Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 67. Sunrise is 6:40 AM and sunset 4:37 PM for 9h 56m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99% of its visible disk illuminated.
Here we are, on the other side of statements, declarations, claims, advertisements, banners, flyers, and signs. And for it all, in most places, there is today revealed in the collective vote of so many millions a trend toward continuity. No crimson wave for change swept this continent, state, or city. We, our whole people, are better this way; this community has come through enough these last few years.
In Wisconsin, this morning it looks as though incumbent Governor Evers, Wisconsin Attorney General Kaul, U.S. Senator Johnson, and Congressman Bryan Steil are reelected, with Secretary of State La Follette also likely re-elected, and with state treasurer candidate John Leiber leading in a race that would be one of the few to change partisan affiliation. That’s quite something — that amount of continuity despite predictions otherwise.
For the Whitewater Schools’ operational referendum, with unofficial results from three counties (Walworth, Jefferson, Rock), there was clear support for the four-year measure: in favor 3832, opposed 2985.
For the City of Whitewater’s fire & rescue referendum, there was also evident support: in favor 2476, opposed 1379.
Vocal opponents of these measures misread the mood of their community. In the tension between Energy and Exhaustion, they thought too much of their own energy and not enough of the community’s exhaustion. Some of these gentlemen have a can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees problem. They think too much of themselves, too much of their own arguments, and too little of others’ perspectives. Good politics requires good observation. Political efforts should be more than a performative spectacle of banners, flyers, and agitated public comments.
Whitewater, certainly, deserves more. This small and beautiful community now has an opportunity to ponder carefully, propose dispassionately, and progress methodically.
We have given ourselves that opportunity, and we should do our level best to make the most of it.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:39 AM and sunset 4:38 PM for 9h 59m 06s of daytime. The moon is full with 100% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1923, in Munich, Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government.
Today is the end of a long election year. There are two referendum questions on Whitewater’s ballot, and I’ve written previously in support of both. While no referendum is easy, and no referendum is perfect, these two (for a Whitewater Schools’ operational referendum and another for Fire & Emergency Services) offer a solid foundation from which the community may then make improvements in the city and school district.
For many years, in confident conviction as FREE WHITEWATER’s libertarian blogger, I have opposed school referendums, notably capital ones, for the Whitewater Unified School District. It is with equal confidence that I now urge my fellow residents to support the Whitewater Schools’ 2022 operational referendum. The well-being of our students will best be served through operational stability, and, once assured, that stability will offer time for methodical adjustments in the district’s operation.
The rejection of this operational referendum — one that simply allows the district to continue needed services day-to-day — would plunge this district’s residents into destructive, internecine strife over budgets from one year to the next. Our community, managing through multiple challenges, would make no better choices, and find no better solutions, in the chaotic, uncertain political environment after a failed operational referendum.
There is a profound difference between wanting change and fomenting disorder. We cannot burn this village to save it. Many years ago, using a different metaphor, the noted libertarian Sheldon Richman proposed that the only way to manage the ‘onion’ of government was to smash it completely. He was wrong: a reasonable man peels away parts of government deliberately and methodically only after careful reflection. Opposition to this referendum is an unreasonable smashing in the place of careful peeling.
….
Academic performance will not improve by rejecting this referendum. It’s a diversion and a delusion to believe that if performance is insufficient now, students will somehow do better the day, month, or year after a failed referendum. They won’t do better, but they will be distracted with a year or more of battles over what’s to be cut, and when it is to be cut.
The opposition to this referendum has proposed not a single credible plan for improving learning. Not one. Complaining about academic past performance will not improve students’ present and future performance. (Indeed, opponents to this operational referendum haven’t even proposed an amount of cuts they’d prefer.)
….
I urge this community to support the Whitewater Schools’ referendum to assure a continuity of services so that, in these next years, we can apply ourselves to constructive change from a stable foundation.
In the months since this referendum was slated for a vote, opponents have offered not a single, specific proposal for what might be cut and when. Nothing. We have so many talented and hardworking students in our high school; not one of them would have turned in a paper with blank sheets for a proposal.
We face difficult educational questions for our community. We will never reach those critical questions if we divert month upon month in debate over nothing except the chaotic aftermath of a failed referendum. By adopting this routine referendum now, the community will clear the path ahead for critical questions of learning. That work awaits us; we have no reason to put obstacles in our own way.
For many years, Whitewater had a volunteer, paid-on-call fire and emergency services department. For Whitewater and other communities, that model no longer provides enough volunteers or speedy response times. What once worked no longer does.
This libertarian blogger would have a preferred a private department, but preference does not decide good policy — response to human need decides good policy. While a private, libertarian perspective works best in most situations, it does not work exclusive of other, occasional options. Most of the time is not all of the time.
A municipal department with a paid-on-premises model (where some fire and emergency workers are at the station and on the ready) is simply faster and more reliable for Whitewater.
Recognizing the importance of fire & emergency services, this libertarian supports the City of Whitewater’s Fire & EMS referendum.
We are a city of 14,889 people, with a distribution that skews both young and old. Emergency services are notably important for those age groups.
One cannot emphasize enough: this Fire & EMS referendum is simply an effort to provide normal services to this town. It’s false and overwrought — if not mendacious — to contend that the Fire & EMS referendum represents something other supporting a Fire & EMS department. There is no sinister ideological motivation behind this effort; it represents only an effort at normal services for a normal town. That’s all.
These men and women who defend Whitewater against fire, accident, and injury do not act from a partisan or ideological purpose. Claims (false and nutty, as it turns out) that some civilian officials have ideological motivations are both irrelevant and immaterial. What is relevant and material is that Whitewater should have a stable, speedy, reliable department.
It is sensible — common sense, one might say — to rely on the experience and expertise of those who have served. Embedded immediately below are the testimonials of Fire Chief Kelly Freeman, Emergency Services Chief Ashley Vickers, and Advanced EMT Jason Dean.
Reasonably, rationally, their experience and testimony should guide one’s judgment. There is no evident error or omission in their testimonies. If this libertarian blogger could discern even a word askew, I would say as much. There’s nothing whatever askew. Their ideological views (of whatever perspective), other city officials’ ideological views (real or imagined), or my own libertarian position changes nothing of the facts they’ve plainly described. Freeman, Vickers, and Dean speak simply and honestly about Whitewater’s needs. A professional, on-premises fire and emergency services department will ably preserve life and property in Whitewater.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 49. Sunrise is 6:37 AM and sunset 4:30 PM for 10h 01m 29s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM.
Before an election, it’s common for a news site to write about the local races in the community. Residents of Whitewater will find such a story for Whitewater at Fort Atkinson Online. (That news site’s fitting tagline is ‘Your local news source serving Fort Atkinson, Whitewater and surrounding areas.’)
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny and breezy, with a high of 59. Sunrise is 6:36 AM and sunset 4:41 PM for 10h 03m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this date, Burlington, Iowa was chosen as a temporary capital of the Wisconsin Territory. A year earlier, legislators offered a bill making Madison the capital with a temporary capital in Dubuque until which time a permanent building could be constructed in Madison. Legislators also proposed the City of Belmont as a temporary capital. One month later, on December 12th, a fire destroyed the two-story temporary capital in Burlington. The new legislature moved its headquarters to the Webber and Remey’s store in Burlington where they conducted government affairs until June 1838.
Twitter’s a private company now, and it’s been a chaotic transition. For many small towns, like Whitewater, Twitter’s not directly influential, but it has an indirect influence as an occasional nationwide rumor mill. Crackpot ideas get test runs on Twitter, and find their way to other audiences. (In my own case, I like to follow interesting national publications & people on Twitter, and it works like an RSS feed for me. As long as Twitter has interesting national figures, I’ll likely stay on the platform.)
(Twitter may collapse, but it’s more likely to decline slowly into irrelevance, supplanted by other sites. SeeMySpace (remember them?).
Amid this turmoil, there’s an encounter between Elon Musk and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez worth noting.
In a series of exchanges between them, AOC complains about an increase in the cost of Twitter Blue (a premium service) and Musk replies to her complaint:
Musk flamed Ocasio-Cortez in a series of Friday tweets, reacting to a meme insinuating the lawmaker unintentionally caused Musk to take over Twitter and replying to a video of Ocasio-Cortez accusing Musk of restricting her Twitter account, “What can I say? It was a naked abuse of power.”
Musk, who officially took control at Twitter last Thursday and has vowed to rid the site of its “left wing bias,” and Ocasio-Cortez, are historically at odds, but their acrimony escalated in recent days in a series of viral exchanges.
“Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that ‘free speech’ is actually a $8/mo subscription plan,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Tuesday, tallying more than 700,000 likes referring to Musk’s idea to charge users a fee for a verification badge.
Musk replied, “Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8,” picking up one million likes, and posted a screenshot of a $58 sweatshirt for sale on the politician’s website Wednesday, circling the price.
Ocasio-Cortez retorted by saying it supports her staff and calling Musk a “union buster with an ego problem who pockets the change from underpaying and mistreating people.”
It’s Ocasio-Cortez’s longer video reply that has my attention. While I (obviously) don’t support her politics, her nonchalant reply shows that, contrary to her critics, she’s clever and rhetorically gifted. Watch how she describes the exchange with Musk:
Rep. @AOC (D-NY) claims she had issues with her Twitter account after criticizing Elon Musk:
“We got under a certain little billionaire’s skin because I made fun of his silly little plan to charge people for verification … We have a billionaire pressed, like PA-RESSED.” pic.twitter.com/GcrfVTP6nA
Impressive: she speaks into the camera as though she’s talking to a friend, while casually eating some chicken (!), and describes Musk and his remarks in a relaxed-but-dismissive way. That’s skillful, as most people responding to Musk would be nervous, irate, or awkward. She takes it all in stride. Of course she’s not always right, and she may not be right about technical problems with Twitter she describes in this recording, but her demeanor is rhetorically spot-on.
It’s common on the right to deride her as air-headed, etc., but she’s quite the opposite. Ocasio-Cortez is a match for her over-confident interlocutors. She acquits herself well here, and serious, thoughtful parents would rightly be proud of a daughter who manages herself this way. (We’ve sons in our family, but if someday we have a granddaughter this skilled our family will be enriched for it.)
A reminder, if one were needed: it’s best to begin every encounter as a dark horse underdog, recognizing that, on any given day, one might be bested without the right approach and preparation:
The dark-horse underdog by his or her nature approaches issues without entitlement, without over-confidence. There is, each time, nothing other than the work of observing, assessing, and writing thereafter.
One’s obligations begin anew, without credit for past work, each and every morning.
There are few more avoidable mistakes than underestimating others.
Saturday in Whitewater will be windy, with morning showers and a high of 61. Sunrise is 7:35 AM and sunset 5:41 PM for 10h 06m 26s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 91.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1872, in defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100.
The @Associated Press, FRONTLINE and Situ Research investigate what happened when Russian troops occupied the Ukrainian town of Bucha in early 2022, and who was responsible. Using a 3D model of Bucha, intercepted phone conversations of Russian soldiers and hundreds of hours of surveillance footage, the joint investigation shows, for the first time, what a cleansing operation looks like.
This journalism is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station here: http://www.pbs.org/donate?.
This investigation focuses on the month-long period in which Russian forces remained stalled out in Bucha after failing to advance on the Ukrainian capital. When they eventually left in early April, what they left behind was evidence of a massacre, the scale of which had not previously been understood.
To analyze the patterns of violence that resulted in the deaths of over 450 people, The Associated Press and FRONTLINE collaborated with Situ Research who used drone footage from a Ukrainian citizen research group, Jus Talionis, to build a 3D model of Bucha illustrating the scale of alleged war crimes committed there by Russian forces.
This video is part of an AP/FRONTLINE investigation that includes the “War Crimes Watch Ukraine” interactive experience and the documentary “Putin’s Attack on Ukraine: Documenting War Crimes.”
(YouTube restricts this video by age due to its graphic content. That graphic content, of course, is an accurate account of the criminal, savage, undisciplined conduct of Russian soldiers.)
Friday in Whitewater will see occasional showers with a high of 67. Sunrise is 7:32 AM and sunset 5:42 PM for 10h 08m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 89.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
November is an achingly beautiful month, culmination of the year’s harvest. That time of harvest brings Thanksgiving, the last holiday before winter. (There’s some fuss over Thanksgiving as a commemoration of the Pilgrims, but I’ve long thought of Thanksgiving rather in the spirt of Lincoln’s declaration in 1863.)
Thanksgiving dinner, more than any other during the year, seems the quintessential American meal. It may surprise some to learn that I cook, of all things, now and again. No occasion brings me to the kitchen more happily than Thanksgiving. Anyone, even someone in my own state of ignorance, can work his way around a kitten if he tries.
(A point about this: contemporary American kitchens are large and well-provisioned, but that’s not necessary for a memorable dinner. In the early twentieth century, for example, European and Black families in America prepared their own delicious variations on Thanksgiving dinner without half the size of kitchens today.)
Here, in the twenty-first century, we’ve a new, would-be gourmet in artificial intelligence. Priya Krishna and Cade Metz ask Can A.I. Write Recipes Better Than Humans? We Put It to the Ultimate Test. (‘Researchers are using artificial intelligence to create recipes, complete with appetizing photos and back stories. But Thanksgiving poses a challenge’):
These [A.I.-generated] recipes have all the components of their handmade forebears: lists of ingredients, precise measurements, step-by-step instructions and introductory notes with (fabricated) personal touches. Their advantage, in theory, is that they draw on a vast trove of online information about food and cooking.
But are they any good? And can they improve on millenniums’ worth of lived culinary experience?
As home cooks, professional chefs and food-magazine editors know, the ultimate test for recipes is Thanksgiving dinner, a sprawling, varied spread that invites high expectations.
So we decided to enlist artificial intelligence — in this case, a technology called GPT-3 — to devise a holiday menu, which we then prepared and presented to a corps of taste testers: four New York Times cooking columnists.
….
Cooking and tasting the recipes all but dashed that hope.
The cake was dense and more savory than sweet. The naan stuffing tasted like a chana masala and a fruitcake that had gotten into a bar fight. The roast turkey recipe called for a single garlic clove to season a 12-pound bird, and no butter or oil; the result was dry and flavorless.
The chaat, laced with cilantro and baking spices, was a grassy-flavored mush. The green beans and the cranberry sauce were edible but unremarkable.
Our taste-tasting columnists were even less kind.
“We’re not out of a job,” Melissa Clark said. “I don’t feel anything eating this food,” Yewande Komolafe added.
Genevieve Ko summed it up best: “There is no soul behind it.”
Humans still win out in the Thanksgiving recipe game.
Tuesday, November 8th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Where the Crawdads Sing@ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Drama/Mystery/Thriller
Rated PG-13; 2 hours, 5 minutes (2022)
The film adaptation of the novel that has been on the New York Times Bestsellers List for over 3.5 years. A woman who raised herself in the marshes of the Deep South becomes a suspect in the murder of a man with whom she was once involved.
Katherine Wu makes The Case for Cats (‘Cats are a biological marvel. That’s not (the only reason) why I love them’):
My spouse and I both grew up as die-hard dog people, but now, in the clear light of adulthood, we’re a pair of cat converts. For me, at least, it’s tough to say exactly why. It’s possible that I’ve ingested a parasite that’s invadedmy brain and fueled my feline obsession. But then again, I see many reasons to favor the feline. Part of it has to be their luxurious fur; their super-silent, bean-padded paws; their fluid-like flexibility. Their vertically contracting pupils, their scritchy-scratchy tongues, their pleasantly pointy ears. Their love for laser pointers, their fear of cucumbers, their affinity for boxes. I’m also probably lured in by cats’ mysterious, melodic purrs—a form of communication that most other animals can’t mimic and that humans struggle to parse. And I’m definitely gobsmacked by their ability to right themselves within a second or two of falling and so often survive, even when the plunge is many stories high.
If I’m being completely honest, maybe it’s the feline personality that’s my personal catnip. My cats are just as cuddly as any dog I’ve ever had—probably more. They’re affectionate and personable; they come running when we call; they greet us at the door. And every cat I’ve met has been such a distinct individual, such a character: bursting with strong opinions, clear-cut preferences, bizarre and memorable quirks. And those traits are steadfast.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 71. Sunrise is 7:32 AM and sunset 5:44 PM for 10h 11m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 73.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1812, Napoleon’s armies are defeated at the Battle of Vyazma.
These are turbulent times, often unnecessarily and destructively so. In former times like these, people with far more important roles than writing yet took time for occasional diversions.
Crows are some of the smartest creatures in the animal kingdom. They are capable of making rule-guided decisions and of creating and using tools. They also appear to show an innate sense of what numbers are. Researchers now report that these clever birds are able to understand recursion—the process of embedding structures in other, similar structures—which was long thought to be a uniquely human ability.
Recursion is a key feature of language. It enables us to build elaborate sentences from simple ones. Take the sentence “The mouse the cat chased ran.” Here the clause “the cat chased” is enclosed within the clause “the mouse ran.” For decades, psychologists thought that recursion was a trait of humans alone. Some considered it the key feature that set human language apart from other forms of communication between animals. But questions about that assumption persisted. “There’s always been interest in whether or not nonhuman animals can also grasp recursive sequences,” says Diana Liao, a postdoctoral researcher at the lab of Andreas Nieder, a professor of animal physiology at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
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This paper prompted Liao and her colleagues to investigate whether crows, with their renowned cognitive skills, might possess the capacity for recursion as well. Adapting the protocol used in the 2020 paper, the team trained two crows to peck pairs of brackets in a center-embedded recursive sequence. The researchers then tested the birds’ ability to spontaneously generate such recursive sequences on a new set of symbols. The crows also performed on par with children. The birds produced the recursive sequences in around 40 percent of trials—but without the extra training that the monkeys required. The results were published today in Science Advances.
The discovery that crows can grasp center-embedded structures and that they are better at doing so than monkeys “is fascinating,” says Giorgio Vallortigara, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Trento in Italy, who was not involved in the work. These findings raise the question of what non-human animals might use this ability for, he adds. “They do not seem to possess anything similar to human language, thus recursion is possibly relevant to other cognitive functions,” he says. One speculation is that animals might use recursion to represent relationships within their social groups.
(Hat tip to Joe Ragazzo’s newsletter for the link to the story.)
There are some doubts, as Kwon’s story reveals, about how much crows truly understand, but the findings will likely take time to sort out through other tests.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 71. Sunrise is 7:31 AM and sunset 5:45 PM for 10h 13m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 63.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1947, in California, designer Howard Hughes performs the maiden (and only) flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules (also known as the “Spruce Goose”), one of the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.
For many years, in confident conviction as FREE WHITEWATER’s libertarian blogger, I have opposed school referendums, notably capital ones, for the Whitewater Unified School District. It is with equal confidence that I now urge my fellow residents to support the Whitewater Schools’ 2022 operational referendum. The well-being of our students will best be served through operational stability, and, once assured, that stability will offer time for methodical adjustments in the district’s operation.
The rejection of this operational referendum — one that simply allows the district to continue needed services day-to-day — would plunge this district’s residents into destructive, internecine strife over budgets from one year to the next. Our community, managing through multiple challenges, would make no better choices, and find no better solutions, in the chaotic, uncertain political environment after a failed operational referendum.
There is a profound difference between wanting change and fomenting disorder. We cannot burn this village to save it. Many years ago, using a different metaphor, the noted libertarian Sheldon Richman proposed that the only way to manage the ‘onion’ of government was to smash it completely. He was wrong: a reasonable man peels away parts of government deliberately and methodically only after careful reflection. Opposition to this referendum is an unreasonable smashing in the place of careful peeling.
I have — rightly — opposed capital spending for a new athletic field. While not a single argument made in defense of that artificial turf has been persuasive — not one — the relevant consideration is that this is not a capital referendum, but a referendum for ordinary daily expenses. Rejecting this referendum will most certainly not recoup the money spent on the field. Those are sunk costs, that is, past costs that cannot be recouped. (No one is going to dig up the field and sell it on eBay.) All rational economic decisions are made at the moment, in the present, based on what is best going forward.
There are, to be sure, administrative challenges in this district. Not one of them will be fixed by rejecting the operational referendum. No one will be made wiser or more communicative. On the contrary, the whole district — board, administrators, teachers, students — will be plunged into quarrelsome debates over budgets rather than, well, the daily teaching of students.
Academic performance will not improve by rejecting this referendum. It’s a diversion and a delusion to believe that if performance is insufficient now, students will somehow do better the day, month, or year after a failed referendum. They won’t do better, but they will be distracted with a year or more of battles over what’s to be cut, and when it is to be cut.
The opposition to this referendum has proposed not a single credible plan for improving learning. Not one. Complaining about academic past performance will not improve students’ present and future performance. (Indeed, opponents to this operational referendum haven’t even proposed an amount of cuts they’d prefer.)
Opposing the referendum because of past decisions on virtual schooling is both backward looking and punitive. Much of this looks like a Revenge and Retribution Tour. I have consistently argued against amateur epidemiology on all sides — no one in this community truly knew what would happen during much of the pandemic. There’s a lot of pretending about getting in right, or others getting it wrong, but for all of us in Whitewater this was guesswork.
Dr. Emily Oster, nationally noted for wanting schools to be open, writes sensibly that we should Declare a Pandemic Amnesty (‘We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID’):
The people who got it right, for whatever reason, may want to gloat. Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts. All of this gloating and defensiveness continues to gobble up a lot of social energy and to drive the culture wars, especially on the internet. These discussions are heated, unpleasant and, ultimately, unproductive. In the face of so much uncertainty, getting something right had a hefty element of luck. And, similarly, getting something wrong wasn’t a moral failing. Treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people racked up more points than others is preventing us from moving forward.
There’s a false idea that some members of the board are in the grip of pride, and won’t admit their supposed pandemic mistakes. That’s a misunderstanding of wrongful pride. (Obviously, pride as satisfaction in running a race or feeling oneself as equal under law to others, for example, is not wrongful pride.)
Wrongful pride requires arrogance, and so is best understood as hubris (literally, an arrogant presumption). No one on this board, whatever decision he or she made during the pandemic, acted out of arrogance. They acted under conditions of uncertainty, and were very plain that they were uncertain.
Emily Oster’s right: the pandemic is over — time to move on. No apology required.
We’ve students in considerable, regrettable need. Not one student will be helped by rejecting this referendum. All will continue to be helped by supporting it. No students deserve disorder, least of all ours in Whitewater.
There’s much to be done, in reform, and reform will come most effectively through a methodical approach. I’ve no doubt that this is the better way. If all the world thought otherwise, still I would hold this position.
STABLE. SECURE. SENSIBLE.
I urge this community to support the Whitewater Schools’ referendum to assure a continuity of services so that, in these next years, we can apply ourselves to constructive change from a stable foundation.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 69. Sunrise is 7:30 AM and sunset 5:46 PM for 10h 16m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 52.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1512, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.
Policymaking in a community begins with asking what people in a community are like, how they’re faring. Part (only part, yet a significant part) of that inquiry should consider their socio-economic condition.
A proper analysis doesn’t depend on one’s own position, but on an assessment of others’ conditions. (It doesn’t matter that I have, for example, no personal concerns. I don’t, in fact. Writing about a community is writing about a community, not one person.)
Part of others’ condition is, for all of us, socio-economic: a mixture of culture and income.
A socio-economic condition reveals not merely where one stands at the moment, but often where one can go, and indeed might, go in the future. Stronger present conditions open doors to greater future opportunities; difficult present conditions restrict future opportunities for lack of means. All this should be plain and obvious, but it’s not so plain and obvious as it should be.
A key truth: nothing, including stagnation, is truly stagnant. There is movement always, in people and in a community. There’s forward, backward, and side to side, but stationary only for the briefest moments.
Different people have different roles in the city, but this libertarian blogger can see, and has written, about the importance of charitable roles in Whitewater. One does not have to be a doctor to see that professional medicine saves lives. I’ve no practical solution, regrettably, to offer anyone at the Community Space.
I can offer, reasonably, a view of what these difficulties at the Community Space mean, more broadly for Whitewater. They suggest that Whitewater’s need is greater than ever, and that difficult socio-economic conditions in the city include for a few residents’ a lack of acculturation about how to donate, and how to treat donations.
Ironically and sadly, the problems that have temporarily impeded work at the Community Space show how important the Community Space is.
The list runs in reverse order, from mildly scary to truly frightening.
10.The Coming Coyotepocalypse. And look, and look — Whitewater can’t say it hasn’t been warned. When dozens upon dozens find themselves in coyotes’ stomachs, survivors will regret not taking action sooner to save their loved ones. SeeIn Whitewater, People Won’t Feed Coyotes — Coyotes Will Feed on People.
Coyotes have natural predators of their own (cougars, wolves, grizzly bears, and black bears). Someone needs to position a few of these coyote predators at strategic locations in the town. Let’s say we go with a few cougars.
Admittedly, this is a short-term solution. When the cougars eat all the coyotes, they’re gonna go looking for another food supply. Whitewater’s population offers 14,889 choices. (The ideal solution would be to train cougars to eat only some people. I’m not sure, however, that cougars could read the street signs necessary to locate only those on a cat-chow list.) Another round of predators (let’s say, lions) would be needed to manage the cougars. Elephants could manage the lions. After that, well, this plan still needs some work.
At the least, however, there’d be no more coyotes. You’re welcome.
9.Herbicide 2.0. A person of average ability would realize that if dumping herbicide into a drained lake was a bad idea, it’s worse to dump herbicide into a re-filled lake that feeds even more water through the town. SeeReporting About Artificial Herbicides in Whitewater, Wisconsin. The moment for mucking up Whitewater’s environment should have, thankfully, passed now that the lakes are re-filled. That there is even the slightest possibility of Herbicide 2.0 suggests lamentable, below-average ability.
