Good morning.
Whitewater’s Wednesday forecast calls for scattered strong storms, with a high temperature of ninety-two.
Donald Driver visited Washington School on Monday, as a reward for that school’s state-leading clothing collecting drive for Goodwill Industries. Dan Plutchak’s Students share winning ways with Packers’ great Donald Driver nicely describes Driver’s visit.
Wired’s science video section offers an amazing clip of a coronal shower on the sun. Beautiful and majestic:
I’ve often teased about a false nostalgia, the notion that everything was better decades ago. (The contemporary version is a false boosterism, the insistence that everything is wonderful now.)
Some things, however, were better generations ago. One was once routinely taught that the fit subjects for criticism were typically peers and politicians. The expression is old; one doesn’t hear it anymore. The meaning’s simple enough: one criticized one’s peers or those with political authority, but others were generally unfit subjects of much criticism. (The press fell into the category of politics. Criminal conduct was, as a public matter, always a subject of commentary and debate, regardless of a person’s background.)
No one follows a broad rule without exceptions, but one was expected — at the least — to try to follow this rule. That’s why, for the most part, one could live one’s entire childhood without ever hearing criticism of working people. The idea that families sat around sneering at the working class is false; one would not have been able to make fun of working people without a strong rebuke. (Movies and television often portray older families laughing at the working class; it’s a dishonest portrayal.)
Now, one can freely criticize a working person without the slightest opprobrium, but to criticize a politician is decried as an offense against God and man. As for private working people, they’re now the subject of every calumny. They’re all thugs and savages and barbarians.
Madison is presently filled with insecure, haughty leaders, new to the majority, who revile working people while advancing rules for their own benefit.
Instead, it’s now criticism of leaders — of politicians and highly-positioned bureaucrats — that draws the most defensive, hysterical reactions. Having presented themselves as a called and distinct class, they react with fury at the thought that they might be criticized. They are thin-skinned toward commentary, and defensively quick to declare themselves a privileged group.
In this way, politicians are nothing like the faithful, for whom criticism today means little against the far longer history of God’s revealed tradition. In this way, politicians are nothing like an old family, for whom criticism today means little against the span of generations before.
These bureaucrats and politicians may insist upon seeing themselves as a class, but if such, then only as a selfish, self-regarding class, the worst Wisconsin has yet seen.
There’s a story, from yesterday’s Daily Union, about the Starin Road extension. See, Whitewater dedicates Starin Road extension.
In the story, Whitewater’s city manager advances a few justifications for the multi-million-dollar, taxpayer-financed extension: first for emergencies, then for connecting the Innovation Center to the campus, then as part of a package including bike trails. There’s no credible connection (other than common funding) between the three.
(That one reads that the Whitewater Department of Public Works received a new entrance and storage building, as a consequence of these millions, is simply embarrassing.)
These are not flush and easy times. For a better sense of the times as they really are, one might consider another story, from CBS News:
Good morning.
It’s a mostly sunny day ahead, with a predicted high temperature of ninety-five degrees.
There’s a Common Council meeting tonight in Whitewater. The meeting agenda is available online.
Every 69 Seconds Someone Develops Alzheimer’s
-Free Dementia Caregivers Conference June 7th-
An estimated 5.4 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease, and in 2010 over 14.9 million family and friends were responsible for their care.
The Alzheimer’s Association, in conjunction with A Day In Time Adult Day Care, Inc. in Lake Geneva, Home Helpers, and Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in Lake Geneva, are providing a free seminar for caregivers on Tuesday, June 7 from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. at the Monte Carlo Room in Elkhorn, Wisconsin.
Conference topics will include:
Guest speaker, James McCoy, MD, a family and geriatric medicine physician at Mercy Walworth Hospital and Medical Center in Lake Geneva, will provide insights on the diagnostic process as well as physician-caregiver relationships and treatment.
Free onsite respite will be available for caregivers who would like to attend this program and need care for their loved one. Registration is required; please call 920-728-4088 or 262-248-2922.
For information about the Alzheimer’s Association, Southeastern Wisconsin chapter, please visit www.alz.org/sewi. For information about Mercy Health System, visitwww.mercyhealthsystem.org.
Here’s the weekly message from the LP:
Dear Friend of Liberty,
John Edwards was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004, and he was a leading contender for the presidential nomination in 2008. We all now know he cheated on his wife and lied to America about it throughout much of that time. Now he’s facing potential jail time if convicted of using campaign funds for a cover-up.
Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner has put on quite a show lately.
The soap operas aren’t confined to Democrats. Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently confessed to cheating for decades and had a child he hid from the public for years.
Not that long ago, Newt Gingrich was cheating on one of his ex-wives while haranguing Bill Clinton over Monica Lewinsky.
A few other names come to mind: Al Gore, Mark Foley, Jesse Jackson Sr., Jesse Jackson Jr., and Mark Sanford.
Some people argue that these people’s private lives should not be of concern to the public.
A counter-argument is that people who lie about their private lives are also likely to lie about official business as well. Could they also lie about weapons of mass destruction, or global warming, or the necessity of a trillion-dollar bailout?
So what’s my point? That Libertarians are more honest than Republicans and Democrats?
Actually, no. My point is, human beings are fallible, and many of us are dishonest and easily corrupted.
That’s one of the reasons why government should have as little power as possible. When human beings have the power to control others’ lives, our natural fallibility makes us very dangerous.
What’s worse, power tends to corrupt us and make us even more dishonest, conniving, and cruel.
We Libertarians understand that humans are fundamentally imperfect, and we will always be imperfect.
Libertarians aren’t simply looking for honest politicians. We are looking for politicians who understand this problem, and who will stand on principle to take power away from government, and return it to the individual.
Sincerely,
Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee
Good morning.
It’s a hot day ahead for Whitewater, with an expected high temperature of ninety-three degrees. I’ll write what everyone will say today: stay hydrated.
Two days ago, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel republished, in memory of the anniversary today of D-Day, the editorial they published on June 6, 1944. It is as evocative today as it was then.
If there’s one essay to read today, the JS editorial would be that one. See, in full, The Battle for Freedom.
Dems avoided electoral disaster in passing over vain liar: Edwards Charged in Donor Case – WSJ.com http://on.wsj.com/kTZmKt
3 Jun
Gallup: More than 9 in 10 Americans Continue to Believe in God http://bit.ly/jVgQBA
3 Jun
Rest in peace — James Arness of ‘Gunsmoke’ dies – Leader-Telegram: http://bit.ly/loQs5Y
3 Jun
Depression: Janesville foreclosure sales total 20% — GazetteXtra http://bit.ly/kn1aoC
3 Jun
Having announced his retirement at the end of his current term, Senator Kohl leaves Wisconsin with an open election for the senate next year. Of possible candidates, which person seems promising to you?
Here are nine possibilities (six named candidates, other Republican, other Democrat, or a third-party candidate).
I’ve a list of a few from each major party, with other choices that you can add either in the comments section or select through the poll below by choosing ‘other’ or ‘third-party’ candidate.
No challenge this week, just this simple question.
The use of pseudonyms and anonymous postings is, of course, fine. Although the comments template has a space for a name, email address, and website, those who want to leave a field blank can do so. Comments will be moderated, against profanity or trolls. Otherwise, have at it.
The forum will be open until Sunday morning, and this post will stay at the top of the website during that time. Other posts will be up during that time; they’ll just appear below this one until Sunday.
This is no discernible recovery; this is no time for half-measures. Budget-cutting (simply to balance a budget) offers no solution. Cuts should me made to spur private investment and offer temporary, emergency assistance where necessary.
Empty tech park schemes and Gov. Walker’s wasteful road-building projects offer no opportunities for ordinary people. (These ideas don’t offer hope; they offer false hope, mere shuffling of public services from one town to another, and petty lies about ‘investment,’ ‘the future,’ etc.)
U.S. employers in May added the fewest number of workers in eight months and unemployment unexpectedly rose to 9.1 percent, underscoring Federal Reserve concerns the expansion is failing to boost the labor market….
Stock-index futures fell and Treasuries jumped as the report fanned concern growth is faltering amid a pullback in consumer spending, which comprises about 70 percent of the economy. The figures raise the odds Fed policy makers will hold interest rates close to zero into next year, said Julia Coronado, chief economist for North American at BNP Paribas in New York.
“These are pretty bleak numbers,” Coronado said. “Some of the engines of hiring just went away. Combined with the slowdown in consumer spending, it raises concern that the slowing in hiring could be with us for a while.”
Via U.S. Payrolls Rose Less-Than-Estimated 54,000 in May; Jobless Rate Is 9.1% – Bloomberg.
Good morning.
It’s a mostly sunny day ahead for Whitewater, with a high temperature of eighty-five degrees.
There’s a dedication this morning at 8 a.m. of a less-than-one-mile-long, two-million-dollar spur between Starin Road and the Business Park.
In our schools, there are various end-of-the-year adventures before the last day of school on June 9th. Have fun, having earned — surely — an adventure or two after a year of hard work.
For the Whippets at State today and tomorrow — good luck and best wishes.
From the Wisconsin Historical Society, there’s note of a birthday on this day in 1911:
1911 – Ellen Corby Born in Racine
On this date Ellen Corby (nee Ellen Hansen), TV’s Grandma Esther Walton, was born in Racine. The daughter of Danish parents, she grew up in Philadelphia and began her entertainment career in Hollywood as a chorus girl. She also worked as a script girl for RKO Radio Pictures for 12 years before making her 1946 film debut in “Dark Corner.” Corby is best known for her Emmy Award-winning role on The Waltons (1972-1979). Corby suffered a stroke in 1977. After a year’s convalescence, she resumed playing Grandma Walton, although she was visibly frail and unable to speak more than a mumble. After 1979, her character all but disappeared from the series only to reappear in the occasional made-for-TV movie/sequel featuring the Walton family. Corby appeared in over 100 films and is best known by movie fans for her role as the eccentric Aunt Trina in I Remember Mama (1948), a role for which she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Corby died on April 14, 1999, at the age of 87, at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. [Source: The Waltons.com]
I’ve written before about Rep. Don Pridemore’s immigration bill. A copy of the introduced draft appears immediately below.
For a story from the Menominee Falls Patch, in which Rep. Pridemore claims he has sponsors lined up, see Pridemore Defends Controversial Immigration Bill – Menomonee Falls, WI Patch.
For a column in which a normally soft columnist expresses his opposition, see Chris Rickert: Pridemore’s immigration bill seems misguided.
Finally, for my own preliminary remarks, see Weekend Comment Forum: Arizona-Style Immigration Restrictions.
