FINAL EDITION
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
In My Opinion
Comic frenzy
wasn’t funny
during 1950s
W
hen I was a kid, my moth-
er didn’t like that I read
comic books. I think it
was a Catholic thing. She said Su-
perman had no business possessing
powers only God should wield.
But it ran deeper than that. She
lived through the backlash against
comics of the 1940s and ’50s, cap-
tured in a new book titled “The
Ten-Cent Plague:
The Great Comic-
Book Scare and How
It Changed Ameri-
ca” by New York
author David Hajdu.
Comics of the
Jim time detoured from
Stingl heroes vs. bad guys
into “lurid stories of
The kids crime, vice, lust and
brought in horror,” Hajdu
546 comic wrote, and parents
books, which figured out their
were piled up kids were the target
audience.
and set afire The culture war
in the was on.
schoolyard. A Waukesha
County woman,
䡵‹ Ruth Lutwitzi, led
an anti-comic cru-
sade that Hajdu brings to life over
four pages of his book. The mother
of five from Stone Bank used her
leadership position with the local
American Legion Auxiliary to stir
up outrage in the rural community
in the mid-1950s.
Newspaper archives from the
time show she’s not the only one
around here who was worried. I
found stories saying Milwaukee
County’s district attorney, William
J. McCauley, pushed the County
Board to name a panel of literary
censors to stop the sale of trashy
comics.
Milwaukee Police Chief John
Polcyn declared that three out of
four comics peddled in the city
were unfit for kids because they
glorified criminals and depicted
gang warfare, bloodshed and sexy
characters.
Nationwide, murder and other
crimes were blamed on comic book
readers who got notions similar to
the ones blamed on video games
today. Racine jumped into the fray,
as did the Wisconsin Federation of
Women’s Clubs. Wisconsin Rapids
scheduled a bonfire and urged
children to bring sadistic and hor-
ror comics.
Ruth Lutwitzi ran a comic swap
at Stone Bank Elementary School
in 1955. For every 10 comics brought
to school, each student would re-
ceive a respectable book and a note
of praise from Lutwitzi saying
“those 10 books were like 10 ene-
mies who were trying to destroy
good American boys and girls.”
The kids brought in 546 comic
books, which were piled up and set
afire in the schoolyard.
I reached one teacher who was at
Stone Bank at the time, Milton
Babinec, now retired after 37 years
in the classroom. He understands
that people feared big-city smut
coming to town, but he wasn’t com-
fortable with book bans and bon-
fires. As a new teacher and a comic
reader himself growing up, he kept
that view to himself.
But two of Lutwitzi’s daughters
told me their mother was absolute-
ly in the right. They remember
those times and how shocking some
of the comic imagery had become.
“She was religious, but she
wasn’t a fanatic. She knew this was
wrong,” said Ruth Schlicher of
Watertown.
“It was the forerunner of all the
garbage that’s happening now,”
said Helen Miller of Texas, adding
that her late mother would be
proud to know she’s in Hajdu’s
book.
Comic book figures like Batman
still clean up at the cinema box
office. And I’d say from my visit
Friday to Collector’s Edge on Far-
well Ave. that comics — both in-
nocent and more graphic — are
alive and well. Need we worry
about the children? Put away your
matches.
“To tell you the truth,” said store
manager Matt Chicorel, “the aver-
age comic reader is like a 20- to
30-year-old guy.”
Call Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or e-mail him
at jstingl@journalsentinel.com.
METRO
Eugene Kane: It’s hard to watch careers end early. 3B
Feed me: Kids, parents team up in State Fair pizza-eating contest. 7B
Sheryl Crow: She knows herself, and it shows on stage. Encore/8B
PUBLIC INVESTIGATOR | TAKING TIPS, CHASING LEADS, SOLVING PROBLEMS
Highways left in the dark
Lights out on highways
Some major expressways in
Milwaukee County are dark after
shrunken state budgets left little
cash for replacing many
streetlights. I-794 and the Lake
Parkway had the highest outages,
with nearly 40% of lights burned
out. The lights are organized by
distribution centers that control
varying numbers of lights.
Highway lighting
distribution center
Lighting centers with no
data available because of
construction of the
Marquette Interchange
00 Percentage of lights out
N/A Data not available
BOB VEIERSTAHLER/rveierstahler@journalsentinel.com
Hit the hay
Early rising and long hours at the Wisconsin State Fair took a toll on Brett Peth, 10, of Ripon, who naps with his 5-
month-old Jersey calf in the Livestock Barn on Saturday.
History, anew
Historical Society’s textbook repackages
Wisconsin’s past for fourth-grade classes
By ERIN RICHARDS
erichards@journalsentinel.com
Bobbie Malone hates textbooks.
As an elementary school teach-
er in New Orleans and Texas, she
watched her students stumble
over the same dull passages year
after year, losing the main idea
from one page to the next. She hat-
ed the books’ unwieldy size and
the authors who seemed to talk
down to her students, or who
failed to acknowledge other view-
points.
So after getting her PhD in
American studies, taking a job
with the Wisconsin Historical So-
ciety as the director of school ser-
vices and editing a few of the soci-
ety’s Badger State history guides,
Malone created a comprehensive
state history that’s decidedly non-
textbook, in an accessible format
that would be at home on a coffee
table.
More than 220 classroom sets of
the new “Wisconsin: Our State,
Our Story” fourth-grade state his-
tory textbook have been pur-
chased by districts around the
state, including several in the Mil-
waukee area, and some of the ac-
Milwaukee
Miles
0 2
NORTH AVE.
43
WISCONSIN AVE.
94
N/A
N/A
27TH ST.
LINCOLN AVE. 37
23
OKLAHOMA AVE.
HOWELL AVE.
HOWARD AVE.
94
894
LAYTON AVE.
companying guides ha-
ven’t even finished print-
ing yet.
Those involved expect that
as other districts come due for
textbook adoption in the coming
years, the book from the Wiscon-
sin Historical Society will become
the pre-eminent state history
guide for elementary students.
“From a fourth-grade teacher’s
perspective, this is the best text-
book we’ve ever had,” said John
Hallagan, a teacher at Magee Ele-
mentary in Genesee Depot.
The reason? It teaches content
— good stories, people, places,
maps, facts — and encourages
critical thinking.
“That’s a significant improve-
ment over how history is usually
taught,” said Hallagan, who criti-
cizes the method of teaching that
relies on having kids memorize
dates and sequence facts.
It doesn’t look or feel like an old-
fashioned textbook. It’s wider
than it is tall, and its pages are
filled with bright maps, photos,
letters and artifacts from the His-
Please see HISTORY, 6B
Years of low funds hurt ability to repair lamps
By ELLEN GABLER
egabler@journalsentinel.com
Nearly four out of every 10 streetlights
along I-794 and the Lake Parkway are
burned out, leaving motorists to drive
without the guidance of that familiar or-
ange glow spilling down from above as
they cruise the expressway late at night.
The patches of darkness aren’t unique
to I-794 and the parkway. Years of shrunk-
47 en state budgets have left little cash for re-
794 placing the tall lights that line highways
N/A and interstates, the Public Investigator
Team found.
61 The state’s Transportation Depart-
ment is trying to fix the problem after re-
794 ceiving more funding this year. But in the
35
meantime, some of the most traveled
N/A stretches of road in Milwaukee County
32 are dark. Consider:
䡵 23% of lights are burned out along
26
I-94 between I-794 and state Highway 100.
52 䡵 21% of lights along U.S. Highway 45
from I-94 to Good Hope Road are dark.
䡵 19% of lights on I-43 through the
county are out.
JACK ORTON / JORTON@JOURNALSENTINEL.COM
The Wisconsin history textbook
encourages students to think
critically.
POP QUIZ:
STATE HISTORY
1. What natural resource led
people to Wisconsin in the early
1800s?
a. lead
b. coal
c. gold
d. timber
2. Which of these Native Ameri-
can tribes did not inhabit Wis-
consin and lose its land to the
white settlers?
a. Ojibwe
b. Menominee
c. Mesquakie
d. Neshkoree
Answers on page 6B
JSOnline.com/milwaukee
Sunday
August 10, 2008
B
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PRIORITY AREAS INCLUDE
䡵 I-794 and State Highway 794 (Lake Parkway)
䡵 I-94 between the Zoo and Marquette in-
terchanges
䡵 U.S. 45 north of the Zoo Interchange
䡵 U.S. 41/Stadium North Freeway
䡵 I-43 in northern Milwaukee County
Public Investigator tallied the outages
— about 550 lights — using maps and fig-
ures collected by the state in its weekly
“lamp patrol.” That’s when a worker
counts the number of burned-out lights
along the highway as a way to prioritize
maintenance.
The numbers represent the most recent
estimates available from a mid-July re-
port. It’s a snapshot of outages, as crews
are constantly working to fix lights while
other lights continue to burn out. The da-
ta also doesn’t include Marquette Inter-
change construction areas.
State transportation officials acknowl-
Please see LIGHTS, 6B
No Quarter
Old pol
faces
fresh
scrutiny
T
here is something very famil-
iar about this whole thing.
Mark Block, the conserva-
tive operative who was once
banned from Wisconsin politics for
three years, is under the micro-
scope again.
And just like 11 years ago, the
investigation is focusing on a last-
minute mailing in a highly compet-
itive Supreme Court
race.
Does this feel like
déjà vu all over
again?
“A little bit,”
Block said last
Daniel week. “But now I
Bice don’t do anything
Staffers with without legal coun-
the new state sel.” Sources say staff-
Government ers with the new
Account- Government Ac-
ability Board countability Board
have subpoenaed
have
records from Ameri-
subpoenaed cans for Prosperity —
records from a fiscally conserva-
Americans tive, pro-business
for Prosperity outfit run by Block
— as part of their
over a March probe into a March
mailing in 25 mass mailing.
the Supreme
Court race. letter
The two-page
from Block
encouraged people
䡵
‹ to vote for conserva-
tive challenger
Michael Gableman instead of Su-
preme Court Justice Louis Butler.
Gableman eked out a victory in the
April 1 contest.
“If (Butler) is defeated, a tradi-
tionalist majority is likely to re-
emerge on the Supreme Court,”
states the letter, which Block pro-
vided. “Polling has found this race
to be very close. Your vote is crit-
ical.”
In determining the legality of the
March mailing, the state appears
to be focusing on whether the
group sent the letters to its mem-
bers only — or to a wider audience.
The distinction could make a huge
difference in who could pay for the
mass mailing, what could be said
in the letter and what must be
disclosed publicly about it.
The lawyer for Americans for
Prosperity said he expects the
group to be cleared by the probe.
“We’re cooperating with the
board,” said Michael Dean. “We’ve
provided them with information
they didn’t have when the review
Please see NO QUARTER, 2B
6B Sunday, August 10, 2008
From page 1
LIGHTS
Many
highway
lights dark
edge the lack of lighting and
say that the problem snow-
balled the past three or four
years after budgets for state
lighting projects shrunk or
were wiped out completely.
Since 2004, less than
$200,000 has been available
for lighting projects in Mil-
waukee County, so the state
fell behind in replacing
lights. In 2006, the budget was
cut entirely. The state had
been meeting its mark of re-
placing lights every four
years until 2005.
“When we have a limited
budget, [we] need to make de-
cisions about where the mon-
ey goes,” said Andrew Dirks,
electrical operations super-
visor for the state. “Is light-
ing more important than
snowplowing? Is it more im-
portant than salt?
Many motorists, however,
feel that the lighting is cru-
cial to safe driving. Several
people have contacted Public
Investigator over the past
few months asking us to look
into the problem.
“What if you have an 18-
year-old daughter who has a
breakdown in one of these
dark zones?” asked an exas-
perated Jay Sorensen, a
Shorewood resident who said
WHERE
Time Warner customer service
line for Internet, (414) 277-
4000, and asked to “down-
grade” our service.
TIME CALLED
Friday, 11:27 a.m.
From page 1
HISTORY
Textbook
poses
questions
torical Society. Color-coded
terms are defined at the bot-
tom of each page, along with
BLOW THE
WHISTLE
Do you have a tip
for the P.I. Team? We’re
all ears.
EMAIL TIPS TO:
PI@journalsentinel.com
Ellen Gabler
egabler@journalsentinel.com
(414) 224-2742
Raquel Rutledge
rrutledge@
journalsentinel.com
(414) 224-2778
JSOnline.com
Visit our blog
and story archive at
www.jsonline.com/pi
he first noticed the burned
out lights one night in Febru-
ary as he drove home from
the airport.
The Milwaukee County
Sheriff ’s Department said
there hasn’t been an increase
in accidents because of the
lack of lighting, but the state
plans to fix the problem any-
way.
This year, DOT has allocat-
ed nearly $400,000 for lighting
projects. That money will go
to replace about 2,900 lights
in Milwaukee County by the
end of this year, Dirks said.
Transportation officials
said certain areas of roadway
are fixed immediately if
there are burnouts. Lights
along the Hoan Bridge, for ex-
ample, are almost all lit.
Those that are waiting to
be replaced are about a year
or two overdue, Dirks said.
Lights are usually replaced
TIME REAL PERSON
CAME ON THE
PHONE
11:37 a.m.
TOTAL WAIT
10 minutes
their phonetic pronuncia-
tions. And it’s filled with sto-
ries about people — both fa-
mous and unknown — who
settled in all parts of Wiscon-
sin, not just Milwaukee and
Madison. The book also high-
lights areas in the state to vis-
it and more resources to
read.
Then, the critical thinking.
The first chapter begins by
asking students to think like
historians, a theme contin-
ued through the book with
questions serving as each
page’s sub-headline:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
NITTY GRITTY
Years of shrunken state budgets
have left little cash for replacing
the tall lights that line highways
and interstates in Milwaukee
County. The state is trying to
catch up, but in the meantime,
many of the well-traveled ex-
pressways are dark.
about every four years and
then maintained in between
if they break or malfunction
because of weather or an ac-
cident.
The state contracts with
Milwaukee County to do that
maintenance — like fixing
circuit problems and blown
fuses — and has been able to
keep the funding steady at
about $200,000 to $300,000 an-
nually.
Transportation officials
say fixing the lights isn’t as
simple as changing a light
bulb.
If the base of a light is dam-
aged, for example, lanes on
the highway might need to be
closed. That has to be coordi-
nated with a traffic opera-
tions center, Dirks said.
A majority of the lights
should be replaced and light-
ed “by the time the snow flies
for sure,” said Dennis New-
ton, a field supervisor for
DOT.
But Sorensen, one of the
people who complained to
Public Investigator, said he
doesn’t buy it.
“Why has it taken four
years? Why did it get out of
control in the first place?” he
said. “If we can’t trust them
to change lousy light bulbs,
how can we trust them to
keep our bridges safe?”
Check out
www.jsonline
.com/pi for a
full list of
Tick Tocks
ANSWERS
1. a; 2. d
“What Indian People lived
here when explorers ar-
rived?”
“Why did the U.S. govern-
ment build military forts at
Prairie du Chien, at Green
Bay, and at Portage?”
“How has our use of natu-
ral resources changed over
the years?”
Malone said the goal was to
get kids to make connections
and to evaluate information
by asking why, how, and most
importantly, “how do you
know?”
Staff at the state Historical
Society started tossing
around the idea of writing
their own textbook about
four years ago to provide an
option beyond what two na-
tional publishers offered.
A required subject
In line with state require-
ments, just about every stu-
dent in Wisconsin studies
state history in fourth or fifth
grade, but the Wisconsin De-
partment of Public Instruc-
tion doesn’t mandate which
textbook teachers use. That
left the door open to produce
something better, said Kathy
Borkowski, director of the
Wisconsin State Historical
Society Press.
“We kept hearing from
teachers that they wanted a
core history textbook,” Bor-
kowski said. “The national
providers had books that
were sort of set up the same
way for every state, but some
(history) categories that
made sense for states such as
Nebraska or Georgia didn’t
have much relevance in Wis-
consin.”
Malone, who co-authored
the book with Kori Oberle,
said that her guiding princi-
ple was to simply take every-
thing she hated about text-
books and “not do one like
that.”
Muskego-Norway School
Board member Mark Waltz
noticed the difference when
the board recently approved
purchasing enough class sets
for all fourth-grade teachers
in the district. The sets sell
for about $1,250, including the
teacher and activity guides
and access to the online re-
sources.
“I want one for my home,”
Waltz said. “As the world gets
bigger, it’s nice to be remind-
ed that we have roots here. I
think local bookstores would
be well-served by having this
available for purchase.”
Until then, single copies of
the book can be ordered for
$49.95 by calling (800) 621-
2736.