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Monthly Archives: September 2009

Daily Bread

Daily Bread: September 22, 2009

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Good morning, Whitewater

There was, at one time, a listening session scheduled on the upcoming city budget, to be held at Fairhaven Retirement Community. (It doesn’t appear, as of this post, on the City of Whitewater’s website calendar, or in the list of Common Council agendas. Mention of it appeared in the latest City Manager’s weekly report. If canceled, the city might have made notice of the cancellation, rather than simply omitting the entry.)

Update: 11:34 AM – There is a listening session scheduled for tonight, although it was missing from the city calendar earlier this morning. The more listening truly matters, the more prominent the notice of it – on the City of Whitewater website – should be. A large-font link in bold on the main page of the City’s website would not be too small.

On this day in 1862, following the Battle of Antietam, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation on this date, and a final version on January 1, 1863.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States, and each of the States, and the people thereof, in which States that relation is, or may be, suspended or disturbed.

That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave States, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States and which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent, or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the Governments existing there, will be continued.

That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

That the executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States, and part of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof shall, on that day be, in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto, at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.

That attention is hereby called to an Act of Congress entitled “An Act to make an additional Article of War” approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words and figure following:

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of the army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such:

“Article-All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.

“Sec.2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from and after its passage.”
Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled “An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes,” approved July 17, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures following:

“Sec.9. And be it further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found on (or) being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude and not again held as slaves.

“Sec.10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service.”

And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act, and sections above recited.
And the executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States, and their respective States, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

[Signed:] Abraham Lincoln
By the President [Signed:] William H. Seward
Secretary of State

Here’s today’s almanac:

Almanac
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 Sunrise Sunset
Official Time 06:41 AM 06:52 PM
Civil Twilight 06:13 AM 07:20 PM
Tomorrow 06:43 AM 06:50 PM
Tomorrow will be: 4 minutes shorter
Amount of sunlight: 12h 11 m
Amount of daylight: 13h 7 m
Moon phase: Waxing Crescent

more >>

Uncategorized

George Orwell and H.G. Wells

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Today marks the birthday of the British writer, H.G. Wells. Like so many others, I grew up reading Wells’s science fiction, with War of the Worlds as my favorite. It’s still one of my favorite stories. To commemorate his birth, Google added a small picture (that they call a ‘doodle’) based on War of the Worlds. It shows Martian tripods menacing an English village, perhaps not far from the Martians’ first landing at Horsell Common. It’s a kind gesture.

Here’s the doodle:

Later, in my early twenties, I stumbled upon an essay from George Orwell, entitled, “Wells, Hitler and the World State.” In the essay, Orwell takes on Wells’s unrealistic view of the Nazi threat. (A pdf link to the essay is available from Google Scholar.)

That’s right — even in 1941, after the Third Reich had subjected all Europe to savage conquest and murder, Wells still deprecated the Nazi threat:

In March or April, say the wiseacres, there is to be a stupendous knockout blow at Britain… . What Hitler has to do it with, I can- not imagine. His ebbing and dispersed military resources are now probably not so very much greater than the Italians’ before they were put to the test in Greece and Africa.

The German air power has been largely spent. It is behind the times and its first-rate men are mostly dead or disheartened or worn out.

In 1914 the Hohenzollern army was the best in the world. Behind that screaming little defective in Berlin there is nothing of the sort… . Yet our military ‘experts’ discuss the waiting phantom. In their imaginations it is perfect in its equipment and invincible in discipline. Sometimes it is to strike a decisive ‘blow’ through Spain and North Africa and on, or march through the Balkans, march from the Danube to Ankara, to Persia, to India, or ‘crush Russia’, or ‘pour’ over the Brenner into Italy. The weeks pass and the phantom does none of these things—for one excellent reason. It does not exist to that extent. Most of such inadequate guns and munitions as it possessed must have been taken away from it and fooled away in Hitler’s silly feints to invade Britain. And its raw jerry-built discipline is wilting under the creeping realisation that the Blitzkrieg is spent, and the war is coming home to roost.

Wells was a pacifist, and as one can see from his remarks, he looked upon Hitler in 1941 as a fading threat.

Orwell, not nearly so famous at the time, saw the foolishness in Wells’s remarks, and was willing to say as much:

All sensible men for decades past have been substantially in agreement with what Mr Wells says; but the sensible men have no power and, in too many cases, no disposition to sacrifice themselves. Hitler is a criminal lunatic, and Hitler has an army of millions of men, aeroplanes in thousands, tanks in tens of thousands. For his sake a great nation has been willing to overwork itself for six years and then to fight for two years more, whereas for the commonsense, essentially hedonistic world-view which Mr Wells puts forward, hardly a human creature is willing to shed a pint of blood.

Before you can even talk of world reconstruction, or even of peace, you have got to eliminate Hitler, which means bringing into being a dynamic not necessarily the same as that of the Nazis, but probably quite as unacceptable to “enlightened” and hedonistic people…..

Hitler is all the war-lords and witchdoctors in history rolled into one. Therefore, argues Wells, he is an absurdity, a ghost from the past, a creature doomed to disappear almost immediately. But unfortunately the equation of science with common sense does not really hold good. The aeroplane, which was looked forward to as a civilising influence but in practice has hardly been used except for dropping bombs, is the symbol of that fact. Modern Germany is far more scientific than England, and far more barbarous. Much of what Wells has imagined and worked for is physically there in Nazi Germany. The order, the planning, the State encouragement of science, the steel, the concrete, the aeroplanes, are all there, but all in the service of ideas appropriate to the Stone Age. Science is fighting on the side of superstition….

I’m a libertarian, and with all like-minded Americans, I would very much prefer a world of liberty, free exchange in capital and labor, and peace with other nations. We have a right to live this way. I doubt very much, though, that any of these things will endure in America without vigilance.

We face no deadly threat in this beautiful state, so far from danger abroad. We are fortunate in a way of which Europeans in 1941 could only dream.

We need only conserve what we have, and assure its free and natural evolution.

There will be any number of people who’ll ask you to trust them, rely on their opinions, accept that they have others’ best intentions at heart. That, ultimately, they know better than you, because they’re so kind, evolved, enlightened, etc. They may describe themselves as they wish. When they say it, though, I am sometimes reminded of men like Wells, so right about everything except what threatened everything.

I very much enjoy Wells’s stories, as much as I did when I was a boy. For judgment, though, in politics or international affairs, I would readily choose Orwell’s instincts over Wells’s.

City, Press

Wisconsin State Journal: “Alcohol Company Rep Arrested for OWI, Other Charges After Allegedly Running Over Officer’s Foot”

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One hears a great deal about how much trouble alcohol causes. In Whitewater, I’ve heard more than once that alcohol causes raucous behavior. (There’s much that’s ridiculous about the excuse that alcohol makes people do stupid things. No matter, let’s assume, for now, that alcohol is the root of the problem.)

If it should be true that alcohol causes bad behavior, then one should expect to read more often about allegations like these, from Madison:

A 21-year-old Madison motorist was tentatively charged by three police agencies for an incident after the Badger football game Saturday in which she tried to drive through the crowd near Camp Randall Stadium and ran over the foot of a Wisconsin State Patrol trooper working traffic control.

Nicole Yung Sil Becker, 21, Madison, was eventually found inside an area bar where she reportedly was working as a representative for an alcohol company, Madison police said.

Madison police said two Wisconsin State Patrol troopers were working crowd control at Little and Monroe streets as pedestrians and vehicles were trying to leave the stadium area.

Police said Becker began excessively honking her horn. “She was trying to pull through a red light attempting to weave her Hyundai between pedestrians and vehicles that were blocking her way,” Madison police said.

One of the troopers tried to calm her down, and she made an indecent hand gesture, police said. Becker started arguing
with the other trooper, then accelerated her car, struck one trooper’s knee and ran over the foot of the other trooper, the report said.

Becker drove away, but a short time later, a third trooper spotted her car in a parking lot near the UW Police Department.
Madison police arrested Becker for second-degree recklessly endangering safety, disorderly conduct, failure to obey an officer’s signal, hit and run-injury, violating a red traffic signal, and unnecessary blowing of her horn.

The State Patrol arrested Becker for resisting arrest, and UW police arrested her for operating while intoxicated causing injury.

These are allegations only, but if she did even half of these things, then I have no sympathy for her. Alcohol didn’t make her risk injury to others, and herself. It takes a particularly revolting sort of person to do these things. (Imagine the alleged scene — vulgar, drunk woman injures others, only to have her getaway car discovered parked nearby.)

The Wisconsin State Journal likely printed the story, though, not because the allegations are common, but rather because they’re uncommon. Most people, including people who drink, don’t do the things that Becker’s accused of doing.

The allegations are outrageous, for a combination of disregard for others’ safety, disregard for one’s own well-being, and the apparent stupidity of the accused. They’re also newsworthy because, fortunately, most people drink moderately without any risk to themselves or others.

Postscript: Whitewater’s Chief Coan, and others, may dislike drinking, but their case is not helped by complaints about ‘raucous’ behavior. The word, itself, sounds too hysterical to ordinary people. It sounds too fearful, too worried, too fussy, etc. Its use is one of the many examples of how Whitewater’s bureaucrats fail at public relations. Almost any term would be more persuasive: risky, irresponsible, destructive … Credit where credit is due, though — I think these gentlemen really do think this way; there’s a candor in their expression of these narrow, pinched views.

Public Meetings

Whitewater Municipal Budget Listening Session

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“The Whitewater League of Women Voters will co-host a listening session with the City of Whitewater on Tuesday evening, September 29th, from 6:00PM-8:00PM in the Cravath Lakefront Community Center. After a brief presentation on issues related to the 2009-2010 budget, city staff and council members will be present to address citizen concerns and questions. Please attend and bring a friend or neighbor. We are all stakeholders in the life and future of our community.” ~ Whitewater-Area League of Women Voters Newsletter, September 2009

Public Meetings

Fairhaven Lecture Series: “The Spillover Benefit of Student Housing on Property Values and Tax Revenues in Whitewater.”

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“The Spillover Benefit of Student Housing on Property Values and Tax Revenues in Whitewater.” Russ Kashian, Associate Professor, Department of Economics

All lectures are open to the public at no charge on Mondays at 3 p.m. at the Fellowship Hall, located at the Fairhaven, 435 West Starin Road, Whitewater, WI 53190. Sponsored by the UW- Whitewater Office of Continuing Ed. The Fall 2009 Series will look at various aspects of our global, U.S., and local economies.

Public Meetings

Fairhaven Lecture Series: “Why Prices are Good, Trade is the Same as Technology, and Other Fun Things in Economics.”

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“Why Prices are Good, Trade is the Same as Technology, and Other Fun Things in Economics.” David Welsch, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics

All lectures are open to the public at no charge on Mondays at 3 p.m. at the Fellowship Hall, located at the Fairhaven, 435 West Starin Road, Whitewater, WI 53190. Sponsored by the UW- Whitewater Office of Continuing Ed. The Fall 2009 Series will look at various aspects of our global, U.S., and local economies.

Public Meetings

Fairhaven Lecture Series: “What Happened to the Greatest Companies on Earth?”

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“What Happened to the Greatest Companies on Earth?” Nikki Mandell, Associate Professor, Department of History

All lectures are open to the public at no charge on Mondays at 3 p.m. at the Fellowship Hall, located at the Fairhaven, 435 West Starin Road, Whitewater, WI 53190. Sponsored by the UW- Whitewater Office of Continuing Ed. The Fall 2009 Series will look at various aspects of our global, U.S., and local economies.

Press Release

Walworth County Genealogical Society: Upcoming Events

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I received the following press release from the Walworth County Genealogical Society about two upcoming meetings, in September and October.

The Walworth County Genealogical Society will meet Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 7:00 PM, at the Community Centre, 826 E. Geneva Street, Delavan.

The speaker will be R. Gray Betzer, director and owner of Betzer Funeral Home, Delavan. He will speak about the information compiled by funeral home directors such as death records, burial records, obituaries and monument inscriptions, plus interesting stories connected with funerals and memorial services.

Three generations the family have been involved in the funeral business. Sterling Emmett Betzer, a Harvard, Illinois native, first opening a funeral home at the present site of the American Legion Building on Second Street in Delavan in 1934. He was joined by his son, Robert Sterling Betzer, who later purchased the interests of the Lackey and Liddle Funeral Home. At that time, in 1942, he became a partner of Henry O’Brien at the present location of the funeral home. Robert Betzer became sole owner in 1961.

Robert’s son, R. Gray Betzer, joined the business in 1969 and has carried on the family business.

The Betzer Funeral Home was built in 1909 by John Holland, noted circus performer, and the 100th anniversary is being marked this year.

Of interest to genealogists, Robert S. Betzer documented his family tree and was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Society of Colonial Wars. One of his Ridley ancestors is buried near the Patriot Paul Revere in the Old Granary Burial Grounds, Boston, Massachusetts.

The public is invited to the monthly meetings of the Genealogical Society and everyone will find the talk by R. Gray Betzer covers the more serious side of funeral arrangements along with the unexpected lighter moments.

The Walworth Genealogical Society and the Burlington Genealogical Society will be co-sponsoring a Family History on Saturday, September 26, at the Faith Christian School, Hwy 67, Williams Bay. The event is open to the public

For additional information, please call the Genealogical Society Vice President at 275-2426.

Press

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Taxpayers Paid to Send Treasurer to Conferences

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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been covering the public expenses of Wisconsin State Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass. In a story posted yesterday, entitled “Taxpayers Paid to Send Treasurer to Conferences,” the Journal Sentinel catches Sass lying about the cost of her out-of-state trips.

From the story:

Madison — Taxpayers spent nearly $5,500 to send state Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass to attend out-of-state conferences over 22 months despite her claim that the travel was privately funded.

Sass told the Journal Sentinel two weeks ago that the National Association of State Treasurers paid for the entire cost of her trips to the group’s conferences. But records released under the state open records law show the group paid just $3,898 of $9,367 in bills for Sass. Taxpayers picked up the remaining $5,469.

In a Sept. 4 interview, Sass said taxpayers sometimes paid for her staff to travel to conferences but that all of her expenses were covered by the association.

Asked if taxpayers had ever paid for her travel to the conferences, she said: “No, never. It never has. I’m one of the most fiscally responsible treasurers there are. I take the subway with my suitcase from the airports. I walk to the (U.S.) Capitol … because I didn’t want to spend money on a cab. I am very responsible.”

In response to the story, Sass told the Journal Sentinel — via email! — that “she did not recall saying she never billed taxpayers for travel and noted other state officials travel on the state dime. Her note said she was a frugal traveler.”

There will likely be more to this story. Records for a more recent out-of-state trip have not been released, her office has a huge backlog of claims for property yet uncompleted, and she’s promised to be working on that backlog herself.

The story is interesting beyond Sass’s troubles.

First, it shows how a politician in trouble — expenses controversy, poor management, backlog of work – will simply lie. Sass must have known that the Journal Sentinel could request state records of her office.

Second, it raises another question — in cities and towns, under controversy, will local officials be tempted to provide legally incomplete or inadequate responses to an Public Records request, in the hope that a matter will go away? In Sass’s case, she likely thought lying might make a public controversy go away. In public matters not yet so well-known, might a bureaucrat simply decide to provide less than our law requires? (It’s a law, Wisconsin Public Records Law, 19.31-19.39, not a courtesy.)

Third, on a visit to the Journal Sentinel website, the following description of the JS website greets visitors, at the top of visitors’ web browsers: “Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Breaking news, sports, business, watchdog journalism, multimedia.”

It’s the fourth of those five items that will help keep the Journal Sentinel relevant and valuable.

Music

Music Monday: Norman Borlaug Rap

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Norman Borlaug, American agronomist and Nobel Laureate, passed away last week, aged ninety-five. Borlaug’s contributions to agriculture led to a Green Revolution, enabling countless millions to be fed, who otherwise would have starved. These efforts also refuted doomsday contentions that humanity could not feed itself; Borlaug’s dedication and genius trumped pessimism and anti-growth pronouncements. For more on Borlaug’s work, see “Billions Served,” and “Father of Green Revolution Dies.”

Humanity’s answer wasn’t fewer people; it was more food. Borlaug provided that answer, and has inspired others to continue his work.

Here’s a video biography of Borlaug:

A man so accomplished would have students and fellow researchers who loved him. So much, that they composed a rap song for him, in celebration of his accomplishments. To my knowledge, he’s the only Nobel Laureate with a song composed in his honor. And if not the only, then surely the finest.

For music Monday, here’s a link to the Norman Borlaug rap, with lyrics below.

Norman Borlaug Rap (Thank You Norman)

The Norman Borlaug Rap (Thank You, Norman)

I don’t know what you been told
about farming and food in days of old,
but listen and take this to the bank:
If there’s food in your tummy then you’d better thank

N-O-R-M-A-N
Norman Borlaug, thank you, man

Straight out of Iowa Norman came,
then traveled the world, saw suffering and pain.
Millions of people were starving, yo
in Pakistan, India, Mexico.
But just a few years after Norman came,
they all had bumper crops of grain.

Norman found the great solution,
known as the Green Revolution.
Billions of people are alive today
because of work done by the man named

Norman

CHORUS:

Norman Borlaug, you may be
the greatest man in history.
Using science and your brain
to stamp out hunger, woe and pain.

Creating new varieties
of plants with new technologies.
You’re the man we look up to.
That is why we’re thanking you.

But then some people started to panic,
telling the farmers to go organic.
Technophobes started making a mess
of Norman Borlaug’s great success.

Green groups thought they found the cure
in stinky piles of cow manure,
telling their governments not to send
fertilizer aid to our African friends.

So Norman came back to defend
high-yield agriculture with his friend,
Jimmy Carter, ex-president,
to help all the African residents.

CHORUS

Norman and Jimmy hopped in a plane
to help the Africans grow more grain.
Soon the men were able to triple
corn yields that the Greens had crippled.

Feeding the planet is his game
and yet he does not have much fame.
Got the highest scientific acclaim,
and now you better know his name is

Norman

And he’s still working in the fields,
helping the farmers increase their yields.
With fertilizer, water and better plant breeding
he’s making sure that farmers are feeding
children and their families
with corn and rice, cassava and peas.
The man has saved so many lives.
That’s why they gave the Nobel Prize to

Norman

If you don’t know, You better ask somebody
About Norman
Norman Borlaug
Father of the Green Revolution
Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity

CHORUS more >>

Economy

The Overwhelming Case for Free Trade

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In the post immediately before this one, I posted an editorial cartoon from Lisa Benson criticizing the federal administration’s decision to impose a tariff on Chinese tires. It’s a foolish decision — the tires are made more inexpensively than alternatives, and save consumers money.

The case for free trade — free and unrestricted markets across borders, is overwhelming.

Over at Cato@Liberty, Daniel Griswold has a post entitled, “A Super-Majority of Economists Agree: Trade Barriers Should Go,” that describes clear support for free trade among economists.

Here’s an excerpt:

Based on questionnaires returned by more than 100 members [of the American Economic Association], all with Ph.D.s in economics, the survey’s author, Robert Whaples, reports:

The economics profession continues to show a consensus in favor of unfettered international trade, as 83 percent agree and only 10 percent disagree that the United States should eliminate remaining tariffs and other barriers.

Other issues in which the economists reached a strong consensus:

82 percent disagreed that the U.S. government should ban genetically modified crops; only 7 percent agreed.

78 percent agreed that U.S.-government subsidies for ethanol should be eliminated or reduced, compared to 10 percent who want them increased….

72 percent disagree with the proposition that “Employers in the U.S. should be required to provide health insurance to ALL their employees”; 20 percent agreed….