Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 6:03 AM and sunset 7:54 PM, for 13h 50m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 59.7% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM, the Community Development Authority at 5:30 PM,…
School District
City, Coronavirus, Culture, Education, Public Health, School District, Science/Nature
Wise Words for Whitewater from Steak-umm
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a thread on Twitter from Steak-umm (an American brand of thin-sliced frozen steaks) that does a better job (truly) discussing the role of science and skepticism about the pandemic than much of what’s published online. The full thread is available at Twitter, and excerpts are imediately below. It’s spot-on for Whitewater. (Note: the thread…
Aside
IF PUBLIC OFFICIALS DON’T WANT TO READ DISCUSSIONS ABOUT PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY, THEN THEY SHOULDN’T RUN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE.
City, Culture, Education, Far-Right Populism, Liberty, Populists, School District
Jane Jacobs with Useful Advice on Responsibility (for Whitewater, Richmond Township, Delavan, Etc.)
by JOHN ADAMS •
In Jane Jacobs’s Death and Life of Great American Cities (describing large cities, not small towns), she writes of business owners’ sense of responsibility for the sidewalks near their shops: First, there must be a clear demarcation between what is public space and what is private space. Public and private spaces cannot ooze into each other…
Coronavirus, Culture, Politics, Public Health, School District, Science/Nature
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Science
by JOHN ADAMS •
It seemed reasonable, months ago, to wait until the end of the 2020-2021 school year to assess how well the Whitewater Unified School District managed the pandemic. It doesn’t seem so reasonable now, for reasons of culture as much as public health. Generally – and sensibly – one has reason to be skeptical of lay…
Conservative Populism, Culture, Education, Far-Right Populism, Horde, Local Government, Never Trump, Politics, School District, Trumpism
(Local) Fear of a Red Hat
by JOHN ADAMS •
There are any number of fears that occasionally grip people, however unfounded those fears, of snakes, of spiders, of black cats, etc. (Snakes play an important ecological role, some cultures think spiders are good luck, and black cats are beautiful with notably soft coats.) And yet, and yet… no fear strikes deeper and holds tighter…
School District
Defining Advocacy Down at the School District Office
by JOHN ADAMS •
One can, and should, advocate for many causes, big and small. It’s not necessary to pick merely one, as though advocacy for a strong national defense, for example, somehow precludes advocacy for the benefits of a Mediterranean diet. When, however, steadfast advocacy on major points is weak or absent, advocacy on lesser matters assumes a regrettable…
City, Local Government, Never Trump, Politics, School District, Trumpism, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021
Whither the Conservative Populists?
by JOHN ADAMS •
In places big and small, including Whitewater, there are three main types of conservatives: traditional, transactional, and populist. (Right-wing populist in our time is mostly a euphemism for Trumpist.) Of these types, only the right-wing populists are a dynamic movement. Traditional conservatives each day look more like large reptiles after a cataclysmic meteor strike, and…
Far-Right Populism, Local Government, Never Trump, Politics, School District, State Government, Trump, Trumpism
Conservative Populism Moves in One Direction Only
by JOHN ADAMS •
While there’s more than one kind of conservative Republican (traditionalist, transactionalist, or populist), it’s the populists who are the most numerous and most demanding. Over time, they’ve pushed other kinds of conservatives – even transactionalists who are behind-the-scenes manipulators – into subordinate positions. (See generally Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021.) These rightwing populists have outlasted Trump,…
City, Culture, Education, Local Government, Politics, School District, University, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021
Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: The Limits of Local Politics
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the final post in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021. Earlier posts at FREE WHITEWATER have addressed the limits of local politics in the community: local public (or powerful private) institutions have a limited power of action (with harmful actions likely to be more immediate than helpful ones). It’s certain that a…
City, Coronavirus, Culture, Education, Politics, School District, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021
Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: Majoritarianism
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the tenth in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021. The contested April school board election has now come to a close. An animating concern of many parents was that the Whitewater public school should not have suspended face-to-face instruction for as long as it did, and that, in doing so, the…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Blogging, Boosterism, City, Confidence Schemes, Coronavirus, Culture, Local Government, Mendacity, Politics, School District, Special Interests, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021
Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: Marketing
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the ninth in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021. Through all the difficult events of the last two decades (a Great Recession, an opioid epidemic, economic stagnation, creeping nativism, a pandemic, a pandemic recession), Old Whitewater has responded with the same question: how can we market the town to others? If…
City, Culture, Democrats, Local Government, Politics, School District, University, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021
Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: The Subcultural City
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the sixth in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021. There’s no politically predominant group in Whitewater. Strictly speaking, a subculture implies a dominant culture, but it’s less dramatic to describe Whitewater as several subcultures than as balkanized. One might call the city multicultural, but that term often implies an acceptance of…
City, Local Government, Politics, School District, University, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021
Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: The Campus
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the fifth in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021. Whitewater, Wisconsin is a small town where about half the residents are university students. Town-Gown conflicts here aren’t the most in all North America, but they’re not the least, either. The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is beset with challenges apart from politics: long-term structural…