In Salisbury, Maryland, outgoing mayor and scapegoater Barrie Parsons Tighman contends that malicious bloggers are ruining her town. Sounds familiar, I wouldn’t wonder.
It’s just as false, too – an insular, thin-skinned town elite will often say whatever it wants, on any subject, about anyone, but quickly criticizes the First Amendment rights of bloggers on public policy as malice.
If there are to be complaints about ruining a town, then they likely rest not with bloggers, but with those who, however ineptly, govern the town.
The Alzheimer’s Association has issued the following press release:
Dementia Basics & Strategies for Success Workshop Offered
Milwaukee, WI – March 12, 2009 – The Alzheimer’s Association is offering a three-part “Dementia Basics & Strategies for Success” workshop on Thursday, April 2nd, Thursday, April 16th and Thursday, April 30th from 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at Waukesha Memorial Hospital, Senior Health Center (east entrance, lobby rooms 1 & 2), 725 American Avenue in Waukesha. This program is ideal for those who have experienced the recent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia in their family, friend or neighbor and are looking for tools in order to effectively manage this situation.
Sessions I and II of the program will cover the warning signs of dementia; the differences between dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, treatment options and progression, risk factors, research; principles of person-centered care, legal and financial issues, respite care and community resources. Session III will cover understanding communication difficulties and challenging behaviors, and strategies to effectively manage communication and behavior. There will also be an opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences with others who are coping with similar situations.
This complimentary program will be presented by Judy Gunkel, Regional Services Coordinator, Alzheimer’s Association. Pre-registration is required; please call 414-479-8800.
The Alzheimer’s Association is a national non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating Alzheimer’s disease through the advancement of research, to enhance care and support for all affected and to reduce the risk of dementia through the promotion of brain health. The Alzheimer’s Association provides information, education, and support to people with Alzheimer’s and related dementias, their families, and healthcare professionals throughout an 11-county region. For more information about Alzheimer’s disease and local services visit www.alz.org/sewi or call the toll-free, 24-hour Helpline at 800-272-3900.
The Alzheimer’s Association has issued the following press release:
Community Program on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia
Program to provide specifics and answers
The Alzheimer’s Association will host a community program called “Understanding Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia” on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Muskego Public Library, S73 W16663 Janesville Road in Muskego. This program is complimentary and open to the public.
The program will answer the questions, “What is Alzheimer’s disease?”, “What are the warning signs?” and “What happens once a diagnosis is made?” Information will also be presented about normal and abnormal memory changes, reversible/irreversible causes of dementia, progression of the disease, when to see a doctor, how to get a diagnosis and available medications and treatment for memory loss.
To register, please contact Judy Gunkel, Regional Services Coordinator, Alzheimer’s Association, at 262-424-8819 or via email at judy.gunkel@alz.org.
The Alzheimer’s Association is a national non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating Alzheimer’s disease through the advancement of research, to enhance care and support for individuals, their families, and caregivers, and to reduce the risk of dementia through the promotion of brain health. The Alzheimer’s Association of Southeastern Wisconsin provides information, education, and support to people with Alzheimer’s and related dementias, their families, and healthcare professionals throughout an 11-county region. For more information about Alzheimer’s disease and local chapter services visit www.alz.org/sewi or call the toll-free, 24-hour Helpline at 800-272-3900.
I received the following press release from the Bruce Johnson Clay Studio, that I am happy to post —
Lake Mills, WI March 9 2009 Bruce Johnson’s distinctive raku ceramic pieces have been enjoyed by people all over the nation for over 25 years. Starting March 31, Johnson is going to share his knowledge and technique with others by offering lessons in wheel thrown and hand built ceramics.
“With my years of experience as a full-time artist, I believe I have much to offer those interested in ceramics,” says Johnson, “whether they are just beginning or already experienced in working with clay.” In this unique learning opportunity, students will learn the art of making functional and decorative pottery, both hand built and wheel thrown. The pieces will be fired in food-safe, high-fire glazes, and in the ancient technique of raku firing.
All sessions will take place at Bruce Johnson Clay Studio, 302 Campus Street, in Lake Mills, Wisconsin, beginning the week of March 31, 2009. The class includes one session a week for seven weeks, 25 pounds of clay, and all glaze materials, including firing. Classes will be held Tuesday and Thursday nights from 6:30pm to 9pm, and Saturday mornings from 10am to 12:30pm. Each class is limited to six students to ensure individual attention for each student.
To register, or for further information, contact Johnson at 920-648-3049 or bruce@brucejohnsonclaystudio.com. Samples of work can be seen on his website, www.brucejohnsonclaystudio.com.
It’s St. Patrick’s Day today, but I know that scarcely matters to you. Far more important, I wouldn’t wonder, is your interest in the Common Council meeting, scheduled for tonight at 6:30 p.m. If you otherwise had no justification to drink, you do now…
(Quick note — the Common Council agenda is a pdf document, and tonight’s agenda was scanned as text, not a simple image. This makes the agenda’s format more useful, and like that of other City of Whitewater agendas available online.)
Of my particular interest tonight — First reading of two proposed ordinances —
O-4 Adoption of Ordinance assigning recommendation for Board and Commission members to City Manager and Common Council President (instead of current Nominations Committee) (Request of Councilmember Allen).
At Lincoln School tonight — proud home of the Lincoln Leopards — it’s Musical Fine Arts night — beginning from 6 p.m. to about 7:40 p.m.
Continuing for the next several 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 fine 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.
Here’s the fourth, one-minute summary, of an epiosde entitled, “Free for All.” (Fittingly for Sunshine Week, the episode has a free speech and elections theme.) The full video is also available at AMC.
a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others interested in the public’s right to know.
Sunshine Week is led by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and is funded primarily by a challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation of Miami.
Though spearheaded by journalists, Sunshine Week is about the public’s right to know what its government is doing, and why. Sunshine Week seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger.
Sunshine Week is a non-partisan initiative whose supporters are conservative, liberal and everything in between.
I’ll post on Sunshine Week throughout the week.
Locally, in Whitewater today, there’s a Park & Rec Board meeting at 5:30 p.m., and a Planning Commission meeting at 6 p.m.
There are no public meetings today, for the City of Whitewater, but on Saturday at 10 a.m. there will be a candidates’ forum in the Common Council chambers. The Whitewater League of Women Voters is sponsoring the event. (Note: The City of Whitewater’s website, as of this writing, lists the start time as 9:30 a.m.; the League of Women Voters newsletter lists it as 10 a.m.)
In American history on this day, in 1942, the U.S. Army launched a K-9 Corps. The History Channel’s website has the details:
On this day in 1942, the Quartermaster Corps (QMC) of the United States Army begins training dogs for the newly established War Dog Program, or “K-9 Corps.”
Well over a million dogs served on both sides during World War I, carrying messages along the complex network of trenches and providing some measure of psychological comfort to the soldiers. The most famous dog to emerge from the war was Rin Tin Tin, an abandoned puppy of German war dogs found in France in 1918 and taken to the United States, where he made his film debut in the 1922 silent film The Man from Hell’s River. As the first bona fide animal movie star, Rin Tin Tin made the little-known German Shepherd breed famous across the country.
In the United States, the practice of training dogs for military purposes was largely abandoned after World War I. When the country entered World War II in December 1941, the American Kennel Association and a group called Dogs for Defense began a movement to mobilize dog owners to donate healthy and capable animals to the Quartermaster Corps of the U.S. Army. Training began in March 1942, and that fall the QMC was given the task of training dogs for the U.S. Navy, Marines and Coast Guard as well.
The K-9 Corps initially accepted over 30 breeds of dogs, but the list was soon narrowed to seven: German Shepherds, Belgian sheep dogs, Doberman Pinschers, collies, Siberian Huskies, Malumutes and Eskimo dogs. Members of the K-9 Corps were trained for a total of 8 to 12 weeks. After basic obedience training, they were sent through one of four specialized programs to prepare them for work as sentry dogs, scout or patrol dogs, messenger dogs or mine-detection dogs. In active combat duty, scout dogs proved especially essential by alerting patrols to the approach of the enemy and preventing surprise attacks.
I won’t be completely satisfied until Whitewater has a local version of this program. It won’t be long, I’m sure, as I would guess a proposed municipal hiring freeze will apply only to people.
The International Herald Tribune, a newspaper with a sharp-looking website, asks how long it will be until a major American city is without a hometown newspaper. Not that long, I wouldn’t wonder.
I agree with the sentiment that loss of professional journalists would be a blow to civil society, but that hardly means that loss of print publications would be dire; online awaits.
Online, though, one will hope to find, next year and beyond, websites that are curious, investigative, diligent, and fearless of controversy.
Recently, I posted the Associated Press Managing Editors’ Statement of Ethical Principles. They don’t cover every circumstance, nor need they do so. One applies ordinary principles of reasoning, fairness, and composition to a critique. One need be nothing special; it is enough to read and write.
I have been a critic of the Whitewater Register, and in this post, I’ll offer an example of how that paper continues to fail the community it professes to serve. (As though, by the way, the paper’s actions were altruistic service; if I’m not mistaken, the Southern Lakes chain of which it is part is a for-profit enterprise. Service would imply some professional, if not altruistic, standards. I’m not convinced.)
In the February 26th issue of the Register, inside the paper, one finds a story entitled, “Hixson testifies on autism bill before insurance committee.” The story refers to local Wisconsin representative Kim Hixson (D-43), and his testimony on behalf of a bill that would require extension of insurance benefits to those diagnosed with autism.
I’ll leave it to others to debate the merits of extending coverage by law. For now, I wish to remark on the story as journalism, not as public policy.
The story, and accompanying photo, do not seem to have begun life as a story at the Register, as one can guess by the designation “submitted photo” and the lack of a byline. There’s another reason I think so – I have a copy of Hixson’s legislative press release, on his official stationery, dated February 23, 2009. Aside from a few changes to capitalization, the release and story in the Register are the same. See for yourself:
I cannot fault Hixson for any of this – politicians send out press releases all the time. It would only be odd if he didn’t send out a release.
The problem rests with the Register: running a politician’s release without a single question, additional source for or against, &c. Nothing – cut and paste isn’t reporting, or journalism, or service to this community. There’s no designation that says plainly, “This is a press release, from Rep. Hixson, dated so-and-so.” That would be awkward, but at least candid.
The Register’s practice does benefit the Register, however. There’s space to fill, to support ads (often for out-of-town concerns). Simply stuffing a politician’s release on a page, without any real reporting around it, benefits the Register as an advertising delivery vehicle.
This practice is also a shoddy departure from real journalism, and fails our community.
My name is John Adams, and I am the pseudonymous publisher of Free Whitewater (freewhitewater.com), a small blog about municipal affairs in Whitewater, Wisconsin. I am the sole publisher and author of the website, and have been publishing there since May 2007.
Occasionally, I publish press criticism, and I have offered critiques of articles in The Week, Janesville Gazette, and the Whitewater Register. Readers at my website are familiar with an occasional series about the Whitewater Register, called Register Watch™ , in which I publish reviews of stories and articles appearing in my weekly hometown paper.
Like many bloggers, I am an ordinary person with an interest in local affairs, and press coverage of my town. There is nothing special about either my background or my abilities; I am a common man.
No one believes more in a free and confident press than I do – I believe that better press coverage — rigorous, inquisitive, and independent – produces over time a better politics and a more open, free, and productive culture. (As it is, Whitewater, Wisconsin has a poverty rate higher than her neighbors.)
I’d like to ask a few questions, about your press coverage of our community, and I’d like to publish your replies on my website, with your permission.
On average, how many stories directly about Whitewater, Wisconsin do you publish weekly?
How many reporters, on your staff, cover Whitewater, Wisconsin (on any topic) regularly? If you have more than one reporter assigned, are they assigned to stories based on issue, or the reporters’ relative experience, or any other standard other than mere availability?
Of these stories on Whitewater, how many are original copy from your reporters, and how many are press releases?
If you publish press releases from politicians, community groups, or businesses, do you identify the release expressly as a press release? If so, how do you indicate to readers that a published story includes, in whole or in part, content from a press release?
If you do not expressly indicate that a published story includes, in whole or in part, content from a press release, then why do you not so indicate?
Do you have a standard of journalists’ ethics to which you subscribe, and to which you hold reporters, editors, photographers, &c. responsible?
If so, which standards are those to which you subscribe?
Do you have a policy for checking your reporters, editors, and photographers for potential conflicts of interest? If that policy is separate from any other principles of journalists’ ethics to which you subscribe, then what is that separate policy?
Your newspaper has a website. Do you have plans to expand that website, or change it in significant ways? If you have plans for expansion, do you feel that web-only publishing might be in your future?
Are you, or any of your reporters, photographers, or editors members of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council?
As you know, Sunshine Week – http://www.sunshineweek.org — takes place March 15 through 21. Do you plan any articles, stories, or particular focus of coverage on freedom of information during that week?
If you should have a hero or heroine, among journalists, politicians, or anyone else, then who would that be?
I received the following press release, that I am happy to post —
The Walworth County Genealogical Society will meet Tuesday, April 7, 2009, 7:00 PM, at the Community Centre, 826 E. Geneva Street, Delavan. Graig Pfannkucke, Wonder Lake, IL will talk about “In-laws and Outlaws.” The subject matter covers how to deal with the “Bad Guys” in family trees. He will supply research tips on how to find the famous and infamous.
Craig is a well-known speaker who presents interesting programs and workshops on a variety of genealogical, historical and archaeological topics. He is a former history teacher with a BS and a MA degree in history, who is now president of Memory Trail Research, and a board member of McHenry County Illinois Genealogical Society, McHenry County Historical Society, Chicago Genealogical Society and the Genealogical Archivist of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Historical Society. Craig Pfannkucke is an interesting speaker who always adds humor to what ever topic he presents. Please come for a evening of learning and entertainment. The business meeting will occur after the talk.
The monthly Society meetings are open to the public and the Society’s publications can be ordered at that time. Brochures are available with information about the society and a complete listing of the books.
For additional information, please call the Vice President at 275-2426.
There are no public meetings scheduled for the City of Whitewater, today. Their quiet is your happiness.
In our schools, there’s been a parent survey, available on the district’s website. The survey is available — as makes sense — in both English and Spanish versions.
It only takes a few minutes, and is well worth submitting.
Great news in the world of music, and proof that Bono and U2 are super-smart. They’ve jumped from endorsing Apple to a deal with Research in Motion, maker of fine BlackBerry wireless phones.
