Hizzoner vs. Mayor Dave: What they regret
Credit the Downtown Madison Rotary for asking the candidates for mayor a revealing question at a recent forum: What was your biggest failure?
View ArticleHizzoner vs. Mayor Dave: Who led on Overture?
The city's salvage job of the financially collapsing Overture Center for the Arts poses another leadership contrast between Madison's two mayoral candidates.
View ArticleGeorge Austin: The end of an era
This article originally appeared in "Isthmus" on Sept. 19, 1998.
View ArticleCaution needed on a proposed Madison Public Market
Launching a good project at the wrong time and in the wrong place can be disastrous, as Madison history shows.
View ArticleAugust 25, 1978: Don't drive in Madison
First of all, you must realize you're not meant to drive in downtown Madison. It's a basic fact of life here, like the ungodly cold winters and the packs of drunken high school students who roam the...
View ArticleNew Urbanism conference highlights Madison's successes and its challenges
New Urbanists "love" Madison. For a beaming Al Fish, UW-Madison's associate vice chancellor, that was the message last week when he chatted with attendees of the Congress for the New Urbanism's...
View ArticleCan unions reboot for the 21st century?
One can only marvel at how masterfully Gov. Scott Walker gutted Wisconsin's public employee unions. This was deft work, surgically precise in its neutering of 50 years of collective bargaining rights....
View ArticleAlliant Energy Center needs help
If you define a problem in the wrong terms and fail to see the larger context of why something is screwing up, chances are your solution will fail. Take the Overture Center for the Arts and its...
View ArticleLooking back at 9/11: One more casualty
On Tuesday morning, we're back at the White House for a tour arranged by 2nd District Rep. Tammy Baldwin. Her chief of staff, Bill Murat, is accompanying a dozen or so Badgers for the 8:45 visit. We...
View ArticleLooking back at 9/11: Responses to the "Isthmus" essay from Washington D.C.
The following letters were sent in response to an essay by former "Isthmus" editor Marc Eisen about his experiences while visiting the White House during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. His reply follows....
View ArticleWill play for food: Madison needs to get serious about supporting local music
Patrick Breiner, a young sax player who brightened the Madison music scene for three years, packed his bags in August and moved to Connecticut. This was Madison's loss. Breiner came to town after six...
View ArticleMadison's economic future lies along I-94, to Waukesha and Milwaukee
Who knows, but just maybe Madison's future can be found on the first floor of the historic American Exchange Bank on the Capitol Square. Nine info-tech start-ups -- focused on everything from gaming to...
View ArticleJune 20, 2008: Epic geek
In "Epic Tale" in the June 20 issue, Marc Eisen reports on the astonishing success of Epic Systems, the electronic medical records giant located in Verona, and its enigmatic founder and boss, Judy...
View ArticleMy favorite concerts of 2011: Mahler and Mikrokolektyw, Sinatra and sacred steel
D'oh! I missed the Milwaukee's Symphony Orchestra's Oct. 1 performance of John Adams' "Harmonielehre" because I put down the wrong date on our refrigerator calendar. That was painful because Adams is...
View ArticleGov. Walker's fateful decision on rail
What was the single most important decision Gov. Scott Walker made in his first year of office? Hands down, the consensus judgment would be undermining the collective bargaining rights of public...
View ArticleMadison's cultural plan gets it wrong
Anne Katz modestly describes Madison's long-pondered cultural plan as "a beginning point" for giving the arts a more prominent role in Madison life. As chair of the cultural plan steering committee,...
View ArticleWaiting for a new public unionism
Okay, it's over. What next? That's the key question for public employee unions after their recall bubble was popped on June 5. The old liberal regime has been conclusively turned out. The Walker...
View ArticleWisconsin's leadership deficit
In May 2006, the "Harvard Business Review" published a study examining just what the heck corporate second bananas did. Authors Nathan Bennett and Stephen Miles admitted it was kind of weird what they...
View ArticleBendyworks' big idea: Cutting-edge tech firm says we need a downtown Madison...
Tech entrepreneurs Stephen Anderson and Brad Grzesiak hooked up the old-fashioned way -- at a user-group meeting in 2008. Both were featured speakers at the Web 608 gathering. Anderson talked about...
View ArticleWisconsin Democrats need business-friendly progressive like Pat Lucey
The warm glow of the Nov. 6 election will finally dissipate for Wisconsin Democrats next January when the Legislature reconvenes. Politically, the Democrats will be threatened by a Republican...
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