Since I drove around for six months with a Stewart-Colbert 2012 sticker on my car, it probably goes without saying that I'm pleased with last week's election results. But as yet another oil platform in the Gulf goes up in flames and the cost estimates from Hurricane Sandy keep rolling in, I can't help but think the environment was the big loser in this year's race.
I watched all four debates, and I was disappointed with how rarely environmental issues came up. I think Vice President Biden mentioned global warming, but President Obama was too busy touting America's oil production to even temper his speech with some we-shouldn't-suck-all-the-oil-out-of-the-Earth-without-some-stringent-safeguards-in-place caveats. He also professed his love for coal, and I assume all the mountaintop shearing off and pollution that comes with it. Considering the environment is my number-one voting priority, his ardor for energy production without so much as lip service to conservation was truly a letdown. When it takes a Republican to bring global warming to the forefront of the political debate, you know we're in trouble.
Now that Obama has won another term, I'm holding my breath to see whether he will do right by Mother Nature. How many more Hurricane Sandys does the United States have to endure before we take the lead on climate change? How many more oceans polluted before we demand as much technology goes into preventing oil spills as does in extracting that oil from the Earth? And how can the Environmental Protection Agency do its job when the Obama Administration and Democrats in general won't enact or enforce laws that protect our air, land and water?
Today's environmental issues are massive and at times overwhelming. But that's no excuse for inaction. It's high time this President acknowledged the helping hand environment-conscious organizations and voters have given him and show this constituency that its calls for a greener shade of governing haven't gone unheeded.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
President Obama goes out on a leadership limb
When I hear the term flip-flop, I think of politicians who change their opinion the way the wind blows, hoping to please whomever happens to be paying attention at the moment. Flip-flopping isn't laudable, noble, or risky. It's expedient, disingenuous and, almost always, self serving. So imagine my surprise yesterday when Fox News declared Obama a flip-flopper for changing his stance on gay marriage.
For starters, coming out in support of gay marriage isn't "conducive to advantage or interest," otherwise known as expedient, in an election year. Every liberal pundit I tuned into last night expressed their concern about the decision, fretting that it will cost Obama votes on election day. Republican pundits, politicians and talk show hosts, on the other hand, are absolutely giddy. Limbaugh claims Obama has declared war on traditional marriage. Speaker Boehner "reiterated his opposition to gay marriage" before breaking out in tears of joy. Candidate Romney deemed the very subject insignificant and tried to get back on his favorite topic: tax cuts for the wealthy.
Neither is Obama's decision disingenuous. He's spent time with families of gay and lesbian service men and women. His staff includes openly gay members, a no-no for Camp Romney. His daughters have friends with same-sex parents. All in all, the decision is not merely for show; it's a reflection of his evolution in thinking that's come from spending time with, rather than shielding himself from, the LGBT community.
What about self-serving? Obama has nothing personally to gain from this decision. According to Wikipedia, only New Mexico has "no specific prohibition or recognition of same-sex marriages or unions," so it's not as if he can expect a bump in any swing states with legislation pending.
Like great presidents before him, Obama made this decision because it's the right thing to do. He's showing leadership at a pivotal time in our country's history -- a time when acceptance that gay and lesbian couples should have the same rights as straight couples is growing exponentially. This decision is all the things flip-flopping isn't. And the fact that it could be a deciding factor in this fall's election makes it all the more laudable, noble and risky.
Friday, September 9, 2011
My frightening encounter with Ambulance Chaserus
ambulance chaser
n. Slang
1. A lawyer who obtains clients by persuading accident victims to sue for damages.
2. A lawyer avid for clients.
To think that I made it this far in life and never encountered one of these creatures. That's all about to end though. My insurance company called today to tell me I'm being served with papers in a lawsuit brought by the elusive, enigmatic species known as Ambulance Chaserus.
Apparently this whole debacle started with an accident I had last Oct. I was looking for trucks on Front St. and didn't notice the Jeep stopped in front of me til it was too late to come to a complete stop. I tapped the car in front of me -- TAPPED being the operative word. There was minor damage to both cars but it literally wasn't visible to the untrained eye. My insurance told me the woman bumped her head and sought treatment for her injury. She looked absolutely fine and I didn't hear anything else about it so I thought it was a done deal. Until today.
In the interim between my accident and my now pending lawsuit, I cosigned with my daughter for a loan on her first "nice" car. It was a 2006, but it was super cute and she loved it. Three weeks later she was coming home on K7 at 11:30 at night and two farmers had let their black cows stray. Another driver hit the smaller cow, killing it instantly. My daughter hit the second, larger cow,which totaled her new car. The poor cow had to be shot. My daughter was burned by the airbags, cut by all the flying glass from the shattered windshield and bruised all over from the impact. Luckily though, she was OK.
We're asking for the farmer's insurance to pay for my daughter's emergency room visit to check for broken bones or other trauma. The bill came to around $3,000.
The woman whose car I tapped? She's suing for $65,000.
Of course I'm dumbfounded by this suit. It's within the limits of my coverage,but that is so NOT the point. The point is someone actually has the balls to try to profit from the minorest of accidents while my daughter, who's lucky to be alive is simply asking for her minor bills to be paid.
I've been instructed not to speak with the ambulance chaser if it tries to make contact, and I may never even see it in person. But it's out there, scouring every nook and cranny for another frivolous lawsuit to file. For my part, I hope the papers I'm served are as close as I'll ever get to an actual encounter with the beast.
n. Slang
1. A lawyer who obtains clients by persuading accident victims to sue for damages.
2. A lawyer avid for clients.
To think that I made it this far in life and never encountered one of these creatures. That's all about to end though. My insurance company called today to tell me I'm being served with papers in a lawsuit brought by the elusive, enigmatic species known as Ambulance Chaserus.
Apparently this whole debacle started with an accident I had last Oct. I was looking for trucks on Front St. and didn't notice the Jeep stopped in front of me til it was too late to come to a complete stop. I tapped the car in front of me -- TAPPED being the operative word. There was minor damage to both cars but it literally wasn't visible to the untrained eye. My insurance told me the woman bumped her head and sought treatment for her injury. She looked absolutely fine and I didn't hear anything else about it so I thought it was a done deal. Until today.
In the interim between my accident and my now pending lawsuit, I cosigned with my daughter for a loan on her first "nice" car. It was a 2006, but it was super cute and she loved it. Three weeks later she was coming home on K7 at 11:30 at night and two farmers had let their black cows stray. Another driver hit the smaller cow, killing it instantly. My daughter hit the second, larger cow,which totaled her new car. The poor cow had to be shot. My daughter was burned by the airbags, cut by all the flying glass from the shattered windshield and bruised all over from the impact. Luckily though, she was OK.
We're asking for the farmer's insurance to pay for my daughter's emergency room visit to check for broken bones or other trauma. The bill came to around $3,000.
The woman whose car I tapped? She's suing for $65,000.
Of course I'm dumbfounded by this suit. It's within the limits of my coverage,but that is so NOT the point. The point is someone actually has the balls to try to profit from the minorest of accidents while my daughter, who's lucky to be alive is simply asking for her minor bills to be paid.
I've been instructed not to speak with the ambulance chaser if it tries to make contact, and I may never even see it in person. But it's out there, scouring every nook and cranny for another frivolous lawsuit to file. For my part, I hope the papers I'm served are as close as I'll ever get to an actual encounter with the beast.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
My accidental garden
My backyard bird feeder started out like any other, with a long black pole, a seed container and some sunflower seeds. I was hoping to attract some cardinals and finches to my yard. What I got was a veritable menagerie.
Once the black stake was firmly in the ground with the glass and metal seed container filled to the brim and screwed securely on top, I went inside and waited. Peering out my kitchen window every few minutes, I wondered how long it would take the birds to discover their new buffet.
It took longer than I thought for the first visitor to arrive. It was a nondescript little brown bird—possibly a sparrow. I kept watching and waiting for his colorful cousins to arrive. Little by little, more birds showed up to the feeder.
There were noisy black starlings. Nervous doves. A pair of cardinals began to visit every day around sunset. Plenty of small brown birds I couldn’t identify showed up too.
Then came the squirrels. At first they were content to forage among the scattered seeds on the ground that the birds had knocked out of the feeder. But soon they were shimmying up the pole til they reached the top, where they would perch precariously and balance with their tails while raiding the feeder.
Between the birds and the squirrels, dozens of seeds were scattered on the ground. And despite the nonstop foraging around the feeder, little looked-over seedlings soon began to sprout. By the next time I was ready to mow the lawn, a forest of sunflowers was taking shape around my feeder.
Dodging the seedlings with the lawnmower became a game. I wanted to see how high they would grow. If all of them reached maturity, I’d have 40-50 sunflowers crowded around my feeder!
Some of the young plants became rabbit fodder. The entire family of squirrels that started hanging out beneath the feeder probably flattened a few too. But the majority of the flowers grew taller and taller, creating a canopy under which the birds and squirrels could escape from the hot summer sun.
Now it’s August, and the flowers have burst into bloom. Bees collect nectar from them, and vivid yellow finches grasp the flowers with their tiny feet, picking out seeds one by one. Nature is putting on a show in my backyard, and I’m enjoying every minute of it. The grass beneath the dense flowers is trampled and littered with seed hulls. It will have to be replanted, but the enjoyment the bright yellow flowers and the creatures they’ve attracted have brought me make my accidental garden well worth the effort.
Once the black stake was firmly in the ground with the glass and metal seed container filled to the brim and screwed securely on top, I went inside and waited. Peering out my kitchen window every few minutes, I wondered how long it would take the birds to discover their new buffet.
It took longer than I thought for the first visitor to arrive. It was a nondescript little brown bird—possibly a sparrow. I kept watching and waiting for his colorful cousins to arrive. Little by little, more birds showed up to the feeder.
There were noisy black starlings. Nervous doves. A pair of cardinals began to visit every day around sunset. Plenty of small brown birds I couldn’t identify showed up too.
Then came the squirrels. At first they were content to forage among the scattered seeds on the ground that the birds had knocked out of the feeder. But soon they were shimmying up the pole til they reached the top, where they would perch precariously and balance with their tails while raiding the feeder.
Between the birds and the squirrels, dozens of seeds were scattered on the ground. And despite the nonstop foraging around the feeder, little looked-over seedlings soon began to sprout. By the next time I was ready to mow the lawn, a forest of sunflowers was taking shape around my feeder.
Dodging the seedlings with the lawnmower became a game. I wanted to see how high they would grow. If all of them reached maturity, I’d have 40-50 sunflowers crowded around my feeder!
Some of the young plants became rabbit fodder. The entire family of squirrels that started hanging out beneath the feeder probably flattened a few too. But the majority of the flowers grew taller and taller, creating a canopy under which the birds and squirrels could escape from the hot summer sun.
Now it’s August, and the flowers have burst into bloom. Bees collect nectar from them, and vivid yellow finches grasp the flowers with their tiny feet, picking out seeds one by one. Nature is putting on a show in my backyard, and I’m enjoying every minute of it. The grass beneath the dense flowers is trampled and littered with seed hulls. It will have to be replanted, but the enjoyment the bright yellow flowers and the creatures they’ve attracted have brought me make my accidental garden well worth the effort.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
The futility of irrefutable proof
I was talking yesterday with a Republican friend of mine and I cautiously asked “You’re not a Birther, are you?” “No,” he replied “but I wish Obama would just release his birth certificate so we could talk about other stuff, like how bad he’s screwed up the economy.”
