FREE WHITEWATER

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 7.18.20

by  •  •  Comments

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of ninety.  Sunrise is 5:33 AM and sunset 8:28 PM, for 14h 54m 32s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 5.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

 

  On this day in 1968, Intel is founded in Mountain View, California.

Recommended for reading in full —

Jonathan Levinson and Conrad Wilson report Federal Law Enforcement Use Unmarked Vehicles To Grab Protesters Off Portland Streets:

Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off.

The tactic appears to be another escalation in federal force deployed on Portland city streets, as federal officials and President Donald Trump have said they plan to “quell” nightly protests outside the federal courthouse and Multnomah County Justice Center that have lasted for more than six weeks.

Steve Vladeck writes What the Heck Are Federal Law Enforcement Officers Doing in Portland?:

Today marks the 50th straight day of protests in Portland, Oregon—which have been ongoing since shortly after the May 25 murder of George Floyd. The protests have been largely peaceful, but there have been several well-documented episodes of violence, vandalism and property damage. In the past few days, however, the protests have been met with what appears to be a significant federal law enforcement response—the contours of (and legal authorities for) which are, at best, unclear.

By all appearances, there are now at least 100 federal law enforcement officers on the ground in Portland. But media reports suggest that many of those officers (a) are not wearing identifiable uniforms or other insignia, (b) are not driving marked law enforcement vehicles, and (c) are not identifying themselves either publicly or even to those whom they have detained and arrested. Making matters worse, local authorities—from the mayor to the sheriff to the governor—have repeatedly insisted not only that they don’t want federal assistance but that the federal response is aggravating the situation on the ground. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, in contrast, has repeatedly taken to Twitter to claim that local authorities are refusing to restore order—albeit with only vague references to which federal laws are not being enforced (and repeated allusions to “graffiti” and other property damage by “violent anarchists”).

In all of these respects, what’s happening in Portland appears to be a reprise of much of what happened in Washington, D.C., at the beginning of June, when Attorney General William Barr called upon a wide array of statutory authorities to commandeer hundreds of federal law enforcement officers in order to “restore order” in the nation’s capital. At the time, many who both criticized and defended Barr’s actions pointed to the federal government’s unique legal authority over the District of Columbia—implying (whether as a feature or a bug) that the same authorities wouldn’t be available, at least to the same extent, in the 50 states. But if nothing else, the events in Portland appear to underscore that the federal government sees no such distinction—and that it believes it has the power to similarly deploy federal law enforcement authorities across the country, even (if not especially) over the objections of the relevant local and state officials.

(Vladeck continues with answers to six questions. It’s a quick-but-solid analysis confined to questions of federal and state law.)

Russia accused of trying to steal COVID-19 vaccine research:

more >>

America, Coronavirus, Public Health

Mask Usage: Across America and in Wisconsin

by  •  •  Comments

Josh Katz, Margot Sanger-Katz, and Kevin Quealy report A Detailed Map of Who Is Wearing Masks in the U.S.:

In some American neighborhoods, it’s hard to spot even one person outside without a face covering. In others, your odds of seeing many maskless people are quite high.

Public health officials believe that face coverings can substantially slow transmission of the coronavirus, which is spreading rapidly in many states. But face coverings work best if they are adopted widely, and that is not the case everywhere. The accompanying map shows the odds of whether, if you encountered five people in a given area, all of them would be wearing masks.

Our data comes from a large number of interviews conducted by the global data and survey firm Dynata at the request of The New York Times. The firm asked a question about mask use to obtain 250,000 survey responses between July 2 and July 14, enough data to provide estimates more detailed than the state level. (Several states have imposed new mask requirements since the completion of these interviews.)

Across America (click for larger image):

In Wisconsin (click for larger image): 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 7.17.20

by  •  •  Comments

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-five.  Sunrise is 5:33 AM and sunset 8:29 PM, for 14h 56m 14s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 11.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

 

  On this day in 1918, Bolshevik Chekists at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, Russia execute Czar Nicholas II and his immediate family and retainers.

Recommended for reading in full —

Alexis C. Madrigal writes A Second Coronavirus Death Surge Is Coming (‘There was always a logical explanation for why cases rose through the end of June while deaths did not’):

Despite political leaders trivializing the pandemic, deaths are rising again: The seven-day average for deaths per day has now jumped by more than 200 since July 6, according to data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic. By our count, states reported 855 deaths today, in line with the recent elevated numbers in mid-July.

The deaths are not happening in unpredictable places. Rather, people are dying at higher rates where there are lots of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations: in Florida, Arizona, Texas, and California, as well as a host of smaller southern states that all rushed to open up.

The deaths are also not happening in an unpredictable amount of time after the new outbreaks emerged. Simply look at the curves yourself. Cases began to rise on June 16; a week later, hospitalizations began to rise. Two weeks after that—21 days after cases rose—states began to report more deaths. That’s the exact number of days that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated from the onset of symptoms to the reporting of a death.

Lena H. Sun and Amy Goldstein report Disappearance of covid-19 data from CDC website spurs outcry:

On the eve of a new coronavirus reporting system this week, data disappeared from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website as hospitals began filing information to a private contractor or their states instead. A day later, an outcry — including from other federal health officials — prompted the Trump administration to reinstate that dashboard and another daily CDC report on the pandemic.

And on Thursday, the nation’s governors joined the chorus of objections over the abruptness of the change to the reporting protocols for hospitals, asking the administration to delay the shift for 30 days. In a statement, the National Governors Association said hospitals need the time to learn a new system, as they continue to deal with this pandemic.

The governors also urged the administration to keep the information publicly available.

The disappearance of the real-time data from the CDC dashboard, which was taken down Tuesday night before resurfacing Thursday morning, was a ripple effect of the administration’s new hospital reporting protocol that took effect Wednesday, according to a federal health official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Without receiving the data firsthand, CDC officials were reluctant to maintain the dashboard — which shows the number of patients with covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, and hospital bed capacity — and took it down, the federal health official said. The CDC dashboard states that its information comes directly from hospitals and does not include data submitted to “other entities contracted by or within the federal government.” It also says the dashboard will not be updated after July 14.

Why We Haven’t Had Supersonic Commercial Jets Since the Concorde:

more >>

City, Coronavirus, Public Health, Public Meetings, School District

Whitewater Schools’ Community Focus Group, 7.8.20

by  •  • 2 Comments

The Whitewater Unified School District held a community focus group on 7.8.20 via Zoom about public schools opening in the fall. A video of the recorded meeting is embedded above. There have also been other, in-person meetings over the last ten days.

A few remarks:

 Translated. The focus group had, sensibly, a Spanish language translator. Community meetings in Whitewater should be conducted to include Spanish translation. It’s long overdue for the city and school district. Municipal leaders’ talk about the importance of diversity requires a commitment to inclusion and integration. (The much-lamented same ten person problem cannot be solved when local politicians ignore – as they have for years – action on multi-language messaging.)

District Administrator. Whitewater has a new district administrator, Dr. Caroline Pate-Hefty, most recently of the Maywood, Melrose Park, and Broadview Public Schools in Cook County Illinois. (Video, 1:43.)

Process. The district’s presentation offers three teaching options for the fall, but it is the district’s school board that will decide on the teaching plan or plans. The board meets again on July 27th. (Video, 3:52.)

 Three Options. The presentation described three options for the fall: Face-to-face instruction, hybrid learning (possible  combinations of face-to-face and distance learning), or distance (audiovisually-managed) learning. (Video, 7:05.) Distance learning seems to be (subject to board approval) one (but not the only) certain option for the fall, for anyone who wishes to chose it for his or her children. The question for the board – based on this presentation – is what kind of in-person learning the district will offer along with a distance learning option for others. (Video, 8:07.)

Public-Health Confidence. If these were simply matters of pedagogy, there would be time enough to explore each option in depth. The course of the pandemic and the traditional timing of the school year make lengthy deliberations impossible.

For a minority of parents, whatever the board decides will be foremost a public health decision, not a back-to-school decision. Some group of parents will address the learning option based almost solely on their confidence in public-health measures the district undertakes. This confidence will not rest on what officials say, but what these families expect the district will be able to do, day in, day out. These families are ones that find failure to wear masks or maintain physical distancing a sign of ignorance. Others who downplay risks – neighbors, parents, teachers, administrators, board members – will look inadequate to these public-health-first families.

The most practical option for the school board is to provide a satisfactory distance learning option for those families. Trying to bring all students back, against the wishes of these families, will bring avoidable, daily controversies over public health. It would take a nearly fanatical level of rigidity for board members to insist that every student comes back into the schools against parents’ wishes. It would also be oddly self-destructive for officials to do so. The stated proposal to assure a distance option is the easiest practical step the district could take.

Face-to-Face. A larger group is sure to want their children back in classrooms, and that’s where a real choice presents itself: every day or alternate days? As committed as the distance learning parents will be, so will the face-to-face-every-day-all-day parents.  Other districts are finding this out – hybrid options do not satisfy the every-single-day-back families. Whether families supporting hybrid learning will hold fast to their position, or will accept face-to-face every day, I’m not sure. (I am confident that families on the two ends of the continuum — distance learning and back-every-day — will fight tenaciously for their options.) Families wanting their children back include those who feel risks can be managed, families who doubt the risks, families who think masks will be adequate, those who are resolutely opposed to masks, and those who see risks if one learns remotely. 

Here’s the difficult aspect of this choice between in-person options: what families want may not be what’s safest. If one gives in-person families what they want now, will those families regret it later, and if so will they then recriminate against district officials and board members?  If one does not give in-person families what they want now, as a public health imposition against individual choice, is this board strong enough, and are these administrators and teachers strong enough, to defend that decision?

(I’ll not offer an opinion about the relative safety of the two in-person options – face-to-face or hybrid – as I’ve no training to distinguish between the health risks of them. I am reminded, powerfully, that attorney Richard Epstein, an otherwise noted lawyer and economist, threw away irretrievably his reputation by speculating  erroneously on epidemological outcomes. See ‘Come Meet the Biggest Fool in America.’)

If the hybrid option could be shown to be safer, measurably, over face-to-face every day, then a cautious calculation would favor that option so as to avoid injury (and – this is also critical – inevitable recriminations over injury). Even parents who argue strongly in now favor of face-to-face will likely extend recriminations if their children later become sick. There would be some disappointment now, but disappointment now would be small compared to greater injury later.

If there is a sound basis to measure the risks of the the hybrid over daily face-to-face models, then relying on that assessment as the basis of a decision is a rational (and shrewd) basis for deciding. This is true even if decision brings controversy now.

If there is no way to tell whether the hybrid option is safer, measurably, over face-to-face every day (considering all risks inside and outside the classroom), then board members will be able to act more freely.

A retained, qualified public-health professional’s detailed opinion should be the basis of this school board’s decision. Big decisions require thorough (in this case science-based) justifications. Those justifications should be published for community review.

Recording. The best record of a meeting is a recording, as always. One should watch and evaluate directly, for oneself.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 7.16.20

by  •  •  Comments

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-one.  Sunrise is 5:32 AM and sunset 8:29 PM, for 14h 57m 51s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 18.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

 

 Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets via audiovisual conferencing at 1:30 PM.

 On this day in 1941, the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge is established.

Recommended for reading in full —

Jonathan O’Connell, Emma Brown, Steven Rich, and Aaron Gregg report Faulty data collection raises questions about Trump’s claims on PPP program:

A trove of data on $517 billion in emergency small-business loans contains numerous errors that cast doubt on the Trump administration’s jobs claims and obscure the real economic impact of the program, according to a Washington Post analysis and interviews with bankers and borrowers.

A Post analysis of data on 4.9 million loans released last week by the Small Business Administration shows that many companies are reported to have “retained” far more workers than they employ. Likewise, in some cases the agency’s jobs claim for entire industries surpasses the total number of workers in those sectors.

And for more than 875,000 borrowers, the data shows that zero jobs were supported or no information is listed at all, according to the analysis.

The flaws raise questions about the claims by the Trump administration that 51 million jobs were “supported” by the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which has been a rare bright spot for the administration at a time of a surging coronavirus pandemic and a suddenly stalling economic recovery. Many economists credit the program with helping staunch the deep wounds in the job market by offering forgivable loans to small businesses that rehire or keep workers on their payroll.

(Emphasis added.)

Rob Mentzer reports Voter Participation Declining In Wisconsin, Civic Health Measures Mixed (‘A New Study Of Civic Engagement In Wisconsin Finds Trends Toward Disconnectedness’):

Wisconsin has seen a “dramatic” decline in voting rates in recent years, and Wisconsinites are less likely than the national average to say they volunteer or do favors for their neighbors, a new study of the state’s civic health finds.

The new “Civic Health in Wisconsin” study by the Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison represents the first time civic engagement data has been tracked statewide, said Mary Beth Collins, the center’s director and one of the study’s principal authors. It looks at data on Wisconsinites’ connectedness to their communities using a range of measures, from volunteerism and voting to the amount of time spent with neighbors and friends.

Civic engagement is important, Collins said, because it represents the way people relate to those around them and our ability to come together to improve our communities.

….

In local government, rural Wisconsin has seen an especially acute decline in the number of candidates willing to contest elections to village boards or city councils. From 2008 to 2018, more than 44 percent of these boards became less competitive, the report finds. Collins called it one measure of how engaged people feel in their communities.

Doctors Debunk Mask Wearing Myths:

more >>

America, Coronavirus, History, Public Health, Trump

America Behind the World

by  •  •  Comments

Paul Waldman looks at covid-19 cases from Monday, 7.13.20:

Let’s begin with the situation in other countries. Here are new case totals from Monday for a few of our peer countries:

France: 580
UK: 564
Spain: 546
Germany: 365
Canada: 299
Japan: 259
Italy: 200
Australia: 158
South Korea: 52

And the United States? 55,300.

These nine advanced countries have saved lives, preserved health, and conserved resources by orders of magnitude more than America. This is easily among the worst public-health failures in our history.

City, Coronavirus, Local Government, Public Health, Radio, University

Radio Interview on UW-Whitewater’s Plans for the Fall

by  •  • 1 Comment

Yesterday, UW-Whitewater’s Chancellor, Dr. Dwight Watson, and Communications Director, Jeff Angileri, gave a radio interview with WCLO about their plans for a fall semester during a pandemic.

The interview is available online as an audio file.

A few remarks:

A College Town. There’s a difference between a town with a college and a college town, where the college significantly affects life in the community. Whitewater is the latter, and to my mind that’s a good environment. There are many happy aspects of living in a college town.

A Pandemic’s Particular Burden on a College Town. When a city is mostly comprised of its college-student population, as Whitewater is, the interaction with students will necessarily become a source of community focus. Whenever a single demographic is large, it draws attention.

Divisions. Unfortunately, the rest of Whitewater has never been of one mind about her college-age demographic – town & gown issues have plagued the city for as long as there has been a relatively large campus.

 The UW System.  More each year, the direction of individual campuses is set at the System level. Whether Chancellor Watson would have brought his campus back if he had independence one will never know – no UW System chancellor has that level of autonomy.

It’s in this context that UW-Whitewater’s chancellor gave his interview.

Virtual but on Campus. Watson’s right to prioritize safety, and there’s no reason to doubt his sincerity. There is reason, however, to doubt his claim that even virtual learners should be on campus, in dorms. (Audio, 30:00.)

While it’s easy to see how having students on campus makes money for university housing services and private landlords, the claim that UW-Whitewater students would be so distracted at home that they must be on campus is simply incredible. It’s unlikely they’re so attention-challenged as Watson has heard, and if so they are as likely to be distracted by on-campus students and away-from-home activities as by home life.

Relying on Whitewater for Conduct-Monitoring. Success of the UW-Whitewater plan relies, as Watson concedes, on compliance when students leave the campus. (Audio, 33:40.)

Residents in the Whitewater area are regrettably divided on the seriousness of this pandemic, and even whether precautions like masks are necessary. Months after this pandemic began, some residents still insist it’s a hoax, spread false claims about masks, or advance ludicrous, deluded theories that all one needs against the coronavirus is an attitude of defiance.

Every last employee of the City of Whitewater, advancing a science-based view, would yet not be enough to monitor and assure public-health compliance of thousands (students or non-students) during this pandemic. Whitewater is too small, and the obstinacy of some is too great.

It’s a shame – truly – that college-town Whitewater is divided over a matter of basic science, but she is. Too much time this last decade has been spent on grandiose aspirations for Whitewater as “beacon for business and leisure in the state of Wisconsin” (yes, really) and not enough addressing fundamental misconceptions about economics, politics, or even (as it turns out) science.

It’s possible – although greatly improbable – that this pandemic will prove mild in the fall. It’s nearly certain that whatever plans Whitewater’s chancellor advances, he’s doing so in reliance on a broader community that is too small and sadly too divided to assure public-health success.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 7.15.20

by  •  •  Comments

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with afternoon showers and a high of seventy-nine.  Sunrise is 5:31 AM and sunset 8:30 PM, for 14h 59m 27s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 26.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 

 Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets via audiovisual conferencing at 5:30 PM.

 On this day in 1815,  Napoleon surrenders aboard HMS Bellerophon.

Recommended for reading in full —

Pema Levy reports Jeff Sessions Ends His Political Career in a Blaze of Racism:

Jeff Sessions’ political career came to an end on Tuesday. Sessions had sought to recapture the Senate seat he held for 20 years before becoming President Donald Trump’s attorney general. In his stead, Alabama Republicans nominated Tommy Tuberville, a former college football coach. The former prosecutor, senator, and attorney general went out the same way he entered the national stage more than three decades ago: in a blaze of racism.

Racism defined Sessions’ entire career, but racism is not what ended it. In fact, it was Trump’s patronage that put Sessions and the white grievance he long embodied at the center of American politics. Sessions’ political career is over now because he realized too late that Trumpism isn’t just about the worldview; it’s also about Trump himself, a cult of loyalty that Sessions ran afoul of before it was clear how easily Trump cast people aside.

Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump in 2016, and he served as a trusted campaign adviser. The attorney general position was his reward—the zenith of his career where he could finally make his reactionary fever dreams a reality. Sessions got to work rolling back federal oversight of police departments, orchestrating Trump’s family separation policy at the border, targeting sanctuary cities, deporting asylum seekers, and supporting voter suppression schemes.

….

Here lies the political career of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, named for two confederate heroes like his father and grandfather before him—the only monument to the Confederacy that Trump was eager to remove.

 Philip Bump writes A month later, Pence’s wildly optimistic view of the pandemic has proved almost entirely wrong:

Even at the time it was written, the fundamental proposition offered by Vice President Pence in his Wall Street Journal piece on June 16 was dubious. No second wave of the coronavirus pandemic was emerging, he wrote — an obviously true claim only because the first wave had not ended.

But that wasn’t Pence’s point. His point was that the numbers showed that the United States had the pandemic well in hand and that there was no reason to believe anything but that things would keep getting better. He dropped a number of data points about case growth, test rates and deaths to reinforce his optimistic point.

Nearly a month later, Pence has been proved wrong in nearly every way on every bit of data he offered. The vice president, as the head of the government’s response to the pandemic, presented a case for his own success that was shown to be inaccurate often only days after his article was published.

Rosie the Riveters of Today are Fighting COVID:

more >>

Republicans, Trump

Republican Voters Against Trump: Kevin from Arizona

by  •  •  Comments

While not a member of a political party, one can still sympathize with – and support – the many thousands of additional Republicans each day who reject Trumpism.

“…and when you put all that together, I think this is a man who must, must be removed by voters in November from governing our country. Otherwise I do not know what our country will become.”

Check out hundreds of stories of anti-Trump Republican voters at https://rvat.org

If you’d like to tell your story, submit a video at https://rvat.org/tell-your-story

To get involved in the project, go to https://rvat.org/get-involved

To help support their mission, go to https://rvat.org/donate

City, Local Government, Planning

Whitewater Planning Commission, 7.13.20: Almost Normal

by  •  •  Comments

Whitewater’s Planning Commission met on Monday evening, 7.13.20. A video of the full meeting is embedded above. (See also, 7.13.20 meeting agenda.)

A few remarks:

Recording. The best record of a meeting is a recording. A recording is more thorough than mere notes (although they must be submitted, too). A recording is, needless to say, far better than an incumbent politician’s summary of a session’s events.

Election of Commission Officers. The meeting began with an election of officers, itself a conventional matter, but also a sign of how few people are willing to serve on the commission. (Item 3, Video 1:12 – 6:57)

A Sensibly Quick Approval. The commission approved an applicant’s ordinary request for lot division without unnecessary or tedious discussion. Simple matters ask for nothing more than simple solutions. (Item 4, Video 6:58 – 13:25.)

A New Sign Ordinance. In the Information Items portion of the meeting, Whitewater’s city planner mentioned the release of an upcoming draft of a proposed sign ordinance. Sign regulations have bedeviled – regrettably, unnecessarily, laughably – this city for years. A simple, plain, accommodating, and intelligible policy would do the city some good (or at least no harm). Regulations on signs don’t make communities richer; communities that are richer tend toward regulations on signs. Wealth shapes expectations. Whitewater is not a wealthy community, and she’ll not lift herself to prosperity by fussing over sign dimensions, etc. (Item 5a, Video 13:43 – 16:36.)

 Almost Normal. One can say that this meeting was almost normal, but there’s no normal in conditions of a pandemic. This commission’s meetings are (for now) staying virtual, as they have been for months.

As a record of the meeting, audiovisual conferencing via the web is as accessible afterward as were the city’s cable broadcasts that were afterward uploaded to the web. There are more arguments than that in favor or in opposition to re-opening, but the course of the ongoing pandemic may soon enough settle some if these arguments.