8. Whitewater Parks & Rec. If Whitewater Rec Department as a pun isn’t clear enough, go ahead and change the name to Whitewater Wrecks Department.Parks & Recreation was a beloved series on NBC (with an 8.6 IMDb rating). If someone made a series about our local parks department, IMDb would have to introduce a negative rating scale.
7.Something Different. Why is something different so hard? It’s not wrong to want to develop the town; it’s foolish to think that economic development without gains in individual and household income is worthy development. Even the Soviets knew how to build big capital projects. They had no dearth of concrete and rebar; they had a dearth in income per capita. Perhaps someone will try something different before the city wastes another generation as a low-income community. SeeA Candid Admission from the Whitewater CDA.
6.Domination & Submission Rituals. Of course, of course — sometimes people will get angry at public meetings. They’ve a right to express themselves bluntly and critically. Almost all public comment in Whitewater has been legitimate, even when critical. Harsh isn’t wrong — it’s simply harsh. It’s illegitimate, however, to expect groveling in reply to a vulgar Dominance-and-Submission ritual. People are not apes; they should neither beat their chests as apes nor expect others’ submissive apologies as a response to simian behavior. These atavistic rituals are ineffective with those who are cold by nature, but they sometimes elicit unnecessary entreaties from the timid.
Yield not; hold fast.
5. Need. We see the need in others, but we hide from what it means. If officials & residents see the truth right in front of them, then why aren’t they outwardly transformed? Instead, they embrace situationally, for the occasion, later to move back to the mundane. Someone once said that “truly, the spirit is eager, but the flesh is frail.” True then, true now, of us all.
4.Love. If not scary, then at least scarce. I told someone recently that I loved Whitewater, and he asked me what I loved about it. I understood his question, but it missed the mark. Love isn’t about what one enjoys (although there is much to enjoy about Whitewater). Love is hoping for, and acting, to allow others find their enjoyment as they understand enjoyment. That’s love: not what one wants, but doing one’s small part to clear the field of obstacles so that others can find love as they define it. Deeper still: being happy, indeed joyful, that others have found whatever it is that they’ve rightfully sought. Love is directed outward, in many forms of action, without expectation of refraction back. As it happens, directed outward and without expectation are their own incomparable, loving rewards. The consequences of true love, actually.
2. Regulatory Capture. Regulatory capture happens in towns small and big: a special interest group comes along and lobbies to manipulate that community’s regulations, ordinances, and projects toward its own private ends. Sometimes they’ll audaciously advocate on their own; others times they’ll use a reliable toady who they’ve already been captured, so to speak, and who always votes the special interest’s way. Walking around while wearing a special interest’s leash is bad policy, and an obvious fashion mistake.
Absolutely no normal person in England (there probably are at least a few normal people in England) thought well of this guy. No sane mother wished her son would grow up to be this guy; no father hoped his son would one day walk the streets of London like a spaniel. (Best guess: real spaniels encountering this weirdo would say, well, WTF is this?).
Be your own person, blaze your own trail, carry no one’s water, and wear no one’s leash.
1.Populism. Populism exists nationally on both the left and right, but in Whitewater only on the right. There is no Communist-Socialist-Radical-Whatever-Whatever leftwing movement in Whitewater. There are only conservative populists here. These conservative populists “are going to claim that all other contenders for power are fundamentally illegitimate. This is never just a disagreement about policies or even about values, which after all in a democracy is completely normal, ideally maybe even somewhat productive. No, populists always immediately make it personal and they make it entirely moral. This tendency to simply dismiss everybody else from the get-go as corrupt, as not working for the people, that’s always the pattern.” SeeDefining Populism, The Environment That Populism Creates, and The Environment That Populism Exploits.
Populists falsely claim to represent the majority, and believe that they’ve a right to do whatever they’d like to those not part of their horde. They respect only their own dissent. They’ve no appreciation for individual rights, where individual rights recognize natural differences among people. A free society has no one way, one person, one type, one family. When these populists say that they represent families, they mean their families, their way, their people, their types. They would gleefully toss all the rest into the maw.
They want to fight, and so they have forced a fight on others. And so, and so — they’ll have a fight, but they will not have that conflict on their terms and conditions. No and no again.
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