Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:32 and sunset is 8:11 for 14 hours 29 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The state tax and spending bill crafted between three soon-to-be-retired gentlemen (Evers, Vos, LeMahieu) failed in the Wisconsin Senate. The bill was bipartisan in name only. (As for headlines describing the proposal, descriptions of the bill were confused and contradictory. See‘Bipartisan’ Has Lost Meaning as a Useful Term.)
They’re not all going to get what they want after November, but almost everyone in opposition to the bill has a better chance of getting their way in January than the men who won’t even be in office in January.
Wisconsin is, to use an expression that many others over-use, moving on.
In state government, what mattered yesterday matters less than what you do today and what you will do tomorrow.
It takes little effort for people to leave the past behind. Times change quickly in a dynamic, innovative, even restless and impatient culture like America’s.
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Upcomingposts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.
NEW BRITAIN – After eight days of being trapped in a tree near her New Britain home, a cat named Chleo was rescued by a local tree services company and reunited with her family.
“It’s always a good feeling,” said Julian Lopez, owner of JLO Tree Services. “Animals have a special place in my heart, and I can only imagine if it was my cat that got away, I’d want someone to do everything and anything they could … It’s just a good feeling to reunite pets with their families because they are a part of their family.”
[…]
While his company is geared toward tree services, Lopez said they’ve recently gone “very viral” on social media for their pet rescue efforts, which they provide “from the kindness of their hearts.” He said people typically call or tag JLO Tree Service on Facebook to ask for help and his company usually goes to help people the same day of their call.
Lopez said the call about Chleo came in on Tuesday night, and he and his crew arrived on scene around 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday night.
“As soon as we got there, I could hear the cries up 50 feet in the air,” he said. “Firetrucks tried to come in and do what they could but they were unable to access it … We happened to get contacted by the local news, so they were out there.”
The rescue took place between the apartments on East Street and Recano Road, according to Vanase.
Lopez said his wife had brought cat food and a carrier case for the rescue.
“I use the food to bring down their nerves,” he said. “Especially if they’ve been there for a number of days, they’ll be hungry … Once I get a safe enough distance where I can get the cat, I’ll use the cat food so they can pick at it, eat it, and I do my best to grab them and bring them into the carrier case.”
Wednesday, May 20 at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Sentimental Value @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Family Drama/Norwegian
Rated R (language) 2 hours, 13 minutes (2025).
We begin our annual Wednesday Summer series of foreign/art films with the Oscar and AARP Winner for Best Foreign Film. An intimate exploration of family, memories, and the reconciliatory power of art. Golden Globe to Stellan Skarsgard: Best Supporting Actor. Also stars Elle Fanning. A riveting, emotional film. Shown in Norwegian dialogue with English subtitles.
Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 68. Sunrise is 5:33 and sunset is 8:10 for 14 hours 37 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Commission meets at 4 PM, and there will be a Common Council Visioning Session at 5:30 PM.
The Whitewater School Board will hold a governance workshop at 5:30 PM. Among the topics on the board’s agenda is Topic B, “Review spreadsheet with all documents in one place.” That’s quite sensible — one wouldn’t want to review all the documents in different places. Imagine if one had to go from Whitewater to Richmond to Lima Center simply to look at a spreadsheet.
Of these governance topics, absent from discussion is why, by its own policies, the Whitewater School Board offers the district’s residents recordings of its regular meetings only at a leisurely pace: “Recordings of the School Board Meetings will be posted in BoardDocs within a week or two after the meeting is held.” “A week or two” — honest to goodness that’s how it’s written — colloquially translates into “we’ll get to it when we get to it.”
The Artemis II astronauts traveled to the moon and back in less than two weeks.
If a ‘bipartisan’ bill gets no WisDems Senate votes, was it ever bipartisan?
The Wisconsin legislature has rejected the compromise tax and spending bill negotiated among Gov. Evers, Speaker Vos, and Senate Majority Leader LeMahieu:
The property tax and school funding packagenegotiated between Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) passed the Assembly Wednesday night in a bipartisan vote, but died in the Senate after three Republicans joined all the Democrats in voting against the measure.
[…]
The late Wednesday night votes followed more than nine hours of deliberation. Although Democrats in both chambers had panned the bill, 10 Assembly Democrats voted yes when the roll call arrived, after an amendment by Republicans that included disaster relief funds for parts of the state damaged during last year’s August floods and expanded a property tax cut for disabled veterans. The final Assembly tally was 61-32.
Despite the amendment, however, the Senate, meeting more than six hours after it was initially scheduled to convene, voted 18-15 against the bill. Republican Sens. Rob Hutton, Steve Nass and Chris Kapenga joined the entire Senate Democratic caucus in opposition.
Amid a record number of lethal bear attacks, Japan has a secret weapon. Meet “Monster Wolf.”
Japan is an advanced society with world-class technology. It’s understandable that they’d build a wolf-like robot. And yet, and yet, after lethal bear attacks, one might suggest a different, older approach. Bears, as it turns out, although formidable, are not bulletproof…
Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 59. Sunrise is 5:34 and sunset is 8:08 for 14 hours 34 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 15 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1862, enslaved Southerner Robert Smalls steals the steamboat Planter, spirits it through Confederate lines and hands it to the United States Navy, which quickly commission it as the gunboat USS Planter and later appoints Smalls as captain, thus making him the first Black man to command a United States ship.
In this, our new Golden Age, two key measures of inflation both show significant increases. Of consumer prices (the consumer price index), one reads that
Prices that consumers pay for a wide range of goods and services increased at a faster-than-expected pace in April, as another burst in energy prices raised further concerns about inflation’s impact on the U.S. economy.
The consumer price index rose at a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the one-year pace at 3.8%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. The monthly rate was as forecast, but the annual rate was 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus.
Of wholesale prices (the producer price index), there’s been a steep increase also:
Wholesale inflation jumps 6% in April on annual basis, biggest increase since 2022.
Wholesale prices in April posted their highest annual increase in more than three years, signaling more nettlesome inflation as pipeline costs intensify.
The producer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.4% for the month, much higher than the 0.5% Dow Jones consensus forecast and the upwardly revised 0.7% March increase, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. This was the largest monthly gain since March 2022.
On an annual basis, the index was up 6%, the biggest increase since December 2022.
How perplexing. During the last presidential election, Whitewater’s tiny faction of second-generation landlords placed signs throughout Whitewater promising that it was Mr. Trump himself who would bring lower prices. I’m old enough to remember.
And so, and so, a man who advocated tariffs his entire adult life, promised to disrupt the labor market across this continent through mass deportations, and exhibited a reflexive belligerence that has brought an attack on Venezuela and a war in Iran was somehow going to bring better economic conditions?
The more one sees and hears from these local gentlemen, the less there is worth seeing or hearing.
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Upcomingposts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.
Firefighters worked to contain a massive house fire in Norwood, New Jersey, on Tuesday afternoon. Aerial footage from WABC-TV shows the fire crew dousing the flames with water as large white and black plumes of smoke rise into the sky.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy and windy with scattered showers and a high of 73. Sunrise is 5:35 and sunset is 8:07 for 14 hours 32 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 24 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5:15 PM and the Police and Fire Commission meets at 6 PM.
Both headlines are reconcilable only if one thinks of this budget deal — involving leaders from two branches of state government — as though it were merely a single vote of a state commission. This is not merely a single vote of a state commission.
If many WisDems legislators — along with some in the WISGOP — oppose this deal, it’s not a bipartisan deal in the ordinary connotation of bipartisan: a deal supported broadly by both parties. (If every Democrat voted for a proposal, and one Republican joined in support, that would be a definition of bipartisan stretched so thin as to be transparent.)
That’s how much the terms bipartisan and bipartisanship have shriveled in our time — from terms that were meant to define consensus between major parties to meaning little more than one member from each party.
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Upcomingposts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.
A pair of South Florida wildfires that torched thousands of acres in the Everglades over the weekend spread Monday as fire crews worked to contain them. (AP video: Daniel Kozin)
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 60. Sunrise is 5:36 and sunset is 8:06 for 14 hours 30 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 34 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Plan & Architectural Review Board meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1973, citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg’s charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times are dismissed.
Even in small-town Whitewater, across many years, there has always been more than one kind of Democrat or Republican. See the series WHITEWATER’S LOCAL POLITICS 2021. (It’s only the unobservant or conceptually confused who think there’s only one of each type.)
Of these several types, two — species within a genus so to speak — come to mind recently.
For Whitewater’s Democrats, there have always been members of Democraticus bipartisanus whitewaterensis: Democrats who will seek purportedly bipartisan deals with leading local Republicans no matter how unfavorable the terms or how compromising to the Democrats’ overall politics. These types are fewer now, but you’ll still see some. They’re men and women who are sure that they can find common ground even on quicksand. Since Scott Walker, the number of local Democrats who think this way gets smaller each year. These remaining creatures have seen their status shift from vulnerable to endangered to critically endangered over the last dozen years.
There’s no common ground left, but they just don’t stop delusionally hoping.
For Republicans, who have seen the rise of MAGA, there’s a tendency among local MAGA devotees to associate with MAGA-spouting special interest men as part of a coalition: Republicanus magaensis subserviens whitewaterensis. These MAGA men spent much of their lives insisting that they’d been ignored by others, including fellow Republicans, and now that they’ve become more numerous the first thing they’ve done has been to take direction from the very Republicans who ignored them for years.
One can see that I’m opposed to MAGA, but it never fails to both perplex and amuse thatthe faction that insists it’s now their time still takes direction from the local men who mucked up the time before our time. All it took was a few shared cultural positions for the special interest men to co-opt MAGA to their own local ends.
In other parts of the nation, these particular species of Democrats or Republicans do not exist: Democrats seldom appease Republicans and MAGA seldom appeases anyone. Elsewhere, these species stand on their own. There’s simply greater clarity of nature and aims elsewhere.
That greater clarity is useful to everyone: communities elsewhere see more early, so to speak, what’s what.
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Upcomingposts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.
NASA has two rovers on Mars – but they’re exploring entirely different eras of the planet’s past. Separated by 2,300 miles, the two rovers are uncovering clues from very different moments in Martian history. Perseverance is on the rim of Jezero Crater, where it’s studying some of the oldest Martian terrain ever explored while searching for signs of ancient microbial life. Meanwhile, Curiosity is climbing Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, where layers of rock reveal how Mars’ climate changed as water dried up from its surface. Together, the missions are helping scientists reconstruct how Mars formed, when and where water existed, and the planet’s history of having the right conditions to support life. Their discoveries are offering a clearer picture of how Mars became the dry and dusty world we know today.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 63. Sunrise is 5:37 and sunset is 8:05 for 14 hours 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 43.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Upcomingposts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.
A study using imagery from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that “massive star clusters emerge more quickly from the clouds they are born in,” according to ESA.
Saturday in Whitewater will see a mix of clouds and sunshine with a high of 67. Sunrise is 5:38 and sunset is 8:04 for 14 hours 26 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 53.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1974, the House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Nixon.
Some questions are easily answered, no matter how often or breathlessly asked. Below are a few questions to dispatch this Saturday morning.
1. So is Tommy Thompson running for governor in 2026?
Thompson had a greater likelihood of a career as a successful swimsuit model than he did as a 2026 gubernatorial candidate.
2. Does it matter that erratic gadfly Kirk Bangstad is running for governor as a Democrat?
No. The Journal Sentinel‘s politics mailbag asks this question, but Bangstad is unknown to most people, and pointing to his campaign will prove a wasteful diversion of resources for either the WISGOP or WisDems. The serious primary field consists of Tiffany and a few leading WisDems (of whom Bangstad is not one, and never will be one).
3. Does it matter what WisDems candidate Joel Brennan said about Wisconsin not being ready for a non-white gubernatorial candidate?
No. Brennan has since ‘clarified’ his view, but the former head of Wisconsin’s Department of Administration, and former president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee,1 is well behind other WisDems gubernatorial candidates.
4. Does it matter that Rebecca Cooke, Democratic candidate for Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District, once consulted for Kirk Bangstad?
No. Cooke was once a consultant in 2015 for Bangstad, but it means nothing for her primary race or the general election if she wins her primary. (Cooke is likely to win her primary; Bangstad has, ironically, endorsed Cooke’s primary opponent, Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge.)
Four questions — easily and simply answered.
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These ‘Greater City X’ or ‘Greater County Y’ organizations are political pipsqueaks. They’re only interesting to the few stodgy types who read WisPolitics or stalk the halls of the state capitol building panhandling for public money. No one else GAF. Even if Brennan ran as a Republican, where these roles count for more, most Republican voters would, sensibly, find his résumé unimpressive. ↩︎
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Upcomingposts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.
Today is Global Big Day, a yearly 24-hour birding event where people around the world record as many bird species as possible to support conservation. Here’s a video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology aboutBig Day 2026 – Birding in the Five Great Forests:
On Saturday, May 9, Team Sapsucker will split up, searching for birds in the forests of Appalachia and Central America for Big Day 2026! The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s team of scientists and bird enthusiasts will race to identify as many species as they can in 24 hours, to raise awareness and crucial funds for conservation. One group will explore the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, while the others will traverse the Maya Forest in Guatemala. Both teams share a single goal: to help make a lasting impact for conservation.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 67. Sunrise is 5:39 and sunset is 8:03 for 14 hours 24 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 62.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1945, the German Instrument of Surrender signed at Berlin-Karlshorst comes into effect. (The day before, Germany had signed another surrender document with the Allies in Reims in France, but it was not recognized by the Soviet Union.)
Wisconsin’s Central Sand Plains lie northwest of Whitewater, in the middle of the state. Here is how the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources describes the area:
The eastern portion of the Central Sand Plains is a mosaic of cropland, managed grasslands and scattered woodlots of pine, oak, and aspen. Many of the historic wetlands in the east were drained early in the 1900s and are now used for agricultural purposes. The western portion of this Ecological Landscape is mostly forest or wetland. Oak, pine, and aspen are the most abundant forest cover types. Plantations of red pine are common in some areas. On wet sites the forests are of two major types: tamarack and black spruce in the peatlands, and bottomland hardwoods in the floodplains of the larger rivers. Many attempts to practice agriculture west of the Wisconsin River failed due to poor soils, poor drainage, and growing season frosts.
Best wishes to The Nature Conservancy as it works toward a conservation success story.
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Upcomingposts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.
The rare Kirtland’s warbler is listed as “near threatened” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Key threats are fire suppression, brood parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds, and loss of habitat on the wintering grounds.
The jaguarundi is one of the strangest-looking cats in the Americas. Long-bodied, short-legged and sleek, it has more than a hint of otter or weasel about it, which explains why it is sometimes called the otter cat.
Yet this elusive hunter is very much a felid, and a close relative of the puma. Found from northern Mexico right into South America, the jaguarundi is unusual not only for its shape but also for its habits, being more active by day than many of its feline neighbours.
The jaguarundi ranges from northern Mexico through Central America and across much of South America east of the Andes, reaching as far south as central Argentina. Historically, it also occurred in southern Texas, though it is now thought to have disappeared from the USA.
Tuesday, May 12 at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Hamnet @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Historical Drama/Biography/Romance
Rated PG-13; 2 hours, 6 minutes (2025)
The powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet. Oscar Winner, Best Actress: Jessie Buckley
Thursday in Whitewater will see intervals of clouds and sun with a brief shower or two and a high of 59. Sunrise is 5:41 and sunset is 8:02 for 14 hours 19 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 71.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1992, Michigan ratifies a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the Constitution making the 27th Amendment law. This amendment bars Congress from giving itself a mid-term pay raise.
Over three months ago, a longtime resident1 contended during public comment at the 1.20.26 session of the Whitewater Common Council that a demographic projection showed that Whitewater would lose 3,000 people in population by 2040. See Whitewater Common Council, January 20, 2026 Video @ 46:54.
On 2.9.26, this libertarian blogger wrote an assessment of that claim, concluding that the resident confused the authorship of the demographic projection and misunderstood or ignored the limitations of that projection’s conclusions. SeeOver Reliance on a Single Population Projection (outlining the reasons that “solid, rational planning for 2040 beats picking — cherry-picking, really — one estimate in remarks to the Whitewater Common Council.”)
Later, Later, that same over reliance on a single projection spread through others onto social media.
Honestly, to have the the hubris of some of these gentlemen in believing they can take a single demographic projection (and ignore other projections and different methodologies) is nearly satirical — something like an economic model that relies on one positive quarter from 2023.
One should be clear that this reliance on one projection was a transparent effort to undermine a proposed development project by throwing anything and everything at the wall.
Well, as one should have seen months ago, any considered analysis of several demographic projections (not simply a single projection that satisfies one’s argument!) concludes that
After consideration of both high and low forecasts, the [Whitewater Forward] plan uses a forecast based on an annual average resident growth rate of 0.4%, with some growth in local student population through 2030 based on the University’s strategic goals.
Indeed, of the four major population projections for Whitewater that RDG Planning reviews, only one of them shows a decline. The one projection that estimates a decline relies, as I noted at the time, on a “method [that] also produces a projection that can be highly sensitive to short-run disruption — especially in places that are unusual in ways for which the model does not account.”
decline of the student population after 2020 [i.e., a temporary distortion from the pandemic] is likely influencing the projection for Whitewater, along with the unique population age cohorts from university students that factor into the birth and death model.
No one need be a demographer (as I am not) to grasp that serious argumentation requires looking at several studies, considering whether one of them might have (as in this matter) a different methodology, and then fairly and accurately representing those various demographic projections and their approaches.
Regrettably, that’s not what one of Whitewater’s longtime residents did this winter. It’s what RDG Planning & Design’s Population Forecasts for Whitewater (2026) does this spring.
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Local landlord, former Community Development Authority member, former Community Development Authority chairman, former school board member, former school board president. ↩︎
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Upcomingposts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.
As Russian drones overwhelm Ukraine’s vast air defenses, civilian volunteers are stepping in to take them down. The New York Times takes flight with a crew that’s turned an old skydiving plane into a drone hunter.
