Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS
Elections, Elkhorn, Politics, Walworth County
The Walworth County Circuit Court Race (Preliminaries)
by JOHN ADAMS •
One may say two things, preliminarily, about the Walworth County Circuit Court race:
- It’s a race between generally conservative candidates; there are no left-right differences of significance.
- Incumbent District Attorney Dan Necci, after only briefly serving in that role, is running with almost no local, official support for his candidacy from among those with whom he has worked or would have to work.
That’s a huge tell, and reason to write again about this race at length: Necci’s been district attorney only for a short while, and now wants to be a judge, but cannot serve effectively in that role without significant, positive collaborative relationships.
He has few, if any, such relationships in Elkhorn. That seldom happens – most officials will accept one local candidate or another.
It’s more than unusual – it’s a practical disqualification. Necci’s not running as an editorialist, a blogger, an activist – he’s serving as a district attorney, and is running to be a circuit judge. Those roles require cooperation with other officeholders, and their support going forward – but Necci has almost none of that.
He’s had to rely on support from out-of-county officeholders, or state politicians with no day-to-day role in Elkhorn.
Needless to say, I’m not disposed to the political culture in Elkhorn, but then that’s why I am not – and never will – run for office there. Necci is running there, but he’s so alienated other officeholders that his support among them is almost non-existent.
Even former members of his own district attorney’s office are supporting one or another of his opponents. Local lawyers, local law enforcement, local court personnel, etc., are all lined up with his opponents.
Honest to goodness, that doesn’t happen unless one has made an utter hash of his or her time in office.
And that, dear readers, is a subject worth pursing as the general election in April draws closer.
Waste Digesters, WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN
‘Until That Second Digester is More Utilized’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Post 61 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.
We saw in last week’s post that actual elements of the importation project that City Manager Clapper claims would ‘experimental’ belie his contention. Far from a project being designed to test waste-importation, this is a project that from the very beginning will be able to accommodate heavy truck traffic. See, Post 60, ‘A Truck Loop Specified for Heavy Truck Traffic.’
This week, one sees the same, simple truth, in contradiction to Mr. Clapper’s claims that this is a provision or experimental project: this project even includes a second, new digester mixer, allowing for a volume of importation beyond any existing needs.
In the video below. the project engineer from the Donohue firm, Nathan Cassity, concedes that a second digester mixer is not now needed to manage existing local capacity:
“The first digester already has a mixing system, the second one doesn’t. Umm, the thought there was that digester really is a backup digester and that item could be delayed until that second digester is more util…utilized, excuse me.”
‘Until That Second Digester is More Utilized’ from John Adams on Vimeo.
It’s worth noting that Whitewater no longer has a need for past digester capacity because her economy no longer has a large, commercial enterprise that would use one. City Manager Clapper and Wastewater Superintendent Reel could only make use of a second digester (with mixer) through significant, persistent, waste importation into Whitewater.
Despite even the vendor-engineer’s admission that a second mixer would be necessary now, there is the claim that the second digester and mixer would have a role only ‘when that second digester ‘is more util…utilized, excuse me.’
That far greater utilization, so to speak, cannot come from local use, as we do not have enough local need. That far greater utilization, so to speak, cannot come from mere experimentation, as no local experiment could possibly justify a processing capacity so considerable.
In fact, there is only one method by which the additional capacity that Mr. Clapper wants could be ‘utilized’: through large-scale importation into Whitewater of other cities’ unwanted waste.
WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Appearing at whengreenturnsbrown.com and re-posted Mondays @ 10 AM here on FREE WHITEWATER.
