FREE WHITEWATER

Libertarians

Gary Cooper’s Portrayal of Howard Roark in Rand’s Fountainhead.   

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Yesterday,  I posted a short clip from the 1949 film version of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead.  The film stars Gary Cooper as Howard Roark, an architect and individualist.  

Here’s a bit more. Rand wrote the screenplay for the film, and one can easily hear her voice in Roark’s words.   Roark finds himself on trial, and delivers a defense of his conduct, that’s truly Rand’s defense of individual action.  

(Quick Note Number 1  — I’m not an Objectivist, and do not share Rand’s full range of views.  I see cleary, though, the contribution of her work to a libertarian defense against state collectivism.) 

By contemporary standards, it’s an acerbic defense — Roark refers to those opposed to individual action as ‘parasites,’ for example.  In our more delicate time, one might say that others were parasitic,  but it’s hard to see how a film’s protagonist would be scripted to call opponents parasites.   We’re just more delicate now.  

One sees, too, Roark’s undeniable love of America, one that all libertarians share: “the noblest country in the history” of humanity, “was based on the principle of individualism…”

(Quick Note Number 2 — for Chief Coan, Lt. Otterbacher, Sgt. Winger, et al. — Roark is defending himself against the destruction of property he designed.  Rand wrote the novel, The Fountainhead, a work of fiction.  She also wrote the screenplay for the film, a work of fiction.  Gary Cooper, an actor, portrayed Howard Roark, a fictional character.  No one, at any time, actually destroyed any property.   Famous fictional novel, famous fictional screenplay, famous actor, portraying a fictional character — it’s just a movie.)     

 
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Daily Bread

Daily Bread: June 10, 2009

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Good morning, Whitewater

In the City of Whitewater today, there’s a Landmarks Commission meeting at 6:30 p.m.

In Wisconsin history today, the Wisconsin Historical Society notes the arrival of two pioneers at Madison, just hours apart —

1837 – Darwin Clark Arrives in Madison

On this date Dane County pioneer Darwin Clark arrived in Madison, just three hours before another area pioneer, Simeon Mills, arrived. Clark arrived in Madison from Otega, New York, and worked as a carpenter on the first state capitol building. In 1844 he purchased the first plot of land and built his home. Located on Main Street, Clark also ran a furniture store out of the second floor of the structure. [Source: Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles]

1837 – Dane County Pioneer Arrives in Madison

On this date Dane County pioneer, Simeon Mills, arrived on the opposite shore of Lake Monona, where he persuaded two Native American boys to ferry him across the lake to the Eben Peck’s log cabin. Mills was 27 years old when he arrived in Madison, having walked from Chicago. Mills held many prominent positions in Madison during its early years. He was appointed deputy postmaster in 1837 and erected the first mercantile establishment in Madison. For many years, Mills was the only Justice of the Peace in Dane County, officiating at many wedding ceremonies. Mills also served as Territorial Clerk of the Supreme Court and served as the first state senator from Dane County. [Source: Wisconsin State Journal – March 15 1891]

Almanac
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 Sunrise Sunset
Official Time 05:16 AM 08:32 PM
Civil Twilight 04:41 AM 09:07 PM
Tomorrow 05:16 AM 08:33 PM
Tomorrow will be: 1 minute longer
Amount of sunlight: 15h 16m
Amount of daylight: 16h 26m
Moon phase: Waning Gibbous

School District

Dr. Steinhaus vs. Student: Student Wins!

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Despite her condescension toward a student’s message sent to this website about staff layoffs at our school district, a review of Whitewater District Administrator Steinhaus’s own compensation shows that the student — not Steinhaus — has the better argument.

It’s quite a match-up —

Fancy administrator and Doctor of Education, Leslie Steinhaus

versus

Decent, all-American, hard-working Whitewater student

(Quick note — there’s a legal fair use right to display these images, one worth exercising and defending.)

On Monday, I posted an email message from a student in our school district. Here’s what the student had to say —

I don’t know if you have heard but recently the WUSD released its tentative cuts for next fall. They might be cutting the 5th grade band program but for sure they are getting rid of Josh Barret the current band director at that level. The administration of course will still be receiving its 10% raise this year though. I feel that this is a serious mismanagement of government at our school level by the administration because most Americans across the country are taking pay cuts now. If you should chose to run with this story you may email me at any time and I will be willing to help you out.

Well, Dr. Steinhaus responded — but not to this website — denying the contention, and pointing out that the message was from a student.

I offered an initial reply earlier this morning. (See, Dr. Steinhaus’s Glass House.)

(I don’t see what difference it makes who wrote to this website — as I pointed out, “she knows very well that it was a student letter” as the email implied as much.)

The irony — her implication might be that one should not consider the student’s opinion seriously, but it’s one of her students, taught in one of her schools.

She should have more confidence in the quality of her own district’s work.

Indeed, much more, as when one considers Dr. Steinhaus’s own compensation, the student hits the mark!

Consider the available public information from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s website.

In 2008, the Wisconsin DPI information on School and Staff Salary Data reveals that Dr. Steinhaus received $118,035 in prorated salary and $41,068 in prorated fringe benefits, for a total of $159,103. (See, Administrative Salary Report, 2008 draft, in Excel.)

For 2009, the Wisconsin DPI information on School and Staff Salary Data reveals that Dr. Steinhaus received $129,039 in prorated salary and $45,368 in prorated fringe benefits, for a total of $174,725. (See, Administrative Salary Report, 2009 draft, in Excel.)

(I performed all these high-level calculations on a genuine HP 35s Scientific Calculator, for those who’d like more information about FREE WHITEWATER’s technological sophistication!)

Dr. Steinhaus disputes a 10% increase, but in her own case, let’s see what it really was…

2008 = $159,103

2009 = $174,725

Increase, year over year = 9.82%.

Is Dr. Steinhaus kidding?

Imagine the arrogance of denying 10%, when in her own case, she had a 9.82% gain, year over year.

How many in Whitewater had a 9.82% gain, year over year?

That’s closer to the national unemployment rate than the compensation gain for workers in this city.

A city with a higher than average poverty-rate for our area.

A city where over one in four students are eligible for federal assistance for lunches.

You know, and I know, that Dr. Steinhaus has been Whitewater’s distaff version of Claude Rains. Yet, for it all, even she must have seen some of our neighborhoods, struggling and troubled even before this severe recession.

In these last weeks, with problem after problem tumbling about her, one might have hoped for more than an incredible denial.

Not true, Dr. Steinhaus?

Oh yes, so very true, indeed.

Advantage…

Student!

Libertarians

Howard Roark as Frank Lloyd Wright

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Yesterday was the anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s birth. I thought I’d follow up with a movie clip, from Rand’s Fountainhead. Ayn Rand often denied that the Fountainhead‘s architect Howard Roark was based on Frank Lloyd Wright. (She did, however, commission a home from FLW, one that was never built.)

Still, the real and fictional architects were both individualists, and advocated a modern design, and that’s likely much of the basis for the comparison.

Here, Roark refuses to compromise his design, in a clip from the 1949 film. Enjoy.


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School District

Dr. Steinhaus’s Glass House

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District Administrators in glass houses…

On Monday, I posted a letter from a student who felt that staff cuts should not have been made without reductions in administrative compensation.

Dr. Steinhaus now complains that the administration has not received a pay increase, as the student suggested.

She’s foolish to highlight the issue.

Too funny, really, and diversion more than anything else – she knows very well that it was a student letter, and that its point was the need for – note well – reductions in the administration’s compensation.

Before staff reductions…

Those reductions in the compensation — of whatever form — of this administrator should have taken place long ago.

There have been no meaningful reductions, to my knowledge, in that compensation.

On the contrary, this administrator is paid exceedingly well for a post in a district with above-average poverty.

Paid well for a leader in a district that now scrambles to address serious social problems too long ignored. (Might someone please explain to this administrator that pointing to good news does not remove the cause of bad news?)

Paid well for a leader in a district that now cuts staff, a practice rare for us (but perhaps not so rare for the full measure of Dr. Steinhaus’s career).

Paid well, but not for the substantive improvement and accomplishments of her students in academic, athletic, or artistic work.

This is the very end of this administrator’s tenure, and more can and should be said of it.

I am willing and confident to debate her legacy with anyone – or everyone – in this district.

Soon enough, I wouldn’t wonder.

City, School District

Poll: What’s the best, first option for budget cuts for a city or school district?

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There’s almost always resistance to reductions in the size of government — once having achieved a certain mark, government seldom recedes. In this deep recession, with a loss of state aid to cities and public school districts, reductions in local budgets are more likely. I’ve created a small poll, asking which first option to address a local budget shortfall seems preferable.

One might, of course, combine several approaches. This poll merely asks for a first choice.

(And, although it would not ever be my choice in a recession or otherwise, I have included tax increases as an option.)

The poll will be open through Friday morning at 5 a.m.

City, Inbox Reader Mail, School District

Inbox: Reader Mail — Options for School District Budget Savings

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Yesterday, I posted a reader note on an alternative response to budget cuts in our school district. Afterward, I received two notes from another, longtime reader, suggesting a second alternative. I’ve combined the two notes on the second alternative with an ellipsis.

Mr. Adams, I hate to sound like a broken record about this, but if the WUSD citizenry is looking for place to ‘cut’, how about employees’ health retirement benefits? I’ve no doubt the district could have made up for most of the staff cuts they just announced if they simply stopped increasing their employees’ retirement health benefits, which for most employees now totals well over $100,000 per employee. Of course, you will not hear this from the district nor the Register, but it is worth pointing out nonetheless…

You might want to include also the fact that increases in their health retirement benefits are NOT included in reported pay raises that we all hear about.

Every time a teacher retires, it costs the district over $100,000 in health benefits on the spot.

There’s more than one way to compensate for a reduction in state aid, to a school district or municipality.

(And, if it should be true that the Obama administration establishes some form of universal health care – an effort that I am convinced would be wildly imprudent – the proposal outlined above would be doubly compelling.)

Loss of state aid may be addressed in more than one way, and although corresponding reductions will be necessary, there’s more than one response available, no matter how often one might hear from politicians and bureaucrats that only one choice was possible.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread: June 9, 2009

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Good morning, Whitewater

In the City of Whitewater today, there are no municipal, public meetings scheduled.

Yesterday, I noted that it was Wisconsin-native Frank Lloyd Wright’s birthday, and quoted from a Wisconsin Historical Society entry biography.

There’s another way to mark his birthday, and celebrate his accomplishments — with Lego building blocks. Lego has a series of new models, based on famous Frank Lloyd Wright designs.

See, Frank Lloyd Wright + Lego = Awesome, in Wired. Impressive, I think.

Almanac
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 Sunrise Sunset
Official Time 05:16 AM 08:32 PM
Civil Twilight 04:41 AM 09:07 PM
Tomorrow 05:16 AM 08:32 PM
Tomorrow will be: roughly same as today
Amount of sunlight: 15h 16m
Amount of daylight: 16h 26m
Moon phase: Waning Gibbous

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City, Inbox Reader Mail, School District

Inbox: Reader Mail — Budget Cuts, General and Specific

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I received a message recently from a student who remarked on budget cuts in the school district.  Here’s part of what he had to say — 

I don’t know if you have heard but recently the WUSD released its tentative cuts for next fall.  They might be cutting the 5th grade band program but for sure they are getting rid of Josh Barret the current band director at that level.  The administration of course will still be receiving its 10% raise this year though.  I feel that this is a serious mismanagement of government at our school level by the administration because most Americans across the country are taking pay cuts now.  If you should chose to run with this story you may email me at any time and I will be willing to help you out.

