Culture
Early spring gardening
The freezer is emptying out and the jars of fruits and vegetables, jams and sauces are looking mighty thin in the pantry. Luckily, it’s time to gear up for another garden season and start the process of planting, tending, harvesting and preserving all over again.
New regulations carry the promise of under-enforcement
This lack of enforcement is nothing new. The big difference in the circumstance of the mask mandate is that the decision not to enforce was politically motivated.
Go vegan for Earth Week
My alma mater, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, has long celebrated not just Earth Day, but Earth Week on its campus. I too celebrate Earth Week, and honestly attempt to do right by the planet everyday. While we need far more than the actions of individuals to tackle problems such as climate change, some individual actions really do make a difference. One of the most impactful is to adopt a plant-based diet.
Peace groups call for police reform
The Duluth area Northland Chapter of Grandmothers for Peace and Twin Ports Veterans for Peace Chapter 80 call for the reform of the public safety practices in our communities.
Too Lazy; Doesn’t Read (TL;DR)
Originally this phrase was Too Long Didn’t Read or TL;DR. This expression was first used on me by someone I considered a friend. After looking up the new acronym, I was insulted and a little hurt. Well, not immediately. I knew that they were busy with school and had family issues that took up a lot of their time and mental capacity. Then it occurred to me that if in fact they were too busy or too tired, why did they take the time to even be where they could see what I wrote? After all, it is not as though I wrote it out in soup in the kitchen floor. So, they must have had another reason for taking the time to write those four letters. What could those reasons be?
Moving forward on voting
Since Biden won the presidential election, Republicans have been waging a coordinated, unpatriotic war on democracy and voting rights. In Wisconsin, Sen. Ron Johnson and Rep. Tim Tiffany continue to repeat the blatant lies about “election fraud” and Biden stealing the election. GOP legislators in Wisconsin, and across the nation, are pushing bills to make voting more difficult.
Working from home works
In the past year, many people have had their first go at working from home. Some people have ranged farther afield taking their tablet computers, cellular phones and laptops to more exotic locations like parks, beaches or even vantage points along highways just to take a break from being at home all the time.
Technically disabled
Like more than 80% of blind and visually impaired Americans, Mr. Davis is unemployed. Like many blind and visually impaired people he is employable and does want to be active in the community.
Black history in Wisconsin
The writing of the the state constitution involves Black suffrage. In 1846, a first draft of the constitution allowed black men to vote. This draft was not adopted. The successful 1848 State Constitution explicitly barred Black men from voting while it allowed all white men, even immigrants who were not citizens, to vote. After statehood, three referendums were held on suffrage for Black men (1849, 1857, and 1865). All were defeated. Citizenship was defined as being white and male.
Contaminated brownfields: how did it come to this in America?
The business is long gone, the buildings removed but the aftermath is not. Left behind is a “brownfield,” a nice word for a site contaminated with deadly poisons, and no one left to pay for clean-up if that’s even possible. And what to do with it once it is cleaned up? Another industrial site, another fence line community in the poorer part of town where the people of color live. There are thousands of brownfields all over America. How did it come to this? No one intended to damage the Earth and make humans sick. We blundered into it.