From there I got a quick lesson in why Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth is not the same as a birth certificate and why Birthers are demanding the latter, much to Donald Trump’s delight. If only the President would stop being so glib and just release the birth certificate, my friend assured me that everyone would move on.
Boy was he wrong.
Today President Obama released the long form of his birth certificate, a document until now his administration claimed wasn’t available. Apparently they twisted some arms with some government officials in the state of Hawaii and got them to release this controversial document. My friend texted me and said “Finally. Now the mainstream media can move on.” But from the reports I’ve read this disclosure has done nothing to quell the Birthers’ insistence that Obama is ineligible to be President. All it really seems to have done is give Trump another reason to congratulate himself.
What will it take? The state of Hawaii proving its statehood? An affidavit from the newspaper publisher that ran Obama’s birth announcement? The truth is that nothing will silence the Birthers because they don’t care whether Obama is a U.S. citizen. I think what they really care about is that he’s black. And now that Obama has gone that extra step and produced—again—irrefutable proof of his citizenship, maybe the mainstream media will finally get the hint that this has nothing to do with citizenship and everything to do with race.
From there I got a quick lesson in why Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth is not the same as a birth certificate and why Birthers are demanding the latter, much to Donald Trump’s delight. If only the President would stop being so glib and just release the birth certificate, my friend assured me that everyone would move on.
Boy was he wrong.
Today President Obama released the long form of his birth certificate, a document until now his administration claimed wasn’t available. Apparently they twisted some arms with some government officials in the state of Hawaii and got them to release this controversial document. My friend texted me and said “Finally. Now the mainstream media can move on.” But from the reports I’ve read this disclosure has done nothing to quell the Birthers’ insistence that Obama is ineligible to be President. All it really seems to have done is give Trump another reason to congratulate himself.
What will it take? The state of Hawaii proving its statehood? An affidavit from the newspaper publisher that ran Obama’s birth announcement? The truth is that nothing will silence the Birthers because they don’t care whether Obama is a U.S. citizen. I think what they really care about is that he’s black. And now that Obama has gone that extra step and produced—again—irrefutable proof of his citizenship, maybe the mainstream media will finally get the hint that this has nothing to do with citizenship and everything to do with race.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Butterflies in winter?
I just returned from a weekend trip to Chicago with my daughters. We had a great time, but the cold weather made getting around harder – to say the least. What typically would have been nice walks from our hotel to nearby restaurants turned into trudging through the snow against the cold winter wind, and cab rides won out over walking more times than not.
Now that I’m back, I just learned about a place that, if we had visited, might have infused some summer-like spirit into our experience. The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum has a real-life butterfly garden on its second floor. And what says summer more than butterflies flitting around? I bet that 2,700 square-foot greenhouse is nice and warm, and no mittens or earmuffs are required to walk around among the 75 species of butterflies that reside there.
To be sure, we enjoyed the museums and attractions we visited despite the weather. But if I ever visit Chicago again during the winter – or any other season for that matter – I’m going to put the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum at the top of my places to visit.
Now that I’m back, I just learned about a place that, if we had visited, might have infused some summer-like spirit into our experience. The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum has a real-life butterfly garden on its second floor. And what says summer more than butterflies flitting around? I bet that 2,700 square-foot greenhouse is nice and warm, and no mittens or earmuffs are required to walk around among the 75 species of butterflies that reside there.
To be sure, we enjoyed the museums and attractions we visited despite the weather. But if I ever visit Chicago again during the winter – or any other season for that matter – I’m going to put the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum at the top of my places to visit.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Why don’t I blog more?
I ask myself this question a lot. I know I should be blogging so I have a track record of engagement with social media. I should also be writing just for the sake of writing – wherever it might be. And I definitely have opinions. So what’s the problem?
I think – in fact I know – it’s that opinion thing that’s giving me pause.
I used to blog pretty regularly about politics on a now-defunct MySpace blog. It’s not just inactive. It’s gone. Deleted. Erased. I’m sure if someone wanted to find evidence of my liberal leanings they could use the Way Back machine and find something incriminating, but thanks to my uber-common name and my thorough deletion job, they probably won’t find it in blog form.
Why was I so intent on erasing my point of view from the web? Because I’ve read too many horror stories about people being fired/never hired due to someone stumbling upon an errant blog post or tweet. Just today Salon posted a story about CNN’s Octavia Nasr whose tweet about the death of a Hezbollah leader got someone’s panties in a wad, and just like that – her 20-year career is over.
Now I know I’m no Octavia Nasr. But her firing should give pause to anyone who writes for a living and also engages in social media. It should also make us ask “why.” It’s not as if journalists never had opinions before social media came along; England’s press, for example, has always been pretty open about which publications lean which way. And here in America, where our media claims to be impartial, it’s common knowledge which papers are likely to endorse Republican points of view and which will back Democrats. So why does it come as some big surprise when someone in the media speaks their mind?
I think the answer to that question is a lot more insidious that it looks on the surface. Because while social media has given people more freedom than ever to express themselves, it’s also given those in power more opportunities to punish dissenting viewpoints. Just imagine if Winston Smith had had a Twitter account … Big Brother would have nailed him that much sooner.
Of course we don’t live in an openly totalitarian society. But when people are getting fired for off-hand remarks about people they admire … when web site after web site cautions against posting anything on your Twitter or Facebook feed that might be construed as controversial … when opinionated people like me can’t even blog because they can’t think of anything bland enough to guarantee that it offends no one … the warnings to watch what we say and think are loud and clear.
I hope I can come up with another post soon, because as a marketing professional/writer I know it’s imperative to keep up with social media. On the other hand, I like being gainfully employed, and as a worker bee/cog in the wheel I just don’t know if posting every thought I have online is such a great idea.
I think – in fact I know – it’s that opinion thing that’s giving me pause.
I used to blog pretty regularly about politics on a now-defunct MySpace blog. It’s not just inactive. It’s gone. Deleted. Erased. I’m sure if someone wanted to find evidence of my liberal leanings they could use the Way Back machine and find something incriminating, but thanks to my uber-common name and my thorough deletion job, they probably won’t find it in blog form.
Why was I so intent on erasing my point of view from the web? Because I’ve read too many horror stories about people being fired/never hired due to someone stumbling upon an errant blog post or tweet. Just today Salon posted a story about CNN’s Octavia Nasr whose tweet about the death of a Hezbollah leader got someone’s panties in a wad, and just like that – her 20-year career is over.
Now I know I’m no Octavia Nasr. But her firing should give pause to anyone who writes for a living and also engages in social media. It should also make us ask “why.” It’s not as if journalists never had opinions before social media came along; England’s press, for example, has always been pretty open about which publications lean which way. And here in America, where our media claims to be impartial, it’s common knowledge which papers are likely to endorse Republican points of view and which will back Democrats. So why does it come as some big surprise when someone in the media speaks their mind?
I think the answer to that question is a lot more insidious that it looks on the surface. Because while social media has given people more freedom than ever to express themselves, it’s also given those in power more opportunities to punish dissenting viewpoints. Just imagine if Winston Smith had had a Twitter account … Big Brother would have nailed him that much sooner.
Of course we don’t live in an openly totalitarian society. But when people are getting fired for off-hand remarks about people they admire … when web site after web site cautions against posting anything on your Twitter or Facebook feed that might be construed as controversial … when opinionated people like me can’t even blog because they can’t think of anything bland enough to guarantee that it offends no one … the warnings to watch what we say and think are loud and clear.
I hope I can come up with another post soon, because as a marketing professional/writer I know it’s imperative to keep up with social media. On the other hand, I like being gainfully employed, and as a worker bee/cog in the wheel I just don’t know if posting every thought I have online is such a great idea.
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