CONTENTS
SECOND TIME AROUND
STAFF
DISPLAY ADVERTISING Jillian Grupp Danielle Hanaford Max Nonnamaker Myla Rosenbloom Alissa Siegenthaler CLASSIFIED MANAGER Roshni Nedungadi CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING Anna Elsmo-Siebert Matt Preston ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Bryant Miller DISPLAY MANAGER Mitch Hawes EDITORIAL Carolyn Briggs Lin Weeks Mike Fiametta PHOTO Megan McCormick LAYOUT & DESIGN Eric Wiegmann Alex Laedtke
The Badgers take a new mentality to Pasadena for their second chance at a Rose Bowl win PAGE 14 WHO IS SEGWAY JEREMY RYAN? Getting to know the man on the Segway — hint: it may prove impossible PAGE 6 CHECK WWW.BADGERHERALD.COM FOR AN EXTENDED VERSION OF THIS STORY
DIVERSIONS
PAGE 4 Maze PAGE 8, 10, 12 Sudoku PAGE 13 Dot game
SHOUT OUTS page 11
CROSSWORD 72. Zip 73. Actor Montand
ACROSS 1. Political alliance 5. Sad to say 9. Admits nothing? 14. Computer list 15. Trumpet-shaped flower 16. British Columbia neighbor 17. Bawl 18. Cry of concurrence 19. Eminent 20. Start of a quip about parenthood 23. It generates a lot of interest 26. Work unit 27. It might make a ewe turn 28. Part two of the quip 32. Wind up 33. Unexciting 34. Derby sounds
38. Rabbit mothers 40. Wintry 42. Swamp substance 43. Use this to join the flow 46. Field delivery, sometimes 49. ___ king 50. Part three of the quip 53. ‘’Angela’s Ashes’’ sequel 56. Sentimental drivel 57. March reasons 58. End of the quip 62. Hymn of praise 63. Boat beam 64. Craving 68. Houyhnhnm’s creator 69. Joss, e.g. 70. Good spot for an editor to wind up a film 71. Rumormonger
DOWN 1. Upscale wheels 2. Appomattox figure 3. Something to grow on? 4. Valentine adornments 5. Future Hall-of-Famer 6. Property claim 7. Certain singer 8. Method 9. Maneuver cleverly 10. Commotions 11. Goat-legged deity 12. Fraternity letter 13. Sin city? 21. In a bind? 22. Ms. Brockovich 23. Set of beliefs 24. Rambled 25. Place to get down? 29. Where the successful go 30. You can count on them! 31. Pup’s bark 35. First and second, for two 36. Berry favored in Hollywood 37. Is a good dog, in a way 39. Drain 41. WWII group 44. Purplish 45. Grad’s gala 47. Ball to laugh at 48. Custard dessert 51. Earned 52. Divination 53. A bit crocked 54. Reverent 55. Pilsener holder 59. Sword handle 60. Change totally 61. One of the six inert gasses 65. Jesse Jackson, e.g. 66. ‘’Aw’’ follower 67. South African golfer
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THE STRANGE BALLAD OF
SEGWAY JEREMY He should be Madison's most inspirational figure. So why is Jeremy Ryan so hard to believe?
I’m hustling, but I can’t quite catch up to Jeremy Ryan. I’ve arrived early to his suggested meeting place before our interview, the first floor of Capitol Rotunda, next to the Constitution. But he’s on the move, rolling counterclockwise through the circular halls, away from the agreed place as I approach. He looks intently focused on something just in front of him, but then, that could just be because his mode of transportation moves when he leans forward; Ryan is, as always, on Segway. Like an absurd silent movie, I chase him around the marble corridors. For someone who’s repeatedly been labeled paranoid, he seems remarkably unconcerned about what’s behind him. THE STUDY GUIDE | 6
“There’s a group of about 20-30 occupying Bascom to fight budget cuts/NBP and supposed accompanying tuition hikes. CORRECTION: 2030 people and Jeremy Ryan, who I’m pretty sure is half man/half Segway.” -Me, in consecutive tweets, April 2011
Well, don’t I just feel like an asshole. It’s two days before my interview, and I’ve dug up a Channel 3000 article from June 2008. Actually, dug up is misleading; it’s the first result when you Google “Jeremy Ryan Segway.” The title of the article is “Anonymous Donor Gives Man Mobility: Segway Transporter Donated to Disabled Man.” Fast-forward 48 hours, and Ryan is
BY LIN WEEKS
explaining the nature of his disability in as much vivid detail as anyone could possibly hope for. As it turns out, that article understated the extent of his plight. Ryan tells me he has has Andersen-Tawil Syndrome, an extremely rare form of Long QT that’s associated with arrhythmia, periodic paralysis and physical abnormalities (which Ryan does not display). “The most cardiac arrests anyone’s ever survived is two. I’ve survived five,” he told me. He went on to explain his unique form of transportation. After the accidents, Ryan said, “I couldn’t do crutches because that’s too much adrenaline. Because with the heart condition, the cardiac arrhythmias are caused by too much adrenaline, so you can’t do. So what are you left with? You’re left with
a wheelchair, but if I did a wheelchair, I’d loose this leg as well, just due to atrophy. “ Hence the Segway. At 6-foot-3 and just 23 years old, it’s safe to say that Ryan’s height when standing on his Segway’s platform make him a highly visible figure at the State Capitol, even in large crowds. Also contributing to his visibility: his over twenty arrests, the laminated tickets for which he brought with him both times we spoke. Months after tens of thousands of people decided it was finally time to spend a weekend at home, to accept Gov. Scott Walker’s budget bill as a sad new reality or to at least bide their time until it was time for a recall, Jeremy Ryan continues to fight. “For me, it became about the First Amendment when I started realizing what infractions were taking place. And some of these policies are years old. The no filming in the galleries [rule] was created because someone got caught napping on their desk,” Ryan said. Ryan has been arrested dozens of times for actions he categorized as civil disobedience: standing in the Senate Gallery with signs or holding up a camera to film a part of the proceedings considered particularly troubling. Ryan told me he hopes onlookers will be able to separate arrests from actual wrongdoing. Ryan’s current job is running a political action committee called Defending Wisconsin that’s focused on gaining signatures in the effort to recall Governor Walker. He tells me that he doesn’t draw a salary from this. It makes for a strange juxtaposition with what I thought I understood about Ryan. The visibility he’s attained on Capitol Square has bred false familiarity, and now, despite his massive online presence, I feel like I’m learning a lot about him. Before we’re done talking, though, he’ll tell me a story involving cellphones, homelessness and The United Arab Emirates, and suddenly I’ll feel like I’ve learned nothing at all.
“My name is Jeremy Ryan and I am a 19 year old from Madison WI. On May 2nd 2007 I was involved in a car crash … A Segway would allow me to have my life back and be mobile again. I have little money. Due to the bills going delinquent because of the crash my credit was messed up and I get denied for everything. I would be willing to do a rent or lease to own. I can show 3 forms of ID to verify I am not a scammer. I’m just a regular joe looking for help to get my life back. -Ryan, in a Segwaychat.com forum, December 2007
Let me describe to you two men vying for your respect, your vote and your checkbook. The first is a political reactionary, an attention hound and a perpetual mooch. Witness Ryan’s blog postings on Addicting Info — in his latest, he finds an intentional grope by a conservative police officer where, via the video he evidences, none exists. In other posts, he’s just as inflammatory, blowing up seemingly innocuous situations in exactly the manner you might expect from a cable news personality or hacky talk show host. For Jeremy Ryan, a delayed school bus becomes evidence that Walker doesn’t care about school children. AT SIX FOOT THREE AND JUST 23 YEARS OLD, IT’S SAFE TO SAY THAT RYAN’S HEIGHT WHEN STANDING ON HIS SEGWAY’S PLATFORM MAKE HIM A HIGHLY VISIBLE FIGURE AT THE STATE CAPITOL, EVEN IN LARGE CROWDS. NOW, MONTHS AFTER THOSE CROWDS HAVE SUBSIDED, RYAN CONTINUES TO FIGHT.
The second man is a success story, one who rose from poverty to attain enormous financial success, then threw that life away for a cause he believed in. According to Ryan, his childhood was spent in extreme poverty and occasional homelessness. After graduating high school early, he moved to Madison at age 17 but lost his job at the Sitel Call Center. He found himself once again homeless, living in his car in the Woodman’s parking lot. Down to his last $50, he perused eBay and found a lot of used phones. “I was thinking, well, I don’t know anything about fixing cellphones, but I’m sure I can figure it out; I have all the time in the world,” he said. “ And I made $600 off that first $50 lot.” After several similar shipments, Jeremy told me, he received a call from a wireless provider in the United Arab Emirates who told him they’d been buying up his used fixed phones just to test his supply. The offered him a contract under which he’d buy American phones wholesale then sell them to an importer/ exporter for a penny per phone over his cost. But he sold off the company to pursue full-time activism, which landed him on the federal government’s no-fly list. As a result of acting on what he believes in, his money is trapped; he has no way to access his estimated millions of dollars in overseas accounts.
That’s the story of a man whose cause you might want to get behind. The problem: A story that strange needs independent evidence. And believe me, I asked. Time and time again, the only proof Ryan offered me for his story was his own word or his friends’ words or documents from his own computer. Between that and the grating public and online presence Ryan has cultivated, it’s the second man you’d hope exists, but it’s the first man that you keep seeing. Not everyone sees him this way. When I speak with Ben Manski, who made a serious independent run at representing Wisconsin’s 77th district in the October 2010 elections, he tells me that he sees no immediate reason to distrust Ryan. Then again, Ryan is hardly doing himself any favors. He’s proved perfectly willing to tell his story on every available platform, yet each of my requests for independent verification was met with an explanation of secrecy agreements and contracts that shouldn’t be broken and finally supplemented only with essentially unverifiable documents provided by Ryan that he insisted I not share. Maybe it’s jealousy: Here’s someone barely older than I am that’s already lived three lifetimes worth of interesting stories, who has overcome more hardship than I will probably ever encounter, and who quite clearly acts on the courage of his convictions in nearly every situation he’s faced with. Maybe my subconscious, and the subconscious of anyone doubting Ryan, is silently screaming: “You slacker! That could be you!” But that doesn’t seem right. Ryan’s story is one I want to believe; it’s one I wish he could verify, and it’s one that’s damn inspirational — movie material, Slumdog Millionaire stuff — if it’s true. But if the whisper of truth is there, it’s hard to hear over the megaphone of selfpromotion and exaggeration. So instead of believing, I simply don’t know.
Me: “So those are most of the political questions I had, but I just — Over the past week I’ve been trying to verify some of the stuff. And I think a lot of our views — I’m sympathetic to your story. I’d love to be able to tell it. But I’m worried from a credibility standpoint for the Herald and for myself about outside verification.” Ryan: “And I’m trying. Most of the people I know are under strict contracts. And that’s the thing with me, also. [Several minutes of discussions about ways he could confirm the story and reasons that he can’t]. Most people just — Most of the articles out there have said, I’m just telling my story.”
EXTENDED VERSION AT WWW.BADGERHERALD.COM
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SUDOKU
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SUDOKU
ASO to that moment when you’re just about to fall asleep and your tv goes into a monthly required test. It’s like an alarm clock but worse and I felt as though god laughed as I was jolted awake for nothing. Screw you cruel world! HSO to the guy sitting diagonally in front of me during our hist 426 lecture on thursday; you were drawing a portrait of our professor.... simply hilarious! it appeared like you were paying attention because you would glance up to look at the professor and then go back to drawing. on another note: DSO to professor shoemaker your continuous stream of jokes and random side comments keep me on my toes during the power lectures. SO to the graffiti poetry in HCW 2nd floor men’s bathroom a few semesters back: “As I sit here and contemplate/shall I shit or masturbate?” ASO to the glory holes in memorial. SO to them being too small for any activities. HSO to the 2 people who pranced across university on friday afternoon. so happy.
SO to the graffiti for keeping me entertained HSO to smiling. I just like to smiling. Smiling’s my favorite! ASO to the dude blaring nickelback through his headphones in the quiet section at college. Your singing along really adds to the picture. We’re not all staring at you because you’re a stud...turn thatshit down. SO to my boyfriend for purchasing rope and handcuffs. Do I like it rough? Yes, sir. HSO to Frank, Bing, and Dean. I couldn’t get through finals without you!!! SO to homework for giving me a chance to listen to the entire Phish discography. ASO to how much work that means I have been doing lately. SO to large red-brimmed hats and black boots. DSO to fulfilling my childhood dreams and finally finding Carmen Sandiego. She’s been roaming Park Street this whole time. Who knew...
SO to the thong on the sidewalk in front of the capitol.
Informative SO to any freshmen trying to lure in upperclassmen: Offer to buy them Nachos Plus. It’s really that simple.
ASO to feeling like a fucking animal in this Memorial Union cage as I prepare for finals.
SO to whoever left a brown package in the entrance to 333 East Campus Mall. It’s
been sitting on the table for weeks so I decided to open it. NFL XL Detroit Lions sweatshirt. Sorry I’m not sorry for returning it and getting a Packer sweatshirt! ASO to rejection. SO to drowning my sorrows in bacon. ASO to the girl at Urban Outfitters wearing an Oregon Ducks hat and a Wisconsin sweatshirt. Make up your fucking mind before someone beats you up. SO TO THE GREEN BAY PACKERS - making Wisconsin proud, one game at a time. SO to my roommates and I spending our Thursday night playing board games, listening to Pat Benatar, and ice skating afterward. DSO to the fact that we are all of the male gender. SO to the depraved, troubled, mildly attractive ecstasy dealer I’ll probably be sleeping with over winter break. ASO to badger gals for “having too much homework” to spend time with me. The hell is that? I bring you flowers, cook you dinner, learn your favorite songs on the piano, and you leave me with a loony drug harlot? Come on ladies. All I want is some consistency.
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SUDOKU
The dot Game
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2
ND
T H E ST U DY G U I D E | 1 4
TIME AROUND
“WE WANT TO GO OUT AND WIN A ROSE BOWL THIS YEAR, AND NOT JUST PLAY IN THE ROSE BOWL.”
B
radie Ewing was the first Wisconsin Badger to emerge from the Lucas Oil Stadium visitors’ locker room just about two weeks ago, more than happy to greet the horde of reporters awaiting
him. Ewing’s Badgers had just avenged one of the most harrowing moments of their wild season — a crushing last-second loss at Michigan State on Oct. 22 — in the first-ever Big Ten championship game over those very Spartans. The 42-39 victory had it all — the now-standard lightning-quick start by the Badgers, a second-quarter collapse that resulted in a halftime deficit and a riveting second half that culminated in a stone-cold then-undefeated, No. 1 Ohio State at Camp fourth-quarter gut check. Randall Stadium, with a ridiculously tough “It was pretty calm,” Ewing said of Wisupset of the Iowa Hawkeyes in Iowa City the consin’s locker room at halftime, when the next week. Then came the trip to Pasadena, Badgers trailed 29-21 despite jumping on where Wisconsin met the Texas Christian the Spartans in the first quarter with a 21-7 University Horned Frogs, a team that may lead. “We had been in that position before, have been better than anybody ever gave and guys weren’t flustered. We came out; them credit for. some different guys said stuff, coach [Bret TCU beat Wisconsin 21-19, and Madison Bielema] said stuff, some of the captains said was stunned. This was a fan base that had some things.” fallen in love with J.J. Watt’s charisma and Ewing, the team’s starting fullback and work ethic, the three-headed monster at one of this year’s four senior captains, is running back with one of UW’s John Clay, Montee best spokesmen. AFTER A SEASON DEFINED NOT Ball and James Growing up in BY STUNNING VICTORIES BUT White and the Richland Center, identity Bielema just about 90 BY TREMENDOUS CHALLENGES, had forged for the minutes from THE BADGERS RETURN TO program. Madison, Ewing PASADENA JAN. 2 GRATEFUL After a season briefly flirted defi ned not by stunwith basketball TO BE BACK AFTER THOSE ning victories but before walking TWO LATE-OCTOBER LOSSES by tremendous chalon to Bielema’s THAT SEEMED TO DOOM THEIR lenges, the Badgers squad. In the four return to Pasadena SEASON — BUT MAKE NO years since, very Jan. 2 grateful to be few people have MISTAKE, THEIR LONE GOAL IS back after those two been more apt to WINNING THE GAME. late-October losses discuss the state that seemed to doom of the program. their season — but make no mistake, their “It’s just all about taking it one play at a time and just going out there and executing,” lone goal is winning the game. “You dream of getting to play in one Rose Ewing said. “We were prepared [at halftime]; Bowl, let alone two or potentially more,” we knew what we had to do.” offensive lineman Travis Frederick said. “So Now that Wisconsin is Rose Bowl-bound for us to get a chance to play again — we for the second consecutive year, priorities want to go out and win a Rose Bowl this year, have shifted. Last year’s magical season and not just play in the Rose Bowl.” had moments like the riveting upset of
TOP Russell Wilson bites into his first rose as a Badger after a 42-39 win over the Spartans in the Big Ten Championship game.
BOTTOM Montee Ball takes one of his 22 carries in last year’s Rose Bowl against TCU. Ball rushed for 132 yards and one touchdown in UW’s first Rose Bowl in more than 10 years.
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