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Nakba

On May 15th, 1948, Israel declared independence as a Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine, supported by the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Settlers had already been pouring into the area since the First Aliyah ("Return to Israel") of 1882-1903, encouraged by European Zionistic beliefs that originate in the attempt to "solve the Jewish problem" and reserve Europe for Christianity. In the name of settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and blatant racism, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and an estimated 8 million have been displaced, with conflicts increasing since the Hamas attack in 2023. Those attacks apparently justified the increased intensity in settler-colonialism, while the occupational conditions that baked such radicalization has been largely ignored or worse, biblically justified.  Palestinians call May 15th, 1948, the Nakba or Catastrophe, because the laws of the world approved of their destruction and no one has dared help lest they be ...
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Welcome to the Driftless

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  Welcome to the Driftless “Ancient.” “Primeval.” “Wild.” “Paradise.” “Canaan.” These were just some words used by the first white settlers in the 1840s to describe the land we know today as Richland , nestled in the Lower Wisconsin River Valley in the Western Coulees and Ridges , a portion of the area known as the Driftless Region (1, 2). No doubt similar words were shared in those early days and beyond, when Louis Jolliet and Father Jacquess Marquette traversed the Meskousing , or “Red Stone River” as it may have been known to local Algonquin, in 1673, or when Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto first gazed upon Miisi-Zibi , “Gathering of Waters,” as it was known to the local Ojibwe, in 1541 (3). Between these two warm rivers, colder rivers from beneath the earth have danced a delicate ballet with wind and sand for millenia, shaping the very foundations and bedrock of the land.  The Driftless Period: Age of Stone & Water Let us turn now to a timeless ...
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Considerations for the New Year

  Considerations for the New Year Welcome all, we hope you are well. So many plans and ideas have spun through my mind in recent days, and I often find myself overwhelmed by the need to do more than I am physically and mentally capable of. Even so, a feeling deep in my chest and in the pit of my stomach makes me move, forces my hand. “Write,” it says. “Please,” it begs.  So write I shall. Words cannot properly sum up all of the abstract feelings floating around inside, proper reactions to our own daily lives that cannot compare to the feelings of helplessness and powerlessness that come as we not only consider the larger events of our world, but the thousands of years of history that led us to where we are in the present day. To write about modern injustices, we must discuss the sins of the past. To write about contemporary successes, we must first discuss historical defeats. My heart and mind are heavy as I look over and contemplate the world. The promise of a new year seems ...
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