Good morning. 
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 46. Sunrise is 6:18 AM and sunset 5:52 PM, for 11h 34m 29s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 33.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for the telephone.
Recommended for reading in full —
Emily Giambalvo and Rick Maese report Big Ten presidents kept return-to-school, football communications out of public eye:
When the presidents and chancellors of the 14 Big Ten universities began discussing the prospects of students returning to their campuses last fall amid the coronavirus pandemic and with football season looming, they weighed many considerations, from public health to financial impact.
But emails obtained by The Washington Post through public records requests reveal another priority: keeping their discussions from ever entering public view.
“I would be delighted to share information,” Wisconsin Chancellor Rebecca Blank responded in an email chain begun in August by Michigan President Mark Schlissel, “but perhaps we can do this through the Big 10 portal, which will assure confidentiality?”
The next day, Schlissel told his colleagues: “Just FYI — I am working with Big Ten staff to move the conversation to secure Boardvantage web site we use for league materials. Will advise.”
….
The apparent attempt to avoid public scrutiny alarmed public records experts, who voiced concern over the possibility that the leaders of 13 of the nation’s richest public institutions (Northwestern is the only private school in the conference) are taking steps to avoid scrutiny from the taxpayers who fund their universities.
“The idea that government officials would intentionally use a technological platform, seemingly with the intent of evading public records laws, is both troubling and wrong on the law,” said Adam Marshall, a senior staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
(Blank should be required to testify under oath before the Wisconsin Legislature.)
The Texas GOP’s necropolitics have been on full display during this pandemic year. Last March, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that grandparents in Texas should be willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the state’s economy. When Abbott reopened the state in May, the move quickly resulted in a spike of cases, and he was forced to backtrack….
It’s hard not to roll one’s eyes at Abbott’s lecturing — he reportedly wasn’t even responsible enough to directly consult with expert members of his own coronavirus task force before deciding to reopen. Then, once criticism rolled in, he tried to scapegoat immigrants crossing the border as the reason for the spread of covid-19 in Texas. It’s all of a piece with Sen. Ted Cruz’s reprehensible decision to book a vacation to Cancún, Mexico, last month while Texans were literally freezing to death as the energy grid collapsed. The Texas GOP’s song and dance is familiar: Elected Texas officials fail to act to advance the well-being of their constituents, while ordinary Texans are reminded of our “personal responsibility.”
(It is a childish lack of personal responsibility that animates Trumpism — a hypocritical separation of words and actions. It’s the language of maturity but actions of destructive immaturity. They imagine themselves strong the way a screeching child imagines himself strong: only in his own mind.)
How Used Chopsticks Are Turned Into Tables, Tiles, and Other Furniture: