Dan from Madison

This Was All B.S.

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Does anyone remember the “protests” last February from up here behind the cheddar curtain? I sure do.

Next Tuesday the recall primary goes off, with Kathy Falk, dedicated union lover running against Tom Barrett. Yes, that Tom Barrett, the guy who lost to Scott Walker in Nov. of 2010. Falk has been effectively kneecapped by her own party. She is a lefty liberal from Madison with strong union backing and the Donks realize there is no way for her to win against Walker.

I have heard from a few places that team Obama/Emmanuel have had something to do with the Democratic Party killing off Falk. I don’t have any proof besides what I have heard from friends and volunteers in the Falk campaign.

Barrett is a far more moderate choice than Falk. Early ads against Barrett were run by AFSCME and others.

Neither candidate is really mentioning collective bargaining for government unions anymore. It is a dead issue. This fact, combined with the Donks getting behind a much more centrist, corporate sponsored candidate tells me one thing. The recall and all of the b.s. associated with it is nothing more than a power grab. Plain and simple. The left and government unions have been played. Will they vote for Barrett if Falk loses? Probably. But that will be a bitter pill to swallow indeed.

In Favor of Government Regulation

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In general, I am not in favor of government regulation of pretty much anything, since most of the time the rules don’t make sense or favor certain parties, and/or are written by people that don’t know what they are talking about. But I think what I saw Saturday night was an exception that I am willing to make. What you see below is our fight team head coach taping the hands of one of our fighters. As an aside, we had three fighters in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) competition Saturday night and went 3-0, with two knockouts and one submission.

I have been backstage many times with the fighters, but there was never anyone watching or looking around. The woman dressed in the black is a state of Wisconsin inspector. She was making sure that the taping of the hands was legal.

There are rules now on how you can tape hands – the most important being that you can tape between the knuckles, but not over them. This disallows the “casting” of your hand, which effectively turns it into a club. The regulation tape is only 1″ wide.

After the hands were taped, the inspector signed the tape. Then the glove goes on over the taping, and that is taped as well – and the inspector watched me doing this and signed off on that too. After you are taped and signed, no fighter was allowed to leave the locker room area without having an inspector escort (typically to the restroom, or to the cage to inspect for footing and the flex of the fence).

In the old days, none of this happened. We just taped the hands, one of the guys running the fights would glance at it, and that was that. There were no locker room regulations, or anyone from any authority back there. The inspectors also checked everyone’s shorts and one guy had to cut some laces off that weren’t able to be tucked away.

The pre-fight meeting was better too. The referee clearly explained all the rules (there are many more than you think) to the fighters and the coaches and corners. The promoter of the fights also said that no taunting of the opponent would be tolerated, and that if you did taunt, you would never appear on the card again. And that went for coaches and seconds as well. Celebration, OK – but taunting, no way.

Security was also tighter. I had to show my “seconds” license from the State of Wisconsin to receive my passes to enter the locker room and to be cageside. By the way there is no test to be a second. Just fill out a form and send in $40.

As I mentioned in the beginning of the post, I typically disdain the government getting into stuff like this, but every single person there from the State knew exactly what they were talking about, knew the rules, and were extremely professional and helpful. There were a lot of questions since this was the first time a lot of us had seen a state presence such as this and all were dealt with fairly.

The fighters have to go through a much more rigorous testing to get their license; blood work, doctors inspections and more.

MMA is huge and getting bigger every day. I think that a set, established, group of rules is a good thing for the sport, and will help keep idiots out of the ring and out of the way.

Estate Sale

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A few blocks up the road from where I live there was an estate sale last weekend.

The deal with these for those who don’t know, is that you hire a company to advertise and create interest in the sale, come into a house, tag everything up with prices and try to liquidate the stuff. In exchange, the company gets a cut, of course. This particular estate sale was very well attended.

The road that I live on had cars parked all along it for the majority of the time that the sale was open. I think that more people have taken up this type of thing as a hobby. I can certainly see the appeal of getting something for cheap and re-selling it on Ebay or Craigslist or wherever. And most (all?) of these transactions, I would assume, go under the radar of the tax man.

This particular house was of some interest to me since it was the Frau Becker’s house. I had a passing acquaintance with Frau Becker – she always had a little dog of some sort and she walked it in the neighborhood. When I was outside doing yard work or whatever, we always had a little light conversation. A nice lady. I asked my wife about the sale and assumed she had moved away. My wife told me that Frau Becker died a few years ago from ovarian cancer. Sad news, that. I suppose the husband finally died too, and that was the reason for the sale.

While I wasn’t close to Frau Becker, I knew her. So yesterday when I sauntered down to the sale to see what was left, it was sort of like seeing part of her that I didn’t know about.

So many chemicals and lubricants. There was a nice, barely used lathe in the basement that they were selling “dutch auction” style.

Lots of airline glassware. The Frau flew first class back and forth from the homeland, it appears. And kept the glassware. Or do you get that for free up in the front of the plane?

She kept sewing kits from all over the place. You know, the little free ones that you get in hotels? I imagine the Frau came from a depression time where you kept pretty much everything you could.

Matchbooks.

Maps from every country of Europe.

A mass of costume jewelry here, a pile of magazines there. I imagine the good jewelry was sold elsewhere by the family.

Lots of old books – in German. Those don’t do me any good.

Unwritten post cards.

An old HP laptop battery.

The dresser where Frau Becker used to keep her clothes. The dressers were quite nice but I didn’t dare bring home a piece of furniture without the express written consent of my secretary of interior decorating (i.e. the wife).

It was an interesting half hour that I spent in Frau Becker’s home. I had never attended a sale like this and it was a neat feeling to be able (yea, encouraged) to rifle through someone’s personal effects. Since I knew the Frau, I was a bit creeped out, but not too much.

I may attend a sale like this in the future. I wonder if I will think about the deceased the next time. I am sure I will – that is the historian in me.

I was reminded of a great lesson. In the end, it is all crap that you can’t take with you. It was good for me to get that reminder.

Cross Posted at LITGM.