Business, Daily Bread, Social Media, Twitter
Daily Bread for 11.20.22: On Musk’s Multiple Misunderstandings and Mistakes
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 26. Sunrise is 6:54 AM and sunset 4:27 PM for 9h 33m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 13.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1820, an 80-ton sperm whale attacks and sinks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America. (Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this incident.)
An associate professor of physics (specializing in optical science) at UNC Charlotte, writing on Twitter with the username @drskyskull, summarizes nicely Elon Musk’s mistakes & misunderstanding about Twitter. Although Musk may have purchased Twitter (with considerable debt, basically OPM), buying something does assure the understanding of a thing. (If it were otherwise, there would be no concept of buyer’s remorse, for example.)
Here’s his thread assessing Musk’s multiple misunderstandings and mistakes:
So here’s my hypothesis on the whole Musk twitter deal. 1/
Dude LOVES Twitter. As a narcissist, he can’t get enough of the adulation of the right-wing mouth-breathers. But Twitter keeps banning the people he loves, so he becomes convinced that Twitter is a liberal SJW organization. 2/
He decides to teach them a lesson, and make an offer to buy the company. Absolutely convinced that it is a left-wing political site, he’s sure they’ll refuse his offer, even a ridiculously good offer. Then he can say “aha! they’re so woke!” and his fans will cheer. 3/
But Twitter is actually governed by businesspeople who see his offer as absurdly high, and they jump at it. Musk freaks out, tries to get out of the deal, but he’s already locked in solidly. 4/
Now his Dunning-Kruger kicks in to protect him from his panic, and he says, “heck, it’s not that hard to run this site; I’ll turn it around right quick!” He’s not completely stupid, so he cons investors into going in with him. 5/
Dude has fundamentally never understood how Twitter works, and what it takes to make Twitter work. To him, it’s a company filled with a bunch of lefties who just sit around censoring everyone. He can dump that dead weight and everything will run fine. 6/
He goes into it with the same bluster that he used to boost his car and space companies: act like the genius “disruptor” that can fix anything. But those companies are not ad-based, and advertisers immediately become spooked by his approach. 7/
He is utterly baffled; don’t they see how he’s going to make Twitter better than ever before? He fundamentally doesn’t understand how much effort Twitter put into protecting brands. He’s high on his own supply of “free speech,” which he also doesn’t understand. 8/
He clearly thinks that the value of twitter is entirely in the number of users. That is important, but the *quality* of users matters, too, which he doesn’t get. He starts his ill-advised (stupid) change to the blue check system. 9/
With the blue checks, again he’s high on his own supply. He see the check as a status symbol (which it is), but thinks that he can sell that status, which he can’t. People are verified because users need to be able to separate real people from scams. 10/
Elon also thinks that everyone is just as addicted to Twitter as he is. He’s a narcissist; he NEEDS Twitter just like Trump needed it. But relatively few people are that addicted to the site, and the real blue checks know that they *bring* value to the site. 11/
So more advisors leave. Elon is desperate to turn things around quickly, so he just throws shit at the wall to see what sticks. Nothing does, because he has no concept of how actual human beings experience reality. 12/
I think he’s in a panic state, because he *knows* that his mystique is evaporating quickly. He’s the golden boy who had “made 3 companies worth a billion dollars.” He can’t afford, mentally, to be seen as the guy holding the company losing a billion a year. 13/
He probably can’t financially, either, which has got to be intense pressure on his psyche. He keeps trying to turn things around by doing things exactly like he does at Tesla and SpaceX: he’s got a hammer, Twitter is the nail. 14/
But Twitter’s corporate culture is very different from those other companies, so most people aren’t interested in his appeals to going “hardcore.” And his immediate layoffs trigger company-wide resentment, which means almost everyone is ready to bail. 15/
He assumes that he can make things so shitty for workers that only the best, “hardcore” workers will remain. But pretty much the opposite is true: the best workers can jump somewhere else instantly. So his plan backfires 100%. 16/
Now, he’s left with a company with no advertisers, massive debt, and a toxic work environment that will struggle to find new employees. Institutional knowledge has walked out the door. 17/
Overall? I think he is a victim of being a legend in his own mind. He felt he understood twitter well enough that they would never sell. They did. Then he thought he understood it well enough to slash it in half to improve efficiency. He didn’t. 18/
He thought he could appeal to some sort of macho tough guy work ethic that he probably has never experienced himself. He probably sleeps in his office, but he probably has a very comfy bed in it. 19/
To summarize: he thought that Twitter was run by a bunch of left-wingers, who were therefore inferior to him. He was wrong on both counts, and now he’s stuck with a company that may not function at all within days. END
None of this means that Twitter will go under (outages notwithstanding); best guess is that it will remain dysfunctional as long as Musk owns it. If something else compelling comes along, then Twitter will decline as MySpace did. MySpace is still around, but no one cares. The local analog in Whitewater would be the Whitewater Register: living but irretrievably comatose.
Not many people in Whitewater use Twitter, but all people in all places are vulnerable to hubris. In this way, Twitter’s troubles are cautionary for anyone, anywhere.
Meanwhile, the stock price of Tesla year-to-date:
(Of the post title, “On Musk’s Multiple Misunderstandings and Mistakes” and mention of “Twitter’s troubles”: apologies to my high school English teacher, Mrs. Pearlberger, for the overuse of alliteration.)
Why coral reefs are so important: underwater in Egypt:
Animals, Daily Bread, Science/Nature
Daily Bread for 11.19.22: About Those 18,000 Marine Bones in a Smithsonian Warehouse
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 26. Sunrise is 6:52 AM and sunset 4:27 PM for 9h 35m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 21.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1863, President Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
The Smithsonian Has 18,000 Marine Bones Hidden In A Warehouse. But What Do They Do With Them?:
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has over 18,000 specimens in its marine mammal bone collection, notably featuring a rare 8.5-foot adult Rice’s whale skull. This collection is so large — in both size and scale — that it has outgrown the museum. Most of the collection is located in an airplane hangar in the Museum Support Center in Maryland.
See how bits of Mars could get back to Earth in new NASA/ESA animation:
The NASA and ESA Mars Sample Return mission will send bits of the Red Planet collected by the Perseverance rover to Earth. See how it could be done in this new animation.
Daily Bread, Education, Freedom of Speech, UW System
Daily Bread for 11.18.22: UW System Releases Free Speech Survey
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 25. Sunrise is 6:51 AM and sunset 4:28 PM for 9h 37m 06s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 29.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1928, the animated short Steamboat Willie premieres as the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse.
Rich Kremer reports on the UW System’s relaunch of a student free speech survey:
The University of Wisconsin System will relaunch a student free speech survey that spurred the resignation of a chancellor six months earlier. The survey is aimed at gauging attitudes toward free speech, viewpoint diversity and self-censorship at the state’s 13 universities.
The 29-page survey will be sent to random samples of students on each UW campus with researchers hoping for a minimum of 500 responses, according to a UW System press release issued Friday [11.11.22].
The questions are multiple choice and ask students things such as how likely they are to consider viewpoints they disagree with on topics like abortion, immigration, racial inequality and gender identity.
It also asks students whether they’ve felt pressured by an instructor to agree with political or ideological views expressed in class and if they’ve been reprimanded for disagreeing with an instructor.
Toward the end of the survey, students are asked to provide their enrollment status, race, sexual orientation, religious affiliation and what political party they most identify with. Those who complete the survey will receive a $10 gift card.
During a call with reporters Friday, UW System President Jay Rothman said the research project is aimed at ensuring the UW System is “committed to being a marketplace of ideas, a place where nuanced and complicated issues can be discussed openly, freely and civilly.”
“We want passionate debate on tough issues in a way that people can learn and ask questions without being labeled or tainted,” Rothman said. “We’re not going to solve the issues that we have as a society, which are challenging and complicated, by soundbites and tweets.”
Rothman said the survey has been vetted by outside experts and UW System shared governance groups.
Funding for the survey was provided by the Menard Center for the Study of Institutions and Innovation at UW-Stout, with private donations from billionaire John Menard.
The research team behind the effort includes Tim Shiell, UW-Stout philosophy professor and director of that campus’ Menard Center; Eric Kasper, UW-Eau Claire political science professor and director of the Menard Center for Constitutional Studies; UW-Eau Claire political science professor Geoffrey Peterson; and UW-Eau Claire psychology professor April Bleske-Rechek.
The survey and its implementation is overseen by the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service at UW-Stevens Point at Wausau.
The UW System’s initial plan was to send the free speech survey to students at the end of the spring semester in May but was delayed after UW-Whitewater’s interim Chancellor Jim Henderson resigned in protest.
See UW System Student Perceptions Survey
‘Moonwalkers’: These strap-on shoes can make you walk three times faster:
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, November 22nd, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Top Gun: Maverick
by JOHN ADAMS •
Tuesday, November 22nd at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Top Gun: Maverick @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
After thirty years, Maverick is still pushing the envelope as a top naval aviator, but must confront ghosts of his past when he leads TOP GUN’s elite graduates on a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those chosen to fly it.
One can find more information about Top Gun: Maverick at the Internet Movie Database.
Cats, Science/Nature
Friday Catblogging: The Slow Blink
by JOHN ADAMS •
Michelle Starr writes Scientists Confirm You Can Communicate With Your Cat by Blinking Very Slowly:
In a study published in 2020, scientists observed cat-human interactions, and were able to confirm that this act of blinking slowly makes cats – both familiar and unfamiliar animals – approach and be receptive to humans.
….
If you’ve spent any time around cats, you’ve probably seen their ‘partially closed eyes’ facial expression, accompanied by slow blinking. It’s similar to how human eyes narrow when smiling, and usually occurs when puss is relaxed and content. The expression is interpreted as a kind of cat smile.
Anecdotal evidence from cat owners has hinted that humans can copy this expression to communicate to cats that we are friendly and open to interaction. So, in the study, a team of psychologists designed two experiments to determine whether cats behaved differently towards slow-blinking humans.
In the first experiment, owners slow-blinked at 21 cats from 14 different households. Once the cat was settled and comfy in one spot in their home environment, the owners were instructed to sit about a meter away and slow-blink when the cat was looking at them.
Cameras recorded both the owner’s face and the cat’s face, and the results were compared to how cats blink with no human interaction.
The results showed that cats are more likely to slow-blink at their humans after their humans have slow-blinked at them, compared to the no-interaction condition.
Conspiracy Theories, Crackpots, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 11.17.22: A Bit of Fallout from the Wisconsin Elections
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 30. Sunrise is 6:50 AM and sunset 4:29 PM for 9h 39m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 41% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1820, Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica. (The Palmer Peninsula is later named after him.)
Rob Mentzer reports Wisconsin Assembly Republicans bar Rep. Janel Brandtjen from caucus meetings (‘Lawmaker supported primary challenge to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’):
One of Wisconsin’s highest-profile deniers of the 2020 election outcome has been barred from attending private meetings of Republican Assembly members.
State Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menominee Falls, is the chair of the Assembly’s elections committee. She has repeatedly attacked Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on election issues and supported a primary challenge to the Republican leader. Those efforts gained the support of former President Donald Trump, who has said Vos should have supported the legally impossible step of decertifying Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election results.
The website WisPolitics first reported that Assembly Republicans had voted to bar Brandtjenfrom their closed caucus meetings. In a terse letter, Rep. Rob Summerfield, who is the majority caucus chair, wrote that its members had lost trust in her due to “continual issues from the past.”
Parties use closed caucus meetings to set political strategy. Vos has not said whether he plans to reappoint Brandtjen to lead the elections committee.
Brandtjen was one of the speakers at Trump’s Wisconsin rally ahead of the GOP gubernatorial primary, which doubled as a rally for Vos’s right-wing primary challenger, Adam Steen. Steen came within 300 votes of defeating Vos.
Brandtjen should have been barred long ago, and shouldn’t have been re-elected to the 22nd Assembly District. (Instead, she won easily in her latest race.)
Temporary shelters, generators sent to Ukraine ahead of winter but ‘much more needed’, EU says:
City, Daily Bread, Law, Local Government, Open Government
Daily Bread for 11.16.22: That’s an Ailment in Whitewater, Right There
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 36. Sunrise is 6:49 AM and sunset 4:30 PM for 9h 41m 12s of daytime. The moon is in its third quarter with 50.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks & Rec Board meets at 5:30 PM, and the Police & Fire Commission at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1990, pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the Girl You Know It’s True album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.
Turns out it wasn’t true.
Only two days ago, FREE WHITEWATER published a post entitled What Ails, What Heals. Under what ails this libertarian blogger listed closed government, and under what heals the medicine of open government. For those who doubted there were any ailments lingering in government, doubt no longer. The Whitewater Common Council met in open session last night, for forty-six minutes. A video of the session appears below. Every minute of that session was open to the public — and every minute of it should have been. Unfortunately, some in the government don’t seem to understand the importance of open government.
Part of the meeting’s agenda, at Item C1, was a discussion of a “[r]equest for approval of one additional day of vacation for Police Department Officers completing Spanish course. (Police Chief Request).” See Video beginning @ 30:40 and agenda and Item C1 related documents.
Fair enough — the head of the Whitewater Police Department would like to discuss ways to make language learning more effective for his department (and possibly other departments). Some might support that idea, some might be uncertain, and others opposed. That’s to be expected — unanimity is rare.
What should not be rare — but instead should be unanimous — is the understanding that under our law this discussion should be an open-session discussion.
Instead, a long-tenured councilman wondered why this was not a closed-session item (video @ 43:08):
Why wasn’t this put on as a closed session agenda item and vetted before we brought it public? It should have been.
When Whitewater’s city manager requested the opinion of Whitewater’s city attorney, here’s what the city attorney said (video @ 43:22):
I think it technically could [be a closed-session item]. It’s discretionary as to whether or not that type of thing would go on and but because it theoretically would be something that could be negotiable or maybe increased or decreased in certain ways. And some strategic negotiating aspect. I think it technically could. It’d be maybe not a slam dunk but if if I was asked to give a thumbs up or thumbs down I’d say technically it could go on as a as a closed session.
Under our law, Wisconsin makes plain that the Open Meetings Law (Wis. Stat. §19.81) presumes in favor of open meetings:
19.81. Declaration of policy.
(1) In recognition of the fact that a representative government of the American type is dependent upon an informed electorate, it is declared to be the policy of this state that the public is entitled to the fullest and most complete information regarding the affairs of government as is compatible with the conduct of governmental business.
There are eleven specific and enumerated exceptions to open meetings. Each exception, even if applicable, is discretionary only:
19.85. Exemptions.
19.85(1). Any meeting of a governmental body, upon motion duly made and carried, may be convened in closed session under one or more of the exemptions provided in this section. The motion shall be carried by a majority vote in such manner that the vote of each member is ascertained and recorded in the minutes. No motion to convene in closed session may be adopted unless the chief presiding officer announces to those present at the meeting at which such motion is made, the nature of the business to be considered at such closed session, and the specific exemption or exemptions under this subsection by which such closed session is claimed to be authorized. Such announcement shall become part of the record of the meeting. No business may be taken up at any closed session except that which relates to matters contained in the chief presiding officer’s announcement of the closed session. A closed session may be held for any of the following purposes…..
The law is plain that “a governmental body, upon motion duly made and carried, may” (not shall) meet in closed session. Note the obvious difference between these two results: no closed-session exception is required, as each and every exception is merely a possibility.
One of those discretionary exceptions, at 19.85(1)(c), is when “Considering employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility.”
The councilman thinks that this topic should be a closed-session topic. The city attorney thinks that this should technically or theoretically (!) be a closed-session topic.
They are both wrong, on law and policy.
One starts with the law. What does the city attorney think a technical or theoretical possibility means? Perhaps he thinks that ‘technical’ makes a closed-session a requirement. If he thinks as much, over Item C1, then he’s simply wrong on the law. Wisconsin law does not require that this discussion be held in closed session.
Perhaps, as he says, instead, technical or theoretical means it’s discretionary with the city council. If so, (and he’d be right that’s it’s discretionary) then he might have answered plainly in line with Wisconsin’s Declaration of Policy: “it is declared to be the policy of this state that the public is entitled to the fullest and most complete information regarding the affairs of government as is compatible with the conduct of governmental business.” The law presumes and favors open government. Nothing about this discussion has, or could, interfere with ‘government business.’ Discretion in this case goes only one reasonable way.
His use of technical and theoretical do not describe a probable state of law. Instead, they describe an improbable, less likely, disfavored application.
Whitewater’s city attorney might have cited some portion of the law suitable to this discussion to show that this discussion must or even should be closed to the public, if he could find one. He can’t, because there isn’t one. A lawful presumption favors open meetings in Wisconsin. Wisconsin law applied to these circumstances calls for an open session. If Whitewater’s city attorney can find a provision of law (statutes or judicial decisions applying those statutes) that holds this innocuous discussion should have been held in closed session, he’s free to send me an opinion letter @ adams@freewhitewater.com. (If he’d like a proper opinion letter in reply from me, rather than merely a blog post, I’d be happy to oblige him.)
As policy, the open discussion of this topic advances the public interest without detriment to local government. How, when, and why the city should compensate public employees is a general discussion every community should have openly. This isn’t a discussion for six or seven people to the exclusion of a community of 14,889. There’s no need to vet this privately.
How very predictable that a councilman who has spent years on a public Community Development Authority that for a generation has run as though a private clubhouse should wonder why this discussion should wasn’t closed to the public. If anything, over many years, Whitewater’s public bodies (council, CDA, and school district) have had too many closed sessions with too few explanations.
A reminder: the best place for private discussions is private life. Those in government who don’t understand as much should return to private life.
It was a right — and legally sound — decision to bring this topic to an open session of the Whitewater Common Council.
Artemis Rocket Launches Toward Moon on Mighty Columns of Flame:
Conspiracy Theories, Daily Bread, Elections, Populists
Daily Bread for 11.15.22: Populist Election Deniers Wreck Their Own Chances
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of 35. Sunrise is 6:47 AM and sunset 4:31 PM for 9h 43m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 59% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins his March to the Sea.
Those of us who advocate for individual rights understandably oppose populists’ herd-and-horde perspective. Sometimes, however, that perspective of the populists does more harm to their cause than any outside criticism could. Conspiracy theories spread far and fast among their group-thinking ranks, often to their movement’s detriment. Jim Rutenberg and Nick Corasaniti write Republicans’ 2022 Lesson: Voters Who Trust Elections Are More Likely to Vote (Election deniers’ doubts about voting made for compelling conspiracy theories, but proved to be a bad get-out-the-vote strategy):
PHOENIX — It was early on Election Day when polling places in Maricopa County started experiencing a glitch. Tabulation machines were rejecting thousands of ballots, a result of a printer error, and the confusion was causing lines and frustration at the polls.
There was a simple fix: Voters could place their ballots in a secure box — called Box 3 — kept at every polling station for just such situations. Their votes would be counted later, at the county’s central tabulation center.
But for the state’s most conservative voters, a group primed by two years of former President Donald J. Trump’s stolen-election lies to see conspiracy in every step of the voting process, Box 3 smelled of trouble. Election deniers in the state’s Republican Party soon began warning voters away from the boxes, as suspicions flew across Twitter and right-wing media. “Do not trust them,” Charlie Kirk, the conservative leader, warned his followers.
That message reinforced Republicans’ skepticism about elections, but it didn’t do much to help their candidates win. Later that morning, the Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, held a news conference to deliver the opposite message. Box 3 was safe, her campaign lawyer said.
“Vote, vote, vote,’’ Ms. Lake added. “We’ve got to vote today.”
Whether the suspicion and mixed messages around Box 3 made a difference in a race that Ms. Lake lost by a hair to her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs, might never be known. (Her campaign maintains the fault lies with the county.)
But the moment crystallized one of the main lessons of the 2022 midterms: Casting doubt on the legitimacy of elections might be an effective tool for galvanizing true believers to participate in a primary — or, at its origins, to storm the U.S. Capitol in order to overturn a losing result. But it can be a lousy strategy when it comes to the paramount mission of any political campaign: to get the most votes.
“If you tell people that voting is hard, or voter fraud is rampant, or elections are rigged, it doesn’t make people more likely to participate,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group that works with election officials to bolster trust and efficiency in voting. “Why would you want to play a game you thought was rigged?”
Our elections are not rigged. Those who think so are wrong, either ignorantly or dishonestly so.
As it turns out, those who deny the integrity of our elections are also, sometimes, self-defeating.
Zelenskiy visits newly liberated city of Kherson:
City, Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 11.14.22: What Ails, What Heals
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be increasingly cloudy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:46 AM and sunset 4:32 PM for 9h 45m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 67.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1889, pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane) begins a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She completes the trip in 72 days
No catalog of civic maladies and their cures could ever be complete. The list below is partial, knowing as anyone should that a complete list of good and bad, even in a small town, is beyond any person’s abilities.
What ails —
Boosterism. The view that if one accentuates the positive, the community will reap economic gains. Ignore the poor, ignore incompetent government, ignore injustices — simply tout good news and everyone will be better off!
Boosterism is narrow of mind and small of heart. This was the dominant public policy view when FREE WHITEWATER began publishing in 2007. It’s much weaker now, the Great Recession and its aftermath of stagnation and low incomes having tarnished what was once a civic religion in this town. There are yet a few adherents who hold to this view, but the occasional use of a dustpan and brush should suffice to clean up their lingering messes.
Out of boosterism, self-importance: the boosters mostly boosted themselves. There is no Mr. Whitewater, Ms. Whitewater…whatever. There never was. There never will be. Life itself, of so many different people in this town, makes impossible the claim to be highest, best, or most important.
Toxic Positivity. More delusional than boosterism, but more hopeful in its own way. Toxic positivity is the view that every outlook should be a positive one, and everyone else should fall in line. This perspective loves superlatives beyond even the boosters: awesome!, amazing!, astonishing!, etc. A person could bleed out on the street, and those in thrall to toxic positivity would say that at least he lost a little weight. Boosterism falsely claims economic gains; toxic positivity falsely describes the world.
Regulatory Capture. Government should be limited, responsible, and humble. Whitewater’s government is not by law, and never should be in practice, the private property of a few. The Whitewater Community Development Authority, for example, is a public body, not a private clubhouse. The last generation has seen the special-interest manipulations of landlords, bankers, and public-relations men. They’ve left the city only a low-income community, yet they still want and expect legislation to be crafted to their liking. See Boo! Scariest Things in Whitewater, 2022 (No. 2).
Populism. Whether of left or right, populism sweeps individual rights aside for the sake of the group, cadre, or horde, while demonizing all others:
it indeed does have two detrimental consequences for democracy. The obvious one is that populists are going to claim that all other contenders for power are fundamentally illegitimate. This is never just a disagreement about policies or even about values, which after all in a democracy is completely normal, ideally maybe even somewhat productive. No, populists always immediately make it personal and they make it entirely moral. This tendency to simply dismiss everybody else from the get-go as corrupt, as not working for the people, that’s always the pattern.
Then, second, and less obviously, populists will also suggest that anybody who doesn’t agree with their conception of the real people, and therefore also tends not to support them politically—that with all these citizens you can basically call into question whether they truly belong to the people in the first place. We’ve seen this with plenty of other politicians who are going to suggest that already vulnerable minorities, for instance, don’t truly belong to the people.
Whitewater has only a populism of the right; there is no leftwing faction worth mentioning in this town. See The City’s Few Progressives and (about those who think there are more than a few) Trolls and the Exclamatory, Interrogatory, or Declaratory Response, and [updated with addition] Identifying Types and Spotting Issues.
While elections are decided by majorities or pluralities, there’s an underlying thirst of the populists falsely to declare themselves a majority and then wrongly torment and oppress minorities of whatever kind (ideological, ethnic, racial, religious, or sexual).
One type, one family, one viewpoint — no. Our city, while small, is bigger than that. We’ve never been so uniform in Whitewater, insistence of a few notwithstanding.
Closed government. Too busy or too important to explain candidly and fully? Then you’ll get a room of rightly agitated people. Won’t talk to the press? Fair enough, but someone less complacent may come your way. It’s true enough that many have been transformed after only a glance. Occasionally, and fortunately, a man gazes deeply yet does not turn to stone.
News Deserts. We don’t have a professional press in Whitewater, and that’s a huge loss. There is, however, a professional press that serves Whitewater: Fort Atkinson Online. The nearby APG newspapers aren’t newspapers as much as shopper-advertisers, and the Whitewater Register has been next-to-dead for years (dearly beloved, may we bow our heads for an anticipatory moment of silence?).
Violence. Violence includes sexual harassment and assault, or unjustified use of official force, and the supportive reflex only to look the other way. There is no right to touch uninvited, and no right to force excessively applied. No one needs America, Wisconsin, or Whitewater to live as a savage and lie afterward like a child. The most degraded places on this planet would suffice for that base conduct.
What heals —
Free Markets. Voluntary transactions between people and groups uplift from poverty into a true prosperity. Free markets respect and support each person’s right to choose, buy, and sell.
Charity. Our small city is beautiful, yet beautiful while in need. Government, politics, business, journalism, and commentary have not been enough to alleviate all loss and suffering. The city should turn to something more than each of these, more than all of these. See Waiting for Whitewater’s Dorothy Day, Something Transcendent, and in the Meantime, An Oasis Strategy, and The Community Space.
Tragic Optimism. A true optimism, that forges on despite the occasional tragedies that befall a community. See Tragic Optimism as an Alternative to Toxic Positivity.
Open Government. Government is a mere instrumentality, established for limited purposes, constrained by law. It must be obvious and transparent to the people from whom its authority derives.
Impartial Government. Whitewater doesn’t have a few stakeholders — she has 14,889 residents. When this libertarian blogger writes, for example, he’s an emissary only of one, so in Whitewater that’s simply 1 of 14,889. If a room has one landlord, one banker, and one public relations man, for example, then it holds 3 of 14,889.
Not one who’s important, or three who are important — merely one or three. That’s all.
A Professional Press. The city could use greater focus and respect for professional journalism. A common frame of reference for political and social reporting by Fort Atkinson Online would be a start.
Individual Rights. Each person is accorded by right an equal moral and legal status. No one forgotten, no one swept aside, no one by birth or birthplace greater than another. Talk about what the majority wants sets aside by omission or intention the rights of people as persons. A person has rights worth defending against cliques, factions, hordes, and herrenvolk.
I’m confident (optimistic, if tragically, one might say) that Whitewater has better days ahead. There may be a few lions, leopards, and wolves in our way, but we will yet come through to something better.
Music
Monday Music: From the Elvis Soundtrack, Strange Things Are Happening Every Day
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread, Elections
Daily Bread for 11.13.22: Reasons for Political Optimism
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:45 AM and sunset 4:33 PM for 9h 47m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 76.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1833, Great Meteor Storm of 1833 takes place:
Although it has been suggested the Leonid meteor shower and storms have been noted in ancient times, it was the meteor storm of 1833 that broke into people’s modern day awareness – it was of truly superlative strength. One estimate of the peak rate is over one hundred thousand meteors an hour, while another, done as the storm abated, estimated in excess of 240,000 meteors during the nine hours of the storm, over the entire region of North America east of the Rocky Mountains.
(Citations omitted.)
Jennifer Rubin offers 7 reasons to be optimistic about the future of democracy. Her first three stand out:
First, courts have proved adept at heading off election-related shenanigans. For example, democracy defenders in Arizona succeeded in obtaining an injunction against right-wing groups menacing drop box locations. Other courts issued a flurry of decisions to strengthen voting rights and free and fair elections before Election Day.
….
Second, massive early voting demonstrated the ability of voters to adjust to new election rules. Ultimately, nearly 47 million early votes were cast this year. Media outlets, candidates and voters have become accustomed to the extended process of ballot counting, dampening claims that delays equate to voting fraud. Lo and behold, Republicans have largely conceded the races they lost — without fuss, as they are supposed to do.
Third, low turnout in competitive midterm contests is no longer the norm. The Post reports: “Turnout was especially high for a midterm in several battleground states, where expectations of a close contest appeared to boost voter participation. Voter turnout in Pennsylvania is on track to exceed 2018 by four percentage points. Nearly 6 in 10 eligible voters in Wisconsin and Michigan cast a ballot.” While the nationwide vote total might not surpass that of 2018, it nevertheless remains relatively high.
Conservation, Daily Bread, WI DNR, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 11.12.22: Wisconsin’s New Wolf Management Proposal
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:44 AM and sunset 4:34 PM for 9h 49m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 84.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1927, Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union.
It’s been decades since Wisconsin crafted a new wolf conservation plan, but that long stretch may soon come to an end. Danielle Kaeding reports Wisconsin’s new wolf management plan nixes a statewide population goal (‘DNR accepting input on first new plan in nearly 25 years’):
Wisconsin wildlife regulators are shifting away from a statewide wolf population goal in favor of managing animals locally within the state’s six wolf hunting zones under a draft plan released Thursday.
The plan is being met with support by conservation and environmental groups while some lawmakers and hunting groups criticized the timing of its release just two days after voters reelected Gov. Tony Evers.
It’s the first new wolf management plan in more than two decades since the first was approved in 1999. That plan was last revised in 2007. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources began crafting a new plan in 2013, but the draft was abandoned two years later following a federal judge’s ruling to restore protections for the animal in late 2014. In February, a federal judge once again listed the species as endangered across most of the country.
“The proposed draft Wolf Management Plan reflects the detailed and significant work done by DNR staff to ensure the health and stability of Wisconsin’s wolf population. Input from diverse and varied stakeholders was critical to the development of this proposal,” said DNR Secretary Preston Cole in a statement.
The last plan set a population goal of 350 wolves at a time when Wisconsin had roughly 250 wolves. Since then, DNR data from September shows the animal’s population has grown four times that number to nearly 1,000 wolves. Meanwhile, neighboring Minnesota has released a draft plan to maintain a population between 2,200 and 3,000 wolves.
See Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan 2022 (Draft).
Daily Bread, Elections
Daily Bread for 11.11.22: For Wisconsin, an Orderly Election
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Veteran’s Day in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:42 AM and sunset 4:35 PM for 9h 52m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 90.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Unified School District will conduct a canvass of referendum results at 2 PM.
On this day in 1918, Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne:
On 11 November, at 5:00 am, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne. At 11 am on 11 November 1918—”the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”—a ceasefire came into effect. During the six hours between the signing of the armistice and its taking effect, opposing armies on the Western Front began to withdraw from their positions, but fighting continued along many areas of the front, as commanders wanted to capture territory before the war ended. The occupation of the Rhineland took place following the Armistice. The occupying armies consisted of American, Belgian, British and French forces.
Genevieve Redsten reports Election officials braced themselves. But in the end, voting in Wisconsin was smooth:
It was as if the whole state was holding its breath, just waiting for something contentious on Election Day.
The mixture of election deniers, fraud claimers, a host of new poll observers and a wary public stoked fears of voter intimidation and confrontation across Wisconsin.
But Tuesday’s electoral process was mostly orderly.
Election officials said they were better prepared to count votes and manage disputes at the polls. The observers, they said, were calm and respectful.
“We were bracing ourselves for bad behavior at the polling places with the nature of the political environment right now,” said Appleton City Clerk Kami Lynch. “But there weren’t any kind of incidents related to that.”
Even the City of Milwaukee’s absentee ballot count went off without a hitch. City Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall-Vogg arrived at the county courthouse about 11 p.m., with the results of more than 60,000 absentee ballots. Four years ago, it was after midnight when more than 47,000 absentee ballots from Milwaukee suddenly gave Tony Evers his first solid lead over Scott Walker — spawning a host of conspiracy theories.
This time, Woodall-Vogg said overall there was “great communication” with people who showed up to watch the election unfold.
“I think there’s just more interest than ever before in observing the process,” she said.
Despite the overall smoothness, there were a few bumps.
In West Bend, a man was arrested after bringing a knife into a polling place and demanding officials “stop the voting.” The threat delayed voting at the site for about 30 minutes.
The West Bend man should be psychologically evaluated, and thereafter dealt with accordingly.
We are fortunate, however, that there were as few problems as there were.
Progress back to normal is still progress.
Footage shows Russian troops scrambling to escape Kherson city: