Why is the Environmental Protection Agency and its powers to order and end to and cleanup of pollution important to America?
Consider America before EPA.
Twitterer Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) took some EPA file photos to show what things used to look like, before EPA really got going. This is a small sample of the good work EPA has done, and does.
“SCOTUS just limited the authority of the EPA. Here’s a brief thread that gives everyone an idea of what America looked like before pollution was regulated.”
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) June 30, 2022
If you visit those sites in 2022, you will not be met by the awful smell of sewage or industrial waste. You will not need to wear a mask to protect your lungs from the air pollution including carcinogens that give you equivalent to a pack of cigarettes smoked in a day.
The cleanups may not be perfect, but they make America great.
Cleaning up carbon pollution from our air is necessary to keep America great, and to save the planet — again.
Please ask your Congressional representatives to strengthen the law so EPA can get on with its work.
Tip of the old scrub brush to 50 Shades of Whey (@davenewworld) on Twitter.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Pete Seeger was born on May 3, 1919. He turns 94 today.
Pete is an alumnus of the Louis August Jonas Foundation‘s Camp Rising Sun, a little nugget that appealed to me when I signed up as a counselor at the Rhinebeck campus in 19#&. Pete and Arlo Guthrie teamed up for a series of concerts at East Coast venues that summer, including Wolftrap, Saratoga, Tanglewood and others. Pete lives just down the river from Rhinebeck, near Beacon — but driving home from one of those venues was just a bit too far. Pete stopped off at his childhood haunts and spent a day with us.
I hoped to invite him to Salt Lake City. Pete said he might make such a trip, but it was unlikely — and impressed me with his reasoning and dedication to principle. He explained that he was sticking closer to home as he approached 65, because there was work to do there. He said he’d attended a local school board or PTA meeting to voice an opinion on some issue in Beacon. One of the local newspapers complained he was “an outside agitator.” That stung, he said — he’d been a resident in the town for more than 30 years.
Instead of complaining, though, he started thinking. He said he’s traveled the world and worked for causes for other people in other towns; and he said he realized that one’s life’s work might be dedicated to making life better where one lives. So he’d decided to campaign to clean up his local river, the Hudson . . . you’ve heard of the Sloop Clearwater?
Pete’s dedication to making things better, with local action where one may make a huge difference, stuck with me, and it should stick with all of us.
He’s an encouragement to all of us. He boasts that there is no group he has ever refused to sing for, and in his typical humility, he claims that he can get any group to join, so they do all the heavy lifting. During the pre-inaugural festivities for President Obama’s first inauguration I was happy to see Bruce Springsteen singing some of Pete’s work — highly appropriate for any president’s inauguration — and I thought it would be more fitting only if Pete was singing himself. Then Springsteen brought Pete out on stage to close out.
Pete keeps up a schedule of concerts, most for causes. He sails with the Clearwater, campaigning for clean water on the Hudson River (much accomplished) and community efforts to change things for the better. As you will see below, he pulls his own when raising the sails. He cuts his own wood to heat the house he built.
Considering his age, 94, we might wonder why he keeps going, doing so much all the time.
Why does he keep on going? He might be telling us, from this 2012 recording.
More:
Cover of Pete Seeger’s single release (same photo on an album). The banjo features Pete’s traditional “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender,” a twist on a sticker famously seen on his old friend Woody Guthrie’s guitar. Wikipedia image
Intrigued to learn our old friend Pete Seeger signed up for a Twitter account — years ago. Pete tweets regularly.
He’s an encouragement to all of us. He boasts that there is no group he has ever refused to sing for, and in his typical humility, he claims that he can get any group to join, so they do all the heavy lifting.
Pete keeps up a schedule of concerts, most for causes. He sails with the sloop Clearwater, campaigning for clean water on the Hudson River (much accomplished) and community efforts to change things for the better. As you will see below, he pulls his own when raising the sails. He cuts his own wood to heat the house he built.
Pete will be 94 on May 3, 2013.
Why does he keep on going? He might be telling us, from this 2012 recording.
More:
Cover of Pete Seeger’s single release (same photo on an album). The banjo features Pete’s traditional “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender,” a twist on a sticker famously seen on his old friend Woody Guthrie’s guitar. Wikipedia image
ORANGE, Susan Wong: I recently went through my day being mindful of what taxes do for me. I took a shower in clean water. I drove to work over safe, well-maintained streets. I was free to practice a profession of my choosing. I am able to do this work because I got my degree at a California state school and passed the California Board exam to earn my license.
On the way home, I stopped at an FDIC bank to take out some money that I had earned and am allowed to keep to support myself and my family. I stopped at a grocery store and bought safe food to eat due to various government regulations. I took my dog for a walk at a beautiful regional park. I picked up a takeout dinner at a restaurant inspected by state inspectors. And I went to sleep in peace.
Government exists to provide us with tangible things that an individual cannot provide for himself. I am so tired of people complaining about taxes as if they get nothing in return. It takes money to run a government that allows us to live our lives as we do.
So, let’s be grown-up about it and raise taxes to keep California from becoming a third-world country. (May 25, 2011)
Evidence that not every Californian is crazy.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Some nations do not wish to use DDT to poison mosquitoes because they have other poison problems, and they’d almost rather have malaria than more poison.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
Error: Please make sure the Twitter account is public.
Dead Link?
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
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