17 results for month: 09/2019

OPENING THE MEXICAN-USA BORDER

This past Tuesday, September 24 I had the grand opportunity to hear Nell Anderson talk about her time in El Paso, Texas where she worked with migrants.   Nell is a former Wausau resident and Wausau School District employee. She went on a transformative awareness trip to El Paso, Texas with Abriendo Fronteras—Opening Borders.   She met migrants and human rights advocates on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. In her group were people from Minnesota, North Dakota, Colorado, Oregon, and Wisconsin. They stayed in a mission center in El Paso.   They worked very hard for the eight days they were there: buying food, ...

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WAUSAU CITY COUNCIL

(Dan is a member of Citizen’s Climate Lobby Rib Mountain—Marshfield Chapter)   On the evening of September 24, 2019, the members of the Wausau City Council stepped up and voted in favor of a resolution in support of State and Federal action on climate change.   In doing so, Wausau joins a steadily growing list of over one hundred cities and counties in Wisconsin and the rest of the country who recognize the dangers we face. There are now five cities in our own 7th Congressional District who have done so. The pressure on our State and Federal legislators to act ratchets up another notch.   While the members of the Council ...

OBJECTS IN THE SKY

The best times for viewing stars and planets in September 2019 are the beginning and ending days of the month. A new moon occurs on August 30 and again on September 28 when Earth’s moon is so close to the Sun that they both set at almost the same time. Skies will be darker at these times. In contrast, a full moon occurs on September 13, making it more difficult to see fainter objects.   September is a good time to see the Summer Triangle, an asterism of three of the brightest stars in the sky. An asterism is a group of stars that are associated in some way but are not considered to be a constellation.   Even when the moon is ...

LOVE WINS OVER HATE

I had the incredible experience of hearing a former racist skinhead and a Sikh man share the same stage. They told their amazing story of how they met and became friends. They are now as close as brothers.   The Veninga Lecture (September 23 at Wausau East High School) featured Arno Michaelis and Pardeep Singh Kaleka tell their stories.   Arno was a leader of a worldwide racist skinhead organization in the late 1980s and early 1990s the group that produced the shooter at the August 5, 2012 shooting at Oak Creek Sikh Temple.   Arno turned his life around when he became the single parent of his 18-month-old daughter. The ...

SEPTEMBER INTERLUDE

(Editor’s Note: The family of Carl J. Nelson (1915-2015) has given permission to Middle Wisconsin to reprint his poetry here. Carl Nelson was a farmer, logger, producer of strawberries and raspberries, philosopher, Quaker, a poet and a pastor.)   These are golden days, Summer has spent its intensity of purpose, and September brings a welcome release.   Goldenrod warm the fallow fields and road sides, Trees appear disheveled and worn with leaves beginning to mellow. Even the relentless blue of the sky is softened with haze. Smoke obscures the outline of the hills.   The sun has tempered the heat of ...

REAL FREEDOM IS A UNION JOB

“Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.” President Ronald Reagan On Labor Day we remembered the sacrifice of union activists to improve the lives of all of us. We should remember that unions and the labor movement helped build the middle class in America. They brought us the weekend, healthcare, retirement, work place safety, and many other employment standards. Unions have also contributed, along with many other social justice advocates, to making “freedom” more than just a platitude. They give some reality to our over-hyped rhetoric on individual liberty.   “True individual freedom cannot ...

MORNING MUSINGS

Here are my morning musings from the front porch on a cloudy autumn day. A hummer is humming, its wings whirring as it flits from flower to flower seeking nourishment for the day. Soon they will be making their arduous journey to a warmer climate. Bees aren’t buzzing, but they dive into the bright yellow zinnias gathering nectar to store for the winter. Mourning doves perch on the fence, swoop to the ground scratching for morsels—their soft murmurs are comforting. The finches quietly cheep as if they are saying a long goodbye before heading south. Their bright yellow blends with the stark black. The females’ dull browns blend with ...

THINNING THE HERD

“Either we limit our population growth, or the natural world will do it for us...”  David Attenborough, British naturalist producer of nature documentaries.   “Reproductive rights are an environmental issue.” Center for Biological Diversity   There is a cartoon that shows deer in the woods with a sprawling, traffic jammed, polluted city in the background. One of the deer is saying, “Let me get this straight, it is our herd that needs thinning?” The current world population is 7.7 billion and is increasing by 82 million each year. Estimates say it will reach 10.9 billion by the end of the century. Whose herd ...

SAY NO TO ENBRIDGE PIPELINE EXPANSION

If we can stop Enbridge from building the Line 3 in Minnesota, there will be no need for Line 66 through Wisconsin.   Allies in Minnesota, including Honor the Earth, MN 350, Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light, Friends of the Headwaters and others, have organized a major rally to show Minnesota Governor Tim Walz the huge opposition to a new Line 3 in Minnesota.   You are invited to attend this rally on Saturday, September 28 at 1 p.m. in Duluth from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. The location is Gitchi-ode’ Akiing at Lake Place Park in Duluth on the shores of Lake Superior. . We want to help other people avoid all the risks of ...

PUBLIC BANKING – UNIT II: THE COST OF “INTEREST”

Let us assume a state needs to replace an aging bridge on one of its state highways. If the contractor’s bid for supplying the materials and completing the construction is two million dollars, the tax payers of that state will eventually pay close to four million dollars for the bridge. How can this possibly be? The answer in a word is - - “interest.” The near doubling of the cost of most public projects, from bridges, to schools, to water and sewage systems, is the result of the legal process of fractional reserve banking through which the quasi-public US Federal Reserve Bank (the Fed) and the private banking industry loan most of the ...