Reader Steve Witherspoon has conducted a sophisticated audio analysis of whether Ald. Paul Skidmore uttered the C-word during the last Madison Common Council meeting in the wee hours of Tuesday morning 09-02-2020, as alleged by his political opponent. (Covered here.) Steve is an HTML, PHP and SQL hard coder in engineering and design for a local manufacturer.
This is Steve Witherspoon:
I have used a lot of audio software over the the last 30 years and you notice things about voices when wave editing. When looking at the zoomed in wave lengths of the spoken or sung words you can actually see how people say/sing particular letters that start words and these comparisons are very consistent over the course of speaking or singing.
You can’t change the underlying things that make up how some letters are spoken/sung in words, it’s remarkably consistent especially how the speaker/singer voice attacks things like the letter “c” at the beginning of a word in similarly spoken words, for me it’s not science bit it’s somewhat like a fingerprint for professionals that analyze these kinds of things.
A representation of Audacity wave lengths
Here is how I analyzed this. I used Audacity to record the audio on my music composition computer and analyzed the WAVE recordings in Cakewalk SONAR X1 Producer.
I just recorded the C-word in the [Zoom] video [on Doug Hynant’s Tweet] and then I compared that spoken C-word to some words beginning with the letter “c” where the “c” is spoken similarly that I found spoken by Alderman Paul Skidmore in a 2018 Madison Common Council meeting 2018 Madison Common Council meeting.
Steve Witherspoon’s Bottom Line:
Based on my years of experience, using side by side evaluation of the spoken words in a visual wave format I don’t think it’s very likely that Alderman Skidmore was the person that said the C-word.
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
Thanks to Steve for doing this!
You do know that they won’t accept the truth, right? That they’ll keep looking for “inconsistencies” like they did with the MPD procto.
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Just because they won’t accept the truth doesn’t mean we should not keep trying to present it.
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Agree 100%. We need to keep pushing back. All I’m trying to point out is that they will not easily accept the truth because it stands in the way of their mission.
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Dave,
Thanks for sharing this as a blog post.
As for the general visual representations of an audio WAVE shown above in the Audacity screen shot, you have to zoom WAY in to individual sounds or syllables to properly evaluate the finer aspects of the sound for attack, reverberation characteristics and the natural trailing off of how certain people speak certain sounds. I find this technical kind of stuff really interesting once you scrape off what’s general knowledge and spend the time to really dig into the details.
I’m sure there are professionals that do this kind of thing every day that are better, and far faster, at this than I am but I’ll be danged if it doesn’t work most of the time. I’d welcome an industry professional to do the same thing I did with their expertise to compare with my comparison.
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Based on the reverberation of the voice, if I were to make a wild guess; I’d say that the voice that said the C-word was probably about 20 years younger than Skidmore. I could very well be wrong about that but it’s my opinion based on what I’ve heard.
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Gosh, I wonder what Mr. Hyant’s C looks like?
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Nice work Steve. In addition to the fact that the whole accusation is totally out of character for Paul Skidmore, this is the technical icing on the cake.
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You lost me, Steve, But great job!
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Can Common Council concentrate considering circumventing clear concerns consistently could cripple credibility?
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Great job Steve. Thank you very much for your analysis. I see Channel 3000 is saying that Shadayra Kilfoy-Flores is still calling for Paul to resign or be removed from the council. My God, what has Madison turned into? Kind of reminds me of the soviet union where you could denounce someone for a thought crime they supposedly did and have them sent to a gulag. I suppose that will be the next step for the marxists that run this town.
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“I see Channel 3000 is saying that Shadayra Kilfoy-Flores is still calling for Paul to resign or be removed from the council.”
Why few of us can take media seriously anymore.
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Except for Fox News? It’s “fair and balanced” fixed noise.
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”Except for Fox News?”
C’mon Paula, anyone that can fog a mirror knows that the (admitted) Fox News slant is BY FAR the exception to an otherwise LeftyCentric dominated media.
One of literally millions of examples: ABC’s Embarrassing Article About Hillarity’s White Pants Suit
“The choice of a white suit for Wednesday’s debate harkened back to the not-so-distant past, when suffragettes wore white to promote their struggle to gain the right to vote,”
When Melania Trump wears white?
Philly.com fashion writer Elizabeth Wellington: “(H)er all-white ensemble displayed the kind of foreignness that is accepted by her husband’s political party […] To many, that outfit could be another reminder that in the G.O.P. white is always right.” (bolds/caps mine)
And while The Gotch is never one to pile on….
From the bedrock Conservative HuffPo: MSNBC Almost Entirely Dominated By Opinion: Pew Study
News Content: FoxNews 45 % MSNBC 15 %
Opinion Content: FoxNews 55 % MSNBC 85 %.
MSNBC has > 50 % more opinion content than FoxNews, while the latter boasts a whopping three (3) times the news content of the former.
Et tu, HuffPo?
Hmm; wondering why the clearly recalcitrant HuffPo hasn’t been summarily CANCELLED for their stridence….
The Gotch
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Gotch:. Thanks for the interesting post about the media. It’s chock full of goodies and links.
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Alright; who are you and what have you done with the Paula Dent that would pull the legs off’n The Gotch were he a fly…?
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Gotch:. You are a stitch.😊
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To Alder Skidmore:
Paul,
If the council and or the mayor or the news media continue to try to defame your character then I would recommend that you gather enough evidence, hire outside experts, get a great lawyer and become the next Nicholas Sandmann.
If these people don’t stop trying to defame you, sue them! Make them try to prove what they cannot prove. If this Doug Hyant wants to run around and say that you used a word that you did not use to gain an advantage over you in the race for your aldermanic district, sue him too.
Let them all sit and spin!
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The real point is that Alderman Paul Skidmore should publicly deny the accusations and publicly state that anyone that claims it’s fact must prove their claim, retract their false claim or get sued for defamation. Innuendo on something like this will NOT cut it in a court of law but in the current political climate controlling the unethical and immoral court of public opinion innuendo is currently the gold standard.
The United States is NOT a totalitarian run country, citizens have rights, the ones making the accusations need to prove their claim. Innocent until proven guilty.
The person, currently a coward, that said the C-word needs to step up and put an end to this controversy one way or the other – take personal responsibility for your own actions.
The Mayor asking Alderman Skidmore to resign from the Madison Common Council for saying this word is overkill, something along the lines of censure and a public apology is a much better approach to address things that are related to someone’s freedom of speech. Also, the Mayor demanding Alderman Skidmore to resign without factual proof that he is the one that uttered this freedom of speech offensive word is ABUSE OF POWER!
These kinds of cancel culture attacks on individuals without fact based proof MUST stop!
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Oops, I think I misunderstood something I read earlier. I think it was Shadayra Kilfoy-Flores that was calling for Alderman Skidmore to resign not the Mayor. My apology.
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spoons,
I smelt a “smollett” from the get-go.
But, did you ever notice that Lefties always spot what they got?
GDHM
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Great job, Steve! The Gotch has confabbed with Alder Skidmore on several BIKIE issues over the years; PURE CLASS without exception!
His sister is a neighbor, a regular Gotchberg Organic Garden And Lefty Conversion Therapy Emporium lettuce, tomato, cuke, & zuke beneficiary, and a friend.
If he’s anything like her, this is absolutely ludicrous; yet fully expected of a feebly flailing Lefty!
The Gotch
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If it’s proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that Ald. Skidmore did not utter the Anglo-Saxonism in question, the response by Madison progressives and the local media will be exactly what it was (is) in the Althea Bernstein hoax: utter and prolonged silence until we’re all distracted by the next tempest in a teapot.
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And speaking of the Althea Bernstein Story (coming to bookstores soon,) I was infuriated to see that she spoke before a crowd protesting the Blake shooting. Continuing to publicly perpetrate her ridiculous hoax is a hate crime pure and simple. If someone white, created a fictional attack, by a fictional black man, for the purpose of sowing racial discord, I would expect that person to be arrested and charged with filing a false police report, with a hate crime enhancer at least.
At her speech, she reminded us that she is an EMT, and wonder whether or not her attackers were “threatened by her success” (because you know, those Boogaloo Boys over at the KKK frat house are that way.) She then declared that speaking to the crowd felt “empowering.” So in other words, the more she tells this lie, the better she feels about it, and the more powerful she feels. Most aggravating of all is that every law enforcement agency from the FBI down to the Madison cop on the street knows it’s a lie. Video completely disproves virtually any detail that she has provided. They don’t see her car, they don’t see her, they don’t see her attackers. They can prove beyond any doubt that whatever did happen, didn’t happen when and where she said it did. Had the intersection wrong? Video would have still seen her car cross State St. which would have been unavoidable going from where she said she was, to where she was going.
She needs to be exposed and charged.
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“ ‘threatened by her success’ ”
If that ain’t a TELL, The Gotch doesn’t know what is!
Even if these “classic Wisconsin frat boyz” were a reality, HTF would they, like ships passing in the night, know she’s an EMT.
“She needs to be exposed and charged.”
You damn skippy she does, for her suffocating stupidity if nothing else!
The Gotch
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I recently pestered Tony Galli the self-styled “investigative” reporter at Channel 27 to invetigate this hoax. Surprisingly, he dared to ask the MPD Chief about it and got the usual response: “ongoing investivation.” Translation: “we know it’s a hoax but because it’s the hoax of a WOC, we’re going to keep stonewalling until everyone forgets about it.”
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Madison proglibocrats are weaklings, mentally, emotionally, and physically.
They are also low-down weasels.
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“They are also low-down weasels.”
Jeepers Caped Crusader, here’s no percentage in sullying Mustelidae, a group to which includes, but is not limited to, the playful otter, the mighty Badger, and the fearfully powerful Wolverine.
The Gotch humbly implores you to pick a different genus.
Far better suited would be the slimy Arion, with apologies to all self-respecting slugs.
The Gotch
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Yes indeed Gotch, no intention of sullying the actual resourceful little mammal but rather using the term with the utmost negative urban dictionary connotation that is far removed from the innocent, clever, and beautiful, little creature that Batman adores.
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