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Category: Opinion

Tah: Wholistic experience

Posted on
The Hindu

A couple of years back, when I was in high school, I took part in this debate on the topic ?studying abroad is a mere fad?. I spoke against it. I spoke on how it?s not a fad. I won the debate because I truly believed in the points I had put forward. But now that I am here in the United States of America, studying at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, I am all the more convinced that studying abroad is not a fad at all! The opportunity given to me by my university to experience the U.S. education system at one of the premiere institutes in the U.S.A, is one I will always be grateful to them for.

Seely on Science: Of old myths and fears and a modern-day wolf hunt

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Wisconsin State Journal

Wisconsin?s first recreational hunt for wolves is nearing an end and as the hunt itself winds down, attention will turn to analysis and to what is, hopefully, a scientific assessment of the season and its impact on the state?s wolf population. Much of that work will focus, appropriately, on population densities in the wake of the hunt and implications for future quotas….Not long after the hunt started, UW-Madison researcher Adrian Treves released a study that confirmed what most suspected ? public attitudes toward the wolf deteriorated in the months and years prior to approval of the hunting season.

Construction destroys Madison history

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Daily Cardinal

Madison is home to tons of history and sentimental hotspots. We have the big ones such as the Capitol, Memorial Union, Bascom Hill and many others. However, it?s the smaller, more unnoticed areas that are under attack. Real estate developers have made plans to destroy the Stadium Bar on Monroe Street and put a six-story apartment complex in its place. The Minneapolis-based OPUS Group plans to create a complex with retail space on the first floor and five floors of apartments. This brings the entire building to a total of 100 units and 150 bedrooms with 40 underground parking spaces.While it is extremely important that every student finds a place to live while attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, this continual construction of more and more apartment complexes is getting out of control.

Conservative groups create own news outlets to counter alleged liberal media bias

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Capital Times

In 1962, Richard Nixon conceded defeat in his race for California governor, bitterly telling reporters that the press “wouldn?t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.” In the decades since, the belief that the media is a covert ? and in some cases overt ? advocate of liberal ideology has become deeply ingrained in the conservative consciousness. Right-wing bloggers and talk radio personalities regularly depict mainstream reporters as members of an elite leftist clique, dogged in their determination to bring down Republicans and unwilling to challenge Democrats.

James Baughman, a UW-Madison professor of journalism, says he often struggles to convince conservatives that traditional media reporters are not bent on promoting a political viewpoint.”A lot of them really refuse to believe that reporters can be objective,” he says.

Chris Rickert: Shopping, the latest fun family activity

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Wisconsin State Journal

I am not a Black Friday kind of person. Nor do I see myself partaking of any of the increasingly popular shopping opportunities on Thanksgiving Day ? which I am christening Bloated Thursday, as much as for the swelling of the lines at the mall as for the gas and indigestion I imagine one experiences during a sale-crazed shopping spree immediately following a meal big enough to feed a small African village.

“For families with healthy emotional connections and constructive, mature communication, any opportunity to engage in a joint activity such as shopping will generally be experienced as pleasurable, even when stressful,” said Darald Hanusa, a senior lecturer in social work at UW-Madison. But he emphasized it’s not the shopping that makes for happy families; it’s the happy families that make for pleasant shopping.

Apple: Performance pay is justifiably controversial

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Australian Teacher Magazine

In October this year, I was invited to give a lecture to school leaders and senior staff from state schools in the Melbourne area. However, I was ?dis-invited? by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, after some members heard another lecture I gave at the University of Melbourne on why we should be worried about the effects of current school reforms and what we might do about them. For at least some people in the DEECD, my statements were ?too controversial? in the current political context of school reform.

UW-Madison needs to cut ties with the fossil fuel industry

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Daily Cardinal

UW is now invested in climate change. Our professors? well-deserved pensions are paid partially from the revenues of the fossil fuel industry. Accordingly, any positive activism we do surrounding climate change, sustainability or environmentalism must be accompanied by a crucial push for divestment or else we?re simply betting against ourselves. We just opened an Office of Sustainability. We have a wide variety of departments, classes and programs which highlight the dangers and moral hazards of climate change. As an institution, we must put our money where our mouth is.

Bill McKibben: Fight against fossil fuels coming to Madison

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Capital Times

….Of course, we?ll continue to fight the most egregious projects, from the Keystone XL pipeline to drilling in the Arctic, and we?ll continue to hope that the administration will take more than half-hearted moves to keep carbon in the ground. But we?re not counting on our politicians anymore. After 20 years of general inaction on climate change, while the world?s emissions and the planet?s temperature have continued to soar, it?s time to engage the real power: a reckless fossil fuel industry that has known for years the damage they?re doing. Until they cease exploring for new hydrocarbons and begin the rapid conversion to energy companies installing renewable energy on a vast scale, they don?t deserve the social license our silence grants them.

Theater review: University Theatre?s ?The Cradle Will Rock? highlights power in numbers

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Wisconsin State Journal

Tensions between unions, business owners and the government started long before Wisconsin?s recall election or the more recent demise of the Twinkie. The University Theatre?s current production, Marc Blitzstein?s ?The Cradle Will Rock,? directed by Norma Saldivar, highlights these tensions in both the drama onstage and the history of the musical itself.

Julie Mitchell: Sexy in STEM?

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Chronicle of Higher Education

Last month Dario Maestripieri, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Chicago, lamented on Facebook that there was a lack of ?attractive women? at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. I wasn?t there, but I would probably pass Maestripieri?s ?super model type? test, at least to the extent that any woman looks like that in the real world. He has been thoroughly eviscerated by now, but his remarks are an opportunity to reflect on how attractive women are treated in the academy.

UW doctor: Infuse wasn’t the problem

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Scientists and journalists share an overriding ethical obligation to treat the information they gather responsibly: to describe both positive and negative data in proper context so that the “consumers” of that information – whether it be other scientists or newspaper readers – receive a fair presentation of the facts, in a way that allows them to draw their own conclusions. (A guest commentary by UW-Madison physician Thomas Zdeblick.)

Timothy Kamp: For Stem Cell Research, The Election Matters

Posted on
Thinkprogress.org

The promise of stem cell research has been protected by President Obama, but the election of Mitt Romney would send Wisconsin?s signature biotechnology field back into chaos, costing the state its national reputation as a good home forward-looking, job-creating business, to say nothing of dashing the hopes of thousands of patients waiting for new therapies to treat incurable diseases such as Parkinson?s, Alzheimers and diabetes.

Removing government from research keeps scientists honest

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Daily Cardinal

In 2005 Elizabeth Goodwin, PhD, a geneticist and professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, admitted to manipulating data on a research grant application in order to convince reviewers that her lab was worthy of the money it was requesting. She was turned in by graduate students working at her lab. Just this last week, Dr. Thomas Zdeblick, a surgeon at UW-Madison, was found to have received $34 million from a company called Medtronic because he allowed employees at that company to ghost-write papers with his name on them, which advocated the use of a controversial and ineffective spinal treatment the company was promoting. These papers failed to disclose that the spinal treatment being advocated for had been shown to cause sterility in men. These two cases exemplify a problem in modern scientific research funding: The incentive to cheat is incredibly high.

Please leave ego at home Nov. 6

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Daily Cardinal

This week holds a special significance for most of the students at the UW-Madison. I am no exception. For many of us, Tuesday will be the first time we can vote in a presidential election. I?m sure everybody?s parents have already reminded them to vote (and probably passed some advice on who to endorse as well). But whether you?re planning on rocking the vote or flat out stoning it, I think it?s helpful to remember exactly what voting means in the U.S. of A.

Study Student Aid Before You Reform It

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Chronicle of Higher Education

Noted: Most studies have focused on the factors that shape enrollment decisions, or on the overall impact of specific programs. But few have attended to how the presence or absence of aid actually affects students? decisions about their education. As the researchers Sara Goldrick-Rab, of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Douglas N. Harris, of Tulane University, recently argued in a paper on improving education research, we simply do not know enough about which kinds of financial-aid programs work best, for which students, and in what ways.

Chris Rickert: Bill for UW-Madison chancellor search firm hard to swallow

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Wisconsin State Journal

I know it?s common for major corporations and major universities to hire outside search firms to help them find top leaders. But corporations aren?t spending millions in tax dollars. And am I wrong to wonder why a tax-supported organization such as UW-Madison ? which has its own human resources department and thousands of learned people of sound judgment ? can?t find its own boss? UW-Madison history professor and search committee chairman David McDonald emphasized that “this is a really important position,” and the search firm, Storbeck/Pimentel and Associates, has expertise and connections “that none of us on the committee really has.”He also said hiring search firms to identify chancellor candidates is standard practice in the UW System.

Rob Taub: Madison: Midwest Oasis

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Huffington Post

For as long as I can remember, my two friends who attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have been telling me that there is nothing comparable to spending a Badger football weekend at their alma mater. The weekend of October 27th also happened to be the Madison Homecoming as well as an event celebrating Halloween known as Freakfest, so I was offered multiple opportunities to be 18 again.

First ‘climate president’ will face challenges

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Climate change has registered barely a peep in the presidential contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. But no matter who wins on Nov. 6, the next occupant of the Oval Office is likely to become the first “climate president.” [A column by Paul Robbins, director of the Nelson Institute.]

Stanley Kutler: Ignore McGovern?s message at your peril

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Capital Times

George McGovern lived his public life with an integrity that, in these rancid political times, all of us might envy. He unfortunately is remembered most for his overwhelming defeat at the hands of Richard Nixon in the presidential election of 1972, but it is worth noting that Nixon resigned in disgrace, the only president to ever abandon his office. McGovern was a historian, undoubtedly with profound respect for the presidency; it is difficult to imagine his obstructing justice or abusing his power in the Nixon manner.

(Stanley Kutler, a UW-Madison professor emeritus, is the author of the “The Wars of Watergate” (Norton), and with Harry Shearer has written the forthcoming television series, “Nixon’s the One.” This column first appeared on Salon.com.)

Alumna recounts sexual assault at UW

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Daily Cardinal

….My rape incident happened to me in the least expected of places ? at UW-Madison, a university that I had grown to call home. It happened in my apartment ? a place I had lived comfortably for three years. It is true what they say. You never think it is going to happen to you until it does. And then, it is all you can think about. Sometimes for weeks, or in my case, for months…It is a well-known fact that sexual assaults are one of the most underreported crimes in the nation. And I contributed to that trend. But I never thought that university officials, or police officers, would play a part in that process.

Plain Talk: Photos make case for burying power lines

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Capital Times

The ?beauty? of overhead power lines has always been in the eye of the beholder. Many can overlook their ugliness as a necessary evil if cities and businesses are to develop and expand. Retired UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley, a renowned research engineer, would joke that while others might see a transmission tower as a blight on the landscape, an engineer sees them as a work of art. They are, after all, what brings the power to make things go. Obviously, employees at the UW Arboretum don?t see them as art.

PETA slanders UW scientists

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Badger Herald

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed a complaint over University of Wisconsin animal research, which they believe violates the Animal Welfare Act. The allegations specifically cited veterinary care without adequate anesthesia, which allegedly caused significant suffering to a cat creatively nicknamed ?Double Trouble.?

Respectful ASM needs to branch out

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Daily Cardinal

If we can learn anything from the Associated Students of Madison, it is that history repeats itself. With each session comes new representatives, ideas and debates, but through it all ASM has seemingly been forever plagued with the unofficial ?parties? that impede its progress. So far this year, student council has seemingly operated productively with mutual respect on both sides of the table. In comparison to last year, meetings have run smoother and been hours shorter.

Chris Rickert: Heroes, villains and humans

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Wisconsin State Journal

Public television?s investigative series “Frontline” did a great job last week telling the life stories of President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. So great it actually made me want to vote for them. Not because they came off as particularly brilliant or capable or caring. But rather because they came off as all these things and more, including unserious, haughty and ineffectual. Human, in other words.

Arguably at the forefront of efforts to understand what fuels political stance-taking in Wisconsin is UW-Madison associate political science professor Kathy Cramer Walsh, who spent more than a year gathering the opinions of regular folk in face-to-face interviews around the state. In a guest column in this newspaper in June she noted that “politics is often … about us versus them” and candidates “often make claims about the ?type? of people they are battling on behalf of.”

Plain Talk: Fans gouged by Camp Randall carry-in rules

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A fellow named Bob Drane of Madison had a letter to the editor published in the Wisconsin State Journal earlier this week that hit the nail on the head. Drane said he observed a small sample of the ?money gouging tactics? that average sports fans ?find disheartening.?….One of the foibles of turning old is that you remember times when things weren?t so tethered to the almighty dollar.

