Wednesday, September 15, 2010

9/15/10

7:30 Meeting has opened, looks like there will be some budget approvals coming up soon. As Chair Beemsterboer (Finance) isn't here this could get interesting

7:35 Just kidding, Chair Beemsterboer just arrived

7:58 SACGB changes - nothing major, a quick renumbering and some date changes.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

9/8/10 ASM Strategic Plan

6:24 The room seems a bit empty.

6:29 Chair Williams is calling us to order. On time, auspicious start!

6:31 Powerpoints and Cameos oh my.

6:32 Chancellor Martin is presenting and chatting with us.

6:33 Secretary Madsen's phone rings during the speech.

6:36 Chancellor Martin is going over the benefits of the Madison Initiative for Undergrads. More faculty, more financial aid, more courses. Wish this would have come out say, 6-7 years ago. It would have been nice to take advantage of the program.

6:40 Chancellor Martin is pushing for more UW Autonomy. Sounds like a good idea to me. The State Assembly has been doing little more than tie the UW's hands and cut its funding.

Ex. UW wants to have the authority to pay faculty/staff independently, set tuition for UW Madison specifically (uh oh...), give the UW funding control

Well even if this will raise tuition a little bit (which is really bad, higher education is way too expensive) it will help make the UW one of the most competitive research universities in the world. Considering the importance of the patent bar to employment coming out of UW Law I can't help but think that this is a good thing.

6:55 Chair Fergus just pointed out that the state could cut the UW's funding in retaliation for asking for more autonomy.

7:00 Dean Berquam (sp?) is up. She considers the ASM staff part of her staff. Hmmm. Speaking of autonomy.

7:03 Apparently we have a responsibility to respectfully engage each other in the marketplace of ideas as well as bringing in diverse groups of people and make them feel welcomed and like they have a voice.

This responsibility must be pretty recent because I don't seem to remember all that much of this welcoming spirit last spring.

7:07 Strategic Plan time.
-Academic Affairs
--Rebrand this as University Affairs (includes Campus Safety)

-Leg Affairs
--Housing Fair (this is a good idea, a bunch of property owners meet up with students)
--A lot more tenant stuff (good)
--Alcohol lobbying
---Medical Amnesty - Don't arrest underage people with alcohol poisoning
--State Lobbying for Money/Gubernatorial Debate

-Diversity
--Getting new members
--Figure out what programs to run
--How do we measure success

Shared Gov
-Creating Ambassadors not Appointees
--Accountability
--Lobby for students in the various Shared Gov committees

Finance
-Concrete Funding Criteria (good)
-Review internal budge process
-Creative Works Fund (this would give money for artistic students create works around campus)

Nominations
-Develop new interview questions and style
-help new appointees acclimate to their committee
-guide for the next nominations board

Student Activity Center Governing Board
-Finalize office space criteria
-$$$ for SAC Maintenance

Student Services Finance Committee
-Follow the law. 42 USC 1983 here we come.
-Better relationships with non allocables
-new funding streams other than GSSF status

SJ
-Rule of law (this is good. there were HUGE problems with this)
-Outreach Consultant to help people figure out what the heck is going on

7:20 and the talking to hear yourself talk begins...

7:50 Textbook swap is looking good according to Chair Fergus (academic affairs). This is of more concern to undergrads but he's done a really good job with all of this.

Chair Uraga (Diversity) - He wants us all to help him out on Diversity. Ok. Great. What are you doing? I've seen a lot of nothing coming out of this committee so far.

Chair Beemsterboer (Finance)- 13 grants last night, 3 of them will be coming in next week. Oh joy. Other than that we should be looking to his strategic plan (which seemed fairly good).

Chair Polstein(Legislative affairs) - general stuff

Chair Nichols (Nom Boards)- working on associate justice, outreach consultant, asm front desk staff.

Chair VandenLandenberg (Shared Gov) - reworked a lot of shared gov. trying to use directors to make things more accountable. Trying to get shared gov more transparent (sounds good). No updates on ASM Express.

8:02: Chief Justice Fifield has been working on outreach and getting an associate justice. Wants focus on rule of law.

8:13 Apparently I'm a chair of some subcommittee or something

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Liveblogging the Movie 'Commando' with my girlfriend

9:33 - Let's get this party started! (My girlfriend is notated as 'Hannah' or H)

9:34 - Hannah - THAT'S NOT THE GARBAGE MAN (smarter than the average girlfriend). Hannah - wait, were they waiting for him to come out with the garbage? What if he didn't? That's so dumb.
9:35 - Hannah - he's going to drive that car through the window. (editor's note - I fear I am dating some sort of witch).

9:36 - Hannah - wait, is this a MIDI track?
9:37 - H - Why is Arnold hauling logs around? This makes absolutely no sense. Now he's splitting wood outside his cabin in the woods - Is ronald reagan going to ride by on a giant bald eagle?
9:38 - H - is he really teaching his daughter Karate? WAIT he's hand feeding deer? WTF

9:42 - H - "Silent and smooth just like always" - That's what he said.

9:44 - H - the black guy is dead, seems about right (black guy crawls up to arnold and say he thinks he will make it) H - yeah right.
9:45 - Black guy is dead

9:48 - Arnold drives off cliff, his car explodes - H - what was the point of that?

9:54 - Arnold kills the guy sitting next to him on an airplane and sneaks off the plane - H - that was idiotic (editor's note - she's right, this movie has a decidedly pre 9-11 mindset regarding airline security) Arnold is now running around the tarmac and no one has noticed.

10:03 - Hannah has correctly identified the love interest in the movie by her forced puns and awkward laugh. Again, witchcraft suspected.

10:05 - Hannah successfully called that Arnold was going to make the love interest seduce some sleazeball. Sorcery.

10:07 - Two cops are going after Arnold - Hannah - "this isn't going to end well for them"

10:10 - Love interest has nervous breakdown - H - this chick needs to die, Arnold should just start beating her.

10:14 - Hannah has postulated that Arnold is the product of a Nazi Ubermensch program. I concur.

10:21 - 7 minutes of all american action.

10:25 - Arnold and girl break into a building, kill a bunch of hispanic people - Hannah - How do they know they're in the right building anyway?'

10:35 - H - I can't tell if the if the spunky little girl is useful or the most annoying person ever.

10:38 - H - Seriously? Arnold had to take ALL of his clothes off to use a raft? GRATUITOUS PEC SHOT!

10:58 - Movie ending, "did you leave anything for us" "just bodies"
God bless the USA. This ending song is amazing the chorus is "we fight for love"

Thursday, May 6, 2010

11-1-1

1) Congratulations to Vice Chair Romanesko, my frustration has nothing to do with him.
2) As of right now, I am affiliated with MPower. Theoretically we campaigned together (although my name was left off of all the literature). I chalked Bascom for them, I spoke up for their candidates, and I generally agree with their platform.

Today I ran for Vice Chair of the SSFC. As an outsider I obviously needed as much time as possible to explain who I was and where I was coming from as well as some people speaking to my merits.

Most of my involvement with ASM has been through Student Judiciary suits (mainly the Campus Women's Center appeal process). Ironically, the closest I got to endorsements were from them.

No one in open forum even mentioned me by name. No one in open forum even alluded to me. Tina Trevino-Murphy, the person I worked most closely with during the Campus Women's Center's appeal never mentioned me or my role in the appeal. There may have been strategic reasons for this decision on her part, but for my main contact with regard to ASM experience to not mention my name? That comes off pretty bad. In fact, that's damningly bad.

Of course, having one of the main members of MPower, vice-chair of WISPIRG Evan Hurley (probably spelled that wrong) publicly endorse the guy I as running against didn't help either.

Kyle also didn't speak up for me.

While actually running I was asked one question. There was no debate. I was literally the only person to vote for me.

This entire thing was a farce that made me look like shit.

Of course, I'm still kinda bitter over the lack of support I got for rules chair.

The irony of all of this is that I have received MUCH more outreach from the 'other' 'side,' Chair Manes incorporated a lot of my ideas into his 4 plank plan for SSFC, and he seems to understand both his own and SSFC's current shortcomings. For someone who is supposed to be distant and unavailable, he sure seems to be paying a lot of attention to what others think.

So, thanks mpower. I'm still friends with a bunch of you, but this shit is getting a little bit ridiculous.

SSFC 5-6-10

6:05 - We're getting started, time to start up open forum.

6:06 - Sworn in

6:06 - Boan is speaking - Boan doesn't like Matt Manes - he has 'bad social communication skills.' Matt was offensive in private.

6:07 - Evan Hurley [chances of me butchering his name: high] (Vice Chair with WISPIRG) - WISPIRG doesn't endorse candidates, likes Jolie. Other people can help Jolie with technical experience. Jolie will do a good job making sure the process is fair and as welcoming as possible (it's inherently pretty stringent).

6:10 - Coordinator for ALPs (gonna spell the name wrong) - being available by e-mail and in person is key. Communication is key. Wants someone neutral to both groups.

6:12 - Tina is up. She's speaking for herself. What GSSF groups/CWC is looking for from leadership. This year we had very accessible leadership. Liked the professionalism of the chair. Tina doesn't like Manes, even if he is open in the future the negative precedent has been set. Wants to make sure that we have someone who is approachable, who understands GSSF groups and works with them. Wants a chair that comes from the student org perspective. Generally liked what ALPs said.

Awww... I didn't get a shoutout

6:16 - Carl Fergus - Ex Chair - What is important in leadership. GSSF is a small portion of the money that SSFC works with. Future leadership needs to have a vision for what to do with nonallocables. The chair should have extensive knowledge of the system, we need institutional knowledge that's ready to go from the start.

Speaking out for Romanesko

Looks like I aint gettin any love from anyone today.

6:18 - Wisconsin Student Lobby coming in to speak for Manes and Romenesko. Questions about Bylaws need to be answered quickly and truthfully.

6:20 - Kurt Gosselin is up - SSFC is a position of great power and great responsibility. I'm totally spiderman.

6:22 - Kurt likes Manes. Really likes the idea of a Campus services fund (Kyle walked in in the middle of Kurt's speech). Likes institutional knowledge, apparently is doing his thesis on the segregated fee system (Holy crap, and I thought I was a nerd). Wants people who can see the larger picture, stewardship of the fund. Really likes the numbers that have been cut by Manes and Romanesko. Wants us all to vote for Manes and Romanesko.

Well I guess chit chatting with him about my ideas last night fell on deaf ears.

6:26 - Michael Romanesko is up. Chair/Vice Chair of WISPIRG likes Romanesko.

6:27 - Kyle S is up - Was the secretary and the vice chair - Going to speak to Jolie as chair of ssfc. Jolie has a lot of experience in the GSSF world. Having someone outside of the committee would really help things. Wants us to cultivate healthier relations with the GSSF world. Wants to urge against abstaining.

Still getting no love.

Wants more leadership and more diversity on the ssfc.

Urges a vote for Jolie.

6:36 - Chief Justice elect wants a good lawyer! Is that me? or a backhanded insult aimed at me? or none of the above! We will never know!

6:40 - Brandon speaks!

6:41 - Chief Justice Darby is speaking! Wants people who have a respectful relationship with the Court.

6:48 - Chair Speeches! Jolie Lizotte vs Matt Manes - pretty much what you'd expect. Manes is basically endorsing my ideas wholeheartedly. Awesome.

6:53 - Manes gave a pretty awesome comprehensive speech. Jolie has some pretty god ideas but this isn't looking all that pretty.

6:58 - Potty Break!

7:22 - Chief Justice is big on appeals, I can do that!

7:24 - Debate is open!

7:33 - 10-2-1 for Manes

7:41 - Back in order, running for VC

7:56 - Two questions from Nichols, no debate shot down hard 11-1-1. Wheee. Oh well, more time for homework.

8:07 - Missing rules committee meeting. Also, secretary is getting significantly more Q&A/Debate than me. Awesome.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Liveblog SC 5-5-10

6:30pm - People are filtering in, let's get this shit started.

6:35pm - Webb is speaking out in favor of Beemsterboer. Everyone likes Beemsterboer. Sweet.

6:35 - Ajit is speaking, gotta pay attention to future constituents. He likes Ziebell for SACGB chair, so do I, awesome.

6:36 - Time to get into the nitty gritty of appointments.

6:38 - Carl is trying to lure us into Academic Affairs with promises of exciting things. I don't believe him.

6:41 - Diversity committee, Uraga is trying to get me to join.

6:45 - Leg Affairs is lobbying for your Housing and Booze. I approve of these guys.

6:45 - Nominations board talking about hiring. High attendance, respectful behavior.

6:46 - Kyle VL is taking apps for Shared Gov.

6:48 - Chair Williams is going to create a series of goals and metersticks for us based upon the conversations he had with us before the election so we can compare our concrete accomplishments to our goals as we go along. Pretty good idea.

6:54 - New Legislation, SSFC and FC Appointments
There were a lot of applications, they were sorted into yes no and maybe piles for resumes. Then they interviewed 7 or 8 who ended up as yes. Decisions were made by consensus.

Chair Nichols is pretty excited about the diversity of viewpoints (some people with science backgrounds, the SUFAC from Milwaukee will bring in new ideas, Smathers worked for the badger herald - his experience critiquing the SSFC from the outside will be helpful).

Finance - a lot of strong interviews, some history with the committee.

6:59 - Question called for approving SSFC members. Unanimous
6:59 - Question called for approving Finance members. Unanimous.

7:08 - Apparently my girlfriend has memorized my PIN number, terrifying.

7:13 - Committee memberships under old bizness. We're starting with diversity (where's Ace! we have to appoint Ace!)

7:15 - Chair Williams said that Ace intended to apply for diversity. Whew.

7:20 - not a lot of contention on leg affairs/diversity. Diversity is about 100% mpower and leg affairs looks like a lot of the people who made it tick last year.

7:24 - Proposals of fall campaigns by VC Johnson:
1. Student Housing Committee as a subunit of the current City Housing Committee. That way Students would have an outlet for creating law (although there would be a bunch of checks on the process).

Sounds good but there aren't any concrete
VC Johnson wants this committed to Leg Affairs and Shared gov. Sounds good to me. We'll get a concrete proposal in a little while. Sounds good.

Proposal by Rep. Zinn:
Vote 2010 Campaign as a special campaign

Sounds good, GOTV!

7:33 Proposal by Chair Fergus:
Safety campaign as a separate campaign.
Sounds good, lets do this.

7:44 Highschool outreach campaign? Gonna be honest, I'm kinda iffy on this. SOOO many ways it can go wrong.

7:49 Affordable textbook campaign referred to academic affairs. Sweet.

7:51 Chair Fergus wants academic affairs, Johnson wants leg affairs to do it on the state level.

7:57 Update: everything is a campaign. Maybe we should have a 'annexation of U Milwaukee campaign' I think we can take them.

8:08 Love is gonna write up a proposal on ethical investing. I'm pretty excited for this.

8:23 Beemsterboer ran unopposed for chair of Finance. No drama, awesome.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

ASM Session 17 First Session

12:30 pm - ASM does not have a chair, the meeting has not yet started.
Session 17, starting with a bang

12:37 pm - Chief Justice has arrived, we have a Chair. Nice suit.

12:41 pm - We have started. I really wanna get out of here by 3 but that isn't gonna happen.

12:44 pm - Sworn in, already drunk with power.

12:50 pm - Open Forum, Polstein (candidate for leg affairs) is talking. Alcohol Licensing and Density Ordinance seems to be a big issue and he seems to have some good ideas for how to properly lobby on the issue. Probably one of the more important things that we can do this year. As we all know, The Liquor Must Flow.

12:59 pm - Lubenow endorsed Polstein. Theo Sharpe is telling me to stop padding my resume. Would any legal employer ever actually care about my tenure on student council?

1:09 pm - Manes is reading an email from Erik Paulson. We've all already read this. Wait, 'ASM is probably going to sponsor the highest profile debate of the gubernatorial race.' No. Sorry. The WPR/Wisconsin Public Television debates are the highest profile debates. Hell we won't be hosting the highest profile debate in MADISON.

1:17 pm - Martin Uraga is running for Diversity Chair. Seems like a decent guy, but barring some shocking developments, I've got Ace's back.

1:21 pm - Outgoing diversity chair - Slates are bad! Vote for Martin because he isn't on a Slate! Is it just me or is the 'slates are bad' as asinine of a voting bloc as mpower itself?

1:22 pm - WISPIRG likes Jolie! Awesome!

