madison
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Letter From Home: “Time” Reprint From 8/7/09
Watching a woolly caterpillar cross the sidewalk this week made me very aware of the transitions all around us. Depending on which grandparents we remember listening to in our youth, the width of the black stripe either predicts a snowy winter or a more moderate cold season. Either way, we are in the last half… Continue reading
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Letter From Home: “That Neighborhood Feel” Reprint From 7/8/09
It was a pleasant sound that drifted across the warm air. A group of about ten women from a writers’ group had gathered on a neighbor’s back patio to talk about their creative projects and offer each other feedback. (Our neighbor is sending out her first children’s book to publishers.) Their light‑hearted banter and gentle… Continue reading
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Madison TV News Story About Grocery Prices Was Seriously Tone Deaf
If one were looking to report on the impact of high grocery prices on the wallets of Madisonians, it might be assumed a reporter would head to Hy-Vee, Metcalfe Market, or a Woodman’s store. But when the WKOW news team chose the story, they went to Whole Foods. Or, as it is comically referred to,… Continue reading
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Letter From Home: “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah And A White Pine, Too” 3/30/26
There are those days in life when you must stop and slow down, recognizing that what is playing out is truly wonderful. Not because you are on vacation or won the lottery. As the day is put into perspective, all the events are rather ordinary. Yet putting them together, and taking nothing for granted, they… Continue reading
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Letter From Home: “Just Like That!” 3/12/26
There’s a certain morning each year when, no matter what is occurring or what the radio newscaster is saying, I simply stop and smile upon opening the window blinds. It always happens overnight on Lake Monona. The deep winter‑long silence of ice is just gone. Granted, it does not just (snap my fingers) disappear. The… Continue reading
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The Unthinkable At Madison East High School
I was having a late lunch today, and a news story on television made me feel less like eating. Seriously. A Madison mother is demanding accountability after she says staff at Madison East High School fed her autistic son dog food instead of a school lunch. Debra Hawkes says her 15-year-old son Jaden, a freshman… Continue reading
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Two Madison Teenagers Dead From Gun Violence, We Know Why It Happened
Tragic in every sense of the word. Even more tragic is that this type of story about gun violence is all too common. The teen murder-suicide on Madison’s East Side in which a 16-year-old died from his injuries Friday, the day after a 19-year-old man shot him and then killed himself. The 16-year-old was close… Continue reading
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Rev. Jesse Jackson Used State Representative Lary Swoboda’s Office For Coat Drop During 1988 Statehouse Campaign Rally
“ (George) Bush and I have one thing in common, and that is that we both came in second.” The laughter that filled the large room at the Monona Terrace in Madison in December 2007, following that comment by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, had a bittersweet sound as many in the crowd knew in their hearts that… Continue reading
Caffeinated Politics 