Tuesday, November 11th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of The Lost Bus @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Drama/History/Thriller Rated R (language)
2 hour, 9 minutes (2025)
A wayward school bus driver ( Matthew McConaughey) and a dedicated school teacher (America Ferrera) battle to save 22 children from a terrifying inferno, the 2018 Camp Fire, in Paradise, CA, that state’s deadliest wildfire in history. A true story.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 55. Sunrise is 6:35 and sunset is 4:40 for 10 hours 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1947, Meet the Press, the longest running television program in history, makes its debut on NBC television.
I’ll not suggest that I know what led to victory in the New York City mayoral race between Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo. That’s best left to those who study New York politics closely and carefully. And yet, and yet, even this libertarian blogger in Whitewater can suggest what didn’t make a difference in the race. This from August:
One can be quite confident that Cuomo’s post on X about his father and his grandmother made no difference whatever in the outcome. There’s no campaign polling or post-campaign vote analysis that points to this Cuomo post as an influence in the electoral outcome because (1) it wasn’t an influence, and (2) no New York analyst would be so addled to think it might have been an influence. This social media post was only important in the entitled space between Cuomo’s ears.
But his late father? His late grandmother? No one anywhere cares about parentage, of all things, with so many other pressing daily concerns. It’s the present that matters: what has the candidate done, what does the candidate believe, and what does he hope to accomplish? (There’s also something oblivious about Andrew Cuomo thinking someone else looks tired. Cuomo could sleep for a week and still look tired.)
Father and grandmother? Oh, my.
All across America, in these turbulent times, people look to the actions of the candidate, in our time.
Cuomo futilely tried a bit of DYKWIA family history.
To that effort, residents of towns big and small will answer the same way: IDGAF.
NBC News’ Steven Romo gets an exclusive look at Nike’s new project, “Amplify”, which offers a bionic boost for runners. The tech is not yet on the market, with Nike hoping it can eventually help athletes with recovery or those who may need help with mobility.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset is 4:41 for 10 hours 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is full with 99.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1930, American novelist Sinclair Lewis becomes the first U.S. writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, recognized for his satirical examination of American culture and institutions.
Gov. Evers recently vetoed a billthat would have required in-person office attendance for state workers:
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has quashed a GOP-backed bill that would have ordered tens of thousands of state employees to work in-person most of the time….
In his veto message Friday, Evers said he opposes a “one-size-fits-all” mandate that would come at “great cost to taxpayers.”
“Under my administration, state government is working smarter and faster than ever before,” Evers wrote. “State agencies already are implementing robust accountability measures to ensure all state workers are fulfilling their responsibilities to the people of this state.”
Evers is right. Some workers are customer-facing, but many are not. Each workplace should determine which employees are customer-facing and which are not.
The measure of a worker should be how productive he or she is. Are tasks completed? Is value being created? Where the worker completes tasks, or from where the worker creates value, is a secondary matter. Employees who are already productive should not be removed from the very places (wherever) their beneficial production occurs.
Managers should be able to evaluate tasks and value regardless of where those tasks and value are created. If managers require in-office attendance to evaluate these measures, then the problem lies with management. It’s a dull manager who thinks an in-office presence is proof of productivity. Seeing someone sitting at a desk evaluates little more than posture.
Managers who need to see an employee, rather than looking at an employee’s created work, are looking in the wrong place.
Japanese astronomer Daichi Fujii captured two brilliant flashes on the moon’s nightside on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1, 2025. The flashes were likely caused by meteoroids from the Taurid meteor shower striking the lunar surface.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 61. Sunrise is 6:33 and sunset is 4:43 for 10 hours 10 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1979, a group of Iranian college students overruns the U.S. embassy in Tehran and takes 90 hostages.
Remarks About a Failed Business Prospect. On October 13th, a former member of Whitewater’s old Community Development Authority spoke in a public meeting about a recycling business that the CDA recruited during the previous decade. Those remarks from October (to the Whitewater Planning Commission) appear below.
October 13th, 2025:
A couple things. I actually was on the CDA, and there was a company that was going to build on this site with recycling clay tiles. It was a unique process, and they did have approval for a rail spur on that site.
From these remarks, one would be forgiven for thinking that this business was a near-success for Whitewater, a great-opportunity-that-might-have-been. No and no again. It was nothing of the kind.
The Truth About that Recycling Business Prospect. This gentleman was describing a business that was called DP Recycling.
