Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 74. Sunrise is 5:16 and sunset is 8:31, for 15 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1965, the Supreme Court hands down its decision in Griswold v. Connecticut,…
Books
Books, Business, Daily Bread, Education, Facebook, Fact Checking, Populists, Reading, Reasoning
Daily Bread for 9.5.24: Formation Hasn’t Stopped Mattering
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:25, and sunset is 7:20, for 12h 55m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by President Theodore Roosevelt, ends the Russo-Japanese War.
Three years ago, during the pandemic, pondering the social media scene, I posted on Formation, General:
Some level of formation, of structure and learning, is needed to make sense of a difficult subject.
Come now the conservative populists, who are convinced that there is no field, no topic, that requires more effort than their own ‘common sense.’ They ask — they demand — that others who have committed years of formal or self-study recognize unconsidered or ill-considered populist opinions as valid as any other opinion.
They sometimes simply don’t know what they don’t know. Their ignorance of substantive study is matched by their arrogance in insisting that substantive study doesn’t matter. Someone might tell these conservative populists that arrogance invites Nemesis, but it would take some reading for them to make sense of those cautionary words.
Why have medicine, for example when any populist can spend a few moments on Facebook and diagnose any condition? (I’ve argued, for example, against amateur epidemiology, even when well-intentioned. See Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021 — COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric.)
Modern medicine, architecture, or materials science requires dedicated study. Anyone, in any era, might have said he or she possessed ‘common sense.’ And yet, and yet, those people from those earlier times often lived short lives in filth and misery.
The conservative populists enjoy lives in an era of technological and scientific accomplishment dependent on the efforts of the very experts they denigrate.
When common sense fails for these populists, when they misread medical texts and legal documents, they make the excuse that the topics were too hard or too confusing for anyone to understand. No and no again: the texts and documents were too hard only for those who had not committed the proper amount of study to the topic.
The lack of formation —of a learned foundation in politics, history, science, or even ordinary English usage — leaves the conservative populists unimpressive to anyone outside their circle.
Still true, years after the pandemic.
Underwater bridge gives clues to ancient human arrival:
Books, Censorship, City, Daily Bread, Education
Daily Bread for 8.10.24: The Store That Only Sells Fake Food
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 72. Sunrise is 5:57, and sunset is 8:02, for 14h 05m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 30.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan‘s five ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe. The Basque second-in-command Juan Sebastián Elcano will complete the expedition after Magellan’s death in the Philippines.
This Store Only Sells Fake Food:
Giant pandas make public debut at San Diego Zoo:
Books, Censorship, City, Daily Bread, Education
Daily Bread for 8.9.24: Tracking Book Bans
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 71. Sunrise is 5:56, and sunset is 8:03, for 14h 07m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1944, the United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council release posters featuring Smokey Bear for the first time.
Richelle Wilson reports Wisconsin’s ‘banned book queen’ tracks book challenges and worries about widespread bans (‘Tasslyn Magnusson keeps a public database of book bans around the country and advocates for students, authors and librarians’):
Magnusson worries about increased efforts to ban books from school libraries. Last year, Wisconsin was the second-leading state nationally in the number of school library book removals, according to a new report she and others wrote for PEN America. A big reason for that was one parent in the Elkhorn Area School District who requested a review of 444 books.
Other districts around the state are dealing with debates around book bans, too. Magnusson lives with her family in Prescott, a small town in western Wisconsin where the St. Croix River and the Mississippi River meet. She said local school districts have been feeling the strain of increased book challenges, which often lead to heated discussions at school board meetings.
An aspiring children’s author herself, Magnusson started participating in the “kid lit” community on social media after getting a master’s degree in writing for children and young adults. That’s when she first noticed that some of her own favorite authors, including young-adult fiction writer Laurie Halse Anderson, were having their books taken off shelves.
In 2021, Anderson posted on X that her 1999 novel “Speak” seemed to be getting banned more often. She suggested that someone should start tracking book bans around the country.
Magnusson took note.
“I was like, ‘Wow, Laurie Halse Anderson asked. I can do that. I know how to use a Google spreadsheet,’” Magnusson recalled on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “So, I took it upon myself to make a spreadsheet. And here we are three years later.”
This book-banning panic will subside when it meets opposition; opposition, however, requires awareness of the censors’ and scolds’ work.
See also PEN America, New Report Finds Unprecedented Surge in School Book Bans.
Books, Cats, Good Ideas
Friday Catblogging: Paying Library Fines with Cat Photos
by JOHN ADAMS •
Embed from Getty Images Vinay Menon writes Paying library fines with cat photos? It’s a purr-fect (sorry!) way to encourage literacy: But since even paltry fines may prove too much for some forgetful bookworms, the Worcester Public Library has just purred out a revolutionary idea: now you can pay for overdue, lost or damaged items…
Blogging, Books, City, Daily Bread, Freedom of Speech, Populists, School District
Daily Bread for 6.4.23: On Book Banning, a Law to Restrict Worse Laws
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:29 PM for 15h 11m 45s of daytime. The moon is full with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1876, an express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco,…
Books, Daily Bread, Radio
Daily Bread for 10.30.22: 1938’s War of the Worlds Radio Play
by JOHN ADAMS •
Books, City, Culture, Daily Bread, Libertarians, Liberty, Local Government, Politics, Populists, School District
Daily Bread for 5.8.22: Manufacturing Panic
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Mother’s Day in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 64. Sunrise is 5:38 AM and sunset 8:03 PM for 14h 25m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 45.2% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1869, the First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United…
Books, Daily Bread, Open Government, Populists
Daily Bread for 4.18.22: The Opportunistic Use of Open-Government Principles
by JOHN ADAMS •
Bad Ideas, Books, Confidence Schemes, Conflicts of Interest, Corporate Welfare, Daily Bread, Development, Foxconn, Mendacity, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, Trump, WEDC
Daily Bread for 12.11.21: A Christmas Gift For, and About, Scheming Development Men
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will see snow this morning, of little accumulation, on an otherwise cloudy day with a high of 36. Sunrise is 7:16 AM and sunset 4:20 PM for 9h 04m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 55.4% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1901, Morris Pratt…
Books, Daily Bread, Education, School District
Daily Bread for 11.8.21: The War on Books
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 66. Sunrise is 6:39 AM and sunset 4:37 PM for 9h 58m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 18.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6 PM. On this day in 1895, while experimenting with electricity,…
Books, Culture, Daily Bread, Education, Fact Checking, Law, Medicine, Populists, Reading, Reasoning, Right-wing Populism, School District, Science/Nature
Daily Bread for 9.7.21: Formation, General
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will see morning thundershowers with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:27 AM and sunset 7:17 PM, for 12h 50m 22s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.3% of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. On this day in 1776, according to American colonial reports, Ezra…
Books, Politics, Presidential race 2020, Trump
Inside the Last Gasps of the Trump Presidency
by JOHN ADAMS •
Ever wondered what it was like inside the White House during the final months, weeks, and even moments of the Trump presidency? Where better to find out than on Hell & High Water with John Heilemann’s grand return? In this special two-part episode, Heilemann has on Michael Bender, senior White House reporter for The Wall…
Books, Cats
Friday Catblogging: Cat Guru Explains What Cats Mean When They Meow
by JOHN ADAMS •
Kenji Hall writes What does your cat mean by ‘miaow’? Let Japan’s pet guru Yuki Hattori explain: In Japan – where they take their cats very seriously – they call Yuki Hattori the Cat Saviour. He is so popular that he saw 16,000 patients last year, and crowds regularly queue up to hear him talk about…