It’s a warm, wet day for Whitewater, with a high temperature of thirty-nine. In Atlanta, it’s a day of scattered thunderstorms and a high of sixty-four.
In 1869, it wasn’t easy — it was impossible, actually — for a woman to run the post office in Janesville, Wisconsin:
1845 – Angela Josephine King Born
On this date Angela Josephine King was born in Trumbull County, Ohio. She moved to Janesville in 1848 and graduated from the Janesville Ladies’ Seminary in 1867. King obtained a job as a clerk at the Janesville Post Office. In 1868 President U.S. Grant announced he would appoint a new postmaster in Janesville. A special election was held in February of 1869, with the understanding that the candidate who won the election would be endorsed by Congressman Benjamin Hopkins. King won the race by 42 votes and traveled to Washington to receive her appointment.
Hopkins balked at the idea of appointing a woman and innstead he gave the runner up, and his political rival James Burgess, his endorsement. As a result, King requested an interview with President Grant, but Grant refused to make the appointment without Hopkins’ endorsement. In the fall of 1871, Angela King attended Chicago Law School and returned home to Janesville to continue her study of the law.
In January of 1879, she was admitted to practice law in Rock County Circuit Court. Shortly thereafter, she and Rhoda Lavinia Goodell formed the partnership of Goodell and King, located next to the Janesville Post Office. Angela Josephine King continued to practice law in Janesville and served as an advocate for the women’s suffrage movement until her death in 1913. [Source: State Bar of Wisconsin]
Via Wisconsin Historical Society.
Google’s puzzle of the day is particular: “When the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, she was carrying 26,000 tons of pellets of what kind of iron ore?”
YouTube poster vmpickle123 offers a brief description of the cartoon:
A Cartoon Travesty of THE RAVEN by Edgar Allan Poe.
Released April 3, 1942 on two reels.
Animation directed by Tom Johnson.
Voices by Jack Mercer and Pinto Colvig.
Possibly narrated by Sam Parker – who voiced Gulliver in the 1939 Fleischer feature “Gulliver’s Travels.”
For more information, see the Internet Movie Database entry.
There’s an interview on Wisconsin Public Television that news anchor Frederica Freyberg conducts with Kathleen Falk, a declared challenger to Scott Walker in a recall campaign. It’s well-worth watching, and I have embedded the program below.
I’ve reviewed Falk’s video announcement, and this interview reveals some of the same problems of delivery and presentation that the former Dane County Executive exhibited in her campaign ad. She’s simply not up to a campaign like this, and I’m sure that Democrats in a recall primary will see that, too.
Quick aside on WPT: A small ad accompanies the interview on the WPT website — “Funding for Here and Now is provided in part by Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists, LLC.” That’s the right approach; public television should solicit ads. more >>
Pres. Obama’s released his first campaign commercial of the 2012 election.
Here are impressions of the commercial (playing in Wisconsin), embedded below. They address the politics, and not the merits, of Obama’s message.
Video quality. As one might expect at this level, the video looks great — sharp, with brisk pacing, and a good mix of photos and video clips. It’s a big step up from statewide or local campaign ads. No surprise there.
Video message. The ad starts abruptly, and defensively. That cannot be by accident, as it starts so abruptly that it’s meant to address a particular concern in a particular way for a particular purpose.
The particular concern: that Obama has fumbled on green energy, in way that may also be unethical. The particular way: by presenting criticism of Obama as part of a billionaire’s conspiracy. The particular purpose: to test themes in a battleground state, while the GOP is still picking a nominee. There’s a conspiratorial cast to the early part of the commercial that’s probably of interest to Team Obama — how helpful is it it answer criticism by impugning critics as shadowy, big-moneyed, corporate oligarchs?
They likely know what focus groups think, but how do prospective voters (and Democratic leaders) where these ads run feel, before and after the commercials?
Will this ad allow Obama to inoculate himself from charges in a conservative commercial that hit him over companies like Solyndra?
Narration. The ad uses a narrator, and he sounds fine — middle-aged, confident, but understated. That’s the right approach — a deeper, more assertive voice isn’t needed, and would be counterproductive. Pres. Obama seeks to convey greater reliability than his GOP rival; as an incumbent, he can make that case without narration that rattles one’s stereo speakers.
If I thought that this were something other an in-market test message, I’d think it too abrupt, and a failure. This commercial’s like a large-scale drug trial: does it stop the lethal spread of criticism over mishandling of green-energy funding?
Too many trial messages like this are a bad idea, but one here or there will be more helpful than harmful. If they succeed with voters, their themes can be repeated in the months ahead. If they’re failures, they’ll be forgotten before the Republicans have their nominee.
But, for a fully-cooked campaign ad from the Obama campaign, we’ll have to wait. This isn’t it, and it’s not meant to be.
I mentioned that I would write a bit about the Williamsburg neighborhood. Brooklyn’s huge (millions of residents) and there are many neighborhoods (themselves large) within that borough. One of them is Williamsburg, a diverse and eclectic community, with both Hasidim and hipsters, and a thriving arts scene.
These groups within the neighborhood do not always get along. As one can guess, the Hasidim don’t like the hipster bars and social scene. (It is, reportedly, from one of those bars that the Pickleback originated.)
And yet, there they both are, and neither has effectively prevented the growth of the other, nor evicted the other. No one in Williamsburg has successfully placed a finger on government’s scale, assuring that only his or her own kind will live there.
These two groups — and many more people who are part of neither — are all residents of the same, large neighborhood.
They’ve had their share of tensions, but they’ve gone on, and done well for themselves, despite these problems.
It’s a characteristic of successful people that they thrive in many environments, and that they focus on their own accomplishments rather than on limiting and restricting others.
In this regard, so much of Old Whitewater is a failure: a few people patting others’ backs, while doing what they can to limit, inhibit, restrict, and prevent.
I sometimes think that Whitewater’s town squires would rather that the town be perpetually struggling and miserable rather than that there should be greater prosperity with a new and different atmosphere. (More particularly: if a few people feel like they’re doing well enough as things are, they don’t really give a damn if the rest of the town scrapes by, or even declines.)
Too much noise, too much fuss, too much energy, too much commotion: this is what these tired and dull officials will not brook. What they really fear is the energy and dynamism of new people, new ideas, new opportunities. They don’t want anything new that they cannot control, manage, or administer.
The problem, though, is that what they can control, manage, or administer isn’t nearly as good as what new people, new ideas, and new opportunities offer free of control.
Nothing stays the same: Whitewater will either grow more prosperous or less, more vibrant or less, more open or less. The same won’t be the same – the same will be among the less and lesser.
I’m confident that — over time — Whitewater will prosper, as the other places have. How wasteful and sad will these times seem from the vantage of that time-to-come?
I’ll leave aside the NFC for a bit, and ask an AFC question: Patriots or Ravens? The question’s intentionally ambiguous — one can answer for either the team one prefers, or the team one expects to win, should that require a different answer.
Those are all good names, but of that list, I’d go for Smokey, Tiger, or Max as preferred choices. No name, though, could top Suzie, a great name for a great cat.
It’s snow for Whitewater today, with 2-4 inches expected, and a high temperature in the low teens. In Anchorage, it will be even colder (single digits), but they’ll have no snow.
Deep in a pristine Borneo rainforest, researchers have found an endangered species of monkey recently feared to be extinct.
Surveys in the late 1970s spotted the monkey, called Miller’s grizzled langur, in Borneo’s easternmost national forest. Three decades later, all but 5 percent of the habitat had been destroyed by logging, agricultural encroachment, coal mining and fire.
As late as 2011, many researchers feared the langur was extinct. One place they hadn’t searched intensively, however, was Wehea — a rainforest preserve 90 miles west of the langur’s traditional territory.
Armed with camera traps and some luck, a survey team accidentally captured the first images of grizzled langurs in years.
“Locals knew they lived in this forest but had no idea what they were looking at. When we saw them, we were shocked,” said conservation scientist Brent Loken of Simon Fraser University, co-author of a study published online Jan. 20 in the American Journal of Primatology.
A Wisconsin scientist is among those studying the langur:
Stephanie Spehar, a primatologist at the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh, said the adult langurs weigh between 13 and 16 pounds, munch primarily on leaves and tend to live in groups of one male, several females and their infants. She said it’s too soon to estimate their population size.
“We know almost nothing about this species or its ecology,” Spehar said. “I’m incredibly eager to begin the long-term ecology studies. That information will be crucial to their preservation.”
Photo: Eric Fell
It’s three years since the last presidential inauguration, but the Wisconsin Historical Society recalls a particularly special inauguration for student-musicians in Milton:
1961 – Milton Marching Band Performs at Inauguration
On this date the 78-piece Milton Union High School Band, directed by Richard Dabson, marched in the parade at JFK’s inauguration in Washington, D.C. [Source: Janesville Gazette]
A bit more of music, from Google’s daily puzzle: “To which note does an orchestra concertmaster tune his instrument’s highest string?”
And on this January 20th, twenty years after the Milton band marched, on January 20th, 1981, “Iran released 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.”
Perhaps some fret all day, dreading the prospect of a sports bar in a business district in a town that has too few businesses of any kind.
I am not among them.
In small-town Whitewater, the main thoroughfare is called, creatively, Main Street. Along it one finds dozens of commercial businesses. Fast-food restaurants, strip malls, a Wal-Mart, etc., line much of the street. One of those shops was a coffee shop, and the owner had proposed the sale of that business to a new owner so that he might convert the location into a sports bar.
To operate as a sports bar, the prospective owner needed Planning Commission conditional-use approval to sell beer or liquor by bottle or glass at that business location. (The coffee shop already had, since 2004, a license to sell beer or liquor at the location.)
The Planning Commission discussion takes place beginning at 6:20 in the embedded video below.
There’s much fuss about whether people living nearby might hear noise, but it’s all conjecture — there’s been no noise of which anyone might complain. Furthermore, do bars in the downtown not co-exist with apartments much closer by than this sports bar would be to nearby homes?
Is there anyone who, having purchased a home or rented an apartment near the main business strip in town, should be surprised that a new business might move in? Several complaining residents act as if they own not only their properties, but have a right to stall retail development in a business district of which they’ve invested not a dime.
They should not be so indulged. If nearby residents didn’t want to be so close to the main retail district in town, they should have purchased or rented elsewhere.
Consider the presumptuous assertion that — in a commissioner’s estimation — another bar isn’t the best use for the property, or for Whitewater, generally.
That should be a market decision, of consumers and merchants in the marketplace. Should a sports bar succeed, it succeeds through consumer support; should it fail, it fails through lack thereof.
If there were a healthier climate already, we’d be able to attract more diverse businesses. Yet, there isn’t, because existing planning and municipal intervention have been a wreck.
To every commissioner who voted against a new business in this troubled town: what are you doing to fill these shops? You have the power to keep a place vacant, in a town that has too many vacancies already. What have you done to reduce vacancies?
The members of the commission all have jobs, or pensions, and not a one looks to be going hungry.
There was a sad moment in all this, when the applicant was asked about the possible clientele of the sports bar. More than one commissioner asked what the prospective clientele of the establishment might be. (One can guess why they asked: the hope that the prospective owner would say something foolish, so that they might pounce on it.)
The would-be owner was puzzled by their question, and answered more than once that he hoped for a clientele of ‘all people.’ To them, he must have seemed unsophisticated.
On the contrary, his answer was better than their questions. He answered in a way they may not have expected, or understood. He wasn’t answering simply about types or backgrounds, but about customers apart from those narrow characteristics.
I’m an optimist, in spite of provincial municipal interference in the marketplace. A decade from now, I believe Whitewater will be more diverse, and more cosmopolitan, than she is now. In that time, an answer of ‘all people’ won’t be unsophisticated; it will be the common reply in a fair, vibrant, prosperous city.
Kathleen Falk, former Dane County Executive, declared her candidacy yesterday for governor. Below I have embedded her video declaration, a screenshot of her website, and a chart from the Journal Sentinel of Democrats who may run against Walker.
These are first impressions of Falk’s campaign announcement. They address only the politics, and not the merits, of Falk’s campaign.
The video. Falk’s video surprises – for someone who has been in politics for years, this is a poor setting, poor delivery, and poor presentation.
It’s a mistake to put Falk on camera behind a stark black background. Even a blank white background would have been better. A recall campaign should inspire optimism; this dark setting does the opposite.
She should not be in a studio; the entire video should have shots of her walking around, with her own narration. Fast-paced, energetic, confident.
The delivery. Her delivery is slow, almost somnolent, where a quicker tempo would be preferable. It’s fine to tell a story about someone she’s met, but Falk should do so with evident enthusiasm. An NPR-style delivery will not serve a Democrat well in a race against Gov. Walker.
There’s nothing pithy or epigrammatical in her remarks, and yet that’s critical for a recall candidate: a mix of terse, easily-remembered, variously funny or biting comments is essential.
There’s no energy in her delivery, and worse, she speaks with a discernible lisp. That slurring of consonants (particularly ‘s’) may be a consequence of age, or of ill-fitting dental work, but either way it conveys an impediment.
Falk’s sixty, I think, and she looks like a woman of her age. She’s not aged poorly, but she’s not aged particularly well, either. For a woman with a white-collar career (lawyer, politician) behind her, she’s probably aged less well than some Wisconsin women who’ve had harder lives.
Her hair, short, overly-dark, and pulled back from her face, reminds viewers of an ageing teacher on the verge of retirement. Look at her photo from the Journal Sentinel’s chart of candidates, and one sees a softer, more appealing image. There, she’s lovely and professional, with lighter hair, covering her forehead and just around her ears.
The website. The website, as the screenshot shows, now highlights Falk’s announcement video. Since the video displays her poorly, the website is a disadvantage. She needs a better photo, and a livelier video, as her re-introduction to voters. (She’s run and lost statewide twice before, to Doyle in a primary and to J.B. Van Hollen in a general election.)
Even as a bare-bones start, this is a tepid effort.
Other Democrats, and Team Walker, will see as much.
More and better opportunity to consider their gubernatorial choice, and less time for Gov. Walker to focus on a single candidate before the recall general election.
It’s a clear and breezy day for the Whippet City, with a high of nine; in Las Vegas, it’s a mostly sunny day with a high temperature of sixty-five.
Tonight at 7 PM, the League of Women Voters hosts a program at city hall: “Budget Repair Bill Update: Impact on City/County Operations” with speakers: Kevin Brunner, Whitewater City Manager and David Bretl, Walworth County Administrator.
On this day in 1937, an aviation record from Howard Hughes: “millionaire Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.”
In Wisconsin, an anniversary of which we can be proud:
1939 – Chicken Plucking World Record
On January 19, 1939 Ernest Hausen (1877 – 1955) of Ft. Atkinson set the world’s record for chicken plucking. [Source: Guiness Book of World’s Records, 1992]
Today’s Google puzzle comes from Dave Matthews: “If these people didn’t make what they make with their truss rods and kerfing and braces, then I couldn’t play what I play.”
