Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will see scattered morning showers giving way to sunnier afternoon skies and a high of 89. Sunrise is 5:22 and sunset is 8:36, for 15 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 66.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence.
Whitewater’s Independence Holiday celebration continues today at the Cravath Lakefront:
Whippet City Mile: 9:45 AM along parade route
4th of July Parade: 10 AM
Civic Organization Food Vendors: 10 AM to 11 PM
Christman Family Amusements: 12-4 PM Wrist band Session
Live Music at Frawley Amphitheater:
After the Parade – enjoy one of the bands in the parade on stage!
2 PM Jeff Winard Polka Party
5 PM Rural Route 3
8 PM Stetsin and Lace
Fireworks: 10 PM
Jennifer Rubin of The Contrarian considers passages from the Declaration:
We know it as an aspirational document (“We hold these truths…”). We understand it as a repudiation of tyranny (“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”). It is both those things, but it is also a compendium of complaints, a description of an autocrat’s offenses against a free people. And that was the part I found strangely relevant to our times.
The signers railed about exclusionary immigration policies that hurt the colonies (“He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither”). They inveighed against barriers to trade (“cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”). And they condemned imposing “Taxes on us without our Consent,” which, if we remember that unilaterally imposed tariffs are a consumer tax, also sounds familiar. Tyrants, then and now, seek to dominate and micromanage commerce to the detriment of ordinary people seeking a better life.
And notice the common problem, then and now, when a tyrant attempts to corrupt the rule of law by seeking to intimidate and threaten members of the judiciary (“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice…. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices”); seeks to impair due process (“depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”); and even ships people out of the country for punishment (“Transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences”). The tyrant playbook has not changed much in nearly 250 years.
See Jennifer Rubin, Check out the Declaration’s list of grievances, The Contrarian, July 3, 2025.
Sophia Smith Galer on words for wine: