FREE WHITEWATER

Development, Economy, Free Markets

Planning and Architectural Review Board Meeting for Monday, 9/10

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Hayek thought that a well-ordered society planned to compete, but for a person who spends a lifetime as a bureaucrat, it’s more like planning to plan. He also thought that a well-ordered society was one with a vibrant spontaneous order, but after listening to the September 10th meeting of the Whitewater Planning Board, I’d say that the reliance on public regulation is so strong that spontaneity of any kind is unlikely.

Fairhaven. A local nursing home wants to replace some of its signs, and add still another. Two barriers present themselves: the Planning Board feels that it lacks definite information about Fairhaven’s signs, and a citizen — during public comment on the matter — has question after question about R1 and R3 zoning requirements, and how they might affect Fairhaven’s request.

Everyone on the Board is convinced, by all appearances — that Whitewater benefits only if the Board has exquisite detail about Fairhaven’s request. Approval waits on minute detail. They just can’t imagine a society where signs are vandalized, and the property owner replaces them own its own initiative, and with its own aesthetic judgment, without their municipal approval. They presume that situation would represent chaos and disorder and disharmony. I have no reason to think that the aesthetic judgment of the property owner in advertising its own property would ever be less developed that the cumulative judgment of the entire Board.

Sadder still is the resident who asks questions about R1 and R3 zoning requirements, and wonders if the Fairhaven proposal is in compliance. Think about the culture you’ve created: one where residents think in terms of zoning requirements, rather than property rights and aesthetic results. No one suggests the sign proposal looks bad; it’s question after question about whether the sign falls within any number of square footage requirements, lest there be inconsistency. Whitewater will not collapse if there’s a little inconsistency; on the contrary, it will be a more vital place. The worry about consistency and paperwork requirements is typical, but also an example of a petty rationality. No one on the Board seems capable of imagining a place with fewer requirements, and fewer niceties of regulation.

City Planner and His Role. In response to a question from a Board member, initially earlier, our city planner described his role. His main description lasted about eight minutes, and if anyone can glean from those eight minutes even the slightest idea of what vision the city planner actually offers, then your microscopic powers of inference are to be commended. I take it that he conceives the role, however inarticulately described, as — in part — working with applicants to make their applications more suitable to the Board’s standards. Whitewater pays a bureaucrat to facilitate discussions and proposals to a public board. It should not be so hard or intricate. It is, of course, and its one of the reasons that our economy lags neighboring cities. A planner asked a question in advance, and appearing on television to deliver his answer, should at least be able to write and read a reply that more articulate and thoughtful than what one heard. It was not confidence-inspiring.

Meeting More or Less Frequently. Less is more.

The ‘Arbiters of the Community Values.’ Oh, you must be kidding. I understand that this description — attributed to a professor of planning, of course! — refers to design values, not fundamental morality. Nonetheless, it’s an arrogant, proud boast. Not even mediators, but arbiters! Imagine the arrogance of a person so enmeshed in this way of thinking that he might actually see himself as an arbiter in this way. I doubt that many in our community intended to confer that extent of authority. Look how quickly those in public roles, or teaching others about public roles, assume that title for themselves. Arrogance, thy name is planning.

Development, Free Markets

Coffee Shop and Cousins Subs

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I’ve heard that a local developer is planning to turn the vacant space where KFC was located into a combination Cousins sub franchise and a coffee shop. I’ve never seen that combination before, but then I’m not sure anyone has seen that combination before. If the ambiance of a traditional coffee shop can be combined with the utilitarian character of a Cousins sub shop, then I will be the first to applaud the accomplishment.

It scarcely matters if one person, here or there, thinks the effort will succeed; it’s a strength of the market that any number of private citizens may take their chances in the marketplace, free from the presumption of the city, state, or skeptical citizens. If customers like the idea, then it will have satisfied a need, and Whitewater will be better off for it.

Press

The Whitewater Register’s Bleak Future

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The contemporary Whitewater Register is inheritor of a proud legacy in Whitewater. The Register has squandered that legacy, and has a bleak future. The paper is a weekly, multi-section newspaper serving a town of fourteen thousand. The paper has several, mostly self-inflicted challenges, from which it is unlikely to recover.

1. Incurious! The worst problem with the Register is that it does not offer a curious, inquisitive, investigative outlook. There’s nothing investigative in the paper, ever. It’s a dull, plodding paper for lack of curiosity. There’s no reason to rush out and buy it, unless you think someone put your picture in it. (See my post entitled, “Carrying Water for Larry Meyer.”)

2. Poorly Written. It’s pedestrian prose, front to back. The few attempts the paper makes to make copy lively with quotations are callow, and preachy. (See, my post entitled, “The Whitewater Register: Overview.”)

3. Limited Local Coverage. Many of the stories are so general they could appear in just about any Wisconsin paper. That’s probably by design, so that the Southern Lakes newspaper chain can spread the same manure on as many fields as possible.

4. Stale Stories. The Register has the challenge of many weeklies — the story’s old by the time an issue hits the news stands (if they bother to carry a local, interesting story at all). The solution would be to publish investigative stories, but that would require (1) hiring someone talented, and (2) supporting that inquisitive reporter.

5. Competitive Pressures from Better Papers. The Daily Union, Janesville Gazette (both dailies) and The Week are (1) better written, (2) with a more objective, inquisitive nature, and (3) increasingly popular in Whitewater. Points (1) and (2) explain point (3). As the Daily Union extends more column inches to coverage of Whitewater, the Register has even less to distinguish itself.

6. Dismal Circulation Figures vs. Competitive Dailies. (I’ll use circulation figures that newspapers have reported in public documents to the State of Wisconsin, Newspaper Certification Rates, Statewide Bureau of Procurement Contract No. 15-99955-601. The figures are for paid circulation.)

Register (weekly): 1,569 paid circulation (that’s Paltry, with a capital “P”)

Daily Union (daily): 7,767 paid circulation

Janesville Gazette (daily): 22,340 paid circulation

7. Dismal Circulation Figures vs. Weeklies.

Of the listings in the State of Wisconsin document, the Register falls in the roughly the bottom quarter of newsweeklies by circulation. Approximately three out of four newsweeklies listed have higher circulation than the Register.

Let’s compare the Register with other newspapers in the Southern Lakes chain. When one looks at the percentage of a town’s population constituting paid subscribers, the figures are even more dismal:

Register: 1,569 paid circulation — population 14,262 — penetration 11%

Twin Lakes Report: 1,051 paid circulation — population 5,522 — penetration 19%

Waterford Post: 1,875 paid circulation — population 6,519 — penetration 28%

Burlington Standard Press: 3,648 paid circulation — population 10,524 — penetration 34%

Delavan Enterprise: 3,275 paid circulation — population 8,401 — penetration 39%

East Troy News: 1,627 paid circulation — population 3,911 — penetration 41%

Elkhorn Independent: 2,443 paid circulation — population 9,080 — penetration 26%

Palmyra Enterprise: 782 paid circulation — population 1,753 — penetration 44%

8. Dismal Circulation Figures vs. the Whitewater Banner. That’s right — the online Whitewater Banner, at www.whitewaterbanner.com — has a stronger weekly circulation than the Register. (The Banner’s not a site for acknowledged commentary – it’s more liked an electronic bulletin board, and so is closer to the current focus of the Register than a site of independent commentary like FREE WHITEWATER.)

About 500 people or so visit the Banner daily, according to its stats package. (It’s IPStat, with a link at the very bottom of the Banner’s page – just keep scrolling until you see a purple square, and click.) Not all of the Banner’s visitors are repeats, and IPStat’s not perfect, but it’s reasonable to conclude that in seven days, the Banner probably has about as many or more unique readers than the paid circulation of the Register.

The Banner can (1) update continuously, (2) has lots of truly local stories, (3) color photographs, and (4) it’s more accessible than a newspaper to anyone who learns of its web address (no need to go out to a store to buy it – just type and click twenty-four/seven). I have mixed feelings about aspects of the Banner; I have no doubt about its many advantages for community notices over the Register.

9. No Web Presence! The Southern Lakes chain, of which the Register is probably the weakest link — seems to have no web presence at all. It did at one time, and it may again. Will it be able to overcome the Banner? Hard to say – neither the Daily Union, Gazette, nor The Week have as many Whitewater community notices as the Banner. (Those newspapers’ online editions don’t compete on community notices – they’re a more complete example of true news reporting.) The Register inadequately reports compared with its print rivals; it inadequately publishes community events compared to the Banner; it offers no local commentary quite like FREE WHITEWATER.

10. Unable to Respond to a Solid Critique. I have, of course, criticized the Register in more than one post. I challenge an employee of that newspaper to defend the Register on the points of criticism in my posts entitled, Carrying Water for Larry Meyer, Whitewater Register’s Fawning Story on Police Day, and The Whitewater Register: Overview. If Carrie Dampier, or anyone else from the Register or Southern Lakes Newspapers, cares to refute those critiques, well, have at it. I can be reached at adams@freewhitewater.com. I will publish their defense, and reply thereafter. (Candidly, I think that someone is more likely to produce convincing evidence of Bigfoot than convincing evidence that the Register is a good newspaper.)

I have no doubt that the Register, under “editor” Carrie Dampier, will continue to offer only poorly written copy, ignore basic rules of journalism, and write as though it were the public relations agent for this town’s enervated, stagnating clique. I also have no doubt that the Register‘s bias doesn’t matter. The Register’s a dying paper with a paltry circulation. It’s already half way to being a weekly, commercial shopping advertiser, for goodness’ sake. Too funny: the town clique’s most reliable media lapdog is the city’s least influential news outlet.

The Register‘s bias in favored of an atrophied town faction only appeals to the already-committed, so to speak. If the Register is the best that the dissipated town elite can do, then they have no better future than the fish wrap that defends them.

That brings me to the introduction of new symbols to represent the fish wrap-ready, birdcage-lining Whitewater Register. Over at the FREEWHITEWATER Design Labs™ Creative Art Department, there’s been a secret, round-the-clock effort to symbolize the Whitewater Register. Here are two graphic designs from that effort. Feel free to write to me at adams@freewhitewater.com, and let me know which one you prefer.

Enjoy:

Fish Wrap Register

Whitewater Register: The Parakeet’s Choice

Uncategorized

Persistence Good and Bad.

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Someone asked me recently if I wondered if some members of the town faction would abandon their weakest contentions and arguments in light of public criticism. My reply was that they would not, and I would be surprised if they did. My surprise was met with her surprise: why would they persist, and why would I write if I doubted that they would change? I’ll explain in this post, as I did to her in my recent conversation.

A group, confident in their own sense of entitlement, accustomed to speaking without contradiction, and unaccustomed to explaining their views thoroughly, will not yield to criticism. Their sense of entitlement will, to them, justify their reticence, but in any event if they’re not in the habit of argument, they’ll not easily acquire the practice. Old, bloated, self-important dogs learn no new tricks.

Most of them will persist in their views as long as they can express any views at all.

So why write? Most people write because they believe that what they write is right. There are many people in town who share the views of this website, but they’ve not previously read posts like what I write, since the town faction’s group-think discourages criticism. That group’s one reliable media outlet, the Register, prints little local news, and of that small amount, it prints nothing not agreeable to a lemming’s view of the world. The surest sign that someone’s filled with a sense of entitlement is when he questions whether someone else has a right to criticize. It’s doubly telling – of course you have a right to criticize, and if the best reply someone can make is that you should not criticize, then you know that he has no meaningful, substantive argument to make.

It’s enough to write what you believe. Consider carefully, write forcefully, reflect on replies thoroughly, and defend fundamentals courageously. That’s all there is. All these rest is just an over-analysis. Perhaps, along the way, you’ll bolster those who share your views, and encourage those otherwise uncommitted to the issue to consider the merits of it all.

Beautiful Whitewater

Beautiful Whitewater: Stone Stable Celebration September 23rd

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There will be a celebration of the Stone Stable restoration on Sunday, September 23rd. Here’s the announcement from the committee spearheading this effort:

Please join us at the Stone Stable on Sunday afternoon – September 23rd 2 – 5 p.m. FREE Horse & Wagon Rides at the Stone Stable Site – Bring your family ! Food Booth – Artifacts Exhibit – Time Capsule display – Farmers Market – Fun for all

I’ve written before about the Stone Stable restoration, as part of my Beautiful Whitewater feature. I wrote about the restoration effort in an earlier post by asking, “If someone told you that an old stone stable had been torn down, and some of your fellow residents had organized to rebuild, stone by stone, the stable on a new location, what would you think? I heard of this project months ago, and when I first heard of it, I was surprised; it’s a bold idea toward a traditional end.”

The restoration is proceeding impressively — the photo shows how much work goes into a restoration effort —

It’s fitting that the restored Stone Stable will be prominently located, and near to the train depot’s historical museum. Best wishes to all who have made this effort so successful.

Press

Carrying Water for Larry Meyer

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Few people are surprised anymore when they hear about accounts of press bias in newspaper and television reports. Readers are often, and rightly, skeptical of what they read and hear; is there a selective, distorted reporting of a story? There are still serious journalists in America, but seemingly fewer than in the past. Fewer in Whitewater, certainly: Carrie Dampier’s headline story on Star Packaging in the September 6th Whitewater Register reads like bias of a third-rate, homegrown variety. In a story entitled, “Former Star Packaging Employees Charged with Identity Theft,” Dampier reveals herself to be less than a middling reporter, let alone a supposed ‘editor.’ It’s a sad joke of a news story, so egregious in its omissions that it reads as though were written as a parody of egregious bias.

(For a quick recap of Dampier’s previous bias, see my post critiquing her saccharine coverage of May’s Police Day, that the Register entitled — get this, objective journalists everywhere — “What Would We Ever Do Without Them?”)

What junior-league mistakes does Dampier make in the article on Star Packaging? I’ll list them for you:

1. Inadequate Sourcing. She seems to use only one source for the headline story: the criminal complaint against a Mexican defendant in the case. That’s right — it’s the lead story for the paper, and all it merits from Dampier is a clip job from the criminal complaint in the case, augmented perhaps by a scan of the court docket. That would be a laughable effort for a real reporter, let alone a supposed ‘editor’ of the paper. Dampier never indicates if she tried to call defense counsel for a statement on the case. (If she did, and received no reply, she should state so; there’s enough space to add a line to that effect.) Instead, nothing. It’s just a one-sided, quickly cribbed effort to report what the prosecution wants you to know. No one — no one — is quoted in the ‘headline’ story.

2. Omissions About the Nature of the ‘Identity Theft’ Charge. No one reading this story — without other background the story fails to provide — would know the use of identity theft charges for the Star Packaging raid is an unusual, controversial application of Wisconsin’s identity theft statutes. It is, and other real newspapers outside Whitewater have published stories by real reporters (and editors) who explained to readers that it’s an unusual application of the statute. The Week has done excellent, solid reporting on the issue. (In my post entitled, The Identity Theft Excuse, I cited some of that reporting on how odd identity theft charges are in this case, and also linked to websites of responsible police departments, describing how they investigate real cases of identity theft against consumers.) If Dampier read anything other than the Whitewater Register, she might have noticed the better reporting of other local papers on the use of identity theft charges. If she’s not looking at what other reporters are writing about these stories that she covers –as an editor! — then she’s in the wrong line of work.

3. Omissions about the Impact of the Raid. There’s nothing about how controversial the raid has been, what it did to many hard-working families, and how it destroyed an employer in Whitewater. Nothing. When the Register ran a story on the one-year anniversary protest of the raid, it ran the story on the back page of the news section. When the Register wants to run a poorly sourced story flacking the prosecution’s’ criminal complaint in connection with the raid, it’s a front-page, headline story.

4. Omissions about Larry Meyer. Here’s where Dampier writes like she’s been living in a cave (one that’s far from Whitewater). She cites from the criminal complaint about Larry Meyer’s role in the Star Packaging Raid — controversial, disgraced, defendant-in-a-federal-civil-suit Meyer — as though he were an unbiased, respected figure. Dampier omits critical information about Meyer, but I’ll do her work for her, and give you the information that she hides from the pages of her newspaper:

“Expert Witness: Investigator Led Crusade Against Businessman.” (Meyer — named defendant in a federal civil suit.)

Former Assistant District Attorney Krueger signed an affidavit that Meyer destroyed evidence in the investigation of Cvicker’s business. (Krueger subsequently left for a position with the Attorney General in Madison.)

My own posts on Meyer tell you what Dampier hides:

Burying the Story: Update on Larry Meyer.

Jim Coan and Larry Meyer’s Shameful Legacy.

The Identity Theft Excuse.

Dampier’s thin, lazy headline story omits more than it tells, and has the effect of carrying water for Meyer, in a vain attempt to rehabilitate him, and his disgraceful role in the Star Packaging Raid. If Dampier took any classes in journalism, she should sue for a tuition reimbursement: the story is a hack’s job if ever there were one. Only readers who are ignorant, or already converted to a whitewash of Meyer and the police role in Star Packaging will enjoy the Register‘s latest, shabby headline story.

(In an upcoming post later this week, I’ll show how the Register is a failing paper, and how it’s no longer an effective media outlet for flacking one-sided stories for its friends.)

Inbox Reader Mail

Inbox: Reader Mail

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I received the following email this week, in reply to my post entitled, “Observing Living Conditions,” from a concerned, involved citizen. First the email in black, and my replies in blue.

Dear Mr. Adams,

I just wanted to e-mail you to thank you for your opinions on this issue of student housing in Whitewater. It is reassuring to hear that there are community members out there that really understand the complexities of this issue. I will be the first to admit that there are some students living among us that are horrible to their neighbors, and they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. It is just a shame that the other 90% of the student population who are good members of the community are branded with the same reputation, no matter what they try to contribute….

