FREE WHITEWATER

Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Alcohol, Daily Bread, Health, Opioids, Public Health

Daily Bread for 9.13.21: Drinking More?

by  •  •  Comments

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with scattered thundershowers and a high of 74.  Sunrise is 6:33 AM and sunset 7:06 PM for 12h 33m 14s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 45.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1956, the IBM 305 RAMAC is introduced, the first commercial computer to use disk storage.

Richard Kremer reports COVID-19 Pandemic Driving Wisconsin’s Alcohol Sales:

A new report suggests people are buying dramatically more alcohol during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum released findings Wednesday that show revenue from state excise taxes on alcohol during the year that ended June 30 increased almost 17 percent over the $63.3 million they brought in the prior year.

The increase likely will be the largest percentage jump since 1972 if the preliminary data holds.

Between 2009 and 2020, the percentage increase in alcohol tax revenue exceeded 2.4 percent in only one year.

Mark Sommerhauser, Wisconsin Policy Forum researcher, said he and his colleagues suspected alcohol consumption was up during the pandemic. But with bars and restaurants closed for months in 2020, he said he was curious to see what alcohol tax data would show.

“Let’s face it, people were super, super stressed over the last year with maybe their job situation or their kids’ school or day care or who knows what else,” Sommerhauser said. “There’s just kind of a brew of factors, sort of a confluence of things coming together here, that I think are potentially concerning.”

The report shows that during the 2021 fiscal year, which ended June 30, taxes on liquor increased by more than 18 percent over the 2020 fiscal year. During the same period, taxes were up by around 10 percent for beer and wine, while revenues from hard cider sales increased by just more than 16 percent.

Drinking alcohol is — as it should be for adults — legal.  (Fall, in particular, is a season well-suited to a good red.)  And yet, over-drinking from stress, or taking opioids for stress rather than physical pain, incurs both personal and societal costs.

Dr. Anita Gupta writes What We Can Do About The Opioid Crisis During The Pandemic:

The U.S. has historically struggled with opioid addiction. Research suggests that 2 million Americans suffered from an opioid use disorder in 2018 — well before the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Synthetic opioids have contributed to a nationwide increase in overdose deaths, which have increased by 38.4% from the 12-month period leading up to June 2019 compared to the 12-month period leading up to May 2020. But this isn’t just a public health problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the total economic burden of prescription opioid misuse alone is approximately $78.5 billion a year, including health care costs, addiction treatment costs and lost productivity.

The White House and the CDC recommend a few key interventions that could aid in the mitigation of the opioid epidemic: educating as to appropriate and safe opioid prescribing; expanding safe access to new treatments and innovations, including naloxone use; and improving links between mental health care and substance use treatment services and increasing the safe use of medication-assisted treatment. The issue of drug supply has worsened the opioid crisis during the Covid-19 pandemic.

We’re years past the Great Recession, for example, only to find that opioid addiction still plagues rural communities. See also Opioid Crisis : Great Recession :: Dust Bowl : Great Depression. 

Here one sees the chronic social condition that many rural communities daily experience: left, right, center, libertarian, or green all live and advocate in places with public-health challenges only some of them will candidly acknowledge.

Hundreds of paddle boarders ride at Moscow festival:

Conservative Populism, Culture, Daily Bread, Education, Ignorance, Public Meetings, School District

Daily Bread for 9.12.21: Will the Curriculum Be in Their Hands?

by  •  •  Comments

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with occasional thundershowers and a high of 79.  Sunrise is 6:32 AM and sunset 7:08 PM for 12h 36m 07s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 34.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1962, President Kennedy delivers his “We choose to go to the Moon” speech at Rice University.

 Campbell Robertson reports Student mocked at school board meeting after sharing that his grandmother died of covid-19:

Grady Knox stepped to the lectern at the Rutherford County Board of Education meeting Tuesday to share what was at stake with a mask mandate that the board was considering that evening.

Knox, a junior at Central Magnet High School in Murfreesboro, Tenn., told the board that his grandmother, a former teacher in the district, had died of covid-19 last year because of lax mask rules. He was immediately jeered.

An unmasked woman seen over Knox’s shoulder smirks and shakes her head at his comment as she holds a sign that reads “let our kids smile.” Another person is heard saying “no” as attendees murmur, interrupting Knox. Another voice is heard shouting “shut up,” though it’s unclear whether it was directed at Knox or his hecklers.

Though Young was able to restore order and allow Knox to finish his two minutes of speaking time, the crude reaction to the teen’s story of personal loss drew national headlines. The buzz over the school board meeting underscores how fights over school mask rules and other covid-19 precautions have grown increasingly ugly, even as the delta variant triggers new rounds of quarantines and school closures — and states such as Tennessee see record levels of pediatric covid cases.

In extreme cases, adults angry about health restrictions have physically assaulted teachers, ripped masks off and confronted a principal with zip ties. Despite some of the more high-profile showdowns over health restrictions, an August poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a majority of parents approve of mask rules: 63 percent of parents polled said their child’s school should require unvaccinated students and staff to wear masks. The same poll found that attitudes were sharply divided along partisan lines: 88 percent of parents who identify as Democrats approved of mask rules, while 69 percent of parents who identify as Republicans opposed them.

One should be unsurprised: those without an adequate moral or general formation will not allow someone to speak without interruption, and will be indifferent to any viewpoint other than their own. Right-wing populists for years advanced the slogan ‘fuck your feelings,’ and they live out that declaration in Rutherford County, Tennessee and elsewhere.  They delight in the discomfort they cause.

This isn’t a matter of formal education, as anyone properly self-taught would have behaved better than this.

This ilk litters others’ private platforms with their crudities, all the while insisting that they have a right to use others’ property to their ends. No and no again: they don’t deserve others’ property, they have no right to it, and so they may — and should — be denied.

They complain about lawful private employers’ and publishers’ decisions on terms of conduct and service, but in reply they seek to restrict speech through public laws. They insist they have a right to say what they want, but squirm and shout when someone else speaks.

All the while, a group that behaves disreputably demands that it be treated respectably.

While basic rights are accorded equally, respect is earned.

These conservative populists, this selfish and repulsive band, should not be underestimated, in the way that cobras should not be underestimated. One turns away for a moment, and they inflict injury.

One sees all this with clear, cold eyes. Some of us in opposition to them are unmoved: these right-wing populists are neither suprising nor shocking.

They are, instead, what many of us said they were.

Why Japanese Ruby Roman Grapes Are So Expensive:

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, September 14th, 1 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Queen Bees

by  •  •  Comments

This Tuesday, September 14th at 1 PM, there will be a showing of Queen Bees @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Comedy/Drama/Romance

1 hour, 47 minutes

Rated PG-13 (2021)

After reluctantly agreeing to move into a seniors retirement home, Helen (Ellen Burstyn), an independent widow, learns it’s
much like high school — full of cliques and flirtatious suitors.

The cast includes Jane Curtin, Ann-Margaret, Christopher Lloyd, and James Caan.

If vaccinated, no mask is required. Reservations are no longer required. Free popcorn and a beverage!

One can find more information about Queen Bees at the Internet Movie Database.

Daily Bread, History, Terrorism, War

Daily Bread for 9.11.21: Twenty Years Later

by  •  •  Comments

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 90.  Sunrise is 6:31 AM and sunset 7:10 PM, for 12h 38m 58s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 24.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day twenty years ago, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks kills 2,977 people using four aircraft hijacked by 19 members of al-Qaeda. Two aircraft crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, a third crashes into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

 Campbell Robertson reports In Shanksville, Preserving the Memory of 9/11 and the Wars That Followed (‘After Flight 93 went down, once unthinkable duties were thrust upon the community, including young people who found themselves coming of age in a time of war’):

SHANKSVILLE, Pa. — When the plane crashed in the empty field north of town, the schools let out early. Katlin Rodriguez, 11 at the time, waited in a cafeteria full of crying and shocked classmates for her mother and stepfather to come and take her home. When they showed up, they had brought along a family friend. “Don’t worry,” said the friend, a teenager who announced he had just enlisted. “We’re going to get them. We’re going to get the ones who did this.”

On a muggy Friday morning 20 years later, Ms. Rodriguez, now the wife of a Marine and the mother of a 6-year-old girl, was planting American flags in a small field not far from where Flight 93 went down outside Shanksville, Pa. About a dozen people were with her, each flag they planted representing one of 7,049 U.S. service members who had died in the wars that were waged since that late summer morning in 2001.

“A lot of the kids I went to school with, they enlisted,” Ms. Rodriguez said, looking out across the field. “It made a lot of us feel more connected to the larger world.”

By the time that the plane went down in Pennsylvania, the larger world was already reeling. The streets of downtown Manhattan were filled with dust clouds and terror, as the South Tower of the World Trade Center had just collapsed. In Washington, federal officials and city residents were bracing for more attacks as flames poured out of the western side of the Pentagon. People across the country sat in shock in front of their televisions, waiting to hear what institution might be hit next.

Unlike the Pentagon or the World Trade Center, Somerset County, Pa., was not a target on Sept. 11, only a place that Flight 93 was passing over on the way to the terrorists’ grim objective in Washington. People did not live in Stoystown or Friedens or Shanksville, a tiny town without a traffic light, because they wanted to be near the levers of global power.

But when the passengers and crew of United Flight 93 attempted to seize control from their hijackers and the plane went plummeting into the Pennsylvania countryside, Shanksville suddenly became a battlefield in an international conflict. Once unthinkable new duties were now thrust upon the Fire Department, the county coroner, the nearby state troopers, the local historical society, the neighbors living near the crash site and, all across the country but here especially, the young people who suddenly found themselves coming of age in a time of war.

 Centaurus A galaxy stunning view captured by Dark Energy Camera:

Daily Bread, Misconduct, Public Health, Right-wing Populism, Tantrums

Daily Bread for 9.10.21: Who Rampaged Better?

by  •  • 5 Comments

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:30 AM and sunset 7:12 PM, for 12h 41m 50s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 15.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1846, Elias Howe is granted a patent for the sewing machine.

Lori Aratani reports TSA doubles fines for people who refuse to wear masks at airports, in other transportation settings:

People who refuse to comply with a federal mandate that requires them to wear masks in airports, and on trains, buses and in other public transportation settings will face stiffer penalties, Biden administration officials announced Thursday.

Beginning Friday, the fine for refusing to wear a mask will increase to a range of $500 to $1,000 for first offenders. Penalties for a second offense will range from $1,000 to $3,000.

“TSA will double the fines on travelers that refuse to mask,” President Biden said Thursday. “If you break the rules, be prepared to pay. And by the way, show some respect!”

The stiffer penalties are part of aggressive new actions the administration is taking to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The highly contagious delta variant has fueled a sharp uptick in infections this summer and is causing more than 1,500 daily deaths, chiefly among those who have not been vaccinated. More than 655,000 people in the United States have died of the virus.

One hears so often that the conservative populists insist they are a people of ‘common sense,’ that it is somehow others who are hysterical or afraid. And yet, and yet, in public scenes across America, it is the populists who tantrum while shaking their heads, raising their arms, and screaming what, what, what? in reply to simple public-health requests.

And so, a question: Who rampaged better, an ape in an old television commercial or present-day anti-maskers in airports?

Cats, Nature, Science/Nature

Friday Catblogging: Tabbies

by  •  •  Comments

James Gorman reports How the Cat Gets Its Stripes:

A team of geneticists reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications that it had identified a gene in domestic cats that plays a key role in creating the traditional tabby stripe pattern, and that the pattern is evident in embryonic tissue even before hair follicles start to grow.

The inheritance of cat coats — how to breed for this or that pattern — is well known. But how patterns emerge in a growing embryo “really has been an unsolved mystery,” said Dr. Gregory S. Barsh, an author of the new report.

….

From more than 200 prenatal litters, Dr. [Kelly] McGowan looked for patterns in the tissue at the different stages of growth in the embryos. She found a pattern of what she described as thick and thin areas of tissue in the top layer of the embryonic skin, never before reported. The regions, she said, “mimic what’s going on in the adult cat pigmentation patterns.” The same patterns that will appear in an adult cat’s coat as stripes or blotches appear first in the embryo before there is any hair or even hair follicles.

The team then looked for genes that might be active at that period in early embryonic growth.

When Dr. Kaelin looked at the tissue that showed the thick and thin tissue pattern that was the precursor of stripes, he said, “the one molecule that stood out from the rest was this Dkk4.” The full name of the protein and the gene is Dickkopf 4: The name is German for “thick head,” a characteristic the gene produced in frogs.

Daily Bread, Medicine, Right-wing Populism, Vaccines

Daily Bread for 9.9.21: ICU Bed Supply in Wisconsin

by  •  •  Comments

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 75. Sunrise is 6:29 AM and sunset 7:14 PM, for 12h 44m 40s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 7.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM. 

 On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress officially names its union of states the United States.

Sophie Carson reports ICU beds are in short supply across much of Wisconsin as COVID-19 hospitalizations are at heights last seen in January:

As the number of people hospitalized in Wisconsin with COVID-19 remains at heights last seen in January, available intensive care beds are in the single digits in much of the state.

In the north-central region, a 12-county area that includes Wausau, three ICU beds were available Wednesday, according to data from the Wisconsin Hospital Association.

In the northeast region, which includes Green Bay, seven ICU beds were open. In the northwest region, one ICU bed was open; in the western region, three were.

The number of COVID-19 patients in the state, as well as those in intensive care, has risen rapidly over the last month or so as the delta variant causes a surge in cases.

Wednesday was only the third time since mid-January that the state recorded more than 1,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The first two times were Sunday and Tuesday.

I’ve no estimate, no projection, about the path of the pandemic through Wisconsin. One needs no projection, however, to read and grasp that increased ICU usage is a personal (for patients) and social (for all of us) cost. COVID-19 vaccines reduce the likelihood of hospitalization.

The populists insist that others should be practical. Well, here’s practicality: hospital space is not free, for those who occupy it or those who might have trouble finding nearby ICU space for care for other illnesses (heart conditions, etc.).

Anti-vax populists are costing America vast, needless expense and disruption for their ignorance. These conservative populists want to be taken seriously, but they neither think nor behave seriously.

See also A Private Insurance Response to Vaccine Refusal (Updated) and The ‘Personal Responsibility’ Crowd Wants a Handout.

5 Facts About Grizzly Bears:

Acculturation, Culture, Daily Bread, Medicine, Migrants, Populists, Reading, Right-wing Populism, Vaccines

Daily Bread for 9.8.21: Afghan Refugees More Sensible than Many Native-Born Americans

by  •  •  Comments

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 75. Sunrise is 6:28 AM and sunset 7:15 PM, for 12h 47m 32s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1966, the landmark American science fiction television series Star Trek premieres with its first-aired episode, “The Man Trap.“

Patrick Marley reports Nearly all Afghan refugees at Fort McCoy are accepting COVID-19 vaccinations, congressional delegation says after tour:

Nearly all the Afghans at Fort McCoy are accepting COVID-19 vaccines and the first refugees will likely leave the military base this weekend, according to Democrats in Wisconsin’s congressional delegation who toured the facility Tuesday.

Rep. Mark Pocan of Dane County said just one person at Fort McCoy had refused the coronavirus vaccine.

“I wish we had anything like that in our country right now,” Pocan said, alluding to the large numbers of Americans who have declined to get vaccinated.

The facility in western Wisconsin had about 7,000 refugees as of last week but was being expanded to hold up to 13,000.

The Democrats spoke outside Fort McCoy after a visit there. They did not say what version of the COVID-19 vaccine the Afghans are receiving. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires one shot, while other vaccines require two shots that are given weeks apart from each other.

The native-born, conservative populists often insist how sensible they are, and yet, and yet… refugees from Afghanistan have a better appreciation of the benefits of American vaccines.

Here one sees the populists’ problem: they may be native-born, but too many of them lack the acculturation (both moral or general) that many of their fellow Americans (and migrants from the other side of the world) possess.

The populists’ ‘common sense’ looks more like a rationalization for their own lack of serious reading and reflection.

Only a generation ago, it would have been conservatives who would have told those like today’s populists to try for a higher standard than conspiracy theories and excuses. Yesterday’s conservatives would have been right: those who want to be respected need to act respectably. 

If it should be too hard for these conservative populists to reach proper acculturation by their own lights, they need only look for inspiration to the higher standards of Afghan refugees now arriving in America.

Giant panda at Madrid’s Aquarium Zoo gives birth to twins:

A pair of squawking, thrashing, bald and violently pink twins arrived in the world in Madrid on Sunday, much to the relief of their mother and all those working to ensure the giant panda population continues to claw its way back from the brink.

Books, Culture, Daily Bread, Education, Fact Checking, Law, Medicine, Populists, Reading, Reasoning, Right-wing Populism, School District, Science/Nature

Daily Bread for 9.7.21: Formation, General

by  •  • 2 Comments

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will see morning thundershowers with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:27 AM and sunset 7:17 PM, for 12h 50m 22s of daytime.  The moon is new with 0.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater  Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1776, according to American colonial reports, Ezra Lee makes the world’s first submarine attack in the Turtle, attempting to attach a time bomb to the hull of HMS Eagle in New York Harbor.

Philip Bump writes When you prioritize anti-expert politics, you get reality-denying leaders:

In the abstract, it always seemed incongruous to refer to Donald Trump as “anti-elite.” The guy had billions of dollars and lived in a spacious penthouse suite in Manhattan at the top of a building that bore his name. But that’s not what “elite” meant in the context of Republican politics in 2015. What “elite” meant was that there was a party establishment that remained tethered — however shakily at times — to certain views of policy and politicking that followed from tradition and a shared sense of reality. What “anti-elite” meant was that someone was willing to chuck all of that, to treat the unserious complaints that filled hours of coverage on Fox News and hundreds of words on Breitbart as accurate and actionable. “Anti-elite” didn’t mean that someone had no power, it instead meant that the person was willing to elevate inaccurate, exciting and dangerous popular views over staid, boring and unexciting realities.

There’s not much use in spending a lot of time articulating how Trump manifested this particular sense of anti-elitism. The Washington Post’s fact-checking team spent years doing so. Trump would say and do things that his base wanted before he would say or do things that they didn’t, even if the latter was real and the former wasn’t. In doing so, he made it increasingly difficult for others in his party to do anything else. No one wanted to be the Republican telling the base uncomfortable truths when Trump was energetically telling them comfortable falsehoods.

Trump’s success was rooted not only in his willingness to say things that other Republicans wouldn’t but in the fact that the base of his party had been conditioned to treat establishment and expert opinions with suspicion. The pre-Trump GOP was walking a tricky path between casting the government as untrustworthy and unworthy of respect even as it often controlled all or part of that same government.

….

What he did, really, is create a system in which individual assessments of the pandemic are given primacy over actual expertise. His reinforcement of the idea that the experts had nothing more to offer compared with someone’s Facebook feed tied his own hands in an uncomfortable way: He would love to get credit for the vaccines that could contain the pandemic but, as he showed at a rally this month, is unwilling to tell his followers that the urgency of protection outweighs their interest in feeling as though they are smarter than medical professionals.

Some level of formation, of structure and learning, is needed to make sense of a difficult subject.

Come now the conservative populists, who are convinced that there is no field, no topic, that requires more effort than their own ‘common sense.’  They ask — they demand — that others who have committed years of formal or self-study recognize unconsidered or ill-considered populist opinions as valid as any other opinion.

They sometimes simply don’t know what they don’t know. Their ignorance of substantive study is matched by their arrogance in insisting that substantive study doesn’t matter.  Someone might tell these conservative populists that arrogance invites Nemesis, but it would take some reading for them to make sense of those cautionary words.

Why have medicine, for example when any populist can spend a few moments on Facebook and diagnose any condition? (I’ve argued, for example, against amateur epidemiology, even when well-intentioned. See Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021 — COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric.)

Modern medicine, architecture, or materials science requires dedicated study. Anyone, in any era, might have said he or she possessed ‘common sense.’ And yet, and yet, those people from those earlier times often lived short lives in filth and misery.

The conservative populists enjoy lives in an era of technological and scientific accomplishment dependent on the efforts of the very experts they denigrate.

When common sense fails for these populists, when they misread medical texts and legal documents, they make the excuse that the topics were too hard or too confusing for anyone to understand.  No and no again: the texts and documents were too hard only for those who had not committed the proper amount of study to the topic.

The lack of formation —of a learned foundation in politics, history, science, or even ordinary English usage — leaves the conservative populists unimpressive to anyone outside their circle.

Japanese Artist Transforms Cardboard into 3D Sculptures:

Daily Bread, Ethics, Liberty, Public Health, Reasoning, Religion, Vaccines

Daily Bread for 9.6.21: Formation, Moral

by  •  • 2 Comments

Good morning.

Labor Day in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:26 AM and sunset 7:19 PM, for 12h 53m 11s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 0.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2008, the federal government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing companies in the US, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Conservative evangelical David French writes It’s Time to Stop Rationalizing and Enabling Evangelical Vaccine Rejection (‘There is no religious liberty interest in refusing the COVID vaccine’):

As we approach nine months of vaccine availability and nine months of flood-the-zone coverage of vaccine safety and efficacy, it is clear that much (though certainly not all) of our remaining refusal problem is not one of information but one of moral formation itself. The very moral framework of millions of our fellow citizens—the way in which they understand the balance between liberty and responsibility—is gravely skewed.

To understand the skew, it’s first necessary to understand the proper balance, and while we have vaccine endorsements from Christian leaders from across the Catholic/Protestant spectrum, we also have guidance from church fathers—individuals who no one can claim have caved to some “establishment” or are motivated by supposed invites to mythical beltway “cocktail parties.” For example, read these famous words from Martin Luther, written during a plague in his own time:

Therefore I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely, as stated above. See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.

The balance is clear. It is incumbent on the Christian to take care of themselves, including by taking medicine “in order not to become contaminated” (a nice definition of a vaccine before vaccines were invented). To the extent that he or she takes risks, those risks should be on behalf of others. As a person created in the image of God, taking care of yourself is an independent good. Taking care of yourself so that you can care for others is an even nobler good.

Christian vaccine refusal not only rejects self-care, it enhances risks to innocent and vulnerable neighbors. Even vaccinated people can catch relatively rare breakthrough cases. And every person—regardless of vaccination status—is vulnerable to the strains placed on a region’s hospitals when COVID runs rampant.

I also fear that the relentless right-wing political focus on religious liberty has obscured two realities—that our liberties have limits when they collide with the rights of others, and that the exercise of our liberty carries with it profound moral responsibility.

The idea that liberty has limits is inherent in the American social compact. Think of our founding Declaration—“that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Through more than two centuries of controversy and progress, our classical liberal legal system is learning to harmonize these three unalienable rights.

I have liberty, yes, but my liberty does not extend to taking or endangering your life

French continues:

And let’s be honest and clear. The majority of Christians seeking religious exemptions are using religion as a mere pretext for their real concern—be it fear of the shot or the simple desire to do what they want. In speaking to my religious liberty lawyer friends, the vast majority of those requesting a religious exemption to the COVID vaccine don’t come from the tiny religious sects that historically reject conventional medicine. In fact, they don’t even object to all vaccines, just this vaccine. A sincere desire not to take a shot does not equate with a sincere expression of orthodox Christian faith.

David French writes these words — and his whole essay is worth reading — as an evangelical conservative.  This mainline Protestant, libertarian blogger agrees: Christianity imposes obligations on believers, and in any event, libertarianism is not libertinism. 

People of any belief are free to assert as they wish, but vaccine refusal simply doesn’t rest on a traditional Christian foundation.

‘Christian’ assertions of vaccine refusal are an example of inadequate moral formation.

Lion cub celebrates her 2-month birthday in Bioparc Zoo in France:

Boosterism, Daily Bread, Philosophy, Tragic Optimism

Daily Bread for 9.5.21: Tragic Optimism as an Alternative to Toxic Positivity

by  •  • 4 Comments

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 6:25 AM and sunset 7:21 PM, for 12h 56m 02s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 2.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1781, after the Battle of the Chesapeake, the British Navy is repelled by the French Navy, contributing to the British surrender at Yorktown.

Scott Barry Kaufman writes of The Opposite of Toxic Positivity (“Tragic optimism” is the search for meaning during the inevitable tragedies of human existence, and is better for us than avoiding darkness and trying to “stay positive”):

Countless books have been written on the “power of gratitude” and the importance of counting your blessings, but that sentiment may feel like cold comfort during the coronavirus pandemic, when blessings have often seemed scant. Refusing to look at life’s darkness and avoiding uncomfortable experiences can be detrimental to mental health. This “toxic positivity” is ultimately a denial of reality. Telling someone to “stay positive” in the middle of a global crisis is missing out on an opportunity for growth, not to mention likely to backfire and only make them feel worse. As the gratitude researcher Robert Emmons of UC Davis writes, “To deny that life has its share of disappointments, frustrations, losses, hurts, setbacks, and sadness would be unrealistic and untenable. Life is suffering. No amount of positive thinking exercises will change this truth.”

The antidote to toxic positivity is “tragic optimism,” a phrase coined by the existential-humanistic psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. Tragic optimism involves the search for meaning amid the inevitable tragedies of human existence, something far more practical and realistic during these trying times. Researchers who study “post-traumatic growth” have found that people can grow in many ways from difficult times—including having a greater appreciation of one’s life and relationships, as well as increased compassion, altruism, purpose, utilization of personal strengths, spiritual development, and creativity. Importantly, it’s not the traumatic event itself that leads to growth (no one is thankful for COVID-19), but rather how the event is processed, the changes in worldview that result from the event, and the active search for meaning that people undertake during and after it.

….

The human capacity for resiliency is quite remarkable and underrated. A recent study surveyed more than 500 people from March to May 2020. It found that even during those terrifying early months of the pandemic, more than 56 percent of people reported feeling grateful, which was 17 percent higher than any other positive emotion. Those who reported feeling more grateful also reported being happier. What’s more, even more people—69 percent of respondents—reported expecting to feel grateful two to three months in the future.

I believe that an overlooked route to gratitude is exposure to difficult circumstances. There are many basic advantages of life itself that we too often take for granted. After all, humans have a natural tendency to adapt and become used to situations that are relatively stable. When individuals become aware that their advantages are not guaranteed, many then come to appreciate them more. As the writer G. K. Chesterton put it, “Until we realize that things might not be, we cannot realize that things are.”

Needless to say, there have been many with perspectives of tragic optimism long before Viktor Frankl coined the term, and there are different formulations of the perspective. (It has both religious and secular varieties.)

Indeed, much of FREE WHITEWATER is a critique of the boosterism — the accentuation of the positive without regard to real conditions — of some in Whitewater before, during, and after the Great Recession.

As much as FREE WHITEWATER is a libertarian blog, it’s also the website of a tragic optimist with a mainline Protestant formation.

Kaufman writes of tragic optimism as the opposite of toxic positivity, and he’s correct. It’s also, as he contends, a worthy alternative perspective with philosophical and practical advantages.

How Steinway Grand Pianos Are Made:

Daily Bread, Legislature, Litigation, Public Health, UW Madison, UW System, Vaccines, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 9.4.21: Nass Digs In

by  •  • 1 Comment

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will see showers with a high of 73. Sunrise is 6:24 AM and sunset 7:22 PM, for 12h 58m 51s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 7.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1882, the Pearl Street Station in New York City becomes the first power plant to supply electricity to paying customers.

 Devi Shastri reports GOP divided over whether to push UW System on COVID rules, with Nass digging in and others siding with Thompson:

Republicans already appeared divided over how far to go in confronting the University of Wisconsin System — specifically former Governor Tommy Thompson — over setting its COVID-19 policies.

On Thursday, the split widened.

First, UW System interim President Thompson and UW Regent President Edmund Manydeeds III sent a letter to the Republican leaders of the Legislature’s rules committee confirming they would not come to the committee for permission before implementing such steps as mandatory testing and mask rules on UW campuses.

Then state Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay, issued a statement saying he supports the UW System’s ability to make its own decisions about how to control the spread of COVID-19 on campuses.

Finally, state Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, capped the day by saying he’ll formally ask State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, to take the state university system to court.

 ….

“I do not support a legal challenge by the State Legislature to UW-System’s COVID-19 mitigation measures,” Cowles said. “During this ongoing workforce shortage that’s bound to only maintain or intensify, tying the hands of one of our state’s most powerful workforce development tools and driving decisions that could cancel or limit in-person instruction doesn’t seem to be in the best interests of our local communities or business sector.”

None of this sits well with Nass, a relentless critic of the UW System and opponent of COVID protocols.

His chief of staff, Mike Mikalsen, said Thursday it was “unfortunate” that Cowles did not support suing.

“Last year, the Legislature went to court to end unlawful Covid-19 mandates issued by Governor Evers’ Department of Health Services,” Mikalsen said in an email. “Senator Nass opposes unlawful Covid-19 mandates issued by any state agency regardless of if they are led by a Democrat appointee or a former Republican governor.”

Later, Nass added he thought some of his colleagues had “gone soft” and would only oppose the mandates when they were “issued by the other party.”

No surprises here: Nass will fight until the last dog dies, but the WISGOP (hardly a ‘soft’ bunch) has both the disruption of litigation and a possible —if not probable —legal loss to consider.  See Steve Nass: Troll-King in Autumn, Nass, Again, and Thompson Dares Nass in Front of 5.8 Million People.

 Ida from space, SpaceX landing & Mars sampling in Video From Space Weekly highlights: