City, Elections
Spring General Election 2014
by JOHN ADAMS •
Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS
Animation, Film
Film: Paint Showers
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 4.1.14
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy, but increasingly sunny, with a high of forty-six.
Whitewater’s Fire and Rescue Task Force meets this evening at 6:30 PM.
Google’s announced, this April 1st morning, an upgrade to their mapping application to find the greatest Pokémon master through Google Maps for Android or iPhone. This may be the among the most competitive job searches of the early twenty-first century.
It’s the founding-day anniversary for Milwaukee’s major-league baseball team:
1970 – Milwaukee Brewers Founded
On this date the Milwaukee Brewers, Inc., an organization formed by Allan H. “Bud” Selig and Edmund Fitzgerald, acquired the Seattle Pilots franchise. The team was renamed the Milwaukee Brewers, a tribute to the city’s long association with brewing industry. {Source: Brewers’ History Page.]
Puzzability‘s Breaking Bad series continues with Tuesday’s game:
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This Week’s Game — March 31-April 4
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Breaking Bad
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You’ll be gathering a rogues’ gallery this week. For each day, we’ll give you a series of clues, each of which leads to a word. You must drop one letter out of each of these answer words and put them together (in order), adding spaces as needed, to get the name of a well-known movie villain.
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Example:
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Regular / pen point / starts a poker pot
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Answer:
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Norman Bates (normal / nib / antes)
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What to Submit:
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Submit the character name and the smaller words (as “Norman Bates (normal / nib / antes)” in the example) for your answer.
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Tuesday, April 1
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Science/Nature
Ongoing Natural Discoveries
by JOHN ADAMS •
We’ve sent advanced probes to the outer solar system, but there are still new, surprising discoveries to be made. One of those discoveries is described in the video below, where astronomers learned that even asteroids can have their own ring systems.
Film, Music, Politics
An In-Case-You-Missed-It Post
by JOHN ADAMS •
Spring Break in our school district and campus is now over. For those who were on break, whether traveling or relaxing in the city, one hopes your time was pleasant.
Here’s an ICYMI post with links to selected posts from the last week at this site.
Politics, about our 4th District Council race:
- A Dodgy and Deceptive Campaign (about the Yvarra campaign).
- Positive Perspectives for Local Politics (for an optimistic look at how politics can be).
Adventure:
The Spirit of America from I Am Los Angeles on Vimeo.
Travel Is from The Perennial Plate on Vimeo.
Cats:
Friday Catblogging: Life Lessons that Cats Teach Children
Music:
Music
Diana Krall, Peel Me a Grape
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 3.31.14
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Monday brings a chance (about twenty percent) of showers in the afternoon, and a high of sixty-four. Sunrise is 6:39 AM and sunset is 7:20 PM. The moon is a waxing crescent with just one-percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1998, a change of leagues –
1998 – Brewers Go National
On this date the Milwaukee Brewers played their first game as a National League Team, losing to the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field. The Brewers’ transfer, the first since the American League was formed at the turn of the century, was necessary to create a 16-team National League and a 14-team American League. [Source: “Brewer’s Timeline” on the team’s official Web site].
Puzzability begins a new series entitled, Breaking Bad. Here’s Monday’s game:
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This Week’s Game — March 31-April 4
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Breaking Bad
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You’ll be gathering a rogues’ gallery this week. For each day, we’ll give you a series of clues, each of which leads to a word. You must drop one letter out of each of these answer words and put them together (in order), adding spaces as needed, to get the name of a well-known movie villain.
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Example:
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Regular / pen point / starts a poker pot
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Answer:
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Norman Bates (normal / nib / antes)
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What to Submit:
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Submit the character name and the smaller words (as “Norman Bates (normal / nib / antes)” in the example) for your answer.
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Monday, March 31
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Public Meetings
Common Council
by JOHN ADAMS •
Public Meetings
Police & Fire Commission
by JOHN ADAMS •
Public Meetings
Fire & Rescue Task Force
by JOHN ADAMS •
Animation, Film
Animation: Tiny Worlds
by JOHN ADAMS •
Using computer graphics, filmmakers at Rushes offer a look at an imaginary, small-scale world within an urban landscape. Enjoy.
Tiny Worlds from Rushes on Vimeo.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 3.30.14
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Sunrise today is 6:41 AM, and sunset is 7:19 PM. It’s a new moon at 1:45 PM today. Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of fifty-six degrees.
On this day in 1981, mentally ill gunman John Hinckley shot Pres. Reagan in Washington, D.C. Hinckley also shot three other people with the president, including the presidential press secretary James Brady, a police officer, and a Secret service agent.
Looking at pictures and portraits, most people tend to pose with the left sides of their faces toward the camera or painter. (Artists also tend to present their subjects that way in historical pictures and drawings.)
In Why We Tend to Show Our Left Side in Pictures, science writer Sam Kean explains why that might be:
City, Local Government, Politics
On Paul Yvarra’s False Claims to the Gazette
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s another development in the Common Council race between Lynn Binnie and Paul Yvarra. In a published story in Saturday’s Gazette entitled, Whitewater council candidate admits mistakes about opponent, Paul Yvarra acknowledges what every reasonable person in all Whitewater already knew: that Mr. Yvarra’s charge about Fairhaven Senior Services being responsible for municipal fiscal difficulties was wholly false.
What does Mr. Yvarra have to say after smearing Mr. Binnie and Fairhaven (and the Prairie Village location)?
Here’s Candidate Yvarra after being caught in a deception:
Yvarra said he “made a mistake” and wasn’t trying to imply Binnie did something wrong.
Yvarra said he based his statements on information from a Jefferson County newspaper.
“I understand they are paying their taxes and paying extra because of the situation they are facing,” Yvarra said.
Oh, brother.
Even when he admits he was wrong, Mr. Yvarra shows himself to be deceptive and reckless. Any reasonable person reading Paul Yvarra’s original statement appearing in Wednesday’s Gazette will see that he most certainly did suggest that Lynn Binnie and Fairhaven did something wrong (“TIF No. 4 helped subsidize a development cost for my opponent’s employer. As my opponent and his employer did not meet their promises, this is one of the reasons for the distress [sic] classification.”).
Needless to say, Fairhaven and Mr. Binnie (as administrator of Fairhaven) kept all their promises, and were not responsible for a distressed classification for TID (Tax Incremental District) 4.
Almost – but not quite as bad – is how Paul Yvarra justifies the basis for his false claim. Wait for it – he says he “based his statements on information from a Jefferson County newspaper.”
That’s truly reckless, since (1) no Jefferson County newspaper said what Mr. Yvarra said, (2) he read whatever he read without comprehension, (3) he did no research or work on his own to confirm any of this bizarre claim, and (4) he deliberately made his statements to the Gazette‘s election coverage section without understanding the issues, careful review, and a respect for the truth.
Unfortunately, Mr. Yvarra’s whole campaign is littered with deceptive errors, in his several campaign flyers. The Gazette‘s story, of course, is addressing the false charge he made in a statement to them, but he’s made false claim after false claim in his campaign papers, as I’ve written previously.
A candidate this reckless as a candidate is an even greater risk if he should ever be in office. A community should seek those who will advance limited, responsible and accountable, honest government. Many, many people in town, of whom I am just one more, have advocated and represented that approach.
Whitewater deserves far better than someone who hurls false claims for electoral advantage, and whose level of effort is simply to say, well, I read it in a Jefferson County newspaper. (Of course, no paper even wrote what Mr. Yvarra imagines he read.)
I’ve written before about this campaign, sadly of note in part because Paul Yvarra has pushed more false, error-ridden, and reckless charges than any candidate in recent times. (I have no professional or social connection to either candidate, or to Fairhaven. My commentary has always been, and always will be, genuinely independent.)
See, of those prior posts, On Whitewater’s 4th District Council Race, A Dodgy and Deceptive Campaign (about the Yvarra campaign), and Mr. Yvarra’s Campaign: Even More Deceptive Than Before. For an optimistic outlook on how politics can be, see Positive Perspectives for Local Politics.
Fortunately, a few policy disagreements surely notwithstanding, it’s obvious to me that Whitewater already has a reasonable, thorough, and responsible representative for her 4th Council District in Lynn Binnie.
He has always served, and will continue to serve, Whitewater with honesty and diligence.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 3.29.14
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be a day of gradual clearing, with a high of forty-four. Sunrise is 6:44 AM and sunset is 7:18 PM today. The moon’s a waning crescent, with two precent of its visible disk illuminated.
Birds, and especially large numbers in flight, are often fascinating. In the video below, Starlings at Sunset, one can see traces of the paths of flight they take.
Starlings at Sunset from Dennis Hlynsky on Vimeo.
On this day in 1865, Gen. Grant begins the Appomattox Campaign:
…the final campaign of the Civil War begins in Virginia when Union troops under General Ulysses S. Grant move against the Confederate trenches around Petersburg. General Robert E. Lee’s outnumbered Rebels were soon forced to evacuate the city and begin a desperate race west.
Eleven months earlier, Grant moved his army across the Rapidan River in northern Virginia and began the bloodiest campaign of the war. For six weeks, Lee and Grant fought along an arc that swung east of the Confederate capital at Richmond. They engaged in some of the conflict’s bloodiest battles at Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor before settling into trenches for a siege of Petersburg, 25 miles south of Richmond. The trenches eventually stretched all the way to Richmond, and during the ensuing months the armies glowered at each other across a no man’s land. Periodically, Grant launched attacks against sections of the Rebel defenses, but Lee’s men managed to fend them off.
Time was running out for Lee, though. His army was dwindling in size to about 55,000, while Grant’s continued to grow–the Army of the Potomac now had more than 125,000 men ready for service. On March 25, Lee attempted to split the Union lines when he attacked Fort Stedman, a stronghold along the Yankee trenches. His army was beaten back, and he lost nearly 5,000 men. On March 29, Grant seized the initiative, sending 12,000 men past the Confederates’ left flank and threatening to cut Lee’s escape route from Petersburg. Fighting broke out there, several miles southwest of the city. Lee’s men could not arrest the Federal advance. On April 1, the Yankees struck at Five Forks, soundly defeating the Rebels and leaving Lee no alternative. He pulled his forces from their trenches and raced west, followed by Grant. It was a race that even the great Lee could not win. He surrendered his army on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House.