Here’s a combined Friday poll and catblogging post.
What do you think? I’ll say yes, but for me, it’s a soft yes. Takes a bit of getting used to them, I suppose…
Cat fanciers have a new breed to enjoy – not yet recognized officially, but striking nonetheless – the Lykoi Cat.
They’re meant to be like small wolves in appearance, and websites are referring to them as werewolf cats.
Good morning.
There’s a probability of snow this morning, of about a half an inch in accumulation, and afterward a mostly sunny day with a high of twenty seven.
On February 21, 1885, the Washington Monument is dedicated:
The 555-foot-high marble obelisk was first proposed in 1783, and Pierre L’Enfant left room for it in his designs for the new U.S. capital. After George Washington’s death in 1799, plans for a memorial for the “father of the country” were discussed, but none were adopted until 1832–the centennial of Washington’s birth. Architect Robert Mills’ hollow Egyptian obelisk design was accepted for the monument, and on July 4, 1848, the cornerstone was laid. Work on the project was interrupted by political quarreling in the 1850s, and construction ceased entirely during the American Civil War. Finally, in 1876, Congress, inspired by the American centennial, passed legislation appropriating $200,000 for completion of the monument.
In February 1885, the Washington Monument was formally dedicated, and three years later it was opened to the public, who were permitted to climb to the top of the monument by stairs or elevator. The monument was the tallest structure in the world when completed and remains today, by District of Columbia law, the tallest building in the nation’s capital.
On this day in 1918, a move to denounce dissent fails in the Wisconsin Assembly:
1918 – Denunciation of LaFollette rejected by Assembly
On this day, a move to denounce Sen. Robert LaFollette and the nine Wisconsin congressmen who refused to support World War I failed in the State Assembly, by a vote of 76-15. Calling LaFollette “disloyal,” the amendment’s originator, Democrat John F. Donnelly, insisted that LaFollette’s position did not reflect “the sentiment of the people of Wisconsin. We should not lack the courage to condemn his actions.” Reflecting the majority opinion, Assemblyman Charles F. Hart retorted that “The Wisconsin State Legislature went on record by passing a resolution telling the President that the people of this state did not want war. Now we are condemning them for doing that which we asked them to do.” [Source: Capital Times 2/21/1918, p.1]
Puzzability‘s series on the Olympics, Cities of Gold, concludes today with Friday’s game:
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This Week’s Game — February 17-21
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Cities of Gold
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Here’s our inside track at the Olympics. For each day this week, we started with the name of a city in which the Winter Olympics have been held. Then we hid it in a sentence, with spaces added as necessary. The answer spans at least two words in the sentence and starts and ends in the middle of words. The day’s clue gives the sentence with a torch in place of the city name.
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Example:
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I didn’t qualify for the luge finals after my qualifying time was to
 w. |
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Answer:
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Oslo (too slow)
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What to Submit:
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Submit the city (as “Oslo” in the example) for your answer.
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Friday, February 21
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Embedded below is a film about a honey bee swarm. Sometimes bees are a metaphor for human pursuits (e.g., of social cooperation, collectivization, etc.), but that’s not my point here.
The film is simply interesting to me as a documentary about animal life.
Enjoy.
Good morning.
Whitewater has a wintry mix ahead this morning, but mostly rain for later in the day (with a chance for thunderstorms in the afternoon). Our high temperature today will be forty-three.
Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.
Cape Canaveral, Fla., Feb. 20 — John H. Glenn Jr. orbited three times around the earth today and landed safely to become the first American to make such a flight.
The 40-year-old Marine Corps lieutenant colonel traveled about 81,000 miles in 4 hours 56 minutes before splashing into the Atlantic at 2:43 P.M. Eastern Standard Time.
He had been launched from here at 9:47 A. M.
The astronaut’s safe return was no less a relief than a thrill to the Project Mercury team, because there had been real concern that the Friendship 7 capsule might disintegrate as it rammed back into the atmosphere.
There had also been a serious question whether Colonel Glenn could complete three orbits as planned. But despite persistent control problems, he managed to complete the entire flight plan.
On February 20th, 1950, Wisconsinite Sen. Joe McCarthy hurls accusations:
1950 – McCarthy Delivers Allegations to Senate
On this date, in a six-hour speech delivered before the U.S. Senate, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed he had the names of 81 U.S. government officials actively engaged in Communist activities, including “one of our foreign ministers.” [Source: Joseph McCarthy timeline]
Ironic, truly, that those most known for speeches of that length are Communist despots.
Puzzability‘s Thursday game is now out:
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This Week’s Game — February 17-21
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Cities of Gold
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Here’s our inside track at the Olympics. For each day this week, we started with the name of a city in which the Winter Olympics have been held. Then we hid it in a sentence, with spaces added as necessary. The answer spans at least two words in the sentence and starts and ends in the middle of words. The day’s clue gives the sentence with a torch in place of the city name.
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Example:
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I didn’t qualify for the luge finals after my qualifying time was to
w. |
|||||
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Answer:
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Oslo (too slow)
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What to Submit:
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Submit the city (as “Oslo” in the example) for your answer.
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Thursday, February 20
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Years ago, during a controversy in Whitewater, someone told me a story about an official who, I learned, asked God’s help to relieve that official from a political burden. The official delivered his request, apparently, in blunt, specific terms.
I don’t know whether the official received an answer to his prayers, or whether he believed that he did.
In any event, one may be confident that the official did not receive an affirmative answer, as the subject of his request remained living and in good health.
I was reminded of this account, nearly forgotten to me, when I recently read the observation of a pastor about God’s possible reply to prayers: “we go to God for answers, but sometimes what we get is God’s presence.”
This seems profoundly right to me. We misunderstand God, surely, when we believe that we are owed what we want, in the way that we want it. It’s a staggering arrogance that would lead us to believe that God, Himself, serves as a political consultant.
Lincoln certainly understood this — it’s not possible to read his Second Inaugural without seeing that Lincoln held a divine, transcendent will to be fundamentally removed from particular, partisan concerns.
That leaves us, as just as it left Lincoln in his time, often to experience God’s presence alone.
Far from being too little, that presence is, by definition, then and there exactly what should be.
(Of views on the divine nature, I have enjoyed two books from David Bentley Hart. On the historical ignorance of skepticism, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. On misunderstandings about the transcendent nature of divinity, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss.)
As for our particular and partisan political questions, we would do well to manage them to the fullest of our own abilities.
In fact, I believe, that responsibility is among the least that God expects of us
Results from the Wisconsin Spring Primary are, mostly, now in.
In Whitewater. I’ve commented on this race in email and online. The unofficial results (Binnie 152, Yvarra 30, Meyer 26) in the top-two primary show a marked gap between the incumbent and his challengers. In a primary that awarded the race to a candidate with a majority from among all votes cast, the race would now be decided.
That’s not our law, of course, and there will be a Spring General Election, about six weeks from now, on April 1st. There are other uncontested council races on the ballot (incumbents Phil Frawley, Ken Kidd, and Stephanie Abbott) at that time.
It will be well worth hearing from all these candidates at the March candidate’s forum.
In Walworth County. In Walworth County’s District 5, the primary vote (Staples 169, Redenius 126, Boss 112) pits challenger Charlene Fell Staples against incumbent Carl Redenius in April for a supervisor’s position.
In Wisconsin. These spring primary races were so local, with such sparse voting in some parts of the state, that they offer little indication of how statewide primaries or the November election will go.
Good morning.
Wednesday brings sunny skies and a balmy, forty-degree temperature.
On this day in 1945, America began the invasion of Iwo Jima, a notably intense, month-long battle against Japanese forces. The Associated Press reported the Marines’ landing:
Advanced Headquarters, Guam, Monday, Feb. 19 – American Marines, their path cleared by the most intensive neutralization campaign of the Pacific war, have landed on strategic little Iwo Island, one of the Volcano group, 750 statute miles south of Tokyo.
The landing was made this (Monday) morning. The Fourth and Fifth Marine Divisions made this first Marine Operation since the Palaus were invaded last September. [Lieut. Gen. Holland M. Smith, victor over the Japanese on Saipan, was in command of the Marines, The United Press said.]
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz announced in a special communique; today the momentous development in the fast-moving Pacific war which put American troops on the logical ocean stepping-stone to Tokyo.
Iwo is so close to Tokyo that it is administered by Tokyo prefecture.
On February 19th, 1968, a noted photographer is born, near our city:
1868 – Photographer Edward S. Curtis Born
On this date Edward Sheriff Curtis was born near Whitewater. As a young boy, he taught himself photography. His family eventually moved to the Puget Sound area of Washington state. He settled in Seattle and opened a photography studio in 1897.A chance meeting on Mount Rainier resulted in Curtis being appointed official photographer on railroad magnate E.H. Harriman’s expedition to Alaska. Curtis also accompanied George Bird Grinnell, editor of Field and Stream magazine, to Montana in 1900 to observe the Blackfoot Sun Dance.
After this, Curtis strove to comprehensively document American Indians through photography, a project that continued for over 30 years. Working primarily with 6 x 8-inch reflex camera, he created over 40,000 sepia-toned images. His work attracted national attention, most notably from Theodore Roosevelt and J. Pierpont Morgan, whose family contributed generously to his project.
His monumental work, The North American Indian, was eventually printed in 20 volumes with associated portfolios. Curtis’ work included portraits, scenes of daily life, ceremonies, architecture and artifacts, and landscapes. His photographs have recently been put online by the Library of Congress.[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, SHSW 1960, pg. 892]
Puzzability‘s Wednesday game continues a sports-theme:
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This Week’s Game — February 17-21
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Cities of Gold
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Here’s our inside track at the Olympics. For each day this week, we started with the name of a city in which the Winter Olympics have been held. Then we hid it in a sentence, with spaces added as necessary. The answer spans at least two words in the sentence and starts and ends in the middle of words. The day’s clue gives the sentence with a torch in place of the city name.
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Example:
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I didn’t qualify for the luge finals after my qualifying time was to
w. |
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Answer:
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Oslo (too slow)
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What to Submit:
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Submit the city (as “Oslo” in the example) for your answer.
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Wednesday, February 19
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One part of the city has an election in the spring primary today, for the city’s fourth council district. Incumbent Lynn Binnie is running for another term against challengers Greg Meyer and Paul Yvarra.
It wouldn’t have been my inclination to presume to endorse in the race, but more than a few readers have emailed, asking me about my views, or urging me toward one candidate or another. I’ve replied directly to those messages, and will summarize my thinking here.
I will spare the city the childish habit of posting their photographs and addresses. It doesn’t matter what they look like; one can assume they all live within the district. Whitewater’s politics are more than an online dating service or freshman yearbook.
One can fairly state that these three men are all sincere, love our small city, and want the best for it. I can fairly state that – so far as I’m aware – not one of them inclines toward my own politics.
That doesn’t matter, of course; our city is more than political parties, particular views, or tidy outcomes.
Those who have done the most damage to this city’s economy and prospects have never understood as much; on the contrary, they have sought – again and again – a single view, a single way, a rigid orthodoxy delivered in a cheery package.
I’ll not make their self-serving mistake; a good candidate needn’t hold one’s views. Very often, one finds that he or she holds very different views.
Lynn Binnie has served sincerely and diligently these several years. My disagreements with his particular opinions are no impediment to seeing as much.
There won’t likely come a time when I think that his willingness to regulate alcohol does any good to prevent alcoholism. Similarly, Whitewater will not achieve prosperity or fiscal prudence by favoring big projects over small, practical ideas.
But of his political generation, those gentlemen in their sixties who serve on Council or on committees, he has the best chance of any to see and help steer Whitewater toward better waters.
It’s a futile – but still an alluring – idea that the only choices before us are good ones, with no risks about which to be concerned. (The pressure to defend past mistakes and risk of similar, future ones is still potent in Whitewater.)
Now, I have teased about Mr. Binnie’s view that in politics one may go ‘above and beyond.’ I don’t think so – there’s only daily work, repeated again and again, without looking back to see if it’s been enough, or more than enough.
And yet I see, as I hope that Whitewater sees, that among those candidates on the ballot today, and among his generation in the city, Lynn Binnie is notable as industrious and thoughtful.
Ideological differences notwithstanding, he easily merits re-election to office.
Good morning.
We’ll have fog in the morning, clouds throughout the day, and a high of thirty-eight.
It’s the Spring Primary election in Whitewater, for candidates in the 4th Council District.
Whitewater’s Police and Fire Commission meets tonight at 6 PM.
On Japan’s Okunoshima Island (know as the ‘Rabbit Island’), wild rabbits are always on the lookout for a snack:
On this day in 1885, Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
On February 18th, 1920, it became legal to bowl on Sunday in Janesville:
1920 – Billiards and Bowling Allowed on Sunday
On this date the Janesville city council voted to allow billiard halls and bowling alleys to open for limited hours on Sunday. Business proprietors were fined $15 each for staying open longer than allowed. [Source:Janesville Gazette]
Here’s Puzzability’s Tuesday Olympics-themed game:
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This Week’s Game — February 17-21
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Cities of Gold
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|||||
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Here’s our inside track at the Olympics. For each day this week, we started with the name of a city in which the Winter Olympics have been held. Then we hid it in a sentence, with spaces added as necessary. The answer spans at least two words in the sentence and starts and ends in the middle of words. The day’s clue gives the sentence with a torch in place of the city name.
|
|||||
|
Example:
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|||||
|
I didn’t qualify for the luge finals after my qualifying time was to
w. |
|||||
|
Answer:
|
|||||
|
Oslo (too slow)
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|||||
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What to Submit:
|
|||||
|
Submit the city (as “Oslo” in the example) for your answer.
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Tuesday, February 18
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There’s more than one way to see the differences of policy and politics in Whitewater.
By one way of thinking, these differences are merely of taste, like a preference for blueberries over raspberries. Although one cannot be certain, this is probably how most officials see the decisions before government: a choice between simple preferences.
And yet, some important local political choices are not merely between blueberries and raspberries, but between raspberries and rat poison.
Grasping that some choices present a raspberry or rat-poison alternative is hard for many among Whitewater’s political class. For the most part, they act and speak as though there were no meaningful risks to one kind of action over another. They seek outcomes they might like (blueberries) over others (raspberries), but don’t believe that there’s a risk of an objectively bad outcome (ingesting rodenticide).
They’ll often ignore or deny the possibility of a raspberry – rat poison divide. When someone mentions that an issue here or there might be consequential in this way, they simply don’t believe it. For some, this is because they see no such risks; for others, it’s because they’re confident they can obscure and hide any poisonous consequences of failed policies.
Significantly, and more precisely, in a climate in which officials see only a blueberry-raspberry choice, the small preferences they have between these alternatives become to them issues of real importance. They’ll fight, sometimes tooth-and-nail, over their choice of berry as against someone else’s preference.
If one looks at Whitewater’s now-retired political class in its seventies or eighties, one finds septuagenarians and octogenarians who either think local policy alternatives offer trivial risks, risks that they can trivialize, or consequences of whatever kind they can conceal.
Among those a bit younger, in their sixties, there’s a similar view, but perhaps not as strongly held.
In any event, Whitewater has more who would doubt or deny the meaningful consequences of policy than she deserves.
Still, there is this reassurance: if one does believe in meaningful differences and the consequences from them, it’s possible to take a longer view of the city. One needn’t scramble every day, to minimize, trivialize, or conceal. Actions and their consequences will prove, sometimes, too profound ignore or hide.
For those who believe – or want others to believe – that alternatives are always no more than between raspberries and blueberries, I’d guess that politics and policy are both exhausting and empty.
So much the better – by contrast – to see an occasionally greater range of risk, in the advancement good policy and a sustaining focus on what matters most.
Good morning.
Whitewater will have heavy snow today, with an accumulation of about four to six inches. We’ll have a high temperature of twenty-five.
On this day in 1972, Nixon goes to China.
On this day, twelve years ago, a Wisconsinite strikes gold at Salt Lake City:
2002 – Wisconsin Skater Takes Gold
On this date West Allis native Chris Witty won a gold medal in speed skating’s 1000 meter at the Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games. She broke the world record with a time of 1:13.82, even though she was recovering from mononucleosis. Before Witty competed in ice staking, she was a professional bicyclist. [Source: US Olympic Team]
Puzzability begins a new weekly series, with a Winter Olympics theme. Here’s Monday’s game:
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This Week’s Game — February 17-21
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Cities of Gold
|
|||||
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Here’s our inside track at the Olympics. For each day this week, we started with the name of a city in which the Winter Olympics have been held. Then we hid it in a sentence, with spaces added as necessary. The answer spans at least two words in the sentence and starts and ends in the middle of words. The day’s clue gives the sentence with a torch in place of the city name.
|
|||||
|
Example:
|
|||||
|
I didn’t qualify for the luge finals after my qualifying time was to
w. |
|||||
|
Answer:
|
|||||
|
Oslo (too slow)
|
|||||
|
What to Submit:
|
|||||
|
Submit the city (as “Oslo” in the example) for your answer.
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|||||
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Monday, February 17
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