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City, Daily Bread, Elections, School District

Daily Bread for 5.1.23: What Would Be an Electoral Mandate in Whitewater?

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 5:47 AM and sunset 7:55 PM for 14h 07m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 82.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1840, the Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, is issued in the United Kingdom.

Across Wisconsin, and so in Whitewater, we’ve finished a spring general election. For both our city and the public school district of which it is a part, there are new elected majorities on the Whitewater Common Council and the Whitewater Unified School District. These new majorities invite a question: what’s a political mandate for the city or a school district?

For today, it’s worth considering the difference in the recent elections for these two public bodies. It’s considerable: the district had many candidates run in both a primary and general election, with a candidate forum before the general election, but the city had not a single contested position on its council.

A candidate’s mandate from voters requires a political issue, expressly presented to the electorate during the campaign, on which the successful candidate campaigned. 

Needless to say, a majority on a public body that has had only the minimum number of candidates to fill its seats, and so no alternative candidates to compare, has no mandate from the electorate. There was no clash of ideas, no alternative slate, between the current Whitewater Common Council candidates and any challengers (because there were no challengers).

The new council majority cannot claim a mandate simply because no one else cared to run. At best, an election in which there were no contested races is a sign of residents’ satisfaction (or at least lack of objection) to the policies of the year prior.

In Whitewater, if the Common Council majority elected in April 2023 alters or overturns the policies of the last year, then they shall do so without a mandate. By contrast, in the school district, there were contested races, with candidates of different views, who presented those differences to the public in written statements and responses to questions at an open forum. 

It is possible, among those candidates of the board majority who won this spring, to discern approximately what would be, and what would not be, their  mandate.

Tomorrow: What’s the Whitewater Unified School District board’s mandate?  

Rex Brasher: The rediscovered bird painter:

 

A century ago, Rex Brasher was finishing his life’s work: Almost 900 watercolors documenting some 1200 American bird species. Celebrated in its day, Brasher’s work was largely forgotten by the end of the 20th century. Now, residents in the community where he lived and worked are exploring his work again. As the threat of climate change accelerates, the Rex Brasher Association believes there could be invaluable scientific documentation of changing habitats in Brasher’s artistic legacy.

Daily Bread, Film, Nature

Daily Bread for 4.30.23: Everest -A Time Lapse Short Film

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 5:49 AM and sunset 7:54 PM for 14h 05m 27s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 74.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1803, the United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.

  Everest -A time lapse short film:

Home video shows powerful storm hitting Texas:

AI, Art, Cats, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.29.23: Flying Siamese

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 51. Sunrise is 5:50 AM and sunset 7:53 PM for 14h 02m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 65.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, Union forces under David Farragut capture New Orleans.

A flock of AI-generated flying Siamese would brighten the cloudiest day:

Wisconsin police pull 84-year-old man to safety as van bursts into flames:

America, Daily Bread, Economy

Daily Bread for 4.28.23: Inflation Cools Slowly

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 64. Sunrise is 5:52 AM and sunset 7:52 PM for 14h 00m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 55.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1973, The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, recorded in Abbey Road Studios goes to number one on the US Billboard chart, beginning a record-breaking 741-week chart run.

Jeanna Smialek reports Inflation Cooled in March, but Signs of Stubborn Price Increases Persist (‘The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, slowed in March. But signs point to staying power’): 

Inflation is slowing, a fresh reading of the Federal Reserve’s preferred index showed, but costs continue to climb rapidly after stripping out volatile food and fuel — which shows that price pressures retain staying power and it could be a long road back to normal.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures index climbed by 4.2 percent in the year through March, down notably from 5.1 percent in the year through February.

But after stripping out food and fuel prices, a closely watched “core” index held nearly steady last month. That measure rose by 4.6 percent over the year, compared with 4.7 percent in the previous reading — a figure that was revised up slightly.

The data provide further evidence that inflation is moderating, but that the process remains bumpy and could take a long time to fully play out. Fed officials have raised interest rates sharply over the past year to make money more expensive to borrow and slow demand, and those moves are only slowly trickling through the economy and weighing down price increases.

Slow improvement, yet improvement nonetheless. 

