Hooray for new parks!

This news is most welcome:

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk today announced the purchase of approximately 172 acres, the largest park purchase ever, in the North Mendota Natural Resource Area, calling it one of the most picturesque and most accessible of all the new county parks.

Rolling terrain of woodlands, pasture and wetlands, with some steeper slopes offering postcard panoramic views of surrounding landscape -- including the State Capitol – mark the property. Large, ancient open-grown oaks still are prominent on the slopes adjacent to Six-Mile Creek that runs through the property. The open-grown nature of the oaks presents a clear vision of the once-common savannas in this part of the state.

The property also provides a link for the proposed North Mendota Bicycle Trail, a regional trail similar to the Capital City Trail on the southern half of the county that will link Schumacher Farm County Park, Governor Nelson State Park and Pheasant Branch Conservancy.

This is great, and I applaud Falk and whoever else was involved for making the move. As far as I can tell, they're talking about the large stretch of land just north of Governor Nelson State Park and highways K and M.


View Larger Map

Not only does this add to the open space around the city, provide environmentally sound recreational, educational and research opportunities, but the fact that it could be used to help provide a link for the proposed North Mendota Bicycle Trail is excellent.

The more we do to preserve our natural resources and help keep sprawl to a minimum, the better. I'm now of a mind to go and check out the land to see for myself what the county has just bought for itself.

Making overtures to better management

Who's running the show over at the Overture Center, anyhow? The way they've been handling their trust fund for keeping the place afloat, you'd think it was a bunch of English majors. Actually, strike that--I was an English major and I think I would have had better sense than these folks. That is, I would have hired people who knew what they were doing, knew not to trust everything to our country's extremely volatile stock market, and knew not to blow whatever cash they blew on architect Cesar Pelli's soulless design (don't even get me started on that damn Jello mold of a dome).

After a poor performance in 2005, the arts district and a seperate trust fund board opted to undertake a refinancing plan, one which many people, including Mayor Dave, were opposed to. Apparently the opposition was for good reason, as the fund continues to do badly.

According to the WSJ:

The trust, which must be at least $104 million to meet all commitments, sank from $105.83 million on July 13 to $100.86 million on Aug. 15, doubling any prior decline and nearly forcing the district to tap other sources to meet debt payments.

The fund recovered to $103.31 million -- still below the $104 million mark -- by Sept. 28, according to the latest report by Madison comptroller Dean Brasser. The trust has since added another $400,000, the Overture Foundation said.

Overture Center was built with a $205 million gift from philanthropist W. Jerome Frautschi. About half the gift was put in a trust fund for operations and maintenance, while the rest was coupled with a $115 million loan to build the Cesar Pelli-designed facility on State Street.

But the original financing plan, which didn 't involve the city, failed in a weak investment market. In late 2005, the council approved a controversial refinancing deal, with the city providing a financial backstop on some debt for six years.

Under the deal, the trust covers about $7.45 million in annual debt payments and pays another $1.4 million every year to Overture 's operations and maintenance reserve. To do so, the trust must earn a 8.25 percent rate of return over the long term.

The trust, which stood at $109.3 million in late 2005, has fluctuated with the market and as it makes required payments.

After months of effort, the trust fund board earlier this year began a new investment strategy designed to get a strong return but better protect against market volatility.

But in the third quarter, due mainly to poor investment performance, the trust declined to a point where it couldn 't meet all commitments, said Chabot, who also sits on the trust fund board.

The trust 's performance came close to partial default, Chabot confirmed. If the trust drops between $100 million and $97 million -- as it nearly did -- Frautschi would cover the first $5 million in debt payments, then the arts district, and finally the city. No payment would be made to the reserve.

If the trust falls below $97 million, creditors would enter discussions with the trust fund board to evaluate the need for change.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I can't help but feel like better planning and more knowledgeable people running the show would have helped. And they may want to seriously consider making changes now, instead of waiting until the whole thing drops into default and everyone else has to help bail them out.

Between this mess and other little signs like Overture boosting their facility fees from 2 to 3 dollars last year, something just doesn't smell right. They're charging us extra to see shows, extra money that the performer's don't see, by the by--and they're charging those performers just to have merchandise tables out in the lobby in front of their shows, too.

The Overture Center was supposed to be a community arts space--welcoming to both national touring acts and local troupes. They put forth a token olive branch to the local arts community when they first opened, but, outside of the galleries, I haven't seen much local content since (and I mean really local--not just the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and the occasional jazz band in the Rotunda). That might have something to do with the high rental fees charged for the various spaces (and they charge extra for tables and chairs).

Perhaps if they were able to get their act together with the financing/trust fund, they wouldn't feel the need to charge unreasonable fees for their rentals and their patrons. And that might increase use and attendance, which would in turn increase their revenues. Now there's an idea.

Columbus, you jerk.

Today is Columbus Day in the US, and though his actual first landing happened on October 12, our country chooses to celebrate that event a little early. Really, I'm still not sure why we have a national holiday for it in the first place. Aside from the fact that Columbus was an egotistical, mass-murdering fiend, he and his crew weren't even the first people to stumble onto the continent. Heck, they weren't even the first Westerners.

You've got the Vikings, of course, and apparently even some Welshmen by the name of Prince Madog who may have settled in Alabama back in the 12th century. The off-and-on contact between the Old and New Worlds had been going relatively smoothly until Columbus landed on what he thought was the Asian continent (man couldn't even make his geographical calculations half-accurately). Cue smallpox, slaughter and forced Christianization.

Columbus directly brought about the demise of many Taino (Arawak) Indians on the island of Hispaniola, and the arrival of the Europeans indirectly slew many indigenous peoples by bringing diseases previously unknown in the New World. An estimated 85% of the Native American population was wiped out within 150 years of Columbus's arrival in America, due largely to diseases such as smallpox, which were accidentally spread among Native American populations. Additionally, war and the seizing of land and material wealth by European colonists also contributed to the decline of the indigenous populations in American.

Columbus Day is not celebrated in the state of Minnesota. In the state of South Dakota, the day is officially a state holiday known as "Native American Day", not Columbus Day. Columbus Day is not a legal holiday in Nevada, but it is a day of observance.

In the summer of 1990, 350 Native Americans, representatives from all over the hemisphere, met in Quito, Ecuador, at the first intercontinental gathering of indigenous people in the Americas, to mobilize against the quincentennial celebration of Columbus Day. The following summer, in Davis, California, over a hundred Native Americans gathered for a follow-up meeting to the Quito conference. They declared October 12th, 1992, International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People.

The largest ecumenical body in the United States, the National Council of Churches, called on Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quincentennial, saying, "What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others."

For whatever reason, I hadn't realized that Columbus Day wasn't celebrated in Minnesota, which is odd because I was born in and grew up for some time there. We did learn about Columbus in elementary school, usually around this time of year, so they don't exactly ignore the holiday. But I'm heartened to see that not all 50 states still observe it.

Doing away with the celebration of this man and his ilk would be a nice step, but the more important work lies in education about the real history of our country and its indigenous peoples, and most of all, in working now to make sure native people are not oppressed, ignored or let down. Whether we like to think about it or not, some of the most impoverished and under-privileged populations in this, the wealthiest nation in the world, live in places like the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The rate of death due to injury and violence amongst young Native Americans is horrifyingly high at 75% and the suicide rate is at least 50% higher than the national average.

There's a lot of work to be done, and we can never make up for the atrocities inflicted on the native populations by our ancestors. That's no longer our job. Our job is to make sure that everyone in this country (and beyond) gets a fair shake at life. By continuing to celebrate a holiday that venerates a man who was part of the problem we're trying to overcome, we set ourselves back and make it nearly impossible for anyone to trust that we're trying to make things better.

I think South Dakota has it right, so today I wish you a happy Native American Day!

See also:

• Transform Columbus Day Alliance

You're gonna be in pictures

I popped over to The Daily Cardinal's website on a whim and read this article about police videotaping large events around town.

UW-Madison history professor James Donnelly raised some concerns regarding the constitutionality of this issue at the faculty senate meeting Oct. 1.

“If the police are videotaping any old student demonstration where the students are exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of assembly and free speech, this could be in some way intimidating,” Donnelly said.

Donnelly said he was alarmed by the lack of published policy clarifying the procedure for videotaping public events, and became concerned that the executive arm of the faculty senate was unable to review or determine whether the policy is “properly balanced.”

I've been to enough protest rallies, marches, political and sporting events to know full-well that police departments all over the country make a habit of filming such things. The first few times I noticed it, I admit to being somewhat shaken up. More than one of the plainclothes or uniformed cameramen made a point of looking all-too smug about what they were doing, assuming that it would make the protesters run and hide. It never did. And the protesters never turned violent (but sometimes the police did).

I've thought about it since and, heck, let them film. I've taped a lot of the events I've been to, have maybe even caught a few less-than-legal activities without knowing it. The thing is, when you start codifying who can and cannot film or photograph public events, you're scooting down a fairly slippery slope toward censorship.

Private events? Different story. But a bunch of people walking up and down a public street or gathered in a public forum? Fair game for pretty much anyone, and that's how it should be. Perhaps a more clear and concise policy is in order to make sure everyone knows that's the case, but that's the only reason I could get behind for such a move.

Now if there wasn't the issue of the recent proliferation of CCTV cameras, this would be a relatively cut-and-dry topic for me. But when does filming people in public places turn a bit sinister? When you're using the technology to stalk those people--and frankly, private citizens and law-enforcement officers on power trips are equally culpable. So maybe the difference is between permanently mounted surveillance cameras (creepy) and hand held, temporary recorders of a single event (generally less creepy).

I'm no scholar of privacy rights and such, so these are just off-the-cuff thoughts about the subject. But it's something worth thinking about, especially as the technology for watching people becomes more and more affordable, and more and more concealable.

Geeks United!

I'm a little sad I won't be able to check out much of the first ever Geek.kon, to be held this weekend at the Humanities building on the UW-Madison campus. I'd been hoping to at least take pictures of the costume masquerade, if nothing else. You see, I've got guests coming in from out of town to work on our routine for IDKE Vancouver (holy crap that's this month!), and being a good hostess precludes me from wandering off to get my geek on at the con.

I don't know that they'll miss me, though, with over 600 people already pre-registered and God knows how many who'll just show up. We've been covering the crap out of the run-up to the event over at dane101, which is a good place to go to get the low-down if you're interested. That and the website for the event itself, of course.

It's been interesting to read the "mainstream" press' coverage of the thing, too. Especially amusing was the article in today's WSJ, wherein the author took the usual liberties with the interviewee's words. See a compare-and-contrast over at The View From Now.

Strange how even the current spat of "Geek Chic" still seems a bit...condescending...toward those of us with interests that range beyond football and shoes (and hey, there's nothing wrong with either one of those things). For all of the media's recent seeming embrace of all things nerdy and geeky, the angle they come at it from is still very much in the vein of "oh hey these people are bizarre and novel and we're going to exploit them for the entertainment of the slack-jawed masses." Which is insulting to the masses, as well.

We're still getting picked on and beat up in school, in the workplace, and at home. You can make a (valid) argument that it's part of the rite of passage that all truly interesting people go through to make them stronger and more capable...but it still sucks.

Anyway, social politics aside, you should go check out the convention. It is free, after all, and if nothing else you can just go to watch a sci-fi flick or episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Hooray!

For a Free Burma

Mine may not be a particularly large corner of the blogosphere, but even so, I want to do what I can to spread the word.




