Union Thugs at Messmer Catholic School

Last Friday, Governor Scott Walker attended the Messmer Catholic School in inner-city Milwaukee to read to students.  Union thugs, not wanting to miss an opportunity to voice their displeasure with not only the Governor, but also with a Choice School, attended to disrupt proceedings.  The following video captured the event: 

So why are citizens so outraged?  Is it perhaps the 85% college attendance rate by graduates?  Note, that's not a typo - not 85% passing standardized tests, or 85% merely graduating, but 85% going to college!  In the video Brother Bob boasts that he'll put his kids up against any school in the state, and with numbers like that, he's going to win.  Hence, for the unions that means it is time to break out the "HEY HEY, HO HO" chant one more time. 

A couple of other things to note: 

• Check out the fat mom calling Br. Bob a scumbag at the :30 mark, and the thug that aggressively bumps into Br. Bob at the 1:06 mark.  Easy to see where the term "union thug" comes from... 
• This protest occurred on Friday.  The kids are at school.  The Governor is working.  Br. Bob is working.  And these thugs have nothing better to do than come to interfere with what is arguably the most successful school in Wisconsin.  Pathetic, pathetic losers.  
•  In the whole video, the best behaved of those featured were the children.  Says a lot, doesn't it?  
• I wonder if this was a Muslim school instead of a Catholic school that it would have attracted this type of protest (or any kind of protest at all). 

I knew Wisconsin had a liberal bias, especially in Madison, prior to our moving out here.  I had no idea how bad it is, and this kind of behavior by the left is embarrassing and pathetic.  This is simple union intimidation and thug behavior; committed in front of innocent children for Pete's sake.   

 

Sad, piggish behavior.  

 

 In fact, I got so upset that I sent Messmer a check - along with a matching gift from my employer.  I encourage you to visit their site to learn about the good work that they're doing, or just fast forward to making a donation yourself.  I'm not sure you'd find a better cause.   

 

Ironic, isn't it, that after all of the chanting and bully tactics, the net result is that more funds flow into Messmer?   

 

Thanks, unions.  Keep up the good work, and by all means, stay classy.

Fr. Don Talafous Strikes Again

I have been really enjoying going to mass more and more, and find my time there to be of great comfort.  I've been trying to put my finger on what exactly is driving this - was it the music, the homily, the Packers gear people wore?  I could never come up with it.

Then Father Don came up with this post, and brought it all home to me:

The well-done celebration of Sunday Mass can be, even in some rather incidental ways, a reminder about otherwise neglected aspects of ordinary human life. The effort and dignity the woman puts into proclaiming the first reading; the beauty and richness of the baritone voice leading the singing; the time spent in greeting others and wishing them peace; the reverences made to the book of the Scriptures and to the altar; the individual attention in the distribution of communion -- all these speak of the value and dignity of human beings, of human life, of all the visible as well as invisible elements of human life. One is reminded for an hour or so at least that the earth and our fellow human beings are valuable in themselves apart from the opportunities for gain, for advancement, apart from what they can do for us. One comes away from such a service refreshed and renewed, one's youthful excitement and delight in creation restored. The general and easily banal affirmation of God's love for the earth and humankind becomes in this setting something genuine and specific, referring to each human being there. Besides affirming the place of God in our lives, worship can celebrate the goodness and worth of every element and person in God's creation. At the center of it all is our remembering that "God so loved the world that He sent His only-begotten son into the world to save it" (1 John: 4:9-10).

Thanks Fr. Don.  Again.

Career Advice

My first job outside of college was working for Ford Motor Credit.  My best friend got me a job there, and it was a really big deal at the time.  Unemployment was through the roof, I needed to start my career, and just about any full time gig would have been welcomed.  I was offered a whopping $16,800 for my starting salary, and I jumped all over it.  

I started out an assistant customer service representative, which really meant that I was a bill collector.  I spent my days calling delinquent accounts, and my nights repossessing cars for overtime pay.  I learned a ton about business, personal and business credit, had way more fun at work than I should have, and was quickly promoted.  I ultimately interviewed in Detroit for a position that would groom me for a branch management leadership position, and was accepted into an exclusive, two-year training program where I literally performed every job within a branch office.  Ford was also paying for my masters degree as well, so between my work during the day and school all night and weekends, I was learning an incredible amount.  

About a year into the training, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I was knocking it out at work, and school was going great.  Prospects for my future were looking really good.  That was all until my assistant branch manager called me into his office.   

Larry was from West Virginia originally, and had come up the ranks "repoing deadbeat rednecks throughout the hills."  His still spoke with a very distinct southern drawl.  We had a good relationship, and I had learned a lot from him.  However, when I sat down across from his desk, I knew this wasn't going to be the usual conversation.  "Boy, where's that such and such of a project that I asked you to complete?" Indeed, Larry had given me a task, and it fell off my radar screen.  I confessed what had happened.  "That's what I thought," he said.  "You do a good job here, and you're on a good path, but boy, your follow up skills are horsebleep.  Absolute horsebleep.  And it is going to kill your career.  You need to figure it out, and figure it out right now."   

Up to this point, I'd always heard nothing but glowing reviews, and I took this pointed feedback like a punch to the gut.  I stammered an apology and left his office, but I immediately began mulling on his feedback.  He was, of course, absolutely right.  

I immediately began employing techniques to make improvements on my follow up and organization, and evolved as my career and technology progressed.  I still work on it to this day.  For example, I still use a Franklin Planner, and while it looks damned antiquated, it provides me an organizational method where very little ever falls through the cracks.   

I've often thought back to that day in Larry's office, and while the conversation was tough, it helped me in my career possibly more than any other piece of advice I received.  And since that time, I've actively sought out the feedback of others to see how I'm doing and what I can do better.  Those that have provided me with candid feedback have been treasured, as they've helped to push me to constantly up my game and be better.   

We all have ways in which we can improve, and when we stop doing them, we kind of start giving our employers reasons for not needing us anymore.  While these improvements certainly can come in the form of expanded training or industry learning, I'm convinced it should also come from our coworkers - peers, managers, and direct reports.  While sometimes the feedback will sting, the benefits can far outweigh the pain.   

So if you're still out there, thanks Larry.  You molded me far more than you could have thought.  

Obama "Takes Charge" at Hurricane Command Center

We can all breathe a lot easier as the president has left his vacation to "take charge" of the FEMA "hurricane command center." 

In the mean time, the country is mired in an economic hurricane of a Cat 5 variety, with unemployment over 9%, 40 million citizens on food stamps, and millions more suffering greatly.  And it has been that way for nearly the entire tenure of his administration. 

We've been waiting for him to "take charge" of that for a long time.  Unfortunately, we need to wait until vacation is over for that to happen, and what, now with the natural disaster of a hurricane, it might take even longer... 

A Dog Named Blitz - Chapter Six, "Two Years Old:

For background on this serial, please click here. You can also start at the previous section

By her second birthday (April 15, Tax Day, who could forget?), Blitz was developing into a fine hunting dog.  Tune up work with the trainer went very well, and exercises with me in the back yard and basement were going equally as good.  Her penchant for a random "jailbreak," tussle with the cat, and sneaking of food kept things interesting, and things were never dull around our household.   

Also, during this period, Blitz discovered chipmunks.  And a dislike of chipmunks along the lines of her dislike of rabbits.  I'm not sure what exactly triggered this dislike; perhaps it was their distinct similarity to Beany Babies, or maybe it was their attitude.  In nature, chipmunks are kind of the that undersized kid with the big mouth we all remember from junior high school - writing checks with this mouth that his body couldn't cash.  Chipmunks, when faced with danger, can be quite content to "bark" to their foes from a perceived safe distance, and depending on the level of their agitation, this sounding off can be quite annoying.   

So perhaps it was this attitude that made Blitz psycho for chipmunks, and they appeared to hate her with the same amount of vitriol.  In fact, one early spring day, Blitz had forced one underneath our air conditioning unit in the back yard, and the amount of barking by both animals made one think that next world war had started.  And to them, it kind of had.   

Blitz circled and circled the unit, even at time jumping over it in attempt to get at the offending creature.  In the mean time, the chipmunk was voicing his displeasure as well as agitating his nemesis with the best method he could.  While I tried to call Blitz off multiple times, she was in a berserker rage, and was unable to hear commands, let alone obey them.  I finally had to go into the house to get a lead to ultimately pull her away from the fight scene.  And for the rest of our time at that house, she'd always eyeball that air conditioner unit with distain.    

In looking back, beyond the chipmunk battles, that spring and summer were spent really just biding our time in anticipation of the fall hunting season.  And this season was to be one of continued firsts, with Blitz experiencing her first Canada goose hunt, and her first grouse hunt.   

The explosion of the Canada goose population has been a conservation success story - or a nightmare, depending on how much golf you play.  When I first started hunting as a kid in the 1970's, it was rare to see a Canada goose, let alone get a shot at one.  They were almost a kind of mythic creature, and boys at school that happened to bag one over the weekend were afforded reverential master hunter status.  They were so rare, in fact, that even a simple National Geographic show on them was enough to get the telephone lines burning up with my buddies so that we wouldn't miss a chance to learn more about this incredible bird.   

Fast forward to the 1990's and the whole world had changed.  The population of the Canada goose had absolutely exploded, and add their populations encroached, and ultimately thrived in urban environments.  The result of this population boom was that the goose was quickly becoming a nuisance.  They are prolific poopers as any beach bum or duffer can attest, and they're credited with causing two horrific plane crashes - a USAF E-3 which killed all aboard, and of course Captain Sullenberger's Miracle on the Hudson.  Hence, may states and municipalities began seasons outside of the normal waterfowl hunting framework in order to help better control the burgeoning population of the Canada goose.   

The lake in which we hunt is prime waterfowl habitat, and every season we would raise multiple families of geese.  So when early season goose hunting was announced, my partners, buddies and I knew we would have a good shot at bagging some of these large birds.   

While Blitz had shown her capabilities for water retrieves on ducks the year prior, geese posed a whole other challenge.  The average duck weighed a couple of pounds, the average goose weighed something on the order of twelve pounds.  And for a 55 pound, two year old dog, this was not an insignificant amount.  But my buddy Don and I decided to head out that early goose opener and take Blitz with us with the hopes that she'd be able to handle the big birds and figure things out on her own.   

We departed from the dock about an hour from sunrise on a clear, still, moonless early morning, and twinges of pink were just starting to be visible in the east.  As accustomed to how she performed the year prior, Blitz was actively moving around the boat during the short ride to the hunting area - sniffing the air, visiting Don, visiting me, leaning over the boat to lap at the water, then repeating the whole cycle.  We ultimately arrived at our hunting location: a stand of thick cattails that we had dubbed "goose island" due to the proclivity of geese to hang around it.  We set our decoys into three pods of "family groups" of  six to eight birds, left two prime areas for landing, and hauled our boat into the cover of the cattails.   

The morning was beautiful, and as legal shooting hours approached we noted a large group of geese that got off the upper end of the lake to head out for breakfast.  Goose hunting on our lake was typically very slow in the early morning as geese tended to leave for their morning meal through a safe passage.  Our odds got much better as the geese, full of grain, retuned from breakfast looking for drinking water and a place to lounge through the heat of the day.  This day was no different, and despite a lot of shooting in the fields around us, we didn't see any geese looking to return to the lake until after ten o'clock.  But return they did, in singles, pairs, and groups.   

While Don and I were fairly accomplished callers, we had difficulty calling any birds into gun range.  Fortunately, we stuck with it, and a group of six birds came into the look and made a bee line toward our decoy set.  We hunkered down and mimicked their calling cadence, and felt like we were finally going to get an opportunity.  Keeping my head down and relying on the calling of the geese to judge their location and distance, my heart rate increased thinking that we were finally going to get a shot and Blitz might finally get her first goose retrieve.   

Sneaking a peek, I noticed that the geese that were once lined up on our spot had begun drifting off to our east, and what was looking like a great opportunity was now going to be a tough shot.  When the geese reached their closest proximity to us, I yelled "Take 'em!" to Don, who was still keeping his head down to prevent the geese from seeing his glasses.  Given the approach of the geese, Don had the only shot, and I stood with him to see how he did.  Don got a lead on the closest bird, squeezed the trigger, and folded the big bird in a clean kill in his first shot.   

Because we were in such high cattails, Blitz did not see the bird fall, but must have known that something good had happened as she bolted out the dog door before the goose had splashed into the water.  Blitz appropriately used the direction of Don's shot to head for the bird, and soon saw him a good 40 yards out.  Don and I both looked at each other, wondering how all of this would go.  She soon arrived at the bird, but realized that something was definitely different, and began to circle it as if to say "how am I going to fit all of THAT into my mouth?"  However, I gave her the command to fetch, and Blitz immediately went at the bird, gripped it as best she could, and headed back to the boat.    

