Wisconsin State Legislature to Milwaukee (via milwaukeestat)
ugh all of these are awful
also:
Elections audit. The Republicans on the committee approved requiring an audit of the Government Accountability Board, which oversees the states ethics and elections laws.
of course they did
The Dane County 911 Center has been overwhelmed with calls from cellphone users reporting people lying on the grass, not moving, possibly not living.You’ve got to be kidding me.
i guess we needed something to balance out forgetting how to drive in the snow every start of the winter, so now we’re forgetting what normal behavior on warm/sunny days is at the start of the summer
altho i mean this is kinda qt. ppl are v concerned about one another <3
LGBTQ* Law and Protection History
The Gif above showcases the LGBT legal changes of same-sex/gender recognized marriages in the United States from 1970-2013.
this gif is misleading
wisconsin has “domestic partnerships,” not civil unions, that grant only 43 rights to couples. our constitutional ban remains as well, and for that reason multiple lawsuits have been brought against the domestic partnership law as violating the state constitution. in ruling that domestic partnerships do not violate the state constitution, one judge helpfully illustrated exactly how inadequate they are: “The state does not recognize domestic partnership in a way that even remotely resembles how the state recognizes marriage.”
sad/fun fact, though: wisconsin was the first state in the midwest to enact any kind of recognition for gay couples, and we continue to be the only state to have a ban in place and some form of recognition.
we’re a mixed up state.
Two dogs, Wisconsin Rapids, ca. 1950.
Photo by Don Krohn for the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune.
ah yes, the old dog in a shoe custom
Whoa. Dan Kraker reports on stranded loons in Wisconsin. They fell from the sky:
An ice storm in central Wisconsin last Thursday and Friday “encased loons in ice as they were migrating,” explained Marge Gibson, who runs the Raptor Education Group in Antigo, Wisc. “They fell like rocks from the sky.”
Gibson has rescued and released 51 stranded loons since Saturday, and said she has six more in rehabilitation. Here’s a video of a loon recovering in a bathtub.
Read more: http://mprne.ws/kPCkG
oh poor loons :(
Wisconsin ranks 44th in the nation for new job creation. Rather than rolling up their sleeves and finding new and innovative ways to help create jobs, the Wisconsin legislature is spending its time telling people needing food assistance what they should be eating. AB 110, which will be up for a vote in the Assembly on Tuesday, May 7, is geared toward limiting “the amount of food stamp benefits that could be spent on junk food.” But some of the fine print of the bill, bizarrely, would ban people from choosing more healthy and less expensive options for their families. The bill is one of many being considered that are unduly punitive of the poor.
this should be political poison - it effectively shuts out money from going toward major wisconsin industries. like, cheddar cannot be purchased? are you kidding me? small dairies and other farms will also have their products excluded from this.
and as the article notes, it also prevents the purchase of items that people with food allergies need, like gluten-free bread.
unfortunately, as the comments show, too many people will see words like “organic” mixed in with this story and get angry about people “eating better than working people can afford” (never mind that, if someone buying food on the paltry sum you get for assistance can budget it out so they can afford some higher quality food, so can most of the people bitterly complaining that they have to buy value brand foods - they’ll just have to take the same hits to volume or variety that people on food share do)
i guess some wisconsinites are only proud of its agricultural products when punishing people for being poor isn’t distracting them
(Source: arenaoftheunwell)
This weekend people will gather at the corner of Russell and Superior to mark the 127th anniversary of the Bay View massacre, a bloody chapter in state history that helped define not only the modern labor movement, but also the city of Milwaukee.
In 1886, a massive industrial complex stood just south of what is now the Port of Milwaukee. The North Chicago Rolling Mills foundry was huge even by Modern Standards, with some 1,500 workers, converting iron ore into steel for the nation’s railroads.
“So this really was a company town, this is why Bay View exists,” Milwaukee Historian John Gurda said.
It was mostly Polish immigrants working at the foundry, and the conditions were brutal, 10 to 12 hour days, 6 days a week, for a little more than a dollar a day.
“All the cards were in the employer’s hands, so labor tried to organize to strike a better balance,” Gurda said.
And by the spring of 1886, that effort had crystalized into a national campaign for an eight hour work day.
“The slogan was 8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, and 8 hours for what we will,” Gurda said.
A general strike was called in Milwaukee on May 1st and by May 5th, the Rolling Mills Foundry was the only major factory still operating. That morning, a crowd of several thousand striking workers marched on the plant in an effort to convince those inside to join them. The governor at the time, Republican Jeremiah Rusk, responded by calling in the National Guard.”
“He was a decorated civil war veteran, and someone who would not tolerate a threat to the established order…and when he heard a mob was marching down Bay Street, he pretty much said, `shoot to kill,’ Gurda said.
When the shooting stopped, seven people lay dead, including a 12-year-old boy.
It’s the first Sunday of May, the traditional anniversary of this tragedy, and I hadn’t seen any posts about it, so here you go.
The Associated Press. (via wisconsinforward)
(via wisconsinforward)
