Groundhog's Day Blizzard slams Racine

So, anyone thinking spring is coming early this year?

Heavy snow and strong winds pulled the Belle City last night and into the early morning as the much-anticipated blizzard hit home with reckless abandon. Just about everyone is home today, and those who ventured out are wishing they were home. Local police departments are reporting dozens of stranded motorists this morning. Some of those stranded are rescue workers themselves.

Reports suggest Racine took the brunt of the storm, pinned between the advancing cold front and 60 mph gusts off of Lake Michigan. We're hearing people report drifts 5-feet high outside of the garages and front doors. Waves on the lake reportedly hit 10+ feet.

Snow emergencies are declared everywhere, and if you're expecting anything to be open this morning, don't. The good news is the storm is expected to clear up by noon. We may even have some sun, but the winds are expected to continue with gusto and temperatures are forecast to drop to single digits tonight. No snow is forecast for the next few days.

Just to be cruel: it's 77 degrees in Miami today.

Slideshow from the western edge of the county.

Drifts buried cars throughout the city.

People opened their front doors to piles of snow this morning.

Plows hit the streets, but entrances like this one are still buried.

24 inches by 11 p.m. last night!

Plows were out Wednesday morning. A third plow followed these two.

Snow banks reached five feet along Racine streets.

The snow was quite beautiful.

Pretty much the view of the day.

The plowing begins ...

And the shoveling.

---

Get more Post! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Want to advertise? Learn how!

The power of Dooley

Wow. Fred Dooley is totally inside the heads of Racine Unified, the JT (and now apparently me too!). The Real Debate Wisconsin blogger has the district reviewing policies after he posted an anonymous (and unsubstantiated) complaint from a Unified parent upset about Barack Obama being included in a school text book.

The JT continues to follow on this story, reporting today the district will review how it selects textbooks and how it handles complaints about textbooks.

The JT story also notes that the district has yet to receive a complaint about the book. So let's review ...

1. Fred Dooley writes a post from an anonymous parent upset about excerpts from Barack Obama's autobiography in a middle school text book. He calls it "indoctrination."

2. The story spreads around to other blogs and media.

3. The JT reports Dooley's story claiming a parent complained about the book without talking to the parent (or even confirming they exist).

4. Unified will now review its textbook policies and how it handles the complaints.

5. The JT reports this review, while still noting no parent has complained to the district about the book.

6. Fred Dooley laughs and laughs and laughs.

Obama textbook is stupid, but inconsequential

Update 2: The JT's coverage of this is funny. Their headline right now reads, "Text book mentioning Obama angers parent." The problem is the reporter doesn't know that. Fred Dooley reported an anonymous parent's complaint about the book. The JT doesn't even go that far. The reporter simply reports the district's reaction to the story. From what we know, there is no public complaint about the textbook, except from Fred's website (and Fox News, other bloggers, etc.)

Update: The district has a well-reasoned response here. The gist: The text book includes excerpts from a contemporary minority leader who teachers hoped would connect with the remedial English students who use the book.

Original Post:

Fred over at Real Debate Wisconsin has been on us the past few days about excerpts from Barack Obama's autobiography and 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention in an eighth grade text book used in Racine Unified.

It's a great story, and Fred did a good job of reporting it on his site, Real Debate Wisconsin. The story has taken off around the Internet and I hope a few people are clicking on his blog ads along the way. We would have run the same story.

Here's why: It's so frickin' stupid. Who put together this text book? How could they not see what was going to happen? The poster on Fred's site notes that the head of the publishing company is an Obama supporter. That's fine, but using school text books for a political agenda is really, really dumb.

That said ... let's be realistic. This will only be an issue until Nov. 4. Obama will win or lose the election on that day, and at that point he's either: 1.) President of the United States, and certainly worthy of a text book; or 2.) The junior senator from Illinois who has a nice life story. In either case, the text book is fine. (And, since the profile starts on page 847, I highly doubt the classes will get to it first semester.)

It's also worth noting this is an eighth-grade text book. The students can't vote, and I highly doubt a text book will sway their parents. It's true the students could vote again in four years, but again, Obama's political career rests on more than the opinions of 18-year-olds.

So, in summary:

1. This is really, really stupid on the part of the publisher (and possibly the district ... did no one see this coming?)

2. It won't have any effect on the election.

3. The text books will be fine to use in a couple of weeks.

4. Congratulations to Fred for running a story that brings a lot of traffic to his website.