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My favorite concerts of 2009, in Madison and (slightly) beyond
on 12/31/09 at 10:00 am | Recorded music only takes you so far. My soundtrack is constantly recharged by live music. I saw more than 40 shows in 2009, some notable ones out of town. What follows are my favorite concerts close to home -- in Madison and Milwaukee and, as it happened, Fort Atkinson. |
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The GOP's dilemma
on 12/03/09 at 9:00 am | What an interesting state of affairs. The Republican Party has seemingly become a shell operation controlled by a vibrant and growing conservative movement. It views the GOP as a tool to put conservatives in power. |
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State of chumps
on 10/09/09 at 9:00 am | Todd Berry blames it on our genes. The president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance suggests the state's chronic indifference to federal help is buried deep within our political DNA. I think the late Sen. Bill Proxmire -- not genetics -- is mostly to blame. But however you apportion responsibility, the legacy is the same: Wisconsin does wretchedly as a recipient of federal spending. |
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Edgewater Hotel subsidy not worth it
on 09/24/09 at 9:00 am | So many things have gone wrong in downtown Madison it's understandable Mayor Dave Cieslewicz wants to make a big, bold statement by supporting the $109 million Edgewater Hotel renovation and expansion, including a public plaza overlooking Lake Mendota. |
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Welcome to boom town
on 02/19/09 at 12:00 pm | Nobody's lit up the fireworks yet or popped open the Veuve. But maybe someone should. The central city is booming in a way unimaginable only a decade or so ago. Construction cranes frame the skyline like a Sunbelt boom town. The nightlife -- bars, cabarets, music clubs, eateries -- hums with action even on wintry nights. But more than anything, the city’s older neighborhoods are bustling. |
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My most memorable concerts of 2008 in Madison and Milwaukee
on 01/05/09 at 3:00 pm | It was a marvelous moment, yet another reason why I love live music. The pleasures are visceral, surprising and life affirming. It's why I headed for the concert hall and the clubs 50-plus times in 2008, culminating New Year's Eve at Uihlein Hall watching the Milwaukee Symphony and Chorus performing Beethoven's awe-inspiring 9th Symphony. |
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Apocalypse Mistele
on 11/17/08 at 2:46 pm | You have to wonder about Nancy Mistele: She's turned a political victory into a personal defeat, and she has no one to blame but herself. |
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R.P.'s Pastas frozen dinner debuts at Metcalfe's Sentry
on 11/06/08 at 4:46 pm | As the local food movement burgeons in Dane County, synergy has taken hold in a really good way. Creative and entrepreneurial advances seem to elicit even more enterprise. A new, locally sourced frozen dinner debuting Friday at Metcalfe's supermarket is Exhibit A in this connectivity. Let's count the connections. |
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Part of the solution
on 10/10/08 at 9:00 am | Twice a month at Madison's Whole Foods store, marketing director Amanda Jahnke Bauer leads a tour of the grocery, pointing out ways shoppers can economize. Buy from the bulk aisles, purchase store-brand items, use coupons, she advises. |
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Hoe improvement
on 09/12/08 at 9:00 am | Not that it means much for the jungle that is my garden, but I have a fine collection of hoes and weeders in my tool shed: short-handled ones, long-handled ones, Korean style, swope style, hula style and more. But my absolute favorite is the long-handle CobraHead hoe. |
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Welcome to the Nerad era
on 08/21/08 at 9:00 am | Toward the end of a 70-minute interview, Supt. Dan Nerad was discussing the 24,000-student Madison school district when he used an interesting term: tipping point. |
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Farm talk with the Mayors Innovation Project
on 08/15/08 at 9:00 am | When Mayor Dave Cieslewicz convened a meeting of the Mayors Innovation Project recently in Madison, the topic of local food was high on the agenda for the gathering of progressive-minded city officials from across the country. |
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Kickapoo Country Fair celebrates organic farming's success
on 07/18/08 at 9:00 am | The Kickapoo Country Fair, which runs next Saturday and Sunday, July 26-27, requires a 90-or-so-mile trip from Madison to La Farge. It's a marvelous drive. Highway 14 west through the rolling hills and valleys of the Driftless Area is one of the prettiest passages in Wisconsin. And the fair itself is a signature event of the Midwest alternative food movement. |
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WMC's predicament
on 07/10/08 at 9:00 am | Could there have been a more marvelous day for the pro-business leaders of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce than June 21, 2002? WMC President James Haney and Vice President James Buchen must have grinned like schoolkids when they read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. |
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Behold the farm bill
on 07/04/08 at 9:00 am | So often something mind-numbingly boring and horribly complicated can be really, really important. Forgive me, then, for subjecting you to a column about the 673-page farm bill of 2008. |
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WMC rips liberal critics, avoids naming Epic
on 07/03/08 at 4:36 pm | The war between Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and its liberal critics escalated today as WMC wrapped itself in the flag of free speech and denounced the critics for running "an organized campaign involving misinformation, intimidation and threats of boycott." The WMC opinion column, widely distributed to the media, is written by James Buchen, WMC's vice president for government relations. |
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Epic updates WMC stance as Cullen fallout spreads
on 06/27/08 at 7:04 pm | Epic Systems issued a new statement on Friday in its feud with Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, stressing the bipartisan nature of its executives deciding to avoid doing business with firms that support the big-business group. "Our decision-making process was thoughtful and deliberate," the managers said, involving multiple management teams whose members "represented all political persuasions -- from conservative to liberal, and everywhere in between." |
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Epic contractor J.P. Cullen & Sons drops WMC membership
on 06/26/08 at 7:46 pm | The unabashed liberal sensibility of Epic System's Judy Faulkner became even more pronounced this week as her fast-growing software company -- normally a publicity-shy operation -- issued a public condemnation of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. Blaming WMC's politicking for the "travesty of ethics" in this spring's state Supreme Court race, Epic's management announced that it would "try to work only with vendors that do not support WMC with its current management." |
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Epic Systems: 'Green sprawl'
on 06/26/08 at 9:00 am | When Mike Slavney looks at the 400-acre Verona campus of Epic Systems Corp., he's impressed. Read part one of this series, Epic Systems: Epic Tale, for more background on the Dane County business titan. |
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Epic Systems: Epic investment
on 06/22/08 at 12:00 am | In spectacular fashion, real estate speculators have won their gamble that farmland west of Verona would give way to development, thanks to a software developer's desire to build its campus in a rural setting. |
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Epic Systems: Epic decision
on 06/22/08 at 12:00 am | At Epic Systems Corp., the fast-growing medical software company, concern for the work setting is at the forefront of corporate planning. Epic's insistence on a horizontal workspace for its 700 or so employees, with an artful mix of private and group space in a pastoral campus setting, is turning out to be the first major land-use decision of the new century in Dane County. |
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Epic Systems: Epic Tale
on 06/20/08 at 9:00 am | Software innovator, Epic Systems, stakes out Dane County's place on global IT map. |
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Epic Systems: Epic visitors stoke local economy
on 06/20/08 at 9:00 am | |
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Epic Systems: Looking to the future
on 06/20/08 at 9:00 am | Lots more competition - and plans to replace Faulkner. |
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Epic Systems: An Epic timeline
on 06/20/08 at 9:00 am | |
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A goodbye for Drew Glackin of The Silos
on 06/04/08 at 10:37 am | I'll pay my respects for Drew Glackin at a High Noon memorial and fundraiser Thursday. The bassist for The Silos shouldn't be dead. But in January he died at the age of 44 from a terrible scourge that kills and disables many artists -- the lack of health insurance. |
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Downtown Middleton: Walkability contributes to economic vitality
on 06/01/08 at 1:08 pm | Middleton has something rare: A thriving downtown. This is a bustling neighborhood where you can walk from a 120-year-old Queen Anne home to the library, bank, church, city hall and a truly impressive array of restaurants and bars. |
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Willi Lehner, cave man
on 05/23/08 at 9:00 am | How good can Willi Lehner's cheese making get? That question occurs to me as Lehner leads me on a tour of the underground curing cave he's built on his 16-acre spread in the picturesque town of Vermont near Blue Mounds. |
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Madison Trust for Historic Preservation gives 2008 awards for preservation
on 05/03/08 at 1:30 pm | How fitting that the crowd of 130 downtown lovers rose to their feet Thursday night to applaud the selection of Katherine Rankin for the annual "preservation advocacy" award granted by the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation. Rankin, for 29 years the city's preservation planner, has had "a tremendous impact documenting and preserving Madison's historic architecture," as the group's president James Westring told the Orpheum Theatre gathering. |
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When policy trumps results
on 05/01/08 at 9:00 am | Much to its credit, the Madison school board has mostly ignored the March 2007 recommendations of the district's Equity Task Force. This earnest but unhelpful committee delved into the abstractions of what distinguishes "equity" from "equality," how the board might commit to equity and what esoteric guidelines could measure that commitment. |
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