Welcome to KickTime - News of the Kickapoo Valley, WI

A Driftless Regional web space for Kickapoo Valley news, events and local commerce (like recycling, ride sharing, eating from local sources, buying and supporting local entrepreneurs.)

Visit our Kickapedia site for links to local businesses, farms and services. This is a community wiki (like Wikipedia only smaller) that can be updated by anyone who logs in. The more you join in the better the information and quicker the updates. Don't be shy--if you make a mistake an old version can be restored.

Also try the link to the KickTime_Calendar. We try to keep it as complete, up-to-date and accurate as possible. Please forgive any errors and use the contact information provided for events to double check times and dates.

KickTime is a community project--you are encouraged to submit material. The first step is to create a login account. After logging in, submit your story and it will be reviewed and pushed to the front page within a day or two. See the FAQ for more details about posting material here. If you are totally flummoxed, email the story to admins[at]kicktime[dot]org.

So what do we look for? Events notices are common submissions, but a local view on issues would be a nice change of pace.

Please don't submit a reprint of a news story. Instead provide a new perspective or added insight;
Bring several views together to create a new way to imagine an issue;
Be clever, funny, original;
We encourage attitude and self-confidence, but base your writing on facts;
If you wish to pass literary or artistic judgment, or discuss the merits or demerits of someone or something, do it with subtlety and intelligence;
The more voices here the better!

Too much to ask? Well would you want to spend your precious time reading anything less?

Philosopher's Corner

Gas Station Truth in Advertising

By borges, Section Philosopher's Corner
Posted on Mon Oct 06, 2008 at 07:02:24 AM CST

Bought gas for $3.19/gal up in St. Paul yesterday. This might spell hope for those who feel the high fuel crunch, but it might make us amnesiacs about the need for alternative fuel (remember if you can the Carter years?) Well there is a fellow taking it to the oil companies with posters that say it all..."What Recession? We're Doing Fine." Video has the full story.

Gas Signs Truth in Advertising. from Donny Miller on Vimeo.

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Talk Like a Pirate Day

By borges, Section Philosopher's Corner
Posted on Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 08:21:17 PM CST

Almost missed it, but why not talk like a pirate today and every day? There are lessons brought to you on the official_site by the graciousness of Ol' Chumbucket and Cap'n Slappy, but here are some lessons from the "Loading Ready Language Series" for those not with-it enough to even start.

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TED talk--classical music and the leadership of Benjamin Zander

By borges, Section Philosopher's Corner
Posted on Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 10:01:14 PM CST

Before everyone blows away for the weekend, as is so common in summer, here is a TED video worth the time. From the TED_site:

Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it -- and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.

This one is great for the spirit, and don't forget to let the kids in on it. "One buttock music playing?"--trust me kids will love this.

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Sun Halo in Norway

By borges, Section Philosopher's Corner
Posted on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 07:30:45 PM CST

SpaceWeather.com keeps track of what is happening sky-wise, and they show these lovely pictures of sun halo. Sort of a rare event they say...

They also have a Geminid meteor shower Gallery here

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Make a Flake

By borges, Section Philosopher's Corner
Posted on Sun Dec 02, 2007 at 04:06:28 PM CST

Fun for kids, nice cure for cabin fever, go ahead--make one!

Snowflake from Make-a-flake website

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Our Beloved Community

By borges, Section Philosopher's Corner
Posted on Thu Nov 01, 2007 at 09:22:33 PM CST

I wonder if we in the Kickapoo Valley area can gather under the umbrella of "Our Beloved Community" in order to organize to preserve all those things we love about living in this place. This is a concept that was originated by Grace Lee Boggs, a long-time activist and organizer. Her ideas, based on Martin Luther King Jr., have helped to transform community in urban America. I wonder if it is time for rural America and this part of rural Wisconsin to come together, organize, network and preserve and expand those things we love.

This_link is to a Bill Moyers program (video or read the transcript) with Grace Lee Boggs. Towards the end she provides some sense of the movement of "the beloved community". I excerpt the end of the transcript below and continue with more in the full story.

BILL MOYERS: These days, Boggs works through what's known as the Beloved Community Initiative to encourage people like this in cities across the country to see themselves as crucial to how democracy works. And for whom.
BILL MOYERS: You know, you didn't have to come here this past weekend. You're 91 years old. Why did you come?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Because I think the initiative that I am part of, the beloved communities initiative, is identifying and helping to bring together small groups who are making this cultural revolution that we so urgently need in our country.
GRACE LEE BOGGS: And I see this as part of a pilgrimage which human beings have been embarked on for thousands and tens of thousands of years. People think of evolution mainly in terms of anatomical changes. I think that we have to think of evolution in terms of-- very elemental human changes. And so, we're evolving both through our knowledge and through our experiences to another a stage of human--humankind. So, revolution and evolution are no longer so separate.
BILL MOYERS: But the economic system doesn't reflect this evolution. Outsourcing of jobs, the flight of capital, the power of capital over workers. All of that has-- the system isn't catching up this.
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well-- just-- don't expect the system to catch up, the system is part of the system! What I think is that, not since the 30s have American have the American people, the ordinary Americans faced such uncertainty with regard to the economic system. In the 30s, what we did, was we confronted management and were able, thereby to gain many advantages, particularly to gain a respect for the dignity of labor. That's no longer possible today, because of the ability of corporations to fly all over the place and begin setting up-- all this outsourcing. So, we're gonna have - people are finding other ways to regain control over the way they make their living.
BILL MOYERS: You know, a lot of young people out there would agree with your analysis. With your diagnosis. And then they will say; What can I do that's practical? How do I make the difference that Grace Lee Boggs is taking about. What would you be doing?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I would say do something local. Do something real, however, small. And don't-- don't diss the political things, but understand their limitations.
BILL MOYERS: Don't 'diss' them?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Disrespect them.
BILL MOYERS: Disrespect them?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Understand their limitations. Politics there was a time when we believed that if we just achieved political power it would solve all our problems. And I think what we learned from experiences of the Russian Revolution, all those revolutions, that those who become--who try to get power in the state, become part of the state. They become locked in to the practices. And we have to begin creating new practices.
BILL MOYERS: What will it take for this next round of change that you see as promising? What would it take?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: It takes discussions like this. I mean, it takes a whole lot of things. It takes people doing things. It takes people talking about things. It takes dialogue. It takes changing the whole lot of ways by which we think.
BILL MOYERS: Do you see any leaders who are advocating that change? I mean, people that we would all recognize, anybody we'd all recognize?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I don't see any leaders, and I think we have to rethink the concept of "leader." 'Cause "leader" implies "follower." And, so many-- not so many, but I think we need to appropriate, embrace the idea that we are the leaders we've been looking for.

I think we are not only the leaders, but the base that needs to be networked together, communicating, and all pulling in one direction. Our Beloved Community--a place we care about, people we are willing to stand with, and a sense we are all in this together.

(1960 words in story) Full Story

Max Garland, Poet, "Termite Inspector" talks with William Stobb

By borges, Section Philosopher's Corner
Posted on Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 07:09:16 AM CST

Max Garland's The Postal Confessions won the Juniper Prize of the University of Massachussetts Press. Here is a talk with him in the poetry/interview radio show called "Hard to Say," with host William Stobb. Stobbs talks with Max about termites, the call of the wild, and the metaphysical origins of hunger. My personal favorite line is "Time is on the side of appetite, I found myself deciding."

Check out the radio segment here.

Poet and commentator William Stobb is the author of Nervous Systems, a 2006 National Poetry Series selection, published by Penguin. His commentaries appear regularly on WLSU, and the online magazine, miporadio http://www.miporadio.net/WILLIAM_E_STOBB/. Stobb teaches creative writing at Viterbo University, in La Crosse.

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