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Three Judge Federal Panel Rules; Only Assembly Districts 8 and 9 Must be Re-Drawn
Folks, I am disgusted. After all the extra time the three-judge federal panel took — and all the really strong language the judges used in their past rulings — the only two districts the judges want re-drawn are those of Assembly Districts 8 and 9 — which are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. All of the other problems with the districts, while “unnecessarily secretive” according to the judges, do not qualify for a judicial (legal) remedy — so we’re stuck with horrible districts, thanks to the Wisconsin Republicans who controlled all three branches of government throughout 2010.
(Thanks a lot, WI Rs. Really.)
Here’s a link to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story:
Here’s a quote from the judge’s ruling, quoted in the same MJS article:
The judges – two appointed by Republican presidents and one appointed by a Democratic president – said the maps were clearly motivated by partisanship, and contrasted that with the almost even divide in the state between Republicans and Democrats.
“Regrettably, like many other states, Wisconsin chose a sharply partisan methodology that has cost the state in dollars, time and civility,” the court said. “Nevertheless, our task is to assess the legality of the outcome, not whether it lived up to any particular ideal.”
This also means that the people who’ve been moved from one state Senate district to another, where the Senator is an incumbent, may end up having to wait six years to vote for their new Senator due to the way the WI Rs re-did these maps. The judges, while they obviously don’t like this problem, have said in their above comments that this isn’t something they can fix.
While many of the high-profile Dems now want the entire map-process to be re-done, there isn’t any wherewithal in Madison to do such a thing; the judges didn’t require it (all they required, as I said before, is that Assembly Districts 8 and 9 must be re-drawn), and as the Assembly is still solid red, nothing is going to get done. The state Senate, even though at the moment is split 16-16 due to the recent retirement of Senator Pam Galloway (R-Wausau), also doesn’t have enough oomph behind it to force the Rs to come to the table for the other districts; all they can do is fix Assembly Districts 8 and 9. That’s it.
And as you might imagine, the Wisconsin Rs are crowing today about their “big victory.” Scott Fitzgerald, who was on WTMJ-AM 620 in Milwaukee this afternoon, was almost oozing satisfaction as he said that the Rs “had done nothing wrong.” (This is my best paraphrase of what Fitzgerald actually said; he went on and on for at least five minutes talking about how wonderful these maps are, how they’re not gerrymandering — please!, etc. These were unctuous self-serving platitudes, and certainly didn’t make me think this process has been completed by any means.)
So that’s it; many people are still in districts they don’t understand, didn’t want, and don’t even know who their new legislators are going to be. Many others who hold seats now either have to move districts (like Robert Turner, who will run in district 66 though he’s been the sitting district 61 Assemblyman for many years) or have to acquaint themselves with their newly-drawn one (Cory Mason from Racine is in this situation; he only has 10% of his original district after the new maps were fundamentally approved today by the federal judges), then get to know their new constituents in a big hurry.
And the judges’ decision left intact one of the biggest problems I’ve seen all along — that is, how the maps were drawn to benefit three sitting state Republican Senators, including my own Van Wanggaard. District 21, where I now reside, has been re-drawn to include the rural parts of Racine and Kenosha Counties, which for the most part tend to vote Republican. District 22, which I will now be in, has most of the Cities of Racine and Kenosha, which tend to vote for Democrats. This means rather than two competitive districts, there will now be one district tilted heavily toward Democrats, and one district tilted heavily toward Republicans; I am not in favor of such a thing even though I strongly approve of District 22’s Senator, Bob Wirch (to the point that I worked to help him withstand recall last summer).
At any rate, I was hoping the judges would see this was wrong and do something about it. They appear to have seen that it’s wrong, but decided that they couldn’t do anything about it. What a sad, sad day in Southeastern Wisconsin . . . and what disgust I have for just about every last one of the Republican legislators — at least, for every one of them who signed a “non-disclosure” agreement which kept the public out of the redistricting process, as that was strongly against Wisconsin’s history of open and transparent government.
In other words: we in Wisconsin look like a bunch of ignorant hicks, mostly because of a bunch of jumped-up Republicans in the WI Legislature. And we now can’t fix their mess until 2020, minimum — why should I be happy about this? And why should any Wisconsin voter, as we’ve been shafted twice now — once by the Rs, and now by the courts?
Editing this Week; Waiting for Federal Judges’ Ruling in Redistricting Case
Happy Friday, everyone.
This week I’ve spent a lot of time editing, which is why I haven’t blogged overmuch. Plus, I’ve been awaiting the three-judge federal panel from the United States District Court to rule on the Wisconsin redistricting case all week, but so far, they haven’t made a ruling.
This, quite frankly, is puzzling. The three-judge Federal panel needs to file their ruling within ten days of the end of testimony — but testimony ended on February 24, 2012 and it’s now March 9, 2012. (Perhaps the “ten days” includes next Monday, and that’s why there’s been no ruling as of yet?)
So that’s about it — just editing, doing a bit of writing here and there, and waiting for the judges to make up their mind — a typical Friday here in Wisconsin, at least for me.
Enjoy your weekend, folks.
Just reviewed the novelization of “The Settlers of Catan” at SBR
Folks, if you’ve ever played the board game THE SETTLERS OF CATAN, you know that Catan is a semi-mythical island out in the middle of nowhere in Northern Europe that can only be reached by waiting for the worst storm you’ve ever seen and riding it out.
Anyway, Klaus Teuber, who invented the board game THE SETTLERS OF CATAN, asked novelist Rebecca Gable to turn the game into a historical novel. She did so in 2003 in Germany; in 2011, Amazon Crossing picked up an English version that was originally translated by Lee Chadeayne, then was revised by Ingrid G. Lansford. This is the novel that I just reviewed at Shiny Book Review; here is the link to the review:
http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/the-settlers-of-catan-more-than-just-a-board-game/
A synopsis of my review is this: it’s a good book that illuminates the history of 850 AD including the religious outlook (the pagan beliefs based on the Nordic pantheon versus the newer religion, Christianity), the difficulties colonists had restarting their lives, and much more. But be warned; some parts of the novel are extremely graphic and there is a male-on-male rape scene that I found particularly distasteful. (I talked around this in my SBR review; I’m not doing so here.)
Former Penn State Football Coach Joe Paterno, 85, dies in PA
Most sports fans are probably aware that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has died at 85. He had lung cancer, but what probably hastened his demise was the furor that erupted over the sordid behavior of one of his former coaches, Jerry Sandusky (a man accused of having sex with several pre-teen boys). Paterno was fired from Penn State in November due to the fallout from this scandal.
Please see the following link for further details:
http://news.yahoo.com/joe-paterno-revered-coach-tainted-scandal-dies-010702826–nfl.html
All I know is, I feel saddened by Paterno’s passing. This was the guy who had the most wins in college history; he’d had a major trophy (the Big Ten’s conference championship trophy) named after him, then that honor was taken away due to Sandusky’s conduct and all the fallout at Penn State.
Now, me being sorry that Paterno is dead certainly does not mean that I condone anything that Sandusky has been accused of doing. All it means is that I feel sorry that an old man, a grandfather, had to face such a terrible ordeal in what amounted to the “overtime” of his life — something Paterno couldn’t change at that late date and certainly couldn’t help, either — and that I hope that, like any other man, Paterno’s life can be seen for what it was.
Right now, there’s a lot of sentiment that has said that Paterno wasn’t well-treated in his age. I share much of that. But one would hope that when Paterno “meets his Maker” that the sum total of Paterno’s life will be what’s important — whom Paterno loved, and why. What he actually did (including helping many of the young men on his college football teams graduate and become productive citizens), along with what he unfortunately failed to do — not merely the actions that came to light in October and November of 2011.
I don’t know what the whole story is regarding those actions. I suspect we’ll never know.
What I do know is that Joe Paterno’s life has ended. I wish his family, friends, and colleagues as well as possible, and I hope that somehow, they will find peace despite the complex issues that surrounded some of Paterno’s tenure at Penn State with regards to Sandusky in particular.
Sinus Infection Here
Folks, right now I’m mostly down for the count. The review I’d hoped to write for Shiny Book Review didn’t get done, and all I’ve managed to do thus far is get up and have something to eat (in order to take my antibiotic, as it can irritate the stomach).
I’m also re-reading one of my favorite “comfort books,” this one being A MAN RIDES THROUGH by Stephen R. Donaldson. (Hard to believe that Donaldson had problems writing this one; he’s said in speeches — one witnessed by my niece — that he agonized over the “Mordant’s Need” duology and that it did not come easily. Can’t tell that by the quality of the writing or plot, that’s for sure.)
Nothing else of consequence got done today, unless you count me watching the second quarter of the Big Ten Championship game (the Wisconsin Badgers won the game overall, but the second quarter, they lost — didn’t score any points at all — to their opponent, Michigan State. Good thing games are decided by the total score, not by the “quarter-by-quarter” score or the Badgers would’ve been in trouble.)
Tomorrow must be better . . . as is, right now I’m about to go and stare at the insides of my eyelids, again.
Migraine today . . . and Story Ideas
Folks, I suffer from migraines, as my late husband Michael also did . . . and what I’ve found over time is that out of my migraine-induced haze, I often get some really interesting story ideas out of it.
Take ELFY, for example. I had been reading an anthology the night before and someone had been describing the worst of the urban fantasy genre — the mincing Faeries that seemed like human courtiers rather than anything alien or Other, that humans always outwitted these lesser-minded sorts, and so on and so forth — and all of that mixed up in my mind while under the influence of my migraine.
The next day (or maybe evening), I realized I had a character in my head: Bruno the Elfy. He liked to wear black, unlike his compatriots who wore all sorts of wild colors; he didn’t like to rhyme, unlike the rest of the Elfys. And he was stuck in the Human Realm — our Earth — because he’d been told one thing but the truth was something else again. Unraveling what the truth was took me a good year’s worth of work and a whole lot of conversations and editing done by my late husband and co-conspirator, Michael, before we had a completed book.
So even though I really don’t enjoy migraines, I do sometimes receive ideas of worth and value . . . and I look at it like this: make lemonade from whatever lemons you might be handed, if at all possible. (Sometimes it’s not.)
At any rate, am I all alone in this phenomenon? Or has anyone else come up with a good story idea or two on the way back out of a migraine headache?
Just reviewed Three Pernese Novels for SBR
Folks, I reviewed Dragonheart, Dragongirl, and Dragon’s Time — the first two by Todd J. McCaffrey (né Johnson) and the third by Todd J. McCaffrey and Anne McCaffrey — just now at SBR.
Here’s the link:
As it says . . . I found these novels to be competent. The middle one, Dragongirl, had a few moments where I really liked it but others I just couldn’t stand. All three of these novels received relatively low marks from me, the last one (Dragon’s Time) getting a B-.
I’m aware of how difficult it is to write in someone else’s universe as I’m trying to finish my late husband Michael’s work and he doesn’t write much like me at all. Plus, I’ve read the Brandon Sanderson-finished “Wheel of Time” books — so far, there are two out, with one more due next year — and have them on the list at Shiny Book Review (SBR) to be reviewed in coming days.
So saying something is competent isn’t a slap at Todd McCaffrey in the slightest; what I’m mostly saying is that there’s not much life to the writing, and that I didn’t get engrossed in the stories. Someone else probably will feel differently than I do as reviewing is always a highly subjective art; also, even though I do feel sympathy and understanding to a degree with regards to Mr. McCaffrey (by the way, Anne McCaffrey and I are no relation whatsoever, not even through marriage; my late husband Michael used to say he wanted to have her career, though), I can only review the book that’s in front of me. Which is exactly what I did.
So, should you read these three books? If you enjoy the “Dragonriders of Pern” series (these being the twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth novels in the series), you’ve probably already picked them up. But if you haven’t read any of them, I’d skip these and read the original trilogy instead — that’s Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon, all by Anne McCaffrey.
Just Reviewed Martin’s “A Dance with Dragons” at SBR
As the post says . . . I just reviewed George R.R. Martin’s A DANCE WITH DRAGONS at Shiny Book Review. My capsule review is as follows: nearly as good as the first three books in his SOIAF cycle, much better than the fourth book, A FEAST FOR CROWS.
Have at!
Just Reviewed Martin’s “A Feast for Crows” for SBR
Folks, I thought George R. R. Martin’s A FEAST FOR CROWS wasn’t up to the standard of his other novels in his Song of Ice and Fire series, and said so just now at Shiny Book Review.
Here’s the link:
Have at!
One thing Fixed, another Needs Fixing
Just a quick note . . . does anyone else ever feel like when they fix one thing, something else instantly pings for your attention? Or is this just me?
Hmm.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 