Event of the Week: Buy Local and Win Great Prizes

To encourage our readers to shop locally thisholiday season, the Shepherd Expressand the local business alliance Our Milwaukee have teamed up to reward thosewho promise to spend $100 at local establishments in the next few weeks. Justgo to expressmilwaukee.com and take the Buy Local Pledge. When you sign up,you’ll become eligible for gift certificates and items generously donated byOur Milwaukee members.

But waitthere’s more. When you send in receiptstotaling at least $100 in purchases from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 from Our Milwaukeemembers, you will be entered to win a grand-prize trip we’ll announce shortly.The deadline is Jan. 15, 2010. Send your receipts to Shepherd Express Buy Local Pledge, 207 E. Buffalo St., Suite 410, Milwaukee, WI 53202.

Hero of theWeek
Jeff (Doc)Dentice

Unfortunately, with the announced escalation oftroop deployments to Afghanistanto fight what President Barack Obama has termed a “necessary war,” Americancasualties will inevitably rise in coming months. Most of our injured soldiers,sailors, Marines and airmen are treated locally at the Zablocki VA MedicalCenter. For the past 20 years, Vietnamveteran Jeff (Doc) Dentice has been mobilizing volunteers to help ease thejourney back to a normal life for wounded servicemen and women with a festiveChristmas party to show our community’s support and gratitude. We saluteDentice for his military service and his efforts to organize “Christmas Withthe Vets,” and urge our readers to support our wounded service people bybringing food or cash/check donations from noon to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 12,at the south entrance of the VA Medical Center (enter from 46th &National), where volunteers will be on hand to accept donations. Those withquestions are urged to contact Dentice directly at (414) 218-3030.

Jerk of theWeek
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Patrick McIlheran

While every legitimate scientific body in the worldacknowledges the effect of human activity on global warming, especially byinefficient corporate agricultural practices, automobile emissions andindustrial pollutants, there are still those carrying the water for corporateinterests that deny any human culpability for the well-documented rise inglobal temperatures. Milwaukee’s resident flat-earther and non-scientistPatrick McIlheran seized on some controversial e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of EastAnglia in Britain that, by his own admission, “do not in themselves disproveman-made global warming” to propagate the corporate line that somehow humanactivities do not impact global warming and that global warming may notactually be happening. Next we can assume that McIlheran will start questioningevolution and the existence of the Holocaust.