Daily Bread, Elections, Law

Daily Bread for 12.9.21: Election Commission Upholds Election Grants

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/09/2021

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 7:14 AM and sunset 4:20 PM for 9h 06m 12s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 33.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Involvement & Cable TV Commission meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1868, the first traffic lights are installed, outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.

Patrick Marley reports A bipartisan commission allows Wisconsin election grants, once again rejecting challenges brought by Republicans:

Wisconsin elections officials from both parties threw out a challenge Wednesday to private grants that helped cities run their elections during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The series of rulings by the state Elections Commission is the latest instance of authorities rejecting claims that the grants were illegal. Over the last year, three courts dismissed lawsuits over the grants.

In the latest development, the commissioners tossed out a new set of challenges over the grants that were filed this spring.

“The Commission finds that the Complaint does not raise probable cause to believe that a violation of law or abuse of discretion has occurred. All claims are hereby dismissed,” attorneys working for the commission wrote in a letter they sent Wednesday to the lawyer who spearheaded the challenges.

At issue is $8.8 million in grants the Center for Tech and Civic Life gave to Wisconsin’s five largest cities — Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine and Kenosha. No one has challenged smaller grants the center gave to about 200 other Wisconsin municipalities.

….

DeWitt’s lawyers concluded there was no reason to believe there was wrongdoing and sent their findings to the six commissioners.

If two or more commissioners asked, the commission would have had to hold a hearing and take a vote on what to do. No commissioner asked for a hearing. Under commission rules, that means it has adopted the attorneys’ conclusions.

The commission consists of three Democrats and three Republicans. They have clashed on some high-profile issues but have surprised observers by sticking together on some politically fraught matters.

There are sure to be appeals to circuit courts in counties where the grants were made. The intensity of conservative populists’ opposition to programs that don’t assure the outcomes they want will motivate them to keep fighting against ballot access for all.

Drone footage reveals damage from Indonesia’s Mount Semeru volcano eruption:

Daily Bread, Elections, Law

Daily Bread for 12.8.21: Pandemic? What Pandemic? Whitewater’s Already Wished It Away…

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/08/2021

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 31. Sunrise is 7:13 AM and sunset 4:20 PM for 9h 07m 02s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 23.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1660, a woman (either Margaret Hughes or Anne Marshall) appears on an English public stage for the first time, in the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare’s play Othello.

Diane Bezucha reports ‘We are full. Period’: Wisconsin hospital leaders say they are at a crisis point with new COVID-19 surge:

Wisconsin hospital leaders are sounding the alarm as the state endures another COVID-19 surge. The seven-day average of new infections is over 3,500 — the highest it’s been in a year.

During a roundtable discussion hosted by Wisconsin Health News on Tuesday, hospital leaders said they have reached a crisis point.

“We are full. Period,” said Eric Conley, CEO of Milwaukee’s Froedtert Hospital. “It’s really impacting, impeding care for those patients who are not COVID that need the care getting in because getting to our beds is just very, very hard.”

According to the Wisconsin Hospital Association COVID-19 dashboard, there were 1,630 people in the state hospitalized for COVID-19 as of Tuesday afternoon— an increase of 212 over the past week. More than 400 of those patients are in intensive care units, which are in short supply.

“Unfortunately, it’s not looking good and I don’t think it’s looking good for anybody across the state or even across state lines. Our ICUs are pretty much full,” said Dr. Imran Andrabi, CEO of ThedaCare.

As of Tuesday, hospitals in the Fox Valley and North Central Wisconsin regions reported having only one or two intensive care unit beds available. Hospitals in the northwestern and western part of the state reported having zero ICU beds available. And in southeastern Wisconsin, the number of available beds was cut in half overnight — from 30 on Monday to 15 on Tuesday.

“The hardest part of this is that the delta surge is accelerating while we’re still thinking about what other variants might exist and how they’re going to impact our organization,” said Sue Turney, CEO of Marshfield Clinic Health System.

At Froedtert, Conley said COVID-19 patients make up about 13 percent of occupied beds, but that number is as high as 40 percent in some hospitals.

Every leader at Tuesday’s panel said the vast majority of new COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated — from 74 percent at Marshfield Clinic to 88 percent at Froedtert.

