(“Cartoon from the records of the National Child Labor Committee (U.S.). During the Progressive Era many organizations were formed to outlaw the child labor that was a feature of Gilded Age industrial revolution, which included teenage girls working long hours… Read More ›
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A Weekly Poetry Column: Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry”
(U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s poetry column, American Life in Poetry, will appear regularly at The Afternoon Journal.– JK) ****************************** American Life in Poetry: Column 468 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE Here’s another lovely poem to honor the caregivers… Read More ›
Some Thoughts on the Milwaukee Rep’s “An Iliad”
Last evening my wife and I went to see the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s stunning production of An Iliad, the one-man retelling of Homer’s ancient poem, starring Jim DeVita. “One-man” is not quite right, for cellist Alicia Storin is cast to play the musical Muse… Read More ›
U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s Weekly Poetry Column
American Life in Poetry: Column 425 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE If we haven’t done it ourselves, we’ve known people who have, it seems: taken a vacation mostly to photograph a vacation, not really looking at what’s there, but… Read More ›
A “Living Wage” Lives On
Though a Senate committee approved a bill (3-2 on party lines, no need to say which is which) to limit “living wage” laws in Wisconsin– a mean-spirited bill aimed at preventing Milwaukee County from approving a new living wage ordinance–it appears that, according to Senate Majority… Read More ›
Pres. Obama’s 2015 Budget: Less for Great Lakes, more for Prisons and still too much for Defense
There is for the progressively compassionate much to like about Pres. Obama’s newly released federal budget: more for the poor, less for the wealthy for instance. A raise in the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. $300 billion to maintain what… Read More ›
Weekend Rebuttal: The War Hawks on Ukraine
Today we can confirm that Russia has sent troops into the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry had warned Russia not to invade Ukraine, and Putin decided not to obey. Of course, it doesn’t… Read More ›
Heed Sen. Elizabeth Warren on War’s Civilian Casualties
(Photo by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Community Banks Roundtable) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons) It is safe to say that every major war over the last few centuries at least has brought great harm and suffering to innocent civilians (or non-combatants),… Read More ›
WI Attorney General Should Not Defend the Unjust Same-Sex Marriage Amendment
After U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that state attorney generals need not defend state laws banning same-sex marriage, Wisconsin attorney general J.B. Van Hollen responded by saying that state constitutional amendments must be defended: “If there’s one clear-cut job… Read More ›
A Little Digital Simplification
I decided today to scale-down and simplify The Afternoon Journal, to make it less visually polluting, less, well, digital-looking. The tendency on many websites is to gather and display as much information and graphics as possible, an easy thing to do and over-do…. Read More ›
Weekend Rebuttal: “Anti-Walker” or Pro-Truth?
In his latest Milwaukee Journal Sentinel column, “The Anti-Walker crowd needs to keep looking”, Christian Schneider gamely tries to defend Gov. Walker from “myopic Democrats” after the release this past week of many thousands of emails, some which seem to connect Walker (as objective reporters… Read More ›
Gov. Walker as Captain Ahab
The Wisconsin conservative spin machine (call it the whitewashing machine) has been rotating wildly today, making itself dizzier than normal, after yesterday’s release of some damaging email records that seem to confirm that Walker, as Milwaukee County Executive, had at least some knowledge of… Read More ›
Governors in Trouble: Christie, Walker and now Kasich
Republican governors have not been doing well lately, what with Christie’s Bridgegate, Gov. Walker’s campaign e-mail revelations, and now Ohio Gov. John Kasich having to embarrassingly change his mind on fracking after Ohio’s DNR was caught in a plan to… Read More ›
Cesar Chavez, a Living Wage and Bipartisan Tax/Debt Pandering
(By USGov-DOL (USGov-DOL) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons) Two apparently radical, left-wing proposals were discussed in Madison last week, one of which is supported, sort of, by our Republican governor and one which is opposed by Milwaukee County’s Democratic County Executive. And what Democratic… Read More ›
“Do More to Prevent War” by David Swanson
(From the PeaceVoice website) “Polls showed a large percentage of us in this country supporting the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and even — though somewhat reduced — the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But not long after, and ever… Read More ›
WI Sen. Ron Johnson Votes “Nay” on Extending Unemployment Benefits
Even though today’s failed Senate attempt to pass an emergency three-month extension of long-term unemployment insurance included a Republican provision to prevent millionaires (like Sen. Johnson) from receiving unemployment payments (millionaires receive unemployment?), Wisconsin’s Republican senator voted, along with 39 other Republican senators,… Read More ›
The Pacific 