Springtime in Ozaukee, Wisconsin – Election Report

In Ozaukee County, Darcy McManus got 44 percent of the votes from the 23 percent of those registered who voted. Therefore, long-time District Attorney Sandy Williams will be the new Branch 3 Circuit Court Judge here. Ozaukee residents might be interested to learn about an earlier but unsuccessful candidate for election to be the Ozaukee/Washington County District Attorney, one Leland Stanford. Name sound familiar?

Wisconsin Supreme Court Elections, Past and Future

The April Fool 2008 Wisconsin Supreme Court election campaign was publicly conducted as an anti-criminal crusade. The contest was framed as between a law-and-order challenger and a liberal, criminal coddling incumbent. But honest, intelligent people across the political spectrum who have closely observed recent Supreme Court elections know that the real contest was about something else.

Welcome, Stranger, to New Grafton, Wisconsin

There’s a wonderful, little heralded landmark in the rapidly changing surroundings of downtown Grafton, Wisconsin.

Christopher Columbus’ Firsts

Did your family celebrate Columbus Day? Or did it slip by without notice? Most of us are more enthused at this time of year with homecoming and the big games, and anything else that needs or wants doing. Columbus Day is usually noted in school classes (well before college) and after that it is all but forgotten. But the four voyages of Columbus represent an incredibly important “first” in world history, in the history of the Western Hemisphere, and in the USA, that we should not forget.

Fresh sweet corn and BBQ

It doesn’t get any better than this!

1. BBQ!

The Annual Ozaukee County NAACP summer barbecue will be held Saturday afternoon August 18. You can find out about the Ozaukee Branch NAACP, and about the BBQ, and download a reservation form and directions to the BBQ (which will be held again this year at our Cedarburg farm) by clicking on the links above to the new Ozaukee Branch NAACP website. If you’re interested, please do it now, because we need reservations back by August 10.

2. SWEET CORN!

Our delicious sweet corn, free of synthetic chemicals, is here.

Dealing Death off the Bottom of the Deck

When citizens in Ozaukee County go to the polls this November, we will be confronted with three issues of historic importance. We will be asked whether Wisconsin should install and use the death chamber here. We will also be asked to cast an up or down vote on a proposed Amendment to our state Constitution that would prohibit granting basic rights to civil unions other than government-approved marriages. And we will be asked to decide, by a non-binding referendum, whether we support America waging war “throughout the world … until … terrorism is eliminated and citizens of all countries can be assured of their safety… ”.

Beneath the Stars of Spring

James Cameron, born 92 years ago in Wisconsin, died peacefully this week. Mr. Cameron was the only known living survivor of a lynching in America. Those in the mob of 15,000 who did the beatings and killings that day were never charged with a crime. But Cameron, the lucky, terrorized survivor, was charged, basically with being a friend of the other two who were murdered by the mob, and he was imprisoned.

Art and Disparity in Prison

“Outside The Box” was an arresting and moving display at the Cedarburg Cultural Center of “Artwork by Prisoners in Wisconsin Correctional Institutions”.

America now imprisons a higher percentage of her people than any other country on earth. This recently acquired dubious numero uno distinction is due largely to a huge escalation in the number of incarcerations for drug violations. The escalation is not due to increased use of illegal drugs. It is due to the ‘war on drugs’ waged selectively and with varied tactics in different communities since the late 1980’s.

An Election Tale of Two Cities

The week before the 2004 election, I went to Town Hall to take advantage of the right we now have in Wisconsin to absentee vote early, in person. It was quick and easy. There were three voting booths with a total population of about 6000. Every other town, village, and city hall in this suburban county adjoining Milwaukee provided early voting this year. That’s about 15 different early voting locations to serve a total population in this one county of 85,000.

Examining an Inquest

I attended the entire day and a half long inquest into the death in police custody of 20-year-old Mequon resident Matthew Sheridan, and was perhaps the only person who did so who was neither a friend or family member, nor a police officer, nor paid or required to be there. I was the ‘public’ referred to in the term ‘public inquest’. I heard the evidence presented to the jury, and I had never met any of the people who caused or were affected by this tragedy. But I was not a disinterested observer. Two months ago I had written in this column about Matthew’s demise. Because of that involvement, I am compelled to comment on the inquest.

R.I.P. Matthew Sheridan

A plastic bag, designed to be impermeable and to prevent any (potentially toxic) air from getting inside the bag and then to the lungs, was yanked roughly over his head.

He couldn’t get the bag off, or tear it open, or even make a little opening to let some air in, because his ankles were bound and his hands were bound behind his back, and he was shackled where he was seated. He said over and over, “I can’t breathe”, and he begged for help. He was terrified, he struggled, and he desperately needed help to live. But no help came. He lost consciousness. And then he died, not old enough to count yet as an adult, in the back seat of a Mequon police car.

Brown v. Board of Education

50th ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATIVE ESSAY – Awarded first place in the national essay contest sponsored by the NAACP in the open, adult division.

A tribute to the generations that struggled for, the legal team that formulated, and the . democratic principles that were represented in the most important Supreme Court decision of the 20TH century.

. The significance for educational opportunity and survival.

. The historical importance of the decision to reject segregation.

. Opposition to, and supporters of the struggle, and victories.

. Problems not solved and yet requiring our attention.

Letter from a Cedarburg Farm

Forty years ago a benchmark moment of the modern civil rights movement known as the March on Washington occurred. I truly regret that I was otherwise engaged and did not join that history making event. When I was very young there were people yet alive who had been slaves before Abe Lincoln proclaimed Emancipation. While still a teen I joined the Army paratroopers and was among the units sent to Oxford, Mississippi to protect the Constitutional rights and the person of James Meredith, a veteran and the first African American to enter the University of Mississippi. Soldiers identified as “colored” were kept separated from their comrades-in-arms and held in an isolated cantonment area while the rest were deployed in the enforcement action. Even today there are those who would rationalize and excuse that segregation order by our military commanders.