Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in August 2011

City Sees Surfeit of Water… in Residents’ Basement

Madison's new public works director, Fred Snoderly, must have brought some high-country libertarianism with him from Idaho. In one of his first major acts as a city employee, Snoderly has recommended lifting Madison's watering restrictions. Last night he told the…

Vital Public Spaces: How Does Your City Measure Up?

Via Grist and Smart Planet, I find the Project for Public Spaces has published a guide for determining whether your city is doing development right. The criteria seem to focus on larger cities rather than small rural communities, but we…

Fight Jock Culture: Fix Your School, Build a Library

The erudite Mr. Gebhart directs my attention to this fine essay on jock culture, which reminds me of the deep cultural reason I don't want to see our high school renovation swallowed up in another plan to build a new…

Perry Vilifies Government, Misses Point of Democracy

Mr. Wiken notes that Rick Perry is campaigning to make Washington "as inconsequential in your lives as I can." That, friends, is the Grover Norquist philosophy in a nutshell. Fill government with people who either don't believe we constitute governments…

New Madison High School Facility Committee Meets Wednesday

Steam Train A-Comin'? Among its actions at last week's monthly meeting, the Madison Central School Board revealed the names of its new High School Facility Committee. The nifty nine: Administrators: superintendent Vince Schaefer, HS principal Sharon Knowlton, activities director Bud…

Whacky Iowa Straw Poll Fuels Mirror Dem Universe Dreams

Below are the results of the vote-buying at yesterday's big Iowa GOP straw poll: Place Candidate Votes Percentage 1 Michele Bachmann 4,823 28.6% 2 Ron Paul 4,671 27.7% 3 Tim Pawlenty 2,293 13.6% 4 Rick Santorum 1,657 9.8% 5 Herman…