Green Tuesdays Films & Lectures

Green Travel

At the November 30th Green Tuesday in Monona, local travel writers Lynne Diebel and Pat Dillon, authors of Green Travel Guide to Southern Wisconsin, will share small footprint fun - green lodgings, local fare, silent sports, low impact events, and more – and conservation volunteer Joel Knutson will share his insights on sustainable travel as adventure, and discuss his work to protect sea turtle habitat in San Jose del Cabo in Mexico. More info here.

Green Tuesdays: Creating awareness, sparking conversation, empowering change.
A free series of films, presentations, and conversation that helps us become more aware of the resources we rely on and the actions we can take to better our world, Monona's Green Tuesdays are on the second and fifth Tuesdays of the month, from September through May. All are welcome.

Green Tuesdays, a project of The Natural Step Monona and the Monona Public Library, now reaches four additional communities: Mt. Horeb, Middleton, Cross Plains, and Oregon. To see the calendar for all Green Tuesday and Thursday dates, go to www.tnsmonona.org/green-tuesdays-green-thursdays.

Whole Foods serves treats, so please come early for delightful food and drink.

Green Tuesdays is sponsored by The Natural Step Monona in collaboration with Oregon Working to Live Sustainably (OWLS), Mount Horeb Area Sustainability Network, RGPL Green Tuesdays (Cross Plains), the City of Middleton Sustainability Committee, Cottage Grove Green Tuesdays, and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and is supported by the Dane County Environmental Council.

Wood Chopperers and Haulerers Needed

Jake Anderson sends along an invite to help cut up downed trees in Woodland Park this Sunday, November 28th beginning at 8 AM.

The conceptual designs of a parking lot at Woodland Park is featured under the 8.10.10 Packet & Minutes.


http://www.mymonona.com/pages/city_government/committees/download_includes/export_file.php?id=82


Volunteers will get to take home the firewood for free (except for the sweat equity).

Think eight of the clock in the ante meridiem is too dang early? Me too. Come by anytime in the morning and help out.

The Monona Parks and Recreation Department is looking for volunteers on Sunday, November 28th starting at 8:00 am to help clear branches and cut the downed trees at Woodland Park into free firewood. We need people that have chainsaws to cut the wood into firewood and people to help haul the wood.

Jake Anderson, alder Scott Munson, yours truly, and other likely suspects (including an anonymous former alder now in the witness protection program) will be on hand. Brings your hands and join in.

***

Your questions anticipated & answered: What the? and why the?

Why not just leave the downed trees in the park? Wouldn't that be more natural?

Not all trees are created equal. These are not trees that just fell down. The city has been cutting down the black locusts mainly and some other invasives that take over and outcompete the oak trees. Removing the invasive trees is part of the effort to restore the park to an oak savanna/oak woodland.

Read the 2006 the Woodland Park ecological evaluation and restoration plan.
"OK, I get why you cuts the trees down, but why not just leave them in situ?" 
 
There is a lot of this downed timber and that makes us very uneasy about continuing to do the annual prescribed burns in the park that help keep down the other invasives. Oak trees need fire. Many of theses trees have been cut in the past year (including this past summer). Too much fuel left on the ground would burn for a long, long time.
 
Did you know this area used to be predominantly prairie, including oak savanna?
 



From WDNR: Data created by Robert W. Finley - 1976 Professor of Geography Emeritus, University of Wisconsin Center System. Digital Data prepared by Maribeth Milner, and Steve Ventura UW-Madison. Wisconsin Transverse Mercator NAD83(91). Map created by Nina Janicki, 1999, DNR GIS Services Section. This data layer is included in DVGISlib, a part of the DNRView extension to ArcView. DNRView makes it easier to use and share DNR geographic data. Trained ArcView users can obtain DNRView from the appropriate regional contact listed in the "GIS" Datasharing" section. The data on this map are available on a cost of resources basis from WDNR, GIS Services Section. See the "GIS Datasharing" section. Visit http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/at/et/geo.



This map was distributed in the Ecological Landscapes handbook.

Thanks to former alder Peter McKeever for raising these questions (the guy always has been a professional trouble maker), so we could provide answers before knickers become knotted.

Take Your Junk Off Your Hands

Goodwill Takes Old Computers. So you know there's that new about recycling your old electronics? You can't just throw the junk in the trash anymore. But figuring out what you can do with them is one of those things that you don't think about until you need to do it.

Here's one: Donate it to Goodwill.

Here's the stuff they accept.

The Monona Goodwill is at 2501 Royal Avenue.
608-224-0780
Mon-Fri: 7:30 am - 6:00 pm
Sat-Sun: 8:30 am - 5:00 pm

Other Goodwill donation centers.

