Good morning, Whitewater

In the city today, there’s a Common Council meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

In our schools, there’s a 6:30 p.m. PTA meeting at Lakeview School, and at the high school there are homecoming events (Twisted Tuesday Mismatch Day, a canned food drive, dollar war, and sale of dance tickets).

On this day in Wisconsin history, from the Wisconsin Historical Society, a memorable anniversary:

1917 – Robert La Follette Supports Free Speech in Wartime

On this date Senator Robert La Follette gave what may have been the most famous speech of his Senate career when he responded to charges of treason with a three hour defense of free speech in wartime. La Follette had voted against a declaration of war as well as several initiatives seen as essential to the war effort by those that supported U.S. involvement in the first World War. His resistance was met with a petition to the Committee on Privileges and Elections that called for La Follette’s expulsion from the Senate. The charges were investigated, but La Follette was cleared of any wrong doing by the committee on January 16, 1919. [Source: United States Senate]

Here’s today’s almanac:

Good morning, Whitewater

In the city today, there’s a scheduled dedication of the Trippe Lake Shelter for 4 p.m.

On this day in Wisconsin history, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin held its first constitutional convention:

1846 – First State Constitutional Convention Meets

On this date Wisconsin’s first state Constitutional Convention met in Madison. The Convention sat until December 16,1846. The Convention was attended by 103 Democrats and 18 Whigs. The proposed constitution failed when voters refused to accept several controversial issues: an anti-banking article, a homestead exemption (which gave $1000 exemption to any debtor), providing women with property rights, and black suffrage. The following convention, the Second Constitutional Convention of Wisconsin in 1847-48, produced and passed a constitution that Wisconsin still very much follows today. [Source: The Convention of 1846 edited Milo M. Quaife]

In our schools today, there’s a music parents meeting in the high school choir room.

For Monday’s homecoming activities at the high school, there’s pajama day, a canned food drive, a dollar war, and powder puff football.

Here’s today’s almanac:

Good morning, Whitewater

On this date in 1996, President Clinton signed an amendment to the Freedom of Information Act, that required the federal government to place electronic documents online. Much has happened in these last thirteen years.

Among the most important changes, the legislation required the government to supply information in the requested digital format, if possible. Spreadsheets are easier to decipher than thousands of pages of documents, for example.

What’s more, the law also urged the government to publish online as much information as possible. FOIA, first enacted in 1966, now required the government to search its electronic databases to comport with information requests. An “agency shall make reasonable efforts to search for records in electronic form or format, except when such efforts would significantly interfere with the operation of the agency’s automated information system,” the legislation said.

The amendments, like the original act, allow anyone to request information, but have been especially helpful for journalists seeking information on behalf of the general public. News-gathering in the pre-digital days required burning shoe leather, working the phone and poring over reams of paper files. What little internet data was available was largely through Gopher and FTP. Web retrieval was somewhere between minimal and microscopic.

The 1996 amendments changed things a lot. “The 1996 amendments were very forward-thinking and very important,” said Lucy Daglish, executive director of The Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press.

But she cautioned that, notwithstanding the amendments, the sitting president sets the tone of how the Freedom of Information Act will be applied in practice.

That’s true locally, too. Wisconsin has its own Public Records Law, Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31 through 19.39. It’s not just the law, but compliance that matters.

In our schools, it’s Eagle and Spirit Day at Washington School, and the football team faces Evansville.

Here’s today’s almanac:

Good morning, Whitewater

There are no scheduled municipal, public meetings in the City of Whitewater for today.

The Wisconsin Historical Society notes that today is the anniversary of the first Wisconsin state fair:

1851 – First State Fair in Wisconsin

On this date thirteen counties were represented at the first state fair which was sponsored by the Wisconsin Agricultural Society in Janesville. 10,000 people attended the two-day event. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah McBride, p.118]

Here’s today’s almanac:

Good morning, Whitewater

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this date in 1859,

1859 – Abraham Lincoln Speaks at State Fair

On this date Abraham Lincoln delivered an address at the Wisconsin State Fair. In his speech, he connected agriculture to education: “Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two, where there was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure.” The rising political star (who was elected the following year), also stressed the importance of free labor. This was Lincoln’s last visit to Wisconsin. In 1861, after winning the presidential election, Lincoln signed the bill establishing the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Wisconsin State Journal has a story on how, perhaps, just perhaps, “Tiny parasite felled mighty T. rex, says UW researcher“:

Until now, the fearsome reputation of Tyrannosaurus rex has been pretty solid. Seven tons. More than 40 feet long. Huge head. Powerful jaws and meat-shredding teeth.

What could possibly pose a threat to such a beast, the king of the dinosaurs?

Ewan D.S. Wolff, a vertebrate paleontologist and a veterinary student at the UW-Madison, has discovered a surprising answer. T. rex, a new study by Wolff and other researchers has shown, may have often been laid low not by deadly combat with other dinosaurs but instead by a tiny parasite.

It’s sort of a prehistoric version of the aliens in the War of the Worlds falling prey to the common cold. Only, in this case, the aliens are represented by Sue, the famous T. rex that greets visitors to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. And the part of the human cold is played by a parasitic infection called trichomonosis that affects modern-day birds….

Here’s today’s almanac: