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…
Culture
Culture, Education, University
UW-Whitewater’s Org Chart, 2017 Verison
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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,…
City, Culture, Local Government, School District, University
Old Whitewater and Populism
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
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…
Blogging, City, Culture, Local Government, Politics
Policies & Actions
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
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…
Business, City, Culture, Economy
The Market
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s an editorial at Royal Purple that contends a future Grocery store should accommodate students. The editorial makes sound points for pricing outreach to students, but my focus here isn’t merely a supermarket or co-op, but the general economic market of Whitewater and nearby, smaller towns (some of which are part of the local school…
Culture, Local Government
Attack of the Dirty Dogs
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Edgerton, Wisconsin once hosted a Harry Potter Festival; the event organizers then decamped to Jefferson, Wisconsin where the festival was held this past weekend. A lengthy story in the Daily Union describes the history of the festival (“From Edgerton to Jefferson, fantasy event apparates to new home“). In that…
City, Culture, Local Government, Politics
The Same Ten People Problem (Revisited)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In a presentation from September on the state of the city (really meaning the state of Whitewater’s municipal government), City Manager Cameron Clapper tackled again the ‘Same Ten People Problem’ (STPP), where only a few people participate in municipal meetings, etc. One can find the full video presentation below; Clapper’s remarks on the STPP appear…
City, Culture, Education, School District
A Brighter Outlook for Whitewater High
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Whitewater High School has the advantage of a new principal and assistant principal. I’ve written before that I’ve no particular advice for Messrs. Lovenberg and O’Shaughnessy. See For Your Consideration, Dr. Jonas Salk. (Indeed, in that post I offered only a question, but – to be sure – one that implied how very much their efforts…
America, Culture, Education, Politics, School District
The Erosion of Political Norms (Part 3 in a Series)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
City, Culture
The Shallowness of Local Policymaking (and Some Policymakers)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America, Art, City, Culture, League of Women Voters, Liberty, Local Government
‘Fortunate’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Norman Rockwell wasn’t the finest painter of the twentieth century (to express the matter gently), but at least when he created a painting capturing the spirit of free speech as one of Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, he understood speech as a right, not a privilege, lucky break, or favor from government. So it is with government,…
Books, City, Culture, Film
Advocacy Seldom Reaches Chocoholics
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
A necessary element of writing or speaking – if it is to be enjoyable and sustained – is to believe what one writes or says, and to express those beliefs as one naturally would. (Even more important, of course, is to hold sound ideas, but here I’m writing about the underlying feeling of expression.) Writing…
Alt-Right, America, Babbittry, Bigotry, City, Culture, Liberty, Local Government, Politics
The Existential (Imagined and Real)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It was Michael Anton (writing as Publius Decius Mus) who exactly one year ago famously declared that 2016 was “The Flight 93 Election,” an existential fight for survival for state-loving conservatives: 2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it…
America, City, Culture, History, School District
For Your Consideration, Dr. Jonas Salk
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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…