today because there was a story in the Sunday Times Magazine about the discovery of a case of Scotch carried to the South Pole by the famous explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton.
It was actually just one case out of 25 cases of whiskey which accompanied twelve cases of brandy and only six cases of port. They made room for these necessities by leaving all fresh fruits and vegetables at home. This was a man with his priorities in order. Anyway, a case or two got left behind at a hut Shackleton's crew built on the way toward the pole. It has been there frozen in time and out of memory until now. Click here to read the story.
But Scotch, it's true, is an acquired taste. As a novice Scotch drinker, still acquiring that taste, I would often describe it this way. "It has the aroma of a wet Shetland Sheepdog on a muggy day after the dog has played in the mud for a half hour. The taste starts with a reminder that you've been wearing the same sox at the gym for the last week but then you come across just a hint that you didn't wash the milk bottle out when you put it in the recycling yesterday and finishes with the revelation that rotting leaves in the gutter should be removed to the compost bin.
Overall, this Scotch takes one back to the Lake Mendota shoreline at the Union in the middle of August." It's a long journey to the appreciation of a good Scotch, but trust me, it's a trip worth taking. Sir Ernest knew that, like all great explorers do.
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Buying the right mattress, while it might seem like an enormous hassle, is actually one of the most important things you can do for your health. Think about it. You sleep on it everyday, for hours at a time.
"It's a delicate balance," ...
I already have hoarding tendencies, so it's probably not a great idea to start a new collection.
But this one is so awesome. I was inspired by a new feature on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she celebrates very bad album art. So while making my...
Leonard Cohen's deep and steady voice returns on his latest studio album Old Ideas. Don't expect any hopeful and uplifting revelations from Cohen this time around. It isn't called "Old Ideas" for nothing. Here you'll find the...
The New York Giants may have been the official winners of Super Bowl XLVI, but it was a victory of Mother Nature as well. This year, the NFL along with the Indianapolis Super Bowl XLVI host committee worked to reduce the environmental impact more than...
When I posted this week's photo, I wasn't too sure I was going to get any good captions.
Well my friends, I was certainly wrong. The hard part was narrowing it down to a few. EXCELLENT JOB EVERYONE!!!
We start , as always, with the...
Paul McCartney's new album Kisses On The Bottom will be available February 7th. It's a collection of standards he's wanted to do for quite some time and includes two original songs.
The album features virtuoso pianist (and wife of...
People often ask me if I get nervous being on the radio. When I first started in this business, I would get a few butterflies in my stomach before going on the air, but not anymore. People also ask if I get nervous hosting Live from Studio M sessions...
Time to file taxes. Don't get caught with these errors. Errors made on tax returns may delay the processing of your tax return, which in turn, may cause your refund to arrive later. Here are nine common errors the IRS wants you to avoid to help...
Buying the right mattress, while it might seem like an enormous hassle, is actually one of the most important things you can do for your health. Think about it. You sleep on it everyday, for hours at a time.
"It's a delicate balance," ...
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Dave Cieslewicz may no longer officially be the mayor of Madison, but he still has a thing or two to say about life. Around here we still like to call him Mayor Dave. Is out of respect for the two terms he served proudly as our fearless leader? Is it because he was able to solve the Halloween weekend problems on State Street? Is it because he just a nice guy? No, no and no. The real reason is quite simple. Two weeks before the election we bought him a really kick-butt Triple M jacket and we spent a lot of money embroidering Mayor Dave just above the left pocket.
RON PAUL
JON HUNTSMAN
ROSE BOWL 
WALK(ER) OF SHAME
MOTHER AND CHILD REUNION 
Speaking of the circus, Dane County wants to ban elephants from the circus when it comes to town in February and because that one is too easy to mock, speaking of elephants, for pure entertainment you just can't beat the Republican presidential candidates. On this week's show Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman were voted off the island, one because he was a ladies man and one because he was nobody's man. (Huntsman didn't get invited to the first GOP debate this week (there were two) because he didn't meet even the low required threshold in the polls. He suffers from sanity, which is not playing well with the Republican base right now.) 
you a million dollars to sleep with your wife. See "Indecent Proposal" with Robert Redford.) This struck a chord with people. You know, people who aren't worth $200 million. If he had bet five bucks, people would say that that was a regular guy bet. If he had put up a million dollars people would have recognized it as a lame attempt at a joke. But what the ten grand bet made people think was that $10,000 to Mitt Romney is like ten dollars to you and I. This was not good for his campaign, but it was good for Newt Gingrich, the new front-runner. 
In the sports pages this week it was reported that tests showed that Ryan Braun may have used performance enhancing drugs that lifted his testosterone to sky high levels. Teammates said they noticed something was going on when the normally fastidious Braun started leaving empty beer cans around his locker, belching frequently, scratching himself and constantly snapping guys with towels. Braun says it's all a 
he's driving down a mountain road and his brakes should suddenly give out or he's walking down a street and a box of anvils should fall on his head. This would be tragic, but if it should happen it would be an accident." 
