Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos
A safe place for moderates in a polarized world
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Guv Race Hits the Drop Out Phase
Looks like we’re entering the middle innings now. A couple of weeks ago I wrote that the race for Wisconsin governor was in the third inning. The first three frames were the preliminary moves: putting together a campaign, carving out an identity, choosing issues to emphasize and, crucially, raising money. The campaign finance reports, which…
Pretti’s Death Creates a Chance for Sanity
Alex Pretti may not have died in vain. While the videos of Renee Good’s death were open to interpretation, Pretti’s killing looks like a flat out murder. It was so clear that even MAGA and Republican-leaning news outlets, like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, are decrying it and calling for a real investigation…
In Defense of Failure
When it comes to my understanding of the Madison school district’s new grading system put me down as “emerging.” MMSD will expand its “standards-based” system to all of its regular high schools next year after a trial period at East. Instead of letter grades, students will receive words: advanced, proficient, developing and emerging. Here’s a…
The Quote & Quiz For 1/24/26
This week’s quote comes to us from none other than Donald J. Trump, who said near the end of a nearly two hour rant before the White House press corps summing up his first year back in office: “I think God is very proud of the job I’ve done.” A) “Is he freaking nuts? I…
Chilly Today
The forecast was for “life-threatening” cold. So yesterday I drove north. Here in Watersmeet this morning I woke up to -23 with a windchill of -37 thanks to a cooling breeze from the northwest. Actually, it’s not all that much colder than it is in Madison where it’s -17. The dog stayed down there with…
Flash: College Football Not Destroyed!
Now that the college football season is over, let’s evaluate all the gloom and doom coming from those who said that paying the players and allowing them to transfer between programs would kill the sport. Here’s our official analysis: not. Turns out television ratings were never higher. If NIL and the portal obliterated fan interest…
Maybe It’s the Wisconsin Way
If this works out sports writers might start talking about “The Wisconsin Way.” I refer to our state’s reluctance to fire its football coaches. Most people expected Wisconsin to fire Luke Fickell late last season as his team struggled for the third year in a row. Fickell’s record at Wisconsin is a dismal 17-21 and…
State of Guv’s Race in the Third Inning
To put this in baseball terms (and let’s look ahead instead of looking back to an ugly end to the Packers’ season) it’s about the third inning in the Wisconsin governor’s race and there’s finally a score to look at. The bottom line is that it’s a close game with no clear favorite right now.…
Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, MPLS Street Protests Have Got To Go
Martin Luther King Day is a good time to reflect on the efficacy of street protests. My view has long been that these things are usually ineffective, often counterproductive and rarely successful. The movement King led is a case in point because it was the rare exception that, after he was killed, degenerated into the…
The Quote & Quiz For 1/17/26
For the past several weeks the researchers, writers and editors on the YSDA’s Q&Q Desk have been frustrated by the lack of material generated by news makers that meets our high standards. So, we’ve gone silent. And wouldn’t you know it. The last couple of weeks we’ve been flooded by candidates for the highly prized…
Trump Now Accepting All Trophies
Yesterday Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado stopped by the White House to drop off her Nobel Peace Prize for Donald Trump. The Nobel people said that the prize was non-transferable. What they didn’t say was what they meant: that they wish they had never given it to a nut like Machado in the first place.…
Trump’s Thugocracy
What’s going on in Minneapolis right now — and less dramatically across the rest of the country — is the very face of the Trump Administration. This is exactly who these people are. Masked men in fatigues carrying overpowered weapons dragging people from their cars. Demanding to see their papers like Gestapo agents at German…
More Redistribution Needed?
In my last blog I made the assertion, quoting the center-right columnist and editor Jonah Goldberg, that the rich were already paying their fair share in taxes. Goldberg claimed that the top 10% of income tax filers paid three-quarters of federal income taxes. An alert reader took issue with my overall assertion and provided data…
In Defense of Rugged Individualism
One line from Zohran Mamdani’s inaugural address from a couple of weeks ago has been getting a lot of attention. It goes like this: “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” Does he mean the communal warmth of Stalin’s work camps in Siberia? Or maybe he means the literal…
Don’t Trust the FBI
I’m one of about three Americans who hasn’t rushed to judgement on the shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. The other two are expected to emerge from their comas soon and will pass judgement some moments later. What I have are a lot of questions and zero faith that this Justice…
Some Choice For Madison School Board
I guess it’s better than nothing. I had expected that, per usual, the two incumbents up for reelection to the Madison School Board would face no opposition. So, I was pleasantly surprised that both Blair Mosner-Feltham and Nikki Vander Meulen will have opponents. The trouble is that their opponents are not raising the issues that…
Where’s the Moderate in Dem Primary?
The field for the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin governor is set and it’s lacking a key ingredient. There is no one looking to occupy the moderate lane. What we’ve got are six candidates cramming into the main liberal-activist lane, one candidate looking to be the Badger Mamdani and one candidate who has a sailboat in…
Will Blue Collar Voters Be Back in Play?
Only fools try to predict the future. Okay, so let’s get started then. This should be a good year for Democrats. Not because anybody is excited about them (the party’s approval ratings are at an all-time low), but because it’s a mid-term election with an unpopular Republican in the White House. Moreover, people continue to…
These Words Must Be Destroyed
This year I was in despair. For the first time in years I couldn’t come up with enough material to fill my annual list of words and phrases that are so over-used or pretentious that I want them destroyed. But then I asked Isthmus staff for suggestions and associate editor Linda Falkenstein came through with…
Closing Out the Year in the Cold
I write this morning from a place I wasn’t supposed to be at. For the second time in about a month a blizzard tore through the Upper Peninsula, shut down the power to our cabin and threatened our plumbing. So, for the second time in a month I hopped in the car and drove the…
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