A common error in small rural communities is the persistent, false claim that local officials are examples of a local exceptionalism that makes them implicitly immune from the flaws and mistakes that beset the rest of humanity. Under this thinking, while there may be problems in the wider world, there are no local examples of…
Boosterism
Boosterism, Newspapers
Saving What’s Left of the Janesville Gazette
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
The nearby Janesville Gazette is ending its Saturday and Sunday print editions. See The Gazette to cease Saturday, Sunday print editions. The Saturday edition should have been canceled years ago; ending a Sunday edition, however, is a sign of a grave illness. For any paper, even one treading water, the Sunday edition should be a mainstay.…
Advertising, Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, Culture, Economics, Economy, History, Poverty
Boosterism, ’30s Style
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Although the Roosevelt Administration was (whatever its other mistakes) candid about the economic conditions it faced, there was in the ’30s, as there has been over the 2010s in Wisconsin, a delusional impulse to happy talk – regardless of economic conditions – among some politicians and some business groups. Margaret Bourke-White‘s Kentucky Flood depicts the…
Babbittry, Boosterism, City, Culture, Local Government, Politics
Local Voting & Voting Locally in Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
The spring election, conducted during a pandemic, is now behind Wisconsin. There’s little question that statewide, it was a good night for Jill Karofsky and Lisa Neubauer. (I supported both candidates.) Whitewater – the city proper – also supported these candidates. A majority of the city’s voters did, in fact, prefer these voters even while…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, Conflicts of Interest, Kakistocracy, Kushner, Nepotism, Public Relations, WEDC, Wisconsin
An Empty-Headed Man’s Next Gig
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Updated with a longer – and so more revealing – video of Kushner’s vapidity. When Jared Kushner is finished impairing America’s response to a pandemic, he’ll need something else to do. Wisconsin still has the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, and in small Wisconsin towns like Whitewater one finds development hucksters, business leagues of landlords &…
Babbittry, Boosterism, Coronavirus, Corporate Welfare, Disinformation, Economy, Mendacity, Newspapers, Opioids, Public Health
A Newspaper’s Boosterism During a Pandemic
by JOHN ADAMS • • 8 Comments
A worthy person – a man or woman committed to reason, honesty, and seriousness of purpose – would have little respect for the Janesville Gazette. This critical view is not a new one, truly: the paper’s work has been inferior during the Great Recession, during an opioid crisis, during cheerleading for countless state and local…
Boosterism, Coronavirus, Mendacity, Public Health
Grim Reality Forces Fox News to Abandon Its Ignorant Boosterism
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Babbittry, Boosterism, CDA, City, Development, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Local Government, Poverty, School District, WEDC, Wisconsin
Local Public Policy as if Charitable Assistance
by JOHN ADAMS • • 4 Comments
Whitewater’s policymakers, and those of other small, rural cities, should – in these times of economic stagnation, a lingering opioid crisis, failed business welfare, and an approaching recession – view their principal obligation as if it were charitable outreach. (It’s not charity, of course, but that’s how policymakers should view it: as both palliative and…
Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Planning, Poverty, WEDC
Declines, Recessions, and Rhetoric
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
While yesterday was a bad day for the financial markets, it’s the underlying – and troubling – fundamental condition of the economy that matters far more. Places like Whitewater, that adopted business special interests’ “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” approach despite increasing poverty and stagnation in household and individual incomes, are especially vulnerable to a downturn. Market Declines. Steven…
Babbittry, Boosterism, Culture, Economy, Education, School District
Whitewater School Board, 1.27.20: Palmyra-Eagle & Competition Between Districts
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
?? On Monday night, Whitewater’s school board met first in closed session, and about an hour later in open session. (A video of the open session is embedded above.) Part way into the meeting, after a summary of the latest developments concerning the nearby Palmyra-Eagle School District, a candidate for that school district’s board spoke…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Culture, Development, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Trump, WEDC
‘But Not in Conditions of Their Own Choosing’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It’s a truism to say that all people make history, but not in conditions of their own choosing: Admittedly and sadly, the local boosterism of the pre-Trump years is now in retrospect worse than one might have initially believed: across America boosters who peddled false descriptions & junk solutions during the economic hardship of the…
Aside
‘Innovation Center’ as Empty Rhetoric: “As a general term, innovation center doesn’t say anything specific to us, so we were from the start trying to understand what they meant by that” — Matt Jewell, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, writing of Foxconn’s chimerical ‘innovation’ centers.
Spot-on.
Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Politics, WEDC
Market-Hating Republicans Have Been a Local Problem for Years
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
George Will, writing in the Washington Post, observes that Josh Hawley sounds like he has far too much faith in government: The sails of [Republican] Sen. Josh Hawley’s political skiff are filled with winds gusting from the right. They come from conservatives who think that an array of — perhaps most of — America’s social injuries,…
Boosterism, Newspapers
Cancel Your Local Newspaper?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Over at Politico, press critic Jack Shafer writes – provocatively – Care About Journalism? Maybe You Should Cancel Your Newspaper: It’s heresy for a journalist to ask readers to consider dropping their newspaper. Beyond the obvious self-interest, reporters and editors consider a subscription to your local newspaper as a paramount civic duty, a view shared by…