Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 49. Sunrise is 7:31 and sunset 5:49 for 10h 14m 32s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 76.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1917, the Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people:
His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
For many years, Whitewater has been a town beset by special interests. What’s new is that they’re now working in daylight to cement control over the town for another generation. Whitewater’s an open-air theater of small-town cronyism in action.
A few quick points.
1. Special Interests Would Rather Not Be Seen. Ideally, they will put their operatives and catspaws on boards and commissions without much attention. For elected positions, they’ll look for districts with no one else running. Districts like that are a golden opportunity to run candidates wholly devoted to them but so objectionable to ordinary residents that those types of candidates could never win otherwise.
2. If Seen, Special Interests Will Never Acknowledge Their True Purpose. No one will stand up and say, for example, “I’m Landlord Number 1, this is my Dogsbody Operative, and we’re here to make sure you pass an ordinance that favors rental properties of mine or disadvantages my competition.” They’ll never say that! Instead, they’ll argue for those very changes and dare others to call them out for having a conflict of interest.
3. Special Interests Never Defend, They Accuse Others. Every so often, something goes awry, and someone calls a special interest man out. Special interests count on others to stay quiet from ignorance, other obligations, poverty, or malaise. Damn it, people were supposed to stay quiet and let others walk all over them, but ordinary residents will tire of being doormats, and they’ll speak out.
When they meet opposition, special interests will accuse others of the wrongful conduct they have, themselves, have committed.
There are two reasons that they prefer to attack. First, it draws attention away from the special interests’ conduct. It’s critical to accuse others so that they “flood the zone with sh-t” and leave everyone confused about who did what to whom.
Second, few people will have sympathy for well-positioned special interest men. When they try to play on others’ sympathies, they learn quickly that deep down others resent their overbearing influence. The sharper among them suspect this, and so don’t even look for others’ sympathy.
When normal and decent people hold office, the special interests conspire for their ruin with bad faith accusation after bad faith accusation.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 40. Sunrise is 7:29 and sunset 5:46 for 10h 17m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 84.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
When we think of corruption, we think of bribery. The Ancients, however, saw corruption in a second way: as a falling away, a degeneration, from the proper form of an object or practice. It’s this second way in which this post considers corruption: as a degeneration from a proper form. The relationship would be something like the relationship between healthy cells and cancerous cells, where the latter is a deformed and degenerate version of the former.
Look now at Whitewater, and one sees that on 10.17.23, the Whitewater Common Council rejected a request-for-proposal process to select a third attorney through public funds, and decided instead to allow one councilman to propose on his own three firms from which the council could choose.
In its essence, to its very marrow, this is a corruption — a degeneracy — of a proper and responsible process. Councilman James Allen should not have been given this power and should not exercise this power.
Any firm that offers representation as one of Allen’s selections would be suspect: this is an abnormal process, ill-defined and contradictorily explained. No responsible attorney would take this work except through an RPF process regulated under law. SeeAllen’s Childish Pretexts.
Why this way and not an RFP? I believe that Allen’s in a hurry to get rid of this municipal administration before the April elections. Even the selection of a firm in December would be too far away for him. SeeCouncilman Allen’s Nebulous and Rushed Plan (“Yeah, going out to, uh [cross talk] with, uh, would extend things out to December”).
The four of the council majority did not run on overturning the municipal administration (not a peep!), but that’s what this libertarian blogger believes will happen if Allen gets his way. Allen would then become a de facto mayor, control the selection of the next city manager, and turn the Whitewater CDA over to a lobbyist and P.R. man. Those two would run affairs in a way favorable to landlords and bankers. That’s what would happen.
Whitewater would become a small, foul southern town, under the control of a few.
Needless to say, I’d rather not be right about this.
Yet look, yet look — this is a few working toward a corruption — the decline into an inferior form of government and policy in Whitewater — in real-time, right before our eyes.
The list runs in reverse order, from mildly scary to truly frightening.
10.Bears. Look, I’ve warned the city — out of love— about a coming coyotepocalypse.SeeIn Whitewater, People Won’t Feed Coyotes — Coyotes Will Feed on People. And yet, somehow, people are now worried about bears. Keep food away from them, and bears will stay away. Still, there are timid people in every community, and for them, this libertarian blogger offers with love a series of documentaries on ursine behavior. (Consider it exposure therapy for the nervous among us. You’re welcome.)
9.Plain Language. Why is it so hard to speak plainly? Some of these aged men in the city should simply say that they want what they want because they think they deserve more, and should have a greater say, despite a generation-long record of failure. Say it — it’s what they plainly mean, so they should plainly say it.
8. The Advisory Committee.One member of the CDA would have liked to have had an advisory committee of aged men as an extra-legal body to advise a legally appointed consultant. His preference, of course, was the set of serial failures who have run this town into the ground while running their mouths in self-praise.
7.‘Our Traditions.’ So another man on the CDA wanted to preserve ‘our traditions’ rather than adopt modern practices for community development. Let’s be clear: his traditions are stagnation and relative decline.
This ‘tradition’ is vacuity and vanity. It’s a city of 14,889, not a cabal of bankers and landlords. It would have been better for the whole community if these few had taken their leave of public office and spent their later years reading scrapbooks filled with fawning but false headlines. They’ve inflicted themselves on others long enough.
6. Government Men. Some of these men on the Whitewater Common Council or Whitewater Community Development Authority speak as though they were merely private citizens. They’re not. Those on the council or CDA are government men as much as anyone in the city administration (more so than many, as the CDA and council types took an oath). SeeWho’s a Government Man? A critique of local government does not exclude these men; on the contrary, a critique of government should begin with these long-in-the-tooth council and CDA men.
5. Tenure. It’s ignorance to believe that tenure in office is an advantage; it’s more often a burden. The longer an official has been around, the more responsibility he bears for mistakes on his watch. If you’re touting that you’ve been on “two different CDA’s” [sic], then you don’t know what it means to tout something to your advantage. Being on two community development associations, when at least one of them is Whitewater’s, isn’t an advantage; it’s a confession.
4.Someone Else, It’s Gotta Be Someone Else! One sits and listens to this common council president, on council or the community development authority for decades, as he blames others for the lakes project, why certain types of stores are in town, and ignores why so many other businesses have over the years gone under or left for other communities.
Where does he think he was all these years? Did longtime politician James Allen not know that there was a lake or a downtown over the decades he has been in office? (Presumably, he did know there was a lake because he spent an inordinate amount of time during the lakes project focusing on whether there would be carp in the lake, rather than the actual dredging, for example.)
When the lakes project went south, there began a quick attempt to blame others: the weather, a pause during the pandemic, DNR trickery, etc. Wait, what? If Allen and others have been around for years, why couldn’t they manage better? All those years, and still the DNR (supposedly) outsmarted these men!
There was no DNR trickery; these local officials were simply too slow or too lazy to monitor the project properly.
In their excuse-making, Allen and others are like the meme about the Hot Dog Guy:
The original image used in the meme comes from the TV show I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, which premiered on April 23rd, 2019, on Netflix. The “Hot Dog Car” sketch was featured in episode five of the first season, and the catchphrase appears around the 1:26 mark in the clip.
In the sketch, a hot dog-shaped car crashes into a store and a man dressed in a hot dog costume attempts to pretend he is one of the customers wondering who was driving the car. The full quote from the man in the hot dog costume, played by creator, writer and star Tim Robinson, is,
“We’re all trying to find the guy who did this and give him a spanking!”
Who did this? The longtime blame-shifters in government.
3. The Common Council Majority. Whitewater now has the worst common council majority in the seventeen years that I have kept this Halloween list. There have always been one or two councilmembers who have been, well, not quite up to snuff, but this majority is below the standard of the community. Not average; below average. A good and sensible standard for our community is what one would expect from a graduate of our high school. A student of average ability from Whitewater High School would reason and speak more clearly than this council majority. Whitewater has not had this problem before; she has it now.
No one in this city should feel bad about himself or herself because the council majority conducts itself poorly. Residents here perform better than many of their elected representatives.
Whitewater’s residents should be proud of their city, as we are a beautiful community beset only by a few.
2. The Long Twilight.Whitewater has been in a long twilight of economic underperformance. SeeA Candid Admission from the Whitewater CDA. There’s a way out; no one should accept that what we’ve had since the Great Recession is normal. It’s not normal. Residents don’t have to settle; old and vainglorious men want residents to settle for less while they take more. No, and no again.
(The Long Dark is also the name of a survival video game, but unlike the digital version, Whitewater’s experience would be real and heart-wrenching.)
A few men plot to remove this city administration and replace it with an older and broken model they prefer.
They have placed themselves not in conflict with this city administration but with residents themselves.
Whatever comes to pass, there is no place that this libertarian blogger would rather be. As is true with a traditional wedding vow, so it is true for one’s love of this city: “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.”
Although I am a tragic optimist, it’s optimism that forms my fundamental outlook. We’ll come through.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 37. Sunrise is 7:27 and sunset 5:49 for 10h 22m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 96.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1938, Orson Welles broadcasts a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, causing a panic in some of the audience in the United States.
Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:26 and sunset 5:50 for 10h 24m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1969, the first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
When Rosario Ibarra arrived from Mexico for her internship, she had never seen a Holstein cow. Ibarra now runs one of Manitowoc County’s largest dairy farms. It’s a tireless job that has become a lifestyle.
Would you run a marathon? Maybe you’ve run a few? What about running a marathon every single day? If that sounds completely crazy, well — we would agree. But Gary McKee did just that – every day of 2022. Gary ran a marathon each day for an entire year, but his steps were driven by more than just personal drive. Every mile was to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. As days turned into weeks, his ambition transformed into a town-wide movement. With New Year’s Eve as the grand finale, the community came together like never before with hundreds of supporters rallying to celebrate with him at the finish line. The result? A united community, countless inspired morning runners, and a staggering £1 million raised.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 46. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset 5:52 for 10h 27m 27s of daytime. The moon is full with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Our latest contributor has driven the wackiest looking vehicles. Literally. We’re talking burgers, pencils and even…a snooker table. In Hyderabad, India you can find the world’s first and only handmade wacky car museum called Sudha Cars Museum. Meet Sudhakar Kanyaboyina, the mastermind who from the age of 14, turned his imaginative designs into bicycles and wacky cars. With hundreds of ambitious and creative designs, including the worlds largest tricycle, he eventually had enough to open his own museum with his daughter. His drive for creating the world’s wackiest cars isn’t exhausted yet and we know you’ll be revved up for this Great Big Story.
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 68. Sunrise is 7:23 and sunset 5:53 for 10h 30m 06s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 97.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1775, King George III expands on his Proclamation of Rebellion in the Thirteen Colonies in his speech from the throne at the opening of Parliament
David Tan is a Middleton-based pilot who uses his personal aircraft to rescue animals in need of adoption like goats, dogs, cats, pigs and a bat. He does it all for free.
When you’re traveling, have you ever wondered what happens if your bag gets lost? Well, it’ll probably end up in Scottsboro, Alabama at the nation’s only store for lost luggage. Unclaimed Baggage opened over 50 years ago, when entrepreneur and radio enthusiast, Doyle Owens, had a bright idea. One day, he was on the phone to a friend working at Trailways Bus Lines and learnt that they had more unclaimed bags than they knew what to do with. Borrowing a pick up truck and $300 from his grandparents, Doyle bought his first load of bags back to Alabama, and the rest is history! In the huge store today, you’ll find both far-flung tourists and regulars who have practically become part of the furniture. However all the shoppers share something in common…a hunger for hidden treasure! Prepare to be amazed, amused, and maybe even a little confused by the astounding array of items you can find at Unclaimed Baggage.
Tuesday, October 31st at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Hocus Pocus 2 @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Comedy/Family/Fantasy
Rated PG
1 hour, 43 minutes (2022)
The misadventures continue as two young women accidentally bring the three Sanderson Sister witches back to life in Salem and must figure out how to stop these child-hungry witches in our modern day world. The returning cast really camps it up!
Thursday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 66. Sunrise is 7:22 and sunset 5:55 for 10h 32m 46s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 92.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater Fire Department, Inc. will hold a business meeting at 6 PM.
On this day in 1944, the Battle of Leyte Gulf ends with an overwhelming American & Australian victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy.
In the discussion about whether the Whitewater Common Council should hire an attorney of its own (already having two firms and what should be councilmembers’ own judgment available), Councilman Jim Allen’s remarks are notable both for how nebulous and how limited they are.
Allen’s shifting explanations on 8.15.23 amount to five claims in a six-minute period: (1) “in regard to personnel matters or employees that the council oversees,” (2) separate representation when doing the city manager’s performance evaluation, (3) only as needed, (4) “don’t have a use for it right now, I don’t believe,” (5) “it’s just discretion.” SeeAllen’s Childish Pretexts.
In the two months between those shifting justifications and the 10.17.23 council meeting, Allen has offered nothing to Whitewater more substantial by explanation. He has, however, in that October session received approval for the sole authority to find an offering of possible attorneys to present.
(As it turned out, Allen received his approval from the council majority without ever offering a serious justification for what he needed. It’s not enough to say what others will or won’t do; a rational basis for decision-making requires Allen to explain why he needs a lawyer and why that sole authority should be in his hands.)
Almost as bad, Allen shows impatience with the very discussion to which he, himself, has been so vague and unpersuasive.
During that October session, Allen complained that the continued discussion of the issue would take too long:
Yeah, going out to, uh [cross talk] with, uh, would extend things out to December.
While others have spoken at length in opposition, Allen — a longtime politician — has said next to nothing, and even less of substance.
(His claim on 8.15.23 that “what we’re looking to do here is something different that puts our attorneys in kind of a pickle” reveals a complete lack of meaning. It also suggests, however, through the use of the first person plural that Allen has had an out-of-council and out-of-public-view discussion on this topic with other councilmembers. Video 8.15.23 @ 00:41.)
Allen may think that “in kind of pickle” is an adequate justification. If he’s looking for folksy sayings, however, another expression is more apt to this discussion:
Haste makes waste.
The weak rush; the strong discuss.
A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 68. Sunrise is 7:21 and sunset 5:56 for 10h 35m 26s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 86.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1983, the United States and its Caribbean allies invade Grenada, six days after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his supporters are executed in a coup d’état.
In small towns or big cities, people will often look to a mayor, city manager, parking enforcement officer, dog catcher, etc. as representatives of the government. They are right to see those officials that way.
Those officials are not the only members of the government, however.
Everyone who sits on a council, board, or commssion does so while acting as a member of government. Here’s how to tell: the people in front of the table are private residents, and the people behind the table are, for every moment they are in office, government men and women.
Government in a small American town must be limited and responsible in roles, and that includes those who serve on councils, boards, and commissions. The people in government behind the table serve the private residents in front of the table.
Sadly, some of the government men on councils, boards, and commissions are demonstrably worse than full-time government employees. It’s likely through ignorance or arrogance that these council-and-commission types don’t recognize their inadequacies by comparison.
Principles of limited, responsible, and humble government service apply equally to councilmembers, boardmembers, and commissioners. Those who take office to self-promote (and self-delude, truly) don’t need (and don’t belong) on councils, boards, or commissions.
They should not serve if they are simply attention-seeking burdens on private residents in communities with enough existing problems. SeeThe Shape of Decline to Come (and How to Carry On) (‘bad often goes to worse, and that’s because bad seldom recognizes itself’).
A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 77. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset 5:58 for 10h 38m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 76.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
Pres. Reagan popularized a Russian proverb for Americans when he spoke of arms control with the Soviet Union under the principle ‘Trust, but verify’ (Doveryai, no proveryai).
The Whitewater Common Council’s majority operates under a different principle: ‘Trust, no verification needed.’
Councilmember David Stone’s remarks from the 8.15.23 session of the Whitewater Common Council are an example of the no-verification-needed approach:
Councilmember Stone
Well, I looked at the statute and I found and I don’t have it in front of me. You could ask the city attorney to do that as well, that it is allowed for counsel to hire outside firms on specific issues as the council sees
City Manager Weidl Did you enter any of that into the public record? Documents to be discussed by the council need to be entered into the public record. So if you do have that information, it should be turned into the clerk so she can add it to the public record.
Councilmember Stone
Okay, I just don’t have it in front of me right now.
A fundamental issue is not that Stone might be right — it’s that he doesn’t present evidence that he might be right. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that he has a responsibility to support his claims at the time he makes them.
Stone wants others to trust his assertions, but does not offer a way for them to see the basis of those claims.
One can guess, and hope, that at Whitewater High School, a student would be expected to cite to his sources in a term paper. It would not be enough for the student to say he forgot, or to ask the instructor to ask someone else to look the sources up.
The proper standard of citation that one would expect of a student at Whitewater High School should be the minimum standard for the Whitewater Common Council.
A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.
Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 62. Sunrise is 7:18 and sunset 5:59 for 10h 40m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 65.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6:30 PM, returning to open session at 7 PM.
On this day in 2001, Apple Computer releases the iPod.
Typically (but not always), special interests speak deceptively in the language of good government. They will ask for cooperation, partnerships, collaboration, openness, and transparency. To get close, they will speak the language and make the sounds of those they seek to manipulate.
Their technique is effective with well-intentioned people who assume (mistakenly) that everyone else is well-intentioned.
There are other approaches special-interest men will try, if they’re denied their unjustified requests. They may express outrage (how dare you?!insane! outrageous!). This outrage has both a cause and an intended effect. The cause is, most often, an insult to their excessive sense of entitlement. It hurts them that others do not see them as special, gifted, or better than others. So they squeal and shriek when someone reminds them that they aren’t what they think they are, or they don’t deserve an extra portion of dessert, etc.
This expressed outrage often works an effect favorable to the special-interest types: others simply back down to avoid a confrontation.
If speaking in the language of good government doesn’t work, and if outrage doesn’t work, they may try to show how they are, in their view, more deserving than others. They will not do so themselves, however; they will find a catspaw who will praise how deserving they are in grandiose terms (how much these types supposedly love, care, or feel). These claims will not be measurable (one person’s love against another, for example). Indeed, how could they be? Nonetheless, grandiosity will be their starting point.
Finally, special-interest men will threaten to wreck what they cannot have. That’s a last resort, but if it comes to it, they’ll destroy what they cannot manipulate.
They start, however, with the language of good government, in the way that a wolf might approach a flock in sheep’s clothing.
A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.
