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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.21.12

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Good morning.

For Whitewater’s Wednesday, it’s a breezy day with a high of eighty-one.

From Google’s daily puzzle, it’s a mix of food and clothing: “I probably didn’t invent the beef fillet baked in puff pastry that shares my name. But I am responsible for an article of clothing. What is it?”

Update, 3.21.12: Turns out another Wired story is almost certainly a fraud: See, Bird-Man’s Resume Doesn’t Check Out: ‘Nobody Knows Him’. The story was improbable, but that doesn’t matter to me – it’s that it’s fake, regardless of likelihood, that matters.

I’m not particularly forgiving of a second shoddy story, so future Wired stories (parent company Conde Nast) are now banned from any site I publish.

I don’t care what they’re about – they will never appear on this site again. Light is forgivable and sometimes a guilty pleasure, but for sloppy-wrong I have no sympathy.

Original text:

If you’ve ever wanted to fly — fly the way birds do — perhaps you might want to talk to Dutch engineer Jarno Smeets.

Video from YouTube now removed – link to so-called ‘project website’ also removed.

Education, School District

Spanish, French, Mandarin, Brazilian Portuguese, &c.

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It shouldn’t be odd that people speak more than one language. Many who arrived here, and all who were originally here, spoke a language other than English.

We’ve a multicultural community, and beyond it trade with all the world, yet use of other languages seems odd to us.

I remember being initially surprised when former District Administrator Suzanne Zentner encouraged Mandarin. I thought at the time that Spanish would have been the more practical choice (to her credit, Zentner also began listening sessions in Spanish).

But my early reaction was narrow: Zentner’s goals were ambitious ones, worthy American ambitions. Why should we each not manage a few languages well? We are a people of great accomplishment in science, technology, medicine, law, the arts: just about every field of study has Americans among its most proficient.

If we can build astonishing machines – and we can – we should be able to master languages equally remarkable to our physical creations.

But we don’t try, and we settle for English only.

In my own case, I have French, and am studying Brazilian Portuguese. That’s my version of Zentner’s interest in Mandarin: a bet on something for the new century, and an intellectual challenge, too.

God knows that I have tried to learn Spanish, but with only mediocre results. I cannot explain why French seems easy yet Spanish so difficult, but it’s a quirk I’ve yet to overcome.

(It’s not from fluency in Spanish, but as a recognition of Whitewater’s demographics, that I think the city should embrace its multicultural opportunities.)

There is no intellectual reason that students in our schools couldn’t be genuinely proficient in both English and one other language. Looking at it as too odd or too hard sells this community short, and imposes a cultural impediment to genuine intellectual accomplishment.

That’s deeply unfortunate, as both intellect and cultural benefit from fluency in other languages.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.20.12

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Good morning.

Whitewater’s Tuesday will be a mostly sunny day, with a high of eighty-one.

The city’s Alcohol Licensing Committee meets at 6 PM, and Common Council at 6:30 PM.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1854,

Republican Party Founded

On this date Free Soilers and Whigs outraged by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, met in Ripon to consider forming a new political party. The meeting’s organizer, Alvan E. Bovay, proposed the name “Republican” which had been suggested by New York editor Horace Greeley. You can see eyewitness accounts of the meeting, early Republican campaign documents, and other original sources on our page devoted to Wisconsin and the Republican Party. Though other places have claimed themselves as the birthplace of the Republican Party, this was the earliest meeting held for the purpose and the first to use the term Republican. [Source: History of Wisconsin, II: 218-219]

Google’s daily puzzle asks a political question: “How many electoral votes does your state have if your capitol building is adorned in ‘Beulah Red’?”

 

Animals, Beautiful Whitewater

Beautiful Whitewater

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20120319-134248.jpg

Pale horse in green pasture

Here’s a picture of a horse grazing in Whitewater. It’s just a horse photo. No one describes pictures like that anymore, so I felt compelled to give it a stuffier title.

It’s still a horse photo.

If I were to call it Cavalo amarelo em pasto verde, people in Sao Paulo would still say: it’s just a horse photo (and an over-saturated photo at that).

But horses are elegant, this one is in Whitewater, and it’s fun to tease – the genesis of Pale horse in green pasture.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.19.12

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Good morning.

For Whitewater’s Monday, a chance of thunderstorms with a high of seventy-eight.

There are two principal public meetings in the city today: the Community Development Authority meets at 4:30 PM, and the Parks & Rec Board at 5 PM.

Google’s daily puzzle has a question for dog lovers: “The unique shape of what organ causes a particular breed of African dog to yodel instead of bark?”

For those who like to travel, NASA offers a Tour of the Moon from its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter:

more >>

Twitter

Recent Tweets, 3.11 to 3.17

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15 Mar
Innovation Center Exec Director Admits Building’s ‘Major Accomplishment’ Was Taking $11.5 Million in Public Money http://bit.ly/yTkws8

13 Mar
After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses – http://NYTimes.com http://nyti.ms/xDUjXI

12 Mar
Where are all the libertarians coming from? | Daily Adams http://bit.ly/yxcAgH

12 Mar
Second Pre-Election Video Shows Walker Saying He Will Negotiate with Unions – YouTube http://bit.ly/xPvHTG

Libertarians

The Former Libertarians

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It’s well-past time to acknowledge Charles and David Koch as former libertarians.  ABC does as much in a story about them.  One can expect their efforts to control the libertarian Cato Institute for the benefit of the Republican-friendly Americans for Prosperity will only lead to more descriptions like this:

While the case is pending in a Kansas court, the short-term result has been a public debate over the role of Cato, and whether the mainstream Republican Koch brothers would ruin its libertarian reputation.

(Emphasis added.)

Via In a Power Grab, the Kochs’ Struggles Are Revealed – ABC News.

Posted originally on 3.16.12 at Daily Adams.

Beautiful Whitewater

Whitewater’s early spring

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I rode through the city last night, to the pleasant sight of students grilling out on lawns across town. Lawn after lawn, block after block, the sweet aroma of barbecue greeted me, and then lingered in reminder, as I rode by.

Along one street, students on a front lawn clapped in a quickening rhythm as cars drove, and I rode, past. I turned back and waved, and they clapped again.

We’ve seasons of contentious elections ahead, but after seeing the city in repose, how could one not be optimistic? No matter how hard these times have been – and they’ve been very hard – America slowly recovers, returning to her former strength.

Those enjoying last night’s warm weather were confidently unbowed before our immediate problems. There’s a welcome optimism in them.

The generation now on our campus will have its difficult moments, but they’ll do well for themselves, for Wisconsin, and America.

It was a good night, and a good sign, for the city.