Are these religious nuts fanatics
Tom Williams, Hackensack summer resident
The Pilot-Independent
Last Updated: Thursday, March 09th, 2006 09:30:06 AM
I couldn't help putting some more thoughts on Bart Hoglund's letter (published March 1) about the religious Republicans.
A number of years ago I was the Republican Party Chairman of Door County, Wis., and in that position we attended the district meetings and the state conventions. The whole [trend of] religion in the party started with the abortion issue, shortly after the Roe v. Wade Decision. These anti-abortionists are still in the minority within the party, but they are also activists and have taken over the party.
I disagreed with these zealots because to me, abortion is a personal issue that should not be in politics. But it seems they won out in the party and really branched out as religious fanatics that anyone running on the Republican ticket has to cater to.
I couldn't take being an activist in politics with religion hanging over my head, so I threw in the towel and haven't renewed my [party] membership since.
Now that we have a couple of more Republicans on the [Supreme Court], it won't surprise me if Roe v. Wade is not overturned because our neighbor, South Dakota, also has a Republican legislature that recently passed an anti-abortion law with the express intent of getting Roe v. Wade back in the Supreme Court. As I said, these religious nuts are fanatics.
Tom Williams,
Hackensack summer resident
Thursday, March 09, 2006
The Appleton Post Crescent recently provided the following advice to college students looking for a bargain spring break:
Go to Door County on the cheapEven better is their collection of tips on taking a "World's largest" road trip:
Door County is one of the most beautiful places in the country. But who wants to venture up there during tourist season when high prices and rude Chicagoans are more plentiful than quaint antique shops? Not us.
However, Door County seems like a really nice destination this time of the year, when many hotels, inns and B&Bs offer discounts on rooms. According to the Door County Chamber of Commerce Convention and Visitors Bureau Web site, www.doorcounty.com, several businesses have special "Nature of Romance" packages through March. Pay attention, fellas, because this could be your chance to make up for taking the lady friend to Hooters on Valentine's Day.
Of course, nobody is going to mistake Door County for Cancun. The weather is cooler, and so is the vibe. But there is no better place for people seeking scenic beauty on the quiet side.
Cost guesstimate: Depends on where you stay and what you do when you're up there, but a decent room can be had for about $80 at some places.
Sometimes size really does matter. Several Wisconsin communities claim to have the largest something in the world, and spring break might be your only chance to see them.
Interested in the world's largest penny? Head to the corner of 3rd Avenue and Hemlock Street in Woodruff and look for the coin that's 10 feet tall and 17,452 pounds. How about the world's largest corkscrew? It's at Corkscrew Liquors in Hurley. Seekers of the world's largest loon won't find it in Mercer, the self-proclaimed "Loon Capital of the World," but they will find the world's second largest loon in the center of town, off U.S. 51. Her name is Claire de Loon, and she even talks.
For those looking to pack several "world's largest" tourist attractions into one trip, we suggest the following route:
Drive down to Milwaukee to see the Allen-Bradley clock on the south side of town. Not only is it the world's largest four-faced clock, but also the world's largest non-chiming clock. That's like killing two very large birds with one stone.
Head south to Williams Bay near Lake Geneva for the world's largest refracting telescope at Yerkes Observatory on W. Geneva Street.
Head southwest to Beloit for the world's largest can of chili beans outside the Hormel Plant on Kennedy Drive.
Head northwest to Platteville for the world's largest M painted on the side of a hill on the University of Wisconsin-Platteville campus.
Head north to La Crosse for the world's largest six-pack on South Third Street.
Head northeast to Neillsville for Chatty Belle, the world's largest talking cow, as well as a replica of the world's largest cheese.
Cost guesstimate: $150 for three to four tanks of gas and a cheap hotel room.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Notes distilled from a few weeks of posting by Tom Harwood at The Harwood Institute...
The current system of public life and politics is tired, rigid, and calcified; and the new system that is being laid overtop the old one often serves to fragment people and their voices and turn us away from one another.
People in public life and politics are in search of new pathways to engage and make a difference. There is a need within public life and politics for more given-and-take, greater focus on people’s real concerns, and harnessing of our civic energies. We need approaches that are less episodic and more sustained; that enable people to come in and out of their engagement over time, because people live life overtime, not simply in fragments of time.
We need to create mechanisms that give people hope. Here, we must think clearly about the mechanisms we are developing in terms of whether they provide people the opportunity to cultivate a sense of authentic hope within themselves and among others.
Let me be clear: authentic hope is what people seek in politics and public life – not the false hope that so many political leaders, pundits, and pollsters peddle.
The potential trap we encounter on our journeys through public life and politics is that we will forget the test of change and hope; or, that we will remember it, but then somehow lose it as we reach for our goal. Or, worse yet, we will state that we are engendering such conditions, only to provide false advertisement.
There is a critical difference between creating meaningful mechanisms and being mechanistic. We need public innovation to develop a new generation of mechanisms to foster real systemic change in our society.
Who will lead us out of this miserable mess? My answer is plain and simple: We will. By that, I mean there is no one leader who can right our course. Instead, leadership must come from people scattered across our country.
It must come from everyday people who make their voice known; who say they want to pursue an alternate path for politics and public life. Believe it or not, the very first step is one of expression – people articulating what they want and believe to one another; people raising their consciousness about the need for a different path; people letting their voices be heard so that their sentiments can bubble up through public opinion polls, talk shows, letters to the editor, and through other venues.
Most organizations are guided by good intentions. But too many of our civic-minded organizations – whether they be community foundations, United Ways, newspapers and public broadcasting, art-based groups, local education funds, not to mention others – are trapped in old assumptions about their roles and old practices about how to see and engage with communities.
Sometimes their efforts can be summed up by the notion that they “act upon” communities rather than act as a “part of” community. They can see themselves almost as outside of the communities in which they work.
Existing organizations must become more catalytic if we are to innovate in public life and politics. After 20 years of working on this challenge, my experience is that organizations need to see themselves as spanning boundaries in communities; they need to work with others to incubate new ideas and then spin those ideas off once they are off-the-ground; they need to actively build connections and networks within their communities to lower obstacles to knowledge-sharing and true collaboration; they need to make engaging the community a part of their daily work – not just a special project from time to time; and they need to cultivate the community’s resources, capacity and political will for change.
if we are to move community life forward, then public innovation needs to be at the core of at least some organizations in our communities. More business as usual won’t get us to where we need to go; nor will simply applying better management techniques, or unfolding new one-off initiatives that fail to change the existing dynamic of our chaotic public life.
Our goal must be to generate new ways of seeing and acting on both persistent and emerging challenges. The goal must be to create new pathways for people to engage, and these pathways must offer the possibility for change and authentic hope.
There are many ways for organizations to start down the new path I am suggesting. Bottom line: we need more civic-minded organizations to see themselves as homes of public innovation – and to innovate.
The current system of public life and politics is tired, rigid, and calcified; and the new system that is being laid overtop the old one often serves to fragment people and their voices and turn us away from one another.
People in public life and politics are in search of new pathways to engage and make a difference. There is a need within public life and politics for more given-and-take, greater focus on people’s real concerns, and harnessing of our civic energies. We need approaches that are less episodic and more sustained; that enable people to come in and out of their engagement over time, because people live life overtime, not simply in fragments of time.
We need to create mechanisms that give people hope. Here, we must think clearly about the mechanisms we are developing in terms of whether they provide people the opportunity to cultivate a sense of authentic hope within themselves and among others.
Let me be clear: authentic hope is what people seek in politics and public life – not the false hope that so many political leaders, pundits, and pollsters peddle.
- Authentic hope comes when we engage with one another, even when we sharply disagree, but despite our differences stay devoted to figuring out a path forward.
- Authentic hope comes when we recognize that change will take time, but that we persevere in our pursuit of the public good.
- Authentic hope comes when we cross the boundaries and dividing lines that people have drawn and insist on maintaining for their own narrow gain, which only keep us separated from each other under false pretense.
- Authentic hope comes when we express clearly our convictions – not as a way to push others away or to denigrate and demonize them, but rather to be clear on our own beliefs and where we stand – all as part of an effort to engage with others, even win for our position.
The potential trap we encounter on our journeys through public life and politics is that we will forget the test of change and hope; or, that we will remember it, but then somehow lose it as we reach for our goal. Or, worse yet, we will state that we are engendering such conditions, only to provide false advertisement.
There is a critical difference between creating meaningful mechanisms and being mechanistic. We need public innovation to develop a new generation of mechanisms to foster real systemic change in our society.
Who will lead us out of this miserable mess? My answer is plain and simple: We will. By that, I mean there is no one leader who can right our course. Instead, leadership must come from people scattered across our country.
It must come from everyday people who make their voice known; who say they want to pursue an alternate path for politics and public life. Believe it or not, the very first step is one of expression – people articulating what they want and believe to one another; people raising their consciousness about the need for a different path; people letting their voices be heard so that their sentiments can bubble up through public opinion polls, talk shows, letters to the editor, and through other venues.
Most organizations are guided by good intentions. But too many of our civic-minded organizations – whether they be community foundations, United Ways, newspapers and public broadcasting, art-based groups, local education funds, not to mention others – are trapped in old assumptions about their roles and old practices about how to see and engage with communities.
Sometimes their efforts can be summed up by the notion that they “act upon” communities rather than act as a “part of” community. They can see themselves almost as outside of the communities in which they work.
Existing organizations must become more catalytic if we are to innovate in public life and politics. After 20 years of working on this challenge, my experience is that organizations need to see themselves as spanning boundaries in communities; they need to work with others to incubate new ideas and then spin those ideas off once they are off-the-ground; they need to actively build connections and networks within their communities to lower obstacles to knowledge-sharing and true collaboration; they need to make engaging the community a part of their daily work – not just a special project from time to time; and they need to cultivate the community’s resources, capacity and political will for change.
if we are to move community life forward, then public innovation needs to be at the core of at least some organizations in our communities. More business as usual won’t get us to where we need to go; nor will simply applying better management techniques, or unfolding new one-off initiatives that fail to change the existing dynamic of our chaotic public life.
Our goal must be to generate new ways of seeing and acting on both persistent and emerging challenges. The goal must be to create new pathways for people to engage, and these pathways must offer the possibility for change and authentic hope.
There are many ways for organizations to start down the new path I am suggesting. Bottom line: we need more civic-minded organizations to see themselves as homes of public innovation – and to innovate.
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