You’ve lived it, now write about it! Everybody has a story to tell and this class will get you started or keep you writing. Practice with framing a story, catching a reader’s attention, building tension, and being truthful in a non-threatening way.
We’ll discuss and demonstrate ways to enrich your writing, including the use of similes, metaphors, and dialogue. Learn how to put your ideas, experiences and memories into print. Bring a notebook and a pen and one of your stories (if you have one) to get started.
Your facilitator is Lynn Greene, an award-winning journalist, who was recently recognized with a national award for best feature writing. This class will culminate with a celebration and reading of our work (date and location to be announced).
There is one public meeting scheduled for the City of Whitewater today, a meeting of the Irvin Young Memorial Library board, at 6:30 p.m. The agenda is available online.
There are no public meetings scheduled for the City of Whitewater today. You have a clear path to the weekend…
It’s a sad day today, but a happy one in commemoration, also — Wiredreports that on this day in 1999, “Aaron S. “Bunny” Lapin, the inventor of pressure-can whipped cream, dies at age 85.” Here’s the scoop story:
Lapin started out as a clothing salesman, but saw some opportunity during World War II food rationing, when heavy cream for whipping was hard to get. He mixed light cream and vegetable oil to concoct Sta-Whip as a suitable substitute.
He also devised a refillable aerating gun for commercial use by bakeries and restaurants. This he called the Fount-Wip, and he was on the road to gastronomic greatness.
But Lapin knew that everyday homemakers needed something a little easier to use than the clumsy, messy Fount-Wip….
He put good, old-fashioned, postwar real cream (no more need for the vegetable oil) into the new aerosol cans. Then he enlisted delivery milkmen (remember them?) to sell it in his hometown of St. Louis. He called the stuff Reddi-wip….
Time magazine in 1998 selected Reddi-wip in its cream-of-the crop roundup of the 20th century’s top 100 consumer items, right up there with color TV, the home dishwasher, the paper clip, the pop-top can and Spam (the food, of course).
Impressive American ingenuity — just one of the many, many reasons to love America.
It was a relatively brief Common Council meeting on Tuesday, July 7th. About a half-hour into the meeting, as at last session, the Common Council considered changes to Whitewater’s regulations affecting sidewalk cafés for some establishments near the Cravath lakefront.
I wrote about that meeting in a post entitled, Whitewater, Wisconsin’s Café Scene”. Removal of these restrictions was sound, and hardly a threat to community order:
It’s odd to listen to the discussion, because so much of it sounds like so much of Whitewater — overly-regulatory, with objections based on supposedly raucous behavior, but without a willingness to discuss how to manage or prevent that behavior (should it occur), short of prohibition. Prohibition is the dumbing down of policy, the lazy man’s way to try to prevent a problem, all the while ignoring the other problems prohibition causes.
Last session, there were two proposed changes to the ordinance: (1) remove a requirement that establishments with café have a minimum of 30% food sales to be eligible to operate a café, and (2) that the required plans for the cafés — the arrangement of tables, etc. — be simpler, less elaborate.
The proposed amendments — including eliminating any food requirement — passed first reading, on a vote of 6-1. Now, one session later, on a second reading, the Common Council brought back a 20% food requirement, on a 6-1 vote in favor.
Only one vote stayed the same between both sessions. Why the change? One cannot answer to behind the scenes lobbying.
There may have been none — the longer I write about Whitewater the more ineffectual I find efforts to persuade between sessions.
There were, however, two principal reasons, stated in Council, in support of the change to bring back a food sales requirement — on the question in, part, of whether this would be a café or a bar ordinance? It’s funny — too funny, really — that for the brief time the cafés will be open, it really matters to our local politicians how much alcohol, as against food sales, an establishment has.
Is there any claim — supported by any proof, whatever — that the 20% food requirement will provide for our safety where no requirement would not? Of course not — there’s nothing to support this percentage, as a prof of safety — except the insisetence that there should be food, ust has to be, for safety, propriety, semantics, whatever.
Semantics — hard to imagine how really stupid that justification is — rationalism so narrow it’s irrational. It’s a café ordinance, not a bar ordinance — as though a café cannot serve drinks alone, or nearly so.
Did you know, by the way, that God spelled backwards is Dog? It’s true! Yet, knowing it, what diffrence would it possibly make to your theology? The same questions of being, of existence, will still await you. (If, however, the transposition of these letters changes your views, then I’m afraid you’ve no views worth changing, in any event.)
No one doubts that Council can swing from view to view, from reading to reading — it’s wholly lawful. It’s laughable, though, and without a serious basis (what did Council really learn on July 7th that it did not know before, on June 16th?).
But here we are, with the requirement back in. May I ask (I’m merely being polite to soothe the sensibilities of the City Manager, of course I may ask!) where’s the administration in all this?
Did not the City Manager, just last session, want the removal of the food requirement? I watched those proceedings, from mid-June, and I very much thought that he did. Here’s what he said, on June 16th, in favor of no food requirement, and eased planning requirements:
….We just want to, we want to make it a little easier for these permits to be gained….
That’s my transcription, as I was able to hear the audio. See and hear for yourself, though, at about 35 minutes into the recording:
So, where was Kevin Brunner on July 7th? Not literally, of course — he was in the room. Yet, he made no remarks, that I heard, in support of the removal of restrictions that he advanced only a few weeks ago.
No one, having watched our local administration, should be surprised.
It might as well be theater, and bad theater, at that. more >>
The federal stimulus – countless billions for almost everything – is supposed to stimulate something, after all. It’s not only slow in arriving, but reaches less needy communities, and is often used as a budget fill-in rather than a true catalyst.
The Government Accounting Office audit is available at Recovery Act: States’ and Localities’ Current and Planned Uses of Funds While Facing Fiscal Stresses.
In Wisconsin history on this date, the first, but perhaps not last, time someone in Wisconsin considered himself a king:
1850 – James Jesse Strang Crowned King
On this date James Jesse Strang, leader of the estranged Mormon faction, the Strangites, was crowned king; the only man to achieve such a title in America. When founder Joseph Smith was assassinated, Strang forged a letter from Smith dictating he was to be the heir. The Mormon movement split into followers of Strang and followers of Brigham Young.
As he gained more followers (but never nearly as many as Brigham Young), Strang became comparable to a Saint, and in 1850 was crowned King James in a ceremony in which he wore a discarded red robe of a Shakespearean actor, and a metal crown studded with a cluster of stars as his followers sang him hosannas. Soon after his crowning, he announced that Mormonism embraced and supported polygamy. (Young’s faction was known to have practiced polygamy, but had not at this time announced it publicly.)
A number of followers lived in Walworth County, including Strang at a home in Burlington. In 1856 Strang was himself assassinated, leaving five wives. Without Strang’s leadership, his movement disintegrated.
[Source: Wisconsin Saints and Sinners, by Fred L. Holmes, p. 106-121]
I posted yesterday on Governor Doyle’s failure to comply with state travel expense policies. The State Journal correctly observes that “Everyone else has to carefully document their business travel expenses. So should Wisconsin’s governor.”
Until then, he’s free to try Whitewater’s failed political culture of double standards, excuse-making, and blame-shifting.
Whitewater’s Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 p.m. The agenda is available online.
In Wisconsin history on this date, the Wisconsin Historical Society reports on military action near Whitewater, during the Black Hawk War:
1832 – Black Hawk War Encampment in Palmyra
On this date during the Black Hawk War, General Atkinson led his entire militia, which included future Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Zachary Taylor, to a camp just south of Palmyra. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers, edited by Sarah Davis McBride]
I have no confidence that France’s version of the stimulus will produce productive, long-term gains for France. America’s won’t do the same for America, either.
At least France’s spending will actually take place timely to the supposed goal of simulating the economy now.
Even a year from now, much of America’s spending may not be, actually, spent.
We’re trying to attract new businesses and residents to Whitewater. How about our sitting governor, Jim Doyle, who shows an appreciation of double standards that would make him a perfect fit for the stodgy town squires of Whitewater, Wisconsin?
Over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there are the results of a fine investigative report detailing the many deficiencies and shoddy accounting of Governor Doyle’s travel expenses. The report, entitled “Doyle’s travel reports deficient: Documentation lacking 145 times over two years,” details how often our governor has failed to comply with state-employee travel requirements. Often, indeed.
Here’s just an except from the investigation:
Madison — Gov. Jim Doyle and his staff failed to properly account for 145 travel expenses over two years, including a $5,200 business-class flight to Ireland and a $654-a-night stay in a London hotel. Nearly three-fourths of the time in 2007 and 2008, Doyle and his staff didn’t supply receipts as required under state travel policy.
By comparison, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and her staff didn’t provide receipts one-third of the time during the same period….
State policy requires employees to provide receipts for purchases made with their state-issued credit cards for flights, hotels and other expenses. That documentation was often missing from hundreds of pages of Doyle’s travel records obtained under the state’s open records law….
Doyle’s travel records were reviewed by a group of reporters and student journalists as part of a joint project involving the Journal Sentinel, a University of Wisconsin-Madison investigative reporting class and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.
Among expenses that weren’t properly documented was a business-class ticket to Ireland for Doyle in April 2008 that cost $5,226 round trip. An accompanying coach-class ticket for Goodwin cost $830. They made the trip to Ireland and England to meet with the head of SABMiller about the merger of Miller Brewing and Coors and to discuss policy issues with government officials.
The travel policy requires state employees to purchase the lowest appropriate airfare, which is described as coach fare. More expensive charges require written justification, but that wasn’t provided for Doyle’s trip to Ireland.
What makes Whitewater, Wisconsin perfect for Governor Doyle?
Consider the response of one of his aides, Chief of Staff Susan Goodwin, to the investigative report:
Asked if the governor would change how he tracks travel expenses, Goodwin said, “Absolutely not, absolutely not…. We will not limit his role or chain him down and not allow him to fulfill his duties as governor.”
One rule for Doyle, one for everyone else.
Perfect for Whitewater! Doyle may be new to this approach, but we’ve had double-standard in Whitewater long before the Doyle Administration.
I’d bet we could even teach Doyle a thing or two about favors and excuses for a few, and strict standards for everyone else. Doyle’s encroaching on the territory of a few hundred self-important Whitewater locals who think that Destiny herself called them to the higher purpose of making up their own roles, rules, and regulations.
There’s an excuse, interpretation, nuance, rationalization for the calcified, self-important few who walk about like sultans; for others, it’s strict compliance, all the way through.
We thought of it first, for goodness’ sake! City Manager Brunner’s Where’s Whitewater? location effort is nothing compared to the gains we could make attracting new, energetic hypocrites to Whitewater.
There are likely thousands of people across Wisconsin, insisting on double standards for themselves, deeply disliked in their own towns, who will fit right in with us.
If anything, Doyle will take years to catch up to our local standards of hypocrisy.
No time to start better than right now, right here.
The State Journal has a story on how cities in Dane County and beyond are considering furloughing workers to make up shortfalls, likely to be far worse come budget planning in the fall.
Whitewater’s not mentioned, but is there’s little doubt that our local administration’s strategy of public spending, local government aegis, and marketing will prove futile and detrimental in the year ahead.
