Worley Dervish

Yesterday afternoon the Dalai Lama spoke to the Wisconsin state legislature. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama speaking to the Wisconsin State Assembly on May 14, 2013. Photo by Leslie Amsterdam. Before His Holiness ever spoke a word, he laughed—not a nervous giggle, but an all-out “I’m so happy to be here” laugh. Such...
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Friday morning I posted this meme on the Worley Dervish Tumblr. From the New York Times Editorial Board, May 3, 2013: “Putting Politics Ahead of Science” (not to mention decency and common sense) That post set a guy on Tumblr off on a rampage. (I honestly don’t know who he is—I “ignored” him, which...
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Truth be told, I have never been all that fond of weddings. In fact, in my disgust with their usual sexist buttressing of patriarchy, in my more cynical moments I have been known to refer to them as “Babes on Parade.” When Tom and I were living together outside of the bonds of matrimony,...
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I was pleasantly surprised this week to read about Senator Rob Portman’s change of heart regarding gay marriage. A few comments I read expressed regret that it required a personal connection—Portman’s son is gay—for him to reevaluate his position. But I contend that nearly all of our best and most important transformations are prompted...
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January 15, 2013, was the day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. should have been celebrating his 84th birthday. (Was he really only 39 when he was assassinated? I was 11 at the time. I thought 39 was ancient then. Now it seems so very young.) January 15 was also the day of Scott Walker’s...
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So here in Wisconsin this week we won some and we lost some. Seems like the stuff we won was pretty big, but the stuff we lost isn’t exactly small potatoes either. Thanks in large part to gerrymandering, both branches of the state legislature are once again under Republican control, although I hear tell...
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Mitt Romney doesn’t want to talk about FEMA anymore. Of course, he doesn’t. What he wants to do is very unpopular, especially at times like this, because it would benefit only a very, very few. He wants to downsize FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) and outsource it, make those ever-more-frequent weather disasters into...
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Endorsements for candidates in posts here do not represent the opinions of all regular contributors, blue cheddar, or the blog’s many guest writers. Some good folks on the left of the political spectrum, many of whom I respect very much, dismiss the notion of voting for the lesser of two evils. Certainly doing so...
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As an ever-more-deeply-invested participant in the Solidarity Sing Along, I’ve been thinking lately about why we sing, why we’ve chosen this particular form of expression. Just what’s going on here? Why do we keep coming back? What exactly are we accomplishing? I don’t think of what we do as protest, because it’s so much...
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On Sunday, the Wisconsin State Journal featured an article by Nico Savidge with the headline “Tighter rules for Capitol protests not unlike many other states’.” On seeing this headline, my first reaction naturally was “Oh, well then, that makes it okay.” Not. The headline in Monday’s Pierce County Herald (Ellsworth, Wisconsin) read “Protesters at...
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I shake my head every time I think of Wisconsin Capitol Police Chief Erwin’s heavy-handed crackdown on the singing citizens in the Capitol. Before Erwin began arbitrarily handing out citations, we were a small, stalwart, ragtag bunch. I couldn’t make it every weekday, so for a while I came once a week; then when...
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Thanks to Chief Erwin and his saber rattling, more than two hundred sign-wielding singers showed up today to sing in the People’s House. As we have often done, we began by reading Article 1, Section 4, of the Wisconsin state constitution: State Rep. Chris Taylor showed up and told us that she met with...
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I have half-joked for decades that one of the items on my bucket list is to be arrested for civil disobedience. The civil rights movement and the anti-war protests happened while I was safely ensconced in junior high and high school. I got to college in time to see one lone streaker torpedo across...
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Update: Rally at 4:30pm Monday, not at 1pm, as previously announced! I don’t know about you but I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of the venomous anti-woman agenda of the Republican party, the leadership of which is more concerned about proving to the right-wing extremists controlling their party that they’re really as anti-abortion as...
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Advertisements insidiously worm their way into our hearts and minds despite our best efforts to tune them out (which is why Tom and I don’t watch TV anymore). They must be accomplishing something, or advertisers wouldn’t shell out the big bucks for them, would they? But isn’t there some kind of saturation point? Aren’t...
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The shootings Sunday in a Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, have affected me very much as they have affected others. I am sad, shocked, stricken. Coming so soon on the heels of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado, it’s hard not to feel that hate and violence have gained the upper hand. About the...
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Three weeks have gone by, and finally I’ve figured out what I think. I know, I know. I’m slow to process such things. There were many who would gladly have digested the experience for me, but I resisted. This was big. Huge even. I had to figure it out for myself, even if it...
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In 1984, Geraldine Ferraro was the first female vice-presidential candidate in U.S. history. I think she was the first female political candidate to register on my radar. I was twenty-eight years old. I was a long way from being the political junkie that I have become. I didn’t yet identify myself as a feminist....
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Dear Wisconsin Recall Fighters, I swear to God you are the coolest, most awesome people on earth, and I count myself incredibly privileged and honored to be among you. Despite formidable and even vicious opposition, you have more than risen to the challenge. You have consistently refused take Walker’s “no” for an answer. You...
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Yesterday for most of the day I felt pretty much like I’d been kicked in the gut, owing to a combination of not enough sleep, the DNC’s milquetoast support for the recall, the DNR’s noxious inaction in the Sewergate horror, Walker talking about his jobs record using Kathy Nicholaus’s new new math, and the...
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A few weeks ago I went with a friend to Miller Park a couple of hours before the start of a Brewers game to gather signatures to help Kathleen Vinehout get her name on the ballot for the May 8 recall primary. Being a dyed-in-the-wool introvert, I had never done anything like this before....
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Endorsements for candidates in posts here do not represent the opinions of all regular contributers, blue cheddar, or the blog’s many guest writers. As I wrote earlier, of the four Democratic candidates vying to face Walker in the June 5 Wisconsin Recall election, my pick is Kathleen Vinehout, who has said this on more...
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Madison Mayor Paul Soglin threw a hissy fit yesterday about Occupy Madison, which he is determined to evict and close down—end of story—at the end of the month. And boy howdy was Soglin ever on the defensive. When it was suggested that the site didn’t cost the city anything, he said, “That is one...
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Endorsements for candidates in posts here do not represent the opinions of all regular contributers, blue cheddar, or the blog’s many guest writers. I spent most of Wednesday afternoon reading up on Kathleen Vinehout, in part because she’s the Democratic gubernatorial challenger I find most compelling, in part because a blogger I very much...
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Political life in the United States has become so noxious and hostile that extreme partisan polarization, name-calling, smears, and schoolyard taunts have become commonplace. Thanks in large part to our collective addiction to the miraculous medium of television, our attention spans rarely amount to more than a minute and a half. We expect every...
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