 

I wrote back privately, and here’s a longer public reply — 

Our community will often hear that a certain cut had to take place, because of a loss of state aid, the bad economy, etc. Someone will declare that we’re out of money, and so a certain cut had to take place. 

That’s not true, as the reader correctly observes. Cuts may be necessary, but that doesn’t justify any particular cut. Our city and school district confuse – deliberately, sometimes, I think – cuts generally with specific cuts. We find ourselves in the position where the City of Whitewater and the Whitewater Unified School District will surely lose contributions on which they had counted from the State of Wisconsin. 

As the state budget’s unfavorable, we can expect that cities and school districts across Wisconsin will feel that impact.  And yet, it’s so easy to declare that cuts to a particular position, or service, where inevitable, because we’ve received less state money.  It’s as though, faced with less from the state, there were only one choice possible — the very choice that politicians, administrators, or bureaucrats made. 

Choices are seldom so constrained, that there is only one possible solution.  It’s not as though we’re on a lifeboat, with one cracker left to share.   

One might cut staff, but there are other options, too.  We might have chosen differently before now, and we might choose differently now as well.   

Declaring that cuts made were forced as a consequence of declining state aid masks the responsibility and accountability for choosing one cut over another.  

Specific cuts, by the way, often seem to fall on others, including front-line workers, rather than politicians, bureaucrats, etc., themselves.   

City

Prisoner Monday

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Continuing for the next few weeks, it’s Prisoner Monday here at Free Whitewater. Why? Because a longtime reader previously suggested to me that being in Whitewater sometimes felt like living the plot of The Prisoner.

It’s a great British series, that tells the story of a secret agent who resigns from his agency, only to find himself in a mysterious place called The Village.

AMC has the full episodes of the original series online, and also offers one-minute summaries of those original episodes. I’ve previously posted the first fourteen videos.

Here’s the fifteenth, one-minute summary, of an episode entitled, “The Girl Who Was Death.” (“No. 6 acts out a fairy tale, and meets up with a girl who believes that they were made for each other. He is a born survivor, she is a born killer….”)

The full video is also available at AMC.

Enjoy.

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Daily Bread

Daily Bread: June 8, 2009

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Good morning, Whitewater

In the City of Whitewater today, there are three municipal, public meetings scheduled. The Community Development Authority – Business Park Marketing Committee and the Park and Recreation Board meet at 4:30 p.m., and the Irvin Young Library Board meets at 6:30 p.m.

In Wisconsin history on this date, the Wisconsin Historical Society reports a famous birthday:

1867 – Frank Lloyd Wright Born

On this date Frank Lincoln Wright (he changed his middle name after his parents divorced) was born in Richland Center. An architect, author, and social critic, Wright’s artistic genius demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to create architectural space and vocabulary that drew inspiration from both nature and technology.

The son of William Cary Wright, a lawyer and music teacher, and Anna Lloyd Jones, a school teacher, Frank Lloyd Wright’s family moved to Madison in 1877 to be near Anna’s family in Spring Green. Wright briefly studied civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, after which he moved to Chicago to pursue a career in architecture. Wright started his own firm in 1893 and between 1893 and 1901, 49 buildings designed by Wright were built.

Some notable Frank Lloyd Wright structures in Wisconsin include S.C. Johnson and Son, Inc. Administration Building in Racine, the A.D. German Warehouse in Richland Center, and Taliesin and Hillside in Spring Green. The Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center in Madison was also based on Wright’s design. Frank Lloyd Wright died on April 9, 1959, in Phoenix, Arizona. [Source: American National Biography, Vol. 24, 1999, p.15]

Almanac
Monday, June 8, 2009 Sunrise Sunset
Official Time 05:16 AM 08:31 PM
Civil Twilight 04:41 AM 09:06 PM
Tomorrow 05:16 AM 08:32 PM
Tomorrow will be: 1 minute longer
Amount of sunlight: 15h 15m
Amount of daylight: 16h 25m
Moon phase: Full Moon