Tuesday, August 23rd at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of The Duke @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Biography/Drama/Comedy
Rated R (language); 1 hour, 35 minutes (2020).
In 1961, a 60 year old British taxi driver steals a Goya painting from the National Gallery in London. He then sends ransom notes to the government saying he will return the treasure when they invest more heavily in care for the elderly.
A true story, starring Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren. Nominated for AARP’s Movies for Grownups Best Grownup Love Story.
INTRO: This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Ashleigh Papp.
Papp: Mountain lions are now posing for their close ups. Researchers based in the greater Yellowstone National Park area have figured out a new way to identify these cats by using facial recognition. And this method is proving to be a better way to monitor these highly elusive creatures.
Alexander: Mountain lions are just really, really hard to directly observe. They’re just so cryptic and secretive. And so we’ve had to find these non-invasive methods, they’re often called to, to get information about a mountain lion population.
Papp: That’s Peter Alexander, a research biologist based in Kelly, Wyoming, who led the research project
….
Alexander: Tigers that’s kind of the classic example of using cameras for individual identity. Because those stripes, they’re like a fingerprint. (10:17) And so a cougar, they do not have any of those really conspicuous stripes on their sides. And so yeah, just your typical flank view shot can be pretty nondescript.
Papp: That’s because nearly all pumas around the world, with exceptions of distinguishing things like scars, have light, sandy colored fur down their sides. The scientific name for a mountain lion, Puma concolor, literally translates to “one color.” This lack of unique coloration on the sides of their bodies means that researchers like Alexander can’t usually tell if one puma crosses a camera trap five times, or if five individual animals pass by.
However, it’s a different story when it comes to their facial markings — they’re kind of a show stopper.
Alexander: You get a close up image of a face, they’re stunning. Just those huge eyes, and there’s a lot of detail in whisker patterns and all sorts of stuff. They really are beautiful.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 6:05 AM and sunset 7:51 PM for 13h 46m 02s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 56.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1868, French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium.
For many months, former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman’s taxpayer-funded review of the 2020 presidential election that has not produced any evidence of substantive voter fraud “accomplished nothing,” according to a Dane County judge.
Gableman didn’t keep weekly progress reports as required by the Wisconsin State Assembly.
He conducted no witness interviews.
And he gathered “no measurable data” over at least a four-month span in 2021, the judge found.
“Instead, it gave its employees code names like ‘coms’ or ‘3,’ apparently for the sole purpose of emailing back and forth about news articles and drafts of speeches,” Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington wrote in an opinion released Wednesday.
“It printed copies of reports that better investigators had already written,” Remington added, “although there is no evidence any person connected with (the Office of the Special Counsel)ever read these reports, let alone critically analyzed their factual and legal bases to draw his or her own principled conclusions.”
….
In the ruling, Remington admonished the Office of Special Counsel’s five out-of-state attorneys, including prominent conservative attorney James Bopp, for their “baseless” claims against him and revoked their ability to represent the Assembly’s office in the case.
“Its lawyers’ arguments are wholly without merit and, together, their disobedience for the rule of law is contemptuous,” Remington wrote of the attorneys.
“If this case were not on appeal,” he added, “I could sanction OSC and each of its seven lawyers for their specious legal arguments.”
A copy of the Supplement to the Court’s July 18, 2022 Decision Denying OSC’s Motion to Recuse appears below.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:04 AM and sunset 7:53 PM for 13h 48m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 66% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meet at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 2008, American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals at one Olympic Games.
Most political movements have not only an ideology but also a style in which that ideology is expressed. Adherents will often speak in a common way, or even dress in a common way, while expressing their views. Some of this is stereotypical (that is, a conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image).
DeSantis ran in 2018 as a craven Trump sycophant. He had four years to become his own man. He battled culture wars—even turning against his former backers at Disney—all to prove himself the snarling alpha-male bully that Republican primary voters reward. But since the Mar-a-Lago search, DeSantis has dropped back into the beta-male role, sidekick and cheering section for Trump.
Trump has reasserted dominance. DeSantis has submitted. And if Republican presidential politics in the Trump era has one rule, it’s that there’s no recovery from submission. Roll over once, and you cannot get back on your feet again.
Trump specializes in creating dominance-and-submission rituals. His Republican base is both the audience for them and the instrument of them. But to those outside the subculture excited by these rituals, they look demeaning and ridiculous. Everybody else wants jobs, homes, cheaper prescription drugs, and bridges that do not collapse—not public performances in Trump’s theater of humiliation.
Trump did not create what Frum describes as a dominance-and-submission ritual, but he is an exemplary practitioner. This is almost always a public ritual: an in-person confrontation between someone and those whose submission he seeks (indeed, demands). In this dynamic, others are to submit after a period of apologies, groveling, and abject begging for the practitioner’s supposed mercy.
Note well, how this is different from an ordinary person’s occasional concerns: while an ordinary person expresses his grievances (however forcefully), the dominance-and-submission approach demands others’ self-abasement in reply. This outward aggression masks an inner neediness: a battening on the degradation of others. A well-individuated man or woman does not seek from others a particular emotional display in response to speech. One may have policy objectives, but legitimate policy objectives do not include expecting, let alone receiving, submissive displays from others.
For people who have never encountered someone like this, it’s often an unsettling experience. A dominance-and-submission approach often works its force on the unaccustomed.
(Professionals who have performed difficult clinical work in their careers are sure to have met a few clients or patients who attempt this dominance-and-submission ritual. There are few better, early-in-career experiences than learning how to deal with people of this ilk. Some professionals are naturally cold to this ritual, but experience of it further improves both their natural sangfroid and ability to manage professionally in response to it. A confident recommendation: every last professional, having left his or her blue-stocking background, should commit to a period of gritty clinical practice to see both the best and worst of patients or clients.)
Years of this dominance-and-submission ritual from Trump, and conservative populist imitators, and yet it’s still hard for policymakers nationally, statewide, or in Whitewater to respond sensibly. Sadly, the same people who know better than to play with a hyena have trouble adopting a sensible response to a dominance-and-submission ritual.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:03 AM and sunset 7:54 PM for 13h 51m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 75.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
Former president Donald Trump’s false claims election claims began in 2016, but did not become a key litmus test for Republican candidates until after the 2020 election. Here’s how it happened.
Trumpism is dangerous to a free society for many reasons: authoritarianism, nativism, bigotry, and cronyism. Underlying all these malevolent characteristics is a willingness to lie without shame. These MAGA men do not apply to themselves rules of evidence or principles of reasoning. They are a populist movement of desire and grievance. An earlier generation of conservatives would have looked at the Trumpists as thin-skinned complainers. (As it has turned out, the immediately preceding generation of conservatives has, in the main, devolved into Trumpists.)
False claims of election fraud are only one example of the fantastical and mendacious perspective that undergirds conservative populism.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 73. Sunrise is 6:02 AM and sunset 7:56 PM for 13h 53m 51s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 84.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
David French observes this of a ‘Very Online’ culture:
The core of the Trump movement is Very Online, and like all Very Online movements it jumps on talking points and messages that can seem weird and wrong to normal folks offline. Defunding or dismantling the FBI is not something normal folks will buy.
That’s right: too much time inside a hothouse leads to crafting newer, more controversial positions to maintain attention within that environment.
The hyperlocal politics of small towns, both before and after social media began, has a similar tendency. There’s too much time spent thinking about what a few other people in town might think, and not enough time focused on the relationship between local issues and broader forces.
Very Online focuses one’s thinking on ever more extreme positions among a cyber-obsessed group, and hyperlocalism in town politics focuses one’s thinking on too few people even in a small community.
One of the surest ways to spot failure in local politics is governance by press release, where genuine accomplishments are replaced with grandiose statements about limited achievements. Awesome isn’t a policy. It’s an adjective.
In online communities, a few attention-seekers adopt views outside widespread acceptability (leading to bizarre positions). In small towns, a few stodgy residents advance views more restrictive than widespread acceptability (leading to stultifying positions).
Travel 60 million light-years away into the constellation Virgo to catch a glimpse of interacting galaxies NGC 4568 and NGC 4567. The imagery of the galactic mash-up was captured by the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii.
Sunday in Whitewater will see a stray morning shower on a day with times of clouds & sun and a high of 73. Sunrise is 6:01 AM and sunset 7:57 PM for 13h 56m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 91.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1784, the Russian fur trader Grigory Shelikhov storms a Kodiak Island Alutiit refuge rock on Sitkalidak Island, killing over 500 Alutiit. The consequent subjugation of the Alutiiq on Kodiak Island allows Shelikhov to establish the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska at Three Saints Bay.
At long last, after a million dollars wasted and a million lies repeated, Speaker Robin Vos fires former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice and (until this week) special council Michael Gableman. Patrick Marley (now of the Washington Post) reports Wisconsin GOP fires election investigator who pushed false fraud claims:
The firing came a week after Michael Gableman, who had led the investigation, joined former president Donald Trump in turning against Speaker Robin Vos amid the veteran Wisconsin politician’s effort to fend off a primary challenge from the right.
The haphazard, year-old inquiry was marked by meetings with conspiracy theorists, violations of the state’s public records laws and a call by Gableman to explore the legally impossible task of decertifying the election results.It did not uncover evidence of widespread fraud, though Trump and Gableman tried to suggest otherwise.
Mary Spicuzza of the Journal Sentinelposted the letter from Vos to Gableman:
Vos plays all this straight, after Gableman has repeatedly played Vos for a fool. (Admittedly, not a hard skill to master.)
Vos might have ended this sad arrangement with a nicer touch for those unceremoniously sacked: Good luck in your future endeavors.
Saturday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon showers with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:58 AM and sunset 7:59 PM for 13h 58m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.6% 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.
Friday in Whitewater will see afternoon showers with a high of 71. Sunrise is 5:58 AM and sunset 8:00 PM for 14h 01m 29s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
The particular ethnicity of residents is not a concern for me (or for Frey, as he’s simply look at trends). The youth population (of any ethnicity) should always be a subject of attention. There are two problems for small, rural communities: if they have fewer young people or if among young people few wish to remain in town. There’s all much talk (and talk and talk) about growth, but many small towns have a problem even retaining talented young residents. Ambitious newcomers won’t readily come to a place that ambitious young residents are leaving.
(When I am writing about retention, it’s retention of residents, unless expressly mentioned otherwise. Public institutions may have their own troubles retaining workers, but those troubles matter far less than a community’s problems with loss among residents.)
What does it take to retain residents, especially talented & productive younger ones?
It takes asking what they would like in their community and seeing how much of that the current generation can offer.
Successful retention most certainly does not require — indeed, it suggests strongly against — relying solely on the current generation’s ideas about what Whitewater should be. The current generation has scads of ideas that they are sure the next generation would want. (Because, after all, who wouldn’t want what Whitewater’s current generation wants?)
I’m not young, so I’ll not offer theories on what young people want. One doesn’t have to be young, however, to see that an older person’s idea of what young people want is a poor substitute for a thorough survey of the younger generation’s hopes and expectations.
Retention of residents, especially many talented younger ones, requires a dialogue, not a monologue.
It’s a purrfect ending to the tale of Boka, the stolen bodega cat.
A mysterious intermediary returned the feline to the Green Olives Deli & Grill in Park Slope a week after a catnapper grabbed the gray kitty outside the Seventh Avenue shop.
Abdulmajeed Albahri, one of three owners of the bodega, said he was reunited with Boka at 5 a.m. Saturday when he arrived an hour before the store opened for the day.
“He was waiting exactly in front of the doors,” Albahri said, adding he spent the next hour playing with the cat and giving him treats.
Video posted to the cat’s KediBoka Instagram account shows the kitty looking up expectantly as his owner opened the deli door to see him.
But how Boka came back is still not clear.
He went missing on July 29 when video captured a man dressed in khakis, a white shirt and a light blue hat lingering outside the store. He is seen scooping up the cat and spiriting him off.
Appeals to get Boka back, along with photos of the fiend, were posted to TikTok and Instagram. The cat’s disappearance also garnered wide media attention.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:57 AM and sunset 8:01 PM for 14h 03m 58s of daytime. The moon is full with 99.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 4:30 PM.
On this day in 1919, the Packers are founded: “On this date the Green Bay Packers professional football team was founded during a meeting in the editorial rooms of Green Bay Press-Gazette. On this evening, a score or more of young athletes, called together by Curly Lambeau and George Calhoun, gathered in the editorial room on Cherry Street and organized a football team.”
Good data are hard to find. They exist, but in these fact-bending times, they’re often left in the brush while lies and lunacy stroll across the savannah. Good demographic information isn’t everything, but it is a better beginning than fantastical theories about ivermectin, election fraud, or a supposed deep state. They’re a solid starting point for examining a place (county, state, or city). From that start, one then examines interactions beyond demography, and this examination, while more personal, itself requires a foundation of fact and theory derived therefrom.
