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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.1.25: What Happens When You Send Unusual Objects to Space?

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 29. Sunrise is 6:30 and sunset is 5:44, for 11 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1872,  Yellowstone National Park is established as the America’s first national park.


What Happens When You Send Flowers to Space?:


What’s Up: March 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA:

What are some skywatching highlights in March 2025? March has great opportunities to spy fast-moving Mercury, stay up late to enjoy a total eclipse of the Moon, and learn about the dark side of the Moon! 0:00 Intro 0:11 Planet observing 0:34 Spot Mercury 1:24 Total lunar eclipse 2:32 Dark Side of the Moon 3:41 March Moon phases.

Daily Bread for 2.28.25: We Now Know that Schimel Has Lied at Least Once (Could Be More!)

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:31 and sunset is 5:43, for 11 hours, 12 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1844,  a gun explodes on board the steam warship USS Princeton during a pleasure cruise down the Potomac River, killing six, including Secretary of State Abel Upshur. President John Tyler, who was also on board, was not injured from the blast.


Brad Schimel, a judge and candidate for a place on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, is pickled in politics. There’s not much more to him. And so, and so, he’ll say what he feels he needs to say, one audience to the next:

Schimel’s exposition of his judicial philosophy has shifted when he speaks to different audiences. 

Speaking to law students and Milwaukee voters at the Marquette event, when asked about federal judges’ role in thwarting Trump’s executive orders to end birthright citizenship, give Musk access to massive troves of personal data and stop congressionally appropriated funds from being disbursed, Schimel said it’s a judge’s role to define the limits of executive authority. 

“When there’s a dispute about whether that exercise of power is legitimate or not, well, then it may have to be the court that resolves that dispute,” he said. 

However, in a radio appearance with right wing host Vicki McKenna, he accused federal judges of “acting corruptly” for issuing temporary restraining orders against the dismantling of federal agencies.

See Henry Redman, Supreme Court candidate Schimel tells voters he’s not political, Wisconsin Examiner, February 27, 2025.

Photo by Miracle Seltzer on Unsplash

See also @ FREE WHITEWATER, Brad Schimel Experiences the Insatiable Nature of Populism and Brad Schimel’s Work Ethic.


See Blue Ghost’s amazing view of the moon from 62 miles up:

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander captured stunning views of the moon from about 62 miles (100 km) above the surface. The footage, sped up 10 times, was captured on Feb. 24, 2025 during its third orbital maneuver.

Daily Bread for 2.27.25: The Sad Legacy of a Status-Based Culture

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 6:33 and sunset is 5:42, for 11 hours, 9 minutes of daytime. The moon is new with 0.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1782, the House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America.


A key aspect of Old Whitewater was that it was a status-based culture. Who’s who mattered a lot. Which family, etc. I’ve satirized that outlook (‘town squires,’ ‘town notables’) only because it was, and is, nuttily narrow. We are a town of fifteen-thousand equal & ordinary people, not fifteen important people. (If everyone in this town had always felt on this point as I do, there would have been less community need for Excedrin and Korbel1.)

And yet, and yet, if I’ve thought it absurd, others have taken that status-based view of the world, that hierarchy, as though a law of nature. They grew up with it, were assured by their parents that it would be unchanging, and that they in their time would be as influential as their parents were in the generation before.

It hasn’t worked out that way.

Our present time, in Whitewater, in Wisconsin, and America has a different outlook. Ours is an unsettled time, where nice hierarchies no longer matter. Over the last decade, that old way has faded in this town2, and the fading has left older men grasping for their placed in a changed city.

There’s another problem the remaining status-based old guard faces: they have not developed skill at reasoned argument (as it was unnecessary if one could simply demand a result based on status). Their idea of an argument is sometimes little more than words wrapped around a question: DYKWIA?

Good argumentation is hard, and takes time, to produce. Indeed, it’s hardest for those who are truly skillful, as they can see how much can (and should) be done.

_____

  1. Potable, and popular here in Wisconsin, but there’s better available. ↩︎
  2. It’s faded across all America, honest to goodness. We’re a freer and more egalitarian society for it. ↩︎

3,000 Golden Retrievers. Go, Dogs, Go:

Daily Bread for 2.26.25: Sure, Whatever, but Trump Is Only ‘Tight’ with Trump

Good morning.

Whitewater in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset is 5:41, for 11 hours 6 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1815,  Napoleon escapes from exile on the island of Elba (in the brig Inconstant  with about 1,000 men and a flotilla of seven vessels).


Speaker Robin Vos wants Wisconsin, America, and the Whole Wide World to know that he’s now “tight” Trump:

Just a few years after President Donald Trump backed a primary challenger against Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the Rochester Republican says he and the president are “tight.” 

As reporter Anya van Wagtendonk catalogs, and Wisconsinites remember, it wasn’t always this way:

The comments from Vos about Trump were hardly a surprise, but they followed years of tension between the two GOP leaders that nearly resulted in Vos losing his job.

In 2022, Trump backed Republican Adam Steen in his bid to defeat Vos, calling the speaker a “RINO,” short for Republican In Name Only, on social media and on the campaign trail. Vos narrowly escaped the primary before easily winning that year’s general election.

Trump regularly criticized Vos for not doing more to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin, a step election law experts said was both unconstitutional and impossible. And after the 2022 midterms didn’t go as well for Republicans as they’d hoped, Vos urged the party to move on from Trump.

See Anya van Wagtendonk, Despite rocky past, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says he’s ‘tight’ with Trump White House, Wisconsin Public Radio, February 25, 2025.

Vos bullies the vulnerable, but is, himself, easily bullied. Trump, by contrast, easily bullies.

Vos will find himself a target yet again.


New Jersey officer rescues dog from frozen lake:

Daily Bread for 2.25.25: Successful Women All Look the Same to Elon Musk, Don’t They?

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 49. Sunrise is 6:36 and sunset is 5:39, for 11 hours 3 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1947, Soviet NKVD forces in Hungary abduct Béla Kovács — secretary-general of the majority Independent Smallholders’ Party — and deport him to the USSR in defiance of Parliament. His arrest is an important turning point in the Communist takeover of Hungary.


Perhaps after at least thirteen children with four women, and who knows how many failed dalliances, furtive assignations, and meaningless encounters, Elon Musk1 doesn’t care much for telling one woman apart from another. It’s probably especially difficult for him when he’s asked to identify an accomplished professional woman (or any woman) in daylight.

And so, and so, predictably Musk’s political action committee has confused Judge Susan Crawford of Dane County with another woman of the same name:

One of the first attack ads launched by a Elon Musk-backed group in the hotly contested state Supreme Court race has landed with a resounding thud.

That’s because the ad that Building America’s Future is currently running on social media doesn’t feature Susan M. Crawfordthe liberal Dane County judge running for the high court against conservative Brad Schimel.

Rather, the digital ad has a large photo of Susan P. Crawford, a law school professor at Harvard University. It appears Building America’s Future lifted her picture from her Wikipedia profile.

“Susan Crawford: Wrong for Wisconsin,” the ad says.

Ok, but which Crawford?

Perhaps, more accurately, it should read, “Wrong Susan Crawford for Wisconsin.”

See Daniel Bice, Elon Musk group posts photo of wrong Susan Crawford in digital ad, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 24, 2025.

One brown-haired woman’s like another, right? All women lawyers are the same, don’t you know? The name on a Wikipedia page matters more than the bio from that page, isn’t it obvious? Massachusetts and Wisconsin are so similar, aren’t they?2

That’s top-notch discernment from America’s shadow president.

Top notch.

______

  1. Musk is a petulant man — more needy adolescent than worthy adult — an appetitive boy. ↩︎
  2. That would be one long commute. ↩︎

Firefall at Yosemite National Park:

Daily Bread for 2.24.25: Brad Schimel Experiences the Insatiable Nature of Populism

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:38 and sunset is 5:58, for 11 hours 0 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 15 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM, and resumes open session at 7 PM.

On this day in 1917, the U.S. ambassador Walter Hines Page to the United Kingdom reports to Pres. Wilson on the contents of the German Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany pledges to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico if Mexico declared war on the United States.


Populism is a restless and relentless group movement, historically sometimes of the left, sometimes of the right. In our time, we have conservative populists, Trumpists, MAGA, or however else they choose to describe themselves. Their restlessness, their insatiability for ever-purer expressions of the movement, leads to splintering into new factions. (Dark MAGA is like this: Trump no longer gives some of these gentlemen the thrill that Musk now does.)

Nor does a moment like this does respect institutional boundaries; on the contrary, it seeks to overturn institutional standards no matter how sound.

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel, much the MAGA man, now finds that other populists really don’t care much for the WISGOP institutionalism on which his campaign depends:

WASHINGTON – At a recent campaign stop, conservative state Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel acknowledged a “turf war” playing out among Wisconsin Republicans.

He said the party is “at risk of becoming divided” but suggested the time to have those discussions is after the high court election on April 1.

“This battle is going on,” Schimel said, according to audio obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “My message to everybody is … I need 100% of the conservative vote. We all have to grab an oar and work at this. If we don’t, we lose.”

“So can you shut it down for 49 more days, and let’s win this race,” he added. “And then you know what? Then duke it out.”

The infighting Schimel referenced is a behind-the-scenes clash between the conservative dark money group Turning Point Action and the Republican Party of Wisconsin. 

The simmering tensions between the two camps are largely over the party’s infrastructure and leadership in the key battleground state. It’s a spat that has grown increasingly public following the November election and appears to be coming to a head as county parties and congressional districts elect their leadership for the next two years.  

See Lawrence Andrea, Behind the scenes of the Supreme Court race, a ‘turf war’ simmers between Wisconsin GOP and Turning Point, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 24, 2025.

In his plea, Schimel reveals himself a nervous politico first, and a judge second. That’s unsurprising, because he admits that as a judge, he’s been slothful. See Brad Schimel’s Work Ethic (“I’m home for dinner most nights now,” he said. “I shoot in two sporting clays leagues. Or I was until I made this announcement (to run for the Supreme Court). I was shooting in two shooting clays leagues a week. I was doing all this, playing band rehearsals.”)

Schimel’s concern reminds one of the oft-repeated story of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party:

From an October 2015 tweet by Adrian Bott (@cavalorn) that went viral: “I never thought leopards would eat MY face,” sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.


How AI is revealing the language of the birds:

Researchers have been eavesdropping on an unusual family of crows in Spain, collecting data on hundreds of thousands of different sounds the birds made. Small microphones recorded a variety of soft calls, far quieter than the familiar ‘caws’ people usually hear. The team then used AI to analyse the sounds and group them together. The researchers hope is to one day be able to understand the meaning of the birds’ vocalizations and perhaps even try to speak their language.

Daily Bread for 2.23.25: Expect More of This

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 36. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset is 5:37, for 10 hours, 58 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 22.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1778,  Baron von Steuben (Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben) arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to help train the Continental Army.


What happens when criticism of controversial policies comes before one of America’s most awkward Congressmen? Nick Rommel reports US Rep. Glenn Grothman faces hostile crowd at Oshkosh town hall meeting:

People booed and jeered at U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman as he walked into the Algoma Town Hall just outside Oshkosh Friday morning.

The Republican congressman from Glenbeulah was there for a town hall meeting with around 100 constituents. After the building hit full capacity, around 50 more stood outside.

He started by commenting on President Donald Trump’s executive orders since taking office a month ago.

“This is moving very quickly compared to other administrations, and I think, across the board, he’s done some very good things,” Grothman said.

Boos and shouts erupted around the room. When Grothman praised orders ending birthright citizenship and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, the crowd only got louder.

See Nick Rommel, US Rep. Glenn Grothman faces hostile crowd at Oshkosh town hall meeting (‘Constituents ask congressman about Medicaid funding, power of Elon Musk’), Wisconsin Public Radio, February 21, 2025.

Outside the town hall:

Inside the town hall:


New video shows stranded father, teen son rescued from Utah mountain:

New video shows the moment a father and his 12-year-old son were rescued from a steep cliffside in Snow Canyon in Utah. The pair was rescued after surviving on supplies that were left behind by another hiker who was previously stranded in the same location. NBC News’ Camila Bernal has the story.

Daily Bread for 2.22.25: Inside the Town Where a Dog is Mayor

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 27. Sunrise is 6:41 and sunset is 5:36, for 10 hours, 55 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 31 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1946, the “Long Telegram,” proposing how the United States should deal with the Soviet Union, arrives from the US embassy in Moscow.


Inside the Town Where a Dog is Mayor:

This California town elected a dog as mayor. Meet Mayor Max, the golden retriever leading Idyllwild! Since 2012, a lineage of golden retrievers has held office, with Max III now running the town alongside his deputy dog mayors. But can a dog really be a great leader? We go behind the scenes with Max’s owners, Phyllis and Glenn, to see how this ‘paw-litical’ system works, and why animal mayors are becoming a trend across the U.S.

What Canadian Cat Fitz Sees on a Walk:

Daily Bread for 2.21.25: Musk Drops More on Schimel in Wisconsin (Of Course He Does)

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 25. Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset is 5:34, for 10 hours, 52 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 42 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1975, former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison.


Not long ago, reporting had Musk dropping six figures on Brad Schimel. It’s seven figures now:

Elon Musk’s super PAC just dropped $1 million on increasing voter turnout for conservative Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel, according to state election records.

America PAC, an unregistered committee, is spending $1 million on canvassing and field operations to aid Schimel in his race against liberal Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford. The winner of the April 1 election will decide the ideological bent of the high court.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and Space X, has provided most of the funding for America PAC, which focuses on turning out low-propensity and first-time voters. The super PAC was active in Wisconsin before the November general election, helping President Donald Trump narrowly win the state.

See Daniel Bice, Elon Musk super PAC drops $1 million into voter turnout for Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 20, 2025.


From backyard garden to high-tech strawberry farm:

In Fort Atkinson, Warm Belly Farm combines technology with sustainable agriculture under horticulturist Erin Warner’s guidance. The operation features 18,000 hydroponic strawberry plants in raised gutter systems, making picking accessible to all visitors. The farm monitors for optimal growing conditions while minimizing environmental impact.

Daily Bread for 2.20.25: More a Wall than an Aisle

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 21. Sunrise is 6:44 and sunset is 5:33, for 10 hours, 49 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 51.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1933, Hitler secretly meets with German industrialists to arrange for financing of the Nazi Party’s upcoming election campaign.


At the Wisconsin Examiner, reporter Baylor Spears writes of Assembly bills that passed along partisan lines. See Baylor Spears, Assembly passes bills to regulate test scores, school spending, cell phone policies, Wisconsin Examiner, February 20, 2025. Wisconsin does not have, and is not likely soon to get, a bipartisan spirit. We are a divided state, with divided cities, towns, and villages. Those places are divided between each other, and within themselves.

Spears writes:

Wisconsin Republicans in the state Assembly passed a package of education bills Wednesday to implement new standards for standardized test scores, school funding allocations, responding to curriculum inspection requests and for keeping cell phones out of schools. 

Spears also quotes the remarks of Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson):

Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) said she was voting against the bill [AB 6, requiring in part that school boards assure that 70% of operating money would be spent on direct classroom expenditures] — — and others on the calendar — because they appeared to be written without “meaningful input” from teachers, administrators, superintendents, parents, students or community members. 

“I’m here to let you know that if you want support in the educational community for any education bill, you should do your homework,” Fitzgerald said, “including having conversations with the public and reaching across the aisle.” 

Fitzgerald said Franklin’s bill would take away local control from school districts and school boards and criticized the bill for including “vague” wording and “undefined terms,” saying the bills are unserious. 

The men who profited by gerrymandering for over a decade will not reach willingly across the Assembly aisle until their portion of the chamber is smaller. Then, and only then, will they be interested in deal-making.

Until then, the Wisconsin Legislature has more a wall than an aisle.

See also That ‘Bipartisanship’ Didn’t Last Long — Because It Was Never There (12.18.24) and The WisDems’ Bipartisan Delusion (1.23.25).


Rescuers save man buried alive in Vail Pass, Colorado avalanche:

Daily Bread for 2.19.25: Underly, Kinser, and Wright

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 13. Sunrise is 6:45 and sunset is 5:32, for 10 hours, 46 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 60.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1878, Thomas Edison patents the phonograph.


Selected area election results (unofficial) among three candidates in the race for Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction:

UnderlyKinser Wright
City of Whitewater 335223183
Town of Richmond61129122
Town of Whitewater 486434

Obvious limitations: these are (1) unofficial results, (2) from selected areas, (3) in a primary, (4) on a cold day in February.

The statewide figures, with almost all precincts reporting, are Underly @ 38% of the vote and Kinser @ 34.5% of the vote, with Wright @ 27.5% of the vote.

Underly and Kinser will advance to the April General Election.


It’s winter in Montreal, too:

Daily Bread for 2.18.25: Musk’s PAC Puts in Six Figures for Schimel

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 8. Sunrise is 6:47 and sunset is 5:30, for 10 hours, 44 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 69.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1930,  Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft.


Not content with the federal government, Musk again sets his gaze on Wisconsin:

A political action committee backed by billionaire Elon Musk has scheduled hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of TV ads in Wisconsin this week with the state Supreme Court election fast approaching.

The ads are expected to aid conservative Brad Schimel who is running against liberal Susan Crawford in a race that will determine the ideological balance of the court. 

The ads from the Musk-backed Building America’s Future will start running on stations around Wisconsin Thursday and will continue through early March.

Available contracts posted by the Federal Communications Commission show more than $400,000 worth of ads will run in the MadisonEau ClaireWausauand Green Bay areas. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports more than $255,000 more will also be running in and around Milwaukee.

The FCC data doesn’t identify the content of Building America’s ads. However, the ads are expected to aid Schimel, the state’s former Republican attorney general.

See Rich Kremer, Group tied to Elon Musk investing in Wisconsin ahead of Supreme Court race, Wisconsin Public Radio, February 17, 2025.

Musk’s Tesla, by the way, is now suing the Wisconsin Department of Transportation in state court, Outagamie County, over that department’s decision against Tesla’s request to open dealerships in Wisconsin.

You never know, but just perhaps that’s litigation, should it one day reach Wisconsin’s highest court, that might be of interest to a Musk-backed Justice Schimel.

See also Musk Attacks Two Wisconsin Lutheran Groups (from 2.6.25) and World’s Richest Man Weighs In On Wisconsin Supreme Court Race (from 1.24.25).


Ice ‘Volcanoes’ in New York:

Daily Bread for 2.17.25: $4,300,000,000

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 7. Sunrise is 6:48 and sunset is 5:29, for 10 hours, 41 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 78.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4 PM, the Police and Fire Commission meets at 6 PM, and the Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1801, a tie in the Electoral College between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President and Burr Vice President by the House of Representatives.


Even today, $4,300,000,000 is a lot of money:

As Gov. Tony Evers puts the finishing touches on his next state budget proposal, projections show Wisconsin is expected to see a surplus of around $4.3 billion. 

It sets the stage for a familiar battle, with the Democratic governor calling for investments in priorities like education and child care and leaders of the Republican-controlled state Legislature calling for tax cuts.

The $4.3 billion projection comes from an analysis by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, which suggests state tax revenues will be nearly $895 million higher than expected throughout the next two-year budget cycle. The report credits that to a national economy that grew faster than expected in 2024 and modest increases in state sales tax revenue.

While the surplus is large, it’s not exactly new. Two years ago, Evers and lawmakers began the budget cycle with a projected $7 billion surplus. And even after they passed a new budget that increased spending and cut some taxes, the state ended last fiscal year with $4.6 billion in the bank.

See Rich Kremer, Wisconsin surplus projected at nearly $4.3B as Evers prepares next state budget, Wisconsin Public Radio, February 14, 2025.

There’s been no grand deal for the surplus these last few years, and regrettably the past is the best predictor of what’s to come.


‘Aqua tweezers’ manipulate particles with water waves:

Daily Bread for 2.16.25: Updating a Post on the Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 23. Sunrise is 6:50 and sunset is 5:28, for 10 hours, 38 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 85.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1960, the U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.


In 2021, this libertarian blogger posted (as part of a longer series) on the kinds of conservatives in Whitewater. See Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: The Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater, April 8, 2021. At that time, there were three conservative types of note: traditionalists (old-school types) transactionalists (deal-making types), and populists (what’s now called Trumpism or MAGA).

There was a question at the time:

The populists are often underestimated. I have been – and am – a critic of these rebranded Trumpists, but have never underestimated them.

These populist conservatives are not deal-makers: they want what they want, on their terms, as soon as they can get it. As the traditionalists fade away, the question among conservatives in Whitewater (and other places) will be whether the deal-makers or the populists dominate right-of-center politics.

There’s a sure answer now, four years later: only the conservative populists matter politically. There’s one movement, one way, one outlook.

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.

Conservatives in Whitewater’s public square are all populists.


Father describes moment humpback whale briefly swallowed his son:

Adrián Simancas was kayaking with his father, Dell Simancas, when the massive whale suddenly surfaced, trapping the young man and his yellow kayak in its mouth for a few seconds before letting him go.