Monona Chamber of Commerce 20th Annual Holiday Food Drive

Donate Money: Drop your change in one of the Chamber's piggy bank collection contqiners or mail a check to the Monona Chamber of Commerce at 6320 Monona Drive, Monona, WI 53716.


Donate Food: The Chamber is also collecting non-perishable foods in large collection barrels. One of the barrels is at the Monona Community Center. Can you name other barrel locations?

Monona Chamber of Commerce

20th Annual Holiday Food Drive

Now until December 17th

The Monona Chamber of Commerce Together We Can Holiday Food Drive provides complete, ready to cook, holiday meals to needy families. For every $26 contributed a meal is provided to a needy family through the St. Stephen's Food Pantry or to a Monona School District Family in need. The meals include: either a turkey or a holiday ham, potatoes, carrots, canned fruit, vegetables, stuffing, cranberry sauce, muffins, pie or cobbler.

One hundred percent of money and food items collected are donated to the pantry and High School program. Help provide holiday meals for needy families in the Monona area. For details call the Monona Chamber of Commerce at 608-222-8565.


Donate Money: Drop your change in one of the Chamber's piggy bank collection contqiners or mail a check to the Monona Chamber of Commerce at 6320 Monona Drive, Monona, WI 53716.


Donate Food: The Chamber is also collecting non-perishable foods in large collection barrels. One of the barrels is at the Monona Community Center. Can you name other locations?

Rules for Writerers

I found this gem on Willim Cronon's website for his class History, Geography and Environmental Studies 460, American Environmental History

He also has website on learning to do historical research.


Everyone can benefit their writing from these rules.


"Rules for Writerers" (source unknown)



1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.


2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.


3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.


4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.


5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)


6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.


7. Be more or less specific.


8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.


9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.


10. No sentence fragments.


11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.


12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.


13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.


14. One should NEVER generalize.


15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.


16. Don't use no double negatives.


17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.


18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.


19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.


20. The passive voice is to be ignored.


21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.


22. Never use a big word when substituting a diminutive one would suffice.


23. Kill all exclamation points!!!


24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.


25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas.


26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.


27. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."


28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.


29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.


30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.


31. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.


32. Who needs rhetorical questions?


33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.


34. Avoid "buzz-words"; such integrated transitional scenarios complicate simplistic matters.


And finally...


35. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out

Stock-Jobbery and Murder

Here is my  review of A Conspiracy of Paper: A Novel by David Liss (at Liss's website: http://davidliss.com/?page_id=49)

A Conspiracy of Paper was David Liss's first work of historical fiction. The book is set in London during the early 1700's and centers around the South Sea Company or more precisely, the South Sea Company's stock and its struggle against the Bank of England. In it the reader first meets Benjamin Weaver, a Jewish thief-taker and former boxer. Weaver is the central character in this book as well as The Devil's Company: A Novel, The Coffee Trader: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle), and A Spectacle of Corruption: A Novel.

Liss excels in the details of time and place, which allows him to achieve a realistic and factually accurate picture of London during the early stock-jobbing days, Exchange Alley, the Jewish `quarter', Newgate prison, and the most famous - or I should say infamous real-life thief-taker of them all, Jonathon Wild see also http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/newgate3/wild.htm.

Thief-takers caught criminals and turned them over to the State earning a handsome fee in the process. Our man Weaver was one of the few honest thief-takers. Wild's imaginative business plan, on the other hand, earned him the title, Thief-Taker General as he played both sides of the street. He employed crooks and thieves and then `peached' them when their future value fell below the government's price offer.

Jonathon Wild

Liss sets Weaver to solve the murder of his estranged father and one of his father's business associates neither of whom appeared to have been murdered on the face of it (one died in an accident, the other by his own hand). Weaver soon finds himself caught between some of the most powerful forces in 18th century England: the Bank of England, the South Sea Company, and Wild.



Liss spins an engaging tale with marvelously rich historical detail. Unfortunately, he also has a taste for overly complex plotting. Liss drops heavy hints first that the bank was behind all Weaver's troubles and then that the South Sea Company was his nemesis. And then the bank, the company, the bank - you get the idea. Mix in a healthy dose of Wild and clues strongly suggesting his alliance with one or the other and the reader feels that the game isn't quite a fair one. Still, Liss's works are high quality historical fiction and well worth a read.

***

Henry Fielding, the great 18th century author of the picaresque novels Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, also wrote a black comedy about Jonathon Wild.

***

Of course, the South Sea Company is rarely mentioned these days without adding the word 'Bubble' on the end. You can view some wonderfully detailed and grotesquely hilarious engravings in Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid (The Great Scene of Folly), a Dutch book published n 1720 just after the Bubble burst. The following photos from the text are found on blaques_jacques photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjacques/with/30975_66915/

Go to the next picture for the full engraving - and an explanation.



To understand what the heck is going on here,
go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjacques/3097566905/in/set-72157611015946994/



A Quote and a Vote

During the November 15th Monona city council meeting, alder Mike Veserat delivered himself of a memorable quote. Speaking about the proposed electronic outdoor advertising, alder Veserat said “The better question raised tonight (referring to the city council meeting) is whether we should sell our souls for a billboard sign!”


Because more than one person has told me that they agreed with alder Veserat on the outdoor advertising sign, I feel compelled to point out for the record:  After issuing the sell-your-soul quote, alder Veserat later voted in support of the sign (technically he voted against an amendment to remove the sign revenue from the budget).

(To be fair, Mike did say that his vote didn't mean he supported the sign, but he didn't want to kill it during the budget. Fair is the enemy of the funny.)

I wasted part of my morning listening to the city council meeting online trying to find the exact times of the quote and the vote without success (due to a lack of perseverance on my part).

***

Even more disturbing is listening to one's own voice on a recording. Unbeknown to me, the cable guys were obviously messing with the audio to make me sound like a chipmunk with swollen adenoids.

Remember the Simpson Street Free Press

Monona's own Dave Zweifel had an excellent column today highlighting the great things that they accomplish at the Simpson Street Free Press and their need for community support.

Dave described the paper thus:

I tell you all this to point out just how unique the Simpson Street Free Press program is. It’s one of the few success stories in bridging that stubborn racial learning gap. The 35 to 40 students involved in the program at any one time almost immediately see their grades rise in school and virtually all of them end up going to college. The kids are a cross-section of Madison youth today -- African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and whites. The program isn’t about games and filling in time to keep kids busy, but about academics and learning.


The young people apply for “jobs” on the Free Press, which include working on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings researching topics, interviewing sources and putting together stories on what they’ve discovered. The paper’s founder and executive director, Jim Kramer, and a team of mostly Free Press alumni, require the staffers to seek perfection by writing and rewriting, sometimes seven or eight times. Despite the rigorous standards, there’s a waiting list of kids trying to get in the program.

About themselves, the Simpson Street Free Press writes:

Free Press student reporters learn practical skills that help them to do better in school. They learn to research, write, question, and think critically. But much more in accomplished with each new stroke at their keyboard. Our writers are authentic role models and youth leaders. They deliver positive messages of achievement and success to thousands of their peers. You can support this important work by joining Friends of the Simpson Street Free Press, advertising with us, joining the Red Rack Express Club or becoming a sponsor. While our publications are well-known and popular, and our task is large, we are a small organization with a modest budget. Community support is crucial to our success.

Sound like the kind of thing you want to support? Of course it does.

So get on over to http://www.simpsonstreetfreepress.org/friend and sign up to be a 'friend' of the paper. You can quickly make a donation online through PayPal or your credit or debit card.

While you're there you can check out a recent feature story, Wisconsin Landmark Saved From Destruction about the Baraboo Ridge by Annie Shao, age 16.

***

I blogged about this youth-run newspaper located in Monona's South Towne Mall (in the strip mall next to Happy Wok) about a year ago. (As I noted then, Lake Point Drive used to be called Simpson Street and it was also one of the roughest parts of Madison.).

MG 21 Replies to Mayor's Ideas

I received this letter from Rebecca Fox-Blair responding to some of the ideas floated by Mayor Kahl recently.  Peter Sobol has also posted it on his blog. Since I posted the original letter and since I am on the MG 21 Board, I thought I should post the letter in its entirety rather than just a link to Peter's blog.

[begin letter]
Craig Gerlach, Superintendent, Monona Grove School District


Susan Fox, President, Monona Grove School Board



November 23, 2010

Craig and Susan:

We write to address issues concerning the future location of MG21, the Monona Grove Liberal Arts Charter School for the21st Century.

As you know, Monona Mayor Robb Kahl recently proposed moving MG21 out of our current location in Nichols School and into space now occupied by the Monona Senior Center in the bottom floor of the Monona Community Center. The Monona Grove School Board briefly addressed the issue at its November meeting.

We have deep reservations about this proposal. We do not think it would provide an adequate learning environment for our students, nor do we think it is in the best long-term interests of our charter school.

(Some background that might be helpful: There seems to be confusion about the identity of our school. The Monona Grove Alternative School ended its charter with the district and the State of Wisconsin on June 30, 2010. The Monona Grove Liberal Arts Charter School for the 21st Century is newly chartered and opened its doors on September 2, 2010 at Nichols School. MG21 currently serves 25 students in grades 10-12 who have not had success in the traditional high school. Students apply to attend this school. MG21 is not the same as the MGHS EXCEL program, which is also housed at Nichols in a separate location from MG21.)

Among our concerns are the following:

 The space currently provided by the school district for MG21 in Nichols School is ideal for the needs of our students, and our long-term plans for MG21. We now operate as a Project-Based Learning (PBL) school, which requires more space than the previous alternative high school. In particular, we now offer students independent work stations, with individual computer terminals, to replicate the college and work environment our graduates will encounter when they leave MG21. We have two work station areas, totaling 28 computer areas and cubicles, in MG21 – one occupying the computer lab adjacent to the old library, and a larger area occupying roughly half of the former library space. We also have an area set aside in the library for large-group instruction and lectures, as well as the use of two classrooms directly across the hall. Current square footage of MG21 in Nichols School totals approximately 5,140 square feet. We also have access to the gymnasium at Nichols School for recreational and physical education use by our students, and potential use of the Nichols School multi-purpose room should our program grow in enrollment in future years.

In contrast, the space at the Senior Center is considerably smaller than what we have now (roughly 2,600 square feet), and not at all adequate for the current PBL-based approach of our school. The senior center space lacks adequate room for our individualized computer work stations, and there is inadequate instructional space for our academic classes. Our ability to carry out our PBL-based instructional program – the cornerstone of MG21’s educational approach, and one funded in part by a recent $175,000 grant from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction – would be severely compromised with a move to the Senior Center.

 Moving to the Senior Center risks the potential for growth in MG21’s enrollment. Our school will always remain a school geared toward Monona Grove high school students not finding success within the traditional program offered at the Monona Grove High School. But we also envision MG21 becoming a school of choice both within the MG school district, and for students from neighboring districts, attracted to our PBL-based instructional program and our emphasis on developing 21st Century learning skills. Already MG21 is generating student revenue to the district through enrollment of students contracted by a neighboring district. The space at the Senior Center provides little if any room for growth in MG21. We are not even convinced we could adequately educate our current student population of 25 students in that space; we would have to examine closely our current instructional program, to see if we could maintain our current enrollment, if forced to move into the Senior Center.

 The Community Center is in the heart of Monona, and thus is quite busy, with people using the building seven days a week, from early-morning hours into the evening. We are concerned this could be a counter-productive learning environment for our students. The programs offered at the Monona Community Center are considerably different than the needs of our charter school, and the many and varied uses of the community center do not strike us as compatible with the learning needs of our students.

 We have significant concerns for our computers and work stations, along with classroom and curricular materials, should the city follow through on plans to rent MG21 school space by outside groups during the summer months. Our school program and space is not designed to be used as a rental facility during the summer months.

 We also have concerns about access and egress to the community center is it relates to housing students in a school. As you well know, the school district has taken significant steps to upgrade safety measures at our schools. The Monona Community Center has several access points; issues of security and access to MG21, should it be forced to move to the current Senior Center, would have to be addressed, and could lead to diminished access to the community center.

 The cost to relocate MG21 should also be considered. Because we are a project based learning school, we require extensive computer cabling, and wiring to support this.

 Finally, we would need to work closely with the school board and city officials to address both the short- and long-term occupancy of the Senior Center space if forced to re-locate there. How long could MG21 count on remaining there? Will the terms of MG21’s occupancy of the space be subject to a contract between the city and school district? How would routine, day-to-day maintenance issues at the school be addressed?

Although we recognize the school district is facing budgetary and facility challenges, we have significant concerns about MG21 being used to help alleviate them by moving our program to the Monona Senior Center. We believe that such a move is not in the beneficial to our students, and is not in the best long-term interests of our school or this school district. We look forward to working with you on a solution that will best serve the needs of all interested parties.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Rebecca Fox-Blair, MG21 Executive Director


William McDonald, MG21 Faculty

[end letter]

Variable Message Sign Research

Since the Monona city council voted (with my support) to keep a proposed variable message outdoor advertising sign in the budget, a few astute people around town have weighed in with opposition to the sign. I have done a little digging myself, but have not had time to digest it all.

The proposed sign would be installed in Ahuska Park and face the Beltline. (The Monona Rag recently posted on it.) The proposed lease would pay the city $22,500 per year for 15 years or $337,500 in total (that's a bit misleading; if you use a 3% discount rate, the present value is $216,628). The sign company, Adams would pay all other costs. That's pretty much the plus side.

Among other things, two issues have caught my attention on the negative side. One is the amount of energy the signs use. Alder Munson and I (perhaps others) are waiting for Adams to get back to staff with some figures.

Alder Munson found some data oin the Internet from a manufacturer of these types of signs. According to a manufacturer of electronic billboards, Action Graphix Digital, a 48’x14’ sign (as proposed here) typically uses about 17.6 kW. In a month, that would be 12,672 kW-hrs (assuming 24 hour/day operation, which may not be accurate).

According to Scott, the US Energy Information Agency, the average Wisconsin home uses 710 kW-hr per month. So, that sign would use as much energy in a month as almost 18 homes assuming the sign was in operation 24 hours per day.


The other issue is whether the signs present a safety hazard. Our WisDOT did a study on I-94 in Milwaukee that found substantial increases in crashes. The study is, however, a bit dated (1981-1987).

The NYT did a series on distracted drivers in March 2010. The story quotes an industry exec: "It’s a very flexible, very responsible medium and very impactful.” The research is somewhat muddled because the sign industry has a lot of money at stake and they have financed some of the research.

How much money? Here's what the NYT story says:

The signs are typically used in busy traffic areas, where advertisers are willing to pay a premium for them. A digital billboard costs $250,000 to $300,000, roughly half what it did five years ago, but much more than the $5,000 to $50,000 for a traditional billboard.

Space on the digital signs fetches a premium in part because up to six advertisers can share a single location. Traditional billboards fetch a wide range of monthly rents (from $1,000 to $5,000 depending on location and audience) and the digital versions cost the same or a bit more, but the industry benefits by selling that space at that price to more than one advertiser.

Data showing the dangers of the signs can be found on the website of a public interest that opposes billboards generally. http://www.scenic.org/billboards/safety
Here is a link to 2009 FHWA study.

I haven't had time to read even a small portion of these reports. Feel free to dip in and offer up the choicer bits (oh, boy, the choicer bits from a federal highway study....gak.)

Or just offer up you take on this one.

Local Blogger Goes Uptown

Former Monona alder and all-around good guy Mike Meulemans has shut down his health insurance blog and moved on to About.com and thier official insurance blogger. His new blog has an industry-facing or company-to-company focus rather than a consumer focus.

And,no, he is not included in this photo, no matter what those Dutch journalists' say (it's a different Mike Meulemans):



"erotisch shownummer"?
http://www.nieuwsblad.be/article/detail.aspx?articleid=6A32GTF5



M.I.T. Tinfoil hat experiment

Dark and Dirty Snow

And now for a  palate-cleansing interval.

This review is from: Dirty Snow (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)


[I previously posted about Simenon on my book blog.]

Dirty Snow is Georges Simenon's noir masterpiece of one corner of Occupied Europe. And it is truly noir. As William Vollmann notes in the Afterword, the noir tag has gotten a bit overused and applied to pretend noir, but Simenon delivers the real deal.

The protagonist, Frank, is a youth of the urban slum, the Occupied urban slum (no country is specified). He lives with his mother - who runs a bordello. He hangs around in a shady bar and wants to kill someone just - just why? Just to do it, to be known to have killed, who knows? He picks a disgusting low-level German officer as his victim. He gets involved in the black market, committing some heinous offenses in the process; offenses that would seem even worse were his victims worthy of sympathy. He falls in love, as much as he can anyway, and betrays this naïve young girl.

Inevitably, the Occupiers stick Frank in a nasty little school-turned-jail; not, however, for killing the German officer. Frank's black-market work for a German general was well paid, but it turns out the general got the money to pay Frank by stealing it from his own HQ and that is very much a cause for concern. This details sounds quite important and so it may seem I give away too much of the story. You'll have to take my word that it is just an insignificant part of Frank's story. Because now, subjected to lengthy interrogations, Frank has moved into another world that no one from his old world could grasp, if they even suspected its existence. Simenon's tale calls to mind other notably dark and simply notable works such as Victor Serge's The Case of Comrade Tulayev (New York Review Books Classics), Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon: A Novel, and Robert Littell's The Stalin Epigram: A Novel.

Brilliantly disturbing. Be forewarned that Dirty Snow is not a Maigret story.

 

***

 
For a dissenting view on William T. Vollmann click here.

Headgear recommended?

So from now on when I post anything related to our local schools, I'm wearing headgear. The problem is - too many choices!

I'm going with aluminium - it's got science behind it.