FREE WHITEWATER

Science/Nature, Space

Five Planets, Visible at Once

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Morning skywatchers will get a special treat over the next few weeks as five of the solar system’s other eight planets will all be visible at once with the naked eye in the chilly, pre-dawn sky, weather permitting.

The five bright planets that will be lined up in a diagonal line, from left to right, are Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. Only distant Uranus, Neptune and Pluto won’t be in on the show. (While Neptune and Pluto can only be seen with a telescope, Uranus can occasionally be spotted with a sharp eye in a dark sky).

Via Five planets — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn — are all visible at once @ USA TODAY.

Education, School District

The Better Way on Standardized Scores

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33cscreenshotPost 2 in a weekly series.  I’ve written previously about our schools’ touting of ACT scores based on a selective presentation of those standardized test results.  There’s an irony in this: I consider standardized scores an imperfect measure of actual learning, and have written about them mostly in response to others’ repeated and superficial twisting of the data.  On my own, I would not have focused on scores as others have, but then on my own I’ll not withhold a better analysis for others’ lesser ones.

A few remarks about the most recent ACT scores for Whitewater.

  • As participation locally increases, the gap between state and local scores declines.  The latest scores bear this out: with a nearly-universal mandate to take the test, Whitewater’s scores are now separated from the state scores by only 1.5%.  (Wisconsin 19.9 and Whitewater 20.2.  These scores are almost always presented in a crude, top-line fashion, so those who do so have no persuasive reply when one draws the comparison this way.)
  •  Substantive learning is what matters: that kind of learning requires an understanding of facts, and techniques of reasoning, apart from any particular test.
  • Good scores have practical benefits (like so many, I know this from my share of standardized tests), but learning trumps test taking.  If I had told my father or uncle, on the many times we walked through campus, that a high score on a standardized (or other) test proved that one’s education was going well, they would have been, rightly, both surprised and disappointed.
  • Learning isn’t important merely for college, but for non-college careers, too.  One doesn’t argue against misuse of ACT data because one thinks only college-bound careers matter; one argues against misuse of ACT data because it’s an affront to proper reasoning.
  • It’s more than odd (part funny, part sad) that a candidate who aspires to educational leadership shows so little understanding of this, and such willingness to bite at any shiny headline that comes along.
  • Pushing shiny headlines is counter-productive.  Outsiders considering Whitewater will never settle for touting of scores over their own understanding of the data or their own visual inspection of the town’s economy and housing market.  Residents have grown accustomed to these sorts of tricks; once refuted, they impair the credibility of those who repeat the same sketchy claims over and over.  If this were merely a matter of debating the point, there is no better way to carry the argument than to watch as others compound their errors through dull repetition.
  • For previous posts about ACT scores in Whitewater, see Whitewater’s ACT Scores, Whitewater’s ACT Participation Rate Near the Bottom of Area Schools, Whitewater’s ACT Scores and Participation Rates, and What’s Being Done is More than Just a (Sketchy) Number.
  • Others are free to take a contrary view.  They’ve neither free, nor should they expect, to espouse that contrary view without reply.
  • Studying well and enjoyably.  Learning and the support of one’s family in learning is more important than a newspaper headline.  One should have fun with the topics at hand, so often as possible.  It’s quite the adventure…

THE EDUCATION POST: Tuesdays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.19.16

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of fourteen. Sunrise is 7:20 and sunset 4:51, for 9h 31m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 77% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Ad Hoc group meets at 4:30 PM, her Alcohol and Licensing Committee at 5:45 PM, and her Common Council at 6:00 PM.

Born 1.19.1809, it’s Edgar Allan Poe‘s birthday.

On this day in 1865, the 15th reserves well-deserved praise:

The 15th Wisconsin Infantry was received in Chicago on its way back home to Madison. The regiment was honored by the city for its accomplishments. It had fought in the battles of Perryville, Stones River, Orchard Knob, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Chickamauga, Resaca, and Kennesaw Mountain. Ninety-four of its members had died from combat and another 242 from disease.

On 1.19.1939, it’s a world record for a Wisconsinite:

rubberchickenOn January 19, 1939 Ernest Hausen (1877 – 1955) of Ft. Atkinson set the world’s record for chicken plucking. [Source: Guinness Book of World’s Records, 1992]

 

Here’s the Tuesday game in Puzzability‘s Asia Fantasia series:

This Week’s Game — January 18-22
Asia Fantasia
We’re working on eastern time this week. For each day, we’ll give a three-by-three letter grid in which we’ve hidden the name of a major city in Asia, followed by its country, with a total of 11 or more letters. To find it, start at any letter and move from letter to letter by traveling to any adjacent letter—across, up and down, or diagonally. You may come back to a letter you’ve used previously, but may not stay in the same spot twice in a row. You will not always need all nine letters in the grid.
Example:
DHG/IAQ/RUB
Answer:
Baghdad, Iraq
What to Submit:
Submit the city and country (as “Baghdad, Iraq” in the example) for your answer.

