More wanted
Re: “Pay dirt?” (6/29/2018): You barely made mention of the protest taking place a few miles away. The only news you covered was about who wins politically.Meanwhile, just a few miles away, several hundred protesters met in Smolenski Park to hear from Mount Pleasant landowners and residents impacted by misuses of eminent domain and blighted zone rulings, changes in local transportation and local governance. Then they marched to the Mount Pleasant Village Hall for a second rally where speakers from all over the state addressed the economic, political, social and environmental repercussions from the Foxconn deal and the corrupt legislative body that approved it.Obviously the Foxconn deal was primarily a political ploy to boost Walker’s reelection, letting him claim he’s bringing jobs to Wisconsin. Still, Foxconn poses many more problems for our state than simply whether or not Walker wins reelection.
— Linda Kessel, via email
What democracy means
Re: “The battle for Wisconsin” (7/12/2018): “The Fall of Wisconsin is the story of how the state went from a widely admired ‘laboratory of democracy’ to a testing ground for national conservatives bent on remaking American politics,” Dan Kaufman writes in his prologue. That’s the definition of democracy.... things change by means of peaceful elections. The pendulum swings for a variety of reasons. At some point it’ll swing the other direction. Will some conservative then claim it’s less a democracy than it was the year prior? LOL probably. That’s the absurdity.
— Ro Rosenkranz, via Facebook
Democrats in Wisconsin were timid? Fleeing to Rockford, Illinois? Egging on the takeover of the State Capitol? Ginning up recall elections? And how did the voters of Wisconsin respond? By re-electing Scott Walker and Ron Johnson and voting for Donald Trump. Kaufman blames the Koch boys but, at least from this reading, steers clear of those pesky elections.
—David Blaska, via isthmus.com
Corrections: An article last week on student voting in the Aug. 14 primary should have said that early absentee voting was available at all Madison public libraries, not just at some; also, it is not the first time that move-in day falls on the primary; it happened in 2012 as well. An article on The Onion incorrectly identified Scott Dikkers as a founder of the publication; he bought it a year after it was created. Also, in an article on the Art Fair on the Square, it was incorrectly stated that the first fair was held in 1959 at the Capitol; the first fair was held at a mall at Midvale Boulevard near the Beltline, moving in 1964 to the Square. The photo that ran with the story dates to the 1960s, not 1959.