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“Is public virtue dead?”: Shelley’s “Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things”
By John Frederick Kaufman What better poem to turn to than one recently discovered in England, a poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1811 when he was just 18 and a student at Oxford University. No copy of the poem existed in the public realm until this month, when Oxford’s Bodleian Library made it available online. The […]
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Let’s just build a wall around Wisconsin
Since the building of really big walls for the good of the nation is now a popular idea among some Americans, especially Republican presidential candidates and a former Republican presidential candidate, Wisconsin Republicans now governing the state should consider building a wall around the state’s borders. Such a wall would keep the wrong people out and […]
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After Paris terrorist attack, it’s either war or “appeasement” many say
Arguing against military retaliation/intervention is not appeasement or surrender; it is an attempt to limit violence everywhere . . .
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Debate in Wisconsin? Let’s talk about Patriotgate
One question not heard at last night’s Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee was anything about what we might call “Patriotgate.” This has nothing to do with deflated footballs but does include the New England Patriots, as well as the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Brewers and the UW-Madison Badgers. A report released last week by Arizona Senators Jeff Flake and […]
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Resist the “Instapoets”: a quick poem for the young
There are some things, like poetry, that cannot come easy if the thing is likely to last. Some advice: don’t enter a building or a poem (or any long-term relationship) that is not carefully constructed for what you risk is deconstruction of all you thought you stood upon– the present fails to slam the past and you fall until you […]
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“VOT_ for Republicans!”– An Issue Ad for Our Times [Satire]
![“VOT_ for Republicans!”– An Issue Ad for Our Times [Satire]](https://afternoonjournal.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/1900mck.jpg?w=566)
We at the Wisconsin Institute for Insisting that Issue Ads are Not About Electing Anybody (WIII . . .) have teamed up with the Wisconsin Club for Circumventing Justice and the Wisconsin Supremely Conservative Court to bring you the following nonpartisan advertisement on the issue of campaign finance reform. VOT_ for Republicans! Narrator: Are […]
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“Killing Blindly in the Endless War” by Kathy Kelly
“These are people who had been working hard for months, non-stop for the past week. They had not gone home, they had not seen their families, they had just been working in the hospital to help people… and now they are dead. These people are friends, close friends. I have no words to express this. […]
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The Novelist & the President: what a true democracy is
When the American novelist/essayist Marilynne Robinson sat down with President Obama for a chat on matters literary, religious and political, President Obama asked her to — “Tell me a little bit about how your interest in Christianity converges with your concerns about democracy.” Robinson: Well, I believe that people are images of God. There’s no […]
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Bombing Hospitals All in a Day’s Work
[From the Institute of Policy Studies via Common Dreams] By Phyllis Bennis The destruction of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, with 22 dead so far, including doctors, other staff and patients, capped a week that also saw the bombing of another hospital in Afghanistan, plus the U.S.-backed Saudi Arabian bombing of a […]
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More perpetual war: Afghanistan again
Speaking of perpetual war, the NY Times is reporting that the U.S. war in Afghanistan, which, despite a major withdrawal of troops, was never entirely over, has erupted again as the U.S. launched airstrikes and deployed Special Forces troops after the Taliban captured the city of Kunduz. Though the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was, after much […]
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Both China & U.S. need to improve the human rights of women
Yesterday, at a U.N. summit meeting on women’s rights hosted by, of all nations, China and its president, Xi Jinping, we learned that China will “reaffirm our commitment to gender equality and women’s development,” according to Xi. So far, that reaffirmation has failed to recover the human rights of five Chinese female/feminist activists who were imprisoned […]
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And the very next day, the House Speaker resigns . . .
Perhaps inspired by a genuinely religious (that is, generally liberal) sermon, House Speaker John Boehner decided the next morning he had nothing more to say politically and told House Republicans and the nation yesterday that he is quitting and leaving Congress. Boehner did not say, however, that he will take a vow of poverty to work among the poor in Calcutta or […]
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Congress gets schooled in some liberal religion
At present the “golden rule” of many in Congress is he who has the most gold is the most to be loved and pandered to, so it was no doubt a bit of a shock for our representatives in Washington, D.C. to be reminded of the Christian Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them […]
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Rumple Oxbridge: “In Ignorance We Cannot Trust”
By Rumple Oxbridge (imaginary rhymer-in-residence) What Gov. Walker learned, at last, is this: ignorance is only bliss if ignorance is all there is — “In God We Trust” will soon go bust if you think God thinks for us. [For the NY Times’ Frank Bruni column, 800 words of prose on the relationship between Gov. Walker, Republican […]
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Poem for the International Day of Peace
“International Day of Peace (“Peace Day”) is observed around the world each year on 21 September. Established in 1981 by resolution 36/37, the United Nations General Assembly has declared this as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples. Furthering the Day’s mission, the General Assembly voted […]
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Gov. Scott Walker bows out of presidential race
If it’s in the NY Times it must be true: Gov. Scott Walker is throwing in the towel. Perhaps now he’ll return to Wisconsin where his local popularity is plummeting.
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