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Monthly Archives: November 2008

Daily Bread

Daily Bread: November 11, 2008

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Good morning, Whitewater

There is one municipal public meeting scheduled in City of Whitewater today. At 6:30 p.m. the Common Council will meet at the municipal building, and possible future site of Whitewater’s available online.

The National Weather Service predicts that today offer a ‘wintry mix,’ with a high of 41 degrees. The Farmers’ Almanac ends a multi-day series with a prediction of “Wet over the Great Lakes, then Fair and Cold” weather. That seems a backwards prediction, but I’ll not judge these silly planners fine prognosticators in advance

Yesterday’s better prediction: NWS.

In our schools today, there’s a 6:30 p.m. PATT meeting at Washington School, a book fair continuing at Lakeview School, and a PTO meeting at Lincoln School.

In Wisconsin History on this date, in 1964, the Wisconsin Historical Society reports theRolling Stones first played Milwaukee:

On this date the Rolling Stones first performed in Wisconsin, to a crowd of 1,274 fans at Milwaukee Auditorium. Although Brian Jones remained in a Chicago hospital with a high fever, the rest of the band performed. According to a dubious reporter for the Milwaukee Journal, “Chances are, few in the audience missed his [Jones’] wailing harmonica. Screams from a thousand throats drowned out all but the most insistent electronic cacaphony and the two-fisted smashes of drummer Charlie Watts.” The reporter continued, “Unless someone teaches guitar chords to chimpanzees, the visual ultimate has been reached in the Rolling Stones. With shoulder length hair and high heeled boots, they seemed more feminine than their fans. The Stones make the Beatles look like clean cut kids. You think it must be some kind of parody – but the little girls in front paid $5.50 a seat.”

Orange Salamander

The Orange Salamander Thus Far

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The Orange Salamander describes a small-town mystery, but ‘small-town mystery’ is as conventional as the story’s description gets. If you mixed a hard-boiled crime story with a cyberpunk novel, and asked a non-writer to write it, The Orange Salamander is what you might get.

The sound of waves crashing against the beach repeats every 42 seconds. Less than a minute and a seagull squawks again.

I could measure time easily if the pattern repeated every 60 seconds. Instead: 42, 84, 126. Two minutes gone. Forever.

I reach up, turn off the machine. Without ocean sounds, I can’t sleep. Is my conscience heavy? No, I’m just masking the sounds of town.

No ocean nearby. No seagulls. Just students, dogs, drunks. I like the first two, tolerate the third. It’s my sensitive side.

Millhaven: rural college town, miles from the big city. Locals, immigrants, newcomers, students. Four towns: unshaken, unstirred.

I live downtown, above the Agneau Grille, a Tunisian restaurant. Tasty lamb requires no passport.

Restaurants, bars, small shops behind aging facades. Banners welcoming returning students, faded flyers in windows.

Outside, cool autumn air. Cigarette butts on sidewalk – tokens of indifference, rebellion. I smile, lighting a Lucky Strike.

A fat man walks by, eyeing a bakery’s cherry pie. The bakers are brothers, nicknamed the Pie Men. They do everything together.

A scone and a cup of kona to go. Real kona, but Hawaiian means something else to the Pie Men, Ronnie and Donnie. They seem almost sober.

How are you, Ronnie asks. We saw Sophie. Ex-wife number two, back on campus after sabbatical. His way of warning me. Thanks.

The mayor walks in. Our first mayor, first term. Gray hair, gray suit, blue tie, blue blood of Millhaven’s hue. Pale blue, watercolor.

The mayor glances dismissively my way. He opposed the office, ran when we adopted it, will rely on apathy to hold it. Not a bad bet.

Part-time mayor, full-time defender of convention, tradition, propriety. Private club manners, if the club’s small, decaying, dull.

We’re a town without left or right – incumbency is the only political party. Get office, justify conduct, keep office. Our way, since forever.

People drift to work, starting early to end early. Local notables pass outside, the mayor leaves, to make Millhaven more orderly

Lyons, the university president for a decade, passes – a smug and subtle cheerleader Does what town fathers ask Considers student silence golden

Phil Bartram, city planning consultant, here a year, seems longer Thinks a half-Windsor’s a short arisocrat Crush on Felicia the MBA

Felicia the MBA, of the college-city-business task force We’ve a task force for every issue incumbents won’t tackle Say, 8 or 9, minimum

City workers hang a banner across Main Street with Millhaven’s logo and a new slogan: We’ll Make Our Way Your Way – Just You Wait!

Last real danger was two years ago, ending in capture and commitment of Loretta a.k.a. ‘Lottie the Psycho’ Only caught after confession on live TV

Since Lottie, garden variety crime and administrative mediocrity are enjoying an extended run before packed houses each night

Felicia the MBA: friends with ex-wife #2, still cordial Smart, hard-working, clever What we’d like to be if we stopped insisting we already were

Elderly Betty Crockman walks by Called Betty Crock o’ for her b.s. Sure she hears God’s voice in her own humble opinions

I step inside Felicia’s office She looks concerned Have you ever seen something like this? she asks, as she pushes a small metal case toward me

Small pewter box, unmarked Inside: orange plastic salamander & note, folded in thirds

The note: ‘Walk Swim More Talk Write More Never a Chore’ Notebook paper, cut unevenly, folded awkwardly

Odd handwriting in blue ink Confident, bold Spoof? Mental patient? Politician? All possibilities

Felicia asks me what it means I don’t know Unusual acquaintances? Anyone/anything different? She stares back at me

Salamander left at her office door this morning I take the items, head to my place to ponder The Clergyman drives past

Clergyman: If gossip were Doctrine, he’d be a bishop Scurries for info like a pigeon for breadcrumbs, hoping for bits to drop

My apt: bdrm, lr, den books computer dog-crap DSL connection parrot named Ludwig Scandinavian austerity

All my ex-wives use Microsoft – justification for annulment Only Apple here No crashes OS X boots fast, Safari ready

Search of note’s message – nothing but Irrelevant, Unlikely Google, deep web nothing Lyrics? Poem? Stoner talk? Why now? Why Felicia?

Note’s meaning? Walk, Swim More – salamanders walk & swim, what more? Orange ones live in Midwest, in forest streams

‘Talk Write More’ What’s more? Read, publish, photograph, film? Handwriting’s bold, in blue ink

Toy salamander’s made in China, like toys, textiles, government corruption, dissidents People’s Republic mass produces everything

Notebook paper, cut from a composition book, wide ruled Pewter box has no other contents

Library visit: small, modern, expanding A book on salamanders, few on amphibians On the shelf, a book not listed online: Salamanders and You

Unlisted salamander book: page 12, in margin, bold blue marker: ‘Not old books, but new pages, form the plan’

2 Millhaven clues: salamander & note, marginalia in library book. Plan, plot, mystery.

If a plan, then a planner. Phil the city consultant? Crush on Felicia the MBA. Time for a visit.

Phil’s office: shambles, papers everywhere, wrapper from yesterday’s egg salad on rye, half-eaten pickle, gum, few scattered trading cards

Phil’s books: dictionary, directory, Time, Newsweek, Government’s Your Co-Pilot, Zoning for Social Control, Pride in Planning, Farmers’ Almanac

Could Phil the planner have left the salamander with Felicia? I scan his office – no hint of nature-loving in him.

Will you be at the community meeting? Phil asks Yes, I reply Felicia will coordinate it, I observe Phil looks up, about to speak

Small-talk with Phil. Nothing unusual about him, unless one correctly concludes that planning others’ lives is unusual

He’s downcast, and volunteers that Felicia hasn’t returned his voicemail from last week

No one ever hears from Phil, he has a poor feel for the community, and the one person he calls doesn’t know he’s alive

I wonder: What is it with all the screwball weirdos in this town sending each other salamanders and ill-timed birthday cards?

In other places, people see ghosts, or werewolves, or Bigfoot Not a single extraterrestrial – it’s 100% terrestrial weirdness in Millhaven

Outside, I see the Millhaven police chief’s latest energy-saver: a three-wheeled cart powered by a human cyclist, like an old ice cream cart

Police carts debuted last month Uniformed officers, horn, lights & message banner: Community policing – We’re green to save you green

Millhaven’s four towns: locals, students, immigrants, newcomers Immigrants are newcomers, but some locals see a distinction

Immigrants came as migrant workers, now stay as factory laborers Over 10% of town, but official statistics undercount

Who’d come to America to send a toy salamander? Weirdness like this is homegrown, isn’t it?

Students, locals, newcomers? How about a campus visit, to see if someone there might have a message for Felicia? Administration first.

Lyons has been college president for years Dislikes student activism Attends any local society party

Felicia’s smart, assertive, industrious – too much of these for Lyons’s taste, whose favorite person stares back from a mirror

Baxter, the Director of Administrative Direction? Unlikely – no one ever sees him, or knows what he does

Jane Crowton, the Director of Counseling, famous for the ‘Words Hurt’ campaign for speech restrictions on campus? Maybe

I’ll visit the anti-speech Jane Crowton – who hates me since I pointed out she was a narrow scold – to see what she might say

Counseling Director Crowton’s at her desk, proposed new speech code -HUSH – Help the University Silence Hate – before her

Crowton’s examples of hate speech – Racism, Sexism, Capitalism, Masculinism, Growthism, Meatism, Petroleumism, Expressionism, Individualism

She’s no ordinary progressive – Jane Crowton’s a defender of all things status quo in Millhaven as they were, are, and must always be

Crowton serves on city committees, runs interference for appointees and entrenched incumbents, justifies municipal policy at every turn

Crowton looks at me as though I were something the cat brought in – What do you want? So I ask: Ever send anyone a toy salamander?

