Democracy at risk in country

July 17, 2023

Does democracy survive in this country? The bases of a democracy in a country that is multilingual, has a wide variety of religious beliefs, has a multiracial population, and has a broad range of political/cultural viewpoints creates in my mind a necessity for safeguards in the governing institutions. What are those safeguards in my mind? One is voting that is available to every citizen in a fair and easily accessible way. Long line in cities, voting locations that are not realistic for some, restricting voting times and not using proven alternatives to in-person voting where ...

Tractor ride to VA on Wednesday

July 13, 2023

On Wednesday, July 19, the Northwoods Antique Tractor Club from Aurora, Wis., will make their ninth-annual tractor ride to the Oscar G. Johnson VA Medical Center in Iron Mountain. We will meet in East Kingsford off of Breen Avenue near the railroad tracks and travel on Breen Avenue to Carpenter Avenue north to H Street to the VA center. We will meet at 10 a.m. and be to Carpenter Avenue by about 10:30 a.m. for a police escort. This year we may have with us Wisconsin’s first electric tractor, as well as tractors from Iron River to Pembine, Wis.

Report from Light at the Inn

June 15, 2023

EDITOR: The Light at the Inn operates as the Emergency Shelter Service for any individual or family that finds themselves in an emergency homeless situation for a short time. Emergency Shelter Services is the Dickinson/Iron County part of a social service agency Community Action Alger-Marquette, or CAAM. Volunteers from Light at the Inn accept after hours and weekend calls from anyone without suitable shelter in the Dickinson/Iron County area. CAAM then contacts the caller the next business day and begins the assessment process. Light at the Inn, a registered 501(c)(3) ...

What the month of June means to me

June 12, 2023

The month of June probably means different things to different people. Watching the local and national news I was quickly reminded of what someone else wants it to mean to all of us. A rainbow-colored flag flying at the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison, just below the state flag, which is flying just below the American flag says a lot of things. The month of June is right between two of our most important national holidays; Memorial Day, always in the last days of May, a special day to remember and pay our respect to those who gave their lives defending our country in war, and the ...

Can immigrants be the solution?

June 6, 2023

I have been watching the news about the “immigration problem.” If you chose to look at statistics, we have a falling population growth over the last couple of generations. People are not having children at the rate they used to for many reasons, which I will not go into here, today. I want to go a different direction, so stay with me. The television news had a piece about more women entering the field of trucking than in the past, when it was male dominated. And why not, as the pay averages $100,000 a year. But even with this influx of female operators, the demand remains high. We ...

Mother’s health needs protecting, too

May 23, 2023

Are women valued by the Republican and evangelical religious anti-abortionists? The religious right and many Republicans seem to believe that life of the fetus begins at conception and should be preserved without any or very few exceptions. On the other hand, the mother is a secondary consideration. The pain a woman is subject to is often seen as irrelevant. There is also the biblical argument of thou shall not kill, but this seems to only involve pregnant women, not males and others involved in war, occupation that can legally use lethal force and our justice system. Clearly the use ...