Voting is already underway for the spring election here in Wisconsin and I’m behind schedule on this so I’m going to cut to the chase in presenting the key info I think you should know about state referendum questions 1 and 2. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll go back and read my last 4 posts (starting here) which provide some context for how…
Harm & Accountability
Okay, at this point I really need to acknowledge something I have not so far: people cause other people real harm and victims and survivors deserve justice. People’s lives are forever changed by violence, financial, and property crimes all the time. It is undeserved and terrible. My focus tends to be on those that have caused harm and I don’t ever want that to minimize…
Against the Good Guy/Bad Guy Binary
One of the things my work has allowed me to do is get to know people who have done horrible things. Part of my job as a Mitigation Specialist is to have individuals who have committed crimes tell me the story of what they did. I’ve listened to detailed accounts of murders, sexual assault, and the procurement and creation of child pornography that were very…
Are We Safe?
I think it’s fair to say that many (if not most) of us have a sense that the world is more dangerous today than it was 50 years ago. There are a lot of reasons for this and we don’t do a great job of teasing them out in order to really understand where our senses of safety come from. The September 11th attacks shook…
I Want to Change How You Think About Crime
I want to change how you think about crime, and if you live in Wisconsin, I want to do it before you complete your ballot for the Spring election. Here in Wisconsin, there is a referendum on our ballot to amend the state Constitution that will change the way judges make bail decisions. It is likely to pass, by a wide margin, in part because…
Anchors
It’s been awhile since I’ve written here, a little over a year to be exact. I didn’t really plan to let it go that long, but I think there was a lot about 2021 that we expected to go differently. Though I am weary of the challenges we’re living with now and the world feels like mostly a shitshow, I did learn some things in…
0 to 1
I started this post a few weeks ago, with the italicized part below. Right now, I want to be snuggled in my bed watching Judging Amy and pretending it is 2003, and I want to be having dinner at a busy restaurant in New York with a friend. I want to be completely done with my school semester and I am a bit anxious about…
10Q
The Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah begins this Friday at sunset. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year and it is the start of a 10 day period of reflection and repentance that culminates on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. Yom Kippur is also called “Day of Atonement”. I grew up in the Catholic church, but my husband is Jewish and…
Nostalgia, The Sopranos, and My Brother’s Privates
When I was a kid, my dad took one or two backpacking trips a year to Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior or the nearby Porcupine Mountains. Despite traveling the same terrain year after year, he always returned with several rolls of film to develop. Many of these, he had developed as slides and from time to time he would haul out a large…
Social Media Break
I took a break from social media for the month of August. Specifically, I logged out of Facebook and Instragram on my phone and computer and only logged back in a couple of times to check very specific things. Now, the month is up and I’m trying to figure out how I want to re-engage. Why did I take this break? I was spending too…