FREE WHITEWATER

Twitter

Recent Tweets, 3.13 to 3.19

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Scenes from a Whitewater Union Rally, 3.18.11 | FREE WHITEWATER http://bit.ly/e4tyQ8
19 Mar

RT @TheAtlantic: Incredible photos from the 2011 Iditarod sled dog race: http://theatln.tc/eejyIy New from @in_focus
18 Mar

Badgers v. Belmont at 6:27 p.m.
17 Mar

Microsoft lands on list of world’s “most ethical” companies Probably on list of crappiest products, too http://bit.ly/ghIR9s
16 Mar

Simple and Reasonable Compliance with the Law | FREE WHITEWATER https://freewhitewater.com/?p=15357
16 Mar

Innovation Center embarrassment: photo of unfinished ‘laboratories’ section of building looks more like someone’s unfinished basement
16 Mar

Satellite Photos – Japan Before and After Tsunami – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com http://nyti.ms/hUbaND
13 Mar

Capitol Protest clip 3.12.11 » DAILY WISCONSIN » http://bit.ly/hcTFoL
13 Mar

DAILY WISCONSIN » Scenes from Capitol Protest 3.12.11 http://bit.ly/eaEpDw
13 Mar

Uncategorized

Wired Reviews Office Toys

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If you collect office toys, Wired has a video you’re sure to enjoy. It showcases some of the latest toy guns and arrows that are — supposedly — suitable (or at least safe) for the office. Purchase and use at your own risk…

We’re a playful people, and these gadgets are simply a consequence of that happy disposition.



more >>

Comment Forum

Friday Comment Forum: A Banner for Protesters?

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Here’s the Friday open comments post.

Tea Party groups commonly use the Gadsden Flag at their rallies; for union protesters, what would be a suitable flag or symbol? Alternatively, should they avoid any symbol?

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.

I’ll keep the post open through Sunday afternoon.

Freedom of Speech, Politics

Gadsden and Taunton Flags

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The Tea Party found its banner in the Gadsden flag, but I don’t know whether the union protesters will come to adopt a flag of their own. I saw that protesters at the Capitol were flying the Tautnon flag, used by patriots in Taunton, Mass.

The flag symbolized their hope for liberty and equal rights as part of Britain (“union”), before additional injuries drove them to call for independence.

The contemporary use of the flag in support of collective bargaining plays on the word union with a new meaning.

It’s notable that the original use of the flag showed that Americans were patient and hopeful, and sought liberty proudly and patiently before Britain’s repeated abuse made independence necessary.

In that way, contemporary use of the Taunton flag draws upon Americans’ historic hopes for compromise and peace.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.18.11

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Good morning,

It’s a partly sunny and mild day ahead for Whitewater, with a high of fifty degrees.

In our schools today, it’s Coffee with the Principal at 8:30 a.m., and Spirit Day at the middle school.

Quick note: I’ve had a fair number of questions about the possibility of new contracts for district employees.  Just as a charter school is measured by its charter, so a contract is measured by its terms; there’s not much to say without those details.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1954,

Parker Pen Employees Win Wage Increase
On this date employees of Parker Pen in Janesville won a 5-cent-an-hour wage increase in contract negotiations. After the raise, male employees made a base pay of $1.95 an hour while their female counterparts were paid $1.62 an hour. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Parker no longer has a factory in Janesville; the company dominated American pen manufacture for decades in the middle of the twentieth century.

Planning

Japanese Resilience through Evolving Policies

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Jesse Walker’s latest article at Reason is entitled, Resilient Japan: Three lessons from the week’s disasters. Here’s Walker’s assessment of Japan following natural and human disaster:

An 8.9 earthquake, a 33-foot tsunami, a series of crises at their battered nuclear plants: The people of Japan have withstood the last week with admirable tenacity. There’s no shortage of lessons the rest of the world can learn from what we’ve been seeing. Here are three of them….

Walker offers reasons Japan’s doing as well as she is, under terrible circumstances, and the third of them is the most important:

3. Resilient policies evolve; brittle policies are imposed….

Japan’s rules are far from perfect, but they evolved through experiment and experience, a process that Lawrence Vale and Thomas Campanella summed up in their 2005 book The Resilient City. Public authorities may try to introduce sweeping new plans after a disaster, they wrote, but “larger urban patterns are not easily or readily altered.”

More often, “particular building codes or practices may change in an effort to limit future vulnerability.” Japanese cities are dense, organic orders whose jumbled layouts are notoriously opaque to outsiders; the country’s citizens have a long history of resisting plans that would substantially reshape the city.

But over the last century they have incrementally altered their codes. Before 1965, skyscrapers were banned altogether, but with advances in engineering the government finally relented and allowed them to appear.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.17.11

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Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast calls for a chance of showers,  and a high temperature of sixty-four degrees.

It’s Market Day pickup at Lincoln School today, from 5 to 6 p.m.  During the day, the 8th grade band will tour Whitewater’s elementary schools.

Wired‘s published a science story today,  entitled “Oldest Female Elephants Have Best Memory,” about a study from England:

Elephant matriarchs 60 years of age or older tended to assess threats in a simulated crisis more accurately than younger matriarchs did, says Karen McComb of the University of Sussex in Brighton, England. When researchers played recordings of various lion roars, elephant groups with older matriarchs grew especially defensive at the sound of male cats. Younger matriarchs’ families underreacted, McComb and her colleagues report in an upcoming Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B.

So, elephants may have good memories, but aged females remember particularly well.