John Nichols: Yes, Ryan should appear at UW

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Capital Times

It has been suggested that Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan should make a campaign stop on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Conservatives who objected to the way in which UW officials managed President Obama?s visit last week want Ryan to visit in order to test the commitment of the UW to a genuine ?sifting and winnowing? of ideas. It?s a great idea. Schedule Ryan for a rally on Bascom Hill. Give his campaign the same cooperation that the Obama campaign got. And let?s see how things go for the crown prince of conservatism.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen: Preventing rape on college campuses

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Capital Times

As students pursue this fall semester on our college campuses, it is important to be aware of the risk of sexual assault. The American Association of University Women reports that up to one in four women experience unwanted sexual intercourse while attending college in the United States, and that one in 12 college men admit to acts that meet the legal definition of rape. Institutions of higher learning can and should help to prevent sexual assault on campus. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has launched a new initiative to do just that, with an interactive online program called ?Tonight? that is now required viewing for all first-year students.

….Wisconsin is home to many reputable colleges and universities whose goal is to create a safe and secure learning environment for all. Effectively addressing sexual violence with students, faculty, and staff is critical to achieving that goal. We should commend UW-Madison for implementing the ?Tonight? program, and we should encourage all of our colleges and universities to communicate similar messages to incoming students.

Sunday Morning Quarterback: Are booing Badgers fans spoiled or rightfully demanding?

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Madison.com

For the second time in the last three games at Camp Randall Stadium, fans have rained boos on the University of Wisconsin football team as it heads to the locker room at halftime. Depending on your perspective, that could be interpreted two ways….The bottom line: For a team that has been a work in progress and probably will ride a rollercoaster the rest of the way, it’s obviously not an easy audience.

UW?s handling of Obama visit partisan, biased

Posted on
Badger Herald

Students gathered Thursday to hear one of the most significant political figures of our time speak in the heart of their campus: the first African-American president in the White House, the second visit from a sitting president in two years since President Harry Truman in 1950, all coming together on Bascom HIll. President Barack Obama?s second visit will surely be remembered. 

Strengthening systems would improve public higher education

Posted on
Inside Higher Education

Each school acts in a hypercompetitive, prestige- and resource-seeking space that feels almost Darwinian — each striving to be the best and allowing those falling behind to simply die away. Given the tremendous potential supply of college-goers most public institutions enjoy, their adherence to this approach is remarkable. Instead of flagships working in tandem with sister schools to find places for each of the state?s high school graduates, they try to hog as many resources as possible, leaving other campuses to struggle with less. The greater good suffers. (A column by Sara Goldrick-Rab, UW-Madison education professor.)

Dawn Kubly: Health advances require research on humans

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Wisconsin State Journal

The gold standard of research is the ability to reproduce results. Interestingly, it was reported in August that recent National Institutes of Health experiments on caloric restriction and longevity in monkeys came to a different conclusion than a similar study at UW-Madison.

Four steps to dramatically reduce poverty in the state

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Institute for Research on Poverty, more than 20% of all Wisconsinites – and more than 50% of our state?s seniors – would fall below the poverty line but for government policies such as Social Security, food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Homestead Credit.

Joel Rogers’ view from the high road

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Yesterday, the Washington Free Beacon reported that the UW-Madison-based Center on Wisconsin Strategies COWS is attempting to form a national progressive answer to the American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC. Over the past few years, ALEC, which drafts model legislation that promotes free markets and less government, has become a primary target of the left.

University discourages required exams on Yom Kippur, religious holidays

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Daily Cardinal

University of Wisconsin-Madison students who celebrate Christmas and Easter never have to worry about taking an exam while observing their holidays. But for students who observe holidays such as Yom Kippur, this is not the case. Yom Kippur is a Jewish high holiday in which those observing fast and pray to atone and repent, this year from sundown Tuesday to sundown Wednesday.

Doug Bradley: The Music, Media and Mayhem of Vietnam

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Huffington Post

Vietnam. The term comes trip-wired with disagreement and controversy. Hawk vs. dove, hippies vs. establishment, peace and love vs. war and hate, and on and on. As a Vietnam veteran, I am convinced that we will argue about Vietnam until all of us baby boomers are dead and gone.

Donata Oertel and Peter Lipton: Harassment of researchers must stop

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Wisconsin State Journal

Almost everyone at some time receives medical care that improves the quality of life, extends it or even saves it. Health care is effective because the underlying causes of diseases are understood, often because treatments have been developed and tested on experimental animals. Our children are protected from polio by animal research. The veterinary care of our pets and farm animals, too, has benefited from experimental work on animals. But the development of new treatments for humans and animals here in Madison is being threatened by the actions of animal rights activists, notably People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and their subsidiary, the Alliance for Animals.

(Oertel and Lipton are both professors in the UW-Madison Department of Neuroscience. The column was written by them on behalf of 65 UW-Madison faculty members.)

UW admin on right track with recent Adidas lawsuit

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Badger Herald

Cornell University just dropped its contract with sports apparel juggernaut Adidas amid allegations that after the closing of an Indonesian factory, the company neglected to compensate over 2,700 workers with the $1.8 million dollars they were due. The University of Wisconsin-Madison also contracts with Adidas, and has raised similar concerns over workers? rights in Asia, but has been reluctant to sever its contract. Instead, the university has filed a lawsuit with Dane County District Court, claiming that company violated a code of conduct.

Jim Cooper and Alan I. Leshner: It’s time to get serious about science

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Capital Times

The champion of mocking science was the late Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire, whose Golden Fleece Awards enlivened dull Senate floor proceedings from 1975 until 1988. His monthly awards became a staple of news coverage. He generated good laughs back home by talking about a “wacko” in a lab coat experimenting with something seemingly stupid. Proxmire did not invent the mad-scientist stereotype, but he did much to popularize it.

….The United States may now risk falling behind in scientific discoveries as other countries increase their science funding. We need to get serious about science. In fact, maybe it’s time for researchers to fight back, to return a comeback for every punch line.

Dr. Lawrence Hansen: Cruel cat experiments unnecessary

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Wisconsin State Journal

I was invited by UW-Madison last year to participate in a series of lectures exploring the ethics of animal research. I made the case that the reality of experiments on animals is largely hidden from the public and that many would consider what routinely happens to cats, dogs and monkeys in labs to be torture. I explained that many current experiments on animals have a tenuous link to improving human health.

Letter: Cabs on State Street keep students and community safe

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Daily Cardinal

As students at UW-Madison, time spent on State Street is a large part of the Badger Experience. Students working, living, and enjoying themselves on State will carry those experiences with them for the rest of their lives. This past summer, students? safety and enjoyment of State Street was severely threatened.

Food industry’s impact goes beyond ‘organic’ paradigm

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Not surprisingly, food science has deep roots in Wisconsin, as well. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, which dates to 1893, food safety and nutrition has long been a staple. Scientists at CALS are studying how bacteria can hitch a ride on plants to get to humans; how wildlife intrusions in fields where crops are grown can spread disease; and how environmental conditions can affect food sources.

Researchers at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Center in Madison are learning more about using nonfood sources, such as fast-growing trees and corn stover, to produce next-generation biofuels. That affects the food chain because it would mean using less farmland for ethanol production – a valid concern in this year?s drought.

Chinese investment risky for university

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Daily Cardinal

Where my concern comes from is that we are working with Chinese government officials as our relationship grows. After all, this is the same Chinese government that engenders such a high level of corruption that even its own autocratic system believes that corruption is a major threat to the country. On top of this, multinational corporations love to advertise the image that they are cleaning up China, when the reality is China is on the verge of an environmental catastrophe.

William Tracy: National business leaders call for more state money for UW-Madison

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Capital Times

National business leaders who understand the importance of research universities to our economic future are telling Wisconsin lawmakers that they need to put more state money into the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?America is driven by innovation ? advances in ideas, products and processes that create new industries and jobs,? the report says. ?In the past half-century, innovation itself has been increasingly driven by educated people and the knowledge they produce. Our nation?s primary source of both new knowledge and graduates with advanced skills continues to be our research universities.

Student organization creation process needs to be simpler

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Daily Cardinal

When I attended my Student Orientation and Registration (SOAR) session three years ago I was told the requirements to form a student organization on this campus were minimal. The University only demanded that the organization be composed of at least three students, and I don?t even remember hearing that an adviser was needed. Because I have held ?leadership? positions in two organizations, I can tell you first hand that the requirements to form and register an organization have expanded dramatically. This is my complaint letter.

New committee?s future rests on student?s shoulders

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Daily Cardinal

New Legislation has recently been proposed to the UW-Madison student government concerning the creation of a new committee. The Sustainability Committee of the Associated Students of Madison would focus of issues concerning sustainability on campus. There are four areas of focus that this committee plans to address while in existence. These are campus water use, energy use, land use and food sourcing. Solutions to these important issues will come through policy mechanisms in student government and working with UW-Madison faculty and administration.

Rob Nixon: Rachel Carson’s Prescience

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Chronicle of Higher Education

Fifty years ago, on September 27, 1962, Houghton Mifflin published Rachel Carson?s Silent Spring, among the 20th century?s most influential books. To honor the anniversary, the University of Cape Town invited me to lead an interdisciplinary forum this past June on Carson?s environmental legacy.

The value of supporting our public universities

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

When I finished high school, it wasn?t clear that I would ever attend college. I had no savings and no prospects for significant financial aid.I did have a job at McDonald?s, and I made enough to get by while still living with my mom. With few other options, and putting aside my longstanding interest in science, I seriously considered simply working my way up to manager and being satisfied with that. [Acolumn by Grant Petty, atmospheric science professor at UW-Madison.]

Madison360: Race, rural identity shape Wisconsin politics

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Capital Times

If, after all that?s happened, you still can?t understand the appeal of Gov. Scott Walker and his arch-conservative allies, you might consider the roles of race and rural identity in Wisconsin. They seem to be crucial drivers in the anti-government tidal wave that has washed over our political landscape. That is a central finding of a major paper by Katherine Cramer Walsh, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist who has been widely applauded for a research style that relies more on personal interaction and group observation than on polling.

Chris Rickert: Higher education, but lower standards

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Wisconsin State Journal

It struck me as pretty ironic last week that even with Wisconsin?s new looser, alternative path to a teacher?s license, public school teachers probably are more likely to know what they?re doing than the public university teachers many students will get just a couple of years later. Such is the way of the American education system, where K-12 teachers must have years of training and meet multiple state licensing requirements, but the teaching assistants responsible for handling much of the introductory course material in college can know next to squat about teaching. The discrepancy didn?t seem odd to Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, UW-Madison School of Education associate dean for teacher education, but then, “it?s a system I grew up in. Is it best practice? I doubt it,” she said.

Chris Rickert: Real pot preferable to new synthetic

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Wisconsin State Journal

“Bottom line: More bad reactions, more unpredictable reactions and far less known as compared to marijuana,” said UW-Madison physician and addictions specialist Richard Brown, summarizing data from the National Institutes of Health. Now, real marijuana doesn?t exactly come with a list of ingredients and growing methods, either. It?s just that it doesn?t help to outlaw one high of questionable origin if it results in another, even more questionable high.

Brad Schwartz: Embrace scientific research despite politics

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Wisconsin State Journal

The National Institutes of Health provides over $400 million in support for biomedical research in Wisconsin (over $260 million at the University of Wisconsin), resulting in jobs, intellectual property and the formation of more new companies and medical advances. Take a break from partisan politics and publicly endorse support of our nation?s investment in scientific research. Let our politicians know that research needs to be supported, regardless of who wins the election.

— Brad Schwartz, Stoughton, UW-Madison professor of medicine

Madison 360: Wray offers insights into ‘troubled’ University Avenue

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Capital Times

Over the years, various Madison neighborhoods have been described as ?troubled,? but the adjective has usually been applied to low-income and transient residential areas. Troubled, of course, is a catch-all descriptor for places where bad things are repeatedly happening, and this year we have the ?troubled? 600 block of University Avenue. University is a heavily traveled urban thoroughfare, and the block in question has student bars sprinkled on one side and the upscale Fluno Center ? an executive education building that is part of the University of Wisconsin?s School of Business ? dominating the other.

Alfred W. McCoy: Impunity at Home, Rendition Abroad

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Huffington Post

After a decade of fiery public debate and bare-knuckle partisan brawling, the United States has stumbled toward an ad hoc bipartisan compromise over the issue of torture that rests on two unsustainable policies: impunity at home and rendition abroad.

Andy Baggot: Badgers? Ball can’t carry on this way

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Madison.com

If all of this is a sign of things to come in Montee Ball?s pursuit of the Heisman Trophy, then shut down the hype machine and shutter the campaign headquarters right now. In the seven months since he announced he was returning for his senior season with the University of Wisconsin football team instead of declaring for the NFL ? a revelation as welcome as it was unexpected ? Ball has lived a star-crossed existence that is nothing short of jarring.