Good morning.
Black Friday in Whitewater will be a day of gradual clearing, with a high of thirty-two.
On this day in 1943, the United States took the Tarawa and Makin atolls from the Japanese.
How fast can a sailboat go? Really fast. An Anglo-Australian sailboat broke 100 KMH in an amazing nautical-mile run:
Google’s daily puzzle asks a question on children’s literature: “What does Charlotte write as a message to the farmer to encourage him to let the runt Wilbur live?”
From the White House website:
THANKSGIVING DAY, 2012
– – – – – – –
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
On Thanksgiving Day, Americans everywhere gather with family and friends to recount the joys and blessings of the past year. This day is a time to take stock of the fortune we have known and the kindnesses we have shared, grateful for the God-given bounty that enriches our lives. As many pause to lend a hand to those in need, we are also reminded of the indelible spirit of compassion and mutual responsibility that has distinguished our Nation since its earliest days.
Many Thanksgivings have offered opportunities to celebrate community during times of hardship. When the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony gave thanks for a bountiful harvest nearly four centuries ago, they enjoyed the fruits of their labor with the Wampanoag tribe — a people who had shared vital knowledge of the land in the difficult months before. When President George Washington marked our democracy’s first Thanksgiving, he prayed to our Creator for peace, union, and plenty through the trials that would surely come. And when our Nation was torn by bitterness and civil war, President Abraham Lincoln reminded us that we were, at heart, one Nation, sharing a bond as Americans that could bend but would not break. Those expressions of unity still echo today, whether in the contributions that generations of Native Americans have made to our country, the Union our forebears fought so hard to preserve, or the providence that draws our families together this season.
As we reflect on our proud heritage, let us also give thanks to those who honor it by giving back. This Thanksgiving, thousands of our men and women in uniform will sit down for a meal far from their loved ones and the comforts of home. We honor their service and sacrifice. We also show our appreciation to Americans who are serving in their communities, ensuring their neighbors have a hot meal and a place to stay. Their actions reflect our age-old belief that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, and they affirm once more that we are a people who draw our deepest strength not from might or wealth, but from our bonds to each other.
On Thanksgiving Day, individuals from all walks of life come together to celebrate this most American tradition, grateful for the blessings of family, community, and country. Let us spend this day by lifting up those we love, mindful of the grace bestowed upon us by God and by all who have made our lives richer with their presence.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 22, 2012, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage the people of the United States to join together — whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place of fellowship for friends and neighbors — and give thanks for all we have received in the past year, express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own, and share our bounty with others.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.
BARACK OBAMA
Good morning.
Thanksgiving in Whitewater will be mild, with a high of sixty-two, and a slight chance of showers in the afternoon. The day will breezy, with south winds at 10 to 20 MPH, and gusts up to 40 MPH.
On this day in 1963, Pres, Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a Dallas motorcade.
The 86th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade airs live on NBC this morning. THey’ve some new floats this year that are the subject of an NBC video report:
Google’s daily puzzle asks a science question: “What is the loudest thing in the ocean, which, at 246dB in water, is capable of whiting out a submarine’s SONAR?”
Most of Tuesday’s 11.20.12 Common Council session concerned the 2013 municipal budget, and of that, a half hour’s discussion addressed whether to give Generac Power Systems, a thriving corporation, ten-thousand dollars to bus its workers to and from other cities. That’s not all, of course: one heard the company-specific program touted as the hope for ‘regionalization,’ with a new and ‘expanded’ schedule.
There were two questions about the bus last night: how Council would decide on the question of 2013 bus funding, and just as importantly what reasoned, sound basis would proponents of funding offer for their request?
In this matter, the vote went 3-2 in favor of Whitewater’s 2013 taxpayer funding of $10,000 for the bus. A close vote, but in favor: votes may go one way or another, for any number of reasons. That’s hardly surprising. Although I’ve argued against funding, there was another aspect of the meeting even more important than the outcome.
Just as important as advancing a proposal is the offering of sound arguments on its behalf.
It’s an understatement to say that the proponents of this proposal, including City Manager Clapper, and those from Generac, from public positions in Janesville, from the university administration, or from the Innovation Center produced only speculative, wishful arguments on behalf of using public money for the bus proposal.
I’ll review those light arguments, listing questions about them, under the name of the proponent who offered them.
NOTE: I had promised that I’d post remarks from Generac’s CEO, Aaron Jagdfeld, if he spoke in favor. Of course, he didn’t attend, but sent along a mid-level representative. So, we’ve not had the pleasure of his presentation. I do have a question about Jagdfeld and Whitewater, however, that I’ll post below.
Cameron Clapper, Whitewater City Manager
1. What’s the expiration date on a pilot program? By the city manager’s account, this program was a ‘pilot’ effort. Now we have had a request for more time, another year, to expand the program, to give it another chance, etc. 2012 was supposed to be the test year; now it’s 2012 and 2013. Eight months, now twenty months – will be it thirty-two months’ time requested at next year’s budget?
2. Why didn’t the city manager post supporting ridership information on the program within the Common Council packet for this meeting? By his own account, he worked with city staff and Janesville’s transportation director on these figures. If they’ve been thoroughly reviewed at public expense, why should the public not see them?
Whitewater has a Municipal Transparency Ordinance at Chapter 2.62 of her Municipal Code. Consider 2.62.020(c):
All council, committee, commission and board packet materials, that can be reasonably scanned, shall be posted online twenty-four hours in advance of the meeting. The city shall provide an electronic notification feed alert, indicating that new information is available regarding an upcoming council, committee, commission or board meeting, to any party that has subscribed to the feed (requested notice from the city of the updated information).
There are three possibilities: (1) no one in the municipal administration thought to do what our ordinance requires, (2) no one in the municipal administration cared what our ordinance requires, or (3) this was all done at the last minute (and so the city manager’s claim of careful public-officials’ review is unpersuasive).
Keeping this information out of the packet keeps it from public review.
3. Why were all the proponents speaking for this plan from big institutions? There was not a single ordinary resident among them. Could the city manager not find time to talk to ordinary people, and persuade at least one to attend? It’s the Municipal Building, not the Pentagon; there would have been time.
4. When the city manager mentioned that staff is recommending this project, how much time did they spend on a bus that almost exclusively benefits $2.3 billion-dollar Generac? Wouldn’t that time have been better spent on local merchants?
Generac’s Representative
5. Where was Aaron Jagdfeld, CEO of cash-rich Generac Power Systems on Thursday, 11.15.12? Whitewater’s city manager certainly knows that although Jagdfeld wouldn’t attend any of our council meetings, he did speak on Thursday to the Walworth County Economic Development Alliance on – wait for it — the need for the federal government to “just decide what the rules are…”
So Generac’s mid-level representative can’t deliver a certain dollar commitment at the meeting, Janesville’s transit director can’t conclusively offer how many are now riding the bus, can’t say how many might really want the bus, isn’t sure of the schedule for expanded routes, doesn’t know where the bus would stop, but knows just how much Whitewater should ‘donate.’
That company’s CEO’s plea for specificity doesn’t extend to the details of the public program from which his private company disproportionately benefits.
6. If Generac’s expanding, why can’t it hire more in Whitewater?
7. If Generac’s not in the bus business — as its representative says — why should the public be in the generator business? Most people are not in that line of work, but maybe Generac could send some products their way at its expense.
This is a company that wants others to pay its way.
8. What’s Generac’s commitment? For 2012, it was only about a fifth of the total cost of the program. For 2013, we heard that Generac was in the middle of its budget process right now and so not finished with 2013 figures. They expect taxpayers to budget now, but they’re not ready.
Later in the session, a council member said that this was the way all budget processes work, by way of exonerating Generac.
Does anyone think Generac can’t make a commitment now? Each day, of each week, of each month, Generac pays employees, pays vendors, makes deals, signs contracts, and purchases goods and services.
On Tuesday, 11.20.12, though, we were supposed to believe that they can’t yet offer a definite contribution to their own project.
It’s not a persuasive claim.
Janesville’s City Manager, Eric Levitt
9. These are tight times, as Janesville City Manger Levitt notes. Of all the projects that Whitewater might fund, why would he think this one matters more than public safety, libraries, food pantries, small businesses, or repairs to dilapidated structures? He wants this, of course: but why does it matter more than these other needs? He’s not said, and probably can’t say.
10. Does Levitt really think the Generac’s bus is called an ‘Innovation Express’ because this project is an innovation? I doubt he’s the first public official who’s angled for taxpayer money to push bus transit regionally. By his own director of transportation’s admission, public transit doesn’t make money, and this scheme won’t make money. How’s that innovation? Seems more like yesterday’s failed plan.
11. After months and over a hundred-thousand dollars, why should anyone be convinced that more money is needed for something that is – in his own words only “somewhat successful?”
12. What’s it mean when City Manager Levitt said he wanted to leverage Whitewater’s public money, and others’ public money, so that his city can benefit from $245,000 in state money? It says that he thinks that it’s fine for one city to spend public money that benefits a private company so that other taxpayers will spend more money for his city.
This isn’t public money to create private development – it’s really taxpayers’ money to get more taxpayers’ money.
This isn’t giving or getting, but officials taking. They’re so in the habit of taking for their purposes that they don’t think of it as taking anymore – it’s ‘leveraging.’
13. Isn’t most job growth small business growth? It’s a rhetorical question. No matter how important Levitt insists Generac is, most job growth comes from much smaller companies. They’ll struggle on Small Business Saturday (11.24.12) under taxes to pay for a bus that won’t come to their doors.
Janesville’s Transportation Director, Dave Mumma.
14. Where’s the survey study that Mumma gave to City Manager Clapper? As with the ridership numbers (See Question 2, above), it’s not online in the city packet.
It’s a 2009 study of students at the university, but one can’t see it. If proponents believe in the strength of their case, why won’t they show their work and underlying reports?
15. If one has had over a hundred thousand in 2012 funding, and eight months, why no new surveys of needs? Why stick with a 2009 student-only survey?
16. Of those students surveyed in the 2009, how many would actually pay for the service? Didn’t students in a campus referendum actually reject paying for it through their fees? (They did reject that approach.)
17. By Mumma’s own admission, neither the 2009 survey nor others have non-campus respondents. Why is that? Isn’t it just because it’s easier to survey people on a campus, and the survey took the easy way out by assessing needs for only a part of our whole community?
18. When one says that it’s students who are the most “homogeneous group who might use public transit,” why would anyone think this is a job-creating program?
19. Mumma declared that this is an opportunity to ask, “Does this concept work?” Wasn’t that opportunity present during the last eight months?
20. If there’s not a percentage ‘per se’ for matching the state’s strap [Supplemental Transit Rural Assistance Program] grant, why did Mumma say that the state’s taxpayers’ fund 80% of the operating deficit of the program? It patently is a percentage.
Mumma himself admits that a reduction in non-state funding would mean that “so yeah, the amount that we would get from strap would be proportionately less.” Oh, brother.
21. Why doesn’t Janesville Transportation Director Mumma know information on “the difference between Whitewater and Milton people and there’s different fares depending on how far you ride,” etc.? Unprepared, ill-informed shouldn’t be the result of decades on the public payroll.
22. Why does Mumma calculate 2013 ridership projections by a dollar amount of the estimated farebox receipts? It’s an absurdity: to estimate how many riders he’ll have, Mumma takes estimated farebox contributions, and divides it by an estimated fare.
But how much does he think those farebox contributions will be? Presumably he’s had to estimate – ready? – how many people will be riding. So he gets ridership from farebox estimates, but he gets farebox estimates from…well, from what he knows farebox contributions have to be after all other money is received from state, local sources, etc.
He doesn’t have an independent, credible ridership estimate for 2013.
Mumma actually say that, “I’m guessing that in order to generate the $54,000 in revenue we’re going to have somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty to twenty-five thousand passengers.”
It’s as though one said: “I want to make a thousand dollars on cupcakes, at $2.00 each, so I just positively, absolutely know that I will sell 500 of them.” Customers and actual sales be damned: the figures themselves prove you’ll make those sales.
There’s you’re innovative thinking behind the Innovation Express.
23. If Mumma was unprepared last week – and he was – why couldn’t he give more informed answers this week? It’s also a rhetorical question.
24. How many new bus stops might there be? Where might these new stops be situated? No idea.
There were additional remarks from proponents Jeff Arnold, Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs at the university and Robert Young, Director of the Innovation Center.
Young praised this as a successful collaborative venture, along the lines of the Innovation Center. This bus project benefits one big company, has no sound estimates for future ridership, absurdly estimates ridership based on fare estimates after a state grant, with no idea where new stops will be, no idea when new times will be, has had no 2012 contributions from the City of Milton despite Milton’s heavier 2012 use of the bus, all without giving the community a change to look at supposedly supporting documents in the 11.20.12 council packet, and is about ‘taking a chance’ despite greater needs elsewhere. more >>
Last evening, 11.20.12, Whitewater’s Common Council session began with a moment of silence in memory of longtime Council member Marilyn Kienbaum. It was a fitting tribute to someone who represented and cared for this community for so very long.
Not long thereafter, Council saw the swearing in Whitewater City Manager Clapper.
The evening’s specific agenda thus began free of politics. It seemed to me best to acknowledge these actions apart from the routine fiscal policy of the city.
Next: Questions about Generac’s Bus.
Good morning.
It’s a Wednesday of early fog, clearing with a high of fifty-eight, for Whitewater.
On this day in 1877, the first of Thomas Edison’s principal inventions:
The American inventor announces his invention of the phonograph, a way to record and play back sound.
Edison stumbled on one of his great inventions–the phonograph–while working on a way to record telephone communication at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. His work led him to experiment with a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder, which, to his surprise, played back the short song he had recorded, “MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB”. Public demonstrations of the phonograph made the Yankee inventor world famous, and he was dubbed the “Wizard of Menlo Park.”
Edison set aside this invention in 1878 to work on the incandescent light bulb, and other inventors moved forward to improve on the phonograph. In 1887, Edison resumed work on the device, using the wax-cylinder technique developed by Charles Tainter. Although initially used as a dictating machine, the phonograph proved to be a popular tool for entertainment, and in 1906 Edison unveiled a series of musical and theatrical selections to the public through his National Phonograph Company. Continuing to improve on models and cylinders over the years, the Edison Disc Phonograph debuted in 1912 with the aim of competing in the popular record market. Edison’s discs offered superior sound quality but were not compatible with other popular disc players.
During the 1920s, the early record business suffered with the growth of radio, and in 1929 recording production at Edison ceased forever. Edison, who acquired an astounding 1,093 patents in his 84 years, died in 1931.
From Google’s daily puzzle, a question about science fiction: “What does Douglas Adams cite as the reason for people’s unhappiness in the preface to his 1979 absurdist novel?”
Two days’ time until Thanksgiving, but perhaps you’ve not had the time (or a spouse who made the time you might have) to make arrangements. All is not lost; on the contrary, Rachel Stearns and the foodies at Bon Appetit have your back.
Stearns asks, Do You Know Where Your Turkey Is? —
It’s a multiple-choice question:
a) yes b) still in the freezer c) still in the grocery store’s freezer d) noIf you chose a), then kudos, you’re on the right track. If you chose b, c, or d, you’ve come to the right place for help. BA’s last-minute Thanksgiving guide has everything you need to pull off a veritable feast–even if you start prepping just two hours before the in-laws arrive.
Stearns’s post at the magazine’s website has links for info on drinks, iPhone apps for cooking tips (of course), with an easy-but-proper turkey recipe, including salad, sauté, and dessert ideas.
Enjoy.
Also posted at Daily Adams.
Good morning.
Patchy fog for Whitewater’s morning will give way to a mostly cloudy day with a high of fifty-five. We’ll have 9h, 33m of sunlight, and 10h, 35m of daylight.
Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM, with the principal business of the meeting being a public hearing on the 2013 municipal budget.
On this day in 1945, two dozen Nazi leaders went on trial in Nuremberg for crimes against humanity:
The entire day was devoted to the reading of the lengthy charges and bills of particulars to which the defendants will plead tomorrow. Dramatic despite their familiarity and inevitable repetition, these documents reviewed the whole bloody annals of World War II, reviving for many auditors the stunned horror with which the peaceful nations reacted to the news of German atrocities. Statistics attested to the facts and staggering totals were piled up to challenge the defendants’ future declarations of innocence.
Lord Justice Lawrence of Britain, who will preside for the duration of the trial, held court a half hour beyond the announced closing time of 4:30 to complete the text of the voluminous indictment. The actual presentation of evidence is expected to begin tomorrow morning.
On this day in 1859, a happy first for Wisconsin:
1859 – First Baseball Game in Milwaukee
An impromptu game of base ball , as it was spelled in the early years, was played by two teams of seven at the Milwaukee Fair Ground. The game was organized by Rufus King, publisher of the Milwaukee Sentinel, and is believed to have been the first baseball game played in Milwaukee. In spite of cold weather, two more games were played in December, and by April 1860 the Milwaukee Base Ball Club was organized. View early baseball photographs at Wisconsin Historical Images, and read about baseball’s first decades in Wisconsin at Turning Points in Wisconsin.
We’ve more tornadoes than we’d like in Wisconsin, of course; in Australia this week, they had a spectacular waterspout, that a videographer recorded for others to see:
Google asks a sports question today: “Apart from Sir Nick Faldo, who is the only other captain of a Ryder Cup team to have been knighted by the Queen of England?” more >>
Marilyn Kienbaum, known throughout our small city for her tireless charitable works, and long tenure of political representation, passed away Saturday evening in the company of her family. She was aged eighty-six.
Words of remembrance, sincerely expressed, are fitting. One could not say we shared the same politics; one should and must say that those differences do not matter. Mrs. Kienbaum was unique among the public figures of this city, and would have been unique in any city, for her powerful combination of public and private concern for others. Even considering the many in Whitewater who have made a cause their own, she was nonpareil.
Born of a generation when the opportunity for women in public life was less than for those far younger, she yet achieved more than others of easier circumstances. Whitewater has had a good share of neighbors who have acted publicly or served privately; she was a happy combination of both.
Her passing is, naturally, a particular loss for her family, to whom I offer my sympathy, and a general loss for our community, that we will bear together.
We may be grateful that we had the kind fortune of Marilyn Kienbaum’s service and charity during our own time.
Here’s a Rosa Maria Colin cover of Monday, Monday. Enjoy.
Good morning.
It’s a cloudy Monday for Whitewater, with a high of fifty-four and a slight chance of afternoon showers.
Whitewater’s Library Board meets tonight at 6 PM.
On this day in 1863, Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address:
On November 19, 1863, at the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most memorable speeches in American history. In just 272 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War.
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought some four months earlier, was the single bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Over the course of three days, more than 45,000 men were killed, injured, captured or went missing. The battle also proved to be the turning point of the war: General Robert E. Lee’s defeat and retreat from Gettysburg marked the last Confederate invasion of Northern territory and the beginning of the Southern army’s ultimate decline.
Charged by Pennsylvania’s governor, Andrew Curtin, to care for the Gettysburg dead, an attorney named David Wills bought 17 acres of pasture to turn into a cemetery for the more than 7,500 who fell in battle. Wills invited Edward Everett, one of the most famous orators of the day, to deliver a speech at the cemetery’s dedication. Almost as an afterthought, Wills also sent a letter to Lincoln—just two weeks before the ceremony—requesting “a few appropriate remarks” to consecrate the grounds.
At the dedication, the crowd listened for two hours to Everett before Lincoln spoke. Lincoln’s address lasted just two or three minutes. The speech reflected his redefined belief that the Civil War was not just a fight to save the Union, but a struggle for freedom and equality for all, an idea Lincoln had not championed in the years leading up to the war. This was his stirring conclusion: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Reception of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was initially mixed, divided strictly along partisan lines. Nevertheless, the “little speech,” as he later called it, is thought by many today to be the most eloquent articulation of the democratic vision ever written.
CNN offers a story about an odd experience: a crazed goat that chased a paperboy up a tree. Really:
Google’s daily puzzle asks a question about literature: “In the 2000 translation of the oldest piece of English literature, who is the queen that is married to the Danish “ring-giver”?” more >>
http://storify.com/DailyAdams/recent-tweets-11-11-to-11-17
Good morning.
Whitewater’s Sunday will be mild, with a high of fifty-six, and sunny.
On this day in 1863, Pres. Lincoln goes to Gettysburg:
…President Abraham Lincoln boards a train for Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to deliver a short speech at the dedication of a cemetery of soldiers killed during the battle there on July 1 to July 3, 1863. The address Lincoln gave in Gettysburg became one of the most famous speeches in American history.
Lincoln had given much thought to what he wanted to say at Gettysburg, but nearly missed his chance to say it. Shortly before the trip, Lincoln’s son, Tad, became ill with a fever. The president and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln were no strangers to juvenile illness: They had already lost two sons to disease. Prone to fits of hysteria, Mary Lincoln panicked when her husband prepared to leave. However, Lincoln felt the opportunity to speak at Gettysburg and present his defense of the war was too important to miss, so he boarded a train and headed to Pennsylvania.
Despite his son’s illness, Lincoln was in good spirits during the journey. He was accompanied by an entourage that included Secretary of State William Seward, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, Interior Secretary John Usher, Lincoln’s personal secretaries John Hay and John Nicolay, several members of the diplomat corps, some foreign visitors, a Marine band, and a military escort.
When Lincoln arrived in Gettysburg, he was handed a telegram that lifted his spirits: Tad was feeling much better. Lincoln enjoyed an evening dinner and a serenade by the Fifth New York Artillery Band before he retired to finalize his famous Gettysburg Address.
In Wisconsin history on this day in 1930,
1930 – Beloit Area Home Raided
On this date federal agents and county deputies raided Otto Matschke’s home, north of Beloit, and seized an illegal still and 300 gallons of contraband moonshine. [Source: Janesville Gazette November 19, 1930, p.1]
Google’s daily puzzle asks about a band: “Whom did John Phillips not want in his band, convinced that her size would stand in the way of the group’s success?”
