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Daily Bread for 8.19.14

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday brings a slight chance of thunderstorms and a high of eighty-two. Sunrise is 6:06 AM and sunset 7:51 PM. The moon is a waning crescent with twenty-nine percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On August 19, 1934, Germany selected Adolf Hitler by plebiscite as leader-chancellor. Here’s how the New York Times reported Germany’s descent into despotism the next day:

Berlin, Monday, Aug. 20 — Eighty-nine and nine-tenths per cent of the German voters endorsed in yesterday’s plebiscite Chancellor Hitler’s assumption of greater power than has ever been possessed by any other ruler in modern times. Nearly 10 per cent indicated their disapproval. The result was expected.

The German people were asked to vote whether they approved the consolidation of the offices of President and Chancellor in a single Leader-Chancellor personified by Adolf Hitler. By every appeal known to skillful politicians and with every argument to the contrary suppressed, they were asked to make their approval unanimous.

Nevertheless 10 per cent of the voters have admittedly braved possible consequences by answering “No” and nearly [text unreadable] made their answers, ineffective by spoiling the simplest of ballots. There was a plain short question and two circles, one labeled “Yes” and the other “No,” in one of which the voter had to make a cross. Yet there were nearly 1,000,000 spoiled ballots….

Google-a-Day asks a question about musical history:

What musical period is best described as an era of contrasts; e.g., between loud and soft, fast and slow?

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