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THE RIFLE
(reprinted from January 27, 2015 MW issue)
Born in the late 40’s, I grew up in a family of hunters. Fair shots most of them, I remember standing next to my father when a spooked buck crossed our path at a dead run. Dad shot twice, hit twice, and the buck went down. It was near Hatfield, in central Wisconsin.
Dad’s rifle was an old, iron sight, pump action, 30 Remington. It has killed (we kill deer – corn and oats are harvested) a few deer since my father died in ‘94. My sons have used the rifle. It was never a popular caliber and bullets are no longer ...
FIXING RETIREMENT: PART 2
“When tens of millions of people all have the same problem, it’s not a failure of individual initiative.” Ganesh Sitaraman and Anne L. Alstott, law professors and authors
In our last issue, we looked at why many people are not going to have enough money to retire. Wisconsin treasurer Sarah Godlewski is establishing a task force to study and make recommendations on retirement. This effort will likely not address all possible solutions in order to make its recommendations more politically palatable to the Republican-controlled legislature. But the people ...
NATIONAL SECURITY RISKS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis has been on talk shows promoting his book “Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead.”
In his interviews, in direct contrast to messaging from the White House and most Congressional Republicans, Mattis warns us of the national security risks of climate change and reprimands our political leaders for not tackling the issue.
Mattis long held the opinion that climate change is a threat to the nation and remained resolute in that opinion while serving in the Trump administration. Since resigning as Defense Secretary, it is clear he feels ...
NEWSPEAK
(Denele blogs from Arkansas. You can read more at www.denelecampbell.com)
Newspeak is the language of Oceania, a fictional totalitarian state and the setting of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), by George Orwell. To meet the ideological requirements of English Socialism (Ingsoc) in Oceania, the ruling Party created Newspeak, a controlled language of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, meant to limit the freedom of thought — personal identity, self-expression, free will — that threatens the ideology of the régime of Big Brother and the ...
PUBLIC BANKING UNIT VI: TOWARD A BRIGHTER FUTURE
“I am opposed to the United States Government, which possesses the sovereign and exclusive privilege of creating money, paying private bankers for the use of its own money. These private bankers do not hire [lend] their own money to the Government; the hire [lend] only the Government’s money to the government, and collect an interest charge annually. I insist it is absolutely wrong for this committee to permit this condition to continue and saddle the taxpayers of this Nation with a burden of debt that they will not be able to liquidate in a hundred years or ...
WE HAVE A BILLION DOLLAR DECISION TO MAKE
It is clear that Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI) is nearing the end of its useful life. On May 3, 2019, the Legislative Audit Bureau reported that many believe its antiquated design is not conducive to the efficient operation of a modern prison. The report said also said that, among Wisconsin’s prisons, GBCI is the best candidate for closure. The Allouez Village Board voted unanimously for the distribution of a petition supporting the decommissioning of GBCI. After 121 years, GBCI is nearing the end of its useful life.
That means that Wisconsin’s ...
TEN TALKING POINTS TO END GERRYMANDERING IN WISCONSIN
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is playing a key role in the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, including writing up a handy toolkit for activists. Here’s an excerpt:
The Founders of our country fought the War of Independence over fair representation. Gerrymandering deprives Wisconsinites of fair representation.
The health of our democracy depends on the integrity and fairness of our election system. The more rigged the system is, the more cynical and apathetic the citizenry will become.
Wisconsinites believe in fair play. Wisconsi...
FIXING RETIREMENT
"The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it." George Carlin, comedian
Being able to retire with dignity and financial independence was once an anticipated and expected reward for a lifetime of work. But for many people this dream is not going to come true. Many people will not have enough to retire comfortably. Some people will not be able to retire at all. This decline in secure, adequate income for older persons will affect us all. It will have a negative impact on states, like Wisconsin and Minnesota, which have ...
MORAL LEADERSHIP
What do Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Jesus, Apostle Paul and Pierre Teilhard have in common? They all maintained that love is the highest value of life.
Martin L. King wrote, “What is the highest good of life? It is love. He or she who love is a participant in the being of God.” (Christian Century, June 1957).
Gandhi wrote, “Truth and nonviolence are, to me, faces of the same coin. The law of love will work, just as the law of gravitation will work, whether we accept it or not.” (All Saints by Robert Ellsberg, p. 53.)
Jesus ...
ANDROMEDA IN THE NOVEMBER SKY
Astronomers estimate that the presently observable universe contains about one hundred billion galaxies. These are very large groups of stars (see the 10/07/19 article by James Lewis) held together by gravity. They exist in difference shapes and can be spiral, elliptical, lenticular, or irregular.
Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and its nearest full-size neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, are both spiral galaxies. We used to think that the Andromeda galaxy was two to three times as large as our galaxy, but recent (2018) radio astronomy data shows that they are ...