One major-party convention over, and another yet to go.
Outside the GOP convention in Tampa, at PAUL Fest (People Awakening and Uniting for Liberty), Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson spoke about his campaign:
Nothing glamorous, of course, but something sincere, dedicated, and hopeful.
Also posted on 8.31.12 @ Daily Adams.
Update, 9.1.12: The winner of the festival was Henri 2, Paw de Deux.
Kindly sent to my attention, news that cat videos got their moment on 8.30 at Minn. film festival:
Warning: This is a story about online cat videos. If you’re among the seemingly tiny minority of the general population not interested in watching a 1-minute clip of a cat in a T-shirt pounding on a keyboard, then move along.
For everyone else, a new measure of respectability is looming for an Internet pleasure that is both massively popular and, for some people, a bit embarrassing. The Walker Art Center, a well-regarded museum of modern art in Minneapolis, on Thursday is presenting its first “Internet Cat Video Film Festival” to showcase the best in filmed feline hijinks.
With about 70 videos over 60 minutes, the Walker is mounting a social experiment as much as a film festival. At issue is whether cat video lovers used to gorging on the clips in the privacy of their homes will do so in public — an online community of fellow aficionados interacting face to face for the first time.
Update, 6:44 PM: A circuit court judge ruled today that the hunt could proceed, but prohibited the use of dogs. See, Update: DNR Says “Wolf Season Will Proceed” After Judge’s Ruling.
Wisconsin plans a fall wolf hunt, something that’s the subject (as of this post) of a pending lawsuit over using trained dogs as part of the hunt. (The hunt will permit the use of dogs and traps.)
Farmers want a hunt to reduce the wolf population; opponents fear that the hunt will reduce the wolf population excessively.
Apart from whether the DNR has the authority to regulate aspects of the hunt involving dogs, do you think the hunt’s a good idea? I’d say a hunt for a year, without dogs or traps, would have been a better initial step.
What do you think?
Good morning.
Whitewater’s week ends hot, with a high of ninety-three, and winds five to fifteen miles per hour.
On this day in 1980, the Soviet-backed Polish government acceded to a deal with striking Polish workers.
Also on this day, in 1997, Princess Diana died in a Paris car crash.
In 1929, Wisconsin saw the beginning of air service across Lake Michigan:
Kohler Line Air Service Begins Passenger Service
On this date the Kohler Line Air Service commenced air passenger service across Lake Michigan. The service based its winter operations at General Mitchell Field in Milwaukee. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride, p. 28]
Google’s daily puzzle asks about someone making demands: “I demanded gold, silver, silk robes and 3000 pounds of what exotic spice when I laid siege to Imperial Rome?” more >>
Every so often, there’ll be a discussion within city government about what’s an internal or external matter.
The more important question is whether internal means confidential. It seldom does.
Three quick observations:
Generally, public employees, engaged in public tasks, at public expense, are doing work that should be open to residents’ review. A government that sustains itself on the earnings of others has the slightest claim to separation, concealment, or secrecy from its own residents. For this reason, internal matters that are private matters are few and far between.
Second, there is almost never an internal matter that involves direct interaction between working public employees and residents — those are external matters. Whatever one may say about internal matters, it’s nearly impossible to have contacts between public employees (while working as public employees) and residents that are not, by definition, external. Government employees cannot directly engage in conversations, meetings, encounters, calls, etc. with residents or visitors and credibly claim those conversations as internal, let alone private.
I’m sure they’d sometimes like to do so; it’s just that liking’s not enough to make it so.
(The rare exception: closed or executive sessions of public meetings, as permitted under the law. That closed sessions of public meetings are narrowly-tailored under Wisconsin law confirms the view that most encounters aren’t closed and private.)
Third, even when conduct directly involves only public employees, and so is internal by definition, that’s nonetheless typically a public matter. A public official couldn’t, for example, be the subject of a sexual harassment claim from a subordinate and contend that the claim against him was private (although it would have been internal).
(Sheboygan’s former mayor, for example, was a defandant in a sexual harassment claim from the Sheboygan director of human resources – that wasn’t a private matter, although the misconduct alleged was ‘internal’ between them.)
‘Internal or external’ doesn’t change the fundamental principle that a public thing should be available for the public’s review.
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny, hot, and breezy, with a high of ninety-seven.
On this day in 1963, a hotline between Moscow and Washington went into service.
From the National Park Service, a video of stunning stargazing at Yosemite:
On this day in 1862, Wisconsin troops rested on the White House lawn:
1862 – (Civil War) Wisconsin troops rest at the White House lawn
The 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th Wisconsin Infantry regiments fought in the Second Battle of Bull Run. By the end of this third day, more than 18,000 soldiers had been killed or wounded and Union forces had been pushed back to Washington, D.C. When the Wisconsin regiments arrived in Washington, they rested on the White House lawn. According to historian Frank Klement, “President Lincoln came out with a pail of water in one hand and a dipper in the other. He moved among the men, offering water to the tired and thirsty. Some Wisconsin soldiers drank from the common dipper and thanked the President for his kindness.”
Google’s daily puzzle asks about a British prime minister: “I was the first Hanoverian king of Great Britain, but I didn’t speak English. So I left many administrative affairs to my prime minister. What was his name?” more >>
Good morning.
The middle of Whitewater’s week will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-seven.
On this day in 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans:
The Wisconsin Historical Society records that on this day in 1923, composer Lester Trimble was born:
On this date composer Lester Albert Trimble was born in Bangor, Wisconsin. Raised in Milwaukee, Trimble went on to study with the famed Russian-born composer Lopatnikoff at Carnegie-Mellon University. Trimble was named a Guggenheim Fellow for music composition in 1964. In 1971 he joined Juilliard School of Music as a critic and teacher. His compositions show concern with thematic unity (e.g. the Symphony No.2, 1968). In later years, he used newer techniques and wrote for the harpsichord (Concerto, 1978). He was also the first resident composer with the New York Philharmonic. Trimble died in New York on December 31, 1986. [Source:Music and Vision]
Google’s daily puzzle tests one’s geography: “On the continent with both Mawson and Davis time zones, you’ll find 70% of the world’s… what?” more >>
Cabs are often hard to find, and they’re more expensive than they would be if they were more plentiful. Why is that?
Jeanette Petersen of the Institute for Justice talks about the reasons it’s hard to get a cab:
Cabs can also be greener than other forms of transportation. They take a specific number of people from one spot to another, seeking the shortest, fastest route possible. Under-used trains, buses, or trolleys — especially in the evening — may make dozens of needless stops on winding routes with few passengers.
Taxis’ advantages would be even more pronounced with fewer protectionist barriers to entry to the industry.
Posted on 8.28.12 @ Daily Adams.
At the 8.27.12 board meeting for the Whitewater Schools, there was a presentation from Charlie Barr, Technology Coordinator, on the possibility adding a full-time technology supervisor to the few interns now working for him. The discussion took place from approx. 38:35 to 1:12:40 during the board meeting.
I well understand the need for due diligence when evaluating a request, but the need here seems clear. The Whitewater Schools should conduct a review, and hire where needed, at the earliest opportunity: this district needs a more robust program than a single staff member and a group of interns. It’s done well for itself that way, for now, but that’s a limited-term solution.
(Much of the cost would come from current vacancies in the intern contingent.)
There are, combined, thousands of students, faculty, and administrators, across six buildings in the district (including the administration building). We should provide more for technology support if we are to be competitive. Only when that happens will the equally important work of expanded technology integration be available for students and faculty.
A business similarly situated, with several plants and thousands in its buildings, would have a larger staff than one fulltime employee. That the district’s business is, so to speak, intellectual, and that scholarship relies on computer technology to be competitive, makes our situation even more pressing.
Technology isn’t a second-level concern. Technology is a first-order concern for a school, just as a breathable atmosphere is a first-order concern for an animal: both perish without it. Those who doubt the value of clean air might wish to trade America’s clear skies for a visit to a befouled Chinese city, choked with brown air. I’m sure Chinese planners think that they’re doing the right thing by focusing on production at the expense of air quality. They’re simply creating a generation of sick and feeble workers.
The district’s priority should be evident, in favor of more robust support. Students are in constant forward motion, toward graduation. What students don’t receive while here from a robust and well-supported environment is to their detriment. It’s to our detriment, too, as they’ll be less inclined to return here.
Delay is debilitating; the faster the better. The board should act promptly in favor of additional, full-time support.
People shouldn’t steal, and that includes stealing from stores. Virtually everyone believes this. It’s harmful to merchants, and infuriating to honest customers.
That some will, on occasion, commit these crimes doesn’t lessen the obligation of government to publicize that information both effectively and cleverly. It may be effective initially to post a shoplifting notice, with photographs and a headline ending in an exclamation point, but it’s surely not clever.
If it’s not clever, it’s not the best approach.
It’s not clever because alerts about small property crimes (wrong although those crimes are) seem overwrought and excessive when compared with necessary alerts about crimes of violence, missing child alerts, large-scale thefts, or any crimes where a suspect brandishes a weapon.
Those are the crimes that one typically reserves for a photographic alert, and expanding the pool of crimes treated this way diminishes the significance of those other alerts. Worse, it risks making the shoplifting alert look like a parody of the more serious missing-person alerts.
(The Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, headquartered at UW-Madison, also cautions that there’s a liability risk for misidentification of shoplifters, where the risk should be weighed against the relatively small value of the crime: “May have some limited value in deterring shoplifting, but where those identified have not been convicted by a court, both the merchants and the police engaged in the practice are vulnerable to legal challenge.”)
Over at the City of Whitewater’s webpage, there’s a SHOPLIFTING ALERT! about someone who allegedly stole merchandise from Walmart and Daniels Sentry.
It’s one of the worst ways to market the city to someone successful from beyond Whitewater: it risks looking like a parody of more serious alerts, makes the town seem more provincial than it is, and will cause people to wonder about how the city government directs its focus.
Adding an exclamation mark and all capitals (SHOPLIFTING ALERT!) only brings the notice even closer to a parody.
Shoplifting is wrong, but it’s also a down-market crime, and emphasizing it at the city’s website only makes the city look down-market, too.
This is easy for some people to see, but very hard for others to grasp.
City government needs someone who understands messaging beyond the perception of a few overly-insular residents.
Good morning.
Whitewater’s Tuesday will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-six.
The city’s Urban Forestry Commission meets today at 4:15 PM.
The History Channel has a tribute to the late Neil Armstrong, with a slideshow, audio of Armstrong on the moon, and a video about the space race with the Soviets.
On this day in 1862, a famous Union Army brigade fought its first battle:
On this date the Iron Brigade (Western soldiers) fought their first battle at Browner Farm. The unit was composed of the 2nd Infantry, 6th Infantry, 7th Wisconsin Infantry, and the 19th Indiana Infantry, 24th Michigan Infantry, and Battery B of the 4th U.S. Light Artillery and was well known for its valor at such Civil War battles as Bull Run, Antietam and Gettysburg. [Source: WHS Card File].
Via Wisconsin Historical Society.
Google’s daily puzzle asks about particle physics: “The nuclear particle consisting of one down quark and two up quarks has what kind of charge?” more >>
Friends of mine and I had a conservation over the weekend about how a pressed shirt made a capable professional (a doctor) seem more skilled at his profession than someone with wrinkled clothes. One might readily acknowledge that the doctor was as intelligent, as educated, and as insightful regardless of application of starch to his shirts.
Nonetheless, even to a person who knew the doctor’s many professional accomplishments, that small bit of starch would work a powerful impression: an excellent doctor would seem even better.
What’s true of professional attire is true of storefronts, too (perhaps more so): some sprucing up works a big improvement. I don’t think for a minute that sprucing up should be government’s job, but it should be one of a proprietor’s first tasks.
A few cans of paint and a broom make a big difference. Even if a municipality picks up the trash, any proprietor worth frequenting should be doing his or her own sweeping near the storefront.
If that seems too hard for someone, then he’s probably in the wrong line of work.
Normal people don’t want to shop along streets that look like litter-strewn alleys because, mostly, they are litter-strewn alleys.
We’ve extraordinary natural beauty in town, and the potential to be a quaint and popular destination for our Wisconsin neighbors and for Illinois visitors.
But those few who won’t keep tidy deserve neither customers’ patronage nor even the slightest municipal assistance.
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