A small cat recently wandered on to the ice before a San Jose Sharks hockey game. (The cat was later caught and placed with a local Humane Society for adoption.)
The Sharks, by the way, won the game, 5-2 over Nashville.
See, How the San Jose Sharks saved the ‘world’s luckiest cat.’
Northern Wisconsin has a number of wolves, but I don’t know of any Wisconsin community that has tried to tame a stray wolf. In a city in Oklahoma, that’s what some residents are trying to do (with an animal that’s at least part wolf).
Today’s question is whether they try to tame it, or instead return the animal to the wild.
Good morning, Whitewater.
Friday in town will be partly sunny and warm, with a high of eighty-one. Sunrise is 5:40 AM and sunset 8:02 PM, for 14h 21m 42s of daytime. We’ve a new moon, with just .2% of its visible disk illuminated.
It’s Orson Welles’s birthday:
1915 – Actor and Filmmaker Orson Welles Born
On this date George Orson Welles was born in Kenosha. The name George was soon dropped. The family moved to Chicago in 1919, and two years later, Welles’ parents separated. After his mother’s death in 1924, he travelled the world with his father, only to lose him in 1928.Welles turned down the chance at college in 1931, choosing instead to go on a sketching trip to Ireland. In 1934, Welles made his New York debut, playing Tybalt in Katherine Cornell’s staging of Romeo and Juliet. In the mid 1930s, he established himself as a radio actor on The March of Time and The Shadow, among other shows. He began working with John Houseman and together they formed the Mercury Theatre in 1937. Their program, The Mercury Theatre on Air, became famous for the notorious events surrounding their version of The War of the Worlds in 1938, in which they provoked mass panic among listeners. A renowned actor, writer, producer, and director, Welles is known best for his roles in such films as Citizen Kane (1941),Jane Eyre (1944), MacBeth (1948), Moby Dick (1956), A Man for all Seasons(1966), and Catch 22 (1970).
Welles was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 1971 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 1975. Despite his lack of commercial success, the Directors Guild of America awarded him their highest award, the D.W. Griffith Award, in 1984. Welles was briefly married to Hollywood actress Rita Hayworth from 1943 to 1948, with whom he had one daughter. Orson Welles died on October 9, 1985. [Source: Wisconsin Film Office].
On this day in 1947, Wisconsin experiences an earthquake:
On this date an earthquake centered due south of Milwaukee near the shore of Lake Michigan, caused minor damage but no major injuries. The tremor shook buildings and rattled windows in many communities throughout southeastern Wisconsin. There were reports of broken windows in Kenosha. The shock was felt from Sheboygan to the Wisconsin – Illinois border. [Source: U.S.G.S. Earthquake Hazards Program]
I’ve not tried it, and I’m not sure it will catch on nationally, but it is something different —
It reads like the perfect storm of food item appeal: soaking otherwise toss-able animal bones in water (sustainability: check) to create a nutrient-rich brew (paleo-friendly: check) for sale in paper to-go cups out of a window in the East Village (trendy and accessible: check and double check). Such was the initial appeal of bone broth, or brodo, when Marco Canora began selling it out of an unused window in his restaurant in 2014. But the fad has taken off since the early days atHearth, and now boasts a loyal following of drinkers who eschew their afternoon coffee break in favor of a brodo run.
Via Eater.com.
Good morning, Whitewater.
Thursday in town will be sunny with a high of sixty-four. Sunrise is 5:41 AM and sunset 8:01 PM, for 14h 19m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM tonight, and there will be a business meeting of the Fire Department at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1961, Alan Shepard Jr. became the first American in space. Here’s how the New York Times drescribed that event:
Cape Canaveral, Fla. — A slim, cool Navy test pilot was rocketed 115 miles into space today.
Thirty-seven-year-old Comdr. Alan B. Shepard Jr. thus became the first American space explorer.
Commander Shepard landed safely 302 miles out at sea fifteen minutes after the launching. He was quickly lifted aboard a Marine Corps helicopter.
“Boy, what a ride!” he said, as he was flown to the aircraft carrier Lake Champlain four miles away.
Extensive physical examinations were begun immediately.
Tonight doctors reported Commander Shepard in “excellent” condition, suffering no ill effects.
The near-perfect flight represented the United States’ first major step in the race to explore space with manned space craft.
True, it was only a modest leap compared with the once-around-the-earth orbital flight of Maj. Yuri A. Gagarin of the Soviet Union.
The Russian’s speed of more than 17,000 miles an hour was almost four times Commander Shepard’s 4,500. The distance the Russian traveled was almost 100 times as great.
But Commander Shepard maneuvered his craft in space–something the Russians have not claimed for Major Gagarin.
In Texas, Mexican firefighters are saving the Rio Grande. Known as Los Diablos, or “the devils,” the elite firefighting crew is hired by the National Park Service to fight wildfires and conduct controlled burns along the border. The river provides water to more than 5 million people in the U.S. and Mexico, and sustaining its flow is vital. The water in the Rio Grande is already 150% over-allocated. In this short documentary, The Atlantic follows the group’s conservation efforts to rid the river of giant cane, an invasive plant that narrows the river and threatens native plants and fish.
Via The Atlantic.
Good morning, Whitewater.
Midweek in town will be cloudy with a high of fifty-five. Sunrise is 5:43 AM and sunset 7:59 PM, for 14h 16m 59s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 8.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Planning Commission, R-2A subcommittee, meets this evening at 6 PM.
On this day in 1927, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded. At the Academy’s website, among so many other offerings, there’s an interesting interview with special effects designer Douglas Trumball, on the Science of Movies. Trumbull talks about creating believable effects through the use of miniatures, his film “Silent Running,” and plans for future filmmaking.
On this day in 1864, Wisconsin soldiers take part in the Wilderness Campaign:
1864 – (Civil War) Wilderness Campaign opens in Virginia
Union forces crossed the Rapidan River in Virginia and prepared to fight at the Wilderness the next day. The resulting series of battles between May 5 and June 12, 1864, is called the Wilderness Campaign, or Grant’s Overland Campaign.The 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 19th, 36th and 38th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 4th Wisconsin Light Artillery participated in this series of bloody battles. The initial Battle of the Wilderness on May 5-7, 1864, produced nearly 30,000 casualties without giving either side a clear victory.
Post 15 in a series.
Every parent wants to know how a child’s day went at school – what he or she learned, experienced, and thought about the day. Sometimes, however, the obvious question (“how was school today?”) doesn’t elicit more than a brief, unspecific answer.
An NBC news story online, offers suggestions from a parent on how to ask children about their school days in a way to get a more informative answer. The questions – and variations one can easily craft – are from Liz Evans, a parent of three and blogger.
Evans suggests questions that should help parents learn more from their children about school experiences.
See, Not Having Luck Asking the Kids ‘So How Was School Today? @ NBC News.
Good morning, Whitewater.
Tuesday in town will be partly sunny with a high of sixty-eight. Sunrise is 5:44 AM and sunset 7:58 PM for 14h 14m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 16.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s City Market opens for the season today, at the Cravath Lakefront, on this and later Tuesdays (through October) from 3:30 to 7:30 PM. The city’s Urban Forestry Committee on landscape guidelines meets from 4 to 6 PM, Alcohol and Licensing Committee at 6:15 PM, and Common Council at 6:30 PM.
It’s Machiavelli’s birthday:
On this day in 1469, the Italian philosopher and writer Niccolo Machiavelli is born. A lifelong patriot and diehard proponent of a unified Italy, Machiavelli became one of the fathers of modern political theory….
Machiavelli’s political life took a downward turn after 1512, when he fell out of favor with the powerful Medici family. He was accused of conspiracy, imprisoned, tortured and temporarily exiled. It was an attempt to regain a political post and the Medici family’s good favor that Machiavelli penned The Prince, which was to become his most well-known work.
Though released in book form posthumously in 1532, The Prince was first published as a pamphlet in 1513. In it, Machiavelli outlined his vision of an ideal leader: an amoral, calculating tyrant for whom the end justifies the means. The Prince not only failed to win the Medici family’s favor, it also alienated him from the Florentine people. Machiavelli was never truly welcomed back into politics, and when the Florentine Republic was reestablished in 1527, Machiavelli was an object of great suspicion. He died later that year, embittered and shut out from the Florentine society to which he had devoted his life.
Though Machiavelli has long been associated with the practice of diabolical expediency in the realm of politics that was made famous in The Prince, his actual views were not so extreme. In fact, in such longer and more detailed writings asDiscourses on the First Ten Books of Livy (1517) and History of Florence (1525), he shows himself to be a more principled political moralist. Still, even today, the term “Machiavellian” is used to describe an action undertaken for gain without regard for right or wrong.
In Wisconsin history, Golda Meier is born on this date in 1898:
1898 – Golda Meir Born
On this date, Golda Meir (nee Mabovitch) was born in Kiev, Russia. Economic hardship forced her family to emigrate to the United States in 1906, where they settled in Milwaukee. She graduated from the Milwaukee Normal School (now University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and joined the Poalei Zion, the Milwaukee Labor Zionist Party, in 1915.In 1921, she emigrated to Palestine with her husband, Morris Myerson, where they worked for the establishment of the State of Israel. Meir served as Israel’s Minister of Labor and National Insurance from 1949 through 1956 and as the Foreign Minister until January of 1966. When Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died suddenly in 1969, Meir assumed the post, becoming the world’s third female Prime Minister. She died in Jerusalem on December 8, 1978. [Source: Picturing Golda Meier]
Using the direction pad in the upper left corner of the video, viewers can watch a SpaceX rocket landing from multiple angles, including watching from below as the rocket descends —
Post 72 in a series.
This series began over a year ago, after some officials first proposed a digester energy project over two and a half years ago. It’s worth a quick summary of where that project now stands, and the context of writing about the project.
I’d say that there have been, so far, three phases to this proposal. In the first, Whitewater considered a project of indeterminate but possibly large size, in the second Whitewater considered an initially smaller project that would be publicly run, and now in the third Whitewater is seeking proposals through a third-party consultant for a privately-constructed waste receiving station at its public waste treatment plant.
All three proposals have in common that they involve, in uncertain (but I think possibly large) amounts, the importation of waste into Whitewater.
It’s that importation of waste from outside the city that forms the core of my interest, and opposition, to the project. A project that recycled only locally-produced waste would be quantitatively & qualitatively different: it would not burden Whitewater and her ecosystem with wastes produced elsewhere. No one (to my knowledge) is suggesting that Whitewater shouldn’t process waste; the argument in opposition to the project is that she shouldn’t process in small-town Whitewater waste from others outside the city.
(The argument in favor of importation says that Whitewater would have revenue gain. I’m dubious of the revenue gain but even more so opposed to waste importation as the price of any claimed gain.)
In any event, there’s no current project under construction (as I thought by now there would be). This means that for the moment, there’s no ongoing importation program to evaluate or to weigh against claims made for importation.
That leaves time for another line of inquiry: what’s the context of one small town’s possible project. That context is found in the efforts of others, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, to protect their local ecosystems from environmental burdens and harm, and to preserve their communities’ reputations and property values. That’s an ongoing matter for many communities in Wisconsin and beyond.
These communities are facing different challenges, not confined to waste digesters, but often involving waste, or other environmental hazards. I’ve been writing about some of those communities’ experiences, and I will share more accounts from elsewhere. There are important similarities between how communities address risks, even if there are differences between the particular risks they face.
I’ll continue writing more ahead about those communities and their experiences.
Good morning, Whitewater.
Monday in town will be mostly cloudy with a high of sixty-one. Sunrise is 5:45 AM and sunset 7:57 PM, for 14h 12m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 25.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Aquatic Center will hold an annual meeting this evening at 7 PM.
On this day in 1933, someone publishes an account of something in Loch Ness that he describes as a monster:
The term “monster” was reportedly applied for the first time to the creature on 2 May 1933 by Alex Campbell, the water bailiff for Loch Ness and a part-time journalist, in a report in the Inverness Courier.[8][9][10] On 4 August 1933, the Courierpublished as a full news item the assertion of a London man, George Spicer, that a few weeks earlier while motoring around the Loch, he and his wife had seen “the nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic animal that I have ever seen in my life”, trundling across the road toward the Loch carrying “an animal” in its mouth.[11] Other letters began appearing in the Courier, often anonymously, with claims of land or water sightings, either on the writer’s part or on the parts of family, acquaintances or stories they remembered being told.[12]
These stories soon reached the national (and later the international) press, which described a “monster fish”, “sea serpent”, or “dragon”,[13] eventually settling on “Loch Ness Monster”.[14]On 6 December 1933 the first purported photograph of the monster, taken by Hugh Gray, was published in the Daily Express,[15] and shortly after the creature received official notice when the Secretary of State for Scotland ordered the police to prevent any attacks on it.[16] In 1934, interest was further sparked by what is known as The Surgeon’s Photograph. In the same year R. T. Gould published a book,[17] the first of many that describe the author’s personal investigation and collected record of additional reports pre-dating 1933. Other authors have claimed that sightings of the monster go as far back as the 6th century….
On this day in 1941, a breakfast offering is born: “General Mills began shipping a new cereal called “Cheerioats” to six test markets. (The cereal was later renamed ‘Cheerios.’)” Cheerios billed itself as the world’s first “ready-to-eat oat cereal.”
