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Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Local Government, Press

About the Administrator’s Equal Time…

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There’s a story at the Gazette from 1.5.13 about how Walworth County Administrator David Bretl’s columns started.

The story’s odd, but the title’s odder: ‘Bretl writes columns as a self-check on county government.’

That’s funny, as the true check on government isn’t a so-called self-check from an administrator, but a check from the newspaper itself, and from residents, generally.

As for a self-check on his administration, Mr. Bretl should be performing that each and every day, with or without a twice-monthly column. An administrator’s self-check (such as it is) comes from within, not from another’s offer of a helping hand.

Mr. Bretl is quoted toward the end of the story joking that he has a small readership. I’ve no idea.

Readership, however, wouldn’t be low because of what he writes; it would be low because those who cover Administrator Bretl and other officials write as though they were officials’ biographers & press agents.

One reads that the county administrator started his column years ago after requesting equal time in reply to a reporter’s coverage. Fair enough: coverage then did involve a certain measure of scrutiny, and newspapers have always been free to give officials whatever space they want to give.

It cannot be true, however, that Administrator Bretl is still writing to get equal time in the print press: there’s scarcely any scrutiny of government to be found, and there has been none whatever from the story’s reporter.

It’s all County Administrator Bretl’s time now, so to speak.

How telling that these gentlemen can’t see that.

Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation

Grant-Chasing

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Janesville now has her hundreds of thousands for a bus.

It should be no surprise that those who have flacked every possible public program as the Next Big Thing (no matter how neglectful of dire needs) would herald state and federal grants as though they were genuine, private productivity.

The fawning need to tout the redistribution of private workers’ earnings as public bureaucrats’ finest accomplishments satisfies neither left nor right: the right sees it as excessive spending, and the left sees it as spending on the wrong priorities.

There aren’t many people remaining who truly think that the highest value of others’ earnings is to acquire still more, from the many, for the benefit of the few.

As is true with projects now forgotten or struggling, the justifications for these schemes will change. People who have taken hundreds of thousands from others will shift and dissemble to explain what they’re doing with all that money. Explanations will change, supposedly fundamental goals will metamorphose, each announced as though nothing contradictory had been said only days or weeks earlier.

When a public-man, whose own poor are mostly neglected as bad copy and depressing headlines, tells you that some taxes can be used to leverge still more from others’ earnings, you may be sure he’s lost both his perspective on need and his sense of private accomplishment.

Those large grants aren’t from his pockets, but others; they won’t fill the pocketbooks of the needy, but instead fund his pet projects.

Of course, these men are thrilled, just thrilled: they see their projects ever so clearly, but beyond that, where other needs persist, it’s all a haze.

Music

Monday Music: Heather Rigdon, Young and Naive

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Sometimes one hears a song, or singer, of whom one has (sadly) never before heard. The world’s a big place; so very many fine singers and songs too long escape one’s notice.

For me, here’s a find like that… Heather Rigdon.

Enjoy.



Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.7.13

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Good morning.

We’ll begin our week with sunny and breezy skies, with a high of thirty-five, and southwest winds 10 to 20 mph. Our sunrise is at 7:25 AM and our sunset at 4:37 PM.

At 5 PM today, there’ll be a meeting of the Parks & Rec Department.

I’m not sure what to make of a proposal for a fishing pole with a built-in accelerometer that would tell a fisherman when there’s a tug on the line: isn’t detecting a tug on the line simply a fundamental skill of fishing? The Smart Rod would automate that task:

 

If it ‘does all the thinking for you’ are your really concentrating on catching fish at all? It’s clever, to be sure, but others must be skeptical, too, as the prototype pole hasn’t attracted, as of this post, much funding.

On this day in 1953, Pres. Truman announced that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb:

In his final State of the Union address before Congress, President Harry S. Truman tells the world that that the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb.

It was just three years earlier on January 31, 1950, that Truman publicly announced that had directed the Atomic Energy Commission to proceed with the development of the hydrogen bomb. Truman’s directive came in response to evidence of an atomic explosion occurring within USSR in 1949.

In our state’s history, Jan. 7th, in 1901:

1901 – Robert Marion La Follette Inaugurated as Governor
On this date Robert M. La Follette was inaugurated as governor after winning the November 6, 1900 election. La Follette was born in Dane County in 1855. A Wisconsin Law School graduate and three-term member of congress, La Follette was renowned for his oratorical style. He was the first Wisconsin-born individual to serve as governor. [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin History]

Google-a-Day has a sports question for us: “The famous defensive tackle who died during a game against the New York Dragons, played in how many games for the Panthers during his career?”

 

Twitter

Recent Tweets 12.30 to 1.5

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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.6.13

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Good morning.

Sunday will be a gradually sunnier day, with a high of twenty-nine, and northwest winds 10 to 15 mph. The moon’s now a waning crescent, and tomorrow will be one minute longer.

On this day in 1838, Morse demonstrates the telegraph:

…Samuel Morse’s telegraph system is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph, a device which used electric impulses to transmit encoded messages over a wire, would eventually revolutionize long-distance communication, reaching the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born April 27, 1791, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He attended Yale University, where he was interested in art, as well as electricity, still in its infancy at the time. After college, Morse became a painter. In 1832, while sailing home from Europe, he heard about the newly discovered electromagnet and came up with an idea for an electric telegraph. He had no idea that other inventors were already at work on the concept.

Morse spent the next several years developing a prototype and took on two partners, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail, to help him. In 1838, he demonstrated his invention using Morse code, in which dots and dashes represented letters and numbers. In 1843, Morse finally convinced a skeptical Congress to fund the construction of the first telegraph line in the United States, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. In May 1844, Morse sent the first official telegram over the line, with the message: “What hath God wrought!”

Over the next few years, private companies, using Morse’s patent, set up telegraph lines around the Northeast. In 1851, the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company was founded; it would later change its name to Western Union. In 1861, Western Union finished the first transcontinental line across the United States. Five years later, the first successful permanent line across the Atlantic Ocean was constructed and by the end of the century telegraph systems were in place in Africa, Asia and Australia.

Because telegraph companies typically charged by the word, telegrams became known for their succinct prose–whether they contained happy or sad news. The word “stop,” which was free, was used in place of a period, for which there was a charge. In 1933, Western Union introduced singing telegrams. During World War II, Americans came to dread the sight of Western Union couriers because the military used telegrams to inform families about soldiers’ deaths.

Over the course of the 20th century, telegraph messages were largely replaced by cheap long-distance phone service, faxes and email. Western Union delivered its final telegram in January 2006.

Samuel Morse died wealthy and famous in New York City on April 2, 1872, at age 80.

On 1.6.1921, some of Janesville women take a stand against entertainment:

1921 – Janesville Women Abhor Salacious Entertainment
On this date the Janesville Federation of Women decided to “censor” movies and vaudeville in the city. Members of this organization praised and promoted what they considered “better offerings.” They were zealously critical towards those of a “salacious” nature. No follow-up ever determined whether the women were successful in their quest or if the increased publicity for “salacious” shows backfired. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Google-a-Day has a sports and film question: “In what year did the manager and team depicted in the blockbuster film “Moneyball” finally win their first playoff series?”

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.5.13

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Good morning.

Today brings a day of increasing clouds, and a high of thirty-three. We’ll have 9h 10m of sunlight, 10h 14m of daylight, and tomorrow will be one minute shorter.

The Golden Gate bridge’s construction began on 1.5.33:

On this day in 1933, construction starts on what will become one of America’s most famous landmarks: the Golden Gate Bridge. When completed in 1937, the Golden Gate has a 4,200-foot-long suspension span, making it the world’s longest suspension bridge. [Adams: it’s one of the longest, but neither the longest in North America nor the world.  Here’s a list of the world’s longest suspension bridges.]  Since opening to the public in May 1937, almost 2 billion vehicles have crossed the bridge, in both the north- and southbound directions.

The bridge was named not for its distinctive orange color (which provides extra visibility to passing ships in San Francisco‘s famous fog), but for the Golden Gate Strait, where the San Francisco Bay opens into the Pacific Ocean. The bridge spans the strait and connects the northern part of the city of San Francisco to Marin County, California.

Prior to the bridge’s construction, the only way to travel between these two areas was by ferry boat.

On this day in 1855, a famous inventor is born:

1855 – King Camp Gillette Born
On this date King Camp Gillette was born in Fond du Lac. He worked for many years as a traveling salesman. After much experimentation, he developed a disposable steel blade and razor. He established the Gillette Safety Razor Company in 1901. Sales for his product skyrocketed. Gillette remained president of his company until 1931 and was a director until his death the following year. [Source: Lemelson-MIT Program]

From Google-a-Day, a question about a play’s name: “What is the name of the play in which Tom’s older sister withdraws into a fantasy life she has created amid her collection of glass animal figurines?”

New Media, New Whitewater, Press

Horses and Automobiles, Contemporaneously

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For thousands of years humanity used horses as a major means of travel and transport. There were other kinds of locomotion during that long span, but until the automobile horses were a dominant part of rural and urban travel throughout much of the world.

The first automobiles, considered from the perspective of horses (that is, as ‘horseless carriages’) might have seemed to the hidebound as a passing fad, or a narrow alternative. Within the shortest while, of course, all the world turned upside down. Automobiles are now entrenched, and they’re only described as horses in a reference to another era (of horsepower, or as Mustangs or pony cars).

Our media are like the early years in which horses and simple automobiles coexisted as alternatives. Old forms (print newspapers, in particular) are sitting uneasily in the same communities as new ones (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, text messages, blogs, email, etc.) Most of the papers have a top-down view of the world; most of the alternatives, owing to their diverse and diffuse character, have a more independent or grassroots nature.

Although there are hybrids that combine the traditional outlook of a newspaper with the Web, the tension in outlook between top-down and independent & grassroots will mostly resolve when one of the perspectives succumbs.

Even a decade ago, a single voice within a community seemed possible. That’s not true now, and it will be utterly and evidently impossible a decade from now. What’s the community, and what has it always truly been? Countless unique, and often differing viewpoints. One has a chance to see that, to read of it, today. Always true; now evident and expressed. They’ll never be only one, loudly trumpeted view again.

For now, though, it’s the two ways of thinking and communicating, sitting side-by-side, like horses and automobiles.

It will be this way for a bit longer, until there is a new environment where one outlook predominates, and the other no longer holds its former influence.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.4.13

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Good morning.

It’s a sunny Friday for the Whippet City, with a high of 29.  We’ll have west winds of 10 to 15 mph, 9h 9m of sunlight, 10h 13m of daylight, and tomorrow will be one minute longer.

On 1.4.1785, author Jacob Grimm is born:

On this day, the older of the two Grimm brothers, Jacob, is born in Hanau, Germany. His brother Wilhelm is born the following year.

As young men, the two brothers assisted some friends with research for an important collection of folk lyrics. One of the authors, impressed by the brothers’ work, suggested they publish some of the oral folktales they’d collected. The collection appeared as Children’s and Household Tales, later known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, in several volumes between 1812 and 1822.

On this day in 1923, Milton College takes a stand against dancing:

1923 – Student Dancing Banned
On this date Milton College president A.E. Whitford banned dancing by students in off-campus, semi-public places such as confectionery stores. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

The Roaring Twenties weren’t roaring everywhere.

Google-a-Day asks a question about auto racing: “The race car driver nicknamed Neiblemeister – master of the mist, was married to what famous female aviator?”

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.3.13

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Good morning.

Thursday brings a high of twenty-four, with west winds at 5 to 10 mph.

On this day in 1924, a notable archaeological milestone:

Two years after British archaeologist Howard Carter and his workmen discovered the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen near Luxor, Egypt, they uncover the greatest treasure of the tomb–a stone sarcophagus containing a solid gold coffin that holds the mummy of Tutankhamen.

When Carter first arrived in Egypt in 1891, most of the ancient Egyptian tombs had been discovered, although the little-known Pharaoh Tutankhamen, who had died when he was a teen, was still unaccounted for. After World War I, Carter began an intensive search for “King Tut’s Tomb,” finally finding steps to the burial room hidden in the debris near the entrance of the nearby tomb of King Ramses VI in the Valley of the Kings. On November 26, 1922, Carter and fellow archaeologist Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb, finding it miraculously intact.

Thus began a monumental excavation process in which Carter carefully explored the four-room tomb over four years, uncovering an incredible collection of several thousand objects. The most splendid architectural find was a stone sarcophagus containing three coffins nested within each other. Inside the final coffin, made out of solid gold, was the mummy of the boy-king Tutankhamen, preserved for more than 3,000 years.

On 1.3.1942, a then-Janesville company began its part for the war effort:

On this date Parker Pen in Janesville was awarded a contract for 35 million parts for anti-aircraft shell fuses. The contract was a subcontract from Borg Corporation in Delavan. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Google-a-Day asks about Canadian history: “Who opened the 23rd Canadian Parliament, the first monarch of Canada to open a parliamentary session?”

Crime, Health, Law, Laws/Regulations

Wisconsin and Marijuana and the Drug War

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Colorado and Washington State are backing away from the Drug War, having recently decriminalized minor marijuana offenses. The long-term prospects for widespread drug prohibition, of the kind we’ve had for a generation, aren’t good: it’s been too much money, and for no lasting gain.

It’s a fair guess that by the 2033, the hundred-year anniversary of federal Prohibition, a majority of states will have abandoned current anti-drug initiatives in favor of an approach that regulates marijuana like wine, reduces other narcotics’ criminal penalties, increases funding for addiction treatment, but costs less (overall) than the Drug War.

(I don’t smoke, and it’s an understatement to say that I’m not jonesing for a joint. Mine is a policy objection: the Drug War’s been ineffective at reducing use, left true & regrettable addiction unremedied, and wasted vast sums in the process.)

In this new framework, people won’t think drug use is a general good; they’ll just combat genuine addiction, where it exists, more directly. It will be a more healthful and yet less expensive approach.

Theses changes will reach us in Wisconsin, but they’ll probably reach Wisconsin after most of America has abandoned the Drug War. I think so on the basis of a post from Prof. Michael O’Hear of Marquette Law, entitled, “Why Does Wisconsin Arrest Twice as Many People for Marijuana Possession as Minnesota?”

O’Hear’s post isn’t about the future of the Drug War, but I think his observation that Wisconsin arrests more frequently (over 2x as often) than neighboring (and demographically similar) Minnesota for marijuana possession suggests that Wisconsin’s punitive approach will prove relatively intractable. (In fact, O’Hear notes that right now, the conventional War on Drugs is being fought in both Wisconsin and Minnesota.)

O’Hear writes that

It seems unlikely that differences in marijuana use could account for such a large difference in the arrest rates. Indeed, based on the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, it appears that marijuana use in Minnesota is, if anything, slightly higher than in Wisconsin. So, the differences in arrest rates probably result to a significant degree from differences in police behavior. What drives those differences is not immediately apparent from any data that I have seen.

As I have observed in earlier posts, differences in criminal-justice outputs between the two states cry out for justification because the two states are so similar in population size and crime rate.

Indeed, I began this series of occasional blog posts in order to try to better understand why it is that Wisconsin’s per capita incarceration rate is more than twice Minnesota’s.

Prof. O’Hear also observes – without ascribing motivation – the large disparity between the racial impact of marijuana arrests:

Whatever the cause of Wisconsin’s arrest rate, there is clearly a racial dimension to it, whether intentional or not. The marijuana possession arrest rate for black adults is nearly six times higher in Wisconsin than the rate for whites (1,255 per 100,000 residents versus 217). The racial disparity among juveniles is also quite pronounced (585 per 100,000 black; 189, white). Yet, surveys indicate that levels of marijuana use are at most only slightly higher for blacks than whites (e.g., 9.8% of blacks report using marijuana in the past month, as opposed to 8.5% of whites).

Similar rates of use, but six times the rate of arrests for black residents over that of whites.

I’d suggest that whatever motivates Wisconsin’s higher arrest rate, and also our disparate rate of arrest between blacks and whites, will prove an impediment to drug reform in our state. We’re starting out with a more punitive, and partial, stance over marijuana than elsewhere.

Current policies here will, over time, be discarded. (That’s a demographic certainty.)

It will just take more time here than elsewhere, I wouldn’t wonder.

Posted also at Daily Adams.