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City, Coronavirus, Culture, Education, Politics, School District, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021

Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: Majoritarianism

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This is the tenth in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021.

The contested April school board election has now come to a close. An animating concern of many parents was that the Whitewater public school should not have suspended face-to-face instruction for as long as it did, and that, in doing so, the school board ignored majority opinion. (This theme played out in many Wisconsin school districts; Whitewater wasn’t unique.)

One can leave aside particular debates about what the majority of parents in the district wanted, for the sake of a general assumption: many parents hoped the district would have  been open continuously for face-to-face instruction.

As forceful opinion on the matter became evident, board members, the district superintendent, and other district administrators began to echo themes of that majority opinion, majority will, etc.

(Quick note: I never took a position on whether the schools should stay open for face-to-face instruction, except to note that any decision would be fraught. It was enough, in my view, that there should be an online instructional option for students at all grade levels. This view in support of an option implies more than one choice, but I refrained from predictions of what might happen if the schools stayed open.

There was, also, no endorsement at FREE WHITEWATER for any of the recent candidates.)

This question confronts Whitewater’s school board, superintendent, administrative Central Office, principals, and teachers: how often will the majority decide on curriculum and policy? If a majority of parents would be decisive, when would it be decisive?

The point isn’t that majorities shouldn’t decide sometimes or even often, but whether they should decide always.

And look, and look — if a majority should decide always, then will they exercise that power over contentious political, social, or scientific topics in the curriculum, against demanding standards of teaching, or against minority rights (of race, ethnicity, orientation, or conscience)?

There’s a simple-minded idea that one is either a friend or foe of education. Under this reading, if you’re a friend, then you should be supportive of whatever teachers, principals, or superintendents do. On the contrary, the best defense of education comes from those who commit to their substantive fields and exercise authority wisely and ethically.

Whitewater can be a difficult place, and it faces difficult challenges.

Teachers and administrators who are poorly mentored (so that they don’t think about method deeply or think leadership is reflexively defending their subordinates) serve education poorly. They make it harder for those who know that learning is more than a diploma, certificate, or degree.

Important principles require a defense worthy of their importance.

Tomorrow: The Limits of Local Politics.

Previously: Unofficial Spring Election Results, The Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater, The City’s Center-Left, The City’s Few Progressives, The Campus, The Subcultural City, The Common Council, COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric, and Marketing.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.16.21

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 57.  Sunrise is 6:09 AM and sunset 7:39 PM, for 13h 29m 45s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 16.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, the United States Army liberates Nazi Sonderlager (high security) prisoner-of-war camp Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz).

Recommended for reading in full — 

Vanda Felbab-Brown writes The US decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is the right one:

The Biden administration’s political courage lies in its refusal to be cowed by the possibility that a terrorism threat will grow in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal. That specter has been a key justification for militarily staying on and on. That possibility needs to be weighed against other already materialized strategic threats and realities. Indeed, another wise aspect of the Biden administration’s decision was to stop treating U.S. Afghanistan policy in isolation from other issues and strategic priorities; to date, the tyranny of sunk costs has inflated Afghanistan’s importance.

Now, threats from China, an aggressive Russia, North Korea, and Iran — as well as zoonotic pandemics — are more important strategic priorities. Investing in U.S. Special Operation Forces, top leadership attention, and financial resources to counter those threats can deliver far greater strategic benefits than perpetuating the Afghanistan military effort.

Megan Hart reports Kimberly-Clark: Relocating 250 Workers To Chicago Won’t Interfere With Tax Incentives In Wisconsin:

The global manufacturer behind brands like Kleenex, Huggies and Kotex struck a deal with former Gov. Scott Walker in late 2018, allowing the company to receive up to $28 million in grants. In return, Kimberly-Clark committed to investing in its Fox Valley facilities, keeping jobs in Wisconsin and buying from Wisconsin suppliers.

“It is disappointing that Kimberly-Clark has chosen to move these jobs out of Wisconsin, especially as our state is just beginning to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Secretary Missy Hughes, of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., said in a statement.

Her agency is reviewing its contract with Kimberly-Clark to determine whether the move will affect its eligibility for tax incentives, she said.

Caleb Ecarma writes White Nationalists Sure Don’t Think Tucker Carlson’s “Replacement” Segment Is About Voting Rights:

Perhaps emboldened by Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch, who stood by his segment ostensibly promoting the white nationalist “replacement” theory, Tucker Carlson has spent much of this week doubling down. “Demographic change is the key to the Democratic Party’s political ambitions,” Carlson said Monday night, cementing his position in the face of calls for his firing. “Let’s say that again for emphasis because it is the secret to the entire immigration debate.… In order to win and maintain power, Democrats plan to change the population of the country. They’re no longer trying to win you over with their program. They’re obviously not trying to improve your life. They don’t even really care about your vote anymore. Their goal is to make you irrelevant.”

And strangely, despite Fox News’s and Murdoch’s insistence that Carlson’s focus on this topic has to do with voting rights, and not racist conspiracy mongering, he appears to have drawn praise from a certain segment of adoring fans. “Holy shit, I just watched Tucker’s replacement segment. This is a turning point in the program,” wrote one user on 4chan’s /pol/ board––one of the few remaining online platforms that hosts self-described Nazis––in a thread praising Carlson for naming “the jew on national television.” Others on the thread shared their praise by posting a meme depicting Carlson as the far right’s cartoon frog mascot, Pepe, urging fellow 4chan-ers to “get your parents to watch right now to boost tucker’s ratings so murdoch doesn’t get cold feet,” and declaring, “HEIL TUCKER!”

 Why Starlink Is Crucial To SpaceX’s Success:

Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Blogging, Boosterism, City, Confidence Schemes, Coronavirus, Culture, Local Government, Mendacity, Politics, School District, Special Interests, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021

Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: Marketing

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This is the ninth in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021.

Through all the difficult events of the last two decades (a Great Recession, an opioid epidemic, economic stagnation, creeping nativism, a pandemic, a pandemic recession), Old Whitewater has responded with the same question: how can we market the town to others?

If marketing hadn’t been invented, these gentlemen would have had open calendars and empty task lists.

Some marketing efforts will, in any event, prove easier than others.

For the school district, efforts to persuade families who have left the district should prove the easiest marketing task in Whitewater. Those families have connections geographically and personally to the district, they chose to be in the district before the pandemic, and if the pandemic truly abates in the Whitewater area, a well-crafted appeal to the prior reasons they stayed in the district should have a good chance of success.

That sort of marketing program would be a reclamation effort, where one reclaims by persuasion those who once had a commitment to the district.

Beyond a reclamation effort, however, other marketing programs – for newcomers to the city or school district – will reach the eyes and ears of those who have not before lived in the community. Those prospects will have no prior experience (or little) by which to evaluate the claims, offers, and promises they hear.

Local marketing men will evaluate the success of their appeals by the number of newcomers they attract. There is a more fundamental standard by which an ethical man or woman evaluates an advertising or marketing campaign: one first judges advertising and marketing by the honesty of the claims presented. Honesty requires truth, significance, and relevance.

If Whitewater aims to sell to others the city or school district, then that effort requires more than a nice website or colorful flyer. Many communities have nice websites and colorful flyers.

There is no greater promotion, no more colorful banner, no more compelling slogan, than the truth.

Whitewater would do better to admit – indeed, to declare boldly – that she is a work in progress, in need of help from talented newcomers from near and far. For the city to succeed in that declaration, the same ten eight six people who have chanted self-promotion as though a universal creed will have to yield places and opportunities to those talented newcomers.

All the rest is more of the same.

Tomorrow: Majoritarianism.

Previously: Unofficial Spring Election Results, The Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater, The City’s Center-Left, The City’s Few Progressives, The Campus, The Subcultural City, The Common Council, and COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.15.21

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 54.  Sunrise is 6:11 AM and sunset 7:38 PM, for 13h 26m 59s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 9.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2019, the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris in France is seriously damaged by a large fire.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Bill Glauber reports Wisconsin Treasurer Sarah Godlewski joins Democratic race for Ron Johnson’s U.S. Senate seat in 2022:

Taking the fight straight to Republican Ron Johnson, state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski announced Wednesday that she’s running for U.S. Senate.

Godlewski joined an increasingly crowded field of Democratic hopefuls eager to challenge Johnson, who has not yet announced if he’ll seek a third term in the U.S. Senate next year.

In a video to launch her campaign, Godlewski sought to set up a contrast with Johnson and said: “We’re … how do I put it nicely? Different.”

“Ron Johnson has spent his time covering up for Donald Trump, denying climate change and catering to the super-wealthy,” she said.

Godlewski fiercely criticized Johnson’s comments on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, in which he said, “This really didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me.”

Godlewski declared: “I don’t think you show respect by beating and killing police officers.”

Julian E. Barnes, David E. Sanger and Lara Jakes report Biden Administration to Impose Tough Sanctions on Russia
(‘Administration officials were determined to draft a response that would impose real costs on Moscow, as many previous rounds of sanctions have been shrugged off’):

“It will not simply be sanctions,” Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, said in February. He has frequently said it will include “a mix of tools seen and unseen,” though there have been disagreements in the administration about how many of the steps to make public.

Restrictions on sovereign debt affect a nation’s ability to raise dollar-denominated bonds, with lenders fearful of being cut off from American financial markets. The United States has used similar techniques against Iran, among others.

Russian bond prices have fluctuated in recent weeks in anticipation of possible sanctions. Russia has relatively little debt, making it potentially less vulnerable to the tactic. And rising oil prices will benefit the country’s economy.

Nevertheless, any broad sanctions on Russia’s financial sector would amount to a significant escalation in the costs that the United States has been willing to impose on Moscow. And part of the administration’s concern has been whether Russian entities could retaliate by exploiting “back doors” implanted in American systems.

Elaine Godfrey writes The Rural Pandemic Isn’t Ending:

It’s possible—even probable—public-health experts told me, that months from now, some rural areas will still have very low vaccination rates, providing isolated havens for the coronavirus. That outcome could be calamitous. First, as long as unvaccinated individuals live together in a community, frequenting the same shops, offices, and classrooms, the virus can find hosts through which to spread. Second, and even worse, a virus left unchecked will evolve—that’s what viruses do best—and could become more infectious, more lethal, and more resistant to existing vaccines. Which means that, ultimately, a new, super-charged coronavirus variant could create the conditions for another epidemic, the experts told me. This is why “we need people vaccinated now, not four months from now,” says Alan Morgan, the CEO of the nonprofit National Rural Health Association.

See also Red states on U.S. electoral map lagging on vaccinations.

 Michelangelo’s David: Inside the high-tech project to create a perfect 3D ‘twin’:

Blogging, City, Coronavirus, Local Government, Politics, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021

Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021 — COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric

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This is the eighth in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021.

Why would a local politician publish statistics on a pandemic? Why would he write now and again with reports of the reach of the pandemic into his city?

He’d write this way out of concern for his community. If that’s not plain, then nothing is plain. It’s not fear of infection or ambition for control that prompted these numerous posts at the Whitewater Banner. Honest to goodness, it was no more – and no less – than a concern for others.

Those who have described a charitable impulse as a sinister one have been absurdly wrong.

I’ve been critical of what I’ve called ‘amateur epidemiology,’ but on practical, not moral grounds. It’s morally right to alert others of dangers (and COVID-19 has been a danger to many, across all the planet).

The contention that those who are concerned are instead afraid is false, if not projection. So many of us have carried on as before, but with precautions of masks, hand-washing, distancing, and now vaccination (while maintaining those prior precautions until the pandemic ends). Over this last year, there has not been a single day when I have been afraid for myself over the pandemic, yet I’ve not let a single morning or evening pass without asking for intercession on behalf of others, wherever they reside.

Instead, the practical problem with a local politician alerting others of this danger is that too many in and near Whitewater are in obstinate denial. To engage successfully on this topic with COVID-19 denialists or anti-maskers would require a long, hard slog.

About COVID-19 skepticism see On COVID-19 Skeptics and COVID Is Worse Than We Think.

A quick estimate, having written here continuously for fourteen years, is that a solid local discussion and explanation of risks would require about 100 lengthy posts in assertion or reply over a year. The time to research and present one’s position would be far greater than any written effort the city has seen. (A professional would need little additional research time, but a layperson would require a vast amount of preparatory reading.)

At best, this effort would, even if rhetorically powerful, likely end in no better than a stalemate. One might reinforce one’s position among the like-minded, but probably gain few converts to a more reasonable view.

For these practical reasons, I’ve not engaged on the topic.

Seeing humanitarian efforts characterized as tyranny should be a warning to Whitewater: this city is significantly less united – and less acculturated – than its leaders like to imagine or describe.

