Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 54. Sunrise is 6:05 AM and sunset 7:42 PM for 13h 36m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1775, the Revolutionary War begins with an American victory in the battles of Lexington and Concord.
About a year ago, in The Uncertain Course of Whitewater’s Local Turmoil, this libertarian blogger wrote that
[these] last months, notably the last eight to ten months, have seen both local malaise (the city) and local turmoil (the school district) in Whitewater….as [residents’] complaints stem from unique local actions and reactions, some known, some inscrutable, it’s hard to tell where this community is heading. As a baseline assumption, one could begin with the view that past is prologue, and that the community is in for more of the same.
As true now as then.
Which leads to an apparent paradox: nothing succeeds like failure. The easiest course for anyone, already charted, is to do what one has already done, in good times or bad. While in bad times that’s a bad choice, it’s an easy one, an already-on-the-table plan. There’s that definition of insanity that comes to mind: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. (The observation is often attributed to Einstein, but it’s unlikely the remark originated with him.)
The easiest path for government in both the city and school district is to implement, revert really, to an old policy of more of the same. It’s only at that moment, after local government has regrettably returned to type, that the hard work for residents in response begins.
Scientists Invent Edible Battery:
Interesting take. So people may want change, but it’s not going to happen? Is that because they won’t try? There will be huge disappointment on the schools side if there is no course correction. On the city side, what do you think will happen?
For the school district, it seems likely there will be an effort for a course correction, but the work of the district is a work of years, not months or quarters. There is likely a misunderstanding about how hard improvement will be, as course corrections (even if effectual) require more than an election.
For the city, the development men of Old Whitewater are overly convinced of themselves and under-appreciative of others. Their faith in themselves, and in themselves alone, is as strong as any orthodox man’s faith in God. It must be inconceivable to them that their idiosyncratic entitlement to offices and positions (different in Whitewater from normal places) would not be eternal. Attempts to bring normal to Whitewater must look abnormal, even heretical, to them. Revanchism will prove tempting, if not irresistible.
Toward all this, one begins each day anew with The Better Approach of the Dark-Horse Underdog.