There’s a screening today at 12:30 PM of The Great Beauty @ Seniors in the Park, in the community building. The 2014 winner of Best Foreign Film (at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes) will be shown in Italian with English subtitles. The film runs two hours, twenty-two minutes in length and is rated…
City
City, Crime
An Evening Not Worth Having
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s video online from a security camera of two people stepping into the Birge Fountain, climbing on the statue, tugging on it until a piece comes off, and (presumably) stealing that piece. (For prior FW posts against vandalism, see The Crude Illegitimacy of Vandalism and Update: Vandalism, of Property and Opportunity.) Watching the video, it…
City, University
The Town-Gown Divide, Simply Illustrated (in Forty-Four Seconds)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater is a small town, of about fifteen thousand people. From east to west, the main road in town is about three miles long. Our town is lovely, but not a big place. For years, this small town has struggled with town-university conflicts, despite myriad committees, projects, task forces, and commissions. There’s no quicker illustration…
City, Law
Caution on Publishing About Criminal Investigations
by JOHN ADAMS •
In the servile rush to defend every big institution, it might help to consider that publishing about a criminal investigation, while simultaneously writing in the same item about an employee’s administrative suspension, can leave an innocent employee looking like a criminal suspect. Following up with a ‘clarification’ a day afterward is better than no follow-up,…
City, Local Government, Open Government
Confronting Bad News
by JOHN ADAMS •
There are always a number of accidents, crimes, or tragedies in a community. One hopes for as few as possible. The best way for government to address those misfortunes is to act quickly and openly to take whatever actions law and charity require. Along the way, however, it might be useful for big talking officials…
Beautiful Whitewater, City, Good Ideas, Press Release
Thursday, May 15th, 8-10 AM: Make Whitewater Even Nicer
by JOHN ADAMS •
Downtown Whitewater volunteers and supporters: help us give the downtown a little “spit and polish” ahead of UW-Whitewater graduation this weekend! This will be a light cleanup, after the major cleanup April 26. When: Thursday, May 15, from 8 to 10 am. Where: Meet at Discover Whitewater (150 West Main Street). * We’ll be sweeping…
City, Good Ideas, Local Government
Rethinking Fort Atkinson
by JOHN ADAMS •
It has often been said of ancient Israel that her excellence lay in how she differed from her less thoughtful and less civilized neighbors. Not the common and vulgar practices of others, but her own singular beliefs and practices, made her great. Nearby Fort Atkinson has, over recent years, been both an economic rival and…
City, Good Ideas, New Whitewater, Open Government
‘Best Practices, Fair Treatment, Transparency’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Writing about the city requires reading the public documents of local government, even if one chooses not to write about what one’s read. Reading and observing come well before writing. Daily observation inclines an observer not to the immediate, but the distant – one takes a longer view of things. Along the way,…
City, Local Government, New Whitewater, Open Government, Politics
Could the Koch Brothers Dominate Whitewater’s Politics?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Assume for a moment that Charles and David Koch decided to use their vast billions to dominate Whitewater’s local politics. They’d spend whatever they had, under this hypothetical, to put their hand-picked candidates in office, for advertising, public relations, goodwill community events, and lobbying to get their way in elections, appointments, and in pressuring local…
City, Local Government, Politics
Policy in the City
by JOHN ADAMS •
Council had a busy agenda Tuesday night, and there’s much to consider from the meeting. For today, though, here are two points not about specific policies, but about policy generally. First, Council Pres. Singer and Pres. Pro Tem Binnie were re-elected unanimously to those posts. That’s good for the city, as they’re steady in manner,…
City, Culture
What Would It Take for Someone to Believe Nothing’s Changed in Whitewater in a Generation?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Look around, and you’ll see both physical and social change in our small city. What, then, might lead someone to insist that nothing in Whitewater seems to have changed in a generation? Well, perhaps if someone spent a really long time living underground in a bomb shelter. Even then, though, one would expect that…
City
The Art of the Con
by JOHN ADAMS •
I wrote recently about how deception works best when a magician asks someone to look closely in one direction, while he performs his trickery in another direction, outside one’s gaze. (See, The Closer You Look, The Less You See.” See, also, Techniques of Municipal Distraction Numbers 1-9, Numbers 10-18, and Numbers 19-22.) A skillful confidence game isn’t…
City, Corporate Welfare, Culture, Economy, Local Government
Is this the city that you had in mind?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Consider this working definition of crony capitalism: Crony capitalism is a term describing an economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, or other forms of state interventionism. Crony capitalism…