Anyone looking around will see economic hardship among some residents, and anyone listening or reading will see a significant number of false claims masquerading as profound truths.

The hard, important work of the city isn’t marketing to those outside, it’s healing and uplifting from within.

Tomorrow: Marketing.

Previously: Unofficial Spring Election Results, The Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater, The City’s Center-Left, The City’s Few Progressives, The Campus, The Subcultural City, and The Common Council.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.14.21

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 45.  Sunrise is 6:12 AM and sunset 7:36 PM, for 13h 24m 13s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.0% of its visible disk illuminated.

The school district’s Policy Review Committee meets via audiovisual conferencing at 1 PM.

On this day in 1775, the first abolition society in North America is established, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Kelly Meyerhofer reports UW-Madison hires former Foxconn official to lead office working with businesses:

The hiring of John Garnetti, Foxconn’s former deputy director of U.S. strategic initiatives, comes about halfway through a five-year agreement between UW-Madison and the Taiwanese technology company that critics say has fallen far short of expectations.

Foxconn officials in 2018 committed $100 million to help fund a new UW-Madison engineering building and company-related research. Records show the university received $700,000 in the first two years of the deal — less than 1% of the company’s pledge.

Bruce Vielmetti reports Kenosha officer who shot Jacob Blake in the back returns to full duty, won’t face any discipline:

District Attorney Michael Graveley announced in January that Rusten Sheskey would face no criminal charges in the Aug. 23 incident that left Blake paralyzed from the waist down. 

On Tuesday, Chief Daniel Miskinis issued a press release on Twitter stating that Sheskey has also been cleared of breaking any internal policies, and has been back on duty after months of administrative leave since March 31.

….

On March 25, Blake filed a federal civil rights lawsuit for damages against Sheskey.

Blake claims Sheskey’s use of deadly force was excessive, violated Blake’s rights under the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable seizure, and was done with “malice, willfulness, and reckless indifference” to Blake’s rights.

One of Blake’s attorneys, Patrick Salvi Jr., called Tuesday’s revelation that Sheskey had returned to full duty without discipline very surprising.

“How can anyone say this is a desired result for a police encounter?” Salvi asked. He called it “a very sad state of affairs” if Kenosha police truly believe Sheskey acted in accordance with policy and training.

“But that’s not true and we’ll prove it in our lawsuit,” Salvi said.

Michael Gerson writes Tucker Carlson shows what mass-marketed racism looks like:

The Anti-Defamation League has demanded Carlson’s firing for his unapologetic embrace of “replacement theory.” Here is how Carlson defined this idea in the process of defending it last week: “The Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate of the voters now casting ballots with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World.”

Why people should be offended by this mystifies Carlson. “Everyone wants to make a racial issue out of it,” he continued. “No, no, no, this is a voting-rights question. I have less political power because they are importing a brand-new electorate. Why should I sit back and take that? The power that I have as an American, guaranteed at birth, is one man, one vote, and they are diluting it.”

There is a reason, of course, that “everyone” wants to make a racial issue out of this. Because it is a putrescent pile of racist myths and cliches. Nearly every phrase of Carlson’s statement is the euphemistic expression of white-supremacist replacement doctrine. “The Democratic Party” means liberals, which translates into Jews. They are importing “new people” from the “Third World” means people with black and brown skin. Those kinds of people, in the racist trope, are “obedient,” meaning docile, backward and stupid. Their votes do not constitute real democracy because they are replacing the “current electorate” — which is presumably whiter and less docile. These paler, truer Americans are thus deprived of their birthright of political dominance. And fighting back — making sure the new Third World people have less power — becomes a defense of the American way.

 Fireball lights up Florida sky:

City, Local Government, Politics, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021

Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: The Common Council

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This is the seventh in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021.

Whitewater has a seven-person person city council with an appointed city manager to run the daily affairs of the town. Two of the council seats are at-large, and the other five members are from aldermanic districts.

While the city manager acts in a delegated executive function, the city council embodies both the legislative and executive authority of the city.

Looking back over more than a dozen years one finds a number of municipal controversies, disappointments, and problems. Some of these challenges came from council members, themselves: the obstinate, the obtuse, or otherwise troublesome on that public body.

Whitewater is a city less unified that it has pretended to be, and managing conflicting desires and agendas on the city’s common council required during this time a shrewd parliamentarian’s approach. Patrick Singer, who was council president in Whitewater for more than a decade during a notably difficult period, ably exercised his role in this city.

(Easily stated: it’s often been in decisions and actions one might imagine contrary to my views or interests that Singer performed some of his best work.)

Whether by intuition or instruction (or perhaps both), Singer was notably, memorably  skillful. Even-keeled in expression, economically thoughtful in remarks (never too much or too little), he was a patient conductor in a city suffering with others’ ceaseless strivings to be center stage, full spotlight.

One doesn’t have to be a government man to see that local government, and the community, will miss his public work.

In the year since Singer stepped down as council president, the city has probably seen as much community-council controversy as at any moment of the last decade. The pandemic has been difficult for Whitewater, of course, but Whitewater has seen many significant difficulties over the years.

I have sometimes agreed, and more often disagreed, with current council president Lynn Binnie, but it’s odd to the point of nuttiness that some in town so misunderstand his place in Whitewater’s ecosystem. Singer’s successor has attracted criticism as power hungry, and as though he were some sort of radical who – impossibly – sought to establish a version of Haight-Ashbury on Cravath. That’s all nonsense.

I once heard Nancy Pelosi say that she did not hate people, however critical she was of them. She’s not alone in that outlook; it’s certainly mine. There’s no one in the government who merits hatred. (At the same time, one carries on without regard to what government or others think of oneself; commentary is not a task for the emotionally needy.)

Whitewater’s new council leader is as close in approach (if not ideology) to Old Whitewater’s outlook as almost anyone in the city: concerned about detail (but sometimes at the expense of perspective), community-oriented (but sometimes more attentive to notable residents over less notable residents), participatory at meetings (but sometimes impatient with others’ remarks), wanting to inform (but sometimes with disregard of conflicts of interest or while omitting key details).

Like many of that older outlook, this approach tends toward dealmaking with, or praise-making of, established conservatives, and these deals often redistribute public money from general uses to special interest projects.

That’s a pinched outlook that leads to bad policy; it’s not the coming of a Leninist state.

Meaningful, enduring criticism depends on insight, delivered with cold composure. This small and beautiful city deserves no less.

Tomorrow: COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric.

Previously: Unofficial Spring Election Results, The Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater, The City’s Center-Left, The City’s Few Progressives, The Campus, and The Subcultural City.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.13.21

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of  51.  Sunrise is 6:14 AM and sunset 7:35 PM, for 13h 21m 26s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a school board election canvass at 9 AM, and Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets via audiovisual conferencing at 6 PM.

On this day in 1960, the United States launches Transit 1-B, the world’s first satellite navigation system.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Rory Linnane reports Burlington schools failed to address ‘racially hostile’ environment, DPI finds:

Burlington Area School District officials failed to report, investigate and respond to racist incidents for years, the state Department of Public Instruction has found, and ordered district officials to address its “racially hostile environment.”

It took years of advocacy by Darnisha Garbade, a parent of two former Burlington students, to get to this point, while she repeatedly hit dead-ends with district officials.

“I asked, I begged, I cried and pleaded for help on many occasions to many of Burlington’s leaders but was treated as if I was the problem, instead of racism being the problem,” Garbade said in a news conference Monday. “I consistently spoke the truth, and even provided evidence when I wasn’t believed. And yet, I still wasn’t believed.”

Steve Plank, superintendent of the Burlington Area School District, did not acknowledge any wrongdoing but said he regrets that anyone felt discriminated against and will comply with the order.

….

When the American Civil Liberties Union helped Garbade appeal the district’s finding to DPI, the state agency found numerous issues with the district’s handling of reports of racial harassment of Garbade’s children and many other students.

On Friday, DPI ordered the district to submit a corrective action plan within 30 days, including specific steps to prevent discrimination in discipline; address the racially hostile environment; review its practices for reporting discrimination complaints; and bring its policies up to compliance with state codes.

Martin Pangelly reports Tucker Carlson: Murdoch backs Fox News host in ‘white replacement’ furore:

The chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League told Lachlan Murdoch on Monday an award it gave his father a decade ago “does not absolve you, him, the network, or its board from the moral failure of not taking action” against the Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Jonathan Greenblatt has called for Carlson to be fired for advocating “white replacement” theory, a racist trope which holds that the Democratic party favours unlimited immigration in order to boost its vote.

….

“Demographic change is the key to the Democratic party’s political ambitions,” he [Carlson] said. “… In order to win and maintain power, Democrats plan to change the population of the country.”

In a reply provided to CNN, Greenblatt said: “Although I appreciate the sentiment that you and your father continue to support ADL’s mission, supporting Mr Carlson’s embrace of the ‘great replacement theory’ stands in direct contrast to that mission.

“…ADL honored your father over a decade ago, but let me be clear that we would not do so today, and it does not absolve you, him, the network, or its board from the moral failure of not taking action against Mr Carlson.”

Greenblatt also said Carlson’s “attempt to at first dismiss” the racist theory “while in the very next breath endorsing it under cover of ‘a voting rights question’ does not give him free license to invoke a white supremacist trope.

“In fact, it’s worse, because he’s using a straw man – voting rights – to give an underhanded endorsement of white supremacist beliefs while ironically suggesting it’s not really white supremacism. While your response references a ‘full review’ of the interview, it seems the reviewers missed the essential point here.”

Unearthing the little-known ancient theatres of Greece’s Epirus region:

City, Culture, Democrats, Local Government, Politics, School District, University, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021

Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: The Subcultural City

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This is the sixth in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021.

There’s no politically predominant group in Whitewater. Strictly speaking, a subculture implies a dominant culture, but it’s less dramatic to describe Whitewater as several subcultures than as balkanized. One might call the city multicultural, but that term often implies an acceptance of different cultures, and neither Whitewater’s traditionalists nor populists can be described as friends of multiculturalism…

Whitewater is a collection of subcultures sitting beside, and sometimes mixing, with each other.

It was the claim – the insistence, truly – of Old Whitewater that there was one town, with one people, and one message for them. This claim lingered long past its expiration date; it lingers in some minds still.

The height of that view was 2006-07, before the Great Recession. There are few towns where a local politician would publish an online news site and be taken seriously. Old Whitewater took all of this seriously. A traditional conservative outlook was simply assumed as the default outlook of each and all. Boosterism was the patina of that time in this city, but beneath that coat of whitewash there were genuine grains from different timbers.

The Great Recession and its aftermath broke apart any credible claim – if ever there were one – that the city was of one type of person or outlook. (Failure to understand the enduring influence of the Great Recession on Whitewater and other small Midwestern towns is a significant misunderstanding.)

What Whitewater was below the surface then is more evident now: about half college students, half non-students, White, Latino, Black, and each of these groups of more than one politics (some in support of this more diverse city, others opposed to the very idea of diversity).

(For many years, I waited patiently and hopefully for more publications, of varying viewpoints, to sprout here. They have. Residents with recourse to digital tools now publish dozens upon dozens of local pages through Facebook, stand-alone sites, Twitter, or Instagram. There may be no person in the city happier about this than I am.)

No doubt local government would like one quick stop, one easy touch, but a normal  community – let alone a vibrant one – seeks more than that.

There’s much from publishing that Whitewater still needs, but a more competitive publishing environment is a better environment.

That more competitive publishing environment is a consequence of the shift from one (presumed) dominant politics to several competing political factions.

Tomorrow: The Common Council.

Previously: Unofficial Spring Election Results, The Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater, The City’s Center-Left, The City’s Few Progressives, and The Campus.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.12.21

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see scattered showers with a high of 58.  Sunrise is 6:15 AM and sunset 7:34 PM, for 13h 18m 39s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets via audiovisual conferencing at 6:00 PM.

On this day in 1776, with the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress authorizes its Congressional delegation to vote for independence from Britain.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Rich Kremer reports Thompson Continues Push for Systemwide Online Education Program:

University of Wisconsin System interim President Tommy Thompson is continuing his push for a system-wide approach to online education. Thompson says a unified front on behalf of all UW System campuses is the best way to compete with out-of-state colleges spending heavily in Wisconsin to attract working adults to take courses.

During a UW Board of Regents meeting on Thursday, Thompson sounded the alarm about increasing competition for working adults with some college credit but no degree.

“The barbarians are at the door,” said Thompson. “Arizona State, Western Governors, University of Southern New Hampshire is a big one, coming in and advertising. And they’re taking approximately, I would say, 35 to 40 percent of our students.”

According to a UW System review of 25 online programs with the most Wisconsinites enrolled during the 2018-2019 school year, UW System campuses had 37 percent of the total. Wisconsin technical colleges enrolled 32 percent while out-of-state universities enrolled 37 percent.

Anne Applebaum writes What America’s Vaccination Campaign Proves to the World:

The best answer to Russian and Chinese strongmen who offer thousands of vaccines to countries that say nice things about them is to flood the market with millions of American doses, helping everyone regardless of what they say about the U.S. or anyone else. After Trump, the American political system won’t win much admiration again anytime soon. But if American democracy is no longer a trusted product, American efficiency could be once again. Within a matter of weeks, a majority of American adults will have had their first dose of a vaccine. What if the U.S. then begins to pivot from mass-vaccinating its own citizens to mass-vaccinating the rest of the world? Americans can’t do social trust, but we can do vaccines, plus the military logistics needed to distribute them: planes, trucks, cold-storage chains. The best cure for propaganda and disinformation is real-life experience: If people see that the vaccines work, they will eventually get one. We can end the global pandemic, improve the economy for everybody, protect ourselves and everyone else, and create the relationships that can help us deal with crises to come.

 Catherine Rampell writes Republicans are learning that there’s more to capitalism than tax cuts:

Democrats, having achieved unified control of government, are threatening to reverse the major corporate tax cut Republicans passed in 2017. Yet corporate America is criticizing Republicans, and for something unrelated: legislation in Georgia, Texas and other states that threatens to strip Americans of their voting rights

…..

these corporations aren’t criticizing anti-voter bills out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re doing so because speaking up is good for the bottom line. They’ve crunched the numbers and determined that promoting voting rights is more financially valuable than whatever they stand to gain from slightly lower tax rates.

Among those at risk of disenfranchisement, after all, are these companies’ customers and employees. And it’s not such a great business move to endorse attempts to take away your customers’ and employees’ civil rights; even staying neutral on the issue — as some companies tried to do before the Georgia law passed — can alienate consumers who are either direct victims of the law or allies of those victims.

‘Dolphin Stampede’ Filmed in Dana Point, California:

City, Local Government, Politics, School District, University, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021

Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: The Campus

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This is the fifth in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021. Whitewater, Wisconsin is a small town where about half the residents are university students. Town-Gown conflicts here aren’t the most in all North America, but they’re not the least, either.

The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is beset with challenges apart from politics: long-term structural limitations of the UW System’s funding, a declining demographic of typical college-age students, short-term revenue losses from the pandemic, two unsuited chancellors in a row (Telfer, Kopper), a mediocre media relations shop, and a current chancellor (Watson) who undermines any chance of improvement whenever he stoops to that media shop’s stale or false talking points.

The direct influence of the university on the town’s local politics is probably overstated: many university faculty or staff members do not live in the city, and students attend UW-Whitewater for reasons understandably more important to them than city politics. (For those who do live and vote in the city, national or state elections draw more participation than wholly local races.)

It’s indirectly, as a topic, that the university plays its key political role: as an economic resource (although, again, an often over-stated one), as a source of pride, frustration, or controversy. Old Whitewater – whatever the politics of the residents – has never been comfortable with the university (especially as it grew larger from 2006-2016). Some of Old Whitewater wished the university never grew, others that it grew only on campus, and others would have preferred that the whole city look more like an extended nursing home or library than a college town.

There have been landlords who have profited from this public university’s rise during that time, but not all residents have seen benefits so tangible. (These landlords are, mostly, self-identified business conservatives who owe their livelihoods to a state-funded public university.)

It’s as a source of continuing controversy among those unaffiliated with the university that UW-Whitewater exerts the most influence over city politics. That’s the unsolved Town-Gown problem, one that is no less a problem now than it was ten or twenty years ago. Structural limits, misconduct, and unforced errors have left UW-Whitewater a public-relations failure within its own divided city.

Some small towns’ residents universally ache with love and pride for their local campus; Whitewater is not one of those places.

How many people from the university vote in any given election is less significant to the city’s local politics than the indirect influences of the campus.

Tomorrow: The Subcultural City.

Previously: Unofficial Spring Election Results, The Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater, The City’s Center-Left, and The City’s Few Progressives.