Earlier this week I received an email from Ken Funck, a Wisconsin author who contributes annually to the Baseball Prospectus season preview guide and website. Ken emailed me about a new writing project he’s been working on: the “Greetings From Fitzwalkerstan 2016 Weekly Calendar.” The calendar features a different quote from Walker or a crony each week, alongside a conflicting quote that underscores the hypocrisy of the first quote, along with a snarky “Did you know” factoid that hints at what liars they all are.
When I reached out to Ken to find out more about why he decided to put together the Greetings From Fitzwalkerstan 2016 Weekly Calendar, here’s what he said.
I first had the idea for a calendar back in 2011 during the Act 10 protests. Every day there seemed to be a new quote from the administration that was almost unbelievably disingenuous and infuriating, and I joked with friends about how one could easily make a full quote-of-the-day calendar out of those statements. I was too busy to actually work on it, however, and the moment passed. However, there was one event this spring that forced me to get off the sidelines and finally act.
When Governor Walker spoke at CPAC and equated standing up to the Act 10 protesters to standing up to Islamic terrorism, then refused to apologize for it and blamed the media for misconstruing what he said, it struck a nerve. I actually e-mailed the Office of the Governor website asking for an apology to my teenage daughter who had attended the protests, knowing of course that I wouldn’t get one but hoping it would at least make me feel better for having asked. Instead, I received an auto-reply that commended me for participating in state government, and assured me that the governor takes into account the views of all the citizens of Wisconsin. The hypocrisy of that message, sent to me just hours after Walker had clearly shown that he considered citizens with views he didn’t share participating in state government as a threat to be confronted, was for me the final straw. I felt compelled to point out that hypocrisy, and so many others, to as many people as possible, and that quote and e-mail became the first entry in the calendar.
After that, the calendar pretty much wrote itself, and very quickly. The main challenges were limiting the number of quotes to include, since there were so many to choose from, and trying to find the correct humorous tone while still providing useful information. Now that Walker is running for president, it’s important for voters to remember his record and his statements over the last five years, and the calendar provides a useful and entertaining reference in a form that voters can carry around with them or keep at their desk. It’s printed in Wisconsin, and if I actually make a meager profit from this I’ve pledged to spend every penny of it on goods and services (not all of it craft beer and fish fry) here in the state in order to help boost Wisconsin’s lagging economy.
If you’d like to buy a Greetings From Fitzwalkerstan 2016 Weekly Calendar, Ken is selling them online at his website, and he’ll also have a booth at Fighting Bob Fest.
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