I’ve been a critic of amateur epidemiology, where untrained people try to predict the course of the pandemic. See On COVID-19 Skeptics and COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric

It’s not a prediction, however, when doctors and hospital leaders report that their hospitals are filling with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients.

It’s simply a fact.

Photos of smiling residents won’t make this pandemic disappear. Indeed, even a hundred exclamation points won’t improve the health of our fellow residents.

Although I’ve no training in epidemiology or virology, I’ll demonstrate:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sure enough, the pandemic is still here…

In Whitewater, the local public school district can spill onto social media as many happy posts as it wants, and yet not a single student will be healthier or safer. Vaccination clinics in our schools would protect. Facebook, by contrast, hasn’t yet protected anyone from hangnail, let alone a virus. See Boosterism’s Cousin, Toxic Positivity and Toxic Positivity Is Worse than Annoying as Public Policy.

Vaccination is positive; ‘positivity’ is an evasion.

Men Caught Smuggling Hundreds of Tarantulas from Colombia:

Daily Bread, Nature, Planning, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.7.21: Bad Plans and Bad Planners Behind Wisconsin’s Wolf Hunt

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/07/2021

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 21. Sunrise is 7:12 AM and sunset 4:20 PM for 9h 07m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Danielle Kaeding reports Wisconsin’s fall wolf hunt is on hold. Several lawsuits could affect whether it moves forward:

Wisconsin’s wolf hunt has been on hold since a Dane County judge issued a temporary injunction in October stopping the season that was set to begin Nov. 6.

The order came after a coalition of wildlife advocacy and animal protection groups filed a lawsuit arguing, in part, that the hunt is illegal because it relies on outdated regulations and a management plan that hasn’t been updated since 2007.

But that lawsuit is only one of several efforts to stop the hunt from happening.

Six Wisconsin tribes have also sued in federal court. They argue their treaty rights are being violated under state wolf management, pointing to February’s court-ordered hunt. State-licensed hunters killed 218 wolves in less than three days, harvesting the tribes’ share and exceeding the overall 200-wolf quota.

And another lawsuit filed by national wildlife and environmental groups seeks to restore protections for wolves nationwide.

Hunting advocates say the state should act quickly to ensure a hunt can happen before the end of the season in February.

Consider also that By Creating a ‘Landscape of Fear,’ Wolves Reduce Car Collisions With Deer:

Research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights an underappreciated benefit of wild wolf populations: the large predators frighten deer away from dangerous roadways, saving money and lives in the process.

According to the analysis 22 years of data, a county’s deer-vehicle collisions fall by about 24 percent after wolves take up residence there, Christina Larson reports for the Associated Press. Nearly 20,000 Wisconsin residents collide with deer each year, which leads to about 477 injuries and eight deaths annually. There are 29 counties in Wisconsin that have wolves.

“Some lives are saved, some injuries are prevented, and a huge amount of damage and time are saved by having wolves present,” says Wesleyan University natural resource economist Jennifer Raynor to Ed Yong at the Atlantic.

Wisconsin’s last wolf hunt is an example of government planning gone wrong. The solution to bad planning isn’t more planning by the same planners. At the least, It’s remedial education for bad planners or new planners after those responsible for errors are removed from their positions.

Wisconsin shouldn’t be so tolerant of government error.

Rare total solar eclipse plunges Antarctica into darkness:

Daily Bread, Elections, Law, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.6.21: The Assault on Wisconsin’s Elections

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/06/2021

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 30. Sunrise is 7:08 AM and sunset 4:16 PM for 09:08 hours of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 9.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM (later canceled), and Whitewater’s School Board at 6 PM.

On this day in 1790, Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia.

Laura Thornton, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, writes Why international election observers would give Wisconsin a failing grade:

On Nov. 10, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Republican state lawmakers proposed a hostile takeover of election management in their state. As Johnson told the New York Times, “Unfortunately, I probably don’t expect [Democrats] to follow the rules. And other people don’t either, and that’s the problem.” Johnson’s conclusion: The current system of bipartisan oversight by both parties should be abolished, and Republican legislators must be in control of the elections in which they are competing.

I spent more than two decades living and working overseas to advance democracy and credible elections — giving me plenty of opportunity to see the lengths to which autocrats will go to gain power. Even so, the proposed Wisconsin power grab is shocking in its brazenness. If this occurred in any of the countries where the United States provides aid, it would immediately be called out as a threat to democracy. U.S. diplomats would be writing furious cables, and decision makers would be threatening to cut off the flow of assistance. Yet we are conspicuously failing to hold ourselves to the same standard.

….

Experts around the world have spent years analyzing the best ways to manage elections to ensure democratic outcomes. A nonpartisan election body is considered best practice. The U.S. aid agency’s own guidelines on elections emphasize the importance of neutral and independent election management. Even when countries establish a nonpartisan body of professionals, there is constant debate around how election administrators are selected and who does the selecting. In Georgia (the country), I once had to listen to hours of complaints about how an election official had a sister who in high school dated a man who was now affiliated with a political party, casting the whole election in doubt.

Knowing all this, our imaginary election observer in Wisconsin would be alarmed by Republican politicians openly stating that they alone should run the election process, rather than a bipartisan commission of professionals. (Johnson has bluntly said that the Republican-controlled state legislature should “reassert its power.”) In other countries, political parties trying to control elections usually attempt to hide their maneuvers. They might try to quietly exert pressure on election officials or curry influence with them behind the scenes. In Cambodia, where I once led an audit of the voter registry that showed serious manipulation by the election commission, its members defended their work by pointing to the commission’s ostensible independence. There is usually at least lip service to the importance of neutral election administration, in large part to assuage the international community.

Johnson wouldn’t talk this way if a faction in the state didn’t think this way. A faction in the state wouldn’t think this way if they didn’t see an advantage in so thinking. There wouldn’t be an advantage if this faction found, in opposition, the majority’s resolute commitment to the constitutional order.

A defense requires defenders; a resolute defense requires resolute defenders.

It’s incredible’ — conservationist captures footage of elusive Andean cat:

(N.B.: A day that starts off with a video recording of an Andean cat has an above-average chance of being a good day.)

Music

Monday Music: Five Minutes That Will Make You Love the Organ

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/06/2021 • Comments

Via 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love the Organ: ‘Listen to the biggest, loudest, most extravagant (yet incredibly subtle) instrument of them all.”

City, Daily Bread, Police

Daily Bread for 12.4.21: Whitewater’s Police Chief Placed on Administrative Leave

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/04/2021

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 38. Sunrise is 7:09 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 11m 04s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1875, the notorious New York City politician Boss Tweed escapes from prison; he is later recaptured in Spain.

One read yesterday in a press release that Whitewater’s police chief, Aaron Raap, has been placed on administrative leave:

Whitewater Police Chief Placed on Paid Administrative Leave

Whitewater, Wis. December 3, 2021 – Whitewater Police Chief Aaron M. Raap has been placed on paid administrative leave. Deputy Chief Dan Meyer is serving as acting Police Chief until further notice. The Whitewater Police Department operations will continue without disruption and with full expectations of providing high quality services to our community.

An internal investigation will be conducted by an outside agency based on an incident that occurred outside the City of Whitewater. The leave is not considered punitive, rather part of the Whitewater Police Department policy.

Because this is an ongoing investigation, no additional information will be released at this time.

(The release is awkwardly worded: outside agencies don’t conduct internal investigations. A truly internal investigation would involve only intra-department personnel. The reasonable interpretation is here is simply that an outside agency will conduct an investigation.)

Journalists throughout the area carried the story. See Fort Atkinson Online, Lake Geneva Regional News, Channel 3000 Madison, Fox 6 Milwaukee.

There will be any number of unfounded theories on social media about the basis of this administrative suspension, but unfounded theories are hardly notable. (Facebook’s not my preference, so to speak, in the same way that staying overnight in a Greyhound bus terminal wouldn’t be.)

Instead, for now, a few words about the usefulness — to all — of administrative leave.

When an allegation arises, of reasonable concern, promptly placing a leader on administrative suspension is the best course. Complainants, the community, and even the leader all benefit from a process of administrative leave. A complainant, should there be one, is assured that the matter will be taken seriously and addressed publicly. A community is assured of no further risk, if there should ever have been any. At the same time, the leader himself or herself is removed from an environment of speculation.

Whitewater, Wisconsin should well understand the benefits of administrative leave.

When then-Chancellor Dwight Watson of UW-Whitewater was placed on administrative leave, the UW System properly investigated, and released the results of an investigation that credibly exonerated him. Watson returned to work thereafter. See UW-Whitewater’s Chancellor on Paid Administrative Leave and UW-Whitewater’s Chancellor, Dr. Dwight Watson, Resumes University Role.

By contrast, despite repeated complaints and investigations, UW-Whitewater’s then-Chancellor Bevery Kopper and her execrable spouse, Pete Hill, remained in their positions for years after the first complaint against him. Their continued presence perpetuated conditions of injury and intimidation. Administrative leave with a thorough investigation at the first opportunity would have, at least, prevented further injury.

One needn’t address now the cause of Raap’s administrative leave. It’s enough today to observe that administrative leave following an incident or allegation is a prudent decision that Whitewater, notably, has pursued too seldom.

Rescue of man 22 hours after solo capsize off Japan:

Coronavirus, Daily Bread, Health, Public Health

Daily Bread for 12.3.21: Wisconsin Sets Daily Record for COVID-19 Cases

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/03/2021 • Comments

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 7:08 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 12m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s annual Christmas parade, traveling along Main Street in the downtown and ending at Whitewater Street near Cravath Lakefront, begins at 6 PM.

On this day in 1984, the Bhopal disaster‘s leak of a methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom later died from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

David Wahlberg writes Wisconsin reports more than 5,000 COVID-19 cases, daily record for 2021:

Wisconsin reported 5,097 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, the highest daily total this year, as health officials said hospitals are again becoming overwhelmed, including with a record number of coronavirus patients needing ventilators to breathe.

As of Thursday, 698 COVID-19 patients were on ventilators in the state, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association. That’s up from last year’s high of 638 in mid-November, before vaccines were approved, Timberlake said. The delta variant accounts for virtually all cases today, and hospitalized patients are younger and sicker than a year ago and require longer hospital stays, she said.

Wisconsin residents not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 were nearly five times more likely to become infected, 11 times more likely to be hospitalized with the disease and more than 15 times more likely to die from it in October than those fully vaccinated, the health department said last month.

“We are overwhelmed,” said Dr. Ashok Rai, CEO of Prevea Health. On a recent day, the system’s hospital in Green Bay had to turn away 28 patients, including three with strokes, meaning many had to be transferred far from home, Rai said.

Quite the dissonance: local officials accentuate the positive, and yet hospitals keep filling up.

Meet the Challengers at This Year’s Rubik’s Cube World Cup:

Cats

Friday Catblogging: Cat Cam

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/03/2021 • Comments

@lovegailun
#cat #fyp #dog

? original sound – lovegailun

more >>

Authoritarianism, Daily Bread, Economy, Politics, Poverty, Recession, That Which Paved the Way

Daily Bread for 12.2.21: Kasparov on How Foreign Dissidents Can Help Renew U.S. Democracy

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/02/2021 • Comments

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 49. Sunrise is 7:07 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 13m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 4.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater Fire Department, Inc. holds a business meeting at 5:30 PM and the Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1804, at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor of the French.

Jennifer Rubin interviews Garry Kasparov in Q&A with Garry Kasparov: How foreign dissidents can help renew U.S. democracy:

Rubin: Why did RDI [Renew Democracy Initiative, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization] believe the experience of foreign dissidents could help promote American democracy?

Kasparov: Foreign dissidents benefit from two things Americans by and large lack: personal experience resisting authoritarianism, and the ability to look past partisan politics and see threats to democracy for what they are. In some ways, you can call them the global experts on how authoritarian tendencies spread through society and how democratic institutions crumble. We’d be crazy not to consult them.

They can’t be accused of having a dog in the partisan fight. They have nothing to gain and, if American democracy falls, everything to lose. Most importantly, they want to help Americans see the U.S. through their eyes. During the darkest days of their struggles, American democracy often inspired them. RDI launched Frontlines of Freedom in the hopes that their stories might now inspire us.

Rubin: To what degree is the United States’ current situation a reflection of worldwide trends, and to what extent is it uniquely American?

Kasparov: From 1990 to 2008, the world experienced one of the greatest increases in prosperity and freedom that it’s ever known. However, during that time period, democratic nations assumed that liberal democracy had essentially won the narrative war and failed to make a case for it. Needless to say, history did not end because evil does not die. It might stay dormant under the rubble of the Berlin Wall for a while, but inevitably, it will reemerge. Meanwhile, because most free nations did not offer a sufficiently strong defense of democratic values on their own merits, many people supported democracy only so long as it brought economic prosperity. As soon as the financial crisis hit in 2008, everything changed.

Kasparov identifies, rightly, the significance of the financial crisis (the financial crisis was cause to the Great Recession’s effect).

It is from the Great Recession that maladies new or exacerbated afflicted communities across America, including small towns like Whitewater: stagnation and poverty, a drug crisis intensified, malaise, nativism, a rejection of expertise, claims of false expertise, and a taste for autocratic solutions that has become a chronic hunger.

The Great Recession formally lasted from 2007-2009, but policymakers (especially local ones across America) carried on as though it had not happened or as though it quickly ended.

For many of these rural places, the Great Recession never truly ended.

Boosterism, officials’ ideology of choice, didn’t end the maladies of these communities — it merely papered them over.

What began as an economic problem has become more and worse.

See Opioid Crisis : Great Recession :: Dust Bowl : Great Depression.

Christmas tree lit in Nazareth:

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Gerrymandering, Law

Daily Bread for 12.1.21: On Schedule, the Pretext for Wisconsin’s Next Gerrymandering

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/01/2021 • Comments

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 48. Sunrise is 7:06 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 14m 45s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 11.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1941, Japanese Emperor Hirohito gives the final approval to initiate war against the United States.

Patrick Marley reports Wisconsin Supreme Court says it would minimize changes to current election maps, handing Republicans an initial redistricting victory:

MADISON – A narrowly divided state Supreme Court announced Tuesday it would minimize changes it would make to Wisconsin’s election maps, effectively guaranteeing Republicans will continue to maintain control of the Legislature for the next decade.

The 4-3 ruling comes as the justices prepare to issue a final ruling that will establish the exact contours of the state’s legislative and congressional districts. Where the lines go has a profound effect on which political party has an edge in elections.

Tuesday’s decision broke along ideological lines, with the four conservatives in the majority and the three liberals in the minority.

In the most significant part of their ruling, the justices wrote that they would limit the changes they would make to maps that were drawn 10 years ago, when Republicans controlled all of state government and established district lines that favor their party.

….

The majority concluded it should make as few changes as possible to the maps because courts should not weigh in on policy matters.

“Just as the laws enacted by the legislature reflect policy choices, so will the maps drawn by that political body. Nothing in the constitution empowers this court to second-guess those policy choices, and nothing in the constitution vests this court with the power of the legislature to enact new maps,” Rebecca Bradley wrote for the majority.

Dallet in dissent countered that the majority opinion had a political cast to it because it would help cement the Republican advantages that were established a decade ago.

“In effect, a least-change approach that starts with the 2011 maps nullifies voters’ electoral decisions since then,” she wrote. “In that way, adopting a least-change approach is an inherently political choice. Try as it might, the majority is fooling no one by proclaiming its decision is neutral and apolitical.”

See the November 30, 2021 opinion of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, below.

Tonight’s Sky for December:

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Gerrymandering, Law

Daily Bread for 11.30.21: Watching the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Redistricting

by JOHN ADAMS • 12/01/2021 • Comments

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 46. Sunrise is 7:05 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 16m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 19.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1803, in New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to an official from the French First Republic. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.

Shawn Johnson reports Wisconsin Supreme Court to rule on key issues in redistricting case:

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is expected to issue an order this week that lays the legal groundwork for a case that could decide the state’s political maps for the next decade.

While the order won’t be the final word in the case, it could settle key questions, such as whether justices should approve “least changes” maps that largely copy the redistricting plans Wisconsin Republicans passed in 2011.

States redraw their legislative and congressional boundaries at least once every decade following the release of U.S. Census data, a process designed to keep districts roughly equal in population.

