Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 65.  Sunrise is 6:53 AM and sunset 7:09 PM, for 12h 15m 18s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 49% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Anne Applebaum, 12.19.19, writes The False Romance of Russia (‘American conservatives who find themselves identifying with Putin’s regime refuse to see the country for what it actually is’):

Sherwood Eddy was a prominent American missionary as well as that now rare thing, a Christian socialist. In the 1920s and ’30s, he made more than a dozen trips to the Soviet Union. He was not blind to the problems of the U.S.S.R., but he also found much to like. In place of squabbling, corrupt democratic politicians, he wrote in one of his books on the country, “Stalin rules … by his sagacity, his honesty, his rugged courage, his indomitable will and titanic energy.” Instead of the greed he found so pervasive in America, Russians seemed to him to be working for the joy of working.

Above all, though, he thought he had found in Russia something that his own individualistic society lacked: a “unified philosophy of life.” In Russia, he wrote, “all life is focused in a central purpose. It is directed to a single high end and energized by such powerful and glowing motivation that life seems to have supreme significance.”

Eddy was wrong about much of what he saw. Joseph Stalin was a liar and a mass murderer; Russians worked because they were hungry and afraid. The “unified philosophy of life” was a chimera, and the reality was a totalitarian state that used terror and propaganda to maintain that unity. But Eddy, like others in his era, was predisposed to admire the Soviet Union precisely because he was so critical of the economics and politics of his own country, Depression-era America. In this, he was not alone.

….

But in the 21st century, we must also contend with a new phenomenon: right-wing intellectuals, now deeply critical of their own societies, who have begun paying court to right-wing dictators who dislike America. And their motives are curiously familiar. All around them, they see degeneracy, racial mixing, demographic change, “political correctness,” same-sex marriage, religious decline. The America that they actually inhabit no longer matches the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant America that they remember, or think they remember. And so they have begun to look abroad, seeking to find the spiritually unified, ethnically pure nations that, they imagine, are morally stronger than their own. Nations, for example, such as Russia.

 Masha Gessen writes How Joe Biden Rattled Vladimir Putin:

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have been having an unusually lively exchange. On Wednesday, in a televised interview, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Biden if he knew Putin and if he thought he was a killer. Biden responded, “Hmm, I do,” which most observers interpreted as a yes to both questions. Biden also twice promised that Putin would face repercussions, both for attempting to interfere in the 2020 election, on behalf of Donald Trump, and for being a killer. In response, Russia recalled its U.S. Ambassador to Moscow for consultations—a diplomatic move that says, “We are not talking to you.”

But then Russia kept talking to the United States. Putin wished Biden good health. On Thursday, Putin said, “Now, for the statement of my American colleague: How would I respond to him? I would say to him, ‘Be healthy.’ ” He smiled. “I wish him health. I say this without irony. This is not a joke.”

….

It’s rare for Putin to spend this much time speaking directly to the camera, apparently unscripted, on a single issue. One gets the feeling that he will be coming back to this topic in the days to come. Such is the effect on Putin of the U.S. President saying something that’s true, even if it’s just “Hmm, I do.”

(Ignorant commentators on Fox News think Putin’s replies are a sign of his strength. Gessen – a Russian-born American who has studied Putin – knows better: Putin has responded from weakness, repeatedly and agitatedly, after Biden’s three simple, truthful words.)

  How 3.5 Million Oysters Are Harvested At This Virginia Farm Every Year:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 57.  Sunrise is 6:55 AM and sunset 7:08 PM, for 12h 12m 24s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 39.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1815, after escaping from Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Sarah Volpenhein reports Wisconsin reclassifies 1,000 past COVID-19 deaths, now reports 45% of all deaths were in long-term care facilities:

In the last two weeks, Wisconsin health officials have attributed nearly 1,000 more COVID-19 deaths to long-term care facilities, people that for months had been marked as having died in an “unknown” housing setting.

The state is now reporting 45% of the people who died from COVID-19 were in long-term care facilities, when for months the state had only linked between 26% and 30% of COVID-19 fatalities to long-term care.

Those earlier percentages were much lower than in most other states, including many neighboring ones, and the differences raised questions about the accuracy and timeliness of Wisconsin’s count of long-term care deaths.

Until recently, the state was missing information in about half of all COVID-19 deaths and could not say whether those people were long-term care residents. They were listed as COVID-19 deaths with an “unknown” housing setting.

Now, many of them have been reclassified as long-term care residents, a category that covers nursing homes and assisted living centers.

….

