FREE WHITEWATER

Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.11.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have an even chance of afternoon showers, and a high of sixty-one this Wednesday.  Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset 4:35, for 9h 52m 49s of daytime.  We’ve a new moon today.

On this day in 1918, the First World War ends:

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure.

On this day in 1964, a part of Britain arrives in Milwaukee:

1964 – Rolling Stones Play Milwaukee

On this date the Rolling Stones first performed in Wisconsin, to a crowd of 1,274 fans at Milwaukee Auditorium. Although Brian Jones remained in a Chicago hospital with a high fever, the rest of the band performed. According to a dubious reporter for the Milwaukee Journal, “Chances are, few in the audience missed his [Jones’] wailing harmonica. Screams from a thousand throats drowned out all but the most insistent electronic cacophony and the two-fisted smashes of drummer Charlie Watts.” The reporter continued, “Unless someone teaches guitar chords to chimpanzees, the visual ultimate has been reached in the Rolling Stones. With shoulder length hair and high heeled boots, they seemed more feminine than their fans. The Stones make the Beatles look like clean cut kids. You think it must be some kind of parody – but the little girls in front paid $5.50 a seat.” [Source: Milwaukee Journal November 12, 1964, p.14]

Here’s the midweek game from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — November 9-13
Chinese Takeout
May we take your reorder? For each day this week, we started with a phrase, removed the seven letters in CHINESE, and rearranged the remaining letters to get a new word or phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the longer one first.
Example:
Google or Bing, for example; wrath
Answer:
Search engine; anger
What to Submit:
Submit both pieces, with the longer one first (as “Search engine; anger” in the example), for your answer.
Wednesday, November 11
Trying to fall asleep; classic Navy pilots movie

Politics, Presidential race 2016

GOP in MKE: Tonight at the Milwaukee Theatre

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POLITICO has answers to likely questions about tonight’s debate: Everything you need to know about Tuesday’s Republican debate.

Here are the two important answers about the main debate (an undercard debate will begin at 6 PM CST):

When and how long is the debate?
The prime-time debate will last two hours and begins at 9 Eastern time [8 CST]. There are a few changes to the format: Candidates will not make opening statements, but they will have more time to make arguments. For an initial answer to a question, they get 90 seconds, in addition to 60 seconds for rebuttals. There will be short closing statements at the end of the debate.

How can I watch the debate?
It will air on Fox Business Network and be streamed for free on foxbusiness.com. No cable subscription is necessary. To capitalize on the ratings surges from earlier debates, FBN is also widening access to the channel for its pay-TV partners such as DirecTV. This will allow viewers who normally can’t access the network a chance to tune into the debate.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.10.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday will be sunny, with a high of fifty-five. Sunrise is 6:41 and sunset 4:36, for 9h 55m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 1.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM, and her Zoning Code Update Committee at 7:00 PM.

On this day in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans’ War Memorial opens to visitors in Washington, D.C.:

Washington, Nov. 10 — President Reagan stopped by the National Cathedral to listen for a while to the reading of the names of the Vietnam war dead this evening.

His motorcade sounded fast and far-off heading northwest to the cathedral in the dusk as Tom Toohey, unheeding in another part of town, stepped up to the glossy dark wall of the war’s freshly completed memorial with its long listing of its dead, touching it for the name, he emphasized, of ”one good lieutenant.”

”There,” said Mr. Toohey, his fingers brushing the name of Richard H. Housh. ”A real good lieutenant. I saw him jump up with his pump shotgun one time and blow away four guys coming at us. He was somebody else, one good lieutenant.”

Ceremony by Candlelight

While the President journeyed to one part of the capital’s weeklong commemoration of the Vietnam dead, the continuous reading of their names in a candlelighted chapel at National Cathedral, Mr. Toohey and hundreds of other Americans continued to arrive at the wall even after darkness fell tonight, the eve of Veterans Day. They bore the slow grief of the Vietnam time and indulged the simplest sort of human memorial, the act of touching stone, feeling the cold, stony texture of the engraved names of the dead that showed up by flashlight and in the wavering glow of matches struck in the dark.

On this day in 1862, Wisconsinites riot over the draft:

1862 – Draft Riot of 1862

On this date angry citizens protesting a War Department order for 300,000 additional troops, rioted in Port Washington, Ozaukee County. As county draft commissioner William A. Pors drew the first name, cannon fire resounded and a mob of over 1,000 angry citizens wielding clubs and bricks and carrying banners scrawled with the words “No Draft!” marched through the streets. The mob stormed the city destroying buildings, setting fires, and gutting the interior of homes and shops. Troops were brought in the next day to quell the violence. The Ozaukee rioters were captured and remained prisoners at Camp Randall for about a year before they were finally released. In all, more than a half-dozen homes were damaged and dozens of citizens were injured. [Source: Ozaukee Country Wisconsin]

Here’s Tuesday’s game from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — November 9-13
Chinese Takeout
May we take your reorder? For each day this week, we started with a phrase, removed the seven letters in CHINESE, and rearranged the remaining letters to get a new word or phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the longer one first.
Example:
Google or Bing, for example; wrath
Answer:
Search engine; anger
What to Submit:
Submit both pieces, with the longer one first (as “Search engine; anger” in the example), for your answer.
Tuesday, November 10
“Creation of Adam” location; braids

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

Local Isn’t Local 

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 44 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.

Last week I posted a video explanation from Whitewater City Manager Cameron Clapper about a digester-energy project. At the end of that post, I mentioned that I’d write about his remarks, more particularly today.  Needless to say, I will write about those remarks in detail, but not today.

Over the last two weeks, there have been developments elsewhere in the state worth mentioning, about factory farms, water quality, and efforts of Wisconsinites to protect their homes from environmental risk (and consequently declining property values).

In both comments and email that I have received over the last week, people have asked questions about the goals of the WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN series.  Events in other parts of the state help explain some of the goals of the series.

First, what’s happening elsewhere?  There are, and have been, large protests in other parts of the state against factory farms (concentrated animal feeding operations, called CAFOs for short), dumping of manure, aerial spraying of manure, and collapsing water quality from waste dumping.

Many of these issues are universal, no matter the (highly unconvincing) efforts to recast local plans.

In Whitewater, almost none of this has been mentioned.  For other parts of the state, it’s a significant, growing concern.  I have watched and followed these developments for the last few years, from around the time that former City Manager Brunner, and then Acting City Manager Clapper, unsuccessfully sought to bring an additional digester to Whitewater.

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN will lead to an ebook and a video documentary, and will describe Whitewater’s project not only on its own terms, but in comparison and contrast to how other communities are approaching these issues.  Messrs. Reel, Clapper, the Whitewater Council, the Whitewater CDA, etc., are not acting in a vacuum, or on a distant island – this is a much bigger topic than locally described.

(So much bigger, in fact, that failure to address matters contextually looks like willful ignorance.)

The posts so far in this series are notes along the way to those other works.

Those works will describe this city’s approach and the (very different) approaches of other Wisconsin and other beyond-Wisconsin communities.

People choose, but not all similarly; people choose, but not all wisely.

Below are just two links to accounts from other communities, of their response to many of these issues.  (I’ve written on one of these communities – Lexington, Massachusetts – briefly before.)  These concerns from other communities are the telling and unmentioned background of all what’s happening closer to home.

See, Central Wisconsin Wants Golf Resort; Opposes Industrialized, Polluting Dairy, and previously in the WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN series, The View from Lexington, Massachusetts.

Next Week: Assessing the 9.17.15 description of the project.

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.9.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in town will be sunny with a high of fifty-six. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset 6:37, for 9h 57m 27s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 4.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets this evening at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1938, coordinated attacks target Jews in Nazi Germany:

Kristallnacht (German pronunciation:…English: “Crystal Night“) or Reichskristallnacht…, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, Reichspogromnacht… or simply Pogromnacht… and Novemberpogrome…was a pogrom (a series of coordinated deadly attacks) against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and Austria on 9–10 November 1938, carried out by SA paramilitary forces and non-Jewish civilians. German authorities looked on without intervening.[1][2] The name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues had their windows smashed.[3]

On this day in 1863, conscription resumes in Wisconsin:

1863 – (Civil War) Conscription reinstated

Another draft was instituted in the State of Wisconsin. Unlike the 1862 conscription, it did not have a set quota. 14,933 men received draft notices, but the vast majority were exempted on medical or other grounds, paid a legal fee to be exempted, or simply failed to show up. Another 262 paid someone else to go in their place. Just 628 who were drafted actually served. [Schoonover, Lynn. History of the Civil War Draft in Wisconsin, page 56].

On 11.9.1968, an earthquake shakes the Badger State:

1968 – Earthquake Shakes Wisconsin

On this date one of the strongest earthquakes in the central United States occurred in south-central Illinois. Measured at a magnitude of 5.3, press reports from LaCrosse, Milwaukee, Port Washington, Portage, Prairie Du Chien, and Sheboygan indicated that the shock was felt in these cities. [Source:United States Geological Survey]

Puzzability begins a new weekly series entitled Chinese Takeout, with Monday’s game:

This Week’s Game — November 9-13
Chinese Takeout
May we take your reorder? For each day this week, we started with a phrase, removed the seven letters in CHINESE, and rearranged the remaining letters to get a new word or phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the longer one first.
Example:
Google or Bing, for example; wrath
Answer:
Search engine; anger
What to Submit:
Submit both pieces, with the longer one first (as “Search engine; anger” in the example), for your answer.
Monday, November 9
Animated movie about a superhero family; comic strip office drone

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.8.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in town will be sunny with a high of fifty-four.  Sunrise is 6:38 and sunset 4:38, for 9h 59m 49s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 8.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, Pres. Lincoln is re-elected:

The United States presidential election of 1864 was the 20th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1864. Incumbent president, Republican Abraham Lincoln, was running for re-election against Democratic candidate George B. McClellan, who ran as the “peace candidate” without personally believing in his party’s platform.

Lincoln was re-elected president by a landslide in the Electoral College. Since the election of 1860, the Electoral College had expanded with the admission of Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada as free-soil states. As the American Civil War was still raging, no electoral votes were counted from any of the eleven Southern states.[2] Lincoln won by more than 400,000 popular votes in part due to the Union’s victory at the Battle of Atlanta.[3] Lincoln was the first president to be re-elected since Democrat Andrew Jackson in 1832. Lincoln was inaugurated for his second term on March 4, 1865, but he was assassinated on April 15, 1865, one month after his term began.

ElectoralCollege1864.svg
Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Lincoln/Johnson, blue denotes those won by McClellan/Pendleton, andbrown denotes Confederate states; two Confederate states were controlled by the Union by 1864 and held elections (although their electors were not ultimately counted). Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

On this day in 1870, a published first:

1870 – First National Weather Forecast Published

On this date Increase Lapham recorded the first published national weather forecast, calling for “high winds and falling temperatures for Chicago, Detroit and the Eastern cities.” [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride]

Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Law, University

The Nature of the Federal Title IX Complaints Against UW-Whitewater

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The two, separate federal complaints that sexual assault survivors have filed against UW-Whitewater are complaints against that institution for the failure to comply with lawful requirements for handling these alleged survivors’ claims (regardless of the underlying facts in any given claimant’s case).  

(That’s why, when Title IX complainants seek federal recourse, they say that they have been assaulted twice – once from an assailant, and a second time when they feel they have been denied the required Title IX support from their own campuses.  A federal Title IX complaint is against a school for failing to respond as required to the request for local assistance.)

These complainants allege that, apart from the underlying facts of each assault, UW-Whitewater and one of her principal administrators failed to provide the standard of care and responsiveness that the law requires.  Both women allege not merely that UW-Whitewater’s Dean of Students, Mary Beth Mackin, was deficient in her response, but that she was unlawfully so.  The second complaint, pointedly, claims that UW-Whitewater acted in a sexually discriminatory way, itself an additional violation of the law.

More seriously, these two women allege that UW-Whitewater has actually and effectually obstructed  the required processing of their complaints.

The inescapable legal issue here is how UW-Whitewater processes complaints, and whether that institution has done so as the law requires.  The practical issue is that failure to treat all complaints as the law requires will dissuade future sexual assault survivors from coming forward.

If officials oppose applicable federal laws, the  legitimate response is to petition for an amendment or repeal of those laws.

No one employed at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, regardless of his or her role, has a right to disregard existing legal requirements.  It does not matter how much those in the administration might wish to balance the law against other (often self-interested and self-protective) reputational considerations.

The law does not allow that balancing.  No official is above – nor any individual below – the law.  It does not matter how important officials believe they are, how much other work they feel has gone well, etc.  

The legal question is how public officials, receiving public funds, bound by federal law, complied with that federal law (regardless of the underlying facts in any given claimant’s case). There is neither a legal (nor an ethical) escape from this fundamental question.  

Practically, the most important question is what actually happened to sexual assault survivors, and the well-being of those survivors and future ones.

The nature of these Title IX complaints, as matters under law, concerns how an institution has addressed the requests for assistance that it received from those within its care.

See, concerning these two claims:

How UW-Whitewater Treated a Sexual Assault Victim

A Second Sex-Assault Survivor Files Federal Complaint Against UW-Whitewater