RIP Bill Leinenkugel

Sad news in the world of beer brewing. Bill Leinenkugel of the Leinenkugel brands of beer has passed away at age 87.

Those of us from the heydey of UW-Milwaukee's campus newspapers will remember long and occasionally friendly arguments in the Gasthaus over politics between the editors of The UWM Times and The UWM Post. The one thing both newspapers agreed upon was the choice of Leinenkugel beer.

Thanks Bill.

Happy birthday, Andy Hurley

If he believes in birthdays. Hard to tell.

From Wikipedia:

Over time, Hurley became a strict vegan and an adherent to the straightedge style of living. He was inspired to pick up the drumsticks early on by Metallica's Lars Ulrich, and though he played in plenty of acts throughout the years including Project Rocket, Arma Angelus, the Kill Pill, and most notably the political metalcore unit Racetraitor.He became most well known as the skinsman for popular Chicago pop-punk group Fall Out Boy. He joined the band in 2003, after they had already recorded their first album, Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend. The group steadily built up a loyal fan base following around the country before exploding into the mainstream consciousness with their third album, From Under the Cork Tree, in 2005.

Andy attended University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, double-majoring in anthropology and history. He plans to finish both degrees whenever his touring and recording schedule permits.

Hurley has what some would describe as anarcho-primitivist views, and believes that someday civilization will collapse. When confronted about this in the February 2007 issue of Alternative Press, he claimed that his career contradicted his beliefs, and at the same time, he had to make a living.

Capitalism sucks. Buy our albums.

It must be hard to be a model of artistic pretentiousness when the price of lettuce and black t-shirts just went up. I wonder how his Roth IRA and stock portfolio are doing. Ooh, look, oil stocks are up today.

More on the band:

Although drummer Andy Hurley is vegan and has done promotions for PETA, Fall Out Boy has received criticism from animal rights groups for their use of chimpanzees, an orangutan and a monkey in the music video of "Thnks fr th Mmrs". Despite objections from these groups, the band’s bassist Pete Wentz brought a chimpanzee to the Kerrang! Awards and was pictured at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards with a black and white monkey.

Posers.

Will he bring his violin?

oops, wrong Horowitz. Conservative activist and famous former lefty David Horowitz will be speaking at UW-Milwaukee April 30th at 7:30 PM. Unfortunately he'll be speaking on Islamo-fascism rather than on a topic more timely and closer to Horowitz's experience: the Weather Underground, William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Given Ayers' relationship with Senator Barack Obama, a refresher course on the real radicalism of the late 1960s and early 1970s within the New Left would have been more timely and still would have been very controversial.

Then again, speaking to an audience of today's college kids describing the radical left is like describing aliens from Mars.

I may go anyway just to have my copy of DESTRUCTIVE GENERATION: Second Thoughts About the '60s autographed.

Dude, only one party?

Well, so much for student government elections at UW-Milwaukee.

An entire slate of 26 candidates running with the opposition party for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Association in this week's election had their names stricken from the ballot because of campaign violations, a UWM election official said today.

Candidates with Achieving Student Action through Progress (ASAP) filed complaints today with the student court hoping to postpone the election, scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Otherwise, students who go to the polls will see only the names of candidates from the Students United For Change (SUFC) party or two independent candidates. If they want to vote for candidates from ASAP, they'll have to write the names in.

The ruling was made by election commissioner Dan Bahr, a former student senator who ran with the party that stands to benefit from the decision. He stepped down from that position in February when he was appointed election commissioner.

"All we ever wanted was a fair election," ASAP vice presidential candidate Julio Guerrero said. "We don't mind losing if we're on the ballot. The fact that they felt they needed to take us off the ballot shows me personally how much they fear losing power."

The ACLU and Milwaukee Alderman Nic Kovac are now involved. Perhaps Jimmy Carter can cut short his trip to the middle east and mediate the election dispute.

As a former UW-Milwaukee student government president once told me, "Never have so few fought so hard over so little." The winner of this struggle gets cash, a nice office, free use of a computer and (unless they changed the rules) even occasional use of a state car. Not bad for someone who is supposed to be going to college.

Why children should be seen and not heard

Six UW system student governments cried, "Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee!" They want taxpayers to:

-- Increase pay and improve retention for UW faculty and staff using strictly state funds.

-- Increase funding for the Wisconsin Higher Education Grant, the Advanced Opportunity Program and the Lawton Undergraduate Retention Grant program.

-- Support a veterans' tuition remission program funded completely through state funds.

-- Cap tuition increases so they don't exceed the rate of inflation.

-- Provide funding for domestic partner benefits for all UW employees.

-- Provide funding for mental health counseling at all UW institutions.

-- Make sure state law ensures that the average tuition increase is matched dollar-for-dollar with the average Wisconsin Higher Education Grant award.

I'm surprised they didn't ask for free massages and pedicures every Friday. Sadly, if this shows anything it's that students should be required to take more economics courses. They might learn money doesn't grow on trees.

I should note, too, that one of the student governments belongs to UW-Milwaukee, touted by WTMJ's Charlie Sykes as an indicator student governments can be run by conservatives. If these are the conservatives, we can shudder at what passes for today's radicals.

I offer the same advice I have offered to students ever since my days at UW-Milwaukee: abolish student government. It isn't representative. It isn't responsible. It's inherently corrupt and it just costs money. Kick the kids back to the classrooms where they belong.

Students on the march

WTMJ-AM's Charlie Sykes has an article in The Wisconsin Interest discussing the rise of conservatives at UW-Milwaukee and elsewhere.

Last spring, conservative students, running for seats on the UWM student Senate, on a platform of lowering segregated fees (paid by students) and fiscal responsibility, won the student election by a 2-to-1 margin. “We saw this as a mandate,” recalls A.J. Piwarun, who is now deputy speaker of the student Senate. “At the first college republicans meeting in September, I recruited about nine members to run for open Senate seats. During the course of the semester, more Senate seats opened up, and we recruited additional conservatives to the cause.”

As of mid-January there are 40 student senators: 16 are members of the College Republicans; 8 are non-affiliated conservatives; 10 are moderates; just six are considered liberals. Piwarun says that about half of the moderates vote with the conservatives, “giving us a clear majority.”

They've achieved some successes, but how long will they last? They may regret not following the advice I offer students every year:

Close the student government down.

Vegetable rights and peas

Always nice to know that the ol' alma mater is blissfully free of organic produce.

But, where is University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in this organic movement? The school offers Burger King, Taco Bell, and a variety of other menu options, but organic food choices are absent. But this does not mean buying an organic salad in the Union will remain impossible.

“It’s been our goal for quite some time,” said Scott Hoffland, UWM’s campus restaurant operations manager.

However, the University of Wisconsin system has strict guidelines for food vendors in terms of safety and economics that make creating an organic food program difficult.

“The decision to have food at a UW event, either on or off campus, presents a number of concerns, including the safe and proper handling of the food, as well as business concerns regarding purchasing and accounting processes and whether the provider has adequate insurance in place,” said the University of Wisconsin website regarding catering policies.

Organic producers must have at least $2 million of insurance in order for institutions like UWM to purchase their food. This would protect both the producer and UWM in case of an E.coli outbreak from contaminated watermelon, for example. Because organic farms are often small operations, Hoffland said they typically cannot afford this amount of coverage. Therefore, the costs of farming and insurance combine to make organics more expensive for consumers.

An organic food product can cost up to double the amount of its conventional, or nonorganic, counterpart. If UWM initiates an organic meal program, Hoffland said, economics are a big factor. Both the school and the students must be able to afford the food items.

In addition to economic dilemmas, another obstacle to serving organic food is the supply demands UWM would pose. The volume that the school will demand may exceed what local organic farmers and vendors can provide.

“We’re like an 800-pound gorilla. If we need 50 bushels of corn by next week, we may not be able to get it,” Hoffland said.

The students are saved! The students are saved! But, you may ask, why can they have organic food in Madison but not at UW-Milwaukee?

UW-Madison offers its students and faculty members a wide range of organic menu selections. The produce items they serve, including carrots, apples, potatoes, and corn, are harvested from their own university-run farm, as well as purchased from local organic farmers.

All those in favor of clear-cutting the Downer Woods in favor of fresh tomatoes...

Yeah, that's what I thought.

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So that's what the perp looked like?

Not that this changes my mind about the overall usefulness of student government at our state universities, but UW-Milwaukee's student government managed to do one thing right:

The Student Association of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee almost unanimously approved legislation on Sunday that orders the university to include identifying characteristics like height and race in campus-wide e-mails detailing crimes on or near campus.

But the university spokesman reiterated last week that the official university position is that race in suspect descriptions is inappropriate. The binding power of the legislation on the university could be disputed, although the Student Association legislative affairs director said the student group is poised to take the matter to the Board of Regents if necessary.

The university spokesman said he wanted to wait until after the vote before issuing a response to the legislation. He could not be reached on Sunday night.

The legislation, entitled “Suspect Description Disclosure Act,” states that “any information narrowing the scope of possible suspects is valuable, and…apprehending suspects of crimes on and near campus is in the best interest of students by promoting safety.”

It goes on to order UWM’s office of University Relations to disclose “any and all information received by police, including but not limited to the sex, race, build, and height of the suspect along with age, clothing, and involved weaponry and vehicles of each suspect, about crimes committed on or near campus.”

The legislation still has to be signed by the student government president Samantha Prahl who, according to the article, wants to speak with the administration first. Never a good sign.

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New media at UW-Milwaukee

Jessica McBride of radio, print and blog fame, starts a new venture as Editor in Chief of an online publication by UW-Milwaukee's Journalism and Mass Communication students, Frontpage Milwaukee. Dave Berkman must be rolling over in his grave.

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