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Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Mendacity, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC, Wisconsin

Foxconn Roundup: Outside Work and Local Land

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Foxconn’s boosters each day inch closer to a corporate welfare version of Scientology: it doesn’t make any sense, but adherents keep to themselves and repeat a shared list of crackpot claims.

The latest news to pierce the cultists’ bubble:

Molly Beck and Rick Romell report Wisconsin taxpayers could pay Foxconn for work done outside of Wisconsin, audit says:

Taxpayers could pay Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn for work done outside of Wisconsin unless changes are made to how the state’s jobs agency issues tax credits, a state audit shows.

The Legislature’s Audit Bureau is recommending the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. make changes to its procedures to avoid awarding tax credits to Foxconn Technology Group for work that isn’t being done in the state.

The bureau’s audit released Wednesday shows the agency’s procedures don’t comply with the state’s contract with Foxconn and state law. 

(Emphasis added.)

In an interview, Sruthi Pinnamaneni describes What Foxconn’s really doing in Wisconsin:

A transcribed excerpt from the full interview appears below:

Nilay Patel: They’re moving people out of their homes, and they’re paying a lot of money — they’re paying $30,000 an acre — but they’re asking people to leave. There was one gentleman who was in a wheelchair, and he needed to make his new house accessible, and they won’t give him the money. And just listening to that, I was heartbroken.

Sruthi Pinnamaneni: Yeah. It’s so hard to imagine why the village decided to do it this way. In the negotiations with Foxconn, the parcel of land that they needed to get ready for Foxconn right away — so they gave themselves a deadline of August 1st. So by August 1st, they had to get about 60 homeowners off of this very large, almost two-square-mile area of land. And the way they did it was the village said, “Foxconn, you don’t need to go individually and do the buyouts and buy the land. We will do it for you.” In fact, the village is also paying for that land. They took out, I believe, over $100 million in loans just to pay for the land. So the village, your village, is paying a mortgage on land that they collected from their own residents, and gave — not sold, not rented — gave to Foxconn.

Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers,  Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s Projections Show a Vulnerable (Replaceable) Workforce, Foxconn in Wisconsin: Not So High Tech After All, Foxconn’s Ambition is Automation, While Appeasing the Politically Ambitious, Foxconn’s Shabby Workplace Conditions, Foxconn’s Bait & Switch, Foxconn’s (Overwhelmingly) Low-Paying Jobs, The Next Guest Speaker, Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build Foxconn Plant, Foxconn Deal Melts Away, “Later This Year,” Foxconn’s Secret Deal with UW-Madison, Foxconn’s Predatory Reliance on Eminent Domain, Foxconn: Failure & Fraud, Foxconn Roundup: Desperately Ill Edition and Foxconn Roundup: Indiana Layoffs & Automation Everywhere.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.20.18

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see occasional drizzle with a high of forty-one.  Sunrise is 7:22 AM and sunset 4:23 PM, for 9h 01m 40s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 94% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s CDA is scheduled to meet at 5:30 PM.

On this month in 1941 and long afterward, Wisconsin military enlistments soar:

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, thousands of Wisconsin citizens volunteered to fight. Roughly 320,000 Wisconsin soldiers served in the armed forces during the WWII, including more than 9,000 women. Wisconsin’s National Guard formed a substantial part of the new Red Arrow Division, helping to maintain the respected reputation of its predecessor from World War I by remaining undefeated in the Pacific theater. The majority of Wisconsin soldiers were draftees who served in units comprised of men from around the country. More than 8,000 soldiers died and another 13,000 were wounded in combat. Fifteen Wisconsin men won the Medal of Honor during WWII.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Jennifer Rubin asks Why not indict the Trump Organization?:

Legal scholars debate whether a sitting president can be indicted or only impeached. If the latter, it’s not clear given the statutes of limitation on most crimes whether he could ever be prosecuted for certain crimes. That surely seems wrong; the framers certainly did not intend to give the president a get-out-of-jail free card for crimes he might commit in office. (One solution might be to indict under seal.)

What is clear, however, is that to the extent the president has a safe harbor for prosecution during his time in office, that protection is personal to him. His relatives and his business empire don’t get that benefit.

Indict a corporation (or a foundation or an LLC)? That’s what happened to the accounting firm Arthur Andersen in connection with the Enron scandal. The firm itself was indicted on a charge of alleged widespread obstruction of justice.

 As for Trump’s supposedly charitable foundation,  Shane Goldmacher reports Trump Foundation Will Dissolve, Accused of ‘Shocking Pattern of Illegality’:

The Donald J. Trump Foundation, once billed as the charitable arm of the president’s financial empire, agreed to dissolve on Tuesday and give away all its remaining assets under court supervision as part of an ongoing investigation and lawsuit by the New York attorney general.

The foundation was accused by the attorney general, Barbara Underwood, of “functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests,” and of engaging in “a shocking pattern of illegality” that included unlawfully coordinating with Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

In addition to shuttering the charity, her office has pursued a lawsuit that could bar President Trump and his three oldest children from the boards of other New York charities, as well as force the payment of millions in restitution and penalties.

“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,” Ms. Underwood said in announcing the agreement.

How NASA Built the Fastest Spacecraft Ever:

Assault Awareness & Prevention, Harassment, Misconduct, Nepotism, Sexual Harassment, University, UW System

Updated Post: Questions Concerning a Ban on the UW-Whitewater Chancellor’s Husband After a Sexual Harassment Investigation

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I’ve added a few additional questions to a post, Questions Concerning a Ban on the UW-Whitewater Chancellor’s Husband After a Sexual Harassment Investigation, first published here on 9.17.18.

These questions are surely not comprehensive, and they are process & policy-oriented, so they implicate mainly the institutional response to individual injuries.  As policy, however, the university or any institution owes to all members of the community a safe learning and work environment, and that goal requires taking (and maintaining) meaningful action.

Institutions are meant to serve individuals, not the other way around.

Over the years, I’ve found it useful (for myself at least) to list questions about significant subjects as new developments arise.  Sometimes the scope of inquiry narrows over time, and sometimes it grows wider.

Questions added 12.19.18

  What is the status – and scope – of the third UW System investigation into Pete Hill’s harassment and Beverly Kopper’s handling of the matter?

At least one of the women who has spoken of harassment from Kopper’s spouse alleges that other UW-Whitewater employees were present at the time of Pete Hill’s verbal harassment:

“[Hailey] Miller says that Heidenreich laughed, as did Sara Kuhl, the assistant vice chancellor for university marketing and communications. That response did not necessarily surprise Miller, who says she often deflected Hill’s advances with laughter.

Heidenreich did not reply to an email detailing the incident, nor did she respond to a voicemail. Kuhl also declined to respond to direct questions about the incident, beyond saying that she respected the university’s process for dealing with reports of wrongdoing.”

One of these employees has had the responsibility of overseeing and responding to public records requests on behalf of UW-Whitewater.  Does her alleged role as a material witness not represent a conflict of interest in responses to public records requests in this or related matters?

The Journal Sentinel reports that a deal between the UW System and Kopper includes her “join[ing] the faculty through May 2020 as a tenured psychology professor.” (I oppose the deal – this question merely pursues its implications.) If it should be true that the UW System believes (as I do not) that Kopper should have the option of returning as a full professor, why set an end date?

Is this end date merely to allow Kopper to meet a financial milestone or goal of her own (ten years’ time, for example) rather than a belief that she offers a genuine benefit to the UW-Whitewater Psychology Department?

What public resources and employee time (including that of UW-Whitewater staff members, if any) did Beverly Kopper divert and use on her own behalf to maintain her role as chancellor, including lobbying public officials, the press, or trying to generate internal support?

Should it not be clear that time diverted that way would undermine future complainants’ confidence in being supported, and embolden future assailants to believe that injuries would be ignored for the sake of a leader’s or institution’s reputation? 

As the UW System has made a deal on the general terms outlined the week of 12.18, has the System done so because no one knows how to handle this matter more wisely, or because this easily-criticized deal is designed to conceal discovery of other incidents – alleged against whatever person – of which this chancellor or other officials may have knowledge?

Previously:  Journal Sentinel: UW-Whitewater chancellor’s husband banned from campus after sexual harassment investigation, Questions Concerning a Ban on the UW-Whitewater Chancellor’s Husband After a Sexual Harassment Investigation, Chancellor Kopper Should Resign, A fifth woman publicly accuses UW-Whitewater chancellor’s husband of sexual harassment, The UW-Whitewater Chancellor’s Lack of Individual Regard, No Ordinary, Unconnected Spouse: Public officials’ use of family appointees, An Example of Old Whitewater’s Deficient Reasoning, The Principle of Diversity Rests on Individual Rights, Another ‘Advisory Council’ Isn’t What Whitewater Needs, A Defense That’s Worse Than Nothing, 0, 448, 476, 84, Kopper Resigns, Whitewater Remains, and The Limits of an Institutional Deal.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.19.18

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of forty-five.  Sunrise is 7:21 AM and sunset 4:23 PM, for 9h 01m 52s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 

On this day in 1862, the Wisconsin 1st Light Artillery prepares for the Vicksburg Campaign:

The 1st Wisconsin Light Artillery prepared for the first Union assault on Vicksburg, Mississippi, by loading on steamboats at Memphis and heading south. The Vicksburg Campaign would begin a week later with the Union defeat at Chickasaw Bayou.

Recommended for reading in full:

Hope Kirwan reports Wisconsin Lost Record-Breaking Percent Of Dairy Farms In 2018:

Wisconsin lost 638 dairy farms in 2018, according to the latest data from the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. That’s a 7.25 percent decline in the number of registered dairy herds — the biggest drop since records started in 2004.

Bob Cropp, professor emeritus of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Wisconsin’s dairy farmers have had it tough.

“We’ve gone through four years of very disturbing low milk prices for dairy farmers and it’s finally taken a hold,” Cropp said. “It’s not only occurring in Wisconsin. We’’e getting reports from some other states like Iowa and others that are telling the same thing.”

Cropp said 2018 will likely have the lowest average milk price since the market fell in 2015.

Gabriel J.X. Dance, Michael LaForgia, and Nicholas Confessore report As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants:

For years, Facebook gave some of the world’s largest technology companies more intrusive access to users’ personal data than it has disclosed, effectively exempting those business partners from its usual privacy rules, according to internal records and interviews.

The special arrangements are detailed in hundreds of pages of Facebook documents obtained by The New York Times. The records, generated in 2017 by the company’s internal system for tracking partnerships, provide the most complete picture yet of the social network’s data-sharing practices. They also underscore how personal data has become the most prized commodity of the digital age, traded on a vast scale by some of the most powerful companies in Silicon Valley and beyond.

The exchange was intended to benefit everyone. Pushing for explosive growth, Facebook got more users, lifting its advertising revenue. Partner companies acquired features to make their products more attractive. Facebook users connected with friends across different devices and websites. But Facebook also assumed extraordinary power over the personal information of its 2.2 billion users — control it has wielded with little transparency or outside oversight.

Facebook allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages.

 Medicine is Making Tumors Glow to Improve Cancer Surgery:

Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Litigation, Nepotism, Sexual Harassment, That Which Paved the Way, University, UW System

The Limits of an Institutional Deal

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Yesterday, UW-Whitewater Chancellor Beverly Kopper announced that she was resigning her position as of 12.31.18.  Later in the day, the UW System publicly announced that Kopper would be on leave at her former salary for eight months, and then in the fall have the option of returning to UW-Whitewater’s Psychology Department as a professor.  See Kopper Resigns, Whitewater Remains.

Understandably, the terms of the deal quickly became a subject of criticism for their profligacy.  (Students are struggling with tuition each semester.)

Yet the deal between the UW System and Kopper will prove more than wasteful: it will soon be futile, disappointing, and self-destructive to both parties.

Events will change too quickly for either the UW System or Kopper to expect that this arrangement will long endure.  Indeed, even highly skilled institutional parties have trouble maintaining the balance during times of rapid change.  (It’s notable that behind-the-scenes efforts to preserve Kopper as chancellor amounted to nothing.)

Departing leaders often find that even a few months soon seem more like a few years, and what was once an environment they controlled is no longer suited to them.  (When the leader is a failure, this is especially so.)

What may seem like a good deal to a few officials at the UW System and UW-Whitewater will soon prove both unworkable and disappointing to them.  They’ll come to wish they had not made this deal — a continued connection will prove disappointing even to them.

About an institutional example, I alluded to yesterday: there seems no case in the contemporary environment where an institution escaped scrutiny or litigation by preserving connections to departing leaders who failed to maintain a safe work environment.

A deal that preserves an institutional connection will invite further scrutiny and legal avenues of all concerned, especially among injured parties who are represented.  A deal that involved a clean break – although itself objectionable – would have been the more prudent course.

This deal won’t last for the long term, will probably prove unsatisfying to the parties to it, and will prove self-destructive of even the narrow ends it aims to advance.

Significantly, however wasteful the terms of the deal in these times of fiscal constraint, the most important matters are the redress of individual injuries and the development of a better campus culture.

That redress and that work, after so many harmful years, should always be foremost in mind.

Previously:  Journal Sentinel: UW-Whitewater chancellor’s husband banned from campus after sexual harassment investigation, Questions Concerning a Ban on the UW-Whitewater Chancellor’s Husband After a Sexual Harassment Investigation, Chancellor Kopper Should Resign, A fifth woman publicly accuses UW-Whitewater chancellor’s husband of sexual harassment, The UW-Whitewater Chancellor’s Lack of Individual Regard, No Ordinary, Unconnected Spouse: Public officials’ use of family appointees, An Example of Old Whitewater’s Deficient Reasoning, The Principle of Diversity Rests on Individual Rights, Another ‘Advisory Council’ Isn’t What Whitewater Needs, A Defense That’s Worse Than Nothing, 0, 448, 476, 84, and Kopper Resigns, Whitewater Remains.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.18.18

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of forty-seven.  Sunrise is 7:20 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 01m 52s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 79.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1863, the Milwaukee Sentinel urges better pay for soldiers:

“If any men deserve to be well paid it is the men who are enduring the hardships and running the risks of a war like this.” It also provided details of a senate bill to increase soldiers’ pay to $16 a month and pay African-American soldiers the same as white soldiers.

Recommended for reading in full:

Sheera Frenkel, Daisuke Wakabayashi, and Kate Conger write Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Withheld Russia Data, Reports Say:

SAN FRANCISCO — When lawmakers asked YouTube, a unit of Google, to provide information about Russian manipulation efforts, it did not disclose how many people watched the videos on its site that were created by Russian trolls.

Facebook did not release the comments that its users made when they viewed Russian-generated content. And Twitter gave only scattered details about the Russian-controlled accounts that spread propaganda there.

The tech companies’ foot-dragging was described in a pair of reports that the Senate Intelligence Committee published on Monday, in what were the most detailed accounts to date about how Russian agents have wielded social media against Americans in recent years.

In the reports, Google, Twitter and Facebook (which also owns Instagram) were described by researchers as having “evaded” and “misrepresented” themselves and the extent of Russian activity on their sites. The companies were also criticized for not turning over complete sets of data about Russian manipulation to the Senate.

Craig Timberg, Tony Romm, and Elizabeth Dwoskin report Russian disinformation teams targeted Robert S. Mueller III, says report prepared for Senate:

The Russian operatives unloaded on Mueller through fake accounts on Facebook, Twitter and beyond, falsely claiming that the former FBI director was corrupt and that the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election were crackpot conspiracies. One post on Instagram — which emerged as an especially potent weapon in the Russian social media arsenal — claimed that Mueller had worked in the past with “radical Islamic groups.”

Such tactics exemplified how Russian teams ranged nimbly across social media platforms in a shrewd online influence operation aimed squarely at American voters. The effort started earlier than commonly understood and lasted longer while relying on the strengths of different sites to manipulate distinct slices of the electorate, according to a pair of comprehensive new reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee and released Monday.

  Margaret Sullivan observes It’s high time for media to enter the No Kellyanne Zone — and stay there:

When major news organizations publish tweets and news alerts that repeat falsehoods merely because the president uttered them, it’s the same kind of journalistic malpractice as offering a prime interview spot to Kellyanne Conway.

  It’s Tom Waits vs the World of Advertising:

Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Culture, Misconduct, Nepotism, Public Relations, Sexual Harassment, That Which Paved the Way, University, UW System

Kopper Resigns, Whitewater Remains

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One reads that Beverly Kopper, UW-Whitewater chancellor, has resigned her position effective 12.31.18.  Her resignation was generally expected for at least the last few weeks, and was, more importantly, necessary.  This was a public matter involving a spouse appointed to a public position accused of sexual harassment by at least five women while the appointing chancellor kept investigations into the spouse’s conduct (and later even his ban from campus) secret from the community despite knowing of multiple allegations against him.

There will be time enough to consider the process of selecting a successor.  That selection requires patient deliberation.

There is no happy moment in any of this. What shards of joy can one take from this day?  None whatever.

I was among those who called for her resignation, but this chancellor’s departure is not the heaviest matter before this city.  Those residents who were injured cruelly, and from whom others’ injuries were wrongly hidden, weigh heaviest on one’s mind.

One can (and should) hope that those injured find healing and well-being, and that this city’s residents shall not again endure injuries like this.

There are no certainties; one has only a true, determined hope.

Update, 6:30 PM: There is now a published account of the terms of a settlement with the UW System in which Kopper will be on leave through August at her former position’s salary, and thereafter have the option of becoming a faculty member in  UW-Whitewater’s Psychology Department. I’ve written repeatedly on this topic, but during these last two weeks, I have waited as these matters reached the point of a public announcement on resignation and terms (without snags, etc., that might delay a formal announcement).  The post title from earlier today also describes Kopper as resigning, as was clear for nearly two weeks, but not leaving (as that’s a future, not present, prospect).  (In Kopper’s actual one-sentence resignation letter, she writes that she’s rendering – making – her resignation, but the proper word is tendering – offering – a resignation.  Fortunately, either word suffices for relinquishing office.  She’s had challenges with word choice before.)

Settlements are not uncommon, so to speak, but settlements of this kind serve institutional – not complainants’ – needs.  They may produce important changes in leadership, but they do not redress – to the extent one can – the primary matter of individuals’ existing injuries.

Tomorrow: I’ll share a story about the limits of institutional parties’ bargaining, and how the future quickly proves different from parties’ immediate plans.

Previously:  Journal Sentinel: UW-Whitewater chancellor’s husband banned from campus after sexual harassment investigation, Questions Concerning a Ban on the UW-Whitewater Chancellor’s Husband After a Sexual Harassment Investigation, Chancellor Kopper Should Resign, A fifth woman publicly accuses UW-Whitewater chancellor’s husband of sexual harassment, The UW-Whitewater Chancellor’s Lack of Individual Regard, No Ordinary, Unconnected Spouse: Public officials’ use of family appointees, An Example of Old Whitewater’s Deficient Reasoning, The Principle of Diversity Rests on Individual Rights, Another ‘Advisory Council’ Isn’t What Whitewater Needs, A Defense That’s Worse Than Nothing, and 0, 448, 476, 84.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.17.18

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of thirty-six.  Sunrise is 7:20 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 02m 05s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 70.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM and the Whitewater School Board at 7 PM.

On this day in 1903, the Wright Brothers make the first powered airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Although initially doubtful of their accomplishment, European sentiment changed after the Wright Brothers demonstrated their plane in France:

The French public was thrilled by Wilbur’s feats and flocked to the field by the thousands, and the Wright brothers instantly became world-famous. Former doubters issued apologies and effusive praise. L’Aérophile editor Georges Besançon wrote that the flights “have completely dissipated all doubts. Not one of the former detractors of the Wrights dare question, today, the previous experiments of the men who were truly the first to fly …”[104] Leading French aviation promoter Ernest Archdeacon wrote, “For a long time, the Wright brothers have been accused in Europe of bluff … They are today hallowed in France, and I feel an intense pleasure … to make amends.”[105]

Recommended for reading in full:

 Craig Timberg and Tony Romm write New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation’s scale and sweep:

A report prepared for the Senate that provides the most sweeping analysis yet of Russia’s disinformation campaign around the 2016 election found the operation used every major social media platform to deliver words, images and videos tailored to voters’ interests to help elect President Trump — and worked even harder to support him while in office.

The report, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the first to study the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), its chairman, and Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), its ranking Democrat. The bipartisan panel hasn’t said whether it endorses the findings. It plans to release it publicly along with another study later this week.

The research — by Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and Graphika, a network analysis firm — offers new details of how Russians working at the Internet Research Agency, which U.S. officials have charged with criminal offenses for interfering in the 2016 campaign, sliced Americans into key interest groups for targeted messaging. These efforts shifted over time, peaking at key political moments, such as presidential debates or party conventions, the report found.

 Scott Shane and Sheera Frenkel report particularly that the Russian Effort to Influence 2016 Election Targeted African-Americans:

The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of posts on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its Facebook operations, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee.

 

  An Affectionate Sea Lion:

City, Film

Film: Wednesday, December 19th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, The Left Hand of God

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This Wednesday, December 19th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of The Left Hand of God @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building:

The Left Hand of God (Drama/Inspirational)

Wednesday, December 19, 12:30 pm
Rated PG. 1 hour, 27 min. (1955)

In 1947, at a remote Catholic mission in China, arrives a man in priestly robes: the long-awaited “Father O’Shea” (Humphrey Bogart). Though seemingly uncomfortable with his priestly duties, Father O’Shea’s tough tactics prove very successful in the Seven Villages, as around them post-World War 2 China disintegrates into civil war and revolution. But Father O’Shea has a personal secret, and his friendship with the mission nurse (Gene Tierney) also seems to be taking on an unpriestly tone. Also stars Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, and Agnes Moorehead. This beautiful, under-spoken film is rarely seen on TV.

One can find more information about The Left Hand of God at the Internet Movie Database.

Enjoy.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.16.18

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty-two.  Sunrise is 7:19 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 02m 22s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 60.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

 

On this day in 1733, the Sons of Liberty in Boston protest through a Boston Tea Party:

While Samuel Adams tried to reassert control of the meeting, people poured out of the Old South Meeting House to prepare to take action. In some cases, this involved donning what may have been elaborately prepared Mohawk costumes.[65] While disguising their individual faces was imperative, because of the illegality of their protest, dressing as Mohawk warriors was a specific and symbolic choice. It showed that the Sons of Liberty identified with America, over their official status as subjects of Great Britain.[66]

That evening, a group of 30 to 130 men, some dressed in the Mohawk warrior disguises, boarded the three vessels and, over the course of three hours, dumped all 342 chests of tea into the water.[67] The precise location of the Griffin’s Wharf site of the Tea Party has been subject to prolonged uncertainty; a comprehensive study[68] places it near the foot of Hutchinson Street (today’s Pearl Street).

Recommended for reading in full:

Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig report As the Trumps Dodged Taxes, Their Tenants Paid a Price:

They were collateral damage as Donald J. Trump and his siblings dodged inheritance taxes and gained control of their father’s fortune: thousands of renters in an empire of unassuming red-brick buildings scattered across Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

Those buildings have been home to generations of strivers, municipal workers and newly arrived immigrants. When their regulated rents started rising more quickly in the 1990s, many tenants had no idea why. Some heard that the Trump family had spent millions on building improvements, but they remained suspicious.

“I’ve always thought there was something strange going on,” said Jack Leitner, who has lived in the Beach Haven Apartments in Coney Island, Brooklyn, for more than two decades. “But you have to have proof, and it’s an uphill battle.”

As it turned out, a hidden scam lurked behind the mysterious increases. In October, a New York Times investigation into the origins of Mr. Trump’s wealth revealed, among its findings, that the future president and his siblings set up a phony business to pad the cost of nearly everything their father, the legendary builder Fred C. Trump, purchased for his buildings. The Trump children split that extra money.

  Six of the Best Street Food Finds in Mexico City:

(Inviting, every last recommendation.)

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.15.18

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty-six.  Sunrise is 7:19 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 02m 45s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 51.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 

On this day in 1791, the Bill of Rights is ratified, with proposed articles of amendment Three through Twelve becoming Amendments One through Ten of the Constitution.

 

 

 

Recommended for reading in full:

 Libby Nelson writes of Gov. Walker’s approval in full of lame-duck legislation, describing it as Scott Walker’s revenge:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed bills on Friday that take power away from Wisconsin’s new governor, a Democrat, and give it to Republican lawmakers in the statehouse. Vox / Tara Golshan

The bills cut down on early voting hours and will make it harder for Gov.-elect Tony Evers to keep some of his campaign promises — including withdrawing Wisconsin from an Affordable Care Act lawsuit and eliminating work requirements for Medicaid. NBC / Dartunorro Clark

The state legislature, controlled by Republicans, passed the bills in a special lame-duck session to get the legislation through before Evers takes office in January. NYT / Mitch Smith and Monica Davey

But the bills were months in the making, plotted out so that Republicans could shore up their policy changes even if Democrats won in November. NYT / Mitch Smith, John Eligon, and Monica Davey

Progressive groups are already planning to file a lawsuit against the bills. AP

In Michigan, Republicans are trying to follow in Wisconsin’s path — but it’s not clear if Gov. Rick Snyder will go along. Detroit News / Jonathan Oosting

For scholars of democracy, these are scary developments. Democracy relies on the peaceful transition of power and elected officials’ willingness to accept the legitimacy of elections. Lame-duck power grabs challenge both. Vox / Zack Beauchamp

Jackie Speier writes Strange real estate deal raises specter of Putin buying Trump:

In July 2008, Donald Trump undertook one of his most infamous transactions. He sold a mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev, Russian oligarch and billionaire. Trump had purchased it four years earlier for $41.35 million. The sale price was nearly $54 million more than Trump had paid for the property, even though he had made only modest improvements in it.

….

Five years after the sale, when the economy had made a significant recovery, Palm Beach County appraised the house for just $59.8 million. In other words, despite an actual recorded sale of $95 million and despite the economic recovery, the county determined that it was worth $35 million less than what Rybolovlev had paid five years earlier.

….

There must have been another reason — a reason to give Trump tens of millions of dollars with no expectation of a financial return. One possibility is that Russian leader Vladimir Putin saw an opportunity to exploit Trump’s financial problems to obtain his loyalty and indebtedness.

  Cat takes a luxurious bath:

Bad Ideas, City, Politics

The Myth of the Adult in the Room

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National stories – about national principles – apply to places big and small, including Whitewater, Wisconsin.

Monica Hesse’s John Kelly and the myth of the ‘adult in the room’ summarizes about a national figure a myth that’s common locally, too:

If you can remember back to Kelly’s appointment, six thousand years ago in 2017, the event was met with hopefulness bordering on fan fiction. “The kind of discipline he’s going to bring is important,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told CNN. “He will bring some plain-spoken discipline,” The Washington Post offered. It quoted an anonymous friend of Kelly’s who heralded the appointment as “the end of the chaos.” He would be — as Washington’s most favored way of describing non-Trumpish White House employees would have it — the adult in the room.

….

Amid tumult and partisanship, Kelly was appointed, and here was an upstanding father-figure for us all, ready to take on rancor, sloppiness and general ineptitude. He could fix things. He had epaulets.

As his tenure progressed, of course, he couldn’t bring discipline. Nobody could. There’s simply no way to enforce structure on a commander in chief who apparently abhors it.

And as Kelly’s tenure progressed, it also became clear that he couldn’t bring an end to rancor and controversy either. Because, it turns out, he brought controversy with him.

Yes: supposed maturity means nothing without principle, and principle requires reading, observation, and reasoning that mere age does not assure.

Years are only meaningful for policymakers if they produce and then sustain sound judgment.