Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater: Sunny and sixty-four degrees.
In late January, I posted a link to a Condor Cam at the San Diego Zoo. These weeks since lead here, to a condor hatchling:
Google’s daily puzzle combines president, invention, and office furniture: “You can thank this president for doubling the size of the United States, and for making you more comfortable at work. What piece of office furniture did he invent?” more >>
In Britain, The Independent’s Anton Howes wonders where all the libertarians are coming from.
He sees the trend:
There’s a silent revolution happening on campuses across the world. Libertarian activism is on the rise. Political figures like Ron Paul have started to draw huge support from younger voters, but the trend seems to be much deeper and more sustained than any single political campaign. Rather than simply throwing support behind individuals and politicians, students are rallying around distinctly pro-liberty ideas and ideologies.
Anyone who’s been on campus has seen this — among independents and ever-larger numbers of major-party supporters, there’s a respect and interest in libertarian positions. In some areas, the libertarian trend among all Americans is clear, and the next generation is likely to change the criminal law in consequence of it.
So where are all these libertarians coming from?
The next generation.
Posted originally on 3.12.12 at Daily Adams.
Over at the Journal Sentinel, the dodgy headline on Tom Daykin’s story can’t hide the truth of Whitewater’s taxpayer-funded ‘business incubator’ – after a year, the overwhelming majority of space is either for public tenants or is still empty.
Not businesses, not private concerns, but public money overwhelmingly for new digs for public employees…or used by no one at all.
The headline reveals the cynicism and condescension behind the entire project: the conviction that residents and readers are so dim-witted that they’ll think no father than a few words in large type.
The story – likely cribbed from a press release – shows how much more Whitewater’s municipal administration prefers exaggerations about accomplishments to actual accomplishments.
Here’s another sketch-post on how to make Whitewater hip & prosperous.
Whitewater should lead with what she uniquely and distinctively offers. What the city has today, and will have tomorrow, is a multi-ethnic and multicultural population. Our Mexican-heritage population is more than a fact; it’s an opportunity for everyone. We should lead with that unique demographic, and organize a weekend festival to celebrate truly for ourselves and others the diverse character of the city.
There’s a Cinco de Mayo celebration in town, but I’m not referring specifically to that event (nor do I have a connection to it). We might use 5.5, but we might alternatively pick another date, later in the summer. I don’t have a name for what I’m suggesting; only ‘Fiesta’ comes to mind. Stoughton’s Syttende Mai around the weekend of 5.17 is like what I have in mind, but there it’s a celebration Norwegian culture.
Whitewater now has several city festivals, of which the Independence Day holiday is easily the biggest. There are bigger holidays during the year (Christmas, of course), but I’m thinking of citywide gatherings. Of those, none is bigger than July 4th. Summer makes participation easy, and the commemoration is as broad-based as any in the city. In a hundred years, Independence Day will still be the city’s biggest outdoor event.
Whitewater would do better for herself, in so many ways, if she would embrace and advance the cosmopolitan vibe that Mexican-American residents offer.
Leaders in this city have trumpeted just about every idea that floats into their heads, but little has been done to lead with Whitewater as a multi-ethic, multicultural city. Contrasted with so many arranged and contrived efforts that are forgotten within a few months, a municipal embrace of an annual, weekend festival would be lasting and positive.
Those who think emphasis on a multicultural city will portray Whitewater poorly are mistaken; a multicultural emphasis is an honest (and trendy and sophisticated) way to present the city.
A few residents — only a few — shy from this because they feel reminders of a multicultural, multi-ethnic city make Whitewater seem downmarket. I’m convinced that’s not true.
An even small number have over the years done far worse, disingenuously presenting with shiny theories their dark work in opposition to an open city. Although they represent the very worst of Old Whitewater, they are a merely a few.
To our city’s common advantage, Old Whitewater has no future; a New Whitewater has begun, and though its full fruition may occasionally be delayed, it cannot be stopped.
Anyone could enjoy a festival like this. People who will like and enjoy a citywide Fiesta are the residents, visitors, and newcomers we most need: accepting, open, ambitious, creative, optimistic, successful.
Those traits, we may be sure, are truly and fundamentally American ones.
An annual celebration like this should be a top municipal priority.
Good morning.
It’s a day of showers for Whitewater, with a high of sixty-one.
The city’s Planning Commission meets tonight at 6 PM.
Google has a daily puzzle that’s fit for poker players: “You’ll find me buried beside fellow gunslinger Calamity Jane. What’s the name of the poker hand that honors my death?”
On this day in 1923, Talkies Talk … On Their Own:
Radio pioneer Lee de Forest demonstrates his Phonofilm movie process to the press, bringing the world of synchronized sound to the movies.
Inventors as august as Thomas Edison had been trying to link two marvels of the age — the phonograph and the moving picture — for several decades. The fidelity was as good (or bad) as the phonographs of those days, but it was nearly impossible to synchronize the sound of the human voice with moving lips on the screen. So the first sound films the public saw were presented with recorded musical accompaniment, but they still used full-screen dialogue titles and weren’t “talkies.”
De Forest’s technical advance was to synchronize sound and motion by placing the sound recording directly on the film in an optical soundtrack. Analog blips of light represented sound frequency and volume. It was the prototype of the optical sound-on-film process used from the 1930s onward, with continued improvements like high fidelity and stereo, until digital sound began to replace it in the 1990s.
Perfect for any season, it’s Sunshine Week, 3.11-3.17, in America. Sunshine Week is a “national initiative to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public’s right to know.”
10 Mar
Gov. Walker sets up legal-defense fund – JSOnline bit.ly/zdAwg4
9 Mar
Friday Poll: Should the robin remain the Wisconsin state bird? » bit.ly/yT4AG3 #bird #robin
9 Mar
Charles Koch’s Latest Absurd & Grandiose Claim | Daily Adams bit.ly/zLqKeb #powerdrunk
8 Mar
Set the Clueless Plutocrat Flameout Clock: GOP Senate candidate Hovde gave $500 to Democrat Doyle – bit.ly/Aja3ws
8 Mar
Ron Paul’s penultimate style dailyadams.com/a-libertarians… #libertarian #fashion
8 Mar
The Invaluable Independence of Cato #cato #libertarian
8 Mar
And it’s not yet April 1st: GOP hedge fund manager enters WI US Senate race shebpr.es/w4c2NB
8 Mar
Everything possible now invented: Adidas Unveils Cowboy Boot Sneaker bit.ly/zzx2Rd
7 Mar
The Existential Threats to Libertarianism | Daily Adams bit.ly/zjGGh9 #libertarian
7 Mar
The Kochs’ Flimsy, Self-Serving Defense of the ‘Rule of Law’ | Daily Adams bit.ly/AyfXJd #koch #powerdrunkliars
7 Mar
What do the Kochs want with Cato? | Daily Adams bit.ly/ywvdbv #libertarians #cato
7 Mar
Thanks for making that clear: Romney says he’s ready to fight all way to nomination bit.ly/wv6bZR
6 Mar
Clarity about the Kochs | Daily Adams bit.ly/ySGjXz #powerdrunkliars
6 Mar
Tree-wasting Banality of the Day – Chris Rickert: Handbook must make students top priority bit.ly/ww0mDD
No small thing:
Gov. Scott Walker announced Friday that he has set up a legal-defense fund to help pay expenses incurred as a result of the John Doe investigation of activities during his time as county executive….
Several election lawyers said creation of the defense fund serves as a tacit acknowledgment that Walker is under investigation for election law violations.
“If you create a legal-defense fund, you are either being investigated, being charged with or have been convicted of a criminal violation of Chapter 11 or Chapter 12,” said retired state election lawyer George Dunst, referring to the statutes dealing with campaign finance and election fraud.
A simple question, suitable for the weeks before spring, when robins are talked up as a happy sign of milder weather: should the robin remain the Wisconsin state bird?
I would never do anything to bias the results of this poll.
I’ll simply offer a photo of an ordinary-looking, two-bit robin, followed by a photo of an alternative state bird, an impressive and majestic kestrel.
I’ve written before about making Whitewater hip and prosperous. Those sketch-posts were part of an ongoing series about the city.
Today, not a suggestion but an observation: the kind of energetic newcomers that Whitewater needs will be unsettling to many of those longtime residents now looking for newcomers. (Some residents would not like anyone new, of course; I’m writing about those who see the importance of new arrivals to the city’s economy.)
New people, especially successful and energetic ones, will not simply fit into Whitewater; they’ll transform it. Arrival is not a pledge to do what has always been done, although there’s more than one stodgy town father who thinks so. The city is not a hidebound club, with cultural membership rules that must be obeyed, although there’s more than one stodgy town father who thinks so.
Ambitious people who come here will come here to make their marks, not to copy others’ marks as mere scribes.
This is why the stodgiest of residents prefer no new residents, and why some others like idea of newcomers more than they would like the genuine articles. It’s the difference, for them, between wanting and getting new residents.
For those who want the present to continue unaltered into the future, there’s a daunting task: work each day and every day, morning and night, to make certain that ‘everything has a place, and that there’s only one place for everything.’
They’ve sure to contend for their vision of Whitewater, however long ago. For the change-opposed, there’s probably an appeal in Whitewater as a real life version of Pleasantville, while still in black-and-white.
Only two things matter about a vision of Whitewater-as-Pleasantville: the transition to color can’t be stopped, and happily not, as Joan Allen was far lovelier in color
Good morning.
Whitewater will have a sunny day, with a high of thirty-six today.
I found a video that you may have seen, too, from Brazil. In it one finds an example of human compassion. The recording shows a group of dolphins being beached at Arraial do Cabo on March 5th. The beachgoers are at first startled, but they quickly hit upon a method for rescuing the dolphins. One sees that their rescue requires no committees, task forces, or commissions – one person, and then another, then still more act through the same method to return the dolphins to the ocean.
In a short time, all the dolphins are back in deeper water, free to swim normally.
I’m sure this isn’t the most elegant, refined, or proper plan – it’s simply effective.
So very well done and admirable.
