Front Page
COMING AT US GOING STRONG!
OUR SCHOOLS.
The FOIA filed by Speedo, requesting data from the Lake Geneva School Districts, is due back on the 10th. It will be interesting to see if the school districts comply and what information they provide, as the intent of the request was to receive information about whether stipends in the districts are being issued or paid out and, if so, who they are going out to, how much is involved in monetary disbursement, and the identities of the recipients. Once this information is available and studied, then the districts can get ready for requests about ‘gas cards’ and who gets those and what’s being charged on them. It’s rational and okay for certain employees to have such cards to fill up school district-owned equipment and vehicles, but it’s not alright for administrators to possess and use them when teachers do not get them. Lake Geneva teachers are treated like the lowest of blue-collar workers, and this has to stop, not just with unfair benefits but with attitude. The district’s teachers are by far the highest educated and life-experienced personnel hired (not the administrators), and they need to be treated with the respect they have earned.
HIGHWAY 50 NIGHTMARE
In looking up and down Main Street near the major cross street called Broad, it was easy on Monday morning to see a thousand people out and about, eating on the outdoor tables, walking, driving in every-revolving automobiles, or simply leaning or sitting and waiting on the many benches. What does this mean for the coming disaster of construction that will set in and prevail for two years when the state and county come in (or send their contractors) to disassemble the entire street complex and then replace it?
How they go about handling the series of detours around the torn-up road and surrounding areas will determine the life or death of many businesses. A year is a long time to spend with a substantially reduced revenue stream, and how this job is done will mean everything, although how it is to be implemented remains pretty much undiscussed.
SOCIAL INSANITY OF FLOCK SURVEILLANCE.
This pervasive nightmare is coming for all of us, all the time. Flock detectors are going up all over town and in businesses, using this rather ‘accidental’ way of invading people’s lives without those surveilled even knowing what is going on or that they are being tracked, followed, and denied services or even arrested for stuff they have no idea about or can find out where the negative data comes from.
Accidental is the term the GSR uses because vehicle license plates were never intended to be used to track people when they were invented. They were invented to identify vehicles and ownership and to be used to pay fees so the roads could be improved and enforcement of laws secured. Now, however, the data is being used for every nefarious and invasive purpose. Where your vehicle is parked or running becomes a revelation interpreted by people you never know, and the conclusions of analyzing such data (location, speed, direction, etcetera) are given to sources unknown to all of us having vehicles.
Private detectives for divorce proceedings or detecting affairs? Denying customers entry to stores without telling them why they are being denied? Job interview data (from Flock checking plates and identities of candidates for work when they park in a lot to go to the interview)? You never get to know what happened, which may be the worst of it. Flock has to go, and the public, even in small cities and towns like Lake Geneva, Williams Bay, and more, should demand that the devices be removed and never allowed to be placed again within their boundaries.
