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America, Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, City, Corporate Welfare, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Mendacity, Newspapers, State Capitalism

What the New Dealers Got Right – What Whitewater’s Local Notables Got Wrong

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There’s sound reason to doubt that the New Dealers’ economic solutions to the Great Depression were effective, but there’s no doubt that Roosevelt’s Brain Trust was hard-working, smart, and candid in its description of America’s economic problems. For a critical assessment of the New Deal, written accessibly, see The Forgotten Man: A New History of…

City, Holiday

Boo! Scariest Things in Whitewater, 2019

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Here’s the thirteenth annual FREE WHITEWATER list of the scariest things in Whitewater. (The 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 editions are available for comparison.) The list runs in reverse order, from mildly scary to truly frightening. 10. Meeting Videos. There must be something intimidating about meeting videos, because it takes…

City, Education, School District

Whitewater Schools’ Presentation of Goals

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This morning, I posted about the 10.28.19 Whitewater Unified School District board meeting. See School Board, 10.28.19: 3 Points. That post, I mentioned that I would request copies of the goals presentations from Monday night that were not included in the agenda packet.  Today, before submitting my request, I received a note from the district…

City, Education, School District

School Board, 10.28.19: 3 Points

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The Whitewater Unified School District Board met Monday night. I’ll update this post with the meeting video as soon as the school district posts the video online (as its own policy requires). For now, three points stand out from the agenda items for the meeting. 1. Academic Presentations. There were three presentations on academic plans…

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, October 29th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Get Out

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This Tuesday, October 29th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Get Out @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building: Tuesday, October 29th, 12:30 PM Horror/Mystery/Thriller Rated R (Violence, language); 1 hour, 44 min. This is an unnerving, psychological film in a “Twilight Zone”-style vein. A young African-American (Daniel Kaluuya) visits…

Boosterism, Business, CDA, City, Congress, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation

Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner Thinks (or Hopes) You’re Ignorant or Stupid

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Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner, the gerrymandered, septuagenarian multimillionaire whose district (the Fifth) stretches all the way down to Whitewater, must think (or hope) people are ignorant.  One can conclude as much because Sensenbrenner contends the reason he’s not attending impeachment hearings is because those hearings are not open to the public. Honest to goodness, Sensenbrenner must…

City, Education, Language, Newspapers, School District, University, Writing

The Janesville Gazette‘s Sketchy Reporting on Major Topics

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The nearby Janesville Gazette, a newspaper that insists ‘local matters,’ too often reports on Whitewater’s local matters in a careless way, ignoring key information.  Whether that paper’s omissions are through negligence or by design, reporting like this ill-serves Whitewater. (In fairness, the Gazette long ago ran itself into the ground, and sold out this summer…

City, Local Government, School District

9.19.19: State of City & State of District Presentations

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League of Women Voters: States of the City & the Schools 09/19/19 from Whitewater Community TV on Vimeo. Whitewater’s city manager, Cameron Clapper, and the Whitewater Unified School District administrator, Dr. Mark Elworthy, presented on the states of the city and school district, respectively.  Embedded above is a full video of their presentations. The municipal…

City, Crime, Cruelty, Education, Ethnicity, Immigration, Local Government, Mendacity, Migrants, Police, Race, University, UW System

‘Do Deportations Lower Crime? Not According to the Data’

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Anna Flagg writes Do Deportations Lower Crime? Not According to the Data: In one of Donald J. Trump’s earliest moves as president, days after his inauguration, he revived the deportation program known as Secure Communities. Proponents argue that it helps prevent crime and also increases the police’s ability to solve crime through collaboration with federal…