I lost my aldermanic re-election bid to former Park and Recreation Commission President, Lee Hillstrom last Tuesday, 518-496. There are two polling places in the 3rd District in Neenah. I manned one at poll-closing time while my wife, Janet, manned the other. The vote total at my polling place was 310-305. For a fleeting moment I offered up a prayer that Janet would bring me a margin of victory from the other polling place of 6 votes. But then I remembered that Mr. Hillstrom lives in that part of the District and that he'd probably win by 100.

Janet came to pick me up and looked rather forlorn as I got into the car. I said, "Well, did Hillstrom win by a hundred?" "No," she said, "17."

So out of 1014 votes cast I lost by 22. I dropped Janet off at home and went out to pick up the rest of my yard signs – I wasn't going to risk any displeasure with my signs left up beyond Tuesday night. I ... Read More »

...nobody talks about global warming when it snows on the cherry blossoms in April!

...or when there's a 17 degree wind chill at the Masters:

...or when there's a foot of snow on the baseball diamond:

Read More »

13-Year-Old Arrested In School For Writing On Desk

Principal Urges Cops To Arrest Girl For Writing 'Okay'

Chelsea Fraser was arrested at the Dyker Heights [New York] Intermediate School on March 30 along with three other male students. She says she was made to empty her pockets and take off her belt. Then she was handcuffed and led out of the school in front of her classmates and placed in the back of a police car.

That pretty much says it all. The girl was handcuffed to a pole at the police station for three hours. Some things are beyond parody.

It's been a busy week, and I've had just about zero chance to write anything here. I haven't had a week-long gap in my blog for I don't know how long.

Tomorrow my re-election campaign ends and we'll find out whether I've been given another go on the Neenah City Council. I've put together an Issues web site at http://www.swerbach.com/Neenah3rd/ if you're curious.

But please get out and vote wherever you are!

What's your reaction to the capture of Saddam Hussein?

(published 22-Dec-2003, Appleton Post-Crescent)

I appreciate the tough policy President Bush followed: keep searching until Saddam Hussein is found. Not one that was easy to pitch to critics as time went by. But American troops stuck to their mission and accomplished it. Flat out fantastic. But how would the critics respond? Howard Dean said at a fundraising concert, "He's a bad person and we're all better off with him in captivity. But you should know that my views on Iraq have not changed one bit." Swell. And the Reuters news agency ran this paragraph in a story about Palestinian gloom: "The former Iraqi ruler was a hero to many Palestinians for his stand against Israel and its U.S. ally, as well as for helping families of Palestinians dead in an uprising." This is the kind of thing I was expecting: "helping families...dead in an u ... Read More »

Who wins and who loses with the new 10-year, $400 billion Medicare prescription drug benefit?

(published 8-Dec-2003, Appleton Post-Crescent)

The party of limited government, eh? Sure. The passage of this bill ensures that seniors in Florida, who vote en masse, can be steered towards voting for a strong Republican Senatorial candidate to replace Bob Graham, who's already declared he won't run again. Pretty much everywhere else in the country the Medicare drug bill is a non-issue. In Florida it's number one. When President Bush began twisting arms for this bill, the first man he called was freshman Representative Tom Feeney of Florida. When Feeney protested, "I wasn't sent to Washington to increase the size and cost of government!", the President replied, "Neither was I, pal!"

What is the most destructive force at work in the U.S.?

(published 24-Nov-2003, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Faith in government, by far. Juvenal described it as "Bread and circuses". Take the recent furor over the proposed Medicare prescription drug bill. What do we see in the news? "Any bill is better than no bill" or "No bill is better than a bad bill." Never any argument that this would turn into another monstrous and costly albatross around our necks. Social Security will run out of money very shortly. So why do we want to saddle ourselves with another extremely expensive program? The answer is simple: our leaders want us to vote for them. They want to nurture the belief that the government can solve all our problems. They want us dependent upon government for everything. Some of us believe it already. We are rapidly approaching what Rudyard Kipling foresaw as the time "when al ... Read More »

What is the most constructive force at work in the U.S. today?

(published 17-Nov-2003, Appleton Post-Crescent)

What it has always been: inventiveness and American know-how. Any American -- even victims of government-funded public schooling -- can come up with a long list of American inventors. Thomas Edison: phonograph, incandescent light; Alexander Graham Bell: telephone; Eli Whitney: cotton gin; Henry Ford: assembly line; Bill Gates: DOS and Windows; Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs: Apple Computer; William Nelson Beck: ultrasound; Clarence Birdseye: frozen food; Robert Fulton: the first successful American steamboat; Jack St. Clair Kilby: hand-held calculator; Bill (not Al) Gore: Goretex; Ben Franklin: bifocals, lightning rod, Franklin stove, odometer; Bill Shockley: transistor; Philo Farnsworth: television; George Crum: potato chips; Gary Dahl: the Pet Rock; James Wright: Silly Putty; Harold Melvin & the ... Read More »