Climate Dots Connected -- thanks to Bill McKibben

http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/a-link-between-tornadoes-and-climate-change-never?utm_source=wkly20110610&utm_medium=yesemail&utm_campaign=titleThomsonMcKibben

In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World

And one giant step back for wilderness protection:


In a memo to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director Bob Abbey, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today confirmed that, pursuant to the 2011 Continuing Resolution, the BLM will not designate any lands as "Wild Lands." - US Department of the Interior Press Release, June 1, 2011


http://wilderness.org/


http://www.wildnesswithin.com/2001/01-12/inwildness.html

Peace, Brothers & Sisters -- May 2nd, 2011

REPUBLICANS VOTE THERE'S NO GLOBAL WARMING

from Scientific American: 

Congress has finally acted on global warming—by denying it exists. It’s in the grand lawmaking tradition of the Indiana state legislature’s 1897 attempt to redefine the value of pi. 

The Republican-led House of Representatives is currently working on the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, which would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions to mitigate climate change.

In the House Energy and Commerce Committee, California Democrat Henry Waxman had proposed an amendment calling on Congress to at least acknowledge that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” just as abundant scientific evidence confirms.

But on Tuesday, March 15, all the committee’s Republicans voted down that amendment, as well as two others acknowledging the threat of climate change to public well-being. Rep. Ed Markey, Democrat from Massachusetts, had this to say:

“I rise in opposition to a bill that repeals the scientific finding that pollution is harming our people and our planet. However, I won’t rise physically, because I’m worried that Republicans will overturn the law of gravity, sending us floating.”

—John Rennie

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=house-repubs-vote-that-earth-is-not-11-03-16

THE DARK SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE....

• From the World Science Festival, 2011: For all we understand about the universe, 96% of what’s out there still has scientists in the dark. Astronomical observations have established that familiar matter—atoms—accounts for only 4% of the weight of the cosmos. The rest—dark matter and dark energy—is invisible to our telescopes. But what really is this dark stuff? How do we know it’s there? And what does it do? From the formation of galaxies to the farthest reaches of space, it appears that darkness rules. Without dark matter and dark energy, the universe today and in the far future would be a completely different place. Join us in a discussion with leading researchers who smash together particles, dive into underground mines, and explore the edges of the known universe in search of clues to nature’s dark side....."

http://worldsciencefestival.com/events/the_dark_side_of_the_universe 


And some Jungians might muse -- dark and matter = the Feminine, as in: 
Lilith-The First Eve: Historical and Psychological Aspects of the Dark Feminine 
Siegmund Hurwitz   

The Chestnut Tree at Schumacher College, in Devon

schumachercollege.org.uk

Tax breaks to Exxon, Chevron, et al

@judithaspharjude asphar

The time has come! Tell Congress to end the $4 billion a year in handouts to oil companies: http://bit.ly/dURT2s@CREDOMobile

A Wood Anemone --Anemone quinquefolia

A counterfoil. To too many negative reflections of humanity's doings.

An uncommon, iridescent purple anemone -- all of half an inch wide. Not a cinquefoil but septfoil?

Just picked. Only one.

Holy.

Kiltering Our Off Kilter Brains!

For me, the gleanings here reflect how our society -- dominated by the left, generally 'Masculine' (though not exclusive to men) hemisphere of the brain at the cost of the right, generally 'Feminine', (though not exclusive to women) -- is what perpetuates our world out of balance.  And if we keep going this way, we'll end up where we're headed.


Our life-support system -- this planet -- is in peril. Our skewed priorities compound economic, political, social, religious, and environmental instability. So much boils down to a left hemisphere dominance that discounts most anything that cannot be measured. We can't easily measure the elements of the natural world that creates and sustains our existence. Nor have we been able to measure the most worthwhile qualities of human nature that truth be told, we long for the most: kindness; caring; acceptance; affection; generosity; understanding; forgiveness; compassion, companionship. Except now, thanks to neuroscience the impact of Love -- or it's lack -- is pretty much measurable in the neural pathways of the brain.


For more understanding of many of the enormously complex (yet simple) roots of our nature,  see Iain McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. www.iainmcgilchrist.com. And Dan Siegel's Mindsight -- http://drdansiegel.com/ And Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself http://www.normandoidge.com

A time of deceit?

"In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell

The rich get richer and the......

Comparisons -- corporate CEO vs lowest paid worker (http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621/) 
CEO to minimum wage earner ratio (http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060627/) 


CEO's made 51 times the minimum wage earner in 1965, and 821 times the minimum wage earner in 2006.

BACK TO SLEEP

Going Back to Sleep

January 5th/6th, 2011

last night

BBC World Service

reported how many women and girls are being raped in Haiti

in the camps

in the night I heard

that the inoperable, now flooded, coal mines in Queensland mean that the quarter of the world's

coal supplies customarily mined there has come to a grinding halt so

there’ll likely be a shortage of steel....for washing machines and cars

this morning I heard the Australian military are shipping water into the flooded area because their water plants are under water

last night I heard that Argentina has had a bad yield of corn and its one of the biggest producers of corn on the planet

and because of the US subsidizing ethanol, on top of that

coupled with reduced wheat harvests

mean there is likely a food crisis ahead

and prices are going up 

because oil is now $90+ a gallon

and in Abu Dabi

50% of the population are diabetic

but the country has a small population so it will be manageable

and Ireland and Greece and Portugal and probably Spain

are putting inordinate pressures on the Euro because their debt has not decreased in 6 months

and so that is freaking the Bond Markets who are keeping them afloat

so they’ve increased the interest rates to 3.6% something, from 1% something

or even more which makes the countries debt burden bigger and bigger
and the world increasing interdependence more and more vulnerable

and if the Euro falls apart

because Germany doesn’t want to prop everybody else up....?

it will shake global currency

and two nights ago on Charlie Rose

the blonde British editor of the Economist said the same thing about the US

if the US doesn’t face the pain and make the people pay

it will shake the global currency

because countries, goverments, are not going to want to cut wages of the people

after the people have been screwed by bank bought politicians

‘too unpopular’ -- there is, after all, an election coming up in 2012

it was a question of

domestic economy vs sticking to the gold standard --

voters dont want to pay the price

short term

so what

so when... long term

-- a month? a year? or two?

Because we’re intended to ignore these facts and successfully do

it means

this finite Planet has little more to give

Her penguins and Ring Seals and Killer Whales and Polar bears, and

Narwals who need ice to survive
are not able to cope

because ice is becoming water again

on this litle blue Earth

that is not ours

it is we who are hers.

DID SOMEONE SAY PATRIARCHY?

new york tmes

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Worlds Without Women

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By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: April 10, 2010

WASHINGTON

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Maureen Dowd

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Times Topics: Roman Catholic Church

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When I was in Saudi Arabia, I had tea and sweets with a group of educated and sophisticated young professional women.
I asked why they were not more upset about living in a country where women’s rights were strangled, an inbred and autocratic state more like an archaic men’s club than a modern nation. They told me, somewhat defensively, that the kingdom was moving at its own pace, glacial as that seemed to outsiders.
How could such spirited women, smart and successful on every other level, acquiesce in their own subordination?
I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.
I, too, belonged to an inbred and wealthy men’s club cloistered behind walls and disdaining modernity.
I, too, remained part of an autocratic society that repressed women and ignored their progress in the secular world.
I, too, rationalized as men in dresses allowed our religious kingdom to decay and to cling to outdated misogynistic rituals, blind to the benefits of welcoming women’s brains, talents and hearts into their ancient fraternity.
To circumscribe women, Saudi Arabia took Islam’s moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Muhammad; the Catholic Church took its moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Jesus. In the New Testament, Jesus is surrounded by strong women and never advocates that any woman — whether she’s his mother or a prostitute — be treated as a second-class citizen.
Negating women is at the heart of the church’s hideous — and criminal — indifference to the welfare of boys and girls in its priests’ care. Lisa Miller writes in Newsweek’s cover story about the danger of continuing to marginalize women in a disgraced church that has Mary at the center of its founding story:
“In the Roman Catholic corporation, the senior executives live and work, as they have for a thousand years, eschewing not just marriage, but intimacy with women ... not to mention any chance to familiarize themselves with the earthy, primal messiness of families and children.” No wonder that, having closed themselves off from women and everything maternal, they treated children as collateral damage, a necessary sacrifice to save face for Mother Church.
And the sins of the fathers just keep coming. On Friday, The Associated Press broke the latest story pointing the finger of blame directly at Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, quoting from a letter written in Latin in which he resisted pleas to defrock a California priest who had sexually molested children.
As the longtime Vatican enforcer, the archconservative Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — moved avidly to persecute dissenters. But with molesters, he was plodding and even merciful.
As the A.P. reported, the Oakland diocese recommended defrocking Father Stephen Kiesle in 1981. The priest had pleaded no contest and was sentenced to three years’ probation in 1978 in a case in which he was accused of tying up and molesting two boys in a church rectory.
In 1982, the Oakland diocese got what it termed a “rather curt” response from the Vatican. It wasn’t until 1985 that “God’s Rottweiler” finally got around to addressing the California bishop’s concern. He sent his letter urging the diocese to give the 38-year-old pedophile “as much paternal care as possible” and to consider “his young age.” Ratzinger should have been more alarmed by the young age of the priest’s victims; that’s what maternal care would have entailed.
As in so many other cases, the primary concern seemed to be shielding the church from scandal. Chillingly, outrageously, the future pope told the Oakland bishop to consider the “good of the universal church” before granting the priest’s own request to give up the collar — even though the bishop had advised Rome that the scandal would likely be greater if the priest were not punished.
While the Vatican sat on the case — asking the diocese to resubmit the files, saying they might have been lost — Kiesle volunteered as a youth minister at a church north of Oakland. The A.P. also reported that even after the priest was finally defrocked in 1987, he continued to volunteer with children in the Oakland diocese; repeated warnings to church officials were ignored.
The Vatican must realize that the church’s belligerent, resentful and paranoid response to the global scandal is not working because it now says it will cooperate with secular justice systems and that the pope will have more meetings with victims. It is too little, too late.
The church that through the ages taught me and other children right from wrong did not know right from wrong when it came to children. Crimes were swept under the rectory rug, and molesters were protected to molest again for the “good of the universal church.” And that is bad, very bad — a mortal sin.
The church has had theological schisms. This is an emotional schism. The pope is morally compromised. Take it from a sister.

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EXAMPLES OF THE SOCIOPATHY OF SOME of THE LEFT BRAIN/ PATRIARCHAL POWERS THAT BE

Daily links to top stories in the news about environmental health. Up to 250,000 Gulf War veterans have 'unexplained medical symptoms'. As many as 250,000 veterans of the first Gulf War "have persistent unexplained medical symptoms" whose cause may never be found, although genetic testing and functional brain imaging may eventually shed some light on the problem. Washington Post [Registration Required]  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/09/AR2010040904712.html Helena Chemical Co. wins suit against community activist. On Wednesday, a jury found a southern New Mexico activist guilty of defamation and harassment against a chemical company that he and 22 community members had sued, alleging that the company’s emissions were sickening local children. New Mexico Independent, New Mexico. http://newmexicoindependent.com/51155/helena-chemical-company-wins-case-against-community-activist Last four Upper Big Branch miners found dead. Four miners unaccounted for since a massive underground explosion Monday were found dead early this morning, pushing the death toll at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine to 29 and making it the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in 40 years. Charleston Gazette, West Virginia. http://sundaygazettemail.com/News/201004090857 Massey ignored ventilation citations in months before blast. In the months before the deadly explosion at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine, company officials were engaged in major disputes with state and federal regulators over serious ventilation problems at the sprawling underground mine. Charleston Gazette, West Virginia. http://wvgazette.com/News/201004090772 Mines avoid crackdowns by challenging safety citations. A surge in the number of challenges to mine safety citations has clogged a federal appeals process, allowing 32 coal mines to avoid tougher enforcement measures last year, government safety officials said Friday. Washington Post [Registration Required]  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/09/AR2010040905653.html Massey’s Blankenship fought regulators, town, maid. Don Blankenship, chief executive officer of Massey Energy Co., has fought with mine regulators, unions, residents of his town and even his personal maid. He has personally gone into mines to persuade workers to abandon union organizing efforts. Bloomberg News http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601108&sid=aSOuh0fn.YnU