A plea for civility indeed

Interesting story in the paper this morning talking about the polarization of West Bend in recent years.

Take a few small-minded folks and give them enough Belling and this is what you get....

people who call everyone who disagrees with them on any subject an "evil liberal" and who refuse to debate any issue.

Can anyone even remember what West Bend was like before Owen, Ginny and Mary

decided they got to speak for all of us?

Read the story here.

What is it like to live in constant fear?

With Ginny and Mary I sometimes wonder what it is like to live in fear of everything. Today Mary is afraid of some kind of business forum put on by the WBSD in conjunction with local businesses. Her problem is that instead of a "forum", the meeting was structured in such a way as to be a one-way conduit for "government bureaucrats taking the floor and telling the community how to run their businesses and what agenda to follow". A simple scan of the agenda shows this to be totally false, but Mary doesn't let that get in the way of her agenda.

A quick breakdown of the meeting shows that the organizers went so far as to ensure that that the local schools and business got almost EXACTLY equal time!

10 minutes - Introduction (neutral)

20 minutes - WBSD vision (school board)

20 minutes - EDC vision (business)

20 minutes - Focused discussion (given the items discussed this seems neutral)

20 minutes - Round Table discussion (lean school board)

15 minutes - City of West Bend vision (government)

15 minutes - Business Vision for city business (business)

30 minutes - Round Table discussion (lean business)

10 minutes - Wrap-up (neutral)

For those of you keeping track at home, that actually is more minutes in the pocket of local businesses.

Ugh. Click here to read the full fear.

It's been a slow week

Seems like the start of summer has calmed everyone down in West Bend. There hasn't been a single crazy letter to the editor since I started this blog!

Have to fear though, the fear will return soon enough.

Tell your friends about us!

I think I'm into the swing of this blog. God knows there is enough fear in West Bend to post about... and we haven't even had a letter to the editor from Monte Schmegie to fisk yet! So please take a moment and email your friends about us. Let's have some fun here!

Thank you for not smoking

It's called second-hand smoke people. What's so hard to understand about that?

Businesses won't lose business. I've lived in other major metropolitan areas that have a smoking ban, and guess what? Nothing really changed. My friends who smoked still smoked, they just did it outside. If anything I (as a non-smoker) went out to bars and clubs a lot more than I used to because I knew I wasn't going to come home smelling like an ashtray. So I parked my butt at the bar more often and spent MORE money on drinks and dining out. Anecdotal evidence sure, but the notion that the Bagg End's customers will never return after the law goes into effect is just silly.

The Boots & Sabers crowd like to pretend that there is no government regulation already, and that the smoking ban is just one more step towards us all speaking Russian.

Click here to read the full fear.

Saving $382,910 per year is "minimal" according to Mary Weigand

Excuse me while I try to regain my balance... I thought Mary and the CSCWC were all about cutting the budget. Did I get that wrong? Remember that open letter to Lynn Corazzi back in March that sent the Boots & Sabers crowd into a tizzy? The letter that called $5,500 in science equipment wasteful? Read it here.

Combining East and West would save $382,910 per year and Mary is against it because it's a "minimal" amount of money? I wonder what her reaction would be if Joe Carlson said that cutting $384k from teacher wages wasn't really worth it because it was such a "minimal" amount.

Am I missing something here? What are these people really after?

Click here to read the full fear.

River Bluff Townhomes

Today's topic is the River Bluff Townhomes controversy. Besides the fear of people who don't make as much money as we'd like, the fear of people who aren't white like us, and of renters in general, the real fear here I see is the fear of change. I'm sorry folks, but South Main Street between Washington and Walnut hasn't been "downtown" for 20 years and it isn't coming back, no matter what anyone says. It has been slowly decaying since at least when the original Paradise Mall opened and arguably before then. So what? The same folks who lament the proposed housing plan were the first ones to ditch Tennies for Wal-Mart, the downtown theater for Paradise Theater and any of the slew of failed downtown coffee houses for Starbucks.

Why bitch now? You've been slowly letting "downtown" go to seed for years. What did any of you really think was going to go on the site? The access roads are all insufficient for any large-scale project and even if they were, there isn't the same built-in traffic brought to the south side by 45.

It beats looking at that pile of rubble at least. Right?

West Bend has changed. Get over it.

Head here to read the full fear over on Boots & Sabers. There are even some just fantastic comments by local scientist Mary Weigand.

Canyons can form quickly =\= Earth was formed yesterday

Great response in the paper today to Mary Weigand's bat-shit crazy letter to the editor from a few weeks ago. It is probably too well thought out for Mary to understand.

Head over to The Motley Cow to read it.

Community organizing is bad... Unless your meetings are at Lighthouse Lanes

More fear from Ginny today, this time it's "Chicago-style organization" that has her shitting her pants. I didn't waste too much time trying to get into her head on this one. I don't like roller-coasters, smoke, fun house mirrors or medical cannabis.

It was interesting to find out though that Ginny's own post about this from 2008 was almost wholly plagiarized. As I was reading it I found myself thinking "no way did Ginny write this, it's way to eloquent". Sure enough, she cut-and-pasted stuff from all over the internets.

Even a New England Patriots message board.

I'm patiently waiting for her post denouncing this "West Bend-style organization".

Click here to read the full fear.

What happened 367 days ago?

I missed the one year anniversary, but this will have to do.

If you know what happened in West Bend 367 days ago let me know in the comments section. Winner gets a prize.

Why is Ginny Maziarka so obsessed with sex?

Fascinating post by Ginny today about the PTA not allowing PFOX at their national convention. If anyone still doubts Ginny's true motivation in the whole library debacle, her continued hatred of homosexuals should erase that doubt.

Ginny is in red, I'm in black.

Naturally, I expect to have the gay community pour forth hate emails once they read this post, but this is simply because it has been the intention of gay advocacy groups to shut out all others who have chosen to leave this lifestyle. (Sorry, I know the word "lifestyle" is supposedly taboo in the gay community.)

["Hate emails"? Really? Why on earth do people, in 2010, still think being gay is a "lifestyle" and a "choice"? Funny, I don't remember choosing to be straight... I just was. Ginny, when exactly was it you made the choice to be straight? Being male isn't a lifestyle or a choice. Having red hair isn't a lifestyle or a choice. Having two arms isn't a lifestyle or a choice. Being an ultra-conservative Christian is a lifestyle and a choice. I know you believe your religion justifies your hate, but seriously, WWJD?]

Diversity is only diversity if you agree?

[No. I'm pretty sure that's Belling talking, not Ginny. I love how WISN's heavy hitters trot out that line all the time.]

Shame on Chuck Saylors for his obvious bias, and shame on the national PTA organization for sending a clear-cut message that only "some" are welcome to be part of the organization.

[Allowing PFOX there would be like allowing a group of Holocaust deniers there. Both groups are about as credible and equally as dangerous.]

Clearly, the PTA has no place for men and women who have left the homosexual lifestyle and/or begun families of their own. ALL families across the nation should be outraged enough to send a message back to the PTA that their blatant intolerance is unacceptable.

[I guess if you use the word "family" a lot you feel less shitty about passing judgment on a whole group of people you don't know? Ginny, why are you so interested in everyone's sex life? Kind of freaky, no? Lord knows I don't care what you and your husband do behind closed doors.]

"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis

Click here to read the full fear.