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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.16.11

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Good morning.

It’s a sunny day for Whitewater, with a high temperature of thirty-two degrees.  In Lincoln Manor, Maryland, it’s a partly sunny day ahead, with a high temperature of forty-six.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1922,

….James Davidson died. He was born in Norway in 1854 and emigrated in 1872. He became a leading merchant in Soldiers Grove and served as village president, village treasurer, assemblyman, state treasurer, and lieutenant-governor before becoming governor of the state from 1906-1911. As governor, he introduced the law providing for bank examiners and promoted legislation giving the railroad commission jurisdiction over most public utilities. He is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers, edited by Sarah Davis McBride]

I had not heard of him, or his accomplishments, until I saw the entry on the Historical Society’s website.  It’s a reminder to me that most officials, no matter how accomplished in their time, will fade from popular memory.  Perhaps this is less true in a time of video recording, but I think it still – mostly – applies.  I’m sure, though, that it will not apply to Gov. Walker.  One way or another, he’s sure to be remembered.

Google’s puzzle for today asks an historical question, of a time long before Wisconsin’s history: “One of the earliest uses for glass bottles dates back to before 1000 B.C. What group of people is credited with the first use of glass for perfume bottles?”

 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.15.11

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Good morning.

It’s a windy day in store for Whitewater, with a high of forty-degrees, but falling temperatures later in the day.  In Naples, Florida, it will be mostly sunny and thirty-eight degrees warmer.

Looking for a sample from a comet? If you were, you might do what NASA is considering — using a six-foot crossbow to harpoon the comet:

On this day in 1846, Wisconsin rejected a draft of her first constitution:

1847 – Wisconsin’s Second Constitutional Convention Convenes in Madison
On this date the first draft of the Wisconsin Constitution was rejected in 1846. As a result, Wisconsin representatives met again to draft a new constitution in 1847. New delegates were invited, and only five delegates attended both conventions. The second convention used the failed 1846 constitution as a springboard for their own, but left out controversial issues such as banking and property rights for women that the first constitution attempted to address. The second constitution included a proposal to let the people of Wisconsin vote on a referendum designed to approve black suffrage. [Source: Attainment of Statehood by Milo M. Quaife]

Source: Wisconsin HIstorical Society.

Google’s puzzle for today asks an uncommon question about something well-known: “This famous copper-clad statue in New York Harbor is an early example of what type of construction?”

Freedom of Speech, Law, Liberty, Politics

Teenage mayoral candidate to ignore cease and desist demand from Sheboygan’s Mayor Ryan

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Good for him:

Sheboygan teenager and potential recall mayoral candidate Asher Heimermann said he intends to ignore a cease and desist letter from Sheboygan Mayor Bob Ryan to take down a fake Twitter account claiming to be Ryan, saying the account complies with the social media websites rules for parody and does not rise to the level of identity theft.

Via Sheboygan Press.

Freedom of Speech, Liberty, Politics

Time names ‘The Protester’ Person of the Year

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A solid choice:

….In short, 2011 was unlike any year since 1989 — but more extraordinary, more global, more democratic, since in ’89 the regime disintegrations were all the results of a single disintegration at headquarters, one big switch pulled in Moscow that cut off the power throughout the system.

So 2011 was unlike any year since 1968 — but more consequential because more protesters have more skin in the game. Their protests weren’t part of a countercultural pageant, as in ’68, and rapidly morphed into full-fledged rebellions, bringing down regimes and immediately changing the course of history.

It was, in other words, unlike anything in any of our lifetimes, probably unlike any year since 1848, when one street protest in Paris blossomed into a three-day revolution that turned a monarchy into a republican democracy and then — within weeks, thanks in part to new technologies (telegraphy, railroads, rotary printing presses) — inspired an unstoppable cascade of protest and insurrection in Munich, Berlin, Vienna, Milan, Venice and dozens of other places across Europe, as well as a huge peaceful demonstration of democratic solidarity in New York that marched down Broadway and occupied a public park a few blocks north of Wall Street. How perfect that the German word Zeitgeist was transplanted into English in that unprecedented, uncanny year of insurrection.

Via Time Magazine.

Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty

Out in the Cold at Age 84: Wisconsin’s Ruthelle Frank Fights for Her Right to Vote

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Ruthelle Frank is no less a citizen than anyone else in Wisconsin.

I’ve posted before about Ruthelle Frank’s disenfranchisement under Wisconsin’s new voted ID law.  She’s a citizen, lifetime resident of Wisconsin, and officeholder, but after eighty-four years, she now faces hundreds of dollars in fees to do what she has a right to do by law: vote. (See, The Disgrace of Wisconsin’s Photo ID Law: Rules leave village leader without right to vote.)  Fortunately, she’s found representation through the ACLU.

Consider her situation:

Ruthelle Frank, a resident of Brokaw, Wisconsin since her birth in 1927, has none of the accepted forms of photo ID under Wisconsin’s photo ID law which goes into effect at the February primary election. In order to get a state ID card, she needs to prove citizenship, but since she was born at home, she has never had a birth certificate. The state Register of Deeds, however, does have a record of her birth and can produce a birth certificate at a $20 cost. There’s one problem though — her maiden name (Wedepohl) is misspelled in the record. That record can only be amended by legal proceeding, and the combined fees will run Ruthelle potentially upwards of $200. The state will not waive any of these fees, and under the new law, if she cannot obtain a state ID card, Ruthelle will be sent away from the polls.

But that’s not half so bad as the circumstances of many other Wisconsinites:

….she’s actually better prepared to deal with this than many voters without accepted photo ID, who are disproportionately low-income, elderly, and/or minority, and disproportionately marginalized. Despite Ruthelle’s physical disability (she is paralyzed on the left side of her body), she has family that can assist her, savings, education, and familiarity with both the electoral process and local government. Consider the eligible Wisconsin voter with few contacts, low or no income or savings, and much less education. Is that person any less a citizen of this country? That voter is at risk of losing his/her voice in Wisconsin and everywhere in the U.S. that photo ID laws have been enacted. But maybe you’d reply that most people have photo ID in America. Well, the Ruthelle Franks of the world want you to know that “most people” isn’t a democracy.

Below is a copy of the complaint filed on 12.13.11 on behalf of Ruthelle Frank and other representative citizen-plaintiffs.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.14.11

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Good morning.

It’s a rainy day in Whitewater, with a high temperature likely to be around forty-seven.  In San Diego, there’ll be partly cloudy skies and a high of sixty.

Whitewater’s Tech Park board meets today at 8 AM.  On the agenda, for closed session, is the same item that’s been on prior of the agendas over many months: “Whitewater University Technology Park Executive Director Search & Screen Update.”

They’re bound to find someone eventually, as the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the American population is over 312,773,435, and the world population is over 6,981,195,998.  There simply has to be someone who’d run a public project that took millions to shift public employees from one struggling town to another. Considering only those in America, it would take just .00000031972% of our population to find someone, anyone, to take that job.

The Wisconsin Historical Society marks this as a notable day in the history, so to speak, of Wisconsin and (really) American history:

1893 – Frederick Jackson Turner Delivers Frontier Address
On this date Frederick Jackson Turner delivered the “Significance of the Frontier in American History” address at the forty-first annual meeting of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. [Source: SHSW Proceedings, 1893, pg. 79-112]

Thanks, by the way, for the kind messages about yesterday’s baby sloth video; one discovers all sorts of endearing films like that, and they’re a treat to watch.

Google’s puzzle for today is about tiny Rhode Island, but it wouldn’t be a tiny place after what Google asks: “If you turned the entire state of Rhode Island into a farm, how many acres would your farm have?”

Business, Federal Government, Politics

In U.S., Fear of Big Government at Near-Record Level

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Americans’ concerns about the threat of big government continue to dwarf those about big business and big labor, and by an even larger margin now than in March 2009. The 64% of Americans who say big government will be the biggest threat to the country is just one percentage point shy of the record high, while the 26% who say big business is down from the 32% recorded during the recession. Relatively few name big labor as the greatest threat.

Via Gallup.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.13.11

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Good morning.

For Whitewater today, it’s likely to be a cloudy day with a high temperature of forty-two.  In Anchorage, the forecast calls for a cloudy day, but with temperatures in the teens to lower twenties.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1864,

Emil Seidel was born in Ashland, Pennsylvania. His family moved to Wisconsin when he was a child. As a young man he lived in Germany where he trained as a woodcarver. While in Germany, Seidel became a socialist and when he returned to the United States he joined the Socialist Party of America. He settled in Milwaukee and in 1904 Seidel and eight other socialists were elected as city aldermen.

In 1910, the Socialist Party in Milwaukee selected Seidel as their candidate for mayor. With the support of Victor Berger’s newspaper, the Milwaukee Leader, and the city’s large German-born population, Seidel became the first socialist mayor of a major city in the United States.

One of Seidel’s achievements was to introduce the country’s first worker’s compensation program in 1911. Other initiatives included adult and worker education classes and free medical and dental examinations for school children. Emil Seidel also served as a city alderman from 1916 to 1920 and again from 1932 to 1936. He died on 24th June, 1947. [Source: University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Archives].

Here’s a trailer, for an upcoming film, about the world’s only sloth orphanage, in Costa Rica. Enjoy — I think it’s impossible not to like this trailer —

The film will appear on Animal Planet this weekend:

The trailer is just a taste of the new documentary, “Too Cute! Baby Sloths,” airing Saturday Dec. 17 at 8 p.m. ET on Animal Planet. The show is filmmaker Lucy Cooke’s follow-up to her wildly popular internet video “Meet the Sloths.” Both were shot at the Aviarios Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica.

The sanctuary takes in any sloth in need, but is mostly populated by orphaned baby sloths who lost their mothers to power lines or road traffic or other accidents. There are currently around 160 sloths there.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.12.11

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Good morning.

Monday will be a mild day for Whitewater, with a high temperature of forty-one. In New Haven, CT today, about the same temperature: sunny and forty-four.

It’s an afternoon of public meetings for Whitewater: the CDA meets at 4:30 PM, the Planning Commission at 6 PM, and the Library Board at 6:30 PM.

If you’re surfing the Web, and if you weren’t you wouldn’t be reading this post, then today’s an important anniversary: it’s the birthday of the late Robert Noyce, Intel co-founder and one of the inventors of the microchip.

Google celebrates his birthday today with a doodle: