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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.19.13

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Good morning.

Sunday will be partly sunny with a high of eighty-three, with southeast winds 10 to 15 mph.

In the Washington area, the bug-phobic are having a hard time:

On this day in 1675, legendary explorer Jacques Marquette passes away:

1675 – Fr. Jacques Marquette Dies
Fr. Jacques Marquette (1636-1675) died on this date in 1675 near Ludington, Michigan, at the age of 39. After the famous voyage down the Mississippi that he made in 1673 with Louis Joliet, Marquette vowed to return to the Indians he’d met in Illinois. He became ill during that visit in the spring of 1675 and was en route to Canada when he passed away. His diary of the trip is online in our American Journeys collection.

From Google-a-Day, a bit of history: “What was the charge of the 1807 indictment by the man who was chosen as Vice President on February 17, 1801, by the House of Representatives after thirty-six ballots?”

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.18.13

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Good morning.

We’ll have a partly sunny Saturday, with a high of seventy-seven, in Whitewater.

Dog’s are man’s best friend. but there are limits to their amity. Sometimes their patience runs out, and this is what that looks like –

Today in 2004, a Diamondbacks pitcher does great things at 40:

On this day in 2004, 40-year-old Arizona Diamondbacks lefthander Randy Johnson becomes the oldest pitcher in major league history to throw a perfect game, leading his team to a 2-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves. A “perfect game” is when a pitcher faces a minimum 27 batters, recording 27 outs.

On 5.18.1964, a school boycott in Milwaukee:

1964 – Milwaukee Students Participate in First School Boycott
On this date, the 10th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, students from Milwaukee schools participated in the first boycott of the city’s public schools, a critical moment in civil rights and desegregation movements in Wisconsin. Two months earlier, in March 1964, the NAACP, CORE, and other civil rights organizations formed MUSIC — the Milwaukee United School Integration Committee. Its purpose was to implement mass action to highlight the issue of educational inequality. For two years, sit-ins, picketing, prayer vigils, marches, and boycotts had raised public awareness about segregation but failed to move the school board to action. In December of 1965, Wisconsin civil rights activist and attorney Lloyd Barbee filed a formal desegregation suit in federal court on behalf of 41 black and white children, eventually decided in their favor in 1976. [Source: Rethinking Schools].

Google’s looking for info about oil in Europe: “Who drilled the first European oil wells in 1864?”

Film, Poll

Friday Poll: Summer Blockbusters

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Here’s a poll of films that their studios hope will be summer blockbusters. Perhaps, perhaps not. I’ll guess Star Trek, Man of Steel, and Pacific Rim will be huge. What do you think (and what else is on the horizon that I’ve missed)?

Poll (multiple answers possible) with trailers below —


Star Trek: Into Darkness

Lone Ranger

Man of Steel

World War Z

Pacific Rim

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.17.13

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Good morning.

Friday brings showers and thunderstorms to Whitewater, with a high of seventy. The end of the week offers 14h 42m of sunlight, 15h 48m of daylight, a moon in its first quarter, and two minutes more light tomorrow.

It’s the anniversary, from 1954, of the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Fifty-eight years later, America’s highest court set aside at last a separate but equal doctrine as applied to public schools.

On May 17, 1673, a great adventure begins:

1673 – Jolliet and Marquette Expedition Gets Underway
On this date Louis Jolliet, Father Jacques Marquette, and five French voyageurs departed from the mission of St. Ignace, at the head of Lake Michigan, to reconnoitre the Mississippi River. The party traveled in two canoes throughout the summer of 1673, traveling across Wisconsin, down the Mississippi to the Arkansas River, and back again. [Source: Historic Diaries: Marquette & Joliet, 1673]

Google-a-Day has a question of architecture: “The north end of what footbridge is very near the magnificent baroque cathedral that is famous for the dome added by restorer Christopher Wren?”

Freedom of Speech, Tyranny

‘A Long Ride Toward a New China’

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Looking for inspiration? Chinese blogger Zhang Shihe, writing under the pseudonym ‘Tiger Temple,’ defies an oppressive state to report on the hardships and corruption of rural life in China. It’s an understatement to say that he goes to extraordinary lengths – quite literally – to tell others’ stories and reveal injustices done to them. There is no American blogger who has a task, fortunately for our society, even remotely so difficult or commendable:

Every summer, the 59-year-old Chinese blogger Zhang Shihe rides his bicycle thousands of miles to the plateaus, deserts and hinterlands of North Central China. In this Op-Doc video, we meet Mr. Zhang, known to his many followers online as “Tiger Temple,” as he goes to great lengths to document the stories of struggling rural villagers whose voices are seldom heard in China’s state-monitored media.

In a country with one of the most sophisticated media and Internet censorship systems, Mr. Zhang and other bloggers must exercise great caution when writing about politically sensitive content — often skirting the label “citizen reporter.”

…. In 2010, he was taken by the police and put under house arrest for 10 days, during the country’s annual parliamentary meetings. News spread quickly. That day he received more than 2,000 text messages — good wishes poured in from concerned friends and readers who supported his efforts to help flooded villagers, defrauded farmers and the Beijing homeless. On this day, he said, he “felt the true power of the Internet.”

In 2012, Mr. Zhang was forced by the police to pack up his Beijing apartment and leave the city indefinitely. He now lives and blogs in the city of Xi’an with his elderly mother. As the summer months near, he prepares to set off on his seventh year of grueling bicycle trips deep into the countryside to continue his reporting.

Cross-posted at Daily Adams.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.16.13

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Good morning.

It’s a beautiful day ahead for the Whippet City: a high of seventy-nine, sunny skies, and calm, southeast winds of 5 mph.

On this day in 1929, the first Academy Awards are given:


myfilm-gr

…the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out its first awards, at a dinner party for around 250 people held in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California.

The brainchild of Louis B. Mayer, head of the powerful MGM film studio, the Academy was organized in May 1927 as a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and improvement of the film industry. Its first president and the host of the May 1929 ceremony was the actor Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Unlike today, the winners of the first Oscars–as the coveted gold-plated statuettes later became known–were announced before the awards ceremony itself.

At the time of the first Oscar ceremony, sound had just been introduced into film. The Warner Bros. movie The Jazz Singer–one of the first “talkies”–was not allowed to compete for Best Picture because the Academy decided it was unfair to let movies with sound compete with silent films. The first official Best Picture winner (and the only silent film to win Best Picture) was Wings, directed by William Wellman. The most expensive movie of its time, with a budget of $2 million, the movie told the story of two World War I pilots who fall for the same woman. Another film, F.W. Murnau’s epic Sunrise, was considered a dual winner for the best film of the year. German actor Emil Jannings won the Best Actor honor for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh, while 22-year-old Janet Gaynor was the only female winner. After receiving three out of the five Best Actress nods, she won for all three roles, in Seventh Heaven, Street Angel and Sunrise.

On this day in 1913, Woody Herman is born in Milwaukee:

1913 – Big Band Leader Woody Herman Born
On this date Woody Herman was born in Milwaukee. A child prodigy, Herman sang and tap-danced in local clubs before touring as a singer on the vaudeville circuit. He played in various dance bands throughout the 20s and 30s and by 1944 was leading a band eventually known as the First Herd. In 1946, the band played an acclaimed concert at Carnegie Hall but disbanded at the end of the year. The following year, Herman returned to performing with the Second Herd that included a powerful saxophone section comprised of Herbie Steward, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and Serge Chaloff. He died in 1987. [Source: WoodyHerman.com].

Here’s Pontieo:

Woody Herman – Pontieo from Henry Cooper on Vimeo.

It’s a sports question from Google: “The creator of the first fantasy baseball league draft kept track of the players by hand and pulled statistics from what sports magazine?” more >>

Local Government, Open Government, Press, Public Records

Biting the Hand That Fed Him

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Janesville City Manager Eric Levitt has decamped to Simi Valley, California. Readers will recall that Mr. Levitt touted the supposed benefits of a Generac-supporting ‘Innovation Express’ bus costing hundreds of thousands in public money. He kindly visited Whitewater last budget season to ask Whitewater taxpayers to kick in for a private company’s needs. (See, Whitewater’s Common Council Session of 11.20.12: 25 Questions about the Generac Bus.)

Overall, I’d say the press in Janesville handled Levitt gently, despite that city’s chronic sluggishness.

(Perhaps Mr. Levitt got out just in time: one reads that the Pulitzer-prize winning Washington Post reporter Amy Goldstein’s writing a book about ongoing economic frustration in Janesville. Note to Whitewater City Manager Clapper: (1) you won’t have Levitt to beg for more taxpayer money for the bus come this fall, but (2) you probably wouldn’t benefit from his help at this point, anyway.)

Yet, for all the supportive treatment Levitt received, he saw no need to reciprocate – he was willing to conceal from the press the circumstances of the departure of Janesville’s Economic Director:

JANESVILLE — Vic Grassman, Janesville’s former economic director who resigned March 15, was given the choice to resign or be fired, according to records recently received by The Gazette.

Former City Manager Eric Levitt said in March that Grassman resigned for personal reasons. Grassman is being paid through July 1.

The Gazette filed an open records request with the city asking for records pertaining to Grassman’s resignation. The records released by the city show the parties agreed Grassman would resign and be put on administrative leave, be paid through July 1 and be covered by the city’s insurance through July 31. The city also agreed not to fight Grassman receiving unemployment after that.

Grassman was hired in 2009. His salary was $96,913.

A letter Grassman gave to The Gazette, however, shows he was given the choice to resign or be fired….

Levitt, reached before he left for his new job in Simi Valley, Calif., said he did not release the termination letter to The Gazette because he viewed it as a draft, which is exempt under the Wisconsin Open Record Law.

An attorney for the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, however, said the letter could not be called a draft because it was distributed, in this case to Grassman. The attorney said it was his opinion the city should have released the letter to the newspaper.

Janesville City Manager Levitt received – and surely wanted – a positive description in the press. When the press wanted — and surely deserved under the law — an honest answer to a public records request, Eric Levitt didn’t reciprocate half so obligingly.