HOW-OF-WHY

Ronald Reagan Elementary School

I am in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In the very city, in one of the older neighborhoods, Bay View.
Not one of the metro area's many suburbs.
Milwaukee's once thriving economy has suffered over the years. Once a vital industrial, factory, manufacturing, machine shop, brewing, automobile, farm equipment and strong labor union town, as jobs diminished, and a divisive freeway system carved up the already divided by waterways neighborhoods into an often blighted urban cityscape, the inevitable "white flight" followed.

Funding for education shrank, two generations of young people were basically abandoned, and school buildings fell into disrepair. Building new schools was mostly out of the question.

Out west of the City that boarders the eastern shore of the lower coast of lake Michigan, some of the business leaders who led the urban flight have built a school and named it after their mythic hero, President Ronald Reagan.

What is telling is that the school project demonstrates how to get the rich right wing Rep0-Bli-Kanotz Big-Biz-Owners to loosen their double-knotted purse strings and $pend buck$ on new school buildings: Promise to Name the building after one of their Hideous Heros.

While Ronny R. did (by comparison) make Georgie WB look like an even worse version of a president, he was (long B-4 his Alzheimer's set in) a fine example of MIP (Morons In Power). His son, Ron, however is probably one of the sharpest, smartest, critical thinker and best news pundits around. He beats the pants off (not literally - a metaphor) most of the CNN, FOX or MS-NBC squawk-a-like-talkers.

Then again the white flight west-of-the actual city Rep0-Bli-kanotz Big-Biz-Owners only monied up a miserly $60,000 for a schoolhouse costing $18.7 million. That is a mere 0.0003209 of the total cost. So I guess the middle class & working poor get to pay the $18,640,000 balance.

Those tight fisted neo-conmen & neocon-wymyn sure are clever. Same way they got the public to pay for the Alien Space Craft like Miller Park and the Big Bread Slicer of an Arts Museum Addition.

Maybe they should sell the naming rights for every locker, desk, floor tile, urinal, toilet and vegetable - that is ketchup* - bottle. Then the school grads will somedays be able to brag how they sat their elementary school butts in a chair engraved with the face of Ayn Rand or took a doo-doo in the Irving Kristol memorial Commode. And when the catsup bottle needs a good whack to give up some condiment they can exclaim, "H. E Double Hockey sticks, why can't I get some friggin' red dyed processed corn syrup mixed with vinegar out of this piece of schmidt plastic Norman Podhoretz memorial condiment container! Does not anything work as intelligently designed in this over priced, over budget multi-purposeless room, named in honor of Herr Doktar Henry Kissinger? Mein Kampf, public/private hybrid of an institution sucks like School Choice!"


* "The source of our word ketchup may be the Malay word kēchap, possibly taken into Malay from the Cantonese dialect of Chinese.

"Ketchup was one of the earliest names given to this condiment, so spelled in Charles Lockyer’s book of 1711, An Account of the Trade in India: “Soy comes in Tubbs from Jappan, and the best Ketchup from Tonquin; yet good of both sorts are made and sold very cheap in China”. Nobody seems quite sure where it comes from, and I won’t bore you with a long disquisition concerning the scholarly debate on the matter, which is reflected in the varied origins given in major dictionaries. It’s likely to be from a Chinese dialect, imported into English through Malay. The original was a kind of fish sauce, though the modern Malay and Indonesian version, with the closely related name kecap, is a sweet soy sauce.

The above title
makes reference to a film directed by the great Don Siegel.

It is a 1956 B film made on a shoestring budget and filmed on the studio lot in Hollywood. It was based on the television play by Reginald Rose. It had a deadbeat juvenile delinquent played by a very young John Cassavetes, who went on to become a famous actor and gifted director. An earnest social worker was played by James Whitmore and the movie is unremarkable except for the to be famous cast and a few well-executed action scenes. A 15-year-old baby gang member is portrayed by Sal Mineo and another psychotic thugs is played by Mark Rydell, long before he became a respected film director. Cassavetes, Mineo and Rydell played the same parts for the original television play. It was Cassavetes' debut as a film actor. But the guilty as well as the innocent are punished in the movie.

However I am writing about actual CRIME IN THE STREETS in 2006 and set in the neighborhood I live in, Bay View in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Right on the main business street of the neighborhood actually, at 4:49 p.m. On a Monday, at Kinnikinnick Avenue and Otjen Street, an 85-year-old Milwaukee man was crossing the street to get to the library when he was hit by a vehicle. He died died of his injuries late that same Monday night. The police said they are still looking for the driver of a midsized, dark pickup that left the scene of the murder. Charles Perry, aged 86, was hit as he walked eastbound across South Kinnickinnic Avenue to return a book to the Bay View Library. Milwaukee police are still looking for the killer as far as I know.

On November 14, 2006, a driver who hit a 5-year-old boy and then sped off, leaving him critically injured in the street. Police said a man driving a light green, mid-1990s pickup truck ran into the boy, Chance Brannon, as he stepped off his school bus Monday afternoon at South Kinnickinnic Avenue and Fulton Street, not very far from where Mr.Perry later was struck down later. The kindergartner was admitted to Children's Hospital in Wauwatosa, in the intensive care unit, with a severe concussion, a fractured ear and a broken pelvic bone. WISN TV12 News was in possession of a video tape of the hit and run, but did not to air it because of its graphic nature. Police are still searching for the driver, after examining videotape of the crime.

No Hollywood ending for or justice for the innocent young Mr. Brannon or the late Mr. Perry.

Not on these mean streets.

© 2006 Michael John Moynihan

I was writing and directing a play in Vancouver,
British Columbia. Working collaboratively with a talented company of young Canadian actors, designers and technicians, far from Milwaukee. It was July 4th. Not a holiday in Canada. I was homesick and lonely. During the afternoon I went to see a movie on a giant big screened theatre. It was as American of a movie as I could have chosen. For the 157 minutes that the tapestry of the film played I was enmeshed in a contemporary portrait of America, told with country music, satirical comedy and dramatic tragedy. My home, America surrounded me in the darkened theatre.
As I walked into the bright lobby after the movie I silently gave thanks to Robert Altman.
It was his masterpiece ensemble film, NASHVILLE.

Five years earlier I had been studying film in summer grad school in Madison, Wisconsin. Another war was being fought by Americans as young as I and younger. For one of my classes I was to see a film and write a critical essay. My entire grade would be based upon my paper. I chose a commercial film playing in Madison and saw it probably half a dozen times. It was my first exposure to Mr. Altman.

The campus was like a battle zone, with windows boarded up for as many as 20 blocks around what was left of Sterling Hall, a building that had housed a Math Research Center funded by the United States Defense Department that had been blown up by anti-war protesters. They had called in a warning on the early morning of the explosion but ironically, the department hardest hit by the blast was not the MRC but Physics, many of whose faculty were actively and vocally against the war. A 33-year-old physics researcher named Robert Fassnacht was one of those working late and was killed by the detonation of a van loaded with explosives that was driven up what was then Lathrop Drive and parked in a loading area by the newer East Wing of Sterling Hall. Fassnacht was killed, and four others in Sterling Hall were injured because they had been working all night in the otherwise empty building.

The film I had chosen to see and write about was set during the Korean War but was actually an anti-war comedy that was mostly regarded to be against all war and specifically the Viet Nam conflict that was going on. Young men were being drafted to fight and die in Southeast Asia in a land war that had all the appearance of an insurrection and civil war. America supported the South and China the North. The unrest on American campuses led the growing national anti-war movement that eventually drove Lyndon Johnson out of the office of the Presidency and the American Military to cut, run and abandon the conflict. The movie, made for a modest budget and abandoned by the Corporate studio went on to make millions, being nominated for several Oscars (and winning one) and launch the careers of many of the actors was entitled MASH.

Now, in 2006, a fitting and appropriate online tribute and memorial to distinctly American artist Robert Altman,
whose technique, vision and work inspired my admiration & enriched my life for 36 years:

HERE

HERE

AND HERE

Robert Altman died a couple of days ago. His creative life is one of many things to recall and be thankful for on the eve the very American tradition of Thanks giving.

©2006 MICHAEL JOHN MOYNIHAN

For a period of time in the 1990's I worked at the Milwaukee Access Telecommunication Authority. That was the fancy-schmansy name of the Public Access cable TV nonprofit organization. Public Access was an amazing, visionary, paradigm shifting idea.

MATA (as it was called) was funded by money from Milwaukee cable subscribers that passed thru the monopolistic franchise holder for the City, Time Warner Cable. When the 15 year franchise was renewed Time Warner Cable renegotiated the franchise contract with the City of Milwaukee. All but a couple of the members of the Common Council were bribed to sell out the citizens in favor of becoming business partners with the monopoly.

In the process they gutted the Public Access funding and screwed over the public they were sworn to serve.

During the first 15 years one could pay $4.95 a month for cable TV. Now the lowest fee is ten times that amount.

While all but a couple elected politicians sold out the citizens, MATA was not faultless. We fought a good fight and many citizens and community groups showed up at a hearing to speak for continued full funding of Public Access. Even the then afternoon daily newspaper giant (the Milwaukee Journal) wrote an editorial supporting Public Access.

But in the end money talked again, and the people lost, again.

The City had a watchdog Cable Regulation Office. They office was closed and the staff laid off. The City Clerks Office now "regulates" cablr in Milwaukee.. But there is actually no regulation for the life of the 17 year period of the franchise.

MATA was, and is, maybe the worst managed & administered non profit agency I have ever encountered. The rather highly paid (compared to the resy of the staff) Executive Director is as devoid of those qualities requisite for effective leadership a any person I have ever worked for.

Back to THE HOW OF WHY. The column originated as a monthly element of the MATA newsletter. It was then mainly a media literacy column. Next it became a column in a print publication, THE BAY VIEW COMPASS, which basically serves the Bay View neighborhood on the southeast side of the City of Milwaukee. It expanded beyond media literacy content at that time. It had a short print life. Now it is in the present form, a blog. And it is less neighborhood centric in content.

With the INTERNET now in the middle of a big battle to either stay somewhat open or go the way of commercial sponsored media, who knows how long the present diversity of blog forms will survive? As long as it can the HOW OF WHY will continue to be one version of thousands of Milwaukee voices online. Check back from time to time, won't you?

© 2006 Michael John Moynihan

Iraq war cost per minute: $100,000

Diebold voting machine Election System lease & service per county: $60,000 a year

What the GOP paid to steal the '04 Presidential Election:
$16.12 per citizen vote or
$3,496,504 per electoral vote

Presidency of the United States of America:
PRICELESS!*

* as Actor Billy Crudup says on the TV

Where are you as you read this?

As far as I know I am writing from latitude & longitude 42.98 (42°59') -87.8 (-87°52')
The Bay View Neighborhood
The City & County of Milwaukee
The State of Wisconsin
Great Lakes Bioregion
(aka Great Lakes Basin-Great Lakes Watershed-Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Bioregion)
Potawatomi (Nishnabec) Nation traditional lands
The Nation State of the United States of America
The North American Continent, The Planet Earth
The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
The Universe
The Multiverse

HOW-OF-WHY

NOVEMBER SEVENTH VOTES IN MILWAUKEE & WISCONSIN

I question why so many voters voted YES on the SO CALLED "MARRIAGE" amendment to the State Constitution.
Others are also asking how to work to overturn this fascist, discriminatory, hateful amendment.

1) I think the first step is to find out why so many Democrats won at the same time as this civil rights issue lost. Why did democrats vote against equal rights & for discrimination and special privilege?

2) I also think that it needs to be understood that this was and us far more than a LGBT issue and fight.
It is a civil rights and human rights fight.

3) Lawyers. The lawyers need to get to work on every constitutional and discrimination class action suit possible. The biggest labor and personal injury law firms need to weigh in pro bono and hit these bastards with a law suit a day for 365 straight days.

4) The hard working & brave Fair Wisconsin volunteers need to stay in the fight and canvas businesses for support and money. And those who preach and support bigotry need to feel the economic pressure of consumers.

5) Sponsors of Belling/Sykes local Radio Loud Mouths need to be informed that this is also an economic battle that will impact them.
Pull their advertising or get boycotted and protested.
Money talks in our pathetic capitalist world, so take the game to those who depend on our money to stay in business.

6) And every Democrat who got in, especially Doyle, needs to keep their teams together to raise money and join the fight. War against this bigotry needs to be declared and the Democratic and Green parties need to step up.

7) Encourage every person who voted NO to join the fight in any & every way they can.
Speak out & speak up. Silence means the bigots have won.

The actual threat to marriage and the children born into a marriage is the high divorce rate. A study showed that the highest divorce rate is among married fundamentalist Christians and the lowest divorce rate is among married agnostics and atheists. Go Figure. Says something about tolerance perhaps?

Just a few thoughts off the top of my old balding head.
-m