Ozaukee Press Editorials

The Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987 was necessary federal legislation.

Shipwrecks in public waters, and especially in the Great Lakes, were being plundered and damaged by treasure hunting divers. The law made that illegal by declaring that shipwrecks on a state’s “submerged lands” are the state’s property and subject to the state laws protecting the sunken ships. An estimated 3,000 historic wrecks in the affected waters were given the protection they needed from further molestation.

It may be painful to revisit the ugly political maneuvering that nearly scuttled the Cedar Gorge Clay Bluffs Nature Preserve last summer, but it’s worth it now because it offers guidance on how the Wisconsin state government should spend some of its enormous cash surplus.

Born six centuries ago in the revered lore of this country’s first white settlers and their native neighbors, Thanksgiving is pure Americana, and Americans treasure it, as is proven each year when it brings their families together like no other holiday.

Thanksgiving is documented to be the stimulus for more air, road and rail travel in the U.S. than any other event or holiday, even Christmas, with an estimated 55 million people traveling this week to be with loved ones and friends.

The Sunshine Protection Act was passed by the U.S. Senate with exemplary bipartisan support. It was approved in March without barbed political rhetoric, craven kowtowing to lobbyists or much of the usual congressional bloviating. The Senate action and the details of the bill were reported accurately by news media, even such outlets as Fox News that are not known for journalistic objectivity, and without being weaponized by QAnon and similar propagandizing social media platforms to inflame their audiences with solar conspiracy theories.