On May 6, 2014, Beagle Freedom Project rescued nine beagles from a laboratory in Nevada. Until this day, these beagles had never known a kind touch, been loved or felt safe. Their lives are about to change forever.
The policy questions concerning these dogs include (1) whether this testing is necessary, (2) whether it should be government-funded, and (3) why laboratory animals are not more often rehabilitated to private care.
Strange but true: UW-Whitewater’s administration has an org chart that’s only slightly less detailed than the one for the UnIted States Department of Defense.
It’s understandable that the Pentagon should have an intricate structure: America is a vast continental republic, with a large navy, army, air force, and marine corps. (One wishes we had few military obligations abroad. Nonetheless, the size of the Pentagon’s current org chart makes sense considering our current commitments.)
The UW-Whitewater org chart is simply overdone and silly: two pages, including – wait for it – a four-levels deep succession plan for times when the chancellor is unavailable.
Our campus is one of thirteen four-year schools in the University of Wisconsin System, where Wisconsin is one of fifty states in America. Across those fifty states, there are thousands of four-year colleges.
It’s silly to pretend that one school’s chancellor is so very vital and indispensable that he or she requires that kind of succession plan.
This university administration cannot make itself better through laughably overdone charts, plans, or pronouncements.
To those who have recently graduated — congratulations, as you have achieved something worthy through your efforts and those of supportive teachers, friends, and families.
Success comes – as it has many times – from the individual and group accomplishments of students, supported by teaching academics and sadly-unheralded staff members, not from the preening of top administrators.
Charts below —
Donald Duck from orsa lia sanuco on Vimeo.
Good morning, Whitewater.
We have a lovely day ahead: sunny, with a high of sixty-seven, and southwest winds of ten to fifteen mph.
On this day in 1980, the Mount St. Helens volcano explodes, killing dozens.
1863 – (Civil War) Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Begins
After nearly three weeks spent encircling Vicksburg, Mississippi, Union forces had bottled up their enemy inside the city and prepared to attack it. Seventeen different Wisconsin regiments were involved in the assault that began the next day (8th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 23rd, 25th, 27th, 29th and 33rd Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 1st, 6th and 12th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries as well as the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry).
Good morning, Whitewater.
We’ll have a mostly sunny day with a high of sixty-nine for Saturday’s citywide rummage sale. Sunrise is 5:30 AM and sunset 8:13 PM. The moon is in a waning gibbous phase with eighty-nine percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its unanimous opinion in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954).
Someone in San Francisco hacked a traffic sign:
On this day in 1673, a great expedition begins:
1673 – Jolliet and Marquette Expedition Gets Underway
On this date Louis Jolliet, Father Jacques Marquette, and five French voyageurs departed from the mission of St. Ignace, at the head of Lake Michigan, to reconnoitre the Mississippi River. The party traveled in two canoes throughout the summer of 1673, traveling across Wisconsin, down the Mississippi to the Arkansas River, and back again. [Source: Historic Diaries: Marquette & Joliet, 1673]
In the servile rush to defend every big institution, it might help to consider that publishing about a criminal investigation, while simultaneously writing in the same item about an employee’s administrative suspension, can leave an innocent employee looking like a criminal suspect.
Following up with a ‘clarification’ a day afterward is better than no follow-up, but it still leaves a publisher mired in misleading reporting.
Conflating stories of administrative and criminal actions is a bush-league mistake, and is simply evidence of poor judgment.
Writing deserves more care than that.
In New Jersey, on a highway clearly marked with warnings against truck traffic, a motorist followed and recorded a truck before and after it struck an overpass.
The motorist knew that the truck was too large to fit underneath the bridges above the highway, and that it was only a matter of time before the truck hit one of those bridges.
Here’s the question: should the motorist have merely recorded the trucker, or tried to warn him? (Admittedly, the trucker was foolish to ignore signs along the road warning against truck traffic on a highway with low overpasses.)
Still, what would you have done?
Poll and video below —
Good morning, Whitewater.
We’ll have a one-third chance of afternoon showers, but otherwise a partially cloudy day, with a high of fifty-two.
Could a creature like Godzilla (that is, a giant reptile) really exist?
Jason of Vsauce makes the case against Godzilla’s existence in a YouTube video:
Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures make the case for Godzilla’s existence in their major-motion picture:
I embed – you decide.
On this day in 1933, Wisconsin mobilizes against dairy workers:
1933 – Military Mobilized Against Milk Strike
On this date, seventy-five members of the Janesville-based 32nd Tank Company and 121st Field Artillery were mobilized to quell potential violence in the Wisconsin farmers’ statewide milk strike. The strike was called to protest low milk prices and protesters employed “milk dumping” as their main tactic. The following day, Private Harry Wolfe, a tank company member, was assaulted during strike-related violence that erupted in Waukesha County. [Source: Janesville Gazette].
Puzzability‘s Just Drop It! series concludes with Friday’s game:
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This Week’s Game — May 12-16
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Just Drop It!
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Sometimes, it goes without saying. For each day this week, we started with a word that contains the two-letter chunk IT and deleted it to get a new word. The two-word answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the longer IT word followed by the shorter word.
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Example:
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Einstein from England
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Answer:
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Britain brain
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What to Submit:
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Submit the two-word phrase, with the IT word first (as “Britain brain” in the example), for your answer.
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Friday, May 16
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Perhaps you’re in a company, or on a committee, in which you feel that there’s never any progress. Your meetings lead only to more meetings, and others’ preoccupation with details inhibits good results (or any results).
Google, in a Web ad for its video conferencing services, understands how you feel (and wants to help).
Enjoy.
There are always a number of accidents, crimes, or tragedies in a community. One hopes for as few as possible.
The best way for government to address those misfortunes is to act quickly and openly to take whatever actions law and charity require.
Along the way, however, it might be useful for big talking officials to comprehend that the exaggeration of good news is both laughable on its own and also a source of added scorn when contrasted with actual, bad news.
Honesty going in brings sympathy during bad times; exaggeration going in brings frustration and derision during bad times.
One would think that so many clever officials would think so, too, but then they’ve the problem of not looking ahead.
