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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.30.15

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in town will be mostly sunny with a high of fifty-nine. Sunrise is 5:59 and sunset 7:54, for 14h 05m 19s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

So why can’t we see more of our moon’s surface from Earth? MinuteEarth has the answer:

On this day in 1864, a Wisconsin lumberjack’s quick thinking saves Union gunboats from capture:

1864 – Joseph Bailey Saves Union Fleet

On this date Joseph Bailey began to direct the men of six regiments, including the 23rd Wisconsin, in a dramatic attempt to save the heart of the Union fleet during the Civil War. Bailey, who was from Wisconsin Dells and an experienced lumberjack, served as an engineer in the 4th Wisconsin Cavalry. In a doomed campaign against the Confederates on the Red River in Louisiana, Union warships found themselves trapped by low water and the rocky river bed. As Confederate soldiers approached, Bailey employed water control techniques used by loggers to construct a series of dams that successfully narrowed the river, raised the water level by six feet, and provided enough surge to free the trapped fleet of gunboats. For his role in this rescue, Bailey was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. He also received a Tiffany punch bowl from his fellow officers. [Wisconsin Lore and Legend, pg. 18.]

Here’s Thursday’s game in Puzzability‘s Giving Away in Ending series:

This Week’s Game — April 27-May 1
Giving Away the Ending
You’ll need to do a little detective work this week. For each day, we started with the title of a well-known mystery book and replaced all the letters in each word—except the last letter—with asterisks.
Example:
A  ****Y  *N  ******T
Answer:
A Study in Scarlet
What to Submit:
Submit the book title (as “A Study in Scarlet” in the example) for your answer.
Thursday, April 30
****Y  ***K

City, Culture, Local Government, School District, University

The Last Inside Accounts

by  • 

America has a continent, Wisconsin a vast expanse, and Whitewater nine beautiful square miles.  For Whitewater’s waning top-tier notables, however, there’s no more area than an arm’s length among a few dozen men and women.

When even one of them steps aside for the bathroom, the remaining universe for the others shrinks by a percent or two.

Over nearly eight years that I’ve been writing, local print news has declined, and its online versions have not been able to stem erosion in revenue and quality.

Although the quality’s poor – and it is – these local papers still offer a lingering value.

Now and again, they print the views of Whitewater’s town squires: paragraph after paragraph, all spilling out onto the page.

That’s invaluable, because if these papers did not publish how Whitewater’s few insiders saw themselves and their world, it would be hard for others to grasp how some of them actually think about things.

The Daily Union‘s Whitewater correspondents – there are now two of them – give others insight into the heaping self-congratulation, boosterism, and sycophancy of town figures.  If these correspondents didn’t write about insiders’ views of Chancellor Telfer, for example, reasonable people would have no idea how a few men and women fawn over mediocre leadership, and fall over each other to utter absurd encomiums.

(There’s a nutty, cult-like quality in these meetings, each person striving to praise the Dear Leader more than the one before.)

These stories are also useful in the way a lexicographer’s recording of a rare and dying language is useful – one has to hurry before it’s gone forever.

For the future of the city, however, shaped as it is from market forces of thousands locally, and far greater numbers beyond, there’s a new language emerging, a language that’s destined to last far longer than the one now irreversibly fading. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.29.15

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in town will be partly sunny, with a high of sixty-three, and a one-third chance of afternoon showers.  Sunrise is 5:50 and sunset 7:53, for 14h 02m 47s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 80.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

About twenty years ago, on this day in 1992, America saw riots in Los Angeles even more destructive than the recent one in Baltimore. Here’s how the New York Times covered the news of acquittals in the beating of Rodney King, and its aftermath:

Los Angeles Policemen Acquitted In Taped Beating

By Seth Mydans

Special to The New York Times

RELATED HEADLINES
Storm of Anger Erupts — National Guard is Called Into City

Simi Valley, Calif., April 29 — Four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of assault today in the videotaped beating of a black motorist that stunned the nation. The verdicts immediately touched off a storm of anger and scattered violence in the city.

As residents set scores of fires, looted stores and beat passing motorists in the downtown area and pockets of predominantly black south-central Los Angeles, Mayor Tom Bradley declared a state of emergency, and Gov. Pete Wilson said he would send in the National Guard.

After hearing seven weeks of detailed testimony and studying the 81-second amateur videotape of the beating, the jury concluded that the policemen, all of whom are white, had not broken any laws when they clubbed and kicked the mostly prone motorist, Rodney G. King.

It was deadlocked on one of the 11 charges, and the prosecution said it might seek a new trial on that charge, which affected only one defendant.

The beating last spring, with its kicks and its 56 baton swings, was shown over and over on television. It immediately became one of the most visible uses of force by police in this country’s history and put the issue of police brutality on the national agenda.

Immediately after the verdicts, an unusually impassioned Mayor Bradley appeared on television to appeal for calm in a city where the videotape has come to symbolize complaints about police brutality, racism and street violence.

‘Today the system failed us,’ the Mayor said.

Here’s Wednesday’s game from Puzzability, in its Giving Away the Ending series:

This Week’s Game — April 27-May 1
Giving Away the Ending
You’ll need to do a little detective work this week. For each day, we started with the title of a well-known mystery book and replaced all the letters in each word—except the last letter—with asterisks.
Example:
A  ****Y  *N  ******T
Answer:
A Study in Scarlet
What to Submit:
Submit the book title (as “A Study in Scarlet” in the example) for your answer.
Wednesday, April 29
**E  ***L  ***H  **E  *****N  *****O

Education, School District

The Whitewater Schools’ Near Future

by  • 

Look out a few years (the next three to five, let’s say), and the Whitewater Unified School District has difficult prospects.  Beyond that conditions may get better, but getting better may simply mean recapturing lost ground rather than net gains from today’s circumstances.

The district faces perpetual, structural deficits, made somewhat less difficult only through perpetual revenue-cap-exceeding referenda. 

Immediate solutions involve preserving programming (but at the cost of hollowing the district’s labor force).  If the WUSD isn’t yet an uncompetitive option for talented new employees, it soon will be. 

As state and national policy favors testing and measurement at almost every turn, district achievement will be measured against nearby districts and the state.  A dispirited workforce and uncompetitive employment offerings will assure that scores will fall below peer districts.  See, Kidney-Selling as a Threat to the City’s Future and Whitewater YES is Right, for Now.

Attempting to spin poor scores as good ones will persuade no one.  It’s a mug’s game.   (I’m not a supporter of frequent testing – I think it’s a mediocre person’s idea of what it looks like to be exceptional – but at least people can see the difference between reliable data and sketchy presentations.)

The same insiders who have flacked scores will find that Whitewater will seem behind nearby districts. 

There are few in Central Office – that is, among the full-time administrative staff –  who show significant evidence of having the political skills to move to long-term solutions.  The last few years will prove easy compared with the next few. There are very sharp politicians in this town; I don’t know if anyone at Central Office seems suited this way. 

What to do?

1.  Forget touting scores. 

2. Prepare for programming and capital cuts on a meaningful scale.

3. Promote labor over capital. 

4. Forget leading with the budget; lead with the curriculum.  Presenting the district’s budget manager (described with Whitewater’s customary title inflation as the budget director) as though he were an Asst. District Administrator will prove politically disadvantageous in the years ahead. 

The over-reliance on a budget director, citizens’ budget team, etc., will only exacerbate tensions when deeper cuts, and comparisons with other districts’ scores, take their political toll. 

Outside of a few people, no one in the city will focus on team this, or team that – the buck will rest with the board and district administrator, no one else.  It would be easier to hide behind someone’s apron than to use a citizens’ team or budget director as a shield.  

That the district has skated by this way does not mean that the ice isn’t getting thinner, and will be unable to support the weight of these efforts. 

5. The district needs to take, into its own hands, promotion of its accomplishments.

6. The district needs to present errors and limitations honestly.  This administrative team has about as much of Old Whitewater’s penchant for small-town puffery as any team in town. 

If I were cynical – and I’m not – I’d say that exaggerations are easily pilloried and are advantageous for blogging. 

Because I see Whitewater through clear eyes, and have confidence in her long-term prospects, I know that the only consequence of pretending all is well is that these administrators will find themselves unable to succeed in the more difficult times ahead.  That’s a huge loss for Whitewater, and so a loss for all of us in the city. 

The sooner these administrators make a break, the better off Whitewater will be.  If they don’t, they’ll find that although Whitewater’s long-term outlook will still be positive, that eventual success will belong to another team.  

Needless to say, the district’s success or failure isn’t about administrators; it’s about a generation of students.  It’s merely the case that administrative corrections now will help both students and officials.  Failure to correct will hurt both groups.  

What these administrators and board members choose to do, in the near future, I cannot say. 

The consequences of their actions, whichever course they choose, are much easier to predict. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.28.15

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in the Whippet City will be sunny with a high of sixty-three. Sunrise is 5:52 and sunset 7:52, for 14h 00m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 72.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets this afternoon at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1947, Thor Heyerdahl begins the Kon-Tiki Expedition:

The Kon-Tiki expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. The raft was named Kon-Tiki after the Inca sun god,Viracocha, for whom “Kon-Tiki” was said to be an old name. Kon-Tiki is also the name of Heyerdahl’s book; the Academy Award-winning documentary film chronicling his adventures; and the 2012 dramatised feature film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. Although most anthropologists as of 2010 had come to the conclusion they did not,[1][2][3] in 2011, new genetic evidence was uncovered by Erik Thorsby that Easter Island inhabitants do have some South American DNA,[4] lending credence to at least some of Heyerdahl’s theses. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. Although the expedition carried some modern equipment, such as a radio, watches, charts, sextant, and metal knives, Heyerdahl argued they were incidental to the purpose of proving that the raft itself could make the journey.

The Kon-Tiki expedition was funded by private loans, along with donations of equipment from the United States Army. Heyerdahl and a small team went to Peru, where, with the help of dockyard facilities provided by the Peruvian authorities, they constructed the raft out of balsa logs and other native materials in an indigenous style as recorded in illustrations by Spanish conquistadores. The trip began on April 28, 1947. Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days over 6900 km (4,300 miles) across the Pacific Ocean before smashing into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947. The crew made successful landfall and all returned safely.

Thor Heyerdahl’s book about his experience became a bestseller. It was published in Norwegian in 1948 as The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas, later reprinted as Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft. It appeared with great success in English in 1950, also in many other languages. A documentary motion picture about the expedition, also called Kon-Tiki was produced from a write-up and expansion of the crew’s filmstrip notes and won an Academy Award in 1951. It was directed by Thor Heyerdahl and edited by Olle Nordemar. The voyage was also chronicled in the documentary TV-series The Kon-Tiki Man: The Life and Adventures of Thor Heyerdahl, directed by Bengt Jonson.[5]

The original Kon-Tiki raft is now on display in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Bygdøy, near Oslo.

Here’s Puzzability‘s Tuesday game in this week’s Giving Away the Ending Series:

This Week’s Game — April 27-May 1
Giving Away the Ending
You’ll need to do a little detective work this week. For each day, we started with the title of a well-known mystery book and replaced all the letters in each word—except the last letter—with asterisks.
Example:
A  ****Y  *N  ******T
Answer:
A Study in Scarlet
What to Submit:
Submit the book title (as “A Study in Scarlet” in the example) for your answer.
Tuesday, April 28
**D  ***N  ****E  ***E  ***E

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

Working Bibliography

by  • 

WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 3 in a series.

Updated 6.22.15.

Last week I promised a working bibliography (one that’s a work in progress, subject to updates) of what the City of Whitewater has published or said about a digester project. That bibliography appears below.

I’ll offer a few remarks about it:

  • Each presentation below raises numerous questions about the project, and I will list them in subsequent posts.  Some of the remarks at one meeting contradict those made later, some of the claims (even significant ones) are without information or evidence, and there’s almost no discussion of environmental or health consequences from a plan that would increase the amount of waste Whitewater imports and exports to a volume well beyond our city’s resident population.
  • These questions have not been asked at any stage of the project, despite more than one discussion about it.  (On the contrary, some of the responses to presentations are little more than cheerleading.)
  • Anyone reading or listening to these documents and meetings will quickly see that there is obviously a great deal of information that hasn’t been published, but that falls within Wisconsin’s Public Records Law, Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31-19.39.
  • Although I begin with a 12.3.13 presentation to Whitewater’s Common Council, that’s almost like opening a book halfway through: that presentation makes clear that much discussion had already taken place by the time Wastewater Superintendent Tim Reel spoke to Council.
  • Through these meetings, there are references to other meetings for which the City of Whitewater has yet to publish any information.
  • I’ve added meetings concerning Trane, a vendor in this discussion, although they’ve disappeared from current discussions about the digester.  Their former presence and current absence are relevant and material to this project.
  • No meetings listed below concern lobbying for trucking into the city, although a local business lobby’s interest in protecting truck routes into and out of Whitewater is relevant to any plan, like this digester plan, that depends on the importation of waste from other cities into Whitewater.
  • Descriptions of this digester plan, as part of a waste wastewater upgrade amounting to $20.7 million dollars, make clear how much the city has yet to do after that expenditure – there are near-term, government-mandated requirements that the wastewater upgrade will not address.
  • I’ve read and reviewed these documents previously, but checking and posting a list of them is a useful tool for future posts.  I’ll update this list as needed.
  • A list like this may not be particularly exciting to read, but it’s like a geode: the most interesting things lie inside.

small-geode
Council Common Presentation, 12.3.13 

Agenda http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2013/Complete_Packet_2013-1203d.pdf
Minutes http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/minutes/common_council/2013/2013-1203.pdf
Video https://vimeo.com/81042136

Common Council Vendor Presentation, 1.21.14 

Agenda http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014_1-21a__Complete_Council_Packet.pdf (link broken)
Minutes http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/minutes/common_council/2014/2014_01-21.pdf
Video https://vimeo.com/86074358

Common Council Discussion, 2.4.14 (Trane Contract)

Agenda http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014_2-4_Full_Packet_a.pdf
Minutes http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/minutes/common_council/2014/2014-02-04.pdf
Video https://vimeo.com/86074358

Common Council Discussion, 2.20.14 (Trane)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2-20-2014_Full_Packet_C.pdf
Minutes: Unpublished.
Video: https://vimeo.com/87518039

Council Discussion, 3.4.14 (Trane)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2013_3-4_Full_Packet.pdf
Minutes: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/minutes/common_council/2014/ccmin_2014-03-04.doc
Video: https://vimeo.com/88385707

Council Presentation, 4.15.14 (Trane)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014-0415a_entire_packet.pdf
Minutes: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/2014-0415.pdf
Video: https://vimeo.com/92172012

Council Resolution, 5.6.14 (including borrowing for Trane)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014_-_05-06_Complete_Packet_c_2_reduced_size.pdf
Minutes:Unpublished.
Video: https://vimeo.com/94519080

Council Presentation, 5.20.14
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014-05-20_Complete_packet.pdf
Minutes: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/2014-0520.pdf
Video: https://vimeo.com/96032772

Council Presentation, 6.17.14 (Donohue)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014-0617complete_packet.pdf
Minutes: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/2014-0617.pdf
Video: https://vimeo.com/98591644

Council Strategic Planning Session, 7/1/14
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014_0701_Council_Complete.pdf
Minutes: Not published at City of Whitewater website as of 4.27.15.
Video: https://vimeo.com/99763597

Council Discussion, 7.15.14 (Donohue)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014-0715_Council_Complete.pdf
Minutes: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/2014-0715.pdf
Video: https://vimeo.com/101042555

Council Discussion Closed Session, 12.2.14 (Trane)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/2014-1202_complete_packet_with_links.pdf
Minutes: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/2014-1202.pdf
Video: https://vimeo.com/113940875

Council Presentation, 12.16.14 (Donohue) and Closed Session (Trane)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/2014-1216_complete_packet_reduced_with_links.pdf
Minutes: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/2014-1216.pdf
Video: https://vimeo.com/113940875

Council Presentation, 3.3.15 (Donohue)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2015/ccagen_2015-0303.pdf
Minutes: Unpublished.
Video: https://vimeo.com/121301890

Council Presentation, 4.21.15 (Donohue, postponed)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2015/ccagen_2015-0421d.pdf

Donohue Technical Memoranda:
City of Whitewater website mainpage: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/residents/recent-news/2803-wastewater-facility-poised-for-upgrades
Project Timeline (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/public_works/wastewater/Estimated_Project_Timeline_12.19.14.pdf),
Memo 1 – Strategic Direction (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/public_works/wastewater/Donohue_Technical_Memo_1_-_Strategic_Direction.pdf),
Memo 2 – Flows, Loadings and Existing Conditions (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/public_works/wastewater/Donohue_Technical_Memo_2_-_Flows_Loadings_and_Existing_Conditions.pdf),
Memo 3 – Nutrient Management (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/public_works/wastewater/Donohue_Technical_Memo_3_-_Nutrient_Management.pdf),
Memo 4 – Digestion Complex and Energy Production (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/public_works/wastewater/TM_4_Digestion_Complex_and_Energy_Production_v4-final.pdf),
Memo 5 – Hydraulic Capacity (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/public_works/wastewater/Donohue_Technical_Memo_5_-Hydraulic_Capacity.pdf),
Memo 6 – Liquids Treatment Evaluation (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/public_works/wastewater/Donohue_Technical_Memo_6_-_Liquids_Treatment_Evaluation.pdf),
Memo 7 – Buildings & Support Facilities (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/public_works/wastewater/Donohue_Technical_Memo_7_-_Buildings__Support_Facilities.pdf),
Memo 8 – Recommended Plan (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/public_works/wastewater/Donohue_Technical_Memo_8_-_Recommended_Plan.pdf).

Whitewater City Manager Update, 2.6.15 (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/weekly-report/2837-city-manager-update-week-of-february-6-2015)

Whitewater City Manager Update, 2.20.15 (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/weekly-report/2852-city-manager-update-february-20-2015)

Whitewater City Manager Update, 3.7.15 (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/weekly-report/2873-city-manager-update-march-7-2015)

Whitewater City Manager Update, 3.20.15 (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/weekly-report/2875-city-manager-update-march-20-2015)

Whitewater City Manager Update, 5.1.15 (http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/weekly-report/2893-city-manager-update-may-1-2015)

School Board Presentation, 3.16.15 https://vimeo.com/122470431

Wastewater Upgrade Presentation, 5.28.15, http://www.dailyunion.com/news/article_67911a44-0607-11e5-9868-43725b0e315c.html

Common Council Discussion 6.2.15, https://vimeo.com/129697983

Wastewater Upgrade Presentation, 6.23.15, https://vimeo.com/131892711

City Manager’s State of the City Presentation, 9.17.15, https://vimeo.com/140321184

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Next Monday: Looking at the 12.3.13 Presentation.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.27.15

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in town will be sunny with a high of fifty-nine. Sunrise is 5:53 and sunset 7:51, for 13h 57m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 64.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1667, John Milton sells low:

Blind poet John Milton sells the copyright to his masterpiece Paradise Lost (1667) for a mere 10 pounds.

Milton was born and raised the indulged son of a prosperous London businessman. He excelled at languages in grammar school and at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he took a bachelor’s and a master’s, which he completed in 1632. He then decided to continue his own education, spending six years reading every major work of literature in several languages. He published an elegy for a college classmate, Lycidas, in 1637 and went abroad in 1638 to continue his studies.

In 1642, Milton married 17-year-old Mary Powell, who left him just weeks later. Milton wrote a series of pamphlets arguing for the institution of divorce based on incompatibility. The idea, however mild it seems today, was scandalous at the time, and Milton experienced a vehement backlash for his writing.

Milton’s wife returned to him in 1645, and the pair had three daughters. However, he continued espousing controversial views. He supported the execution of Charles I, he railed against the control of the church by bishops, and he upheld the institution of Cromwell’s commonwealth, for which he became secretary of foreign languages.

In 1651, he lost his sight but fulfilled his government duties with the help of assistants, including poet Andrew Marvell. His wife died the following year. He remarried in 1656, but his second wife died in childbirth. Four years later, the commonwealth was overturned, and Milton was thrown in jail, saved only by the intervention of friends. The blind man lost his position and property.

He remarried in 1663. Blind, impoverished, and jobless, he began to dictate his poem Paradise Lost to his family. When the poem was ready for publication, he sold it for 10 pounds. Once printed, the poem was immediately hailed as a masterpiece of the English language. In 1671, he wrote Paradise Regained, followed by Samson Agonistes. He died in 1674.

Here’s the Monday game in Puzzability‘s new weekly series, Giving Away the Ending:

This Week’s Game — April 27-May 1
Giving Away the Ending
You’ll need to do a little detective work this week. For each day, we started with the title of a well-known mystery book and replaced all the letters in each word—except the last letter—with asterisks.
Example:
A  ****Y  *N  ******T
Answer:
A Study in Scarlet
What to Submit:
Submit the book title (as “A Study in Scarlet” in the example) for your answer.
Monday, April 27
**E  **G  ****P