We’ve parts of the city with bike lanes, and more than a few people who supported their installation (of whom I was one). How odd, then, to see – more than once – another of those bike-lane advocates blithely ignoring a bike lane to ride on the sidewalk instead. Not a bike lane somewhere else,…
City
City, Government Spending, Local Government
Local Government’s Not a Profession of Faith
by JOHN ADAMS •
Local government, in its existence, is not a profession of faith, the way a credal religion is. It’s a limited delegation of popular sovereignty to produce definite, specific results. Words alone are insufficient. (Needless to say, that’s true of religious belief, too: the Church rightly expects that faith leads to care for the poor and…
City, Politics
The Web Has Changed Local Politics, Too
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Wall Street Journal, there’s a story about how e-commerce has changed rural life: MANGUM, Okla.—Vince Bledsoe, a United Parcel Service Inc. delivery man in this remote tiny town, remembers the exact moment he knew that e-commerce had changed the way rural America shops. He was taping up a package a few months…
City
Unfunded Mandates
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s not the last place on earth where government should avoid unfunded mandates, but the last place is probably Rwanda, so that’s not much consolation for policymakers (and is no consolation for residents). This is a full-time municipal administration of publicly-paid employees that shows almost no understanding of market conditions and burdens. Each step like…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Politics, Waste Digesters
Wagon-Circling Versus Persistence
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve posted before about the unraveling of medical-diagnostics startup Theranos, and founder Elizabeth Holmes, now revealed as a multi-billion-dollar fraud. See, previously, Theranos as a Cautionary Tale. The story has useful lessons even for small-town Whitewater. I’ll illustrate one of those lessons today. There’s a thorough update of Theranos’s dodgy claims now online at Vanity Fair.…
City, Environment, Local Government, Negligence, Water
Pavement Project Causes Lake Contamination in Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports WKOW-TV of Madison reports on what everyone in Whitewater can see: that oil from a paving project has spread from that project. See, Pavement project causes lake contamination in Whitewater @ WKOW-TV. Three key points: 1. Unobservant: city officials took two days to discover this. WKOW’s…
City, Culture, University
Dorm-Construction Isn’t the Big Story
by JOHN ADAMS •
Karen Herzog of the Journal Sentinel has a story about delayed dorm construction at UW-Whitewater. At least, that’s how she’s framed the story, how many will understand the story, and how both UW-Whitewater and Herzog would, no doubt, like readers to understand the story. Here’s what’s more significant even than the need for additional sleeping…
City, Culture, Development, Economy
Culture, Economy, Fiscal
by JOHN ADAMS •
The approximate number of working age adults, from 25-64, in the City of Whitewater proper is 4,134. This working age population is nestled among a total, estimated population of 14,801. See, American Community Survey, 2010-2014, 5 year estimates http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/14_5YR/DP05/1600000US5586925. One can draw three broad but reasonable conclusions from these numbers. Culturally, local publications present a…
City, Development, Economy, Hip & Prosperous, Politics
The Middle Time, Part 2
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over two years ago, I described Whitewater as being in a ‘middle time,’ between former conditions and future ones: While Whitewater is in a time of transition, from one way of life to a more diverse and prosperous one, she is only at the ‘end of the beginning’ of that transition. It’s a middle time now, and…
City, Film
Film: Wednesday, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Youth
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Wednesday, August 17th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Youth @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building: In 2015’s Youth, a retired orchestra conductor (Michael Caine) and his daughter are on holiday in the Alps with his best friend, a film director (Harvey Keitel), to celebrate their 80th…
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Trumbo
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Tuesday, August 9th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Trumbo @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. Trumbo is a 2015 motion picture telling the story of Dalton Trumbo, who in 1947 was one of Hollywood’s top screenwriters, until he and other writers and actors came under investigation…
City, Culture, Politics
Ad Hoc Policy is Debilitating
by JOHN ADAMS •
A municipal policy of addressing problems as they crop up, principally on an ad hoc, piecemeal basis, will wear local government down, and only produce worse policies. (Ad hoc policy, that is, literally a for this [purpose] policy.) One should begin each discussion and problem from the vantage of a fundamental philosophy of government, adjusting…
City, Politics
The GOP in Whitewater, Presidential Primary of 4.5.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
I posted yesterday about political yardsigns in the city (the city proper). I’m curious, among other things, how Trump (a non-traditional GOP) candidate will fare here in November. Democrats have a traditional ideological nominee in Hillary Clinton, but Trump is markedly different from other Republicans before him, and from other Republican challengers this year. (Disclosure: I’m a libertarian…
City, Politics
Few Political Signs, So Far, in Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
As I’ve been riding though the city in the evening, I’ve been recently on the lookout for political signs. There have been a scattering of yardsigns for local or state candidates, but almost nothing for national politicians (and what I’ve seen has mostly been for Sanders). November’s not that far off, although perhaps there will…