Our plea to Tommy Thompson
on behalf of university students everywhere!
Dear Governor, Mr. Cabinet Secretary, UW System President, My Old Boss:
Restrained, moderate Blaska sez: I have some appreciation for the separation of powers at our great university system. Don’t know that you have to go all S.I. Hayakawa about this but get your chancellors in the same room, lock the door and remind them that the University of Wisconsin is a TEACHING institution as well as research. Students are there to LEARN, not to dictate. Chancellors LEAD, they do not kowtow.
In particular, tell Rebecca Blank to restore the Chamberlin Rock where it belongs and put it under 24-hour watch. (Cameras and drones will suffice.) Tell Blank and Chancellor Leavitt at Oshkosh to restore the good name of Fredric March. Suggest (but don’t insist) a Fredric March film festival is in order. Put up a damned explanation board if they must.
→ Columbia U. prof John McWhorter in the NY Times
→ ‘Wisconsin’s university chancellors are craven cowards.’
Cultural illiterates
The chancellors should call in the cultural vandals beforehand and tell them their continued presence on campus depends on their behavior, not their identity. (Another teachable moment!) Bonus: Throw Senator Steve Nass a bone and scrap Grievance Studies altogether. Tell ’em to go to Minnesota if they want to learn how not to think. Think of the $$$ savings! Police departments throughout WI will thank you.
Pure, unadulterated Bottom Line BLASKA sez: Wear the tam o’shanter, get a bullhorn, and ride up and down State Street and around Capitol Square in a Popemobile to announce all of the preceding. You will be a national hero. Again.
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
OUTSTANDING!!!
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If I can still access the top floor of Van Hise, I’ll stop and put in a kind word. Although I don’t share the rarified air of administrators of the UW system, I do know human nature. After calling the UW chancellors, “craven cowards”, I doubt they’ll give you a hearing.
“What would I tell, Tommy?”,
I’m glad you asked.
After wishing him a rapid recovery from his tragic water skiing accident, I’d ask if he remembers the Wisconsin Idea”, and suggest he’s forgotten his obligation to equality for all Cheddarheads.
I’d also tell him that Biden dissed Wisconsin, and he oughta take Joe out behind the gym.
In a fistfight, my moneys on Tommy. Voofda!
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Yes!!!
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Truth to power…. An endangered species pops out of the weeds…
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Thompson doesn’t need the money or prestige so ask him *why exactly* he took the job at his age.
Regardless of his answer; press him and finish with a reminder that regret is a terrible thing and especially so when there is so little time left for him to repair/correct/undo/rectify/remedy/put right the results of his passivity.
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I give you a lot of credit, Dave. Nobody can accuse you of being a phony or insincere. We need more of this.
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Written as only the Squire can do. Good man, Brave man…
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Hear, hear!
To all of it.
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