So it happened. No big surprise. There stood “45,” as many people are now referring to him rather than utter his name, surrounded by fossil fuel execs and coal miners. This latest executive order directed the EPA to start withdrawing and rewriting the Clean Power Plan put in place by President Obama. “C’mon fellas,” […]
Month: March 2017
THE KOCH-HOLD ON KEYSTONE: GET READY TO RUMBLE!
On a day when the effort by Trump & Company to overturn the Affordable Care Act in Congress fell apart, I suppose they had to have something to cheer about and shove in the faces of those who care about the environment: the Keystone-XL pipeline has been approved by the State Department. And in case […]
POSTINGS FROM THE EDGE: LETTERS FROM THREE ELOQUENT FRIENDS
I welcome responses to what I’m writing in this column, and over the past couple of days have received what I feel are three letters powerful enough to share with my readers. What strikes me is that they are all basically saying the same thing. Thoughts for the day: RICHIE: I see a new ice […]
SECRETS AND LIES: WHERE’S TRUMP-O?
You are probably familiar with the children’s book series Where’s Waldo? It actually dates back to the late 1980s in England, where the original title was Where’s Wally? Anyway, the key to the books – and later the movies and games – is that despite his relatively easy-to-recognize red-and-white striped shirt and hat and glasses, […]
MERCY! WHO IS ROBERT MERCER?
Okay Donald, the cat’s out of the bag. It wasn’t so bad when, toward the end of last month, the Guardian printed quite a lengthy take on the billionaire behind Breitbart and Bannon, not to mention Brexit and (just to keep the alliteration going) Big Boy Bouffant as well. Now, however, Jane Mayer – author of […]
A NEW FOOL-EFFICIENCY STANDARD FOR CONSUMERS AND THE CLIMATE
So there he was this week in Detroit, addressing about 1,000 people inside the American Center for Mobility. A banner behind him read, “Buy American – Hire American.” Trump announced that “the assault on the American auto industry is over!” He was going to set up “a task force in every federal agency to identify […]
“Urban Romulus” by Romeo Keyes
The following article, “Urban Romulus: How the Myths Have Shaped My Life,” appears in a new online mythological journal called Immanence. It’s written by a young African-American from south-central LA, Romeo Keyes, who I’ve been mentoring for the past year-and-a-half. He is a remarkable writer and knows more about myth than anyone I’ve ever met. […]
THE TRUMP PLAN TO DESTROY THE CHESAPEAKE BAY
During the 1980s, I became an environmental activist in fighting to protect the Atlantic striped bass. A combination of fishing pressure and pollution in their primary spawning grounds of the Chesapeake Bay had seen the fish’s population plummet to near-oblivion. Finally, after Congress intervened while Maryland declared a five-year fishing moratorium and other states along […]
GUTTING THE EPA: THE TRUMP BUDGET PLAN
While running for president, Donald Trump vowed to get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency “in almost every form.” Tragically for all of us, especially our children and grandchildren, the dismantling has begun. A leaked version of Trump’s proposed budget reveals that, while military spending would increase by $54 billion, massive cuts are planned […]
THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY
My friend Mark sent this along to me, something he wrote this evening after coming home from work: “Tyranny is back with a vengeance torn from the history we tried to forget. The sins of our fathers that have haunted us for centuries have stepped out of the shadows and wreak chaos and mayhem that […]