Somewhere, there’s a particularly regal orange tabby —
Cats
Friday Catblogging: Orange Tabby as Lion
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 5.27.11
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Today’s Whitewater forecast calls for a mostly sunny day, with a high temperature of sixty-three degrees.
From the Wisconsin Historical Society, a reminder that there are no terrestrial utopias, the trying for one notwithstanding:
1844 – Utopian Community Founded Near Ripon
On this date the first settler moved to the Fourierite utopian community in what is now Ripon. This communal society was based upon the teachings of Charles Fourier, a French Socialist, who urged the rebuilding of society from its foundation as the only cure for economic hardship. This especially appealed to those suffering from the 1837 Depression. The communal village was named Ceresco after the goddess of agriculture, Ceres. Also known as the Wisconsin Phalanx, the community thrived for six years, with membership reaching 180 in 1845.
The community officially disbanded in 1850 after many members decided to farm for their own profit. Families gradually left the commune to work and live on their own property. The center of the commune, the “Long House,” remained vacant until the 1930s when people suffering from the Great Depression found shelter and comfort there. Community founder Warren Chase said of the failed community “It was prematurely born, and tried to live before its proper time, and of course, must die and be born again. So it did and here it lies.” [Source: Wisconsin Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes, pg. 94-104]
Economy
Economy: Signs of a Slowdown
by JOHN ADAMS •
Business Insider has a story online entitled, The Economy: Signs of a Slowdown. The economy is slow; it may be slowing still more. It’s hardly a high-octane magazine, but then stating the obvious doesn’t require high octane.
If our economy were strong, we’d have less reason to think about it. It’s weak, so it compels notice. For every person who merely writes that he’s concerned about the economy, there are dozens who are afflicted and suffer for its poor performance.
One could try to ignore the topic, but ignorance will bring recovery no sooner.
There’s much talk about austerity and balanced budgets, but we need more than a balanced budget (however hard that is to achieve) — we need cuts sufficient to reduce taxes on productive enterprises (to spur growth) and also cuts elsewhere to assure additional emergency assistance for those now destitute. When status-quo Republicans or Democrats talk about a balanced budget, as though that were enough, they’re doing Wisconsin a disservice.
In Whitewater, in Wisconsin, and in America, we should cut significantly on corporate welfare (subsidies), empty publicly-financed ‘development’ schemes, loans to business cronies, and supposedly ‘necessary’ services to able-bodied, middle-class people. While looking for wasted spending, America could do without dozens of amphibious warships to land on distant shores lacking any genuine and lasting interest for us.
Government should support principally (and respectively by jurisdiction) a reasonable police, fire, or national defense, and those services to prevent suffering among the unemployed, destitute, ill, or disabled.
When one hears that our economy is weak, one should be thinking about more — much more — than balancing a budget.
Now would be the time to try something different.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 5.26.11
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Today’s forecast calls for a windy day, with a high temperature of fifty-six degrees.
Whitewater Schools will hold a public listening session tonight, at 7 p.m., about proposed budget cuts. (For commentary on those cuts, see On Whitewater Schools’ Proposed Budget Cuts.)
I posted earlier on how cats drink (Friday Catblogging: How Cats Drink), and it turns out dogs drink the same way, only sloppily. X-Ray Video Shows Dogs Drink Like Cats, Just Sloppier has the details, and an x-ray video for proof:
Crime
Over-Criminalization
by JOHN ADAMS •
Anthony Cotton has an article online about Wisconsin’s criminal law, entitled, “Wisconsin needs to address over-criminalization.” Cotton writes that
A fundamental principle of the American justice system is individuals should not be subject to criminal prosecution and penalties unless they intentionally engage in inherently wrongful conduct or conduct that they know to be unlawful.
With this principle in mind, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, finished a long-term study on the dangers of over-criminalization.
The report, called “Without Intent,” found that by the end of 2007, the United States code included over 4,450 federal crimes. Many of these crimes have weak or no mens rea [intent] requirements. In response to this study, the House Judiciary Crime subcommittee held a hearing on over-criminalization, but to this day little meaningful reform has occurred.
The obvious danger of over-criminalization is that an increasing number of law abiding citizens will inevitably find themselves subject to criminal prosecution for behavior that is not inherently wrong.
….the same problems with over-criminalization exist here in Wisconsin. As evidence, one need only look at the local county jails and Huber (work release) facilities. So many people are locked up for so many offenses, that most facilities can no longer accommodate the inmates.
In response to these problems, many local sheriffs’ departments have elected to release Huber inmates on electronic monitoring. In some counties, such as Milwaukee, Dane and Winnebago, many Huber inmates will never serve a single day in custody – they will be placed on electronic monitoring and be required to remain in their residences during non-working hours.
The constant ratcheting up of criminal penalties has resulted in unintended consequences and a perverse situation the public is largely unaware of: more people face the prospect of more criminal charges (and with that, longer periods of time in jail), yet fewer people are actually serving that time in a jail setting.
When everything becomes a crime, nothing will be meaningfully criminal.
There’s a second problem, of criminal penalties: we are foolish to rely so much on penalties, even Draconian ones, to prevent criminal behavior. We have made, and will continue to make, criminal all sorts of behavior, but injuries from crimes still plague our cities and towns.
We’re well-past time for invigorated preventions efforts.
Every time someone drinks and drives, injuring or killing another, the criminal law has failed to deter an immeasurable and irreparable loss. Nothing the law offers, no human effort, can truly compensate a family or make a person so injured whole again. We use these terms, not for their literal accuracy, but as mere approximations of a justice we cannot deliver
And yet, and yet, we repeat a demand for greater penalties, at great cost to our state, while thinking less of public and private efforts to reform conduct. We will raid house after house, with so many people chasing each other, and stumbling around, but months later we will have the same problems we did before, now more covert, distributed more widely in smaller groups.
I’ll not argue against more stringent penalties, but I’ll wager that no penalties we impose will alone be sufficient.
We have wealth enough to persist as we have persisted for decades yet to come, but that persistence — that stubborn reliance on criminalization and punishment alone — will not prevent countless additional injuries.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 5.25.11
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
It’s thunderstorms ahead for the Whippet City, with a high temperature of fifty-nine.
There are myriad animals and plants on earth, and more species are being discovered all the time. Arizona State University has dedicated an institute, the International Institute for Species Exploration, to cataloguing new discoveries. They’re out with their 2011 list of Top Ten Species Discoveries. Explorers have come upon previously unrecorded animals like a barking spider, pollinating cricket, Louisiana pancake batfish, and a bioluminescent mushroom.
What’s that batfish look like? Exotic and other-worldly, only it’s from among the diversity of this world:
Image courtesy Arizona State University.
Government Spending, School District
On Whitewater Schools’ Proposed Budget Cuts
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Whitewater Unified School District has a public meeting scheduled for Thursday, May 26th at 7 p.m. on proposed budget cuts. A list of those proposed cuts appears at the bottom of this post, along with an embedded video of the latest school board meeting (from 5.16.11).
These cuts (the 5.20 proposal) are significant and fair. There’s sure to be someone who’s legitimately upset about a program being cut, but if we are to have prudent governance of this district, these cuts are necessary. It will be a test of board’s resolve to enact them. If even this is not possible, the failure to follow through will be a harbinger of worse problems.
The estimated savings is about one-half million dollars, and nothing is better evidence that the district can cut significantly and still maintain core services. This should be a positive example for the City of Whitewater, where cuts are long overdue (with only two members of council having proposed significant cuts during last year’s budget discussion.)
There’s one note — a considerable one — of caution in the district’s proposal, that emerges after reviewing an earlier version, from 5.06. The 5.20 version properly includes cuts to individual leadership benefits to approximate cuts to individual teachers’ benefits.
(Embarrassingly, the 5.20 proposal calls these cuts ‘voluntary.’ Voluntary: what else would they be? Unless brigands broke into Central Office, and stole from the benefits packages of each and every principal or administrator, of course these leadership cuts would be voluntary.)
Here’s the significant problem of outlook and ethos: these leadership cuts should have been in the first proposal (5.06), and been the first cuts of any kind. One leads by example, and if one is to lead those who experience salary, benefit, or program cuts, then one must accept his or her own cuts first.
This is no trivial matter — to whom much is given, much is expected. The leaders of this district — as with the leaders of the City of Whitewater — should understand that they must be the first to experience cutbacks. There is no principled alternative. There never was, there never will be.
These cuts are a step in the right direction, but as with much else in uncertain fiscal times, they’re likely only a first step.
Budget Reduction Recommendations for the 2011-2012 School Year *
(items appear in alphabetical order)
(revised 5/20/11)
4K and Head Start Program
Restructuring 4K district and UW-W staff $15,000
Additives (language per CBA)
Eliminate MS weight room supervision-$705, HS fitness classroom/weight room supervision- $940, HS W Club -$705- $2,350
Athletics
Reduce 1 varsity football coach – $3,290
Eliminate HS boy’s tennis and HS girl’s golf programs -$6,000
Buildings and Grounds
Eliminate Buildings and Grounds Director (non-represented position) and work with independent contract to devise a district capital plan – $20,000
Lawn care contract renewed at lower rate than the 2010-11 school year – $5,000
Building Budgets
5% reduction of all building budgets – $30,000
5% reduction of central office budget- $6,000
Building Leadership Teams
Eliminate elementary building leadership teams – $8,000
Core Academics
Reduce @HS .83 Science – $62,250
Eliminate Washington school bubble teacher (5th) and create LV multi-age (1st -2nd) classroom – $75,000
District Leadership Team
Voluntarily opened up contracts to contribute to Wisconsin Retirement System ($58,000) and health insurance ($22,000) – $80,000
Diversified Services
Reduce services by $10,000
Physical Education
Do not fill Lincoln PE position, transfer (.75) PE from MS to LN
.50 PE from HS to LV and .50 PE stays at HS
Reduce district wide PE by .25FTE – total of all departmental changes – $90,000 for all adjustments
Related Arts
Reduce FACE @ HS by .25 FTE- $12,750
Reduce @ MS .25 FTE (Introduction to World Cultures at 6th, Spanish and French remain@ 7th/8th) -$18,750
Title II
Receive approval for LINCS multi-age and inquiry based teacher trainer to be funded by Title II – $81,125
Total budget reduction- $525,515
Total FTE reduction district wide – <.50> district wide
*All items listed are predicated on Board approval and pending health insurance rates.
* All FTE calculations except the Title II position were based on a 1.0 FTE @ $75,000.
Cartoons & Comics, Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 5.24.11
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Our forecast for Tuesday is for a partly cloudy day, with a high temperature of sixty-two degrees.
Whitewater’s Police Commission meets tonight at 6 p.m. in open session. The meeting agenda is available online.
Over at Wired, there’s a video in which cartoonist Bobby Boyle of the children’s character Wubbzy shows how easy it is to draw cartoons. Step-by-step instructions for drawing Wubbzy are available online. Cartoons are very much a part of our popular culture, and have been for generations.
Public Meetings
Police Commission
by JOHN ADAMS •
Economy, Free Markets
AP: “In free market, seeds of Africa’s food solution”
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s an encouraging story about Africa today, from the Associated Press, about the power of free market to overcome chronic famine.
Peter Waziweyi is bouncing around the lush countryside of Mozambique in his 30-year-old truck, visiting his customers’ maize fields and relishing the sight of their rich, ripening crops.
In an East African country that tried and failed to run its economy on Marxist lines, it is now the turn of small-time businessmen like Waziweyi to step forward. Waziweyi is a seed salesman and part of a chain linking scientists and farmers that experts hope will help Mozambique and other African countries solve their chronic food crises.
Waziweyi has gone from aid worker to entrepreneur, producing high-yield, drought-resistant hybrid seeds and selling them through the company he and his wife founded last year, called “Nzara Yapera” – “an end to hunger”….
There is no economic match — in most aspects of life — for the freedom of markets in capital, goods, and labor.
If there is to be a solution to third-world hunger, it will be found no sooner than when formerly socialist, often Marxist, nations liberalize into market economies.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 5.23.11
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
It’s a rainy day ahead for Whitewater, with a high temperature of seventy-six degrees.
The Wisconsin Historical Society notes that on this day in 1878,
Tornadoes Devastate[d] Three Counties
On this date destructive storms swept through Dane, Jefferson, and Iowa Counties. Accounts of the storms indicate that three separate tornadoes touched down causing damage to farm buildings, land, and livestock. Two people died as a result and many others sustained serious injuries. The property loss was estimated at $63,000 in Iowa County, $43,000 in Dane County, and $23,000 in Jefferson County. [Source: The Wisconsin Mosaic]
Here’s video of a recent tornado, hitting near Sparta on 5.22.11:
Recent Tweets, 5.15 – 5.21
by JOHN ADAMS •
Hopeless: Gingrich Tells Limbaugh That His Phrase ‘Right-Wing Social Engineering’ Was Not A Reference To Ryan Plan http://bit.ly/mTQMF1
19 May
Amazon now sells more Kindle than print books Amazon News Release http://bit.ly/kBul6I
19 May
Citizen to candidate Newt Gingrich: “Get out now before you make a bigger fool of yourself” YouTube http://bit.ly/iEpzFk
17 May
Does anyone think he had much of a chance anyway? Newt’s Terrible No Good Very Bad Day(s) http://on.msnbc.com/mPcAZ8
17 May
MT @dailywisconsin: Embarrassing if, as Mike Allen implies, Politico scooped WI press: Thompson Plans to Run for Senate http://bit.ly/lA7i1a
17 May
America, you can sleep well tonight: Donald Trump says he is not running for president @Jaketapper http://abcn.ws/jCFBMm
16 May
FDA was *armed* during raid RT @reasonmag: Raw Milk Raid on Amish Farmer Highlights Stupid #FDA Tactics http://bit.ly/lihn36
16 May
RT @davidgumpert: 200 raw milk supporters gathering outside Russell Seate bldg Go Milk!
16 May
Walter Russell Mead offers fine assessment of what’s wrong with American elite Establishment Blues | Via Meadia http://bit.ly/j6XbFc
16 May
Cartoons & Comics
Sunday Morning Comic: Pearls Before Swine
by JOHN ADAMS •
Books, Free Markets
Wall Street Journal Book Review: Your Teacher Said What?!
by JOHN ADAMS •
When asked if it wasn’t hypocritical for a multimillionaire director of Hollywood films to denounce capitalism as “evil,” Michael Moore averred that the free-market economy “did nothing for me.” It was, presumably, a devotion to Sandinista economics that enabled his purchase of an expensive Upper West Side apartment and covered his daughter’s private-school tuition. While Mr. Moore’s gift for self-absurdity is rare, it is common to find capitalism’s beneficiaries bemoaning a system that generously rewards their talent and perseverance.
Such disapproval is not merely hypocritical and incoherent, says Joe Kernen, but wrong on the merits. In “Your Teacher Said What?!,” Mr. Kernen, a co-host of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” undertakes to demystify and defend the free market, not least for his 10-year-old daughter, Blake, who frequently peppers him with questions about how prices are set and whether or not greed is good….
Via Book Review: Your Teacher Said What?! – WSJ.com.
Your Teacher Said What? is available ay Amazon, in print and electronic editions.