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Monthly Archives: September 2016

Paradise is just one regulation away…

Whitewater’s had a problem with occasional crowds, as at Spring Splash, and so now a few from the Old Guard are sure that yet another regulation on private property will bring a city of order, harmony, and smiling-faced residents.

They’re confident it’s the answer, relying on the old adage that the twelve thousand, four hundred, seventy-third time is the charm.

There are remarks in a local paper today from a university administrator, but I’ll leave them aside to see if anyone subsequently speaking on behalf of the university administration recognizes how telling – in an unfortunate way – they are.  

Honest to goodness.

There will be more to say after one hears more. 

Bike Lanes & Entitlement 

We’ve parts of the city with bike lanes, and more than a few people who supported their installation (of whom I was one). 

How odd, then, to see – more than once – another of those bike-lane advocates blithely ignoring a bike lane to ride on the sidewalk instead.  Not a bike lane somewhere else, mind you, but one immediately next to the sidewalk on which I’ve seen him riding.

There’s Old Whitewater (a state of mind, not a person) in spades: he advocated for it at public expense (even as I did), but if he feels like the sidewalk, well, he’ll take the sidewalk, regardless of prior advocacy, cost to add a lane, etc.

He is who he is, you see, and what’s available to others at his urging must not be good enough for him.  

Entitled.

Perhaps if he’d advocated for platinum-coated bike lanes, and received them at public cost, then he’d be willing to relinquish the sidewalk for the immediately adjacent bike route.  Until then, God forfend that his bicycle tires should touch mere asphalt.

Bike lanes are a good idea, and are suitable paths for cyclists to travel enjoyably through the city.  They’re meant to be used.

‘He Said, She Said’

Alternative title — False Balance While Dealing with Liars, Exaggerators, and Other Political Miscreants.

There’s considerable consternation in the national press that traditional ‘he said, she said’ political coverage, where each side of a question gets an equal, unchallenged say, doesn’t work when one candidate is an inveterate liar:

A certain etiquette has long governed the relationship between presidential candidates and the elite media. Candidates stretch the truth, but try not to be too blatant about it. Candidates appeal to bigotry, but subtly. In turn, journalists respond with a delicacy of their own. They quote partisans rather than saying things in their own words. They use euphemisms like “polarizing” and “incendiary,” instead of “racist” and “demagogic.”

See, from Peter Beinart, The Death of ‘He Said, She Said’ Journalism @ The Atlantic.

The journalism of equivalance and balance doesn’t work when one candidate is unbalanced and without a contemporary equivalent. The national press is learning this now, although perhaps too late to address effectively the new conditions presented in this election.

Locally, however, we’ve not even had a weak balance, we’ve not had even a sham equivalence.

In Whitewater and towns nearby, it’s one view, sometimes that of a politician, presented as news.

It’s true that the national standards of presumed balance no longer work, and that papers like the New York Times have had to become (as Beinart tells it) more direct in response to lies, exaggerations, and crass political self-promotion.

That’s a cause of national political concern, but at the local level communities have been plagued with lying, glad-handing notables & a sham, lickspittle press for years.

National publications are right to abandon a false equivalence, right to abandon a delicacy of description that only emboldens connivers.

It’s unfortunate, yet true, that these publications now find themselves fighting the kind of fight – without real balance – that’s been ongoing for years in towns across America.

Daily Bread for 9.20.16

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in town will be sunny with a high of eighty-two. Sunrise is 6:41 AM and sunset is 6:54 PM, for 12h 12m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 81.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM tonight.

What’s it like to fly from Dubai to New York in a $21,000 airplane seat? It’s like this –

On this day in 1519, Magellan sets sail:

Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Spain in an effort to find a western sea route to the rich Spice Islands of Indonesia. In command of five ships and 270 men, Magellan sailed to West Africa and then to Brazil, where he searched the South American coast for a strait that would take him to the Pacific. He searched the Río de la Plata, a large estuary south of Brazil, for a way through; failing, he continued south along the coast of Patagonia. At the end of March 1520, the expedition set up winter quarters at Port St. Julian. On Easter day at midnight, the Spanish captains mutinied against their Portuguese captain, but Magellan crushed the revolt, executing one of the captains and leaving another ashore when his ship left St. Julian in August.

On October 21, he finally discovered the strait he had been seeking. The Strait of Magellan, as it became known, is located near the tip of South America, separating Tierra del Fuego and the continental mainland. Only three ships entered the passage; one had been wrecked and another deserted. It took 38 days to navigate the treacherous strait, and when ocean was sighted at the other end Magellan wept with joy. He was the first European explorer to reach the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic.

JigZone‘s daily puzzle for Tuesday is of a vine:

Daily Bread for 9.19.16

Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with a one-third chance of scattered afternoon thunderstorms, and a high of eighty-three. Sunrise is 6:40 AM and sunset 6:55 PM, for 12h 15m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 90.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1982, Carnegie Mellon computer scientist Scott Elliott Fahlman first proposes the smiley emoticon:

scottfahlmanemoticon

On this day in 1832, the Sauk and Fox cede Iowa lands:

On this date Sauk and Fox Indians signed the treaty ending the Black Hawk War. The treaty demanded that the Sauk cede some six million acres of land that ran the length of the eastern boundary of modern-day Iowa. The Sauk and Fox were given until June 1, 1833 to leave the area and never return to the surrendered lands. Some sources place the date as September 21.[Source: Along the Black Hawk Trail by William F. Stark, p. 160-161]

Jigzone begins the week with a puzzle of boats docked in port:

Daily Bread for 9.18.19

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday will be sunny with a high of seventy-nine. Sunrise is 6:39 AM and sunset 6:57 PM, for 12h 18m 16s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Friday’s FW Poll asked readers whether it would be the Packers or Vikings tonight.  Most respondents (71.43%) picked Green Bay.

On this day in 1759, the French surrender Quebec to Britain:

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham, also known as the Battle of Quebec, (Bataille des Plaines d’Abraham or Première bataille de Québec in French) was a pivotal battle in the Seven Years’ War (referred to as the French and Indian War in the United States). The battle, which began on 13 September 1759, was fought by the British Army and Navy against the French Army on a plateau just outside the walls of Quebec City, on land that was originally owned by a farmer named Abraham Martin, hence the name of the battle. The battle involved fewer than 10,000 troops between both sides, but proved to be a deciding moment in the conflict between France and Britainover the fate of New France, influencing the later creation of Canada.[4]

The culmination of a three-month siege by the British, the battle lasted about 15 minutes. British troops commanded by General James Wolfe successfully resisted the column advance of French troops and Canadien militia under General Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm, employing new tactics that proved extremely effective against standard military formations used in most large European conflicts. Both generals were mortally wounded during the battle; Wolfe received three gunshot wounds that ended his life within minutes of the beginning of the engagement and Montcalm died the next morning after receiving a musket ball wound just below his ribs. In the wake of the battle, the French evacuated the city; their remaining military force in Canada and the rest of North America came under increasing pressure from British forces….

In the wake of the battle, a state of confusion spread through the French troops.Governor de Vaudreuil, who later wrote to his government and put the full blame for the French rout on the deceased Montcalm,[59] decided to abandon Quebec and the Beauport shore, ordering all of his forces to march west and eventually join up with Bougainville, leaving the garrison in Quebec under the command of Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Roch de Ramezay.[60]

Meanwhile, the British, first under the command of Townshend and later with Murray in charge, settled in to besiege the city in conjunction with Saunders’ fleet. Within days, on 18 September, de Ramezay, Townshend and Saunders signed the Articles of Capitulation of Quebec and the city was turned over to British control.[61] The remaining French forces positioned themselves on the Jacques-Cartier River west of the city.

Daily Bread for 9.17.16

Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday in town will be sunny with a high of seventy-nine.  Sunrise is 6:38 AM and sunset 6:59 PM, for 12h 21m 09s of daytime.  The moon is almost full today, with 99.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention sign a final document for presentation to the states:

constitution_of_the_united_states_page_1From August 6 to September 10, the report of the committee of detail was discussed, section by section and clause by clause. Details were attended to, and further compromises were effected.[27][29] Toward the close of these discussions, on September 8, a “Committee of Style and Arrangement” – Alexander Hamilton (New York),William Samuel Johnson (Connecticut), Rufus King (Massachusetts), James Madison (Virginia), and Gouverneur Morris (Pennsylvania) – was appointed to distill a final draft constitution from the twenty-three approved articles.[29] The final draft, presented to the convention on September 12, contained seven articles, a preamble and a closing endorsement, of which Morris was the primary author.[23] The committee also presented a proposed letter to accompany the constitution when delivered to Congress.[31]

The final document, engrossed by Jacob Shallus,[32] was taken up on Monday, September 17, at the Convention’s final session. Several of the delegates were disappointed in the result, a makeshift series of unfortunate compromises. Some delegates left before the ceremony, and three others refused to sign. Of the thirty-nine signers, Benjamin Franklin summed up, addressing the Convention: “There are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them.” He would accept the Constitution, “because I expect no better and because I am not sure that it is not the best”.[33]

The advocates of the Constitution were anxious to obtain unanimous support of all twelve states represented in the Convention. Their accepted formula for the closing endorsement was “Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present.” At the end of the convention, the proposal was agreed to by eleven state delegations and the lone remaining delegate from New York, Alexander Hamilton.[34]

On this day in 1862, Wisconsinites defending the Union see fighting in Maryland:

September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest day in U.S. military history. More than 125,000 troops faced off and over 24,000 were killed, wounded or missing as Union forces stopped the first Confederate invasion of the North. The 2nd, 6th and 7th Wisconsin Infantry regiments were in the thickest of the fighting. The 6th Infantry led a charge that killed or wounded 150 of its 280 men. Of the 800 officers and men in the Iron Brigade who marched out that morning, 343 were wounded or killed.

Daily Bread for 9.16.16

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday in town will see heavy thunderstorms in the morning, with a daytime high of seventy-four. Sunrise is 6:37 AM and sunset 7:01 PM, for 12h 24m 02s of daytime. The moon is full, with 99.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

So who was Granny Smith, and why is an apple named after her? Here’s the who and why of it –

On this day in 1908, William Durant founds General Motors:

General Motors was founded by William C. Durant on September 16, 1908 as a holding company after a 15-year contract with the McLaughlin’s of Canada. Initially, GM held only the Buick Motor Company, but it rapidly acquired more than twenty companies including Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Oakland, now known as Pontiac. Durant signed a 15-year contract in Canada with the exchange of 500,000 shares of Buick stock for 500,000 shares of McLaughlin Stock. Dr. Campbell, Durant’s son-in-law, put 1,000,000 shares on the stock market in Chicago Buick (then controlled by Durant).

Durant’s company, the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, had been in business in Flint since 1886, and by 1900, was producing over 100,000 carriages a year in factories located in Michigan and Canada. Prior to his acquisition of Buick, Durant had several Ford dealerships. With springs, axles and other key components being provided to the early automotive industry by Durant-Dort, it can be reasoned that GM actually began with the founding of Durant-Dort.[3]

Durant acquired Oldsmobile later in 1908. The next year, he brought in Cadillac, Cartercar, Elmore, Ewing, and Oakland (later known as Pontiac). In 1909, General Motors also acquired the Reliance Motor Truck Company of Owosso, Michigan, and the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company of Pontiac, Michigan, the predecessors of GMC Truck. A Rapid became the first truck to conquer Pikes Peak in 1909. In 1910, Welch and Rainier were added to the ever-growing list of companies controlled by GM. Durant lost control of GM in 1910 to a bankers trust as the deal to buy Ford for $8,000,000.00 fell through, due to the large amount of debt (around $1 million) taken on in its acquisitions R S McLaughlin Director and friend left at the same time.

Durant left the firm and co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Company in 1911 with Louis Chevrolet. R S McLaughlin in 1915 built Chevrolet in Canada and after a stock buy back campaign with the McLaughlin and DuPont corporations, and other Chevrolet stock holders, he returned to head GM in 1916,as Chevrolet owned 54.5% with the backing of Pierre S. du Pont.

Here’s JigZone‘s daily puzzle for Friday: