FREE WHITEWATER

On the Spring General Election 2014

A few observations on yesterday’s election —

The 4th District Council Race.  Despite experiencing the most negative campaign in recent memory, Lynn Binnie won reelection handily over Paul Yvarra.  

Of the two-candidate vote (excluding write-in votes), Mr. Binnie received 283 to Mr. Yvarra’s 111.

By percentage, that’s a winning share of 71.8% of the vote – a higher winning percentage than the last three notable, contested races of recent years.

(For comparison, in 2013, the Singer-Crone At-Large contest had a margin of 62-38% (724-452). In 2012, the Kidd-Stone At-Large race had a margin of 68-32% (1028-488), and the Binnie-Hartmann 4th District race was much closer at 344-342.)  

A Simple, Admirable Approach.  Recently, I saw an advertisement in the Good Morning Advertiser for Lynn Binnie’s campaign.  Here’s what it said:

RE-ELECT LYNN BINNIE
FOR WHITEWATER COMMON COUNCIL

TUESDAY, APRIL 1ST 
7 AM – 8 PM

EXPERIENCED,
DEDICATED REPRESENTATION
FOR THE 4th DISTRICT

Paid for by Lynn Binnie

Yes – well and succinctly said.  There’s something deeply admirable about a candidate who stands on his own feet, goes out before voters, and delivers an honest, clear message.

Trends.  I’d say that the long-term future for Whitewater is clear, but the time from here to there has uncertainties and twists ahead.  

The Spring General Election brought a huge amount of information about political developments in town, of candidates, campaigns, insiders’ plans, and trends, offering plentiful food for thought (a refrigerator and cupboard full, actually).  

There’s considerable benefit from that information, if one thinks on it carefully.  

Now, though, it’s enough to see that for Whitewater, yesterday was – and so today is – a good day.

Daily Bread for 4.2.14

Good morning.

We’ll have an increasingly cloudy day with a high of forty-seven.

At 3 PM, there will be a municipal meeting to discuss a marketing program for the City of Whitewater.

At 6:30 PM, there will be a Police & Fire commission meeting.

On this day in 1865, Gen. Grant achieves a Union victory, one in a string that rapidly take the war to its end:

After a ten-month siege, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant capture the trenches around Petersburg, Virginia, and Confederate General Robert E. Lee leads his troops on a desperate retreat westward.

The ragged Confederate troops could no longer maintain the 40-mile network of defenses that ran from southwest of Petersburg to north of Richmond, the Rebel capital 25 miles north of Petersburg. Through the winter, desertion and attrition melted Lee’s army down to less than 60,000, while Grant’s army swelled to over 120,000. Grant attacked Five Forks southwest of Petersburg on April 1, scoring a huge victory that cut Lee’s supply line and inflicted 5,000 casualties. The next day, Lee wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, “I think it absolutely necessary that we should abandon our position tonight…”

We’re mid-week in Puzzability’s Breaking Bad series – here’s Wednesday’s game:

This Week’s Game — March 31-April 4
Breaking Bad
You’ll be gathering a rogues’ gallery this week. For each day, we’ll give you a series of clues, each of which leads to a word. You must drop one letter out of each of these answer words and put them together (in order), adding spaces as needed, to get the name of a well-known movie villain.
Example:
Regular / pen point / starts a poker pot
Answer:
Norman Bates (normal / nib / antes)
What to Submit:
Submit the character name and the smaller words (as “Norman Bates (normal / nib / antes)” in the example) for your answer.
Wednesday, April 2
Pecan, for one / choir member’s platform / performed surveillance on

Daily Bread for 4.1.14

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy, but increasingly sunny, with a high of forty-six.

Whitewater’s Fire and Rescue Task Force meets this evening at 6:30 PM.

Google’s announced, this April 1st morning, an upgrade to their mapping application to find the greatest Pokémon master through Google Maps for Android or iPhone. This may be the among the most competitive job searches of the early twenty-first century.

 

It’s the founding-day anniversary for Milwaukee’s major-league baseball team:

1970 – Milwaukee Brewers Founded
On this date the Milwaukee Brewers, Inc., an organization formed by Allan H. “Bud” Selig and Edmund Fitzgerald, acquired the Seattle Pilots franchise. The team was renamed the Milwaukee Brewers, a tribute to the city’s long association with brewing industry. {Source: Brewers’ History Page.]

Puzzability‘s Breaking Bad series continues with Tuesday’s game:

This Week’s Game — March 31-April 4
Breaking Bad
You’ll be gathering a rogues’ gallery this week. For each day, we’ll give you a series of clues, each of which leads to a word. You must drop one letter out of each of these answer words and put them together (in order), adding spaces as needed, to get the name of a well-known movie villain.
Example:
Regular / pen point / starts a poker pot
Answer:
Norman Bates (normal / nib / antes)
What to Submit:
Submit the character name and the smaller words (as “Norman Bates (normal / nib / antes)” in the example) for your answer.
Tuesday, April 1
Blend, as in a recipe / online conversation / ship’s wheel / decade components

 

Ongoing Natural Discoveries

We’ve sent advanced probes to the outer solar system, but there are still new, surprising discoveries to be made. One of those discoveries is described in the video below, where astronomers learned that even asteroids can have their own ring systems.

An In-Case-You-Missed-It Post

Spring Break in our school district and campus is now over. For those who were on break, whether traveling or relaxing in the city, one hopes your time was pleasant.

Here’s an ICYMI post with links to selected posts from the last week at this site.

Politics, about our 4th District Council race:

Adventure:

The Spirit of America from I Am Los Angeles on Vimeo.

Travel Is from The Perennial Plate on Vimeo.

Cats:

Friday Catblogging: Life Lessons that Cats Teach Children

Music:

Monday Music: Bob Dylan, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

Daily Bread for 3.31.14

Good morning.

Monday brings a chance (about twenty percent) of showers in the afternoon, and a high of sixty-four. Sunrise is 6:39 AM and sunset is 7:20 PM. The moon is a waxing crescent with just one-percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1998, a change of leagues –

1998 – Brewers Go National
On this date the Milwaukee Brewers played their first game as a National League Team, losing to the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field. The Brewers’ transfer, the first since the American League was formed at the turn of the century, was necessary to create a 16-team National League and a 14-team American League. [Source: “Brewer’s Timeline” on the team’s official Web site].

Puzzability begins a new series entitled, Breaking Bad.  Here’s Monday’s game:

This Week’s Game — March 31-April 4
Breaking Bad
You’ll be gathering a rogues’ gallery this week. For each day, we’ll give you a series of clues, each of which leads to a word. You must drop one letter out of each of these answer words and put them together (in order), adding spaces as needed, to get the name of a well-known movie villain.
Example:
Regular / pen point / starts a poker pot
Answer:
Norman Bates (normal / nib / antes)
What to Submit:
Submit the character name and the smaller words (as “Norman Bates (normal / nib / antes)” in the example) for your answer.
Monday, March 31
Electrical unit / evil spirit / lab maze runner