Business, City, Hip & Prosperous
Brief Remarks on Downtown Whitewater, Inc.
by JOHN ADAMS •
I promised a post on Downtown Whitewater, Inc.’s search for a new, full-time leader. They’ve a committee that drafted a job description. Of that committee, there are truly impressive members : smart, talented people.
How their search will turn out I do not know – one hopes for a good outcome.
I do know, however, that Whitewater’s success doesn’t depend principally on secondary organizations, but on successful, direct, daily transactions between Whitewater’s businesses and her consumers.
We have seen the rise of new restaurants & merchants in town (in all parts of it), and the continuing success of others, that have compelling offerings. These businesses offer much through the hard work of their owners. Their success is the consequence of their labors.
I’ll now return an expression someone many years ago delivered to me:
One should not confuse the map for the terrain.
I’ll not confuse business organizations for free markets of private businesses and consumers.
My best wishes to all for many prosperous years ahead.
Business, Food, Free Markets, Laws/Regulations
Institute for Justice Fights Anti-Competitive Ban on Baked Goods
by JOHN ADAMS •
Anyone with an oven and a recipe should be able to have a baking business—but that is not the case in Wisconsin, where selling baked goods made in your home kitchen is punishable by up to $1,000 in fines or six months in jail. Wisconsin is one of only two states (the other being New Jersey) to ban the sale of home-baked goods.
Wisconsin’s home-baked-good ban has nothing to do with safety. The state bans home bakers from selling even food the government deems to be “not potentially hazardous” such as cookies, muffins and breads. The state also allows the sale of homemade foods like raw apple cider, maple syrup and popcorn, as well as canned goods such as jams and pickles. In addition, the state allows nonprofit organizations to sell any type of homemade food goods at events up to 12 days a year.
The ban is purely political. Commercial food producers like the Wisconsin Bakers Association are lobbying against a “Cookie Bill”—which would allow the limited sale of home baked goods—in order to protect themselves from competition. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who owns his own commercial food business, even refused to allow the Assembly to vote on a Cookie Bill last session, despite bipartisan support.
That’s why on January 13, 2016, three Wisconsin farmers joined with the Institute for Justice in filing a constitutional lawsuit in state court against Wisconsin’s State Department of Agriculture. The lawsuit will ask the court to strike down this arbitrary home-baked-good ban and allow home bakers to sell home-baked goods—like muffins, cookies and breads—directly to their friends, neighbors and other consumers.
See, also, a copy of the plaintiffs’ complaint, embedded below:
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 1.14.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Thursday will become increasingly sunny, and reach a daytime high of thirty-eight. Sunrise is 7:22 and sunset 4:45, for 9h 22m 29s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 23.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
It’s Benedict Arnold‘s birthday. History.com has an article about Arnold, entitled, 9 Things You May Not Know About Benedict Arnold.
One of my favorite political cartoons is from 1865, in which the cartoonist depicts Benedict Arnold and Jefferson Davis being welcomed into Hell. One should be properly reluctant to opine on the theological soundness of that assessment (being as it is a divine judgment), but as a political matter the cartoonist’s characterization seems about right.
Here’s today’s Puzzability game in their current series, Band Mates:
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This Week’s Game — January 11-15
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Band Mates
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Glad you’ve joined us for this week’s musical pieces. For each day, we started with the name of a famous rock band that contains at least one repeated letter. Each day’s clue is the chunk of letters between such a pair, with any spaces removed.
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Example:
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GSTO
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Answer:
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The Rolling Stones
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What to Submit:
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Submit the band’s name (as “The Rolling Stones” in the example) for your answer.
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Thursday, January 14
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Science/Nature
Global Earthquakes Visualized, 2000-2015
by JOHN ADAMS •
Each dot represents an earthquake, of at least 4.0 magnitude, with brighter dots representing stronger earthquakes.
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Misconduct, Public Relations, University
About That Accreditation at UW-Whitewater…
by JOHN ADAMS •
Last week, UW-Whitewater’s administration announced, in oddly grand terms, the results of an accreditation review from the HLC. (That would be the ‘Higher Learning Commission,’ one of dozens of self-designated accrediting organizations of the same ilk.) One reads that the accreditation was ‘a weighty stamp of approval’ of our campus administration’s actions. The accreditation was nothing of the kind. Much of it relies on supposed ‘evidence’ of good conduct that is, in fact, evidence of nothing truly happening on campus. Nothing.
