April 19, 2011

Accused of "being in bed" with Gov. Scott Walker, UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin said "It's an affront to my sexual orientation."

But, don't laugh. This "public authority" model for the UW is really important:
During the gubernatorial campaign last fall, Martin pitched all three major candidates on the idea of giving UW-Madison more freedom from a maze of state regulations, an idea she called the New Badger Partnership.

When Walker was elected, it was his idea to turn UW-Madison into a public authority, Martin said. Under the plan included in Walker's budget proposal, UW-Madison would split off from the UW System, get its own 21-member board and more autonomy. It would allow UW-Madison to set tuition, avoid a 4 percent state fee on construction projects, design its own personnel system and keep university revenue from being swept into state coffers. UW-Madison is facing a $125 million cut in state aid over the next two-year budget, half of the cuts to the UW System....

But with anger still raw over his move to stunt collective bargaining, critics question the motives behind the plan and the chancellor's wisdom of teaming up with Walker.

That has hurt Martin's argument, said Jeremi Suri, a UW-Madison history professor who supports the public authority model.

"This is a nightmare scenario," Suri said. "She is poisoned in the eyes of those who hate Walker. She appears to be on his side on this issue. She couldn't have anticipated quite that level of vitriol."
Sigh. How can academics be so petty and short-sighted? Oh... did my question answer itself?

113 comments:

Hagar said...

And why shouldn't I laugh?

Known Unknown said...

"Biddy" certainly sounds like a ladies man.

Too many jims said...

I wonder who takes the political hit when tuition goes up (even more than in past years) and UW-Madison begins to treat the other campuses like red-headed step children?

Anonymous said...

Althouse, have you ever considered that the cushy perks and job security create loons like Biddy?

Or that the Biddy's of this world, if they faced what the rest of us face in the private sector, would be better people sans their spoiled brat BS?

rhhardin said...

This will all be straightened out when the money stops.

Original Mike said...

"This will all be straightened out when the money stops."

The money has been stopping for a long time. What's the share of state funds to the total UW-Madison budget down to these days?

Ann Althouse said...

"Althouse, have you ever considered that the cushy perks and job security create loons like Biddy?"

Why are you calling her a loon? Are you sure you understand the controversy?

Automatic_Wing said...

Ha, laying down the "lesbian" card in response to charges that she's dealing with an icky Republican governor. This is someone who know how campus politics is done.

Well played, Biddy.

Ann Althouse said...

"Althouse, have you ever considered that the cushy perks and job security create loons like Biddy?"

Why are you calling her a loon? Are you sure you understand the controversy?

David said...

Kissinger: "Because there is so little at stake."

David said...

Althouse engages in the dreaded double double redundant repeated comment post. I feel so much better about myself now.

Original Mike said...

"Well played, Biddy."

Indeed.

MadisonMan said...

Shalala was never able to do this. I hope Biddy can.

The other UW schools leach off UW-Madison's fundraising abilities. It's easy to see why they don't want this. Let them pull their own weight.

Chip S. said...

Biddy's perspective is that of someone who has to deal regularly with the regulatory state. Suri's position is rooted either in reflexive opposition to Walker or the belief that departments like History can get a better deal through lobbying than by offering students a valuable education.

Independence is scary to a lot of people. That's why it's tough to wean them off the public tit.

Anonymous said...

Althouse, you've been living in the bubble of academia for so long that you've forgotten that, in the rest of the world people generally behave themselves, have modest personalities and keep their sexual inclinations to themselves.

This is a very good thing.

You live in a world of permanent adolescence.

Original Mike said...

Hear, hear, MM.

Henry said...

She's not in bed, but in a nightmare.

She's poisoned in the eyes of the people with the vitriol.

Where is the vitriol?

Thorley Winston said...

The money has been stopping for a long time. What's the share of state funds to the total UW-Madison budget down to these days?

I think it’s about 17 percent according to this pie chart with federal funding making up about 33 percent.

Unknown said...

Sounds a little like guilt by association for the poor Biddy.

You mean the Lefties are invoking WI's greatest hero - Tail Gunner Joe?

Yet again?

She also sounds mad because somebody actually accused her of being normal.

E.M. Davis said...

"Biddy" certainly sounds like a ladies man.

But not a man's lady - on several counts.

PS She may not be a loon, but people with her "profile" seem to be in large numbers in the rareified upper echelons in Academia.

Original Mike said...

"Independence is scary to a lot of people. That's why it's tough to wean them off the public tit."

It goes both ways. Watch the legislators object to losing control of the University, even as they fund it less and less.

Sofa King said...

Why not just privatize UW Madison at that point?

Original Mike said...

"I think it’s about 17 percent according to this pie chart with federal funding making up about 33 percent."

And I'd be willing to wager that a lot (most?) of the federal dollars are investigator-initiated research grants.

David said...

Isn't it interesting that the liberals of UW Madison are so eager to get out from under government control?

MadisonMan said...

I can't tell if Biddy is serious or not, by the way, when she said that line (It's an affront to my sexual orientation).

Was it (cough) tongue-in-cheek or not?

Roger J. said...

If I may complete David's quote--and I think it was Henry the K who said the battles in academe are so fierce because the stakes are so small

Thorley Winston said...

The other UW schools leach off UW-Madison's fundraising abilities. It's easy to see why they don't want this. Let them pull their own weight.

Does that mean then that the UW-Madison will pull its weight and quit leaching off of State and federal taxpayer who pay for about half of its budget?

Original Mike said...

"Isn't it interesting that the liberals of UW Madison are so eager to get out from under government control?"

A lot of us aren't liberal.

Original Mike said...

"Does that mean then that the UW-Madison will pull its weight and quit leaching off of State and federal taxpayer who pay for about half of its budget?"

To the extent that the federal dollars support research, it ain't leaching.

Chip S. said...

Watch the legislators object to losing control of the University, even as they fund it less and less.

Absolutely.

Of course, they'll still have the rest of the UW system to play with.

Titus said...

UW-Madison has had two dykes in a row as Chancellor.

That is two too many dykes in my view.

Thorley Winston said...

Why are you calling her a loon?
Because as soon as she needlessly dragged her sexual orientation into what should have been a dispute about a profession matter, my first thought was when Serena Southerlyn was fired from Law and Order and said “is it because I’m a lesbian”?

My natural tendency is to dismiss anyone who plays the victim/grievance card when they’re being criticized about something they did professionally as being a fundamentally unserious person.

Thorley Winston said...

To the extent that the federal dollars support research, it ain't leaching.


Only to the extent that federal dollars aren’t coming from federal taxes or borrowing that will have to be repaid with federal taxes.

MayBee said...

Can't she just say she's participating in The Wisconsin Idea?

Chip S. said...

Fair enough, but maybe Biddy has learned what rhetoric works against campus pols, and it has little to do with logic or evidence.

MayBee said...

Is she not politicosexual?

Roger J. said...

nothing wrong with dykes, titus. They perform cunnilingus on women that no one else would do, and you want them on your coed softball team

(sarcasm off)

MadisonMan said...

UW-Madison has had two dykes in a row as Chancellor.

John Wiley is a dyke?

Original Mike said...

"Only to the extent that federal dollars aren’t coming from federal taxes or borrowing that will have to be repaid with federal taxes."

Of course it's coming from federal taxes. Where the hell else would it come from?

re: borrowing: I do not support deficit spending.

Trooper York said...

They should eliminate all state funding. That should help with the budget. Let them survive in the marketplace.

Youse guys are gonna have to print up a whole bunch of matchbooks.

Original Mike said...

It's not leaching to pay for education, either, to the extent the legislature wants to defray the true cost of tuition.

Original Mike said...

"They should eliminate all state funding. That should help with the budget."

That's called a private school. It would be OK with me.

David said...

Original Mike said...

A lot of us aren't liberal.


"A lot," as in "more than one?"

Titus said...

Biddy should be flattered that she is accused of being in bed with Walker.

Have any of you taken a look at her?

Titus said...

I didn't know there was a white hetero male between the two dykes.

My dad did love the dyke Donna Shalala though because she made sports really good at the UW, natch.

Because lezzies are sports fans.

Trooper York said...

The need for state run colleges is over. The Homestead act was a long time ago. There are a lot of people in college who do not belong. Let the marketplace sort them out.

Original Mike said...

"A lot," as in "more than one?"

In science and engineering; more than a few. "A lot" may be stretching it.

Trooper York said...

I mean the state doesn’t run cosmetology schools and that is much more useful than more fucking lawyers.

traditionalguy said...

It is mildly ironic that the affronted gay woman here wants power over the tuition golden flow, but that the golden flow to Madison is based on the popularity of the ALL MEN Football Team. But Governor walker is on her side.

Trooper York said...

More than just a few my brother.

Every single one studying liberal arts should be forced to go out and get a real job.

But they just want to study bullshit and cut class and go to the Capital and bang on a drum all day.

Haven't you been paying attention?

Trooper York said...

I mean those douchenozzles are so stupid they will probably grow up to be Packer fans.

Original Mike said...

"Haven't you been paying attention?"

I was too busy writing a grant.

MadisonMan said...

I mean the state doesn’t run cosmetology schools and that is much more useful than more fucking lawyers.

The state does support the Technical Colleges, and there are cosmetology programs there. Not sure if they're actually called cosmetology, however.

wv: queen (!)

Original Mike said...

World Champions, baby!

David said...

"Have any of you taken a look at her?"

Shut up, Titus.

She's actually a rather pleasant looking lady who isn't out to impress you in the least. She's got a record of real academic accomplishment, not just a gender hire. She had a big job at Cornell, which she did well, and has a bigger one at UW. She must have some people skills beyond the lesbian cohort, or she would not have had a prayer for this job.

Plus what she said was funny.

Original Mike said...

"wv: queen (!)"

Watson has found a post-jeopardy job producing post relevant words.

Original Mike said...

"Plus what she said was funny."

And calculated. I was impressed.

Henry said...

In my experience the administrators are the sane ones.

Trooper York said...

I mean if you start rooting for the Packers and eating roadkill and hating Walker and driving old Nazi touring cars you know what you are....do you...DO YOU!!!!!!!!


You're Garage Mahal.

Just sayn'

Carol_Herman said...

She must hate the word "well endowed" emensely. What a biddy.

Meanwhile, we've seen education really getting tossed out in the 1960's, when Western Civ, and needing to know Latin, were part of the core curriculum.

And, there's a difference between buldings. And, what happens when this particular "religion of higher education" bursts.

Because of Twitter ... people want the visual capacity to read and write. It's a communications tool!

Governor Walker has to know that ALL politicians get attacked. It's the price of wanting to be one. Just as sexually transmitted diseases are the prices that get paid when you opt out of monoqamy.

What's love got to do with it?

Ann Althouse said...

"Althouse, you've been living in the bubble of academia for so long that you've forgotten that, in the rest of the world people generally behave themselves, have modest personalities and keep their sexual inclinations to themselves."

Oh, you're reacting to her joking deflection of the argument that she's too connected to Walker? That's nothing. (She's openly gay, and it's not a big deal. That's why the joke was understood.) What matters is the actually proposal. There is nothing loony about that. It's serious as I say in line 1 of the post.

And it's not loony to make a joke about your sexual orientation, especially when it's not a big deal to anyone anymore, you're not pushing it in any way, and you're being effectively disarming within a given political arena where it works, which is here.

You need to understand the context of that and move on to the public authority proposal.

Titus said...

I don't need to hear about her sexual orientation. Keep the details in the closet please.

garage mahal said...

Some people can just never get over the fact that Green Bay is Titletown USA, and regining Superbowl World Champions. Not in some swamp in New Jersey, er, NY. So they lash out in childish, and often inappropriate ways, when their misdirected anger would be best used petitioning ownership to get better players and coaching for their team.

