Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 59. Sunrise is 5:55 and sunset is 7:50, for 13 hours, 54 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1954, the first clinical trials of Jonas Salk‘s polio vaccine begin in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Two charts tell the tale of Americans’ economic concerns:

See Alex Harring, Americans are getting flashbacks to 2008 as tariffs stoke recession fears, CNBC, April 26, 2025.

When sentiment declines, it’s understandable that Americans would look for examples of other difficult times.

For modern Whitewater, the Great Recession’s influence is the key to understanding both economics and politics in the city. It is Whitewater’s signal modern event. Those difficult years from 2007-2009 led to an aftermath that still afflicts the city.

The failure of local officials and community leaders during that time was astonishing: the boosters¹ wanted to deflect past others’ suffering, the special-interest men diverted valuable resources to their own schemes while Whitewater stayed poor², the center-left grew but still struggles to land a decisive blow³, and the rightwing populists⁴ now in the city owe their present role as a faction to forces they can’t or won’t grasp.

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1. Narrow of mind and small of heart. See the FREE WHITEWATER category on Boosterism. ↩︎
2. Avaricious schemers failing time and again to match the accomplishments of the generation before them. See the FREE WHITEWATER category on Special Interests. ↩︎
3. It does no good to talk to a hyena in a soft voice hoping that the vile creature will give up meat for vegetables. See Wisconsin Senate Democrats Hope Hyenas Will Stop Eating Meat. ↩︎
4. An authoritarian populist movement of recrimination and revenge. See Defining Populism. ↩︎

Hubble views of Mars and more for space telecope’s 35th anniversary: