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Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.11.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a rainy Wednesday, with a high of sixty-six.

On this day in 1944, the Allies at Normandy link forces: “Five days after the D-Day landing, the five Allied landing groups, made up of some 330,000 troops, link up in Normandy to form a single solid front across northwestern France.”

It’s Gene Wilder’s birthday:

On this date Gene Wilder (aka Jerome Silberman) was born in Milwaukee. Wilder graduated from Washington High School in Milwaukee in 1951. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1955. and studied judo, fencing, gymnastics and voice at the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, England.

Wilder won the Clarence Derwent award for the Broadway play “The Complaisant Lover” in 1962. He continued to perform on Broadway in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1963), Dynamite Tonight (1964), and The White House (1964). Wilder made his film debut in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), then earned an Oscar nomination the following year as the accountant Leo Bloom in The Producers, the first of three films he made for writer-director Mel Brooks. Wilder is known for his work in such films as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), Blazing Saddles (1973), and Young Frankenstein (1974).

After his second wife Gilda Radner died of ovarian cancer, Wilder co-founded Gilda’s Club, a support group to raise awareness of the disease. [Source: Internet Movie Database].

As Wonka, expressing concern for Mike Teavee:

Here’s the Wednesday game from Puzzability in the Pop Flies series:

This Week’s Game — June 9-13
Pop Flies
It all starts with Dad this week. For each day, we started with a word that begins with the two-letter chunk PA and deleted it to get a new word. The two-word answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the longer PA word followed by the shorter word.
Example:
Undercover scheme to entrap the gang of kids wielding liquid adhesive
Answer:
Pasting sting
What to Submit:
Submit the two-word phrase, with the PA word first (as “Pasting sting” in the example), for your answer.
Wednesday, June 11
A stroller that Dad pays to use for the afternoon, for example

Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Misconduct, State Government

The Truth About the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation

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There are those times when small-government conservatives, Democrats, and libertarians agree. Acknowledging the misconduct, failures, and cronyism of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation would be one of those occasions. It is, among other things, the state’s biggest white-collar welfare scheme, both mismanaged and mendacious.

Here’s the effectual motto of the WEDC:

Corruption, Cronyism, and Incompetence (at Taxpayer Expense)

When officials of the city and university boast of these grants, that’s what they’re peddling.

Job Creation Failure
• 46% of companies receiving incentives with a job creation goal failed to report any progress.
• Less than 25% of companies awarded incentives with job creation goals reached at least half of their goal.
• Only 12% of companies reached the targeted number of jobs.

Job Retention Mediocre
• 37% of companies receiving incentives with a job retention goal have no reported progress toward that goal.
• 62% of companies awarded incentives with job retention goals have reached at least half of their goal.
• 51% reached their targeted number of jobs. But, some of these companies laid off workers either before or after receiving incentives.

Capital Investment Sluggish
• 44% of companies receiving incentives including a capital investment goal have no reported progress toward that goal.
• 42% of companies awarded incentives with capital investment goals reached at least half of their goal.
• 25% reached their targeted level of investment.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.10.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a mild Tuesday, with a high of seventy-three, and a one-fifth chance of late afternoon showers.

Whitewater’s Parks & Rec Board meets today at 5:30 PM. (Update: later canceled.)

On this day in 1752, Benjamin Franklin conducts a now-famous experiment:

….Benjamin Franklin flies a kite during a thunderstorm and collects a charge in a Leyden jar when the kite is struck by lightning, enabling him to demonstrate the electrical nature of lightning. Franklin became interested in electricity in the mid-1740s, a time when much was still unknown on the topic, and spent almost a decade conducting electrical experiments. He coined a number of terms used today, including battery, conductor and electrician. He also invented the lightning rod, used to protect buildings and ships….

Accounts of the experiment are varying, and controversial, but it is likely that Franklin did perform a variation of the widely-celebrated experiment.

Here’s the Tuesday game in Puzzability‘s Pop Flies series:

This Week’s Game — June 9-13
Pop Flies
It all starts with Dad this week. For each day, we started with a word that begins with the two-letter chunk PA and deleted it to get a new word. The two-word answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the longer PA word followed by the shorter word.
Example:
Undercover scheme to entrap the gang of kids wielding liquid adhesive
Answer:
Pasting sting
What to Submit:
Submit the two-word phrase, with the PA word first (as “Pasting sting” in the example), for your answer.
Tuesday, June 10
What the queen’s doilies are made of

Good Ideas

The Better Approach of the Dark-Horse Underdog

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Dark horses (who emerge unexpectedly) and underdogs (who have the odds against them) are not the same thing.  Still, I can think of no better combination as a model for approaching the world.

While one cannot be a dark horse forever, and one is unlikely to be an underdog perpetually, it’s a powerful and satisfying perspective from which to work.

The dark-horse underdog, by his or her nature, approaches issues without entitlement, without over-confidence.  There is, each time, nothing other than the work of observing, assessing, and writing thereafter.

One’s obligations begin anew, without credit for past work, each and every morning.

There are other perspectives from which to view the world, but I believe this to be an especially good way to begin, and carry out, a day’s agenda.

Politics

Grouping Arguments

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There’s a form of debate called policy debating, common in many high schools, and some colleges.

One style of policy debating is called spread debating, in which a debater speaks very quickly (up to several hundred words per minute), so that he or she can make as many points as possible in the time allotted.   

How does one defend against an opponent who makes well over a dozen arguments in just a few minutes?  One might simply try to respond to each point, but in response to a dozen arguments, one might need to make a dozen or more replies.  (It might be far more than a dozen.) 

Needless to say, an outline of that debate – a flow of that debate – would be cluttered quickly if every argument spawned at least one reply, if not more, each time someone spoke. 

One way to manage many arguments from an opponent is to group like arguments together, and respond to a few like groups rather than over a dozen points.   

In politics, opposing arguments may be grouped for easy dispatch, but one may find something even more advantageous.

Similar ideologues will, on their own, naturally band together, confirming the principle that birds of a feather flock together.  There’s initial strength in this, but weakness thereafter, if they parrot the same line.  It’s even worse to be part of that flock if they compete against each other to advance still further the same, ill-considered message.

For someone evaluating a political message, however, there’s this added benefit: while one might have to group their arguments in reply, one will not have to identify and group those who share that same, mistaken view. 

They will have done that work on their own. 

Music

Monday Music: Maple Leaf Rag

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Some ragtime for the beginning of the week.

Highlights of the 2008 Old-Time Piano Championship held Memorial Day weekend at the Hotel Pere Marquette in Peoria, IL. 12 year-old Cassidy Gephart saw videos of this contest on YouTube and came in from Covington, Kentucky to play Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag. Cassidy placed 1st in the Junior Division.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.9.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in town will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-four. Sunrise today is 5:16 AM and sunset is 8:32 PM. The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase with 85% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets this evening at 6 PM.

The U.S. winner of the 7th annual Doodle 4 Google art contest is Audrey Zhang of New York. Her original work appears today on Google’s U.S. search page, and there’s a YouTUbe video reporting on the finalists’ work:

4reVozID7qB-4rBXvlgi1UQS9M25T9Xq7sRWgN4JbQlNeoguBqNELhW9B-uwJoVO0nR_3AmApsZUPdyM8SOHSc9paWFW2FsEKiwdkuB2DL3OHL_iq7SOFIbK7q9Au0setg

On this day in 1973, Secretariat wins the Triple Crown:

With a spectacular victory at the Belmont Stakes, Secretariat becomes the first horse since Citation in 1948 to win America’s coveted Triple Crown–the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. In one of the finest performances in racing history, Secretariat, ridden by Ron Turcotte, completed the 1.5-mile race in 2 minutes and 24 seconds, a dirt-track record for that distance.

Here he is, in that race, pulling far ahead:

Here’s Puzzability‘s Monday game from a new weekly series, Pop Flies:

This Week’s Game — June 9-13
Pop Flies
It all starts with Dad this week. For each day, we started with a word that begins with the two-letter chunk PA and deleted it to get a new word. The two-word answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the longer PA word followed by the shorter word.
Example:
Undercover scheme to entrap the gang of kids wielding liquid adhesive
Answer:
Pasting sting
What to Submit:
Submit the two-word phrase, with the PA word first (as “Pasting sting” in the example), for your answer.
Monday, June 9
Illusion performed by actor Stewart