Republicans controlled both the Legislature and the governor’s office during the last round of redistricting in 2011, which let them draw maps that helped them win big majorities over the past decade, even in years when Democratic candidates performed well statewide.

GOP lawmakers passed similar maps earlier this month, but Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the plans, saying they amounted to “gerrymandering 2.0.”

The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, or WILL, filed a lawsuit in August arguing that given the likely impasse in state government, the fairest way for a court to resolve redistricting was by mostly preserving the 2011 maps, adjusting only where necessary to address population changes.

“The ‘least change’ approach is the most fair and neutral way for this Court to modify any existing maps,” WILL wrote in a brief filed last month. “It is the approach that best comports with this Court’s duty to assess the constitutionality of laws rather than to draft them from scratch.”

Democrats, and their allies, have urged a different approach, arguing that conservatives are asking the court “do their dirty work,” by entrenching GOP majorities in the Legislature for another decade.

“It’s bad enough that the legislature insulated itself from voters for the past ten years,” argued a coalition of Democratic voters including William Whitford, whose 2015 redistricting lawsuit made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. “It would be even worse if the Court were to perpetuate the gerrymander for the next decade.”

Barbados leaves colonial history behind and becomes a republic:

Birds, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.29.21: The Pecking Order

by JOHN ADAMS • 11/29/2021 • Comments

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 38. Sunrise is 7:04 AM and sunset 4:22 PM for 9h 17m 32s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 29.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1972, Atari releases Pong, the first commercially successful video game.

Andrew Van Dam and Alyssa Fowers report Which birds are the biggest jerks at the feeder? A massive data analysis reveals the answer (‘Presenting the ultimate bird-feeder pecking order’):

The interactions between birds in the park or at your backyard feeder may look like chaos, but they’re actually following the subtle rules of a hidden avian social order.

Armed with a database of almost 100,000 bird interactions, experts known as ornithologists have decoded that secret pecking order and created a continentwide power ranking of almost 200 species — from the formidable wild turkey at the top to the tiny, retiring brown creeper at the bottom.

Their work illuminates an elaborate hidden hierarchy: Northern mockingbirds and red-bellied woodpeckers are pugnacious for their size, but both would give way if a truly dominant bird like an American crow descended upon the feeder. Tiny hummingbirds can’t afford to lose precious seconds of feeding time and thus punch way above their weight, while the pileated woodpecker, whose fearsome bill and impressive build gives it the aspect of a holdover pterodactyl, actually proves docile for its size.

Among the most common feeder visitors, the American crow is king, while tiny chickadees get pushed around by just about everybody. The oblivious mourning dove outweighs many rivals but proves relatively peaceful. And lively goldfinches love to squabble but are limited by their half-ounce size.

Blue jays are near the top of the feeder bird hierarchy, but no match for crows

Birds most commonly observed at bird feeders in the Northeastern United States. Thicker lines indicate a species interacts with the blue jay more often.

“You see it at your feeder, and you’re like, ‘Oh, that woodpecker? He’s a mean one!’ and you ascribe these individual preferences to birds at your feeder,” said Cornell University ornithologist Eliot Miller. “But if you zoom out, all these same interactions are happening millions of times in cities across the continent, and the way they play out is predictable.”

Pong Gameplay:

Daily Bread, Public Health, Vaccines

Daily Bread for 11.28.21: The Good Work of Vaccination Outreach

by JOHN ADAMS • 11/28/2021 • Comments

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 35. Sunrise is 7:03 AM and sunset 4:22 PM for 9h 19m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 39.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1895, the first American automobile race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago’s Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours.

The Washington Post reports on how non-profit agencies are doing the good work of helping California’s Indigenous farmworkers overcome vaccine barriers:

It’s estimated that California is home to over 350,000 Indigenous people from Oaxaca and other states in southern Mexico. Many do not speak Spanish, and therefore are left out of critical information regarding covid-19 and the vaccine. Nonprofits conduct outreach in their native language to get this vulnerable community vaccinated.

The BBC and PBS offer an adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days:

Let the race against the clock begin! Phileas Fogg (David Tennant), Abigail Fix (Leonie Benesch), and Jean Passepartout (Ibrahim Koma) are setting out on the adventure of a lifetime, starting on Sunday, January 2, 2022 at 8/7c.