NO COUNTRY FOR LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
Take a moment and think about your favorite school teacher. Most of us had at least one great teacher. That person is likely to have embodied a superhero quality at a time in our lives when we were extremely vulnerable.
Many of us decided to go into teaching because that favorite teacher was someone we wanted to emulate. Wouldn’t that teacher deserve safe working conditions? Don’t you?
For too long, workers in various fields have been asked to accept risks of bodily harm as part of the job. This seemed reasonable for roofers and ...
BUILDING NEW TRADITIONS
"Tradition! Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as... as a fiddler on the roof! …Because of our traditions everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do.” From the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.”
Traditions can be good and useful for people. As the famous song from the musical suggests, traditions provide stability for society. Some traditions bring enjoyment and festiveness into our lives. But traditions can also become cages that imprison the mind, restrict people's options, and blind us to needed changes. The ...
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH ADORNS OUR TIME
Do you know what your ceiling looks like on sleepless nights? I’m betting you do. Wide-eyed for hours. Anxious. Numb. Searching. Clawing for resolution to another real-life nightmare.
I’m not talking small stuff here. Not the latest skirmish at work. Not some science project needing attention. But you knew that. You’re already going where you keep your private stock of worries.
My private stock? Well, I’ll share three. For a teenager, a mom who wouldn’t be making it through seven years of radical surgeries, radiation, and ...
CIVIC HEALTH IN WISCONSIN
(This article is based on a report from the Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.)
Wisconsin joins 30 other U.S. states in measuring civic health and building the program to make improvements. Civic health refers to the interactions of people with neighbors, friends and relatives. It also refers to the interactions of people with their government and other community organizations.
Many people have withdrawn from community life, even before the pandemic. During this crisis, social connections are ...
YOUR RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH
Your right to free speech ends six feet from where my nose begins.
“Everyone should just wear a damn mask.” –Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)
There is overwhelming evidence that wearing masks mitigates the spread of COVID-19. That is why Governor Evers issued the mask mandate. As cases continue to rise across the state, the decision to pass a mandate is reasonable. But some people refuse to be reasonable, such as State Senator Patrick Testin.
Testin has called the mask mandate a “heavy-handed approach” and said that it ...
EARTH IS WARNING US WE MUST CHANGE
WILL WE LISTEN?
(This was written on July 30, 2020, Korten’s 83rd birthday. This article is published with permission from YES! Magazine.)
Our present course puts humans on track to be among the species that expire in Earth’s ongoing sixth mass extinction. In my conversations with thoughtful people, I am finding increasing acceptance of this horrific premise.
The COVID-19 pandemic, along with climate change, drives home the lesson that we must honor and care for Earth. The increasing frequency of the appearance of deadly viruses reminds us of the ...
WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE IS ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD
YOU ARE INVITED
TO THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF
WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE
Saturday, August 15, 2020
10 a.m. to noon
400 block of downtown Wausau
Listen to speakers and
March to the Marathon County Historical Society
Consider Dressing as a Suffragette and bring posters and signs.
PLEASE WEAR A MASK AND OBSERVE SOCIAL DISTANCING.
ORGANIZED BY AAUW-Wausau branch
(American Association of University Women)
Supported by:
Citizens Action Educational Fund
Women for Women Wausau
Naomi
Building Unity Project with Zoom Program at 6 ...
FEARING OTHERS
What if we all had the same color of skin?
Who would you hate then?
What if we all had the same religion?
What if we all had the same warmth in winter, cool in summer?
Who would we fight then?
What if we eliminated the industries of war, destroyed all guns and other weapons?
Would we kill each other with rocks and clubs?
What if our jobs all paid the same and my stainless-steel appliances were no newer than yours? What if our furniture was exactly the same, our lawns just ...
ABOLISH THE POLICE ???
Abolish the police? Defund the police? How can society function without law enforcement? People are not angels and we don't live in a utopia. This may sound like a really crazy idea – especially if you are white and have not had to live with racial profiling and excessive use of force common to many minority neighborhoods. But sometimes it is better to start from scratch rather than try to fix what is hopelessly broken.
We have a 20-year-old car that is getting seriously rusty. A cheap cosmetic repair can make it look better but it won't eliminate the ...
JUPITER IS KING IN AUGUST
How wonderful it is to see the sky on our many dark nights and to consider that each object in the sky is special in its own way.
For August, our special object is Jupiter, which commands the southern night sky as king! Jupiter is the brightest object in the south, just east of the teapot of Sagittarius.
Sagittarius is part of the zodiac and is an archer in legends. But a teapot shape is recognizable as part of Sagittarius and Jupiter is to its left.
Jupiter has many wonderful features:
Jupiter is huge. It is ...