Fear not the modern! Here’s Ella Fitzgerald singing Anything Goes. The Cole Porter 1934 song’s superficially a lament about permissive modern ways, but the playfulness of the song (and in this rendition in Miss Fitzgerald’s voice) belies that starched view.
We survived the new of ’34, ’64, and ’94 – we’ll survive the new of ’24, too.
Enjoy.
Good morning.
Whitewater’s Monday will be cloudy, but mild, with a high of sixty-five. I’m sometimes asked why I lead with a simple weather prediction (from the National Weather Service). There are two reasons.
First, weather’s worth considering as the backdrop to the day, so to speak. For many, in this agricultural state, it’s directly and immediately important to their livelihood. For many more, it’s an unalterable truth beyond our reach: No matter what we do, or hope to do, during a day, the weather goes on all around and beyond our undertakings.
Second, though, thinking about the weather is a holdover from a comparison between the long-range forecasts of the Farmers’ Almanac and the more supple forecasting of the National Weather Service. Although one typically thinks of government agencies as more rigid and less supple than private actors, that’s not true in this case: the NWS can adjust in a way that a year-in-advance plan of the FA obviously cannot. Flexible typically wins, and that’s true of the NWS over the FA.
In 1864, quick and practical thinking saved the day for the a Union fleet, thanks to Joseph Bailey:
1864 – Joseph Bailey Saves Union Fleet
On this date Joseph Bailey began to direct the men of six regiments, including the 23rd Wisconsin, in a dramatic attempt to save the heart of the Union fleet during the Civil War. Bailey, who was from Wisconsin Dells and an experienced lumberjack, served as an engineer in the 4th Wisconsin Cavalry. In a doomed campaign against the Confederates on the Red River in Louisiana, Union warships found themselves trapped by low water and the rocky river bed. As Confederate soldiers approached, Bailey employed water control techniques used by loggers to construct a series of dams that successfully narrowed the river, raised the water level by six feet, and provided enough surge to free the trapped fleet of gunboats. For his role in this rescue, Bailey was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. He also received a Tiffany punch bowl from his fellow officers. [Wisconsin Lore and Legend, pg. 18.]
Source: Wisconsin Historical Society.
Google’s had lots of unusual daily puzzles, but none yet so odd as this one, I think: “After in utero cannibalization, what’s the maximum number of pups born at one time to the only shark that swims to the surface to gulp air for buoyancy?”
26 Apr @DailyAdams
So maybe these scandals can get worse: Brazilian prostitute plans to sue US Embassy http://bit.ly/JH8eb0
Retweeted by FREEWHITEWATER
25 Apr @dailywisconsin
Dem candidates forum: older man walks aisles, asks if anyone wants La Follette button – It’s Doug La Follette himself!
Retweeted by FREEWHITEWATER
25 Apr @dailywisconsin
Full house at UW Whitewater Dem candidates forum for all 4 candidates Barrett Falk Vinehout La Follette #wirecall
Retweeted by FREEWHITEWATER
25 Apr @bensommer
“Government is not reason or persuasion – government is force” ~G Washington
Retweeted by FREEWHITEWATER
24 Apr @FREEWHITEWATER
@DailyAdams: And up is down @reason: Former Drug Czar Advisor Paul Chabot: Alcohol Prohibition “Actually Worked” http://ow.ly/1j3O5f
24 Apr @DailyAdams
RT @mercatus: Economic news has been so bad for so long that we now regard mediocre news as good: http://bit.ly/I6QJyz
Retweeted by FREEWHITEWATER
24 Apr @FREEWHITEWATER
50th out of 50: WI posts largest percentage job loss in U.S. over past year http://JSOnline.com http://bit.ly/I8LqQZ
24 Apr @DailyAdams
The rarity of effective multitasking: What Cocktail Parties Teach Us http://on.wsj.com/JDv2pc
Retweeted by FREEWHITEWATER
23 Apr @FREEWHITEWATER
The Landmarks Commission’s Sensible Proposals for Transparency & Best Practices « FREE WHITEWATER http://bit.ly/I9zFc5
22 Apr @FREEWHITEWATER
Falk’s done: Labor group’s pro-Falk TV ads vanish – JSOnline http://bit.ly/JYZIxZ [Adams, 4.29 – but maybe not, as there’s now a subsequent, $1 million-dollar ad buy for her in her battle w/ Barrett for the nomination.]
A history of Smokey Bear is available at Wikipedia.
The work of this beautiful city is the work of many thousands. This has always been true, and it will always be true.
I’m reminded today of the words of Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn to Obi-Wan Kenobi:
Obi-Wan Kenobi: I have a bad feeling about this.
Qui-Gon Jinn: I don’t sense anything.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: It’s not about the mission, Master. It’s something… elsewhere. Elusive.
Qui-Gon Jinn: Don’t center on your anxieties, Obi-Wan. Keep your concentration here and now, where it belongs.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: But Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future.
Qui-Gon Jinn: But not at the expense of the moment. Be mindful of the living Force, young Padawan.
Sound, indeed.
Libertarianism.org offers a series of videos entitled, The Libertarian View: Why are you a libertarian?
In the recording embedded below, John Tomasi of Brown answers why he’s a libertarian (and so holds a view that millions of other Americans hold). Tomasi is the author of the recent Free Market Fairness (2012).
He ends his remarks by saying that libertarians should talk about poverty – and right Tomasi is. We can and should consider poverty, and advocate effective, liberty-oriented solutions to that dificult but remediable condition. Others may shun the topic, but we need not adopt their approach — we should wade into this discussion, swimming to the farthest points.
Posted originally on 4.27.12 at Daily Adams.
Last Sunday, at the Midwest Horse Fair in Madison, a woman was recorded hitting a mare with a wiffle bat to compel the horse to enter a trailer. The video’s now on the web, and it’s prompted this debate: was the trainer’s technique animal abuse, or a reasonable method of persuasion?
A news clip on the incident:
I don’t own horses, but I believe that I could craft an argument either way: that the conduct was excessive. or that the wiffle bat was not much different from other, conventional and acceptable methods of persuading horses. I simply don’t know which would be the sounder argument. One could craft many alternative and even contradictory positions, but many alternative and even contradictory positions would not be equally reasonable.
Easiest answer for now: at the very least, the trainer was foolish to use a wiffle bat, and should have relied only on conventional tools of her trade. (This answer doesn’t settle the question of abuse, but the controversy is surely more pronounced because she used an odd implement.)
What do you think?
Good morning.
Whitewater’s week ends with a mostly sunny day, and a high of fifty-three.
Google’s daily puzzle is one that foodies may know: “What material fuses with lime and soda to create an item on your dinner table that’s considered to be an amorphous solid?”
From nearby Minnesota, a lovely display of the northern lights — enjoy —
Let’s assume that a city decides to give thousands (and that the state and federal government give tens of thousands more) in taxpayer funds to subsidize a multi-billion-dollar corporation’s bus line. It’s a strong drink of crony capitalism, of course, and someone might even say as much. (See, for example, A Local Flavor of Crony Capitalism.)
Still, it could be worse: a city official might describe that sudsidized, gift-to-one-big-corporation in a ridiculous way, as something it’s not.
It is worse, as one sees when one reads how Whitewater’s city manager described the new bus:
Innovation Express Commuter Bus Service Coming to Whitewater Beginning April 29th
The commuter bus service that will be coming to Whitewater from Janesville and Milton is scheduled to begin on Monday, April 29th. The new service, which has been christened “The Innovation Express” will primarily serve Generac Power System employees but will be available to the general public as well.
The Innovation Express will depart Janesville at 5:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 9:00 p.m. daily, Monday through Friday and will also operate on Sunday evening. The bus will drop off and pick up riders in Whitewater at four stops: 1) in front of the Municipal Center on Whitewater Street; 2) Whitewater Innovation Center; 3) on Enterprise Boulevard in front of Generac Power Systems; and 4) in front of the UW-Whitewater Visitor’s Center on Starin Road. Bus stop signs will be installed next week.
There you have it: the Innovation Express.
The Problem.
It’s unconvincing to call a bus tailored to generator-maker Generac Power Systems an Innovation Express because
1. the taxpayer-funded bus really serves not the Innovation Center, but an already-flush manufacturer outside the Innovation Center and Tech Park,
2. there are unemployed people in Whitewater who are either overlooked or in Generac’s estimation not good enough for their employ,
3. the name reminds people that, despite bureaucrats’ endless claims that Whitewater is the ‘center of opportunity’ – with skills worthy of a government-funded tech park — the city somehow has to bus workers in from other places, and
4. Whitewater’s own city manager insisted this bus was for Generac, in print, in interviews, and in an open council session.
It’s as though, if the Generac bus stopped at a tattoo parlor, it would be called the Ink Express, or if at a hotel the Holiday Inn Express.
It’s still the Generac bus.
Really, the bus doesn’t need a name at all — it would have been better to say nothing than call it something inapt and foolish.
Naming it doesn’t change what it is, but it does show how little the name’s originator must think of people, to assume that a name transforms a poor idea into a good one.
Good morning.
Whitewater looks forward to a mostly sunny day with a high of fifty-five.
This day in 1986, as the New York Times recalls, marked “the world’s worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire in the No. 4 reactor sent radioactivity into the atmosphere; at least 31 Soviets died immediately.”
The accident was deadly and memorable, and the world may yet face others, but we have the comfort of knowing that no one, in good times or bad, will ever again have the unfortunate designation of Soviet. There one finds an assurance political rather than technological.
Google offers a geologist’s question for its daily puzzle: “Does the gemstone that’s composed of only one chemical element have a high or low refractive index?”
Look past our world, to the composition and nature of another, and Saturn will astound with images from the European Space Agency. Some of the space agency’s latest ‘Spectacular photos capture the bizarre workings of Saturn’s F ring (+video).’
Here’s that video — enjoy —
