MILWAUKEE — I am broadcasting to you from Room 614 of a mid-tier hotel on Wisconsin Avenue, where the blackout curtains do not black out, the ice machine down the hall hums with the same relentless, mechanical dread I once felt in Beijing, and the Wi-Fi requires a room number that this establishment has apparently decided I do not have. Tonight, the fate of the free world hangs in the balance. But tonight, it is about directions.
Wisconsin has filed a formal complaint with the United Nations Special Committee on Geographical Grievances, alleging that the State of Illinois has engaged in what Milwaukee's delegation described as "the aggressive and unprovoked use of the term 'Up North'" to describe recreational travel to Wisconsin.
The complaint, delivered by a man named Gary — I did not catch his last name, but he was wearing a Packers jacket and a facial expression that suggested he had been waiting his entire life for this moment — argues that "Up North" is a Wisconsinite phrase with deep cultural and topographical roots, and that its appropriation by Illinois residents who "drive to Lake Geneva once a summer and call it wilderness" constitutes "linguistic colonialism of the highest order."
Illinois, in a sharply worded counter-complaint filed within hours, asserted that "Up North is a state of mind, not a coordinate" and that "Wisconsin does not possess a trademark on cardinal directions."
As Murrow once said, "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." And what are we, if not sheep grazing on the synthetic carpeting of interstate linguistic compromise?
Mediation talks, convened in a Ramada conference room in Kenosha that smelled aggressively of coffee and regional despair, collapsed after ninety minutes when the Wisconsin delegation learned that the Illinois representatives had stopped at a Culver's on the way to the negotiation and had not called ahead to confirm whether ButterBurgers were "a shared cultural heritage."
"You don't bring Culver's into this unless you're prepared to share it," said Wisconsin lead negotiator Tom Thibodeau, his voice trembling with what I can only describe as the righteous fury of a man who has watched his language be colonized by people who think Portillo's is exotic. "They didn't even get cheese curds. They got fries. You know what that tells me? It tells me they don't understand the region."
Minnesota filed an amicus brief supporting Wisconsin but was promptly ignored because, as one UN official noted, "they say 'Up North' about Canada, which is not even in the same country, and frankly we don't have time for that level of ambition."
A neutral mediator from Iowa — a state whose own directional vocabulary consists primarily of "over by the Hy-Vee" — proposed "North-Up" as a compromise. Both sides rejected it as "humiliating language."
Dr. Henrik Björnstad, Nordic-American directional linguist at the University of Superior, a satellite campus that meets in what used to be a bait shop, testified before the committee that "the phrase 'Up North' carries no topographical obligation" but acknowledged that "Wisconsin's emotional claim is valid under the 1982 Great Lakes Accords, which recognized cheese-based sovereignty."
He added, and I watched him say this through the cracked screen of a hotel television that receives approximately four channels, that "Illinois does not own the concept of verticality, though it behaves as if it does."
The Wisconsin State Assembly, in an emergency session that began at 9 p.m. and concluded at 9:47 p.m. because someone remembered there was a Bucks game, passed a non-binding resolution declaring that any Illinois resident using the phrase "Up North" within state lines must "acknowledge, in writing, that they are a guest and that the bratwurst is different here."
Governor Tony Evers, reached for comment at a dairy breakfast in Marathon County, said only: "They can have the phrase when they pry it from my cold, frostbitten hands."
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker responded via tweet, writing: "Wisconsin is a lovely state full of lovely people who are currently having a lovely breakdown. We will continue saying 'Up North' because we do not know what else to call it. 'North' is the direction we are going. The end."
The UN Special Committee on Geographical Grievances, which has previously mediated disputes including "Who Gets to Call Themselves 'The City'" (New York v. San Francisco, 2019) and "Is a Hot Dog a Sandwich" (Chicago v. Reason, 2021), has scheduled a full hearing for November, assuming neither state has seceded from the union by then.
I have been assured by the front desk that my keycard will be fixed by morning. I am not optimistic. The ice machine hums on. The Midwest burns, not with fire, but with the quiet, sustained rage of people who believe very deeply in where they are relative to other people.
As Murrow once said, "Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation."
I intend to be deeply, profoundly confused.
- Filed by Sam Turge, IRREVERENT Newz Desk