FREE WHITEWATER

America, History, Law, Liberty

Understanding America Backwards

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There’s a longstanding maxim of liberty that Americans inherited from England: ‘those things not prohibited by law are permitted.’ The burden is on the state: if there’s no express ban under law, then a person is free to act. 

Since government has to enumerate restrictions if it wants to enforce them, a free society places a practical limitation against constraints on liberty.

(A companion maxim of liberty applies in reverse to the government, itself: the state may do ‘only those things expressly permitted under law.’)

It’s a tragedy of our times that so many officials, and especially small-town ones, believe and act in the opposite and worse way: they assume that action may be limited unless they expressly concede otherwise. 

Most of these same officials consider themselves proud Americans, yet they’re ignorant of even these fundamentals of liberty.  Although those of this ilk may consider themselves proper representatives of our tradition, they’re closer to the hectoring party cadres of third-world autocracies.  

Posted also @ DailyAdams.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.20.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a forty-percent chance of afternoon thunderstorms on a day with a high of eighty.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

In Wyoming, a videographer recorded a time-lapse video of a supercell’s formation. It’s truly impressive, as both natural phenomenon and one person’s recording of it.

Consider the possible reactions to a violent storm or unexpected natural development.

On May 19, 1780, widespread forest fires near the Great Lakes caused so much smoke that they darkened New England’s skies. At the time, New Englanders did not know the reason for the daytime darkness. (It’s only now, after examining tree rings, that scientists believe the cause of the darkness can be claimed with confidence.)

Those in America then, fighting the mightiest power on Earth, might be forgiven for thinking darkness at noon was a worrisome sign, perhaps of the end of the world. Corey Adwar, at Business Insider, writes on what one state legislature considered in response to the darkness.

What legislators considered, and how one of them responded, is memorable:

The Connecticut Legislature, in session during the darkness, debated whether to adjourn because of the possibility that the world was ending. “I am against adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not,” said one legislator, Abraham Davenport, according to CNN’s history of the incident. “If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty.”

This, I think, from Abraham Davenport, is an example of a deep faith: to commit to the right, so best as one can see it, trusting thereafter in divine mercy.

There was a legislator worth supporting.

Here’s Puzzability‘s Tuesday game:

This Week’s Game — May 19-23
Paying Tribute
For each day of our parade this Memorial Day week, we started with a word, added the eight letters in MEMORIAL, and rearranged all the letters to get the name of a famous person. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the shorter one first.
Example:
Computer failure; Miami Heat point guard
Answer:
Crash; Mario Chalmers
What to Submit:
Submit both pieces, with the shorter one first (as “Crash; Mario Chalmers” in the example), for your answer.
Tuesday, May 20
Actor Cox of Deliverance and RoboCop; female half of the classic Variety headline “Egghead Weds Hourglass”

City, University

The Town-Gown Divide, Simply Illustrated (in Forty-Four Seconds)

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Whitewater is a small town, of about fifteen thousand people. From east to west, the main road in town is about three miles long. Our town is lovely, but not a big place.

For years, this small town has struggled with town-university conflicts, despite myriad committees, projects, task forces, and commissions.

There’s no quicker illustration of the town-gown gap than the introduction from the university’s chancellor to our small city’s Common Council and Planning Commission members this spring.

Here’s that introduction:

A Greeting as Though from Afar from John Adams on Vimeo.

For goodness’ sake, the chancellor addresses residents in the very same, small town as though they were travelers from another land, as though they’d only just arrived from faraway Patagonia.

They haven’t. They live in the same modest town in which the chancellor lives. It’s both funny and false, stiff and awkward, to speak as though the city and campus were separate realms. A visit to campus is not a visit to Olympus; a visit in town is not a trip to another continent.

It’s all one place, merely a few miles across.

Thinking and speaking otherwise is why we’ve not closed the town-gown gap.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.19.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday will bring a partly cloudy day, with a high of sixty-six, and a one-third chance of late afternoon showers.

Whitewater’s Fire & Rescue Task Force meets at 7 AM.

Perhaps you thought of pancakes for breakfast this morning. Preparation can be time-consuming, unless you have a PancakeBot, like the one that debuted at the Bay Area Maker Faire:

On this day in 1588, the Spanish Armada sets sail for England. It doesn’t go so well for them:

A giant Spanish invasion fleet was completed by 1587, but Sir Francis Drake’s daring raid on the port of Cadiz delayed the Armada’s departure until May 1588. The Invincible Armada consisted of 130 ships and carried 2,500 guns and 30,000 men, two-thirds of them soldiers. Delayed by storms, the Armada did not reach the southern coast of England until late July. By that time the British were ready.

On July 21, the outnumbered English navy began bombarding the seven-mile-long line of Spanish ships from a safe distance, taking full advantage of their superior long-range guns. The Spanish Armada continued to advance during the next few days, but its ranks were thinned considerably by the English assault. On July 28, the Spanish retreated to Calais, France, but the English sent ships loaded with explosives into the crowded harbor, which took a heavy toll on the Armada. The next day, an attempt to reach the Netherlands was thwarted by a small Dutch fleet, and the Spanish were forced to face the pursuing English fleet. The superior English guns again won the day, and the Armada retreated north to Scotland.

Battered by storms and suffering from a lack of supplies, the Armada sailed on a difficult journey back to Spain through the North Sea and around Ireland. By the time the last of the surviving fleet reached Spain in October, half of the original armada was destroyed. Queen Elizabeth’s decisive defeat of the Invincible Armada made England a world-class naval power and introduced effective long-range weapons into naval warfare for the first time, ending the era of boarding and close-quarter fighting.

Puzzability begins a new series of games today, entitled, Paying Tribute:

This Week’s Game — May 19-23
Paying Tribute
For each day of our parade this Memorial Day week, we started with a word, added the eight letters in MEMORIAL, and rearranged all the letters to get the name of a famous person. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the shorter one first.
Example:
Computer failure; Miami Heat point guard
Answer:
Crash; Mario Chalmers
What to Submit:
Submit both pieces, with the shorter one first (as “Crash; Mario Chalmers” in the example), for your answer.
Monday, May 19
Real heels; dictator’s wife known for her excessive spending

Animals, Science/Nature

A Good Day for Nine Beagles

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On May 6, 2014, Beagle Freedom Project rescued nine beagles from a laboratory in Nevada. Until this day, these beagles had never known a kind touch, been loved or felt safe. Their lives are about to change forever.

The policy questions concerning these dogs include (1) whether this testing is necessary, (2) whether it should be government-funded, and (3) why laboratory animals are not more often rehabilitated to private care.

University

Comparing Org Charts: UW-Whitewater and the Pentagon

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Strange but true: UW-Whitewater’s administration has an org chart that’s only slightly less detailed than the one for the UnIted States Department of Defense.

It’s understandable that the Pentagon should have an intricate structure: America is a vast continental republic, with a large navy, army, air force, and marine corps. (One wishes we had few military obligations abroad. Nonetheless, the size of the Pentagon’s current org chart makes sense considering our current commitments.)

The UW-Whitewater org chart is simply overdone and silly: two pages, including – wait for it – a four-levels deep succession plan for times when the chancellor is unavailable.

Our campus is one of thirteen four-year schools in the University of Wisconsin System, where Wisconsin is one of fifty states in America. Across those fifty states, there are thousands of four-year colleges.

It’s silly to pretend that one school’s chancellor is so very vital and indispensable that he or she requires that kind of succession plan.

This university administration cannot make itself better through laughably overdone charts, plans, or pronouncements.

To those who have recently graduated — congratulations, as you have achieved something worthy through your efforts and those of supportive teachers, friends, and families.

Success comes – as it has many times – from the individual and group accomplishments of students, supported by teaching academics and sadly-unheralded staff members, not from the preening of top administrators.

Charts below —

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.18.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We have a lovely day ahead: sunny, with a high of sixty-seven, and southwest winds of ten to fifteen mph.

On this day in 1980, the Mount St. Helens volcano explodes, killing dozens.

On this day in 1863, Wisconsin regiments begin participating in the Siege of Vicksburg:

1863 – (Civil War) Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Begins

After nearly three weeks spent encircling Vicksburg, Mississippi, Union forces had bottled up their enemy inside the city and prepared to attack it. Seventeen different Wisconsin regiments were involved in the assault that began the next day (8th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 23rd, 25th, 27th, 29th and 33rd Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 1st, 6th and 12th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries as well as the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry).