FREE WHITEWATER

Babbittry

Daily Bread for 4.26.25: Consumer Sentiment Falls, and Web Searches for Economic Calamity Rise

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 59. Sunrise is 5:55 and sunset is 7:50, for 13 hours, 54 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1954, the first clinical trials of Jonas Salk‘s polio vaccine begin in Fairfax County, Virginia.


Two charts tell the tale of Americans’ economic concerns:

See Alex Harring, Americans are getting flashbacks to 2008 as tariffs stoke recession fears, CNBC, April 26, 2025.

When sentiment declines, it’s understandable that Americans would look for examples of other difficult times.

For modern Whitewater, the Great Recession’s influence is the key to understanding both economics and politics in the city. It is Whitewater’s signal modern event. Those difficult years from 2007-2009 led to an aftermath that still afflicts the city.

The failure of local officials and community leaders during that time was astonishing: the boosters1 wanted to deflect past others’ suffering, the special-interest men diverted valuable resources to their own schemes while Whitewater stayed poor2, the center-left grew but still struggles to land a decisive blow3, and the rightwing populists4 now in the city owe their present role as a faction to forces they can’t or won’t grasp.

_____

  1. Narrow of mind and small of heart. See the FREE WHITEWATER category on Boosterism. ↩︎
  2. Avaricious schemers failing time and again to match the accomplishments of the generation before them. See the FREE WHITEWATER category on Special Interests. ↩︎
  3. It does no good to talk to a hyena in a soft voice hoping that the vile creature will give up meat for vegetables. See Wisconsin Senate Democrats Hope Hyenas Will Stop Eating Meat. ↩︎
  4. An authoritarian populist movement of recrimination and revenge. See Defining Populism. ↩︎

Hubble views of Mars and more for space telecope’s 35th anniversary:

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is celebratiing 35 years in space. See images of Mars, planetary nebula NGC 2899, Rosette Nebula and galaxy NGC 5335 to celebrate.

Daily Bread for 10.12.23: National Inflation Rate Holds Steady (and Local Implications)

 Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with intermittent showers and a high of 56. Sunrise is 7:05 and sunset 6:16 PM for 11h 11m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 4.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 6 PM.    On this day in 1614,…

Daily Bread for 5.31.23: Four Million Won’t Be Enough (Because Marketing’s Not It)

Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon showers with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:26 PM for 15h 07m 04s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.3% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1955, the U.S. Supreme Court expands on its Brown…

Daily Bread for 9.28.22: Local and National Views of Child Poverty

Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 58. Sunrise is 6:49 AM and sunset 6:40 PM for 11h 50m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 7.6% of its visible disk illuminated.  Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.    On this day in 1781,…

Daily Bread for 9.27.22: Housing Opportunity and Opportunity’s Adversaries

Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:48 AM and sunset 6:42 PM for 11h 53m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.8% of its visible disk illuminated.  Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4:30 PM.   On this day in 1777, Lancaster, Pennsylvania becomes…

Daily Bread for 9.26.22: Up from Business to Markets

Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 60. Sunrise is 6:47 AM and sunset 6:44 PM for 11h 56m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.6% of its visible disk illuminated.  Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM, and the Whitewater Unified School District’s board…

Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: Marketing

This is the ninth in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021. Through all the difficult events of the last two decades (a Great Recession, an opioid epidemic, economic stagnation, creeping nativism, a pandemic, a pandemic recession), Old Whitewater has responded with the same question: how can we market the town to others? If…

The Power of Refutation

Laura Hazard Owen writes When’s the best time to correct fake news? After someone’s already read it, apparently: Debunking > prebunking. If you want someone to not believe that false or misleading headline they just read, when’s the best time to correct it? We hear a lot about inoculating people against fake news or “prebunking”…

Consequences, Accountability, Repentance, Redemption

David Frum, writing of Trump & Trumpism in The Conservative Cult of Victimhood, observes that There is no redemption without repentance. There is no repentance without accountability. There is no accountability without consequences. He rightly concludes that for the Trumpists, the absence of a moral order of accountability and repentance has meant that Even as Trump commits…

Before Man & Movement, That Which Paved the Way

Trump did not spring from the ground; he did not fall from the stars. Neither horticulture nor astrophysics played any role in his rise. Before Trump and Trumpism, there were towns and cities into which he and his movement found receptive audiences. Patients already ill are often susceptible of worse maladies. So it has been…

Boosterism’s Cousin, Toxic Positivity

In political life, boosterism is the overzealous promotion of officials or programs while ignoring actual conditions (particularly conditions of the disadvantaged). It’s wrong and repulsive. (An acknowledgement worth making: I have never criticized boosterism because of a personal concern. My life is comfortable; objections to political boosterism are deep-seated in me as a matter of learning.) Civilizations…

Whitewater’s Local Government: Always Literally, Not as Often Seriously

It was the Trump apologist Salena Zito who, by way of defending Trump, suggested that his words should be taken ‘seriously, not literally.’ (She offered this defense in a deceitful effort to absolve Trump from the plain meaning of what he said, at any moment. Instead of considering his statements, one was supposed to take…

Social Capital and Hardship

What role does social capital play in a community’s health? Adam Gopnik, in The Paradoxical Role of Social Capital in the Coronavirus Pandemic, ponders whether there’s a relationship between communities with high social capital and a community’s public health. Gopnik uses a traditional definition of social capital as the “parts of society that, without being…

Built Against Substantive Change

Over time, no matter how small the city, national conditions and trends make their way to the edge of town. Some towns will address these conditions, but others will be resistant to substantive change. For those towns in the latter category, business as usual and rhetorical feints suffice in response to powerful forces to which…