As Martin Luther King told us 45 years ago, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

The record military budget that was rubber-stamped by the U.S. House of Representatives this week surely proves Dr. King's point.

Growing numbers of older Americans are spending their retirement years in poverty, according to a recent Employee Benefit Research Institute study. The proportion of older people living below the poverty line has been growing steadily since 2005, and many of those people are falling into poverty as they age and spend down their savings.

Rev. Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow PUSH coalition joined Iraq Veterans Against the War and Afghans For Peace at the head of Sunday’s anti-NATO march in Chicago. 

GOP pitchman Fred (“Demon Sheep”) Davis wanted Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts to give him $10 million for an ad campaign attacking President Obama for promoting himself as a “metrosexual black Abe Lincoln.” It’s a great phrase, like “Etch-A-Sketch candidate,” but that trio of sneers sounds a lot more like the mood of those restive GOP debate audiences last winter.

The Republican-dominated House’s version of the Violence Against Women Act, up for reauthorization, would not only curtail protections for women, but also, some say, reverse hard-earned advances for women in the United States.

If the world can be seen in a grain of sand, watch out.  As Wisconsinites are learning, there’s money (and misery) in sand -- and if you’ve got the right kind, an oil company may soon be at your doorstep.

March in Wisconsin used to mean snow on the ground, temperatures so cold that farmers worried about their cows freezing to death.