Updated 1.8.24: To berescheduled due to snowy weather. There will be a showing of A Haunting in Venice @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Mystery/Drama
Rated PG-13
1 hour, 43 minutes (2023)
Agatha Christie’s celebrated sleuth Hercules Poirot, now retired and living in self-imposed exile in Venice, reluctantly attends a Halloween séance in a “haunted” palazzo. When one of the guests is murdered, Poirot is, once again, on the hunt. Kenneth Branagh, Tina Fey, Michelle Yeoh star.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 32. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:34 for 9h 09m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 46.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
In northern Wisconsin, where outdoor enthusiasts live for snow and ice, warmer than usual weather has skiers and snowmobilers turning to wheels, and race organizers breaking out snowmaking machines.
In December, weather stations in Brule, Ashland and Hayward recorded temperatures more than 12 degrees Fahrenheit above the 30-year average, according to the National Weather Service.
Kevin Huyck, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Duluth, said those areas saw around 11 to 16 inches less snow than average for the month.
“(It’s) definitely been drier than what we’ve seen in the past as far as snowfall for this past month of December,” Huyck said
Understandably, the lack of snow threatens businesses that depend on snow sports. Some enterprises may be able to produce artificial snow, but that creation may not be enough in volume or satisfaction for winter sports enthusiasts.
For it all, however, Wisconsin’s economy does and should rely on many activities rather than fewer. Seeing Wisconsin only through winter sports would be both erroneous and short-sighted.
One can say the same about Whitewater’s student housing market. It’s been profitable for some (a few landlords) who have benefited privately in a relationship with a publicly-funded university. (These gentlemen talk about private business but their income has depended on a healthy public institution. Not one of these men built their enterprises on purely private relationships.)
The city’s economy, however, is and healthfully must be more than a student-housing market (supportive of higher education though I am). Indeed, normal, thriving economies in America simply aren’t built on rental properties. A hundred other industries would take precedence.
Worth considering the next time some of these gentlemen expect preferential consideration…
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 34. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:33 for 9h 08m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 54.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Library Board meets in closed session at 4:30 PM.
On this day in 1777, General Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.
Whitewater has had significant political activity throughout 2023, and the local Spring Election awaits the city in April.
There’s more than one way to think about these changes, but political, economic, and social dynamism is common across America. It’s not merely common, but felicitously a source of our national strength, making us the envy of other peoples around the world.
A few remarks about hockey and Friedrich Hayek (not usually associated) explain much of Whitewater’s recent politics.
Consider ice hockey, starting with the rink on which that game is played.
Odd, isn’t it? Circles and lines across a sheet of ice, on a rink where those markings and the players skating in competition would seem incomprehensible to someone unfamiliar with the game.
And yet, and yet, for a little bit of time and willingness, someone can learn about hockey and enjoy watching or playing a game. Indeed, without markings on the ice, and rules of the game, there would be no National Hockey League. A few people might be on a few rinks, but those few would never unite into a profitable professional association.
As it turns out, local governments have their own version of rules from federal & state statutes, local ordinances, and local policies those communities adopt as binding. In Whitewater, relevant & material statutes, ordinances, and policies are compiled (in significant part) in the city’s Good Government Manual and the CDA Rules of Procedure.
A key point that cannot be emphasized enough: these federal and state statutes, city ordinances, and local policies pre-date the current city administration.They are not a new development. They always should have been, and now are, being read and applied as they were meant to be applied. They were years ago lawfully drafted and adopted. If their application has seemed alien to some in Whitewater, then it is because some have unfortunately become unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the lawful rules and procedures for this very town.
To do otherwise would be to expect the equivalent of a hockey game where players follow no rules or different rules, crashing into each other and the boards.
And look, and look — this libertarian blogger is not a member of the government and never will be. This libertarian blogger has never represented the government and never will. It is right, however, to follow the rules properly established at federal, state, and local levels until they are lawfully revised.
Deprecation of these rules does not advance this city; it perpetuates backwardness.
Nor is “planning” a medicine which, taken in small doses, can produce the effects for which one might hope from its thoroughgoing application. Both competition and central direction become poor and inefficient tools if they are incomplete; they are alternative principles used to solve the same problem, and a mixture of the two means that neither will really work and that the result will be worse than if either system had been consistently relied upon. Or, to express it differently, planning and competition can be combined only by planning for competition but not by planning against competition.
It is of the utmost importance to the argument of this book for the reader to keep in mind that the planning against which all our criticism is directed is solely the planning against competition the planning which is to be substituted tuted for competition. This is the more important, as we cannot, within the scope of this book, enter into a discussion of the very necessary planning which is required to make competition as effective and beneficial as possible. But as in current usage “planning” has become almost synonymous with the former kind of planning, it will sometimes be inevitable for the sake of brevity to refer to it simply as planning, even though this means leaving to our opponents a very good word meriting a better fate.
(Emphasis added.)
F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom 89 (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 2 ed. 2007).
Government’s orderly planning, including the application of established policies, makes government responsible. It also leaves government in its proper, limited place.
Hope for a better future is not only — and not principally — to be found within the walls of city hall. 312 W. Whitewater Street is merely one address in this city. Whitewater is a city of fifteen thousand, not fifteen. Whitewater’s many private needs will not be met through fights among government men or recriminations among them.
The purpose of a well-regulated government, like a well-regulated militia, is (and must be) to protect the flourishing of private life.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 33. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:32 for 9h 07m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 64.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1777, American forces under the command of George Washington repulse a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey.
Steven Walters has a list of the Top 10 State Government Stories of 2023. It’s a solid recounting of the biggest state issues of 2023. His Numbers 1 and 2 would appear on any list of major Wisconsin events:
1. Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz not only won a 10-year term on the state Supreme Court, but she won by a landslide in the most expensive ($51 million by candidates and outside groups) judicial race in the nation’s history. Her win gave liberals their first majority on the seven-member court in 12 years.
2. In December, that new Supreme Court majority ruled that Assembly and Senate boundaries Republicans drew in 2021 were unconstitutional. The court gave all sides a Jan. 12 deadline to submit new district lines for November elections and named two experts to advise the justices on next steps. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said the ruling would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
After his top ten, Walters mentions a few other big stories, and a post-Foxconn future is rightly among them:
Microsoft paid $50 million for 315 acres of Mount Pleasant land owned by Foxconn, officially retiring the 2018 promise by then-President Trump, ex-Gov. Scott Walker and ex-U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryanthat Foxconn’s investment in Racine County would create a high-tech, “eighth wonder of the world.” Microsoft says two data centers will be built.
FREE WHITEWATER has a category dedicated to the Foxconn debacle.
In Whitewater (seeA Sham News Story on Foxconn) and too many other places, support for the Wisconsin Foxconn project was (and should have been) a sign of dog-crap-quality policymaking.
A new year begins in Whitewater with partly sunny skies and a high of 33. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:31 for 9h 06m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 73.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Sunday in Whitewater will see flurries and ice with a high of 33. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:30 for 9h 05m 36s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 80.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1759, Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 37. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:30 for 9h 04m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 87.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1916, Russian mystic and advisor to the Tsar Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin is murdered by a loyalist group led by Prince Felix Yusupov.
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:29 for 9h 04m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
The two consultants — University of California, Irvine political science professor Bernard Grofman and Carnegie Mellon University postdoctoral fellow Jonathan Cervas — may not be household names in Wisconsin, but they have played prominent roles in settling map disputes in other states.
In Wisconsin, they’ll weigh in on whether the maps abide by the court’s standard that any new maps contain equally populated districts; be bounded by county, precinct, ward or town lines; include only contiguous territory; be as compact as possible; and comply with federal law.
They’ll also assess whether the maps preserve communities of interest, reduce municipal splits and are drawn so that no party benefits more than the other.
On Tuesday, the consultants sent out a letter to parties in the case specifying how they will evaluate the proposed maps. They called for each party to note themselves when their proposed maps may go up against one of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s proposed metrics, and said they’ll independently verify each claim.
The new maps must be submitted by Jan. 12, and the professors’ evaluations are due by Feb. 1.
AC [Alex Crowe of Morning Edition]: There’s going to be a big fight now over drawing some new maps. With this ruling, are we going to get new maps right away before the election in 2024? What does that process look like?
RK [Rich Kremer of WPR]: The court didn’t immediately draw new legislative districts to replace those deemed unconstitutional, but like you said, they have to be in place prior to the 2024 elections. Justice Karofsky said she’s hopeful that the GOP-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers will agree on new maps.
In the meantime, they’re going to be proceeding toward adopting what they call remedial maps. What that means is in a separate court order, the majority laid out deadlines for maps and they appointed two national experts to oversee the process. Parties in the case have until Jan. 12 to submit remedial maps. These consultants have until Feb. 1 to file a report on the competing proposals.
The majority also said it will consider partisan impact when evaluating the remedial maps. But Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has said in recent months that the U.S. Supreme Court will have the last word on the redistricting litigation in Wisconsin. This week, he said the Legislature will pursue all federal issues arising out of the case.
And so, and so — there are state processes certain to take place, and federal litigation likely to take place.
After 1,000 Martian days of exploration, NASA’s Perseverance rover is studying rocks that show several eras in the history of a river delta billions of years old. Scientists are investigating this region of Mars, known as Jezero Crater, to see if they can find evidence of ancient life recorded in the rocks. Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley provides a guided tour of a richly detailed panorama of the rover’s location in November 2023, taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument.
Composed of 993 individual images and 2.38 billion pixels, this 360-degree mosaic looks in all directions from a location the rover science team calls “Airey Hill.” Portions of the rover itself are visible in the scene, appearing more distorted toward the edges as a result of the image processing.
A color enhancement applied to the image increases contrast and accentuates color differences. By approximating what the scene would look like under Earth-like lighting conditions, the adjustment allows mission scientists to use their everyday experience to interpret the landscape. The view on Mars would be darker and more reddish. The panorama can be explored and downloaded at: https://go.nasa.gov/3tmJnGB.
Our feline friends may now be the toast of the internet and social media, but they have also long served as subjects and inspirations to artists all the way back to the Middle Ages. Renoir has captured the blissful languor of the cat, just as Picasso depicted its playful savagery and Chagall its kineticism. And that’s not mentioning Louis Wain, who enriched the genre with the sheer volume of his anthropomorphized cat paintings.
But sadly, not all artists get cats. In fact, some have turned out artworks that portray them less like our furry housemates and more inexplicably strange, even grotesque creatures. Cats are weird, but surely not this weird. Below, we bring you seven times artists got these purrballs wrong—so wrong.
A young woman shown three-quarters length seated to right, holding a swaddled cat on her lap and preparing to feed it with a spoon; a steaming bowl on the table to left; curtain in the background; before clock added on the wall behind and phial and other implements on the table. 1772
Hand-coloured mezzotint
Thursday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 38. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset 4:28 for 9h 03m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Universities of Wisconsin Regents unanimously voted yesterday evening to fire UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow over Gow’s appearance with his wife, Carmen Wilson, in several pornography videos. The story, understandably, has attracted national attention. Never a dull moment in the Badger State.
Gow, 63, and his wife, Carmen Wilson, appear in videos on several porn websites using “Sexy Happy Couple” as the account name, a moniker also used on at least two social media accounts.
The couple also published two books under pseudonyms detailing their experiences in the adult film industry. Both books and the social media accounts feature photos clearly showing Gow and Wilson.
….
The couple’s account on X, formerly Twitter, hinted at their hobby: “The Passionate plant-powered couple cooking, conversing, and shooting with top adult video stars. Visit our LoyalFans and OnlyFans sites for fully explicit scenes!”
Gow and Wilson have six videos on OnlyFans that feature adult film stars, according to descriptions of the videos. They also appear on at least two other porn websites, PornHub and XHamster. Some videos have more than 200,000 views. All videos were posted in the last two months.
Liam Beran of the Daily Cardinal offers more detail:
The couple has posted nine videos on their Youtube channel Sexy Healthy Couple — described as “a plant-powered couple [making] delicious vegan food with top adult stars,” per a channel description — with the first posted on Dec. 9, 2023, as first reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The videos feature Gow and Wilson making recipes alongside adult film entertainers and small segments of suggestive material.
The channel’s Twitter account advertises “fully explicit scenes” on their OnlyFans account.
In one video, Gow shows a book entitled “Monogamy with Benefits: How Porn Enriches Our Relationship,” which he says he wrote with Wilson. The book is listed under pen names Geri and Jay Hart, which are described on Amazon as “pen names of a married woman and man who serve in executive positions at two well-known organizations in the U.S.”
“Not our real names, because we’re still forced to kinda lay low on that, but someday,” Gow said in the Dec. 13 video.
Properly speaking, if Gow wanted to describe ongoing concealment in the present, he would use lie low, not lay low (past tense). Lay low would correctly describe prior concealment, but then again Gow might have been using lay low as wordplay to describe the particulars of his lifestyle. Perhaps chancellors in La Crosse are crafty that way.
The Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman stated after Gow’s dismissal that
“Upon my recommendation, the UW Board of Regents today terminated Dr. Joe Gow from his position as chancellor of UW-La Crosse effective immediately. In recent days, we learned of specific conduct by Dr. Gow that has subjected the university to significant reputational harm. His actions were abhorrent.
“As a tenured faculty member, Dr. Gow will be placed on paid administrative leave as he transitions into his faculty role at UW-La Crosse. However, I have filed a complaint this evening with interim Chancellor Betsy Morgan regarding Dr. Gow’s status as a tenured faculty member, asking that such status be reviewed. In addition, an outside law firm has been engaged to undertake a fulsome investigation of the matter. We anticipate the complaint will be considered in the normal course as dictated by Wis. Admin. Code Ch. 4.”
While one can understand that Gow’s behavior is embarrassing to the Regents, Rothman’s use of abhorrent (lit., inspiring disgust and loathing; repugnant) seems a bit much for a public university system that has over many years tolerated far worse than anything Gow has done. (All Gow’s actions were, after all, apparently weird-but-consensual.)
Gow, himself, has few regrets, as Kelly Meyerhofer reports:
He wishes he hadn’t self-censored that part of his life for so long, fearing his secret would lead to his being shunned by the higher education community.
After years of hearing UW leaders profess the importance of free speech, Gow decided to test that commitment. He felt the timing was apt, with months left in his chancellorship and plans to return next fall as a faculty member.
“I felt a little bit more open about ‘let’s raise these free speech issues and see how the board responds,’ and now we know,” he said.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 41. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset 4:27 for 9h 03m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1929, Soviet General Secretary Stalin orders the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” leading to a Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, or executions of millions of kulaks (prosperous peasants) and their families.
In order to get the U.S. Supreme Court to look at the case, the Legislature and its allies will need to make the argument that there was a violation of federal law. That’s because, explained Rob Yablon, University of Wisconsin Law School professor and co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative, the core legal claim in the case — contiguity — is a matter of state law.
The case brought to the court argued the maps violate Wisconsin’s Constitution because some legislative districts include pieces of land that are not connected.
“The Wisconsin Supreme Court has the last word on state law questions,” Yablon said.
A request for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on a state Supreme Court decision (or a federal appeals court decision) is known as a petition for certiorari, or cert petition. Under U.S. Supreme Court rules, four of nine justices must vote to accept such a case.
“(The majority) did a really intentional job of sticking to very narrow state constitutional issues, which has the effect of insulating a lot of the decision from U.S. Supreme Court review,” said Daniel Suhr, a Republican attorney who served in former Gov. Scott Walker’s administration. “When a case is decided on only state constitutional grounds, there’s not a U.S. constitutional hook for the Supreme Court to rely on in intervening.”
In their story, Opoien and Beck consider two principal arguments for federal intervention (Protasiewicz’s participation in the Wisconsin decision and if any new maps have an unlawful racial bias) but report through interviewed experts that both lines of argument have uncertain prospects.
In any event, while it’s four to take the case, it’s five to overturn on federal grounds.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 51. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset 4:27 for 9h 02m 44s of daytime. The moon is full with 99.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Wisconsin’s labor force continues to grow, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The total number of non-farm related jobs across Wisconsin hit a record high of more than 3 million during the month of November.
That’s more than 32,000 additional jobs compared to the same time last year, and an increase of 1,700 compared to October, according to an analysis of the preliminary data from the state’s Department of Workforce Development.
“If you’re a job seeker, this is a fantastic time. If you’re trying to hire, it’s a little tougher,” DWD economist Scott Hodek said Thursday. “That’s why DWD and the state are doing so many things to try and get everybody into the labor force and skilled-up as much as possible.”
Wisconsin’s unemployment rate was 3.3 percent last month, up a tenth of a percent from October.
That’s lower than the national average of 3.7 percent. And it remains far below the average of the last three decades.
Christmas in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 54. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset 4:26 for 9h 02m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 97.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1776, George Washington and the Continental Army cross the Delaware River at night to attack Hessian forces serving Great Britain at Trenton, New Jersey, the next day.
A hand-colored portrait of the Trimpey family cat, Mary, posed by a small Christmas tree. The tree is decorated with ribbon garland and there is a toy mouse and ornament at the base of the tree.
Christmas Eve in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 54. Sunrise is 7:23 and sunset 4:25 for 9h 02m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 93.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
