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Monthly Archives: February 2016

On Wisconsin’s 2.16.16 Primary

Results are in from yesterday’s February primary, and there are a few clues about the April 5th election, with one big uncertainty.

First, the obvious uncertainty.  The Republican and Democratic presidential races have offered surprises, and will likely offer more.  One or both major-party contests may still be raging by 4.5.16.  Ongoing interest in either, or both, of those races will affect turnout for Wisconsin contests, including of course the Supreme Court race between Justice Bradley and Judge Kloppenberg.

Second, of the Supreme Court race results from yesterday, there were no surprises: Bradley and Kloppenberg finished close together, with Judge Donald far back.  They were better funded and better known; he was at a significant disadvantage throughout.  (Unofficial results: Rebecca G. Bradley (inc) 251,826 45%, Joanne F. Kloppenburg 243,190 43 %, Joe Donald 68,373 12 %.)

Third, the Walworth County Circuit Court race results were revealing.  Commissioner Dan Johnson finished first, with D.A. Dan Necci and Attorney Shannon Wynn farther back, but close to each other.  (Unofficial results: Daniel S. Johnson 3,356 37 %, Dan Necci 2,922 32 %, and Shannon Wynn 2,799 31 %.) (Disclaimer: I don’t support Necci.)

Necci has been District Attorney for over three years, with all the publicity that affords, and he could only garner 32% of the vote.  This was not an ordinary three-person contest: it was a notable incumbent facing two less-known opponents.  Along with the Walworth County sheriff, the Walworth County district attorney is the only well-known position in the entire county.  (By comparison, about twelve people in Walworth County know who County Administrator David Bretl is, and that’s including his family members.)  I can’t think of a recent county race where an existing officeholder did this poorly.

Attorney Shannon Wynn, who has never held office, came within just 1% (122 votes out of 9,102 cast, including 25 write-ins, of sending Necci home.)

Neeci claimed the support of Supreme County Justice Rebecca Bradley, but he ran far below her vote total in the county.  Out of 9,246 votes for in the county for our high court, Justice Bradley received 5,303.  In his race, Necci received just 2,922.

Necci ran 2,381 votes behind the top-of-the-ticket candidate whose support he trumpeted.  Thousands of Bradley supporters voted for either Johnson or Wynn.

The press won’t cover this race insightfully.  Already, news about the race is how Candidate A and Candidate B are happy to move on to April, from those who must know that a huge issue here is how officials and law enforcement personnel who have dealt with Necci truly don’t want him around.   Huge numbers of Walworth County’s Rebecca Bradley supporters didn’t want him – that’s how odd this situation is.

For the press, including a reporter who certainly knows better, it’s safer to cover this as A v. B heading into April.  No advertisers will be offended while shying from the implications of one’s own past stories.  Presenting this as list of candidates, pictures, and website links doesn’t begin to explain how odd Necci’s position is.

Necci could win in April, but he’ll need lots of unaware voters, lots of money, and probably a hyper-ideological tone that brands everyone else – including obviously conservative officials who work in Elkhorn – as insufficiently zealous.

Interesting times ahead.

 

Daily Bread for 2.17.16

Midweek in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of twenty-eight. Sunrise is 6:48 and sunset 5:29, for 10h 40m 58s.  The moon’s a waxing gibbous with 73.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Aquatic Center Board meets today at 7 AM, the Tech Park Board at 8 AM, and the TID 5 Joint Review Board at 3 PM.

On this day in 1801, after three dozen votes, the House of Representatives elects Thomas Jefferson President of the United States:

Republicans ultimately won more electoral college votes, but Jefferson and his vice-presidential candidate Aaron Burr unexpectedly received an equal total. Due to the tie, the election was decided by the Federalist-dominated House of Representatives.[105][g] Hamilton lobbied Federalist representatives on Jefferson’s behalf, believing him a lesser political evil than Burr. On February 17, 1801, after thirty-six ballots, the House elected Jefferson president and Burr vice president.[106]

The win was marked by Republican celebrations throughout the country.[107] Some of Jefferson’s opponents argued that he owed his victory over Adams to the South’s inflated number of electors, due to counting slaves as partial population under the Three-Fifths Compromise.”[108] Others alleged that Jefferson securedJames Asheton Bayard‘s tie-breaking electoral vote by guaranteeing the retention of various Federalist posts in the government.[106] Jefferson disputed the allegation, and the historical record is inconclusive.[109]

The transition proceeded smoothly, marking a watershed in American history. As historian Gordon S. Wood writes, “it was one of the first popular elections in modern history that resulted in the peaceful transfer of power from one ‘party’ to another.”[106]

2.17.2002 was a very good day for a Wisconsin skater:

2002 – Wisconsin Skater Takes Gold

On this date West Allis native Chris Witty won a gold medal in speed skating’s 1000 meter at the Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games. She broke the world record with a time of 1:13.82, even though she was recovering from mononucleosis. Before Witty competed in ice staking, she was a professional bicyclist. [Source: US Olympic Team]

Wednesday’s JigZone puzzle is of a shell:

This Is What It’s Like To Read Lips

How do you use one sense to do the work of another? Can You Read My Lips? is a short film about the imprecise art of lip-reading based on the essay “Seeing at the Speed of Sound,” by Rachel Kolb, who narrates and stars in the video. “Lipreading…is an inherently tenuous mode of communication,” she explains. “When I watch people’s lips, I am trying to learn something about sound when the eyes were not meant to hear.” This film was directed by David Terry Fine and produced by Little Moving Pictures.

Via The Atlantic.

Outside

Chancellor Beverly Kopper announced today the selection of Susan Elrod as provost and executive vice chancellor for Academic Affairs.

Dr. Elrod currently serves as the interim provost and vice president for academic affairs at the California State University, Chico. She will join UW-Whitewater on April 15.

“I am so pleased Susan Elrod will join us as our next provost and executive vice chancellor for Academic Affairs,” Chancellor Kopper said. “In my discussions with Susan, she immediately recognized that UW-Whitewater is a university that is doing amazing work with dedicated faculty, staff and students. She is a true believer in the transformational power of comprehensive universities and brings enthusiasm and passion for our unique mission. I trust she will be a great asset to our campus and the UW System.”

See, Susan Elrod named provost and executive vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, http://www.uww.edu/news/2016-02-provost.

What it means for the university, as with a new strategic plan due to be completed in the spring, well, it’s too soon to say.  All this will only work to prevent comparative decline if there’s a fundamental change of course from that of the last administration.

Local insiders, however, staked everything on then-Chancellor Telfer; to head in a different direction for the sake of the university, itself, will be hard for those who thought university developments were (and should always be) perfectly aligned with their own wants and needs.

Whitewater’s True and Worthy Success

33cscreenshotPost 6 in a weekly series.

I posted last week about a State of the Schools presentation, and planned to follow this week with an assessment of that presentation, but there’s a more recent development that should – and so does – take precedence.

On February 10th, one of Whitewater’s schools, Washington School, was named a Title I School of Recognition for significant academic achievement as a high-progress school even in conditions of meaningful child poverty. The award acknowledges what a true optimist knows: that Whitewater’s schools can succeed, regardless of present circumstances, through the work of smart and dedicated people.

Here are the criteria from the Department of Public Instruction:

Wisconsin Title I School of Recognition Criteria
All schools receive federal Title I aid because they have
significant numbers of students from low-income families.
They also meet the state’s test-participation, attendance,
and dropout goals as well as additional award criteria:
High-Achieving Schools
• meet all Annual Measurable Objectives for achievement
and graduation
• have achievement gaps that are less than 3 points
between student groups or show evidence of reducing gaps
• demonstrate high achievement at the school level
High-Progress Schools
• fall within the top 10 percent of schools experiencing
growth in reading and mathematics for elementary and
middle school students or the top 10 percent of schools with
the greatest improvement in high school graduation rates
• have achievement gaps that are less than 3 points
between student groups or show evidence of reducing gaps
Beating-the-Odds Schools
• are in the top 25 percent of high-poverty schools in
the state
• have above-average student achievement in reading
and mathematics when compared to schools from
similarly sized districts, schools, grade configurations, and
poverty levels

The grandiose, the sketchy, the slick: they’re useless, and in fact detrimental, to actual success. Old Whitewater – a state of mind, not a person or chronological age – has run (and now staggers) on a commitment to presentations of that ilk. Real success, however, comes not from a presentation, but from daily hard work that is too seldom mentioned.

It’s all to the good that the genuine success at one of our schools received statewide recognition.

What one school has done, other schools can do also. There’s not the slightest doubt of this, if only we would try.

On our school district’s website this morning, there’s a link to a glossy ‘annual report,’ including some dodgy data and grandiose claims. There’s no link on that main page to this Wisconsin Title I School of Recognition award. Our district might have embedded this file on its website easily, confidently, and boldly, but they’ve not.  Whitewater YES for Education might have mentioned it, but they’ve not.

One can guess why they didn’t – the award rests on the plain truth that many of our children come from impoverished families. Acknowledging that on the district’s website may seem, well, a bit too much for local officials.

It’s astonishing how confused they must be about what truly impresses families thinking of staying in our district, or impresses talented families thinking of coming here.

Truly talented and capable men and women – inside and outside Whitewater – will always prefer direct, honest gains over slick presentations. They can see what the town is really like; sugary language deceives no one.

This recognition shouldn’t be ignored, or simply linked somewhere to be forgotten in a week or two – it should be embedded on the main page of this district’s website, and passed out to every inquiring family. It should be embedded proudly on other websites for others to see.

And so I have done exactly that, on this website.

Well done, to all who achieved this recognition – so very well done.

THE EDUCATION POST: Tuesdays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread for 2.16.16

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday’s spring primary in Whitewater isn’t really in the spring, but it is likely to take place on a relatively mild day of thirty-four degrees and cloudy skies. Sunrise is 6:49 and sunset 5:27, for 10h 38m 13s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 62.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Fire and Rescue Task Force meets tonight at 7 PM.

On this day in 1923, Egyptologist Howard Carter formally enters Tutankhamun’s Tomb:

On 4 November 1922, Howard Carter’s excavation group found steps that Carter hoped led to Tutankhamun‘s tomb (subsequently designated KV62) (the tomb that would be considered the best preserved and most intact pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings).

Egypt.KV62.01He wired Lord Carnarvon to come, and on 26 November 1922, with Carnarvon, Carnarvon’s daughter and others in attendance, Carter made the “tiny breach in the top left hand corner” of the doorway (with a chisel his grandmother had given him for his 17th birthday.) He was able to peer in by the light of a candle and see that many of the gold and ebony treasures were still in place. He did not yet know whether it was “a tomb or merely a cache”, but he did see a promising sealed doorway between two sentinel statues. When Carnarvon asked “Can you see anything?”, Carter replied with the famous words: “Yes, wonderful things!”[10]

The next several months were spent cataloging the contents of the antechamber under the “often stressful” supervision of Pierre Lacau, director general of theDepartment of Antiquities of Egypt.[11] On 16 February 1923, Carter opened the sealed doorway, and found that it did indeed lead to a burial chamber, and he got his first glimpse of the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun. All of these discoveries were eagerly covered by the world’s press, but most of their representatives were kept in their hotels; only H. V. Morton was allowed on the scene, and his vivid descriptions helped to cement Carter’s reputation with the British public.

Carter’s own notes and photographic evidence indicate that he, Lord Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn Herbert entered the burial chamber shortly after the tomb’s discovery and before the official opening.[12]

On this day in 1862, Gen. Grant is victorious at the Battle of Fort Donelson:

The Battle of Fort Donelson was fought from February 11 to 16, 1862, in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. The Union capture of the Confederate fort near the TennesseeKentucky border opened the Cumberland River, an important avenue for the invasion of the South. The Union’s success also elevated Brig. Gen.Ulysses S. Grant from an obscure and largely unproven leader to the rank of major general, and earned him the nickname of “Unconditional Surrender” Grant.

The battle followed the Union capture of Fort Henry on February 6. Grant moved his army 12 miles (19 km) overland to Fort Donelson on February 12 and 13 and conducted several small probing attacks. (Although the name was not yet in use, the troops serving under Grant were the nucleus of the Union’s Army of the Tennessee.[4]) On February 14, Union gunboats under Flag OfficerAndrew H. Foote attempted to reduce the fort with gunfire, but were forced to withdraw after sustaining heavy damage from Fort Donelson’s water batteries.

On February 15, with the fort surrounded, the Confederates, commanded by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd, launched a surprise attack against Grant’s army in an attempt to open an escape route to Nashville, Tennessee. Grant, who was away from the battlefield at the start of the attack, arrived to rally his men and counterattack. Despite achieving partial success and opening the way for a retreat, Floyd lost his nerve and ordered his men back to the fort. The following morning, Floyd and his second-in-command, Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, relinquished command to Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner(later Governor of Kentucky), who agreed to accept Grant’s terms of unconditional surrender.

Today’s Puzzle from JigZone is a butterfly:

The Walworth County Circuit Court Race (Preliminaries)

One may say two things, preliminarily, about the Walworth County Circuit Court race:

  • It’s a race between generally conservative candidates; there are no left-right differences of significance.
  • Incumbent District Attorney Dan Necci, after only briefly serving in that role, is running with almost no local, official support for his candidacy from among those with whom he has worked or would have to work.

That’s a huge tell, and reason to write again about this race at length: Necci’s been district attorney only for a short while, and now wants to be a judge, but cannot serve effectively in that role without significant, positive collaborative relationships.

He has few, if any, such relationships in Elkhorn. That seldom happens – most officials will accept one local candidate or another.

It’s more than unusual – it’s a practical disqualification. Necci’s not running as an editorialist, a blogger, an activist – he’s serving as a district attorney, and is running to be a circuit judge. Those roles require cooperation with other officeholders, and their support going forward – but Necci has almost none of that.

He’s had to rely on support from out-of-county officeholders, or state politicians with no day-to-day role in Elkhorn.

Needless to say, I’m not disposed to the political culture in Elkhorn, but then that’s why I am not – and never will – run for office there. Necci is running there, but he’s so alienated other officeholders that his support among them is almost non-existent.

Even former members of his own district attorney’s office are supporting one or another of his opponents.  Local lawyers, local law enforcement, local court personnel, etc., are all lined up with his opponents. 

Honest to goodness, that doesn’t happen unless one has made an utter hash of his or her time in office.

And that, dear readers, is a subject worth pursing as the general election in April draws closer.

‘Until That Second Digester is More Utilized’

WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 61 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.

We saw in last week’s post that actual elements of the importation project that City Manager Clapper claims would ‘experimental’ belie his contention. Far from a project being designed to test waste-importation, this is a project that from the very beginning will be able to accommodate heavy truck traffic. See, Post 60, ‘A Truck Loop Specified for Heavy Truck Traffic.’

This week, one sees the same, simple truth, in contradiction to Mr. Clapper’s claims that this is a provision or experimental project: this project even includes a second, new digester mixer, allowing for a volume of importation beyond any existing needs.

In the video below. the project engineer from the Donohue firm, Nathan Cassity, concedes that a second digester mixer is not now needed to manage existing local capacity:

“The first digester already has a mixing system, the second one doesn’t. Umm, the thought there was that digester really is a backup digester and that item could be delayed until that second digester is more util…utilized, excuse me.”

‘Until That Second Digester is More Utilized’ from John Adams on Vimeo.

It’s worth noting that Whitewater no longer has a need for past digester capacity because her economy no longer has a large, commercial enterprise that would use one.  City Manager Clapper and Wastewater Superintendent Reel could only make use of a second digester (with mixer) through significant, persistent, waste importation into Whitewater.

Despite even the vendor-engineer’s admission that a second mixer would be necessary now, there is the claim that the second digester and mixer would have a role only ‘when that second digester ‘is more util…utilized, excuse me.’

That far greater utilization, so to speak, cannot come from local use, as we do not have enough local need. That far greater utilization, so to speak, cannot come from mere experimentation, as no local experiment could possibly justify a processing capacity so considerable.

In fact, there is only one method by which the additional capacity that Mr. Clapper wants could be ‘utilized’: through large-scale importation into Whitewater of other cities’ unwanted waste.

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Appearing at whengreenturnsbrown.com and re-posted Mondays @ 10 AM here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread for 2.15.16

Good morning, Whitewater.

Presidents’ day will be cloudy with a high of thirty. Sunrise is 6:51 and sunset 5:26, for 10h 35m 30s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 52.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1898, the U.S.S. Maine explodes and sinks in Havana Harbor:

USSMaineIn January 1898, Maine was sent from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban War of Independence. Three weeks later, at 21:40, on 15 February, an explosion on board Maine occurred in the Havana Harbor (coordinates: 23°08?07?N 82°20?38?W).[47] Later investigations revealed that more than 5 long tons (5.1 t) of powder charges for the vessel’s six- and ten-inch guns had detonated, obliterating the forward third of the ship.[48] The remaining wreckage rapidly settled to the bottom of the harbor. Most of Maines crew were sleeping or resting in the enlisted quarters, in the forward part of the ship, when the explosion occurred. In total, 260[49] men lost their lives as a result of the explosion or shortly thereafter, and six[49] more died later from injuries. Captain Sigsbee and most of the officers survived, because their quarters were in the aft portion of the ship. Altogether there were 89 survivors, 18 of whom were officers.[50] On 21 March, the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry, in Key West, declared that a naval mine caused the explosion.[51]

….Maines destruction did not result in an immediate declaration of war with Spain. However, the event created an atmosphere that virtually precluded a peaceful solution.[56] The Spanish–American War began in April 1898, two months after the sinking. Advocates of the war used the rallying cry, “remember the Maine! To Hell with Spain!”[57][58][59][60][61] The episode focused national attention on the crisis in Cuba, but was not cited by the William McKinley administration as a casus belli, though it was cited by some already inclined to go to war with Spain over perceived atrocities and loss of control in Cuba.[62][63]

JigZone‘s puzzle to begin the week is Bridge Over Forest:

Whitewater’s Mentoring Gap

Looking back ten years (or nine in the case of UW-Whitewater), one finds at the helm of Whitewater’s public institutions leaders who so very much embodied Old Whitewater: Steinhaus, Brunner, Coan, Telfer (beginning in ’07).  They were the perfect representatives of Old Whitewater, where Old Whitewater is an attitude, not an age: narrow, grandiose, mediocre, producing little more than self-praise and ceaseless exaggerations about sham accomplishments.  2006-2007 was the high watermark of Old Whitewater.

To these officials, it must have seemed that their outlook would continue, unquestioned and unchallenged, forever.  Newspapers were still seemingly strong and unquestionably fawning, the Banner was just beginning a servile boosterism of all things official, and together these few leaders advanced in unison a one-city, one-view, one-way perspective.

Ten years on, each one of the officials named is gone from the offices they then held, each of them having left in disappointment and failure.  (On the university side, the full measure of the mess that Richard Telfer left behind is only now spilling out.)  These failed leaders were once treated as tiny deities within the city; when I started writing in 2007, it was common to meet even educated people who spoke about them in reverent tones.

(I, in fact, do believe in God; I’ve just never felt – and never will feel – that He holds local office in Whitewater.)

There are undoubtedly a few who still cling to those now-gone officials as giants, but then there are probably a few who believe that Americans never landed on the moon, or believe against all evidence that Carrot Top really was funny.

These failed few from a decade ago may be gone, but they’ve left another problem behind: as they were poor examples, so they offered too little to subordinates by way of good mentoring.  So many of the people under the leaders of a decade ago lacked good examples of leadership.  They may have learned what not to do, perhaps, simply by watching mistake after mistake at the top.  That’s not much, though.

The truth is that today’s leadership class had few positive examples from yesterday’s leadership class.   They’ve come to office at a disadvantage.  Sometimes, there really is an evident problem with mistaking office-holding and being credentialed for insight and understanding.  The sound mentoring today’s leaders never received would have been a big help; it’s not clear that they see how much they’re missing.   (Even if they do see what they’re missing, at least a few of them don’t seem to know what to do about it.)

Whitewater still struggles with the effects of our last decade’s mistakes and poor choices.

A mentoring gap is among the ill effects today’s leaders inherited from yesterday’s leaders.