Category: Opinion

It was a remarkable event. Twenty million Americans came together in small towns and major cities to take action on April 22, 1970. The first Earth Day was the largest grass-roots demonstration in American history. Almost overnight, the right to a clean and healthy environment, championed across time and the political spectrum by the likes of Theodore Roosevelt and Rachel Carson, became the nationâ??s chorus. A decade of sweeping environmental legislation and reform followed.

Forty years later, coalitions of citizens – concerned about climate change, food security, health, energy supplies and clean water – still work to address local and global environmental challenges. As we celebrate this week the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the past informs our present and future. A column by Gregg Mitman, interim director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Eric Massa story predictably and mercifully has gone. Even Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh understood when Massaâ??s auditions were over, and they cut him loose. But our intrepid media folks always are on the hunt for something â??new,â? something â??hotâ? to fill their space.

Recently, the ABC evening news offered us the ultimately silly and misplaced story of Chief Justice John Robertsâ?? remarks about President Barack Obamaâ??s criticism of his courtâ??s recent ruling, which held that corporate campaign contributions fell under â??free speech,â? and could not be regulated. Once again, historical memory is sacrificed to the interests of a â??good storyâ?; we have what historian Daniel Boorstin described as a â??pseudo event.â?

Stanley Kutler is a UW-Madison professor emeritus of history

Part of me – the part thatâ??s been writing tuition checks for years to the University of Wisconsin for my kids – wanted to join in the protest at UWM over the cost of a college education. But I for sure would not be climbing any rain gutters to get to the chancellor. The number of police officers I want to push or pelt with snowballs on any given day is around zero. And count me out when the chanting turns this ridiculous: “No cost, no fees, education should be free.”

When a group of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students clashed with police and security outside a campus office last week, it was a reminder of the days when it was the norm for college students to protest.The use of pepper spray by police during arrests at the protest was criticized by some, including the American Civil Liberties Union. The UWM chancellor decried the actions of protesters while expressing his support for freedom of speech.

Politics are paralyzed. The minority party is motivated by a desire to have the president of the United States fail, while the squishy majority is in disarray, drawing into question its capacity to govern. Congressional leadership of both parties is inept and ineffective. The result is drift and inertia, a pathetic situation befitting a banana republic.

Divided government need not mean gridlock, however. Political history demonstrates that despite partisan differences and jockeying for favor, the system works.

The work of building a media reform movement began long before Bob McChesney and I started writing about issues of media monopoly, the decay of newspapers and the current crisis in journalism, and it will go on long after we put down our pens â?? or, in this digital age, shut off our computers.

But the past decade has been a critical juncture in the growth of media activism, as the movement to free up and democratize our communications has gone from strength to strength. That growth has been made possible by the diligent engagement of some remarkable people who recognized early on that the media are not just something that happens to us. Media are a constant in our lives that we the people can, through enlightened policy making, shape and influence to serve human and civic needs â?? as opposed to merely enriching speculators and the CEOs of media conglomerates.

Madisonâ??s Cynthia Laitman, who has died in her early 70s after a nasty bout with brain cancer, was a pioneer in turning that recognition into activism at the local, state and national levels.

The Wisconsin Senate, in a strong bipartisan vote, has approved a bill adding new regulations to campaign speech in state and local races.

THE warning in The Journal of the American Medical Association is not ambiguous: â??There is a very definite brain injury due to single or repeated blows on the head or jaw which cause multiple concussion hemorrhages. … The condition can no longer be ignored by the medical profession or the public.â?

The No. 1 one issue today for students at University of Wisconsin System schools and across the nation is the inability to pay their tuition. As the amount students pay for their education increases, the State of Wisconsinâ??s contributions to higher education continue to decrease. The systematic, historical and ongoing reasons for this change in our state and society cannot be explained quickly or easily. A column by Jay Burseth, president of the UW-Milwaukee Student Association.

Whenever newspapers publish findings of their latest poll, they try to persuade us that the poll is honest, conducted without bias, and scientific. The obligatory blurb goes something like this: â??Results are based on phone interviews with X adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Jan 6-8. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus X points.

�If a name like Harris, Pew or Gallup is involved, you have confidence there is only one goal: Inform the public. The pollsters have too much to lose to cook the books.

But what if the pollsters are biased — determined to get a result consistent with their agenda? It is vital to know who writes the questions, decides when to poll, and determines whether or not to release the results.

On Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with plastic explosives hidden in his underwear. On Dec. 22, 2001, Richard Reid tried to blow up a transatlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes. Incompetent and poorly supported, they were quickly foiled by passengers and flight crew. But the fact that Abdulmutallab would try a variation of Reidâ??s attack eight years later raises some interesting questions about terrorist tactics.

Andrew H. Kydd is an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

I used to be a science writer for a California newspaper, where I learned to think of the ground beneath my feet as something alive. It crawled and shivered, stretched and quaked. It was the thin, wrinkled skin of an A.D.D. planet, whose muscles and bones constantly twitched beneath it.

In this economic climate, weâ??d forgive some of the 576 graduates who will participate Saturday in winter commencement exercises at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for being a little reluctant to leave college for the work force.

President Barack Obama spoke at Wright Middle School in Madison last month and urged our nation to make improving K-12 education a national priority.

Since Dale Kiddâ??s death Saturday, at 55, from complications of the swine flu virus, it has become evident just how many people appreciated his music and spirit. Tributes have poured into a website, www.dalekidd.com, that was quickly established by his colleagues and friends.

Kidd, who served in the Navy, studied fire science at MATC and worked in fire safety at UW-Madison. But as Burns said, he never stopped playing. It may be better to say he never stopped thinking about music, how to get better, how to hit the perfect note. There are several friends who fondly recall Kidd pulling up at their curb unannounced and insisting they jump in and hear his latest recording or guitar riff.