Animals

Virginia Farm Meets Goat-Cuddler Quota

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Of course they did –

WASHINGTON — An Albemarle County farm is no longer seeking volunteers to snuggle its baby goats after an “overwhelming response” from interested cuddlers.

Caromont Farm in Esmont, Virginia, expects 90 baby goats, or kids, will be born by mid-February and asked for volunteers to provide extra hands to cuddle and feed the baby goats.

The farmers make goat cheeses, so 24 hours after the kids are born, the farm starts bottle feeding the babies and milking the mothers. The kids have to be bottle fed four times per day.

The farm posted a message on its Facebook page Tuesday saying its volunteer scheduled was already full through the needed time period.

“We have had such an overwhelming response to our call for goat snugglers … you guys are awesome! Unfortunately we could not fit all of you on to our volunteer schedule,” the farm says on its Facebook page.

Caromont Farms adds that it is hosting a “Goatapalooza” on April 3. During the event, the farm will open its doors from noon until 4 p.m. to anyone “who would still like to come get some goat love in.”

Via Farm seeking goat cuddlers meets volunteer quota @ WTOP.

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

Local Government Discusses a Waste-Importation Plan

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 56 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.

Whitewater, Wisconsin’s city official began public discussion of a waste importation plan on 12.3.2013; by December 15, 2015, they’d had two years’ time to plan for both waste importation and wastewater upgrades. In the clip above, one sees the fruits of those 742 days. The discussion is a clear look at the quality of reasoning, planning, and expectations of full-time city officials and the outside engineering vendor on whom they are so evidently reliant.

In the immediate weeks ahead, I will review this meeting, discussion item by discussion item. It’s an exercise well worth undertaking. If there are other open-session items from Whitewater’s city administration about waste importation, I’ll add them, too. From those items I’ll generate questions for the Question Bin.

After that’s done, it will be time to review all the questions stored in that repository, and see which critical questions lack information. Vital pieces of information left unanswered, if any, can form the basis of public records requests. Those requests may generate additional questions, or require subsequent recourse. Work like this is an orderly, reasoned process. See, for a post in which I outline the progressive method one should adopt, Steps for Blogging on a Policy or Proposal.

One other point’s germane: a long video clip is useful for generating questions, but a video documentary including officials’ statements would not use (in full) an hours-long meeting.  No one does that.  Instead, one selects and includes for relevance and significance, with a pointer to the full, recorded meeting, elsewhere.  Along the way, I’ll start highlighting material and relevant clips, ones much shorter than those I’ve used now for question-generating.

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Appearing at whengreenturnsbrown.com and re-posted Mondays @ 10 AM here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.18.16

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Our work week begins with clear and cold skies, with a high of five degrees. Sunrise is 7:20 and sunset 4:50, for 9h 29m 26s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 67.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Police and Fire Commission meets today at 1 PM.

It’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in America. Dr. King was born on 1.15.1929, and King Day became a federal holiday in 1986, three years after being signed into law.

On this day in 1776, James Wright finds himself a wanted man:

On the evening of January 18, 1776, the Council of Safety in Savannah, Georgia, issues an arrest warrant for the colony’s royal governor, James Wright. Patriots led by Major Joseph Habersham of the Provincial Congress then took Wright into custody and placed him under house arrest.

Wright remained under guard in the governor’s mansion in Savannah until February 11, 1776, when he escaped to the British man-of-war, HMS Scarborough. After failing to negotiate a settlement with the revolutionary congress, he sailed for London.

On December 29, 1778, Wright returned with troops and was able to retake Savannah. Although Georgia was never fully under his control, Wright again served as royal governor until July 11, 1782, when the British voluntarily abandoned Savannah before Continental General Mad Anthony Wayne could take the city by force. Wayne had already defeated British, Loyalist and allied Indian forces who, combined, outnumbered Patriots by at least 2 to 1, as he progressed through Georgia following the Battle of Yorktown. Facing likely defeat at Wayne’s hands, Wright retired to London, where he died on November 20, 1785….

Puzzability begins a new series entitled, Asia Fantasia. Here’s Monday’s game:

This Week’s Game — January 18-22
Asia Fantasia
We’re working on eastern time this week. For each day, we’ll give a three-by-three letter grid in which we’ve hidden the name of a major city in Asia, followed by its country, with a total of 11 or more letters. To find it, start at any letter and move from letter to letter by traveling to any adjacent letter—across, up and down, or diagonally. You may come back to a letter you’ve used previously, but may not stay in the same spot twice in a row. You will not always need all nine letters in the grid.
Example:
DHG/IAQ/RUB
Answer:
Baghdad, Iraq
What to Submit:
Submit the city and country (as “Baghdad, Iraq” in the example) for your answer.
Monday, January 18
JGS/NAH/EIC

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.17.16

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday will be partly sunny with a high of two degrees.  Sunrise is 7:21 and sunset 4:48, for 9h 27m 38s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 56.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Friday’s FW poll asked about the likely victors of this weekend’s NFL games.  We’re only half done this games, with Seattle-Carolina and Pittsburgh-Denver to go.

Here’s schedule of posts for the week ahead, with other posts possible (if there are changes to these scheduled posts I’ll explain why):

  • Today: DB, weekly Animation post
  • Monday: DB, weekly Music post, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN post, evening post
  • Tuesday: DB, weekly Education post, evening post
  • Wednesday: DB, weekly Film post, a post contrasting Attorney General Brad Schimel with UW-Whitewater’s Media Relations director, evening post
  • Thursday: DB, weekly Food or Restaurant post, a post on Whitewater’s infrastructure, evening post
  • Friday: DB, weekly Poll, weekly Catblogging
  • Saturday: DB, weekly Animation post moves to Saturday, evening post

On this day in 1781, America is victorious at the Battle of Cowpens:

The Battle of Cowpens (January 17, 1781) was a decisive victory by Continental Army forces under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan in South Carolina over the British Army led by Colonel Banastre Tarleton, during the Southern campaign of the American Revolutionary War. It was a turning point in the rebel reconquest of South Carolina from British control. It took place in northwestern Cherokee County, South Carolina, north of the town of Cowpens….

Morgan’s army took 712 prisoners, which included 200 wounded. Even worse for the British, the forces lost (especially the British Legion and the dragoons) constituted the cream of Cornwallis’ army. Additionally, 110 British soldiers were killed in action. Tarleton suffered an 86 percent casualty rate, and his brigade had been all but wiped out as a fighting force.[5] John Eager Howard quoted Maj. McArthur of the 71st Highlanders, now a prisoner of the Americans, as saying that “he was an officer before Tarleton was born; that the best troops in the service were put under ‘that boy’ to be sacrificed.”[57] An American prisoner later told that when Tarleton reached Cornwallis and reported the disaster, Cornwallis placed his sword tip on the ground and leaned on it until the blade snapped.[58]

Historian Lawrence E. Babits has demonstrated that Morgan’s official report of 73 casualties appears to have only included his Continental troops. From surviving records, he has been able to identify by name 128 Patriot soldiers who were either killed or wounded at Cowpens. He also presents an entry in the North Carolina State Records that shows 68 Continental and 80 Militia casualties. It would appear that both the number of Morgan’s casualties and the total strength of his force were about double what he officially reported.[59]

Tarleton’s apparent recklessness in pushing his command so hard in pursuit of Morgan that they reached the battlefield in desperate need of rest and food may be explained by the fact that, up until Cowpens, every battle that he and his British Legion had fought in the South had been a relatively easy victory. He appears to have been so concerned with pursuing Morgan that he quite forgot that it was necessary for his men to be in a fit condition to fight a battle once they caught him, though Cornwallis himself did press Tarleton to take aggressive action.[60]

Nevertheless, Daniel Morgan, known affectionately as “The Old Waggoner” to his men, had fought a masterly battle. His tactical decisions and personal leadership had allowed a force consisting mainly of militia to fight according to their strengths to win one of the most complete victories of the war….

 

Good Ideas, Space, Technology

NASA Adds Dream Chaser to Transportation Roster

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For those hoping that America would re-introduce a space plane to her roster of civilian transportation options, there’s good news:

The Dream Chaser space plane that lands on a runway like an aeroplane and launches with the help of a rocket will join the duo of privately operated space capsules – SpaceX’s reusable Dragon and Orbital ATK’s disposable Cygnus.

NASA awarded contracts valued at several billion dollars Jan. 14 to three companies, including one newcomer, for commercial cargo deliveries to the International Space Station through 2024.

See, Dream Chaser space plane to fly to ISS (Video) @ Canada Journal.

There’s also significant support among our European allies for the Dream Chaser.  See, from the BBC, Europe excited by Dream Chaser mini-shuttle.

Winged craft don’t simply look sharp – they allow (among other things) runway landings that permit rapid return of biomedical experiments to terrestrial laboratories.

NASA made the right decision when she encouraged multiple, private companies to compete for transportation contracts. Out of that competition, America will have more than one good vehicle (where each of those options will be at the forefront of contemporary engineering).

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.16.16

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday will bring increasing sunshine and a high of twenty-two to town. Sunrise is 7:21 and sunset 4:47, for 9h 25m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 45.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

What are the secrets of World Championship Whistling? Four-time national and international whistling champion Christopher Ullman offers some techniques for success:

On this day in 1786, the Virginia General Assembly enacts the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom into state law:

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted in 1777 (however it was not first introduced into the Virginia General Assembly until 1779)[1] byThomas Jefferson in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. On January 16, 1786, the Assembly enacted the statute into the state’s law. The statute disestablished the Church of England in Virginia and guaranteed freedom of religion to people of all religious faiths, including Catholics and Jews as well as members of allProtestant denominations.[2] The statute was a notable precursor of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed be put in his epitaph.[3]

Food

Wisconsin Foodie, A Taste of Local

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Wisconsin Foodie is a favorite program of mine. In the episode below, “Kyle [Cherek] visits the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in East Troy, touring the grounds and sitting down to a white-linen dinner prepared by Tyler Sailsbery of the Black Sheep. This episode also profiles Dan O’Leary, who has been caring for the bees of Michael Fields for 15 years.”

School District, Sports, University

The Value of Sports

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Whitewater has had athletic successes in our district and on campus. Our high school and local university have witnessed impressive state & national accomplishments. Few cities have done so well. It’s been my pleasure to attend and cheer for Whitewater’s high school and college teams. I was graduated from another school, but like so many residents (college and non-college), the success of UW-Whitewater’s athletes and coaches is admirable to me.

For those on campus: to you who have competed, and to those who have coached you, belong first and foremost those efforts and those accomplishments. Others (as I do) may wish you well and cheer you on, but these achievements are yours, enduringly and incorruptibly.

Not long ago, UW-Whitewater produced a supposed assessment of the economic value to the community of the university’s athletic programs. (See, from 11.18.15, http://www.uww.edu/news/archive/2015-11-athletics.) It’s not much of a study, really, and its problem is not in the method (although that hardly seems strong), but in the very concept the report advances. (Conceptual failure is a deeper failing than method, by far.)

The brief summary, described as a report, isn’t written like a report at all – it’s written with an introduction that’s more press release than anything else:

With more than 550 participating athletes and fourteen national championships in the last ten years, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is a pinnacle of NCAA Division collegiate athletics. These athletic events bring an average of 54,910 people to the area every year, which has a profound economic impact on the immediate area….

So what’s wrong with the report? Conceptually, it’s flawed, even on its own terms: the economic value of athletic programs to the community is what the programs bring into Whitewater absent their presence. That is, the economic value is their incremental addition to the community.

This study fallaciously assumes that absent the presence of these programs, there would be no alternative economic activity to replace the programs under consideration. Economic activity is not a choice merely between a given impact from athletics and, let’s say, the alternative of no activity (as in, for example, a community afflicted with catatonia).

Understand what I’m saying: I support these programs, but this report fails to determine the right number for their value to the community. It’s just a flimsy analysis.

Since the study comes from a university, that’s a troubling thing.

The report was, however, certainly convenient, as it allowed UW-Whitewater’s Media Relations director Sara Kuhl to cite the study in reply to a Gannett Media investigative report on how UW-Whitewater has been giving out championship rings to non-athletes and non-coaches. See, from Gannett, UW school pays $112,000 for sports rings @ USA Today Network – Wisconsin.  For my own assessment of this – that rings are deserved for athletes and coaches, but not administrators, etc. – see, At UW-Whitewater, Far More Championship Rings Than Actual Athletes & Coaches.

fishlure

(There is something, however, that this report does prove, conclusively, I think.  This report proves that there are versions of fishing lures that work on humans.  Just as fish will bite on any shiny thing that comes along, so both the Daily Union and Banner bit on Ms. Kuhl’s press release without question or reflection.

For the Banner, this was actually a top story of the year.  Next up, one guesses: Whitewater Cow Jumps Over the Moon, Innovation Center Patents Leaches as Medical Cure, and Cloning the Same Resident Fifteen-Thousand Times Will Fix Everything.)

For athletes and coaches: you don’t need this flimsy study to prove your worth to our community.  In your honest efforts on the court and on the field – win or lose – you already prove that worth, every single day.