Square off
Last week’s “Off the Square” cartoon (3/16/2017) unfavorably compared former State Sen. Tim Cullen, a likely candidate for governor, with Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The comparison left out a crucial fact. While it points out that Bernie Sanders worked for a single-payer health care system, the cartoon omitted the fact that this was a fruitless quest. In 2009, when Obamacare became law, it was estimated that about 10% of the legislators supported a single-payer system, about 40 or more votes short of a majority in the U.S. Senate.
Bernie Sanders has never led the passage of any significant legislation. Former Sen. Cullen served as majority leader in the Senate in Wisconsin and oversaw the passage of important legislation.
Politics is about leadership and accomplishment, not psychotherapy. Millions of angry, white poor and middle-class voters got short-term therapy when they elected Donald Trump as their president. Their therapeutic thrill will be short lived and expensive.
I am one of many voters looking for an accomplished leader to run and win as Democratic candidate for governor in 2018. Tim Cullen is such a candidate.
Harry Peterson (via email)
Cry wolf
In “Endangered” (3/16/2017), authors Denise Thornton and Doug Hansmann review the Department of Natural Resources statistics on the growing wolf population and its effect on the environment and society. They examine the politics of delisting the wolf from the federal endangered species list, which would return the wolf to management by the state and the ultimate creation of a hunting season for wolves.
The authors begin with retelling an Anishinaabe American Indian group’s creation story, where the wolf is Original Man’s brother. The Great Spirit’s warns Original Man, “if your brother wolf passes out of existence, you will soon follow. You will die of great loneliness of spirit. If you pass out of existence, all other races of human beings will soon follow.”
“Endangered” reminds us to employ solid science, cultural history and a long view of reason toward political/legislative “solutions” to all our problems, including the big “bad” wolf.
Anne Bachner, Dodgeville (via email)
As a writer and English teacher, I’m offended by the use of the word “harvest” used to describe the killing of wolves. You harvest broccoli. You harvest potatoes. You don’t “harvest” an apex predator of the food chain. Such abhorrent twisting of the English language is reminiscent of George Orwell’s novel 1984, and contributes to the dumbing-down of the populace. Please consider your word choices more carefully. Shooting or killing wolves is shooting or killing wolves, not “harvesting.”
Mark Lajiness, Stoughton (via email)
Would a legal hunt spell the end of the Wisconsin wolf? Absolutely not! In fact, it will flourish like the turkey, deer and waterfowl, thanks to the true conservationists, the hunters. The ones that pony up the dough to buy and rehabilitate the habitat that these wild animals thrive in today.
The ones killing off the animals, all animals, are all the humans and their uncontrollable breeding, taking more and more land away from these wild animals.
The authors of “Endangered” start off with this Indian spirit mythological story of how the world was created and how human and the wolf are brothers. Seriously? That a liberal paper such as Isthmus would print anything that aligns with spirits, ghosts and goblins I find as fictional as most liberals would the Bible.
The wolf was to be taken off the current endangered list after reaching its 350 population goal; it’s now triple that.
George Meyer, former head of the DNR, is most knowledgeable about the wolf and states the wolf is at the top of the food chain. It has no predators, it has to be managed. His statement is based on knowledge, not emotions. We even have a top liberal, Tammy Baldwin, looking for a wolf hunt. She finally woke up and listened.
Set your emotions and your mythological mindset aside and listen to the experts. A wolf hunt is needed now, before the population gets too far out of control.
Nathan J. Weber (via email)
Money matters
Re: “Consumer Alert: Many Worried About Rollback of Financial Reforms” (3/16/2017): There are people in the profession who believe the [fiduciary] rule is fine. The initial version was too harsh, eliminating chances for small investors’ ability to get personalized counsel. But the final version has many merits. Some of us support it. Mike Ivey does a good job of describing it, but some individuals and companies have done a lot to make it happen too. And BTW, if Trump rolls it back, many of those companies are going to stay with the changes it brought about.
Betty Harris Custer (via Facebook)
