Democratic Candidate - Wisconsin's 5th District, U.S. House of Representatives

I was watching a New York Yankees playoff game on television just a couple of weeks ago and was amazed at the number of empty seats right around home plate.  I suppose this shouldn’t be all that surprising since they are going out at something like $2500 a pop.  In these economic times, who really can afford that?

Not to worry though, Goldman Sachs is doing something about it.  They are going to be doling out bonuses in the neighborhood of $23 billion.  That’s billion.  I guess more people will be able to afford those tickets now… and a hot dog.

With 3^rd quarter profits at Chase reaching $3.6 billion, one wonders why it’s still so difficult for small businesses to get a loan.  Maybe all the lenders are too busy at the ballgame?

What’s more galling still, is that large Wall Street firms are borrowing the money from us for next to nothing.  Why isn’t anyone in our district asking these firms to take a haircut?  We may only be the peanut vendors and parking attendants, but aren’t we entitled to a bonus as well?

I’d settle for enough for the Uecker seats.

I won’t lie; I’m new to the blogosphere. The sheer amount of information in blogs, valuable and useless, astounds me. It has also turned into a valuable tool for evaluating products and services. Bloggers are not shy about giving us the skinny on things they use, see or do.

I just heard that some of it may be a little dishonest. What? There is now legislation pending that would require bloggers to disclose where and from whom they receive products they might blog about.

In the interest of full disclosure, I believe I should do the same.

I use gasoline in my car. It comes from under the ground, and some of it even from under the ground in our United States. It would seem that all citizens would have some ownership of it, but actually some private company acts like they own it, extracts it from the ground, and sells it back to me.

I breathe air. My air is not all that clean. It swirls around various coal burning utility plants before it gets to me. I can assure you, based on WE Energies and our local political representatives, that our air cannot get cleaner without raising our gas prices, moving your job to China, or inviting an alien attack.

And I use sarcasm. I don’t know where I got it, and I don’t use it particularly well. Still it helps prevent me from lying to my readers.

I haven’t had the opportunity to take a vacation in a while, so my family and I are always on the lookout for travel deals.  You might say we’re hoping for that perfect combination of luxury accommodations at budget prices, not that such a thing occurs often or to us.

Imagine my surprise a couple of days ago when I heard an ad on the radio touting five-star rooms, superior amenities and excellent customer service, all at a reasonable price and all right here in Southeastern Wisconsin!  Sadly, this resort is very exclusive.

It appears Aurora Health Care is building a veritable “Club Medical” in Waukesha, and felt the need to advertise it.  Lush music and a dulcet woman’s voice extolled the beautiful new facilities, and I could already taste the Pina Colada.  I wasn’t sure if they had a pool.

It’s no wonder that our health care costs here in SE Wisconsin are so high: it’s the resort tax.

Now, to be honest, I don’t really know whom this ad was trying to reach.  Are they expecting physicians to line up, envisioning working in flip-flops and Bermuda shorts?  Or are they trying to convince us that when our next serious health calamity arrives, we should be instructing the EMT to avoid our local hospital and take us on vacation instead?

I think our health care companies should be spending our insurance money on care-giving, not marketing and advertising.  Maybe the cost of our care might decrease if they didn’t feel the need to build rooms as if we’re a major tourist destination, and this is high season.

Maybe in a few short months, it will be fun to get sick in Waukesha.  Our politicians may be able to afford vacations like that; frankly, I can’t even afford to get sick.  Everybody out of the pool, the bar is now closed.