Posted inArts & Entertainment

Rebecca Gilman’s Spinning Into Butter

Fortunately for the Milwaukee art community, the Off-Broadway Theatre (342 N. Water St.), had the courage to stage Rebecca Gilman’s Spinning Into Butter. Gilman’s play, set at a small liberal college in Vermont, confronts the insidious nature of racism while also exploring how political correctness can be a destructive agent in dealing with racism.

Posted inColumns

A Chinese Medicine Approach to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome is a disabling, poorly understood multi-system illness. In the United States it has been referred to as the “yuppie flu.” The symptoms are an array of neurological, nueromuscular, and immunological abnormalities combined with cognitive impairment, disabling fatigue, and recurrent bouts of flu-like illness. These can be either short and mild or prolonged and debilitating.

Posted inColumns

The Natural Casualties of War and the Hope of Migration

Like everyone else I find myself thinking and talking to others about the war. In addition to concern for the men and women of our armed forces and the people of Iraq, my thoughts are on the impacts of this human conflict on the natural resources, and in particular, the birds of Iraq. During the Gulf War, hundreds of oil well fires and the largest oil spill in history impacted thousands of birds and marine life. It raises the question, how bad might it be this time around?

The war in Iraq couldn’t have come at a worse time for migratory birds. Iraq lies on a key migration route for many species that winter in Africa and breed in Europe and western Russia in the summer.