The wake she made in the still water with the large goose was quite a wave, and she huffed strongly through her nose back to us.  I lowered the blind, grabbed her collar, and hauled her in while her grip was still firmly on the goose.  I was surprised by her weight as I was remembering how easy she was to lift back into the boat in the season prior.  But then I remembered that with her first goose, she was also sporting about a twenty percent increase in her weight.   

She dropped the bird at my command, and Don, Blitz and I celebrated the first of many goose retreives that she would make for me.        

RIP, Jon Tumilson

I think, sir, that your dog speaks for all of us. 



May God indeed hold you in the palm of His hand

I'm About to Drop Facebook

I'm just about to drop Facebook.  I simply can't handle it anymore.  The content found there is so horribly superficial, and the true nature of the "connection" I have with my "friends" is on an ever more embarrassing display. 

But beyond that, and far more annoying, is that I've been hiding posts from multiple friends because I can't stand their political commentary anymore (and I have a couple on the bubble).  I really thought that with the unequivocal failure of the Obama administration that the whole political endorsement deal would die down, but instead I'm now getting posts on why Warren Buffett is brilliant and Michelle Bachman is bat-excrement crazy. 

Unfortunately, many of these people were the same people that told me Obama would usher in a new breed of president and would save our country.  He did usher in a new breed - to the tune of record debts and deficits- but he's hardly saved our country.  To the contrary, we're now at the economic brink of collapse.  So as far as political prognostication goes, some of my friends are batting worse than Drew Butera (.161!  Really!). 

Now, I know what you're thinking, that I'm hypocritical as I use this blog as my own political bully pulpit.  The difference is that folks that stop by this blog do so because they want to be here.  I didn't invite anyone here, or establish any relationship with my readers that anything and everything I post will show up in their News Feed.  If you don't like my content, you just don't come back.  Simple as that.  Whereas with Facebook, many of these "friendships" are set because of an industry relationship, school relationship, work, or other. 

To jump to the bottom line: just because we went to high school together does not mean I care in the least what you think of Rick Perry, taxes, or Warren Buffett. 

So, to my Facebook friends that may just happen to stumble across this - please get back to telling me about your kid, the line at Starbucks, your vacation, or what you're having for dinner.  While the communication will be superficial, at least I won't be blocking you for it. 

There, I feel better.  

The Case for Rush for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

In this latest and final installment of artists that shouldbe in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but are not, we examine the case for Rush.   

Of all the bands that I've reviewed before, there have been reasons why the Hall may choose to keep them out.  Some might argue the validity of those reasons, but they exist.  For Rush, however, no such reasons exist.  None.  We're only left with compelling reason after compelling reason why they should be enshrined.   

For example:

Musical Body of Work - Albums 2112, Permanent Waves, and Moving Pictures are rock and roll must-haves.  Other albums that are incredibly strong include Fly by Night, Power Windows, and Test for Echo.  Singles like Tom Sawyer, Limelight, Freewill, Subdivisions, and The Spirit of the Radio entail just a subset of their library that received substantive airplay.  The list goes on and on. 

Success - Rush has earned 24 gold records - 24!  14 are platinum.  Of all rock and roll bands, Rush ranks third in number of consecutive gold or platinum albums.  The two bands they trail?  Just a couple of bands named the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.  That's all...

Musicianship - All three members of Rush are considered by most musicians and music aficionados to be masters at their craft.  Neil Peart is arguably the best rock and roll drummer currently alive.  Alex Lifeson is a creative, gifted, and virtuoso guitarist.  And Geddy Lee is a masterful bass player, often playing bass with his hands, synthesizers with his feet, and singing during concerts.  In order to make the sound this trio does, they need to be impeccable musicians, and Rush clearly fits that description.  All three are incredible. 

Breadth of Work - Rush is not just one style - there are multiple forays into different musical directions.  They've never stood still, and have created new and unique music across their entire 43 year career.  

Longevity - Did I mention 43 years?  Incredible.  I could go on and on, however, it's not necessary. 

 Anyone with a modicum of musical aptitude knows to their very core that Rush deserves to be in the Hall, and should have been there on their first year of eligibility in  1998.  The fact that they're not in the Hall shows just what a flawed process the whole RRHOF is, and that they lack significant credibility.  While one may not like their music, one cannot discount anything that I've presented.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a Hall of Fame career no matter how you slice it. 

So to spite the Hall and leave this subject on a high note, I leave you with a live version of Tom Sawyer from the Snakes and Arrows tour (with a little help from Cartman and the South Park gang...):