Author: Syndicated

In 1886, The Statue of Liberty was a symbol of democratic government and Enlightenment ideals, as well as a celebration of the Union’s victory in the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. The 26,000-square-foot museum on Liberty Island opened to the public on May 16. It is the new home for the statue’s original torch that was replaced in the 1980s restoration, an unoxidized copper replica of Lady Liberty’s face, and other artifacts that previously were in a smaller museum space inside the statue’s pedestal. It also revived an aspect of the statue’s long-forgotten history, that Lady...

A third of the world’s 196 countries currently have national flags that include religious symbols, according to a previous Pew Research analysis. Of the 64 countries in this category, about half have Christian symbols (48%) and about a third include Islamic religious symbols (33%), with imagery on flags from the world’s two largest religious groups appearing across several regions. Christian symbols are found on 31 national flags from Europe, Asia and the Pacific and the Americas. The United Kingdom’s “Union Jack,” for example, includes the crosses of St. George, St. Patrick and St. Andrew. Some Commonwealth countries continue to...

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives recently wore yellow roses to commemorate the passage of the 19th Amendment in the lower chamber on May 21, 1919. June 4 marked the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment by the two-thirds Congressional majority, an action that sent the amendment granting women the right to vote to the states for ratification. But we must not forget that while the 19th Amendment was momentous, the reality was that it did not grant the franchise to all women in the United States. In practice, it ensured the franchise for primarily...

Flying a gay pride rainbow flag over the Wisconsin state Capitol for the first time on June 7 drew backlash from a pair of conservative state lawmakers who said it was divisive, while Democrats unanimously hailed it as a sign of inclusivity. June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month and Democratic Governor Tony Evers ordered the raising of the flag at the capitol through to the end of the month. He also authorized other state buildings to fly a rainbow flag this month. “Publicly displaying the Rainbow Pride Flag sends a clear and unequivocal message...

Filled with paratroopers, a U.S. warplane lumbered down an English runway in 1944 to spearhead the World War II D-Day invasion with a message for Adolf Hitler painted in bright yellow across its nose: “That’s All, Brother.” Seventy-five years later, in a confluence of history and luck, that plane is again bound for the French coast for what could be the last great commemoration of the Allied battle to include D-Day veterans, many of whom are now in their 90s. Rescued from obscurity in Wisconsin after Air Force historians in Alabama realized its significance, the restored C-47 troop carrier...

The foreclosure crisis that accompanied the Great Recession had an unexpected consequence in Milwaukee County: It exacerbated political inequity. A study conducted by researchers at UW-Milwaukee and Marquette University found that county homeowners facing foreclosure or those who had lost their homes during the economic downturn were less likely to go to the polls in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. These local results echo a national trend documented by other studies that indicate economic adversity negatively impacts people’s voting behavior. In fact, the study not only found a decline in voting at the level of individual homeowners, but also...