Point Made

Maria and I have called Milwaukee Wisconsin home for almost twelve years now. It's been a great ride. She blossomed when she took over the Charles Allis and Villa Terrace Museums. I had fun as a bookseller, museum guide and historic tour narrator on a tour boat. We both became involved in the greater community. I joined, through my friends at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, in Common Ground. Our association with Historic Milwaukee started when Maria became their first paid Executive Director. My work in neighborhood organizing started with our membership in Water Tower Neighborhood Association We became huge fans of the theater. We bought season tickets to Next Act Theater for years and cherry picked the others including the Rep, In Tandem, Boulevard, Chamber and Splinter Group. We attended many films not only during the fabulous Milwaukee Film Festival, but at the Landmark Theaters all year. Favorite things? For me it was the buzz of city life. Even listening to a committee ...

A War on War’s Or at least the ones that are made up by PR people. By Jeff Jordan After watching a segment on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, where he chides Fox News on their annual ‘War on Christmas” segment, I decided it’s time to start on a moratorium on War’s with no end and, frankly, no meaning. The War on Drugs, The War on Poverty, The War on Ignorance, and The War on Women (DPIW). All of these conflicts could be thought of as ongoing except for the fact that the media keeps reminding us that the conflict in Afghanistan is “the longest war in our history.” Forget the small problem that Afghanistan is not a declared war. The War on Drugs is a term used by President Richard Nixon, which encompassed an all fronts attack on illegal drug trade and consumption. This included laws that prohibited the use and sale of the drugs and included foreign financial and military aid to countries to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the US and therefore stem the use of these dru...

The toasted onion bagel and the blood red jam  By Jeff Jordan   I began thinking about Andy Rooney this morning as I looked at the toasted Onion bagel on my plate and saw the jam that had bleed down through the hole in the middle. In my head I hear Andy’s aging and whining voice asking, “Why do bagel's have holes in them?” My objection is the hole makes it difficult to spread anything on the bagel that doesn't end up falling through the hole in the middle and making a puddle on your plate, or worse a stain on the front of your shirt. than there is the whole "Eating Experience" thing. Anything out of the freezer case that claims to be bread is not up to standard in any case. And I know you can get in to fist fights over “real” New York bagels, but frankly if it’s good it doesn't have to be Official. Are freezer bagels any good? Freezer bagels are ...they....well... Maybe the best way to explain them is, if they are too big to finish, the dog will eat the...

There really isn’t any doubt anymore. Cellphones and automobiles are a dangerous mix unless the car is parked and the ignition is off. We’ve all seem it and some of us have done it. I’m talking about the loss of focus one can get when talking on the phone and than the driver behind us at the stop light blares their horn with an impatience and anger that is exhibited with the duration and frequency their hand pumps the horn button. The most extreme example I’ve witnessed was a pickup driver getting out of his vehicle and screaming through the closed drivers side window of a BMW at a shocked and soon frightened, middle aged, and as my wife is prone to say, carefully put together, women. As he tells her to get the F...K off of her phone and drive, she is struggling to get out of the world where she was having a phone conversation to a place where she can resume driving. We’ve all witnessed people struggling to control their vehicle with one hand while the other one cups a phone to the...

Courtesy of my friend and classmate from Minneapolis, Dave Nitz. I know this is GROAN humor, but I love it. Read it and tell me you're not at least grinning. 1. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from eating too much pi. 2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian. 3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still. 4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption. 5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work. 6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery. 7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering. 8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart. 9. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie. 10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies lik...

I was walking downtown the other day. I had just visited my new friend Jim at my cell phone vendor. Jim is one of those guys that, like many artists, (He’s a chief) is doing what he has to do, so he can do what he wants to do. He’s cooking part time, and I’m guessing for little money, to help a young friend get her restaurant off the ground. I know a lot of people in the same situation. It’s not that painters that work in bookstores side by side with writers, poet’s, and musicians don’t enjoy their work. Many times the job of clerk, bartender, receptionist or cook offers that leave it at the office kind of job and doesn't have the stress levels of many occupations that crush the creative spirit. The street was a half-step into fall leaving summer in it’s wake of fallen leaves and balmy temperatures, but not so cool and dark that some of my sidewalk companions were still wearing flip flops and shorts. My attitude was one of kind of contained joy. I had just returned from a ...

We are a confusing species. I’m reading Francis Fukuyama’s latest, “The Origins of Political Order.” At the beginning of the book, as he sets the scene for his thought process, Fukuyama talks about research in primates to study the natural state of human behavior. Are we meant to live as independent operators merely satisfying our own desires, or are we wired to be a more cooperative species that seeks ways to coexist with others? Or do we learn to cooperate because we have negotiated away from our natural state as independent operators? If you come down on the side of human's being naturally cooperative, you might ask if you're looking around and noticing recent social history is the individual celebrated and the social progress derided. Maybe I’m overreacting, but people being famous for being famous trump those who actually accomplish something is a trend that is confusing and highly illogical to me. Let me pose a simple quandary. Who is more important to us as...