Health

City, Government Spending, Health, Waste Digesters, WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

Looking at the 12.3.13 Digester Presentation

by JOHN ADAMS • 05/04/2015 • 7 Comments

Post 4 in a series. 12.3.13 Whitewater WI Common Council Digester Importation Discussion from John Adams on Vimeo. I promised last week a look at the December 3, 2013 digester presentation, from Whitewater’s Wastewater Superintendent Tim Reel, and City Manager Cameron Clapper. In that presentation (not so long ago, only about a year-and a-half) and…

Health, Misconduct

The Tragedy of Dr. Oz

by JOHN ADAMS • 04/17/2015 • Comments

Dr. Mehmet Oz is a cardiothoracic surgeon and vice chairman of the surgery department at Columbia University’s medical school. Most people know him, sadly, as a celebrity, television star, or as a promoter of quack remedies. Other prominent physicians across America, at leading institutions, have had enough of the embarrassment that Oz’s sales pitches are…

City, Good Ideas, Government Spending, Health, Hip & Prosperous, Planning

Arguments on Cost & Flexibility Under a Complete Streets Ordinance

by JOHN ADAMS • 01/23/2015 • Comments

There are two questions that I promised yesterday that I would take up today about the Complete Streets ordinance recently passed at Council on 1.20.15. The first is whether the draft ordinance was flexible enough, and the second about the costs of new roads or reconstruction that would include sidewalks or bike paths. I read…

Business, City, Cycling, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Health, Hip & Prosperous, Local Government, Planning

The Common Council Session for 1.20.15: Complete Streets

by JOHN ADAMS • 01/22/2015 • Comments

I posted briefly yesterday on Tuesday’s Common Council meeting, and in that post mentioned that I would look a bit more at some of the remarks for, or against, the Complete Streets ordinance that passed Tuesday night. (I supported the ordinance.) Council discussed this issue previously, on December 16th. See, Common Council 12/16/2014. I’ve included…

City, Cycling, Development, Economy, Good Ideas, Health, Hip & Prosperous, Planning

In Support of the Complete Streets Initiative for Whitewater

by JOHN ADAMS • 01/18/2015 • 1 Comment

This Tuesday, January 20th at 6:30 PM, Common Council will consider a Complete Streets ordinance (item O-3) for Whitewater. A Complete Streets program simply requires planners to consider bike and pedestrian travel, for example, when either building or reconstructing streets within our city. (I listened closely to discussion of the idea at our 12.16.14 Common…

City, Government Spending, Health, Waste Digesters

The Wastewater Facility Upgrades and a Digester

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/18/2014 • 5 Comments

On Tuesday night, Common Council heard the proposed cost of wastewater upgrades ($18.7 million) and the separate possibility of large digester. Let’s be clear about what a big digester’s “solids treatment” truly is: a process of importing other cities’ unwanted manure, human excrement, and industrial filth into Whitewater. A few quick comments, as there is…

Health, Lifestyle, Nature

The Health Benefits of Going Outside

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/11/2014 • Comments

It seems common for those of us in a rural community, but for many others, going outside into the created, natural order is an uncommon experience. (Lack of connection to nature has troubled other generations, too: it’s a reason squirrels wound up in parks. )

Animals, Health

Why It’s Hard to Swat a Fly

by JOHN ADAMS • 04/13/2014 • Comments

It’s not easy to swat a fly. Although almost brainless by human standards, recent observations at the University of Washington reveal that flies have “well-developed, rapid-firing sensory motor circuits [useful] in order to register and respond to the visual threat of predators so fast and effectively.” See, Fruit flies show why swatting at flies is…

Animals, Health, Poll

Friday Poll: Australian Has a Beer After a Snake Bite

by JOHN ADAMS • 03/14/2014 • 6 Comments

Australian Has a Beer After a Snake Bite One reads that a venomous snake bit an Australian man, and the man decided to have a beer while waiting for medial assistance: What do you do when you’ve been bitten by one of the deadliest snakes in the world? Crack open a beer, of course. That’s…

Crime, Health, Walworth County

The Long, Hard Roads

by JOHN ADAMS • 01/27/2014 • 1 Comment

Over at the Gazette, there’s a story entitled, Walworth County officials hope drug court for heroin addicts will start in June (subscription required). The story, from reporter Andrea Anderson, is about a hoped-for program of rehabilitation for heroin addicts. The program would apply to Walworth County residents, addicted to, and charged with possession of, heroin. If…

Crime, Elkhorn, Health, Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty, Police, Walworth County

The End of the Beginning

by JOHN ADAMS • 10/14/2013 • 1 Comment

After a British victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein, Churchill famously observed of the war in November 1942 that ….Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning…. So it is, even locally, with the War on Drugs.…

Beautiful Whitewater, Good Ideas, Health, Sports

Scenes from the Discover Whitewater Races, 9.22.2013

by JOHN ADAMS • 09/22/2013 • Comments

Crime, Health, Law

Looking at the Forty-Years’ Drug War

by JOHN ADAMS • 01/08/2013 • Comments

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Nobel laureate in economics Gary Becker and Univ. of Chicago economist Kevin Murphy ask, “Have We Lost the War on Drugs?” Their answer is that we have, and what Richard Nixon began in 1971 has been a forty-years’ failure: President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs” in 1971.…

Crime, Health, Law, Laws/Regulations

Wisconsin and Marijuana and the Drug War

by JOHN ADAMS • 01/02/2013 • Comments

Colorado and Washington State are backing away from the Drug War, having recently decriminalized minor marijuana offenses. The long-term prospects for widespread drug prohibition, of the kind we’ve had for a generation, aren’t good: it’s been too much money, and for no lasting gain. It’s a fair guess that by the 2033, the hundred-year anniversary…