Once again, Janet was able to practice by herself on the concert grand piano at the Lawrence Memorial Chapel in Appleton.  Both Eleanor and I accompanied her this time.

The Steinway was level with the proscenium this time and I placed my recorder on a chair about 8 feet away.  My mistake was to set it to its hottest record level.  The Olympus DS-30 is a nice recorder but its method of adjusting recording levels is a 3-way switch on the side: Dictation, Conference, and Lecture Hall.  The Lecture Hall setting provides the hottest levels and I should have used the Conference setting to tone it down a bit.  There are some resonances in the piano which seem to reverberate a bit on the harsh sid ... Read More »

I attended last night's forum for the two candidates for Mayor of Neenah.  As I often do at Council and committee meetings, I recorded the proceedings.  I'm not acting as a reporter, as such; there are things said that I find worth reviewing from time to time.  Last night was one of those times.

I transcribed the introductory remarks of Neenah Council President, Todd Stevenson and posted them in their entirety at my NeenahPolitics.com blog.

Duke Behnke, the Neenah beat reporter for the Appleton Post-Crescent, was there.  He heard Stevenson address the slur made about his thinking abilities by a sitting Council member while campaigning for Stevenson's opponent, Mayor Scherck. Behnke witnessed how quiet it got in the Council chambers as peop ... Read More »

Are holds a necessary Senate tactic? Or do they impede progress?

(published 15-Mar-2010, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Anything that impedes legislation gets my support.  Gridlock is good.  Filibusters are fine.  Holds are wholesome.  Super-majorities are sublime.  This 51-49 stuff is for the birds.  I never thought I'd say this, but California has the right idea, at least for its budget: a 2/3 super-majority is required to pass it.  Especially if it's a vote on "progressive" legislation to extend government control over yet another aspect of our over-regulated lives.  "Progress" has come to mean "some bureaucrat who thinks he knows better than you is going to make your decisions for your own good because you really aren't capable, you poor thin ... Read More »

A semi on its side. A fully-loaded semi overturned at the corner of Bell St. and Brooks St. in Neenah at about 8:15am, Thursday, March 4th, 2010. I drove by just moments after it happened and went back home (about 2-1/2 miles) to get Janet's camera.

Should parents remove books from libraries?

(published 1-Mar-2010, Appleton Post-Crescent online)

It isn't so much the books in the library that bother me, it's the textbooks.  I've sustained three waves of elementary school social studies, math, and science books for my three kids (now 23, 19, and 11).  Social studies books have to top some sort of list of vapid, insipid, and gormless works intended to instruct schoolchildren.  The explicit political cant, moral equivalency, and cultural superiority are maddening.  Math books are just about as bad, though for different reasons.  My favorite -- that is to say LEAST favorite -- math book folly was the double page color photograph showing half a dozen multi-cultural children playing with a huge model city and roadway as the introduction to a chapter on geometric shapes.  Just the pi ... Read More »