Walking workers back after the one-day strike

Today, I walked a dozen fast food workers back to their jobs the day after they had participated in the one-day strike for a living wage and the right to organize without retaliation. And certainly, I was not alone. We made dozens of trips in large vans over the course of the day, accompanying workers

Please make it so! State applies for Madison-Milwaukee rail connector money

Some years ago, I wrote to the Journal Sentinel telling them that I knew five people who commuted back and forth between Madison and Milwaukee on a daily basis, and more that did it a few times a week. While I can’t find that letter online, the point still stands. Five people were driving at

Breaking ground for the White House garden has occurred

Earlier today First Lady Michelle Obama led the groundbreaking for the new White House vegetable garden. The new 1,000 square foot garden is the first garden in at least eight years. (The Clintons had a rooftop garden on the White House many years before rooftop gardens became a rapidly spreading (and very good) trend.) FarmFed

Gardening returns to the White House lawn

Shortly after Barack Obama won election to the presidency, a movement spread across the ‘net calling on the Obama White House to have a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. That idea has been accepted and will soon become reality, according to ABC News. Quoting that story: “In an effort to promote healthy eating,

New Phoenix Light Rail System Exceeding Ridership Projections

Fellow Cheddarspherian and all around good guy Dan Cody tipped us off to the fact that light rail ridership in the patently not-liberal city of Phoenix, Arizona have shattered all expectations and ridership projections. He is referring to an MSNBC article that reports this good news. According to the article, “908,052 people rode trains in

It’s not often that Sensenbrenner and Feingold agree on something

However, Sen. Feingold’s proposed constitutional amendment to make the filling of vacant Senate seats require popular election rather than gubernatorial appointment is one of those rare things they agree on. Russ may not have been able to make the senior representative laugh, but at least they can agree on this proposed amendment. It sounds fair

NPR: “New Book Dissects Reagan’s Role In The Cold War”

The Cold War used to be my academic passion. It’s taken a back seat to gardening and urban farming for some time now, probably because I’m just tired of being in college. (“Senioritis” strikes even us old timers, it seems. I’m not even 35, but compared to many of my fellow students, I’m an old

Sebelius nomination should go smoothly

Barring things that I don’t know about her, that is. But my family in Kansas likes her, and says she’s good. CNN story. I figured she’d be Obama’s pick for V.P. or Secretary of State if and only if Hillary Clinton did not go in one of the two posts. But I also figured a

What’s next for the country and the world?

There seems to be a start of a consensus, that this current economic crisis is at once more quick in its onset yet differntly severe than the Great Depression. But it comes on the heels of what appears to be a second Gilded Age. We’ve had business crooks of unprecedented proportion, major food safety problems,

Comparing headlines: same article, two sources

Seeing a small headline in a sidebar on TPM stoked my curiosity: Where was the article from, and whar did it say? On TPM, the headline was “Obama: We Must Ensure Katrina Failures ‘Are Never Repeated’.” I couldn’t agree more. But who wrote it, and what did their headline say? Turns out it was from