A 30 million dollar mental health program for low income New Yorkers is on its way, according to Chirlane McCray, wife of Mayor de Blasio . Listen to Beatty ‘s experience in Montreal when people young and old are given access to mental health services in their own communities. It can change their lives and relationships forever!
Our Jihadis and Theirs By Tom Engelhardt
Consider this paragraph a holding action on the subject of getting blown away in America. While I write this dispatch, I’m waiting patiently for the next set of dispiriting killings in this country. And I have faith. Before I’m done, some angry — or simply mentally disturbed — and well-armed American “lone wolf” (or lone wolves) will gun down someone …
The Other One Percent – Ralph Nader
As a high school student, I came across an observation by Abraham Lincoln who said that “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” Today “public sentiment” would be called “public opinion.” Over the years, I have been astonished at how less than one percent of the citizenry, backed by the “public sentiment,” have changed our country …
Food Stamps Are Worth Double at These Michigan Farmers Markets—Helping Families and Local Businesses – Araz Hachadourian
Vicki Zilke is a farmer in Ypsilanti, Mich., population 20,000, where more than a quarter of residents live below the poverty line. Every week, she sells her vegetables at Downtown Ypsilanti Farmers Market, one of two in the city. Nearly 40 percent of the shoppers at both hubs are on some form of food assistance funding from the government. The …
Big Wine Fails To Dry Farm During California’s Relentless Drought – Shepherd Bliss
(Sonoma County, in the heart of California’s Redwood Empire): California Governor Jerry Brown spent this year’s Earth Day at the elite Iron Horse Winery in the Sebastopol countryside. It was a great photo opportunity and promotion for the winery. Iron Horse is known for donations to President Bill Clinton and other politicians, with whom it has cozy relationships, and from whom …
Dana Durnford’s Post-Fukushima Odyssey: Documenting Ecocide on Canada’s West Coast – Robert Snefjella
Homer’s Odyssey is a fable 3000 years old, first recited when civilization was of middling age, that is, well – or not so well – underway, neither young nor terminal. As Homer put it, via W.H. D. Rouse’s translation, “This is the story of a man, one who was never at a loss.” And “he endured many troubles and hardships …
Fight of the Century: Localization in a Globalized World – Richard Heinberg
As the world economy crashes against debt and resource limits, many countries are responding by attempting to salvage what are actually their most expendable features—corrupt, insolvent banks and bloated militaries—while leaving the majority of their people to languish in “austerity.” This has resulted in a series of uprisings, taking a variety of forms in different nations. Such conditions and responses …
Light at night can have serious effects
It’s incredibly hard to sleep when light seeps through your curtains or your phone glows from the bedside table. But more and more research is finding that artificial light may be more than annoying. It can be very unhealthy too. The natural 24-hour cycle of daylight and darkness keeps our circadian biological rhythms in alignment. When those rhythms get out of whack, studies have …
Fighting Dark Money to Restore Our Democracy
It’s no secret that since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision approved unrestricted campaign spending by corporations, elections have been drowning in a flood of what’s referred as “dark money.” Much of it has been passed through so-called social advocacy groups, such as the Koch Brothers-founded Americans for Prosperity, which don’t have to reveal the source of the money …
Are Insects the Next Climate-Friendly Superfood?
Maybe you’ve see little cans of chocolate-covered ants or grasshoppers in the exotic food section of your grocery and thought to yourself, “Yuck—who eats that?” Insects may not come to mind when you think of superfoods. But they could be the next hot “alternative” protein. They’re low in fat and loaded with fiber. You might be surprised to learn you may …