Dear Wisconsin Editor,
This Week's Column
Tim and Tom and the fascinating dichotomy of a politician’s small office
I’m betting the block parties are a little uncomfortable nowadays out in Tom Nardelli’s neighborhood. Nardelli – chief of staff to Scott Walker when he was Milwaukee County executive and, … Read full column »»
Mike Nichols
There have been lots of stories of late about newspapers in their death throes. And the only reason there haven’t been more, bedraggled editors might chuckle, is that they don’t have any reporters left to write the obit.
Even those of us who believe most firmly in what papers do every day wonder how we are going to live on with smaller staffs, limited money and less of the interesting, local content readers still crave.
Please consider a few possible antidotes: a weekly column by Mike Nichols about life, people, politics, issues and oddities in our smaller Wisconsin towns and cities; a brand-new, weekly cartoon about Wisconsin by Stuart Carlson; and a new, short (only 150 words), weekly feature called Wisconsin Past & Present.
The popular, affordable column already appears on the local or editorial pages of well over a dozen papers including the Oshkosh Northwestern, Appleton Post-Crescent, Green Bay Press-Gazette, the Wisconsin edition of the Pioneer Press, the Superior Telegram and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Take a few minutes to read some samples from the award-winning journalist's ten years as a metro columnist for the Journal Sentinel (where he took a buyout in late 2008 but continues to appear once a week) as well as some recent Badger Diggings columns now running throughout much of the state. Learn more about Mike and check out some reaction from Wisconsin editors and readers. Let somebody else worry about the obits.
Wisconsin editorial cartoons by Stuart Carlson
Stuart Carlson
Stuart Carlson is an award-winning cartoonist who, as a toddler, began his career drawing in lipstick on the walls of his parents’ apartment. His cartoons appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for 25 years, garnering local and national awards, including “Best Editorial Cartoonist in the U.S.” by the National Press Foundation. His new, weekly cartoon available to Wisconsin editors focuses solely on Wisconsin issues. His work on national topics, in the meantime, is syndicated to about 35 newspapers across the country and has appeared in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times and the Washington Post. He and his wife, Mary, live in a Victorian house that could do with a coat of paint.
Past and Present
Dread getting a swine flu shot? Your great-grandparents used to smear skunk oil on themselves. Mad at the Brewers for giving up ten runs? Some Wisconsin teams used to give up forty or fifty. Hear about the black bear in the beer cooler at Marketplace Foods in Hayward? Jack Ryan used to have one in his tavern in Mercer that stood on its hind legs and drank with the lumberjacks.
Readers can learn more about their quirky ancestors in Wisconsin Past & Present features – weekly, 150-word bits of Wisconsin history with particular, and often humorous, relevance to what’s in the news at the time. (Researched and written by Mike Nichols)