FIRST MEETING OF THE NEW YEAR—JANUARY 12 AT 11:00 WEST WIND
We want to invite everyone to
join us for the first meeting of the RFArea Retired Educators’
Association. Our guest speaker will be
Professor of Philosophy Imtiaz Moosa. Not
only is “Imi” a good friend of past president Bernie Brohaugh and others in our
organization, he has lived an incredibly
interesting life. Born in Tanzania, he
and family emigrated to Canada. He
received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of
Toronto. He teaches introductory courses
in philosophy as well as a course in God, Religion, and Sciences, courses in
aesthetics, the history of philosophy—including his favorites, Marx and
Nietsche—and others.
Imtiaz is a great speaker—and
entertaining. He has twice won the
Excellence in Teaching award at UW-River Falls as well as the Excellence in
Research Award.
He
will tell us what it’s like to go blind overnight, describing the trauma he
suffered after he woke up one morning ten years ago unable to see the fingers
on his hands. He will tell us how, since then, he has overcome immense
depression, adjusted his daily life to cope with his condition, and learned to
accept his situation without bitterness and frustration.
Reminder: Remaining
meetings of the year will be held on Feb. 9, March 9, April 13, May 11, and
June 8.
PRESIDENT’S CORNER
By Roger Hulne
Reasons I attend River Falls Area
Retired Educators
I was
flattered when I was asked to serve as President of our organization having
only been a member for one year. I had
to decide if I was committed enough to spend my newly retired time in this
organization.
The opportunity to make new
friends, learn, and have fun with people who value education is a strong reason
why I joined. I look forward to the
monthly meetings and informative programs.
I am impressed with how many talented and educated people we have in our
organization. The December meeting was a great time to enjoy Christmas in song,
while getting to hear about others’ interesting Christmas experiences, along
with the great door prizes. It was great
to have good turnout of members.
The main goal of our organization
is to protect our state retirement, which we all paid into for many years. It is entirely funded with our contributions
and SWIB’s investments, which need to be closely guarded. We also help support public education, which
is and will continue to be under attack.
I would like to see our
membership expand and to see even more of our members attend our monthly
meetings. Please invite a friend or two
to attend a meeting. Let’s make new people feel welcome. Please feel free to
provide suggestions regarding our group.
We do want to serve our members.
Thanks you for allowing me to serve as President.
AFTER THE ELECTION
By Evelyn D. Klein
Now that the election is over, many of us feel a sense of relief from the chaos of negative campaigning, where it was easy to lose track of who did what, when, and why, especially if you relied totally on what came through in the media. And regardless of how we see the election outcome, life does go on. Some say change is good. Some say the only things certain in life are death and taxes. But so is the fact that life is change.
Recently, when I found myself wide awake in the middle
of the night, I settled in front of the TV with a warm glass of milk, remote in
hand, channel surfing past western, war movie, horror flick, worn-out situation
comedies to the Smothers Brothers on PBS TPT2 (Nov. 25, 2016). The music was
pleasing, until the comic brother with the guitar, Tommy, stopped abruptly and
said: “You can’t sing the song, if you don’t know the words.” It sounded like
poetry to me. The straight string bass
player, Dick, went on to explain that this type of song went back to the time
of the madrigal, that people at that time were illiterate, and that the
accompanist was to sing his part “Fa, la, la, la, la.” And the comic brother wondered about being
illiterate, which people no longer are, and something to the effect of how
singing without words would work out in the song, until Dick, who sang the
lyrics, said Tommy was just to sing “Fa, la, la, la, la, and they broke into a
harmonious duet.
While I chuckled along as they bantered and played
music, before I knew it, the next group of folk singers came on extolling
thoughts of the past. I started to drift off thinking, which is what I
sometimes do in the middle of the night when I am neither fully awake nor
asleep. But then I began to wish the Smothers Brothers had kept up their act,
as I was just beginning to get into it.
It all began to remind me in such a musical way of the
2016 election campaign, a campaign like no other the U.S. has experienced in
recent history. It started like an Argentine tango and broke into a free style
dance. You don’t have to be an experienced politician to run for office nor can
you be an experienced politician, if you’re a woman, at least not at this time,
and win. What seemed clear at the outset became confusing and foggy to many,
when the campaign veered away from the country’s issues to personality disputes
and emotional appeal, polls and media contributing to the confusion, polls
actually predicting one candidate ahead when in effect the other candidate won
the election. It left the country divided. Yet many voters, who relied heavily
on various media for their information, found it difficult to sort out the
incongruities, misconceptions, distortions, and outright lies of the campaign
rhetoric, as countless news sources and editorials have pointed out since. Of
course, it is fair to say that many things promised in election campaigns never
actually do reach reality in most election years.
But as a result of outwardly foggy and emotional
political rumblings, even on an international scale, keeping in mind Brexit,
the Oxford English Dictionary has
chosen the word “post-truth” as the international word of the year. Post-truth is defined as “relating to or
denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping
public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Most of us do have
emotions, including fears, and strong personal beliefs, not subject to party
affiliation.
How, then, do we find out about the real issues and
the candidates? The media love celebrity and controversy. They attract
audiences, sell papers, and have emotional appeal, even if the controversy
upends no real grounds. Add to it that social media have given us fake news,
and some hackers have had their field days. Post-election, the people who saw
their candidate win look forward with hope to promised change. Those whose
candidate lost were shaking their heads, while some, in various U.S. cities,
demonstrated to voice their concerns about the future. At the same time,
election recounts were scheduled in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. In
the meantime, the new administration is gradually taking shape, filling posts
with new faces, while many concerns over issues raised during the campaign
persist.
All of this makes me think of the book we are
currently reading in the MISF Philosophy Group, Plato at the Googleplex, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. For
everything you ever wanted to know about political processes and things that
make life worth living turn to the ancient Greeks, particularly to Plato, the
author leads readers to believe. In the
Prologue, she sets forth that the questions and conclusions posed by Plato are so
pervasive, they have become part of the collective unconscious, as we might conclude.
At the base of “living the good life,” philosophically speaking, lies
knowledge, according to Plato. She lists
about seventeen questions as they arise in contemporary disagreements,
questions already addressed by Plato, among them, the role of the state,”
whether it is there to protect or perfect us,” our susceptibility to
“demagoguery and the dangers of mixing entertainment values with politics,”
“whether all truths – even the scientific – are no more than cultural
artifacts,” (57) among them. All of these may sound strikingly familiar.
Goldstein feels that though philosophers are not
always taken seriously the way scientists or mathematicians are, partly because
they do not show “progress,” they hold an important place in society. For those
people who do not have the inclination toward acquiring this “knowledge” or
drawing conclusions about moral and ethical values, for whatever reason,
philosophers hold the answers to important questions that life poses in order
to live the “good” life. Obviously, no one can direct someone else on how to
live the “good” life. That is a most
personal decision in today’s America.
But to return to the question: How do we find out
about the issues and the candidates? It would be prudent to say that we, as
voters, have to do our own research and learn to choose information from
first-hand sources and journalists that have proved to be reliable. What this
election has demonstrated more than any other is that it helps to read up on
issues and candidates beforehand, because it is so easy to be carried off by
fear and other emotions that may have little or nothing to do with solving real
issues at hand, particularly if they have barely been discussed.
Implications for the future suggest we teach our young
people in civics classes the fundamentals of our democratic government,
initiated by the Founding Fathers and added to over the years by successive
generations. Students need to be
familiar with the Constitution, The Bill of Rights, the structure of Congress,
the function of the Cabinet, the Checks and Balances, and so on. Political
rhetoric and the art of persuasion can be studied and practiced in
communications and language arts classes to learn to distinguish between hype
and reporting, fact and fabrication, etc., yes, in classes right along with
science, technology, and math. When we have done our part to create an informed
citizenry so important to a democratic society, according to Thomas Jefferson,
third President of the United States and proponent of public education, we are
prepared for the next election.
We, the voters, can decide in the voting booths
whether we sing the lead or the accompaniment. Those who opted not to vote countrywide
passed on that important privilege, the one voice they do have.
And regardless of how we view the outcome of the 2016
election, it is what it is. For now, the season of Advent includes a waiting to
see what the new season of government will bring, placing our faith in the
democratic process of the United States.
Borrowing a quote from my book, Seasons
of Desire, in Plato’s Theatetus, Socrates
says: “nothing ever is, but all things are becoming.” Life never stays the same as it moves
forward.
Evelyn Klein
is an author/speaker/artist who taught in the public schools and at Century
College and, at times, teaches at the Loft Literary Center. She is the author of three books of poetry,
essays and art. She is currently
Education Chair at RFAREA
PATRIOTISM THAT COUNTS
By Bernie Brohaugh
Once again
we are hearing a hue and cry from folks who want to lock somebody up because he
trod on the American flag. People who raise such a hullabaloo say that behavior
like his is treasonous and he should be punished. They are incensed at his
audacity. Yet, it seems to me that they have a false idea of patriotism. To
them, it often amounts to little more than saying the Pledge of Allegiance,
standing at attention with their hats in their left hands and their hearts
overspread with their right hands when the national anthem is played, and
serving willingly or unwillingly in the Armed Forces.
It seems to
me that genuine patriotism amounts to much more than this. In the first place,
I would like to know what the logical connection is between reverence towards a
particular flag or a particular song and loyalty to one’s country. It no more
makes one a genuine patriot than wearing a cross makes one a genuine Christian.
So treading on the flag—or burning it—and staying seated with head covered when
the “Star Spangled Banner” is played is unpatriotic only to those who believe
it is, not to the rest of us. It’s anybody’s call.
I think
genuine patriotism requires more responsible and more demanding behavior.
Anyone, sincere or insincere, can mumble some words or look reverential. What
do these gestures accomplish, anyway? Nothing that makes this a better country.
No, I would say that the good patriot is one who supports his country and its
people by acting in ways that produce more than hot air and sentimentality.
First of all, the genuine patriot files an honest report of his income
with the IRS, and he pays his taxes; he doesn’t hide his money in a Swiss or a
Grand Cayman Bank.
If he owns a business, he keeps honest records, and he pays
his help livable wages. He does not exploit employees who are women and/or
immigrants, male or female. He is a good neighbor to those of a different color
or a different ethnic origin from his own. He contributes as generously as he
can to charities. He supports programs to help educate those with limited
resources, and he believes that everyone is entitled to receive health care
either at an affordable cost or gratis when necessary. He opposes maneuvers to
deprive any voters of their access to the polls, and he does what he can to make
sure that voting and vote counting is uncorrupted. He resists attempts of
greedy industrialists to destroy our environment in their quest for personal
gain. And he elects people to government offices who are determined to do what
is best for their country and not simply what is best for their parties or for
the tycoons who seek to own the parties.
These are manifestations of patriotism
that really count. Unfortunately, many Americans reject them and even hold them
in contempt. They prefer gestures like flag waving that don’t cost anything and
don ‘t require any real sincerity.
LEGISLATIVE UPDATES
By Bonnie
Jones-Witthuhn, Legislative Chair
PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING
“High poverty school districts would benefit from the proposed
Wisconsin DPI budget” that seeks a 2.7 percent increase “followed by an
additional 5.4 percent increase the following year”. The DPI estimates that at
least “94 percent of state schools would receive more state funding” under the
DPI proposal.
One detail that will affect the DPI proposed budget is the
governor’s goal of maintaining a zero-budget increase for the next two years.
--Source—http://wuwm news school funding
Both taxpayers and students would benefit from the DPI proposed
budget. For the taxpayer, it could help alleviate referendums that raise local
taxes to meet school budgets, something that has happened in half of local
Wisconsin communities. Increased public education funding at the state
level would also respond to growing childhood poverty through the DPI budget
targets expanding support for high poverty areas.
If you want to read more about the budget being proposed by State
Superintendent Tony Evers, you can find it on the DPI site at http://dpi.wi.gov/news/releases/2016/evers-announces-2017-19-budget-proposal.
Two powerful state voices, Governor Walker and Assembly Speaker
Voss, have both stated a strong commitment to increasing education funding.
Numbers and recipients of these funds are unknown. In a year-end report Vos
stated his goals for the 2017-2018 session goals: education, workforce
development, and fixing DOT and that a solution for the shortage of workers in
Wisconsin can be helped by supporting education. But, as always, funding for
both K-12 and higher education depends on the “revenue numbers” at the start of
the budget process.
School
Administrators Alliance December 20, 2016.
Reminder—please contact the governor and state representatives to
voice your support public for strong public education funding.
Sen. Sheila Harsdorf
State Capitol
Room 122 South
Madison, WI 53707-7882
Rep. Shannon Zimmerman (30th district)
W10887 875th Ave
Governor Scott Walker
115 East Capital
P.O. Box 7863
Madison, WI 53702
608-266-1212 or kevin.scott@wisconsin.gov
River Falls WI 54022-4730
JOINT FINANCE COMMITTEE: If you want to voice
support for expanded public school funding in the 2017-2019 budget the members
of the Joint Finance Committee (the budget writing committee) are co-chairs
Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette).
UW SYSTEM FUNDING
“The UW System Board of Regents is considering a 2% pay increase
for all UW system employees each of the next two years” (www.jsonline.com). The first sentence
of this article was hopeful that after years of pay freezes there would be a
little bit of relief at the university level but the report following this
sentence was a summary of higher education faculty loss we are experiencing in
our state. At a higher rate than in past decades, the UW System is losing
talented, tenure tract faculty. Our UW system has professional and personal
value for many of us. In our family of three, we each celebrate the fine
education we received at UW-Madison. My daughter remarked recently that she is
sadly and fearfully watching the destruction of the UW school system, and
wondering what will be available for the next generations seeking higher
education in Wisconsin.
Decreased or zero level financing of public education at the K-12
and university level continues in our state. Hopefully our sadness at
this current funding situation will embolden and empower us to voice our
concern. In another article, I am encouraged by the comments of Assembly
Speaker Vos who also said in the same interview that he anticipates increased
funding for the UW system.
COLLEGE AND POVERTY
“While college has become more expensive for students across
Wisconsin in recent years, a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin analysis of student
costs suggests the trend has been especially hard on the state’s poorest
families.” The article continues by reporting how need-based financial aid does
not meet the complete budget for many of our state’s poorest students. -Wisconsin examined student costs at more than
60 schools through estimates reported by colleges to the U.S. Department of
Education. The estimates — called "net price" — include what
students pay for tuition and living expenses after grants and scholarships.
---USA TODAY NETWORK
TWO SIDES OF AN
AUDIT
Newspaper
articles and comments by state representatives regarding the recent State of
Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) audit reveals a difference of perspective
about it.
Executive
director Michael Williamson explains the State of Wisconsin Investment Board
(SWIB) investment strategy has been cautious after the 2008 recession. SWIB,
using a diversified investment approach, has provided investment growth, though
less than compared to pre-2008 growth. There has also been salary restructuring
within SWIB, with internal compensation plans directly tied to performance,
this salary restructuring and the increased use of SWIB employees to manage
funds, rather than using “external investment managers,” has increased
operating costs. Williamson reports this as a positive for the Wisconsin
Retirement System but at least one legislator disagrees.
On
the other side of the SWIB audit Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay, co-chairman
of the Legislature’s Join Audit Committee states a concern that a 2015 negative
return “should have triggered a policy deferring bonuses for SWIB staff;
Instead a total $11.1 million dollars in bonuses was distributed in 2015.
My
editorial note is we should be aware that probably in January the Joint Audit
Committee will hold a hearing on the results of the SWIB audit. Share your news and thoughts with others.
MEMBER NEWS: WHAT ARE YOU READING?
Karen Brohaugh: Mighty Be Our
Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex
Changed a Nation at War by Leymah
Gbowee and Carol Mithers (2016). This is
a book describing the efforts of Leymah Bgowee to bring together Liberia’s
women to promote peace. She helped to
organize and lead the Liberan Mass Action for Peace, a coalition of Christian
and Muslim women “who sat in public protest, confronting Liberia’s ruthless
president and rebel warlords, and even held a sex strike.” Gbowee won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.
Margarita Hendrickson:
The
Cleft by Doris Lessing (2009). Described on Amazon in this way: “In the last years of his life, a Roman
senator embarks on one final epic endeavor, a retelling of the history of human
creation. The story he relates is the
little-known saga of the Clefts, an ancient community of women with no
knowledge of nor need for men.”
Roger Hulne: Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child. Jack Reacher is described by one reader in
the Amazon reviews as a “macho wanderer, man of few words, quick with his
fists, an expert at weaponry, fearless and unforgiving.” His readers seem to love this guy! With 21 books in the series, that’s a lot of
adventures and criminals to track down.
Evy Johnson: Caddie
Woodlawn series by Carol Ryrie Brink. First
published in 1935 and awarded the John Newbery Medical for the most
distinguished contribution to American literature for children, the books
follow the pioneer childhood of Caddie, friends, and family. Evy is returning to this old favorite from
her teaching years.
Bonnie Jones-Witthuhn: The Roundhouse by Louise Erdrich
(2012). The second of what Erdrich later
called her “justice trilogy” (starting with The
Plague of Doves [2009] and concludes with her newest novel, La Rose [2016]), this novel is set on
the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota.
A young boy “seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible
crime that upends and forever transforms his family.”
Evelyn Klein: Plato at the
Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away
by Rebecca Goldstein (2015). Amazon describes the book this way: “Imagine that Plato came to life in the
twenty-first century and embarked on a multicity speaking tour. How would he handle the host of a cable news
program who denies there can be morality without religion? How would he mediate a debate between a
Freudian psychoanalyst and a tiger mom on how to raise a perfect child? . .
. With a philosopher’s depth and a
novelist’s imagination and wit, Goldstein probes the deepest issues confronting
us by allowing us to eavesdrop on Plato as he takes on the modern world.”
Ruth Wood: Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
(2016). This year’s winner of the
National Book Award for fiction, Whitehead’s novel combines realism and magical
realism to imagine the underground railroad as a literal railroad transporting
runaway slaves from the savagery of a Georgia plantation through the Carolinas
and finally to freedom. Colson conflates
times and places to bring together many of the key events of African American
history from the importation of slaves to the deep south to the Tuskegee
syphilis experiments to forced sterilization programs to Harriet Jacobson’s
eight years in an attic hiding from her vindictive slave master.
Laura Zlogar: Hillbilly
Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture
in Crisis by J.D. Vance (2016). Born in the rustbelt of southern Ohio of
parents whose roots are firmly planted in the Appalachians of Kentucky, Vance,
who barely graduated high school but then joined the Marines, attended Ohio
State, and eventually went to Yale Law School, describes a life that he says
should not be the exception but definitely is for people growing up in the
South and the Rust Belt. He describes
family dysfunction—violence, drug abuse, unemployment, displacement—as well as
the cultural dysfunction that contributes to it. Vance’s story may help to explain the
cultural and political phenomena occurring in red state America.
MEMBERSHIP REPORT
By Laura Zlogar, Membership Chair
While the state organization
is growing—by more than 1,000 members so far this year—our local needs to add
members. We have more members on our
roster than come to our meetings. We have some members who haven’t paid their
dues for 2016-17. We have some members
who belong to the state organization but haven’t paid local dues. And we have some members who are local
members only. Local membership and dues are important to support our local
scholarship program, to support local initiatives for public education, and to
pay for local expenses to run our unit.
· All Current Members:
78 total (these include some
members who still have not paid dues as well as emeriti members who are
housebound and are no longer required to pay dues)
· WREA Paid Members:
53 total
· RFArea REA Paid Members: 37
total
We sent out more than 100
letters during the summer as well as follow up postcards inviting recent
retirees to join us. This year so far,
we are proud to welcome several new members:
Mary Foster, Dianne Franklin, Bonnie Jones-Witthuhn, and Lesley
Williams. Now, we hope to see
more new faces in the coming months. But
the best way to get new members is for current members to invite newly retired
colleagues and friends—and it may take more than one invitation. Persistence is the key.
Why are new members so
important? Because we must have large
numbers to make our voices heard in Madison.
When our representatives visit our legislators, when we write to our state
representative and senator, numbers matter.
A single voice might not mean much to them, but thousands of voices do matter.
Madison.com
has just reported that Senator Robert Cowles (R-Green Bay), co-chair of the
Joint Audit Committee, is calling for hearings to investigate last year’s
negative return on WRS’s Core Fund, even though SWIB has explained clearly
where the $11 million expenditures have gone and why those investments are good
for our retirement system in the long run.
This sort of meddling is dangerous to WRS since the state is facing a
huge budget deficit and is looking for a pot of gold. Promised jobs and
industries have not materialized, as the governor predicted, and Wisconsin
ranks absolute last in the country in new start up companies. University research and the money supporting
it are also leaving the state. The
transportation fund in the state is broke.
The governor and legislators
have tried to raid state workers’ retirement fund before. As WREA’s website states, “In 1997 the
Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in a 10-year case involving
a raid on the state pension fund. WRTA, renamed WREA in 1991, was a leader in
initiating this litigation and in bringing it to a successful conclusion. This
active participation in the litigation made WREA a recognized leader in the
state and nation as a watchdog for the retirement fund. In 2001, WREA
celebrated its 50th anniversary.”
Protection of our pensions,
of our healthcare, of our security as former employees of public education
doesn’t come free. Our annual state dues
support that protection. We must let our
friends know that they cannot depend on others to protect their retirement;
they must join in the effort.
We will be launching a new
campaign to encourage retirees who belong to WREA but not to our local unit to
join RFArea REA as well as contacting those former members who have not renewed. We
will be calling on each of you to help in this endeavor.
If you haven’t renewed your WREA and RFArea
REA membership for 2016-17, please do so now.
Annual dues are $50 for WREA membership and $10 for RFArea REA
membership (for people who receive WRS/ETF pensions). For associate members (spouses, friends of
Wisconsin education), dues are $35 for WREA and $5 for our local unit. Send
them to Laura Zlogar at 729 River Ridge Court, River Falls, WI 54022.
WHERE CAN YOU FIND US?
River Falls Area REA can be
found online as well as in your mailbox.
If you want to look back at previous newsletters or posts about recent
meetings, you can always check our blog at http://riverfallsareawrea.blogspot.com/.
We are also on Facebook! Just look for and like us at River Falls Area
Retired Educators’ Association
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