Just another exam­ple of the cool and bizarre sorts of things that hap­pen in Madi­son: for a cou­ple of weeks now, it’s appeared as though the top of the Statue of Lib­erty is emerg­ing from the frozen sur­face of Lake Men­dota. The instal­la­tion was car­ried out by the UW Hoofers out­door club, and com­mem­o­rates a sim­i­lar (but more finely crafted, in my opin­ion) statue that was placed on the lake 30 years ago. For the full story of the orig­i­nal statue, see this arti­cle (a big­ger pic­ture of the orig­i­nal can be seen here). The head and torch sit on the ice right out­side UW’s Memo­r­ial Union, so you can sit in the Rathskel­lar, sip a beer, and gaze out them. At the moment, the Union’s web­cam is point­ing right at the statue. Check there for a live view (until the ice starts to melt), or check out my small gallery of pics here.