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Comment Forum

Weekend Poll and Comment Forum: Merchants’ bans on politicians

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Reason‘s Nanny of the Month for August 2011 features something different this month: a ban Reason supports. In Michigan, private tavern owners are banning public legislators over an anti-smoking law they say is killing their businesses. Patronage has plummeted, and the barkeeps have decided to strike back by excluding those who have hurt their taverns’ profits.


Michigan Bar Owners Ban Lawmakers for Banning Smoking! (Nanny of the Month, Aug 2011)

They’re banning pet pigs in St, Charles, Missouri (even small, hypoallergenic ones like Pepper!) and Nice Cream in Illinois (even though it’s packed with natural ingredients and the owner says its bacterial levels are well below state-approved levels!), but neither of those could claim the top slot because – well, this time Nanny of the Month is doing something different…

For the first time ever Nanny of the Month is cheering a ban.

That’s right, starting September 1, more than 500 Michigan restaurant and bar owners are banning state lawmakers from their establishments. State Senator So-and-so wants a brew? Too bad. Politicians won’t be served until they revisit the state’s 2010 smoking ban, which, owners say, has devastated business, and left bars like Sporty O’Tooles on the verge of collapse.

What do you think? Do you support a merchant action like this? Merchants may lawfully prohibit certain potential customers, so long as they do not run afoul of anti-discrimination statutes (this ban on anti-smoking legislators would be legal).

Although efforts like this can backfire, I’d support a tavern-owners’ ban on anti-smoking politicians (even though I don’t smoke). It’s a good idea, now and gain, to remind legislators’ that their actions have consequences for common people, and that as politicians they aren’t immune from diverse consequences of their legislation, either.




Comments will be moderated against profanity and trolls; otherwise have at it. This post will be open until Sunday morning.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 9.2.11

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Good morning.

It’s a hot and rainy Friday in store for Whitewater, with a high of ninety-one, and scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon.

The Wisconsin Historical Society writes that, on this day in 1862, Wisconsin residents were in the grip of an ‘Indian Scare’ —

On this evening, Manitowoc settlers were awakened to the cry of “Indians are coming.” Messengers on horseback arrived from the Rapids, Branch, Kellnersville, and other nearby communities, announcing that Indians were burning everything in their path, starting what was known as the “Indian Scare of 1862.” Fire and church bells gave warning to frightened residents.

Over the next few days, people from the surrounding areas fled to Manitowoc and other city centers. Ox carts were loaded with women and children carrying their most valuable belongings. Men arrived with guns, axes, and pitchforks, anything with which to defend themselves and their community.

A company of recruits from the Wisconsin 26th Regiment formed themselves into two scouting units, both of which returned to report that there was no threat of an Indian attack. Even after the excitement had subsided, many frightened farm families could not be persuaded to return home. [Source: Manitowoc County, Wisconsin Genealogy]

Had they thought carefully, these Wisconsinites would have seen that the real threat to Wisconsin, and all America, lay elsewhere.

 

 

Law, Press

Justice Gableman’s Dodgy Recollection (Updated)

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Update, 6:45 PM: Gableman changes his story, now says altercation with Bradley was 2009, not 2008. Incredible.

But he had previously  said that he knew it was 2008, because he had only been on the court a short while (“…reports also quote him as saying he had been on the court for about a month at the time. Gableman began his 10-year term on the high court Aug. 1, 2008.)  Via Wisconsin State Journal.

Original post:

Over at the Wisconsin State Journal today, Dee Hall’s story about Justice Gableman’s flimsy recollection of an altercation offers reason to doubt his truthfulness, but reason also to believe in the quality of Wisconsin journalism. See, Justices dispute Gableman account of second altercation involving Bradley.

The lede: “Three Wisconsin Supreme Court justices are disputing an allegation by Justice Michael Gableman that Justice Ann Walsh Bradley rapped him on the head during a 2008 meeting at which they were reportedly present. Gableman relayed the alleged incident to Dane County Sheriff’s deputies during the investigation into a June 13 altercation between Bradley and Justice David Prosser.”

Gableman told Dane County detectives that he made a joke about Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson (apparently by using her first name, following a line from the film Airplane!), and said that Justice Bradley rebuked him for disrespect by hitting him on the head.

Although Gableman said he remembered the date (9.18.08) well because it was his birthday, the supposed encounter is unlikely — it turns out court was not in session, and the justices were not present in their offices that day.

This is a powerful contradiction: Gableman initiated the claim, was specific about the date, and the claim impugned Bradley’s reputation by describing her to be pugnacious, and willing to hit someone.

One more point, that deserves making, as Hall’s story does make it — many people over the years have called Shirley Abrahamson by her first name, and neither she nor those around her have ever seemed troubled by it. On the contrary, that’s very common.

Only a person ignorant of the social scene Abrahamson navigates would think calling her by her first name would incite a rebuke, let alone a hit to the head.

Gableman’s either given to deep confusion or shallow lies.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 9.1.11

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Good morning.

It’s a warm day ahead for Whitewater: sunny and ninety-one degrees.

For students across the city, school begins today.  Best wishes for a year of accomplishment and adventure.

Using images from the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have created an animation of early stellar formation:

Using 14 years’ worth of Hubble Space Telescope images, astronomers have animated the chaos inside the supersonic jets of newborn stars.

Hubble took still photographs of the jets from 1994 through 2008, and animators used image-morphing models to create seamless videos that put the jets into motion….

High-speed jets shoot out of distant pulsars, black holes and other objects across the universe, but the closest ones come from newborn stars within the Milky Way some 1,350 light-years away. George Herbig and Guillermo Haro first spotted these nearby jets in the 1950s, lending them the name Herbig-Haro objects. Astronomers have since discovered roughly 400 of them, and more than 100,000 likely exist in the Milky Way alone.

Beautiful and fascinating.



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Freedom of Speech, Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty

Recall Signs on Lawns as Protected Political Speech

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There’s a lingering – but easy to answer – question about whether it’s legal to put a conventional, ordinary-sized ‘Recall Walker’ sign on your private lawn.

Yes, it is. It’s a free speech right that cannot be abridged by state or local election ordinances limiting the mere display on private property of conventional political signs. See, Fiedorowicz v. City of Pewaukee. (The size and format of signs can be regulated in limited ways, but their mere display is protected.)

Over at the Fox Point Patch, there’s a post entitled, With No Recall Effort Under Way, Are Walker Recall Signs Legal?

In the post, it’s clear that some officials are unclear about American law, and seem to think that a Wisconsin election statute (when election signs can be displayed) or local ordinance can trump federal and Wisconsin constitutional speech rights. They can’t.

Even a village attorney seems unable to speak sensibly on this issue. The post notes that “Christopher Jaekels, who serves as village attorney for Whitefish Bay and Bayside, said he just informed both villages about a week ago not to enforce the state statute because of different court rulings, including the 2004 court case out of Pewaukee [i.e., Fiedorowicz].”

That’s sound advice. But then Attorney Jaekels is cited supporting police conversations with residents about ordinary signs on private property:

Meanwhile, Whitefish Bay police say they will remove political signs if they are in a public area like a park and will go talk to residents about political signs in private property if a complaint is filed.

Jaekels said he believes Whitefish Bay police are on the right track. While they don’t absolutely enforce the removal of signs on private property, he said it’s about being courteous to your neighbor, because no one wants to stare at a political sign year round.

Did Attorney Jaekels say that? That police should talk to residents about removing lawful political signs on private property, if a complaint is filed?

Municipal law is hard, mostly because when the client is the municipality, local politicians will really want to hear what they want to hear. Pandering to appease a client that dislikes political criticism is an easy, but later often troublesome, course.

Jaekels has been around a while, but this is foolish advice. It doesn’t matter whether some people ‘don’t want to see a sign year round.’ (It probably seems cunning in a certain way: maybe no one will complain, if they do nothing will come of it, or if something comes of it one can blame a court for siding with dissenters, malcontents, etc.)

The communities he counsels risk litigation when police or other officials ‘talk’ to residents about removing ordinary political signs (Recall Walker, Impeach Obama, Vote Nader, whatever) on their lawns.

That’s a risky proposition: after all, it’s how the City of Pewaukee found itself on the caption of an expensive, federal lawsuit.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.31.11

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Good morning.

It’s a partly sunny day for Whitewater today, with highs in the lower eighties.

The key to alternative fuels from plants may be microbes like those in pandas’ stomachs.  That’s because Pooping Pandas May Make Better Biofuels:

“We’re taking refuse — panda poop and the microbes that live there — and trying to break down another form of refuse,” says Ashli Brown, a biochemist at Mississippi State University. Brown described her team’s results on August 29 at a meeting in Denver of the American Chemical Society.

Pandas eat bamboo almost exclusively, but don’t have a multichambered stomach like cows to help digest all those plants. It’s basically in one end and out the other, and “anything residing there to break down woody material has to be very efficient,” says Candace Williams, a graduate student on Brown’s team.

Here’s one of the Memphis Zoo pandas that were the particular subject of the study:



Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.30.11

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Good morning.

For Whitewater today, afternoon showers with a high temperature of seventy-eight.

There are myriad consequences of a recession, but here’s one of which I’ve heard only now – Recession-sensitive parenting: Child rearing by mothers with gene variant became more aggressive.  An NYU researcher noted the susceptibility of some mothers:

Recent economic woes in the United States may have triggered a temporary upturn in the use of harsh parenting methods by mothers carrying a particular gene variant.

Mothers who inherited either one or two copies of a particular form of the dopamine D2 receptor gene, dubbed DRD2, cited sharp rises in spanking, yelling and other aggressive parenting methods for six to seven months after the onset of the economic recession in December 2007, sociologist Dohoon Lee of New York University reported August 22 at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting.

Hard-line child-rearing approaches then declined for a few months and remained stable until a second drop to pre-recession levels started around June 2009, the research showed.

Mothers who didn’t inherit the gene variant displayed no upsurge in aggressive parenting styles after the recession started, Lee and his colleagues found.

It’s another reason to favor prosperity.

 

Police

Whitewater’s Next, Permanent Police Chief

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I’ve written before about Whitewater’s search for a police chief, now concluded in the selection of Lisa Otterbacher as the city’s next, permanent police chief. (The remaining few steps are procedural, and simply met.) For an earlier post on the search, see During Whitewater’s Police Chief Search.

It was right to conduct a more public search process. Repetition of public processes is better over time.

It’s been only about five months since then-chief Coan’s departure, but as with many managerial departures, it might as well have been five years: people typically look forward, not backward.  Most leaders, whether good or bad, are seldom long remembered – people pay attention to what’s close at hand, not managers who’ve retired.

Among the candidates in the field, two things may be said confidently: there’s no reason to think any was more persuasive than Otterbacher, and all were more persuasive than Coan would have been.  In fact, it’s nearly impossible to imagine Coan being comfortable in so public a process.  He was not supportive of televised commission meetings, as ironically the current commission president — who now lauds this very process — was once not.

Coan’s long presence is both Otterbacher’s advantage and disadvantage.  It’s her advantage, because she follows that long, odd tenure, and is sure to be more conventional (as a genuine value) than Coan was as chief.

But it’s a disadvantage. too, as his long tenure doesn’t represent merely actions that were deeply mistaken, but omissions and inaction, the absence of what should have been.  It’s hard for people to see, and feel, how much better things might have been, all these many years.  What’s been missing entirely is harder to find.

Other towns nearby haven’t had the controversies that Whitewater has had because they didn’t have the chief, and chief’s policies, that Whitewater had; it’s that simple.

It doesn’t matter in the slightest what Otterbacher says of Coan’s long-enduring administration; it matters only how she acts in succession to it. His small but dutiful clique of supporters were useless to him in the end: his tenure ended poorly despite their many efforts, the consequence of own misguided policies.

It wasn’t a public relations problem; it was a policy and perspective problem.  (I doubt among that number there are many who grasp, let alone admit, as much. It’s still true.)

Whitewater makes much, to her disadvantage, of the need for the ‘visionary.’  It’s mostly the neediness of small-town officials, and supposed vision descends into the grandiose, and from there to self-parody.  Coan and Boden exhibited this striving need, as Brunner does now.  It’s like crack for small-town bureaucrats.

(This is why, for so many of them, the answer to a mistake is simply to repeat, ever more absurdly, that all is well.  Their supposed success is always another, sugary press release, another fawning story, away.)

If Whitewater finds some significant measure of normalcy from Otterbacher’s selection, it won’t be a small feat.  On the contrary, if we wind up there after having been where we were, it will be a major accomplishment.

There’s probably no particular direction or perspective that will be necessary for success.  There are certainly some directions and perspectives, having been tried, that are best avoided now.

I’ve no way of knowing how this will turn out, five or ten years on.  Many of those who’ve played a role, of whatever kind, in Otterbacher’s selection will have retired from the public scene by then.

That probably seems like a lifetime from now; then again, her predecessor’s departure already seems like a lifetime ago. What she makes of all this is mostly within her own control and of her own account, as it has been for other leaders in the city previously.