Adams: My pleasure. The cramped, narrow-minded resentment of students and the university is one of the great follies of our town. It’s undeniably true — to all but the most obtuse — that we should be one community, not two (and certainly not two at war with each other). Whitewater would shrivel without the university. An angry resentment of the campus is self-injurious.

There can be great charm in university life, and it should be free from the badgering of the city and a few residents who cajole others into that way of thinking and acting. I remember, as though it were yesterday, the joy I had when I first walked through the campus of my university, from one end to the other, awed by the many buildings around me. It was an honor for me when my family would visit, and we would walk about the campus together. That’s part of America — it’s a place of unrivaled colleges and universities, of knowledge theoretical and practical.

Those who attend college now are entitled to liberty, privacy, and respect no less than I was in my time.

Best regards,

Adams

Uncategorized

The Uses of Politeness

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America, and Americans, are generally a rough-hewn lot. We have a few dignified ceremonies — among them presidential inaugurations or funerals — but otherwise not many elaborate, refined, polite events. We are, thankfully, unburdened with the fancy pageantry of Britain. Britain, though, was no match for Louis XIV, whose court was the very model of elaborate, intricate politeness. The Sun King was no doubt polite and refined, but what of France? A second-rate economic power to Britain, France was torn by strife less than eighty years after his passing. All the while, America was growing, shaking off colonial bonds, and thereafter on the way to reaching from one side of the continent to another.

Politeness helped Louis XIV and his guests, but was useless for the progress, welfare, and success of his stagnant nation. Politeness (as so many have observed) was just a means of social restriction, and a way to stifle criticism.

That’s not an American trait: we were a nation born of vigorous writers, pamphleteers, and robust debate. Now, these centuries later were are a nation of newspapers, radio, television, and — here’s my favorite — bloggers. There may be a few people in this town’s stagnant, atrophied, cloistered clique who find this website upsetting, and, well, impolite.

That’s too bad — because when you turn away from serious inquiry and robust debate, you turn your back on the American tradition you have inherited.

In the end, the town clique only use the idea of ‘politeness’ or ‘optimism’ as ways to deflect legitimate criticism, and as a mask for its inability to offer principled, sensible, honest defenses of its often selfish, short-sighted actions.

Press

Copy and Copyright

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Most newspapers and blogs, including FREE WHITEWATER, will copyright their content. The City of Whitewater, also, asserts a copyright in its contents. (Actually, the city’s website disclaimer makes clear that not all rights are reserved. In any event, fair use principles would apply.)

Unlike other websites, and the local newspaper, you can be assured that I write all of my own copy. If it’s not my writing, it’s either obvious (like cartoons) or attributed properly (like letters I’ve received). My words go from pen and paper to keyboard and screen; I never publish unattributed copy from someone else as though it were merely a neutral statement. Words that amount to press releases should be attributed as such. Sometimes that’s obvious, sometimes it’s not. When the Register — and I’ll have much more about this next week — writes a story, it’s a parody of true journalism. I read what they write, and I’m left with the impression that half the supposed ‘news stories’ read more like single-side advertisements or virtual press releases.

The idea that because city officials, police, or prosecutors say something it’s public and objective — and need not be attributed because it’s supposedly fact is ignorant, naive, childish, and stupid (yes, all four!). True journalism and news reporting requires, at least, some minimal interest in investigation. If what a newspaper writes sounds as though it were dictated from one side of the issue, then the minimal demands of real reporting have not been met.

I write all of my copy, and no one else tells me what to say, or directs my writing to conform to a clique’s opinions, or suggests that I conform to commercial advertisers’ views. Perhaps, without any advertising campaign, that’s why FREE WHITEWATER had another great month in August, even better than July. Traffic growth to FREE WHITEWATER has been solely through word of mouth. Dedicated readers know, as I wrote in description of this site, that “JOHN ADAMS represents no party, faction, or clique within our city. ADAMS represents, instead, a fair politics, and a free, open culture.”

Thanks for a great August.

Cartoons & Comics

Friday Cartoon Feature

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Here’s the Friday-morning cartoon feature from FREE WHITEWATER.

This week’s clip is a Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse cartoon. Both characters use a rough-and-tumble street slang.

In this cartoon from 1916, At the Circus, Krazy and Ignatz visit — predictably — a circus, and Krazy learns that women should not be underestimated.

Enjoy.

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