In this episode, Kyle Cherek and Jessica Bell explore the fine culinary delicacies of the Wisconsin State Fair. From maple-glazed pork belly wrapped in bacon to the iconic cream puff, explore all the fair has to offer.
Via Wisconsin Foodie.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 1.21.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Thursday in town will be cloudy, although noticeably warmer than yesterday, with a high of twenty-eight degrees. Sunrise is 7:18 and sunset 4:53, for 9h 35m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 92.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
There will be a Zoning Code Update meeting in the city tonight at 7 PM.
On this day in 1935, Janesville sees an example of temerity:
1935 – Five Janesville Youths Arrested
On this date five Janesville boys, ages 13-16, were arrested for a string of burglaries, including the thefts of cigarettes, whisky and blankets. While in the police station, one of the boys tried to crack the safe in the chief’s office. [Source: Janesville Gazette]
Ten years later, on this day, America recognizes an example of courage and tenacity:
1945 – Truman Olson of Cambridge Awarded WWII Medal of Honor
On this date the Medal of Honor was awarded posthumously to Sgt. Truman C. Olson of Cambridge, for almost single-handedly stopping a German counterattack on the beachhead in Anzio, Italy, on January 30, 1944. Twice wounded, Olson nevertheless manned his machine-gun for 36 hours. He killed 20 Germans and wounded many others. [Source: Janesville Gazette]
Here’s Thursday’s Puzzability game:
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This Week’s Game — January 18-22
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Asia Fantasia
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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.
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Example:
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Answer:
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Baghdad, Iraq
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What to Submit:
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Submit the city and country (as “Baghdad, Iraq” in the example) for your answer.
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Thursday, January 21
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Science/Nature, Space
A Ninth Planet Once Again?
by JOHN ADAMS •
There are always new things to learn, and discover –
There might be a ninth planet in the solar system after all — and it is not Pluto.
Two astronomers reported on Wednesday that they had compelling signs of something bigger and farther away — something that would definitely satisfy the current definition of a planet, where Pluto falls short.
“We are pretty sure there’s one out there,” said Michael E. Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology.
What Dr. Brown and a fellow Caltech professor, Konstantin Batygin, have not done is actually find that planet, so it would be premature to revise mnemonics of the planets just yet.
Rather, in a paper published Wednesday in The Astronomical Journal, Dr. Brown and Dr. Batygin lay out a detailed circumstantial argument for the planet’s existence in what astronomers have observed — a half-dozen small bodies in distant, highly elliptical orbits.
What is striking, the scientists said, is that the orbits of all six loop outward in the same quadrant of the solar system and are tilted at about the same angle. The odds of that happening by chance are about 1 in 14,000, Dr. Batygin said….
Via Ninth Planet May Exist in Solar System Beyond Pluto, Scientists Report @ New York Times.
Film
Film: Kara (An Unofficial Star Wars Film)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Law, Public Relations, University
Contrasting Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel and Media Relations Director Sara Kuhl
by JOHN ADAMS •
(One of Ms. Dunn’s clients appearing on camera is from UW-Whitewater; at least one other client of hers, to my knowledge, is also from UW-Whitewater. That second client gave an audio interview to WISC-TV on 3.19.15, but was not part of the December 2015 video interview.)
Repeatedly, officials at UW-Whitewater and in the UW System have insisted that they cannot speak with the assault survivors who have pending federal Title IX claims against UW-Whitewater (there are now two) or the UW System (there are at least three more against other UW System schools).
This is simply absurd as a matter of law. Not simply absurd, but manipulatively, mendaciously absurd. There is no general prohibition whatever, in law or in legal practice, against talking or meeting with adversarial or potentially adversarial claimants. In fact, these kinds of meetings and discussions happen commonly between opposing sides in all sorts of legal matters.
To believe otherwise, one would have to believe that Brad Schimel, Attorney General of the State of Wisconsin, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Law, an accomplished county prosecutor having conducted over one-hundred fifty jury trials, who has chaired the Wisconsin Crime Victim Council and Sexual Assault Response Team, somehow has a weaker grasp of the law than Sara Kuhl, a university public-relations woman and sometime proprietor of 2Kuhl Public Relations.
(Now I’m libertarian, not a Republican, so A.G. Schimel and I would likely disagree over points here and there. Nonetheless, there is simply no imaginable circumstance in which I would reject Mr. Schimel’s assessment of what’s legally possible for Ms. Kuhl’s view. In fact, to take the measure of Ms. Kuhl’s position, in her view the request of Laura Dunn, Esq. [University of Maryland Law and Adjunct Professor at that same school] for a meeting is, also, unjustified in legal practice. That’s absurd, too.)
Ignoring these claimants is contrary to conventional legal practice, perpetuates a response of collective silence in the face of individual grievances, and asks the community to reject the views of accomplished, qualified attorneys for the sake of shallow sophistry.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 1.20.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Wednesday in town will offer an even chance of morning snow showers and a high of twenty-one. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset is 4:52, for 9h 33m 13s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Aquatic Center Board meets at 7 AM today, and the Fire/EMS Task Force at 7 PM.
On this day in 1942, senior officials of Nazi Germany meet at what’s now know as the the Wannsee Conference:
The Wannsee Conference (German: Wannseekonferenz) was a meeting of senior officials of Nazi Germany, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942.
The purpose of the conference, called by director of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, was to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the final solution to the Jewish question, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to Poland and murdered. Conference attendees included representatives from several government ministries, including state secretaries from the Foreign Office, the justice, interior, and state ministries, and representatives from the Schutzstaffel (SS). In the course of the meeting, Heydrich outlined how European Jews would be rounded up from west to east and sent to extermination camps in the General Government (the occupied part of Poland), where they would be murdered.
The Wannsee Conference lasted only about ninety minutes. The enormous importance which has been attached to the conference by postwar writers was not evident to most of its participants at the time. Heydrich did not call the meeting to make fundamental new decisions on the Jewish question. Massive killings of Jews in the conquered territories in the Soviet Union and Poland were ongoing and a new extermination camp was already under construction at Belzec at the time of the conference; other extermination camps were in the planning stages.[28][64] The decision to exterminate the Jews had already been made, and Heydrich, as Himmler’s emissary, held the meeting to ensure the cooperation of the various departments in conducting the deportations.[65] According to Longerich, a primary goal of the meeting was to emphasise that once the deportations had been completed, the implementation of the Final Solution became an internal matter of the SS, totally outside the purview of any other agency.[66] A secondary goal was to determine the scope of the deportations and arrive at definitions of who was Jewish, who was Mischling, and who (if anybody) should be spared.[66] “The representatives of the ministerial bureaucracy had made it plain that they had no concerns about the principle of deportation per se. This was indeed the crucial result of the meeting and the main reason why Heydrich had detailed minutes prepared and widely circulated”, said Longerich.[67] Their presence at the meeting also ensured that all those present were accomplices and accessories to the murders that were about to be undertaken.[68]
Heydrich, himself, did not live to see the unconditional surrender of the genocidal regime he served; he died of sepsis later in 1942.
Puzzability‘s Asia Fantasia series continues with Wednesday’s game:
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This Week’s Game — January 18-22
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Asia Fantasia
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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.
|
||||||||||||||
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Example:
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Answer:
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Baghdad, Iraq
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What to Submit:
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Submit the city and country (as “Baghdad, Iraq” in the example) for your answer.
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Wednesday, January 20
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Science/Nature, Space
Five Planets, Visible at Once
by JOHN ADAMS •
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
by JOHN ADAMS •
Post 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
by JOHN ADAMS •
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:
On 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:
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This Week’s Game — January 18-22
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Asia Fantasia
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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.
|
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|
Example:
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|
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Answer:
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Baghdad, Iraq
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What to Submit:
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Submit the city and country (as “Baghdad, Iraq” in the example) for your answer.
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Animals
Virginia Farm Meets Goat-Cuddler Quota
by JOHN ADAMS •
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
by JOHN ADAMS •
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.
Music
Monday Music: Classical Music Mashup
by JOHN ADAMS •
Thirty-three composers in all —
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 1.18.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
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:
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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:
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Answer:
|
||||||||||||||
|
Baghdad, Iraq
|
||||||||||||||
|
What to Submit:
|
||||||||||||||
|
Submit the city and country (as “Baghdad, Iraq” in the example) for your answer.
|
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|
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|
Monday, January 18
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