Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 32. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:34 for 9h 09m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 46.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 2004, Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.

Snowfall was down in December for northern Wisconsin, as Danielle Kaeding reports in Lack of snow threatens to upend business, winter activities in northern Wisconsin (‘Warm weather led to drastically reduced snowfall for the month of December’):

In northern Wisconsin, where outdoor enthusiasts live for snow and ice, warmer than usual weather has skiers and snowmobilers turning to wheels, and race organizers breaking out snowmaking machines.

In December, weather stations in Brule, Ashland and Hayward recorded temperatures more than 12 degrees Fahrenheit above the 30-year average, according to the National Weather Service.

Kevin Huyck, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Duluth, said those areas saw around 11 to 16 inches less snow than average for the month.

“(It’s) definitely been drier than what we’ve seen in the past as far as snowfall for this past month of December,” Huyck said

Understandably, the lack of snow threatens businesses that depend on snow sports. Some enterprises may be able to produce artificial snow, but that creation may not be enough in volume or satisfaction for winter sports enthusiasts. 

For it all, however, Wisconsin’s economy does and should rely on many activities rather than fewer. Seeing Wisconsin only through winter sports would be both erroneous and short-sighted.

One can say the same about Whitewater’s student housing market. It’s been profitable for some (a few landlords) who have benefited privately in a relationship with a publicly-funded university. (These gentlemen talk about private business but their income has depended on a healthy public institution. Not one of these men built their enterprises on purely private relationships.)

The city’s economy, however, is and healthfully must be more than a student-housing market (supportive of higher education though I am). Indeed, normal, thriving economies in America simply aren’t built on rental properties. A hundred other industries would take precedence. 

Worth considering the next time some of these gentlemen expect preferential consideration…

Denmark’s Queen Steps Down: