Postcards from a green future by Liam Young & Darryl Chen
For as wealthy as the US is, you’d think we’d have safe drinking water. But we really don’t. Pollution is one reason why the popularity of bottled water is such a bad thing – people think that because they’re drinking bottled water they’re safe. Then they stop worrying about the tap water until it’s too late.
fush suckerbutt by snickcluck on Flickr
Churches and sexual abuse seem to go hand in hand.
I've always wondered if we'd recognize alien intelligence
Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit,
He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows
Each flash and spouting crash,–each instant lit
When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes
Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders,
‘Could anything be worse than this?’–he wonders,
Remembering how he saw those Germans run,
Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees:
Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one
Livid with terror, clutching at his knees…
Our chaps were sticking ’em like pigs … ‘O hell!’
He thought–’there’s things in war one dare not tell
Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads
Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds.’
The US government conducted a huge raid for illegal immigrants in Postville, Iowa. They haven’t explained why some are being deported and others are being jailed. Wives of the arrested men have been fitted with leg monitoring bracelets and basically been told “You can’t work, you can’t leave and can’t stay.” The local Roman Catholic church is now caring for the women. A priest responds to the situation:
He said he understands that the people arrested were illegal, but he said they were also desperate.
“This was their last option. They would not have chosen this as their first option. They wanted to feed their families. Scripture tells us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, give shelter to the shelterless. If you and your family were starving, what would you do?” [via holographicme]
When their high school refused to let them organize, the Okeechobee, FL Gay-Straight Alliance asked the ACLU for help. They’ve won the case. Notably, the decision requires the school board to “take into account the well-being of its non-heterosexual students.”
American wars are organized by how we remember them over at The Edge of the American West. When that makes you feel terrible, go calm down by looking at Emily’s fantastic fern pictures. They almost make me want to brave the poison ivy to find my own.
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