Uncategorized

The Half Million

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Looking at electoral returns, the Libertarian Party received just over a half million votes nationwide.

The LP was not on the ballot in every state (mid 40s of 50), and has rarely received this many votes nationally.

Far from expectations, of course.

Wait a few years, though, when big government looks less desirable, and these half million may have been a beginning only.

Bush did half the damage to big government’s reputation with big government conservatism; Democrats will finish the damage with big government liberalism.

The near future will offer opportunities for libertarian alternatives.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread: November 10, 2008

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Good morning, Whitewater

There are three municipal public meetings scheduled in City of Whitewater for Monday. At 4:30 p.m. the CDA Business park Marketing Committee meets at the municipal building. At 5:30 p.m., the Park & Recreation Board meets in the municipal building, and at 6:30 p.m. the Irvin Young Library Board meets at the library.

The National Weather Service forecast predicts that today will be sunny — or becoming sunny – with a high of 38. The Farmers’ Almanac is in the middle of a multi-day series with a prediction of “Wet over the Great Lakes, then Fair and Cold” weather.

Last week’s better prediction: NWS. The FA has never been more accurate for a whole week’s time, since I have been comparing the two.

In our schools today, there’s a fall book fair at Lakeview School.

In Wisconsin History on this date, in 1862, the Wisconsin Historical Society reports that there was a Draft Riot:

On this date angry citizens protesting a War Department order for 300,000 additional troops, rioted in Port Washington, Ozaukee County. As county draft commissioner William A. Pors drew the first name, cannon fire resounded and a mob of over 1,000 angry citizens wielding clubs and bricks and carrying banners scrawled with the words “No Draft!” marched through the streets. The mob stormed the city destroying buildings, setting fires, and gutting the interior of homes and shops. Troops were brought in the next day to quell the violence. The Ozaukee rioters were captured and remained prisoners at Camp Randall for about a year before they were finally released. In all, more than a half-dozen homes were damaged and dozens of citizens were injured.

Draft riots took place in other parts of the country, perhaps the most notable being New York City, as depicted at the time:

Then and now, just another reason to favor a volunteer army. See, for example, Milton Friedman, “Why Not a Volunteer Army?”

Coming Attractions for the Week:

Here are some posts coming this week, in the approximate order of arrival during the week (with other posts — unlisted — likely, too).

  • Orange Salamander Thus Far
  • Register Watch™ for October 23rd
    [correction: should read November 6]
  • Register Watch™ for October 30th
  • Democrats and a Smoking Ban for Wisconsin
  • Common Council Meeting for 10/21
  • Common Council Meeting for 11/6
  • Police and Fire Commission Meeting for 8/20 — Why they really are the worst public body in the city, overseeing the worst leaders in the city
  • On the Constitutional lawsuit against Larry Meyer

Uncategorized

And You Thought Obama Won…

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From the Onion, America’s Finest News Source, one finds election results I’ve yet seen reported elsewhere.


Voting Machines Elect One Of Their Own As President

For more on electronic voting systems, in a serious way, see HBO’s Hacking Democracy. (The documentary contends, I recall, that optical scanners of paper ballots such as those used in Wisconsin have a higher error rate than other electronic systems, but I do not know the source for the contention.) more >>

Libertarians

ACLU’s Actions for Restoring America: Day One

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Limited government is good government. The ACLU’s efforts to limit government power, power that often denies rights of oversight, have been useful for America.

At the ACLU’s website, there’s a program entitled, “Actions for Restoring America,” listing steps a new federal administration can take on its first day, within 100 days, and beyond.

Here are their sound suggestions for the first day:

STOP TORTURE, CLOSE GUANTANAMO, END EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS

The next president will have a historic opportunity — on day one — to take very important steps to restore the rule of law in the interrogation and detention of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, and in secret prisons around the globe. Every action taken pursuant to an executive order of President Bush can be reversed by executive order of the next president.

Therefore, on the first day in office, the next president should issue an executive order directing all agencies to modify their policies and practices immediately to:

Cease and prohibit the use of torture and abuse, without exception, and direct the Attorney General immediately after his or her confirmation to appoint an outside special counsel to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute any violations of federal criminal laws prohibiting torture and abuse;

Close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and either charge and try detainees under criminal law in federal criminal courts or before military courts-martial or transfer them to countries where they will not be tortured or detained without charge;

Cease and prohibit the practice of extraordinary rendition, which is the transfer of persons, outside of the judicial process, to other countries, including countries that torture or abuse prisoners.

STOP TORTURE AND ABUSE

The next president should issue an executive order, on the first day in office, that orders all agencies to take immediate steps to ensure that torture and abuse is prohibited by the federal government, that no agency may use any practice not authorized by the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogations, that no president or any other person may order or authorize torture or abuse, that all violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions are prohibited, that all persons being held overseas must be registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross in conformity with Defense Department practices, and that all intelligence interrogations must be video recorded.

In addition, the president should order all agencies to comply with requests from Members of Congress for unredacted copies of documents related to the development and implementation of U.S. interrogation policies. The president should also ask the U. S. Attorney General to appoint an outside special counsel to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute any violations of federal criminal laws prohibiting torture and abuse – focusing not just on crimes committed in the field, but also on crimes committed by civilians, of any position, in authorizing or ordering torture or abuse. Finally, the president should order the immediate closure of all secret prisons, and prohibit the CIA and its contractors from detaining anyone.

CLOSE GUANTANAMO AND RESTORE THE RULE OF LAW FOR DETAINEES

On the first day in office, the president should order the shutdown of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and restoration of the rule of law for the detainees now held there. Specifically, the president should order the prompt shutdown of the detention facility, the transfer of any prisoners charged with a crime to a facility within the continental United States for trial in a federal criminal court or before a military court-martial, and the transfer of all uncharged detainees to countries where they will not be abused or imprisoned without charge.

END AND PROHIBIT THE PRACTICE OF EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION

The president should order all agencies, on the first day in office, to end and prohibit any rendition or transfer of any person to another country without judicial process. The president should prohibit the rendition or transfer of any person to another country where there is a reasonable possibility the person would be subject to torture or abuse or detained without charge. Any person subject to any transfer shall have a due process right to challenge any transfer before an independent adjudicator, with a right to a judicial appeal.

In each instance, the executive order should by its terms rescind any conflicting previous order – none of which have been made public and remain secret to this day.

Good recommendations, all.

Uncategorized

The Cold Arrogance of a Former Elite

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In the film The Good Shepherd, about the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency, there’s an exchange between an Italian American and a patrician WASP.


Joseph Palmi: Let me ask you something… we Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland, Jews their tradition… What about you people … what do you have?

Edward Wilson: The United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting.

Such is the view of all elites, disappearing only when they disappear, through the dynamism, or by contrast the decay, of their societies.

Note: There’s no implication to local society in this message; those who first settled Whitewater were not a patrician class. On the contrary, they were vulgar. It was only later that the descendants of those who settled here developed a false sense of class entitlement. more >>

Music, Uncategorized

The Who: Won’t Get Fooled Again

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The Who may not be my favorite band, but here’s a clip of them performing Won’t Get Fooled Again, about the limits of polltical change — a very satisfying song —



We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that’s all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain’t changed
‘Cause the banners, they all flown in the next war

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
No, no!

I’ll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I’ll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?

There’s nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss more >>

Libertarians

Contrasting Barr and Nader on Obama’s Victory

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Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr had this to say about Obama’s election victory:

It just illustrates the tremendous demographic changes, generational changes in this country. This really is a very different country, in some ways much better country, than it was several years ago.

Grandstanding septuagenarian crackpot independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader had a different prespective on Obama’s victory:

His choice, basically, is whether he’s going to be Uncle Sam for the people of this country, or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations.

Nader’s run for president quite a few times, and, it’s now evident, at least once too often. I am confident in declaring that one-hundred percent of the voters who supported Nader were Grade-A jackasses.

Libertarians

Remembering Marshall Fritz, Defender of Liberty

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You may not have heard of Marshall Fritz, who passed away in California this week after a battle with pancreatic cancer, aged 65. Fritz was no ordinary Californian, or American — he was a proud member of the libertarian movement, having fought for its principles for over three decades decades since coming up from liberalism.

Fritz was author of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz, a measurement of political affiliation well-known, if not its author. (I posted the on the Quiz in August.)

Fritz was far more — he ran for Congress, fought to preserve a space for private education in a nation with a vast public-school lobby, was a scholar of comparative theology, traveler, and devoted parent.

A fine tribute to Fritz’s school-reform efforts may be found at “Marshall Fritz, R.I.P.:
Remembering one of the most devoted and principled school reformers of all time.”

He will be greatly missed. Others will carry on more easily having felt his encouraging influence.

Economy, Free Markets, Libertarians

Reason.tv: Economist Lee Ohanian Explains the “Bailout Puzzle”

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Note 1: Ohanian and colleague Harold Cole calculated in 2004 that “FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years,” as announced in a UCLA press release.

Note 2: The actual study — not a press release — is considerable. Although the University of Chicago’s online version of the Journal of Political Economy is a subscription-only journal, the full text of the Ohanian-Cole study is available through BadgerLink, a hyperlink available on the website of the Irvin Young Memorial Library. Full Study Title: “New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Analysis.” (It’s an academic study, but accessible to any audience, and well worth reading.)