Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny and a high of eighty-four. Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:26 PM, for 15h 07m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 9.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the nine hundred thirty-fourth day.
On this day in 1862, the Battle of Seven Pines, Virginia, begins:
This battle was part of the Peninsula Campaign and was the largest conflict seen in the Eastern Theater up to this point. The 4th Wisconsin Light Artillery and 5th, 6th, 7th, 19th, 36th, 37th and 38th Wisconsin Infantry regiments took part in this assault.
Recommended for reading in full:
Eliot A. Cohen writes of A Stain on the Honor of the Navy (‘In acceding to a White House request to cover the name of the USS John S. McCain, officers and officials revealed a rot within the service’):
One prays to the “Eternal Father, strong to save / Whose arm hath bound the restless wave” that The Wall Street Journal has got it horribly wrong. The newspaper reports that the United States Navy, under orders from the White House and with the approval of the acting secretary of defense and the compliance of a chain of naval officers in the Seventh Fleet, did its efficient best to conceal the name John McCain from President Donald Trump’s sight when he recently visited Yokosuka Naval Base.
The ship is under repair, so it could not be moved. But sailors hung a tarp over the ship’s name, and other measures (a strategically positioned barge) helped obscure the offending words. Sailors were told to remove all coverings that might indicate that the ship is the USS John S. McCain. They were, according to the article, given the day off, lest the name John McCain, embroidered on their caps, give offense. On the day of the presidential visit, some of the sailors present wore “Make Aircrew Great Again” patches, with something that resembled Trump’s profile on them. Subsequent stories in The New York Timesand The Washington Post amended the Journal’s story somewhat, to include the assertion that naval leadership intervened at the last minute to have the tarp removed. But the basic account remained intact.
Dishonor. Not to to the late senator, nor to his father and grandfather of the same name, who rendered the same distinguished service in war and peace. Their deeds and reputations are far beyond such mean contrivances. But dishonor indeed to the civilians and officers who hold the lives of young Americans in their hands and went along with this. That the president might wish such behavior is not surprising—he is mean, petty, and vindictive, and even if he did not order this (and he quickly tweeted a denial that he had), he signaled that he wished it. It is what is known in strongman governments as “working toward the Leader.” It is the effect of a personality that contaminates and corrodes every valuable thing he touches.
Man rescues injured bald eagle trapped in the middle of a busy highway: