THE WISDOM OF NIKITA
Older Americans remember well the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The then Soviet Union had placed nuclear armed missiles on the island nation mere minutes from being able to destroy most major American cities, including Washington D.C. and New York. As a sovereign nation, Cuba, like Ukraine today, had every legal right to have Soviet missiles placed within its borders.
Of course, these Soviet missiles were an existential threat to the U.S. and President John F. Kennedy was left in an impossible situation. No matter the international legalities, under no circumstances was ...
A Review of Curt Meine’s Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work on the Occasion of Aldo Leopold’s 136th Birthday
One could tick off details about Aldo Leopold’s life—born January 11, 1887, in Burlington, Iowa; educated as a forester at Yale; worked for the U.S. Forest Service in New Mexico and Arizona for roughly two decades; married Estella Bergere in October of 1912; accepted an appointment to the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1924; and, in 1935, came into possession of “the shack,” near Baraboo, along the Wisconsin River, a place that figures as a hub in A Sand County Almanac, and on which property he died, of an apparent heart attack, while fighting ...
The Proposed Master Plan for Rib Mountain State Park Open Letter
The Proposed Master Plan for Rib Mountain State Park which was submitted to the NRB on Dec 14th, 2022 had gone through an extensive public comment process as required by Wisconsin law. However, at the NRB meeting, the plan was significantly amended on the motion of a now former board member changing the plan by adding approximately 28 acres to the parcel to be leased by Granite Peak Ski Corporation.
The amendment designated this added land for construction of three new downhill ski runs and a new ski lift. The new runs and lift will wipe out several existing and ...
TECTONIC SHIFTS
History matters. As World War II came to an end in 1944, Europe and Japan were in ruins while the U.S. had become the world’s economic powerhouse. At a historic meeting in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, forty-four countries agreed to fix their currencies to the U.S. dollar and the dollar was made convertible to gold at $35 per ounce. Thereafter countries would settle their international trade in dollars, and the dollar became the world’s reserve currency.
As one might expect, having the dollar as the world’s reserve currency proved enormously beneficial to America. ...
Nuclear Weapons and the Environment
January 22, 2023 marked the second anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. On January 22, 2021 nuclear weapons officially became illegal under international law. The world community declared the mass murder resulting from using nuclear weapons a crime against humanity. Currently 92 nations have signed and 68 have ratified the treaty and are bound by its provisions.
Unfortunately, none of the nine countries who have nuclear weapons have signed and ratified the treaty. Because they have not, the treaty does not apply to them. As a result, human ...
Honor the Earth
Pick a country road, just about any one of them will do. The one we live on serves the purpose. I've written about it before, a nice little road, perhaps a little plain, certainly less dramatic than many, and yet real treasures line its sides, both in the ditches and the woods through which it passes. The jewels that sparkle along the way are many. Marsh marigolds in spring, emerald green and radiant yellow; summer's marsh milkweed, richly magenta, and bottle gentian dappling our fall colors with brush strokes of indigo. These are just some of the gems in our ...
Manliness in a techno-digital economy
There is a ubiquitous ad on television where a young man whistles for his wife’s Christmas gift, a dog comes running through the snow, and jumps into her arms. The wife then whistles and a new, big, pickup comes bounding out of the snow. The wife nods to the husband, yes, that’s your gift. He wraps himself around the truck in an emotional hug. What’s going on here? The wife is becoming attached to a sentient being. The dog responds to her affection. The husband is hugging a machine. It is a large machine that can enlarge his vision of himself as a man. Driving it ...
Crime and Too Little Punishment
“Some men rob you with a six-gun – others rob you with a fountain pen.” Woody Guthrie
“Do the math. Far from a deterrent, multi-million dollar fines are a minuscule cost of doing business...million dollar fines on billion dollar profiteering won't deter it...” Jim Hightower on fines for illegal behavior in the meat packing industry.
Last week I wrote about corporate crime and how it is more prevalent, more costly, and more harmful to society than ordinary street crime (like murder, assault, robbery or rape). This week we look at ...
BIGGER THAN ROE WAUSAU
BIGGER THAN ROE WAUSAU
SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, NOON-2 PM
400 BLOCK, WAUSAU
BRING YOUR SIGNS
We will have information available on how to register to vote, how to obtain an absentee ballot, and how to become involved in the Supreme Court primary on February 21. Do you know which candidates hold your values? We can help. We will have half sheets on the Progressive candidates. Women's March members know that when we come together we can achieve change. And, the more people that come along to these kind of events, the more our movement will grow.
All of us are BORN ...
THE ADDAMS FAMILY
Anyone who was of high school or college age in the 1960’s remembers the black comedy sitcom, The Addams Family. It was a delightful show with strange and morbid characters one couldn’t help but love. One of these characters was the little girl named “Wednesday.”
There have been subsequent productions of The Addams Family, but the most recent is the new TV series “Wednesday,” based on the original little girl, but now as a young woman (played by American actress, Jenna Ortega) coming of age and “leaving her family’s spooky mansion for the halls ...