March 11 to 17 is Sunshine Week in America, an ‘annual nationwide celebration of access to public information and what it means for you and your community.’ If the country, then the state, if the state, then the city, if the city, then Whitewater. So here we are. Although Sunshine Week is seven days, open […]
We’re early in this new political era, with a long time ahead of us, and there’s a need to get a sense of one’s bearings. (The sound way to approach the new politics that has overcome America through the three-thousand-year traditional of liberty to be found in many places, the Online Library of Liberty being […]
Charles Blow writes of the work ahead for those many citizens who now find themselves compelled to defend their rights: I fully understand that elevated outrage is hard to maintain. It’s exhausting. But the alternative is surrender to national nihilism and the welcoming of woe. The next four years could be epochal years in the history […]
Authoritarian policies matter more than authoritarian trappings, but Trump has a taste for both: Donald Trump won’t content himself with the standard-issue presidency — he’s going to have his customized. Daily intelligence briefings are out, along with the norms that prohibit the appearance of corruption. “Victory rallies” are in — as is the private security […]
Thousands who (admirably) devoted themselves to the #NeverTrump movement have already (sadly) begun to second-guess their opposition now that Trump’s heading to federal power. Ben Terris nicely describes the impulse – the natural reaction to yield to power – in Welcome to NeverTrump Grief, Stage 3: GOP skeptics bargain with Trump — and themselves. One […]
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin has become the latest university system to officially affirm the right to free speech and academic freedom for all students amid concerns that academia is trying to protect students from being offended by classroom lectures and discussions. The system’s Board of Regents voted 16 to 2 on Friday […]
So one reads in the Boston Globe (hat tip to Althouse for the link) that there’s an anti-Renoir movement: The rally, which mostly bewildered passersby, was organized by Max Geller, creator of the Instagram account Renoir Sucks at Painting, who wants the MFA to take its Renoirs off the walls and replace them with something […]
Look at Whitewater, and one sees scores of groups with press releases, community announcements, or political viewpoints to publicize. Even much smaller communities have similar conditions: a dozen people are likely to have more than a dozen views. Each day, and especially in an election year, it helps to have the independence to offer views […]
Down in Rock County, Lou Kaye has been publishing Rock Netroots since 2006 (a year longer than I’ve been publishing at FREE WHITEWATER). Kaye has a fine website. I’m not of the Left as Kaye is, but that’s not necesary to enjoy Rock Netroots. The community of which Kaye writes is beset by all sorts […]
For bloggers who cover politics, policy-making, etc., just as would have been true of essayists and pamphleteers in an earlier time, it helps to have a method to one’s writing. In the paragraphs below, I’ll list steps one should take when approaching a topic. The steps are in a rough order, but in any […]
Years ago, around when I first started writing, someone told me about a conversation that person heard about blogging. I’ll share it with you, and explain why it was, initially, hard for me to understand. The person telling me about the conversation was reputed to be especially clever, and that reputation actually made it harder […]
I wrote in October, about drug policy, and quoted Churchill’s famous observation about the state of the Allied war effort after the British victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein (“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning….”) […]