Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast calls for a clear day, with a high temperature of sixty-seven degrees.

The City of Whitewater’s public hearing concerning distressed status from Tax Incremental District 4 has been postponed, pending selection of a citizen representative to the Joint Review Board.

[Update, 8:10 AM — I’ve promised a post or two about Tax Incremental District 4, but those posts will now, like the hearing about TID 4, wait for another day. TID 4’s condition is a story on its own, and, I think, is connected to subsequent projects in the city. An explanation of TID 4’s fiscal history at a hearing will prove significant, perhaps, for more than one reason. It makes sense to hear what municipal officials say at that hearing.]

At 4:30 p.m., the Whitewater Community Development Authority will meet. The meeting agenda is available online.

In the online version of Der Speigel, there’s an interesting story entitled, “90 Beds in 90 Days,” about “hitting the town with Berlin’s couch-surfing nomad,” Christine Neder:

Christine Neder, 25, recently moved from Munich to Berlin. She didn’t have time to bother with the hassle of searching for a room, so she made a bold decision: For 90 days she would seek out a new room every night, looking for people willing to host her on social networking sites like CouchSurfing and Facebook. Neder is a fashion designer and writer.

The Web makes Neder’s task far easier, and she describes her adventures in a video, available online. (Neder is apparently something of a performance artist, with different online ventures, so I doubt that her couch surfing is entirely of necessity; opportunity likely plays a role. She hit on the idea not simply on short-notice, but as she remarks, while on holiday.)

The BBC describes the practice, for other travelers:

I can’t see this catching on outside of a small part of America, in a few big cities. I wonder, though, if couch surfing is what the Web has done (or is doing) to the hostel in Europe. more >>

Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast for today calls for a windy day with a high temperature of sixty-eight degrees.

It’s make-up day for school pictures at Washington School.

I’ve written before about the return of bedbugs, and scourge that seemed only a part of our past, until recent outbreaks across America. I would have thought that, like the dustbowl, bedbugs belonged to another era.

Not only are they back, but they’re apparently impinging on America’s dating scene. Jessica Firger of the Wall Street Journal writes that bedbugs are a complication of romantic life. In Love Bites: Dating in the Age of Bedbugs, Firger writes that

On dating sites, where profiles often tout daters’ disease- and drug-free status, the bedbug fear is evident. One woman, who preferred her name not appear, said that several people on the OKCupid dating site stopped writing to her once they’d learned she was dealing with an infestation.

Exterminator Mike Masterson, owner of Isotech, a national pest-control firm, said he’s seen several relationships crumble under the strain of a bedbug infestation. (One couple, Isotech clients, nearly divorced over their bedbug episode, he said.)

I’m not sure what to make of this. I am sure that it reflects not just a change in social life, but a change in reporting at the Wall Street Journal. It’s unimaginable that the WSJ would have reported a story like this, mentioning the dating habits of younger Americans, twenty years ago. The paper was much too staid; any discussion would have involved only the possible income loss to hotels, and financial gains to exterminators & pesticide manufacturers.

Cimex lectularius

The Friday Comments Forum will be on holiday today, but back next week. Many thanks for your contributions, and the feature will be resume with a new topic next Friday.

For today, there are more posts on the way.