Rhythm & Booms grudgingly allowed to continue

After some discussion and a push to cancel the event, Rhythm & Booms is moving ahead for this summer. The city agreed to contribute $55,000 in police and other services, but will require organizers to cover costs above that amount.

To provide some context, that is 3% of the subsidy Madison taxpayers provide to the Overture Center, for an event that draws as many people in one night as Overture's free community events do over the entire year.

Rhythm & Booms...& Bust?

Rhythm & Booms is up in the air again, with financial pressures likely scaling back this year's show to fireworks only, and environmental activists pressuring the city to cancel the event altogether. Thursday before last, Alds. Weier and Rhodes-Conway held a packed meeting at Warner Park that emphasized the lack of unanimity in our neighborhood over the future of this event.

I was unable to attend the meeting, but here's what I'd have said had I been able to be there:

Ending Rhythm & Booms at Warner Park basically means canceling it for good, which would be a serious blow to the community as a whole. There is simply no other event that brings together all of Madison the way Rhythm & Booms does, and the lack of attention this aspect of the discussion has received illustrates the great divide below our Portlandesque public image.

More on smart meters and science abuse

The Northside listserv has been atwitter the last few days with more discussion about the smart water meters issue. Unfortunately, fearmongering seems to be getting the upper hand. One of the lead advocates against smart meters, Maria Powell of MEJO, repeats her claim that "studies have shown" these meters and other RF sources cause cancer and other health problems, comparing them to lead and DDT. The increasingly shrill and alarmist nature of these comments aside, what about these studies?

The fact of the matter is, the science on this issue is uncertain and not nearly as relevant to smart meters as Ms. Powell would have Northsiders believe.

Water meters get ire flowing

Yeah, I haven't written in awhile. Turns out that starting a blog while starting a new job and expecting/having one's first baby isn't the best idea. So what's the explosive issue bringing me back to Ruskin Street?

Water meters.