What's up Milwaukee

The child poverty rate in Milwaukee is 41.3 percent. Just think about that. The biggest city in the state where over half of the state's minority population calls home has the fourth highest child poverty rate in the nation.

Odds and ends from the Annex

Tonight Meredith and I headed over to the Annex to watch some live music. The first band was the Headlights. If you like Cat Power but wish her voice were smoother and her songs more upbeat, then you would truly enjoy the Headlights. I liked them just fine. They looked like a band and played their songs well. The mix was the standard shitty Annex mix job. The bass was too loud and the keyboards too soft. All in all, they were worth the $5. I then had a Team Riggs patented Madison sucks moment and got into a funk. It's difficult hating where I live, especially when things I really enjoy are the things that set me off, aka watching live music. Then Via Audio got on stage. I don't know what to say about them other than they were fun to watch. They sure as hell weren't fun to listen to. Their singer looks like she spends much more time worrying about how to look like the front person of a band than she does on how to sing her songs well. They had that magical train wreck quality. I sat there waiting for them to fall apart. They never did, but they sure got close. They had one really good song that sounded nothing like their other stuff. They introduced one song as a country song and then proceded to play a waltz. Do kids today not know what country music is? Shit man, this wasn't even a country waltz, it was just straight up waltz. This band was not worth any money, but fortunately there was no money left to be made up for. I consider the evening to have broken even and I got out of the house. Good times for all.

I look gay

I don't mean that in a bad way, if there is a bad way. I just got a haircut at baci, my little hip salon, and the dude who cuts my hair, a veteran, styled my hair into a faux hawk. He always does this. It always makes me feel a little bit like a queer eye work in progress, but I let him do it anyway. It makes me feel pretty. The tight shirt, tight pants, and european shoes, serve to round out the look.

Good way to start the school year

I found out today that there is a La Follete Alumnus who works for the State of Georgia in the Governor's Office of Planning and Management. Not only that, but she signed up for the Alumni Network, meaning she wants to help students from La Follette find jobs. To recap, in the city where I want to live, in the office where I want to work, there is a woman from La Follette who wants to help La Follette people get jobs. While that doesn't mean that I'm going to someday get a job in that office, it is a nice little start.

Justice Roberts

There comes a point in time where liberal groups need to face reality about this Supreme Court situation. We have a conservative President and a conservative Congress. It seems reasonable to me that they'll be able to get themselves a conservative Justice. If they don't want to cooperate with the Democrats they don't really have to. The gang of 14 has clearly decided that this guy isn't an extreme circumstance. I'm frustrated with the stonewalling of the Bush administration in regards to many more memos that they haven't yet released, but I haven't seen anything that's going to cost enough Republican Senators to actually defeat the nomination. The DailyKos people can whine about this all they want, but the facts are facts. As an aside, is there a whinier group of fairly mainstream liberals than DailyKos?

Hippy Christmas

It seems as if freeloaders from across the country are flocking to Madison this week in hopes of claiming some furniture and other household goods from the side of the road. Madison looks disgusting right now. People are throwing their shit on the side of the road and random people are clogging up the roads digging through said shit. Why can't these fuckers take their shit to goodwill? Is it because people in Madison, particularly the students, are lazy and can't do anything for themselves? Yes, I believe that's it.

So it's almost football time again

I find it quite interesting that when Ricky Williams had 8 yards rushing in his preseason return, numerous sportswriters took jabs at him for how badly he played. I have yet to see anything about his 6.5 yards per carry rushing average in his second game. I guess it doesn't quite fit the storyline.

I am really bad at NCAA Football 2006. I think school and work have gotten in the way of my video game playing. It might be time to prioritize.

I don't know who will win the national championship this year, but I'm fairly certain that it won't be a team from the Big 10 or the Pac 10. Yes, I realize that defending champion USC has everyone back, but too many teams are too good for them to win 3 in a row. It just doesn't happen. My preferred result would be for Texas to beat Oklahoma in the title game. I think Oklahoma needs to lose their third consecutive national championship game.

I hope that Texas doesn't end the five game losing streak to OU just to see A&M end their five game losing streak to Texas. That would be a shame.

I want the Bears to sign Tim Couch. He's got to be better than everything they've got unless Orton learns the offense. If that happens Rex Grossman will be out of a job whenever he isn't injured.

My shoes gots pockets

Nostalgia won out over sensibility. I bought a pair of Roos this weekend because they look cool and they remind me of putting my milk money into my shoe pocket in elementary school. I'm sure it's a shock to all readers that I was taken in by such an obvious marketing ploy, but there she is.

Workin' man blues

Who I am I kidding, I'm no working man. In four and a half days I will be done with my two months working in the Office of Research Policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School. My primary task has been to review Outside Activities Reports and prepare educational materials for the Conflict of Interest Committee. It's been an interesting experience. There have been some slow parts, but mostly it's passed the time. After this job, I've got the pleasure of hosting Kevin C (I'm too lazy to link to his site right now) coming to visit for several days. I'm not sure how many days, but he's welcome for as many as he'd like. We did buy the air mattress specifically for him last summer. In September, school will begin. This is the last year of policy school. I'll be posting updates about my job search as the year goes by. If anybody in Atlanta wants to hire me, that'd be great. I'm disappointed that this isn't an election year. I'll get some primary action, but not much beyond that. Being in policy school during a presidential election is a truly interesting experience. It's as if all of the politics nerds are gathered into one place. Too bad we're such a monolithic group at La Follette. I think that experience has made me more conservative. I'm at least more staunchly moderate now. That's all for now.