HELL, MI – A cat known for her oversized eyes and wonky feet is about to become the mayor of a small Michigan town. And not just any town. This little black cat will rule over Hell, located about 20 miles northwest of Ann Arbor.
Anyone can become mayor of Hell for a day. It’s part of the town’s schtick. Pets, though, are another thing. Sunday, April 24 will actually be the first time a cat will make sure all Hell doesn’t break loose.
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As Jinx grew over the days and weeks, Mia says she noticed her new kitten appeared to be a little different.
“She had big eyes and as she grew bigger, her eyes didn’t get smaller and I also noticed she had big feet. She doesn’t have a condition and the vet says she’s healthy. She just has these birth defects. She’s also not as agile as most cats and is a little clumsy. She only learned how to land on her feet a year ago.”
Jinx will rule over Hell for the day from afar [Jinx lives in California with her human, Mia]. Mia plans to livestream via Jinx’s Twitch page at around 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT where she will make the big announcement to viewers.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 64. Sunrise is 6:02 AM and sunset 7:44 PM for 13h 42m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 72.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
This day in 753 BC is the traditional date on which Romulus is said to have founded Rome.
Matt Levine writes, insightfully and artfully, Bloomberg’s Money Stuff column. Levine’s latest, Elon Checks His Pockets, ponders Elon Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter (all of it). Levine writes that
One problem with Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter Inc. for about $40 billion is that he does not have $40 billion. Of course he is very rich — the richest person in the world, worth $260 billion by Bloomberg’s estimate — but most of that money is tied up in the stock of Tesla Inc., SpaceX, the Boring Co., etc., and it is not obvious that he would want to sell enough of those things to buy a new thing. Nor is it obvious that anyone else would want to give him $40 billion to buy Twitter, given that he sees Twitter as “not a way to make money” and does not “care about the economics at all.”
Another problem with Musk’s offer to buy Twitter is that, if you ask him where the money is coming from, he says things like “I have sufficient assets” and “I am not sure that I will actually be able to acquire it,” which do not inspire confidence that he has actually thought about raising the money.
A third problem with Musk’s offer to buy Twitter is that in 2018 he mused about taking Tesla Inc. private for about $70 billion. “Funding secured,” he said, in an infamous tweet. It turned out that he had had a single casual conversation with representatives of a Saudi sovereign wealth fund in which they did not discuss the price of the deal or how much money the Saudis were willing to invest; ultimately Musk settled fraud chargeswith the Securities and Exchange Commission over this tweet. So the answer to the question “might Elon Musk have made an offer to take a large public company private, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars, without giving any real thought to where the money would come from?” is “absolutely yes, and he’s done it before.”
All of these problems mean that, if you are a Twitter shareholder and Musk says “I am going to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share,” you might not believe him. “Show me the money,” you might reasonably say. And in fact, when Musk did publicly announce his bid, the stock price dropped, closing at $45.08 on the day his bid became public. Musk’s proposal was contingent on “completion of anticipated financing,” and that is a big if.
Musk has a record of notable successes but also misses (often from overpromising).
And if the world’s richest man’s business plans haven’t always panned out, then it’s prudent to be cautious (if not skeptical) about the plans of government and businesses.
Dare, one might say, for the plans of local government and local businesses, too.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 48. Sunrise is 6:03 AM and sunset 7:43 PM for 13h 39m 59s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 82.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Involvement & Cable TV Commission meets at 5:00 PM and the Park and Rec Board meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1898, President McKinley signs a joint resolution to Congress for a declaration of war against Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
Monday’s post, considering populist opportunism in Texas, can be understood in its own suspiciously opportunistic local dialect. Here’s now that translation into a local context would unfold (with highlighting as the translation progresses):
Original language: Populists use open-government principles to advance selfish, particular ends.
Initial translation: Special interests use open-government principles to advance selfish, particular ends.
Refinement: Landlords, bankers, and PR men use open-government principles to advance selfish, particular ends.
It’s possible that a speaker will be misunderstood, and his or her pure intentions may merely seem opportunistic.
And yet, and yet, it’s hard to credit a special interest with general concerns. (After all, by definition they have, well, a special, particular interest.) A business lobby or a trade association is by nature a business lobby or a trade association. It doesn’t stop being a particular interest merely because its members claim a universal interest. (If they’re true to their membership, then they will not have a universal interest, as that’s not what their particular members should reasonably expect. Those who join Audubon sensibly expect advocacy of birding, not universal harmony, however important universal harmony would be.)
It rouses skepticism that landlords, bankers, and PR men insist on open government now but were lessvocal about openness when they played a more prominent role on public boards.
And while there is skepticism about these types, a similar public skepticism attaches to their office-holding allies. The development men can and will help someone get into office, but it comes with a question: are these officeholders truly their own men and women, or are they the catspaws of a narrow special interest group?
Those who lose a reputation as independent men and women are unlikely to get that reputation back without heroic efforts.
It’s noticeable how often people in Whitewater cringe when these landlords, bankers, and PR men walk into a room. How unfortunate it is that these types would engender so much concern in a small town of free and equal people.
A serious man or woman would know that it’s incomparably worse, for example, to find oneself in a gloomy wood, one’s way blocked by a leopard, lion, or wolf. That, unquestionably, would be a dire situation.
Knowing as much, one would worry hardly at all about a few entitled business lobbyists.
A commitment to open government deserves, and is best served by, support from independent advocates. There is much to be done, and done sincerely and consistently.
A 7-year-old sheep named Alex who was rescued after being found on top of a mountain in Victoria, Australia, last month just got a well-deserved shave. Handlers removed approx 80+ pounds of wool from Alex’s fleece—nearly a world record for a single sheep shaving.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be chilly with intervals of clouds and sunshine and a high of 48. Sunrise is 6:05 AM and sunset 7:42 PM for 13h 37m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 90.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1775, the Revolutionary War begins with an American victory in Concord during the battles of Lexington and Concord.
Yesterday’s post addressed the opportunistic use of open-government principles to advance selfish, particular ends. SeeThe Opportunistic Use of Open-Government Principles. The use of open-government principles opportunistically is a temporary use; open government becomes closed government when it no longer serves a special interest group’s purposes.
Why, however, would a person or group oppose open governmentconsistently? There are four basic reasons.
Ignorance. Those who oppose open government through ignorance believe that the community doesn’t have a right to know the business of government because they mistakenly treat government as though it were merely another private party. They see government not as an instrumentality of popular sovereignty but as a separate and independent organism. There is a name for those who see the state as a living creature with rights over and above people: they’re called authoritarians.
Arrogance. In this case, pride grips those within government to see themselves as special, as secular gnostics with knowledge only they have and only they must possess. This pride is intoxicating, and rapidly consumes those who might otherwise insist that they’re good government advocates.
A reminder: Hubris invites Nemesis.
Indolence. Public work that is known to the public requires a higher standard than hidden work in which errors remain commonly unknown. A concealed shoddy standard is easier for the lazy to maintain than a revealed shoddy standard. Slothful officials love the shadows except when extolling their own praises.
Malfeasance. Once corrupt officials or special interests seize control of government, closed government thereafter aids their control. They may have talked about open government to get inside, but once inside they shut the door. In those concealed spaces, they deal for themselves and against competitors or perceived adversaries.
Monday in Whitewater will see a bit of snow with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:06 AM and sunset 7:41 PM for 13h 34m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 96% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2018, The New York Times and the New Yorker win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for breaking news of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal.
In a thread on Twitter, Prof. Don Moynihan of Georgetown writes of a partisan group’s use of open government claims opportunistically rather than universally. In Moynihan’s illustration, book-banners are cloaking themselves in open-government garb merely to gain power and thereafter restrict speech and transparency. His thread offers lessons derived from an effort in Texas to ban library books. SeeCensorship battles’ new frontier: Your public library.
Four of his lessons appear below:
Wallace, the person leading the book banning effort is appointed to the Library’s governance structure, along with others who are not library users.
Lesson #2: the purpose is political control and deconstruction of public institutions, they don’t care about its core mission.
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Lesson #5: The goal is to replace transparent democratic processes and professional judgment with activist veto power.
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Lesson #7: they don’t care about the damage they are doing to public institutions, or the erosion of public services people value and depend on.
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Lesson 10: professional qualifications are devalued, diversity of representation is a fig leaf used to justify hegemonic control
In the Llano, Texas case, the book-banners are ideologically-motivated populists.
There are, however, other groups that also use open-government principles selfishly and particularly. The most obvious situation would be traditional special interest groups (business or trade) seeking regulatory capture. They demand information and access only until they control an agency. For them, transparency is merely another slogan on the way to dominating public institutions for private ends.
If a group does not advocate for open government consistently and even-handedly, they don’t really believe in open government.
Easter in Whitewater will see some sunshine giving way to clouds with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:08 AM and sunset 7:40 PM for 13h 31m 49s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1907, the Ellis Island immigration center processes 11,747 people, more than on any other day.
Sofika Zielyk, a Ukrainian-American ethnographer and artist, tells the story of pysanky, traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs. Her exhibition, The Pysanka: A Symbol Of Hope, at the Ukrainian American Institute is collecting eggs to show support for Ukraine.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 42. Sunrise is 6:09 AM and sunset 7:38 PM for 13h 29m 05s of daytime. The moon is full with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2018, The New York Times and the New Yorker win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for breaking news of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal.
Following a decision of the United States Supreme Court in March, on Friday the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of Republican-proposed state legislative maps. (The Friday decision does not affect Congressional districts, as those district boundaries had already been approved in state and federal rulings.)
The WISGOP least-change maps that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has adopted cement for another decade a gerrymandered Republican advantage:
Robert Yablon, University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor and redistricting expert, said the court’s decision had reinforced a map that was “strikingly” gerrymandered.
“And it means that although this state is often a 50-50 state one where Democrats have frequently managed to win statewide races, they are going to have virtually no chance of taking control of the Legislature,” Yablon said in an interview with PBS Wisconsin.
An analysis of the competing redistricting plans by Marquette University’s John Johnson found that in a statewide tie, Republicans would be expected to win 63 out of 99 Assembly seats and 23 out of 33 Senate seats under the new GOP map.
(Any least-change approach this decade was assured of preserving last decade’s maximum-change gerrymandering.)
It’s likely that there will be additional challenges to these state districts, but if so those challenges (of dubious prospects based on the latest relevant U.S. and Wisconsin high court decisions) would come too late to change 2022 legislative boundaries.
Candidates for state legislative offices, who under Wisconsin law can circulate petitions beginning April 15th, will now know the boundaries of their districts.
Immediately below, the decision from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Good Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:11 AM and sunset 7:37 PM for 13h 26m 19s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
A few days ago, State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski visited the Whitewater Unified School District’s Lakeview School, and thereafter issued a press release about a grant to the district. The press release, issued from Godlewski’s office on 4.12.22, made the rounds in Whitewater.
One day later and a thousand miles away, Jennifer Rubin wrote about the U.S. Senate race in which Godlewski is one of several candidates. SeeDemocrats must make a strategic choice in Wisconsin’s Senate race. There is an unexpected, but happy, synchronicity in Rubin’s post: she reminds that local isn’t merely local. Wisconsin and America are enmired in a national conflict, the outcome of which will exert an influence greater than any local grant (however welcome).
Rubin is a former Republican, and since the emergence of Trump has committed herself (by intellect, industry, and insight) as a part of a grand coalition in support of the constitutional order (and so necessarily against Trumpism). Others of us, including this libertarian blogger, are also part of that coalition. While Democrats are most of this alliance, there are others of us who are not, and have never been, Democrats.
The outcome of this political conflict between Democrats and Republicans is not a matter of indifference to those of us who are neither.
And so, and so, Rubin and others of us wonder about the best choices that our shared alliance will make.
Rubin considers Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race:
The good news for Democrats is that their front-runner in Wisconsin’s Senate primary seems to be course-correcting. The bad news is that it might be too little, too late.
“Lieutenant Gov. Mandela Barnes has tried to stake out his place as a liberal candidate seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. “But Barnes is now distancing himself from two unpopular, far-left political movements — defunding police and abolishing ICE — despite support from groups backing these efforts and past social media activity referencing these causes.”
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One can imagine that Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent whom Barnes would face should he win his party’s nomination, would like nothing more than to make this a race against “socialism.” Johnson has a boatload of controversies and gaffes, including his latest flub when he admitted that the plastics business he owned, as well as some of his prominent donors, benefited from the small-business tax provision that he pushed for in the 2017 tax cuts.
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It is not as if Democrats lack sensible candidates. Sarah Godlewski, the state treasurer, has run a savvy campaign appealing to all segments of the party, including rural counties (which she won in her treasurer’s race). She has mastered the art of advancing center-left ideas that work in Wisconsin with none of the firebrand rhetoric better suited for Vermont or Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Tom Nelson, the county executive for rural Outagamie County and former state assemblyman, has been called a “scrappy” underdog. His pro-union bona fides and working-class constituents give him the feel of a rural populist. Those two candidates, however, have a combined total of 17 percent, roughly 20 points behind Barnes in recent internal polling, although a large percentage of voters remain undecided.
It’s likely that Barnes will receive the Democratic nomination on August 9th. If so, Barnes will deserve and receive support from those of us who rightly see the unsuitability — indeed detestability — of Johnson.
And yet, and yet, some of us who are not Democrats, but no less committed to an alliance in defense of liberal democracy, worry about whether some candidates will prove capable of withstanding the well-funded, divisive onslaught Johnson is sure to undertake.
Would Godlewski fare better in the fall than Barnes? Some of us feel that she might. We will, of course, defend any of the possible nominees against Johnson, but an easier defense would be preferable to us than a harder one.
In any event, with so much at stake, how near-sighted it would be to think local is merely local.
Feral cats are having a “field day” at the Oakland Coliseum, according to stadium authority executive director Henry Gardner.
An estimated 30 to 40 cats and kittens have made the 130-acre property in East Oakland home, multiplying in population over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, Gardner told The Oaklandside.
“The good news is the cats have been on rat patrol and they have done an excellent job. We have not seen a rodent in almost two years,” Gardner said in a phone interview. “You have to give them an ‘A’ for dealing with the rodents but we don’t need as many in the army right now. We are overstaffed.”
The kittens, who are bold and “don’t know any better,” according to Gardner, have been spotted inside the Oakland Arena and baseball stadium on the outfield turf. Once a bustling complex with three professional sports teams, the Oakland A’s remain the only anchor tenant after the Warriors moved to San Francisco and the Raiders to Las Vegas.
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Ann Dunn, director of Oakland Animal Services, estimates the cat population to be 40 to 50 and said “if you see that many, there are probably more.” Another feline colony across a canal from the Coliseum on Hegenberger Drive has easily another 100 cats, Dunn said.
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“It’s a situation that is absolutely out of control,” Dunn said of the increasing cat population in Oakland. “The thing that is so heartwarming is everyone [at the Coliseum and Hegenberger] has the shared goal of doing what’s best for the cats. No one has asked us to remove the cats in a way that would harm them.”
Thursday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:13 AM and sunset 7:36 PM for 13h 23m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 93.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Board of Zoning Appeals meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1912, the British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 23:40 (and sinks the morning of April 15th).
Populism doesn’t emerge merely anywhere, as though at randon. Many afflictions may weaken a community (from natural disatsters to bad policy), but thereafter weak communities are vulnerable to worse maladies.
It’s in those already-afflicted communities that populism finds hospitable soil, and then salts that soil so that nothing else will grow.
Mistakes about budgets and buildings are for populism an invitation to impose restrictions on speech and expression.
The fewer the mistakes, the fewer the opportunities for something worse.
Expectations of competency and critiques of incompetency are safeguards against threats worse than mere error.
What has hapened and what will happen to the people of Urkraine matters incomparably. And yet, it says much about Ukrainaians that even during war, they’ve shown a concern for animals. Puppy Rescued From Rubble in Ukraine:
Wednesday in Whitewater will see scattered thundershowers with a high of 69. Sunrise is 6:14 AM and sunset 7:35 PM for 13h 20m 46s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1970, an oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 Service Module explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the Apollo command and service module (codenamed “Odyssey“) while en route to the Moon.
The conservative populists, filled with energy (and often exercising that energy within their own echo chamber), speak and act in communities that aren’t always receptive to their messaging. In some cases, they underestimate the strength of motivated opponents. See Mequon-Thiensville School District Rejects Recall and How Mequon-Thiensville Residents Saved Their Schools. (This spring, residents of that district again rejected two candidates who were in favor of last fall’s failed Mequon-Thiensville recall.)
Populism represents a challenge both for what it will do if in power (they’ll spend as much as anyone, while imposing their cultural demands on everyone) and for its opportunistic nature (they’ll make any argument, or seize on anyone else’s argument, in pursuit of office).
They argue in bad faith.
For those who present a critique in good faith, a populist faction represents a pre-election impediment: they’ll take good-faith arguments and use them for in bad faith for their own ends. They’ll talk about fiscal prudence until they assume office and spend. They’ll talk about open government until they assume office and insist that there are facts they simply cannot reveal (‘there are things you don’t know’). They’ll talk about respect while treating others shamefully. They’ll insist on their liberty as a faction while denying individual liberty to others.
The populists make others’ good-faith claims about spending, open government, academic success, and managerial competency harder to make, lest they leverage those sincere claims for their own, immediate advancement.
Anyone who cared about his or her community would see that populism represents two risks, not one: bad ideas, and co-opting good ideas for bad ends.
Whitewater is better off for populist failures this spring, as the opportunity for a fair critique is therefore unencumbered by others’ destructive ambitions. A serious critique should be made, in any event. It’s simply easier to make in a climate free of populist insincerity.
Tuesday in Whitewater will see scattered rain and thundershowers with a high of 61. Sunrise is 6:16 AM and sunset 7:34 PM for 13h 17m 58s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 79.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4:30 PM, and the city’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.
Last night, Whitewater’s school board met in special session. The board held a closed session at 6 PM, and an open session beginning at 7:30 PM. A video of the open session is embedded, below.
The open session agenda did not include an item for public comment, but a brief opportunity for public comment was added impromptu. See Video @ 29:45. (At this meeting, the public comment was about commencement speakers, but the comment might have been on any number of subjects and been as worthy.)
Monday’s meeting was a special meeting, and the board president exercised authority under 187 (2) to permit public comment. That was the right decision, in light of Whitewater Unified School District Policy 810 on school-community relations:
The School Board believes that the public schools belong in every sense to the people, reflect the community they serve, and can never be any stronger than the public is willing and able to make them.
Meeting the needs of the community and gaining the support to meet those needs depends upon two-way communication between the Board and the public. The Board, therefore, will make every attempt to make known its plans and actions and encourages the community to make known its desires.
For open government and transparency in a situation like this, policy and law should be a floor, and not a ceiling, on public participation.
Policy 187’s distinction between public participation at regular meetings and special meetings, is, however, a mistake. Any open session of the Whitewater Unified School District should have the same robust provisions for public comment.
There is no open meeting so special, nor any elected or appointed official so special, that he or she should not patiently listen to public comment.
A simple principle: there should be ample opportunity for public comment at every open public meeting, every single time.
It was the right decision to afford public comment at the 4.11.22 meeting. It would be an even better decision to abolish Policy 187’s unjustified distinction between public comment at types of open meetings.
