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Daily Bread for 12.24.22: It’s Okay, Whitewater — Somehow, Some Way, We’ll Manage

Good morning.

Christmas Eve in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 8. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:25 PM for 9h 02m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1943, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is named Supreme Allied Commander for the Operation Overlord.


There are local elections for school board, city council, and the city’s municipal court in April. The deadline for candidates to submit nomination papers for those races is 1.3.2023. That’s ten days from now. (As it turns out, ten days is also 240 hours, or 14,400 minutes, or 864,000 seconds.) Plenty of time. 

And yet, and yet, over at the Whitewater Banner (a publication that uses a byline but has no real journalists) there’s some worry, it seems, that there might not be enough school board candidates: Three School Board Seats Open; What Happens if There are Less Than Three Candidates? (https://whitewaterbanner.com/three-school-board-seats-open-what-happens-if-there-are-less-than-three-candidates/).

A few quick remarks. 

 There’s one candidate declared, and there may be more by 1.3.23. Nothing happened yesterday, and nothing will happen tomorrow, that will in any possible way adversely affect education in Whitewater.

 We won’t know if there will be three open seats until January 3rd. Both the school district’s Central Office and the Banner have used the term ‘open seats’ incorrectly. See Elections, Candidates, and ‘Open Seats.’ 

 How many people are in government matters less than what government does. Let’s suppose, despite all possibility, that no one ever runs for school board again in Whitewater. No one, ever. There will still be public education in Whitewater, however organized. Then — as now — it will matter what is taught and how it is taught. It’s what you do that matters, and the doing of education, so to speak, is teaching and learning. See “You are what you do. A man is defined by his actions, not his memory.”

 This Banner post follows a professionally written story at Fort Atkinson Online that was published many hours earlier. The earlier story should have been credited as previously reported.

 I’ve no idea — no normal, professionally-oriented idea — why the Banner chose to accompany its post with a photo of a small, confused child, layered in sepia. There’s no reason for confusion or worry, or justification to impute confusion or worry to anyone. 

It’s okay — we’re gonna get through this. Breathe deeply, think of ocean vistas and kitty cats, and you’ll be fine.

Whitewater has many challenges that she can, and must, overcome. The manner for candidates declaring and when is not among them. Indeed, if this were the measure of our problems then we’d have no problems at all.


Jingle Cats Sing Silent Night:

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Attendee
1 year ago

Thank you for keeping perspective. People are concerned about our schools for reasons other than elections.
Is the picture of the little kid suggesting that this is a big mess? is it that it’s all f’ed up? These school board members put up with a lot and it’s often unfair.
But the district has more than a school board. There are administrators/principals/teachers.
Seems weird to think the focus should be on the people who meet once a month instead of daily.

Good callout.

Have a Merry Christmas, Blogger Adams.