Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:01 and sunset is 7:56 for 13 hours 55 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 10.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1945, Emperor Hirohito broadcasts his declaration of surrender following the effective surrender of Japan after many years of war across Asia and the Pacific:
It announced to the Japanese people that the Japanese government had accepted the Potsdam Declaration, which demanded the unconditional surrender of the Japanese military at the end of World War II. Following the Hiroshima bombing on August 6, and the Soviet declaration of war and Nagasaki bombing on August 9, the Emperor’s speech was broadcast at noon Japan Standard Time on August 15, 1945, and referred to the atomic bombs as a reason for the surrender.
The speech is the first known instance of a Japanese emperor speaking to the common people (albeit via a phonograph record). It was delivered in formal Classical Japanese, with much pronunciation unfamiliar to ordinary Japanese. The speech made no direct reference to a surrender of Japan, instead stating that the government had been instructed to accept the “joint declaration” (the Potsdam Declaration) of the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and the Soviet Union. This confused many listeners not familiar with the declaration about whether Japan had actually surrendered. Both the poor audio quality of the radio broadcast and the formal courtly language worsened the confusion.
No one should want to become sick with measles, and no one should want others to become sick from that communicable disease. It’s true, of course, as some within the Make America Healthy Again movement observe, that everyone has an immune system; it’s also true that every single person who contracts measles has, in fact, an immune system. The anti-vaccination views embedded within MAHA did not stop the spread of a preventable infection. Some of the infected doubtless voted for Trump, and yet — are only the ignorant or deluded surprised? — they have nonetheless contracted measles:
State health officials are investigating an outbreak of 15 measles cases among residents in southwestern Wisconsin, and it’s likely there will be at least a half dozen more.
The surge of cases is up from two reported Tuesday.Those first two cases were confirmed in an Iowa County resident and a Lafayette County resident. Thirteen new cases in Iowa County were reported Thursday, and were confirmed in testing by a state lab, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
The agency is reporting there are another six probable cases that have not yet been confirmed through testing.
DHS is closely coordinating with county health departments and receiving support from experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer with the DHS Bureau of Communicable Diseases.
“The majority of cases in this outbreak, similar to the large majority of cases in the overall United States outbreak, are occurring among unvaccinated people,” Westergaard said.
According to a DHS dashboard, around 60 percent of cases in Wisconsin this year involve children aged 17 and under. Three of those infected were under the age of four.
All but one of the 23 people with confirmed or suspected cases was unvaccinated.
See Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin health officials investigating measles outbreak in southwest counties, Wisconsin Public Radio, August 13, 2026.
People who are routinely vaccinated, and follow the sound advice of traditional, established medical science can go about their days with a general confidence. For them, vaccination is like putting on a raincoat in the rain — it’s simply a sensible practice. People in raincoats do not fear the rain — they walk calmly through it to achieve their daily tasks. My family and I are each vaccinated; we go about our days normally.
By contrast, those who rail against vaccines reject one of the benefits of American medical science, relying instead on the theories of charlatans that are no more reliable than the theories of savage European villagers who wondered many centuries ago why there were eclipses, plagues, and any number of discomforting intestinal disorders. (“Damn it, Heinrich! I’ve soiled myself again!“)
A sensible person simply avails himself of modern science calmly and without undue concern.
In the same way, as a consequence of the irresponsibility of the unvaccinated, large public and private institutions like K-12 schools and universities should sensibly and calmly review their outbreak protocols should cases of measles begin to surge in their areas.
Measles is preventable if approached rationally and knowledgeably.
See also Wis. Dep’t of Health Services, Measles Cases in Iowa and Lafayette Counties, Outbreaks, Recalls, and Investigations, updated Aug. 13, 2026.
We’ve no reason to listen to those who would only make Wisconsin sick again.
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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater, Power Lines Near the City, A New Ethics Ordinance, and Polling Places in the City (further considerations).
This bird’s mimicry seems almost fantastical, but it seems to be true that this superb lyrebird can imitate the sound of a camera shutter: