There’s a recently-posted video on YouTube of a supposed UFO sighting over the Taj Mahal. I’ve embedded it below, and it seems to me to be about as bogus and unconvincing as any UFO video I’ve ever seen. (They typically seem that way to me.) This one, however, looks especially staged.
What do you think?
One can say this much, however, with confidence: the Taj Mahal looks fantastic…
Good morning.
Friday brings a sunny day with a high of seventy-nine and winds at 5 to 10 mph.
On this day in 1784, the State of Franklin declares its independence:
…four counties in western North Carolina declare their independence as the state of Franklin. The counties lay in what would eventually become Tennessee.
The previous April, the state of North Carolina had ceded its western land claims between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River to the United States Congress. The settlers in this area, known as the Cumberland River Valley, had formed their own independent government from 1772 to 1777 and were concerned that Congress would sell the territory to Spain or France as a means of paying off some of the government’s war debt. As a result, North Carolina retracted its cession and began to organize an administration for the territory.
Simultaneously, representatives from Washington, Sullivan, Spencer (modern-day Hawkins) and Greene counties declared their independence from North Carolina. The following May, the counties petitioned for statehood as “Frankland” to the United States Congress. A simple majority of states favored acceptance of the petition, but it fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass, even after the counties’ changed their proposed name to “Franklin” in an attempt to curry Benjamin Franklin’s and others’ favor.
In defiance of Congress, Franklin survived as an independent nation for four years with its own constitution, Indian treaties and legislated system of barter in lieu of currency, though after only two years, North Carolina set up its own parallel government in the region. Finally, Franklin’s weak economy forced its governor, John Sevier, to approach the Spanish for aid. North Carolina, terrified of having a Spanish client state on its border, arrested Sevier. When Cherokee, Chickamauga and Chickasaw began to attack settlements within Franklin’s borders in 1788, it quickly rejoined North Carolina to gain its militia’s protection from attack.
Puzzability‘s current series entitled, Silent Partners, ends today:
“Can we get a little piece and quiet around here? For each day this week, we started with a word and added the letters SH to the beginning to get a new word. The two-word answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the shorter word followed by the SH word.”
Example:
Hands out portions of green onions
Answer:
Allots shallots
What to Submit:
Submit the phrase, with the SH word second (as “Allots shallots” in the example), for your answer.
Friday, August 23:
Bush that’s squishy and bendable
This post is a companion to one from yesterday on rights, entitled, How Many Rights for Whitewater?
Whitewater is a place of great natural beauty, hundreds of years of indigenous and settled living, and a quaint, small-town scene.
If residents of Whitewater should have the same rights as those elsewhere in Wisconsin and America – and so they should and do have – then what can one stay about the standards for politics and policy in the city?
Just as one’s rights should be no less than elsewhere, so also the standards of politics and policy should be the highest standards of Wisconsin, of America, and of the civilized world beyond.
One may put this plainly about standards, in a fashion similar to yesterday’s about rights:
We have reason to love our small town for myriad reasons, but loving a place without expecting – and fighting – for the highest standards is a tepid, pale sort of love.
Often it’s not love at all, but merely desire masquerading as love’s deeper devotion.
For all her many charms, Whitewater brings this risk, one that other small towns face: that practices truly beneath our state or country will be falsely exalted as higher than anywhere else. This may come from neediness, insecurity, self-promotion, laziness, etc.
I’m sure are many reasons; none justify mediocre local practices over excellent state and national ones.
We can be a happy & quaint town while embracing national (and even international) standards. Truly, we can be a happy & quaint, vibrant & prosperous town in no other way.
Pretending that everything that happens here is better than anything else that happens anywhere else is destructive to our politics and policymaking. Fabricating awards and pretending we’re the Center of the Known Universe Where All is Eternally Exceptional™ is beneath us.
It’s a defeatist position: rather than trying to do better, some simply exaggerate how they’re doing. They may also believe that they can do no better than they’re doing.
I’ve neither deference nor respect for these notions. They may doubt what they can do; I know that we are just as capable (and as deserving) of the highest standards of care.
The time a few spend pretending, exaggerating, showboating, grandstanding, and outright lying is time lost to actual accomplishment and progress.
One can always improve, and we can improve our local politics and small city most profoundly when we drink deeply of the clear waters of our advanced, prosperous country.
To do so will be only to our advantage: we will have combined Whitewater’s great natural beauty and quaint small-town scene with the highest standards of politics and policy from all America.
These, also, are the true and high standards that all Whitewater deserves, and so must have.
Good morning.
We’ve a forty-percent chance of scattered showers today, with a high of eighty-three.
It’s the 151st anniversary of Claude Debussy‘s birth, and Google’s created a musical doodle for the occasion:
On this day in 1861, a future governor of Wisconsin heads into action during the Civil War:
1861 – (Civil War) Future Gov. Lucius Fairchild departs for the front
The Daily Milwaukee Press reported on this day that Company K of the 1st Wisconsin Infantry presented their Captain, Lucius Fairchild, with a ceremonial sword and sash at Camp Scott in Milwaukee. Fairchild was to leave that same afternoon for Washington, D.C., and begin his new appointment as lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry.
Fairchild had a distinguished military career before later serving three terms as governor:
General Fairchild, as a Private in 1858, enlisted in a Wisconsin volunteer militia known as the “governor’s guard”. Under his guidance the militia was titled Company K, 1st Wisconsin volunteers and by 1861, was serving in the Civil War at Falling Waters against the “Stonewall Brigade” of General Thomas J. Jackson. In August 1861, Fairchild was appointed Captain of the 16th US Regulars as well as Major of the 2nd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The 2nd Wisconsin served in the brigade commanded by General William T. Sherman until the general reorganization of the Union army following the First Battle of Bull Run. Electing to stay with the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry, Fairchild was soon commissioned Lieutenant Colonel and, with his regiment now a part of the famed Iron Brigade within the Army of the Potomac, participated in the Second Battle of Bull Run. One week thereafter, on September 8, 1862, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel of the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry. On February 27, 1863, the Iron Brigade, now under the command of Brig. Gen. Solomon Meredith, was redesignated the “1st Brigade, 1st Division, I Corps”. This gave Fairchild the distinction of being the ranking officer among all commissioned officers within the I Corp of the Army of the Potomac during the Spring and Summer of 1863.
Fairchild and the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry distinguished themselves at the Battle of Antietam, then at Seminary Ridge during the first day of fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, being the first infantry regiment to make close contact with the Confederate Army. During the engagement, at approximately 10:00, the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry delivered a striking blow by capturing very first Confederate General Officer of the war, Brig. Gen. James J. Archer. Almost immediately after this success, the regiment was ambushed by an attack on their right flank, losing seventy-seven percent of their ranks, including most officers. Fairchild was shot in the upper arm, captured, tended to, and released. While recovering from his amputated left arm, Fairchild was commissioned as brigadier general [by] President Abraham Lincoln on October 19, 1863.
Puzzability‘s current series is entitled, Silent Partners:
“Can we get a little piece and quiet around here? For each day this week, we started with a word and added the letters SH to the beginning to get a new word. The two-word answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the shorter word followed by the SH word.”
Example:
Hands out portions of green onions
Answer:
Allots shallots
What to Submit:
Submit the phrase, with the SH word second (as “Allots shallots” in the example), for your answer.
Thursday, August 22:
Enthusiastic about the main faith of Japan
Here’s your chance to be part of a group that’s keeping Whitewater beautiful —
When: Saturday, August 24th from 8 am to Noon.
Where: Meet at Discover Whitewater (150 West Main Street).
We’ll be sweeping the streets and picking up litter to make sure we’re looking our best for UWW move-in day (August 29th)
Come for an hour or two, or however long you are able to attend.
Volunteers will vote for the best-kept storefront. The winning business gets a $25 gift certificate to our cleanup sponsor, the SweetSpot!
Use #AugustCleanUp to vote and post pictures of the best-kept storefront.
RSVP: Kristine Zaballos, DTWW Board @ 206-972-9936 or kristine@zaballos.com.
How many rights do Whitewater’s residents possess? It’s a simple question, and there’s a simple answer: They possess all the rights of residency or citizenship, respectively, of Americans and Wisconsinites elsewhere.
One may express this plainly:
There is no local practice, no old custom, no reflexive habit that abrogates federal and state rights.
There’s no Whitewater exception to American law.
I’ve sadly heard more than once – including recently – of someone told that there’s a special local custom, etc., of a public body, or in our schools, that implicitly trumps national or state laws.
There isn’t.
It’s not some American rights, or some Wisconsin rights, for residents or citizens (depending on legal status). It’s all of those rights.
Fortunately, this is clear to most people; to hear otherwise is rare.
Still, one encounters a few people like this, now and again. I’d guess they mostly know that what they’re saying is wrong, but contend as they do selfishly or lazily, to have their way, or to shirk their duties.
The one thing these few do not deserve, and so must not have, is their way. It’s America’s way, and Wisconsin’s way, that all Whitewater deserves, and so must have.
Good morning.
Midweek in Whitewater will be mostly sunny, with a high of eighty-eight.
Today at 1 PM, at the Starin Park Community Building, there will be a free showing of the award-winning film, No. It’s the story of an actual advertising campaign against dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1988.
In the early 1970s, with the technology of that time, NASA thought about a manned flyby around Venus. In What might have been: Visiting Mars and Venus with Apollo-era hardware, Amy Shira Teitel tells the tale:
Imagine three astronauts, 125 million miles from the Earth, talking to Mission Control with a four-minute time lag. They have seen nothing out their windows but stars in the blackness of space for the last 150 days. With a carefully timed burn, they slow into orbit around Venus, and as they loop around the planet, they get their first look at its thick cloud layer just 7,000 miles below.
It might sound like the plot of a science fiction movie, but in the late 1960s, NASA investigated missions that would send humans to Venus and Mars using Apollo-era technology. These missions would fly in the 1970s and 1980s to capitalize on what many expected would be a surge of interest in manned spaceflight after the Apollo lunar landings. They would be daring missions, but they would also be feasible with what was on hand….
Puzzability‘s current series is entitled, Silent Partners:
“Can we get a little piece and quiet around here? For each day this week, we started with a word and added the letters SH to the beginning to get a new word. The two-word answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the shorter word followed by the SH word.”
Example:
Hands out portions of green onions
Answer:
Allots shallots
What to Submit:
Submit the phrase, with the SH word second (as “Allots shallots” in the example), for your answer.
Wednesday, August 21:
Little movement indicating that a cow is cold while being milked
Consider a review of three grocery lists, labeled A, B, and C, respectively:
List A:
Purchases
(1) One gallon, skim milk
(2) One dozen navel oranges
(3) One loaf of whole wheat bread
List B:
Purchases
(1) fruit and/or (2) something made of flour
List C:
Purchases
(1) something to eat
They’re all lists; they’re not otherwise equal. From A to B to C, the descriptions become more ambiguous.
This is like what happens in poorly-organized communities that creep ever farther from Wisconsin’s laws that require a public body to describe meetings that go into closed session.
There’s sometimes a happy synchronicity to events, and this is one of those times. After all, only two weeks ago Whitewater’s Common Council heard a presentation on Wisconsin’s Open Meetings and Public Records Laws. In that presentation, one heard mention of the Wisconsin Attorney General’s compliance guides for open meetings and public records access.
Those guides are useful to residents across Wisconsin as sound, well-researched summaries and recommendations on some of Wisconsin’s open-government requirements. The guides are not themselves law, but instead summarize and offer policy recommendations for compliance with Wisconsin’s statutes and relevant, binding court decisions (commonly called ‘case law’ in distinction to statutory law.)
I’ve no doubt that many people in the city have for years wisely reviewed and used these compliance guides.
I’ve just one question, today, in particular for the leaders of the Tech Park Board and the Community Development Authority:
When the residents to whom you are obligated by law read the agendas that you publish, do those agendas meet the legal requirements for how a closed session must be described?
My question isn’t about how one might like to describe meetings, or what one might believe the law to require, but rather what the law, itself, actually requires for a description of a closed-session agenda item.
In particular, one might consider the same Open Meetings Compliance Guide, at pages 17 to 23, that was a fortnight ago recommended to Common Council.
Reading that section – and better still, reading the actual statutes and court rulings that the section summarizes – one will find that boilerplate repeated on an agenda isn’t sufficient to describe, let alone justify, a closed session.
A few insiders may find discussing this boring. Worse, they may respond to the discussion with an adversarial dare: Stop me from doing whatever I’d please, if you can…
People who truly believe in limited, responsible government would never think this way. Even people who were indifferent, yet prudent, might reflect and thereafter refrain from tempting the Fates.
And yet, and yet….not everyone so believes, and not everyone is prudent.
It’s neither sound belief nor prudence to doubt that every right requires for its defense a remedy.
No one, though, can fairly say that our state has not offered officials and residents sound guidance to fulfill Wisconsin’s promise of their right to open and responsible government.
The Absence from Alex DeMille on Vimeo.
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny, with a high of eighty-five.
Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1911, a communications first:
…a dispatcher in the New York Times office sends the first telegram around the world via commercial service….
The Times decided to send its 1911 telegram in order to determine how fast a commercial message could be sent around the world by telegraph cable. The message, reading simply “This message sent around the world,” left the dispatch room on the 17th floor of the Times building in New York at 7 p.m. on August 20. After it traveled more than 28,000 miles, being relayed by 16 different operators, through San Francisco, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Saigon, Singapore, Bombay, Malta, Lisbon and the Azores–among other locations–the reply was received by the same operator 16.5 minutes later. It was the fastest time achieved by a commercial cablegram since the opening of the Pacific cable in 1900 by the Commercial Cable Company.
Puzzability‘s current series this week, from August 19-23, is entitled, Silent Partners:
“Can we get a little piece and quiet around here? For each day this week, we started with a word and added the letters SH to the beginning to get a new word. The two-word answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the shorter word followed by the SH word.”
Example:
Hands out portions of green onions
Answer:
Allots shallots
What to Submit:
Submit the phrase, with the SH word second (as “Allots shallots” in the example), for your answer.
Tuesday, August 20:
Bloodsucking bug’s comedy routine
This Wednesday at 1 PM there will be a showing of the film No at the Starin Park Community Building:
Military dictator Augusto Pinochet calls for a referendum to decide his permanence in power in 1988, the leaders of the opposition persuade a young daring advertising executive – René Saavedra – to head their campaign. With limited resources and under the constant scrutiny of the despot’s watchmen, Saavedra and his team conceive of a bold plan to win the election and free their country from oppression.
Here’s the trailer for the film:
The showing is free to the community.
Whitewater’s week begins with beautiful August weather. Our city will enjoy sunny skies with a high near 84. Light south winds will become southwest at 5 to 10 mph in the morning.
On this day in 1812, the young American navy saw victory over a warship of the British navy:
During the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution defeats the British frigate Guerrière in a furious engagement off the coast of Nova Scotia. Witnesses claimed that the British shot merely bounced off the Constitution’s sides, as if the ship were made of iron rather than wood. By the war’s end, “Old Ironsides” destroyed or captured seven more British ships. The success of the USS Constitution against the supposedly invincible Royal Navy provided a tremendous boost in morale for the young American republic.
Margherita Desy describes the 8.19.1812 battle and victory of the Constitution:
What lesson is there in this, for people today, from our ship and her great victory?
I think it’s that one of strong stuff can hold on against others in opposition, no matter how numerous or vaunted they may be. Cognoscenti of that time might have predicted an easy British victory; Constitution proved them wrong more than once.
Puzzability begins a new series this week, from August 19-23, entitled, Silent Partners:
“Can we get a little piece and quiet around here? For each day this week, we started with a word and added the letters SH to the beginning to get a new word. The two-word answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the shorter word followed by the SH word.”
Example:
Hands out portions of green onions
Answer:
Allots shallots
What to Submit:
Submit the phrase, with the SH word second (as “Allots shallots” in the example), for your answer.
Monday, August 19:
Psychiatrist who works at a skating venue
