Yesterday March 4, the Great Lakes hit 91 percent ice cover, according to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. That’s the most ice since the record of 94.7 percent was set in 1973, the lab said in a statement.
Via Almost Completely Frozen, Great Lakes Near Record @ LiveScience.
Last night, at Council, Trane presented a proposal for supposed energy conservation improvements in Whitewater’s public buildings.
Total proposed project cost: $1,924,749.
It was a galling presentation – some of the items were not about energy savings, at all. Of others, it was work that city staff could do now, or do when necessary (rather than when Trane wants, much sooner, to make a buck on taxpayers.)
Whitewater, with a population of about fifteen thousand, is a small Midwestern town. Places like this are imagined to be – and should be – simply run.
There’s a role for consultants and outside vendors, but it should be a limited one.
If this municipal administration cannot make simple things happen without ‘comprehensive’ proposals for vendor contracts, then perhaps Trane should run the municipal entire administration. We’d have fewer middlemen that way.
When one hears a department head from this city insist that if Trane doesn’t get all it wants now, the city will have to find another contractor next year, one feels obligated to ask:
Do you think you’re working at NASA?
Here’s an offer of assistance, without charge or expectation: No one who works at 312 W. Whitewater Street works for NASA.
Nor are we are a flush private corporation, but a city of diverse residents, most of whom need not pay for work that white-collar bureaucrats think might be a good idea, etc., etc. Those who wish to enrich Trane should, with their own money, invest in that large, eager-to-sell-to-municipalities enterprise.
They shouldn’t ask ordinary residents to foot the bill for superfluous work.
Council was right to hold off approving this over-stuffed idea; when it comes back, a line-by-line justification will be in order.
Good morning.
Ash Wednesday in Whitewater will see snow and a high of twenty-one.
The Landmarks Commission meets tonight Thursday at 6 PM.
On this day in 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his ‘Iron Curtain’ speech at Westminster College in Missouri. (Churchill, himself, titled the speech as ‘Sinews of Peace.’) Here’s how the New York Times began its reporting of that address:
Fulton, Mo., March 5 – A fraternal association between the British Empire and the United States was advocated here today by Winston Churchill to stem “the expansive and proselytizing tendencies” of the Soviet Union.
Introduced by President Truman at Westminster College, Great Britain’s wartime Prime Minister asserted that a mere balance of power in the world today would be too narrow a margin and would only offer “temptations to a trial of strength.”
On the contrary, he added that the English-speaking peoples must maintain an overwhelming preponderance of power on their side until “the highroads of the future will be clear, not only for our time but for a century to come.”
From that speech, an excerpt:
….A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately light by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshall Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain — and I doubt not here also — towards the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. We understand the Russian need to be secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome, or should welcome, constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty however, for I am sure you would wish me to state the facts as I see them to you. It is my duty to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone — Greece with its immortal glories — is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy….
Here’s Puzzability’s game for Wednesday:
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This Week’s Game — March 3-7
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Opera Boxes
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What opera, doc? For each day this week, we’ll give a three-by-three letter grid in which we’ve hidden the title of an opera. Each has 10 or more letters and any number of words. To find the title, start at any letter and move from letter to letter by traveling to any adjacent letter—across, up and down, or diagonally. You may come back to a letter you’ve used previously, but may not stay in the same spot twice in a row. You will not always need all nine letters in the grid.
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Example:
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Answer:
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Il Trovatore
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What to Submit:
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Submit the opera’s title (as “Il Trovatore” in the example) for your answer.
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Wednesday, March 5
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While Whitewater is in a time of transition, from one way of life to a more diverse and prosperous one, she is only at the ‘end of the beginning’ of that transition.
It’s a middle time now, and if one were to think of this as chess, one would say we’re in the middle game. As with chess, the boundaries of that middle time are often nebulous, and are hard to define.
We may say that the beginning or opening is now over, as social media have pushed Whitewater from her former oligopoly of published information. A fawning professional press that coddled the mediocre and dishonest no longer counts for much; there are dozens of media by which information in small towns may circulate.
The creation of a status-quo news website in Whitewater has been a mixed success. It offers much in the way of local, apolitical announcements, but any pretensions to political influence are undercut by substandard composition and an often poor level of analysis. (All the silent editors in the world are still not enough.)
In this middle time, one can expect two things.
First, those few who have worked so hard, for so long, to assure that Whitewater will operate under business as usual likely believe that they can navigate a partly-changed terrain. They’ve never wanted open government, transparent deals, market transactions, or even-handed enforcement and administration.
They will never want these things, and they will not relent from pushing their own selfish & reactionary positions.
Second, they’re mistaken to think that Whitewater has changed somewhat, but will change no more. The greatest changes are yet ahead, dwarfing those we’ve yet seen.
A New Whitewater will be – and should be – a mix of ideologies, cultures, and generations.
It should not be – and by force of change will not be – a place of cronyism, self-dealing, bias, or third-tier reasoning in politics or economics.
People can get along well under any number of political differences (left, center, right, libertarian). The divide, however, between open and dark government, between fair deals and cronyism, between sound analysis and embarrassing error, is unbridgeable. One is fundamentally fair and admirable, the other fundamentally unfair and unworthy. There’s no room for a deal on these more fundamental matters.
Whitewater is in that middle time now, one that will last for years. It’s sure to be a period of twists and turns, an exciting and challenging time.
There’s every reason, though, to look ahead energy and optimism.
Click To Enlarge: Popcorn from NPR on Vimeo.
Good morning.
It’s a snowy Shrove Tuesday morning in Whitewater, giving way to clouds and a high of twenty-two.
Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1789, a federal government under the Constitution begins:
The first session of the U.S. Congress is held in New York City as the U.S. Constitution takes effect. However, of the 22 senators and 59 representatives called to represent the 11 states who had ratified the document, only nine senators and 13 representatives showed up to begin negotiations for its amendment.
In 1786, defects in the Articles of Confederation became apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign and domestic commerce and the inability of Congress to levy taxes, leading Congress to endorse a plan to draft a new constitution. On September 17, 1787, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the new U.S. Constitution, creating a strong federal government with an intricate system of checks and balances, was signed by 38 of 41 delegates to the convention.
As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states. The Constitution was thus sent to the state legislatures, and beginning on December 7, five states– Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut–ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document for its failure to reserve powers not delegated by the Constitution to the states and its lack of constitutional protection for such basic political rights as freedom of speech, religion, and the press, and the right to bear arms.
In February 1788, a compromise was reached in which Massachusetts and other states agreed to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would immediately be adopted. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, making it binding, and government under the U.S. Constitution was scheduled to begin on March 4, 1789.
On September 25, 1789, after several months of debate, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution–the Bill of Rights–and sent them to the states for ratification. This action led to the eventual ratification of the Constitution by the last of the 13 original colonies: North Carolina and Rhode Island.
Here’s Puzzability‘s Tuesday game, with a opera theme:
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This Week’s Game — March 3-7
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Opera Boxes
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What opera, doc? For each day this week, we’ll give a three-by-three letter grid in which we’ve hidden the title of an opera. Each has 10 or more letters and any number of words. To find the title, start at any letter and move from letter to letter by traveling to any adjacent letter—across, up and down, or diagonally. You may come back to a letter you’ve used previously, but may not stay in the same spot twice in a row. You will not always need all nine letters in the grid.
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Example:
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Answer:
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Il Trovatore
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What to Submit:
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Submit the opera’s title (as “Il Trovatore” in the example) for your answer.
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Tuesday, March 4
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Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of twelve degrees. Sunrise is 6:27 AM today, and sunset 5:47 PM. The moon is a waxing crescent with eight percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Alexander Graham Bell is born on this day in 1847.
On this day in 1823, a self-professed lost prince of France gets married:
1823 – Eleazar Williams Wedding Anniversary
On this date Eleazar Williams, who claimed he was the lost son of the beheaded Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, married Madeline Jourdain, a young Menominee woman. Williams was a direct descendent of a Mohawk chief on his father’s side. He grew up with the St. Regis Indians and helped lead the effort to bring the Oneida Indians to the Fox River Valley in the 1820s. There is some evidence that he hoped to set himself up as the head of a large nation of Christian Indians in the west, and he did work as a Protestant missionary much of his life. Williams spent his last years searching for evidence that he was the “Lost Prince” fathered by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. He managed to persuade enough well-to-do Europeans that the story was true to provide his family with a modicum of support. Williams died on August 28, 1858, his last words concerning an elegant dress which hung on his wall as once being worn by his mother, Marie Antoinette. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners, by Fred L. Holmes, 1939; pg 51-63]
Puzzability begins a new series this week, with titles of popular operas. Here’s Monday’s game:
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This Week’s Game — March 3-7
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Opera Boxes
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What opera, doc? For each day this week, we’ll give a three-by-three letter grid in which we’ve hidden the title of an opera. Each has 10 or more letters and any number of words. To find the title, start at any letter and move from letter to letter by traveling to any adjacent letter—across, up and down, or diagonally. You may come back to a letter you’ve used previously, but may not stay in the same spot twice in a row. You will not always need all nine letters in the grid.
|
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Example:
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Answer:
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Il Trovatore
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What to Submit:
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Submit the opera’s title (as “Il Trovatore” in the example) for your answer.
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Monday, March 3
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