My grandfather at Plymouth, MA yesterday.
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Laughing with a mouth of blood
~ Monday, August 13 ~
“Humans—who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals—have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and “animals” is essential if we are to bend them to our will, wear them, eat them—without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.”
— Drs. Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan
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~ Sunday, August 12 ~
~ Saturday, August 11 ~
North St. Louis County ground water toxic; state has known for 18 years | KMOV.com St. Louis
Tags:
Environmentalism
Nature
Humanity
ST. LOUIS COUNTY (KMOV.com) — Elmwood residents in St. Louis County are outraged and afraid after learning of elevated levels of a dangerous chemical in their neighborhood. It all stems from an industrial spill at a metals company in 1988.
Missouri Metals LLC currently occupies the building, but had nothing to do with the spill. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has been working on the case since 1994 at the latest, and explained the issue to residents for the first time on Wednesday at a public meeting. A DNR representative at the meeting wouldn’t answer any questions from reporters, but there are a lot of questions the state agency needs to answer.
The EPA was asked to assist in the investigation 3 weeks ago. They are working to determine exactly who was responsible for the industrial spill in 1988. The chemical that spilled is Trichloroethylene (TCE) and is most commonly used as a degreaser for metal parts. It can lead to chronic disease and cancer. Levels once considered safe are now considered unsafe. That’s in part what prompted the recent testing. News 4 asked Christ Whitley with the EPA who will be responsible.
“That’s part of the process yet to be determined,” said Whitley. “But certainly the EPA and DNR are working together to establish exactly who is responsible for the contamination. And we will hold them financially liable.”
This past spring the DNR conducted testing on 7 houses and 3 apartments near the metals building off Meeks Boulevard. All 10 homes showed positive tests for TCE and 3 homes showed elevated levels. Those 3 homes are part of the St. Louis Housing Authority.
DNR and EPA spokesmen say the levels don’t indicate an immediate threat to residents. But it’s unclear how long those residents have been exposed. TCE gets into the groundwater and then can evaporate into the air. It is most dangerous in a contained environment like a house.
Another round of tests will be done on homes in the area in the next few weeks. The agencies will get those results and then decide how to expand the testing. In the meantime people who live in that area won’t know if their homes have traces of TCE unless they get a private testing. Many residents expressed frustration on Thursday night.
Valerie West bought her home in 2000 in the Elmwood neighborhood and didn’t hear anything about the potential for TCE. She has a 25 year old son who has been healthy his whole life and just recently was diagnosed with a rare heart condition. Now she wonders if that heart condition is related to TCE.
A representative from St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley’s office said they are the ones who organized the informational meeting. And they plan to organize more meetings in the future as tests continue to come back.
The DNR attempted several methods to eliminate the TCE in the ground since 1994, but none of them worked. So the TCE contamination still exists near Missouri Metals LLC and the DNR and EPA are working on a solution to eliminate it.
Nice. So these people have been exposed for over 20 years and no one bothered to say anything until now? Really? I wonder how many others in the area have been exposed and if it has gotten into the water supply. This is just ridiculous. They are supposed to protect the public, not the businesses that caused the problem. Are they going to pay for these peoples medical bills?
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~ Wednesday, June 6 ~
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~ Saturday, June 2 ~
“
Tags:
Lysander Spooner
Justice
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Quotes
If justice be not a natural principle, it is no principle at all. If it be not a natural principle, there is no such thing as justice. If it be not a natural principle, all that men have ever said or written about it, from time immemorial, has been said and written about that which had no existence. If it be not a natural principle, all the appeals for justice that have ever been heard, and all the struggles for justice that have ever been witnessed, have been appeals and struggles for a mere fantasy, a vagary of the imagination, and not for a reality.
If justice be not a natural principle, then there is no such thing as injustice; and all the crimes of which the world has been the scene, have been no crimes at all; but only simple events, like the falling of the rain, or the setting of the sun; events of which the victims had no more reason to complain than they had to complain of the running of the streams, or the growth of vegetation.
If justice be not a natural principle, governments (so-called) have no more right or reason to take cognizance of it, or to pretend or profess to take cognizance of it, than they have to take cognizance, or to pretend or profess to take cognizance, of any other nonentity; and all their professions of establishing justice, or of maintaining justice, or of rewarding justice, are simply the mere gibberish of fools, or the frauds of imposters.
But if justice be a natural principle, then it is necessarily an immutable one; and can no more be changed – by any power inferior to that which established it – than can the law of gravitation, the laws of light, the principles of mathematics, or any other natural law or principle whatever; and all attempts or assumptions, on the part of any man or body of men – whether calling themselves governments, or by any other name – to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion, in the place of justice, as a rule of conduct for any human being, are as much an absurdity, an usurpation, and a tyranny, as would be their attempts to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion in the place of any and all the physical, mental, and moral laws of the universe.
— Lysander Spooner (via laliberty)
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~ Friday, June 1 ~
![uglyuglyugly:
A group of chimps watch silently as a loved one is wheeled away to her burial. This is such a moving photograph.
On September 23, 2008, Dorothy, a female chimpanzee in her late 40s, died of congestive heart failure. A maternal and beloved figure, Dorothy had spent eight years at Cameroon’s Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, which houses and rehabilitates chimps victimized by habitat loss and the illegal African bushmeat trade.
After a hunter killed her mother, Dorothy was sold as a “mascot” to an amusement park in Cameroon. For the next 25 years she was tethered to the ground by a chain around her neck, taunted, teased, and taught to drink beer and smoke cigarettes for sport. In May 2000 Dorothy—obese from poor diet and lack of exercise—was rescued and relocated along with ten other primates. As her health improved, her deep kindness surfaced. She mothered an orphaned chimp named Bouboule and became a close friend to many others, including Jacky, the group’s alpha male, and Nama, another amusement-park refugee.
Szczupider, who had been a volunteer at the center, told me: “Her presence, and loss, was palpable, and resonated throughout the group. The management at Sanaga-Yong opted to let Dorothy’s chimpanzee family witness her burial, so that perhaps they would understand, in their own capacity, that Dorothy would not return. Some chimps displayed aggression while others barked in frustration. But perhaps the most stunning reaction was a recurring, almost tangible silence. If one knows chimpanzees, then one knows that [they] are not [usually] silent creatures.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4x24jvDMF1qb53jco1_500.jpg)
A group of chimps watch silently as a loved one is wheeled away to her burial. This is such a moving photograph.
On September 23, 2008, Dorothy, a female chimpanzee in her late 40s, died of congestive heart failure. A maternal and beloved figure, Dorothy had spent eight years at Cameroon’s Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, which houses and rehabilitates chimps victimized by habitat loss and the illegal African bushmeat trade.
After a hunter killed her mother, Dorothy was sold as a “mascot” to an amusement park in Cameroon. For the next 25 years she was tethered to the ground by a chain around her neck, taunted, teased, and taught to drink beer and smoke cigarettes for sport. In May 2000 Dorothy—obese from poor diet and lack of exercise—was rescued and relocated along with ten other primates. As her health improved, her deep kindness surfaced. She mothered an orphaned chimp named Bouboule and became a close friend to many others, including Jacky, the group’s alpha male, and Nama, another amusement-park refugee.
Szczupider, who had been a volunteer at the center, told me: “Her presence, and loss, was palpable, and resonated throughout the group. The management at Sanaga-Yong opted to let Dorothy’s chimpanzee family witness her burial, so that perhaps they would understand, in their own capacity, that Dorothy would not return. Some chimps displayed aggression while others barked in frustration. But perhaps the most stunning reaction was a recurring, almost tangible silence. If one knows chimpanzees, then one knows that [they] are not [usually] silent creatures.”
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~ Thursday, May 31 ~
You can identify poor neighborhoods from space
Tim De Chant at Per Square Mile has noted that rich urban areas have way, way more trees than poor areas in the same city. In fact, the difference is so stark that income inequality can be seen from space. The satellite images above are low-income West Oakland and high-income Piedmont, and I probably don’t have to tell you which is which.
De Chant has collected images from four U.S. cities and two international cities, and in every one, the wealthier areas are conspicuously more leafy. Since trees increase property values, this is a classic case of the rich being given whatever they need to get richer. And considering the other things trees do for us, it’s also a case of the rich getting to be smarter, cooler, and have fewer allergies.
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~ Monday, May 28 ~
Dick Proenneke: Alone in the Wilderness
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America’s Obesity Chart 1985-2006
Compare this with the starving in other countries.
Not saying you’re a bad person at all if you’re obese
I just think food should be distributed more equally.
(Source: oscrap)
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~ Friday, May 25 ~
“ We should never feel like we’re going too far in breaking the law, because whatever laws you break to liberate animals or to protect the environment are very insignificant compared to the laws that are broken by that parliament of whores in Washington. They are the biggest lawbreakers, the biggest destroyers, the biggest mass-murderers on this planet right now.
Tags:
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Paul Watson
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Quotes
— Paul Watson
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c4ss:
Yes, they have names and addresses.
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~ Thursday, May 24 ~
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