For sexual assault survivors, in particular, the HLC accreditation is a dishonest fig leaf.
Consider how the HLC report finds ‘evidence’ of ethical conduct:
2 – Integrity: Ethical and Responsible Conduct
The institution acts with integrity; its conduct is ethical and responsible.
2.A – Core Component 2.A
The institution operates with integrity in its financial, academic, personnel, and auxiliary functions; it establishes and follows policies and processes for fair and ethical behavior on the part of its governing board, administration, faculty, and staff.
Rating
Met
Evidence
The University of Wisconsin – Whitewater maintains a deep commitment to integrity and ethical conduct as evidenced by a number of documents including those related to a long history of shared governance, inclusive decision making, equal opportunities, and personnel rules for UW-W faculty and staff. Meetings with deans, other academic leaders, faculty and staff confirm the commitment.
Board of Regents policies further support a high standard of integrity as outlined in Board of Regents Measures to Eliminate Racism, Consensual Relationships, Gender Discrimination, Harassment & Retaliation and a variety statutes listed in Chapter 19 of the Wisconsin Statutes.
Emphasis mine.
For the HLC, evidence of proper local conduct is a document or – honest to goodness, wait for it – a state statute.
No, and no again: only actual ethical conduct is evidence of actual ethical conduct. Documents and statutes are no evidence whatever of how local administrators or others are behaving. Only how they behave is evidence of how they’re behaving.
Imagine, for example, that Martians visited the United States in 1925, and wanted to learn about the behavior of Americans from that time.
Let’s suppose that the leader of the Martian expedition sent field workers across America to learn about how residents of the United States lived in 1925. Out the extraterrestrial field workers went, to explore this country.
Upon their return to the Martian spacecraft, an elderly Martian asks the field workers a few questions, among them a question about Americans’ drinking habits.
“Do Americans consume alcoholic beverages?’ the Martian leader asks.
“No,” replies one of the Red Planet’s investigators. “No one in America drinks any alcoholic beverages.”
“How do you know this?” asks the elderly Martian. “What evidence have you found?”
“Well,” say the younger ones, “we checked, and these Americans have a constitutional amendment1 that forbids consumption of alcohol, so we know that there is no drinking of alcohol among them.”
No one who values learning and reasoning would settle for the young Martians’ supposed evidence about alcohol; no one who values learning and reasoning should settle for this feeble claim of good-conduct-because-the-rules-say-so. This administration’s proffer of evidence is an embarrassment to higher learning, and unworthy of so many deserving students and faculty.
Sadly, there’s even worse in the HLC report, on page 54 (page 7 of the ‘Compliance Team Template’):
As is the trend nationwide, there appears to be a concern about the number of unwanted sexual advances.
These bland words are simultaneously despicable and false. They’re false because they describe concern about ‘unwanted sexual advances’ when the actual concern is about rape and about administrative handling of rape cases. They’re despicable because the brief mention of the subject does all it can to minimize the seriousness of injury to people, and also the seriousness to those who are accused, too (‘appears to be a concern,’ ‘as is the trend nationwide’ and the euphemism ‘unwanted sexual advances’).
Hundreds of millions are spent at this public institution, including sums for poorly-written press releases. A career in feeble, mendacious excuse-making is an unworthy one.
UW-Whitewater’s students, faculty, and Whitewater’s residents deserve a better administration than this.
1. In fact, the Martians would have been wrong even about what the Eighteenth Amendment, on its face, required. That now-repealed provision actually restricted only the ‘manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors,’ rather than their consumption. Not only would they have been wrong to rely on the Eighteen Amendment as evidence that Americans didn’t drink, but they also would have read the Amendment incorrectly.
Film
Film: Leonardo DiCaprio’s Acceptance Speech at the 2016 Golden Globes
by JOHN ADAMS •
For The Revenant, about which more information is available @ the IMDb.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 1.13.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Midweek in Whitewater will be cloudy, with a one-in-five chance of light snow in the afternoon, and a daytime high of twenty-one. Sunrise is 7:32 and sunset 4:44, for 9h 20m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
For some, cold and flu season is a bothersome time, but if one had a dog like Gordy the Corgi, one would be well-prepared:
On this day in 1922, it’s a beginning for what would later become the ‘oldest station in the nation’:
1922 – WHA Radio Station Founded
On this date the call letters of experimental station 9XM in Madison were replaced by WHA. This station dates back to 1917, making it “The oldest station in the nation.” [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers, edited by Sarah Davis McBride]
Here’s the Puzzability game for Wednesday:
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This Week’s Game — January 11-15
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Band Mates
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Glad you’ve joined us for this week’s musical pieces. For each day, we started with the name of a famous rock band that contains at least one repeated letter. Each day’s clue is the chunk of letters between such a pair, with any spaces removed.
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Example:
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GSTO
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Answer:
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The Rolling Stones
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What to Submit:
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Submit the band’s name (as “The Rolling Stones” in the example) for your answer.
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Wednesday, January 13
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Animals, Science/Nature
The Insects on a Faraway Island
by JOHN ADAMS •
Education, School District
A New Weekly Series: The Education Post
by JOHN ADAMS •
Post 1 in weekly series. I promised recently that I would begin a new, weekly feature. This is the first installment in fulfillment of that promise: a weekly education post.
These are not easy times for education. Perhaps the truest statement is that there are no easy times: school can be difficult even in comfortable conditions (much to learn, and a small society within one’s school to navigate). We do not have even comfortable conditions, as we’ve limited fiscal resources in a community where many families, sadly, have limited private resources. To say that they have private limited resources is to avoid the hard words that many in our community are children of poverty.
Denial of this truth does nothing to make it less true.
Here we are – the fortunate and unfortunate, the prosperous and impoverished, all in the same community, all hoping for as much and better for our children as we have today.
The condition of education weighs on me, although I have been mostly quiet on the subject of K12 schooling. To be quiet is not to be indifferent, to be distant is not to be unconcerned.
That’s what inspires a weekly series: to write about topics one has considered carefully without yet writing.
Now, there are likely to be some who would prefer that I did not write. Of this I will say two things: they presume too much to know what I’ll write, and in any event others’ preferences and unfounded presumptions will not constrain my remarks.
My forefathers (here I write of my actual forefathers, not those of my pseudonym) came to this continent before the Revolution, and in the generations since my family has always believed in learning for its sake and for what it makes possible for oneself and others.
Easy for them to believe so – many of those generations enjoyed a consensus in support of learning and how to achieve great things (both for individuals no matter how small and for a society so very large).
Americans are an ambitious and accomplished people: our many achievements in the humanities, natural & social sciences, and technology are at the forefront of global accomplishment. Much of our success owes to our liberties: our freedoms attract other talented peoples, and allow our own talented people to cooperate easily with others abroad.
But people don’t achieve as a nationality – they achieve as individuals, with all the particular, immediate, specific teaching and interaction achievement requires.
For children, especially ones whose mornings and evenings are hard, individual attention in the afternoon may make all the difference.
THE EDUCATION POST: Tuesdays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.
(About the graphic for this series – it’s a screenshot of a calculator app for Android phones that emulates a Hewlett Packard 33C. I used an HP calculator in school, and they were amazing machines. My phone’s calculator app pays tribute to a fine machine of yore.)
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 1.12.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Tuesday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of eight degrees. Sunrise is 7:23 and sunset 4:42 for 9h 19m 20s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 7.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets today at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1888, a blizzard in the Plains kills hundreds:
…the so-called “Schoolchildren’s Blizzard” kills 235 people, many of whom were children on their way home from school, across the Northwest Plains region of the United States. The storm came with no warning, and some accounts say that the temperature fell nearly 100 degrees in just 24 hours.
It was a Thursday afternoon and there had been unseasonably warm weather the previous day from Montana east to the Dakotas and south to Texas. Suddenly, within a matter of hours, Arctic air from Canada rapidly pushed south. Temperatures plunged to 40 below zero in much of North Dakota. Along with the cool air, the storm brought high winds and heavy snows. The combination created blinding conditions.
Most victims of the blizzard were children making their way home from school in rural areas and adults working on large farms. Both had difficulty reaching their destinations in the awful conditions. In some places, though, caution prevailed. Schoolteacher Seymour Dopp in Pawnee City, Nebraska, kept his 17 students at school when the storm began at 2 p.m. They stayed overnight, burning stockpiled wood to keep warm. The next day, parents made their way over five-foot snow drifts to rescue their children. In Great Plains, South Dakota, two men rescued the children in a schoolhouse by tying a rope from the school to the nearest shelter to lead them to safety. Minnie Freeman, a teacher in Nebraska, successfully led her children to shelter after the storm tore the roof off of her one-room schoolhouse. In other cases, though, people were less lucky. Teacher Loie Royce tried to lead three children to the safety of her home, less than 90 yards from their school in Plainfield, Nebraska. They became lost, and the children died of hypothermia. Royce lost her feet to frostbite.
In total, an estimated 235 people across the plains died on January 12. The storm is still considered one of the worst blizzards in the history of the area.
On this day in 1864, during the Civil War, the 20th Wisconsin undertakes a rescue in Mexico:
1864 – (Civil War) Engagement at Matamoras, Mexico
The 20th Wisconsin Infantry took part in a battle in Matamoras, Mexico. They crossed from Brownsville, Texas, to rescue the American consul in Matamoras when he was caught in a local uprising between two opposing Mexican forces.
Here’s Tuesday’s game from Puzzability:
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This Week’s Game — January 11-15
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Band Mates
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Glad you’ve joined us for this week’s musical pieces. For each day, we started with the name of a famous rock band that contains at least one repeated letter. Each day’s clue is the chunk of letters between such a pair, with any spaces removed.
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Example:
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GSTO
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Answer:
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The Rolling Stones
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What to Submit:
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Submit the band’s name (as “The Rolling Stones” in the example) for your answer.
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Tuesday, January 12
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Technology
Calculatorology
by JOHN ADAMS •
Why are calculators from Texas Instruments relatively expensive?
Environment, Waste Digesters, WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN
A Bit More About Methane
by JOHN ADAMS •
Post 55 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.
I’ve posted before about methane, but only as a foretaste of more on the subject (Methane on 11.23.15 and What’s a Greenhouse Gas? last week on 1.4.16).
Here’s another appetizer along those same lines. My point is not that Whitewater, Wisconsin would see huge methane leaks, but that touting methane gas as clean and green is an effort grounded in either ignorance or chicanery.
Consider the scene from the Pacific west, now afflicting the unfortunate residents of Porter Ranch, California, with an honest assessment of methane:
The single biggest contributor to climate change in California is a blown-out natural gas well more than 8,700ft underground, state authorities and campaign groups said Monday.
The broken well at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage site has released more than 77,000 metric tons of the powerful climate pollutant methane since the rupture was first detected on 23 October, according to a counter created by the Environmental Defense Fund.
Methane is a fast-acting climate pollutant – more than 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame.
Experts believe the breach, which has forced the evacuation of hundreds of residents from the town of Porter Ranch, is the largest ever in the US.
Locals have complained of headaches, sore throats, nosebleeds and nausea, caused by the rotten-egg smell of the odorant added to the gas to aid leak detection by SoCalGas, the utility that operates the natural gas storage site.
About 1,000 people are suing the company. There are also concerns about the leak’s effect on smog and ozone. The company said it was monitoring air quality….
See, A single gas well leak is California’s biggest contributor to climate change @ The Guardian.
Methane may be found or recovered: it’s deleterious either way.
WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Appearing at whengreenturnsbrown.com and re-posted Mondays @ 10 AM here on FREE WHITEWATER.
Music
Monday Music: Poker Face
by JOHN ADAMS •
One can guess that I don’t have much familiarity with the music of Lady Gaga. The loss, no doubt, is mine. At the Golden Globes last night, afternoon noticing that Leonardo DiCaprio was laughing at something (perhaps at her), Lady Gaga decided to give him a taste of her displeasure as she walked to the stage to receive her award. (Embedded below is a Vine as she glances past DiCaprio, and his reaction.)
It’s not that one dislikes DiCaprio (he’s a fine actor, and seems personable); it’s that Ms. Germanotta manages the encounter so very well.