Professor Lee of UW-Milwaukee will speak on Wednesday, April 13 at 7 p.m. in Summers Auditorium.
Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS
Music
Music Monday: Crimson Skies, Arixo Sunset
by JOHN ADAMS •
Someone asked me my choice for the best video game music. That’s a difficult selection to make, as many video games are well-produced, with good soundtracks. If I had to pick one, I’d choose the soundtrack from Crimson Skies as particularly memorable, almost haunting.
Enjoy.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 3.28.11
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Whitewater’s forecast calls for a sunny day, with a high temperature of thirty-eight degrees.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets today at 4:30 p.m. The agenda for the meeting is available online.
Campus and schools are back in session today. Study responsibly. It’s only a matter of time before one government commission or another develops a program along these lines: Appropriate Calculus or Respectful Social Studies.
The Wisconsin Historical Society notes that on this day in 1954,
McCarthy Recall Campaign Begins in Sauk City
On this date, “Joe Must Go,” a bipartisan grassroots campaign to recall Sen. Joe McCarthy from the Senate, began in earnest with an organizational meeting in Sauk City. The campaign had to collect 403,000 signatures in 60 days to force a recall election. With little money, a hastily thrown together organizational structure, and unenthusiastic or non-existent support from existing organizations (including farmers and organized labor), the group was still able to secure 335,000 signatures. Later in 1954 Sen. McCarthy was publicly censured by his Senate colleagues. [Source: The History of Wisconsin, v.6: Continuity and change, 1940-1965 (Madison, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1973-1998).]
I’ll post this week on a modern-day version of McCarthyism in Wisconsin.
If you’ve ver thought of building a large, fire-breathing robot, you’re not alone. Here’s a bit of inspiration:
Public Meetings
Joint Review Board
by JOHN ADAMS •
Public Meetings
Common Council
by JOHN ADAMS •
Public Meetings
Community Development Authority
by JOHN ADAMS •
Recent Tweets, 3.20 – 3.26
by JOHN ADAMS •
Republican fundraiser draws 200 guests … and 600 protesters http://bit.ly/gTTEcz
26 Mar
MT@radleybalko: Number of IN prosecutors fired 4 moronic reactions 2 the WI protests: 2. Also, who still uses Hotmail?
26 Mar
MT @MSpicuzzaWSJ: Assmbly Min. Ldr Peter Barca files state open records request w/ GOP leaders abt publication of the controversial law
25 Mar
MT @MSpicuzzaWSJ: Sen Erpenbach: Sen Fitzgerald used position & ordered non-partisan LRB 2 get involved in vry partisan issue pblshng bill
25 Mar
Collective bargaining bill published despite restraining order – JSOnline http://bit.ly/eOb3VM
25 Mar
Indiana prosecutor resigns over Walker email – Initially denied encouraging Wisconsin violence WisconsinWatch.org http://bit.ly/g3Fe84
24 Mar
What Democracy Looks Like | FREE WHITEWATER http://bit.ly/fdaj08
24 Mar
‘Thugs,’ ‘Pickets,’ and Other Absurd Claims | FREE WHITEWATER http://bit.ly/dOUNQp
24 Mar
River Falls screwball arrested, fined for stealing recall petitions http://bit.ly/ez5wLI
23 Mar
RT @WiStateJournal: Editorial: Judge Sumi is right: ‘It’s not a minor detail’ http://dlvr.it/L5l2H
23 Mar
RT @ACLU: Know Your Rights? Find out — Check out our guide to your rights when stopped by police, ICE or the FBI. http://bit.ly/bEeaCX
23 Mar
620 WTMJ’s use of ‘Capitol Chaos’ 4 stories abt debate ovr budgets transparent effort 2 cast dissent as disorderly http://bit.ly/eJirQM
23 Mar
Well, yes — Controversy surrounds Walker dinner visit to Janesville — GazetteXtra http://bit.ly/hcTg1s
22 Mar
Walker Administration plans $35 million pork spending for UW-Whitewater projects Bet GOP celebrates $ as ‘investment’ http://bit.ly/ecNzK5
22 Mar
Have We Looked Into Declaring a ‘No-Fly Zone’ Over Wisconsin? « Above the Law: A Legal Tabloid http://bit.ly/f8tcJT
21 Mar
Golden Eagles upset Syracuse!
20 Mar
Cartoons & Comics
Sunday Morning Comic: Pearls Before Swine
by JOHN ADAMS •
Development, Economy, Free Markets, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Planning, Taxes/Taxation
Stossel: End Corporate Welfare
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at Reason, John Stossel writes about the problem – a big, expensive one – of corporate welfare.
Particular businesses shouldn’t receive preferential treatment, including taxpayer handouts, from government. Taxes and fees should be lower across the board, and without preference for one corporation over another.
Corporate handouts only reduce competitiveness and increase dependency, and are illegitimate expenditures. There are a thousand better uses of public funds; corporate welfare is as wrong, wasteful, and destructive of American productivity as about anything government does.
Every dollar for corporate welfare increases the tax and debt burden on ordinary people, and distorts otherwise efficient markets in capital and labor.
Local versions of this kind of mistaken and wrongful spending can be found in so-called government development associations or rat holes of waste like our local tech park board.
(The work of the tech park board is so shameless that they don’t even have enough private businesses on whom to shower federal pork, so they’ve signed up public recipients of public money meant for private job creation.)
See, End Corporate Welfare.
Crime, Official Misconduct, Press
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism: Indiana prosecutor resigns over Walker email
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s hard to overestimate the outrageousness of this prosecutor’s actions:
An Indiana deputy prosecutor and Republican activist resigned Thursday after the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism uncovered an email in which he suggested faking an attack on Gov. Scott Walker to discredit union protesters.
Carlos F. Lam submitted his resignation shortly before the Center published a story quoting his Feb. 19 email, which praised Walker for standing up to unions but went on to say that the chaos in Wisconsin presented “a good opportunity for what’s called a ‘false flag’ operation.”
“If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions,” the email said.
“Currently, the media is painting the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest. Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions. God bless, Carlos F. Lam.”
At 5 a.m. Thursday, expecting the story to come out that day, Lam called Cooper and told him he had been up all night thinking about it.
“He wanted to come clean, I guess, and said he is the one who sent that email,” Cooper said.
He came into the office and gave his resignation verbally, Cooper told the Daily Journal in Franklin, Ind. The resignation was announced after the Center’s initial story was published.
Predictably, but wrongly, this officer of the court lied about his conduct when first confronted:
Email headers with detailed IP addresses suggested that the message was sent from Indianapolis.
Lam, an Indianapolis resident, at first told the Center he never wrote it.
Reached Tuesday by phone at the number listed on the email, Lam confirmed his email address matched the Hotmail address appearing on the Walker email, but said he had never written to Walker.
“I am flabbergasted and would never advocate for something like this, and would like everyone to be sure that that’s just not me,” he said, after being read the email.
Via Indiana prosecutor resigns over Walker email | WisconsinWatch.org.
Comment Forum
Friday Comment Forum: Whitewater’s First 70-Degree Day this Year
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s the Friday open comments post.
When will Whitewater see its first seventy-degree (or higher) day?
I’ll say April 27th
The use of pseudonyms and anonymous postings is, of course, fine. Although the comments template has a space for a name, email address, and website, those who want to leave a field blank can do so. Comments will be moderated, against profanity or trolls.
Otherwise, have at it.
I’ll keep the post open through Sunday afternoon.
Cats
Friday Catblogging: Glenda Moore’s CatStuff
by JOHN ADAMS •
Glenda Moore has a large repository of great information about cats over at CatStuff: Information Library about Domestic Cats.
Enjoy.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 3.25.11
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Whitewater’s forecast for today calls for a mostly cloudy day, with a high temperature of thirty-three degrees.
It’s the last day of spring break, for our school district and campus.
Some of the UW-Whitewater faculty are walking to Madison with message for Gov. Walker. They’re walking the forty-three mile distance over these last few days. That’s news, and it’s campus news, but you’ll only find it in at a legitimate newspaper.
Over at Wired, there’s a video of the coldest and farthest brown dwarf, really a failed star, ever discovered.
Beautiful Whitewater, City, Freedom of Speech, Liberty
What Democracy Looks Like
by JOHN ADAMS •
Last Friday, there was a protest rally in Whitewater, along Main Street, and over one-hundred fifty people attended. See, Scenes from a Whitewater Rally, 3.18.11.
That’s a large number for Whitewater — especially on a Friday evening as work was ending — and larger in ways worthy of mention.
First, the pro-union gathering was one of two in Whitewater recently, with an earlier one having about ninety attendees. It’s significant that this outdoor rally drew more than the first, indoor meeting — these residents are part of a growing movement.
Second, the March 18th meeting came after Gov. Walker signed his budget repair bill. The signing ceremony didn’t slow protests down; they were larger in Madison and Whitewater after the signing ceremony.
Third, there’s no bureaucratic event that Whitewater’s town squires have backed that’s of this size. When they organize something like a meet-and-greet for someone, the attendance tops out at about fifty. That’s their limit — about 50.
By contrast, a true community event, like a civic or religious holiday, will draw hundreds. Not just a few of the same self-important people, struggling to reach a total of fifty, but hundreds or more. Independence Day, Christmas, Easter, graduation, a science fair, football games — they draw large numbers.
The March 18th rally did, too — far larger than a staged event with only a few silly, so-called dignitaries.
No one told these attendees to gather — they read the news, followed legislation in Madison, talked with others, and decided to turn out. That’s an effort of the people, more than capable of deciding and acting for themselves.
There were a few employers in town who tried to scare their own workers into staying home from the March 18th rally. These employers are predictably small, insecure, and provincial. They think the world begins and ends with Whitewater’s town line.
It doesn’t.
The way of employers like this has no future. The closed, self-promoting, rationalizing habits of these bloated abercrombies will claim fewer victims in the next generation.
It must be disconcerting to them to witness local events they cannot control, or even understand.
There is, however, a good description for events like the March 18th rally:
It’s what democracy looks like.