Today, October 4th 2007, over 5000 bloggers from around the world stand together in solidarity with the brave people of Burma. This blog stands with them.

It will, of course, take so much more than just blogging and petition signing to get this done. But it has to start somewhere, and spreading the word, educating people about the issue, is the way to get the ball rolling.

Sitting here in the middle of America, it's hard to properly imagine what it must be like for the citizens of Burma/Myanmar, what they deal with on a daily basis in terms of poverty and government oppression. I can't begin to fathom the amount of courage and dedication it takes for the monks and the regular citizens to stand up against such a brutal junta. It's hard to believe that places and situations like this (and North Korea, Iraq, etc. etc.) still exist in the world. Some of us are moving forward so quickly that we're leaving some of our brothers and sisters behind.

We can't afford to do that.

Do whatever you can, no matter how small an action you think it might be, because the collective will and movement of millions (even billions!) of people is what changes the world.

"Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man." - Aung San Suu Kyi

In the Belly of the Dragon

It was too beautiful out yesterday afternoon not to pull myself up from sleeping off a cold and head downtown to do some walking. When I got to the square, I remembered that the Wisconsin Veteran’s Museum was still holding their special exhibit, “In the Belly of the Dragon: Life and Death in I Corps,” a display of the personal stories and artifacts from Wisconsin soldiers who served in the most deadly section of Vietnam during the war.

I won’t lie, I’m a big history geek and spending some quality time in the museum is something I occasionally enjoy doing. Besides which, admission is free, and there’s really no beating that. I walked in through the Civil War displays, back beyond the Grand Army of the Republic veteran’s paraphernalia, and into the modestly sized but well-designed display.

Things I learned:

• Half of all combat deaths in Vietnam occurred in I Corps (the five northernmost provinces of the country).
• History is in the eye of the propagandist: there’s a photo of three or four men crouched down to say prayers with a gaunt chaplain before a major battle. All of these men survived the fight. In a war museum in Vietnam, the same photograph can be found, but the caption states that all of the men shown were killed.
• When the war first started, the NVA weren’t quite sure what to make of all the helicopters the US was using. Eventually, however, they learned to exploit their greatest weakness—need for a landing zone—and the US ended up losing a huge number of them during the course of the war.
• US troops thought that the ace symbol in a pack of cards meant death and bad luck to the Vietnamese and would leave these cards on NVA soldiers they’d killed. The belief was incorrect.

There’s a replica of a firebase bunker in the exhibit, too, and I was both pleased and amused to see a vintage copy of Playboy sitting out, the same issue that three GIs are looking at in a photo posted nearby. This was especially funny because I’d just watched a group of young, rambunctious schoolchildren go through the display. Ah, education!

The most striking aspect of the exhibit, at least for me, was the book the museum had left out for visiting Vietnam veterans to leave their comments in. There was a combat medic, some infantry men, a marine and a cook, to name a few, and their comments ranged from things like “Brought back a lot of sad memories” to “Welcome home!” It’s those things that tend to really bring an event into focus for me. More than the artifacts, the records of campaigns and generals, it’s the people and their stories that make a thing real and important. And it reminds you why we should avoid putting them into a situation like that at all costs, a lesson we seem unable to take to heart for any real length of time.

I finished up at the exhibit and wandered on through the rest of the museum—past the World Wars, Korea and the first Iraq war. There’s still a part of me, the little girl who used to dress up and play war with her friends and even went so far as to join up with a Civil War reenacting group for some years, that wants to duck under bushes and hide behind earthworks, using sticks for guns and swords and to do battle with people I like who can always get back up again and again no matter how many times they’re “killed.” It’s the only kind of war that I ever want to be part of. But I can’t help but be both horrified and fascinated by the real thing, the human drama at its most extreme—the absolute best and the absolute worst of people. I’d be content if it was all to end, though, and the only way to study war would be to visit museums.

(photo credit: WDVA)