Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in Whitewater brings mostly cloudy skies and a high of nineteen. Sunrise is 7:22 AM and sunset 4:45 PM, for 9h 22m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 39.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a public information meeting today from 4:30 to 6 PM on the reconstruction of George Street.

It’s Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer’s birthday:

The son and grandson of ministers, Schweitzer studied theology and philosophy at the universities of Strasbourg, Paris and Berlin. After working as a pastor, he entered medical school in 1905 with the dream of becoming a missionary in Africa. Schweitzer was also an acclaimed concert organist who played professional engagements to earn money for his education. By the time he received his M.D. in 1913, the overachieving Schweitzer had published several books, including the influential The Quest for the Historical Jesus and a book on the composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

Medical degree in hand, Schweitzer and his wife, Helene Bresslau, moved to French Equatorial Africa where he founded a hospital at Lambarene (modern-day Gabon). When World War I broke out, the German-born Schweitzers were sent to a French internment camp as prisoners of war. Released in 1918, they returned to Lambarene in 1924. Over the next three decades, Schweitzer made frequent visits to Europe to lecture on culture and ethics. His philosophy revolved around the concept of what he called “reverence for life”–the idea that all life must be respected and loved, and that humans should enter into a personal, spiritual relationship with the universe and all its creations. This reverence for life, according to Schweitzer, would naturally lead humans to live a life of service to others.

Schweitzer won widespread praise for putting his uplifting theory into practice at his hospital in Africa, where he treated many patients with leprosy and the dreaded African sleeping sickness. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1952, Schweitzer used his $33,000 award to start a leprosarium at Lambarene. From the early 1950s until his death in 1965, Schweitzer spoke and wrote tirelessly about his opposition to nuclear tests and nuclear weapons, adding his voice to those of fellow Nobelists Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell.

Google-a-Day asks a question about classification:

Under modern classification systems, in what clade will you find birds?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Following some early morning snow showers in town, we’ll have a mostly sunny Tuesday a high temperature of seventeen degrees. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:44 PM, for 9h 21m 15s of daytime. The moon is in its third quarter.

Whitewater’s Parks & Rec Board meets at 5:30 PM this afternoon.

Why is there a crater in Antarctica?

It’s not because of this —

But, rather, because of this —

On this day in 1922, a radio station gets its new call letters:

1922 – WHA Radio Station Founded
On this date the call letters of experimental station 9XM in Madison were replaced by WHA. This station dates back to 1917, making it “The oldest station in the nation.” [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers, edited by Sarah Davis McBride]

The current WHA (970-AM) programming schedule is available online.

Google-a-Day asks a baseball question:

Willie Mays began his professional career in 1948 with a team that has what three letter in the middle circle of their logo?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday will be mostly sunny with a high of thirteen. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:43 PM, for 9h 19m 42s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 58.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets this evening at 6:30 PM.

Sometimes a simple thing becomes valuable over time. That’s true with these baseball cards:

It’s Jack London’s birthday:

John Griffith “Jack” London (born John Griffith Chaney,[1] January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916)[2][3][4][5] was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone.[6] Some of his most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories “To Build a Fire”, “An Odyssey of the North”, and “Love of Life”. He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as “The Pearls of Parlay” and “The Heathen”, and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf.

During the Civil War, on this day in 1864, a Wisconsin regiment fights in Mexico:

1864 – (Civil War) Engagement at Matamoras, Mexico
The 20th Wisconsin Infantry took part in a battle in Matamoras, Mexico. They crossed from Brownsville, Texas, to rescue the American consul in Matamoras when he was caught in a local uprising between two opposing Mexican forces.

Google-a-Day asks a history question:

What field of work was shared by the parents of the man with the middle name Gamaliel, who served as a U.S. Senator from 1915-1921?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday brings to Whitewater a mix of clouds and sun with a relatively mild twenty-nine degrees. Sunrise is 7:32 AM and sunset 4:42 PM for 9h 18m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 67.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

When asked in the latest FW poll if they had a preference between cold and snow, a majority of respondents (54.84%) picked cold.

On this day in 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General makes an announcement about cigarette smoking:

For more on the topic, see The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General, 2014.

All this notwithstanding, I’d contend that adults, properly being free to choose, have the right even to choose poorly.

On this day in 1887, a noted conservationist is born:

1887 – Aldo Leopold Born
On this date Aldo Leopold, a major player in the modern environmental movement, was born. A conservationist, professor, and author, Leopold graduated from Yale University and worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the Southwest. He rose to the rank of chief of operations. In 1924 he became associate director of the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison. In 1933 he was appointed chair of game management at the University of Wisconsin. In 1943, Leopold was instrumental in establishing the first U.S. soil conservation demonstration area, in Coon Valley in 1934. As a member of the state Conservation Commission, he was influential in the acquisition of natural areas by the state. His reflections on nature and conservation appear in A Sand County Almanac (1949). [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, p.227]

Good morning, Whitewater.

We have a mostly sunny day with a high of eighteen ahead. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:41 PM, for 9h 16m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 75.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

How close would you get to your subject for a great photo or video? While filming in lava in Vanuatu, New Zealand cameraman Bradley Ambrose got close:

On this day in 1946, the first General Assembly session of the United Nations convenes in London. The New York Times reported on the opening session:

London, Jan. 10 — The fifty-one nations of the greatest war-time coalition in history, representing four-fifths of the people in the world, started today another chapter in man’s melancholy search for peace and security.

One hundred and forty-seven days after the close of the war that cost more than 20,000,000 casualties and left countless millions homeless, and on the twenty-sixth anniversary of the ratification of the ill-fated League of Nations Covenant, the nations met this afternoon in the blue and gold auditorium of the Central Hall of Westminster for the first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

Greeting them on behalf of Britain, which served as the spring-board for the final conquest of Germany, Prime Minister Attlee told them frankly that they would succeed in their new venture only if they brought “the same sense of urgency, the same self-sacrifice and the same willingness to subordinate sectional interests” with which they fought the war.

On this day in 1883, a deadly fire kills scores in Milwaukee:

1883 – Newhall House Fire
On this date in 1883, one of America’s worst hotel fires claimed more than seventy lives when the Newhall House burned at the northwest corner of Broadway and Michigan Streets in Milwaukee. Rescued from the fire were The P.T. Barnum Lilliputian Show performers Tom Thumb and Commodore Nutt. The fire, shown here, was discovered at 4:00 a.m. on the 10th, but sources give the date variously as 1/9/1883 or 1/10/1883. [Sources: The History of Wisconsin, Vol. 3, p.452; WLHBA]