FREE WHITEWATER

Reasoning

Daily Bread for 2.4.25: Whitewater’s Poor Past Record on Studies and Data (Now with New Frontmen)

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 28. Sunrise is 7:05 and sunset is 5:12, for 10 hours, 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 41.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM, later in the evening goes into closed session, thereafter to reconvene in open session. The agenda is embedded below:

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On this day in 1789,  George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the Electoral College.


Yesterday’s post, Dressing for the Weather, was about the way in which one responded to controversies in Whitewater, principally over the use of data and studies:

Whitewater has had its share of controversies. There are five differences between those of the past and now: (1) the pace between accusations is quicker, (2) there are more of them offered at the same time, (3) they are often made without accuracy and sound reasoning, (4) they are made in a time that deprecates any expertise, and (5) behind-the-scenes conflicts of interest are ignored.

The sarcastic implication of the expression a little knowledge is a dangerous thing applies to much of what one hears and reads from would-be critics of policy.

In the Aughts and Teens (2000-2019, and even a few years beyond), much of Whitewater heard from its local government involved dodgy data and weak analysis. This was notably true of the Community Development Authority during those times (with only a few exceptions) when the CDA was run like a club in a third-rate southern town.

The consequence of this is that (1) Whitewater heard a lot of bad claims, (2) residents were expected to accept bad claims at face value, and (3) residents became inured to the notion that the city would be perpetually under the sway of a few self-promoters (and their softer-talking enablers). There was and is always one such enabler, on the CDA or Council, whose job it was and is to try to make the unreasonable sound reasonable. Men are what they say and do, and what they defend and rationalize.

And now, and now, a higher standard of analysis comes along from the city government. Not always perfect, but notably higher than what past municipal administrations or a past CDA produced.

The problem residents face now is that opponents of today’s better work, themselves, argue mostly with the fallacies and low-grade thinking of the past.

And so, and so, one will have to craft an index or catalog of some sort, readily on display, to track the many false claims of special interests and their various frontmen and enablers. The Bauhaus school contended (broadly) that form follows function, and so form of expression will have to follow the worthy function of accurate and reasoned discussion.

There’s no burden in this, but rather only opportunity. There’s merit in a pointed critique of old errors.

One is reminded of the expression: Hard work is good work.


A sharp-looking cedar waxing from Oklahoma:

(Cedar waxwings are found beyond Oklahoma, including in Wisconsin. The description “Only seen in Oklahoma during the winter” simply means that these birds are commonly found in that state during that season. They’ve a wider range in other places during the full year.)

Daily Bread for 1.19.25: A Bit More on ‘Debunking Grifters and Crackpots on Social Media’

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny and cold with a high of 7. Sunrise is 7:20 and sunset is 4:51, for 9 hours, 31 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 70.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2007, the four-man Team N2i, using only skis and kites, completes a 1,093-mile (1,759 km) trek to reach the Antarctic Pole of Inaccessibility research station for the first time since 1965 and for the first time ever without mechanical assistance.


On 1.13, FREE WHITEWATER posted on Debunking Grifters and Crackpots on Social Media (“On social media, principally TikTok or Instagram, there are thousands of accounts that that make wholly false claims that ordinary foods and products contain poisons: did you know that?, look what I’ve found, can you believe?“).

This libertarian blogger followed the next day with A Bit More on Expertise:

a responsible community, and responsible political leadership, should at the least allow those with a strong expertise or understanding to speak responsively to others’ claims (especially others’ tendentious claims). While any resident should be allowed to stand at the lectern and speak, afterward members of the government should be able to reply to unsupported claims or weak arguments. Residents should be able to speak; a responsible board or council should allow members of the government to reply after all residents have finished speaking.

I’m not writing here about general, non-agenda public comment, but about residents’ specific comments on points that are on the agenda.

I was not writing about myself here, plainly, as

this libertarian blogger has not described himself on this site as an expert in some particular field. FREE WHITEWATER is, by design, a website for all readers of ‘commentary on politics, policy, and popular culture, published from Whitewater, Wisconsin since 2007.’ I have a profession, but this website isn’t designed merely for that profession. (FREE WHITEWATER would look very different if were otherwise.) It’s meant to be as it is. And so, and so, I’m not referring to myself as an expert in anything that follows.

Debunking Grifters and Crackpots on Social Media highlighted the nutritionist (as nutritionist) Dr. Jessica Knurick refuting false claims about food. I’ve embedded another example below, where Dr. Idrees Mughal debunks a claim about protein:

Obviously, recent posts at FREE WHITEWATER highlighting these Instagram Reels are about more than nutrition. More than one application of the Reels’ method comes to mind.

They’ve a concise, skillful method of refutation, and satisfying.


Dog and owner saved after falling through frozen lake:

Daily Bread for 1.14.25: A Bit More on Expertise

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 15. Sunrise is 7:23 and sunset is 4:45, for 9 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Tech Park Innovation Center Advisory Board meets at 8:30 AM, the Public Works Committee meets at 5 PM, and the Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1784 it’s the first Ratification Day, as the Confederation Congress (under the Articles of Confederation) ratifies the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain:

By the United States in Congress assembled, a proclamation : Whereas definitive articles of peace and friendship, between the United States of America and His Britannic Majesty, were concluded and signed at Paris, on the 3rd day of September, 1783 … we have thought proper by these presents, to notify the premises to all the good citizens of these United States … Given under the seal of the United States, witness His Excellency Thomas Mifflin, our president, at Annapolis, this fourteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four …


Yesterday’s post, Debunking Grifters and Crackpots on Social Media, described the skill with which Dr. Jessica Knurick refuted false nutritional claims on social media. In this clash of ideas, Knurick applied her field’s expertise in reply others’ weak or mendacious claims. A few points about expertise appear below.

First, this libertarian blogger has not described himself on this site as an expert in some particular field. FREE WHITEWATER is, by design, a website for all readers of ‘commentary on politics, policy, and popular culture, published from Whitewater, Wisconsin since 2007.’ I have a profession, but this website isn’t designed merely for that profession. (FREE WHITEWATER would look very different if were otherwise.) It’s meant to be as it is. And so, and so, I’m not referring to myself as an expert in anything that follows.

Second, as someone wrote to me last night, nutrition expert Dr. Knurick takes a dim view of, in her words, capitalism1. (That’s true, she does, and anyone who followed her work, as I have, would know as much.) And yet, and yet, I did not tout her expertise in economics but rather her expertise in nutrition. She’s strong there: that was the full reach of my endorsement (although I’m sure she’s a fine person and an asset to her community).

Third, a responsible community, and responsible political leadership, should at the least allow those with a strong expertise or understanding to speak responsively to others’ claims (especially others’ tendentious claims). While any resident should be allowed to stand at the lectern and speak, afterward members of the government should be able to reply to unsupported claims or weak arguments. Residents should be able to speak; a responsible board or council should allow members of the government to reply after all residents have finished speaking.

I’m not writing here about general, non-agenda public comment, but about residents’ specific comments on points that are on the agenda.

Otherwise, at that meeting, one hears only one side of the issue. ‘We’ll get to the other side later’ impoverishes the discussion. Whitewater should expect of her government that it be capable of replying then and there. Holding back the government reply to placate a few residents only serves to create the false impression that a point from the lectern is more serious, and so needing of study, than it truly is2.

If there is a government employee who can answer a point after residents’ points have been made, based on that employee’s knowledge, he or she should be allowed — indeed, afforded the opportunity — to do so. More speech means more speech3.

Bluntly: keep the discussion going, as the strength of a claim is often revealed only after it meets a reply. If a reply is available readily, then it should be heard, not postponed.

How could one not admire Dr. Knurick’s argumentation, for example, on nutrition? It’s cultivated abilities like hers, of so many in so many fields, that have made America a global leader.4

Whitewater should not hold back members of an administration with equivalent abilities.

__________

  1. Private ownership of capital is merely one part of a productive, advanced economics. It’s much more than that, as myriad free, voluntary transactions: of capital, labor, goods, and services. All of it, all of those, where one chooses freely. ↩︎
  2. If there’s a ready answer, boards and commissions only undermine rigorous discussion to placate a few by contending that something needs to be looked into. ↩︎
  3. Not merely more speech for one’s friends at the lectern. ↩︎
  4. High octane is the best octane. ↩︎

Why Is US GDP Growth Outperforming the World?:

Despite a bumpy phase of inflation shocks and high interest rates, the US economy has continued to outpace the growth rates of other advanced economies. Since January 2020, growth in US real GDP has touched 10%, three times the G7 average.

Daily Bread for 1.13.25: Debunking Grifters and Crackpots on Social Media

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 17. Sunrise is 7:23 and sunset is 4:44, for 9 hours, 21 minutes of daytime. The moon is full with 99.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning & Architectural Review Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1953, an article appears in Pravda falsely accusing some of the most prestigious and prominent doctors, mostly Jews, in the Soviet Union of taking part in a vast plot (the so-called Doctors’ plot) to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.


On social media, principally TikTok or Instagram, there are thousands of accounts that that make wholly false claims that ordinary foods and products contain poisons: did you know that?, look what I’ve found, can you believe?

On platforms with so many conspiracists, there’s an unfortunate need for a knowledgeable, reasonable, and intelligent person to refute hysterical lies. How fortunate for a marketplace of ideas that Dr. Jessica Knurick (PhD, RDN) offers concise and compelling refutations to so many distortions.

Below, I’ve embedded her latest critique of a false nutrition claim:

Well done. This libertarian blogger has argued, sensibly, that those who make claims should show their own work1. Showing one’s own work does not mean that there is no expertise, or that there are no experts. There are.

Dr. Knurick uses her evident expertise to refute fallacies, misunderstandings, and outright lies about nutrition. That’s not my field2, yet one can — or at least should — be able to see the difference between sound and unsound claims.

__________

  1. See Show Your Work (from 2014). ↩︎
  2. A quick example: Over the years, I can scarcely count the number of times that I’ve listened to non-lawyers in Whitewater and beyond try their hands at statutory interpretation and go wildly wrong. Admittedly, it should be easier to read our own laws; regrettably, it’s not. ↩︎

Young gorilla rescued from Turkish Airlines cargo hold:

A young gorilla rescued from a plane’s cargo hold is recovering at an Istanbul zoo, while wildlife officers consider returning him to his natural habitat.

Daily Bread for 9.5.24: Formation Hasn’t Stopped Mattering

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:25, and sunset is 7:20, for 12h 55m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by President Theodore Roosevelt, ends the Russo-Japanese War.


Three years ago, during the pandemic, pondering the social media scene, I posted on Formation, General:

Some level of formation, of structure and learning, is needed to make sense of a difficult subject.

Come now the conservative populists, who are convinced that there is no field, no topic, that requires more effort than their own ‘common sense.’  They ask — they demand — that others who have committed years of formal or self-study recognize unconsidered or ill-considered populist opinions as valid as any other opinion.

They sometimes simply don’t know what they don’t know. Their ignorance of substantive study is matched by their arrogance in insisting that substantive study doesn’t matter.  Someone might tell these conservative populists that arrogance invites Nemesis, but it would take some reading for them to make sense of those cautionary words.

Why have medicine, for example when any populist can spend a few moments on Facebook and diagnose any condition? (I’ve argued, for example, against amateur epidemiology, even when well-intentioned. See Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021 — COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric.)

Modern medicine, architecture, or materials science requires dedicated study. Anyone, in any era, might have said he or she possessed ‘common sense.’ And yet, and yet, those people from those earlier times often lived short lives in filth and misery.

The conservative populists enjoy lives in an era of technological and scientific accomplishment dependent on the efforts of the very experts they denigrate.

When common sense fails for these populists, when they misread medical texts and legal documents, they make the excuse that the topics were too hard or too confusing for anyone to understand.  No and no again: the texts and documents were too hard only for those who had not committed the proper amount of study to the topic.

The lack of formation —of a learned foundation in politics, history, science, or even ordinary English usage — leaves the conservative populists unimpressive to anyone outside their circle.

Still true, years after the pandemic.


Underwater bridge gives clues to ancient human arrival:

Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic islands and the sixth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, but despite its size and location research suggests that it was among the last Mediterranean islands to be settled by humans. But exactly when people arrived on the island is a subject of much debate, with current estimates placing it at around 4,400 years ago. However, an ancient stone bridge in a flooded cave may call that timeline into question. By dating mineral deposits in the cave scientists have given a new window for when they suggest humans actually reached the island — at least 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Daily Bread for 3.27.24: “Nice Person, But…”

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset 7:16 for 12h 33m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1975, construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.


Yesterday’s post, These Aren’t the MAGA Claims You Were Looking For,  seemed clear to me. While opinions on local issues differ, residents should be able to discern plainly-stated views. (Opinions in Whitewater — and even basic accounts of events — vary among residents now more than at any time since FREE WHITEWATER began publication in 2007. See Rashomon-upon-Cravath.) 

Of that post, summarized:

(1) The post was about open government1.

(2) A more detailed series on the district and proposals to improve governance can wait until after the election.

(3) Too many people in this town have election fever, and it’s left them dehydrated and decomposed. Their malady is not mine.

(4) The claims and proposals that boardmember (and whistleblower) Maryann Zimmerman has made since December are not conservative populist claims. They are claims of no single ideology or partisan view.

(5) I’ve never met Mrs. Zimmerman and it’s not as though we’re in a knitting club together2.

(6) The current board president has done no better than to beg off every question with the false, self-protective claim that he cannot speak for legal reasons and the district has a superintendent who not only won’t speak but has tried to prevent others from speaking.

That’s yesterday’s post in a nutshell. 

And yet, and yet, a community leader wrote me last night to explain to me that, thirteen months ago, Mrs. Zimmerman voted not to deny a petition to alter district boundaries regarding a taxed property, concluding from her vote that Mrs. Zimerman was a “[n]ice person, but she does not know what she is doing.” (I responded bluntly via email.)

This emailer’s claim might as well have been a parody of whataboutism3.

The overall policy competency of this boardmember wasn’t the point of my post.  (It’s evident that she’s as capable as others on the board. Practically, whether intentional or not, this boardmember alone has been able to knock the board president and the district administration back on their heels. It’s much easier to paint a single boardmember as ignorant than it is to admit — or perhaps grasp — that official responses to that boardmember have been strategically and tactically inept. That’s not the fault of students, parents, or residents. It’s the responsibility of boardmembers and administrators who’ve exacerbated the issue through their own responses.)  

A tax issue from thirteen months ago matters not at all now. The insular frustration that’s come to district officials from more recent events, the excuse-making and rationalization of fumbled and self-injurious responses, evidently grips them.

What matters most is a better path than the one that overreaching and underthinking officials have taken. 

Other district officials made that mess.

Nice people, but they do not know what they’re doing.


Belgian farmers spray manure towards police who respond with water cannon4:


1. Of limited, responsible, open government with individual rights, of progressive theology through traditional liturgy, and of cats, this libertarian blogger is, it happens, a true believer.

2. It’s not as though Boardmember Zimmerman and I are in a knitting club together. I don’t knit, and have no idea if she does. Nonetheless, all my best to the knitters of Whitewater and the sheep who’ve supplied their yarn. I have only love in my bleeding-libertarian heart for all of them.

3. The emailer pointed me to the minutes of the year-ago discussion, but in any event, the minutes are not the first place to look. A recording of the meeting would be the first, best place to look. Again and again: no record like a recording. After reviewing the recording, it seems to me that there were issues that no one considered fully. It certainly wasn’t obvious — except to those of narrow and motivated reasoning — that there was one only way to vote on items. 

4. Does anyone know if some of these district officials have visited a Belgian farm lately?

Daily Bread for 3.26.24: These Aren’t the MAGA Claims You Were Looking For

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 52. Sunrise is 6:44 and sunset 7:15 for 12h 30m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1812, a political cartoon in the Boston-Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.


A brief post today, about Boardmember Maryann Zimmerman to follow yesterday’s post about conservative populism more generally. (A more detailed series on the district and proposals to improve governance can wait until after the election. Too many people in this town have election fever, and it’s left them dehydrated and decomposed. Their malady is not mine.)

Anyone who has visited this site knows that this bleeding-heart libertarian blogger is, and always will be, an opponent of conservative populism, MAGA, Trumpism, or whatever one calls that ideology. Never Trump before Never Trump, so to speak. See yesterday’s example Rep. Mike Gallagher Knows that MAGA Will Be Someone Else’s Headache Soon.

I am also someone whose family, teachers, and professors did their level best to inspire in me a respect for principle, reasoning, and tradition (in that order). Any success that this pupil has had in that regard owes only to them; they had poor clay with which to work. All their effort on my behalf, over so many years, leads me now and again to see something clearly.

And this is one of those times: the claims and proposals that boardmember (and whistleblower) Maryann Zimmerman has made since December are not conservative populist claims. They are claims of no single ideology or partisan view.  Mrs. Zimmerman may hold, as I think she does, conservative populist views. To the extent that she holds those views — but only to the extent that she holds those views — we would find ourselves in disagreement.

Some of her ardent supporters most assuredly hold conservative populist views. To the extent that they hold those views — but only to the extent that they hold those views — we would find ourselves in disagreement.

If in this beautiful city, the answer to Mrs. Zimmerman’s nonpartisan concerns and proposals is an answer directed in opposition to conservative populism, then that answer is misdirected, to the degradation of scholastic standards.  

It’s that simple.

I’ve never met Mrs. Zimmerman; we may never meet.  One needn’t have met her to grasp that she is willing to speak and write in support of her views when, by striking contrast, the current board president has done no better than to beg off every question with the false, self-protective claim that he cannot speak for legal reasons. (Those who know the law know that those assertions are not merely false but risibly self-serving.)

The district has a superintendent who not only won’t speak but has tried to prevent others from speaking. In Maryann Zimmerman’s recent claims, and in her composed defense of them, there’s no trace of partisan ideology. She’s been admirably clear and steady. Others want to see what’s not there; they are looking into an empty room.

These aren’t the MAGA claims they were looking for.


Total Solar Eclipse 2024 explained. Date, maps, times and more:

The United States, Mexico and Canada will experience a total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. Space.com’s Brett Tingley explains what you can expect. Total solar eclipse 2024: Everything you need to know: https://www.space.com/41552-total-sol…

WARNING: People should always use protective solar eclipse eyewear when viewing a solar eclipse.

Credit: Space.com | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, GreatAmericanEclipse.com 

Daily Bread for 12.17.23: The Empty Case Against School-District Competitive Bidding

 Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 43. Sunrise is 7:20 and sunset 4:22 for 9h 02m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 26.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1903, the Wright brothers make the first controlled powered, heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

By John T. Daniels – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ppprs.00626.


Corrinne Hess reports Wisconsin school districts would have to comply with competitive bidding requirements under new proposal (‘Wisconsin is only one of three states that doesn’t require schools to go out for bid on construction projects’):

School districts in Wisconsin would have to comply with competitive bidding requirements for construction projects costing more than $150,000 under a new legislative proposal.

Wisconsin is one of only three states that allows a project of any size to be awarded on a no-bid basis, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Municipalities, meanwhile, have to seek a competitive bid for any project over $25,000. The same proposed legislation would increase that threshold for municipalities to $50,000.  

During a public hearing Thursday before the Assembly Committee on Local Government, Chris Kulow, government relations director for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, testified against the bill. He argued that requiring a competitive bidding process would take away local control.

Kulow said most school boards are already using competitive bidding. He said having to choose the lowest bidder could mean having to sacrifice the best quality. 

“Currently, districts that have long-standing relationships with local contractors have the opportunity to work with them to negotiate deals that include spending resources locally, keeping those dollars in the community,” Kulow said. “They result in the hiring of parents whose children attend the schools. They want to do a good job, and they’re less likely to ask for extra charges.”  

All school boards, not merely most, should use competitive bidding for large projects. Kulow’s argument about districts with long-standing relationships with local contractors is unsupported by his testimony. He’s telling a story about local, but his story offers not measurement but instead only unsubstantiated-yet-beguiling claims: “spending resources locally,” “dollars in the community,” “hiring of parents whose children attend the schools,” etc. 

Sounds great, right? How often, how much, how many?

Kulow — who asserted his points as a representative of educational boards — offered in his testimony no evidence whatever. Not a shred. See testimony of Chris Kulow, Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Local Government, 12.14.23, video @ 1:17:23. A former superintendent, now part of the school board association’s staff, followed Kulow’s presentation with his own singular experiences in one school district.     

Honest to goodness. A knowledgeable or educated person should expect more than this. A student who turned in a term paper so vacuous would deserve a poor grade (or a chance at a re-write); an adult representative of school boards doing the equivalent deserves the intellectual scorn of his fellow Wisconsinites. Our millions of fellow Wisconsin adults did not, each of them, fall off of turnip trucks yesterday. 

These men represent school boards; many more men and women are on school boards. There are thousands of superintendents and other administrators in over four hundred school districts in this state. Anyone — any single one — who was graduated from high school, college, or a graduate program with a presentation as light as Kulow’s either learned too little or has forgotten too much. 

Those who wish to argue against required competitive bidding — a practice adopted in 47 of 50 states — need to do better than this. 


See a massive galaxy cluster evolve in simulation:

Daily Bread for 1.29.23: Trump’s Social Network Littered with Ads for Miracle Cures, Scams, Fake Merchandise

Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 19. Sunrise is 7:11 AM and sunset 5:04 PM for 9h 53m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 59.5% of its visible disk illuminated.  On this day in 1845, “The Raven” is published in The Evening Mirror in New…