Good morning.
Thew work week’s end in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-two. Sunrise is 7:13 AM and sunset is 5:02 PM, for 9h 49m 33s of daytime. The moon is new, with .3% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}eightieth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
On this day in 1945, the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp is liberated. On this day in 1862, the 9th Wisconsin Light Artillery Battery musters in at Burlington, Wisconsin.
Recommended for reading in full —
Nico Savidge reports that a UW-Madison student trying to start ‘alt-right’ group was convicted of arson at black churches: “A UW-Madison student seeking to start what he calls a “pro-white student club” was convicted in 2005 of setting fires at predominantly black churches in a racially motivated arson attack, officials confirmed Thursday. Chancellor Rebecca Blank said the university was not aware of student Daniel L. Dropik’s conviction when he was admitted to UW-Madison because the university is barred from asking about or considering an applicant’s criminal history. Dropik, 33, was sentenced to five years in federal prison after authorities said he set fires at two churches in predominantly black neighborhoods in Milwaukee and Lansing, Michigan, in April 2005. According to court documents, Dropik set out from his home in Oconomowoc specifically looking for black churches “as racial retaliation” for earlier incidents between him and African-Americans. Dropik, who also works as a student hourly employee, has handed out slips of paper at UW encouraging students to “fight anti-white racism on campus” by joining a Madison chapter of the white nationalist American Freedom Party, according to The Badger Herald. The flier included the hashtag #UWAltRight, using a common term for the ideology that mixes racism and white nationalism.”
Mirah Curzer describes four good tips for How to #StayOutraged Without Losing Your Mind: “Professional organizers and veteran activists have strategies for staying sane during a long fight. If you’re serious about sticking it out in the picket lines for the duration of the Trump presidency, you’re going to have to learn these strategies….”
Masha Gessen describes The Styrofoam Presidency: “On Saturday it emerged that the inaugural-ball cake that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence cut with a sword was a knock-off of President Obama’s 2013 inaugural-ball cake. Obama’s was created by celebrity chef Duff Goldman. Trump’s was commissioned from a decidedly more modest Washington bakery than Goldman’s, and the transition-team representative who put in the order explicitly asked for an exact copy of Goldman’s design—even when the baker suggested creating a variation on the theme of Goldman’s cake. Only a small portion of Trump’s cake was edible; the rest was Styrofoam (Obama’s was cake all the way through). The cake may be the best symbol yet of the incoming administration: much of what little it brings is plagiarized, and most of it is unusable for the purpose for which presidential administrations are usually intended. Not only does it not achieve excellence: it does not even see the point of excellence.”
Chico Harlan reports that In these six American towns, laws targeting ‘the illegals’ didn’t go as planned: “HAZLETON, Pa. — Starting a decade ago, a group of small U.S. cities began passing laws to block undocumented immigrants from living within their borders. They were a collection of mostly white exurbs and faded manufacturing towns whose populations suddenly were transforming. More Latinos were arriving in search of jobs, and the towns’ leaders complained of burdened schools and higher crime. Here in this northeastern Pennsylvania city, then-Mayor Lou Barletta said he would do what he could to restore “law and order” and take back his city. It was time, Barletta said, for a “war on the illegals.” And while that sentiment is shared among some advisers to President Trump, the experiences of these towns show how measures targeting undocumented immigrants can leave lasting and bitter racial divisions while doing little to address the underlying forces that often determine where newcomers settle. The laws in most cases aimed to make it illegal for landlords to rent to undocumented immigrants and threatened fines for employers who hired them. But among the six most high-profile towns that tried to pass such laws, all have been foiled by court rulings, settlements or challenges with enforcement. Several have been ordered to pay the legal fees for the civil rights groups that brought suits. And in five of the six towns, the Latino population — legal or illegal — has continued to grow, attracted by a continued rise in low-paying jobs. “It wound up costing our city $9 million in attorney’s fees,” said Bob Phelps, the mayor of Farmers Branch, Tex., a Dallas suburb that saw its ordinance defeated in court after a seven-year legal battle. “And we accomplished zero.”
Here’s a bird’s eye view of the Abbaye du Bec-Hellouin: