Bret Stephens offers Neal Armstrong as a worthy example in Apollo 11’s Forgotten Virtues (“Armstrong stayed humble, and human, in the era of relentless puffery and self-promotion”): There’s a short scene near the end of “Apollo 11,” the thrilling new documentary about history’s greatest spaceflight, in which Mike Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong make…
Babbittry
Babbittry, Blogging, City, Freedom of Speech, Law, Liberty, Newspapers, Open Government, Press
Sunshine Week 2019
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s Sunshine Week in America: a seven-day focus from the American Society of News Editors and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press on “access to public information and what it means for you and your community.” One doesn’t have to be a reporter (and bloggers, for example, are not reporters) to understand the importance…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Mendacity, Newspapers, That Which Paved the Way
Quality Rests on Quality
by JOHN ADAMS •
Never Trump conservative Tom Nichols, on Twitter, writes sensibly in reply to a question about which news sources one should read. He advises Start with a national newspaper every morning. Any of them. NYT, WaPo, WSJ, LAT, whatever. If you just read one newspaper a day, you’re light years ahead of anyone who’s staring at…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Employment, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC, Wisconsin
Lost Homes and Land, All Over a Foxconn Fantasy
by JOHN ADAMS •
Wisconsin State Senator Jon Erpenbach reminds that people lost homes and land over the Foxconn proposal, and communities spent far over one-hundred millions on an idea that was – to any reasonable, discerning person – doomed to fail. Doomed to fail: dozens of analyses and warnings from across America, of which merely one is Tim Culpan’s Wisconsin…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Employment, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Tony Evers, WEDC, Wisconsin
WISGOP Assembly Speaker Vos Hopes You’re Stupid
by JOHN ADAMS •
With the news that Foxconn plans to drop manufacturing at a plant that was supposed to hire thousands of workers, for which people lost their homes, and that was the centerpiece of Scott Walker’s corporate welfare and crony capitalism, Speaker Robin Vos blames…newly-elected Gov. Tony Evers. Oh, brother: Vos must hope that Wisconsinites are stupid enough to believe…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Employment, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Foxconn Talks of Folding Wisconsin Manufacturing Plans
by JOHN ADAMS •
No one who thought about Foxconn seriously would be surprised to read from a Reuters exclusive that Foxconn [is] reconsidering plans to make LCD panels at Wisconsin plant. The Taiwanese manufacturer has already broken its promises on the kind of panels it would build at the plant, and failed to meet even its low, first-year hiring…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Crony Capitalism, Economics, Economy, Education, Innovation Center/Tech Park, State Capitalism, Trump, WEDC
Ignorant Policymakers Will Produce Ignorant Policies
by JOHN ADAMS •
Rep. Justin Amash, who is as close to a libertarian as any Republican in Congress, offered this observation about Wilbur Ross, Trump’s Secretary of Commerce: It’s amazing that Wilbur Ross was nominated and confirmed to be secretary of anything. He’s shown over many years that he doesn’t understand basic economics, and to describe him as…
Babbittry, Mendacity, Newspapers, That Which Paved the Way
Roundup on Jefferson, Wisconsin’s ‘Warriors & Wizards’ Festival
by JOHN ADAMS •
There are four recent developments in the debacle that has been the October Warriors and Wizards (formerly Harry Potter) Festival in Jefferson, Wisconsin. Despite problems during its two years in Edgerton, Jefferson picked up the festival, and the Daily Jefferson County Union touted the shabby festival even as residents were screaming about the low quality…
Babbittry, Newspapers, Press, That Which Paved the Way
Hedge Funds Have No Table Manners Whatever
by JOHN ADAMS •
Brian Stelter writes Gannett journalists anxious amid report that Digital First Media is circling the company: Cara Lombardo’s unsettling Sunday night scoop for the WSJ: “A hedge-fund-backed media group known for buying up struggling local papers and cutting costs is planning to make an offer for USA Today publisher Gannett, according to people familiar with the…
Babbittry, CDA, City, Economy, Local Government, Poverty
Reported Family Poverty in Whitewater Increased Over the Last Decade
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over the last ten years, while Wisconsin and America recovered from the Great Recession, in Whitewater poverty among families with children actually increased. The Great Recession – deep and painful for many, lasted from December 2007 to June 2009. Afterward, most parts of America saw recovery, sometimes slow, sometimes rapid, but recovery by either definition. That’s why for…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Conflicts of Interest, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Elections, Gov. Walker, Kakistocracy, Law, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, Mendacity, State Capitalism, State Government, Tony Evers, WEDC, Wisconsin
Once a Gerrymanderer…
by JOHN ADAMS •
Wisconsin, with a gerrymandered legislature and a crony capitalist, lame-duck governor, was never going to have an easy transition back to a tradition of democratically representative government and sound economic policy. The men who engineered years of the wrong approach were never going to go gently to the political outer darkness that, deservedly, awaits them.…
Babbittry, Blogging, New Media, Newspapers, Politics
The New Version of Old
by JOHN ADAMS •
One reads that the Daily Union has a new publisher. Stories about that chain publisher show that (so far) it has changed little at its papers. A sale of some kind, to someone, is no surprise. The new publisher has a string of small-town papers, and no sign of a strategy for better reasoning or…
Babbittry, City, Culture, Local Government, Politics, School District, University
The Beauty & Opportunity of Ordinary Time
by JOHN ADAMS •
In the calendar of the Church, Ordinary Time is that part of the year between the seasons of Advent, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. Perhaps it seems less momentous to some, but Ordinary Time is no less important, offering as it does “time for growth and maturation.” Far from being a lesser time, I find it beautiful…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Government Spending, Mendacity, Newspapers
Predictable: From Boosterism to Bad Checks
by JOHN ADAMS •
Anyone wanting to see how bad boosterism – the desire to push a local project regardless of sound arguments and actual experience to the contrary – can get should look to the 2018 ‘Warriors and Wizards’ festival in Jefferson, Wisconsin. Formerly a Harry Potter Festival, it was rebranded after Warner Bros. clamped down on obvious…