The business claimed that it would grind cathode ray tubes (the ones in old-style television sets) into ceramic tiles. People would then buy the tiles. In 2013, when the old CDA was touting this venture, this libertarian blogger wrote that
It should be a universal truth that Whitewater and Wisconsin deserve a far higher standard of diligence and review than whatever our CDA chairman believes his “gut” tells him would be good for our city and nearby area.
In fact, that kind of intestinally-based level of judgment has failed this city time and again, and is beneath the level of care that any well-organized, reasonable American city deserves.
You’ll see another example of this sort of serial mediocrity in a breathless story at Whitewater’s news site that a recycling company, unable to get a permit to mix toxic substances into (supposedly safe) floor tile, was denied (so far) permitting in Wisconsin. The company now insists it will build in Arkansas.
(At the time, DP Recycling was arguing that if it didn’t get what it wanted from Whitewater, it would move to Arkansas. Stop. Don’t. Come Back.)
The History of that Business in Whitewater Appears Below.
1. April 2013, the Whitewater CDA extends loans to DP Recycling amounting to tens of thousands. (See Item 5, below).
2. February 25, 2015, the Whitewater CDA makes a motion to “Motion to authorize the Chairperson of the CDA and the Executive Director to sign the Development Agreement with DP Electronic recycling Inc. for the construction of a new facility to be located in the Technology Park.” See Whitewater Community Development Authority, Meeting Minutes, February 25, 2015.
3. February 2016, the Whitewater Common Council approves a development agreement with DP Recycling. Here’s a news story from the time:
DP Electronic Recycling Inc. has signed a development agreement with the City of Whitewater for construction of its new state-of-the-art recycling complex in the Whitewater University Technology Park
The Elkhorn company’s facility and world headquarters will be valued at more than $12.5 million. It is expected to create more than 100 new positions working multiple shifts.
With the worldwide surplus of over 1 billion pounds of CRT tubes in storage that DP Electronic knows about, this new technology is designed to reuse discarded CRT tubes by encapsulating the materials into an environmentally safe, consumer-grade product.
In essence, the facility will turn old electronic equipment glass into new tiling….
Community Development Authority Chairperson Jeffery Knight said his organization is very pleased with the agreement.
“We have been working with DP Electronic Recycling for a number of years while they worked through the regulatory process to secure financing,” Knight said.
“This project is truly an example of an individual demonstrating an entrepreneurial spirit at its best,” he added. “The City of Whitewater is extremely pleased that Dale has chosen Whitewater for their new plant and especially pleased that this is will be their world headquarters.”
Construction of the new facility is slated to begin this spring. The company plans to be fully operational within 18 months after breaking ground.
Last year, the CDA approved selling the nearly 11-acre lot in the WUTP to the company for $1. Construction of the 100,000-square-foot facility will include new multi-use trails to connect to the city’s existing path system.
DP Electronic Recycling reportedly was courted by other regions, including the City of Watertown and a city in Arkansas. Company officials previously have said one of the reasons the company chose the City of Whitewater was due to its willingness to work with the company through loans during that state- and federal-level permitting process.
4. April 2019, Whitewater approves an updated memorandum of understanding with recycler. Three years later, the recycler still had not set up shop in Whitewater, as a newspaper account from that time reported:
In February 2016, the common council originally approved a developer’s agreement with DP Electronic Recycling that called for the Elkhorn-based company to build a state-of-the-art recycling complex and new headquarters in the Whitewater University Technology Park. As stated at the time, the facility and headquarters would be valued at more than $12.5 million and expected to create more than 90 new positions working multiple shifts.
As part of the developer’s agreement, the City of Whitewater, through its Community Development Authority (CDA), would sell a parcel, just under 11 acres, in the Tech Park for just $1. That sale was contingent on DP Electronic Recycling repaying two outstanding loans with the CDA prior to closing on the property,
According to City Manager Cameron Clapper and CDA executive director Dave Carlson, however, the development did not happen.
“Due to unexpected delays, this project did not proceed and the deadlines for performance in the development agreement have all since passed,” Carlson said.
Secondly, we became aware that DP Electronics is one of the borrowers here in this group of capital catalyst loans. They also have a UDAG loan or an action fund loan in the bottom grouping. So, these orange highlighted blocks, this is DP Electronics.
That’s the full value of the loan. They have not made payments over its history, and many of you in this body are aware of kind of their long-pending development within the southern end of the Business Park, Tech Park, that ended up not coming to fruition. So, there’s two amounts here.
There’s a $51,000 in the capital catalyst, and I apologize I can’t display the whole line and still make it legible without being an eye chart. This block, this 51 above, is DP Electronics’ capital catalyst royalty loan, originated in 2013. And then, there’s another $34,600 in the lower group.
Again, that loan was originated also in 2013, April 13th. So, as we get right now, this is a specific reserve, so it’s specifically earmarked for those loans. At some point in the future, as we’ve had to recognize in the past and actually take the next step, which would be a write-off, we’ll do that as we get documentation of their insolvency and then take that formal next steps as we’re certain there is no prospect of recovery.
So, right now, we’re aware, have been made aware that they’re not reachable, that they’ve become insolvent. We’ve not yet had documentation of that. So, we will seek that before we go any further and actually take the next step as a write-off.
A Few Remarks. I’m not sure why anyone would admit to being on the old CDA, any more than one would readily admit to slipping intentionally on a banana peel.
By October 13th, it should have been clear to anyone that the rail site on the east side of town was the worst possible rail spur location.
Yet, it’s always been clear to anyone who followed the DP Recycling story in Whitewater a decade ago that that business was not going to use a rail spur for any purpose. Their plan wasn’t ‘unique’ — it was the sort of sketchy idea that only an unserious, scrounging development team would embrace. Rail spur, mule train, or sled dogs: DP Recycling wasn’t going to use any of them.
You don’t need transportation in Whitewater for what you’re never going to make in Whitewater.
DP Recycling wasn’t a near-miss for Whitewater — it was a total failure. It was and remains illustrative of the incompetence of the old CDA. Rail spur access didn’t make the difference here. Poor judgment made the difference here.
A medieval tower in central Rome collapsed again during a rescue operation by firefighters after the initial collapse, sending up cloud of debris. One worker died in from the accident.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 57. Sunrise is 6:32 and sunset is 4:44 for 10 hours 12 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 94.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Innovation Center Advisory Panel meets at 1 PM. The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 4:30 PM.
On this day in 1973, NASA launches the Mariner 10 toward Mercury. On March 29, 1974, it becomes the first space probe to reach that planet.
[Attorney Abha] Khanna said her team filed the lawsuit with enough time to potentially redraw the maps, despite the congressmen’s recent actions.
“There certainly is time to affect the 2026 elections,” she said.
This lawsuit lays out a more familiar partisan gerrymandering argument, in which lawyers say Wisconsin’s congressional maps discriminate against Democratic voters. Six of the state’s eight House seats are filled by Republicans, even though statewide elections have been close partisan races. Sens. Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin — a Republican and Democrat, respectively — won their most recent statewide elections by a percentage point or less, while Gov. Tony Evers kept his office by more than 3 percentage points in 2022 (Evers will not be seeking reelection in 2026)….
Not everyone involved is so optimistic that this will be resolved quickly. Jeff Mandell, a plaintiff attorney in the redistricting lawsuit alleging that the maps are illegally too favorable to incumbents — a new argument that hasn’t been tested in the state — said it is “exceedingly unlikely” that new maps could be drawn in time for the midterm elections. Primary candidates must file their nomination papers to the elections commission by June 1, 2026. The final district lines must be in place by spring for candidates to circulate their papers among the right voters.
“If we don’t have maps by the end of March or so, it’s very, very difficult to run the election next November,” Mandell said.
Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia basilica is now the world’s tallest church after a part of its central tower was lifted into place. Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece now rises to 534 feet, beating out the former tallest church, Germany’s Ulmer Münster. (AP video by Hernan Munoz).
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 51. Sunrise is 6:30 and sunset is 4:45 for 10 hours 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 88 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1920, KDKA of Pittsburgh starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station in America.
In Wisconsin, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is known as FoodShare. The failure of the federal government to commit to funding the program puts hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites at risk:
Gov. Tony Evers has declared a state of emergency and a period of “abnormal economic disruption” due to the ongoing federal government shutdown and a potential lapse in FoodShare benefits.
Evers’ order directs state agencies to take “any and all necessary and appropriate measures” to address the potential FoodShare stoppage, and requires them to suspend any administrative rules if they would “prevent, hinder, or delay necessary actions to respond to the emergency.” It also directs the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to enforce prohibitions against price gouging.
The governor’s action comes as the federal government shutdown enters its second month, leaving benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in jeopardy for millions of Americans. That includes around 700,000 residents in Wisconsin, where the program is known as FoodShare.
The widespread need for FoodShare in Wisconsin — many hundreds of thousands — crosses all possible boundaries of location, race, ethnicity, gender, and creed. Whitewater and every other community in the state will be affected.
Hunger is not a partisan issue, but it has become one as the federal SNAP program runs out of money. To get a sense of the real world impact in Wisconsin, the Ideas Lab interviewed representatives from 10 organizations that provide food and other services across the region.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with scattered showers and a high of 46. Sunrise is 7:29 and sunset is 5:46 for 10 hours 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 79 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1938, Seabiscuit defeats War Admiral in an upset victory during a match race deemed “the match of the century” in horse racing.
Based in Milwaukee, Olympus Mascots has made custom mascot costumes since the 1960s. Craftspeople spend 60 to 120 hours on each costume — from concept to finished product — creating high-quality mascots for schools, sports teams, and organizations nationwide. With a focus on quality and creativity, they bring characters to life with every design.
Join EarthSky’s Marcy Curran in a video preview of the stars, constellations – and planets – for the month of November 2025. Plus, the rich Milky Way is still prominent overhead under a dark sky.
Here’s the nineteenth annual FREE WHITEWATER list of the scariest, combined this year for the first time with the most reassuring, things in Whitewater. (In 2024, the scariest and most reassuring things in the city appeared in separate posts.)
The list runs in reverse order, from mildly scary to truly frightening and mildly reassuring to truly reassuring.
SCARIEST:
5.The Giant Spider Invasion. There’s an update in the works for the 1977 film The Giant Spider Invasion. Set in Wisconsin, the film depicts how “giant spiders from another dimension invade Wisconsin.” The original director, Bill Rebane, plans to add scenes and characters for a 2026 re-release.
The true risk to Wisconsin, however, isn’t giant spiders, from this or any other dimension. It’s that one of the worst films ever made (a rating of 3.3 of 10 on IMDb) will get more screen time. For those willing to view the original (as I have), it’s available on Tubi and on YouTube as a Mystery Science Theater 3000 subject.
The film does offer one of the saddest lines in all of cinema history: “Sometimes the only way I know you’re alive is when I hear you flush the toilet.” You’ve been warned.
4. Advanced Meeting Science. Can a person, or let’s say several people, create a black hole? That’s what happens in Event Horizon:
It’s best to listen to Laurence Fishburne here.
It may seem like fantasy, but perhaps it’s not. Whitewater’s collection of the most ingenious scientists school board members in all the state has done something similar by over-using the exceptions to Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Law (Wis. Stat. §§ 19.81-19.98) to keep commonplace discussions hidden from the community. Information gets sucked illegitimately into a dark, compressed closed-session and stays in. It’s been that way for years.
Why follow open-government requirements when you can rely on your own dodgy past practices and the contrived opinions that tell you what you want to hear? This practice won’t change merely because people complain. On the contrary, complaints will only convince those involved to dig in. Obstinacy is among the crudest yet most emotionally satisfying of positions for those who adopt it.
One can’t say whether meeting practices in the Whitewater Schools will change, but one can say with confidence that Event Horizon was, after all, a horror film.
3.Bad, Bad Advice. So you thought that open government and the free flow of public information about public issues was the right practice for an American town? Guess again, punks and hooligans! Many small towns, including Whitewater, have a Boomer or two who’ll tell you that daddy knows best:
I’m not going to get into the details of the negotiations between the two boards, but help me understand how negotiation by press release is a good idea. When the city manager put out a press release laying things out, made it very public. I don’t know why they left, but I believe that [unclear] was here to deal with this issue. I know WTMJ ran a story on it. We don’t need this. They’ll get to it. They’ll get to it…We don’t need any more bad press in the community.
As it turns out, this advice pairs nicely with “your generation wants everything handed to you,” “back in my day, people respected their elders,” and “we didn’t have smartphones, and we turned out fine.”
2.City v. Towns. One of the oldest political tricks is to mobilize smaller communities against a larger nearby community. The more rural areas demonize a slightly larger place (“human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together … MASS HYSTERIA!”) That’s the special-interest men’s latest scheme: trot in as many non-residents as you can to demand changes in Whitewater. This libertarian blogger has often been a critic of policies in this city, but has always lived here while doing so. I’d very much support more people moving here — there is no more beautiful city than Whitewater.
(Before my arrival here a generation ago, I lived in several other lovely cities. These years living here, I’ve traveled to many lovely cities in America and abroad. Nothing equals Whitewater. No matter how pleasant a vacation may be, I’m always grateful to return to our small city.)
The Whitewater Common Council has a duty to the 15,000 residents of this city first and foremost. Everyone else is a guest, to be treated politely and fairly, but as a guest.
1. These Difficult Times. Many who lived here in Whitewater are now gone, as some of us knew that they would be. It’s always been easier to harm than to heal. The threat of injury and abuse is a gripping, tormenting force. No human power on Earth is so formidable as today’s federal administration, yet the same has been said and confounded of so many powers of the past. It has been true for us since 1791 that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” We are a people with a right to limited government.
MOST REASSURING:
5.Time. Time moves in only one direction, and with each passing day, it builds up some and wears down others. It is impossible that conditions from the last generation in Whitewater will remain unchanged, either for people or nature. If it seems strange that some few residents of this town would try to hold change at bay (and it is strange, and it is selfish), then it’s even stranger to imagine that they could succeed. There’s no one that powerful in this town or in a thousand towns beyond Whitewater. Not anywhere. The modern and the normal were not going to wait outside forever. They haven’t, and they will bolster and wither what lies before them as they see fit. The sheer passage of time brings change.
4. Energy and Attention. It’s a more energetic city government. More projects — of greater range, creativity, and enthusiasm — than we saw over the last two decades. To the city administration — go ahead, proceed as expeditiously as your judgment suggests. Whitewater’s many thousands will be better for it. (This libertarian will do his level best to keep up.) High octane is the best octane.
3.An Open Municipal Government. We’ve a more informative and open city administration. It’s markedly better than in the past. More notices, more recordings, more memorandums, and more explanations of the reasoning behind decisions.
2. Charitable Possibilities.There’s a difference between predicting the weather and changing the weather; there’s a difference between being able to tell time and watchmaking. I’ve never claimed that a role as town blogger is all there is to city life. Not at all. City life is about 15,000 residents living their lives. Telling time is, however, a skill; predicting the weather is, however, a skill. If it comes about that in difficult national times Whitewater continues to find herself the recipient of increasing charity and benevolence, then at least I’ll be able to see and appreciate that charity from this vantage. We should all of us be grateful and hopeful for what the community receives.
1. More Housing of All Kinds. Our daily workforce in the city is far larger than the residential housing stock we now have. Much of that current stock is suited only for a narrow purpose and is unsuitable for those workers or other new residents. Rehabilitation of what we have and additions to what we have will uplift this city.
Again, as always — although a tragic optimist, I’m yet an optimist at bottom. We have much that is going well locally.
Watson’s Climbing Rat and Orange Nectar Bats Take Over a Panama Feeder:
Bats and rats rule the night in this clip from the Panama Fruit Feeder Cam. Watch an agile Watson’s climbing rat navigate the feeder platform while orange nectar bats hover and sip from the hummingbird feeder.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 54. Sunrise is 7:27 and sunset is 5:49 for 10 hours 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 58.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1995, Quebec citizens narrowly vote (50.58% to 49.42%) in favor of remaining a province of Canada in their second referendum on national sovereignty.
Results within the latest Marquette Law School Poll support this view. (It’s only one pollster and only one poll, but it’s a well-regarded one.) Most of the attention on this poll concerns how little Wisconsin voters know about the gubernatorial candidates. See Rich Kremer, Marquette poll: Most voters unaware of candidates for governor, Supreme Court, Wisconsin Public Radio, October 29, 2025. (There’s likely to be at least one more candidate in the race, but the Marquette poll did not include as-yet-undeclared candidates.)
Look, however, at some of the poll findings for the 2026 Wisconsin Supreme Court election:
Fifty-six percent say Wisconsin Supreme Court campaigns have become so partisan that we should change to partisan election of judges, while 43% say we should continue the current non-partisan election of judges to the court. Among Republicans, 63% say we should change to partisan elections, while 49% of independents and 49% of Democrats favor partisan elections.
It’s a judicial contest that Wisconsin has established by law as non-partisan, but large numbers of voters know it’s only nominally non-partisan (and so they want to call it what it is). In a well-crafted electoral environment, overwhelming numbers of voters should believe that the environment is accurately described. Even when Wisconsin designates the race as non-partisan under the law, Wisconsin voters perceptively say that’s not what this is. (It’s as though you called a witch doctor a physician, and yet patients said “Oh, no, that’s not true. That’s a witch doctor, dammit.”)
Whether it should become a partisan election is another question; at least voters see what it has become. It seems improbable that we’ll soon return to conditions where non-partisan state elections are truly non-partisan.
There’s a consequent consideration: if intended non-partisan statewide races are truly partisan, what would one say about intended non-partisan local races?
That’s a question worthy of further exploration. I’ve touched on it only slightly, not in the depth it deserves. See ‘Coalitions’ from Quick Observations on a Weekend.
I’m a strong proponent of the claim that ‘you are your vote, you are your coalition.’ No one should care what an elected official thinks or says if he votes contrary to those ideas and statements.
There’s more to be done on the topic, I think, about local candidates clustered on the right or left.
Statewide, however, it’s a settled question — politics is partisan to the marrow.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 56. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 5:50 for 10 hours 25 minutes of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 49.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1929, the New York Stock Exchange crashes, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and eventually contributing to the Great Depression.
If the Wisconsin gubernatorial election next year will be all new, then the Wisconsin attorney general’s race will be familiar. The state is in for a rematch of the Kaul-Toney race of 2022:
Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney, a Republican, announced Tuesday [10.21] he’s running for a second time to unseat Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul.
The 41-year-old Toney has been the DA in Fond du Lac County since 2012. He ran against Kaul in 2022, losing by 35,000 votes. Kaul, a Democrat, recently announced he would be running for a third term as attorney general, ending speculation that he would run for governor after Gov. Tony Evers announced his retirement.
In the campaign announcement, Toney said he would prioritize supporting law enforcement officers, reducing violent crime in Milwaukee and being more aggressive in prosecuting drug crimes.
….
The Wisconsin attorney general is the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the state, responsible for overseeing state law enforcement agencies, enforcing state laws as varied as water quality rules and election laws and defending state agencies in court. This year, Kaul has been especially active in joining multi-state lawsuits against Trump administration policies.
Kaul defeated Toney in the close 2022 attorney general’s race, 50.64% to 49.31%. Whether this race is close, or has a larger margin one way or the other, is likely to depend on how Wisconsin voters view federal policy as much as state policy.
Elections across the nation have become a test of support or opposition to federal actions. Absent an unexpected personal issue for a candidate, that’s likely how our own state elections will unfold.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 57. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset is 5:52 for 10 hours 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 39.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis ends and Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.
Whitewater has a long-standing reputation as a haunted place. The topic emerges now and again because stories and legends about Whitewater are more numerous here than in ordinary Wisconsin places that have been beset only by mosquitoes and coyotes. (There’s a Spirit Tour in this town because there are stories about spirits in this town.)
These spooky stories are thick on the ground in Whitewater, a college town of less than 15,000 about an hour’s drive southwest of Milwaukee. They say that Whitewater’s three cemeteries form the points of a “Witch’s Triangle,” with all the area within its borders under a curse. Under the light of the Halloween moon, the spirit of a bloodthirsty witch (who also happens to be an ax murderer in some versions) named Mary Worth rises from a crypt to stalk new victims.
Over at UW-Whitewater’s Andersen Library, there’s an ancient, leather-bound spellbook locked in a cage that will drive anyone who reads it (or even asks about it) insane. Elsewhere on campus, a magical altar is said to be buried under a building. A network of underground tunnels is used by a coven to traverse to Starin Park, where they assemble to perform Black Mass on unholy nights in front of the “Witches Tower.” Whitewater Lake has a kraken-like beast lurking beneath the surface, possibly conjured by witchcraft. And on and on.
All of these tales are weaved from a singular source at the center of the web: the Morris Pratt Institute, a unique college begun in Whitewater where communicating with the deceased was part of the curriculum. The legacy of this school, built at the peak of the Gilded Age religious movement of Spiritualism and bankrolled by a prophesied iron bonanza, is still alive today – not just in the urban legends it spawned but also in reality.
Pratt made good on his word [to advance Spiritualism] and began making Whitewater into a hub for his beliefs.
In 1889, a three-story brick building opened at the corner of what is now Whitewater’s Fremont and Center streets: the Sanitarium and Hall of Psychic Science, later renamed the Temple of Science. Pratt’s Spiritualist center had lecture halls, living quarters and a space for the practice of séances, mediumship and scrying (visioning the future in reflective surfaces such as crystal balls). The latter was known as the White Room for its entirely colorless paint and furnishings….
Pratt’s brusque approach didn’t endear him to the town, either. At the Temple of Science’s opening day, the lineup of lecturers reportedly attacked and ridiculed other religions. Later that year, Pratt placed an announcement in the Whitewater Register challenging leaders of the other churches in town to debate him. When no one accepted, he began showing up at their church services for “highly argumentative, belligerent confrontations that caused him to be shunned and ridiculed in Whitewater,” author Len Faytus wrote in The Spook Temple: The Morris Pratt Institute in Whitewater, Spiritualism and the Occult.
However frightful or delightful, after an occasional Halloween interlude, one leaves behind stories of creatures or specters and returns to daily life in our small city of fifteen thousand.
The U.S. Defense Department has released footage of views inside Hurricane Melissa. The military said a U.S. Air Force Reserve crew from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, known as the “Hurricane Hunters,” flew multiple passes through Melissa on Monday to collect critical weather data for the National Hurricane Center.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 57. Sunrise is 7:23 and sunset is 5:53 for 10 hours 30 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 29.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board will conduct an Annual Budget hearing at 5:30 PM and a Regular Meeting at 6 PM. (Note, Monday evening: The district listed the Regular Meeting to begin at 6 PM. In fact, the Annual Budget hearing ran later than 6 PM, so the Regular Meeting began later than the posted time.)
On this day in 1775, King George III expands on his earlier Proclamation of Rebellion in the Thirteen Colonies during a speech from the throne at the opening of Parliament.
The Whitewater School Board meets tonight. As part of its Regular Meeting agenda, before public comment, the following cautionary words appear:
Citizens may speak under Public Comments, but no School Board action will be taken. Issues raised may become a part of a future agenda. Participants are allotted a three-minute speaking period. A Citizen Comment Request should be filled out prior to speaking. In accordance to [sic] Board Policy 187, personal criticism and/or derogatory remarks directed at School Board members or employees of the district will not be tolerated. Should there be a number of citizens planning to speak, the President will announce the total time for citizen comments and divide the time between speakers equally with no more than three minutes allotted to each participant. The Board will not be able to respond to individual questions at the meeting. Complaints against an employee should be sent to the Superintendent or Board in writing with your signature. Please keep in mind that students often attend or view board meetings. Speakers’ remarks should therefore be suitable for an audience that includes Kindergarten through 12th grade students. The Board President or officers of the Board may interrupt, warn or terminate speakers’ statements that are unrelated to the business of the School District or inappropriate for K-12 students or disruptive to an orderly, productive meeting. The time estimates noted for agenda items are for informational purposes only and may not be reflective of actual discussion during the meeting.
Well, now we know. Honest to goodness, it’s not merely cautionary or advisory, it’s excessively so. These many warnings convey that the board is watching the public very carefully. That’s an inverted order: the public should be watching the board. Left, center, or right — Whitewater’s school board has been a self-protective, self-defensive board for many years. That’s not public service; it’s self-service.
It should be obvious that the effect of this advisory is to remove legitimate concerns about the district, administrators, or staff from public mention. There’s a difference between wanting a government position and wanting that position on terms that undermine the position’s very legitimacy in a free and open society.
As it turns out, the board president has sometimes read these words before scheduled public comment at a meeting. Here’s an example from July (which compounds the written advisory’s chilling effect with an auditory one, where neither advisory should have been fashioned or delivered the way it has been):
How odd to be a man who voted for Obama, or a woman who voted for Trump, only to win seats on the school board with a shared perspective that among the most important votes are one’s own defensive position against the rest of the public. Perhaps, at bottom, that’s what’s left of bipartisanship.
I’m sure that there’s someone on the Whitewater School Board, of whatever political ideology, who would say that these measures are necessary to prevent disruptions from members of the public. To which this libertarian blogger would say that the advisory is excessively restrictive of the public, thinks too little of the public, and that these boardmembers are, in any event, from that same public.
Looking around Whitewater, after all, one doesn’t find anyone from the House of Windsor… and we’re better off for it.
