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How was your time at the Jamboree? Did you have time to miss Obama?
If you had time to miss him, you weren’t there.
Here’s Obama’s video address to the Scouts:
Earlier at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
1 Comment | 
Boy Scouts of America, Citizenship, History, Hoaxes, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama | Tagged: Boy Scouts of America, Colbert Report, History, Hoaxes, Politics, President Obama | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Speaking of Faith is carried on many public radio stations nationally, perhaps on one in your area. If, as I do, you live in an area where the program is not carried, you can pick up a podcast or .mp3 at the program’s website. (Here’s a list of stations that carry the broadcast.)
Host Krista Tippett posts a weekly message on the scheduled program — this week, an interview with Bill McKibben, whose book, The End of Nature, was a popular introduction to climate change, when it was published in 1989 (!).
Yes, this program is about woo and how we deal with it in our daily lives. This particular program looks at how even woo followers may find it to their advantage to pay attention to the science, and act to protect their families and communities as a result. This is a moral side of climate change that too many people simply deny.
Ms. Tippett wrote:
This week on public radio’s conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas:
The Moral Math of Climate Change
Bill McKibben’s first book, The End of Nature, was the first popular book on climate change, and he is one of the most insightful figures of our time on ecology and life. We’ll explore his hopeful sense that what is good for the environment also nourishes human relationship. And we’ll seek his perspective on knowledge we can trust as we orient our minds and lives to changing realities of the natural world.
History Tends to Surprise Us
It’s been striking how, across the past few years, the environment has found its way inside my guests’ reflections on every subject, as they say, under the sun. And we do need fresh vocabulary and expansive modes of reflection on this subject that, we’ve come to realize, is not just about ecology but the whole picture of human life and lifestyle.Here are some pieces of vocabulary and perspective I’ve loved and used in recent years.
Starting with the basics, Cal DeWitt — a scientist, conservationist, and Evangelical Christian living in Wisconsin — pointed out to me that “environment” was coined after Geoffrey Chaucer used the term “environing.” This was a turning point in the modern Western imagination — the first time we linguistically defined ourselves as separate from the natural world, known up until then as the Creation. This helps explain why the language of “creation care” is so animating for many conservative Christians — as a return to a sacred insight that was lost. But from quantum physics to economics, too, we are discovering new existential meaning in terms like interconnectedness and interdependence.
Many people, but most recently the wonderful geophysicist Xavier le Pichon, have made the simple yet striking observation that climate change is the first truly global crisis in human history. In other words, just as we make newfound discoveries about old realities, they are put to the ultimate test. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the signs that we are not up to this test as a species. So it was helpful for me to have Matthieu Ricard, a biologist turned Buddhist monk, remind me that evolutionary change, which is what we need now in our behavior, always comes precisely at the moment where survival — not just betterment — is at stake.
Such ideas can make the task of integrating, or reintegrating, environmental and human realities sound far away and abstract. But it’s not.
The most redemptive and encouraging commonality of all the people I’ve encountered who have made a truly evolutionary leap is that they have come to love the very local, very particular places they inhabit. They were drawn into environmentalism by suddenly seeing beauty they had taken for granted; by practical concern for illness and health in neighborhood children; by imagining possibilities for the survival of indigenous flora and fauna, the creation of jobs, the sustainability of regional farms. The catchword of many of our most ingenious solutions to this most planetary of crises is “local” — local food, local economies. Ellen Davis and Wendell Berry illuminate this with poetic, biblical wisdom, each in their way reminding us that the health of our larger ecosystem is linked to knowing ourselves as creatures — “placed creatures.”
There is so much in my most recent conversation about all of this with Bill McKibben that will frame and deepen my sense of the nature and meaning of climate change moving forward. Among them is an exceedingly helpful four minutes, a brief history of climate change that we’re making available as a separate podcast. But what has stayed with me most of all, I think, is a stunning equation he is ready to make after two decades of immersion in the scientific, cultural, and economic meaning of our ecological present. He points out that cheap fossil fuels have allowed us to become more privatized, less in need of our neighbor, than ever in human history. And he says that in almost every instance, what is good for the environment is good for human community. The appeal of the farmers market is not just its environmental and economic value but the drama, the organic nature, of human contact.
I also gained a certain bracing historical perspective from my conversation with Bill McKibben. He and I were both born in 1960. He was waking up to the environment in years in which I was in divided Berlin, on the front lines of what felt like the great strategic and moral battle of that age. He published The End of Nature in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. And as I learned from that book, the science of climate change had already begun to emerge at the height of the Cold War. In 1957, two scientists at the Scripps Institution described their findings that humanity initiated an unprecedented “geophysical experiment” that it might not survive.
So I’ve been chewing on this thought lately: If humanity is around to write history in a century or two, what was happening with the climate in 1989 may dwarf what we perceived as the great geopolitical dramas of that time. Living through the fall of the wall and the reunification of Europe emboldened my sense that there is always more to reality than we can see and more change possible than we can begin to imagine. I draw caution as well as hope from the fact that history tends to surprise us. And I draw caution as well as hope from the knowledge that humanity often surprises itself on the edge of survival.
I Recommend Reading:
The End of Nature
by Bill McKibbenThis was the first book to introduce the notion and science of climate change to a non-scientific audience. It is passionately and beautifully written. And while Bill McKibben’s updated introduction in recent printings adds relevant new knowledge, it also highlights just how prescient and powerful the original book remains.
2 Comments | Citizenship, Climate change, climate_change, Glaciers, Global warming, History, Politics, Religion, Science | Tagged: Climate change, Faith, History, Politics, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Soon-to-be former-Representative, Bob Englis, R-South Carolina, has a story to tell about Republican politics going off the rails, told in Mother Jones magazine:
For Inglis, this is the crux of the dilemma: Republican members of Congress know “deep down” that they need to deliver conservative solutions like his tax swap. Yet, he adds, “We’re being driven as herd by these hot microphones—which are like flame throwers—that are causing people to run with fear and panic, and Republican members of Congress are afraid of being run over by that stampeding crowd.” Inglis says that it’s hard for Republicans in Congress to “summon the courage” to say no to Beck, Limbaugh, and the tea party wing. [emphasis added] “When we start just delivering rhetoric and more misinformation . . . we’re failing the conservative movement,” he says. “We’re failing the country.” Yet, he notes, Boehner and House minority whip Eric Cantor have one primary strategic calculation: Play to the tea party crowd. “It’s a dangerous strategy,” he contends, “to build conservatism on information and policies that are not credible.”
Tip of the old scrub brush to Sara Ann Maxwell.
Leave a Comment » | 2010 Elections, Campaigns, Elections, Government, Politics, Republican Party | Tagged: 2010 Elections, Campaigns, Elections, Government, Politics, Republicans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The world is still safe for fairness.
The world is still safe for fairness.
No resurrection of McCarthyism this year.
Tip of the old scrub brush to James. Photo of the grave of Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, from Appleton, Wisconsin, copyright by James Darrell.
5 Comments | History, History images, McCarthyism, Politics, U.S. Senate | Tagged: Cold War, History, History images, McCarthyism, Politics, Sen. Joe McCarthy, U.S. Senate | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Mad, as in insane, not mad as in angry.
A sign of insanity is failing to get angry at appropriate times.
Some person using the handle “globalpeace” posted this in response to another knee-jerk whine about Obama (see comment #2):
You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn’t get mad when you saw the Abu Grahib photos.
You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.
You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city drown.
You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.
You finally got mad when.. when… wait for it… when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all ok with you but helping other Americans… well [expletive deleted] that. That about right? You know it is.
Not getting angry at appropriate times can indeed be a sign of madness.
13 Comments | Barack Obama, History, Politics, President Obama, Whom the gods destroy they first make mad | Tagged: Compassion, History, Politics, President Obama | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
When President Barack Obama met with a group of outstanding Boy Scouts in the Oval Office a few weeks ago to discuss policies affecting Scouting, and especially policies affecting children, teen agers and young adults in the U.S., very few conservative sites thought it important to cover. Let’s be more precise: No conservative Obama critics, nor much of anyone else, bothered to cover it. I’d love to see links even of local media in the Scouts’ hometowns that printed a story or photo.
To the credit of the White House, neither did the press promote the meeting as a political point. Scouting prefers not to be a political football, and Scouting policy asks that Scouts avoid even looking like politicking while in uniform. (Scouts are encouraged to participate in the political process, including through the three citizenship merit badges, which encourage Scouts to communicate their concerns about policy to elected representatives, while working for the merit badge and in the future as participating citizens.)
2010 is a grand year for Scouting. It’s the centennial of Scouting’s coming to the United States. There’s a special Scout Jamboree, being held at Fort A. P. Hill in Virginia (the last time the Jamboree will be held on federal property — that’s another story for another time). It’s always fun when presidents come to the Jamboree and speak, but it’s not always possible.
But today, news comes that President Obama will send a video speech to the Scouts at the Jamboree, as has been done sometimes in the past. Many of us are disappointed that President Obama will not appear in person; but some of us who have experience scheduling such things know that elected officials cannot make every appearance they would like to. Presidential schedules in the modern world are particularly difficult; for an appearance at Fort A. P. Hill security must be imposed (even on a Scouting event), aircraft landing sites need to be arranged and secured . . . dealing with more than 30,000 Scouts becomes an onerous task.
Still, we’re disappointed.
Adding to that disappointment, comes now a group of harpy Obama critics, no friends of Scouting that I can determine, but anxious to claim this scheduling decision as some sort of snub to Scouting, and to the American flag.
Media Matters has the facts, and puts the scheduling stuff into perspective, “Overhyped conservative nonsense of the Day: Obama hates the Boy Scouts.” Update: Blue Wave News has it in perspective. Wonkette’s satire, unfortunately, goes awry, but her heart and brain are in the right places.
The snub is by those critics who attempt to turn Scouting into a political football. The insults are all from them.
Shame on them, collectively and individually:
Update: We’re going to have to add on a wing to accommodate the Wall of Shame:
Hmmmm.
I’ll wager none of those authors bothers to volunteer for Scouting. I’d be surprised (and disappointed) to discover any were Scouts. Scouting wouldn’t revoke their citizenship merit badges, but they’ve forgotten them, if they ever earned them.
Scouting faces severe hurdles these days, some of them I would say were placed by poobahs at the top of Scouting; these guys listed above are not helping.
Here are some tests to see which of these blogs and pundit outlets is friendly to Scouting: Which of them covered the award, this morning of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award to Tuskegee Airman Charles McGee? Which of them covered the dedication of the U.S. Postal Service’s stamp honoring the Scouting Centennial, today? As of this moment, I can find no media coverage of these things at all, even by local media.
Why do these pundits cover Scouting only when it gives them a chance to make an unfair shot at a politician they don’t like? Seriously, who is doing disservice to Scouting, and the nation?
Good news about Scouting’s 100th Year, and the Jamboree:
102 Comments | Accuracy, Barack Obama, Boy Scouts of America, Ethics, History, Journalism, Patriotism, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Presidents | Tagged: Accuracy, Boy Scouts of America, Ethics, History, Journalism, Politics, President Obama | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Van Jones, who is a reliable source, said that Glenn Beck refused to jump on the bandwagon of those calling for Shirley Sherrod to step down — Jones said Beck had doubts about the story told by the video tape Breitbart and Fox ran.
Is that true?
Jones talked about the flap caused when Andrew Breitbart and Fox News teamed up to spread the false story that Shirley Sherrod had acted in an illegally racist fashion:
In an interview with NPR’s Michele Norris, Jones said that, although his background is “much more colorful” than Sherrod’s, he can empathize with what it is like to be at the center of a media firestorm.
According to him, “we are in an age where people can absolutely engineer false stories and inject them into the media blood system in a way that we just don’t know how to deal with very well.”
Jones said that dirty tactics — selective editing, smear campaigns and a lack of reportorial due diligence — damage American society as a whole.
“One of the things that I think we’ve got to be clear about is that these kinds of attacks are not just attacks on individuals,” he said. “They’re attacks on the democratic system.”
Listen to the NPR interview — Jones credits Beck with doing the right thing near the end of the interview.
See! (If Jones is right about Beck) It just shows that there is hope for the temporal and secular salvation of all humans.
Good on Glenn Beck.
That’s one small step for a conservative, leading — we hope — to a giant leap for Glenn Beck, coming back from the Dark Side.
Update: Snatching a smear from the jaws of ethical behavior:
Beck couldn’t just do the right thing and leave it there — he worked to find ways to attack the reputation of Shirley Sherrod.
Damnation! If one of these Tea Party conservatives does something right, ethical and just, they get itchy, and have to go find a cat to throw, a dog to kick, and an old lady to push down in a mud puddle. They are just congenitally incapable of virtuous action. Van Jones caught Glenn Beck doing something right, so Beck, hating Jones, America’s future and the left so much, retracted it.
5 Comments | Accuracy, Hoaxes, Journalism, Political Smear, Politics, Racism | Tagged: Accuracy, Glenn Beck, Hoaxes, Journalism, Political Smear, Politics, Racism, Shirley Sherrod | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Neal Boortz, the Georgia-based radio broadcaster, goes beyond irresponsible journalism. After we caught Boortz spreading false tales about Hilary Clinton last year, I proceeded to ignore him.
Traffic links pointed to Boortz this morning — now we find he’s spreading a hoax about Obama’s cabinet’s qualifications, months after the guy who started the false story caught his error and retracted it. [July 4, 2011 – If that link doesn’t work, try this link to Boortz’s archive.]
That’s not just irresponsible and sloppy: Boortz clearly has a grudge and will tell any falsehood to push his agenda of hatred.
Birds of a feather: Texas deficit champion Rick Perry, who refused to talk about his $18 billion deficit in Texas, with Neil Boortz, who spread a hoax about Hillary Clinton in 2008, and now spreads old hoaxes about President Obama.
Boortz posts this at his site, probably as a warning for what his philosophy of reporting is:
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it.”
Frederic Bastiat
Just before Thanksgiving last year, a J. P. Morgan official wrote a humorous piece of conjecture for his weekly newsletter — a week when most of the markets in the U.S. were closed, and so there was little news. Michael Cembalest, the chief investment officer for J. P. Morgan, without serious research wrote a piece wondering about what he saw as a lack of private sector experience in Obama’s cabinet in those positions in Cembalest’s view that are concerned most with job creation.
The spin meisters at American Enterprise Institute abused Cembalest’s rank conjectures as a “research report,” created a hoax saying Obama’s cabinet is the least qualified in history, and the thing went viral among otherwise ungainfully-employed bloggers (a lot like Neil Boortz).
Cembalest retracted his piece when he saw, in horror, what had happened (but not before I was too rough on him in poking much-deserved holes in the AEI claim).
Cembalest called me before the end of that week, noting that he’d retracted the piece.
Nearly eight months later, full of vituperation but bereft of information, today Neil Boortz resurrected the hoax story on his blog (on his radio program, too? I’ll wager Boortz is double dipping with his false-tale telling . . .).
Here’s a series of falsehoods Boortz told:
Last year J.P. Morgan thought it might be interesting to look into the private sector experience of Obama’s Cabinet. America, after all, was in the middle of an economic disaster and the thought was that the president might actually look to some people with a record of success in the private sector for advice. So a study is done comparing Obama’s Cabinet to the cabinets of presidents going back to 1900. secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy and Housing and Urban Development were included. The J.P Morgan study looked at the percentages of cabinet members with prior private sector experience, and the results were amazing.
The presidential cabinet with the highest percentage of private sector experience was that of Dwight Eisenhower at around 58%. The lowest — until Obama — was Kennedy at about 28%. The average ran between 35% and 40% … until, as I said, Obama. Care to guess what percentage of Obama’s cabinet has prior private sector experience? Try 7%.
Here’s a start at the truth — try 11 times the experience Boortz credits:
All totaled, Obama’s cabinet is one of the certifiably most brainy, most successful and most decorated of any president at any time. His cabinet brings extensive and extremely successful private sector experience coupled with outstanding and considerable successful experience in government and elective politics.
AEI’s claim that the cabinet lacks private sector experience is astoundingly in error, with 77% of the 22 members showing private sector experience — according to the [standards of the] bizarre chart [from AEI], putting Obama’s cabinet in the premiere levels of private sector experience. The chart looks more and more like a hoax that AEI fell sucker to — and so did others.
Boortz is eight months late, and the whole truth short. Shame on him.
Not just false stuff — old, moldy false stuff. Atlantans, and all Americans, deserve better reporting, even from hack commentators.
_____________
Coda: Sage advice, but . . .
Boortz includes this warning on his website:
ALWAYS REMEMBER
Don’t believe anything you read on this web page, or, for that matter, anything you hear on The Neal Boortz Show, unless it is consistent with what you already know to be true, or unless you have taken the time to research the matter to prove its accuracy to your satisfaction. This is known as “doing your homework.”
Great advice — but no excuse for sloppy reporting. He should follow his own rule. On this piece, Boortz didn’t do his homework in any fashion. He’s turning in somebody else’s crap, without reading it in advance, it appears.
26 Comments | Accuracy, Business, Business Ethics, Capitalism, Government, History, Hoaxes, Journalism, Political conventions, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Presidents | Tagged: Accuracy, Bad Journalism, Business, Capitalism, Government, History, Hoaxes, Neil Boortz, News, Obama's Cabinet, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Private Sector Experience, Unpatriotic Attacks | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Steven Milloy, Roger Bate, and Richard Tren hope you never see this television production — they hope you never even hear about it. It’s one more indication that Rachel Carson was right.
They hope you never even hear about it. It’s set for telecast in South Africa next Tuesday:
Special Assignment to broadcast episode on ‘Collateral Damage’
Published: 22 July 2010
This week, Special Assignment looks at those affected by the dangerous DDT chemical and also those who say it is a necessary evil to prevent many South Africans from dying.
“I have problems with my balls,” says ‘George’. “I was born without testicles,” adds ‘Joseph’, yet another man born in the Limpopo area. These two and many other young men in Venda share a common story.
Each year, South Africa sprays more than 90 tonnes of the toxic DDT chemical in homesteads in KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo areas. Though DDT, a persistent organic chemical which can remain in the environment for as much as 40 years is banned across the world, South Africa still uses it to control malaria in the country. Recent studies have however showed that DDT is harmful to humans with hundreds of kids born in the Venda area showing signs of genital deformities. The chemical has also been associated with breast cancer; diabetes; and spontaneous abortion. Yet it remains South Africa’s best option for the prevention of malaria which kills millions of people each year across Africa. This week, Special Assignment looks at those affected by this chemical and also those who say it is a necessary evil to prevent many other South Africans from dying.
‘Collateral Damage’ will be broadcast on Special Assignment on Tuesday, 27 July, at 20:31 on SABC3.
7 Comments | Africa, DDT, Disease, Malaria, medicine, Politics, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: Africa, Birth Defects, DDT, Disease, Malaria, Medical Care, Politics, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science, South Africa | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Last spring, as the local Tea Party gatherings were shouting hosannahs to the Constitution, they also advocated not answering the decennial census. I pointed out that the census is required by the Constitution, and got disinvited.
Unbridled and unquestioning support of what the “founders” did, instead of the laws they wrote, can lead one astray, as this cartoon shows:
Tea Party philosophy: 'If the founders did it, it's good.'
3 Comments | America's founding, Cartoons, Health care, History, Humor, Political cartoons, Politics, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: History, Humor, Medical Care, Politics, Tea Party, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A mostly historically accurate view of history of Tea Party-like movements:
Tip of the old scrub brush to Unreasonable Faith and earthaid.
1 Comment | History, History Revisionism, Humor, Politics, Propaganda | Tagged: History, History Revisionism, Humor, Politics, Propaganda | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
In the late 1960s and the 1970s, conservatives made big displays of singing this song. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir recorded one very popular version of it; it showed up often. In those occasional complaints about the difficulty of singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” this song’s suitability for national anthem status was always raised.
Today? I haven’t heard it at a Republican gathering in long, long time. I’m not saying that it’s completely disappeared from the conservative song book — among other things, I don’t attend Republican conventions as often as I once did, but I don’t think I’d hear it if I did. I am saying that people finally started listening to the song, and it’s been largely dropped from conservative sing alongs for political reasons.
And that tells us a lot.
It would be good to hear this song a lot more; it would be good if more people sang it.
Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger leading the congregation in singing Woody Guthrie’s “The Land Is Your Land,” from a 1993 concert at Wolf Trap Farm Park in Virginia (one of my favorite venues for any music):
(Arlo’s got a new release this year, featuring this tune.)
More:
5 Comments | Cultural Literacy, Dissent, Dust Bowl, Great Depression, History, Music, Patriotism, Political conventions, Politics | Tagged: Arlo Guthrie, Conservative Songs, Cultural Literacy, Dust Bowl, Great Depression, History, Liberal Songs, Music, National Anthem, Patriotism, Pete Seeger, Politics, Woody Guthrie | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Scholars & Rogues summarized the Texas Republican Party platform. It’s all about “deviant sex,” S&R finds.
Compare it to the Texas Democratic Platform (education planks only, here — rest of the platform here).
Bill White, Linda Chavez-Thompson, Barbara Ann Radnofsky and others are clearly superior candidates running on a real, pro-Texas, pro-business, pro-family platform. Help Texas, help America, help yourself: Support them and give them your votes in November.
Texas Democratic Party platform word cloud
Leave a Comment » | 2010 Elections, Campaigns, Education, Politics, Texas | Tagged: 2010 Elections, Campaigns, Democratic Party, Education, Politics, Republican Party, Texas Democrats, Texas Republicans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
From the Los Angeles Times blogs, Opinion, from February 2010:
Tea Party footnotes
February 7, 2010 | 7:39 amA couple of musings about the Tea Party convention in Tennessee:
I’m puzzled by the disgruntled reaction among Tea Partiers to the fact that the convention charged money to attend — about $550, it’s been reported — and that the convention organizer was a for-profit company. Yeah, it’s expensive, all right, but isn’t profit-making quintessentially American?
And I’ve seen photos of conventioneers wearing T-shirts with the image of a bald eagle on the back, the national bird, symbol of the nation. When the Founding Fathers were drawing up the blueprints for the United States, there were hundreds of thousands of bald eagles, coast to coast, clime to clime.
But then humans began crowding them out and shooting them down in such numbers that a law protecting them was put into place in 1940. But that was just about the time that DDT began to be used in vast quantities, and there went the bald eagle population again. DDT in the food chain rendered bald eagle shells too thin to incubate or hatch and perhaps rendered some adult birds infertile.
Rachel Carson’s seminal book ”Silent Spring” raised the public’s awareness of the risks of DDT. In 1967, bald eagles were ruled an endangered species in much of the U.S. — a status that was made national on the nation’s bicentennial, in 1976 — and they weren’t declared to be a thriving species once again until 2007.
Which means that, if it hadn’t been for all those tree-hugging pinko environmentalists, the bird of prey on all those T-shirts, the proud bald eagle, might very well have been a dead duck.
— Patt Morrison
Audubon watercolor of bald eagle – Library of Congress image
Help save the bald eagle from Tea Party sniping:
1 Comment | DDT, Environmental protection, Patriotism, Politics, Santayana's ghost, Science | Tagged: Bald Eagle, DDT, Environmental protection, History, John James Audubon, Patriotic Symbols, Politics, Santayana's ghost, Science, Tea Party | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ben Hoffman drew this on August 2008:
Ben Hoffman on the issues of August 2008 - what's changed? BenHoffman.WordPress.com
Replace half the “abortions” with “socialism,” it’s still accurate.
We could change that for the better in November, were we alert to the issues.
Leave a Comment » | 2010 Elections, Cartoons, Democratic Party, Elections, Politics, Republican Party | Tagged: Cartoons, Democrats, Elections 2010, Politics, Republicans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 