Now, newly released Census Bureau estimates allow us to examine these shifts via specific race-ethnic and age groups. Unlike the 2020 census data, these estimates permit analyses of annual population change.[1]
This report focuses on annual changes from July 2016 to July 2017 through July 2020 to July 2021. This period includes three years prior to the pandemic, one year with partial pandemic exposure (2019 to 2020), and one year with full pandemic exposure (2020 to 2021). This allows for an assessment of race-ethnic and age shifts before and during the pandemic.
This is also a significant period because, as a previous report shows, the nation’s white population began to decline in 2016.[2] This initial white population loss occurred before the pandemic and is related to the aging of the white population, which has led to fewer births and more deaths—losses that are projected to continue. And as shown below, the pandemic has exacerbated this white population loss.
The examination of age shifts shows a loss of young people under age 18 and those in their prime working ages (18 through 59). Moreover, when looking at age and race, it becomes clear that nonwhite Americans, especially Latino or Hispanic Americans, comprise larger shares of the population at all ages.
This report also revisits earlier analyses of notable population declines in large metro areas and big cities. It shows that most of those declines are due to white population losses, both from the national white population decline as well as white population movement to smaller-sized places.
While these trends are exaggerated in the prime pandemic year, it is plain to see that the nation is facing a long-term transition toward greater diversity and aging, both nationally and across large swaths of the country.
The particular racial or ethic composition of a place matters as nothing compared with an overall population loss, especially among younger people. The former is an interesting cultural matter; the latter is a cause of relative or absolute economic decline. If you’re living in a town where young people want to move away, you’re living in a declining town. Significant population gains some small towns are getting from big-city émigrés have not happened for Whitewater.
There are in Whitewater and other places those residents who think that life would be better with fewer people, or fewer people who are different from the residential majority. These are people who don’t understand that ghost town is an undesirable condition.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:56 AM and sunset 8:03 PM for 14h 06m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1977, 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz (“Son of Sam”) is arrested for a series of killings in the New York City area over the period of one year.
Unofficial results of contested races below, in order from state to county —
For Kleefisch, last of the Walker team, it’s the end of the road. Her dutiful service to Walker, and Walker’s partnership with Trump on Foxconn, only got them, well, Trump’s endorsement of Michels.
On to November, where Michels now sees that he’s going to need donor-class money to beat Evers, as Patrick Marley reports:
@michelsforgov has largely self-funded his campaign and said he wouldn’t accept donations of more than $500. After wining his primary tonight, his campaign manager said he would now accept donations of up to $20,000, the maximum allowed under Wisconsin law.
Mueller did unexpectedly well, capturing a quarter of the vote despite raising just $42,000 last quarter. She had entered the race on a promise to prosecute doctors who refused to prescribe the anti-parasite medication ivermectin for COVID-19 patients. Mueller appeared to be leading in three counties and very nearly took the Janesville-based Rock County.
31st Assembly District. Whitewater is within the 31st District, and in that race, Ellen Schutt wins the WISGOP primary over Maryann Zimmerman and Jason Dean:
Walworth County Sheriff. Whitewater resident Dave Gerber defeats Craig Konopski in the WISGOP race for Walworth County Sheriff:
Before the war, Kyiv’s music scene and hipster vibes helped the Ukrainian capital earn the reputation of being “the new Berlin.” But Russia’s invasion has halted the city’s nightlife and put many creative young professionals out of work. Now a group of party-planners have turned their talent’s to hosting “clean-up” raves in Kyiv Oblast, taking volunteers into villages devastated by Russian attacks to help locals clean-up and restore their communities. Without aid from these volunteer groups, government efforts to rebuild homes and clean up communities would likely take years.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:55 AM and sunset 8:04 PM for 14h 08m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 90.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1974, as a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. Vice President Gerald Ford becomes president.
Alex Jones falsely stated that the parents of deceased children from the Sandy Hook school shooting were mere ‘crisis actors’ (as Jones contended no one died in the shooting), those statements caused the parents demonstrable injury, and he communicated these false statements to third parties. Therein lies the cause of action against Jones, resulting in compensatory and punitive damages against him.
That civil case against Jones is the subject of the podcast embedded below.
No society will be free of a few like Jones. A healthy society, however, teaches principles of reason so thoroughly that men of Jones’s ilk have few listeners.
America is not so healthy as she should — and can — be.
