Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will see showers and thunderstorms with a high of 65. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:31 PM for 15h 15m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 58.5% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1950, the iconic Volkswagen Type 2 “Bus” begins production. The…
Freedom of Speech
City, Culture, Daily Bread, Education, Fire Dept, Freedom of Speech, Local Government, Open Government, Police, School District
Daily Bread for 6.7.22: Big Changes Require Big Explanations
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:31 PM for 15h 14m 50s of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 49.4%% of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater Unified District School Board meets in closed session at 6 PM and…
City, Culture, Daily Bread, Foreign Affairs, Freedom of Speech, Tantrums, War
Daily Bread for 3.3.22: A Ukrainian Family Prepares for War in Kyiv
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 33. Sunrise is 6:25 AM and sunset 5:47 PM for 11h 22m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.9% its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM, and Whitewater Fire Department, Inc. holds a business meeting at…
Daily Bread, Education, Freedom of Speech, Gender, School District, Sexual Orientation
Daily Bread for 10.16.21: Waukesha School District bans LGBTQ+ and other signs
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 58. Sunrise is 7:10 AM and sunset 6:09 PM for 10h 58m 48s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 83.7% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1780, the Great Hurricane of 1780 finishes after its sixth day, killing…
Babbittry, Blogging, Boosterism, Culture, Disinformation, Freedom of Speech, Mendacity, Public Relations, Rhetoric
The Power of Refutation
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Laura Hazard Owen writes When’s the best time to correct fake news? After someone’s already read it, apparently: Debunking > prebunking. If you want someone to not believe that false or misleading headline they just read, when’s the best time to correct it? We hear a lot about inoculating people against fake news or “prebunking”…
America, Culture, Freedom of Speech, Justice, Local Government, Race
‘A New Generation Challenges the Heartland’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Last July, Tim Craig and Aaron Williams reported A new generation challenges the heartland (‘Big changes in small towns are fueling a racial justice movement across the Midwest’). They wrote last summer that The number of young people of color living in the Midwest has surged over the past decade, as the older white population…
Culture, Freedom of Speech, Politics, Protests, Race
Widespread, Continuing National Support for Racial Justice Protests
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Steven Long and Justin McCarthy of Gallup report Two in Three Americans Support Racial Justice Protests: WASHINGTON, D.C. — About two in three Americans (65%) support the nationwide protests about racial injustice that followed the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in late May. Half say they feel “very” (23%) or…
Authoritarianism, Federal Government, Freedom of Speech, Police, Trump, Unfit, Violence, William Barr
Detailed Video Timeline of the Crackdown on Protesters Before Trump’s Photo Op
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The Washington Post analyzed hours of video footage and obtained audio of police communications and other records to assemble the most complete account to date of the June 1 crackdown on protesters in Washington D.C.. Late in the day on June 1, demonstrators gathered near the White House, on the edge of Lafayette Square, to…
Authoritarianism, Freedom of Speech, Law, Liberty, Social Media, Trump, Twitter
Twitter’s (Perhaps Momentary) Advantage Over Trump
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Trump, furious at a private company for exercising its right under the law to establish and enforce terms of service, now finds that Twitter has again placed warnings on another of his tweets, and also on his attempt to retweet that same message from the White House account. The recent Twitter response to a Trump…
America, Coronavirus, Freedom of Speech, Israel, Libertarians, Liberty
Israeli Discipline, American Disorder
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Free expression is not a rejection of reason, including reason in public health. Libertarian politics – of free markets in capital, labor, and goods, of responsible government, of individual liberty, and of peaceful international relations – requires a mature discipline. I do not support recent protests against temporary public health measures during this pandemic. And…
Authoritarianism, Freedom of Speech, Liberty, Russian Federation
Yegor Zhukov’s Message
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
At the New Yorker, Masha Gessen translates A Powerful Statement of Resistance from a College Student on Trial in Moscow (‘Yegor Zhukov’s message about responsibility and love at his trial, for “extremism,” shows what political dissent can be and seems to describe American reality as accurately as the Russian one’). (Zhukov was accused of “extremism”…
Babbittry, Blogging, City, Freedom of Speech, Law, Liberty, Newspapers, Open Government, Press
Sunshine Week 2019
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It’s Sunshine Week in America: a seven-day focus from the American Society of News Editors and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press on “access to public information and what it means for you and your community.” One doesn’t have to be a reporter (and bloggers, for example, are not reporters) to understand the importance…
Culture, Freedom of Speech, Never Trump, Resistance
The Middle Lane is a Dirt Road to Decay
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Media critic Margaret Sullivan writes that The media feel safest in the middle lane. Just ask Jeff Flake, John Kasich and Howard Schultz: One of the supposed golden rules of journalism goes like this: “If everybody’s mad at your coverage, you must be doing a good job.” That’s ridiculous, of course, though it seems comforting. If…
America, Elections, Freedom of Speech, Good Ideas, Law, Libertarians, Liberty, Never Trump, Politics, Trump
Jennifer Rubin on ‘Three big ideas to bolster democracy’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Jennifer Rubin writes of three ideas to bolster democracy (enhanced voting rights, independent and non-partisan justice, and robust speech rights): First, Republicans, in an effort to hang on to their declining electoral advantage based on white voters, have tried every trick in the book to limit voting by those they suspect will favor Democrats. Hence,…