Friday morning I used the publicly subsidized airwaves to good purpose. I called for Gov. Jim E. Doyle to mobilize the National Guard and deploy it in Milwaukee's public schools.
Joy Cardin, the gracious host of Wisconsin Public Radio's Week in Review program commented, "We'll just leave that one alone" and moved on.
Perhaps I was too polarizing.
Well, isn't that what governors do when there is a disaster? They call up the National Guard. And Milwaukee's schools ARE a disaster!
70 percent of its students can't do math. 60 percent can't read. Fewer than half graduate. Money is not the problem; MPS spent more per student than 13 of 15 "comparable" districts recently studied by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.
Picture this: the National Guard patrolling the halls, bayonets fixed, would assure discipline and without discipline you cannot have learning. It would also send a message to the teachers union.
Yes, the mayor of Milwaukee needs control over this disaster site. Jim E. Doyle managed to get one right! Let's encourage such behavior! Milwaukee teachers, you think you'll get a better deal with Scott Walker?
Tear Down this Wall!
The Week in Review radio program pairs conservative thinkers such as the squire of Stately Blaska Manor with a sacrificial liberal. Last Friday's road kill was Bill Lueders, news editor of Isthmus. About the tragic Fort Hood massacre, Bill opined that the U.S. Army should a better job of keeping guns out of military bases. Your BlaskaBlogger retorted with this profound comment: Wow!
Bill also waxed rhapsodic over the soothing dulcet tones of our TelePrompTer In Chief. What a privilege it was to listen to a good speech as opposed, I guess, to Bush Two.
The Obamaman sounds great but what does he actually say? Content, man! The Blaska Policy Research Center and Experimental Work Farm is exploring the theory that the sound of Obama's voice works like a cricket rubbing its hind feet together; that it is a kind of mating call to which liberals subliminally succumb, their cognitive senses rendered useless. It's Pavlovian.
Because I will be damned if the man has said anything significant except Yes We Can, which the WalMart smiley face said first and less expensively.
You want moral gravity? How about "Tear down this wall!"