David Grabowski, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School whose research focuses on long-term care, said the delay ended up making the situation in Wisconsin’s long-term care facilities appear less dire than it was.

“This is not something that you should have to go back and correct after the fact,” he said. “You can look at 40-some (other) states that seem to be able to do this in real-time.”

(Note well: When this pandemic began, a Whitewater publication obligingly and presumptively reported that a local senior home had no cases of COVID-19. This was never likely to last, and it did not. See from 5.26.20 Fairhaven Conducts 407 Resident and Staff COVID-19 Tests – Update: 100% negative. A mixture of obliging stories and amateur epidemiology serves no one.)

Alan Yuhas reports Man Says He Lived in Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium for Years:

Like other Vietnam veterans in the 1970s, Tom Garvey chased one job after another, fending off memories. Unlike other veterans, he says he turned a concession stand in a major American stadium into a place to crash for three years.

The venue was Veterans Stadium, capacity some 60,000, home to two professional teams and, partly, where Philadelphia fans earned an infamous reputation as either the best worst fans or the worst best fans in the United States.

For Mr. Garvey, now 78, it was also a home, a community and a kind of purgatory as he adapted to life after war. He has detailed his years as a secret stadium dweller, from 1979 into 1981, in a self-published book, “The Secret Apartment,” and The Philadelphia Inquirer reported his story last week.

In an interview at his home outside the city, in Ambler, Pa., Mr. Garvey, a retired real estate agent, said he took no photos of the room because he feared being caught by the authorities or, worse, the uncles who got him a job running the stadium’s parking lots. The concession stand, like the rest of Veterans Stadium, was demolished in 2004.

But four people — including Bill Bradley and Jerry Sisemore, former Philadelphia Eagles and members of the team’s hall of fame — said in interviews that they had visited the apartment. Three others said they knew of it at the time, including Vince Papale, a former Eagles receiver, and Skip Denenberg, a musician.

Russian man walks his pet geese:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 48.  Sunrise is 6:57 AM and sunset 7:06 PM, for 12h 09m 28s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 30% of its visible disk illuminated.

Recommended for reading in full — 

On this day in 1918, Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time.

 Elizabeth Beyer reports State superintendent candidate used district email during work hours to set up private business:

State Superintendent candidate Deborah Kerr solicited clients and organized branding for her private consulting business through her public school district email address, including several times during work hours, prior to her retirement as Brown Deer School District superintendent last year.

Emails obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal show Kerr used her district email address during work time to set up her private consulting firm, Lead Greatly, LLC, on multiple different occasions from March to July 2020.

She used her district email to schedule meetings with the Danielson Group, a Chicago-based education company, about their teaching framework, often replying to messages between the district’s 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday work hours.

Records show Kerr also:

• Spent time during work hours discussing branding for Lead Greatly with her administrative assistant, who was helping Kerr with graphic design, through her district email;
• Pitched her consulting firm to superintendents in Fox Point Bayside School District and Maple Dale-Indian Hill School District while arranging meetings to discuss projects; and
• Directed a project manager with the Consortium for School Networking to Lead Greatly in her final days as superintendent of Brown Deer.

Nico Hines reports Veselnitskaya’s Trump Tower Coverup Linked to Secret Russian Chemical Weapons Program:

A company newly sanctioned by the U.S. over Alexei Navalny’s poisoning attack is tied to the money-laundering network that Natalia Veselnitskaya tried to cover up at the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting, according to financial records obtained by The Daily Beast.

Now we know why Vladimir Putin was so desperate to play down the international corruption probes that began when Sergei Magnitsky uncovered a $230 million fraud on the Russian people. For the first time, that dark-money network can be linked to the murderous chemical-weapons program run by Russia’s notorious intelligence services.

After exposing the massive theft of state money, Magnitsky ended up dead in a Russian prison cell. Legislation in his name has been enacted all over the world by governments seeking to clamp down on corruption, including the U.S.’s Magnitsky Act. Despite the interventions of Veselnitskaya—a Russian lawyer who was sent to the U.S. to persuade the Trump campaign to overturn the law—investigations tracing that stolen money continue to expose an international web of bank accounts linked to alleged wrongdoing.

Adam Zagoria reports What to Watch in the First Weekend of the Men’s N.C.A.A. Tournament:

[See our complete guide to March Madness.]

The 2021 N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament tipped off Thursday with the play-in games from Indiana. They included a late-night matchup of the blue bloods U.C.L.A. and Michigan State, winners of a combined 13 national championships, but the action tips off in earnest on Friday.

