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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.4.13

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Good morning.

It’s a sunny Friday for the Whippet City, with a high of 29.  We’ll have west winds of 10 to 15 mph, 9h 9m of sunlight, 10h 13m of daylight, and tomorrow will be one minute longer.

On 1.4.1785, author Jacob Grimm is born:

On this day, the older of the two Grimm brothers, Jacob, is born in Hanau, Germany. His brother Wilhelm is born the following year.

As young men, the two brothers assisted some friends with research for an important collection of folk lyrics. One of the authors, impressed by the brothers’ work, suggested they publish some of the oral folktales they’d collected. The collection appeared as Children’s and Household Tales, later known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, in several volumes between 1812 and 1822.

On this day in 1923, Milton College takes a stand against dancing:

1923 – Student Dancing Banned
On this date Milton College president A.E. Whitford banned dancing by students in off-campus, semi-public places such as confectionery stores. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

The Roaring Twenties weren’t roaring everywhere.

Google-a-Day asks a question about auto racing: “The race car driver nicknamed Neiblemeister – master of the mist, was married to what famous female aviator?”

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.3.13

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Good morning.

Thursday brings a high of twenty-four, with west winds at 5 to 10 mph.

On this day in 1924, a notable archaeological milestone:

Two years after British archaeologist Howard Carter and his workmen discovered the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen near Luxor, Egypt, they uncover the greatest treasure of the tomb–a stone sarcophagus containing a solid gold coffin that holds the mummy of Tutankhamen.

When Carter first arrived in Egypt in 1891, most of the ancient Egyptian tombs had been discovered, although the little-known Pharaoh Tutankhamen, who had died when he was a teen, was still unaccounted for. After World War I, Carter began an intensive search for “King Tut’s Tomb,” finally finding steps to the burial room hidden in the debris near the entrance of the nearby tomb of King Ramses VI in the Valley of the Kings. On November 26, 1922, Carter and fellow archaeologist Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb, finding it miraculously intact.

Thus began a monumental excavation process in which Carter carefully explored the four-room tomb over four years, uncovering an incredible collection of several thousand objects. The most splendid architectural find was a stone sarcophagus containing three coffins nested within each other. Inside the final coffin, made out of solid gold, was the mummy of the boy-king Tutankhamen, preserved for more than 3,000 years.

On 1.3.1942, a then-Janesville company began its part for the war effort:

On this date Parker Pen in Janesville was awarded a contract for 35 million parts for anti-aircraft shell fuses. The contract was a subcontract from Borg Corporation in Delavan. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Google-a-Day asks about Canadian history: “Who opened the 23rd Canadian Parliament, the first monarch of Canada to open a parliamentary session?”

Crime, Health, Law, Laws/Regulations

Wisconsin and Marijuana and the Drug War

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Colorado and Washington State are backing away from the Drug War, having recently decriminalized minor marijuana offenses. The long-term prospects for widespread drug prohibition, of the kind we’ve had for a generation, aren’t good: it’s been too much money, and for no lasting gain.

It’s a fair guess that by the 2033, the hundred-year anniversary of federal Prohibition, a majority of states will have abandoned current anti-drug initiatives in favor of an approach that regulates marijuana like wine, reduces other narcotics’ criminal penalties, increases funding for addiction treatment, but costs less (overall) than the Drug War.

(I don’t smoke, and it’s an understatement to say that I’m not jonesing for a joint. Mine is a policy objection: the Drug War’s been ineffective at reducing use, left true & regrettable addiction unremedied, and wasted vast sums in the process.)

In this new framework, people won’t think drug use is a general good; they’ll just combat genuine addiction, where it exists, more directly. It will be a more healthful and yet less expensive approach.

Theses changes will reach us in Wisconsin, but they’ll probably reach Wisconsin after most of America has abandoned the Drug War. I think so on the basis of a post from Prof. Michael O’Hear of Marquette Law, entitled, “Why Does Wisconsin Arrest Twice as Many People for Marijuana Possession as Minnesota?”

O’Hear’s post isn’t about the future of the Drug War, but I think his observation that Wisconsin arrests more frequently (over 2x as often) than neighboring (and demographically similar) Minnesota for marijuana possession suggests that Wisconsin’s punitive approach will prove relatively intractable. (In fact, O’Hear notes that right now, the conventional War on Drugs is being fought in both Wisconsin and Minnesota.)

O’Hear writes that

It seems unlikely that differences in marijuana use could account for such a large difference in the arrest rates. Indeed, based on the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, it appears that marijuana use in Minnesota is, if anything, slightly higher than in Wisconsin. So, the differences in arrest rates probably result to a significant degree from differences in police behavior. What drives those differences is not immediately apparent from any data that I have seen.

As I have observed in earlier posts, differences in criminal-justice outputs between the two states cry out for justification because the two states are so similar in population size and crime rate.

Indeed, I began this series of occasional blog posts in order to try to better understand why it is that Wisconsin’s per capita incarceration rate is more than twice Minnesota’s.

Prof. O’Hear also observes – without ascribing motivation – the large disparity between the racial impact of marijuana arrests:

Whatever the cause of Wisconsin’s arrest rate, there is clearly a racial dimension to it, whether intentional or not. The marijuana possession arrest rate for black adults is nearly six times higher in Wisconsin than the rate for whites (1,255 per 100,000 residents versus 217). The racial disparity among juveniles is also quite pronounced (585 per 100,000 black; 189, white). Yet, surveys indicate that levels of marijuana use are at most only slightly higher for blacks than whites (e.g., 9.8% of blacks report using marijuana in the past month, as opposed to 8.5% of whites).

Similar rates of use, but six times the rate of arrests for black residents over that of whites.

I’d suggest that whatever motivates Wisconsin’s higher arrest rate, and also our disparate rate of arrest between blacks and whites, will prove an impediment to drug reform in our state. We’re starting out with a more punitive, and partial, stance over marijuana than elsewhere.

Current policies here will, over time, be discarded. (That’s a demographic certainty.)

It will just take more time here than elsewhere, I wouldn’t wonder.

Posted also at Daily Adams.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.2.13

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Good morning.

Wednesday brings a day of gradual clearing, a high of twenty-one, and a wind chill between zero and ten. There will be 9h 7m of sunlight, 10h 11m of daylight, with a waning gibbous moon.

On this day in 1905, the Russian surrender to the Japanese at Port Arthur was the first of a string of Japanese victories in the war between those two nations:

During the Russo-Japanese War, Port Arthur, the Russian naval base in China, falls to Japanese naval forces under Admiral Heihachiro Togo. It was the first in a series of defeats that by June turned the tide of the imperial conflict irrevocably against Russia.

In February 1904, following a Russian rejection of a Japanese plan to divide Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence, Japan launched a surprise naval attack on Port Arthur, decimating the Russian fleet. In the subsequent fighting, Japan won a series of decisive victories over the Russians, who underestimated the military potential of its non-Western opponent.

In January 1905, the strategic naval base of Port Arthur fell to the Japanese; in March, Russian troops were defeated at Shenyang, China, by Japanese Field Marshal Iwao Oyama; and in May, the Russian Baltic fleet under Admiral Zinovi Rozhdestvenski was destroyed by Admiral Togo’s fleet near the Tsushima Islands. These three crucial defeats convinced Russia that further resistance against Japan’s imperial designs on East Asia was hopeless, and in August 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt mediated a peace treaty at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Japan emerged from the conflict as the first modern non-Western world power and set its sights on greater imperial expansion. For Russia, however, the disastrous performance in the war was one of the immediate causes of the Russian Revolution of 1905.

Pres. Roosevelt, by the way, received the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for his role as mediator.

On 1.2.1918, Wisconsinites left for war in Europe:

1918 – Wisconsin Troops Depart for Europe
On this date the Wisconsin 127th and 128th Infantries departed for France from their training facility at Camp Arthur in Waco, Texas. Initially, these divisions were assigned to construct depots and facilities for troops that would follow. On May 18, they were assigned to the frontline at Belmont in the Alsace where they faced three German divisions. In the following months, 368 troops were killed, wounded or missing. Ironically, their enemy, native Alsatians, spoke German and the Wisconsin troops were better able to communicate with them than their French allies.

Google-a-Day asks a history question: “At what school did the man who was the great grandson of one president and the grandson of another president become a history professor in the 1870’s?”

City, Politics

Predictions for 2013

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Here’s my amateur version of the late William Safire’s long-standing tradition of offering annual predictions. The list for 2013:

1. In 2013, UW-Whitewater will win the following number of national sports championships:
A. None
B. One
C. Two
D. More than two

2. The Innovation Express Generac Bus will prove to be
A. A great success
B. A moderate success
C. A failure
D. A failure, and reveal years-long bungling from Janesville Transit

3. The Zoning Re-Write initiative will
A. Lead to the collapse of civilization within the city
B. Lead to the collapse of civilization everywhere (as the city is all there really is, after all)
C. Make no progress
D. Be a success

4. The Referendum Question ‘Move to Amend’ on the spring ballot will
A. Receive no votes in favor
B. Receive between 5 and 10 votes in favor
C. Win in a close vote
D. Win decisively

5. The Innovation Center will
A. Prove a huge financial triumph
B. Prove a moderate financial accomplishment
C. Barely chug along
D. Face a financial crisis by 2013 year’s end

6. Whitewater’s plan to combat the Emerald Ash Borer will
A. Be a complete success
B. Be a success justifying the effort
C. Fail
D. Fail completely, with those insects having destroyed all Whitewater’s ash trees, and seizing control of the city’s principal public buildings

7. By year’s end, the amount of vacant commercial space in Whitewater will be
A. Greater than in 2012
B. The same as 2012
C. Slightly less than 2012
D. Far less than 2012

8. Newspapers serving the Whitewater area will be
A. More in number and more read than ever before
B. The same in number and read about the same as before
C. Fewer in number and less read than before
D. Fewer in number and far less read than before

9. The Whitewater Unified School District’s post-union future will be
A. Mostly uneventful
B. Mostly uneventful, despite efforts from the right to spark controversy
C. Mostly uneventful, despite efforts from the left to spark controversy
D. Contentious

10. After spring elections, Whitewater’s Common Council will be
A. More conservative
B. More moderate
C. More liberal
D. There’s still no left or right in Whitewater’s local politics

Adams’s guesses for 2013:

1. In 2013, UW-Whitewater will win the following number of national sports championships:
D. More than two. I think three, making 2013 another very good year for the school’s athletics.

2. The Innovation Express Generac Bus will prove to be
D. A failure, and reveal years-long bungling from Janesville Transit. This will prove one grant-chasing mess.

3. The Zoning Re-Write initiative will
D. Be a success. It’s possible to re-write successfully.

4. The Referendum Question ‘Move to Amend’ on the spring ballot will
D. Win decisively. I don’t support the initiative (I think it’s anti-speech), but it will do very well on the ballot.

5. The Innovation Center will
C. Barely chug along. This is a case of scraping by.

6. Whitewater’s plan to combat the Emerald Ash Borer will
B. Be a success justifying the effort. There’s no likelihood of complete success in these efforts, but the ad hoc work of residents in 2012 and 2013 will give us a better outcome than many other communities.

7. By year’s end, the amount of vacant commercial space in Whitewater will be
C. Slightly less than 2012. I think slightly less, but that will only be evident in the second half of 2013.

8. Newspapers serving the Whitewater area will be
C. Fewer in number and less read than before. If there’s a paywall set up among any of them (and there’s really only one that could even make the attempt), expect overall readership to plummet. This may also be the year one them goes under.

9. The Whitewater Unified School District’s immediate, post-union future will be
B. Mostly uneventful, despite efforts from the right to spark controversy. There’ll be some stirring up of peripheral issues, and those harping on small matters will (predictably) ignore the more important topics of accomplishment and expenditure. We’ll fortunately avoid the sideshow fuss other districts have endured over minor policies.

10. After spring elections, Whitewater’s Common Council will be
B. More moderate. Over time, the city will become more outwardly ideological, and that change will produce a better politics (of left or right). It will be, however, a gradual process, and with some issues leading to combinations between more modern representatives of the left and right.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.1.13

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Happy New Year.

We’ll start off 2013 with a day of sunny skies and a high of only thirteen degrees.

On this day in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation took effect.

On 1.1.1836, a new territory:

1836 – Wisconsin Territory Formed
On this date the Wisconsin Territory was formed by an act of the Michigan Legislature. Brown County lost a portion of its original possession north of the Menominee River but gained the remainder of the eastern peninsula. Territorial officials were sworn on July 4th of the same year.  [Source: Sussex-Lisbon Area Historical Society]

Google-a-Day asks a history question:  “Which of Mary Stuart’s conspirators devised the plot to murder her cousin who, at the time, occupied the throne of England?”

From CNN, here’s a happy-panda-and-ball video to start the year:

City, Local Government, Politics

So, Three Municipal Managers Walk Into a Room…

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Let’s say the recently-hired municipal manager of a small city, with a population of just under fifteen-thousand, walks into a party. It’s a busy affair, with others standing and talking throughout the room.

Someone walks up to him, and says, “Hey, City Manager, did you know that your two immediate predecessors are here, too?”

This development could become more than circumstance; it could become an opportunity.

What to do?

There’s a simple, three-step process for a situation like this:

1. The current city manager should look around the room, and locate his two predecessors.

2. He should think about all the things they did while in office.

3. He should then make sure he doesn’t do any of those things.

Success.

Let’s be candid: the last two city managers had failed administrations. The former of the two was (ever so gently & politely) moved out, and the most recent one left after making a hash of project after project and after repeated attempts to find another city manager’s job were unsuccessful.

If they’d managed differently, after all, they wouldn’t have become the current city manager’s predecessors.

I know, and you know, that there’s a powerful desire of a few to pretend that everyone in authority has always managed as though a philosopher-king. It’s worse than an embarrassing habit of obsequiousness – it’s the cause of mediocre policy, of economic & political failure, and of cultural stagnation.

It’s also, without a doubt, demographically doomed. The upcoming generation, slowly replacing those now retiring, wisely and simply rejects these small-town appeals to mere authority.

Someone looking on decades yet ahead will find insufficient value in reliance on titles. In a city where many thousands of smart people are reading, writing, and talking to other each day, there’s the worthy accomplishment of an official’s perceptive work and there’s the flimsy crutch of status and position.

It’s easily possible for an official to have a long and successful career, with more than one approach on policy being viable.

It’s improbable, though, that anyone will get far by pretending that the botched past has been other than, simply put, the botched past.

City, Politics

Review: Predictions for 2012

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Here is my amateur version of the late William Safire’s long-standing tradition of offering annual predictions.

Let’s see how I did on predictions for 2012. The list for last year appears below, with my guesses in blue, and the correct answer in red. The guesses weren’t about what I (necessarily) wanted to happen, but what I thought would happen.

The list for 2012:

1. In 2012, UW-Whitewater will win the following number of national sports championships:
A. None
B. One
C. Two
D. More than two

Adams’s guess: C. Two. Same number of wins as in 2011.

Correct answer: D. There were four national championship teams: men’s basketball, women’s gymnastics, and men’s & women’s wheelchair basketball.

2. The Whitewater citywide vote for president will be
A. A clear win for the GOP nominee
B. A close win for the GOP nominee
C. A clear win for Pres. Obama
D. A close win for Pres. Obama

Adams’s guess: C. A clear win for Pres. Obama.

Correct answer: C. As in past years, the Democratic presidential nominee will swept the city.

3. In the Wisconsin presidential vote, the results will show
A. A clear win for the GOP nominee
B. A close win for the GOP nominee
C. A clear win for Pres. Obama
D. A close win for Pres. Obama

Adams’s guess: B. A close win for the GOP nominee.

Correct answer: C. Wisconsin wasn’t close. The only battleground state Gov. Romney won was North Carolina.

4. The national vote for president will be
A. A clear win for the GOP nominee
B. A close win for the GOP nominee
C. A clear win for Pres. Obama
D. A close win for Pres. Obama

Adams’s guess: B. A close win for the GOP nominee.

Correct answer: C. I assumed Romney would be the GOP nominee, but he didn’t perform well. There was no late-into-the-night uncertainty of the outcome as the results unfolded.

5. In Wisconsin’s 43rd Assembly district, the winner will be
A. Incumbent Evan Wynn easily
B. Incumbent Evan Wynn in a close race
C. The Democrat easily
D. The Democrat in a close race

Adams’s guess: D. The Democrat in a close race.

Correct answer: C. Rep. Jorgensen won easily; I underestimated the composition of the new district. It’s a ‘leans Democratic’ seat now. Wynn’s voting record was out-of-step for the district, his re-election campaign attacks were simply embarrassing, and Jorgensen is likeable and hardworking. A Republican could still take the district someday, but not on a version of Wynn’s platform.

6. In a recall election,
A. Gov. Walker will be recalled by a large margin
B. Gov. Walker will be recalled by a small margin
C. Gov. Walker will not be recalled
D. There will be no gubernatorial recall

Adams’s guess: B. Gov. Walker will be recalled by a small margin

Correct answer: C. Gov. Walker won easily, by a better margin over Barrett in ’12 than in ’10.

7. Whitewater’s North Street Bridge will be
A. finished in the first half of 2012
B. finished in the second half of 2012
C. never be finished
D. never be finished but become Whitewater’s leading tourist attraction (‘The Amazing and Exceptional Virtual Bridge’), complete with a large construction crane in the middle of the street

Adams’s guess: A. finished in the first half of 2012, but there’s an outside chance that it will D. never be finished but become Whitewater’s leading tourist attraction (‘The Amazing and Exceptional Virtual Bridge’), complete with a large construction crane in the middle of the street.

Correct answer: A.

8. In the Wisconsin State Senate recalls,
A. the Democrats will retake the Senate
B. the GOP will retain the Senate
C. the Democrats will retake the Senate but lose the majority again in November
D. there will be no Senate recalls

Adams’s guess: C. the Democrats will retake the Senate but lose the majority again in November. Redistricting matters.

Correct answer: C.

9. After spring elections, Whitewater’s Common Council will be
A. more conservative
B. more liberal
C. about the same
D. there’s no left or right in Whitewater’s local politics

Adams’s guess: C. about the same, and in any event, D. There’s really no left or right in Whitewater’s local politics

Correct answer: C. (But once can expect a left-right split to emerge slowly, where both left and right look different from yesterday’s politicians.)

10. In the US Senate race from Wisconsin, the winner will be
A. Tammy Baldwin
B. Tommy Thompson
C. Mark Neumann
D. Jeff Fitzgerald

Adams’s guess:

B. Tommy Thompson. Thompson defeats Neumann and Fitzgerald, and then wins against Baldwin.

Correct answer: A. As with the Wisconsin presidential results, the vote wasn’t close. Tommy ran a phone-it-in campaign; it wasn’t nearly adequate to the task.

This wasn’t a strong year for my predictive prowess, with only 4 of 10 right. That’s a cause of chagrin, as I’m the one who writes the questions….

I’ll try to do better next year. Since next year is only a day away, I’ve some crystal-ball gazing to do, pronto.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.31.12

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Good morning.

Whitewater’s last day of 2012 will be partly sunny with a high of twenty-seven, with temperatures falling in the afternoon.

On this day in 1946, long after actual fighting had ended, as a formality Pres. Truman proclaimed an end to the Second World War:

The state of hostilities, a term covering the period of actual fighting and one used in defining the duration of many war-time statues, alone was involved in the President’s proclamation, but this served to terminate immediately eighteen emergency laws and scheduled for expiration six months from now or later provisions of thirty-three other statutes.

End Set for Farm Price Support

One effect of the official ending of the period of hostilities will be to reduce the consumers’ tax bill by $1,500,000,000 when excise taxes on scores of luxury items will revert to peacetime levels on July 1, 1947, through lapsing of provisions of revenue laws, unless Congress continues them in the meantime.

It will also end automatically at the end of 1948 wartime price supports for agricultural products. This program, it had been estimated by officials, might be worth between $1,000,000,000 and $1,500,000,000 to the farmers by that time.

On this day in 1967,

1967 – Green Bay Packers Triumph in “Ice Bowl”
On this date the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys played in what many consider to be the greatest game in NFL history – The Ice Bowl. With the thermometer dipping to a shocking 13 below zero and a wind chill of minus 46, Bart Starr scored the winning touchdown from the 1-yard line with 13 seconds remaining, sealing a record third straight championship for the Packers, their fifth in seven years. Green Bay defeated Dallas, 21-17, to win the NFL Championship. [Source: Packers.com]

Google-a-Day poses a geography question: “Chapter 10 of “Geography of India” by Prithvish Nag, Smita Sengupta discusses what geographical feature?”

Twitter

Recent Tweets, 12.23 to 12.29

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Cartoons & Comics

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Badgers

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In honor of the Badgers trip to the Rose Bowl, I’ve found a cartoon about badgers (although not Bucky) that’s been viewed over 16,624,439 times.

(One can say it’s been watched by somewhere between the equivalent of one person for 14,238 days and 16,624,439 people for 1:14 minutes each.)

This is sure to be one of the most memorable cartoons you’ve ever watched. You’ll be dancing like this is no time…

Go Badgers!