When I was coming of age in the 1970’s, I had a road map in the form of a breakthrough book, Our Bodies, Ourselves , first published in 1971. It revealed a wealth of information on all aspects of women’s health -- birth control, sexuality and relationships, abortion, violence and abuse, and body image, to name just a few. Most significantly, it laid the foundation for my belief that if we’re able to be informed, we can know our own bodies and take responsibility for our well-being. I find the

We’re hearing it already -- Republicans plan to make the 2020 election a “referendum on socialism.” This obsession with socialism is ridiculous and misleading -- harmful in that it diverts attention from the real issue, the role of government under capitalism. The real problem is that capitalism is not working for all people. The challenge is to make capitalism work for all people. Capitalism vs. Socialism is a false choice. On one extreme, there is pure capitalism -- all resources privately

It's Flag Day. As a child, I learned (along with my classmates) the words to the Pledge of Allegiance. Ironically, I would learn them at a time when "liberty and justice for all" clearly did not exist for many Americans. Later, as a Scoutmaster and public - school teacher, I would lead the recitation of the familiar words many times. Unfortunately, on one or two occasions I would encounter a school administrator who seemed to believe that students can be required to participate. They can't. The

Last week, we celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of the D-Day invasion. But June is also the month of another anniversary -- one for an individual who was just as important to the Allied victory in Europe. One of the things that made the German Wehrmacht so successful in the early stages of the Second World War was Enigma -- a cryptographic device that generated secret code that was said to be unbreakable. And one of the important turning points in war was when a group of British and

Some people when you ask them why they fish will tell you it’s not about the fish at all. They like to be outdoors in the fresh air and the scenery. I don’t know any of those people. I’m in it for the fish. When me and my good friend Mike Mason haul his red Lund to the Chippewa Flowage like we do every May, we do so because we hope the crappies will be in shallow and in the mood to gulp our jigs. On this trip, spring was way behind. The hardwood leaves had barely unfurled. When you looked out

I wrote this perspective on the morning June 6th, the 75th anniversary of Operation Overlord that began the liberation of Western Europe. I also just recently completed my 30th year working with high school and middle school kids. Those two events, one monumental and one definitely not , have got me pondering the messes that one generation leaves for another. The Normandy Invasion was necessary because of the mess created in the 1920’s and 1930’s by the ruling powers in both Europe and the

Some people like to start their day with a TV news show or something similar, but I start my day listening to the birds in my neighborhood. I hear cardinals, robins, hawks, a woodpecker, a blue jay, and a pair of mourning doves. The blue jay was absent last year, so it's nice hear its call again this spring. The mourning doves are my favorite and have been for many years. I enjoy their cooing and they always remind of summer mornings in my childhood, when I developed the habit of starting my day

A few years ago, a friend and her son, Ben, visited our sheep farm. My husband did a sheepherding demonstration with our border collie Abbie. Ben watched from our second-floor deck, cell phone in hand, describing to a young woman he was dating how Abbie was separating a couple sheep from the flock, a difficult “shedding” skill. Listening, Ben’s girlfriend visualized the action of our confident herding dog. It sparked her decision to “shed off” another relationship in order to be with Ben.

Earth Day and Earth Month have come and gone; however, climate change -- our climate crisis -- is here to stay. As a mom of three, one documentary caught my attention a few years ago titled, Normal is Over . Renee Scheltema -- a mom and renowned journalist filmmaker -- begins by sharing why she embarked on a yearlong trip around the world to examine the state of our planet. She journeys to meet individuals in India, Australia, Africa, the Netherlands, Canada, the United States and more -- all

In first year criminal law classes we learn there are two kinds of crimes: malum in se and malum prohibitum : bad in itself and bad because prohibited. Malum in se crimes are inherently immoral. Murder, arson, rape are examples. They all envision direct action by a person harming a person. The vast amount of malum prohibitum crimes are crimes merely because they are prohibited by statute. The act itself is rarely immoral. These are what I call paperwork crimes: e.g. not filing a tax return, not