Author: Guest

Persecuted Writers: The attack on Salman Rushdie is a wake-up call for defending the freedom to write

Persecuted Writers: The attack on Salman Rushdie is a wake-up call for defending the freedom to write

Posted by | Aug 14, 2022

Just hours before he was brutally attacked on August 12 in Chautauqua, New York, Salman had emailed me to help with securing safe refuge for Ukrainian writers who face grave perils that are silencing their voices at a time when they badly need to be heard. The email was nothing new. Salman and I have been in dialogue for nearly a decade on an endless array of efforts to aid persecuted writers and defend the freedom to write. Salman has been targeted for his words for decades, but he has never flinched nor faltered. He has not lived life...

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A Warning Unheeded: Terror attacks on places of worship increasing in spite of painful lessons

A Warning Unheeded: Terror attacks on places of worship increasing in spite of painful lessons

Posted by | Aug 8, 2022

The decade since has seen a rise in mass shootings and terror attacks on places of worship. Sikhs hope the anniversary helps reverse those trends. In India, Satwant Singh Kaleka was a farmer. His wife and their two small sons lived in a village near the city of Patiala, in the state of Punjab. He was a devout Sikh who would post religious writings on the walls of the home. In 1982, Kaleka brought his family to the United States in search of opportunity. Like countless other immigrant families, he worked long hours at hard, manual-labor jobs to provide...

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A war on food in Ukraine: World Central Kitchen’s relief effort has served 100 Million meals in 5 months

A war on food in Ukraine: World Central Kitchen’s relief effort has served 100 Million meals in 5 months

Posted by | Jul 24, 2022

Today marks five months since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, displacing millions of people, claiming tens of thousands of lives, and destroying thousands of buildings and entire communities. But these numbers only partially convey what the Ukrainian people have had to endure. Refugees fleeing — primarily women, children, and seniors — have embarked on long and arduous journeys, waiting up to 72 hours before crossing the border to safety. People remaining in Ukraine are living through the trauma of constant shelling and the threat of uncertainty as more and more residential areas are targeted seemingly at random. As the situation...

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Irpin Billboard: Ukrainian Creatives use Milwaukee advertising space to inspire global info campaign

Irpin Billboard: Ukrainian Creatives use Milwaukee advertising space to inspire global info campaign

Posted by | Mar 24, 2022

Documenting the destruction of Milwaukee’s sister city of Irpin, Ukraine, a new billboard has gone up along I-94 near 84th Street with a simple plea to local residents: “Milwaukee, your sister city is waiting for your support.” But the story of the billboard’s creation is one of Ukrainian ingenuity and strange coincidence, and is documented in a new episode of the Lead Balloon Podcast, which is produced in Milwaukee by Podcamp Media. When the Russian military launched its unprovoked war more than three weeks ago, hundreds of Ukrainian ad agency executives, creative directors and freelance communicators banded together to...

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Solomiya Kavyuk: I am an American. I am Ukrainian. If you love democracy, you can be “pro-Ukraine” too.

Solomiya Kavyuk: I am an American. I am Ukrainian. If you love democracy, you can be “pro-Ukraine” too.

Posted by | Mar 1, 2022

I have lived in America three times as long as I lived in Ukraine. I am an American citizen. I graduated from an American college. And yet, if you were to ask me who I am, I would tell you I am Ukrainian. I was born in a city in Western Ukraine called Ternopil. I come from a long line of Ukrainian patriots. You could say loving my homeland loudly and proudly runs in my blood. So, when that beautiful country is under attack, when the people I love most are sleeping in basements to hide from bombs, when...

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Krystia Nora: Painting a picture of family, war, and the hope for a free Ukraine with poetry

Krystia Nora: Painting a picture of family, war, and the hope for a free Ukraine with poetry

Posted by | Mar 1, 2022

With the unprecedented Russian invasion of her family’s homeland by Putin’s forces, Dr. Krystia Nora has stepped forward at solidarity rallies and peace demonstrations to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis that is taking place in Ukraine. Dr. Nora is an English instructor at the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC), and a second generation Ukrainian American. While her poem is not a traditional editorial narrative with hard details about the situation in Ukraine and specifics about her family, it serves as a rhythmical expression of emotion about vulnerable loved ones facing the hardships of invasion by a foreign military....

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