Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with high of 79. Sunrise is 6:36 AM and sunset 7:02 PM for 12h 25m 20s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 61.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1959, the first successful photocopier, the Xerox 914, is introduced in a demonstration on live television from New York City.
One person, who has spent the last 90 days working at Foxconn, said workers at one building in the massive complex are assembling motherboards — a crucial part of computer hardware — for Google and Amazon.
The worker’s comments — and a video he made — provide a rare insight into the puzzling and secretive operations at the massive Racine County facility touted by former President Donald Trump as the “eighth wonder of the world.”
….
The 38-year-old southeast Wisconsin resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he signed a non-disclosure agreement, said there is very little work for employees.
“I talk to guys who have been here nine, 12 months and they say they’ve worked about three of those months,” the employee said. “It’s boring, and you get in trouble if you are just standing around doing nothing.”
….
On Thursday, the employee said he had decided to resign.
“I shouldn’t of had to work in a hostile environment and forced to do a job I was having a hard time with and also not hired to do,” he said.
Here at FREE WHITEWATER, there’s an entire category dedicated to Foxconn. The category is replete with accounts and analyses of the Foxconn project’s audacity, waste, and lies. The Foxconn project is simply a silly group’s idea of a serious undertaking.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with high of 79. Sunrise is 6:35 AM and sunset 7:03 PM for 12h 28m 13s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 71.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1588, the “Invincible Armada,” sent by Catholic King Philip II of Spain to overthrow Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England, is defeated in the English Channel.
Many years ago, for a brief period, Wisconsin had a would-be king. It’s a sad, absurd tale:
On this date James Jesse Strang, leader of the estranged Mormon faction, the Strangites, was crowned king; the only man to achieve such a title in America. When founder Joseph Smith was assassinated, Strang forged a letter from Smith dictating he was to be the heir. The Mormon movement split into followers of Strang and followers of Brigham Young. As he gained more followers (but never nearly as many as Brigham Young), Strang became comparable to a Saint, and in 1850 was crowned King James in a ceremony in which he wore a discarded red robe of a Shakespearean actor, and a metal crown studded with a cluster of stars as his followers sang him hosannas. Soon after his crowning, he announced that Mormonism embraced and supported polygamy. (Young’s faction was known to have practiced polygamy, but had not at this time announced it publicly.) A number of followers lived in Walworth County, including Strang at a home in Burlington. In 1856 Strang was himself assassinated, leaving five wives. Without Strang’s leadership, his movement disintegrated. [Source: Wisconsin Saints and Sinners, by Fred L. Holmes, p. 106-121]
There is, however, an upcoming election that would bring Wisconsin close to a governor with king-like powers (and no need for a discarded red robe).
The two principal elections in Wisconsin his fall, gubernatorial and U.S. Senate contests, look to be close, as recent polling confirms. A Republican victory in the gubernatorial race would leave the victor in a different position, however, from a Republican victory in the U.S. Senate race.
If Ron Johnson wins, and the Republicans also take the majority, it would be McConnell, not Johnson, who would be in a position of power. Johnson would be one of 51 or more, but McConnell would be leader of the whole caucus.
By contrast, if Tim Michels wins, it is he who would have executive authority to advance the legislative agenda of the gerrymandered WISGOP Assembly. One can confidently assume that abortion would be illegal in almost all cases, the state university system would undergo a complete transformation, and there would be additional restrictions on ballot access and voting.
Not long from now, a Connecticut homeowner may come as close to a king as Wisconsin has ever seen.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with high of 76. Sunrise is 6:34 AM and sunset 7:05 PM for 12h 31m 04s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 81.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1984, Joe Kittinger becomes the first person to fly a gas balloon alone across the Atlantic Ocean.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican challenger Tim Michels announced Monday that they’d agreed to debate Friday, Oct. 14. The event is sponsored by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association, whose debates are typically carried by TV and radio stations throughout the state.
It’s rare for there to be just one debate in a general election campaign for governor, but both the Evers and Michels campaigns were onboard with the plan.
“We are pleased to announce that our two campaigns have reached an agreement regarding the upcoming Wisconsin Broadcasters Association debate,” read a joint statement issued by Evers campaign manager Cassi Fenili and Michels campaign manager Patrick McNulty. “There are plenty of differences between the two candidates, but we agree that voters deserve this opportunity to hear directly from each candidate. This will be the only debate between the candidates before the November election.”
The WBA debate will be held in Madison and include journalists from around the state.
For the candidates, this agreement makes sense. It’s likely to be a close race, in a contest where many partisan voters are decided, and where neither candidate is a notable for his oratory. The polling gains amount the tiny number of undecided from debates will be slight, and outweighed if there should be significant gaffe.
For either candidate’s electoral prospects, less debating and more advertising makes sense.
For the public, however, this is a paltry offering. Several debates would offer far more than an occasional gaffe. Several debates would give Wisconsinites a chance to see how these candidates answer questions on public policy from the press and in reply to each other.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with high of 73. Sunrise is 6:33 AM and sunset 7:07 PM for 12h 33m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Unified School District’s Board goes into closed session, not to reconvene, at 5 PM.
For more than a century, knowledge has been created and mediated by elite institutions, particularly by major national TV networks and newspapers, that anchored a discourse driven by norms. But the deluge of social media in the 21st century has collapsed that arrangement and has been used as a tool to undercut our democracy. That is inevitable.
To fortify liberal democracy, leaders will have to defend the rule of law, even if they risk political blowback from devoted Trumpists. The Jan. 6 committee hearings were not in vain: They have established a forensic record of a deliberate effort to undermine a peaceful transfer of power, and the proceedings may have made for good television, leaving more citizens informed about what actually happened. But it’s not enough. In the end, the only way to confront a seditious conspiracy is to prosecute the criminals and defeat the people who support them at the ballot box.
If that means indicting Mr. Trump if there is sufficient evidence for possessing classified documents at his beachside club and lying about it or barring him from political office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, so be it.
Democracy’s claim to superiority over other political systems is that it offers free expression and the opportunity to confront arbitrary power. Mr. Trump and his supporters are entitled to the former, using all the available means of persuasion at their disposal. They are not, however, welcome to permanent impunity.
The good news is that our system has shown itself to be resilient: Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election were repulsed on Jan. 6, 2021. That’s a victory for American democracy.
But like every democratic victory, it was provisional. As long as there is democracy, there will be demagogy. And the ability to check power remains just that: an opportunity.
Well said.
The Trumpists of Whitewater, these dyspeptic conservative populists, are noisy faction within this community. It is a faction to which I am opposed: they are an autocratic, mendacious lot. They proclaim liberty but would deny liberty to those with whom they disagree. They make plain that whole classes of American are, to them, unworthy of equal rights under law.
Nonetheless: if they, themselves, advocate within the bounds of the law, however misguided and irritable they may be, they’ve as much right to speak as anyone else.
Although the Trumpists gleefully offend others while insisting that they not be offended, their hypocritical weakness is not crime. There’s no reserve, no stoicism, among this ilk. Their leaders are almost stereotypically undisciplined: fits over masks, tantrums over immunization, conniptions over election losses, while yelling in public buildings and meetings about this or that.
It’s common for them to gather trolls among their ranks, nativist goblins who’d happily ban books, afflict others based on sexual orientation, and torment immigrants. All the while, they often lack evidence — even as native born Americans — of a moral or general formation that one should expect from a proper K-12 education.
One cannot say that I have not been plain: Trumpism is both wrong and repulsive.
And yet, so long as they stay within the bounds of the law — even those laws that they would readily overturn should they come to power — they have a right to speak. They are a malevolent political and cultural movement to be opposed and overcome only through lawful means.
Old Whitewater always wanted those with whom it disagreed to go away. If they wouldn’t go away, then as alternatives it tried ignoring, pretending, concealing, hiding issues behind closed-session exceptions to Wisconsin’s Open Meeting Law, speaking vaguely even in open meetings, etc. One either addresses the topics of the day, or becomes yesterday’s news.
And look, and look: it has been Old Whitewater that’s faded, that’s gone away. Wishing people away won’t do. That’s a childish, petulant perspective. Some might be unsuited to their roles, but no one should be wishing others away from the city. There’s a difference between fierce political debate and dreaming of others’ exile (or worse, causing it). Far from prevailing, what’s left of that outlook is withered and brittle.
A place one loves, a place worth defending, requires a daily commitment to support or oppose as conscience suggests.
Each day one begins anew, always meeting the day with the humble perspective of a dark horse underdog.
The Halloween themed maze in Minnesota covers 44.5 hectares and features the giant faces of Freddie Krueger, the Chucky doll, Michael Myers, and Pennywise the clown.
Monday in Whitewater will be rainy with high of 63. Sunrise is 6:32 AM and sunset 7:09 PM for 12h 36m 48s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Erik Gunn reports How government aid helped Ron Johnson (‘A senator who votes against safety net programs benefited from government-sponsored financing for his business’):
In his two terms in office, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has run hard against government spending. Since his first Senate campaign in 2010, the Oshkosh Republican has described himself as an outsider and business creator who has succeeded without government help.
He has dismissed big-ticket bills as wasteful, telling a TV host in June that measures backed by Congressional Democrats were intended to “make more Americans dependent on government.”
Yet in the 1980s, the company that Johnson was running at the time [Pacur] expanded by raising money under a government-sponsored financing program instead of conventional corporate bonds — a program made possible by the federal government as well as the city of Oshkosh that saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest payments.
The company also benefited from a direct federal grant from the city of Oshkosh to build a rail spur to serve the new factory it built in the city.
….
Pacur was originally founded as Wisconsin Industrial Shipping Supply in 1977. In 1979, Oshkosh authorized a $1 million IRB for the company to finance its new buildings in the city. After the company was renamed Pacur, Oshkosh authorized two more IRBs to finance additional expansions: $1.5 million in 1983, and $2.5 million in 1985.
When Pacur’s use of IRBs in its early expansion was first reported in 2010, Johnson’s campaign issued a statement that defended their use: “No taxpayer money was ever involved in those bonds, nor were taxpayers ever put at risk,” said the statement, which also noted that the loans were repaid in full with interest.
But that defense sidesteps the central benefit that the company received thanks to the government program.
“Interest rates were really high in the 1980s,” [Good Jobs First nonprofit executive director Greg] LeRoy says. According to federal data, commercial corporate bonds in 1979 paid about 9.6%-10.7%. In 1983, the year of Pacur’s second IRB, those rates were 12%-13.5%. By the year of the third IRB, 1985, they had fallen only slightly, to 11.4%-12.7%.
For Pacur, however, opting for IRBs each time saved the company substantially. “IRBs would be let at about 25% less,” LeRoy says. “That’s a huge difference in your cost of money.”
Sunday in Whitewater will be rainy with high of 61. Sunrise is 6:31 AM and sunset 7:10 PM for 12h 39m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2001, al-Qaeda launches the September 11 attacks, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks killing 2,996 people using four aircraft hijacked by 19 of its members. Two aircraft crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, a third crashes into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The couple first purchased a home in exclusive Greenwich, a bedroom community for celebrities and millionaires who commute to Manhattan” the publication [Wisconsin Right Now] reported. An LLC traced to Michels “purchased that four-bedroom, five-bath home in December 2017 for $4.6 million…. The LLC then traded up, purchasing the $17 million house in Riverside, Connecticut, a neighborhood of Greenwich, in 2020. They sold the first Greenwich home in April 2021 for $6.5 million.”
The couple also owns a New York penthouse along E. 68th St that they purchased in 2015 for $8.7 million. “Barbara Michels listed the $17 million home as her ‘residential street address’ when she made a campaign donation in December 2021, and she listed the couple’s Manhattan penthouse as her address when she made a campaign donation in 2020,” the story reports.
The couple’s two youngest children “attended Connecticut and New York City high schools for their entire high school years. The oldest child graduated from Xavier High School in New York City in 2016 (he started attending that school in 2013); the daughter graduated from Marymount School of New York in 2019; and the youngest son graduated from Brunswick High School in Greenwich in 2021. A call to each school confirmed none of them are boarding schools… Dartmouth University lists the hometown for Michels’ youngest son, who graduated from high school in 2021, as Riverside, Connecticut.”
In short the Michels children have been attending schools on the East Coast since 2013.
Michels insists that he meets the Wisconsin’s technical residency requirements, and he may do so. Having one of his houses somewhere in this state, however, does not demonstrate a primary commitment to Wisconsin. In 2020 and 2021, Michels and his spouse bought or used Manhattan properties as their residences.
Michels is running to be governor of Wisconsin, not mayor of New York, or King of Connecticut the Nutmeg State.
However far I might sometimes travel, I am always happily returned to this small city. Those faraway places that I visit are not my home; Whitewater is my home.
There are many communities that need help and support. That help and support does not take one form (as the narrow of mind and small of heart believe), but it does require a primary commitment.
People cannot be in two places at once physically, and are improbably in two places at once emotionally. Somewhere will be primary in heart and mind. All the rest is unpersuasive talk, excuses, and rationalizations.
Overweening ambition is not a primary commitment; it’s a vice masquerading as a virtue.
Saturday in Whitewater will see scatted afternoon showers with high of 79. Sunrise is 6:30 AM and sunset 7:12 PM for 12h 42m 30s of daytime. The moon is full with all of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1813, the United States defeats a British Fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.
Within the request for proposals released by the city and announced Friday, [Whitewater Director of Public Works Brad] Marquardt requested proposals to:
• assess the tower’s current structural viability to determine if it can be repaired or must be demolished.
• provide potential solutions for repairing the tower or for demolishing the tower, if necessary.
• provide cost estimates for all potential solutions.
• identify public safety measures to implement while awaiting restoration or demolition and removal, if necessary.
The city is anticipating the development of a full report by Dec. 2., according to its Friday release.
The tower has cultural significance to many in the community; it’s likely that some residents will have strong feelings about its fate.
There is good reason, however, to be patient and wait for the report. Whitewater has a full autumn of public policy considerations (a fire & emergency services referendum, a school district referendum, and selection of a new city manager among them). We are a small community with a few big issues before us.
Whitewater is better off, as she now is, with a tower report return date that falls after those other questions are settled.
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with high of 82. Sunrise is 6:29 AM and sunset 7:14 PM for 12h 45m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Ahead of the 2022 midterms, FRONTLINE’s two-hour season premiere investigates political leaders and choices they made at key points that have undermined and threatened American democracy. This journalism is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station here: http://www.pbs.org/donate.
In “Lies, Politics and Democracy,” FRONTLINE examines how officials fed the public lies about the 2020 presidential election and embraced rhetoric that led to political violence. An epic examination of former President Donald Trump’s influence on the Republican Party, the documentary presents startling details from GOP insiders on how the indulgence of Trump’s authoritarian impulses and embrace of his rhetoric enabled his power over the American political system, leading the nation to a precarious moment in which most Republican voters now believe the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
Told in part through the perspectives of key Republican players and party leaders, the two-hour special provides first-person accounts from those who sounded the alarm about Trump, and those whose warnings were minimized or silenced all along the way.
Tuesday, September 13th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of CODA@ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Comedy/Drama/Music
Rated PG-13; 1 hour, 51 minutes (2021)
As a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), Ruby is the only hearing person in her deaf family. When the family’s fishing business is threatened, Ruby finds herself torn between pursuing her passion at music college and her fear of abandoning her parents. Winner of 3 Oscars, including Best Picture, Supporting Actor and Screenplay.
Cheetahs can be very vocal cats, with a wide “vocabulary” of noises: from purring and hissing typical of a house cat, to trills, chirps, and yips which are almost bird-like.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with high of 82. Sunrise is 6:28 AM and sunset 7:16 PM for 12h 48m 12s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 94.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1966, the landmark American science fiction television series Star Trek premieres with its first-aired episode, “The Man Trap.“
Our area is now a news desert. The APG newspapers have withered and retreated behind a paywall, the Register has slipped into an irreversible coma, and the Banner does not have a professional journalist. There is nothing journalistically worthy in the area except Fort Atkinson Online.
(Needless to say, FREE WHITEWATER is the work of a libertarian blogger, not a journalist. This steadfast blog is, however, the work of someone raised in a newspaper-loving family, long before the internet, where there were newspapers, magazines, journals, and books all about the house. A literate person can and should be able to tell the difference between good journalism, good commentary, and everything else.)
Fort Atkinson Online is good journalism.
And so, and so, what to make of the headline and story on Whitewater Police Chief Dan Meyer’s discussion before the council on challenges near Fox Meadows?
I’ve watched his remarks and the Whitewater Common Council’s discussion three times, and Meyer speaks in an even, neutral, and professional tone with carefully chosen words. There is nothing in that presentation from which one could infer of him, or attribute to him, a contempt for immigrants. His presentation was business standard, so to speak (as it should be).
As much as we live in a community where some immigrants struggle to adjust, we live in a community where some native-born residents bitterly decry newcomers.
Meyer’s remarks were always going to be those of a man speaking as though he walked through a mine field. That’s the time in which we live.
On policing, there’s a view that libertarians naturally dislike the police. It’s false. (I don’t, for example, believe in ‘defunding’ the police. Local government should not budget by particular departments but holistically. In any event, Whitewater was never a community where defunding was gong to happen, and anyone who thought so is deluded.)
Former chiefs Coan and Otterbacher deserved dogged criticism for their mistakes, and of Raap this website mostly offered links to news accounts published elsewhere.
About Raap, I will say this: more than once I have remarked that community policing is a matter of what happens at a distance of fifteen feet (where we live), not fifteen miles (where he lived). As it turned out, ironically, Raap’s employment challenges were both at a distance of fifteen feet where he lived and fifteen feet where we live. There was no way to see that outcome in advance. For it all, I’m genuinely disappointed about how his career ended in Whitewater: the city handled the matter secretively and unprofessionally. One truly hopes the best for Raap and his family.
About the 9.6.22 council session: a headline that reads Police Chief Expresses Concerns with ‘Ongoing Influx of New Community Members’is journalistically accurate and fair, but — most likely — is not the headline that Whitewater’s responsible government, in the city or school district, would have wanted. City officials, however, do not and must not get to pick.
(Funny story, about blogging in Whitewater: years ago, a woman who once lived in Whitewater mentioned to me that it might be a good idea if I showed my posts to the city manager at the time, before publishing them. Of course, my answer was no: if government should not by law exercise a prior restraint or editorial control over publishing, then publishers shouldn’t voluntarily accept one. I’m happily still here, publishing freely; the woman moved away, and the city manager’s long gone, too.)
It’s not a libertarian’s calling to advise government, and one wouldn’t expect the advice to be taken in any event. Still, a sincere offering, as a matter of advocacy: in cases where officials speak on sensitive topics, the beginning and end of those remarks should include a plain, clear statement of principle that inoculates the official against particular remarks that others may latch upon. It should be expressed in a simple, conversational, congenial way (nothing stifled or stuffy). Then, against particular, selected quotations, the speaker or interviewee can plainly state: but most important of all is how I began and ended. If the speaker or interviewee does not begin with a conversational statement of inoculating principle, then that responsive opportunity is lost when a story hits the web.
In the discussion from Tuesday, a nativist resident calling in latched onto remarks about particular domestic violence to make general, exaggerated cultural claims. These nativists love those opportunities, to exaggerate the particular into the generally derogatory. They wind up soiling others with their own muck.
As for any interviews, they should also be recorded. The official being interviewed should politely ask to record the full call, or make sure a meeting is recorded, and then begin and end with a general (and conversationally-expressed) statement. A professional reporter will often also record an interview, and will respect a request like this. Calm, relaxed, friendly, only a few sentences in the beginning and end are needed: ‘Thanks for this opportunity. I’d just like to say that we believe…’)
Whitewater is better off — much — for having a professional journalist (a reporter-editor) who covers our community. Officials who shy from the press do a disservice to the community. For officials, it’s stand and deliver or walk away. The Fort Atkinson Online tagline states that the publication is “[y]our local news source serving Fort Atkinson, Whitewater and surrounding areas.” Yes, it is.
We are a factionalized city, however, and we’ve only recently acquired good journalism from this nearby website (years having passed since the Gazette was a solid publication).
Our current condition requires craft, for all of us, to make ourselves plain.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with high of 80. Sunrise is 6:27 AM and sunset 7:18 PM for 12h 51m 02s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 88.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
During the Revolutionary War on this day in 1778, France successfully invades Dominica in the British West Indies before British Caribbean authorities are even aware of France’s involvement in the war.
Whitewater’s city manager left his position in mid-August. The City of Whitewater has contracted with GovHR USA to find a new city manager, and in the meantime hired an interim city manager through GovTemps USA (a subsidiary of GovHR USA). The city’s human resources director, Judy Atkinson, described the hiring process in brief remarks to the Whitewater Common Council (embedded above) with a written description of the process in the evening’s council packet (embedded below).
What to say as this process begins?
There is no portion of the process, that one can easily see from the video remarks or the written document, that provides for a community forum for the final candidates. The law does not require a forum of this kind; open-government principles call for one.
Perhaps I’m missing that portion of the packet; my apologies if that’s the case. One needs to be clear: if the requirements include hiring a “City Manager [who] is Whitewater’s chief executive officer in charge of the city’s day-to-day operations and budgets of approximately $24 million” then this city government owes its residents a community forum with final candidates before a hiring decision.
I’m truly puzzled — isn’t this obvious? Whitewater requires a limited and responsible government, and to be responsible to the city’s residents, this government must be forthcoming.
With so many needs, and so many problems, this is an unexpected and unwelcome misstep. It’s hard to understand how the hiring firm and the city’s human resources manager might have overlooked the crucial open-government requirement of a dedicated and plainlyspecified community forum.
If a community forum with the final candidates doesn’t happen, then it’s not possible to support this process or its result.
Of all the candidates in the initial round, another point is worth making. The City of Whitewater has hired a firm, and pledged to a process, that will produce several qualified candidates for the consideration of the Whitewater Common Council. That process must assure that each of these candidates is capable, and that each receives fair and equal consideration.
While the interim city manager has expressed an interest in a permanent position (in both a news feature story and during the 9.6.22 council session), he should not (and must not) receive preferential consideration. This city government has not promised, and is not paying a consultant, for a temp-to-hire process.
While it may be true, as this interim manager told a reporter, that most city managers remain in a position for less than five years, that’s not what Whitewater needs or deserves.
Whitewater is not a day job, a line on a résumé, or a stop along the way.
Deeply and truly: Whitewater is the work — and the adventure — of a lifetime.
