by Cheryl Mathis on October 6th, 2009
It seems one of our local aldermen, Tom Miller, took the Packers’ defeat badly last night. His brain was so fogged with fury, he forgot that you aren’t supposed to drive drunk. He also didn’t have the sense to pull over when an officer had his lights and sirens on behind him.
Good job, local cops, for getting a dangerous driver off of the roads. Shame on you, Mister Miller, for showing such poor judgment and endangering the lives of innocent people. You were only a few blocks from my house, and you were driving drunk. That’s definitely not the sort of leadership I’ll be voting for in the future.
by Shawn Sullivan on May 15th, 2009
Tuesday, we found that a young man was arrested in the murder of Breanna Schneller. It was a heinous crime and the community is rightly shocked by this. We have also found out that the individual alleged to have committed this crime is in this country illegally, and many people have chosen to focus on this fact and seemingly forgotton the focus…grief for a young life taken too soon.
I’m not saying that the debate regarding illegal immigration has no place in this story. It most certainly does. In fact, for the community to heal, it will become necessary to engage in an intellectually honest discussion about the issue. I fear that making this story about this young man is simply losing focus Rather, this time should be about this young woman, her family, and other people she touched in her life. How can we help them and progress their healing?
I’ve already seen places like The Wausau Daily Herald Message Boards with The calls to action, and how we must now deport anyone we think may be an illegal alien. I acknowledge this country does have immigration problems, but we shouldn’t allow this tragedy to be the mantle of the illegal immigration zealots who choose not to have a discussion, but only to yell at the top of their lungs about how their way is the only way.
Instead, let’s help the healing, and have this discussion, a real discussion, about immigration in our city, state, and country. Let’s move past the discourse and come up with real ideas and not just rhetoric.
Let’s do this, but first, let’s remember Breanna Schneller, who clearly touched so many lives in her short time here. Let’s be there for her family and keep the focus where it needs to be, today.
by Cheryl Mathis on May 14th, 2009
Note from the editor: Read Dino’s post about this same topic for another view.
While I absolutely agree with Dino that we should take the focus away from the murderer and provide solace and support to the family, I will hesitate before I tell anyone how to mourn.
Isn’t that a normal reaction? To find someone to blame? To find out what went wrong, what could have been avoided? When my toddler son wandered out of the house last year while under my watch, I was horrified and felt extremely guilty, despite his safe and quick return. The point is that we added another lock to the screen door, one that he couldn’t reach.
It’s a normal reaction to try to seal up the escape routes, and it’s a normal reaction after a murder to “fix the problem” that caused the murder.
Personally I don’t see a difference between the Hmong immigrants and the Mexican illegal immigrants, at least in regards to how they settle in our community. If we don’t welcome them, encourage them and support them while they assimilate into our culture, they will be more likely to act in opposition to our legal system. If we treat them like second-class citizens, they will be.
As for the dreadful murder of dear Breanna… Raul is charged with the crime. I have no idea his motivation. I don’t think his race is the problem here. The fact that he could be a murderer is. How can we point the finger at race being the cause when we have a handful of horrendous murders that took place at the hands of white people in the past year? Just recently, a man named Kettner was charged with the senseless deaths of his wife and children. Where is our outrage over that? Where is the hate speech on the radio?
I think it’s normal to try to spread the blame about as much as we can. It makes sense to try to make sure this never happens again, but the killer’s skin color did not take Breanna’s life. He did. A troubled soul seeped in violence, if only for a while. Even if we drove all of the illegal immigrants out of our community (I picture pitchforks, torches and ropes), murders would still occur.
by Dino Corvino on May 14th, 2009
Note from the editor: Don’t forget to read staff member Cheryl Mathis’s take on this topic as well. Please let us know what you are thinking about this issue!
Yesterday word came down that a young man was arrested in the latest murder here in Wausau. The city is shocked by this, and like any hurting group, we are tearing apart this young man in every way possible, and in the act we are tearing apart everything. I hope that we can stop this.
This story is not about this young man. Making it about him is simply giving him the thing that he should not have, our attention. Rather, I hope this should be about this young girl, her family, and the young people who cared for her and loved her. It’s about the other kids in her school or social group who are really facing something that so few of us have ever had to — the murder of a close friend.
We can see places like the Wausau Daily Herald and Twitter alive with calls of immigration problems, and border this, and boycott that. None of that is going to bring this young girl back, and none of that anger is going to help these young people get a hold of their lives.
We are all hurting. We are all hurt. But we do not have to diminish ourselves with this unimportant witch hunt. Let us review that which has happened. A young girl was murdered. The police investigated it. The police arrested someone. This person has been charged, and this person will stand trial unless a plea agreement is reached. These are the facts.
In my opinion the rest of this is just window dressing. We can care about his status, or we can care if he was left handed, or a Yankees fan, or taller than me, or a fan of carrots. None of that matters. None of that brings back this young girl, and none of that helps her family.
I hope that the Wausau community will not get sucked into the racist sideshow that people will seek to make of this. I hope we are not going to diminish ourselves by being pulled by those that would seek to use this tragedy for some other purpose.
For those of you who have already fallen into the hole — I am sorry. I know you are hurting, and I want you to know I think you are a good person. You are just angry now, and your judgment is a little bit off. There are people and services in this city that can help you. I do not think it is a good thing to spend too much time on this negativity, and I think you would help us and yourself more by breathing and showing your strength through kindness.
I believe in you, Wausau, and I want you to be noble. This is not a freakshow; let us not become one.
by Tom Neal on January 30th, 2008
I just wanted to attempt to resurrect or take the pulse of the idea bandied about a short while back re: recreating the Scott Street Pub’s upstairs wall mural. The gist of the idea was that, since a detailed photographic record exists of the entire mural, why can’t it become a community project to recreate it in a new home? Some recommended the Fillmor as a good candidate for a home. Or maybe somewhere in/on ArtsBlock. Is there anyone out there in CW land that is taking this project to heart and under their wing?
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by Citizen Wausau on January 4th, 2008
What an amazing year 2007 was. It’s brought about a a lot of change in our community, and in some ways, I myself will never be the same.
A few months ago, I was walking into my friend Forest Young’s drugstore to pick up a prescription. As I entered, I was quickly asked to leave and not touch anything. Why? Was I a loitering miscreant? No, not this time. It was because the ladies behind the counter had just been accosted by a gun-wielding burglar. (more…)
by Melissa Sullivan on October 15th, 2007
An Open Letter to the Presumably Young Vandals Who Smashed My Kids’ Pumpkins
Dear Miscreants,
A few days ago, we took our kids, ages 4 & 2, to Helene’s Hilltop Orchard to choose pumpkins to carve into their first-ever jack-o-lanterns. The kids went on a hayride that we thoroughly enjoyed while other passengers endured my son’s excited shouts about being driven by a real tractor. After enjoying a snack of apple dumplings and chocolate milk, my sugar-fueled kids ran around the pumpkin patch while Grandma helped them choose the perfect pumpkin. It was just the type of perfect fall day I had envisioned three years ago when we moved our kids here from the over-taxed, smog-ridden, crime-infested cesspool I fondly call Milwaukee.
Those yet-to-be-carved pumpkins were on our porch less than 12 hours when you reckless bandits smashed them to pieces in our driveway.
While my four-year-old helped me clean up the mess the next morning, she asked me repeatedly, “Mommy, why did the mean people do this?” Hmm…good question, indeed. You’re probably the same misfits who threw an egg at my neighbor’s car last week. But what makes a teenager, who not ten years ago was carving their own jack-o-lanterns, want to mar the Halloween experience for other kids?
Young delinquents such as yourselves often like to put the blame on society. Your lives are entirely controlled by adults, and society doesn’t send positive messages to your generation. You’re not allowed to skateboard in public, and you’re treated like a criminal when you walk into a store carrying a backpack. With all of the reasons you find to feel put down by society, I guess I’m supposed to be grateful you just smashed our pumpkins instead of shooting up your school.
Or maybe your concerns are a little less idealistic and a little more selfish. Your mom won’t buy you the Hollister hoodie you want, or the girl you like totally trashed you on MySpace.
It’s also possible you smashed my kids’ pumpkins for no other reason than you wanted to feel brave and look cool in front of your friends. If that’s the case, then it’s pretty rich that in the midst of your cowardly run from our yard, you tripped on the ropes holding up our big inflatable pumpkin with such force that you ripped them from the ground and knocked it over. I’m guessing when you were sprawled out on my lawn face-first, looking pretty much like a moron; your friends had a good laugh at your expense. I would have paid to have seen that, but I arrived on the front porch about twenty seconds too late.
After pondering all of these reasons for your deviant behavior and trying to come up with something to tell my 4-year-old, I realized that I didn’t really have any good answers for her. I just told her that sometimes people make bad choices without thinking of others feelings. I told her that when she has a choice to make, I hoped that she would remember how it feels when people do mean things to you. As she grows, we’ll continue to have talks about personal responsibility so she learns that while being mistreated by others is an unfortunate part of the human condition, perpetuating the misfortune by mistreating others is not a productive solution.
Maybe you don’t have parents who will have these talks with you, or maybe they did and you just didn’t listen because your parents are so, like, uncool. At any rate, I hope you had fun, or whatever it was that you were hoping to experience, with the whole pumpkin smashing experience.
Sincerely,
Yet Another Ranting Adult You Won’t Listen To
by Dino Corvino on October 10th, 2007
So, Citizen Wausau has been in existence for about a week now. A week and one day, a bunch of hours, some minutes, a few seconds, a couple of tacos, and occasional pitcher of coffee, ten or fifteen shots of espresso, some time in our quiet place…but yeah, a full week of Citizen Wausau. Community has been started, comments have been made, discussion had, phone calls of outrage have been received and ignored, and Guiness has been drunk. I assume this is how this sort of thing goes. Though, like any venture of truly brilliant minds (Cindy Crawford told me I am brilliant, she liked Marcus a little, and thought Andy was just handsome), one can never really chart the flow.
So let’s jump right in. Let’s do a little call to action right away… (more…)
by Barry Liss on October 10th, 2007
This is not a crime spree or a crime wave, but a crime tide that shows little sign of receding. I watched the Greenspan interviews. Did you? He’s the last rat off of that ship – everyone else aboard the Bush Titanic will be dragged down in the undertow. That includes local politicians too. Do you know when the price of gas will come down? Never, the dollar has devalued too significantly relative to other world currencies. Result? Inflation on all basic goods. Ready yourself for it. I still hear the politician spouting no-tax pledges. And this passes for prudent social guardianship? Unfortunately friend, the piece of paper in your pocket with George Washington on it isn’t the same today as it was yesterday. (more…)
by Abe on October 7th, 2007
The pharmacy robbery on Friday was cause for some alarm, especially considering that the guy ended up in our neighborhood – in that situation is it more nerve-wracking to be home or away from your home? But the “crime wave” didn’t stop there. I stopped at the Grand Theater on Friday night to visit with some coworkers and see a bit of the show. The night quickly went downhill when I was getting ready to leave only to find that my bike, which I had parked inside, was now nowhere to be found. At first I thought somebody was playing a joke on me, but as it turns out, over $150 was stolen from the dressing rooms that night during the performance, and my bike was apparently a bonus. (more…)
