Power tools whined as work continued on a new $6.1 million Tibetan temple amid preparations for Wednesday’s arrival of the Dalai Lama at Deer Park Buddhist Center and Monastery near Madison.
Voices rise up like flowers in bloom, and once again spring seems the perfect time for singing.
This time of year, many smaller local choral groups, including the Festival Chorus of Madison, the Philharmonic Chorus, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir, the Edgewood Women’s Chorus and the University of Wisconsin Concert Choir, have either performed concerts or will perform one.
….The Capital Times asked some of the participants in the upcoming concerts what draws them to and keeps them active in group singing.
A love of singing often seems to run in families, and many choruses count among their members husbands and wives, parents and children, and siblings.
The UW Choral Union, for example, currently has two generations of women, two sisters and a daughter-niece, from the same family.
Nicole Grapentine-Benton, 20, is a UW senior majoring in Portuguese and minoring in environmental studies who joined the Choral Union this year after being in another UW choir last year. She sings with her mom, Lori Grapentine, and her aunt Joy Grapentine.
Local residents will have their first chance to weigh in on commuter rail for Madison and Dane County Thursday when the Transport 2020 committee rolls out its visions for an improved regional transit system.
The two contending commuter rail routes will be on display during the public information meeting set to start at 5 p.m. at Monona Terrace, with one route stretching from Middleton to Sun Prairie and the other from Middleton to the Dane County Regional Airport.
A new law approved by the Madison City Council on Tuesday will require shops that buy secondhand textbooks to keep lists, available to police, of the people who sold the books.
Textbook theft, which the ordinance is intended to address, is a major problem, according to Eli Judge, Mike Verveer and Robbie Webber, the council members representing the districts with the highest concentrations of UW-Madison students.
The new regulations, however, will only deal with people who are looking for quick cash from stolen books, not the people who sell the books they steal on eBay and other Internet sites, said Ald. Zach Brandon, who supported the proposal.
If the Dalai Lama’s fans ever become less than Zen, police are ready.
Agents with the State Department will keep a “moving security bubble around” his Holiness Tenzin Gyatso at all times while he’s in Madison this week, said Kurt Rice, special agent with the Chicago field office of the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which provides protection in 13 Midwestern states.
MILWAUKEE — In the wake of the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history, Gov. Jim Doyle announced today that he is creating a task force to develop practices to ensure safety and preparedness on Wisconsin campuses.
The task force of students, parents, law enforcement agents and university officials will look at all options — including whether campus security officers should carry guns, Doyle said.
“I don’t want anything off the table with the task force,” he said.
The music industry is moving forward with its legal campaign against students, sending subpoenas Tuesday to the University of Wisconsin seeking the names and contact information of 53 individuals who allegedly shared music on the Internet without paying for it.
I DOUBT Walter Rideout ever thought about winning an award for his biography of “Winesburg, Ohio” author Sherwood Anderson. He was too busy fretting about ever finishing it.
Rideout, the much-admired longtime professor of English at UW-Madison who died in April 2006, did finish the book (and lived to hold the first volume in his hands).
Now, Rideout’s two-volume “Sherwood Anderson: A Writer in America” has won the 2007 Biography Award from the Society of Midland Authors, a group founded in 1915 by writers like Edna Ferber, Harriet Monroe and Clarence Darrow.
University of Wisconsin quarterback John Stocco’s long wait to enter the National Football League is over. Well, sort of.
On Tuesday, Stocco accepted an offer from the Green Bay Packers to attend their rookie orientation camp this weekend for a 72-hour tryout. It’s better than nothing but still doesn’t mean he will be offered a free-agent contract. That decision will be made by the Packers next week.
A Supreme Court ruling this week could make it more difficult for a Wisconsin foundation to defend key embryonic stem cell patents against challenges by two groups, some patent experts and representatives of those groups said Tuesday.
The groups have argued that three fundamental patents the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation holds are based on research that would have been obvious to anyone familiar with literature in the field. University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist James Thomson in 1998 was the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells.
Hicks who hunt? More cows than people? White bread and mashed potatoes? Fly-over country?
A new, 1,916-page, $75 interpretive encyclopedia aims to enlighten those who assume the Midwest contains little more than amber waves of grain and nice but boring people.
(Quoted: Jim Leary and Ruth Olson of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures and German professor Mark Louden)
Dear Editor: I recently learned about the University of Wisconsin’s plan to commit $11.4 million to building a laboratory for Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a UW faculty member and one of the world’s leading viral researchers. Dr. Kawaoka intends to study the 1918 Spanish flu, which essentially was extinct before he and his colleagues revived it, and the Ebola virus, in his new state-of-the-art facility.
Perusing the minutes of the 2005 UW Biosafety Committee meetings, in which Dr. Kawaoka was granted approval to study these two deadly diseases in his current lab, I see that the committee expressed substantial safety concerns.
Experiments with mice have shown that mental stimulation and drug treatment may help people with Alzheimer’s disease regain memories.
(Quoted: Sanjay Asthana, a UW-Madison geriatric research expert)
Patti Henderson, who guided the University of Wisconsin women’s team to seven NCAA tournament appearances and the school’s only Big Ten title, has resigned to pursue other interests.
Quoted: Landscape historian Arnold Alanen, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of landscape architecture.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor Andrew Reschovsky.
What do eyeglasses, old coats and used hearing aids have in common? They all can be recycled.
In May, a month-long hearing aid recycling campaign will be conducted by the Sertoma Club of Madison and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Communicative Disorders. Hearing aid parts will be reconditioned and provided at limited cost to people who have no other means of obtaining a hearing aid.
Dear Editor: I find it abhorrent that during an era of stressed budgets at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it is felt that it is worthwhile to spend $1 million to stifle free speech.
Joel DeSpain, who has spent 25 years as a television reporter in Madison, in the process becoming one of the city’s best-known and well-connected journalists, is leaving WISC-TV/Channel 3 for a job as the Madison Police Department’s public information officer.
….Campus break-ins: A UW-Madison student was arrested by Madison police early Sunday morning for allegedly breaking in to multiple residences in the 100 block of Langdon Street.
Nathan J. Castner, 20, was found after police were called to Langdon Street at 2:30 a.m. for a possible burglary in progress.
MADISON (AP) – Wisconsin is rolling out the nation’s most expansive guarantee of higher education to students in hopes of raising aspirations for low-income families and improving college preparedness.
The state’s 75,000 eighth-graders — of all incomes, in public schools and private — will be able to sign the Wisconsin Covenant agreement starting May 10. They’ll promise to earn a B average in high school, take courses to prepare for college, stay out of trouble and perform community service work.
John Stier says the 2004 bans on phosphorus-based fertilizers in Madison and Dane County were “well-intentioned,” but questions whether they’ll actually do much to reduce slimy algae blooms in Madison lakes.
Stier, an associate professor in UW-Madison’s horticulture department, was among the skeptics when the bans were first proposed in 2003, having maintained that lawn runoff was a minor source of phosphorus in the lakes. And he remains a skeptic today.
For sheer drama, there have been few more memorable Professional Golf Association Tour matches in recent years than Tiger Woods’ sudden-death playoff victory over John Daly in the October 2005 American Express Championship at San Francisco’s Harding Park.
But for many environmentalists and golf course superintendents across the country, the event — which abruptly ended when the volatile Daly jerked a 3-foot putt on the second playoff hole — was notable for one other reason: Harding Park, which is a public course, has been hailed as an environmental model because, in addition to its jaw-dropping beauty, it uses far fewer pesticides than any PGA course in the country.
(Quoted: UW-Madison associate professor of horticulture John Stier. Zoology professor Warren Porter is also mentioned.)
One thing is certain, the technology known as CIMT (Carotid Intima-Media Thickness) has established a thriving foothold among University of Wisconsin-Madison cardiologists who have become national gurus of the appealing technology. And thanks to a $300,000 grant they received earlier this month, they are about to start teaching the technique to family practice doctors and staff in several Wisconsin cities.
The medical research company hired by the federal government four years ago to update its list of carcinogens moved quickly to add a virus to the list while two of its clients were developing vaccines to combat that same virus.
Includes a letter detailing how the foundation has helped UW-Madison students, from Gail Geiger, professor and chair of the Department of Art History.
Phil Savage was Baltimore’s director of player personnel when the Ravens selected offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden No. 4 overall in the 1996 National Football League draft.
Ogden has since been named to the Pro Bowl 10 times and is preparing for his 13th NFL season with the Ravens.
Now the vice president and general manager of the Cleveland Browns, Savage used the No. 3 overall pick of the 2007 draft Saturday to snare University of Wisconsin offensive tackle Joe Thomas, a player who appears to have the talent and desire to build a professional résumé similar to Ogden’s.
The University of Wisconsin mens basketball program appears to have another commitment for the class of 2008.
Robert Wilson, a 6-foot-4 swing man from Garfield Heights, Ohio, has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday, when he is expected to announce his intention to play for the Badgers.
“Henry James is the greatest novelist that American literature has ever produced,” says retired University of Wisconsin-Madison English professor Joseph Wiesenfarth, who adds that only Mark Twain rivals James.
Wiesenfarth, who taught James and published a book about his use of drama in his novels, will makes his case publicly when he introduces the film adaptation of James’ 1881 novel “Washington Square” on Sunday, May 6, at 1:30 p.m. in the first-floor, 300-seat auditorium of the Wisconsin Historical Society, 816 State St., on the Library Mall.
Almost 3,500 of you have voted to designate 22 Wonders of Wisconsin.
This first-time people’s choice poll, coordinated by a half-dozen Wisconsin travel experts, has resulted in a fine mix of classic, lesser known and well-deserved attractions. Drum roll, or polka intro, please.
Dear Editor: Although panhandling has been a consistent issue in Madison, it’s time to end it for good.
I am a 21-year-old college student working and living downtown. Being a victim of panhandlers has become a natural part of my life, and I’m sick of this being OK.
Students want more seats to University of Wisconsin men’s basketball and hockey games. Because the UW athletic department will never find students more seats to those games, it has continually tried to use a fair student seat allocation plan.
The latest plan, unveiled Friday afternoon on the athletic department’s Web site, includes a two-phase lottery system for men’s basketball games that is weighted toward graduate students and undergraduate upperclassmen.
The Wisconsin Women’s Health Foundation will hold its annual Champions in Women’s Health Awards program tonight, honoring nine people whose work has had a positive impact on women’s health issues.
….This marks the sixth year the foundation has handed out the awards, designed to honor individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary leadership in women’s health issues.
(Dr. Eberhard A. Mack, a professor of surgery at UW-Madison, will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award.)
A Wisconsin history professor charged with possession of child pornography told investigators he likes “kids between the ages of 11 and 17,” according to a criminal complaint.
Michael Foret, 53, said “he has an interest in both boys and girls of that preferred age range” but indicated he never acted on his desires, which were fulfilled by looking at sites containing child pornography, the complaint says.
The cultural gap between Americans and Iraqis yawned especially wide one day during Josh McAuliffe’s tour of duty in Iraq. McAuliffe was a member of the National Guard’s 389th Engineering Battalion and served in Iraq from May 2003 to May 2004, and one of his duties was to head out into Baghdad with an Iraqi translator to find local workers for reconstruction projects.
As they drove around, everything was going fine between McAuliffe and the translator. Until the topic turned to music.
….Now a senior at the UW-Madison studying psychology and sociology, McAuliffe says songs by hard rock acts Tool, Disturbed and Drowning Pool were listening favorites when his unit went out on patrol, vulnerable to roadside bombs and other insurgent attacks.
Dear Editor: In the short time since the Virginia Tech massacre occurred, there has been a ton of articles written, many of which have tried to blame the university for failing to prevent this from happening.
President Bush has reiterated his oft-repeated assertion that we must support the troops. He must not be allowed to monopolize “patriotism,” “the flag,” and “the troops.” The rest of us can pay our respect to the idea of the nation, in our own mindful way, and as we see fit. On his own grounds, however, the president has a lot to answer for.
No date has been set, but TomoTherapy’s initial public offering of stock could be drawing near.
The Madison-based tech company on Thursday filed an amended registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicating that it could raise up to $213 million in its IPO. The company has applied to be listed on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol “TTPY.”
TomoTherapy says its “Hi-Art” cancer treatment system precisely delivers radiation with sub-millimeter accuracy to kill cancer cells while reducing radiation exposure to surrounding healthy tissue.
Thousands of dancers have come and gone at UW-Madison over 80 years, pushing the envelope with their era’s hottest moves while learning to appreciate the contributions of past choreographers.
On Thursday night, a wonderfully appreciative audience got a taste of past and present.
Kendl Friedman knows she’s enjoying a lavish lifestyle, at least by college standards.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison freshman has a big bedroom, a private fitness room and even the availability of a personal trainer at her home at the University House Statesider, 505 N. Frances St.
From this experience, she’s become a discerning shopper.
We can all probably agree that the NCAA is among the most hypocritical, overly regulated and insanely silly regulating bodies known to man.
For example, you could not give a UWM soccer player a ride were he or she trudging across Downer in a snowstorm or a hungry Wisconsin swimmer a couple of bucks for a sandwich.
In 1926 Margaret H’Doubler pioneered a dance program and an amazing array of talent has followed her path into history.
UW-Madison is celebrating the 80th anniversary of America’s oldest dance degree-granting program this week. Alumni dancers, choreographers and teachers are returning to perform, teach master classes, and lead panel discussions.
Dear Editor: By April 16, I was a little concerned when I hadn’t been able to locate any media coverage of the previous weekend’s events sponsored through the “Hip-hop as a Movement” Week.
….To counter the negative publicity that hip-hop venues in Madison have been receiving, positive events like these should be making front pages.
It would mean a lot to Madison area Tibetans to see their flag fly over the City-County Building during a visit by the Dalai Lama next week, said Sherab Lhatsang.
“In Tibet, if you possess a Tibetan flag or honor the Dalai Lama, you can be locked up,” Lhatsang said Wednesday.
Only the 10th Hmong attorney in Wisconsin history, Amoun Sayaoyong wants to help bridge the gulf between Hmong immigrants and the justice system meant to help them.
I don’t even care if Joe Thomas is picked second by Detroit, fifth by Arizona or later this spring by the Milwaukee Bucks, who could use an athletic 6-foot-6 bruiser to give someone the business under the boards.
The only thing that seems important at the moment regarding the magnificent future of Joe Thomas – who one day just might be judged as the greatest professional player ever from the University of Wisconsin – is that Eric and Sally Thomas of Brookfield did some kind of job raising their son.
Dear Editor: I could not help but feel pangs of sympathy for the Korean students who fear retaliation in wake of the Virginia Tech incident….
As difficult and awkward as it can be as an American to reach out to someone from a culture you know little about, it can even more difficult for foreign students, especially for those who are not naturally outgoing. I encourage everyone who is able to extend the hand of friendship to a Korean student.
Mark Huntsman, Baton Rouge, La. (formerly of Madison)
Type in “Virginia Tech” into the search engine at YouTube, and the top entries, surprisingly and poignantly, pre-date last week’s horrific campus shootings.
There’s an arena-shaking clip of the 2003 Hokies football team rushing onto the field to the tune of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” against the Miami Hurricanes. And there’s a cute little video prank where some students run through the streets with giant cardboard boxes over their bodies.
Both of these clips got to me in a way a lot of the network news coverage of the shooting and its aftermath didn’t.
WASHINGTON — One week after a lone gunman killed 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech, a former chancellor of UW-Madison called for the creation of a national center for campus public safety.
David Ward, who headed the Madison campus from 1993 to 2000, joined other university advocates Monday at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on improving campus safety. Ward is now president of the American Council on Education, an advocacy group for higher education.
A new book by University of California-Irvine professor and MacArthur Fellow Mike Davis suggests the fatal 1970 bombing on the UW-Madison campus may have served as a template for future car bombers.
Davis’ book is titled “Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb,” and it takes its title from a day in September 1920, when an Italian-American immigrant and anarchist named Mario Buda parked a horse-drawn wagon in the center of New York City’s financial district. The wagon was packed with dynamite. Buda walked away. Moments later, the wagon exploded, killing 40 and injuring more than 200.
A musical about a mythical land and a revolutionary hero leading his people to freedom made its Madison debut this weekend.
It featured stellar performances, entertaining choreography, upbeat musical numbers and a spectacular set complete with hydraulics. The audience, filling the theater to capacity on opening night, laughed and cheered throughout the performance.
Dear Editor: Since running my first Crazylegs run in 1984, I have been an ardent supporter of Badger athletics. However, I will not be participating in the event this year.
I understand that at its inception, the Crazylegs was a way for the underfunded athletic department to subsidize programs. However, under the guidance of Barry Alvarez and Pat Richter, Badger athletics has become wildly successful. While the Crazylegs is indeed an entertaining event that helps foster community good will, I feel its time as a fundraiser has come to an end….
Dear Editor: I sure hope that there aren’t a bunch of people who write in complaining that another University of Wisconsin coach — basketball coach Bo Ryan — is getting paid “too much money.”
I know that for the average guy these numbers (total compensation package) seem to be over the top, but I for one think Bo would be a value if his current package were tripled.
Although the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance has taken the proposal out of the budget, there’s still a decent chance that faculty and staff in the University of Wisconsin System will finally get what other public employees in Wisconsin have — the right to decide whether they want to have a union.
Under current law, the faculty and staffs at UW campuses are forbidden from forming unions to bargain for pay and benefits, a law that goes back to a day when university employees were thought to be above the “common people’s” need for such blue collar institutions. Attempts to change the law have been beaten back for decades.
But times have changed, and now even the UW-Madison campus isn’t as diametrically opposed to unionization as it once was….
What does UW-Madison do to help students with mental health problems, and how much authority do university officials have to deal with those who may become a danger?
Those are questions on many people’s minds after a mentally troubled student killed 32 others and himself on the Virginia Tech campus Monday.
The University of Wisconsin has a three-pronged system aimed at helping students resolve problems before they become serious.
With the first leg of the University of Wisconsin quarterback derby finished, Tyler Donovan and Allan Evridge appear to be in a dead heat.
Both players overcame mistakes or errant throws to give generally favorable performances in the Cardinal’s 35-6 victory over the White in the annual spring game Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium.
It is an American original, an act of grassroots democracy exported to the world.
Thirty-seven years ago, Earth Day launched a popular movement that changed our laws, culture and conventional wisdom, according to a column co-authored by Frances Westley, director of the UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
Funded through a federal education grant meant to improve math and science instruction through the use of telecommunications, the game is just one of a series of “place-based” games designed by tech wizards at the Local Games Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A PROFILE of UW football star Joe Thomas in the current Sports Illustrated focused on next week’s NFL draft has given me an idea for Mike Bie and his classicwisconsin.com Web site.
Bie has conducted some inspired contests on the Web site, which features much that is offbeat and colorful about Wisconsin. One of the most interesting contests was Bie’s search, several years ago, for the best ice fishing shanty in Wisconsin.
Now, with the SI article on Thomas as inspiration, it is time for Bie to try to identify the best college living quarters in Wisconsin.
