FREE WHITEWATER

Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Daily Bread for 3.4.23: Indonesia: Bali & Java

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 47. Sunrise is 6:24 AM and sunset 5:48 PM for 11h 24m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 92.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1789, in New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect


Indonesia FPV: Bali & Java:

Indonesia FPV: Bali & Java (Interactive) from Timelab Pro on Vimeo.


 What’s in the Night Sky March 2023:

Daily Bread for 3.3.23: When Neither Sympathy Nor Empathy Are Present

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 41. Sunrise is 6:25 AM and sunset 5:47 PM for 11h 21m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1931, the United States adopts The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem.


One may discuss the merits of a distinction between sympathy & empathy, as I have. See Sympathy & Empathy

What, however, if neither is present? What of those without the restraint of sympathy or empathy, for whom cruelty is the point, so to speak? 

If Hobbes should be correct about human nature (that reason is a spy for the passions, so that “the Thoughts, are to the Desires, as Scouts, and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired”), then reasoning from that ilk will lead only to the infliction of harm. 

Not from most people, of course, but from some. 

How to face this? With sang-froid, with a calm resolve.

Franklin Roosevelt noted correctly that 

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel in order to be tough.

In our city, in our school district, at our university, there should and must be a place for all people. Should expresses one’s hopes and must expresses one’s determination in politics and at law.  


  Footage captures moment fisher passes shark feeding frenzy:

Friday Catblogging: The Rusty-Spotted Cat

Jeyran Main writes of the Rusty-Spotted Cat:

He may look like a kitten or even fit in the palm of your hand, but this little male is nearly fully grown. What he lacks in size he makes up for endearing. Young cats are born curious. It is how they learn about their world, even if it gets them into trouble. His eyes are six times more powerful than humans. His senses are sensitive to the slightest of movements and today from Review Tales, I wish to discuss “The rusty-spotted cat” and hope that you enjoy reading it.

Even though they are to be unique in being small, not much is known about their ecology or behavior in the wild. These cats feed on rodents and birds. They also hunt lizards, frogs, and insects.

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Daily Bread for 3.2.23: The Late Pete Carril’s Approach Applied to Whitewater’s Politics

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:27 AM and sunset 5:46 PM for 11h 18m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 79.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission will meet at 6 PM and there will be a Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center Subcommittee Meeting at 6 PM

 On this day in 1901, United States Steel Corporation is founded as a result of a merger between Carnegie Steel Company and Federal Steel Company which became the first corporation in the world with a market capital over $1 billion.


The late Pete Carril, coach of Princeton basketball for a generation, is remembered for his offense. That offense called for a lot of passing, and so produced a lower-scoring game. In this way, Carril’s offense was patient. Opponents’ frustrated fans would shout boring! as the Tigers kept passing (rather than shooting as quickly as possible). Carril’s teams never rushed the shot. That patience was beneficial, as Carril had a 514–261 (.663 percentage) record.

Carril never devised a political strategy for Whitewater (or anywhere else). And yet, in these heated times of politics not basketball, an approach like Carril’s is the sensible one to apply to Whitewater’s local scene. There’s no reason to rush the shot. 

Populism runs on emotion, on the heat of the moment, and rapidly darts from one concern to another. See Defining Populism and The Environment That Populism Creates

Whitewater has only a conservative populist faction. Despite the conservatives populists’ conflation of Progressives/Liberals/Marxists/Socialists/Whatever/Etc., Whitewater has only a few genuine progressives, and they are not uniformly populist progressives. See Identifying Types and Spotting Issues and The City’s Few Progressives.

Populism in Whitewater is a movement of the right. See The Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater and Conservative Populism Moves in One Direction Only.

There is an intense, insatiable craving within the populists that distinguishes them from other political movements. Need after need, issue after issue, but little foresight on any of them, and no clear sense of direction. Up, down, backward, forward, love it, hate it: all one frenetic scramble from topic to topic. See Nothing Upsets the Populists Like Contrary Speech (esp. from Blacks or Gays)

Back to Pete Carril and his strategy: the conservative populists want a lot of shooting, and so they don’t like a game in which passing dominates the clock. Carril didn’t owe other teams those other teams’ preferences, and those of us who oppose the anti-individualism of the populists don’t owe the populists their preferred approach.

Easy to see what they’d like, as I’ve written before: wall-building, book-banning, and closet-confining. The last six years have brought us here. There’s a hysteria about the populists, nativists with heads shaking, arms waving, overwrought claims delivered in overwrought phrases. 

One approaches all this deliberately, methodically, and seriously. 


 Iran Schoolgirls Targeted by More Poison Attacks, Sparking Protests

Daily Bread for 3.1.23: Demand High at Food Pantries

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will see scattered morning showers with a high of 52. Sunrise is 6:31 AM and sunset 5:44 PM. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 72% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1893, electrical engineer Nikola Tesla gives the first public demonstration of radio in St. Louis, Missouri.


There will be various proposals of state government (for capital spending) or taxation (a flat tax is probably out), but the WisDems and WISGOP proposals come in a context of hunger even during low unemployment. The state treasury may be flush, but many Wisconsinites are not.

Rob Mentzer reports A central Wisconsin food pantry grew fivefold during the pandemic. Leaders expect it to keep growing (‘Led by a Catholic priest in a majority-Hispanic area, the food pantry is a lifeline to hundreds of families each week’):

One of the confessionals at St. Bernard Catholic Church in Abbotsford is filled nearly to the ceiling with boxes of dried beans, rice and sriracha sauce. There are several flats of cereal boxes in the confessional next door.

“Right now, the deal is, you come to confession, you get a box of cereal,” jokes the Rev. Tim Oudenhoven.

St. Bernard’s started hosting a weekly food pantry in 2020, and parts of the church have become overflow storage for dry goods. What started as a pandemic response serving 30 or 40 families has “mushroomed,” Oudenhoven said, to an operation serving 230 families per week and growing. 

Abbotsford, a city of about 2,300 people in central Wisconsin, has become a center for Latino immigration. By official U.S. Census data, the city is now about 40 percent Hispanic. But most residents believe that count doesn’t capture hundreds more who have immigrated illegally or who’ve overstayed their visas. According to state data, the Abbotsford School District is about 62 percent Latino.

And recently, Oudenhoven said, the area has seen an increase in new arrivals from Central and South America, including Nicaragua and Venezuela, as people flee humanitarian crises there.

Note well: This libertarian blogger does not write — and never has — from personal deprivation. (The deserved indictment of the boosters, for example, is that they accentuate supposed gains while obscuring others’ needs.) 

We are usually taught that people require food, clothing, and shelter for survival. Whitewater is far from Abbotsford, yet Whitewater also has residents, long-term and newcomers both, who lack food (or clothing, or shelter).

So, which direction for Whitewater? Will Whitewater’s community address the fundamental needs of her residents, or will they embrace a culture war diverting and distracting us from our fellow residents’ basic needs? A culture war will bring less, not more, to this city and school district. The first six months of cultural fury will recede to reveal years of socio-economic hardship. 

These are not new themes at FREE WHITEWATERSee Waiting for Whitewater’s Dorothy Day, Something Transcendent, and in the MeantimeAn Oasis Strategyand The Community Space

A moral and practical priority: to feed, to clothe, to shelter. 


 ‘Time-traveling’ James Webb Space Telescope sees galaxy 3 times in same observation

Daily Bread for 2.28.23: Wisconsin Print Newspapers Are Now a Niche Medium

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 46. Sunrise is 6:30 AM and sunset 5:43 PM for 11h 12m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a primary election canvass for the Whitewater Unified School District at 8:30 AM

 On this day in 1991, the first Gulf War ends.


Bruce Murphy writes Journal Sentinel Circulation a Disaster

The latest circulation numbers for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel are jaw dropping.

Its parent company Gannett shows plummeting readership for the many papers it owns, including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, one of the national chain’s biggest daily newspapers. The latest Form 10-K report required by the federal SEC and published by Gannett shows the Journal Sentinel now has a “combined” (print and digital) Sunday circulation of 75,061 and a combined daily circulation of 48,158 as of September 2022.

That’s down from a Sunday circulation of 115,026 in the previous year (September 2021), as the prior year’s report by Gannett shows, which is a decrease of nearly 35%, with a loss of nearly 40,000 subscribers

And that’s down from a daily circulation of 75,676 in the previous year, a decline of 36%, with a loss of 27,518 subscribers.

The newspaper has seen its Sunday circulation plummet in 10 years from 299,000 in 2012 to 170,791 in 2018 to 129,887 in 2020 to 75,016 as of last fall. In 10 years the JS has lost 75% of its Sunday readers.

Meanwhile, the paper has seen its daily print circulation drop from 175,600 in 2012 to 111,251 in 2018, 83,628 in 2020 and 48,158 in 2022. In 10 years the JS has lost 74% of its daily paper readers.

And here we are: In Wisconsin, print newspapers are now a niche medium. 


 Boeing Engineers Break World Record for Farthest Paper Aircraft Flight

Daily Bread for 2.27.23: Fox’s Viewers Wanted Those Lies

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:34 AM and sunset 5:41 PM for 11h 07m 06s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 41.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM, and the Whitewater Unified School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM, to resume open session at 7 PM

 On this day in 1951, the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting presidents to two terms, is ratified.


David French explains Why Fox News Lied to the Viewers It ‘Respects’

There are some stories that are important enough to pause the news cycle and linger on them, to explore not just what happened, but why. And so it is with Fox News’s role in the events leading up to Jan. 6, 2021. Thanks to a recent filing by Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation lawsuit against Fox, there is now compelling evidence that America’s most-watched cable news network presented information it knew to be false as part of an effort to placate an angry audience. It knowingly sacrificed its integrity to maintain its market share.

Why? There are the obvious reasons: Money. Power. Fame. These are universal human temptations. But the answer goes deeper. Fox News became a juggernaut not simply by being “Republican,” or “conservative,” but by offering its audience something it craved even more deeply: representation. And journalism centered on representation ultimately isn’t journalism at all.

….

Fox isn’t just the news hub of right-wing America, it’s a cultural cornerstone, and its business model is so successful that it’s more accurate to think of the rest of the right-wing media universe not as a collection of competitors to Fox, but rather as imitators. From television channels to news sites, right-wing personalities aren’t so much competing with Fox as auditioning for it.

Take, for example, the online space. Fox News is so dominant that, according to data from December, you could take the total traffic of the next 19 conservative websites combined, and still not reach half of Fox’s audience.

But that kind of loyalty is built around a social compact, the profound and powerful sense in Red America that Fox is for us. It’s our megaphone to the culture. Yet when Fox created this compact, it placed the audience in charge of its content.

The paradox of the conservative populists: self-described strong types who take offense easily, and shift uncomfortably, at mere words they don’t like. They complain about safe spaces, but it is they who crave the safest space in all America. It takes little to rattle them, little to cause them to act out and act up. Fox is the place where the conservative populists go to be told it’s not them, but rather the rest of the world, that’s a problem. Fox’s audience wanted lies because the truth was too hard for them; Fox gave its audience the soothing mendacity they craved.

The cure for the insecurities of the populists won’t come from placing them in positions of power. They’ll not become more judicious with a seat at the table. On the contrary, they will inflict injuries on others in a futile attempt to redress their own personal grievances. Personality (in the sense of self and being) brings them to politics, but politics will not improve that state of personality. 

A struggling community in the grip of the populists will find that it has farther down to sink. 


 Rare snowfall envelopes southern California, swirling around Hollywood sign:

Daily Bread for 2.26.23: The Farmer’s Dog — Forever

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:34 AM and sunset 5:41 PM for 11h 07m 06s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 41.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1980, Egypt and Israel establish full diplomatic relations.


The Farmer’s Dog — Forever (a commercial that aired during the Super Bowl): 

 Why spy balloons never went out of style:

Daily Bread for 2.25.23: Supporting Ukraine

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 38. Sunrise is 6:35 AM and sunset 5:39 PM for 11h 04m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 32.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1948, in a coup d’état led by Klement Gottwald, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia takes control of government in Prague to end the Third Czechoslovak Republic.


All libertarians would prefer a world of free trade with friendly nations. We are the descendants of the Enlightenment, and rightly understand the power of free trade to uplift both buyers and sellers. We are cosmopolitan: welcoming of, and open to, other people and places. 

Much to our regret, violent threats to the liberty of nations and trade between them occasionally arise, and so we must decide: will we support free peoples abroad & their hopes for peaceful commence with us and others?

I am from a movement family (that is, an old libertarian family, long before the term libertarian was coined), and for us this was always clear. We are to support free peoples against autocracy abroad, and autocratic impulses at home. Many campaigns during the Cold War were misguided, but the war was not. The Soviets were, in every principal respect, the enemies of liberty. There never was a good Soviet (as a supporter of that dictatorship) and there never will be a good Putinist. Thousands of years of moral teaching condemn them. 

Now comes a modern-day czar, with his militant imperialism, twisted teachings, and criminal army, to oppress the free people of Ukraine. In the family and teachings of which I am a grateful descendent and inheritor, one is called to oppose Russian imperialism. 

There are some exceptions to this view among libertarians: some who are pacifists (there is a small group of Quaker libertarians) and others who are inveterate isolationists. The former (Quakers) are principled and consistent (if mistaken). The latter (isolationist) group professes a contradiction. The isolationists want free trade, and would defend liberty at home, but not so much that they would fight to defend liberty and trade abroad. Convenient of them: unlike the Society of Friends that advocates pacifism everywhere, the isolationists place liberty underneath their personal convenience. They are a millstone around libertarianism’s neck. 

Ukraine acts in her self defense; defense of self and others is a right, natural to Ukraine (and to America on her behalf, as a defense of others).  

Evan Casey reports On the anniversary of the Russian invasion into Ukraine, Wisconsin-Ukrainians continue to help their country

After putting his son to bed, Valentyn Potapenko flipped on the TV to find what moments before was a typical day had now turned into a nightmare. It was Feb. 24, 2022, and from his home in Wauwatosa, he watched as Russia launched a war by bombing his hometown in Ukraine. 

He almost couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing. 

“Right away, I didn’t believe that it was happening,” Potapenko said. 

In the days after Russia invaded his home country, Potapenko, who moved to America in 1995, said he felt hopeless. He had many family members and friends who were still living in Ukraine. 

But he and his wife decided to take action, starting a website to collect donations for his people. After collecting nearly $50,000 in a few days, the couple then partnered with Wisconsin Ukrainians, which has collected over $500,000 in donations in the last year. 

“People here in the United States jumped on board and helped in any way possible,” he said.

Christiana Trapani, a second generation Ukrainian-American, has a similar story. She owns Door County Candle Co., and has raised over $800,000 to support humanitarian efforts by selling the popular Ukraine candle.

These Wisconsinites are among the best of this state, and of America. Slava UkrainiHeroiam slava. 

Daily Bread for 2.24.23 More Convenient than a Cat’s Meows from the Rafters

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 23. Sunrise is 6:37 AM and sunset 5:38 PM for 11h 01m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1803, in Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the principle of judicial review.


 So, a cat shows up at another city’s council meeting, and meows during the proceedings. A simple lesson would be that people, in Whitewater and elsewhere, should be afforded opportunities more convenient than a cat’s meows from the rafters.

And so, and so, everyone has a chance to speak, for the same amount of time, in public meetings that remain public proceedings (rather than façades for backroom dealing). 

If it’s a public body, it must remain a public proceeding. If it’s a private body, then it can and should remain a private proceeding. Private men do not own, and so they are not to control, public bodies and proceedings. Hybrid proceedings, where government and business are mixed, become special interest business meetings. 

Consider: Few in Whitewater are more opposed to the populists, that anti-individualism horde, than this libertarian blogger. And yet, and yet, they must be allowed to speak regardless of their anti-speech cravings. (It is they, not others, who whine about being insulted, and so seek to ban speech they don’t like. Tant pis: their skins are too thin and their tempers too short. We do not have their inclinations and will not adopt their practices.)

The same is true for the entitled, special-interest business lobby. On their tongues: Don’t you know who we are? In reply: Yes, no better than any, but worse in policy than most. 

God did not choose the political factions in this city; they formed of their own accord, for their own, all-too-human ends. (If God had chosen one of these groups, one could expect that He would have given them instruction in better policies and humbler demeanor.) 

Slowly, and fitfully, Whitewater moves toward a more egalitarian politics, in fulfillment of the American standard of equal treatment under law. This small and beautiful city deserves no less. 

Film: Tuesday, February 28th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Armageddon Time

Tuesday, February 28th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Armageddon Time @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Drama

Rated R (language); 1 hour, 54 minutes (2022)

A deeply personal comingofage story about the strength of family and the generational pursuit of The American Dream. Starring Anne Hathaway, Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Strong and Banks Repeta.

2023 AARP Movies for Grownups. Best Intergenerational Film Nominee.

One can find more information about Armageddon Time at the Internet Movie Database.

Daily Bread for 2.23.23: The Businessmen Who Won’t Let Go (with Whitewater Versions)

Good morning.

 

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:38 AM and sunset 5:37 PM for 10h 58m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. (At four o’clock, the City of Whitewater will host an immigration attorney’s presentation that may have a quorum of council members in attendance, but at which no Common Council action will be taken.) 

 On this day in 1778, Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to help to train the Continental Army.


 There’s a hope — one deserving of fulfillment  — that in a small town, at least, people would treat each other without self-importance or entitlement. No one higher, no one lower: all being equal and none exhibiting pretense. 

It’s not that way, of course: as in big cities, small towns, too, are afflicted with a few self-important men and women who are convinced they, and they alone, are deserving of public positions for life. What is it about being a small-town landlord, banker, or public relations man that leads these men to think that out of thousands they’re deserving of lifetime public positions? They’d tell you it’s talent, but… looking around one sees that anyone pulled from a phone directory would have done as well as they have

We have in this small city middling versions of national business types who won’t let go. Of those national types, Rob Copeland and Maureen Farrell report Hedge Fund Billionaire Extracts Billions More to Retire:

In the end, Mr. Dalio, with an estimated net worth of $19 billion, agreed to surrender his control over all key decisions at Bridgewater only if the firm agreed to give him what could amount to billions of dollars in regular payouts over the coming years through a special class of stock.

Mr. Dalio did not respond to requests for comment.

Bridgewater, which manages roughly $125 billion on behalf of public pensions and sovereign wealth funds, is dealing with a situation that’s becoming increasingly common across corporate America. Builders of companies big and small appear unwilling to let go, or are asked to step back in when there is turbulence.

Recently, Marc Benioff, of the technology giant Salesforce, returned to solo leadership of the company he co-founded in 1999 and cut around 8,000 jobs. Howard Schultz, now on his third go-round as the chief executive of Starbucks, has appeared intent on crushing efforts across the company to unionize store workers.

Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have stepped in and out of their company several times. And over the summer, Bill Conway, one of the founders of the investing behemoth Carlyle, took the reins after the chief executive left abruptly, and helped choose a new one this month.

At least these national figures once achieved privately for the nation; they are private men clinging to their own private companies, however repulsively needy they seem.

Worse by far are our own local versions who insist on manipulating public councils and authorities forever with only self-promotion to justify their efforts. What an empty conceit it is that they’re somehow sharper or somehow more talented than others.

Aside: In what normal appraisal of industry and talent would anyone place landlords, bankers, or public relations men at the height of achievement? No worse than others, perhaps, but certainly no better. And yet, these men advance themselves as experts. This libertarian blogger has never touted himself as an expert; these men falsely say as much about themselves at every opportunity.

Sadder, still, of course, would be those deluded few who repeat the dull talking points of that entitled lot. (Better never to hold office than to sit on the Whitewater Common Council or Community Development Authority and be known as a landlord’s parrot.)

Somehow, the city is expected to believe these few rather than evidence all around. Quite sad, really.