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Monthly Archives: February 2012

City

Whitewater’s 2.7.12 Common Council Meeting

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Update: links fixed.

Whitewater’s Common Council met last night, and here are assorted observations on the meeting.

Scads of Objectives. Whitewater’s city manager lists 133 major city objectives, of which 85.7% were ‘completed or achieved.’ What should one say? It would have been better to achieve a few meaningful goals, than to list over a hundred, many of them routine.

There’s a false precision to all this, using a percentage (87.5%!) as though NASA were calculating odds on achieving a flight trajectory, or even the CIA assessing the risk of unrest in rural China.

There are a few, simple facts that matter; the rest is diversion and distraction.

The city’s poorer than it was at the beginning of City Manager Brunner’s administration — that’s one truth that really matters. (See, Whitewater’s Decade of Child Poverty.)

Whitewater’s Downtown. When I first started writing (2007), I wasn’t sure what would happen to our downtown. Even after a Great Recession, many downtown merchants (and other areas of the city with determined, plucky merchants) have survived. That’s no small thing — that’s a fine accomplishment, especially as underlying citywide conditions have been so difficult.

The presentation of the downtown’s annual report reflects a quiet confidence that comes through resilience and perseverance — clear, direct, succinct, informative. (Solid supporting materials are available in the Common Council documents posted online.)

A solid presentation doesn’t always suggest a solid product, but in this case it really does. There’s reason to be optimistic on this front.

Tourism. Tourism’s a captive of a town’s politics, culture, economy – people go to hip and fun destinations. Allow the town to grow organically, and she’ll develop a vibrant culture interesting and attractive to others. Fuss over everything, prohibit many things, inhibit many more, and we’ll not attract people. We’ll satisfy a few people who are here, at the expense of many more already here, and at the cost of newcomers so valuable to growth. (Along these lines, see How to Make Whitewater Hip and Prosperous.)

Memorandum of Understanding. There was an odd moment during the meeting when Council reviewed a memorandum of understanding between parties (including the city) on Whitewater’s Tech Park and Innovation Center. It’s odd and sad, as a play on words: there’s been no real understanding of good policy in this.

One of the leading players talked about the memorandum in response to questions from another, as though they had created something other than a wasteful shell of a project.

Millions in public funds and debt for something that only Babbitt or Gatsby could admire.

Fences, Preserves. Here in this city, there is an archaeological preserve of Native American effigy mounds, created long before European settlement. The mounds are close to a housing development, and some homeowners’ fences run across the preserve. These homeowners may not have known their fences ran across the boundaries of the preserve (especially since original fence lines were themselves older than some on the current homeowners).

Whatever the case, and despite the considerable acrimony involved, Whitewater’s city government should be able to manage the preserve and protect the mounds well enough. Whitewater’s misfortune — self-inflicted — is that even simple tasks take forever, and come with fussing and fighting along the way.

[Note, 2.10.2012: These remarks do not imply a lack of prior obligation of the city. Rather, whatever has transpired, the city should be able to handle these obligations, if it should handle anything at all. At the same time, the Landmarks Commission’s role and importance to the city remains as it was.]

Lawn Grass, Prairie Grass. Connected to the discussion of the archaeological preserve was talk about the kinds of plants within it. They’ll be prairie grasses, as one might expect for a preserve.

We’re a rural community, and it’s puzzling that there’s confusion about mowing lawn grass as against prairie grass (or conventional lawns, natural lawns, and weeds, for that matter).

It’s not as though people here grew up in a concrete jungle, devoid of plants. Even people in New York (a place that actually has many plants) would be able to tell the difference between grass that needs mowing and prairie grass.

I’m sure that if New Yorker Mona Lisa Vito (a character from My Cousin Vinny) came to Whitewater, she’d be able to tell the difference between regular grass and prairie grass. (As ably, I’d guess, as she could tell a Buick Skylark from a Pontiac Tempest.)

The greatest beauty in our city is a natural beauty, followed closely only by the earliest human efforts of Native Americans and settlers. We should preserve so much of it as we can. more >>

Libertarians

Eric Sanders on ‘The Beautiful Optimism of Libertarianism’

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Eric Sanders has begun a new blog, Action in Action, at Big Think.

His first post discusses ‘The Beautiful Optimism of Libertarianism.’

Sanders writes that

I am now starting to believe that libertarianism — at least for those who espouse it honestly — stems from incredible optimism, an unshakable belief in human dignity, honesty, and generosity….

true libertarianism stems from the belief that people, left to their own devices, will eventually act in a manner that is beneficial to both themselves and to their society. It is this optimism that I find beautiful — this belief in the inherent goodness of others, if only they were given the opportunity to demonstrate it — and this is where I think those who generally look at libertarianism as a cynical, purely selfish world view can begin to engage and at least consider some typically ‘libertarian’ ways of thinking.

He’s right, of course: libertarians are the people who believe in these hopeful things, in opposition to the machinations of so many self-serving politicians, bureaucrats, and their particular, coddled friends in industry.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.8.12

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Good morning.

Whitewater has a sunny day with a high temperature of thirty-one to which to look forward. In Denver, it will be a mostly cloudy day with a high of thirty-seven.

Whitewater’s Tech Park Board meets today at 8 AM.

On this day in 1858, another great moment in legislative history:

1858 – Wisconsin Congressman Starts Fight in Legislature

Just before the Civil War, the issue of slavery tore apart the U.S. Congress. On February 8, 1858, Wisconsin Rep. John Potter (considered a backwoods hooligan by Southern aristocrats) leaped into a fight on the House floor. When Potter embarrassed a pro-slavery brawler by pulling off his wig, the gallery shouted that he’d taken a Southern scalp. Potter emerged from the melee covered in blood and marked by slave owners as an enemy.

Two years later, on April 5, 1860, he accused Virginia Rep. Roger Pryor of falsifying the Congressional record. Pryor, feeling his character impugned, challenged Potter to a duel. According to Southern custom, a person challenged had the right to choose weapons. Potter replied that he would only fight with “Bowie knives in a closed room,” and his Southern challenger beat a hasty retreat. Republican supporters around the nation sent Potter Bowie knives as a tribute, including this six-foot-long one. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes]

Via Wisconsin Historical Society

I came across a post entitled, ‘The Secret Of Magic Island’: The Mysterious ‘Holy Grail’ For Movie Nerds (VIDEO), and the title easily hooked me.

Magic Island (the title in English) is a French film that features animals doing all sorts of things, like using the phone, playing an organ, etc.

The post where I learned of it asks, “Two questions surfaced in the office: how did the filmmakers get the animals to do this? And also, what in the hell is this?” Those are the relevant questions.

Here’s a trailer for the film, and a clip from it. The trailer’s narration is hopelessly corny, but watch it again with the sound off, and you’ll find yourself wondering about how the film was made, and how much patience it must have demanded. The post to which I’ve linked above, where I first learned of the film, has answers about its history.

Enjoy and be intrigued.

Clip —

Trailer —

Government Spending, Planning, State Government

Update on the Spectrum Brands State-backed Deal

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I wrote earlier about the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s millions for Spectrum Brands (Rayovac, among other brands). The professed purpose was to keep the company in Wisconsin. As it turned out, they took they money, as part of a relocation to Middleton, Wisconsin. There’s scant credible evidence that they truly were prepared to leave.

A reader writing from Georgia took exception to the post, quite sure that he was knowledgeable about these sort of deals. He’s free to assert what he wants, but all of the four points that I made are true:

Millions spent on a business relocation for a corporation that (1) withheld its identity, (2) was already in Wisconsin, (3) used flimsy worries about protests at the Capitol as way to curry favor with the Walker Administration, (4) where the head of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation now admits that the Wisconsin business’s move within Wisconsin was something he did not discuss with them.

That Spectrum Brands did withhold its identity for a full nine-months is undisputed. See, for example Emails: Spectrum hid identity in site search.

The reader seems to think that to assert they withheld their identity means they always withheld it, that they withheld it permanently. That’s just silly — the underlying story from WisconsinWatch.org on which the post was commentary and a subsequent story from the Wisconsin State Journal refer to a nine-month delay.

If I were to write that parents withheld a child’s dinner (a bad idea, in any event), it doesn’t imply that they starved the child to death.

If these were the extent of his objections, I wouldn’t bother to reply.

There’s another reason for my update. Along the way, the reader asserted that these deals only happen where there is a ‘multiplier effect.’ There was no assurance of any multiplier effect — even assuming one believes so very deeply in such government calculations — in this instance:

WEDC agreed to give the company $4 million in exchange for its promise to keep its 470 existing Dane County employees through Sept. 30, 2016, and invest $40 million in its Wisconsin operations by that time. If it fails to fulfill these requirements, it must pay back the $4 million with interest. Otherwise, it owes nothing beyond an $80,000 origination fee.

That’s no ‘multiplier’ at all — it’s a big corporation doing what it has been doing – in the state in which it has been doing it, with the help of taxpayer-dollars to do it in a new location. If they fulfill none of these terms, they still get a state-backed loan, at interest more lenient than what they’d find in the market.

If they do what they have been doing, they get a multi-million-dollar forgivable loan less eighty-thousand.

Walker Administration, Doyle Administration, etc. — it matters not at all; this is bad policy in any event. The people of Wisconsin owe Spectrum no public help.

State capitalism is sham capitalism. Government should not be making these loans.

Yet, so partisan is our politics, that as long as one’s own party makes these deals, it must be a good idea — it’s all for business, you see. That’s why Walker supporters (mostly) will turn a blind eye to these business-coddling deals. They were and are all for the market, until they take office and dish out public funds.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.7.12

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Good morning.

For Whitewater, a chance of flurries today with a high of thirty-three; for Madison, that same chance, but a predicted high of thirty-one.

In Whitewater, Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

It’s Charles Dickens’s birthday, and Google celebrates with a doodle:

For Google’s puzzle today, some geography: “What single state is home to all of the following U.S. cities: Madrid, Toronto, Cincinnati, Denver, Hartford, and Norway?”

In Wisconsin history, from the Wisconsin Historical Society, another birthday:

On this date, U.S. Senator Herb Kohl was born in Milwaukee. Kohl received a BA in Business Administration from UW-Madison in 1956 and an MBA from Harvard in 1958. A businessman, president of an investment company, owner of a profesional basketball team, and former president of a business corporation, Kohl also served in the Army Reserve from 1958-1964. A Democrat, he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1988 and reelected in 1994, 2000 and 2006. [Source: Wisconsin Blue Book 1997-98]

America, Business

Chrysler’s Clint Eastwood Commercial, It’s Halftime, America

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I held this commercial from the preceding post of my other favorites, because it’s both longer and different: its political themes separate it from a conventional commercial, even a conventional Super Bowl commercial (if there should be such a thing).

There’s an optimism in this commercial that is, I think, justified: despite the most difficult times since the Depression, we are a resilient people sure to bounce back.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.6.12

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Good morning.

Whitewater’s forecast calls for a cloudy day, with a high of thirty-nine.  In New York, it’s a sunny day ahead with a high of fifty-one.

The Wisconsin Historical Society records that on this day in 1967,

…nationally known activist Stokely Carmichael spoke at UW-Whitewater as part of a forum series entitled “Black Power and the Civil Rights Movement.” The chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee at Whitewater motivated students in attendance, stating that blacks must reclaim their identity and history, and organize to control local political offices, especially in large cities. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

The city’s still standing, all these years later.

On this day in 1952, Britain’s King George VI died, and was succeeded by his daughter, Elizabeth II.  Of that daughter, there’s a Twitter parody from “Elizabeth Windsor,” @Queen_UK, “Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, wife of the DoE, mother, grandmother and author of http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/144473895X .”

Some of her recent Tweets:

  • Yes, Prince William is on route to the Falkland Islands. Don’t even think about sodding around, Argentina.
  • Someone get one a bacon and mushroom roll and a cup of tea. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
  • Working from home
  • Goodness, it’s gone Gin O’Clock
Google’s daily puzzle is for the especially musical: “You are playing Philario in Cymbeline when suddenly you forget your lines and start to ad lib blank verse in a nubbing. What should you say at the end of the nub?”