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Entitlement

City, Culture, Daily Bread, Entitlement, Reasoning

Daily Bread for 2.27.25: The Sad Legacy of a Status-Based Culture

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 6:33 and sunset is 5:42, for 11 hours, 9 minutes of daytime. The moon is new with 0.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1782, the House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America.

A key aspect of Old Whitewater was that it was a status-based culture. Who’s who mattered a lot. Which family, etc. I’ve satirized that outlook (‘town squires,’ ‘town notables’) only because it was, and is, nuttily narrow. We are a town of fifteen-thousand equal & ordinary people, not fifteen important people. (If everyone in this town had always felt on this point as I do, there would have been less community need for Excedrin and Korbel1.)

And yet, and yet, if I’ve thought it absurd, others have taken that status-based view of the world, that hierarchy, as though a law of nature. They grew up with it, were assured by their parents that it would be unchanging, and that they in their time would be as influential as their parents were in the generation before.

It hasn’t worked out that way.

Our present time, in Whitewater, in Wisconsin, and America has a different outlook. Ours is an unsettled time, where nice hierarchies no longer matter. Over the last decade, that old way has faded in this town2, and the fading has left older men grasping for their placed in a changed city.

There’s another problem the remaining status-based old guard faces: they have not developed skill at reasoned argument (as it was unnecessary if one could simply demand a result based on status). Their idea of an argument is sometimes little more than words wrapped around a question: DYKWIA?

Good argumentation is hard, and takes time, to produce. Indeed, it’s hardest for those who are truly skillful, as they can see how much can (and should) be done.

_____

  1. Potable, and popular here in Wisconsin, but there’s better available. ↩︎
  2. It’s faded across all America, honest to goodness. We’re a freer and more egalitarian society for it. ↩︎

3,000 Golden Retrievers. Go, Dogs, Go:

Carpetbaggers, Daily Bread, Elections, Entitlement, Eric Hovde, US Senate Race 2024, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.13.24: Describing Eric Hovde Accurately

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with evening showers and a high of 54. Sunrise is 6:45, and sunset is 4:33, for 9 hours, 48 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous, with 92.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1833, the Great Meteor Storm of 1833 takes place:

Although it has been suggested the Leonid meteor shower and storms have been noted in ancient times, it was the meteor storm of November 12–13, 1833 that broke into people’s modern-day awareness. One estimate of the peak rate is over one hundred thousand meteors an hour, while another, done as the storm abated, estimated in excess of 240,000 meteors during the nine hours of the storm, over the entire region of North America east of the Rocky Mountains.

It’s been over a week, in a state where margins of electoral victory survive scrutiny (despite conspiracy theories and speculation), and yet losing candidate Eric Hovde admits he lost, but won’t concede. In this, Hovde is true to form, confirming what critics (as I am) saw about him. Wisconsin Public Radio describes Hovde’s stance accurately:

See Rich Kremer, One week after Senate race was called for Tammy Baldwin, Eric Hovde admits he lost, but won’t concede, Wisconsin Public Radio, November 13, 2024.

Hovde, accurately described.

Previously at FREE WHITEWATER: Hovde’s Out-of-State Bank Recipient of Bogus Positive Reviews, Hovde Rationalizes His Ignorance and Sloth, California Carpetbagger with a Utah Bank Doesn’t Bother to Read Farm Bill on Which Wisconsin Agriculture Relies, Hovde & Baldwin, Hovde Spreads Lies About Hurricane Response (Of Course He Does), These Aren’t Subtle Men, Eric Hovde’s Banking Deal with a Cartel-Linked Mexican Bank, Hovde’s Evident, Ignorant Racism, Eric Hovde Treats Wisconsin as a Side Hustle,  It’s Not Going So Well for Hovde, Eric Hovde Should Fire His Political Consultants and Hire a Therapist, Tim Michels 2.0 Eric Hovde Announces U.S. Senate Run, and Another Vanity Candidate.  

Cats with Jobs:

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City, Daily Bread, Development, Economy, Employment, Entitlement

Daily Bread for 1.22.24: Wisconsin’s Favorable Employment Statistics

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 Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 33. Sunrise is 7:17 and sunset 4:55 for 9h 37m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 89.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM and the Police & Fire Commission at 6 PM. The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 5:30 PM, and the full school board enters closed session shortly after 6:30 PM with open session scheduled at 7 PM.  

On this day in 1957, the New York City “Mad Bomber,” George P. Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut and charged with planting more than 30 bombs.

Employment levels remain positive for Wisconsin. Erik Gunn reports Wisconsin unemployment remains low in December as jobs continue to grow:

Wisconsin’s monthly employment snapshots finished the year with a new record for the number of jobs and an upbeat assessment from the state’s labor department.

A survey of employers projected a total of nearly 3.03 million jobs in Wisconsin in December 2023, according to the Department of Workforce Development (DWD).

Based on a separate survey of households, DWD projected an unemployment rate of 3.3%, the same as in November 2023. The unemployment rate calculates how many people are not working in the total labor force, which consists of people who are working or actively seeking work.

The data show Wisconsin employers and workers are “just continuing the trends we saw all year,” said DWD’s chief economist, Dennis Winters, at a media briefing Thursday. “And the way things are shaping up for 2024, we expect the same thing.”

The employers survey counted a total of 3,026,500 nonfarm jobs in Wisconsin in December, a gain of 80,000 from a year ago.

There is, however, a requirement to capitalize on the state’s improving outlook: it takes high-quality leaders and ideas to make the most of good times. 

Whitewater has been in this situation before, in 2020 before the pandemic, when local men looked around at a positive national and state economy and bemoaned better times had not reached Whitewater.

See Whitewater’s Still Waiting for That Boom:

“We’ve just had one of the most booming economies that this country’s seen in close to 60 years. And we’re not at the table. We’re not playing. We’re not out there.”

Well, yes. There was a national boom, uplifting many cities, but it passed by Whitewater. What did Whitewater get after the Great Recession, years into a national boom? Whitewater received a designation as a low-income community.  (The gentlemen speaking, these ‘Greater Whitewater’ development men, were by their own accounts at the center of local CDA policy during most of the years that the state and national boom ignored Whitewater.)

Leaders then were responsible for having positioned the city poorly. Once again: it takes high-quality leaders and ideas to make the most of good times. 

Fire breaks out at Russian gas terminal in Baltic Sea port:

Catspaw, CDA, City, Common Council, Conflicts of Interest, Daily Bread, Entitlement, Foul Pursuits, Hubris, Local Government, Low Standards, Sycophancy, That Which Paved the Way, Toxic Positivity, Unfit

Daily Bread for 9.25.23: The Special-Interest Hierarchy of a Small Town

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 Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 73. Sunrise is 6:46 AM and sunset 6:46 PM for 12h 00m 06s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.7% of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6:30 PM and returns…

CDA, City, Common Council, Conflicts of Interest, Daily Bread, Entitlement, Foul Pursuits, Hubris, Local Government, Low Standards, Regulatory Capture, Self-Dealing, Sycophancy, Tantrums, That Which Paved the Way, Unfit

Daily Bread for 9.22.23: A Dog-Bite Story (That’s Not Only About Dogs)

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 Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 76. Sunrise is 6:42 AM and sunset 6:51 PM for 12h 08m 45s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 47.2% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1862, a preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation is released…

Cats, CDA, City, Common Council, Conflicts of Interest, Daily Bread, Entitlement, Foul Pursuits, Hubris, Local Government, Low Standards, Regulatory Capture, Self-Dealing, Sycophancy, Tantrums, That Which Paved the Way, Unfit

Daily Bread for 9.21.23: What’s Left of Old Whitewater’s Politicians Put Past Practice Ahead of Principle or Reason

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 Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 77. Sunrise is 6:41 AM and sunset 6:53 PM for 12h 11m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 36.5% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1780, Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.…

Catspaw, CDA, City, Common Council, Conflicts of Interest, Council Leadership, Daily Bread, Entitlement, Foul Pursuits, Hubris, Local Government, Low Standards, Regulatory Capture, Self-Dealing, Sycophancy, Tantrums, That Which Paved the Way, Unfit

Daily Bread for 9.19.23: There’s a Reason Some Local Politicians Have No Platform

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 Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will see morning rain with a high of 69. Sunrise is 6:39 AM and sunset 6:57 PM for 12h 17m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 18% of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.  On this day in 1982, Scott…

Business, Common Council, Culture, Daily Bread, Entitlement, Freedom of Speech, Lobbyists, Local Government, Populists, Public Meetings, Regulatory Capture, Special Interests

Daily Bread for 2.24.23 More Convenient than a Cat’s Meows from the Rafters

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Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 23. Sunrise is 6:37 AM and sunset 5:38 PM for 11h 01m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.8% of its visible disk illuminated.  On this day in 1803, in Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the…

Business, CDA, City, Culture, Daily Bread, Delusion, Entitlement, Local Government, Regulatory Capture

Daily Bread for 2.23.23: The Businessmen Who Won’t Let Go (with Whitewater Versions)

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Good morning.   Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:38 AM and sunset 5:37 PM for 10h 58m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.1% of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. (At four o’clock, the City of Whitewater will…