A MIND LIKE A STEEL TRAP
Here in the beginning of my silver-fox days (with what hair I've got left), I am beginning to encounter the routine bouts of momentary forgetfulness that are totally annoying, slightly disturbing but...
View ArticleMore robbing-us-blind justice as Wisconsin Supremes again rule badly on Doe...
From political witch hunt to political whitewash, in a few, smeary brush strokes: The conservative majority on Wisconsin's Supreme Court just issued another have-it-both ways ruling on the suspended...
View ArticleTERRORISTS BOMB AND SHOOT AMERICA! In 1837, 1859, 1886, 1917, 1933, 1940, and...
The shrill fear-mongers -- led by Donald Trump and to a slightly lesser degree other Republican Party operatives or candidates -- want citizens to think domestic terrorism is something altogether new...
View ArticleFalse equivalency jumps the shark
Republicans — greatly aided by some in the mainstream media — have feasted in recent years on the “false equivalency” gambit. The most basic and infamous such example is the often-used phrase, “Well,...
View ArticleREPORTING THE OREGON MILITIA TAKEOVER -- a "that was then, this is now" epiphany
When I was a newspaper reporter in 1975, I joined a fleet of other journalists who spent about a month covering a fairly spectacular event in northern Wisconsin, one that gained so much national press...
View ArticlePAUL RYAN AND THE G.O.P. PUNCH & JUDY SHOW ON CONTROLLING GUN VIOLENCE IN...
Everyone should take a few minutes and watch the video of President Obama's news conference yesterday announcing the executive orders he's issuing in the wake of daily mass gun violence in this nation....
View ArticleAcross USA, water clocks running faster as private firms swoop in on a...
The Children's Museum in Indianapolis boasts North America's biggest water clock, a tower that uses colored water to mark the passage of time. While a remarkable and elegant device, It's also an...
View ArticleUNDER THE DOMES: Trouble at a Milwaukee landmark
Wisconsin Republican lawmakers and perhaps the Democratic county executive seem hell-bent on dismantling not only Milwaukee County's parkland "necklace," but also upon breaking up the three jewels of...
View Article"Spotlight," pedophile priests, and Wisconsin's own cone of silence
I was pleasantly surprised when the 2016 Best Picture Oscar went to "Spotlight." As a veteran journalist, I thoroughly enjoyed the understated verisimilitude of the film. As a former movie critic, I...
View ArticleHere's why Scott Walker attacks U. of Wisconsin, yet ignores in-state...
Political observers lately have attached the phrase “politics of resentment” to the swath of rank-and-file, working-class Americans upset with increasing economic inequality, and governance that...
View ArticleTHE DAILY KLEPTOCRACY -- we could write about it every day and not keep up
Keep your hand on your purse or wallet. Official kleptocracy continues as greed overwhelms American democracy. The three new examples that follow might remind my fellow Wisconsin residents of the case...
View ArticleTHE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WHORE
In light of news reports revealing the massive, worldwide extent to which wealthy elites including politicians use offshore tax havens to hide their wealth and tax liability, www.salon.com/... here's...
View ArticleDear Republicans: On right-to-work schemes, try "taking" a deep breath.
A new Wisconsin judicial ruling demonstrates once again that Republicans are outraged about so-called "takings" of private property only when such takings do not benefit, um, Republicans. Groping...
View ArticleLET'S (REPUBLICANS ONLY!) CUT TO THE CHASE. EVERYONE ELSE STAY IN LINE.
I am often reminded of an old Saturday NIght Live skit making fun of the short but fantabulously baroque reign of House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the late 1990s, riffing on the Republican “Contract of...
View ArticleMonster truckers in state of Denali
What the heck is it with monster-grille "pick-up" trucks these days? Trucks like the GM Denali, the grille of which looks like it's a meat grinder for a tyrannosaurus. No hitchhiker is getting picked...
View ArticleFLINT-CONSCIOUS WISCONSIN DNR PUTS BAND-AID ON LEADED WATER PIPES, CALLS IT A...
You can bet that, given the awful lead-poisoning situation in Flint, Michigan, public policy makers around the nation are looking over their shoulders and wondering what they're going to do about...
View ArticleResponding to UW faculty's no-confidence vote, Wisconsin Gov. Walker again...
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is pooh-poohing this week's unanimous, all-but-unprecedented no-confidence vote by University of Wisconsin -- Milwaukee faculty, labeling it a "fuss." What? A "fuss"? Does...
View ArticleTHE BLUR: public and/or private bond issues and the above-your-head economy...
Financiers, economists and lawmakers fret over the so-called underground economy and how it distorts and harms markets, but what the rest of us should be fretting about is what might be called the...
View ArticleWE NEED SCIENCE AND EFFECTIVE REGULATION -- BECAUSE, BY ITS NATURE, THE...
“It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.” -- Alfred North Whitehead Professor Whitehead, a...
View ArticleTrump's rig-atoni rhetoric is orange, but only half-baked ... and it's going...
Donald Trump inadvertently is doing Republicans a back-handed favor, one that is no doubt in private causing them great grief. Those would be the same Republicans who in a group of key states have...
View Article