Green Jello Hotdish

You’re not Chicago, not L.A.  You’re not London, New York or Paris.  You’re not even Minneapolis, Boston or Seattle.

On a hot, sticky summer’s day, the air is a mix of sewage and dead, rotting fish.  The winter brings with it snow that would bury entire civilizations under its mass.

Parking’s rotten, mass transit is non-existent, and the schools are falling apart.  There’s no weather your denizens can drive well in, and let’s face it: liquor and sausage can’t be considered high class no matter how much you dress it up.

But that’s not the end of the story.

You’ve got great festivals, and neighborhood pride to spare.  Rush hour’s a breeze compared to those other places, and nothing beats Bradford Beach in July.

People who haven’t visited your county parks — the true gems of your beauty — are missing out on the good life, and putting wings on your art museum was sheer genius.

Your people are friendly.  Your streets are (mostly) walkable.  And there is more culinary variety than beer, polka and bratwurst.

I’ll miss you, Milwaukee.  We part ways too soon; I’m sorry I didn’t get to know you better.

Now, I’m not condoning the actions of the cook here, but what do you expect to happen when you send food back in a restaurant for any reason?

One of my co-workers had her car stolen from the parking lot at work yesterday. Its a bit unnerving — I’ve known, obviously, that this is not the safest area in the city since I interned here in 2005. But a couple things first ran into my mind when she came back in and called the police:

• Two of our pastors live within a 10-block radius of the office. One of them has two small children.
• The church building I work in has a number of social service agencies within it, and along with the church, serves countless people in the community. Where any of those people in danger in the parking lot yesterday?
• Only a block away is another congregation, with similar reach and mission in the neighborhood. Not far away are two others. What are their experiences?
• I leave stuff in my car all the time. It could have been me.

Just take this as a public service announcement: please, please lock your vehicles. Don’t leave things in plain sight — better yet, take them inside with you. (On that last part, don’t expect to find any of my regular myriad electronic gadgetry left in my car unattended for a while…)

But even with the best precautions, no one is immune. All that was in my co-workers car, essentially, was a big mess of sheet music. Wonder what that goes for on the street. Say Bubba, buck-twenty for that Handel?

Social video/networking site GodTube was today’s feature story on the religion page. The idea is simple: provide a forum for people to connect, share videos and messages, all in a safe, “family-friendly” environment. Sounds OK, even good, right?

Here’s the problem with GodTube, and all the other residents of the Internet Christian Ghetto: they’ve missed the point.

Before I get into this, I want to be clear about one thing. I am, in no way, condoning all of the material on the big social media sites like YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. However I am universal in my criticism: God didn’t command God’s followers to lead a safe, sheltered life in a gated community. And that’s exactly what the Ghetto is all about creating.

At work this Advent, as I’ve written about here, I’ve been recording weekly video reflections from staff members, congregational members and next week a campus pastor. They’ve been hugely successful, and are receiving mention from outside the Greater Milwaukee Synod sphere. Trackbacks on the entries show even non-church organizations are linking to some clips. This impact is due to the fact that I am hosting them on the YouTube and Facebook services, rather than GodTube.

The denominational office uses and encourages Google Video for web video content, also to a hugely successful degree.

A colleague of mine who works for a different denomination pointed out the sad irony in calling these Christian sites a ghetto — not because of the isolationist feel, but because the church (universal, not just Christian) has been establishing or supporting ghettos for different classes of people throughout history, and now it is simply retreating to the suburbs, so to speak, from the scary, untamed Internet.

From a communications standpoint, I really should be using GodTube in addition to the mainstream sites, in order to attain the largest reach of audience. But I’m torn supporting a system which is arrogant and elitist in any way. So far, no one has inquired why I’m not posting on GodTube, so I’ll keep below the radar for a while.

Jesus calls us to be in the world. The Christian faith requires a change of lifestyle. GodTube does nothing to accomplish that; but I believe the sum of its mission can be found in the last two paragraphs in the article:

Q: When do you expect GodTube to make a profit?

A:Next year, sooner than later.

The State of Wisconsin wants to expand a segment of the North-South Freeway from the current three lanes in each direction to four, in a section from the Illinois-Wisconsin border to Oak Creek.

Puhleeze.

Ignoring the obvious simpler KRM rail or high-speed Amtrak solutions, what would expanding the expressway actually do? Once you get onto the Illinois Tollway, the roadway would revert to three lanes. Going into Milwaukee, it would revert to three lanes, and we can assume it would remain that way for a long while since the Marquette Interchange construction is just about over and I don’t think anyone is going to start rebuilding that again soon.

The article claims the expansion would improve safety and usability along the roadway:

Attendees sat through a brief overview from Roberto Gutierrez, state supervisor for freeways in southeast Wisconsin, who explained the timelines and built a case for expanding the freeway from six lanes to eight. The extra lanes would reduce congestion and crashes on the 50-year-old freeway corridor.

Except when there is a crash — or this weekend’s weather patterns, congestion along that segment isn’t a big issue. I consistently can drive from Milwaukee to Kenosha in 30-40 minutes. Minor crashes, those not closing lanes of traffic, usually increase that time to 45 minutes. So where’s the problem?

Of course, no one has given a price tag for this ridiculous project…

The title may be beautiful couch, but don’t be fooled.

Since when can one not get a roll of quarters at a service desk of a retail store? At Target, they looked at me like I had a foot coming out of my head. At Pick ‘n Save this morning, they told me I couldn’t get quarters but they could give me two $5s for my $10.

Excuse me? You’ll give me cash, but not change? That’s correct — you see, according to some sources, stores are having issues with counterfeit bills and by giving a person change, they’ve just exchanged valid money for funny money.

That doesn’t make sense. Like, at all.

So what about going to a laundromat or such place with a quarter machine? Stopped by the one just a few blocks from my apartment and no dice. Seems they don’t believe in having a quarter machine in a place where people might need a good chunk of quarters.

And the Quick-E-Mart next door? Nope, they won’t give quarters, either.

Alright, so maybe I break down and go to a bank. There’s one just across from the Pick ‘n Save, and I decide to stop there. They have a branch inside the Pick ‘n Save that I frequently obtain my quarters from; they’re nice people, so I’ll give them a chance. Nope. Since I don’t have an account with their bank, I either have to open one or pay a $2 service fee.

A service fee for quarters? Yup. So why can I get quarters in the Pick ‘n Save sans service fee but not here? They’re apparently not supposed to be doing that. Shit. Just screwed myself there.

This is one of the most ridiculous issues with Milwaukee I’ve ever had. Where in the hell is one supposed to get quarters before 10 a.m. in this damn city?!

The Waukesha Board of Education has announced a proposal to reconfigure two elementary schools in their district to grade grouping, rather than traditional enrollment boundaries. The theory, they say, is to allocate resources in a more efficient manner while controlling class sizes and being more “child-focused.”

Having benefited from a variety of educational settings — including traditional schools within attendance boundaries, or “neighborhood schools,” mixed-grade classrooms (both as cohort clusters, where first through third grades were in “pods” with the same students, as well as experiencing fourth and fifth grades in the same mixed-grade classroom), grade groupings in middle school and a comprehensive high school with a magnet program — my inclination is that the Waukesha plan will be met with success. As the article points out, libraries and other resources are targeted toward a specific enrollment and much of the wide age gap of bullying on the playground is squelched.

That’s not the question I have: what is with Wisconsin and K-8 schools? Milwaukee’s covered with them. In Minnesota, and I’d venture to say most places, a metropolitan tradition is for K-5 in elementary, 6-8 in middle and 9-12 in high schools. Variations include pre-K and K, 1-3, 4-5, 5-8, etc, but for the most part the “standard” is used. In rural areas with smaller populations and enrollments, a K-6 and 7-12 split is the de facto standard.

But K-8? That’s a huge gap to have in one school. Even splitting that up K-3, 4-8 is huge. I can’t imagine being an 8th grader in school with 4th graders, or vice versa. At my middle school, we had 5th graders in self-contained classrooms on the third floor, while 6-8 operated as the “middle school.” (Originally, the younger students were moved to the building to deal with overcrowding at the nearby elementary school. Subsequently, a district overhaul resulted in shuttering one elementary school and consolidating to single elementary, middle and high schools, and now even 4th graders are at CJMS.) But just by having the 5th graders in the building, it brought a certain “kid” element that caused strife, especially with the 6th graders.

Did the middle school concept skip Southeastern Wisconsin?

I just got back from the grocery store; I got home from work and remembered that I forgot to buy quarters so I could do laundry tonight. There wasn’t anything terribly unusual about going to this particular store — it’s where I normally go for quarters and to get a haircut at the in-store barber, though strangely enough not the place where I do my regular grocery shopping. Instead I go to a store of the same chain that is further from my apartment, simply because it’s the one I found first upon moving to Milwaukee.

My shopping habits are not the subject here, though.

As I walked in, there was a younger woman standing behind a table, soliciting donations for some charity or other. We’ve all seen the drill: buy this caricature paper cutout for $1 and write your name on it so we can post it all around the store. Paper cutouts on parade. I didn’t listen really at all to the gal’s barking, I simply said, “No thank you” and proceeded to the bank line behind her.

But then came the extra push. As I worked my way to the teller window, I heard her charging in my direction: “Its for children!”

Wham. Pull at the guilt strings. If I said yes, I look like I genuinely care for the children. “Oh, I had no idea. We must protect and save our precious little ones. By all means, please take my $1. Do you have a special if I buy $5 worth?”

Of course, there was always the alternate of acting as a hostile, evil bastard. Which in the end, by my lack of a response, I’m sure that was the avenue I chose.

Think about it, though; whenever an argument isn’t going your own way, pull out the children. Who can argue with them? So often it seems we are exploiting them for our own mental well-being. “I’m a good person, I gave $1 today and bought a cutout shape to go up on the grocery store walls. That surely counteracts all the rest of my bitchiness this week.” Maybe instead of doing things just for the children, we do them for ourselves and our own personal growth and discipline.

Or maybe we just accept the fact that we are selfish, evil, hostile bastards. Whichever works.

This is starting to get a little pathetic.

I remember selling lemonade in our front yard growing up. It was a great location — next to the public park and beach, on the corner of two streets, on a busier street. Small glasses were a quarter, larges were fifty. Every once in a while I’d partner up with one of the neighbor kids, and one summer we had a whole franchise operation going on with four different sites, staking out the entire northwest side.

Of course we never made enough money to pay for supplies, but that was our parents’ gift. All we wanted to do was take our earnings and run up to Minit Mart and load up in their long, wide aisles of candy.

Bottled water is the craze now, and Milwaukee youth are just as entrepreneurial of youths past. As the summer heats up, so does the push to make a quick buck. For some of these kids, the push is more than candy at the convenience store. Often the difference is literally life and death. I’m happy to support these kids, often buying two or three bottles at a time.

The arguments surrounding safety, I understand. I’ve been worried many times seeing them up on the median as traffic whizzes by. What the story doesn’t tell, though, is that most of these medians are raised, cement medians — the kind that even have a second crosswalk signal button, because the intersection is so wide it can take two light cycles just to cross. Are we going to outlaw pedestrians waiting “safely” on the median semi-designed for their purpose?

What’s scary, though, but not unexpected is the second part of the story:

Which is why police plan to start issuing more municipal citations for youths who violate city ordinances against selling on medians or being in roadways. They also plan to probe whether the youths are working for themselves or being put up to do it for someone else.

Did this Captain never sell lemonade as a kid? Give them a break. Officials are eager to point out the success of their summer crackdown on violent crime; apparently it’s leaving time leftover to pick on kids looking to make a little money.

I remember this story being huge news right as I was leaving Minnesota. (Note: that Web site has the only permanent link to the Strib story I can find for free. Including the link here does not imply I have become a conservative whore.) Perhaps Milwaukee is going to make the next headline for gross governmental overreach?

In the absence of a real problem or incident, MPD should ensure the kids’ safety rather than chase them out. These are busy intersections — aren’t officers driving through them on patrols on a regular basis? If they aren’t, shouldn’t they? Don’t let this mar an otherwise promising, successful summer in fighting violent crime in Milwaukee. Stop probing water sales and picking on the kids.