FREE WHITEWATER

City

For Your Consideration, Dr. Jonas Salk

Each year, newcomers arrive in Whitewater to take positions of one kind or another. Two weeks ago, in Welcome to Whitewater, I posed this question to new residents: “If Whitewater were perfect – that is, complete and lacking nothing – would anyone have needed you?” Beyond that question, with its interpretation and answer left to…

Film: Tuesday, August 29th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park: The Founder

This Tuesday, August 29th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of The Founder @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. The Founder (2016), is the story of Ray Kroc, “a salesman who turned two brothers’ innovative fast food eatery, McDonald’s, into the biggest restaurant business in the world with a combination of…

Mentoring

I’ve long held that Whitewater’s Major Public Institutions Produce a Net Loss (And Why It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way). This contention is true for several reasons, all leading to this result: “Whitewater’s major public institutions – her city government, school district, and local university – produce this unexpected result: although members of the government are…

Three Tiers of Public Communication

Local government – and here I am thinking primarily of a small town’s local government – has three tiers of communication: saying nothing, saying something, saying the right thing. (In the third tier, right refers to a full and fair means of communication, and not right as merely agreeable and pleasing.) Saying nothing. Common enough…

How a Campus Masks Local Mistakes

Many small towns, looking for something to attract visitors and newcomers, probably dream about the possibility of a college campus. Whitewater has a public university campus, and the majority of the city’s residents are students at that school. Thousands of students in the city assure a steady stream of retail traffic we would not otherwise…

‘Enough is enough’

The Los Angeles Times editorial board plainly states the truth about these times: These are not normal times. The man in the White House is reckless and unmanageable, a danger to the Constitution, a threat to our democratic institutions. Last week some of his worst qualities were on display: his moral vacuity and his disregard…

Welcome to Whitewater

Whitewater, a small town, sees occasional turnover from among her public officials, as would any town. Over these years, I’ve seen any number of officials arrive (meaning that any number of others have departed). This is a beautiful town; I’d welcome all the world here. No doubt, when someone arrives, he or she receives all…

Molly Ball on ‘The Trump Show’

Covering Trump’s recent appearance in West Virginia, Molly Ball writes that “HUNTINGTON, W.V.—Every day brings new drama, but the Trump Show’s themes remain the same. He’s come to tell his people that everyone else is wrong and they are right…. They have come here, more or less, to be lied to: Trump, in his speech,…

When Lions Meow

No one is obligated to think about politics, let alone write about politics. (Indeed, in a more libertarian world, for example, the state would be smaller, and there would be fewer political matters of which to speak and write.) In Whitewater and cities nearby, however, there are more than a few who have public, political…