Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 59. Sunrise is 6:14 and sunset is 7:36, for 13 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 98 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Plan and Architectural Review Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1958, the Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days. This was the first spacecraft to carry a living animal, a female dog named Laika, who likely lived only a few hours.
One of the justifications for tariffs is to bring back manufacturing to states like Wisconsin. It’s ill-considered:
But one of the biggest barriers to bringing manufacturing back, both in Wisconsin and nationally, is a labor shortage.
Over the last decade, [founder of the Florida-based Reshoring Initiative Harry] Moser said employers have told him the U.S. labor market is “weak, both in terms of quantity of people and quality of people.” He said there have been efforts in recent years that have helped some, pointing to high school apprenticeship programs. He says Trump’s goal of bringing manufacturing back hinges on workforce.
….
In Wisconsin, a 2023 research report from WMC found the state’s median age was older than the rate nationally, and warned if the population doesn’t grow at a faster rate, workforce shortages would worsen.
“We don’t have enough workers for the jobs that we have, let alone if we want to grow a job (field),” [president of the business lobbying group Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Kurt] Bauer with WMC said. “This is a significant challenge.”
One hears talk in Whitewater on recruiting for manufacturing before any other priority. It’s more a diversionary tactic than anything else; these gentlemen are simply looking for something, however implausible, to shift the conversion.
Sunday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 66. Sunrise is 6:16 and sunset is 7:35, for 13 hours, 19 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 99.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1960, the United States launches Transit 1-B, the world’s first satellite navigation system.
In Whitewater, and towns across America, the Trump men put up signs reading “TRUMP LOW TAXES, KAMALA HIGH TAXES.” These signs were as ridiculous as they were false: Trump campaigned on tariffsandtariffs are taxes. (Yet the nature of an authoritarian populist movement like theirs is fallacies, fabrications, and as with their claims about COVID or election conspiracies, a refusal to accept contrary evidence.1)
In interviews with Urban Milwaukee, all said the new tariffs will fuel inflation, raising costs for local companies, manufacturers, entrepreneurs and consumers; and that the shock waves created by the policy have the potential to send the U.S. economy into a recession.
“It’s almost unanimous concern, and I have not spoken to any business leader that’s celebrating the tariffs,” said Dale Kooyenga, President and CEO of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, describing the responses he’s heard since the tariffs were announced.
The impact is registering immediately for some businesses, Kooyenga said. Like one local company he spoke with that placed a large product order. The tariff doesn’t apply to the date of purchase, but happens when the goods hit the dock in the U.S. “And so now that their order was so large and the tariff so large,” Kooyenga noted, “it creates significant cash flow issues in a time when interest rates are high.”
The new tariffs will produce a price shock for the local building and trades industry and construction budgets, said Dan Bukiewicz, President of the Milwaukee Building & Trades Council and mayor of the City of Oak Creek. “The reaction is not good,” said Bukiewicz. “From the contractors that perform construction work to small business owners that supply everything from safety vests to gloves, hard hats, safety glasses: [the price of] everything’s going up.”
See Graham Kilmer, Tariffs Will Hurt Business, Workers in Wisconsin (‘Local business, labor and university experts warn that tariffs will lead to a recession’), Urban Milwaukee, April 7, 2025.
All these loud and proud local anti-tax men supported a candidate who has now inflicted worse than anything they’ve ever complained about.
Watch the female lift up during mealtime to show off her two adorable owlets. The nestlings are 3 and 4 days old as of April 10. Brooding is done solely by the female, and she remains a near constant presence at the nest for at least two weeks until the owlets are large enough to spend some time in the box alone.
Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 46. Sunrise is 6:26 and sunset is 7:28, for 13 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 75.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1862, at the Battle of Shiloh, the Union’s Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio defeat the Confederate Army of Mississippi near Shiloh, Tennessee.
Referendums. One referendum for the City of Whitewater (Police & EMT personnel) and one referendum for the school district of which the city is the largest part are now behind us. Agreeably, happily behind us.
Both were important to their proponents, the Police & EMT referendum being especially so as it was operational. A referendum that retains or adds people (adding in this referendum to adjust workloads) is more important than capital improvements or modifications to public property. The loss of the municipal referendum would have increased burdens on the workforce (as rejection would have worked an attitudinal burden all its own on existing employees).
The community gets more personnel and the personnel know that the community appreciates the need for more personnel. These are each gains for Whitewater’s residents.
Of the district’s capital referendum’s merits, by contrast, it seems clear to me that enough could’ve been done with far less.
Taxes. An anti-tax wave swept Whitewater in the early winter and into the new year, but it did not change the result of either referendum. In January it looked to me as though it would sink both referendums, but by March that seemed less probable. The Police & EMT referendum was easily better offering. That city referendum seemed secure to me by March. We’ve no polling for the Whitewater area, but it’s likely the anti-tax faction saw what it wanted to see among like-minded residents, and ignored or distorted contrary indications among others.
The herding and magnifying influences of Facebook, especially, leave people thinking their views are more widespread than they are. It takes time and effort Facebook does not require (and does not provide) to assess opinion accurately. Facebook is often like a man who goes into the woods, makes a lot of noise, and then looks around for how many birds he can count. By then, only the loudest or deafest ones remain.
Rearview Mirror. These were important topics for the community, and yet, and yet… this libertarian blogger will be happy that they’re over.
Before us persist issues and conflicts in the city to address now that these referendums are behind us.
Veluwabbit (Lagomarsupialis veluwensis) spotted in the Netherlands on April 1st:
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 51. Sunrise is 6:27 and sunset is 7:27, for 12 hours, 59 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 65.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1865, at the Battle of Sailor’s Creek, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia fights and loses its last major battle while in retreat from Richmond, Virginia, during the Appomattox Campaign.
A few quick observations:
Dorothy Day. Whitewater is divided into several factions, a divide that has grown wider over the last twenty years. The best outcome for Whitewater, after the Great Recession especially, would have been for Whitewater to have had a local version of Dorothy Day. That moment never came, and the recession of the Aughts became the lost years of the Teens, the rise of rightwing populism, a pandemic, another recession, and now a return to a populism more virulent than the last.
We are past the point when someone other than Dorothy Day, herself, could bridge the gap between defenders of the constitutional order and authoritarian populists. This political conflict will end only when one side prevails; pretending otherwise is delusional and attempting otherwise is futile. While not every event will be political, there’s no solution apart from the political.
City and Environs. The most obvious political observation one might make in our area is that the City of Whitewater is a center-left community and the nearby towns within the Whitewater Unified School District are on the right. The gap has grown between the city and these towns, and by now I would have thought that every man, woman, child, and household pet understood as much. Still, there’s room for empirical inquiry.
Coalitions. Whitewater has had, this last generation, a type now nearing endangered status: the supposed independent, or even Democrat, who aligns with conservatives (in this town, special interests) on major policies. These remaining few will keep pretending (of course they will) but stark political times make their kabuki evident for what it is. A soft-spoken liberal in a rightwing coalition is rightwing. No one owes anyone else his or her LARPing and cosplay. You are your vote, you are your coalition.
Fallacies and Denials. The people who brought you a politicized Christian theology, pandemic denialism, a recession thereafter, and claims that a violent insurrection was an act of love, now bring you an authoritarianism that offers nativism, book-banning, closet-confining, and a crackpot economics. The mix: fallacies of Tu Quoque (diversionary arguments by claims of hypocrisy), Whataboutism (diversionary arguments by claims of unrelated events), and a closed system of belief (where evidentiary counterexamples are denied or redefined beyond recognition).
The School District. Voters returned both board incumbents to office, and approved a large referendum. There’s probably more than one conservative who’s wondering what happened. I’ll answer only for my own view of the outgoing administration. Of my views of this administration, I have been clear: These Aren’t the MAGA Claims You Were Looking For and “Nice Person, But…”
These posts came in March 2024, when conservatives still held a majority on the board. For months prior, they had the chance to use that majority in the service of open government. They couldn’t muster four votes to rebuke a ridiculous defamation effort against a boardmember and send the current administration on its way. Should have been then.
I don’t think that the city saw the 2025 election this way, but I do: a conservative board didn’t act in 2024 when it should have, and a center-left board didn’t act as it should have in the year since. (No doubt, some rationalized this as a necessary defense against an instability that might have produced reactionary policies.)
The district instead should and can have open government and a community united against reactionary policies. Both, not either.
The district has been these recent years, all around, a dog’s breakfast.
Ramen, Japan, black ramen, broth, dashi, tonkotsu, miso, chashu, instant noodles… mmm, who’s hungry? We love this food, and in this week’s Great Big Story, we explore how ramen became a global phenomenon. From the world’s most remote ramen shop to Toyama’s famous black ramen and the rise of instant noodles. Join us as we dive into the history, flavors, and culture of Japan’s most beloved dish.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 50. Sunrise is 6:29 and sunset is 7:26, for 12 hours, 57 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 54.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1938, two days after the Nationalist army occupied the Catalan city of Lleida, dictator Francisco Franco decrees the abolition of the Generalitat (the autonomous government of Catalonia), the self-government granted by the Republic, and the official status of the Catalan language.
Our people have a centuries-long tradition of protest. Today, across this continent, Americans will exercise that right against Trump and Musk. There are both in-person and virtual events to which the American people are cordially invited. (You don’t need to be a Democrat, as I am not. Patriotism is your only necessary credential.) There’s no location for Whitewater, but other nearby by locations await (including Walworth, Janesville, Stoughton, Beloit, and Madison):
Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. They’re taking everything they can get their hands on, and daring the world to stop them. On Saturday, April 5th, we’re taking to the streets nationwide to fight back with a clear message: Hands off!
A beginning only: every movement and every coalition has a beginning. Start, then keep going.
Tuesday, April 8th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Anora @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building: Comedy/Drama/Romance Rated R (sexual content/nudity/language) 2 hours, 19 minutes (2024) Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, NY, lives a Cinderella story when she hooks and impulsively marries the Russian son of…
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 50. Sunrise is 6:31 and sunset is 7:25, for 12 hours, 54 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 45.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1865, a day after Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, President Lincoln visits the Confederate capital.
In this last generation, Whitewater, Wisconsin has felt the effects of national calamities: the Great Recession, a pandemic, an insurrection, and now a trade war.
In each case, a small group of local men and women carried on as though local affairs were paramount1; in each case, they did so while conditions in the city grew worse from those national calamities.
Now comes another calamity, and with it a few likelihoods.
Those who supported the authoritarian movement that made a pandemic worse, inspired an insurrection, the return to power of a would-be king, and now a global economic crisis will never admit that they were wrong. Never. They wanted this and they will continue to want this, all of it.
Those who cannot see past Townline Road won’t develop broader horizons. It’s all roads, press releases, and sanewashing with that crew. They’ll keep thinking that if you talk to a hyena in a soft voice that foul creature will give up meat for vegetables. They’d probably keep thinking this even as that carnivore crunched on the nearest human femur2.
There are, however, many more residents in this city, in this state, and this nation who will stand opposed to wholesale ruin.
Of that ruin, there are months and years of damage3 ahead, with this only a portion:
Is “recession” now spelled T-A-R-I-F-F?
Markets were gripped by the recession trade after President Trump’s tariffs on Wednesday threatened a global trade war. Treasury yields, stock futures and the dollar all plunged.
This isn’t mere market hyperbole. Thursday was only the sixth time in history that the S&P 500 had fallen more than 4% while the dollar also fell more than 1%—with investors shocked that the greenback had failed in its usual role as a safe haven.
The carnage in the markets might be just the beginning: If the biggest U.S. tax rise since at least the 1950s causes the economy to shrink, stocks and Treasury yields still have a long way to go down.
As recessions take hold, stocks are hit both by lower earnings and by lower valuations, as spending falls and savers switch to safer assets. Defensive stocks better able to maintain sales—such as sellers of food and other household staples—beat those selling optional purchases such as luxury goods and cars, known as cyclicals.
Thursday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 50. Sunrise is 6:33 and sunset is 7:23, for 12 hours, 51 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 34.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Arts Commission meets at 5 PM, and the Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1865, Union forces capture Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy.
In October, writing about the scariest things in Whitewater for the year, this libertarian blogger listed the two worst threats to the city as special interests and nativism. Later, in February, I wrote that there was now only one notable kind of conservative in Whitewater, as only the conservative populists matter politically (‘a conservative might imagine himself as something else (a traditionalist or a deal-maker), and might be something else, but only in his house or in his head’).
There’s always someone who thinks that this predatory movement will see the error of its ways. It won’t, not now, not ever. It may lose its grip on the nation, but it will fall to a majority of others outside that movement to turn it aside.
Those who’ve gone this far, these dead-enders, will never repent of the their conduct, of the damage they’ve caused others.
On the contrary, they’ve never been more assured, more self-justified, than now.
The most conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court — she is — seems upset:
Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 68. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset is 7:22, for 12 hours, 48 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4:30 PM, the Public Arts Commission at 5 PM, and the Starin Park Water Tower Committee meets at 6 PM.
The Wisconsin event of the moment: Susan Crawford — intelligent, knowledgeable, and of a proper judicial temperament — won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In every way that could possibly matter, she was the better candidate.
Jupiter and the crescent moon start off and end the month together. Find out where to see Mars and Venus as well. The Lyrid Meteor Shower peaks on the night of April 21-22. Amazing globular cluster M3 is also available for skywatchers this month.
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 58. Sunrise is 6:45 and sunset is 7:15, for 12 hours, 30 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 5.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1912, First Lady Helen Taft and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, plant two Yoshino cherry trees on the northern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., the origin of the National Cherry Blossom Festival.
In a post last week, this libertarian blogger wrote criticizing Sen. Chuck Schumer. That criticism was, and is, deserved. SeeSchumer Gets the Criticism He Deserves.
Josh Marshall relates an observation that one of Marshall’s friends made of Schumer:
A few days ago a friend told me that Chuck Schumer thinks he’s a minority leader but he’s actually an opposition leader. Or rather that’s the position into which history has placed him — and he doesn’t realize it or he doesn’t grasp the difference or he’s simply not able to be the latter thing. There are lots of ways to explain the disconnect or incapacity. But I thought this was a pretty good one.
Yes. These times, more than within the last three generations, will test understanding and imagination. Some will adjust; others not. Some previously unnoticed will rise to the moment; many prominent until now will fall away.
That’s true nationally, statewide, and it will prove true in Whitewater, also. How odd that even now one has to write this way, warning that a few hidebound men and women will not be able to shelter in local boosterism or positivity in the misapprehension that Whitewater is an island far from turmoil on the mainland.
Watching a community forum of municipal candidates from a few weeks, ago, where the organizers carried on as though we lived in conditions of nonpartisanship1, made so very clear that we are not immune from Schumer’s failure to grasp the moment.
A community that pretends a wolf2 is a sheep soon has fewer sheep.
______
Not even bipartisanship, itself an extinct species, but nonpartisanship. No one profits from these misapprehensions so much as the authoritarian populists. They’re professedly commonsensical only until they can impose their book-banning and closet-confining on others. ↩︎
A palate cleanser of sorts — Sophia S. Galer on the em dash. (Admittedly, I am a fan of the em dash, so her views suit my preferences.) What makes Galer so compelling, however, is that her intelligence is creative, inquisitive, seeking. Something about which to be hopeful in the generation after mine…
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:47 and sunset is 7:14, for 12 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 11.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2024, the Francis Scott Key Bridgecollapses following a collision between the MV Dali container ship and one of the bridge’s support pillars, killing 6 people.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer confidence continued its sharp 2025 decline as Americans’ views about their financial futures slumped to a 12-year low, driven by rising anxiety over tariffs and inflation.
The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its consumer confidence index fell 7.2 points in March to 92.9, the fourth straight monthly decline and its lowest reading since January of 2021. The reading was short of analysts expectations for a reading of 94.5, according to a survey by FactSet.
The business group found that the measure of Americans’ short-term expectations for income, business and the job market fell 9.6 points to 65.2.
That’s the lowest reading in 12 years and well below the threshold of 80, which the Conference Board says can signal a potential recession in the near future. The proportion of U.S. consumers anticipating a recession remains at a nine-month high, the board reported.
Tuesday, March 25th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of A Different Man @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building: Drama/Thriller Rated R (language, violence) 1 hour, 52 minutes (2024) This unusual transformation of an “Elephant Man” into a handsome actor earned Sebastian Stan a Golden Globe award for Best…
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 63. Sunrise is 7:01 and sunset is 7:05, for 12 hours, 4 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 84.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Alcohol and Licensing Committee meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.
Republicans and Democrats fighting for control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court will get a sense Tuesday of how energized their sides are with the start of early in-person voting for the hotly contested race.
Voting begins two weeks before the April 1 election between Republican-backed Brad Schimel and Democratic-supported Susan Crawford in a race for an open seat that will determine whether liberals will continue to have a slim majority on the highest court in a crucial presidential battleground.
The race, which has drawn the attention of President Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk and attracted tens of millions of dollars in spending, is seen as a litmus test of how voters are responding to the first months of Trump’s Republican presidency.
Saturday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 67. Sunrise is 7:06 and sunset is 7:01, for 11 hours, 55 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Snowball fighting. Where Dodgeball meets the Winter Olympics. Scenes from Elf and Home Alone come to mind. Well, in Japan, they take Yukigassen, which translates to ‘snow battle’, very seriously… Today, over 100 teams from 15 countries travel to the foot of Mount Usu to compete in the World Championships. In this week’s video, with the help of prior champions, The Tobu Raiders, we break down the rules, the gear and the tips you need to become a champion.
Whitewater could do this, properly organized and managed. Much better than Spring Splash. Lots of college towns have spring events, but a winter snowball competition would be something… special.
