Ayn Rand, Narcissism and Democracy

Ayn Rand (Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum) was an influential fiction writer. Her best sellers were “The Fountainhead” (1943) and “Atlas Shrugged” (1957). She was a Russian who reacted to the crushing uniformity under communism in Russia. She also saw the same dangers in the right-wing fascism of Hitler’s Nazism in Germany. The protagonists in her novels found freedom through the expression of their individualism. Determined to forge their own way, they not only rejected the conformity of totalitarian regimes, but also, the values of living in a community. If one is ...

Rights of Nature

Since we kicked off the Rights of Nature Wisconsin effort in late 2022, we have made some significant progress. When you join the call (link below), you can see our video, the website and other materials, hear about local resolutions and more. More importantly, you will learn what comes next and how we can all be part of building this movement and restoring our proper relationship with the natural world. What exactly is Rights of Nature? We envision a world where the inherent rights of nature are respected and protected, and where the natural world is ...

Don’t Tread on Me….Big Business!

Down the road whereon our home sits a neighbor flies the flag with a coiled rattlesnake and the words Don't tread on me written above it. I'm sure you've seen one like it. This is a flag with a history reaching to the mid eighteenth century. Back then the original colonies were pretty loosely connected and were facing off against the French and their Native American allies in what historians call the French and Indian War. My neighbor's flag evolved from a political cartoon image that Benjamin Franklin first published in 1754. It depicted a snake chopped up into ...

Commonwealth Spirituality

Here in northern Wisconsin, on Tuesday night, August 15, 2023, the Lincoln County Board of Supervisors defeated, by a vote of 13-9, a resolution calling for a county-wide referendum on the funding of the county-owned nursing home, Pine Crest. Over one hundred people—many of them elderly, some in wheelchairs—were in attendance in the big room where supervisors meet. Over half-a-dozen citizens spoke, all in favor of the resolution, including one man who pointed out that a ten-year $8 per month price tag (the property tax increase) offered an astonishingly inexpensive ...

African Americans in the U.S. Society

America has a history problem, especially when dealing with African Americans and slavery. It starts with the myth of Africa being filled with primitive tribes. African slaves came from farming villages, that had their own societies. They were used to farm work. Captured, chained, put on crowded slave ships, they made the voyage across the Atlantic. They were put on auction blocks and sold to their future masters. Separated from their culture, language, support system, and everyone they knew and loved, they were marched to forced labor and torture camps we have euphemist...

Save the Date

THE RIGHTS OF NATURE TWO

This year WISDOM brought together a core group of us, who together have worked on what is known as the Rights of Nature. Please click on the photos to enlarge. You can also check us out at: www.rightsofnaturewi.org. You can also find us on FaceBook.

Friends for Peace

Following is a special opportunity to participate in a UN Committee discussion regarding the settlement policies on the Palestinian population. Do take time to read the following information and join the Zoom meeting if you can. We also hope you can join us for the event at the Marathon County Library on Tuesday, July 25 at 6 pm for a presentation and discussion by our honored guests, Karen and Tom Getman who have devoted their lives to advocacy for peace in Palestine and Israel. This UN event will be livestreamed as outlined below. ...

A Special Primer on Peace Initiatives Between Israel and Palestine

Please Join Our Peace Dialogue Group For A Special Primer on Peace Initiatives Between Israel and Palestine Tuesday, July 25 6 to 7 pm Marathon County Library Meeting Room Featured Speakers: Karen and Tom Getman, Lifelong Activists and Humanitarians from Washington, DC We are honored to have Karen and Tom Getman visiting Wausau this July. Tom was the Director of World Vision for 25 years. Tom and Karen have lived and worked in South Africa, Palestine, Israel and Geneva, Switzerland supporting social justice and humanitarian ...

The Jefferson Project: Thomas Jefferson’s Death Day and a Fourth of July Remembrance

Back in the mid-1980s, an outfit called Anvil Press published a book of mine. Its title was—still is—Nature’s Unruly Mob: Farming and the Crisis in Rural Culture. The topic (or its urgency) hasn’t gone away. Anvil Press printed the book as a special issue of its occasional quarterly magazine, North Country Anvil. The magazine was full of larger-issue farm news and analysis, and it made the Anvil shop a hub and gathering spot for farm activists—all this in southeastern Minnesota, in a village called Millville, nestled below limestone bluffs, through which the ...

1
2
…
18
s