But, certainly nothing for me to worry about! My team = WORLD CHAMPIONS!

Toad Trend said...

"This is a nightmare scenario," Suri said. "She is poisoned in the eyes of those who hate Walker. She appears to be on his side on this issue. She couldn't have anticipated quite that level of vitriol."

Maybe its just as well. The level of vitriol over whether or not public employees should be paying more of their 'fair share' towards their own health bennies and such is simply irrational.

I think its good strategy to allow irrational types to carry on without interruption.

Sofa King said...

UW-Madison has had two dykes in a row as Chancellor.


I thought it was generally good for one to have all one's dykes in a row?

Meade said...

"Plus what she said was funny."

It really was.

She even could have extended the metaphor with feather-bedding and sleep overs in the Capitol.

Trooper York said...

Occasionally evil triumphs when the socialistic system of the NFL gives the undeserving small market teams enough cheddar to compete against the big market teams that really drive the ratings to pay the TV networks for the billions they spread around like commies.

But with the current negotiations we can only hope that the big market teams will get their “Fair” share of revenues which is of course much more than those from puissant little hamlets that don’t pull their weight. In fact the Maras and Tischs are leading the effort to install Governor Walker as NFL commissioner so he can break the union and stop the horrible burden of taxation on the big market teams.

Now that the great Governor Walker has fixed Wisconsin he can fix the NFL.

Trooper York said...

Jeeez I hope Garage is taking his blood pressure medicine.

Trooper York said...

I want the NFL to go to the system like baseball where there is no salary cap and the players on small market teams have to shop lift to get by.

garage mahal said...

The NFL is the greatest sport [NCAA a real close 2nd] in the world. Naturally, Trooper York and Scott Walker would want to wreck it.

Original Mike said...

"...the big market teams that really drive the ratings to pay the TV networks"

The Packers have a large national following. The Giants? The only people who care about them are the locals.

Original Mike said...

"I want the NFL to go to the system like baseball where there is no salary cap and the players on small market teams have to shop lift to get by."

I don't watch baseball, because their system is ridiculous.

Trooper York said...

There is always room for improvement. The big money teams like the Giants, Cowboys and Patriots should have an advantage like the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies. That’s how God wants it. That’s why he gave them more money.

What’s the matter you don’t believe in God?

Synova said...

It would be too much, really, to expect people to judge a proposal on the merits, hm?

I don't know why anyone is picking on Martin for trying to make a joke that would work with the idiots she has to deal with.

Suri supports her, but the quote Althouse included of his makes him far more mockable than Martin. Wow, no one could have anticipated the results of how many weeks of personal demonizing Walker? Really?

Walker isn't wrong, you know, he's pure evil. EVIILLLLL!!!!

Except he's not wrong and his proposals have all been about freeing up local authority to make decisions about their own business... sort of like what Martin wants to have with UW-Madison.

Shame! Shame! Shame! Walker must be shamed, and everyone must participate in shunning him. The shunning is particularly important.

Suri should not be surprised. Shunning is one of the most effective methods of social control.

Original Mike said...

There's a reason baseball is dying, Trooper.

PaulV said...

MadisonMan said...
UW-Madison has had two dykes in a row as Chancellor.

John Wiley is a dyke?

4/19/11 11:20
Well if he like womyn, he is a male lesbian.

Trooper York said...

Baseball isn't dying. It has made more money and put more fannies in the seats than it ever has before.

They make more money now than they ever did.

JohnJ said...

"Martin said she doesn't 'get' people who don't want her to work with the governor."

Really?

I suspect it's simply more important for some faculty to maintain their siege mentality than to give the slightest appearance of siding with Walker, even on a proposal that seems tailored to their wishes. It's petty, short-sighted and I'll add childish. But, it's also entirely consistent with much of the left's clownishly self-defeating behavior of the past few months.

Original Mike said...

"They make more money now than they ever did."

It's called inflation.

PaulV said...

Trooper, the NFL union decertified itself because the NFL owners are socialist revenue sharers paying low rent for the stadi the public pays for. Green Bay is different because the public owns it and puts the profits back into team.

WV: cocym something to do with womyn and sperm

PaulV said...

Trooper, it's the underpaid baseball players ($374K) who shoplift.

PaulV said...

Trooper, it's the underpaid baseball players ($374K) who shoplift.
WV: judgin

The left loon should not be judgin the chancellor on her persuavion,

Trooper York said...

It was 50 years ago that Mantle and Maris were chasing Babe Ruth’s record in 1961. At that time the Yankees were lucky to draw a million fans a year. This year they will draw four million.

The problem baseball is having is the same problem America is having. The whites and the blacks don’t want to play so all the work is being done by the Hispanic.

The problem is they are using Dominican’s instead of Mexicans. And everybody knows that Dominicans are much lazier than Mexicans

MadisonMan said...

It's called inflation.

When I came to grad school in 1982, a single dish of Babcock Ice Cream was 60 cents. I was just at the (beautiful) new (crowded) Union South. Single dish is $2.50! So a good player should make at least 4x what Robin, Gumby and Mollie made back in the day.

Trooper York said...

If Roberto Clemente were alive he would say that is racist.

Trooper York said...

Well maybe not. Roberto was Puerto Rican and they hate Dominicans.

Meade said...

"I want the NFL to go to the system like baseball where there is no salary cap and the players on small market teams have to shop lift to get by."

I heard that.

Allegedly have to shoplift to get by.

Trooper York said...

Hey that douchenozzle is a Red. Those commies think everything is theirs and they can just take what they want.

Hugo Chavez would be a perfect Cincinatti Red.

He even looks like Vida Pinson.

Trooper York said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Titus said...

I just jerked off.

RonF said...

The interesting thing here is that for the first two years of Pres. Obama's term we repeatedly heard the left complain that the GOP was opposing anything that the administration came up with not on the merits but because they wanted to discredit Obama regardless of the actual consequences. But here this Chancellor is essentially accusing the left of doing exactly the same thing with regards to Gov. Walker.

Meade said...

"Those commies think everything is theirs and they can just take what they want."

Blah, blah, blah. Tell it to the Marlins. As if the Yanks are coming.

Meade said...

Besides, the commie will probably go into a diversion program for first-time offenders

(... who are desperately needed in rotation.)

Strelnikov said...

Because the stakes are so small.

vbspurs said...

Trooper York wrote:

I mean the state doesn’t run cosmetology schools and that is much more useful than more fucking lawyers.

Wisest words I've ever heard on this blog.

wv: anquit!!!! The other time I got anniout. LOL.

Cheers,
Victoria

Known Unknown said...

I can't tell if Biddy is serious or not, by the way, when she said that line (It's an affront to my sexual orientation).

Was it (cough) tongue-in-cheek or not?


Up until I clicked on the link, I thought Biddy was a dude.

Unknown said...

The quote "The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low" or variations of such are Sayre's Law by Wallace Stanley Sayre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_Law

Unknown said...

Titus --

"I don't need to hear about her sexual orientation. Keep the details in the closet please."

Bwahahahaha! That was funny, Titus.

Meade said...

Btw, I happen to know that Chancellor Martin has an adorable little poodle.

I ♡ poodles.

Meade said...

And, no, that's not sarcasm.

cf said...

I imagine the state will be reducing substantially money to the university. If the people attacking the Chancellor think the alums will make it up--think again. If the doctors on the university payroll who openly signed fake medical excuses for the striking teachers are not disciplined, I'm sitting on my wallet this year.I doubt I'm the only one fed up with this nonsense.

Col Mustard said...

The other UW schools leach off UW-Madison's fundraising abilities. It's easy to see why they don't want this. Let them pull their own weight.

Not everything is equally redistributable, eh.

Milwaukee said...

This is about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The UW System is bloated with too many campuses, too many degrees offered, too many underqualified undergraduates, and too many faculty members. We could seriously improve the quality of high school education in Wisconsin by cutting the UW Freshman intake by 75%. If there were fewer spots then high school students would work harder to qualify for them. Or they would decide their heart really wasn't in college, and learn a decent skill and contribute to society without a college degree. Recent study showed 60% of college graduates between 1992 and 2006 were doing jobs which previously didn't require a college education. If we send 70% of our high school students to college, and many of the graduates end up with jobs that didn't require a degree, what about the ones who spend time and money and don't graduate? What a waste of resources! To be sure we need some college graduates, we just don't need as many as we have been producing. They call it the "higher education bubble" and we have too many degreed people wondering around.

Have you been following the complaints of law school students? We have an over abundance of law school graduates, and not enough jobs for all of them. On the other hand, medical school is so expensive we will have a hard time lowering health care costs when physicians come out of medical school with $250,000 in debt.

Anonymous said...

Wisconsin is such a fun place. Where else do you find a top educational executive named "Biddy" and a Lesbian to boot! Your state is a riot, oops, perhaps that is a bad choice of words.

mariner said...

Titus,
I don't need to hear about her sexual orientation. Keep the details in the closet please.

To see you post this, after some of the shit YOU have posted here, is just stupefying.

David said...

So now lesbians can't have high level jobs in Wisconsin without being insulted here? (The insult is not that she is a lesbian. The insult is that she is nothing else.)

The name "Biddy" is preppy cheerleader above all else. There are lots of perky, enthuisastic, blond women named Biddy in the south. Martin's from a small town in south-central Virginia, and went to William and Mary and Middlebury, two megapreppy enclaves.

You can escape your biological gender but preppy is a swirling vortex that never lets go. The woman has suffered enough. Can't we all just get along?

bagoh20 said...

"UW-Madison is facing a $125 million cut in state aid over the next two-year budget, half of the cuts to the UW System"

Isn't the university full of the best and brightest of our citizens, yet they can't figure out how to support themselves?

At my organization we take in people. We give them them knowledge and skills, which they develop though hard work, like a university does. They don't pay us, we pay them. They don't need loans, our program begins to pays it's dividends immediately. Their parents also don't have to pay for them to attend our school. In addition, we require no tax subsidies. In fact, we pay substantial taxes into the state including those used to subsidize universities.

We are called private enterprise. A corporation. The bane of the left, the pimp to all the whores, the evil that robs the people and gives them nothing in return.

bagoh20 said...

"Some people can just never get over the fact that Green Bay is Titletown USA,..."

It's just hard to feel pride when it's in Wisconsin. They have that Madison town and that's fucked up. If Green Bay and Madison had a baby, it would be a huge hulking crazed lefty - it would be Rosie O'Donnell, and nobody's teat can support that.

Anonymous said...

test3

Anonymous said...

test4

ken in tx said...

My first exposure to a bull-moose lesbian was as a student worker in the registrars office at the University of Alabama. The Registrar did not walk, she marched. She pushed, she shoved, she bulldozed everybody even if they were not in her way. She was a rabid football fan and kept Joe Namath’s record in her office so that the transcript clerk had to go to her to get it when needed. She bullied everyone. She was evil.

Karl said...

A generation ago Lenny Bruce had this to say:
"if you notice,comics will do endless fag jokes,
but never dyke jokes, man.

You know why? Because dykes
will really punch the shit out of ya!

lt's really hard to spot dykes. Oh, yeah.

You know why? Because sometimes,
we're married to 'em."

Maybe Lenny insisted on wearing shorts?

M. Simon said...

Damn the dykes. Hit them with the torpedoes.

"Oh noes. Not the torpedoes. They are an affront to my sexual orientation. Couldn't I just have the tongues of flame?"

WV: subsom "On the other hand I'll do what ever you tell me to do."

M. Simon said...

Karl,

Maybe Lenny was just involved in Jewish foreplay. Two hours of begging followed by a denial.