FREE WHITEWATER

Accidents, Animals, Poll, Weird Tales

Friday Poll: Petting a Zoo Lion

by  • 


Although some of the facts are disputed, there’s common acknowledgement that Renae Ferguson visited a small Michigan Zoo, entered a lion’s cage, and may have had part of her finger bitten off. Ferguson contends a zookeeper invited her into the cage to pet the lion; the zoo claims she entered against an employee’s warning.

(Note to zoo: that’s a sketchy defense. A plaintiff’s attorney will likely contend that the applicable standard of care requires a cage design that prevents visitors from entering, regardless of what a zoo’s employee might have said.)

In any event, assuming you were invited to pet a zoo lion, would you do it?

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.8.14

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll end our work week on a mostly sunny Friday with a high of eighty.

On this day in 1974, Nixon resigns, to be effective noon the next day.

Text of the full speech is available at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center website.

Six years earlier, on August 8, 1968, Wisconsin picked Nixon:

1968 – Wisconsin Delegates Nominate Nixon

On this date thirty Wisconsin delegates at the Republican National Convention in Miami cast their votes to nominate Richard Nixon as the Republican party presidential candidate. These thirty votes gave Nixon the majority over Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan and won for him the party nomination. Nixon selected Spiro Agnew to be his running mate. [Source: Back in Time]

Google-a-Day asks about an abolitionist:

What abolitionist rented a house from the husband of the woman for whom Grace Park in Akron, Ohio, is named?

Local Government, Press

No Official in America Reigns

by  • 

Over at the Gazette, yet another editorial goes wrong. 

While trying to praise the work of retiring Rock County Administrator Craig Knutson, the Gazette headlines with Our Views: Rock County’s Craig Knutson deserves salute for solid reign (subscription req’d).  (The editorialist uses reign once again, in the body of the editorial.) 

The use of reign is most likely a superlative gone bad: in a rush to praise Knutson, that praise includes an imperious description of his tenure, as though he were a king.  It’s too much for too little. Even the most ardent supporters would shy from writing, respectively, of a Clinton reign or a Bush reign.  (If used at all, that description of tenure would be used only with sarcasm, as an insult.) 

It’s not, however, an accidental use in this editorial: it appears twice (title and body), and in any event it’s not as though a thousand monkeys at a thousand keyboards typed away until reign appeared twice.  (At least, one supposes that’s not how the Gazette produces its editorials.) 

I think it’s something more, really, than just a misused word ignorantly assumed to be one of praise.  It’s an obsequiousness to anyone in authority, something ones sees from the Gazette’s editorial board over and over. 

Insiders, influencers, self-professed development professionals, corporatist special interest groups, unctuous toads and shady hucksters: those are the people to whom the Gazette speaks, and from whom they wish to curry favor. 

It’s too funny that the editorial describes gasps and groans from Rock County board members when they learned of the administrator’s pending retirement, as though mentioning what a few politicians think settles a question more decisively than what many residents think.

As for Rock County, Jefferson County, Walworth County, or any of the other sixty-nine counties of Wisconsin — no one reigns, and it’s an insult (of intention or ignorance) to say otherwise.

Press, Radio, Television

Some Assets Can Only Be Sold Once

by  • 

A person with an apple orchard can – and expects – to sell apples for more than one season.  In fact, his success almost certainly depends on more than one year’s crop. 

For media companies selling radio or television stations, or spinning print from broadcast assets, it’s a one-time transaction. 

When the broadcast properties are gone, they cannot be sold by the same company again (and probably can’t be repurchased, at least for the same or lower price). 

Perhaps the assets to be sold aren’t worth much, and are mostly a headache, anyway.

For broadcast-station sales, that’s not true; those sales are more like selling a kidney than an appendix, so to speak. 

Then again, media problems are not, principally, economic problems; they’re content problems. 

It’s by failing to see that content is paramount that media develop economic problems.  Asset sales, though, aren’t lasting solutions to those problems. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.7.14

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-nine. Sunrise today is 5:53 AM and sunset 8:08 PM. The moon is a waxing gibbous with eighty-six percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets tonight at 6 PM.

On this day in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt accepted the nomination of the Progressive (Bull Moose) Party. He fell well short of Wilson in the November election, but ahead of Taft:

Roosevelt ran a vigorous campaign, but the campaign was short of money, as the business interests which had supported Roosevelt in 1904 either backed the other candidates or stayed neutral. Roosevelt was also handicapped by the fact that he had already served nearly two full terms as President, and thus was challenging the unwritten “no third term” rule.

In the end Roosevelt fell far short of winning. He drew 4.1 million votes—27%, well behind Wilson’s 42% but ahead of Taft’s 23%. (6% went to SocialistEugene Debs). He received 88 electoral votes, compared to 435 for Wilson and 8 for Taft.[13]

This was nonetheless the best showing by any third party since the modern two-party system was established in 1864. Roosevelt was the only third-party candidate to outpoll a candidate of an established party.

Google-a-Day poses a science question:

The founder of the annual medical science awards that are often called “America’s Nobels” is also considered the founder of what field?

15th Senate District, Campaign Ads, Elections, Politics

When Even Other Democrats Complain About a Democratic Candidate

by  • 

Mike Sheridan’s running in the 15th District Senate primary against two other Democrats, as Sen. Cullen is retiring.  

It’s not common for others within one’s party to be so critical of a candidate against whom they’re not running, but former colleagues of Mr. Sheridan (when he was in the Assembly) have strong criticisms of his candidacy.

(Links below are subscription req’d, to the Gazette.)

First Jim Krueser, Kenosha County executive, Former Assembly Democratic leader:

Mike Sheridan, when you were elected to the Legislature, I served as leader of the Assembly Democratic Caucus. I enjoyed working with you and believed you had a bright future. When I retired from the Assembly, I was proud to turn the leadership reins over to you. Boy, do I regret supporting you as leader.

Among a series of poor choices, your having an inappropriate relationship with a lobbyist, who had a major issue before the Legislature, reflected a true lack of leadership.

Power changed you. You were one of the top leaders in Wisconsin. This didn’t mean you could hold your office hours on the golf course. Your service was selfish rather than selfless.

Ultimately, your constituents suffered the most from your poor choices. Their disappointment was reflected in your re-election loss in 2010.

But wait, there’s more…

Assembly Democrat Fred Kessler of Milwaukee spent $5,000 on an ad just to complain about his former colleague:

Rep. Fred Kessler, D-Milwaukee, said he paid about $5,000 to place the radio ad in the Janesville market, including on radio stations WCLO and WJVL….

Kessler said he had many issues with Sheridan.

Beyond the payday legislation, Kessler said he didn’t like Sheridan’s leadership on issues such as funding for voucher schools, placement of sexual offenders and redistricting.

“Mike was a terrible leader,” Kessler said, claiming that Sheridan several times did not follow through on the overwhelming wishes of his caucus.

I don’t agree with many of Kessler’s positions (including his opposition to anonymity), but it’s truly unusual for these two men to speak as boldly as they have about fellow Democrat Mike Sheridan. 

In Kessler’s case, he’d be happy with either of the other Democrats in the race – his opposition isn’t even wrapped around an endorsement. 

I’m curious to see how this primary ends – is this kind of intra-party opposition to Mr. Sheridan derived from a well-founded concern that he might win on August 12th, or is it merely a strongly-felt expression of disappointment with a former colleague?

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.6.14

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of seventy-seven.

Farmer Daniel Klingenberg decided to play a cover of a Lorde song on his trombone for his cows. They liked it:

On this day in 1945, after years of a war that Japan began at Pearl Harbor, America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Google-a-Day asks a question about language and geography:

What is the largest surviving Latin American language reaching from Columbia to Chile?

Animals, Science/Nature

Sharks and Surveillance

by  • 

Sharks, like many people, dislike surveillance cameras:

REMUS SharkCam: The hunter and the hunted from Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst. on Vimeo.

In 2013, a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution took a specially equipped REMUS “SharkCam” underwater vehicle to Guadalupe Island in Mexico to film great white sharks in the wild. They captured more than they bargained for.

Posted at FREE WHITEWATER and Daily Adams.

Elections, Politics, State Government

The Importance of Skills

by  • 

Over at the Gazette, there’s a letter to the editor that touts Mike Sheridan, candidate for the 15th Senate District, as skillful: Your Views: Mike Sheridan has skills, ability to serve state Senate district (subscription req’d).

I’ve written about Sheridan’s public career before; for those readers who are Democrats, and will vote in the primary, there are better choices.

For those touting Sheridan’s skills, there is at least something to be said for how important skills – in general – are.

Napoleon Dynamite explains:

Just what the Wisconsin Senate needs, no?

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.5.14

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a sunny day with a high of seventy-seven today.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

I’ve purchased a few things on eBay, but I’ve never sold anything there. For those who do, or would like to do so, here’s a video that describes a simple way to make one’s goods look sharp, with a basic photographic technique:

On this day in 1864, the United States Navy defeats a Confederate force at the Battle of Mobile Bay:

Bataille_de_la_baie_de_Mobile_par_Louis_Prang_(1824-1909)
Battle of Mobile Bay, Louis Prang

The Battle of Mobile Bay of August 5, 1864, was an engagement of the American Civil War in which a Federal fleet commanded by Rear Adm. David G. Farragut, assisted by a contingent of soldiers, attacked a smaller Confederate fleet led by Adm. Franklin Buchanan and three forts that guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay.

The battle was marked by Farragut’s seemingly rash but successful run through a minefield that had just claimed one of his ironclad monitors, enabling his fleet to get beyond the range of the shore-based guns. This was followed by a reduction of the Confederate fleet to a single vessel, ironclad CSS Tennessee. Tennessee did not then retire, but engaged the entire Northern fleet. The armor on Tennessee gave her an advantage that enabled her to inflict more injury than she received, but she could not overcome the imbalance in numbers.

She was eventually reduced to a motionless hulk, unable either to move or to reply to the guns of the Union fleet. Her captain then surrendered, ending the battle. With no Navy to support them, the three forts within days also surrendered. Complete control of the lower Mobile Bay thus passed to the Union forces.

Mobile had been the last important port on the Gulf of Mexico east of the Mississippi River remaining in Confederate possession, so its closure was the final step in completing the blockade in that region.

This Union victory, together with the capture of Atlanta, was extensively covered by Union newspapers and was a significant boost for Abraham Lincoln’s bid for re-election three months after the battle.

Google-a-Day asks a question about oil:

Who drilled the first European oil wells in 1864?