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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.26.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday will be cold with a high of eight degrees. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset 5:41, for 11h 06m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 58.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1993, a car bomb detonated at the World Trade Center kills six and injures over one-thousand:

An explosion apparently caused by a car bomb in an underground garage shook the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan with the force of a small earthquake shortly after noon yesterday, collapsing walls and floors, igniting fires and plunging the city’s largest building complex into a maelstrom of smoke, darkness and fearful chaos.

The police said the blast killed at least five people and left more than 650 others injured, mostly with smoke inhalation or minor burns, but dozens with cuts, bruises, broken bones or serious burns. The police said 476 were treated at hospitals and the rest by rescue and medical crews at the scene.

The explosion also trapped hundreds of people in debris or in smoke-filled stairwells and elevators of the towers overhead and forced the evacuation of more than 50,000 workers from a trade center bereft of power for lights and elevators for seven hours.

Here’s Puzzability‘s Thursday game:

This Week’s Game — February 23-27
Singled Out
There are hits missing this week. For each day, fill in the two-word title of a #1 hit song so that a familiar phrase or compound word is formed by the first word in the clue followed by the first word in the song title, and likewise a phrase or word is formed by the second word in the song title followed by the second word in the clue.
Example:
GILA ____ ____ NOTE
Answer:
“Monster Mash”
What to Submit:
Submit the song title (as “Monster Mash” in the example) for your answer.
Thursday, February 26
AFRICAN ____ ____ CHART

New Media, New Whitewater, Press, University

The Dark, Futile Dream

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UW-Whitewater is searching for a new chancellor, and so there’s a search committee, and a search consultant to guide that committee’s work.  The consultant is Dr. Jessica Kozloff, the former president of a small, undistinguished college in Pennsylvania.  (The UW System schools are, each of them, more competitive and developed than the one Dr. Kozloff led until 2007.)

Dr. Kozloff and others see, and perhaps dream, of a world where college presidents will act as they wish, when they wish, without meaningful scrutiny.  One can conclude as much after reading published remarks she made about the role of a college president:

One of the trends we’re finding in the search is that the role of the president is, to some degree, less attractive today because it’s everything from social media to the volatility of politics today,” she said. “All of that has sort of had an impact and made the role much more stressful, especially in a place that has a very, very negative media. However, that’s not going to be true here, so I think that’s going to help.”

Stressful, you see, because social media and the traditional media (at least, by her thinking, the ‘negative’ part of the traditional media) are watching public officials in the performance of their public duties.

I don’t doubt that Dr. Kozloff would prefer a world with a docile and fawning press, and without social media by which students, faculty, and residents might communicate news of administrative actions and decisions. 

Funny about all this: Kozloff is both laughably condescending and wrong at the same time. 

It’s too funny how she speaks to Whitewater’s insiders.  She speaks to them as though they were children, fit for a fairy tale about one Big Bad or another lurking in faraway places.  She speaks something like this: ‘Out there, beyond your safe little hamlet, lurk hungry reporters waiting to devour you.  Stay quiet, don’t make a sound, and maybe – just maybe – you’ll be safe.’

Funnier and sadder still would be the number that heard Dr. Kozloff speak and thought, ‘yes, that’s right.’

If these few are even half of what they claim to be, then why can’t they handle the thorough and series inquiries that come their way? 

It’s odd how wrong Kozloff is, too.  Of the traditional media, such as they now are, and where they’re heading, Kozloff seems profoundly ignorant. 

To be sure, she needn’t worry about the traditional print press of our area going negative; the only place they’re going is broke.  See, Last Call: The end of the printed newspaper.

They’ll not survive the media changes sweeping America – print (including the toadying one that yet persists in our area) – will not survive beyond the next several years.

At first blush, this demise might seem good for insiders, on the theory that no traditional print paper is better than any traditional print paper. 

Nothing could be more wrong.  The media that replace traditional print (with a few exceptions) will be more skeptical of authority, not less, as many of them will originate from non-traditional sources.     

As it stands now, most of the local print press is fawning, and willing to shill for almost any incumbent influencer or political swell it can find.  These pages upon pages are great for insiders’ scrapbooks, but the publications that churn them out have little time left. 

(Note to insiders: Hurry now to give yourselves every award you can concoct – there’ll soon be no admiring print publications to promote your ersatz honors. )

The loss of a supine press, catering to politicians, bureaucrats, and connected, big businesses, is a loss principally to insiders, not to advocates of good policymaking.

As for Whitewater particularly, media changes sweeping America will take from local town squires the reflexively supportive environment they falsely believe that they deserve.  No official in Whitewater will ever again operate without scrutiny. 

Consultant Jessica Kozloff will collect her money and drift away in some other direction. 

Her work will amount to nearly nothing.  Any insider relying on her counsel about the press, or one’s relationship to the community, will find himself or herself disappointed.  The cosseted environment about which she speaks crumbles all around; there’s no future in it. 

For our county and city, however, there is an irresistible movement toward better than we’ve had.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.25.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Wednesday will bring a fifty-percent chance of afternoon snow, on a day with a high of fifteen degrees. Sunrise is 6:35 and sunset 5:39, for 11h 04m 04s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 48% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Tech Park Board meets today at 8 AM, and the Community Development Authority at 5 PM.

On this day in 1949, actor Robert Mitchum gets out of jail:

Actor Robert Mitchum is released from a Los Angeles County prison farm after spending the final week of his two-month sentence for marijuana possession there.

In the fall of 1948, Mitchum, the star of classics such as Cape Fear and Night of the Hunter, was smoking a joint at a small party in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles when detectives burst in and arrested him. Mitchum reportedly said at the time, “Well, this is the bitter end of everything—my career, my marriage, everything.” In fact, it wasn’t really that bad. Mitchum was separated from his wife Dorothy at the time, but the two reconciled when she returned to support him through the scandal. And the public didn’t mind much either; Rachel and the Stranger, the first movie released after his troubles, was a box-office hit.

There is some reason to believe that Mitchum’s arrest was less than fair and designed to bring publicity to the Los Angeles Police Department’s anti-drug efforts. Although high-priced studio lawyers questioned irregularities in the case, it was later agreed that Mitchum would accept 60 days in jail and several years’ probation.

Mitchum died in July 1997.

Earlier this week, Alaska became the third state (and the first red one) to legalize marijuana for personal consumption.

Here’s Puzzability‘s Wednesday game:

This Week’s Game — February 23-27
Singled Out
There are hits missing this week. For each day, fill in the two-word title of a #1 hit song so that a familiar phrase or compound word is formed by the first word in the clue followed by the first word in the song title, and likewise a phrase or word is formed by the second word in the song title followed by the second word in the clue.
Example:
GILA ____ ____ NOTE
Answer:
“Monster Mash”
What to Submit:
Submit the song title (as “Monster Mash” in the example) for your answer.
Wednesday, February 25
PLAZA ____ ____ CONDOR

Misconduct, Politics

The Act Utilitarians

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The worst of officials, even in a fair society, look like a parody of utilitarians: as though they were the crudest act utilitarians, justifying any action merely by whether it produces a presumed, aggregate benefit of happiness.

(Motivated only consideration of aggregate human enjoyment, for example, a perverse society of dog-haters might commit acts of cruelty against animals. Needless to say, a well-ordered society does not tolerate animal cruelty, let alone revel in it.)

Even among the many kinds of utilitarianism (itself a kind of consquentialism), there aren’t many who would take so crude an act utilitarian position. 

The majority of utilitarians recoil from a simple act utilitarianism. (Most utilitarians are, I’d imagine, rule utilitarians, adhering to rules derived from their reflections on what produces happiness among many people living in well-ordered societies.) 

But among the thoughtless, or among the selfish, there’s little more justification beyond a simple-minded act utilitarianism – ‘we did what we did for the greater good’ (where that greater good is a supposed net satisfaction among members of a community). 

At best, this ilk is thoughtless because it ignores individuals and denies individual right and liberties; at worst it is selfish because the professed community good is, at bottom, merely the reputational interest of a few leaders, not the welfare of their communities. 

Yet, however extreme these views seem, do they not lie at the heart of countless institutional scandals?  In so many of those cases, is not one official or his minion liable to whisper, ‘Do you think that publicizing the injury to one or a few justifies tarnishing an entire organization’s reputation? Don’t you think that you should think of the greater good, and stay silent?’

The greater good in these cases isn’t the good of the institution, but merely the wrongful preservation of bad leaders’ reputations.  They shamelessly, selfishly wrap themselves in the garb of a large institution or great number of people, only to conceal their self-preservation. 

(One can guess that I’m no utilitarian, although I see some versions of utilitarianism as less objectionable – as less odious – than others.  That’s a subject for another time.  For now, my point is that poor policy often looks like the least persuasive, least palatable form of utilitarianism – it looks like utilitarianism as farce & tragedy.) 

Among the truly vile beliefs into which people may fall – racism, bigotry, unjustified aggression, and collectivism being notable examples – a severe act utilitarianism is surely also one. 

One will find it where officials neglect or otherwise injure the few, and then insist that such neglect or those injuries were justified for the sake of the many. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.24.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Whitewater has an even chance of snow today, with a high of twenty-eight. Sunrise is 6:37 and sunset 5:38, for 11h 01m 13s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 37.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a 1:30 PM hearing today on the termination of a Irvin Young Library employee. Later, at 4:30 PM, Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets.

On this day in 1868, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached Pres. Johnson for his dismissal of Sec. of War Edwin Stanton. (The Senate later acquitted Johnson.) The New York Times reported the proceedings:

The first act in the great civil drama of the nineteenth century is concluded. Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, stands impeached of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” It is of no use to argue whether his acts were right or wrong, whether the law he violated is constitutional or otherwise, or whether it is good or bad policy to proceed to this extreme. The House of Representatives, with a full realization of all the possible consequences, has solemnly decided that he shall be held to account in the manner prescribed by the Constitution for his alleged misdemeanors, and, be the result what it may, the issue is made. It must be met without delay, and the first step is already complete.

That the feeling here continues profoundly deep is evidenced by the grave character and solemn dignity of the proceedings of the House to-day. The unanimity of the Republican strength on this subject is one of the most surprising developments. Heretofore, there has been a majority of the Republicans in the House strongly opposed to appealing to the last resort, and it has been twice defeated. But the feeling now is that twice have they desisted, and thrice has the President accepted it as a special immunity from punishment on which he could rely. And now, regretting its necessity as much as ever, they accept the last resort as a stern but disagreeable duty, simply because magnanimity is no longer a virtue, and conciliation no longer a policy with a man who not only betrayed his party, but stops not even before his country’s peril. Such is their feeling; and they are ready not only to carry the issue through the Senate, but to that tribunal which is to give the final verdict — the American people.

Puzzability’s Singled Out game series continues with Tuesday’s game:

This Week’s Game — February 23-27
Singled Out
There are hits missing this week. For each day, fill in the two-word title of a #1 hit song so that a familiar phrase or compound word is formed by the first word in the clue followed by the first word in the song title, and likewise a phrase or word is formed by the second word in the song title followed by the second word in the clue.
Example:
GILA ____ ____ NOTE
Answer:
“Monster Mash”
What to Submit:
Submit the song title (as “Monster Mash” in the example) for your answer.
Tuesday, February 24
MURPHY ____ ____ CANE

Animals, Science/Nature

Watch Chimps Speak with Scottish Accents

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One might have trouble working out all the implications of British scientists’ findings that chimpanzees adopt the accents of other chimps when in a new environment.

ABC News reports that

After growing up in the Netherlands, nine chimpanzees who moved to the Edingburgh Zoo in Scotland five years ago are now reportedly sporting Scottish accents, apparently learned from their new Scottish zoo-mates.

According to a new study published in Current Biology, this breakthrough research is the first indication that chimps can learn different words, or tones, for different objects – in short, be bilingual.


World News Videos | ABC World News

The underlying study, Vocal Learning in the Functionally Referential Food Grunts of Chimpanzees, may be found online at Cell Symposia.

Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Culture, Education, Elections, Law, Local Government, Politics, School District, University, Waste Digesters

Policy Topics for the Spring

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In October 2014, I wrote about Four Public Topics for the Fall.  They seemed to be the city’s prominent public policy questions, looking ahead from 10.20.14. 

Those topics were (1) the 2015 City of Whitewater budget, (2) Whitewater Schools referendum, (3) UW-Whitewater’s social relations, and the (4) City of Whitewater’s waste digester proposal.

Now, as February 2015 slips away, I’d say that some of those topics yet linger, with others emerging. (These spring topics, below, are not listed by priority.)

Whitewater School Budget Cuts. The referendum’s long passed, and still this district and others are managing budget cuts.  There’s no equilibrium in sight. 

The budget questions – however difficult – are less concerning than long-term educational priorities.  (I wouldn’t always thought this way, but the recent use of educational test data as political talking points leaves me skeptical, generally. No one owes leaders or others what amounts to junk science, with contentions for political or economic gain resting on the misuse of data.)

My promised curriculum discussion, however, can wait until after the budget is (at least) more settled.  Budget choices will, in any event, give an indication of general priorities and specific compliance with legal obligations. 

Whitewater’s School Board Election  Three candidates are contesting for two school board seats.  These candidates are nothing alike: two well-know, local insiders  a generation apart in age, and one newcomer to local politics.  The newcomer has, herself, the strongest education; the insiders have name recognition, and in one case an obvious public-policy conflict of interest. 

The election offers questions on educational policy and priorities that deserve substantive answers.  We’ll have to wait and see what we actually get.

There will be a candidates’ forum on the first Saturday in March. 

Lots on this election to read, consider, and thereafter about which to write. 

UW-Whitewater’s Budget.  Gov. Walker has proposed cuts; there are sure to be some cuts (and probably most of what he’s proposed). 

The university will face choices it’s not had to confront before.

UW-Whitewater’s Social Relations.  About this topic, I mean both relations between people on campus, and between members of the university and the community beyond.  

Budget cuts matter greatly; treatment of people, as individuals, matters far more. 

There’s reason to be more concerned about this topic now than in October. 

The search for a new chancellor will take place, too.  A more insightful leader (or at least one less obtuse) would be a gain for university and city, both.

City of Whitewater’s Waste Digester Proposal.  City government promises more information in early March.  One can wait to see what the city proposes.

These spring topics wait ahead, with additional, unexpected topics possible, too. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.23.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Our Monday will be sunny and cold, with a high of nine degrees. Sunrise is 6:38 and sunset is 5:37, for 10h 58m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 27% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/us-flag-raised-on-iwo-jima“United States Marines raise the American flag on Iwo Jima:

The famous photograph taken by Rosenthal was the second U.S. flag-raising event of the day. On orders from Colonel Chandler Johnson—passed on by Captain Dave Severance—Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal Harlon H. Block, Private First Class Franklin R. Sousley, and Private First Class Ira H. Hayes (all four from the Second Platoon, Easy Company) spent the morning after the first flag-raising laying a telephone wire to the top of Mt. Suribachi. Severance also dispatched Private First Class

Rene A. Gagnon, the battalion runner for Easy Company, to the command post for fresh SCR-300 walkie-talkie batteries.[17]

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Albert Theodore Tuttle[16] had found a larger (96-by-56–inch) flag in nearby Tank Landing Ship USS LST-779. He made his way back to the command post and gave it to Johnson. Johnson, in turn, gave it to Rene Gagnon, with orders to take it up to Lt. Schrier on Mt. Suribachi and raise it.[18] The official Marine Corps history of the event is that Lt. Tuttle received the flag from Navy Ensign Alan Wood of USS LST-779, who in turn had received the flag from a supply depot in Pearl Harbor.[19][20][21]

horlicksmaltedtabletfrontw

On this day in 1846, a (malted) milk magnate is born:

1846 – William Horlick Born
On this date William Horlick was born in Ruardean, Gloucestershire, England. A noted food manufacturer and philanthopist, Horlick arrived in the U.S. in 1869 and settled in Racine. In 1872 he moved to Chicago with his brother and began to manufacture food products.

In 1876 his company moved to Racine where he began to experiment with creating a dried milk product. In 1887 he trademarked Malted Milk. In 1889 he opened a company branch in New York City and another in England the following year. He constructed additional plants in Racine in 1902 and 1905. The company name was changed to Horlick’s Malted Milk Co. in 1906. This success enabled Horlick to achieve a widespread reputation as a philanthropist in Racine. He also helped fund the first Byrd expedition to the South Pole and the Amundsen expedition to the North Pole. After his death in 1936, control of the company passed to his son, Ander James Horlick. [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, SHSW 1960, pg. 177]

Puzzability‘s game for the week is about hit singles:

This Week’s Game — February 23-27
Singled Out
There are hits missing this week. For each day, fill in the two-word title of a #1 hit song so that a familiar phrase or compound word is formed by the first word in the clue followed by the first word in the song title, and likewise a phrase or word is formed by the second word in the song title followed by the second word in the clue.
Example:
GILA ____ ____ NOTE
Answer:
“Monster Mash”
What to Submit:
Submit the song title (as “Monster Mash” in the example) for your answer.
Monday, February 23
HERE’S ____ ____ DUST