Tanya’s comment: Stopping to appreciate and enjoy nature helps us understand why it must be protected.
transforms seedy,
into splendid.
Snow blanketing,
drought ravaged land.
Mother Nature cooling,
her still feverish child.
Cheers to you from fragile California~
By Beatrice Murch via Flickr
From the ACLU:
Flint’s poisoned children deserve the truth. They deserve to know exactly why their government failed them. And they deserve to know who is behind the Flint water crisis, one of our nation’s most severe, man-made public health disasters.
By Steve Johnson via Flickr
Click on image above for Rachel Maddow Show news clip about Flint water crisis.
Congress is now investigating the Flint, Michigan lead water crisis, according to the Rachel Maddow Show. Ideally, those who are suspected to be responsible for the high levels of lead in the town’s drinking water would appear before a committee to answer for their actions. However, the key players in the crisis, including the governor of Michigan and the Environment Protection Agency whistle-blower, will NOT be testifying for the investigation!
Source: Differences Between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. One of them is a progressive, the other just talks like one.
At a candidate town hall, Sanders pointed out that he opposed Keystone from the start, unlike Clinton, and he opposes other oil pipelines too.
Source: Bernie bashes Hillary on Keystone and other pipelines
Pixabay.com
From ACLU.org:
Right now, the Senate is deciding whether to vote on a bill called the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act – the most significant criminal justice reform legislation to be considered by Congress in the last five years. It will essentially ban juvenile solitary confinement in the federal system and retroactively reduce overly harsh drug sentences.
![By Jnn13 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Flag_Backlit.jpg#file)
By Jnn13 via Commons.Wikimedia.org
“No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country,” said South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in a video on Jan. 12. Gov. Haley’s video was made to counter the formal Republican response to President Barack Obama’s recent State of the Union address, according to news.yahoo.com.
Commons.Wikimedia.org
Click image above for video.
This video talks about the effects that ignoring our bodies’ natural processes has on us. As a consequence for our obsession with smart phone and tablets, we have forsaken many things we once held in high regard — contact with those physically around us, attention to tasks like driving, and sleep.
Lendingmemo.com via Flickr.com
Some of these statistics have me scratching my head. As a progressive who votes Democrat, and a New Yorker, I’m almost hoping some of it is wrong, but the NY Times does pretty good reporting, so the numbers are likely accurate!
Illuminate 