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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).

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.17.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a mostly sunny day with a high of sixty-nine for Saturday’s citywide rummage sale. Sunrise is 5:30 AM and sunset 8:13 PM. The moon is in a waning gibbous phase with eighty-nine percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its unanimous opinion in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954).

Someone in San Francisco hacked a traffic sign:

godzilla-sign

On this day in 1673, a great expedition begins:

1673 – Jolliet and Marquette Expedition Gets Underway

On this date Louis Jolliet, Father Jacques Marquette, and five French voyageurs departed from the mission of St. Ignace, at the head of Lake Michigan, to reconnoitre the Mississippi River. The party traveled in two canoes throughout the summer of 1673, traveling across Wisconsin, down the Mississippi to the Arkansas River, and back again.  [Source: Historic Diaries: Marquette & Joliet, 1673]

City, Law

Caution on Publishing About Criminal Investigations

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In the servile rush to defend every big institution, it might help to consider that publishing about a criminal investigation, while simultaneously writing in the same item about an employee’s administrative suspension, can leave an innocent employee looking like a criminal suspect.

Following up with a ‘clarification’ a day afterward is better than no follow-up, but it still leaves a publisher mired in misleading reporting.

Conflating stories of administrative and criminal actions is a bush-league mistake, and is simply evidence of poor judgment.

Writing deserves more care than that.

Poll

Friday Poll: Record or Warn?

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In New Jersey, on a highway clearly marked with warnings against truck traffic, a motorist followed and recorded a truck before and after it struck an overpass.

The motorist knew that the truck was too large to fit underneath the bridges above the highway, and that it was only a matter of time before the truck hit one of those bridges.

Here’s the question: should the motorist have merely recorded the trucker, or tried to warn him? (Admittedly, the trucker was foolish to ignore signs along the road warning against truck traffic on a highway with low overpasses.)

Still, what would you have done?

Poll and video below —