Good morning, Whitewater

Tonight, at 6:30 p.m. there’s a Common Council meeting. The Common Council is down one member, but there are still community treasures, public servants, and the ambitious left to care for you. Just you, don’t you see?

An agenda, to follow the proceedings, is available online.

There is a 6:30 p.m. PAT meeting scheduled for Lakeview School.

In Wisconsin history on this date, in 1921, a mood-killing moment, if ever there were one: the Wisconsin Historical Society reports that “Janesville Women Abhor Salacious Entertainment”:

On this date the Janesville Federation of Women decided to “censor” movies and vaudeville in the city. Members of this organization praised and promoted what they considered “better offerings.” They were zealously critical towards those of a “salacious” nature. No follow-up ever determined whether the women were successful in their quest or if the increased publicity for “salacious” shows backfired

No one kisses well and lovingly through pursed lips.

I know very well that Janesville is not like this now — welcome, neighbors, to a new and freer century.

Good morning, Whitewater

Here is the beginning — the first full week — of your new year.

There are no scheduled public meetings in the City of Whitewater today. One never knows, though, if something terribly important, and offered as an exception to Wisconsin’s open meetings law, will arise.

School’s back in session. Hope you enjoyed your break as much as I did mine. Back to studying for you, and posting for me.

In Wisconsin history on this date, in 1813, the Wisconsin Historical Society reports that “Utopian Community Leader Kevin Brunner Warren Chase was Born”:

On this date the founder of a Fourierite Utopian community in what is now Ripon was born. Their inspiration came from the writings of Charles Fourier, a French Socialist who urged the rebuilding of society from its foundation as the only cure for economic ills such as the depression of 1837. The idea was supported by Horace Greely in New York and caught the eye of Warren Chase.

Chase and others built a successful, non-religous communal society in which everyone recieved wages according to their skill, need, and work ethic. The community reached their greatest population (180) in 1845 but soon dissipated when members began moving toward agriculture as an economic tool.

Families gradually left the community to live in their own houses and work their own land in the same area.

In 1850, the community disbanded and $40,000 in assets was divided among the remaining members. Warren Chase moved around the country and finally settled in California, where he held many public offices.

Oh dearie me, the story of so many efforts where an official exists to build a better community —

High hopes, initial success, community rejection of idealistic socialism for private property, collapse of the scheme, and the retreat of the community leader into — what else? — public office (at public expense!).

Thank you, Wisconsin Historical Society, for your apt account of this asinine scheme! You have made me deliriously happy, really you have. I admire your organization 22.9% more than I did last month, for this account alone.

Good morning, Whitewater

Happy Birthday, General Mitchell. More on that, below.

The last week of your year.

There are no scheduled public meetings in the City of Whitewater today. I am sure that someone will talk about something with someone else at the Municipal Building, but nothing useful is likely to come of it. Your local government — committed by its own account only to a better community — at work for you.

The National Weather Service predicts a windy day, with a high of 38 degrees. The Farmers’ Almanac predicts that today will offer fair skies, and later in the week increasing clouds will follow.

There is no school today, of course. What is to be done with so much youthful energy set lose in the community? I see no risk in it, but there is a possibility that our school board may yet have left unexplored. Could we not harness so many unoccupied students for a group project, perhaps connected through a home computer network?

How about a project easy to undertake, that will require little computational power, to begin? Perhaps, this assignment: Effort and dedication of the District Administrator to the district from which she is compensated over the last few months?

I’d start there — the students of Whitewater could complete a scientific study (great for a college application), and still be back to World of Warcraft in short order.

In Wisconsin history today, the Wisconsin Historical Society marks the anniversary of General William “Billy” Mitchell’s birth in 1879.

On this date aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell was born in Nice, France. Mitchell grew up in Milwaukee and attended Racine College. During World War I, Mitchell was the first American airman to fly over enemy lines. He also led many air attacks in France and Germany. Upon return to the U.S., he advocated the creation of a separate Air Force. Much to the dislike of A.T. Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, and other contemporaries, Mitchell asserted that the airplane had rendered the battleship obsolete, and attention should be shifted to developing military air power. Mitchell’s out-spokenness resulted in his being court martialed for insubordination. He was sentenced to five years suspension of rank without pay.

General Douglas MacArthur — an old Milwaukee friend — was a judge in Mitchell’s case and voted against his court martial. Mitchell’s ideas for developing military air power were not implemented until long after his death. In 1946 Congress created a medal in his honor, the General “Billy” Mitchell Award. Milwaukee’s airport, General Mitchell International Airport, is named after him.

He was right about airpower, of course — but then, Mitchell was right from the beginning. From Nice, actually — a fine place, a fine country, indeed.

Good morning, Whitewater

There are no scheduled public meetings in the City of Whitewater again today. Whitewater, did you get your Christmas wish early? I think you did.

The National Weather Service predicts a certainty of snow, with a high of 26 degrees. The Farmers’ Almanac predicts that today will be fair and pleasant.

Yesterday’s better prediction: NWS.

In world history on this date, in 1970 Wired reports that the “World Trade Center Tops Out”:

Construction workers place the highest steel on the highest building in the world. New Yorkers will first hate it, then get used to it and eventually mourn its destruction.

The massive project was conceived in the 1950s to energize lower Manhattan. Architect Minoru Yamasaki worked in conjunction with Emery Roth and Sons to design twin towers 110 stories high.

Ground was broken Aug. 5, 1966, and steel construction began in August 1968. The North Tower topped out at 1,368 feet (some sources say 1,353 feet) Dec. 23, 1970. Ribbon-cutting took place April 4, 1973.

The twin towers knocked New York City’s own Empire State Building (1931, 1,250 feet) off the top of the list of the world’s tallest buildings, but lost out in 1974 to Chicago’s Sears Tower at 1,451 feet. The twin 1,483-foot Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, surpassed Sears in 1998, only to be overtaken by Taipei 101 in Taiwan at 1,667 feet in 2004. But Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates is already above 2,250 feet and slated to reach 2,300 feet soon.

With an acre of rentable space on each of the upper floors of each tower, the WTC’s 110 stories were occupied by about 50,000 people. The South Tower had an observation deck on its 107th floor, offering views for 45 miles in all directions, skies permitting.

The architects and engineers had solved a number of problems with great ingenuity. To keep the nearby Hudson River from flooding its foundations, the buildings were constructed in a vast concrete case, called the Bathtub. A central core in each tower carried the dead (or gravitational) weight of the building’s materials, while light walls were designed to withstand the force of wind on a tall, giant building.

The amount of space taken up by elevators was reduced by creating “sky lobbies” at the 41st and 74th floor, served by express elevators. Local elevators could stop at any floor within each zone. It was a vertical model of a New York subway line.

Despite these innovations, many New Yorkers greeted the towers with derision. They were assailed for being out of scale with the surrounding neighborhoods and a distortion of the classic midtown peak of the Manhattan skyline. Some rudely suggested that the towers looked like the plain boxes out of which two Art Deco classics, the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building, had been unpacked.
Yamasaki died in 1986. The final building in the 16-acre complex, 7 World Trade Center, was completed the following year.

Terrorists exploded a massive bomb in the WTC’s parking garage Feb. 26, 1993, killing six people and
injuring more than a thousand. The towers withstood the blast.

But they could not withstand the impact of the fully fueled jetliners that terrorists crashed into the twin towers Sept. 11, 2001. That attack brought them down within hours, killing almost 2,800 people.
Construction on new WTC buildings, including the Freedom Tower to replace the twin towers, is now underway.

Good morning, Whitewater

There are no scheduled public meetings in the City of Whitewater today. Not, it seems, even a special meeting. Not, even, an extra-special meeting. You may be particularly relieved.

The National Weather Service predicts a cold day, with a high of 4 degrees, and snow tonight. The Farmers’ Almanac predicts that today will be fair and pleasant. For a penguin, that’s surely true.

Last week’s better prediction: NWS.

In science history, Wired reports on “Looking at Christmas in a Whole New Light”: 1882: An inventive New Yorker finds a brilliant application for electric lights and becomes the first person to use them as Christmas tree decorations:

Edward H. Johnson, who toiled for Thomas Edison’s Illumination Company and later became a company vice president, used 80 small red, white and blue electric bulbs, strung together along a single power cord, to light the Christmas tree in his New York home. Some sources credit Edison himself with being the first to use electric lights as Christmas decorations, when he strung them around his laboratory in 1880.

Sticking them on the tree was Johnson’s idea, though. It was a mere three years after Edison had demonstrated that light bulbs were practical at all.

The idea of replacing the Christmas tree’s traditional wax candles — which had been around since the mid-17th century — with electric lights didn’t, umm, catch fire right away. Although the stringed lights enjoyed a vogue with the wealthy and were being mass-produced as early as 1890, they didn’t become popular in humbler homes until a couple of decades into the 20th century.