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Monthly Archives: January 2015

The Public-Sector Public-Relations Problem

There’s almost no part of government, down to the smallest unit, that doesn’t approach the public as though a salesperson, as a matter of persuasion through public or media relations.

Consider how odd, how ironic, this situation is: government, whose authority derives in a free society only from the public, uses public resources to present itself craftily and deceptively to the very people to whom government owes its very existence

One would expect candor in that relationship, and instead one finds mostly sophistry. 

So, instead of presenting a story simply and humbly, public agencies use others’ money in taxes to present themselves as though they were not mere public officials, but angels, archangels, and demigods. 

If someone sent one of these officials out to report the weather, he’d return with a story about how he (personally and selflessly) braved a hurricane, two tornadoes, a hailstorm, and a thunderous avalanche, just to let others know that it was, in fact, sunny outside.

Of all the acts of government, few are so distorted as public men using public resources to exaggerate their own accomplishments, or understate their own mistakes, to the very people they claim to serve. 

Daily Bread for 1.12.15

Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday will be mostly sunny with a high of thirteen. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:43 PM, for 9h 19m 42s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 58.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets this evening at 6:30 PM.

Sometimes a simple thing becomes valuable over time. That’s true with these baseball cards:

It’s Jack London’s birthday:

John Griffith “Jack” London (born John Griffith Chaney,[1] January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916)[2][3][4][5] was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone.[6] Some of his most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories “To Build a Fire”, “An Odyssey of the North”, and “Love of Life”. He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as “The Pearls of Parlay” and “The Heathen”, and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf.

During the Civil War, on this day in 1864, a Wisconsin regiment fights in Mexico:

1864 – (Civil War) Engagement at Matamoras, Mexico
The 20th Wisconsin Infantry took part in a battle in Matamoras, Mexico. They crossed from Brownsville, Texas, to rescue the American consul in Matamoras when he was caught in a local uprising between two opposing Mexican forces.

Google-a-Day asks a history question:

What field of work was shared by the parents of the man with the middle name Gamaliel, who served as a U.S. Senator from 1915-1921?

Daily Bread for 1.11.15

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday brings to Whitewater a mix of clouds and sun with a relatively mild twenty-nine degrees. Sunrise is 7:32 AM and sunset 4:42 PM for 9h 18m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 67.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

When asked in the latest FW poll if they had a preference between cold and snow, a majority of respondents (54.84%) picked cold.

On this day in 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General makes an announcement about cigarette smoking:

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For more on the topic, see The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General, 2014.

All this notwithstanding, I’d contend that adults, properly being free to choose, have the right even to choose poorly.

On this day in 1887, a noted conservationist is born:

1887 – Aldo Leopold Born
On this date Aldo Leopold, a major player in the modern environmental movement, was born. A conservationist, professor, and author, Leopold graduated from Yale University and worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the Southwest. He rose to the rank of chief of operations. In 1924 he became associate director of the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison. In 1933 he was appointed chair of game management at the University of Wisconsin. In 1943, Leopold was instrumental in establishing the first U.S. soil conservation demonstration area, in Coon Valley in 1934. As a member of the state Conservation Commission, he was influential in the acquisition of natural areas by the state. His reflections on nature and conservation appear in A Sand County Almanac (1949). [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, p.227]

Daily Bread for 1.10.15

Good morning, Whitewater.

We have a mostly sunny day with a high of eighteen ahead. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:41 PM, for 9h 16m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 75.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

How close would you get to your subject for a great photo or video? While filming in lava in Vanuatu, New Zealand cameraman Bradley Ambrose got close:

On this day in 1946, the first General Assembly session of the United Nations convenes in London. The New York Times reported on the opening session:

London, Jan. 10 — The fifty-one nations of the greatest war-time coalition in history, representing four-fifths of the people in the world, started today another chapter in man’s melancholy search for peace and security.

One hundred and forty-seven days after the close of the war that cost more than 20,000,000 casualties and left countless millions homeless, and on the twenty-sixth anniversary of the ratification of the ill-fated League of Nations Covenant, the nations met this afternoon in the blue and gold auditorium of the Central Hall of Westminster for the first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

Greeting them on behalf of Britain, which served as the spring-board for the final conquest of Germany, Prime Minister Attlee told them frankly that they would succeed in their new venture only if they brought “the same sense of urgency, the same self-sacrifice and the same willingness to subordinate sectional interests” with which they fought the war.

On this day in 1883, a deadly fire kills scores in Milwaukee:

1883 – Newhall House Fire
On this date in 1883, one of America’s worst hotel fires claimed more than seventy lives when the Newhall House burned at the northwest corner of Broadway and Michigan Streets in Milwaukee. Rescued from the fire were The P.T. Barnum Lilliputian Show performers Tom Thumb and Commodore Nutt. The fire, shown here, was discovered at 4:00 a.m. on the 10th, but sources give the date variously as 1/9/1883 or 1/10/1883. [Sources: The History of Wisconsin, Vol. 3, p.452; WLHBA]

Journalism & Public Relations

‘Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations’

This observation is often attributed to Orwell, but it’s likely a misattribution.

Whatever its provenance, it’s an observation with a good deal of truth to it.

Locally, so much of what one reads is, in the end, just public relations, often poorly-written and thinly-disguised. The effectual difference between the Gazette, Daily Union, and Banner grows smaller each year. In a time of solid journalism, this convergence would have been to the Banner‘s credit; in our time, it’s to the detriment of the Gazette and Daily Union.

Daily Bread for 1.9.15

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday will be sunny and cold, with a high of three degrees. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:39 PM, for 9h 15m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 83.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s schools are on a two-hour delayed start today.

On this day in 1493, Columbus makes a mistake of identification:

…Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, sees three “mermaids”–in reality manatees–and describes them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.” Six months earlier, Columbus (1451-1506) set off from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, hoping to find a western trade route to Asia. Instead, his voyage, the first of four he would make, led him to the Americas, or “New World”….

On this day in 1863, the Wisconsin 23rd saw intense action for the next three-days:

1863 – (Civil War) Battle of Arkansas Post begins
The Battle of Arkansas Post, also called Fort Hindman, began on this day near the mouth of the Arkansas River. The 23rd Wisconsin Infantry was in the thick of the action all three days.

Google-a-Day asks a question about cartoon characters:

What comedians were the inspiration for the names of the two hungry cats in the short that marked Tweety Bird’s first appearance?

Deep Below the Water’s Surface…

Accompanying text for the video from the Schmidt Ocean Institute:

Video of a newly discovered species is now the world’s deepest known fish recorded at 8,143 m depth. The fish has a novel body form that has not been seen before. It stunned scientists because in other trenches, there is only one fish species at this depth–a snailfish; this fish is really different from any other deep-sea fish that scientists have ever seen.

Mediocrity’s Overweening Sense of Entitlement

Officials, candidates, and political parties are – and should be – free to choose and act accordingly. What they shouldn’t be – and in Whitewater will not be – is free to act merely on their own terms, without question or comment.

Want to run for office? Good luck. Want to hold office? Best wishes. Want to represent a political party? Fingers crossed.

Want to do these things without commentary or debate? No, and no again.

No one owes others their mediocrity. No one owes others their overweening sense of entitlement.

Bad policy choices (one after another), conflicts of interest (one on top of another), or a flimsy understanding (made manifest time and again) do not disappear because an entitled man says or thinks they do.

Whitewater is filled with smart and capable people (of every ideology and view) – the city is long-past a free ride for third-tier thinking.

That’s the world Whitewater is now in, no matter how much a small number might wish to pretend otherwise.

Not seeing this – or not wanting to see this – is like being the character Larry Culpepper from part of a recent Dr. Pepper commercial – pretending he’s subtle doesn’t make him so:


Daily Bread for 1.8.15

Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a high in town of about fifteen this Thursday, with between one to three inches of snow. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:38 PM, for 9h 14m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 90.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1918, Pres. Wilson issues his Fourteen Points for peace. Many are, even these generations later, still forward-thinking:

1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

3. The removal, of all economic barriers and the establishment of equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

5. Free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

10. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

11. Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

12. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

On this day in 1910, men strike to get thirty cents an hour for working in Janesville:

1910 – Vagrant Snow Shovelers Strike for Pay
On this date 228 vagrants were brought in to shovel snow at the Chicago & Northwestern rail yard in Janesville. Shortly thereafter, they went on strike for 25 cents an hour and better food. Two days later, they went on strike again, asking for 30 cents an hour. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Google-a-Day asks a question about film and theater:

At the time he was offered the role of Albert in “War Horse”, what part did the actor say he was playing onstage?