Researchers, led by Masao Miyazaki, an animal behavior scientist at Iwate University in Japan, found that the amount of these iridoids released by the plant increased by more than 2,000 percent when the plant was damaged by cats. So perhaps kitty’s high confers an evolutionary advantage: keeping bloodsucking insects at bay.
….
In their most recent study, Dr. Miyazaki and his associates measured the chemical composition of the air immediately above leaves — both intact and damaged — of catnip and silver vine. Then they measured the iridoid levels in the leaves themselves. They found that catnip leaves mangled by cats released at least 20 times more nepetalactone than intact leaves did, while damaged silver vine leaves released at least eight times the amount of similar iridoids than did intact leaves. The cats’ interactions with silver vine also changed the composition of the plant’s bug-repelling cocktail, making it even more potent.
After rubbing their faces and bodies against the plants, cats are sure to be coated in a robust layer of Pest Begone.
This finding, paired with Dr. Miyazaki and his team’s previous research, supports nascent claims that at least part of the benefit of the kitty catnip craze is to stave off mosquitoes and flies.
Culture, Daily Bread, Libertarians, Politics
Daily Bread for 7.7.22: Resentment’s a Nebulous National Explanation
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon thundershowers with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:24 AM and sunset 8:35 PM for 15h 10m 47s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 54.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM, and Whitewater Fire Department, Inc. hold a business meeting at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1946, Howard Hughes nearly dies when his XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood.
Conservatives and the center-left both now claim Americans are in the grip of resentment (lit., indignation or ill will stemming from a feeling of having been wronged or offended).
From the center-left, Paul Krugman writes that
And because G.O.P. extremism is fed by resentment against the very things that, as I see it, truly make America great — our diversity, our tolerance for difference — it cannot be appeased or compromised with.
Conservative Tom Nichols makes a similar point about resentment in the national political context:
The thing about resentment as a force in politics is that there is nothing you can do about it. You can try to be respectful, you can try to compromise. It won’t matter. Because it’s not about any of that. It’s about the itching sense of inferiority in the other guy.
Katherine Cramer, of the center-left, wrote an entire book about the Politics of Resentment (‘Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker’).
I was critical of Cramer’s book, in which she describes first-order ideological conflicts as cases of second-order resentment (that is, feelings of insult, etc.).
We’ve a national conflict over ideological positions, over fundamental principles, not a fuss over whether someone got the table he wanted at Denny’s. Perhaps people are resentful, but it matters why they are resentful. ‘They’re all simply upset’ doesn’t describe the seriousness of America’s conflict.
Perhaps it’s true that this conflict seems intractable, and that some feelings will not be changed. If they’ll not be changed, then they’ll not be changed…
What, though, prompts those intense feelings? Belief for and against, in favor and opposed, of convictions held and rejected.
Better to call something what it is, specifically and particularly, than to rest on vague claims that one’s opponents are simply put out.
If they are insulted because some of us insist on free markets in capital, labor and goods, individual rights, limited and responsible government, free trade, tolerance and acceptance of others on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and orientation, then those others will have to go on being insulted.
Indeed, it diminishes the dedication of purpose of those on the other side of these issues, too, to see it all as resentment.
From a traditional libertarian view: wall-building, child-caging, book-banning, and closet-confining are challenges to individual rights, not spats over events at a sad family gathering.
Taking account of others’ resentments matters in a struggle of this kind only so much as it helps one’s cause.
Once the stakes are clear, and once one sees how implacable one’s political adversaries are, it serves only to deprecate the seriousness of the conflict to contend that it’s hurt feelings that drive others.
Over 20 Million Tons Of Grain Are Stuck In Ukraine. What Does That Mean For The World?:
Daily Bread, Gubernatorial Race 2022, Politics, WISGOP
Daily Bread for 7.6.22: So, What Happened to Kevin Nicholson’s Candidacy? Tim Michels, That’s What.
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will see scattered morning thundershowers and a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:23 AM and sunset 8:35 PM for 15h 11m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 43.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1933, the first Major League Baseball All-Star Game is played in Chicago’s Comiskey Park. The American League defeated the National League 4–2.
Bill Glauber reports Kevin Nicholson drops out of Republican race for Wisconsin governor:
Delafield business consultant Kevin Nicholson announced Tuesday that he’s suspending his campaign in the Republican Party primary for governor.
In a statement, Nicholson said he didn’t want to go negative as a way to catch up in the contest against the two front-runners, Hartland business executive Tim Michels and former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.
He added that he does not plan to make any endorsements in the primary.
In January, it was reasonable to predict that Kevin Nicholson would be a strong WISGOP candidate. See from 1.26.22 Kevin and Rebecca.
It’s now July, not January, and Nicholson hasn’t been a top-tier candidate in this race.
Turns out there was only one lane for businessman-types, and Connecticut-homeowner Tim Michels took that lane and hasn’t looked back.
While Nicholson was dependent on donor money, Michels has an ample supply of his own money (stocks, bonds, bank deposits, real property, money stuffed in mattresses, etc.).
Michels and Kleefisch are polling close to each other, but if the Nicholson voters decide to pick someone similar to Nicholson, well, that means Michels.
There are still a significant number of undecided voters, apart from Nicholson voters (who may pick a new candidate or stay home).
About five weeks remain before the August primary.
Dwarf galaxy discovered at Andromeda’s edge could be ‘fossil’ of first galaxies:
America, Culture, Daily Bread, Politics
Daily Bread for 7.5.22: Denial
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon thundershowers and a high of 94. Sunrise is 5:23 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 12m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 34.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1832, Gen. Atkinson enters, but then withdraws, from the Trembling Lands:
On this date, General Atkinson and his troops entered the area known by the Native Americans as “trembling lands” in their pursuit of Black Hawk. The area was some 10 square miles and contained a large bog. Although the land appeared safe, it would undulate or tremble for yards when pressure was applied. Many of the militiamen were on horses, which plunged to their bellies in the swamp. The “trembling lands” forced Atkinson to retrace his steps back toward the Rock River, in the process losing days in his pursuit of Black Hawk.
In The Atlantic, U.S. Senator Mitt Romney writes that America Is in Denial. There are points in his essay over which one would disagree (and concern that Romney, himself, has not done more). The main contention, however, is spot-on: our country suffers from debilitating political and social maladies. The excerpts below from his essay on America’s denial are, to a sensible person, undeniable:
[W]hen a renowned conservative former federal appellate judge testifies that we are already in a war for our democracy and that January 6, 2021, was a genuine constitutional crisis, MAGA loyalists snicker that he speaks slowly and celebrate that most people weren’t watching.
What accounts for the blithe dismissal of potentially cataclysmic threats? The left thinks the right is at fault for ignoring climate change and the attacks on our political system. The right thinks the left is the problem for ignoring illegal immigration and the national debt. But wishful thinking happens across the political spectrum. More and more, we are a nation in denial.
I have witnessed time and again—in myself and in others—a powerful impulse to believe what we hope to be the case. We don’t need to cut back on watering, because the drought is just part of a cycle that will reverse. With economic growth, the debt will take care of itself. January 6 was a false-flag operation. A classic example of denial comes from Donald Trump: “I won in a landslide.” Perhaps this is a branch of the same delusion that leads people to feed money into slot machines: Because I really want to win, I believe that I will win.
….
Bolstering our natural inclination toward wishful thinking are the carefully constructed, prejudice-confirming arguments from the usual gang of sophists, grifters, and truth-deniers. Watching angry commentators on cable news, I’m reminded of H. L. Mencken’s observation: “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
Update, morning of 7.5.22: Jennifer Rubin’s replied to Romney in the Washington Post. Rubin’s Sorry, Mitt Romney. Denial is not an equal opportunity offense puts the blame with Republicans. She writes:
Alas, Romney engages in his own brand of disappointing rhetoric by equating right-wing denial on the 2020 election and climate change (he could have added covid-19 and gun violence) with Democrats’ supposed denial about the debt and illegal immigration. Aside from the fact that deficits are projected to fall substantially in 2022 and Democrats have repeatedly offered comprehensive immigration reform, including border security, Romney’s lamentation of both parties smacks of, well, denialism.
Only one party has adopted as its default setting conspiracy theories and disinformation, from carrying water for Russia’s interference in the 2016 election to quack remedies for covid to the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen. Only one party rallies its base with resentment, anger and vitriol. And only one party relies on a propagandistic media that shields its base from disagreeable facts.
While he’s not wrong in the excerpts that I’ve chosen, she’s right about the broader point: America does not have two factions of equal-opportunity offenders. (It is for this reason that conservative and libertarian #NeverTrumpers are now part of a grand coalition with Democrats and independents in support of liberal democracy. If we truly thought both major factions were of equal culpability, then we’d not have made our commitment to one of them. We have made that commitment, and justifiably so. It is, in fact, the same commitment that Rubin sensibly made.)
A Garbage Mountain Burned for Months — But These People Couldn’t Leave:
America, Daily Bread, History
Daily Bread for 7.4.22: Happy Independence Day 2022
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Independence Day in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with afternoon thundershowers, and a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:22 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 13m 49s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 24.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Independence holiday events continue at the Cravath Lakefront (Whippet City Mile, parade, live music, fireworks).
On this day in 1863, Gen. Grant is victorious at the Siege of Vicksburg as Confederates surrender after 47 days of siege:
The Confederate surrender on July 4, 1863, is sometimes considered, when combined with Gen. Robert E. Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg by Maj. Gen. George Meade the previous day, the turning point of the war. It cut off the Trans-Mississippi Department (containing the states of Arkansas, Texas and part of Louisiana) from the rest of the Confederate States, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two for the rest of the war. Lincoln called Vicksburg “the key to the war.”
On this day in 1957, a New York radio station broadcast John F. Kennedy, then a United States Senator, reading the Declaration of Independence in commemoration of the holiday:
In winter, rather than for Independence Day, but impressive nonetheless — Guinness World Record Biggest Firework, Successful Launch, Steamboat Springs Colorado, 2/8/2020:
Music
Monday Music: Music for Fife and Drum
by JOHN ADAMS •
Catspaw, Constitution, Daily Bread, Elections, Sen. Ron Johnson
Daily Bread for 7.3.22: Hero, Villain, Stooge. Guess Where Ron Johnson Fits In.
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:21 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 14m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 16.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Independence holiday events continue at the Cravath Lakefront (church in the park, amusements, a petting zoo).
On this day in 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg ends in a Union victory.
The Wisconsin State Journal, with a moderate editorial board for a progressive Madison, describes leading Republican players of January 6th 2021 bluntly: Pence was a hero. Trump was a villain. Johnson was a stooge. Stooge (literally, one who allows oneself to be used for another’s profit or advantage; a puppet) fits Johnson nicely. The State Journal explains:
Trump pressured Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally declare Trump the winner of the 2020 campaign by throwing out or replacing Electoral College votes from states such as Wisconsin that narrowly favored President Joe Biden. Trump’s lawyers hoped to exploit vague wording in the Electoral Count Act of 1887. The Act requires the vice president to preside over the counting of electoral votes and certify the winner.
Shamefully, U.S. Sen Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, was part of Trump’s plot. Though Johnson initially denied any involvement in an attempt to deliver false Wisconsin electors to Pence on Jan. 6, the House Committee uncovered text messages showing Johnson did try to help.
Pence resisted Trump’s pressure campaign, and Pence’s staff refused to accept a list of bogus electors from Johnson’s staff. Pence followed his oath to the Constitution by certifying Biden’s 305-232 victory in the Electoral College. He wasn’t intimidated by angry mobs chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” as they stormed the Capitol seeking to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
America can’t risk a similar attack on our democracy in the future. The Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol was nothing short of a coup attempt, with Trump encouraging and then refusing to stop the insurrection. He even told top aides that Pence deserved to be hanged, according to House testimony.
Congress can’t allow such a travesty to repeat. Congress must tighten and clarify the Electoral Count Act of 1887 so it’s perfectly clear that the vice president’s role in certifying presidential winners is ceremonial, not pivotal. As Pence told senators in the early morning of Jan. 7, after rioters were finally cleared from the Senate chambers: “The truth is, there’s almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone.”
Pence was a hero. Trump was a villain. Johnson was a stooge. The ongoing House hearings are making that more clear than ever.
Visit the Okavango Delta in 360° | National Geographic:
Animals, Daily Bread, Dogs, Science/Nature
Daily Bread for 7.2.22: The Journey of African Wild Dogs
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 85. Sunrise is 5:21 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 15m 32s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 10.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Independence holiday events continue at the Cravath Lakefront (a car show, live music, and fireworks).
On this day in 1966, Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on another world.
Animals sometimes travel large distances, greater than many people travel. Natalie Angier reports on The Incredible Journey of Three African Wild Dogs (‘Three sisters braved lions, crocodiles, poachers, raging rivers and other dangers on a 1,300-mile transnational effort to forge a new dynasty’). The story in the New York Times is open for anyone (not merely subscribers) to read. Here’s an excerpt, full story at the link:
The three sisters knew they had to leave home. They were African wild dogs, elite predators of the sub-Saharan region and among the most endangered mammals on Earth. At 3 years old, they were in the prime of their vigor, ferocity and buoyant, pencil-limbed indifference to gravity. If they did not seize the chance to trade the security of their birth pack for new opportunities elsewhere, they might well die as they had lived: as subordinate, self-sacrificing maiden aunts with no offspring of their own.
And so, in October of last year, the sisters set forth on the longest and most harrowing odyssey ever recorded for Lycaon pictus, a carnivore already known as a wide-ranging wanderer. Over the next nine months, the dogs traveled some 1,300 miles, which, according to the scientists who tagged them, is more than twice the previous record for the species. They lit out from their natal home range in the Luangwa Valley in eastern Zambia, crisscrossed Zambia and parts of Mozambique, skirted the edge of Zimbabwe and finally made their way back into central Zambia and settled in Lower Zambezi National Park in Zambia, where evidence suggests they remain to this day.
They navigated woodlands, grasslands, scrublands, farmlands, scrambled over steep escarpments, skittered down mud-slicked gorges and traversed the legendary East African Rift three times. They dodged traffic on busy village roads, tiptoed past lions, humans and other enemies and competitors, and crossed roiling waters that teemed with crocodiles.
They were tracked on their peregrinations by Scott Creel, an ecologist at Montana State University, and his colleagues at the Zambian Carnivore Program, who had outfitted one of the sisters with a GPS collar. That dog, known with affectionate formality as EWD 1355, became the central protagonist. And although at any given point the researchers could be sure only of her location, wild dogs are so dependent on one another and so averse to solitude that the sisters probably stuck together for the entire expedition. Their next order of business, the researchers believe, is to start a new pack of their own.
See also Wild Dogs Sneeze to Hunt (African wild dogs, highly social pack hunters, need a consensus to start a hunt. The votes, of sorts, may be cast by sneezing):
Planets, Sirius, and a ‘teapot’ leads to Milky Way’s core in July 2022 skywatching:
Business, Daily Bread, Unions
Daily Bread for 7.1.22: A Union for a Madison Starbucks
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 85. Sunrise is 5:20 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 16m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 4.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Independence holiday events begin at the Cravath Lakefront at noon.
On this day in 1836, Increase Allen Lapham first arrives in Milwaukee:
On this date scientist Increase Allen Lapham arrived in Milwaukee. By 1844 he had published Wisconsin’s first book, A Geographical and Topographical, Description of Wisconsin. He was a founder of the Milwaukee Female College, which later became Milwaukee Downer College; a charter member of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and a founder of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. Toward the end of his life, he was Wisconsin State Geologist. He also was the most influential advocate of the weather bureau in the 1870s.
There’s much fuss about unions, and how their workers might be thugs, how they might wreck the economy, etc., etc. Workers should be free to form associations: where productive, workers and the business will prosper; where unproductive, rival businesses and workers will prosper. A free market isn’t advantageous as a benefit simply to any given business. It’s advantageous to an overall level of productivity and prosperity.
Starbucks baristas, as it turns out, wouldn’t qualify as union thugs under any reasonable definition. Natalie Yahr reports Downtown Madison Starbucks workers vote overwhelmingly for union:
Workers at Madison’s downtown Starbucks have voted overwhelmingly for a union, making their store the first unionized Starbucks in Dane County.
The votes, tallied Thursday afternoon at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)’s Milwaukee office, were 15 for the union and one against. A single challenged ballot was not opened or challenged, and it will not affect the outcome of the vote. Seventeen of the 22 eligible, non-managerial employees working at the store at 1 E. Main St. on the Capitol Square cast ballots.
Starbucks has until July 8 to file objections regarding the election. If it doesn’t, the election results will be certified, obligating the company to bargain in good faith with the union, Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.
“I couldn’t be happier right now,” said Lee Marfyak, 27, a shift supervisor at the store and a member of the union organizing committee. “It feels good to win, and it feels good to win by such a substantial margin.”
To date, employees at at least 299 U.S. Starbucks stores have filed union petitions, according to the NLRB. As of June 24, elections had been tallied in 208 stores, with more than 80% voting to unionize. Around 150 stores’ election results have already been certified, granting union status to more than 3,400 employees.
Starbucks did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the election results. The company has consistently said that a union is unnecessary.
Dubai Robots or: How smart machines are already the future:
Cats
Friday Catblogging: 100,000 Cat Videos and Not Stopping
by JOHN ADAMS •
Erik Lacitis of The Seattle Times reports on The Seattle man who’s watched over 100,000 cat videos and isn’t stopping:
He’s watched, by his count, over 100,000 cat videos in the past 10 years. That’s a lot of meowing to absorb.
Out of all those videos, could he put together an all-time Top 5? No problem.
Will Braden made a list just like that. For him, for all those years, cats have been 24/7.
He’s the cinematographer who used to shoot everything from commercials to weddings and now has a full-time job as the guy who puts together CatVideoFest, “the world’s #1 cat video festival.” It’s playing in Seattle for three days beginning Friday [6.22.22] at the Cinema Egyptian, and at various times in 100 other cities, mostly in the U.S.
Alternative post title: Will Braden, American Legend.
Two of our children (son & daughter-in-law) live in Seattle, and we’ve always enjoyed our trips to see them in that beautiful city. Regrettably, we missed our chance to see them and catch a few cat videos at CatVideoFest over the weekend of June 22nd.
Next year, next year…
Daily Bread, Elections, Gableman, Legislation
Daily Bread for 6.30.22: Gableman Eats Wisconsin
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 91. Sunrise is 5:20 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 17m 00s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Police and Fire Commission meets at 2 PM, and the Whitewater Unified School Board meets in closed session at 6 PM.
On this day in 1944, the Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces.
If you’re hoping for a place of less public litigation, then Wisconsin’s going to disappoint. We’ve quite a bit of litigation, where quite a bit is simply a gentler way of saying Michael Gableman is eating the state bite by bite because of his shambolic investigation. Shawn Johnson reports A year in, legal fight over Gableman election investigation keeps growing:
“The investigation has become a morass of competing lawsuits back and forth between different parties in the state and outside the state,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And those legal debates have sort of overtaken the substance of the investigation itself.”
….
The list of cases connected to Gableman’s investigation includes:
An open records lawsuit before Dane County Circuit Court Judge Frank Remington brought by American Oversight against Gableman’s Office of Special Counsel, Vos, the Assembly Chief Clerk and the Wisconsin Assembly. Earlier this year, Remington ordered Gableman to produce a copy of his contract and ordered some records immediately released. More recently he found Gableman in contempt of court, fining him $2,000 per day. Remington also referred Gableman to Wisconsin’s Office of Lawyer Regulation. An appeal, filed by lawyers for Gableman, of Remington’s contempt ruling. Gableman’s lawyers have also appealed a Remington ruling from earlier this year. An open records lawsuit filed by American Oversight against Vos before Dane County Circuit Court Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn. Earlier this year, Bailey-Rihn found Vos in contempt of court but gave the speaker a chance to “purge” that contempt by complying with court orders. This month, Bailey-Rihn lifted her contempt order against Vos. She scheduled an oral ruling in the case for July 21. Another open records lawsuit before Judge Bailey-Rihn, this one filed by American Oversight against Vos, Assembly Chief Clerk Ted Blazel and the Wisconsin Assembly. Oral arguments in that case are scheduled for July 28. Gableman’s big subpoena case against the mayors of Madison, Green Bay and Racine, as well as Democratic Elections Commissioner Ann Jacobs and several election workers. That case, which is before Waukesha County Judge Ralph Ramirez, was delayed after Gableman’s office expanded his subpoenas to include more people and threaten them with jail time. A case challenging Gableman’s subpoena power, this one filed by Attorney General Josh Kaul in Dane County Circuit Court against the Wisconsin Assembly, Vos and Gableman among others. Kaul asked Judge Rhonda Lanford to block Gableman’s subpoenas, and while she’s yet to take that step, she indicated that she could if he tried to enforce them. Vos also tried to get state appeals courts to intervene in the case and was denied. The Wisconsin Supreme Court also denied a “petition for supervisory writ” filed by Vos. American Oversight’s most recent lawsuit filed against Gableman’s Office of Special Counsel. While most of the cases remain in circuit court, they could eventually be appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where Gableman once served. Conservative swing Justice Brian Hagedorn once clerked for Gableman on the court.
How much longer can Gableman feast on the public? There is, after all, a limit to gluttony:
Partial solar eclipse only seen in space – NASA spacecraft’s view:
Daily Bread, Nature
Daily Bread for 6.29.22: Wisconsin’s Beautiful Dark Skies
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 17m 39s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1987, Vincent van Gogh‘s painting, the Le Pont de Trinquetaille, is bought for $20.4 million at an auction in London, England.
Wisconsin is a place of natural beauty, and our evening skies when properly dark display that beauty in fine detail. Madeline Heim reports A Driftless Region county is aiming to be a new frontier in protecting Wisconsin’s darkest skies:
When people think of the world’s darkest skies, those are the places they’re picturing. Massive expanses of natural beauty unobstructed by city lights, such as the national parks that dot the American West, or islands in the middle of the ocean.
But today, [Scott] Lind is helping bring recognition to dark skies much closer to home.
He’s part of a team that will soon petition the International Dark Sky Association to designate three Driftless Region properties — the Kickapoo Valley Reserve, Wildcat Mountain State Park and Tunnelville Cliffs State Natural Area — as an international dark sky park.
The association, which began its dark sky places program in 2001 to recognize “excellent stewardship of the night sky,” has most of its U.S. parks scattered out west, in Bryce Canyon, Death Valley, Zion and Joshua Tree, to name a few.
RELATED: Looking for more stars? Here are the five international dark sky places closest to Wisconsin
RELATED: Newport State Park designated as Wisconsin’s first ‘dark sky’ park
RELATED: 15 Wisconsin places you have to visit in the summer
Few are in the Midwest, and Wisconsin has just one: Newport State Park, at the tip of Door County on the shores of Lake Michigan, which has had the designation for five years.
Moose Protects Calves From Bear Attack:
Daily Bread, Gubernatorial Race 2022, WISGOP
Daily Bread for 6.28.22: Who Has the Strongest Position in the WISGOP Gubernatorial Primary? The One Who Didn’t Show
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will see sunshine giving way to clouds, with a high of 86. Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 18m 13s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1926, Mercedes-Benz forms when Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merge their two companies.
Two-term Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch may be the strongest Republican candidate for the November gubernatorial election, but she’s not the strongest candidate today among Republicans running in the primary. The strongest candidate in late June 2022 is Trump-endorsed, Connecticut-homeowner Tim Michels. How would one know, when the polls are so close? Michels skipped a WISGOP primary debate, that’s how.
Shawn Johnson reports Rebecca Kleefisch, Kevin Nicholson, Tim Ramthun attack Tim Michels at GOP primary debate (‘Michels, who has surged in recent polling, did not attend the debate’):
The decisions by Michels to miss the debate – and by his opponents to attack him – may hint at a new phase in the GOP primary, where Michels has shot up in the polls following an endorsement by President Donald Trump and a barrage of TV advertising.
In his absence, Kleefisch, Nicholson and Ramthun promoted positions that would put them sharply at odds with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in a general election. For example, all three said they’d oppose the legalization of medical marijuana and all three said they’d support enforcement of Wisconsin’s pre-Civil War era abortion ban.
The debate was moderated by Joe Giganti, a conservative talk radio host for WTAQ-AM in Green Bay, and hosted by Providence Academy, a Christian school in Green Bay. Giganti gave the candidates multiple opportunities to attack Michels, which they seized.
….
Michels’ campaign did not respond to an email Monday asking for comment on why he did not attend the debate. In a tweet Monday night, he posted pictures of a campaign rally.
“Some candidates think the path to victory is to tear other Republicans apart and divide the party. I’m a builder,” Michels said.
Too funny: Michels is, in fact, a builder. He’s also the frontrunner in a race with about six weeks to go.
Aftermath of Russian missile strike on Ukrainian mall:
Daily Bread, Housing, Poverty
Daily Bread for 6.27.22: Why Link to Houston’s Response to Homelessness?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 18m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM and returns to open session beginning at 7 PM.
On this day in 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War, sailors start a mutiny aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin.
So, why would a blogger in Whitewater, Wisconsin link to a story about Houston‘s solutions to homelessness? (See FREE WHITEWATER on 6.26.22 ‘How Houston Moved 25,000 People From the Streets Into Homes of Their Own.’)
The answer appears early in the Michael Kimmelman’s story:
Houston has gotten this far by teaming with county agencies and persuading scores of local service providers, corporations and charitable nonprofits — organizations that often bicker and compete with one another — to row in unison. Together, they’ve gone all in on “housing first,” a practice, supported by decades of research, that moves the most vulnerable people straight from the streets into apartments, not into shelters, and without first requiring them to wean themselves off drugs or complete a 12-step program or find God or a job.
There are addiction recovery and religious conversion programs that succeed in getting people off the street. But housing first involves a different logic: When you’re drowning, it doesn’t help if your rescuer insists you learn to swim before returning you to shore. You can address your issues once you’re on land. Or not. Either way, you join the wider population of people battling demons behind closed doors.
Successful charitable efforts require private support (that’s the very concept of charity) and those efforts (including religious ones) should act urgently and graciously.
Urgently: food, clothing, and shelter are human needs of immediacy, and should not be delayed through long discussions or training programs. There is the old saying about teaching a man to fish so that he might become self-sufficient, but if he should starve while learning the training would be for naught.
Graciously: neither public nor private institutions (including religious ones) should expect ideological agreement before providing urgent assistance. Aid is its own purpose, and those in government or private life who would offer aid with the expectation of being loved should be reminded that relief from starvation must never become an aphrodisiac.
In its aid-first approach, Houston is a good example for many communities, including Whitewater.
Planting giant sequoia trees to offset carbon footprints: