I’ve been doing quite a bit of research about the proposed UWM purchase of land at the Milwaukee County grounds on the west side of Wauwatosa over the past week or so. I’ll have some more detailed findings coming out this week, but this article from the Daily Reporter caught my eye. Specifically, the part about turning one of the historic buildings on the grounds into a “boutique hotel”.

Wauwatosa’s historic Eschweiler Buildings would be converted into a boutique hotel and restaurant as part of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s plans for a new engineering campus.

John Weishan Jr., member of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, questioned if the university plans to quickly resell the property for commercial development. He said he wants to prevent UW-Milwaukee from profiting off the land by ways other than developing an engineering school.

“I’m concerned they (the university) are more interested in land speculation than a commitment to building an engineering school,” he said.

Tom Luljak, UWM’s vice chancellor for public affairs, said the hotel and restaurant provision in the contract is misunderstood. The Eschweiler Buildings would be restored as part of the deal. Because they are not suitable for scientific use, they may be used to create a hotel and restaurant for visiting faculty and business people, he said.

My question here is how this building would be usable as a restaurant or hotel, but not for office or research space. I’m no land developer, but that seems like a tall order considering the original design of the building and it’s sad state of repair.

Again, I’ll have more later this week, but I’d be curious to learn how this building could be rehabilitated into a hotel or place where people would want to eat, but not into office or research space.

More and more people are discovering AM talk radio these days, and at least one Milwaukee TV meteorologist isn’t impressed. Vince Condella, a forecaster for Fox 6 in Milwaukee, makes the following observation about conservative talk radio:

As you might expect, Savage was railing against the Obama administration and all things Democrat.  Did he make any good points?  No.  Why?  He was calling everybody in the current administration by derogatory names.  They weren’t obscene comments, but childish ones.  He brought up no solid points.  Savage just claimed they were all a bunch of crooks, made fun of their various haircuts, clothes, all the stuff you would expect a 12-year-old to say about somebody they don’t like.

So this is what AM talk radio has come down to?  Really?  Is this intelligent political discussion?  Is this the type of talk that will move us forward as a country?  Apparently it is because Savage calls himself a great American who loves the U.S.A.

As I’ve been pointing out for years now, and I’m glad to see Mr. Condella realize, is that talk radio isn’t about solid points or intelligent political discussion or moving this Country forward. It’s about advancing the tactic that listeners are victims of a familiar cast of villains (liberals, the media, minorities)  that only the host themselves can defend against and empower their listeners to “fight back” against.

It’s always “us vs. them”. With the “them” never right and the “us” consistently paranoid.