Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS
City, Council Leadership, Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 10.22.23: Erasers Don’t Work on Intentions
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 55. Sunrise is 7:17 and sunset 6:00 PM for 10h 43m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 54.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1746, the College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) receives its charter.
Consider the following scenario:
A robber walks into a bank and presents a note to the teller. The note reads GIVE ALL YOUR MONEY. The teller activates a silent alarm, and the police arrive. Noticing the approaching officers, the robber pulls an eraser from his pocket, and makes a quick alteration to the note that he gave the teller.
The police question the robber and the teller describes the attempted robbery. The robber denies everything and tells the officers that the note he gave to the teller will prove his innocence. An officer looks at the altered note, and finds that following the erasure the note now reads GIVE ALL.
“See!” the robber explains. “It says right there: GIVE ALL! I was simply being motivational, and trying to encourage the teller to do her best work today!”
The police arrest the robber.
No reasonable person would believe the claim that erasing words erases intentions or prior actions.
In the same way, after Councilman Jim Allen offered 5 pretexts in 6 minutes for hiring a lawyer, and after he falsely denied requesting termination as part of an agenda item, no sensible person would believe that merely removing the words from an agenda item would remove the intentions behind them. See Allen’s Childish Pretexts and Councilman Allen’s False Denial. That is, however, what Councilman David Stone requested to do at the 10.3.2023 session of the Whitewater Common Council.
Two hours into that session, Stone proposed that
I would like to make an amendment as the item 25, remove the word called termination and replaced with personnel. So it reads personnel matters.
See Video @ 2:02:19.
And poof! The word termination is gone. The intention, however, cannot be so easily removed.
A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.
City, Council Leadership, Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 10.21.23: Councilman Allen’s False Denial
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Updated, afternoon of 10.21.23 as noted below —

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 59. Sunrise is 7:16 and sunset 6:02 PM for 10h 46m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 43.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1805, a British fleet led by Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve in the Battle of Trafalgar.
On the agenda of the October 3rd Whitewater Common Council session, Item 25 was listed as “Retaining an outside law firm to advise the common council on employee discipline and termination matters – Allen/Attorney.” Longtime politician and councilmember Jim Allen denied that he had requested an agenda item that included the word termination.
Allen’s denial was false, and demonstrably so. As one can plainly see below, either Allen lied (spoke falsely and knowingly so) or he spoke merely falsely (suggesting he cannot recall what he emails in an official capacity from one month to the next).
Embedded immediately below is a recording of the council session, and a transcript of Allen’s false claim.
Council President Allen 1:52:48
All right. We’ll be back in session then. Let’s move on. Rounding the
corner here. Retaining an outside law firm to advise council on employee
discipline. And uh I have here what I gave personally to [aside] John you’re
rolling your eyes what’s going? To Karri at a meeting with she and John and
said for employee [emphasis] discipline. It didn’t say termination. So I
don’t know how termination got put on the agenda. But there it is.
City Clerk Anderberg 1:53:19
From your email.
Council President Allen 1:53:20
This is right here.
City Manager Weidl 1:53:21
You sent a follow up email to both myself and Karri stating that you
disagreed with our opinion that it was a closed session item and you prefer
it to be an open session and provided new language which included
termination.
Council President Allen 1:53:31
I did not include new language.
City Manager Weidl 1:53:33
We have the email.
Council President Allen 1:53:35
Okay, I’d like to see. Thank you. I didn’t provide new language.
See Transcript and Video.
Allen did, in fact, propose language specifically requesting the use of the word termination, exactly as Item 25 appeared on the agenda:
From: James Allen <JAllen@whitewater-wi.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2023 1:58:53 PM
To: Karri Anderberg <kanderberg@whitewater-wi.gov>; John Weidl <jweidl@whitewater-wi.gov>
Subject: Emergency request for agendaHi Karri, I have an emergency request for an agenda item for next week. It shouldn’t involve any extra work by any city staff. Let me knitter [sic] if you can accommodate us please and thank you.
C-?: CLOSED SESSION. Adjourn to closed session, TO RECONVENE, pursuant to Chapter 19.85(1)(c) “Considering employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility” ” and 19.85(1)(e) “Deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conducting other specified public business, whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session.” Item to be discussed: (1) Discussion of an authorize retainer amount and hourly rate for the common council to retain an outside law firm to advise the common council on employee discipline and termination matters.
C-?: Reconvene into open session
C-?: Possible action on retaining an outside law firm to advise the common council on employee discipline and termination matters.
Emphasis added above, screenshot below.
Updated with a second public records example:
From: James Allen <JAllen@whitewater-wi.gov>
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2023 2:37:48 PM
To: Karri Anderberg <kanderberg@whitewater-wi.gov>; John Weidl <jweidl@whitewater-wi.gov>
Cc: JonathanMcDonell <jm@hmattys.com>
Subject: additional agenda item requestJohn and Karri,
I believe that this request meets the requirements for closed session but since you disagree please add it to the end of the agenda in open session.
Thank you,
JimCLOSED SESSION. Adjourn to closed session, TO RECONVENE, pursuant to Chapter 19.85(1)(c) “Considering employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility” ” and 19.85(1)(e) “Deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conducting other specified public business, whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session.” Item to be discussed: (1) Discussion of an authorize retainer amount and hourly rate for the common council to retain an outside law firm to advise the common council on employee discipline and termination matters.
Emphasis added above, screenshot below.
Allen asked (at least) twice for language including the word termination.
(One would have expected that a long-in-the-tooth councilman would understand that a resident might by right under Wisconsin law seek public records in this matter, but then some of these men are shortsighted.)
And look, and look — these matters are not ones simply between different members of the government. They have become matters of residents‘ principles and values. There has never been a time, and there never will be, when this libertarian blogger will represent the government. Never. (Government has enough people to play that role.)
A few special interests in this town have now opened a conflict that is, fundamentally, between residents.
What is this conflict about? This — For a year, Whitewater’s special interests, using their operatives and stooges, have embarked on a campaign to ensure that they continue to control economic development in Whitewater. They view a public institution like the Whitewater Community Development Authority as their private property and will not accept the direction of the current city administration to establish professional, public development as other communities do. A few landlords and bankers in Whitewater will not accept a city that is not under their thumb. That’s what this conflict is about. All the rest is pretext and lies.
This conflict will not, now, end with a change of personnel. It will continue long after even a particular change of that sort. As with the false claims of these men, so it will be a false hope for them that there will be acquiescence.
A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.
City, Council Leadership, Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 10.20.23: Allen’s Childish Pretexts
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 7:14 and sunset 6:04 PM for 10h 49m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 32.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1803, the United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase.
On October 17th, four members of the Whitewater Common Council (Allen, Gerber, Hicks, and Stone) voted to give Councilmember Jim Allen the sole authority to bring an offering of lawyers before the council.
The August 15th meeting of the Whitewater Common Council, however, reveals the dodginess of Allen’s representations and claims to the community.
Look at the claims Allen makes at the 8.15.23 council meeting about the need for a third attorney, and in the space of 6 minutes he offers 5 justifications:
Transcript and Video.
1. At 0:28 on the video, he says “All right, I’ll second it” to this motion: “I move to authorize the council to retain a separate attorney for common council’s use in regard to personnel matters or employees that council oversees.”
2. Fewer than three minutes later, at 2:57, Allen says “We need separate representation when doing John’s performance evaluation.”
3. At 5:48, Allen then declares representation will be “Only as needed.”
4. At 5:52, Allen then declares “No. We don’t have a use for it right now, I don’t believe.” (If it’s “only as needed,” or he felt the council didn’t “have a use for it right now, I don’t believe,” then why did Allen make the clear declaration only two minutes earlier that there was a specific and concrete purpose for the attorney?)
5. Then at 6:10, Allen says he’s entitled to hire another lawyer because “It’s just discretion.” (If that should be true, and hiring a lawyer doesn’t require a specific purpose, then Allen must believe that he can say and do anything.)
Allen’s 8.15.23 claims look like a child’s pretexts, the way young children will offer any number of consecutive justifications for whatever they say or do. In those cases, however, an adult guides the child to a more direct way of speaking and behaving.
And yet, and yet, this is the councilmember in whom Gerber, Hicks, and Stone placed authority for compiling an offering of lawyers on 10.17.23.
A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, October 24th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Hocus Pocus
by JOHN ADAMS •
Tuesday, October 24th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Hocus Pocus @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Comedy/Family/Fantasy
Rated PG
1 hour, 36 minutes (1993)
A teenage boy and his little sister move to Salem, where he struggles to fit in, before awakening a trio of diabolical witches (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimi) that were executed in the 17th century. Now, the witches wish to suck the life out of the little children in order to stay alive…Yes, it IS played for laughs.
One can find more information about Hocus Pocus at the Internet Movie Database.
Cats, Good Ideas, Medicine
Friday Catblogging: Doctor Prescribes a Cat
by JOHN ADAMS •
Cathy Free reports A Virginia woman was feeling sad. Her doctor prescribed her a cat (‘Her doctor, Earl D. King, said he wrote it down ‘because people sometimes don’t follow your instructions’):
Robin Sipe’s eyes filled with tears as soon as her doctor entered the examining room.
“My cat had recently died and I was feeling really sad and depressed,” Sipe said she told her pulmonologist, Earl D. King, whom she’s known for 15 years.
King has treated her for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a condition that blocks airflow and makes it difficult to breathe. Sipe said he’d saved her life three times in an intensive care unit at Sentara RMH Medical Center in Harrisonburg, Va.
So when he asked her what was wrong, Sipe, 67, opened up to him about her loneliness since her beloved cat died over the summer.
“I was really going through a bad time,” she said she told him during her appointment in September.
Then Sipe’s eyes lingered at the item at the top of the list: “Get a cat,” the doctor wrote.
King, 63, has been a doctor long enough to know that “people sometimes don’t follow your instructions,” he said. In fact, patients don’t take medications as prescribed by their doctors about half the time, according to the American Medical Association.
King wrote down his advice so there would be no mistake about what he told Sipe during the appointment.
And so Sipe followed her doctor’s prescription:
When she got home, she said there was no question as to what she should name the frisky 7-week-old feline.
“I decided to name her Earlene after Dr. Earl King,” Sipe said. “He helps with more than just my breathing. He’s always taken the time to look after my entire well-being.”
City, Council Leadership, Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 10.19.23: The Plan
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 60. Sunrise is 7:13 and sunset 6:05 PM for 10h 51m 48s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM:
On this day in 1781, the Battle of Yorktown ends in a decisive victory of the combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington with support from Marquis de Lafayette and French Army troops led by Comte de Rochambeau and a French naval force commanded by Comte de Grasse over the British Army commanded by British Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis.
Following posts about Whitewater’s probable near-future (The Shape of Decline to Come (and How to Carry On) and yesterday’s ‘Gradually and Then Suddenly’), I added some remarks in the comment section of that second post. Some of those remarks are reproduced below, as a post of their own.
A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.
The Plan:
Sometimes candor demands a bleak assessment.
They [special interests, their operatives, and catspaws on common council and the CDA] will act as quickly as possible. They almost certainly have an ambitious timetable for 2023 and early 2024. Their goals will be to remove the city manager this year, and then promptly begin a replacement process for both the city manager and to complete the hiring for the now-vacant CDA director position. They’ll need catspaws in those roles to ensure that they can direct various public funds to their preferred, crony recipients.
These goals will need to be accomplished before the next spring general election in April. (If the election in April goes bad for incumbents who’ve backed overturning the city administration, the special interests will still have accomplished their main aim of installing new appointees to control development policy and money.)
Afterward, they will use the new hires they pick to force out any employees in city hall who, in their estimation, stood against their plans. (In the meantime, they will tell these employees that their concerns are only about the city manager, and no one else will be affected.) They lie when they speak, so these assurances should mean nothing to a sensible person.
Having begun this process, they will not stop. Partway in does not suit their plans. They will continue regardless of community sentiment. If they cared about community sentiment, then they wouldn’t be special interests in the first place.
These special interests (a few landlords and bankers) will use the council majority to fire or force out this city manager, after which they will hand-pick a new city manager and an economic development director who will take direction only from them.
Public Comment Matters Less to Special Interests (they’re special, not general interests, after all):
I think public comment matters to almost everyone. When people speak at a microphone, for example, it matters to most people. It matters much less, however, to Whitewater’s special interests when they have a financial interest at stake. They’ll take as much as they want and worry about the recuperations later.
In general, they have a low opinion of contrary voices. They’re entiled, and feel that they’re deserving of more. It’s a small town, and for anyone to think himself better is deluded, but these interests have deluded themselves and others for years. They’ll not stop now. Best guess: they assume that residents will roll over for them. Upset for a day or two, and then resigned to the special interest lie that only a few people matter.
They’ll push on.
On Predictions:
I cannot predict the future with certainty; what I offer is an estimate only, based on observations sincere yet imperfect. Yet for it all, there are residents with whom I have corresponded and conversed over the last year who have said these men would not go as far as they have, and at each moment what seemed probable to me has, in fact, come to pass. I claim no extrasensory perception. Instead, these few men and their catspaws have been so obvious that it’s enough to look plainly at their actions and words and estimate the effects thereof.
There’s nothing special about me; there’s something especially rotten about this ilk.
I do think it’s possible to mitigate much of the harm that awaits, and now more than never there are two tasks before someone who cares about this small city.
First, to develop and propose steps to keep Whitewater going in spite of special interest control of the Whitewater Common Council and the Whitewater Community Development Authority. They’ve made plain what they want and what they will do; expecting better of them would be expecting too much of them.
Residents can achieve meaningful results for themselves despite below-average majorites on those two bodies. It will be hard, but it can be done. An ongloing project like this is a moral obligation in a community that will descend quickly into a worse state. (As always, a reminder: I have no personal grievance, but instead only a social and political concern.)
Second, a chronicle of this time, detailed and avaiable to others, will be useful to show residents what they can accomplish when they are free of inadequate schemers. It will also be useful as a warning of what might befall other communities if they allow themsleves to become prey to a few manipulators.
It’s rare that this blogger favors military metaphors for civilian life, but the concept of the happy warrior now comes to mind. (It’s often applied to both Al Smith and Franklin Roosevelt, ironically sometimes allies, sometimes adversaries.) We are only ordinary people, all equal, but we can in our own ways try to carry on as happy warriors.
It is good fortune and blessing, both, it is to find onself in Whitewater. As with marriage, ‘for better or worse, in sickness and in health,’ one lives and loves steadfastly. There is no place that I would rather be, or perhaps, just perhaps, could be.
Each day and every day, one lives the life of a happy warrior, approaching the day’s challenges from the perspective of a dark horse underdog.
In a city of thousands, there are countless ways first to hold, and then to advance.
Sad, yes, of course it is.
Daunting, perhaps.
Impossible, not at all.
City, Council Leadership, Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 10.18.23: ‘Gradually and Then Suddenly’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 64. Sunrise is 7:12 and sunset 6:07 PM for 10h 54m 35s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 13.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
There will be a meet and greet with Whitewater’s new parks director, Kevin Boehm, at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1945, the USSR‘s nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
I’ve written before about Whitewater’s probable near-future. See The Shape of Decline to Come (and How to Carry On). This morning, a few more thoughts about the near-future, a time that will stretch between ten and fifteen years. (The estimate of this period’s length is a cautious one based on how long Whitewater has been stagnant; it may last longer.)
A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.
What is this conflict about? For a year, Whitewater’s special interests, using their operatives and stooges, have embarked on a campaign to ensure that they continue to control economic development in Whitewater. They view a public institution like the Whitewater Community Development Authority as their private property and will not accept the direction of the current city administration to establish professional, public development as other communities do. A few landlords and bankers in Whitewater will not accept a city that is not under their thumb. That’s what this conflict is about. All the rest is pretext and lies.
What comes next? These special interests (a few landlords and bankers) will use the council majority to fire or force out this city manager, after which they will hand-pick a new city manager and an economic development director who will take direction only from them.
Gradually and then Suddenly. Hemingway’s observation about calamity from The Sun Also Rises is oft-quoted for its insight into decline:
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
Whitewater has seen the gradual through many years of stagnation. She will now see the sudden, in which over two or three years there will be a steep decline, leaving the city in an inferior position for many years thereafter. In that two to three-year period, public employees and small private businesses will head for the door, if they can. For public employees in the city, but also school district and university, it will prove true that “Whitewater (including the already execrable CDA) will never be able to hire good employees. Losers, liars, layabouts, and liquor pigs are all we will be able to attract.”
Whitewater will become the undoubted sick person of the area, and other towns will capitalize on Whitewater’s coming infirmity to attract those who can relocate elsewhere. Obvious point: While I respect the right and need of people & businesses to leave for their own well-being, there is no circumstance whatever in which I would leave Whitewater. Whitewater is for me, as I have mentioned, the work of a lifetime. One’s own perspective cannot, however, obscure this local truth: the cronyism and self-dealing of a few local men will leave thousands of residents worse off.
The Limits of Speech. Free speech only influences those who care to listen. By definition, special interests care for themselves at the expense of the common good. For these types, Whitewater is not a city of 14,889, but rather about two dozen or so. This libertarian blogger has never written to persuade Whitewater’s special interests. Of course not: If they cared about others, they wouldn’t have kept the town stagnant nor would they be acting to overturn its city administration. They don’t care; they speak only enough platitudes to deceive. They are liars by habit if not by nature. They accuse others of the very transgressions that they commit each day. One writes not for them but to affirm what one believes to be true even in surrounding conditions of dishonesty and corruption.
Mutual Aid. Mutual aid is a term often applied between emergency services and police departments to support each other in a crisis. Whitewater will need to encourage private residents who can provide mutual aid to each other in coming times of empty small stores, increased poverty, addiction, crime, and social disorder. It’s not enough to provide financial assistance (although that matters); residents will have to bolster programs that encourage residents to support each other as they overcome social disadvantages and disorders. Top-down, paternalistic approaches will not be enough in this approaching time of sudden decline.
There’s an irony that one who by nature and nurture is distant and detached writes about the need for mutual association. There are, it seems, occasional ironies to be found in unfolding community tragedies. Each person plays a role in a larger community. Sometimes a person can prescribe the right medication without being able to manufacture that medicine himself.
And so, and so: “There is a way out for the community, itself, however, as this libertarian blogger has written repeatedly: turn away from this inadequate and addled band on council, and work to build a better city apart from them. They represent the bottom of Whitewater; look elsewhere for the top. There is no better community in which to be, embarrassment and inadequacy of this common council notwithstanding. I’ve written this way for years; it’s never been more true than now.”
See Waiting for Whitewater’s Dorothy Day, Something Transcendent, and in the Meantime, An Oasis Strategy, The Community Space, People Bring Color. From Government, Failure is Both Loss and Distraction, and The Shape of Decline to Come (and How to Carry On).
Daily Bread, Nature
Daily Bread for 10.17.23: An Even Better Eclipse Is on the Way
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 59. Sunrise is 7:11 and sunset 6:08 PM for 10h 57m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 7.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1814, eight people die in the London Beer Flood.
It was rainy in Whitewater on Saturday, but better opportunities for eclipse viewing await. Matthew Cappucci reports Missed the ‘ring of fire’ solar eclipse? An even better one is coming in 2024 (‘A ‘total solar eclipse’ in six months will trace a path from Texas to Maine’):
On Saturday, tens of millions of Americans gawked skyward as the moon slid between the Earth and the sun, transforming the solar disk into a hollowed-out ring of fire for nearly five minutes. But if you missed the display, don’t fret — an even greater opportunity will arise on April 8, 2024, for residents of the Lower 48 from San Antonio to northern Maine.
This weekend’s eclipse happened during lunar apogee, the point in the moon’s orbit when it’s farthest from the Earth. That made it appear smaller in our skies, so it wasn’t large enough to fully block the sun. Only a beaded necklace of piercing sunlight protruded from behind the moon’s silent silhouette.
But April’s eclipse is a total solar eclipse, which will plunge folks from Mazatlan, Mexico, to Newfoundland into a midday darkness. The sun’s atmosphere will be briefly visible, something only ever directly seen, and charted, when the moon completely extinguishes daylight.
We’ll not be far from areas of totality:
The eclipse technically begins over the Pacific about 2,000 miles south of Hawaii. The path of totality, which will be about 120 miles wide, then comes ashore during the early afternoon in Sinaloa, Mexico, before crossing into the United States south of Del Rio, Texas. The San Antonio and Austin metros are sideswiped by the path of totality; residents in both cities ought to plan to drive west.
Then Dallas and Little Rock are in the zone, as are folks along the Ohio River in southern Illinois and northwest Kentucky. That includes Carbondale, a city of 21,000 that was also on the centerline of the Aug. 21, 2017, total solar eclipse. Indianapolis, Dayton, Cleveland, Buffalo and Rochester, N.Y., are in the path of totality. So is Montreal, at least on the south side of the city. Eventually the path crosses New Brunswick and Newfoundland before continuing over the open Atlantic.
Poland-EU relations heading for reset as new government expected following elections:
Daily Bread, Dogs, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 10.16.23: Wisconsin Life | Bat Dogs
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 55. Sunrise is 7:10 and sunset 6:10 PM for 11h 00m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 3:30 PM, the Alcohol Licensing Committee at 5:30 PM, and the Library Board at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1923,Walt Disney and his brother, Roy, found the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, today known as The Walt Disney Company.
Wisconsin Life highlights bat dogs:
Colt and Kovu are high-flying bat dogs. The Border Collies are famous for their crowd-pleasing appearances at Madison Mallard and Lake Country DockHound baseball games.
Testing Space Lasers for Deep Space Optical Communications:
How might lasers revolutionize deep space communications? NASA will test high-bandwidth laser (or optical) communications for the first time beyond the Moon with a pioneering technology demonstration called Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC).
Music
Monday Music: Billy Taylor, That’s For Sure
by JOHN ADAMS •
Culture, Daily Bread, Weird Tales, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 10.15.23: Wisconsin Life | Roadside Oddities
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 55. Sunrise is 7:08 and sunset 6:11 PM for 11h 02m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1956, FORTRAN, the first modern computer language, is first shared with the coding community.Wisconsin Life highlights roadside oddities:
There is something a bit odd going on in Oshkosh. Mel Schettl’s oddity park is more than five acres of quirky, head turning décor.
100-Year-Old Shipwreck Discovered in Lake Superior:
Daily Bread, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 10.14.23: Wisconsin Life | Jungle Jay
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be rainy, as was yesterday, with a high of 56. Sunrise is 7:07 and sunset 6:13 PM for 11h 05m 45s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt is shot in Milwaukee:
Roosevelt was in Wisconsin stumping as the presidential candidate of the new, independent Progressive Party, which had split from the Republican Party earlier that year. Roosevelt already had served two terms as chief executive (1901-1909), but was seeking the office again as the champion of progressive reform. Unbeknownst to Roosevelt, a New York bartender named John Schrank had been stalking him for three weeks through eight states. As Roosevelt left Milwaukee’s Hotel Gilpatrick for a speaking engagement at the Milwaukee Auditorium and stood waving to the gathered crowd, Schrank fired a .38-caliber revolver that he had hidden in his coat.
Roosevelt was hit in the right side of the chest and the bullet lodged in his chest wall. Seeing the blood on his shirt, vest, and coat, his aides pleaded with him to seek medical help, but Roosevelt trivialized the wound and insisted on keeping his commitment. His life was probably saved by the speech, since the contents of his coat pocket — his metal spectacle case and the thick, folded manuscript of his talk — had absorbed much of the force of the bullet. Throughout the evening he made light of the wound, declaring at one point, “It takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose,” but the candidate spend the next week in the hospital and carried the bullet inside him the rest of his life.
Schrank, the would-be assassin, was examined by psychiatrists, who recommended that he be committed to an asylum. A judge concurred and Schrank spent the remainder of his life incarcerated, first at the Northern Hospital for the Insane in Oshkosh, then at Central State Hospital for the criminally insane at the state prison at Waupun. The glass Roosevelt drank from on stage that night was acquired by the Wisconsin Historical Museum. You can read more about the assassination attempt on their Museum Object of Week pages.
Wisconsin Life profiles Jungle Jay:
As a little boy Jungle Jay Christie always dreamed of owning his own wildlife conservation park. That dream came true with Safari Lake Geneva nestled amongst farm fields near the Village of Bloomfield.
100-Year-Old Shipwreck Discovered in Lake Superior:
A World War I-era shipwreck was discovered 800 feet deep in Lake Superior, exactly 100 years after it first sank. Footage from the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society shows the underwater discovery. The vessel, known as the Huronton, sank in 1923 after it collided with another ship during a pocket of heavy fog and smoke over the lake. Per CNN, the ship was found just miles from the Edmund Fitzgerald, a 1975 shipwreck made famous in a song by Gordon Lightfoot.
Art, Daily Bread, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 10.13.23: Wisconsin Life | Metal Artist
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 7:06 and sunset 6:15 PM for 11h 08m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 1.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1775, the Continental Congress establishes the Continental Navy (predecessor of the United States Navy).
Wisconsin Life profiles artist David Groenjes: