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Monthly Archives: August 2016

Marquette Law Poll Results (Late August Edition)

The latest Marquette Law School poll results are out, and here are a few key findings from the 8.25.16 to 8.28.16 poll (the full results will be available online later this afternoon).


Clinton-Trump, Among LV:

Clinton-Trump-Johnson-Stein, Among RV:

Feingold-Johnson, Among LV:

Feingold-Johnson-Anderson, Among LV:


Daily Bread for 8.31.16

Good morning, Whitewater.

Our month ends on a day of partly cloudy skies with a high of seventy-eight.  Sunrise is 6:19 AM and sunset 7:29 PM, for 13h 09m 29s of daytime.  We’ve a new moon, with just .9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Marquette Law publishes a new Wisconsin poll this afternoon. I’ll have highlights when they’re available.

On this day in 1897, Edison patents the kinetograph:

Thomas Edison receives a patent for his movie camera, the Kinetograph. Edison had developed the camera and its viewer in the early 1890s and staged several demonstrations.

The camera was based on photographic principles discovered by still-photograph pioneers Joseph Nicephone Niepce and Louis Daguerre of France. In 1877, inventor Edward Muybridge developed a primitive form of motion pictures when Leland Stanford, governor of California, invited him to develop photo studies of animals in motion. Muybridge developed an ingenious system for photographing sequential motion, setting up 24 cameras attached to trip wires stretched across a racetrack. As the horse tripped each wire, the shutters snapped. The resulting series of photos could be projected as something resembling a motion picture. This breakthrough in the early 1870s inspired another student of animal motion, Etienne Jules Marey of France, to develop in 1882 a rotating camera rather like a rifle, where different pictures were taken in a rapid sequence by a rotating cartridge.

Unlike these earlier cameras, Edison’s Kinetoscope and Kinetograph used celluloid film, invented by George Eastman in 1889. In February 1893, Edison built a small movie studio that could be rotated to capture the best available sunlight. He showed the first demonstration of his films—featuring three of his workers pretending to be blacksmiths—in May 1893.

It’s a seahorse puzzle from JigZone for Wednesday:

The Sketchy – But Revealing – UW-Whitewater Dormitory Stories 

The big UW-Whitewater story last week wasn’t about a dormitory, but about a lawsuit against former Chancellor Telfer and current Athletic Director Amy Edmonds

The dormitory stories are at best evidence of administrative incompetence, at worst evidence of a manipulated story (albeit ham-handedly).  They also, ironically, offer a dark motivation for the repeated actions of UW-Whitewater officials concerning sexual assault reporting. 

Background.  On Sunday evening, 8.21, the Journal Sentinel published a story about how UW-Whitewater dorm limbo could crimp recruitment. I posted on the story the next day, noting that even by the story’s own terms, the key issue wasn’t a dorm, but the influx of out-of-state students from Illinois. SeeDorm-Construction Isn’t the Big Story.

Five days later, on Friday evening, the Journal posted a follow-up to the dormitory story.  SeeUW-Whitewater dorm back on track.

Turns out, the Journal story was stale even before the first installment on 8.21:

Gov. Scott Walker signed the final contract to hire an architect/engineering firm for the UW-Whitewater residence hall the same day the project was singled out by the regents during their [August 18th] meeting in Madison. The project was working its way through the pipeline in a normal progression, according to Steve Michels, communications director for the state Department of Administration….

UW officials weren’t notified that the governor had signed the contract until Tuesday [8.23], the day after a story about the project delay appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

(In fact, the story appeared online on 8.21, but either way the dorm had been approved before reporter Herzog published a word of her story.)

A few observations:

Convenient, coincidental. How convenient it must have been, on the same day that news broke of a lawsuit against UW-Whitewater, that an unrelated  (and actually resolved) issue was available to divert attention from a more important matter.

The lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin on 8.18 – university officials surely knew of it before reporter Karen Herzog’s story appeared online or in print.

Incompetent. Honest to goodness, could Herzog not have called to ask the status of the dorm before writing her first story? That first story makes no mention of any attempt to call any state officials. 

The story seems to rely completely and totally on the account of Jeff Arnold, Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs at UW-Whitewater

Either Herzog was negligent to omit reference of a call to the state, was negligent not to call the state, or was a dupe in a UW-Whitewater effort to push a non-issue (dorm already approved) over an ongoing, serious one (federal lawsuits and federal Title IX investigations). 

Ineffectual. Since the dorm had already been approved, what does that say about the Vice Chancellor Arnold’s competence or influence that supposedly (1) he didn’t know and (2) nobody bothered to tell him promptly?

Ineffectual, Part 2. All litigation is uncertain. I’ve no idea how either the lawsuit or Title IX administrative claims will develop.

I do know that both stories are now national ones,  and that local efforts to shift the subject are futile (both because the stories have spread too far and because the university’s Media Relations staff are incapable of effectively spinning these accounts against an accurate telling in reply).

Motivation.  Whether Arnold’s fuss over a dorm that had already been approved was from his own incompetence or as a public relations diversion, it’s revealing in a deeper way.

Astonishingly, in the first story, reporter Herzog unintentionally supplies a motivation for the university’s actions to ignore or shove aside those who spoke of sexual assaults on campus: the university was under competitive, financial pressure to recruit out-of-state students.  

Here, from Herzog’s first story:

Since 2009, the school has doubled admissions applications and enrollment of Illinois students. Illinois residents made up 9% of the freshman class in 2009; now they are about 16% of the freshman class, with the largest number coming from McHenry and Lake counties.

Wisconsin resident enrollment is holding steady, according to school officials.

Not having enough housing may work against recruiting efforts in Illinois.

“The lack of housing is constraining our growth,” Arnold said. “It’s our feeling we’re losing students because of our inability to provide housing. Our freshman classes have been capped due to our housing.”

If Arnold thinks that lack of housing will constrain growth, imagine what repeated stories of sexual assualt on campus would do to those same recruitment efforts.

The pressure and push for out-of state-students, from 2009 to 2014, coincides with the clear majority of Richard Telfer’s tenure as chancellor.

Herzog’s first story, one that that Arnold seems to have spoon-fed to her, offers a dark, specific, numerical motivation to suppress assault reporting. 

One could have surmised as much without the story, to be sure, but if the story should be a public-relations inspiration, it’s an especially poor one. 

Expressing public concern over recruiting at the same time students and a former employee are filing complaints about mishandled sexual assault cases, unjust termination, and retaliation is particularly dense. 

More to come. 

Daily Bread for 8.30.16

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in the city will be partly cloudy, with a four-in-ten chance of afternoon thunderstorms, and a high of eighty-two.  Sunrise is 6:18 AM and 7:31 PM, for 13h 12m 16s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, Gen. MacArthur arrives in Japan:

Japan surrendered to the Allies on August 14, 1945, when the Japanese government notified the Allies that it had accepted the Potsdam Declaration. On the following day, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s unconditional surrender on the radio (the Gyokuon-h?s?). The announcement was the emperor’s first ever planned radio broadcast and the first time most citizens of Japan ever heard their sovereign’s voice.[5] This date is known as Victory Over Japan, or V-J Day, and marked the end of World War II and the beginning of a long road to recovery for a shattered Japan.

Japanese officials left for Manila, Philippines on August 19 to meet MacArthur and to be briefed on his plans for the occupation. On August 28, 150 U.S. personnel flew to Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture. They were followed by USS Missouri,[6] whose accompanying vessels landed the 4th Marine Division on the southern coast of Kanagawa. Other Allied personnel followed.

MacArthur arrived in Tokyo on August 30, and immediately decreed several laws. No Allied personnel were to assault Japanese people. No Allied personnel were to eat the scarce Japanese food. Flying the Hinomaru or “Rising Sun” flag was initially severely restricted (although individuals and prefectural offices could apply for permission to fly it). This restriction was partially lifted in 1948 and completely lifted the following year.[7]

Today’s JigZone puzzle is of a pelican:

Pavement Project Causes Lake Contamination in Whitewater

WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports
 

WKOW-TV of Madison reports on what everyone in Whitewater can see: that oil from a paving project has spread from that project. See, Pavement project causes lake contamination in Whitewater @ WKOW-TV.

Three key points:

1. Unobservant: city officials took two days to discover this. WKOW’s Gordon Severson reports that “the City didn’t know about it until Friday, two days after the rainstorm came through.” Honest to goodness, in this small city, where conditions should be easily visible to anyone, it took two days for city officials to learn of this, and then only from residents rather than from their own observations.

How far away is the municipal building that no one walks the distance to Cravath and the Mill Pond? (Answer: Three-tenths of a mile. A person in normal health and vigor could walk this distance in only a few minutes.)

2. Other, larger projects. If it takes Mr. Clapper’s administration days to notice oil running down a path into the lake, what hope is there that he will monitor adequately his project to import outsiders’ waste into the city?

Even at scheduled meetings, he often forgets key figures (the price of things, for example) or supporting documents.

3. City officials have neglected Cravath and the Mill Pond previously. Cravath was not in proper condition for the Fourth of July events, and a ski show had to be canceled. Independence Day visitors could easily see the lake was unusable for recreation that weekend.

 

Daily Bread for 8.29.16

Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in town will be mostly cloudy with a high of eighty-four. Sunrise is 6:17 AM and sunset 7:32 PM, for 13h 15m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 9.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1944, American troops parade through Paris, a city they had so recently helped liberate:

On 29 August, the U.S. Army’s 28th Infantry Division, who had assembled in the Bois de Boulogne the previous night, paraded 24-abreast up the Avenue Hoche to the Arc de Triomphe, then down the Champs Élysées. Joyous crowds greeted the Americans as the entire division, men and vehicles, marched through Paris “on its way to assigned attack positions northeast of the French capital.” [17]

JigZone‘s Monday puzzle is of a bridge:

Film: Tuesday, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, The Driftless Area

This Tuesday, August 30th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of The Driftless Area @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building:

A bartender comes back to his hometown after his parents die, and finds himself in a dangerous situation involving a mysterious woman and a violent criminal..

The film (starring the late Anton Yelchin, Zooey Deschanel, and John Hawkes) runs one hour, thirty-five minutes, with a R rating from the MPAA.

One can find more information about The Driftless Area at the Internet Movie Database.

Enjoy.

Daily Bread for 8.28.16

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in town will be cloudy in the morning, sunny in the afternoon, with a high of eighty-four.  Sunrise is 6:16 AM and sunset 7:34 PM, for 13h 17m 49s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 16.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Friday’s FW poll asked whether a University of Pittsburgh student who got stuck between buildings (while leaping from one to another to impress a date) was reckless, romantic, or a bit of both.  A majority of respondents (61.29%) said that he was reckless.

Someone asked me, recently, why each day’s morning post at FW often includes mention of a national or state event. There are two reasons, one personal, one ideological. The quickest answer is simply that I like historical accounts and anecdotes.

There’s a second reason, however: too much of the policy in this city assumes a world no larger than one within the boundaries of Townline Road. This assumption comes not from localism, or even hyper-localism, but nearly a kind of solipsism. Policy made on that basis is (at best) flawed or (at worst) destructive.

Beginning the day with reference to international, national, or state events is a reminder that good policy rests on principles far broader than local glad-handing.

If all were well here, this perspective would matter less. But if all were well here, then it would mean that this perspective had been adopted more often.

On this day in 1963, Dr. King delivered his I Have a Dream speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Text via National Archives.

On this day in 1862, the Iron Brigade sees its first combat:

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].

Coach Fader Appears on ESPN’s Outside the Lines

 

On Friday, former UW-Whitewater Coach Timothy Fader appeared on ESPN’s nationally-broadcast Outside the Lines, to describe the treatment that led him to file a federal lawsuit against former Chancellor Telfer and current Athletic Director Amy Edmonds. See, Coach fired for reporting sexual assault.

UW-Whitewater officials declined to appear on the program, but issued a statement that anchor Bob Ley read on the air. (The UW-Whitewater statement professes concern for assault survivors but declines to mention that two assault survivors have filed federal Title IX complaints against UW-Whitewater for failing to address their grievances properly as the law requires.)

Channel 3000 first reported on the lawsuit last Monday. This website posted on the lawsuit and story that same day, and included a copy of the federal lawsuit for readers (pdf).

For more on the story, see from Channel 3000 (WISC-TV), Former UW-Whitewater coach tells story to national audience. For prior posts from FREE WHITEWATER, see posts about Coach Fader and UW-Whitewater officials’ conduct.