Lake Shore Live Bounces Music Across the Bay in Escanaba (Economic Development)

Lakeshore Live bounces music across the bay in Escanaba. If you were on your boat listening, enjoying a cold one (of whatever) you might get a whole Humphrey's type of experience (ok...for my San Diego friends they understand). We walked down to the event, listened to music, check out some of the vendors and enjoyed the beutiful summer weather. We walked back up to some of the old world clubs on main. It doesn't get much better than this! Consdier that tourism, the marina, and the economy is upward bound we are making headway in Esky.

It is possible to measure economic impact of events. That would require a little bit of coordination of some of the businesses, surveys, etc. to help get a feel for how each genre of events and activities improves the economy. For example, if attendees at Lakeshore Live spent at the local vendors, stopped at the bar, drew in people from a 50 mile radius that ate supper, etc. you can come up with a number. The issue being knowing when and how much they bring in through reasonable benchmarks. 

Let us say that each event brought in an additional $150 to local business (and some back to local tax coffers). Some events like bands brought in XXX dollar amount and another brought in XXX dollar amount. We can start to understand the value of these events and coordinate their schedules so that we can attract different types of people, with projeted economic impact throughout the year.

In other words, you can coordinate to maximize economic impact and local growth (Don't forget hedging in a cluster with a few other industries to create resilience during economic change. i.e. downtown and exportation of homegrown products ranging including ship building, paper/cardboard, small downtown tourist business products, etc.) You may want to read Economic Impacts

What would be interesting is if the town can meet a threshold where future events, businesses, activities, infrastructure, so on and so forth create enough net positives that the wealth of the area continues to rise creating more financial health. Escanaba is fiscally solvant and general runs with a net surplus in its budget. Something many other government entities are struggling but they are doing well. They do have some new needed updates that will cost them. 

What would happen if we create real local wealth that that can be invested back into our schools, colleges, infastructure, streets, parks, etc...? What would a town look like if it was had high return on investments and then used that money wisely? 🤔

Anways.....good times.

How the Truth of Hate Leads to Decisions of Opportunity for a Brighter Future (Post Awareness of Corruption)

There is "The Clan" and there is associated Corruption and Extremism. The Clan are a group of good old boy network members who are quick to judge others and have undo influence over their environment and local institutions based on these social connections. While the clan has formed their rigid identities since highschool they are not the main issues. Most are neither good or bad but just underdeveloped with little exposure to the value of 60% of the people in the country that are different from them. Bullying is normalized. The bigger risk was not the clan and their childish hate rumors but the corruption, hate aggression, and lack of justice of others that has opened a can of worms in terms of real disparity against victims and whistleblowers. We can learn about how hate, corruption, and the risks of misapplication of justice through a hypotehtical learning example.  

Let us think of the legal environment in which negative behaviors such as corruption, bias, bullying, hate narratives, ect. abound because they must have at least a tacit level of approval. On an official and legal level these would be stopped right away but if there is agreement that such behavios are ok against "outsiders/second class citizens" then we must question the values of those who make such decisions. As taxpayers we have a right to expect fair and non-biased decisions, judgements, and services. There are different studies but overall we know we have room for improvement so we cannot wholely discount such examples of disparity just because its politically convenient.  Study Says Not Bias and Study Says Biased . You may also be interested in Religion and Bias

In this hypothetical example it was well known "The Clan" protected itself with the willful eye of local courts and no matter how many crimes were committed, how many times the targets followed or threatened with violence, who enriched themselves from hate or no matter the evidence the second class whistle blowers will not see the light of justice. The victimes of the past have no respite and the victims of the future no protection. The torch of liberty being drawn down to a small match flame that can be blown out by any small gust of wind. We need advocates for justice, advocates for our liberties, advocates for our way of life, and those who support "liberty and justice for all" to ensure that torch can shine its guidance from generation to generation. There should be no distinction between first and second class citizens (Judicial Independence and Accountability). 

Failure to correct is another sign that there is need for reform. Failure to reform when major laws have been violated and failure to protect all people from bad actors can be seen as concerning for the long term health of the whole. We need the best and brightest, we need the ideas that come from diverse leaders, and we need people to be in their A Game to compete. However, the very same people who talk a lot about their national ideals are the very same people who often stiffle our opportuniteis and growth through exclusionary outcomes. Research on Brain Matter of Nationalism and Patriotism. Thus having as many rational thinkers as possible in central positions making objective strategic decisions that brings forward the best in people is leadership at its essence. 

Heraclitus of Ephesus

Before you get too excited and take it out on the first second class citizen you see be mindful that those who do the right thing have and should have the highest respect in society. As a somewhat conservative slowly learning of the importance of a third party to balance out the gamenship I will say that good is good and bad is bad. All the actors know the difference between right and wrong buy have chosen one or another based on their world view. Thus, as a free people we need additional new leaders that see us as all as valuable to truly be competitive. Never expect anything out of anyone because they are likely to not fulfill those false expectations and are unlikely to take others needs into consideration. 

In this hypothetical example rewarding bigoted behavior does not appear to be accidental and thus is a sign of the type of thinking that has gotten us into all types of problems and presents a long term risk to the nation and its people. Our future is a shared one and we all have rights matter who categories us as first or second class. So stand tall for our nation and freedoms because if we don't write our own futures these peeps will....and this example tells you what that segregated choice looks like. Feel free to write your representative and ask them freely if they support freedom or have fallen for the folly of first and second class citizens? You might be surprised by how they respond! Then vote your conscious as to what you believe they may be thinking about when they pledge their oaths! 

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

This example has not been completed yet and is in the process of being written. One should stay positive because while there are bad actors in the world and they engage in corruption we do know that the collective will is much more powerful and the vast majority of people will do the right thing once they are aware. There are those who believe in our people's ability to overcome challenges such as this. Our future is built off the choices of the present and the legacies of the past. If you get out and talk to minorities and really listen to their story you will understand the importance of shared futures and accountability for bad actors. or not...

*This is a hypothetical example for learning purposes. A thought experiment on freedom of speech, religion, civil-human rights and the Constitution. Take with a grain of salt. It is meant to be politically neutral and support a bulwark against a backsliding democracy.

Remember the Importance of Integrity in Society and Our Institutions

Integrity is an important concep in society and those in leadership positions should be selected on their values versus who they know or how extreme their ideologies are. For example, simply picking people within one's party is also not integrity as good people with values can come from either side. Try picking the best people regardless of the social connections.  I have met a lot of good poeple, politicians, and administrators with integrity. I have also met those who have little to no integrity. The outcome of their choices is based on their values and it is telling. When selecting the next candidate for grooming, leadership, politician or administrator make sure you select those who have basic values and will make decisions with those in mind; good or bad. Integrity has been show in research to be associated with leadership, honesty, and sincerity in a way that creates prosocial benefits and long term positive outcomes. Research on Integrity

We don't always get redos so choose wisely on those who should lead and those who should follow. Keep in mind that leaders work for the benefit of their organizations and society while poor leaders work for the benefit of themselves, their politics, their pockets, poorly constructed ideologies, so on and so forth.

What Does the Allegory of the Cave Teach Us about The Just City?

 The Allegory of the Cave teaches us that a just city must have just leaders and institutional administrators. A good argument for promoting the best and brightest versus the most connected. The just city representing governance of a republic.  Good leadership that is wise, just and free from their own mental chains will make decisions that further collective good in society. In our hypothetical example of a free pass for corruption, hate and extremism we find an internal battle within the justice system on the spirit of the law and whether such laws are designed to service all of society with all its different peoples or cater to some of society. The free minds and the slaves of bias battle it out. The upholding of our social contracts is uncertain. Loyalty to one's race, religion, and politics or loyalty to the ideal forms of a free and enlightened society that serves all its people is in heated debate in this post model awareness. Each path leads somewhere. 

Studying philosophy is part of a well rounded education.

Is Important to Correct Injustices in the Corruption/Extremism Model? (Post Awareness)

The perfect world doesnt exist and while it isn't perfect we generally have a responsibility to get better and continuing to improve. We do that because we owe it to society and we owe it to the next generation. However, that is not always the goal for everyone and things like human rights, civil rights, freedom of speech and freedom of religion or even the concept of justice can be warped when sifted through the hands of self interest, corruption and extremism. Now that the hypothetical example entity is aware of their behaviors/consciousness they have to make choices as to what they will stand for in the future and how to deal with the failures of the past. No choice is only one option that buys a little time but leads to greater natural mechanics in the future as each new complaint and issue is sifted through the awareness of prior wrong doings. One cannot escape awareness and additional data against such backdrop of moral and legal failiures. Failure has long lasting impacts such as lost credibility to institutional stakeholders and even worse lost credibility to each.

We have been discussing a hypothetical example for learning purposes. In this example someone wanted something and utilized a local goold old boy network known as "The Clan" to spread horrendous bigoted rumors. So confident in their behaviors they tried to set someone up and told them that the reasons why they, their friends, and corrupted officials were targeting them is because they were a religious minority. The victims were followed home, threatened, put on hit lists, caught textremists, blocked from local employment, discarded in justice, so on and so forth. Whistleblowing led to increased street retaliation and multiple incidents of attemped violence. Others came forward with similar complaints and were also retaliated against until a significant number of people demanded accountability boldly, publically and on recording as a protest to dilitation of their society. The compalints could no longer be ignored! Democracy and the will of the people began to win over corruption and extermism despite the multiple attempts pervert justice and good governance. In this example, we still don't know the end results so don't be too quick to judge. The scribes are still writing the story....turn the page...

What makes this example so horrendous is not the overwhelming evidence, not the wholesale violation of civil rights, but that it went on for a long time beause there were no internal mechanisms within the local system to stop it. Also the perpetrators who launched the rumors had a history of manipulating the sick and dying for financial gain (as well as their social networks to include or ostracize people) and they have utilized a similar process in the past (i.e a pattern of dark triad traits). At the end of the day it was the victims who are wholely responsible for the corrupted officials behaviors. There is often often much more desire to do whatever it takes to reward what is perceived as first class citizens than what is seen as second class citizens mo matter how many social contracts are violated. Those who austrocized feel vindicated in their mean spiritedness and blind followership but in the end they are no differeent than any other hate group (Hate Groups).

Despite the waves of hate (4 waves thus far) people stood with their community and the essential purpose of liberty. With fortitude standing on their tippie toes with bruised arms erect they pushed the liberty torch upward as high as possible to illuminate skyline and horizon in spite of the buckets of water heaped on them to humiliate and smother the illumination of patriotism. The beacon catching the eye of other Eagles flying high to protect our democracy. You could feel the powerful wings flapping in the night air and hear their screeches echoing across the bay and over the treeline.....

Because we have not written the end of the story yet let us consider two possible broad endings. We can include  those things in the middleof the spectrum as well. 

Illuminated: The eagles swoop in and once the dust cleared and the morning sun broke from the vollies of lies/truth, legal technicalities/spirit of law, divisibility/indivisibility, hate/love,  etc. one could see a single feather sticking erect pointed to the heavens as a banner warning to all those who sold out their oaths and as a path marker for the next generation that will need to carry the torch of liberty through twists and turns.

Unilluminated: The eagles swoop in and once the dust cleared from the vollies of lies/truth, legal technicalities/spirit of law, divisibility/indivisibility, hate/love, etc.it became clear each of the eagles were defeated due to self interest, partisanship, foreign influence, and all the other follies of man (Same weaknesses every major philosopher discussed throughout history). The next generation left in the dark, without a path marker and lost for the sun didn't rise again from the east for a long long time. 

As a side note....

Those that stand for our rights and the good officials who believe in our freedoms are worth their weight in gold (the ones we lined our streets with) as people pursue liberty and justice for all. We need more of them and should recruit them into our ranks to further institutional strength. It is in honor of the profession and the good men and women who stand nobly every day of their jobs. 

In this example the case for Federal oversight gets increasingly stronger the more the local systems cannot correct the wrong. We all share in our futures and that future depends on what we do each and everday as habit.While you can cheat here and there you cannot do that in the long run as the outcome and the experience reality become increasingly- separate. Strengthening Trust

Current Model and Future Model

Currently we have a system that seeks to maintain the spirit of the law and most raise themselves to lofty standards. Concerns over bad actors warping the concept of justice are common but not consistent meaning there is room for improvement. Administrators earnestly try and fight battles for justice but could be improved in terms of quality of catching bad actors and removing bias within the system. Statistically there is room for improvement and one cannot say they are not aware least the be negligent of their roles and missions. People are more concerned over politics than purity of purpose.

A future universal system would encourage the diversification of the institution and updating its effectiveness and reach in communities. It becomings increasingly transparent with higher level stats and problem areas are better discovered with the use of big data, strengthened internal mechanisms, and perceived public outcomes. We are taking what we have now and updating into the Digital Era with a better understanding of its mission to social and economic health of society. We can hedge the power of our human capital and technology to solve many problems in our society if we beging to think of ourselves as an indivisible people with a purpose.

So far in this thought experiment the victims were rewarded, poor behaviors were reinforced among clan members and corrupted officials feeling immune for any subversive (fyi. in this clan are descent people but have a cultic sort of rigid social system with pecking order left over from highschool.). Audits of justice based on racial, religious, "non-local" etc. might find gross disparities (Maybe not but the chances are pretty high it could highlight the corrupted network from another couple of angles and that would lead to triangulation). It may also uncover further criminal activity ranging from extremist level bigotries to things like falsifying testimony to social pressure to not "turn in one of our own". Others have indicated that the rumors can impact employment, social life, and even justice. 

Let us consider a number of questions in this hypotehtical example for learning purposes. 

1.) Is it moral and fare to allow such a system to continue forward without correction?

2.) Should we have second class citizens with few to no rights and should we be encouraging that?

3.) How does bad actors reinforce corruption by rewarding "in-group" clan members at the expense of victims?

4.) How do we vote out officials throughout the decision making chain that supported corruption and disparity?

5.) What is the concept of espoused vs. enacted organizational values and how might that impact perception, performance, or outcomes?

6.) How does either free passes or accountability define our soul?

There is no right and wrong answer. There are only answers that support and don't support our mission as a people. 

*This is a thought experiment on freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the Constitution, and human/civil rights. It is a hypothetical example for learning purpsoses only. Take with a grain of salt.

Escanaba City Council Meeting (September 5th, 2024): A bigger outhouse with filters needed! 💩

There is discussion on wastewater and what to do with it. It would be interesting as someone puts pencils to paper (I'm going to use that phrase. Kind of cool) to take a moment to consider options such as Renewable Energy Wastewater Treatment . If we are going to be innovative and seek out grant monies we might as well consider ourselves testing ground for emerging technologies if someone else is going to help fund ("Big Bro" or business stakeholders. ). We are small enough to try things but large enough for scalability (i.e. microbes and solid waste/landfill, wastewater, solar/wind technology, battery tech, etc. are all things companies might want to test so in this case corporate interest can be a good thing....sustainable capitalism can work here.... dream, dream, ahhhh sweet dreams) to be fair this may not even be feasible and one has to sort of look at what we have now, the price, options, etc. to get a game plan going. It looks like we are starting that process now. Tough job!

A few key points below but you can get most from from the Sept. 5th, 2024 Escanaba Agenda

-New filters needed for water.

-Discussion on grants to fix things $60 mil.

-Solid waste removal. Waste removal is big business. Probably going to have lots of Big Business Toilet Meetings going forward.

National Innovation and Research Conduct/Misconduct

Innovation is a big part of national development but often isn't given the attention it deserves. Creating as many pathways to vetting good ideas and putting them to use to improve the nation is an important thing. The countries that can do that and funnel good ideas are likely to be more successful in the long run. Much of that innovation comes from research and we should be on guard for research misconduct ane/or misrepresentation least we stiffle long term growth for short term gain. Ranging from misrepresentation to fabrication of results most universities have something similar but I found this one at Harvard Research Misconduct Definition. You can read a little something on Measuring Research Misconduct. 

Let me add that in research it is best to make no promises, minimize potential impact, and never misrepresent the data. Also recognizing limitations can be helpful of what is and isn't being studied. Because you cannot go in with anything but a research hypothesis you should be indifferent to the results. A positive result teaches you something and a negative result teaches you something. It is hard to share good feedback to the scientific community if they are false, misleading or even attributed incorrectly. 

To build the strongest nation we can we need to develop our innovative and R&D pipelines. Promoting research and development is important for the development of our nation (Promoting R&D Govt. Role). New ideas can radically change our environment and influence our institutions to become more effective and efficient. Research has shown that innovation influences not only GDP but also institutional frameworks, infrastructure, knowledge, technology and more. A Global Review: Innovation and GDP

You can read about Research Misconduct in a statement from the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy which indicates, “fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.” They utilize terms like fabrication of data, falsification of method, equipment, etc. and plagiarism as taking someones ideas, processes, results, etc. without giving proper credit. 

In a publish or perish world there is also likely some influence on trying to get things done in order to look good for promotion. For some achievement is an external validation affair. This is also why I appreciate people who do things for the greater good and not necessarily for themselves or to artificially inflate their sense of self importance. Motivation is less on promotion and more on contribution. Good researchers have ethical beliefs and want to build a better world with their results so putting the right people in the right positions is helpful. Common reasons inclued pressure to publish, competition, career advacement, lack of supervision, ethical knowledge, and poor culture. Reasons for Misconduct. 

We also get back to that values and what is right and what is wrong. If you were a researcher and you invented something (or many things) and did years of work and once something looks like it has value you start finding someone claiming work they didn't do, trying to take over your ideas because they can advance themselves from it, claim the outcomes even though they were not involved, or giving away attribution in a way that doesn't represent invention and contribution accurately then you may have an issue. Good scientiests are internally driven and once you take a way theose internal incentives things change. While researchers certainly deserve external rewards more often then not its its the internal satisfactions that leads to the greatest discoveries and to the loss of those great discoveries (a relative term). Thus, the entire nation suffers because the process of innovation can be cut short by short sightedness of bottlenecks. Lines of development don't come forward and the fruit of innovation dies on the vine. We want to be innovative but without looking at improving the innovative pipleline from top to bottom and encouraging integrity then we won't compete (U.S. Loosing Innovation). However, I think with commitment to R&D and innovation through human capital development in an ethical way we can ensure competitive advantages for decades to come. Yes...ethics matters!

Dempere, Juan & Qamar, Muhammad & Allam, Hesham & Malik, Sabir. (2023). The Impact of Innovation on Economic Growth, Foreign Direct Investment, and Self-Employment: A Global Perspective. Economies. 11. 182. 10.3390/economies11070182.

National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering (US) and Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy. On Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research: Third Edition. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2009. RESEARCH MISCONDUCT. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK214564/