Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:59 AM and sunset 7:59 PM for 13h 59m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1961, East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin to thwart its inhabitants’ attempts to escape to the West, and construction of the Berlin Wall is started. The day is known as Barbed Wire Sunday.
As all the city knows, there was a fire on the roof of a building on Center Street yesterday.
I returned from a trip outside the city to find several departments having arrived to assist, visited the scene, and later walked about at dusk for a second visit. Whitewater had excellent coverage of the accidental fire from WhitewaterWise. See Breaking news: Structural fire damages Center Street building in Whitewater, Downtown structure fire quickly contained, building is not a total loss, police say, and Whitewater fire department officials: downtown fire quickly extinguished; two buildings involved.
Simply: That’s good reporting about a bad event.
The accident, itself, and the risk that it brought, should be a reminder of a truth repeatedly recalled: that local government’s role should begin (and end) with the provision of competent, fundamental public services. (See from FREE WHITEWATER Fire & Rescue, Whitewater’s Most Important Public Policy Accomplishment of the Last Generation.) Elected officials in the City of Whitewater and on the Whitewater Unified School District’s board should be focused on basic services for residents. We are a small community in significant need. We are well past the point where various internal discussions, often confusingly or ludicrously addressed, should occupy more than the minimum of our attention.
For those who might have trouble grasping significant priorities, here’s Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, explaining all this rather bluntly:
A serious person, understanding our conditions sensibly, focuses on pressing external priorities — the delivery of services to residents — over internal topics. There is no reason to give license to those who are frivolously occupied otherwise.
Passengers voice frustration after flight is grounded for seven hours:
Come on guys, take care of the basics.Stop show boating.Streets businesses lakes.If you want to hear yourselves talk run for assembly and congress why dont you?
great movie! scene is really unforgettable.