It’s half a world away and the excitement here is palpable. The Chinese are proud — proud that they’ll soon have the opportunity to showcase their country to the world with the 2008 Beijing Olympics. China is queing up for its time to shine. Infrastructure projects are being completed at a breakneck pace. Just last [...]

Dublin? Thanks for that happy thought, but no … I’ve spent the last few days here in Shanghai China. The city’s architecture is beautiful and skyscrapers dominate the landscape, springing up faster than in any other place on the globe. Still, despite its mammoth size, Shanghai has only about half the traffic congestion of Milwaukee [...]

My post about Michael Monyelle provoked a lot of comments, almost uniformly negative, as I expected. I am reminded of this passage from Robert Bolt’s play about Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons: Meg: Father, that man’s bad! More: There’s no law against that! Roper: There is, God’s law! More: Then let God arrest [...]

Over the last decade I’ve come to realize that international travel is extremely valuable. If I had nothing else to compare it to, how would I know how backward our transportation, land and water use policies are? Or how upside down our approach to politically influencing corporate entities is? So today I start a new [...]

Got a good laugh out of the Journal-Sentinel’s editorial page today (no, it wasn’t from the piece about people plotting to forcibly inflict spoilers on children waiting for the new Harry Potter book — they are scum who should be used as quidditch balls). According to the paper’s editorial board, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker [...]

It seems that, contrary to the old Frank Loesser song “Standing on the Corner (Watching All the Girls Go By),” you can go to jail for what you’re thinking. Or at least what you tell your parole officer you’re thinking. Yes, Michael Monyelle, on parole for a sexual offense, is to be tried as a [...]