Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 12.10.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Thursday in town will be windy but cloudy, with a high of fifty-five. Sunrise is 7:15 and sunset 4:20, for 9h 05m 50s of daytime. We’ve a new moon today.
There’s a Fire Department Meeting tonight at 7 PM.
On this day in 1948, the United Nations adopts a Universal Declaration on Human Rights:
Paris, Dec, 10–A universal Declaration on Human Rights nearly three years in preparation, was adopted late tonight by the United Nations General Assembly. The vote was 48 to 0 with the Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia and the Union of South Africa abstaining.
[The draft text of the Declaration of Human Rights was published in The New York Times Dec. 7.]The declaration is the first part of a projected three-part International Bill of Rights. The United Nations now will begin drafting a convention that will be a treaty embodying in specific detail and in legally binding form the principles proclaimed in the declaration. The third part will be a protocol for implementation of the convention possibly by such measures as establishment of an International Court of Human Rights and an International Committee of Conciliation.
The Assembly accorded an ovation to Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt when Dr. Herbert V. Evatt, the Assembly’s president, after declaring the declaration adopted, paid tribute to the first chairman of the Human Rights Commission for her tireless efforts in the long process of drafting the document.
“She has raised a great name to an even greater honor,” Dr. Evatt said of the United States delegate.
On this day in 1864, the Wisconsinites reach Savannah:
1864 – (Civil War) 3rd Wisconsin Infantry Reaches Savannah, Georgia
The Wisconsin 3rd Infantry arrived at the front lines for the Battle of Savannah, Georgia. After marching from Atlanta under General William T. Sherman, Wisconsin troops assembled outside the coastal city of Savannah and laid siege to it.
Puzzability‘s Candle Holders series continues with Thursday’s game:
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This Week’s Game — December 7-11
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Candle Holders
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For each night of Hanukkah this week, we started with a title with AND in the middle and replaced all the letters with asterisks, except for one instance of each of the letters in the word CANDLE, including the AND. (Those letters may appear elsewhere in the title as well.) The day’s clue also indicates the date and category of the title.
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Example:
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2015 TV show: **C**** AND L*E*
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Answer:
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Secrets and Lies
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What to Submit:
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Submit the title (as “Secrets and Lies” in the example) for your answer.
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Thursday, December 10
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Animals, Conservation, Environment, Nature, Religion
The Nature Display at St. Peter’s Basilica
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Culture, Local Government, New Whitewater
A Small But Diverse City, Seldom Described That Way
by JOHN ADAMS •
About four months ago, a councilman in Whitewater (intelligent, educated) expressed concern that a municipal meeting was poorly attended (it was). His solution was to post notice of the next meeting on the Banner.
They city posted a notice there, and the next meeting was still poorly attended (with only a few more people than the first meeting).
To the councilman, using that website (as municipal government so often does) made sense. It was a ‘semi-official’ publication, in his eyes.
(Obvious declaration: I’ve no interest in carrying water for our municipal government, our Community Development Authority, our university administration, etc. To be a semi-official publication to local authorities wouldn’t be to my liking, to put it mildly. This is a website of independent (individual) commentary. In this way, libertarians are like the ACLU: neither represents the government.)
Why, though, did a prominent notice in the Banner fail to entice? Some notices would entice – but in far fewer instances than insiders will admit.
Why? Because Whitewater is more diverse – much more – than some insiders understand or than other insiders pretend. Thousands in this city have no affinity with the views of local insiders.
How can one be sure? One can be sure because one can look at the city’s actual demographics and see that we’re a collection of very different groups, most of whom cannot be expected to share the tastes and experiences of a few well-placed, well-fed town notables.
These few gentlemen are unwilling to admit as much; it’s obviously true, about them (and about me). We’re not demographically representative of thousands in the full city. They are unwilling to admit this truth.
Consider what Whitewater really looks like, from the U.S. Census’s American Fact Finder:
- The median age is 21.7
- Of the adult population, 55.8% are students (enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs)
- Over 10% are Hispanic or Latino (2014 data)
- Almost one-in-five of all families with related children (19.8%) are below the poverty line
- Of all families, over one-in-five (21.4%) have no workers in the family
- Of the entire population (children, adults of any vocation), 36.7% fall below the poverty line
Whitewater’s town fathers (and her town blogger) look nothing like thousands – indeed a majority – in this city.
They won’t admit as much; I will.
It’s also why it’s not possible to capture all the city with a single message or publication; believing otherwise simply reflects one of a few perception biases.
This same diversity is why Whitewater has passed the point of a few big people, of a Mr. Whitewater, or of efforts at wrapping these thousands in a single package with a single bow. The town notables and fawning print publications that have sought to describe the city this way are doomed in any event. The town notables and reporters who have committed to this mendacious effort have wasted years to no avail.
This diversity doesn’t bother me – on the contrary, much of it (except of course statistics on poverty) strikes me as good for the city. See, The (Welcome) End of ‘Big’ in a Small Town.
It’s simply odd, though, that so many smart people can’t (or won’t) see how demographically unrepresentative they are.
Anderson, Cartoons & Comics
Looks cool
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 12.9.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Midweek in town will be partly cloudy and mild, with a high of forty-seven. Sunrise is 7:14 and sunset 4:20, for 9h 06m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 3.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
It’s the birthday of a frozen-food industrialist:
Clarence Frank Birdseye II (December 9, 1886 – October 7, 1956) was an American inventor, entrepreneur, and naturalist, and is considered to be the founder of the modern frozen food industry….
In 1925, his General Seafood Corporation moved to Gloucester, Massachusetts. There it employed Birdseye’s newest invention, the double belt freezer, in which cold brine chilled a pair of stainless steel belts carrying packaged fish, freezing the fish quickly. His invention was subsequently issued as US Patent #1,773,079, marking the beginning of today’s frozen foods industry. Birdseye took out patents on other machinery, which cooled even more quickly, so that only small ice crystals could form and cell membranes were not damaged. In 1927, he began to extend the process beyond fish to quick-freezing of meat, poultry, fruit, and vegetables.
In 1929, Birdseye sold his company and patents for $22 million to Goldman Sachs and the Postum Company, which eventually became General Foods Corporation, and which founded the Birds Eye Frozen Food Company. Birdseye continued to work with the company, further developing frozen food technology. In 1930, the company began sales experiments in 18 retail stores around Springfield, Massachusetts, to test consumer acceptance of quick-frozen foods. The initial product line featured 26 items, including 18 cuts of frozen meat, spinach and peas, a variety of fruits and berries, blue point oysters, and fish fillets. Consumers liked the new products and today this is considered the birth of retail frozen foods. The “Birds Eye” name remains a leading frozen-food brand.
On this day in 1844, Milwaukee gets her first daily:
1844 – Milwaukee’s First Daily Newspaper Published
On this date Milwaukee’s first daily newspaper, The Daily Sentinel, was published. David M. Keeler served and manager and C.L. MacArthur was the editor. [Source: History of Milwaukee, Vol. II, p.49]
Here’s the Wednesday game from Puzzability:
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This Week’s Game — December 7-11
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Candle Holders
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For each night of Hanukkah this week, we started with a title with AND in the middle and replaced all the letters with asterisks, except for one instance of each of the letters in the word CANDLE, including the AND. (Those letters may appear elsewhere in the title as well.) The day’s clue also indicates the date and category of the title.
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Example:
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2015 TV show: **C**** AND L*E*
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Answer:
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Secrets and Lies
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What to Submit:
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Submit the title (as “Secrets and Lies” in the example) for your answer.
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Wednesday, December 9
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Good Ideas, Technology
Hiking for Emails
by JOHN ADAMS •
HIKING FOR EMAILS from Clemens Purner on Vimeo.
In the Annapurna region in Nepal a man has made an extraordinary vision come true.
He has brought internet access to places that even today can only be reached after several days travel on foot.
By now he has managed to connect over 60.000 people to the World Wide Web and raised the region’s standards of health, education and prosperity.
His name is Mahabir Pun.
CDA, Development, Economics, Economy, Gluttony, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Press, Public Relations, WEDC
‘WEDC has been a disaster from the get-go’
by JOHN ADAMS •
After years of defending the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, one newspaper (out of several in the area) finally concedes the obvious: ‘WEDC has been a disaster from the get-go.’
See, from 11.28.15, http://www.gazettextra.com/20151128/our_views_consider_two_steps_for_salvaging_state8217s_job_creation_agency, subscription req’d.
Yes, it has been a disaster, as politicized intervention in the economy, to the benefit of one’s well-fed, white-collar executive friends, will prove to be.
Only eighteen months ago, when it should have been clear to a properly read man or woman that WEDC was conceptually wrong, Whitewater’s leading officials touted a second round of WEDC funding as though it were manna from God:
“For us to have gone through that first cycle so quickly means a lot of jobs and new entrepreneur start-ups here in Whitewater, including here in the Innovation Center,” he said. “This is a recognition of a great success story. They have invested in us a second time. Our job now is to drive that to even greater success.”
– Jeff Knight, Whitewater CDA Chairman
“I am selfish,” he said. “The reason I am selfish is that I want Whitewater to be a better city and our university to be a better place. Part of what we do is try to make this a better place to live, work, play and learn. I think that is very important. For the university, my selfish thing is that I want to keep the professors here, and keep our graduates here, and whatever we can do to make that happen, we need to do.”
– Richard Telfer, Chancellor, UW-Whitewater
It feels a bit like déjà vu to be standing here before you all today,” Clapper continued. “It’s been a little over a year since our first event; today, we are celebrating the start of round two and the first grants of that round….”
“In the physical sciences, a catalyst is defined as any substance that works to accelerate a chemical reaction,” Clapper explained. “Without the help of a catalyst, the amount of energy needed to spark a particular reaction is much greater. When a catalyst is present, the energy required for the reaction is reduced, making the reaction happen more efficiently. Without the help of a catalyst, chemical reactions might never occur or take a significantly longer period of time to react.
– Cameron Clapper, Whitewater City Manager
See, from 6.9.14,
http://www.dailyunion.com/news/article_c8e49416-efe6-11e3-b1b0-0017a43b2370.html.
Knight speaks in empty platitudes, Telfer should have stopped after his first three words, and Clapper’s idea of chemistry is more like alchemy.
From the beginning, this was an empty ideology, a Third-World-style cronyism.
Whitewater deserves better.
Film
Film: Urban Conformation
by JOHN ADAMS •
Urban Conformation 74:19 is an urban experimental timelaspe short film.
Extracted from our urban surroundings, the pieces of a puzzle take differents shapes where a battle and fusion of two alternative world take place.Directed by Florian Rouzaud Cornabas ( www.facebook.com/FlorianRouzaudCornabasPage , www.florianrouzaudcornabas.com , florianrc@gmail.com )
Voice by Olga Iwogo
Music by LukHash, Final Chapter, www.lukhash.comThanks to:
Walid, Fehmi and Aymen
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 12.8.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Tuesday will be cloudy with a high of forty-six. Sunrise is 7:13 and sunset 4:20 for 9h 07m 32s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 8.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM, her Parks and Recreation Board at 5:30 PM, and the Zoning Code Update Committee at 7:00 PM.
On this day in 1941, America declares war:
Washington, Dec. 8.–The United States today formally declared war on Japan. Congress, with only one dissenting vote, approved the resolution in the record time of 33 minutes after President Roosevelt denounced Japanese aggression in ringing tones. He personally delivered his message to a joint session of the Senate and House. At 4:10 P. M. he affixed his signature to the resolution.
There was no debate like that between April 2, 1917, when President Wilson requested war against Germany, and April 6, when a declaration of war was approved by Congress.
President Roosevelt spoke only 6 minutes and 30 seconds today compared with Woodrow Wilson’s 29 minutes and 34 seconds.
The vote today against Japan was 82 to 0 in the Senate and 388 to 1 in the House. The lone vote against the resolution was in the House that of Miss Jeanette Rankin, Republican, of Montana. Her “No” was greeted with boos and hisses. In 1917 she voted against the resolution for war against Germany.
The President did not mention either Germany or Italy in his request. Early this evening a statement was issued at the White House, however, accusing Germany of doing everything possible to push Japan into the war. The objective, the official statement proclaimed, was to cut off American lend-lease aid to Germany’s European enemies, and a pledge was made that this aid would continue “100 per cent.”
On this day in 1917, a Wisconsin inventor passes:
1917 – Inventor John F. Appleby Dies
On this date the inventor of the twine-binder, John F. Appleby died. Appleby was raised on a wheat farm in Wisconsin and searched for an easier way to harvest and bundle grains. His invention gathered severed spears into bundles and bound the sheaves with hempen twine. His invention, which was pulled by horses, was a great success. In 1878 William Deering, a farm machinery manufacturer secured the right to use Appleby’s patent and sold 3,000 twine harvesters in a single year. In 1882 the McCormicks (of the McCormick reapers) paid $35,000 for the privilege to manufacture Appleby’s invention. Appleby spent the rest of his life in his shop trying to create additional successful machinery. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes]
Here’s the Tuesday game from Puzzability:
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This Week’s Game — December 7-11
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Candle Holders
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For each night of Hanukkah this week, we started with a title with AND in the middle and replaced all the letters with asterisks, except for one instance of each of the letters in the word CANDLE, including the AND. (Those letters may appear elsewhere in the title as well.) The day’s clue also indicates the date and category of the title.
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Example:
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2015 TV show: **C**** AND L*E*
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Answer:
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Secrets and Lies
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What to Submit:
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Submit the title (as “Secrets and Lies” in the example) for your answer.
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Tuesday, December 8
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History, Weird Tales
Edison’s Last Breath
by JOHN ADAMS •
Quite the parting gift –
WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN
Matter
by JOHN ADAMS •
Post 49 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’s digester-energy project depends on bringing waste from cities that do not want it to Whitewater. On improved paved surfaces, truckload after truckload, dumped on pads for processing in Whitewater.
And then?
To listen to Whitewater’s municipal manager, or her wastewater superintendent, it’s all tipping fees and methane. (Here, one leaves aside the wastewater superintendent’s simultaneously arrogant and ignorant admission that when experimenting with methane production previously he caused spills and accidents.)
And yet, and yet, what comes in as others’ unwanted waste – truckload after truckload – will not disappear as though with a child’s ray gun. (A gun like that, even, would merely transform its targets, in any event.)
Filth comes in, but sludge – a real and material thing – yet remains.
For over a dozen presentations, with airy or mendacious claims, not once has Cameron Clapper or Tim Reel produced a satisfactory explanation of where the matter that comes in will afterword go.
There’s a physical need that it goes somewhere, but a price that it goes somewhere far and safe from Whitewater.
It’s possible these gentlemen each have a ray gun to disintegrate the sludge that importation will produce.
Possible, but improbable. (Truly, it’s about as likely as the claim that Mr. Clapper will fill a digester with salad dressing.)
The simple truth is that they’re officials, salaried at public expense, hiring consultants who have been paid at public expense, likely aiding the interests of those who want revenue above all, and yet neither man has offered a description of removal more substantial than would be a child’s theory of an Atomic Disintegrator.
WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.
Music
Monday Music: United States Air Force Band
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 12.7.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Monday in town will be cloudy with a high of forty-two. Sunrise is 7:12 and sunset 4:20, for 9h 08m 27s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 14.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
It’s the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, killing thousands and plunging America and Britain into a Pacific war.
On this day in 1787, Delaware leads the way:
In Dover, Delaware, the U.S. Constitution is unanimously ratified by all 30 delegates to the Delaware Constitutional Convention, making Delaware the first state of the modern United States.
Less than four months before, the Constitution was signed by 37 of the original 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention meeting in Philadelphia. The Constitution was sent to the states for ratification, and, by the terms of the document, the Constitution would become binding once nine of the former 13 colonies had ratified the document. Delaware led the process, and on June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution, making federal democracy the law of the land. Government under the U.S. Constitution took effect on March 4, 1789.
Puzzability begins a new series entitled, Candle Holders:
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This Week’s Game — December 7-11
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Candle Holders
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For each night of Hanukkah this week, we started with a title with AND in the middle and replaced all the letters with asterisks, except for one instance of each of the letters in the word CANDLE, including the AND. (Those letters may appear elsewhere in the title as well.) The day’s clue also indicates the date and category of the title.
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Example:
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2015 TV show: **C**** AND L*E*
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Answer:
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Secrets and Lies
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What to Submit:
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Submit the title (as “Secrets and Lies” in the example) for your answer.
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Monday, December 7
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