The Steakhouse Serving 3D Printed Vegan Meat: 

Cats

Friday Catblogging: The Unicorn

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Erin Odell writes Meet Unicorn, the rare male calico kitten who landed at a Colorado rescue:

An extremely rare male calico kitten born in a Weld County shed this year was turned over to the Weld County Humane Society and, ultimately, transferred into the care of NoCo Kitties, a foster-focused rescue based in Loveland, according to founder Davida Dupont.

Loveland is about 45 miles north of Denver.

The kitten’s foster mom, NoCo Kitties volunteer Alli Magish, took in the little calico cat, his mom, Amber, and his four siblings, including his two calico sisters. Magish said she suspected he was a boy shortly after getting the litter but wanted to be sure. Males make up just 1 of every 3,000 calico births, according to the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine.

Two veterinarians confirmed the kitten’s gender. It was the first male calico the veterinarians, Dupont or Magish had ever seen, Dupont and Magish said.

“We just thought how incredibly unusual and what fun it is,” said Dupont, who added that because of their rarity, male calicos are often called “unicorn cats.”

America, Daily Bread, Economy

Daily Bread for 4.27.23: National Economic Growth Slows

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 64. Sunrise is 5:53 AM and sunset 7:51 PM for 13h 57m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 46.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

The City of Whitewater is hosting an Affordable Housing Public Input Session from 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM. 

On this day in 1981, Xerox PARC introduces a computer mouse.

Ben Casselman reports U.S. Economy Grew at 1.1% Rate in First Quarter (‘The gross domestic product increased for the third straight quarter as consumer spending remained robust despite higher interest rates’):

Higher interest rates took a toll on the U.S. economy in early 2023, but free-spending consumers are keeping a recession at bay, at least for now.

Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, rose at a 1.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. That was down from a 2.6 percent rate in the last three months of 2022 but nonetheless represented a third straight quarter of growth after output contracted in the first half of last year.

The figures are preliminary and will be revised at least twice as more complete data becomes available.

Growth in the first quarter was dragged down by weakness in housing and business investment, both of which are heavily influenced by interest rates. The Federal Reserve has raised rates by nearly five percentage points since early last year in an effort to tamp down inflation.

How to recycle a wind turbine in a test tube:

Daily Bread, Education, School District

Daily Bread for 4.26.23: ‘Some College, No Degree’ Isn’t Whitewater’s Problem

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 52. Sunrise is 5:54 AM and sunset 7:50 PM for 13h 55m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 37.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Park Board meets at 5:30 PM. 

On this day in 1986, the Soviet Chernobyl disaster occurs.

Rich Kremer reports Number of Wisconsinites with some college, no degree continues to grow:

The number of Wisconsinites who have left college without finishing their degree or certificate programs has grown to more than 746,000, according to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. 

Of all the residents who have yet to complete their post-secondary degree or certification in the state, 602,570, or around 80 percent, last attended a two-year college. The findings come from the Clearinghouse’s annual Some College No Credential report, which uses data from the 2021-22 academic year. 

This is not, however, Whitewater’s fundamental challenge. A thousand times over: Whitewater’s fundamental challenge is graduating students from Whitewater High School so that they remain engaged, lifelong learners.

Students must be able to read, write, and reason adequately. These skills are not deferred talents, to be acquired in trade schools, colleges, graduate or professional programs, or only after one finds a job.

This should be the mandate for our district: we are to achieve literacy, basic mathematics, and reasoning abilities in our students before they are graduated. It is impossible — impossible, damn it  — to believe that it cannot be done. There must be no letting go, no yielding, of this conviction. 

It reveals how far we have fallen that writing as much will strike some as an insult or a presumptuous challenge. 

It’s a long, hard slog. Meaningful gains will not happen overnight. They must, however, be the main topic of discussion at every public meeting of this district. An old school board, a new school board, this administrator or that administrator — it only matters if they embrace and exhibit plainly the right priorities.

Japan startup ‘likely crashed’ private moon landing: 

Daily Bread, Sen. Baldwin, US Senate Race 2024, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.25.23: Baldwin as the Prohibitive Favorite

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 48. Sunrise is 5:56 AM and sunset 7:48 PM for 13h 52m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 28.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1898, Congress declares that a state of war between the U.S. and Spain existed since April 21, when an American naval blockade of the Spanish colony of Cuba began.

It’s too soon to tell what the 2024 presidential race nationally or in Wisconsin will look like. That’s not true of the U.S. Senate race for Wisconsin. Writing from Washington, Jennifer Rubin observes Tammy Baldwin has picked the lock on split-ticket voters:

To explain her success, she shared two anecdotes. At a roundtable at a dairy farm, she met with a crowd that doesn’t frequently vote for Democrats. One voter needled her a bit. “Is that your truck out there?” she asked. “Well I have one just like it.” Touting her support for rural development and infrastructure, she said, “Potholes aren’t red or blue.” Asked after the event if he would vote Republican, the voter said no. “Did you listen to her? She’s working on my issues.”

Similarly, at a forge company, an operator responsible for pouring molten iron into molds asked in reference to then-President Donald Trump, “Why you always picking on my president?” She joked back, “Sometimes he deserves it!” She got a small smile out of him. She then went on to talk about her support for “Buy American” to ensure government purchases come from U.S. companies. Asked afterward who he would vote for, the voter said Baldwin. He explained his rationale for being pro-Trump and pro-Baldwin: “They both are for Buy American.”

….

Baldwin’s success is proof of some basic political nostrums. If you work incredibly hard, pay close attention to your state and solve people’s daily problems, partisan labels means less. Moreover, framing social issues as matters of “rights and freedoms” allows her to reach voters who don’t normally consider themselves to be “progressive.”

Next year in Wisconsin, it’s Baldwin’s race to lose. 

War in Ukraine: Russia failed to achieve its offensive goals, says ISW:

City, Daily Bread, School District

Daily Bread for 4.24.23: The Points of Greatest Need

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see morning sunshine and afternoon clouds with a high of 49. Sunrise is 5:57 AM and sunset 7:47 PM for 13h 50m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 19.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Unified School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM, resuming into open session at 7 PM. 

On this day in 1916, Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launch a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island in the Antarctic Ocean to organize a rescue for the crew of the sunken Endurance.

In a place with more than one need, it’s sensible to assess those needs in a priority order. The more direct way to say this is that one applies a process of triage. Where is the greatest need (and the greatest need over which one can make a difference)? Answering this question requires assessing both others’ efforts at assistance, and others’ troublemaking. For a libertarian, this means considering what public and private entities are doing well or poorly (with concern over what public entities are doing poorly). 

In November, this libertarian blogger posted on What Ails, What Heals in Whitewater. A question yet awaits: which ailments, and which solutions, are most pressing in light of public and private actions this year?

It seems likely that Whitewater will soon know the direction both of her municipal government and her public school district for the year ahead. (Their policy years, really, begin after local elections in the spring.) These public institutions are only a part of the community, however much some members may mistakenly consider themselves the very center of life in Whitewater. And yet, while only a part, these institutions bear watching. 

It’s worth waiting a bit longer, however, to see how each institution chooses to proceed over the next year. Only after seeing their plans can apply one’s efforts appropriately, in support of what’s best and in opposition to what’s worst.  

We’ll know soon, I wouldn’t wonder. 

Dark Nebula captured by Hubble for space telescope’s 33rd anniversary:

Daily Bread, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.23.23: Menominee Strive to Maintain Sustainable Logging

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 5:59 AM and sunset 7:46 PM for 13h 47m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 12.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1985, Coca-Cola changes its formula and releases New Coke. The response is overwhelmingly negative, and the original formula is back on the market in less than three months.

Cara Buckley reports The Giving Forest (‘The Menominee tribe has sustainably logged its forest in Wisconsin for 160 years. But that careful balance faces a crisis: too many trees and too few loggers’):

MENOMINEE COUNTY, Wis. — Amid the sprawling farmlands of northeast Wisconsin, the Menominee forest feels like an elixir, and a marvel. Its trees press in, towering and close, softening the air, a dense emerald wilderness that’s home to wolves, bears, otters, warblers and hawks, and that shows little hint of human hands.

Yet over the last 160 years, much of this forest has been chopped down and regrown nearly three times. The Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin, its stewards, have pulled nearly two hundred million cubic feet of timber from this land since 1854 — white pine cut into museum displays and hard maple made into basketball courts for the Olympics.

Yet the forest has more trees on the same acreage than it did a century and a half ago — with some trees over 200 years old.

The Menominee accomplished this by putting the well-being of the forest and their people ahead of profits and doing the exact opposite of commercial foresters. They chop down trees that are sick and dying or harvest those that have naturally fallen, leaving high-quality trees to grow and reproduce. It is regarded by some as the nation’s first sustainable forest.

….

Left alone, the forest will grow dense, stunting the growth of some trees and inviting invasive diseases and pests, which are already an increasing menace because of climate change.

….

An hour’s drive northwest of Green Bay, the Menominee forest is so lush it pops in images from space. At 235,000 acres, it’s home to about 4,300 tribal members and roughly two dozen species of trees, hardwoods and softwoods like red oak, pine, maple, aspen and hemlock that fill 90 percent of the land.

See also from PBS Wisconsin Menominee History: 

Along the banks of the Wolf River, tribal elder and preservationist David Grignon tells the oral tradition of the Menominee people. Grignon shares not only who the Menominee are, but why they’re in Wisconsin, and how he is striving to preserve their traditions.

Harvesting “mad honey” is a high-risk job:

Birds, Daily Bread, Nature, Weather, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.22.23: Loons Fall from Wisconsin Skies

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 43. Sunrise is 6:00 AM and sunset 7:45 PM for 13h 44m 42s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 6.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1970, the first Earth Day is celebrated.

Some titles suggest multiple subjects, but this isn’t a post about Michael Gableman, Ron Johnson, or anyone who thought Foxconn might be a good idea.

Instead, it’s about genuine common loons (Gavia immer). Gaby Vinick writes Rehabilitators report ‘loon fallout’ in northern Wisconsin (‘Migrating loons get pulled down by weight of ice that hampers their flight ability, causing them to crash on land, nonprofit says’):

Loons have been falling from the sky over Wisconsin this week, according to an avian rehabilitation organization.

Marge Gibson, founder and director of Raptor Education Group, blamed what they call a “loon fallout” on cold, turbulent spring weather. She said migrating loons that fly at high altitudes get coated in ice which hampers their flight ability. 

“Once the ice accumulates on them, they’re no longer aerodynamic, and they fall,” Gibson said. “They just happen to be in the wrong place.”

At least 25 downed loons have been rescued as of Friday. 

Gibson said loons sometimes end up on the ground because they mistake wet pavement for water and try to land. But in this case, she said, other birds were found across different locations — in woods and cow pastures, or places where they wouldn’t land purposely.

The Fastest Window Cleaner in the World:

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Daily Bread, UW System

Daily Bread for 4.21.23: UW System to Assess Viability of 2-Year Campuses

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see intermittent clouds with a high of 57. Sunrise is 6:03 AM and sunset 7:43 PM for 13h 42m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

This day in 753 BC is the traditional date on which Romulus founds Rome.

Rich Kremer reports UW System president calls for financial assessments of 2-year campuses amid steep enrollment declines (‘Directive comes months before classes cease at campus formerly known as UW-Richland’):

As a former two-year state college prepares for its final classes, University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman is asking chancellors to assess the financial viability of the state’s 12 other branch campuses. The directive comes amid steep enrollment declines at nearly all of the two-year schools and hesitancy by some counties to make large investments in branch campus buildings without renewed commitments the schools won’t close. 

In a letter to chancellors at four-year universities who took on former UW Colleges during a 2018 merger, Rothman calls for financial assessments at the branch campuses along with “innovative and creative approaches” to bolster them. 

“The enrollments at these campuses have declined precipitously over the last five years,” Rothman said. “In order to sustain accessibility at these locations, we must prioritize and develop an assessment that identifies and addresses any financial and operational issues.”

In the five years since the merger, enrollment across the UW System’s 12 branch campuses has fallen by an average of around 48 percent. Last November, Rothman announced in-person college classes at UW-Platteville’s two-year campus in Richland Center would end July 1 as just 60 students were enrolled there last fall. 

The announcement got the attention of county boards, which own and maintain the former colleges. Some have delayed major investments in maintenance and upgrades until they get renewed commitments from UW System that they won’t close those schools. 

….

Rothman’s letter states the goal of the assessments are to give chancellors “broad autonomy” in addressing enrollment and fiscal challenges in collaboration of the UW System Administration Office through periodic meetings. 

There is, of course, no ‘broad autonomy’ anywhere in the contemporary UW System. Decisions come from the center, and the grant of autonomy for any given chancellor simply allows the centralized System to disclaim responsibility for putatively local decisions.

Rothman began as System president less than a year ago, on 6.1.22, with a tacit mandate to consolidate and retrench. 

He’s right on schedule. 

Russian warplane accidentally bombs own city, injuring at least two people: