Not so long ago –
The Harmony of Fall from Enrique Pacheco on Vimeo.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 12.29.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Tuesday in town will be cloudy high of twenty-eight. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:29, for 9h 04m 12s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 82.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1879, Gen. Mitchell is born:
1879 – General William “Billy” Mitchell Born
On this date aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell was born in Nice, France. Mitchell grew up in Milwaukee and attended Racine College. During World War I, Mitchell was the first American airman to fly over enemy lines. He also led many air attacks in France and Germany. Upon return to the U.S., he advocated the creation of a separate Air Force.
Much to the dislike of A.T. Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, and other contemporaries, Mitchell asserted that the airplane had rendered the battleship obsolete, and attention should be shifted to developing military air power. Mitchell’s out-spokenness resulted in his being court martialed for insubordination.
He was sentenced to five years suspension of rank without pay. General Douglas MacArthur — an old Milwaukee friend — was a judge in Mitchell’s case and voted against his court martial. Mitchell’s ideas for developing military air power were not implemented until long after his death. In 1946 Congress created a medal in his honor, the General “Billy” Mitchell Award. Milwaukee’s airport, General Mitchell International Airport, is named after him. [Source: American Airpower Biography]
It’s also the birthday today, from 1936, of Ray Nitschke:
1936 – Green Bay Packer Legend Born
On this date Green Bay Packer Legend Raymond Ernest Nitschke was born in Elmwood Park, Illinois. Nitschke graduated from high school in 1954 and passed up a professional baseball contract from the St. Louis Browns in favor of a football scholarship at the University of Illinois. Nitschke was a fullback and defensive linebacker for the Illini.
His prowess on defense drew the attention of pro scouts, and he was drafted in the third round by the Green Bay Packers in 1958. Nitschke was named All-Pro in 1964, 1965 and 1966; and selected for the Pro Bowl in 1964. He played middle linebacker for the Packers from 1958 to 1972. Nitschke ranks second in the Packers record book behind quarterback Bart Starr for most years as an active player.
Nitschke was inducted into the Packer Hall of Fame in 1975. Nitschke retired after the 1972 season, having played 15 years as a pro in 190 games. He finished with 25 interceptions, 20 fumbles recovered, and two touchdowns scored. His dominance at middle-linebacker throughout the 1960s was recognized in the many awards he received. Nitschke’s celebrity brought offers for movie and television commercial appearances. In 1974 Nitschke played a tough prison guard in the Burt Reynolds comedy “The Longest Yard.” Nitschke’s most famous commercials were in the Miller Lite All-Star series, in which he appeared with other sports stars such as Ben Davidson and Rosie Grier. Nitschke died on March 8, 1998 in Venice, Florida. [Source: Packers.com]
Animals, Good Ideas
A Coffee Shop with a Spot for Stray Dogs
by JOHN ADAMS •
A photo has been making the rounds on social media showing a group of stray dogs napping comfortably on a bench of cushions as a result of one business’s act of kindness. The image was reportedly snapped at a café in Greece, where management sees fit to offer refuge to homeless pups after closing up each evening.
The cafeteria Hot Spot in Mytilene, Lesbos, once customers leave, opens its doors to local stray dogs so they can use the sofas and “sleep without being cold,” writes Greek blog Zoosos.
Via This Coffee Shop Opens Its Doors Every Night To Stray Dogs @ The Dodo.
WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN
Documentaries
by JOHN ADAMS •
Post 53 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.
When Green Turns Brown has been, and for while more will be, a mostly written account. That’s understandable: I’m a blogger – I write. At this stage, the project is a series of posts, sometimes with questions, sometimes with short, simple video clips.
So far, it’s been a seed, or perhaps no more than a sapling. Some trees grow slowly – there’s more writing to do, and I have the luxuries of time and patience.
Yet, I’ve also the good fortune of advice from others, inside and outside the city, who are talented about film and video. Where I have done little more than a simple clip here or there, they can offer the instruction, guidance, and assistance to do so much more.
Traditional print’s dying, but electronic media are thriving. Even older forms have a new life through digital media.
When this phase of When Green Turns Brown begins, I’ll also give those who’ve offered so many claims on behalf of a digester-energy project for Whitewater (and have already generously supplied me with so many on-camera remarks useful to a wider audience) a chance to speak more about what they claim to know on the project’s behalf.
See, along these lines, When Did Eco Documentaries Get So Slick? @ Bloomberg News, about Louie Psihoyos’s Racing Extinction.
What’s now a written work will become more. A good part of that effort will include comparing how cities have addressed proposals like this local one – the contrast is striking.(There’s an odd way in which Whitewater’s city manager and wastewater superintendent speak about the local project with evident ignorance or indifference to other communities’ experiences.)
But there’s reading and review ahead, of Whitewater officials’ remarks on the project, of questions compiled, of public documents unpublished, of a new website to launch, and continuing visits to other communities.
One works methodically and patiently.
WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.
Music
Monday Music: Stormy Monday Blues
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 12.28.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Our last week of 2015 begins with a forecast of three-to-five inches of daytime snowfall, with a high of thirty. Sunrise is 7:27 and sunset 4:28, for 9h 03m 38s of daytime. (Our days are already getting longer.) The moon is a waning gibbous with 89.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1898, brothers Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean Lumière screen one of the the earliest motion pictures – a documentary:
Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory in Lyon (French: La Sortie de l’Usine Lumière à Lyon), also known as Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory and Exiting the Factory, is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed and produced by Louis Lumière. It is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made,[1] although Louis Le Prince‘s 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years….
This 46-second movie was filmed in Lyon, France, by Louis Lumière. It was filmed by means of the Cinématographe, an all-in-one camera, which also serves as a film projector and developer. This film was shown on 28 December 1895 at the Grand Café on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, along with nine other short movies.
As with all early Lumière movies, this film was made in 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.[3]
On this day in 1938, Joe McCarthy announces his candidacy for circuit judge, and begins a campaign that prefigures later and worse lies that became McCarthy’s routine political practice:
1938 – McCarthy Declares Candidacy for Judgeship
On this date future senator Joseph McCarthy announced his candidacy for the Wisconsin 10th Circuit Court judgeship, a position that had been held for 24 years by Edgar V. Werner. The 30-year-old McCarthy used Werner’s age against him, claiming that Werner was 73 while secretly knowing he was 66. In the election, held in April of the following year, McCarthy earned 15,160 votes to Werner’s 11,154. Although McCarthy’s campaign tactics and spending practices were investigated, he was cleared of wrong-doing.
Conservation, Newspapers
Wasted Paper
by JOHN ADAMS •
Week after week, people who don’t ask for rolled-up newspapers find those dead-tree publications on their porches.
Wasted paper, each week, of each month, of each season, of each year. The distribution comes close to lawful littering.
Publishers should be required to obtain consent before dumping these papers on homeowners’ lawns.
That prior consent would be burdensome for publishers, who’d rather toss sheet after sheet of next-to-worthless pulp throughout an entire neighborhood, and by doing so convince overpaying advertisers that their money’s been well-spent on a wide distribution.
People who’ve subscribed to newspapers have made a legitimate choice to manage the publications that pile up on their lawns and in their houses. Everyone else has an unwanted trash-collection-and-recycling regimen imposed without consent.
The more digital (and the sooner), the better.
Libertarians, Liberty
On Libertarianism
by JOHN ADAMS •
In an essay from 2013, Aaron Ross Powell describes libertarianism, succinctly and well:
In medical ethics, there’s the principle primum non nocere. “First, do no harm.” It’s one libertarians keep very much in mind when approaching politics. Most government “solutions” don’t simply not work. They actually make things worse than if they hadn’t been enacted at all. Thus standing in opposition to expanded government isn’t motivated by an uncaring attitude about America’s problems. Instead, it’s motivated by a well-founded understanding of how often government is the cause of those problems….
What we offer is not some powerful man in Washington directing the country, but freedom. Which means freedom for Americans to do unpredictable things. Our solutions are based in the knowledge that many of those unpredictable things (many of the outcomes of unleashed market forces, for example) will radically improve the lives of nearly everyone touched by them….
Libertarianism is an ideology of respect—for people, for their choices, for their values and desires. It is an ideology of hope, one that sees a path to a much better future. Even if that path isn’t as precisely drawn as some might like.
See, in full, First, Do No Harm @ Libertarianism.org.
Animation, History
Sunday Animation: The Petard Pinch
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Petard Pinch from Mike Brookes on Vimeo.
It’s 1942, and Britain is in the midst of WW2.
On HMS Petard, amidst battle, three men act with bravery and courage, in the process capturing vital Nazi documents and secret codebooks that helped Bletchley Park to crack the enigma code, and ultimately help win the war.
For decades following the war, their story went unrecognised. This film recounts that story and pays tribute to what they achieved.
Created for the Petard Pinch exhibition at Bletchley Park, December 2015.
Visit Bletchley Park at www.bletchleypark.org.uk
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 12.27.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Sunday in town will be cloudy and dry with a high of thirty-six. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset 4:27, for 9h 03m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 94.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
In the week ahead, FW will have weekly topical posts (on music, When Green Turns Brown, film, a cartoon, food, the Friday poll, and Friday catblogging), with additional posts on the UW System’s approach to sexual assault, a check on last January’s predictions for 2015, and new predictions for 2016.
On this day in 1900, the property-destroying temperance fanatic Carrie Nation smashes a bar in her violent crusade against alcohol:
Nation continued her destructive ways in Kansas, her fame spreading through her growing arrest record. After she led a raid in Wichita her husband joked that she should use a hatchet next time for maximum damage. Nation replied, “That is the most sensible thing you have said since I married you.”[2] The couple divorced in 1901, childless.[12]
Between 1902 and 1906 she lived in Guthrie, Oklahoma.[13]
Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women she would march into a bar, and sing and pray while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. Her actions often did not include other people, just herself. Between 1900 and 1910, she was arrested some 30 times for “hatchetations”, as she came to call them. Nation paid her jail fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets.[14] In April 1901 Nation came to Kansas City, Missouri, a city known for its wide opposition to the temperance movement, and smashed liquor in various bars on 12th Street in Downtown Kansas City.[15] She was arrested, hauled into court and fined $500 ($13,400 in 2011 dollars),[16] although the judge suspended the fine so long as Nation never returned to Kansas City.[17] She would be arrested over 32 times—one report is that she was placed in the Washington DC poorhouse for three days for refusing to pay a $35.00 fine[18] One hotel she did not smash was the St James of Minneapolis[19]
In Amarillo, Texas, Nation received a strong response, as she was sponsored by the noted surveyor W. D. Twichell, an active Methodist layman.[20]
Saloons “visited” and Jail sentences of the “Saloon Smasher”:
On this day in 1831, Gov. Fairchild is born:
On this date Lucius Fairchild was born in Kent, Ohio. Soldier, diplomat, and Wisconsin Governor, Fairchild arrived in Madison with his family in 1846. After a trip to California in search of gold, Fairchild returned to Madison and studied law. He was a soldier in the “Iron Brigade” and lost an arm at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. He was elected as a Republican to the post of secretary of state and in 1865 was elected governor. He served for three terms. As governor and as a private citizen, Fairchild was active in promoting soldiers’ aid.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 12.26.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Saturday will bring a probability of rain and a high of thirty-nine. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset 4:27, for 9h 02m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
California’s Venice Beach has never looked better than by drone’s eye view:
On this day in 1776, Washington is victorious at Trenton:
George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River, which occurred on the night of December 25–26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, was the first move in a surprise attack organized by George Washington against the Hessian forces in Trenton, New Jersey on the morning of December 26. Planned in partial secrecy, Washington led a column of Continental Army troops across the icy Delaware Riverin a logistically challenging and dangerous operation. Other planned crossings in support of the operation were either called off or ineffective, but this did not prevent Washington from surprising and defeating the troops of Johann Rall quartered in Trenton. The army crossed the river back to Pennsylvania, this time laden with prisoners and military stores taken as a result of the battle….
On the morning of December 26, as soon as the army was ready, Washington ordered it split into two columns, one under the command of himself and General Greene, the second under General Sullivan. The Sullivan column would take River Road from Bear Tavern to Trenton while Washington’s column would follow Pennington Road, a parallel route that lay a few miles inland from the river. Only three Americans were killed and six wounded, while 22 Hessians were killed with 98 wounded.[34] The Americans captured 1,000 prisoners and seized muskets, powder, and artillery.[34][35]
Holiday
Merry Christmas
by JOHN ADAMS •
Holiday
Simple Math to Make Wrapping Presents Easier
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 12.24.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Christmas eve will be partly cloudy with a high of thirty-eight. Sunrise is 7:23 and sunset 4:25, for 9h 02m 04s of daytime. We’ve a full moon, with 99% of he moon’s visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1923, Pres. Coolidge becomes the first chief executive to light a national Christmas tree:
The idea of a decorated, outdoor national Christmas tree originated with Frederick Morris Feiker. Feiker was a highly educated engineer who had been a technical journalist for General Electric from 1906-1907 and editor of Electrical World and Electrical Merchandising from 1915 to 1921.[5][6] In 1921, Feiker joined the personal staff of United States Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover as a press aide.[5][7] The Society for Electrical Development (an electrical industry trade group) was looking for a way to encourage people to purchase more electric Christmas lights and use electricity,[8] and Feiker suggested that President Calvin Coolidge personally light the tree as a way of giving Christmas lights prominence and social cachet.[9] Vermont Republican Senator Frank L. Greene accompanied Feiker to the White House, where they successfully convinced Coolidge to light the tree.[9]
Feiker arranged for Paul Moody, president of Middlebury College in Vermont to donate a 48-foot (15 m) tall balsam fir as the first National Christmas Tree.[9][10][11] Middlebury College alumni paid to have it shipped via express to Washington.[9] The branches on the lower 10 feet (3.0 m) of the tree were damaged in transit, so cut branches from a local evergreen were tied to the tree to restore its appearance.[12]
Feiker put together a group of local civic organizations to erect the tree in the center of the Ellipse[13][14] and decorate it, and the U.S. electrical industry donated $5,000 worth of electrical cables (which were buried under the Ellipse and provided the tree with electricity).[9] The site for the tree was personally approved by Grace Coolidge.[15] Arrangements were also made to have 3,000 city school children present to sing Christmas carols and the United States Marine Band to play music.[16] The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) agreed to broadcast the event on radio.[9] The tree was decorated with more than 2,500 electric bulbs in red, white, and green donated by the Electric League of Washington.[10]
At 3:00 P.M. on December 24, 1923, a 100-voice choir from the First Congregational Church assembled on the South Portico of the White House and began a two-hour concert of Christmas carols.[17] At 5:00 P.M. (dusk) on Christmas Eve,[17] President Coolidge touched a button at the foot of the tree which lit the ornaments,[17][18] but he did not speak.[9]
On this day in 1814, the War of 1812 ends:
On this date the Treaty of Ghent was signed, ending the the War of 1812 which was fought between the United States and Great Britain from June 1812 to the spring of 1815 (news of the treaty took several months to reach the frontiers of No. America). The treaty provided for the cessation of hostilities, the restoration of conquests, and a commission to settle boundary disputes. John Quincy Adams served as the chief negotiator for the United States. The treaty formalized U.S. possession of land which included present-day Wisconsin. [Source: The Avalon Project at Yale Law School]