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Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, February 28th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Armageddon Time

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Tuesday, February 28th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Armageddon Time @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Drama

Rated R (language); 1 hour, 54 minutes (2022)

A deeply personal comingofage story about the strength of family and the generational pursuit of The American Dream. Starring Anne Hathaway, Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Strong and Banks Repeta.

2023 AARP Movies for Grownups. Best Intergenerational Film Nominee.

One can find more information about Armageddon Time at the Internet Movie Database.

Business, CDA, City, Culture, Daily Bread, Delusion, Entitlement, Local Government, Regulatory Capture

Daily Bread for 2.23.23: The Businessmen Who Won’t Let Go (with Whitewater Versions)

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Good morning.

 

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:38 AM and sunset 5:37 PM for 10h 58m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. (At four o’clock, the City of Whitewater will host an immigration attorney’s presentation that may have a quorum of council members in attendance, but at which no Common Council action will be taken.) 

 On this day in 1778, Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to help to train the Continental Army.

 There’s a hope — one deserving of fulfillment  — that in a small town, at least, people would treat each other without self-importance or entitlement. No one higher, no one lower: all being equal and none exhibiting pretense. 

It’s not that way, of course: as in big cities, small towns, too, are afflicted with a few self-important men and women who are convinced they, and they alone, are deserving of public positions for life. What is it about being a small-town landlord, banker, or public relations man that leads these men to think that out of thousands they’re deserving of lifetime public positions? They’d tell you it’s talent, but… looking around one sees that anyone pulled from a phone directory would have done as well as they have. 

We have in this small city middling versions of national business types who won’t let go. Of those national types, Rob Copeland and Maureen Farrell report Hedge Fund Billionaire Extracts Billions More to Retire:

In the end, Mr. Dalio, with an estimated net worth of $19 billion, agreed to surrender his control over all key decisions at Bridgewater only if the firm agreed to give him what could amount to billions of dollars in regular payouts over the coming years through a special class of stock.

Mr. Dalio did not respond to requests for comment.

Bridgewater, which manages roughly $125 billion on behalf of public pensions and sovereign wealth funds, is dealing with a situation that’s becoming increasingly common across corporate America. Builders of companies big and small appear unwilling to let go, or are asked to step back in when there is turbulence.

Recently, Marc Benioff, of the technology giant Salesforce, returned to solo leadership of the company he co-founded in 1999 and cut around 8,000 jobs. Howard Schultz, now on his third go-round as the chief executive of Starbucks, has appeared intent on crushing efforts across the company to unionize store workers.

Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have stepped in and out of their company several times. And over the summer, Bill Conway, one of the founders of the investing behemoth Carlyle, took the reins after the chief executive left abruptly, and helped choose a new one this month.

At least these national figures once achieved privately for the nation; they are private men clinging to their own private companies, however repulsively needy they seem.

Worse by far are our own local versions who insist on manipulating public councils and authorities forever with only self-promotion to justify their efforts. What an empty conceit it is that they’re somehow sharper or somehow more talented than others.

Aside: In what normal appraisal of industry and talent would anyone place landlords, bankers, or public relations men at the height of achievement? No worse than others, perhaps, but certainly no better. And yet, these men advance themselves as experts. This libertarian blogger has never touted himself as an expert; these men falsely say as much about themselves at every opportunity.

Sadder, still, of course, would be those deluded few who repeat the dull talking points of that entitled lot. (Better never to hold office than to sit on the Whitewater Common Council or Community Development Authority and be known as a landlord’s parrot.)

Somehow, the city is expected to believe these few rather than evidence all around. Quite sad, really.

U.N. Secretary General condemns Russian invasion as UN marks one year of war in Ukraine:

Daily Bread, Education, School District

Daily Bread for 2.22.23: Will Candidates in Whitewater Ever Speak Candidly?

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will see a wintry mix with a high of 32. Sunrise is 6:40 AM and sunset 5:36 PM for 10h 55m 45s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 7.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board is scheduled to meet at 5:30 PM. (canceled). 

 On this day in 1980, in a Miracle on Ice during the Winter Olympics, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4–3.

 Whitewater has a public school board, that public school board has board members, those board members are popularly elected, and so those board members have to campaign for the offices they seek. There were twelve candidates on the ballot, and six will go forward to a general election for three board seats.

Whitewater’s February 21st primary now concluded, a question: Will candidates in Whitewater ever speak candidly? They have about six weeks to do so. 

There’s no surprise about those who are moving forward (Hicks, Linse, Coburn, Kromholz, Huempfner, Mills). These were the predictable primary victors in a crowded field. Unofficial results are available online from Walworth, Jefferson, and Rock counties. 

Honest to goodness, this election isn’t about whether there is a mix of men and women, who’s most photogenic, or whether the candidates eat balanced breakfasts that start their days off right. 

No and no again.

There are different ideological positions between these candidates, substantive differences that cannot be papered over with banal campaign flyers about wanting every child to read and do well in mathematics. One presumes all the candidates want that. If they don’t, then they’re unworthy of running. Few school board candidates run on a platform of keeping children ignorant and unwashed. (In Alabama, perhaps, but not in the rest of the country.) 

For those who want change, what change do they want, spelled out plainly? If they have a plan to boost scores, for example, how will they do so? (Note well: saying that one will try really hard, etc., is not a plan. It’s a lazy evasion.) 

For those who support the district’s current direction, why do they support that direction? How do they describe that direction?

One imagines that everyone on the board, and everyone running for the board, knows how to read and write. If they don’t, then they don’t belong on the board — they belong back in our schools. Explaining to the community where they stand in detail isn’t hard, but it’s more than a vague campaign flyer. It’s paper, pen, then ink on paper. 

Americans are an educated people, and America is a world leader in science, technology, and the humanities. Whitewater is a college town (no matter how many in this town deprecate a college education). Board members in Whitewater should be able to express and explain themselves as well as the best at our high school and college. A good high school education easily equips a person to do so. 

All these candidates want to win. Of course they do. Winning by speaking only banalities while whispering of other plans once in office isn’t a sign of sophistication. It’s evidence of inadequacy and duplicity. 

They should say what they mean, plainly and directly. 

Supreme Court Justices Are ‘Confused’ by Internet Legal Shield Case:

Budget, Daily Bread, Government Spending, Local Government, State Government, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.21.23: Will Wisconsin Find a Shared Revenue Resolution?

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 32. Sunrise is 6:41 AM and sunset 5:34 PM for 10h 52m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1947, in New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first “instant camera,” the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.

Can Wisconsin’s popularly-elected governor and the gerrymandered legislature reach an agreement on shared revenue? Rich Kremer reports Local government advocates confident a fix to ‘broken’ shared revenue program will happen this year (‘Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and GOP leaders in Legislature honing in on directing portion of state sales tax to cities, towns, counties’): 

Leaders of Wisconsin’s two largest local government associations say they expect changes are coming for the state’s “broken” shared revenue system, they’re just not sure what that will look like.

Still, they say bipartisan discussions about the need to address the system that funnels state funds to Wisconsin’s counties and municipalities are a big deal because communities around the state, from the smallest towns to the largest cities, are struggling to pay for basic government services. 

During his state budget address Jan. 24, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers pledged to send 20 percent of state sales tax revenues back to local governments. Evers’ budget proposal also calls for allowing Milwaukee County to impose an additional 1 percent sales tax, with half of those proceeds going to the City of Milwaukee.

The governor’s call for dedicating a portion of sales tax income toward shared revenue is similar to one discussed by Republican leaders in the Legislature since December. The Legislature’s plan calls for dedicating 1 cent of every 5 cents the state collects in sales tax to local communities. 

“The soup hasn’t been cooked, but we at least have agreed on the pot that the soup is going to go in,” Wisconsin Towns Association Executive Director Mike Koles told Wisconsin Eye’s Newsmakers on Monday. “That’s tremendous. We haven’t been there in a long time.”

The pot is the least of it. Best to wait for the full recipe; there is no recipe without ingredients. 

See the eye of tropical cyclone Freddy in amazing view from space station:

Business, Courts, Daily Bread, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.20.23: The End of the Dark Store Loophole in Wisconsin

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see afternoon showers with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:43 AM and sunset 5:33 PM for 10h 50m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.2% of its visible disk illuminated.


Several local officials will be part of a tour of the Whitewater Aquatic & Fitness Center at 5 PM. 


 On this day in 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of Massachusetts’s mandatory smallpox vaccination program in Jacobson v. Massachusetts.



Henry Leonard reports Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules Against “Dark Store Loophole” (‘With no dissent, court rules against big-box retailers’ tax reduction strategy’): 



The decision strikes a blow to the use of so-called “dark store” tax theory that has become common in Wisconsin and across the country. The method involves comparing the value of an operating big box retail store to long vacant, or “dark,” stores nearby. Pushed by big box retailers such as Lowe’s, Menards and Walmart — with the support of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobby — dark store theory has been criticized by local officials and the public because it can take revenue away from municipalities and cause the property taxes on residents’ homes to increase.


….


In Lowe’s v. Delavan, the hardware store was challenging city assessments of its property in 2016 and 2017. The store, located in a “thriving retail area,” according to the city, was assessed at $8,922,300 in both years by Delavan’s assessor. The outside assessor Lowe’s hired valued the property at $4,600,000, nearly 50% less than the city’s value. An outside assessor hired by the city valued the property even higher than the city’s original assessment at $9,200,000.


The store appealed the assessment at the local board of review and then filed a lawsuit in Walworth County Circuit Court. The circuit court sided with the city, so Lowe’s appealed the decision. The appeals court also sided with the city, so Lowe’s appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.


At issue in the lawsuit were the stores used by each assessor to come up with the market value. When a store hasn’t been sold recently, which in this case hadn’t happened because the property had operated as a Lowe’s since it was constructed in 2005, assessors find comparable stores in the area to come up with a value.


The assessor hired by Lowe’s had almost entirely used stores that were “dark,” vacant or considered distressed.





See the opinion of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC v. City of Delavan, 2023 WI 8. 

2023-2019ap001987Download



 Deer Runs Amok Inside Alabama Elementary School: 



Authoritarianism, Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Trump, Trumpism

Daily Bread for 2.19.23: More Trump than Trump, Coming Soon to a Midwest Community Near You

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:44 AM and sunset 5:32 PM for 10h 47m 21s  of daytime. The moon is new with 0.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1954, the Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the transfer of the Crimean Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.

Isaac Arnsdorf reports Far-right election denier beats Trump’s pick for Michigan GOP (‘Kristina Karamo, who refused to concede her run for secretary of state, beat Donald Trump’s choice for state chair in a chaotic convention’): 

LANSING, Mich. — Republicans here, reeling from a midterm election rout that many blamed on the influence of former president Donald Trump, respondedSaturdayby spurning the former president’s choice for state party chair — and choosing someone even more extreme.

Kristina Karamo, who refused to concede her 14-point loss for secretary of state in 2022, beat former attorney general candidate Matt DePerno, who had Trump’s endorsement, in three rounds of contentious voting. The chaotic 11-hour convention, featuring a rowdy standoff over voting procedures and 10 candidates who all ran under a pro-Trump banner, left no doubt that the bulk of the party’s activists in thiskey battleground state remain firmly committed to election denial and showed no interest in moderating their message to appeal to the political center.

“Conceding to a fraudulent person is agreeing with the fraud, which I will not do,” Karamo said to cheers in her campaign speech on Saturday.

Trump’s a legally challenged, politically stumbling, sluggish wreck. He’ll lose to Biden or any other Democrat in 2024. And yet, what he has brought to the heart of GOP politics will not abate. See Man and Movement. On the contrary, the extremism he encouraged will grow only stronger within the Republican Party.  

The only question is how leading conservative populists will present themselves before taking office. Overtly autocratic like DeSantis, or platitudinous until taking power like stealthy  conservative populists across the country?

Once in, they’ll carry on with their 21st century version of a kulturkampf just the same.

Machu Picchu: Inca citadel reopens to tourists after month of civil unrest:

Daily Bread, Technology

Daily Bread for 2.18.23: The Voice Behind the GPS

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 38. Sunrise is 6:46 AM and sunset 5:30 PM for 10h 44m 33s  of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 4.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1885, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is published in the United States.

 

Meet Karen Jacobsen, a voiceover artist from Queensland Australia, who has one of the most recognizable voices in the world. As the original voice of GPS, she’s helped billions of us to reach our destination. Back in 2002, she recorded more than 50 hours of audio for the first ever GPS voice system, including 168 versions of the word “approximately.”

Has she told you where to go? Recalculating.

Oats Have a Healthy Future:

Authoritarianism, Daily Bread, Putin, Russia

Daily Bread for 2.17.23: ‘Tiny Apelike Humanoid May Still Be Living in Plain Sight’

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 25. Sunrise is 6:47 AM and sunset 5:29 PM for 10h 41m 48s  of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 10.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1801, a tie in the Electoral College between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.

Tim Newcomb reports A Tiny Apelike Humanoid May Still Be Living in Plain Sight, Scientist Says.

Well, yes — 

Whirling sand makes vehicles ‘disappear’ on Las Vegas highway:

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Cruelty, Culture, Daily Bread, Populists, Trumpism

Daily Bread for 2.16.23: Sympathy & Empathy

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of 29. Sunrise is 6:49 AM and sunset 5:28 PM for 10h 39m 03s  of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 19.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority is scheduled to meet at 5:30 PM. 

 On this day in 1978, the first computer bulletin board system is created (CBBS in Chicago).

We live in a time where one is urged, where everyone is urged, to be empathetic. Some of us were born in an earlier time, when there was a plain distinction between sympathy and empathy. Of that distinction: while to be sympathetic was to show concern for others, to be empathetic was to feel the feelings of others. Under this distinction, while one might have remorse even for an adversary’s misfortunes (accidents, illnesses, etc.), one would not feel an adversary’s feelings (of domination, bigotry, etc.). 

This useful distinction runs through this libertarian blogger’s outlook. One can and should have sympathy even for the reprehensible without sharing the cravings and appetites that make them reprehensible. (Empathy carries a burden; it’s no easy condition. It requires strength of mind.)

As it turns out, this distinction has been commonly abandoned. Some feel that expressing sympathy is condescending, and that a true sharing of others’ feelings is the proper expression of one’s humanity. Those who have abandoned sympathy for empathy on this ground are mistaken. One can care for others, even the malevolent, without sharing their dark thoughts.  

Some others, including many populists, have evidently abandoned the distinction between sympathy and empathy because they have neither. They luxuriate in the infliction of emotional or physical injury on others. Adam Serwer is right about these types: for them, Cruelty is the Point. 

To rationalize their conduct, or foolishly to trust them, is to place oneself at a disadvantage. Why these populists are the way they are matters less than recognizing their malevolence. 

This device corkscrews itself into the ground like a seed:

City, Conservative Populism, Culture, Daily Bread, Tantrums

Daily Bread for 2.15.23: The Undisciplined Men of Conservative Populism

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 6:50 AM and sunset 5:27 PM for 10h 36m 19s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 30.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1862, Confederates commanded by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd attack General Ulysses S. Grant’s Union forces besieging Fort Donelson in Tennessee. Unable to break the fort’s encirclement, the Confederates surrender the following day.

Yesterday’s post offered observations on conservative populism, and today’s post has a bit more.  Not all conservatives are the same, but they different in disposition, knowledge, and ambition, not intelligence. (Almost all people, of whatever politics, are sharp; society would not function otherwise.) The traditional conservatives feel it’s indecorous to tantrum, and the transactional conservatives scheme quietly for one monetary gain or another.  

Among the conservative populists of Whitewater (and other places) there is also a difference between the behavior of men and women in that faction. For the most part, excepting someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, women among the populists do better at controlling themselves in public than men of that ideology. 

Indeed, many women among the conservative populists are shrewd enough to describe themselves, and present themselves, cautiously despite their exclusionary ideology. They seem more reasonable than they are. These women are a backwards version of Madame Defarge: strident once in office, but more demure beforehand, knitting quietly (but no more). 

The men among the conservative populists aren’t subtle: they quickly slip into dominance-and-submission rituals, or into false (and ludicrous) claims of expertise or insight they do not have. They look maladjusted to anyone outside their ranks, and so it’s hard for them to win over anyone not already among their number. (They also assume everyone should behave as they do, and so they do not understand stoicism, forbearance, or patience as virtues. They don’t grasp that in difficult circumstances, a good maxim is the hotter the temperature, the colder the man.)

Among the men of conservative populism, there’s often a moment of self-sabotage, when they act out, lose their cool, and have public conniptions. See Who Rampaged Better? Even if they start with an olive branch, any slight they perceive along the way causes them to substitute poison ivy. 

So many of these big, bad men reveal themselves as though no more than insecure children. 

 US Tells Americans in Russia to Leave ‘Immediately’: 

City, Conservative Populism, Culture, Daily Bread, Education, Excuses and Rationalizations, Freedom of Speech, Language, Low Standards

Daily Bread for 2.14.23: Nothing Upsets the Populists Like Contrary Speech (esp. from Blacks or Gays)

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Good morning.

Valentine’s Day in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 50. Sunrise is 6:52 AM and sunset 5:25 PM for 10h 33m 36s  of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 40.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Now, Whitewater — don’t let showers dampen your spirits. There’s romance in the rain. 

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM. 

 On this day in 1778, the United States flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.

Populism is a faction that falsely describes itself as a majority, and seeks to demonize contrary views as illegitimate. See Defining Populism. America has populists of the left and right, but Whitewater has only conservative populists. This city has a small, obsessive faction of easily-offended conservative populists. Whining about masks, lying about vaccines, looking to ban speech they don’t like, they’re mostly thin-skinned Facebook trolls. They often make mistakes of Identifying Types and Spotting Issues. See generally The Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater. 

They practice a dominance-and-submission ritual, but badgering, head-shaking, hands-in-air, with squeals of what? what? what?!! is less domination than confirmation that they lack mature stoicism. (An earlier generation of conservatives would have rightly recommended remedial programming for these populists.)

Note well 1:  If there’s ever been proof that we’ve failed as a nation in K-12 education, that proof is to be found among the conservative populists. These native-born Americans read little, grasp less, and express themselves poorly as a consequence. A solid secondary school education should prepare someone to write well. College should not be — and is not — necessary preparation for speaking and writing to one’s fellow residents. Our forefathers did well with less than these contemporary Americans have. A native-born man or woman should be able to express himself or herself properly in the English language on the first draft. 

A motto for the day — wake up, wash up, read up. 

Note well 2 : Conservative populists may be objectionable in ideology and expression, but their lawful speech should not be banned or restricted. 

Consider, as Jennifer Rubin ably describes, the latest national controversy from the conservative populists:

MAGA Republicans had a conniption fit on Sunday as they witnessed the Super Bowl pregame show include “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” sometimes called the Black national anthem, alongside the national anthem and “America the Beautiful.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) howled on Twitter, “America only has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM. Why is the NFL trying to divide us by playing multiple!? Do football, not wokeness.” Similarly, the campaign for former Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake tweeted that she is “against the idea of a ‘black National Anthem’ for the same reason she’s against a ‘white National Anthem.’ She subscribes to the idea of ‘one Nation, under God.’”

This is ridiculous. The pregame show’s announcers referred to the song by its formal title, not as a national anthem. And its words are deeply inspirational and patriotic:

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

The song never even mentions race. And it’s not as if the song is new to NFL games.

It’s constant grievance from people who paradoxically claim strength while whining. 

Asteroid burns over English Channel after entering Earth’s atmosphere:

Daily Bread, Madison, Military, Weird Tales

Daily Bread for 2.13.23: Madison-Based Jets Shoot Down Mysterious Object over Lake Huron

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:53 AM and sunset 5:24 PM for 10h 30m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 51.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Unified School Board holds a legislative breakfast at 8 AM, and Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6 PM. 

Note for the school district: a healthful breakfast begins with a low-salt and low-gerrymandering diet.

 On this day in 1935, a jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh.

Beck Andrew Salgado and Hannah Kirby report Madison-based jets take down object over Lake Huron hours after airspace was closed over Lake Michigan:

Just hours after airspace over Lake Michigan was closed, Madison-based military jets shot down an object over Lake Huron, officials said Sunday.

It’s the third “object” shot down in as many days, following incidents in Alaska and Canada, and the fourth since the downing of a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina Feb. 4.

….

The object had been flying at about 20,000 feet over Lake Huron in a path and altitude that raised concerns about it being a hazard to civilian aviation, according to Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary.  

Officials told the Associated Press that President Biden ordered the object shot down and that it was believed to be the same one tracked over Montana Saturday and monitored by the government beginning the night before.

Madison-based U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jets downed the object on Sunday. “The location chosen for this shoot down afforded us the opportunity to avoid impact to people on the ground while improving chances for debris recovery,” according to a release from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The object landed in Lake Huron about 15 nautical miles from shore.

Wisconsin’s not far from the action after all. 

Sun blasts big X1-class solar flare, spacecraft sees it: