End of the year exhaustion

Hi friends - it's been hard to keep up this blog as the year ends and there is so much to do. I think this dark time of the year is supposed to be restful. Funny, right?

But listen, we have one heck of a year ahead of us here in Wisconsin. We really do all need the rest. And I have to think about what I want to do with this blog, if anything.

My eclectic meditation table

Anyway, I could be blogging lots of news. We've got more Gableman scandal and it seems we will always have Gableman scandal as long as he sits on the bench. His record keeps revealing to me that he does not deserve to be there. But neither does Prosser. Yet there they sit, making crucial decisions for our state.


Personally, I would welcome the reopening of the 'Open Meetings' ruling that allowed the tainted corrupted decision on the collective bargaining law to go into effect, if only to remind our state - now in a very different political climate than back when it was made - of what kind of legislators and judges these people really are, i.e., willing to set aside the state Constitution and various political and civil rights of our citizens when it is in their interests, or the interests of their corporate backers, to do so.

And I smile at the Guv's new tone - on his Medicaid cuts and his new warm and fuzzy 'togetherness' theme, for example - because it means the work of all those activists and public union members and recall petitioners is having an impact.

I regret that the Journal Sentinal continues to harp on the supposed 'need' for the iron ore mine in Hurley. They want a different law, an improved set of regulations than in the Assembly's woeful bill, but they still want this gaping wound in the North Woods in the name of jobs - as if we humans, we Wisconsinites, are too stupid and too uncreative to come up with another way to create jobs - as if the choice of these jobs isn't just a political choice about which industries get to take advantage of our economic hard times.

South Shore Park one year ago. Doing vigil for this...

So, where am I on this sunny snowless December day, just before joining some of my family for the Christmas weekend (gifts, and the fireplace, and slow sipping of a lovely single malt, and my toddler godchild, and soft carols, and dinner punctuated by this little football event going on in Green Bay Sunday night)? Well, I am sad, and I am scared, and I am worried, and I am inspired, and I am deeply appreciative of all of you and all of those folks who do not give in to despair, anxiety, or fear. There is so much else going on besides what these far-right extremists are trying to do to our state. There is new solidarity emerging, a renewed culture of grassroots democracy, and a form of peaceful protest that is not only inspiring but also fun.

I mean, where else in the country is the heart of a statewide protest movement kept pumping with song?! You Solidarity Singers, you go, friends!! You go no matter what the rules!!!  You sing democracy for all of us, and I hope to find many opportunities in 2012 to join you and the throngs in the streets of Madison.

So take time, friends. Breathe deeply some of this fresh winter air. Enjoy the sun when it shines. Pray to the snow gods to remember us this winter - because we need snow to keep us from taking ourselves too seriously up here in the north country. And enjoy your holidays not because of what we can buy and consume, but because of who we are, whom we love, who loves us, and what we are a part of in this great big world.