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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 5-21-10

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Good morning,

The forecast for Whitewater calls for a day of likely showers, and a high of sixty-seven degrees.

It’s Coffee with the Principal in our schools today, from 8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

Sometimes even the most impressive designs fail to account for actual behavior and ordinary conditions. There’s a story at Wired that illustrates this contention, entitled, “Video: An Artificial Butterfly Takes Flight.” Scientists at Harvard and the University of Tokyo designed an artificial butterfly, and it’s unquestionably impressive.

Here is a video of their project in flight:

Link: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid46203255001?bclid=46205328001&bctid=86641640001.

There’s just one problem, as Wired‘s accompanying story notes:

Engineers Hiroto Tanaka and Isao Shimoyama of Harvard University and University of Tokyo, respectively, created the tiny butterfly to try to understand the biomechanics of butterfly flight.

But the tiny machine may not teach us too much about how butterflies actually row through the air, said Robert Dudley, a physiologist at the University of California, Berkeley, co-author of the research to be published May 20 in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics.

“As a technical accomplishment, this work is impressive, but there are a number of aerodynamic and biological issues that need further attention,” Dudley wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com.

Butterfly flight is somewhat mysterious because it’s roughly the opposite of “as the crow flies.” Butterflies flit about rather than flying in a straight line. That actually costs them more energy, Dudley said, so scientists assume their looping flying serves some evolutionary purpose.

“The advantage is that it’s thought to be an anti-predator behavior,” Dudley said. “The claim is that irregular flight paths are a permanent signal of prey unprofitability.”

Would-be predators presumably take one look at the chaotic, loopy butterfly flight and decide to go after easier to predict snacks.

The Japanese researchers somewhat capture this oscillating type of flight with their plastic-winged flyer, but Dudley argued that the differences between the bot and a real butterfly are so great as to invalidate the biological lessons the researchers try to draw.

“There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this approach but it severely limits any claims to the biology,” Dudley said.

The original is not so easily matched… more >>

Uncategorized

Milwaukee County’s Immoral Utilitarianism: Update 6 (Chianelli Promises, “I’ll have to look into it.”)

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The more one looks, the more one sees that the director of Milwaukee’s Behavioral Department, and its Mental Health Complex, presides over an institution that has failed the mental patients who have sought, or been sent for, treatment there. John Chianelli, who cavalierly suggested a trade off of patient violence for patient sexual assault, confronts charge after charge of incompetence, inadequacy, and failure.

The Journal Sentinel reports, in Unsafe staffing levels hurt Mental Health Complex, union says,” that

Complaints by nurses over unsafe staffing levels at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex have surged this year, suggesting that short staffing could be a factor in a rash of patient assaults, nurses’ union officials said Wednesday.

For the first 4 1/2 months of this year, 167 complaints were filed by nurses with administrators at the complex, said Candice Owley, president of the Wisconsin
Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals.

That compares with 182 filed for all of 2009.

Chianelli’s response, when confronted with evidence of inadequate staffing was to say, “I’ll have to look into it.”

Oh, my. Here’s a man unfit to serve, for his perverse and immoral suggestion of a trade-off between male-against-male violence and male-against-female sexual assault. For that policy alone, a policy unsupported by serious medical literature as I have twice noted in this series, Chianelli should be fired. After the revelation of Chianelli’s policy, did Chianelli not think to review — immediately, and without fail until he was finished — every other aspect of the MHC’s operations?

He’s had weeks, and he still doesn’t know basic facts, revealing dangerous risks to vulnerable patients and staff members, such as simple staffing levels? What has he been doing these last few weeks?

He was unfit to serve based on this prior policy, but one can see now that he’s unfit and ungrateful: those who have flacked for him, and rushed to his defense, are defending not just an incompetent, but a particularly lazy one. After the first revelations, Chianelli should have found himself a huge coffee urn, and all the pastries in Milwaukee, and stayed up all night and day and night studying the operations of the hospital he oversees.

He shouldn’t have to say he’ll “look into it.” He should already know. Those who have defend him have defended a disgrace, someone who should be sacked immediately.

One can see also that in cases where workers at the MHC have union protection, unlike many who are under Chianelli’s direct authority, there’s a greater willingness to admit the truth about errors and misconduct at the facility. Chianelli’s use of testimonials from those who could have dismissed, including those who are accused of misconduct themselves, is no substitute for honest information from those who can speak without fear of possible dismissal or self-incrimination.

(I’ve written before about Milwaukee County’s Behavioral Health Division, and sexual assaults among mental patients at its Mental Health Center. BHD’s Director, John Chianelli, has implemented a policy of trading male-on-male violence among mental patients for male-on-female sexual assault. I’ve posted about Chianelli’s policy, and the tragedy that is conduct at the MHC, before. See, A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update: A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update 2, Update 3, Update 4, and Update 5.)

Laws/Regulations, Libertarians

Wisconsin Governor Doyle as a Dairyland Nanny

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Wisconsin Governor Doyle is a lame duck, with little more than half a year left in office. He may be thinking, now and again, about his next job. If he’s looking for a role as a nanny, scold, intrusive busybody, or condescending man, then his veto of a bill allowing limited raw milk sales will leave him in good standing. A business looking to hire someone who’d worry about everyone else’s business, would find a prime candidate in Jim Doyle.

Wisconsin is America’s Dairyland, but a dairyland only as special interests see fit. After the Wisconsin legislature sent Doyle a bill to allow dairy farmers in a dairy state to sell genuine, raw milk from Wisconsin dairy cows, Doyle decided to veto the bill. See, Governor vetoes raw-milk bill.

No one– no political group — believes more deeply in the ability of common people to decide for themselves than libertarians do.

When libertarians doubt the schemes and grandiose projects of bureaucrats and politicians, it’s because they see the harm to the good sense, skill, and judgment of common people. We see the proof and demonstration of our political convictions all around us: common people, just as we are, do extraordinary things through voluntary, cooperative arrangements on a scale that no public plan or project can match.

Those who seek to regulate ordinary Americans harm others and impede progress, often for no other reason than their political ambitions and patent narcissism. These selfish few look down on others, even though by any measure of talent or insight these political nannies are often far less capable than those they seek to regulate. (They see their own good judgment the way a thirsty man imagines an oasis.)

I would object to the meddling of a political class in any event, but I do so doubly when so many of those politicians, bureaucrats, and towns squires who afflict us are simply dull, excuse-making, rationalizing mediocrities. They are accomplished only in producing feeble, vainglorious pronouncements of their own supposed accomplishments, and collecting toadies and hangers-on to flack those pronouncements.

Wisconsin adults should be able to decide for themselves whether to drink raw milk. They don’t need Jim Doyle’s guidance; they’re more than capable of deciding on their own.

Fear Not!

Elkhorn, Law

Walworth County’s Arrogance of a Few

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Walworth County is a small rural county in southeast Wisconsin. There are diverse delights in the county, from the many capable, caring, common people who live here, and from the natural beauty visible from at every vantage.

Sadly, many of our politicians, bureaucrats, and judges are not among those delights. Even the simplest understanding seems to escape them.

One wonders: are you ignorant or arrogant enough to believe what you say, or do you think that others are ignorant or foolish enough to believe it?

There’s an example of the all that’s rotten about the administration of justice in Walworth County, in the Walworth County judges’ appointment of a court commissioner without notice to other, possible applicants. See, Attorneys question judicial appointment.

Following the election of a county court commission to the circuit court, the sitting judges of Walworth County exercised their authority to appoint someone to that position. They misused that authority — misused it in an way that would be apparent to even an average student — by failing to provide notice to any interested applicants:

ELKHORN – The day after David Reddy was elected Walworth County’s next judge, the remaining judges appointed someone to replace Reddy as family court commissioner.

Now, a group of attorneys is questioning whether the process should have been more open, giving other candidates a chance to apply for the job.

“Dave Reddy’s seat wasn’t even cold yet,” said Jeff Krebs, managing attorney of the Walworth County Public Defender’s Office.

Krebs brought up the issue at the most recent meeting of the Walworth County Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee, a group that brings together judges, prosecutors, cops and other county officials who deal with law enforcement issues.

“Members of the private bar had approached me because some of them, I think, were curious or perhaps interested in filling that position,” Krebs said.

The problem, Krebs said, is not the person the judges appointed, Kristine Drettwan, a part-time court commissioner and judicial assistant to the county’s four circuit court judges.

“Apparently, there are no guidelines to fill those positions,” Krebs said. “The judges made their selection and that was it. Apparently, that is the Walworth County way of how things are done. If they’re done that way, there is no openness to it.”

Other counties’ judges know that, to use the power they have wisely and well, they should make sure that the selection process is open to any candidate through advertisement of the opportunity.

That’s not what happened in Walworth County. Predictably, Walworth County’s presiding judge declined to comment on the action. It’s predictable because they process for selection was an obvious example of a bad, closed practice, impossible to defend as an expression of good, open, transparent government. If a man wishes to serve as presiding judge, then he should speak to his actions, including this one.

I’ll consider the published remarks of another Walworth County judge, Robert Kennedy, who spoke while Gibbs stayed silent. Kennedy observed that

Kennedy said the four judges in Walworth County knew Drettwan was the best candidate for the job. They all agreed she should be Reddy’s replacement and offered her the position, he said.

“It’s our job to have the best, and we have the best,” Kennedy said.

No, and no again: It is not enough to have the best, if the practice of selection is a poor one. Kennedy is not sworn to achieving any result, but only one that is right both substantively and procedurally. It is not a principle of American law that one should have only the best, through whatever means one thinks fit. It never has been, and it never will be, as long as American is a free society. Achieving a result, a consequence, is no justification in this matter

(It was the Romans, in their brutal and violent republic, who would in times of emergency appoint a dictator for a limited period, to achieve a specific result in time of war or national emergency. They were a people interested in results. They had the practice of a temporary dictator in their republic, until one many sought that title permanently, thereafter destroying that republic itself. We are not, and never will be, so foolish as to believe that mere consequence, mere expediency, is the measure of justice or good policy.)

Funny, too, that thousand of students across America learn each year that the distinction between substance and procedure blurs and evaporates when good procedure is ignored. One would have thought that a sitting judge would not expect others to accept nonsense to the contrary so readily.

Odd, too, that Judge Kennedy is so sure that he has the best, the judges of Walworth County not having bothered to commit — as other places in Wisconsin do — to a genuine search process. Imagine these men, huddled together, so sure, and certain, so convinced of their omniscience, that they simply know.

If that should be true, can they not use those power of insight to some greater national purpose? Perhaps that deep insight might yet produce an understanding of the natural world — humanity has yet to see a compelling, Unified Field Theory. How about, instead, some insight into the design of a commercial fusion reactor? Well, if that’s a bit too hard, how about the likely winner of the next World Series, based on current trends and conditions?

Any of those achievements would mean far more to American the world than the shabby effort to justify bad local policy.

Are the judges of Walworth Countyignorant or arrogant enough to believe what one of them says, or do they think that others are ignorant or foolish enough to believe it?

I don’t know.

I do know that I cannot, and never will, believe that a flimsy excuse of expediency is anything more a disgrace and embarrassment for Walworth County.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 5-20-10

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Good morning,

Today’s forecast for Whitewater calls for a mostly sunny day, with a high of seventy-eight degrees.

It’s Market Day pickup in Lincoln School’s upper gym today, from 5 to 6 p.m.

These are times of economic hardship for many Americans, and particularly so for many in our part of America. I saw that there’s a post at Walworth County Today, requesting stories from those who are unemployed:

WALWORTH COUNTY — Area residents are suffering through the longest-lasting unemployment since the Great Depression.

Have you been out of work for six months or more?

Have you been trying to find work without any luck?

The Gazette would like to hear your story for a series to be published in June. What challenges are you facing? How are you getting by? What are your fears for the future?

If you have a story about long-term unemployment, please call Anna Marie Lux of the Gazette at (608) 755-8264 or email her at amarielux@gazettextra.com.

At the Wisconsin State Jounal, there’s a story entitled, “Cougars are back; DNR eyes way to deal with them.” These cougars are time-efficient, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports they’re already at work: “Cougar sought after attacking cow in Juneau County.” They’re beautiful, but dangerous, predators.

Uncategorized

Milwaukee County’s Immoral Utilitarianism: Update 5 (It’s a National Story)

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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a paper willing to support watchdog journalism, has an editorial, entitled, Safety Must Come First: Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and administrators at the county’s Mental Health Complex need to act now to correct problems there.

Here’s the Journal Sentinel‘s view:

The steps that are being taken to correct problems at Milwaukee County’s Mental Health Complex need to show quick results. They need to be able to demonstrate to state and county officials and to advocacy groups that patients are safe from sexual predators. If they don’t show those results, County Executive Scott Walker needs to take responsibility and make administrative and policy changes, starting at the top.

According to an early report put together by the watchdog group Disability Rights Wisconsin, patients at the complex are not safe and administrators and staff show a shocking indifference to the problems. Both the lack of safety and the attitude are the responsibility of John Chianelli, the county’s top mental health administrator.

It’s up to Chianelli – and ultimately to Walker – to set the right tone.

Chianelli told reporters that a safe hospital is his highest priority and cited measures taken recently to correct problems. Walker said he would work with the watchdog group to create a community oversight council for the complex. Those are good steps, but they need to show results. Patients and their families need to know they will be safe at the complex.

One should note that this is not my view: I think Chianelli should be fired if he won’t resign. Every day he spends in office is an affront to patients’ rights and proper treatment. I consider the JS editorial generous and charitable to Chianelli.

This has become a national story – there’s no hoping by bureaucrats and their defenders that it will simply go away. In the Washington Post‘s online Slate, Torie Bosch considers Milwaukee’s situation in a story entitled, Sexual Assault in the Psychiatric Ward. She writes:

Recently, an administrator at a Wisconsin mental health facility that has been under investigation for on-site sexual assault defended co-ed housing by saying that the presence of women calms male patients. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, John Chianelli, administrator of the county’s Behavioral Health Division said, “It’s a trade-off.” Putting 24 aggressive male patients into a male-only unit would increase the level of violence in the unit.”

A “trade-off” is a remarkably blase way to frame what has gone on at Milwaukee County’s Mental Health Complex: According to reports, a 22-year-old male patient, whom one medical supervisor called “a very devious sexual predator,” assaulted several women; allegedly, he impregnated one and then raped her when she was six weeks pregnant. But there’s little research to support Chianelli’s claim, beyond a 1996 German study, which noted that staff members of a ward that went from mixed-sex to single-sex observed “a significant increase in annoyance and aggression”….

Giving women who are more vulnerable to assault or who are terrified of being in a psychiatric facility the option of same-sex treatment would make their inpatient visits safer, even more productive. This could be particularly important for women who have been the victims of violence, as is the case with so many psychiatric inpatients: The severely mentally ill are far more likely than the mentally healthy to be victims of crime, including sexual violence. One of the few women-only mental health wards is at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, which serves women who, in addition to mental illness, have suffered from traumas like physical or sexual abuse, or addiction. But that unit has just 18 beds.

If female patients don’t have the option of single-sex care, then at the very least they deserve to be in the hands of well-trained, caring, and observant staff members. Other safety measures would also be helpful, like an electronic monitoring system, which Florida’s St. Joseph Hospital installed after a rape was reported, or giving patients the ability to lock doors if they feel threatened, so long as staff members can override the lock if necessary. A woman who just attempted suicide should be free to get a good night’s sleep without worrying about a man crawling into her bed uninvited.

Chianelli does have local defenders. On May 13th, the Journal Sentinel published a story entitled, Chianelli wins plaudits from two supervisors, staff members that described support for Chianelli.

Of those staffers who expressed support for Chianelli in a letter, one can say that they are current employees under Chainelli’s authority, and they are the ones who have been working at a facility that’s been accused of documented patient abuses, and a risking number of sexual assaults. They’re not disinterested bystanders in these accusations, and potential lawsuits.

They have every reason, except perhaps honesty and integrity, to defend a system of which they have been a part. County employees who are defending Chianelli are, at the same time, defending themselves. They have a right to do so, but no one should think they’re disinterested in all this, as they are the ones who have allegedly allowed these many abuses.

(I’ve written before about Milwaukee County’s Behavioral Health Division, and sexual assaults among mental patients at its Mental Health Center. BHD’s Director, John Chianelli, has implemented a policy of trading male-on-male violence among mental patients for male-on-female sexual assault. I’ve posted about Chianelli’s policy, and the tragedy that is conduct at the MHC, before. See, A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update: A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update 2, Update 3, and Update 4.)

Free Markets, Law, Laws/Regulations

Freeing Small Farms: Minnesota Farms Fight Protectionism

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One often hears that residents should ‘shop locally.’ That’s a choice any consumer should be able to make.

What would happen if a city told residents that not only should they shop locally, but that they could only buy products produced locally? Not a suggestion, not a request, but a law that said: Residents can only buy products produced within the city limits?

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? It is crazy. It’s also a sure violation of the United States constitution’s assurance to all Americans that they can buy products produced in any state.

Unfortunately, there’s at least one city in America that’s trying to keep its residents from buying the products of other Americans: the City of Lake Elmo, Minnesota. In that city, they’ve passed an ordinance requiring farmers to sell only pumpkins or Christmas trees that are grown within the city limits. The products of other American farms, if located outside the city limits, cannot be sold in the City of Lake Elmo.

Fortunately, the Institute for Justice has taken up this case, on behalf of local farmers who would like to sell the trees and pumpkins of other Americans’ farms.

The case is captioned as Richard Bergmann et al. v. City of Lake Elmo, and the Institute for Justice has a video that describes what’s at stake:

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBZhbLhnfgU

Here’s more on the case, from the IJ website:

Richard Bergmann et al. v. City of Lake Elmo — Freeing Small Farms through Free Trade

Farmers should not be threatened with 90 days in jail and $1,000 in fines for selling pumpkins or Christmas trees grown outside city limits.

Yet that is the law in Lake Elmo, Minn. On December 1, 2009, the Lake Elmo City Council declared that it would begin enforcing a law that forbids farmers from selling products from their own land unless they were grown inside city limits. The city’s politicians argue that they are protecting Lake Elmo’s rural character. In fact, they are destroying that character by making it impossible for their farmers to earn an honest living and making it more likely that family farms will fail.

Lake Elmo’s law harms farmers like Richard and Eileen Bergmann and their three grown children who run their farm while restricting choices for their costumers. The Bergmanns have farmed in Lake Elmo for nearly 40 years and regularly need to add to their inventories with produce grown outside the city, including from a pumpkin farm they operate just a few miles away in Wisconsin. But Lake Elmo bans the Bergmanns and other farms in the city from bringing in and selling farm goods from out of the city and out of the state. Engaging in free trade with farmers from across the country allows the Bergmanns and small farmers like them to survive. Lake Elmo’s ban negatively impacts farmers well beyond Lake Elmo’s borders.

Unfortunately, Lake Elmo is not alone: cities and states across the nation are stripping away the basic right to trade freely between states and even within a state. Such misguided laws are more than bad business; they are unconstitutional.

That is why on May 18, 2010, the Institute for Justice—a national public interest law firm with a history of successfully defending economic liberty and the rights of entrepreneurs—filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota on behalf of the Bergmanns and their farming partners, challenging Lake Elmo’s trade ban as a violation of fundamental constitutional rights.

more >>

City, Holiday, Press Release

Whitewater’s Fourth of July

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I received the following press release that I am happy to post —

The Whitewater Area 4th of July committee is excited to announce it has a packed line-up of activities and entertainment for the 2010 Festival held at the Cravath Lakefront Park. The festival has secured national recording artist Heidi Newfield for a Saturday evening show. Heidi is an award winning American Country Music talent well known for her numerous hits including “What Am I Waiting For”. This female singer/songwriter powerhouse will undoubtedly pack the grounds and put on a show Whitewater won’t soon forget.

The 2010 event runs Thursday July1st through Sunday July 4th and is an absolutely FREE festival. In addition to Heidi Newfield, the Independence Day celebration includes performances by The Blue Olives, Pipe Circus, Steve Meisner, Saddlebrook, Shelly Faith, Hours Left, the Minnieska Ski Team, WHS dance crew, and more. Christman Amusements will provide a quality midway sure to please kids of all ages. For the adults, a 10,000 sq.ft. beer garden and full spread of food vendors will be onsite to satisfy even the hungriest appetite.

On Sunday, July 4th, join us for our incredible Parade, organized by the Lions Club. This year we are fortunate to have the University of WI-Madison Marching Band in addition to all the local talent right here in our “Banner City.” The 2010 Honorary Parade Marshal, Jim Stewart, will be enjoying the festivities including 2 nights of Fireworks on the lake, classic car show, beer garden, Taste of Whitewater food court and FREE high caliber music and entertainment on the main stage.

Please visit us at… http://www.ww4th.com

See you at the Lakefront!

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 5-19-10

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Good morning,

The forecast for Whitewater today calls for a sunny day with a high of seventy-four degrees, with an above-average level of regulation and interference in residents’ lives.

There’s a choir concert scheduled for tonight at 7:30 p.m. in our high school auditorium.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this date in 1934, the

Wisconsin Progressive Party [was] Formally Organized

On this date Wisconsin’s Progressive Party was formally organized near 30 E. 2nd St. in Fond du Lac. It had begun as a “progressive” movement within the Wisconsin Republican Party more than 30 years before, and under leaders such as Robert M. LaFollette its list of achievements brought national attention to Wisconsin. By the 1930s, a new generation of policy makers, many of whom had been trained under progressive Republicans, were advocating for reforms as part of Democrat Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs (see our page on the Wisconsin roots of Social Security for an example). At the same time, a new generation of Republicans such as Walter Kohler were advocating their own solutions to the nation’s problems. The heirs of the LaFollette tradition organized a third party, the Wisconsin Progressive Party, to keep alive the traditions they valued. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers, edited by Sarah Davis McBride]

Whether self-declared Progressives or conservatives, Republicans or Democrats, right or left, Wisconsin residents been over-regulated in the years since.

Public Meetings

Walworth County Genealogical Society Meeting

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British National Archive Research Program
The Walworth County Genealogical Society will meet Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 6:30 PM, in the Community Centre, 826 E. Geneva Street, Delavan.

The Society will feature Ann Wells of Crystal Lake, Illinois. The British Interest Group of Wisconsin and Illinois member will present a program called “Access to the Archives.” The British National Archives has a wealth of information for people interested in finding ancestors located in the British Isles. Wells will explain how to find the information by using your computer in the comfort of your home without having to cross the ocean to visit the British National Archives in person. Be among the first to hear this very informative new program.

Ann Wells is known throughout Illinois and Wisconsin as an experienced speaker often giving talks at local and regional conferences, seminars, societies and workshops. The McHenry County, Illinois Genealogical Society calls her, “One of our most knowledgeable genealogy members. She is willing to share her experiences and insights concerning the process necessary to join such societies as the DAR, Jamestown Society, First Families of Ohio, Mayflower Society, etc.” Wells has spoken to the Walworth County Genealogical Society in the past and members always look forward to her presentations.

The program and brief business meeting are open to the public free of charge. For additional information, please call the Society’s Vice President at 275-2426.

Public Meetings, Uncategorized

Whitewater’s July 4th Weekend Holiday Events

by  • 

The Whitewater Area 4th of July committee is excited to announce it has a packed line-up of activities and entertainment for the 2010 Festival held at the Cravath Lakefront Park. The festival has secured national recording artist Heidi Newfield for a Saturday evening show. Heidi is an award winning American Country Music talent well known for her numerous hits including “What Am I Waiting For”. This female singer/songwriter powerhouse will undoubtedly pack the grounds and put on a show Whitewater won’t soon forget.

The 2010 event runs Thursday July1st through Sunday July 4th and is an absolutely FREE festival. In addition to Heidi Newfield, the Independence Day celebration includes performances by The Blue Olives, Pipe Circus, Steve Meisner, Saddlebrook, Shelly Faith, Hours Left, the Minnieska Ski Team, WHS dance crew, and more. Christman Amusements will provide a quality midway sure to please kids of all ages. For the adults, a 10,000 sq.ft. beer garden and full spread of food vendors will be onsite to satisfy even the hungriest appetite.

On Sunday, July 4th, join us for our incredible Parade, organized by the Lions Club. This year we are fortunate to have the University of WI-Madison Marching Band in addition to all the local talent right here in our “Banner City.” The 2010 Honorary Parade Marshal, Jim Stewart, will be enjoying the festivities including 2 nights of Fireworks on the lake, classic car show, beer garden, Taste of Whitewater food court and FREE high caliber music and entertainment on the mainstage.

Please visit us at… http://www.ww4th.com

See you at the Lakefront!

Laws/Regulations

Reason.tv: Federal Regulations and You – Partners in Democracy

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The Environmental Protection Agency has a contest, entitled “Rulemaking Matters,” that offers twenty-five hundred deficit-financed dollar ($2,500) prize “for the public to explain federal rulemaking and motivate others to participate in the rulemaking process.”

Oh, yes.

The libertarians of Reason.tv submitted three videos to the EPA, one of which I’ve embedded below. Enjoy. The contest is closed to new entries; the winner will be announced in June.

Link: Reason.tv: Federal Regulations and You – Partners in Democracy. more >>

Uncategorized

Alpacas

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Whitewater, Wisconsin is a place of considerable natural beauty. The finest buildings in our small town are nothing as against the country and forests nearby. Just outside the city, and in nearby towns, one finds farms with cows, chickens, goats, and domesticated animals that look like small llamas. They’re alpacas, and are docile, harmless, small camelids. They’re interesting to watch and profitable to farmers for their fleece.

I knew little about them, until I read a few years ago about how an alpaca from a nearby town was maliciously killed. That’s when I read that they’re part of the camel family, and learned about how their fleece is valuable.

Here’s a photo of two alpacas, so that readers otherwise unfamiliar can see their size & shape:

They’re interesting-looking, and adorable in the way that small mammals often seem adorable.

If nature, and interesting animals, were enough to uplift a person’s nature, then we’d never have crime in this part of the world. No people lives amid greater beauty than we do. There are many places as abundant, but none more so than our own. None of this is enough, however, to assure that people live well, live fairly and justly.

There’s a recent story from the AP about an alpaca in Ohio that was beaten and killed, as one in Walworth County, Wisconsin was once killed. See, Animal’s savage beating in Ohio ripples through local Alpaca community.

Here’s a brief account of what happened in Ohio, and earlier here in Wisconsin:

CINCINNATI – Tana Ward, who raises alpacas near Delavan, knows what Jeff Pergram is going through.

His alpaca, Masterpiece, was stolen, beaten to death with a makeshift club and dumped in a barn.

The same thing happened to Ward’s 5-day-old alpaca, Arianne, in 2007. “I came home one day from work to find her in the pasture, decapitated,” said Ward. “We think it was kids, but there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges.”

In the Cincinnati case, two 17-year-old boys are charged in juvenile court with animal cruelty and other counts, and a 23-year-old woman is charged with complicity offenses…

I know, and you know, that some will say that those who kill living creatures this way are troubled. I’m sure that they are. I’m also sure that children or adults who kill other’s farm animals, destroying both an animal and a person’s livelihood, are particularly troubled: they’re dangerous.

(Here, I’m not relying on the notion that those who kill maliciously animals might kill people – the likelihood of that I’ll leave to criminologists.)

Instead, it’s worth considering what this means, as it is, on its own, and ruin others’ property. They still senselessly kill living things.

No one is surprised that this happens, although some malicious acts are notably shocking.

In this lack of surprise, there’s proof of the limits of design, natural or human, to ennoble all people. No matter how lovely the world around us, it will never be enough to keep some from violent or cruel tendencies. A great and singular book’s third chapter begins with this understanding, that even an earthly paradise is not enough to restrain people from grievous error.

Officials and planners, schemers and bureaucrats are quick, though, to trumpet the world around us as justification, as evidence, of greatness. It’s a false idea, and vainglorious claim. No plan or project will ever be enough, no plan or project will ever be as extraordinary as a single alpaca. The proudest bureaucrat, the finest schemer, will never create something as extraordinary as these these animals.

Men have done many things, but no one has or will do so much as match a single alpaca.

Yet, even something remarkable is incapable of moving someone from cruelty. If a living animal cannot, then no political plan or project will, either.

I’ve never thought otherwise. I would be contented, though, if silly, trivial, or vain people would stop declaring as true those notions that life around us shows are patently false.

Police

Update: On Edgerton, Wisconsin’s Police Dog (Goodbye to the Biter)

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There’s a follow up to the story about which I posted yesterday, about a police dog in Edgerton, Wisconsin that bit a police officer and a city worker, but was nevertheless kept in service by Edgerton’s public safety committee. Sensibly, Edgerton’s city council voted unanimously last night to send the dog back to the kennel that it came from. See, Edgerton Puts Collar on K-9 Program.

Edgerton’s city council made the right and proper decision, one that Edgerton’s police chief should have made on his own, and one that the public safety committee should have made.

In my post yesterday, entitled, On Edgerton, Wisconsin’s Police Dog, I pointed out how foolish it was to allow a dog that twice bit people without command to continue in service.

Dogs like this aren’t pets, and they’re far more powerful than most dog breeds. They’re trained to assist police officers, and help protect innocent people. They’re not something to show off, or walk around as a prized pet. They’re working dogs, and they are trained to help officers, not to be spoiled. Many officers rely for their safety on dogs like this, and they must be able to trust them at all times. (Trustworthy police dogs are rightly liked and praised for their service. They deserve the best care that a dog can get, appropriate to their roles.)

There’s nothing good to say about a police leader who knows a police dog twice bit someone without command, and still wants to keep the dog around. Leaders are expected to protect officers under their command, and the citizens those officers are sworn to protect. That doesn’t include ignoring a biting dog, or doing more than saying one feels sorry about it, “since day one.” (That’s day one, as in the day when the undisciplined dog bit an office worker without provocation or command.)

The expected course isn’t to feel sorry, but to act, from “day one.”

The citizens of Edgerton, Wisconsin can thank their city council for doing the right thing last night.