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FROM EMERGENCY TO EMERGENCE
(This article is reprinted from YES magazine under the Creative Commons License.)
The COVID-19 emergency has exposed our societies’ failure to address the needs of billions of people. Simultaneously, we are witnessing a fundamental truth about human nature: There are those among us eager to exploit the suffering of others for personal gain. We can be reassured, however, by how few of them there are. Their actions contrast starkly with the far greater numbers at all levels of society demonstrating their willingness, even eagerness, to cooperate, ...
FIFTY EARTH DAYS LATER
Photo by Dan Barth
Wisconsin and Earth Day go back a long way together. Truth be told, without Wisconsin, Earth Day might not even exist. Horrified by a disastrous oil spill off the coast of California in 1969, our own Senator Gaylord Nelson conceived and set in motion the gears that made Earth Day 1970 a phenomenon to be reckoned with.
Twenty million Americans marched proudly in their streets and parks that first year to protest the piecemeal destruction of the beautiful, life-nurturing planet we had so recently seen from space for the very first ...
OBJECT IN THE SKY
"The International Space Station (ISS) made at least two visible passes over Wisconsin (taking sky cover into consideration) at around 9:00 PM (0200 GMT or Zulu) during the latter part of March and early April. It is difficult to mistake the ISS for any other object in the sky. Often passing high in the sky, it appears brighter (magnitude between –2.0 and –3.6 during these passes) and faster than an aircraft but much steadier and slower than a meteor. Depending on the time and the season, it fades as it enters Earth’s shadow and disappears from sight.
As ...
EARTH DAY IS EVERY DAY
Art by Jennifer Dolan
It’s 2020. This year marks 100 years that women have had the vote in the United States. It also marks the 50th Earth Day, and this woman voter who was born on Earth Day has a few things to say about that.
On April 22nd, 1970, former US Senator and Governor of Wisconsin Gaylord Nelson organized a teach-in about environmental issues that was the first Earth Day. Nelson planted the seeds for so much environmental policy and activism, as did John Muir and Aldo Leopold. Environmentalism has so many of its roots in the state of ...
SEVENTEEN MORE COMMUNITIES VOTE TO AMEND THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
In the April election, Wisconsin residents in seventeen communities voted to amend the U.S. Constitution to clarify that only human beings should have inalienable human rights and money is not the same thing as free speech.
All referenda passed with overwhelming majorities in the cities of Rhinelander (89%) and Eagle River (87%) and the towns of Wescott (86%), Newbold (87%), Crescent (83%), Pelican (85%), Woodruff (85%), Pine Lake (86%), Hazelhurst (86%), Arbor Vitae (81%), Presque Isle (79%), Winchester (79%), Boulder Junction (86%), Phelps (81%), Lac du Flambeau ...
EVERY LIFE IS IMPORTANT
I’m pro-life. I believe that every life is important. That means that a 22-year-old does not have any more right to a ventilator than a 77-year-old. That means that life is more important than the stock market. That means that the life of a banker is not worth more than the life of someone with an intellectual disability. If a person is really pro-life, then they believe that every person has a right to receive adequate healthcare.
So many people who have described themselves as pro-life in the past are now calling for medical rationing during the Covid-19 ...
CORONAVIRUS AND ECONOMICS
Humans, us, we, are at a crossroads, a critical juncture in our evolution on a lonely planet, voyaging through the Universe. A mindless, moral-less, belief-less, dangerous, microscopic virus is bringing us great clarity if we allow ourselves to see. It cares not what we “believe,” cares not our “economic” ideology, cares not our ethnicity or location on the globe, cares not who thinks themselves a “chosen,” a “special” people. A mindless virus is telling us - - - we, the people of Planet Earth, travel together. We succeed together – we fail together. No ...
GREED – THE TRUE DISEASE
The recent revelations of “insider trading” tactics employed by some members of Congress as they learned about the severity of COVID-19 only scratch the surface of the depth of the true disease in our country and much of the rest of the world. It spread quietly and slowly with little fanfare and only noticed by marginalized populations around the world.
This disease is greed. It is more insidious than COVID-19, more contagious and much more deadly. Greed has landlords believing that they have the right to evict people when they cannot pay their rent while they are ...
WISCONSIN SPRING SONNET
In spring when winter keeps a stealthy grip
Black crow on carrion feeds in country ditch
East wind maintains a daily wicked whip
Nightfall the coyote cries its tensive pitch
The auburn cow, she seeks a place to lay
Along the rusted barbwire hedgerow path
A thicket keeps the icy wind at bay
The morning sun reveals a newborn calf
How does the singing April robin thrive?
The mottled starlings raid the farmers’ grain
The buntings left for slopes to swoop and dive
Brave stands the crane head bowed in driving rain
 ...
THE HUNTING DOGS OF ORION
Orion, the hunter, has two smaller constellations following him through the night sky from late December until late March each year. Legend from the Greek and Roman tradition tells us that they are his hunting dogs. Both are assigned Latin names: one is Canis Major (Large Dog). The other is Canis Minor (Small Dog.)
In late March, both constellations should be easy to find if you have a clear view to the south-west. To find the Large Dog, first find brilliant Orion in the south-west, still fairly well-placed above the southwest horizon. Orion, as you will ...