Beginning at 12:15 p.m. Eastern time, eight games will take place Friday afternoon, followed by eight more in the evening. All the games are being played in Indiana because of the pandemic. Sixteen more games will be played Saturday. Four national television networks — TBS, CBS, TNT and TruTV — will carry the action.

The second-round games this year will occur on Sunday and Monday (feel free to call in sick on Monday), and by Monday night, the round of 16 will be set.

Spiral galaxy Messier 106 in amazing view snapped by Mayall Telescope:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 43.  Sunrise is 6:59 AM and sunset 7:05 PM, for 12h 06m 31s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 22% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1954, Parker Pen Employees Win Wage Increase: “On this date employees of Parker Pen in Janesville won a 5-cent-an-hour wage increase in contract negotiations. After the raise, male employees made a base pay of $1.95 an hour while their female counterparts were paid $1.62 an hour. “

Recommended for reading in full — 

Meryl Kornfield and Hannah Knowles report Sheriff’s official who said spa shooting suspect had ‘bad day’ posted shirts blaming ‘CHY-NA’ for virus:

The backlash began with the sheriff spokesman’s statement to reporters that the mass shooting suspect was having a “bad day.”

“He was pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope. Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did,” Cherokee County sheriff’s office Capt. Jay Baker said Wednesday. He was describing the 21-year-old man accused of killing eight people, mostly Asian and almost all women, in a rampage across three Atlanta-area spas.

Then — as the violence stirred fears in an Asian-American community that already felt under attack — Internet sleuths and journalists found Baker’s Facebook posts promoting shirts that called the novel coronavirus an “IMPORTED VIRUS FROM CHY-NA.”

….

Baker is not just any employee of the sheriff’s department, some noted, but its spokesman, who shapes public knowledge of the attacks that unfolded Tuesday in his county and then at two businesses in Atlanta.

“All of us have experienced bad days,” tweeted Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). “But we don’t go to three Asian businesses and shoot up Asian employees.”

(Conservatives would have once ridiculed – rightly – the suggestion of bad days as a motive for mass killings. It’s common now to hear them dribble ludicrous excuses like this for those who are visually similar to themselves.)

 Lorraine Ali writes What Woody Allen’s defenders are really upset about:

It didn’t take much to convince Woody Allen defenders that HBO’s four-part docuseries, “Allen v. Farrow,” was a one-sided hatchet job against the revered filmmaker. The four-part investigative series hadn’t yet premiered when they began tearing down its reexamination of the allegation that Allen molested Dylan Farrow, his adoptive daughter with actress Mia Farrow, when she was just 7 years old.

Angry readers wrote to The Times in response to my favorable review of the series, insisting I was part of a lynch mob: “Shame on you!”

….

To these outspoken fans, Allen is a victim of Farrow’s sour grapes, of “cancel culture,” of feminism itself. But the truth underlying their emotional, often highly personal defenses of Allen is that he’s become subject to the forces of change that have finally begun to challenge the old world order, when a girl’s place was tantalizing Allen or other actors on screen, no matter how nerdy or neurotic those men might be, or how young the woman.

No one knows for sure what really happened in the Allen/Farrow household except the people who survived the nightmare. The rest of us base our opinions on the most compelling argument, and up until now, Allen — a beloved filmmaker in a notoriously sexist business in a patriarchal society — has had the megaphone, and the might of the industry, to present his account.

Perhaps these Allen diehards are upset because “Allen v. Farrow” finally explores the other side of the story, and they’re used to a world where women were simply told to shut up.

How Wrigley’s Dominated The World Of Chewing Gum:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 39.  Sunrise is 7:01 AM and sunset 7:04 PM, for 12h 03m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets via audiovisual conferencing at 5:30 PM.

 On this day in 1776, the British Army evacuates Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Dan Mangan reports Putin pushed Biden misinformation to Trump allies and media in 2020 election, U.S. says:

Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, authorized intelligence assets to promote misinformation during the 2020 election cycle about Joe Biden through U.S. media and people close to then-President Donald Trump to try to boost Trump’s reelection chances, a U.S. intelligence report said.

In particular, the declassified report, released Tuesday, said that Putin “had purview over the activities of Adriy Derkach, a Ukrainian legislator who played a prominent role in Russia’s election influence activities.”

Derkach, who has ties to Russian intelligence, is known to have met with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, who for months promoted discredited allegations against Biden, now president, and his son Hunter Biden.

The findings are outlined as the second “key judgment” of the report, “Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections,” by the National Intelligence Council.

“A key element of Moscow’s strategy this election cycle was its use of people linked to Russian intelligence to launder influence narratives including misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden through US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, some of whom were close to former President Trump and his administration,” the report said.

See Foreign Threats to the U.S. 2020 Federal Elections.

Bill Glauber and Daniel Bice report Milwaukee County Judge Brett Blomme arrested, faces charges of possession of child pornography:

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Brett Blomme was arrested Tuesday on tentative charges of possession of child pornography, the state Department of Justice announced.

Blomme, 38, was taken into custody by special agents with the state Division of Criminal Investigation “following an investigation into multiple uploads of child pornography through a Kik messaging application account in October and November 2020,” according to a statement.

Criminal charges are expected to be filed against Blomme on Wednesday. He was arrested in Dane County.

A 44-page search warrant filed Friday by a DCI special agent said investigators found Blomme, using the name “dommasterbb,” uploaded 27 videos and images containing child pornography. Two of the files were uploaded at a Milwaukee County government building, the search warrant said.

 Abigail Becker reports Clerks begin mailing absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s fifth statewide pandemic election:

Heading into Wisconsin’s fifth statewide pandemic election, local clerks are continuing to administer elections with precautions in place to keep voters and workers safe.

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said in an email that clerks have adjusted to the “new normal” and can handle the April 6 general election safely.

“Following safety protocols has been effective and we all have what we need,” McDonell said. “Certainly clerks are very much looking forward to this pandemic ending.”

Iceland on high alert for a possible volcanic eruption following thousands of tremors:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 46.  Sunrise is 7:02 AM and sunset 7:03 PM, for 12h 00m 41s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 8.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Alcohol Licensing Commission meets via audiovisual conferencing at 5:45 PM, and the Whitewater Common Council meets via audiovisual conferencing at 6:30 PM. 

 On this day in 1935, Hitler orders Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Conscription is reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Elizabeth Dwoskin reports Massive Facebook study on users’ doubt in vaccines finds a small group appears to play a big role in pushing the skepticism (‘Internal study finds a QAnon connection and that content that doesn’t break the rules may be causing ‘substantial’ harm’):

While Facebook has banned outright false and misleading statements about coronavirus vaccines since December, a huge realm of expression about vaccines sits in a gray area. One example could be comments by someone expressing concern about side effects that are more severe than expected. Those comments could be both important for fostering meaningful conversation and potentially bubbling up unknown information to health authorities — but at the same time they may contribute to vaccine hesitancy by playing upon people’s fears.

….

The company’s data scientists divided the company’s U.S. users, groups and pages into 638 population segments to explore which types of groups hold vaccine hesitant beliefs. The document did not identify how Facebook defined a segment or grouped communities, but noted that the segments could be at least 3 million people.

Some of the early findings are notable: Just 10 out of the 638 population segments contained 50 percent of all vaccine hesitancy content on the platform. And in the population segment with the most vaccine hesitancy, just 111 users contributed half of all vaccine hesitant content.

Miranda Bryant and Martin Pengelly report FBI arrests two men for ‘bear spray’ assault on Capitol officer who later died:

Julian Elie Khater, 32, of Pennsylvania and George Pierre Tanios, 39, from West Virginia, were arrested by the FBI on Sunday and expected to appear in federal court on Monday.

They were charged with assaulting Sicknick with a “toxic spray”, thought to be bear spray, which Khater was allegedly seen discharging into the officer’s face in footage of the riot. It is not yet known if it caused Sicknick’s death.

Sicknick, 42, was one of five people to die as a direct result of the assault, which Donald Trump incited when he told supporters to “fight like hell” in his cause. The officer died in hospital on 7 January. A police statement said he “was injured while physically engaging with protesters” and “returned to his division office and collapsed”.

 Mitchell Schmidt reports Republican mailer for state Senate candidate implies nonexistent State Journal endorsement:

A Republican Party campaign mailer for a state Senate candidate includes altered versions of statements the Republican made to the Wisconsin State Journal, making it seem as if the candidate were endorsed by the newspaper.

The mailer supporting Rep. John Jagler, R-Watertown, includes two of Jagler’s responses to a candidate questionnaire that was published last month ahead of the Feb. 16 primary. The statements in the mailer appear under the State Journal logo, but change personal pronouns “I” and “We” to Jagler’s name, making the quotes seem like they came from the newspaper, rather than from Jagler himself.

Giraffe calf Kendi makes debut at Indianapolis Zoo: