Posted inUncategorized

Community Means Holding on for Life

by Tom Tolan – epilogue to a 6 part series

There is a poem that says, “There is nothing you can really know/ Only holding on for life, and letting go.”

Some people know quite well how to make commitments, but could use some practice in letting go. In this neighborhood, though, and in American society today, it seems to me that it is the holding on for life we need to learn. Some people who write about the social atmosphere of America say that lifetime commitments are hard to make today, in these times of turmoil. What is needed, then, is commitment in the face of doubt and peril. What is needed is a leap of faith. This kind of faith, if enough people practice it, can build strong communities, and strong communities can make the world into a place that people will want to save.

Posted inCommentary & Opinion

A Puppet of the School Board?

by Jennifer Morales, 5th District Director, Milwaukee Board of School Directors

Imagine you are running for Mayor of Milwaukee and a state legislator sympathetic to your campaign points out that with one piece of legislation she could multiply the clout you would have: double the size of your budget, bring thousands more employees under your control, and shape the destinies of thousands of children.

If that piece of legislation resulted in the disenfranchisement of every voter in the city, would you do it anyway to win? Tom Barrett would.

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New Land Enterprises’ Owner on Development

by Sonya Jongsma Knauss / photos by Vince Bushell

With an unmistakably Russian accent, sitting at the kitchen table of a condo he built, sold, then later bought and lives in, [Boris Gokhman] describes how he got from there to here. He seems perfectly comfortable with his Milwaukee condo lifestyle. On leaving Ukraine, he says: “It was the right time to leave… I didn’t believe in what was going on there. The system was not in place.” He is a believer in what he builds, and his success shows he is adept at using “the system.”

By the system, he is referring to capitalism and the way things work here.