It’s a warm day ahead for Whitewater, with a high temperature of eighty-four degrees.
The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1899, the
Gideons Got Going
On this night two salesmen, John H. Nicholson and Samuel E. Hill, crossed paths a second time, in Beaver Dam. The pair had first met eight months before in the Central Hotel in Boscobel and discussed the need for some way to provide Christian support to traveling businessmen. During this second meeting in Beaver Dam the two decided to “get right at it. Start the ball rolling and follow it up.” They invited their professional contacts to an organizational meeting to be held in Janesville on July 1, 1899, at which the organization was formally named and chartered. By 1948, The Gideons had distributed over 15 million bibles world-wide. View more information about the founding of the Gideons elsewhere at wisconsinhistory.org [Source: Wisconsin Local History & Biography Articles]
Photography and recordings do much to safeguard citizens’ rights and protect honest officers against false accusations. Places in which officials discourage lawful, constitutional photography are ones in which officials not only act outside the law but also imprudently. There will be fewer injustices, and better policing, in a word of expansive photographers’ rights.
By the way, there have been encounters in Whitewater, Wisconsin at least as far back as the eighties in which citizens photographing buildings were told — falsely — that photographing public property was a crime in Wisconsin. (I know of no one who, having challenged this false claim of illegality, was then actually arrested.)
There are no guarantees, of course; someone who levels a false charge may be convinced of his position, and act on a wrong view. Those who challenge an official should be prepared for a protracted legal process. (Officials who badger lawful citizens count on a cumbersome process of appeal, of course, to dissuade legitimate conduct they don’t like.) That’s a choice wrongly imposed on harmless photographers; we’d be far better off in a world without these impositions on liberty.
Here’s the text accompanying the video:
Who will watch the watchers? In a world of ubiquitous, hand-held digital cameras, that’s not an abstract philosophical question. Police everywhere are cracking down on citizens using cameras to capture breaking news and law enforcement in action.
In 2009, police arrested blogger and freelance photographer Antonio Musumeci on the steps of a New York federal courthouse. His alleged crime? Unauthorized photography on federal property.
Police cuffed and arrested Musumeci, ultimately issuing him a citation. With the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union, he forced a settlement in which the federal government agreed to issue a memo acknowledging that it is totally legal to film or photograph on federal property.
Although the legal right to film on federal property now seems to be firmly established, many other questions about public photography still remain and place journalists and citizens in harm’s way. Can you record a police encounter? Can you film on city or state property? What are a photographer’s rights in so-called public spaces?
These questions will remain unanswered until a case reaches the Supreme Court, says UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh, founder of the popular law blog The Volokh Conspiracy. Until then, it’s up to people to know their rights and test the limits of free speech, even at the risk of harassment and arrest.
Who will watch the watchers? All of us, it turns out, but only if we’re willing to fight for our rights.
Produced by Hawk Jensen and Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Jim Epstein and Jensen. About 7.30 minutes.
An individual who has first broken the law, and then fails to prove his or her lawful presence in the U.S., may be held for up to 48 hours. During that time the person will be allowed to obtain appropriate documentation. If the person cannot produce the required documents, the matter will be referred to federal immigration services.
Note how Pridemore disingenuously or ignorantly describes his bill: he falsely contends that it applies only to those who have broken the law. No, and no again. His legislation would trigger a request for immigration status upon a mere arrest, with no conviction for any crime. This legislation would require that those detained prove their immigration status within forty-eight hours on mere accusation of a crime.
Pridemore must be able to see the difference between accusation (arrest) and guilt (conviction). When he says his legislation applies to those who break the law, but when the legislation demands immigration status simply when one is accused of breaking the law, one sees that Pridemore describes his own legislation falsely.
The best economic and social policy for America will always be free markets in capital, goods, and labor. The fewer restrictions, the better, for America’s prosperity and social harmony. Yet even among those who doubt the truth of that contention, one might expect an honest description of the Arizona-style immigration proposal they offer.
One more point: Pridemore shamelessly contends that his legislation would spare illegal immigrants from the stress and anxiety of staying in America. He says this only in the way a fox would suggest that he could spare hens the stress and anxiety of walking around uneaten.
Those who are here now, whatever their status, by their continuing presence indicate that they prefer being here, in Wisconsin, to whatever stress they might experience. If it were not so, they would go somewhere else.
On the contrary, it’s this legislation that puts a man or woman — and perhaps a whole family — on razor’s edge that otherwise peaceful lives might be turned upside down through a mere accusation.
I’m sure that there are some, in Whitewater, elsewhere in Wisconsin, or places even father beyond, who support legislation like Pridemore’s. Here’s a chance to comment in favor of that legislation. If not, then not (though you’ll support and vote for it just the same).
I’ll reply, though, so best as I am able, to arguments supporters might venture for Rep. Pridemore’s bill.
There’s a poll, below, for those who’d like to participate that way.
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.
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]
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.
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.)
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.
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:
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.
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.
