Good morning.

It’s a partly cloudy day ahead for Whitewater, with a high temperature of fifty-eight degrees.

In the City of Whitewater today, there will be a Parks & Recreation Board meeting at 4 p.m., and at 4:30 p.m. there will be a meeting of Whitewater’s Community Development Authority.  I’ve linked to the agendas of each meeting.

Like so many Americans, and many billions more throughout the world, I heard of Bin Laden’s death last night.  The president’s speech, announcing Bin Laden’s demise to the nation was, I think, the finest single speech Pres. Obama has delivered (and like Reagan before him, Obama is a gifted speaker).  It’s a speech I’ve heard twice now, and well worth hearing yet again, for its clear expression of America’s fortitude in the pursuit of justice.

Here at home, and over at the Gazette, there’s a good story about one of Whitewater’s hidden treasures, a series of tribal effigy mounds far older than any other human effort in our city:

“Whitewater is one of the best-preserved in that part of the state,” said archeologist Robert Birmingham, who has authored books about effigy mounds in Wisconsin. “(They) really are an archeological world wonder.”

Birmingham estimates Whitewater’s mounds were built between 700 and 1100 A.D. Among them are thunderbirds, “panther-like water sprits,” snakes and a mink.

He said almost all sites were built near natural springs, a representation of life.

Efforts to preserve this site, the hard work of a dedicated group, are particularly commendable.  See, Whitewater hopes to restore historical effigy mounds.