Music
Monday Music: Kung Fu Fighting
by JOHN ADAMS •
Original and Kung Fu Panda versions –
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 2.15.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Presidents’ day will be cloudy with a high of thirty. Sunrise is 6:51 and sunset 5:26, for 10h 35m 30s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 52.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1898, the U.S.S. Maine explodes and sinks in Havana Harbor:
In January 1898, Maine was sent from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban War of Independence. Three weeks later, at 21:40, on 15 February, an explosion on board Maine occurred in the Havana Harbor (coordinates: 23°08?07?N 82°20?38?W).[47] Later investigations revealed that more than 5 long tons (5.1 t) of powder charges for the vessel’s six- and ten-inch guns had detonated, obliterating the forward third of the ship.[48] The remaining wreckage rapidly settled to the bottom of the harbor. Most of Maine‘s crew were sleeping or resting in the enlisted quarters, in the forward part of the ship, when the explosion occurred. In total, 260[49] men lost their lives as a result of the explosion or shortly thereafter, and six[49] more died later from injuries. Captain Sigsbee and most of the officers survived, because their quarters were in the aft portion of the ship. Altogether there were 89 survivors, 18 of whom were officers.[50] On 21 March, the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry, in Key West, declared that a naval mine caused the explosion.[51]
….Maine‘s destruction did not result in an immediate declaration of war with Spain. However, the event created an atmosphere that virtually precluded a peaceful solution.[56] The Spanish–American War began in April 1898, two months after the sinking. Advocates of the war used the rallying cry, “remember the Maine! To Hell with Spain!”[57][58][59][60][61] The episode focused national attention on the crisis in Cuba, but was not cited by the William McKinley administration as a casus belli, though it was cited by some already inclined to go to war with Spain over perceived atrocities and loss of control in Cuba.[62][63]
JigZone‘s puzzle to begin the week is Bridge Over Forest:
Books
Books in Happy Meals
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Culture, Local Government, Newspapers, School District, University
Whitewater’s Mentoring Gap
by JOHN ADAMS •
Looking back ten years (or nine in the case of UW-Whitewater), one finds at the helm of Whitewater’s public institutions leaders who so very much embodied Old Whitewater: Steinhaus, Brunner, Coan, Telfer (beginning in ’07). They were the perfect representatives of Old Whitewater, where Old Whitewater is an attitude, not an age: narrow, grandiose, mediocre, producing little more than self-praise and ceaseless exaggerations about sham accomplishments. 2006-2007 was the high watermark of Old Whitewater.
To these officials, it must have seemed that their outlook would continue, unquestioned and unchallenged, forever. Newspapers were still seemingly strong and unquestionably fawning, the Banner was just beginning a servile boosterism of all things official, and together these few leaders advanced in unison a one-city, one-view, one-way perspective.
Ten years on, each one of the officials named is gone from the offices they then held, each of them having left in disappointment and failure. (On the university side, the full measure of the mess that Richard Telfer left behind is only now spilling out.) These failed leaders were once treated as tiny deities within the city; when I started writing in 2007, it was common to meet even educated people who spoke about them in reverent tones.
(I, in fact, do believe in God; I’ve just never felt – and never will feel – that He holds local office in Whitewater.)
There are undoubtedly a few who still cling to those now-gone officials as giants, but then there are probably a few who believe that Americans never landed on the moon, or believe against all evidence that Carrot Top really was funny.
These failed few from a decade ago may be gone, but they’ve left another problem behind: as they were poor examples, so they offered too little to subordinates by way of good mentoring. So many of the people under the leaders of a decade ago lacked good examples of leadership. They may have learned what not to do, perhaps, simply by watching mistake after mistake at the top. That’s not much, though.
The truth is that today’s leadership class had few positive examples from yesterday’s leadership class. They’ve come to office at a disadvantage. Sometimes, there really is an evident problem with mistaking office-holding and being credentialed for insight and understanding. The sound mentoring today’s leaders never received would have been a big help; it’s not clear that they see how much they’re missing. (Even if they do see what they’re missing, at least a few of them don’t seem to know what to do about it.)
Whitewater still struggles with the effects of our last decade’s mistakes and poor choices.
A mentoring gap is among the ill effects today’s leaders inherited from yesterday’s leaders.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 2.14.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Valentine’s Day in town will bring snow showers (with an accumulation of less than an inch) with a high of twenty-one. Sunrise is 6:52 and sunset 5:25, for 10h 32m 47s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 41.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Friday’s FW poll asked if an Australian possum found in a toilet paper dispenser was a rare event or a harbinger of an animal invasion. Most respondents (56.52%) thought that it was a once-in-a-blue-moon event, but 43.48% thought that it was a harbinger of an inevitable possum invasion.
Seen from above, sheep-herding’s not just farm work, it’s beauty in motion:
- Today: DB, post on Whitewater’s mentoring gap, evening post
- Monday: DB, weekly music post, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN post, post on the Walworth County circuit judge race, evening post
- Tuesday: DB, weekly education post, evening post
- Wednesday: DB, weekly film post, recap of the Wisconsin spring primary, evening post
- Thursday: DB, a restaurant review, evening post
- Friday: DB, weekly poll, weekly catblogging
- Saturday: DB, weekly Animation post, evening post
On this day in 1819, a great inventor is born:
On this date the inventor of the modern typewriter, C. Latham Sholes, was born. Sholes moved to Wisconsin as a child and lived in Green Bay, Kenosha, and Milwaukee. In 1867, in Milwaukee, he presented his first model for the modern typewriter and patents for the device were taken out in 1868. Sholes took the advice of many mechanical experts, including Thomas Edison, and so claims that he was the sole inventor of the typewriter have often been disputed. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Homes, pg 316-328]
Space, Technology
A Virtual Look Inside Apollo 11
by JOHN ADAMS •
Animation, Cartoons & Comics
Saturday Animation: Farm Frolics (1941)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 2.13.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Saturday in town will be sunny, with a high of nine degrees. Sunrise is 6:53 and sunset 5:24, for 10h 30m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 30.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
It’s Freeze Fest today and the Special Olympics Polar Plunge at the Cravath Lakefront today. Check-In and Registration begins at from 10 AM, with an 11 AM Chili Cook-off, and a 12:00 PM Opening Ceremony & Plunging. There will also be a Snow Dogs presentation at the Irvin Young Library (11 AM -1 PM).
Among all things polar, a polar bear cub in Toronto recently saw snow for the first time, and liked what he saw:
Take a look at our polar bear cub seeing snow for the first time! ? #TOpolarbearcub
Posted by The Toronto Zoo on Friday, February 12, 2016
On this day in 1935, state government intervened in the marketplace to prevent lower gasoline prices:
1935 – Gasoline Price Wars Quelled
On this date, in an effort to stop gasoline price wars, the state of Wisconsin established a minimum price of 16 cents per gallon for gasoline. [Source: Janesville Gazette]
Business, Ethics, Misconduct
Ackman’s Right About Herbalife
by JOHN ADAMS •
In his campaign against Herbalife, however, one sees Ackman’s deep humanity, a humanity wholly consistent with capitalism’s respect for individuals. Herbalife is a fraud and a cheat, offering a false promise to vulnerable people who invest in what’s truly a mid-level marketing scam. It’s more pyramid scheme than company. They prey on hopeful but unsophisticated small investors, often those who would like to share in America’s promise. Michael O. Johnson, CEO of Herbalife, is a repulsive schemer.
Above, I have embedded a video that Ackman has produced, where victims of Herbalife tell how they’ve been cheated.
Ackman has said that he will carry his short position against Herbalife “to the end of the earth.” That’s the very definition of a respectable position, view, or belief: that one will hold on, against any and all, to the very end. Not everyone believes Bill Ackman’s claims; in fact, Herbalife’s stock has been doing fairly well of late. His bet against them has been an expensive one.
But if he should be right, truly right, then why would he not double and double again his efforts to persuade others?
So he is doing, and in so doing, Bill Ackman is doing right, not merely for his investors, but for the many small investors that Herbalife cheats each and every day.
Looking at this one way, Bill Ackman didn’t have to wage a long war against Herbalife; he might have chosen any number of alternative causes. Looking at this another way – properly, I think – he most certainly did have to wage war against Herbalife, whatever the time or cost.
There is much to admire in his campaign against that foul company, and reason to emulate a commitment to fight ‘to the end of the earth’ in defense of other causes, too.
Here’s a link to more from Pershing Square: Facts About Herbalife.
See, also, a large (over 300 pages) pdf file with the case against Herbalife.
Cats, Film
Friday Catblogging: The Purrtraitist
by JOHN ADAMS •
Larry Johnson is a renowned photographer. His specialty is feline portraiture. He travels around the world taking photos of show cats. I spent a weekend with Larry at a cat show in Parsippany, NJ to see him work his magic.
mlzml.com
johnsonanimalphoto.com
Credits:
Directed/Edited: Mark Zemel
Camera: Tyler Jensen & Mark Zemel
Audio Mix: Jeff Curtin
Colorist: Ryan Rossillo
Title Animation: Mack WilliamsDirectors Notes just posted some behind-the-scenes info about the video! bit.ly/1Uyv3Sj
Poll
Friday Poll: Possum in a Toilet Paper Dispenser
by JOHN ADAMS •
Posted by Parks Victoria on Tuesday, February 9, 2016
In Australia, park rangers discovered a possum living in a toilet paper dispenser. What should one think about this?