Even school nurses want cops in schools!
So why isn’t it happening? We explain
Last week on her show, Our Ms. Vicki McKenna credited Blaska for possessing at least a pico-curie of courage in running for political office in the Emerald City.
What can one say but, Aw Shucks!? Which is what Blaska did say as producer Dave McCann cued up the exit music.
It continues to amaze the white lab coats here at the Policy Werkes that this old conservative war horse got 21,230 votes in a city that can’t even elect Kaleem Caire to the Madison school board. Remarkable that this admitted Republican got 30% of the vote in a town that turned out Paul Soglin in favor of a Progressive Dane candidate that checked off scads of boxes on the identity politics checklist.
I do thank the many well wishers who praised Blaska for braving the taunts of “white supremacist” for calling for cops in our troubled schools and discipline in the classroom.
We ran for Madison school board to begin a conversation of returning to common sense basics — that being: if the school board cannot keep order at its meetings, imagine the chaos in the classroom! Kids can’t learn in a chaotic classroom.
But if you want the Policy Werkes’ nomination for Courage Under Political Fire, read the name of Greg Humphrey. Greg is an openly gay man living on Madison’s isthmus in the Wil-Mar neighborhood represented by Ald. Marsha Rummel, Progressive Dane.
Early on, the proprietor of the Caffeinated Politics blog backed Blaska’s candidacy. What’s more, he stuck a Blaska campaign yard sign in his front lawn, within sight of Lake Monona. He did something that a great many other liberals told the candidate personally that they wanted to do — “but my neighbors would …”
‘The quiet voices’
That was a conversation starter, as Greg reports in this blog:
[A neighbor] walks by with regularity and wanted me to know the placement of a David Blaska lawn sign for the recent school board election sent a message to others. She was aware I blog and that no one can call me reticent about sharing views. As we talked she noted what I hear repeatedly. Many do not wish to take stands about issues or personalities that can, at times, run counter to the prevailing views in Madison. So seeing a sign on my lawn for a conservative allowed her to have conversations with family and friends about matters that otherwise may not have had occasion to be started. … she was glad other liberals were not shy about stepping up and saying what others needed to hear.
I had dinner with a lovely couple a few days ago. One was a teacher who spoke candidly about the needs of the classroom and the disconnect with school administration. Catering to the loudest ones in the city is not helping kids who need the most attention, that was the message delivered as dessert was served.
… another teacher expressed to me that most people have no idea what it takes to get a classroom ready to just be calm enough to teach – even for a few minutes. Just more examples of the quiet voices in our city.
What I do know with certainty regards the fact there are many quiet voices in our city.
School nurses speak out!
It is gratifying that the school nurses are stepping up to say the same (albeit after the election!):
“Despite the public perception being put forth, our (school police officers) offer heart, not hurt. It is difficult to imagine doing our work without the support of the school police officers.
“Many staff we have spoken with will seriously consider leaving their jobs without [an officer on site].
Sadly, at least two of the three candidates elected April 2 are hostile to cops in school. Those two (Mirilli and Muldrow) replace board members who voted 4-2 to keep the cops. Even at that, the board voted 6-0 to insert a poison pill into the proposed contract that MMSD can unilaterally un-assign an SRO. They had to know that Chief Koval would never agree to relinquish control of his officers. Certainly, if the district said Officer So-and-So isn’t working out the chief would re-assigned. But no chief would never agree to a unilateral reassignment.
The Madison Board of Education can signal it wants to keep our schools safe by removing that poison pill. Instead (we predict), members will sit on their hands and blame Koval when the program ends this summer.
→ Blaska directs your attention to a change.org petition to keep police in the schools.
Coming soon: A roll call of those who, shall we say, did not evince courage.
Blaska Policy Werkes 
23 responses to “Greg Humphrey, man of courage”
Greg Humphrey, man of courage?
Please notice that I added a question mark to that title.
Reading through Greg Humphrey’s blogs is like reading through a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde book where Dr. Jekyll writes some chapters and Mr. Hyde writes others. That aside, I’d like to make a point about something that Greg wrote…
This doesn’t show me that Greg has courage to voice an opposing opinion among the people that already respect his opinion because they seem to agree on nearly every other issue, this shows me that Greg’s friends are cowards. Let’s face it folks, it really doesn’t take much courage to state the self-evident truth to those that he can easily assume already agree with him but aren’t willing to publicly speak the truth. I do commend Greg for standing up for the self-evident truth but I personally can’t bestow the title of courage upon him for doing so.
The real problem I see is that these same people that cowardly shirked their responsibility to stand up for the self-evident truth are more than willing to publicly spread nonsensical partisan propaganda BS like this…
These cowards are more afraid of the totalitarians social justice warriors on their own side of the political aisle than they are of the people that have differing opinions; that folks is tells a story that even they don’t want to admit!
The political left is PERMANENTLY RADICALIZED and their own sheep are scared to death of their own side.
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Why bother? I have asked this before, but no one answers. What difference does it make? Even if there was substance to education, the thankless graduates would cry for a free college education as they rail against white supremacy.
Does anyone really treasure the quality of recent graduates of the educational system? You know, the ones who chronically complain that it snows, and that we don’t have UTOPIA because of white supremacy and white privilege (as though any of them really want to live in any one of the shiphole countries that Trump identified)
Law, laws and rules? Hello — like 20 million illegal’s who consume billions in welfare and disproportionately are responsible for criminal activity? This, like the board’s educational philosophy is dysfunctional. Yes, and similar to the expression by a UW educrat that shoplifting at Walmart wasn’t really a crime that mattered.
We’re supposed to be excited about violence in the school? If the parents can’t save themselves and their kids, why should outsiders and empty-nester’s save the sinking ship? Ya can’t save folks from themselves. Hell, let it rip. When 1-2 people are severely injured each week, the school board then might re-assess their limp “discipline” policies.
No, time would better be spent developing relations with the Chinese so that when they colonize us, we can better defer to their superiority as they reform our cultural rot.
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Tom Paine wrote, “Why bother? I have asked this before, but no one answers. What difference does it make?”
Seriously Tom!
That’s like asking why should a parent chew-out their child for running across the street without looking, after all that child didn’t get hit and killed this time! Why bother correcting what’s obviously wrong? What difference does your effort make? If you really can’t answer those questions without outside adult input then maybe I’m spinning my wheels.
Tom Paine wrote, “Even if there was substance to education, the thankless graduates would cry for a free college education as they rail against white supremacy.”
So you would advocate for not trying to educate the youth because of something they may choose to do later? That sounds a little like consequentialism. NO Tom, we don’t deprive youth of an education and condemn them to a life of ignorance because we might think that they might make illogical decisions down the road.
I know you’re frustrated, so am I, but don’t allow your frustrations to cause you to flush your ethics and morals.
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Zoltar,
Learned long ago, ya can’t push a string up a hill. IMO, tis a bourgeois illusion to presume human volition always makes an objective difference. Nope. A garden hose on a forest fire is existential silliness. Same for the current culture. Neither the parents, nor the students, nor the educrats are about to change their culture affinities, tastes, values, and lack of ethics. In short, pointless to stand in front of the asphalt paver of human history. There are times when every effort could not have made any difference. Assume, for example, you really did wanted to retard the growth of Nazi culture in Germany, circa 1934. No go.
For some. perhaps, there is salvation in becoming a martyr. I’ve read enough history to know, no hope for social/cultural change in the Emerald City. Just accept the fact that life, in so many ways, will get worse. Education of kids? Not my responsibility when all the other stakeholders embrace illusions as substitutes for wisdom.
Without principles and without an appreciation why principled (legal) behavior is the basis for Western Civilization, the intellectual Huns shall continue to rule. Their progressive intentions will continue to fail, just like members of Cargo Cults who danced on the runways for the goodie-ship to arrive. Nope, the tragic flaw of Wovoka is that he believed breast plates of bone could stop the white boys bullets. As his followers learned, they did not.
In the real world, objective reality is refreshing, even to those who believe there are reruns when passing on double yellow. First assumption –> ya can’t build any structure on a rotten foundation. Without principles, all else is pointless. And the principles of the MMSD, the voters, and the students?
Get serious. Just Common Sense.
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Tom, Tom, Tom,
There are eight utterly defeatist rationalizations in your first paragraph. Are you defeated, are you apathetic, or are you defeated because you are apathetic? Being defeatist and being apathetic have exactly the same result, you enable that which you oppose. Being a defeatist always ends one way, you loose. If you allow the lunatics control of the asylum they’ll take advantage of it right up to the point where you STOP allowing them control. Are you just waiting in the wings for the bullets to start flying to do something or are you willing to do something to stop the possibility of bullets flying?
You wrote, “Get serious. Just Common Sense.”
Your idea of getting serious and common sense are different than mine.
Leaders envision what they really want, NOT what they “think” they can get.
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Sorry, not a fan of Gregory Humphrey’s. Every time he’s ever ever reached out to me about my police advocacy work, it’s been to criticize or bust my chops.
Examples:
1. He doesn’t have an issue with Blaska’s conservatism, but accuses me of being “too conservative in my posts” – he writes, in part:
“I talk with others often about the issues at large regarding policing here. Many agree in parts or in whole–but when we get to the matter of this group who does most of the vocalizing on behalf of the police–eyes roll. The reason–and I do ask–is that it seems right-wingers are running the show. And they do not subscribe to that end of the political spectrum.”
Yet he fails to give me examples of how I’m being conservative.
2. When I share a post about an officer being shot, he replies with how I should support gun control.
3. I once wrote a post about the officer who was arrested for drunk driving; I was questioning why Channel 3000 chose this as a “top story” given all the other stories they could have reported on that day. He took it upon himself to write a blog post, accusing me of tripping over myself to forgive drunk driving; the post’s title was something about my group needing credibility.
We’ve successfully lobbied for more cops, passed a bill into law, held a special vigil, hosted letter writing & educational campaigns, and are on our fourth appreciation party – not sure how much more credibility we need.
He claims he’s trying to be helpful. I don’t see it that way.
–Paula Fitzsimmons
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Agreed.
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Humphrey may be slowly transitioning from the dark side to an honorable independent conservative thinker.
This life or perhaps his next.
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Batman wrote, “Humphrey may be slowly transitioning from the dark side to an honorable independent conservative thinker.”
Even a bat-shit crazy lunatic can get something “right” once in a while. (poke, poke, jab, jab) 😉
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If Greg Humphrey were really courageous he would allow commenting on his blog!
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My guess he is getting major blowback. On other blogs, he does allow comments.
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@sahmpaw;
OOOMPH! THAT’S gonna leave a mark!
The Gotch
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sahmpaw wrote, “If Greg Humphrey were really courageous he would allow commenting on his blog!”
Yes that does reflect a sincere lack of rhetorical courage.
In my humble opinion; free speech on his blog is not welcome if that speech directly challenges his opinions in ways that he cannot effectively counter in debate. His blog is his personal echo chamber, dissenters are not welcome, dissenters and everyone else were silenced after the dissenters directly challenged him and he didn’t have the personal fortitude to stand up to the challenges.
No one should start a public blog and not fully EXPECT to be directly challenged on their opinion, to do so is willfully ignorant. If the person feels that their ego will be hurt by having to deal with rhetorical challenges in debate and their blog is just their personal echo chamber then they’re just being an egotistical jerk.
I don’t think that Greg is an egotistical jerk, but I do think his ego was hurt. I don’t think he considered the consequences of turning off comments to his blog as opposed to just ignoring them.
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I understand but cowards, we need not, in order to bring truth to the Emerald City.
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Mr. Humphrey doesn’t allow comments on his blog because he choose to write things on his blog that people will strongly critique and he doesn’t have the personal or rhetorical fortitude to deal with it. I posted the following critique about his BREAKING NEWS: Gun Violence Continues In America (I provide a link to his blog post in mine) blog he recently wrote; EMOTIONAL NONSENSE.
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35 years ago, these problems didn’t exist yet. Teachers could teach, parents handled the behavior and respect issues in their own homes. Between then and the current chaos many small things happened: dress codes went by the wayside, grades turned into meaningless scores, and even in sports, every kids’ a winner. Ad nauseum… As so many have said, we lower our expectations, and it’s not “Rocket Salad” as to results…..
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Meanwhile in other MMSD news;
https://www.channel3000.com/news/mmsd-superintendent-wants-to-sit-down-with-east-high-teachers-to-address-campus-rape-culture/1071428957
“Right now, we have to work triple hard to rebuild trust and show people what we actually think, which is that there is no place for sexual violence in schools and that it is all of our responsibility to make sure that we’re not reproducing the culture that makes that possible.”
Is “triple hard” akin to “double secret probation”? Where is the school board on this??? Ahhhh, no doubt meeting in a sustainable free trade coffee house setting the agenda for dumping the ERO’s. Cheatham is cheating them!
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@Eric Z;
“there is no place for sexual violence in schools ”
Oh yeah, there’s a flag pole to run THAT up!
But is there one for physical violence incidents like….oh let’s say some feral POS criminal thug adults were TRESPASSING ON SCHOOL/PUBLIC PROPERTY and threatened grave physical harm and uttered racially-inflamed homophobic insults, including death threats, to staff and LEO’s?
It gets worse.
“District Spokesperson Rachel Strauch-Nelson (urging) Isthmus not to publicize the episode, (because) it would prevent healing between the family and the staff at Leopold, and reinforce negative stereotypes.”
What negative stereotypes; that feral POS criminal thug adults are predisposed to threatening grave physical harm and issuing racially-inflamed homophobic insults including death threats?
Why wasn’t that incident put on mandatory radio silence? Won’t singling out those two teenage boys-will-be-boys “reinforce negative stereotypes?”
Those guilt-suffocated White Lefties would be singing a FAR different tune had those feral POS criminal thug adults been chewin’ terbacky, driving a 1985 Chevy El Camino, and wearing MAGA hats.
Hypocrisy; thy name is Lefty!
The Gotch
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[…] ← Greg Humphrey, man of courage […]
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Every time someone makes so bold as to reach across the political aisle these days, they will inevitably be eviscerated by my-way-or-the-highway purists from both sides… which is why so few people bother.
Mr. Humphrey putting up a pro-Blaska sign in a neighborhood further left than Havana is still courageous, whether he allows comments on his blog or not.
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Finally someone says something sensible. Thank you, Peter !
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Peter Felknor wrote, “Every time someone makes so bold as to reach across the political aisle these days, they will inevitably be eviscerated by my-way-or-the-highway purists from both sides… which is why so few people bother.”
There is some truth in that statement and we see evidence of it routinely. Personally I find real sanctification when I see those in political parties eating their own. I’m not a fan of political parties because they have a tendency “force” group think conformity upon it’s members and no one is worse about that than the totalitarians in the extreme political left.
Peter Felknor wrote, “Mr. Humphrey putting up a pro-Blaska sign in a neighborhood further left than Havana is still courageous…”
The people in that “neighborhood further left than Havana” should reconsider their ideological choices, their ethics, and their morals if that “further left than Havana” causes any kind of fear whatsoever in individuals for posting a political yard sign. This is the United States of America and putting up a political yard sign is protected speech. Anyone that intimidates others in anyway for posting or wanting to post a political yard sign that they oppose or intimidates because of differing opinions is acting like a totalitarian fascist!
Your use of the word “courageous” and mine are vastly different, I chose to personally commend Greg for for standing up for the self-evident truth but I personally can’t bestow the title of courage upon him for doing so. Being courageous is “not being deterred by danger or pain, brave” and being brave is “ready to face and endure danger or pain”. There is absolutely no evidence to support that Greg was putting himself in a position to endure danger or pain; therefore, using the word courageous is improper and should be considered hyperbole.
Peter Felknor wrote, “…whether he allows comments on his blog or not.”
For that to be true then the statement that he was courageous for simply putting up a political sign has to be true, and that is false.
As for comments on Greg’s blog. Some commenters on Greg’s blog, including me, were hard on Greg over some of the things he wrote and Greg couldn’t take it. I was equally hard on the political garbage you wrote too. Greg got this message sent to him though comments a number of times, “Character is not developed and/or projected to others by the challenges we face in life but by how we choose to react those challenges.” Greg intentionally silenced opposing voices on his blog and refused to allow some comments submitted that challenged his opinion to be posted. Those were his choices and the manner in which he chose to exercise his choices showed cowardice. Choices reflect character and have consequences.
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Great, I misspell a word and then choose the wrong word from the list of spelling suggestions that means something completely different, oops.
“Personally I find real sanctification when I see those in political parties eating their own.” should be “Personally I find real satisfaction when I see those in political parties eating their own.”
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