1:27 pm - Rep. Ingram wants us to do rules committee stuff today. I'm blognouncing my run for chair. I'd be an AWESOME chair. Vote for me (pretty sure only Max is reading this).

1:30 pm - Chair Race Begins
Jonah (Team Jacob)
Personable +
Experience ++
Approachable +
Stands up to Administration +++++
Total: 9

Brandon (Team Edward)
Personable ++
Experience +++
Approachable ++
Stands up to Administration +
total: 8

My votes are based on science!

1:43 pm - Q&A continues

1:46 pm - Rep Hanley wants to know how the candidates would determine how many gulf balls would fit in a 747. On one hand, I get that this illustrates their logic and character. On the other hand, ASM just jumped the shark (second time today).

2:25 pm - Debate continues. My one dealbreaker (possible divestment from Israel) is out of the way. Neither candidate would agitate for it. As said above, I will be voting for Zinn.

2:38 pm - Rep Manes just motioned to close the speakers list.

2:39 pm - No objections, a choir of angels sings.

2:55 pm - Chair Darby missed me on the speaker's list. Hope I get a chance to speak.

3:00 pm - Chair Darby called on Rep Ziebell a second time before calling on me.

3:02 pm - Ok, got my say. I like Jonah for standing up against the administration, I know that Brandon has too, but Jonah has done so much more publicly and I think the symbolism of the vote is important.

3:07 pm - Time to vote, it will be done via paper ballot.

3:14 pm - 20-12-1 Brandon Williams is now chair.

3:37 pm - Vice chair nominations are started, Lizotte & Johnson. Beemsterboer just 'limited' question and answer to 45 minutes. I was going to motion for 20 minutes but he beat me to it.

4:04 pm - It's 4 o'clock. Everyone has talked to both candidates. Everyone knows who they're voting for. We're still talking. My mind is turning into jell-o

4:20 pm - I spoke up, Johnson committed to not being part of any chief of staff decision that might possibly involve Tom Templeton (Tom stepped aside which is how Johnson got his seat).

4:42 pm - I endorsed Jolie. A lot of people are emphasizing Johnson's experience (which is fair, he did a tremendous amount of good for the campus) but I'm frankly kind of annoyed that people are precluding Jolie from leadership because she hasn't sat on SC before. Rep Love just summed the point up pretty well (Junger was chair his first year on SC)

4:51 pm - 20-12-1 Johnson is VC

4:52 pm - Madsen is the only candidate for secretary.

5:15 pm - Looks like meetings are gonna be on Wednesday at 6:30. I'm gonna motion to adjourn at 9:30 every Wednesday.

5:22 pm - Beemsterboer is on finance (all alone). Carl Nominates me. Other nominees Peters Manes, Vollrath and some people i've missed.

5:31 pm - live blogging will be more sporadic than usual as I have to listen to questions and answer them rather than do homework.

5:44 pm - I'm on SSFC! Absolutely inebriated with power.

6:16 pm - I'm on Rules Committee! No opposition, but still on the committee.

7:00 pm - We're still debating between Savoy and Nichols for noms.

7:16 pm - Nichols wins (15-11-1) I think

7:35 pm - Just got shot down for Rules Chair 12-10-3 (Including Ivens for Junger)

8:07 pm - Ace vs Martin

8:13 pm - Ace loses. Just gonna say, I'm feeling pretty isolated here. As ambivalent as I am towards FACES I suddenly feel a lot of empathy for them. If you want to make people feel involved, let them get involved. Brandon and Adam win, that's great. Nichols wins, that's great. Mpower supports vandenlandenberg and doesn't run against him, that's great. I lose to Tyler? I suppose, he was chair last year. His candidate statement was functionally "this is my baby" while I tried to give at least one concrete proposal, but again he was chair. Ace and Uraga? No. Contest. Ace has a resume as long as my arm focusing on intersectionality. She's lived diversity, she's active in pretty much every group focused on diversity on campus, she has been HIGHLY active in those groups. Mpower if anything represents diversity and multiculturalism to a fault. This vote was honestly a slap in the face.

I'm going to get fairly angry/critical if the 'establishment' chairs do not listen to input from their committees and unfortunately party/nonpartyline voting seems to be going in that direction.