(Photo by U.S Government [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2010. Photo taken at the State Department, in Washington, D.C.) By John Kaufman Though famed for its politically progressive tradition, Wisconsin does produce some notorious conservatives,… Read More ›
(“An Eclogue” by Kenyon Cox 1856-1919 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.)
(Cartoon by Udo J. Keppler (a.k.a. Joseph Keppler, Jr.; 1872-1956), cartoonist [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. “Wall Street bubbles – Always the same.” American financier J. P. Morgan is depicted as a bull, blowing soap bubbles for eager investors. (See… Read More ›
By Khalil Bendib via OtherWords.com (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/)
(Photo by By Jonathan McIntosh [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons) By John Kaufman We in Wisconsin owe a great debt of gratitude to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency without which we would likely be facing the prospect of a… Read More ›
“We used to pay for education But it don’t pay to graduate A thinker now. No jobs, anyhow. When you think of us you think Of watching football on TV. A national brand. A marching band. A hundred thousand people… Read More ›
Becoming Our Enemy Sometime we’ll have to risk Becoming our enemy. It will take some warming up, Eyes and teeth offered Shyly, arms unarmed. No words at first to blur The strange exchange, just Purest greeting: a bow That looks away… Read More ›
The Poem to End All Cruelty For many years she wanted to write a poem To end all cruelty. But always she failed to start Or finish because she thought: Who am I To try to change what many holy… Read More ›
A Banished Sound by John Kaufman Banishment has this benefit: Art becomes your argument. You’re free To dabble in the resistance of language, Rebel in babble, decorate the walls With something human that will last or have To be… Read More ›
There Is by John Kaufman There is injustice . . . There is tragedy . . . And there is a woman utterly frank laughing as she unbuttons her blouse. And there is an ocean far to the west… Read More ›
According to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 51% of Americans approve of the CIA’s “harsh interrogation” of prisoners, while 28% disapprove and 20% aren’t sure. Most striking and appalling is that 45% of Americans, says the poll, think it’s fine… Read More ›
Torture and war are intimately related. Torture is a subset of war: brutality directed at an individual and justified in the name of “defense.” What was the justification across the Bush administration for the CIA’s recently revealed program of brutal “enhanced interrogation”?… Read More ›
Here are two poems by the 19th Century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who was, for the record, a Unitarian pacifist who reluctantly supported the Civil War as the only way of ending slavery. Before the war, in 1845, he,… Read More ›
American Life in Poetry: Column 505 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE Stuart Kestenbaum is a Maine poet with a new book, Only Now, from Deerbrook Editions. In it are a number of thoughtful poems posed as prayers, and here’s… Read More ›
(Here’s a link to a printed copy of Whittier’s poem, published in a newspaper called the Signal of Liberty in 1842.) Most days I am of two minds, a state of being I’m sure I share with many other people: should… Read More ›
Islamic State militants being driven out of #Kobane, Kurdish commander tells BBC http://t.co/JRe0aQuyYD pic.twitter.com/FdX6de7Fpa — BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) October 16, 2014 I was struck yesterday by this BBC-tweeted photograph of people on the border between Turkey and Syria watching the fighting for… Read More ›
The Pacific 