Labor Day 2023 sees renewed focus on “labor” as tensions rise between employees and employers
With Labor Day comes big shopping sales and backyard barbecues. But the activist roots of the holiday are especially visible this year as unions challenge how workers are treated, from Hollywood to the auto production lines of Detroit. The early-September tribute to...
Wisconsin’s Catch-22: State dairy industry depends on undocumented immigrants who cannot legally drive
Central Wisconsin’s Clark County is home to more dairy farms than any other county in the state, which bills itself as America’s Dairyland. Its identity is so tied to the dairy industry that a 16-foot-tall, black-and-white talking Holstein stands outside downtown...
Edward Morgan: Former Milwaukee resident shares memories of Kyrgyzstan on its Independence Day
I recently returned from Kyrgyzstan, a remarkable half-year experience that enriched my life and changed my perspective in various ways. Kyrgyzstan is a small, landlocked country in Central Asia. The total population is less than seven million. I was there as a...
Edward Morgan: Understanding how Kyrgyz society is still influenced by its relationship with Russia
Kyrgyzstan is beautiful. But it is also a country in limbo. Suspended between dependence and decolonization, this condition is partly the result of more than a century under Russian control, and partly the ongoing challenge of living in Russia’s shadow. Planning ahead...
Edward Morgan: Personal diary shares snapshot of daily life over six months in a Central Asian nation
Edward Morgan wrote about his experiences in Kyrgyzstan, sharing them on social media from January to June 2023. Some of those posts, like entries from a travel journal, have been assembled here. Individually, the raw and unedited entries share an account of his time...
When data is fair game: Zoom stirs public backlash over policy to train AI on customer content
An update to Zoom’s terms of service raised alarm bells in August on social media, with users claiming it revealed the videoconferencing company was now tapping their online doctor visits and virtual happy hours to train artificial intelligence models....
Consumer protection: Federal regulation of AI takes a step forward with FTC probe of OpenAI
By Anjana Susarla, Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State University The Federal Trade Commission has launched an investigation of ChatGPT maker OpenAI for potential violations of consumer protection laws. The FTC sent the company a 20-page demand for...
A culture of racism: Latest anti-Black shooting stirs memories of White Supremacy from Jacksonville’s past
By some measures, the city was making strides to emerge from its racist past. But the killing of three Black people on August 26 by a young, white shooter was a painful and startling reminder that the remnants of racism continue to fester in Jacksonville, Florida....
X Japan: Elon Musk hits language barriers in Twitter’s abrupt shift from a “tweet” into an “X”
Elon Musk may want to send “tweet” back to the birds, but the ubiquitous term for posting on the site he now calls X is here to stay, at least for now. For one, the word is still plastered all over the site formerly known as Twitter. Write a post, you...
Missing the mark: Why oddball rebranding is hardly unusual for a big tech company
By Matthew Pittman, Assistant Professor of Advertising and Public Relations, University of Tennessee Twitter has swapped the fluffy bird that used to symbolize the social media platform for a spindly black X. Ditching the company’s well-known logo and changing its...
Milwaukee raises national flag of Ukraine on its Independence Day in solidarity with Sister City of Irpin
Mayor Cavalier Johnson sent a celebratory message to Milwaukee’s Sister City of Irpin, Ukraine, wishing its Mayor and community a Happy Independence Day on August 24, the 32nd anniversary of the nation’s freedom from the Soviet Union. Since the beginning...
GOP candidates struggle for relevance during first 2024 Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee
The Republican presidential candidates vying to be the leading alternative to front-runner Donald Trump fought, sometimes bitterly, over abortion rights, U.S. support for Ukraine, and the future of the party during the first primary debate of the 2024 campaign in...
