Good morning. Labor Day in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:26 AM and sunset 7:19 PM, for 12h 53m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.4% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 2008, the federal government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing…
Ethics
Daily Bread, Ethics, Free Markets, Law, Medicine, Misconduct, Police
Daily Bread for 8.21.21: Hundreds of Wisconsin Police Officers Back on the Job after Being Fired or Forced Out
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will be variably cloudy with scattered thunderstorms and a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:08 AM and sunset 7:46 PM, for 13h 37m 26s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.9% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1911, the Mona Lisa is stolen by Vincenzo…
America, Ethics, Legislation, Liberty, Music, Politics, Wisconsin, WISGOP
The Party Demands Unity
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One reads that WISGOP Bill Would Make It Illegal For Sports Venues to Skip National Anthem: It would be illegal for some sports venues to skip the national anthem before games under a new bill proposed by a Republican legislator. Stevens Point Republican Sen. Patrick Testin’s Star Spangled Banner Act, proposed Wednesday, would require the anthem…
Babbittry, Boosterism, City, Conflicts of Interest, Culture, Ethics, Local Government, Never Trump, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, Trumpism
Before Man & Movement, That Which Paved the Way
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Trump did not spring from the ground; he did not fall from the stars. Neither horticulture nor astrophysics played any role in his rise. Before Trump and Trumpism, there were towns and cities into which he and his movement found receptive audiences. Patients already ill are often susceptible of worse maladies. So it has been…
America, City, Culture, Ethics, Never Trump, Politics, School District, Trump
They’ve Become What They Once Despised
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The greatest tragedies are injuries inflicted on the innocent. There are, however, other sad moments of our time, among them the collapse of responsibile conservatism into Trumpian irresponsibility & dishonesty. So many conservatives have become what they once despised. A local example would be proud conservatives who now insist, nationally or locally, that government is…
Babbittry, Boosterism, City, Conflicts of Interest, Coronavirus, Culture, Ethics, Local Government, Politics
Social Capital and Hardship
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
What role does social capital play in a community’s health? Adam Gopnik, in The Paradoxical Role of Social Capital in the Coronavirus Pandemic, ponders whether there’s a relationship between communities with high social capital and a community’s public health. Gopnik uses a traditional definition of social capital as the “parts of society that, without being…
Authoritarianism, Bigotry, Conway, Ethics, Gluttony, Grifters, Impeachment, Kakistocracy, Medicine, Mendacity, Nepotism, Never Trump, Official Misconduct, Sloth, Trump, Trump-Russia, Unfit
Trump’s Condition: Unfit by Many Standards
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It’s enough, as an indictment of Trump, to see and then reject his role on purely political grounds: a bigoted autocrat of limited knowledge & reasoning ability with a love of foreign dictators and contempt for American liberal democracy. One doesn’t need a training in medicine to reject Trump. There are, however, compelling critiques of…
CDA, Conflicts of Interest, Ethics, University
On Conflicts of Interest, It’s Not Enough to Ask a Question
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The annual meeting of the Whitewater University Tech Park Board was scheduled for this earlier morning, and the second item of the published agenda is a superficial attempt to address potential conflicts of interest among board members: Declaration of Conflict of Interest [Watson] a. Would any member(s) of the board wish to declare any known…
Ethics, Grifters, Kushner, Poverty
Jared Kushner, Slumlord Millionaire, Wants the Rent ‘ASAP’
by JOHN ADAMS •
AJ Vicens reports As the Coronavirus Hit, Jared Kushner’s Company Told Renters to Take Action to Pay “ASAP”: On Thursday, March 19, Westminster Management—which is owned by the Kushner Companies and boasts of holdingmore than 20,000 apartments across six states—sent residents in at least one property a notice about rent collection—but it wasn’t about giving them…
Coronavirus, Ethics, Public Health
A Right – and Duty – of Protection
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One does not have to be a member of the Southern Baptist tradition (as I am not) to agree with Dr. Russell Moore’s description of the obligation to care for the elderly. Moore, the president of that denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, writes that God Doesn’t Want Us to Sacrifice the Old to Coronavirus:…
Business, Corruption, Documentary, Ethics
Netflix Documentary Series: Dirty Money (Season Two Now Online)
by JOHN ADAMS •
?? The overwhelming majority of people in America (and abroad) earn their money through honest means. A few, however, profit through fraud, self-dealing, outright theft, or selfish manipulation of laws and institutions. These few corrupt the public and private spheres they touch. Academy Award winning documentarian Alex Gibney’s second season of Dirty Money, now online…
Depravity, Ethics, Never Trump, Trump
He Already Has
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It is difficult for reasonable and civilized people to understand the persistent of corruption and disorder in a man like Trump. The rational man or woman – guided by intellect and tradition – assumes that someone of Trump’s ilk is only in the grip of an ephemeral disorder, a passing derangement. Surely, they think, Trump…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Ethics, Misconduct, Sexual Harassment, University, UW System
At UW-Whitewater, Beverly Kopper’s Tenure Was about More than Beverly Kopper
by JOHN ADAMS • • 6 Comments
Former UW-Whitewater chancellor Beverly Kopper was on leave – apparently for part of that time under federal or state medical leave act provisions – before her resignation from UW-Whitewater. I’ll not speculate about the circumstances under which she claimed leave under the law. There’s another matter that requires attention. There’s talk at UW-Whitewater these days…