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Pick a Place - and Protect It

The news about Trump's ascendancy continues to be dire and those of us feeling the pain are curling into mental fetal positions. I have only the hope that the battle to save our natural treasures will go through courts of law long enough to restore more compassionate leadership. Expect lots of lawsuits and counter lawsuits. The scale of what's coming is daunting. But when I look in my back yard, my neighborhood, my community, the challenges are parsed into components I can tackle. Spending more time connecting with friends and reaching out to make new friends; creating native habitat for local plants, birds and animals; volunteering with and/or donating to local organizations that provide essential health and social services; selecting a key cause or two and really putting your shoulder to those wheels. Pick a place - any place you really care about - and dedicate yourself to protecting that place. Even if it's just your backyard. It's a start toward creating the wo
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Standing up for reality

It's important to stay true to reality in these strange times, and to act in a principled way even when it seems that everyone in authority is not. I have some wonderful role models for doing this - most recently the wonderful Dan Rather. If you haven't already, I highly recommend following his posts on Facebook for some very insightful and courageous writing. The whole carnival of madness we see in daily reports of who Trump has chosen for cabinet posts can be extremely anxiety-provoking.  I watched my sister, usually stoic and unflappable, quietly insist that a dinner table conversation not veer onto that topic because it sends her to such a difficult place.  It was hard to see someone I consider a real "rock" tear up with such genuine distress. I imagine this is happening for many of us. This sh*tshow reminds me of a conversation I had with a trailblazer on the nutrition front, Dr. Michael Klaper , when I first started eating vegan and also wanted to cut

Where is Noah's Ark?

This image of the last male white rhino in the world is heart-breaking, but we must see it and try to do something about it, even if only to increase awareness, and to look around to see what we can rescue before it is gone. What animal or plant species in your community need protection? How can you get others involved? What efforts seem to be making a difference? http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/16/africa/kenya-northern-white-rhino/index.html?sr=cnnifb  

Speak up for science!

TELL THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY THAT THEIR CLIMATE-DENYING BS IS UNACCEPTABLE.  From  Maressa Brown Levy : The fact that the verified, official Twitter account House Committee on Science, Space, & Technology has tweeted a climate change-denying link from Breitbart ( http://www.nbcnews.com/…/house-science-committee-tweets-cli… ) is INTOLERABLE. Let's call the people on the committee and our own reps about this B.S! Here are the names of the people on this Committee:  https://science.house.gov/about/members SCRIPT (feel free to modify and shorten if it's too much for you, but all the info you need is in there!): Hi, my name is [your name], and I'd like to bring to [insert your Rep/Sen.'s name] attention that today, the House Committee on Science, Space, & Technology tweeted a story from Breitbart -- a far-right, opinion-based site that is not a credible source and is also a huge platform for the "white supremacy" aka

More Good Things: Resources for Protectors

I'm sure many of you have been watching the news (where it can be found) about Standing Rock. I have been watching daily, have made donations, shared any news that seemed critical to share. In one of my posts, I said I was "appalled at the way the protestors are being treated, and in awe of their courage and determination." Someone pointed out that they are not "protesters," they are "Water Protectors." The choice of words makes a big difference. Caught up in a FB scrabble of opinions, some were complaining that the protesters were disruptive, a nuisance, that they don't have the right to gather on private property. After unwrinkling your forehead, consider this: What if they had used the word "protectors" instead? Does it make sense to describe protectors as a nuisance, or disruptive - that they have no right to protect? Different words create different points of view. We should all be Water Protectors. And People Protectors. Right n

Giving Tuesday!

In case you missed this in my first post, to celebrate "Giving Tuesday", p ut some worthy organizations "on the drip" (monthly recurring automatic donation).  Here are the ones I have researched and believe to do great work for civil rights: ACLU Southern Poverty Law Center  (especially their fantastic curriculum for schools, "Teaching Tolerance") Planned Parenthood I also added a local environmental organization to my giving list, namely The River Otter Ecology project , which does research on river otters to the benefit of the health of our watersheds here in the Bay Area. What grassroots organizations fight for your local community?  How can you support them?

One Good Movie: Denial

Recommend this movie, "Denial," about Deborah Lipstadt, an American professor of Holocaust Studies who fought a notorious British Holocaust denier named David Irving in a British court. Review and interview on NPR: http://www.npr.org/2016/10/02/496317258/denial-recounts-professors-legal-battle-with-holocaust-denier