Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will see scattered showers with a high of 68. Sunrise is 6:56 AM and sunset 6:29 PM for 11h 32m 49s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 5.1% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1957, Sputnik 1 becomes the first artificial satellite to orbit the…
History
Daily Bread, History, Terrorism, War
Daily Bread for 9.11.21: Twenty Years Later
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 90. Sunrise is 6:31 AM and sunset 7:10 PM, for 12h 38m 58s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 24.1% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day twenty years ago, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks kills 2,977 people using…
History, Music
Monday Music: What is Ragtime?
by JOHN ADAMS •
America, Crime, Documentary, History, Insurrection
Inside the January 6th Capitol Riot
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over the last year, Trumpism has advanced three grand lies: against the significance of the pandemic, against Biden’s clear win in the presidential election, and against the fact of a violent insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. In response to that third lie – that there was no violent insurrection – there is ample…
America, History, Holiday, Milwaukee, Politics, Sen. Ron Johnson, U.S. Senate, Unfit, Wisconsin
Ron Johnson Got the Reception He Deserved
by JOHN ADAMS •
Ron Johnson held up a Senate vote to make Juneteenth a holiday, and when he at last relented, he did so only begrudgingly (“While it still seems strange that having taxpayers provide federal employees paid time off is now required to celebrate the end of slavery, it is clear that there is no appetite in Congress…
America, Cycling, Federal Government, History, Holiday, Local Government
Juneteenth
by JOHN ADAMS •
Sometime later today, Pres. Biden will sign a bill, having passed overwhelminmgly in both the House and Senate, to make Juneteenth a national holiday. The House saw only 14 members opposed (one being Tom Tiffany, R-WI 7) and the Senate voted after Sen. Ron Johnson withdrew his opposition to a vote. Making Juneteenth a national…
Cats, History, Language
Friday Catblogging: Why do we say ‘cat got your tongue?’
by JOHN ADAMS •
History, Music
Monday Music: U.S. Marine Band, Sousa’s Deep Cuts: Wisconsin Forward Forever
by JOHN ADAMS •
America, History, Politics, U.S. Senate
The Filibuster: How one small rule change in 1806 started it all
by JOHN ADAMS •
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Congress, Herrenvolk, History, Law, Mendacity, Trump, Trumpism
Confederates, Copperheads, and Conservatives
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s an understatement to say that a democratic society that endures a violent mob seizing its capitol building is a society in distress. We find ourselves in the twenty-first century facing movements as malevolent and mendacious as the nineteenth century’s Confederates and Copperheads. Karen L. Cox writes What Trump Shares With the ‘Lost Cause’ of the…
America, Elections, History, Law, Liberty, Never Trump, Presidential race 2020, Resistance, Trump, Victory
2020: ‘But Not Just That’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Tim Miller – who is always worth reading, writes of 2020 as The Worst. But Not Just That. These paragraphs resonate: Most importantly, 2020 will always be the year that we joined together and toppled the greatest threat that our fragile union has faced in many decades. Turning out more people to vote against the president-strongman…
America, Cats, History, Military
Friday Catblogging: Heroic Military Cats
by JOHN ADAMS •
Jackie Mead writes of 6 Heroic Military Cats. Among those admirable felines was the U.S. Navy tabby Princess Papule: Striped tabby Princess Papule was born on July 4, 1944, at the Pearl Harbor Navy Base in Hawaii. Pooli, as she was known to the sailors, was brought aboard the attack transport USS Fremont by crewman James Lynch.…
America, History, Holiday
Pres. Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1863
by JOHN ADAMS •
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not…