This Tuesday, June 12th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Wonder @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. Stephen Chbosky directs the one-hour, fifty-three minute film based on a New York Times bestseller, telling the inspiring and heartwarming story of August Pullman, a boy with facial differences who enters…
City
City, Local Government, Religion
Humility in Discerning God’s Will
by JOHN ADAMS •
One hopes – sometimes in fulfillment, sometimes in vain – that the simple circumstances of a small town might encourage humility in discernment. In the course of listening to politics, one may encounter a local politics that is grandiose where it should be plain. Indeed, local claims of this kind may arrogate to people and…
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, May 29th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, I, Tonya
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Tuesday, May 29th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of I, Tonya @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. Craig Gillespie directs the two-hour biographical comedy-drama about competitive skater Tonya Harding as she rises in the ranks at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, but her future is thrown into doubt…
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, May 22nd, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, The Post
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Tuesday, May 22nd at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of The Post @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. Steven Spielberg directs the one-hour, fifty-six minute historical drama about a “cover-up that spanned four U.S. Presidents pushed the country’s first female newspaper publisher and a hard-driving editor to join an…
Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Disinformation, Government Spending, Local Government
Buying Whitewater a Present
by JOHN ADAMS •
A man wants to impress his girlfriend, someone he professes to love, so he asks her what she’d like for a present – anything at all she might want. She tells him that she’s been thinking about getting a car. “That’s wonderful,” he exclaims. “I’ll get you something special!” Before she can even suggest a…
CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Gov. Walker, Marketing, Politics, Poverty, State Capitalism, State Government, Taxes/Taxation, That Which Paved the Way, Trump
About that Trump Tax Plan
by JOHN ADAMS •
In Whitewater, by press release (twice), one can read about the supposed benefits of the Trump tax plan. The Whitewater Community Development Authority’s executive director, Dave Carlson, was quick to push a portion of the plan as good for Whitewater. In doing so, he conceded what anyone observing Whitewater with care and concern already knew:…
Babbittry, CDA, City, Development, Economy, Local Government, Marketing, Mendacity, Negligence, Poverty, Public Relations, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Whitewater Listed as the Poorest City in Wisconsin
by JOHN ADAMS •
Samuel Stebbins and Michael B. Sauter, from 24/7 Wall Street, report Which town in your state is the poorest? Here is the list @ Gannett’s USA Today. For Wisconsin, they contend it’s Whitewater: Town median household income: $30,934 State median household income: $54,610 Town poverty rate: 38.2% Town population: 14,840 Whitewater has both the lowest median household income and the…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, Marketing, Planning, Poverty, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
A Candid Admission from the Whitewater CDA
by JOHN ADAMS •
Sometimes, however rarely, even in places with the most stubborn boosterism, an official admits – wittingly or unwittingly – the failure of longstanding policy. Dave Carlson, executive director of the Whitewater Community Development Authority, is such an official. In a press release from March 27th, lauding a provision of the Trump tax bill, Carlson quotes…
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, May 8th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Lady Bird
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Tuesday, May 8th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Lady Bird @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. Greta Gerwig directs (and wrote) the one-hour, thirty-four minute comedy-drama about an artistically inclined seventeen-year-old girl coming of age in 2002 in Sacramento, California. The cast features Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and Tracy…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, City, Local Government, Marketing
Romancing Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
Embed from Getty Images A man walks into a party, and sees a woman universally acknowledged as intelligent, knowledgeable, and beautiful. He’s instantly smitten, and decides that he must – simply must! – declare his admiration that very evening. The man approaches, introduces himself, and tells her that he’s wholly captivated. He proclaims a commitment…
Bad Ideas, City, Crime, Local Government, Misconduct, Police
On Public Urination in Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
Well, here we are: after all these years of hearing that the town fathers were descended from Olympus, to a city of their unsurpassable design, one hears the Whitewater Common Council discussing the sometime problem of public urination. Needless to say, I don’t support this foul habit, and have not met anyone who does. Confronted…
CDA, City, Development, Economics, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way
Another Pig at the Trough
by JOHN ADAMS •
Jason Stein and Rick Romell report Foxconn: Glass maker could want hundreds of millions of dollars to locate alongside massive Wisconsin factory: To locate in Wisconsin, a key glass supplier to Foxconn wants financial help from the Taiwanese electronics giant or state taxpayers that could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. … Corning…
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, April 24th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, The Greatest Showman
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Tuesday, April 24th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of The Greatest Showman @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. Michael Gracey directs the one-hour, forty-five minute film that “celebrates the birth of show business, and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became…
City, Congress, Politics
A Better Alternative for Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
Local readers may have heard, as I have, that Whitewater’s Community Development Authority chairman recently thanked Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner for federal legislation. Sensenbrenner, for those unfamiliar, is a career office-holding septuagenarian multi-millionaire situated far from the city, serving in a gerrymandered district. (Sensenbrenner, whose only time is behind-the-times, once responded to concerns about online…