Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 76. Sunrise is 6:42 AM and sunset 6:51 PM for 12h 08m 45s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 47.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, a preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation is released by Abraham Lincoln.

Sometimes a dog story is more than a dog story. The tale begins, however, with a genuine dog in New York. Andy Newman reports A Quaint French Bookstore’s Violent Dog Problem Turns Deadly:

The quaint little shop on the Upper East Side is New York City’s only store dedicated to French children’s books. But lately, the shop, La Librairie des Enfants, has earned a more sinister distinction: It has been the sometime home of Syko, a 98-pound white German shepherd with a penchant for eviscerating smaller dogs.

On Friday, Akiba Tripp was walking her seven-pound toy poodle, Baby, past the store when the owner opened the door and Syko lurched out, sank his teeth into Baby and broke her spine, Ms. Tripp said. Baby was euthanized that evening.

The attack followed two others in May in which Syko and his siblings injured three other dogs, their owners said. In recent months, the proprietor’s German shepherds — five of them, including Syko’s parents — had spent time in the basement and the main area of the store.

They terrorized people and dogs alike, according to several victims along with online reviews of the shop, which has an adjoining cafe.

Syko’s reign of terror has now apparently ended. His owner, Lynda Hudson, said that on Saturday, Syko and her other four German shepherds moved permanently to her new house in Westchester County and would no longer come to the store.

Consider the irresponsibility of dog-owner Lynda Hudson: she knew for months that her poorly-trained dog had been attacking other dogs and people. She claims now to have tried to restrain the dog, etc., yet she was ineffective in controlling her canine when other people are able to restrain, retrain, or re-home their own dogs. While it’s true that Syko the dog attacked people and other animals, an incompetent owner was the root cause of these attacks.

Those who hold the leash bear responsibility for their dogs’ misbehavior. 

People, unlike dogs, bear a greater responsibility for their own actions. See Whitewater Needs Neither a King Nor a Mind Reader, Scenes from a Council Meeting (Responsibility), and Scenes from a Council Meeting (Representations).

And yet, and yet, even in the case of people, those who have an influence over others have an obligation to produce a mature demeanor, personal discipline, hard work, thorough reading, etc.

That’s why this story about a dog is about more than a dog.

Why it is that no one in Whitewater can ensure that Whitewater’s Common Council leads with discipline and diligence? 

Black Sea fleet HQ engulfed by smoke after Ukrainian missile strike:

 Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 77. Sunrise is 6:41 AM and sunset 6:53 PM for 12h 11m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 36.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1780, Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.

Consider a sign in front of a church, listing only three words: FAITH. REASON. TRADITION. (Another ordering of these words would alter the positions of the first two, as Martin Albl’s Reason, Faith, Tradition does. A secular equivalent for politics or business might simply be Principle, Reason, Past Practice.) 

These orderings share one characteristic: they place tradition or practice last. Other qualities come first: a set of beliefs or principles and the application of human reason to them.

That’s not how Old Whitewater’s remaining, aged politicians carry on. For that ilk, tradition — business as usual— always comes first.

There are likely two reasons that they prioritize tradition.

First, it suits their ability to control institutions when they insist that the future must look like their own (admitted failed) past practices. It is they who are most familiar with their own dull conduct, so it is they who are most likely to continue along those same lines. (Indeed, competitive and dynamic people would find nothing useful from the aged men on the Community Development Authority or from the man who now sits both on the CDA and as Common Council president.)

Old Whitewater’s excuse-making failures may delight in themselves, but sharp people have no interest in letting that skunk smell permeate their clothes.

This conveniently leaves Whitewater’s political institutions in the hands of incompetent, but self-satisfied, old men.

Second, tradition is the easiest to master within a trio of principle, reason, and tradition. It simply requires less work. To be candid, even an illiterate or semi-literate person could follow ‘business as usual’ without much effort. This shows in both the old men of the CDA and Common Council: even after decades with the city in their geriatric grip, they struggle to follow an agenda or comply with state statutes and local ordinances. They’re entitled, and their entitlement makes them, and keeps them, dull.

America, Wisconsin, and Whitewater are filled with creative, dynamic, hardworking people. Sadly, they’re not to be found among those who run Whitewater’s Common Council or its Community Development Authority. 

Streets turn into rivers as Typhoon Haikui inundates China’s Fujian: