Minor children shouldn’t be using any sort of drugs or medications without parental approval and medical guidance, legal or otherwise. And yet, in rural communities across America – and other places, too – use of drugs without sound medical guidance is a scourge for adults, and sometimes minors. The Whitewater Schools’ district administrator, Dr. […]
I’ve been critical of the so-called ‘Harry Potter Festival’ that last year migrated from Edgerton to Jefferson, Wisconsin. It’s left so many people disappointed, taxpayer-salaried city officials have only doubled-down on their support for the shabby event, and (predictably) the Daily Union‘s initial stories about problems quickly gave way to laughable boosterism. See Attack of the […]
Philip Bump contends The only information Trump supports is information that makes him look good: Trump highlighting [conservative-leaning pollster] Rasmussen isn’t quite like putting your best friend as a reference on a job application, but it’s not as though he’s going out of his way to list former employers. He also goes a step further, […]
At public meetings, people who are hard of hearing or weak of eyesight should receive preference to sit close to the meeting’s speakers. People who have difficulty walking should receive a preference to sit near an exit. Otherwise, in a well-ordered environment, leaders will sit in the back, allowing non-leader residents to sit closer to […]
Wisconsin’s spring primary in Whitewater saw three candidates vie for two spots on the April ballot for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Statewide in preliminary numbers, conservative Michael Screnock had a plurality, followed by liberals Rebecca Dallet and Tim Burns. (It’s Screnock v. Dallet in April.) Look, however, at how different the statewide, Jefferson County & Walworth […]
For many years, Republicans have railed against Madison, and against Dane County, as bastions of dysfunctional liberalism. Indeed, this impulse has been strong even after the GOP gained control of both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office. Funny, though, that it’s Dane County – not the WOW counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, or Washington – that’s […]
I’m currently reading Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury on the Trump campaign & administration. (FW has a currently reading widget on the right sidebar of this website.) Afterward, I’ve something in queue, from Jennifer Kavanagh and Michael D. Rich – their just-published Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis […]
God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create—and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations. Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life’s […]
There’s something funny, and something sad, about the City of Jefferson’s decision to host for five more years a Harry Potter festival with the same mediocre promotional leadership the festival’s had while in Edgerton and (more recently) in Jefferson. See Attack of the Dirty Dogs (“If vast numbers are disappointed, it matters not at all […]
Over at The Atlantic, there’s an interview with Rabbi Sharon Brous, the senior rabbi at IKAR, a non-denominational synagogue in California. See ‘I’ve Spent My Life Studying These Books That Say Decency Actually Matters.’ Rabbi Brous describes religious belief among progressives in contemporary America, and two of her observations are particularly suited even to Whitewater […]
A doctor walks into a town of one-hundred people, and finds that half of them are pale, feverish, and vomiting blood. The physician calls out to a community leader, “Send for help, you have an epidemic on your hands.” The community leader replies, “Oh no, don’t worry about them – the rest of us feel […]
UW-Whitewater has a 2017 organization chart, one I’ve embedded at the end of this post. 1. Big for Small. It’s not a big institution, but it is a big institution for a small town like Whitewater. There’s no institutional or organizational hierarchy in Whitewater half so large. 2. The key issues aren’t structural. Without question, […]
Most of the figures who represented an Old Whitewater outlook have faded from the scene. Their high water mark was several years ago; they’re receding now. Their like won’t be seen again. Their decline, however, comes in the immediate conditions of an impatient populism. That populism doesn’t represent a New Whitewater, but replaces Old Whitewater’s […]
Yesterday’s post, The Winnowing Transition, offers thoughts on the last several years in Whitewater, and a look ahead to the next several. The key point is that we’re in a transitional time, where many who were politically prominent a decade ago no longer are, and few who are prominent now will come through the next […]