Friday, May 30, 2008

BEST. TV. SHOW. EV. ER.



Very great show last night - the end of season 4. I started crying when Sawyer jumped out of the helicopter. I can't wait to find out what happens next....


Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Ackerman woods in Glen Ellyn

Glen Ellyn in the news (local Fox station video here)


Daily Herald: Despite the roughly 100 Glen Ellyn residents that expressed their discontent with the village and park district's plan to cut down 340 trees for a flood control project, the plan is expected to go forward.

Glen Ellyn leaders will move forward with a flood control project at Ackerman Park that entails cutting down 340 trees, despite much outcry from residents opposed to the project.

Bad bad bad decision. I sent an email yesterday to the Park District & local paper's letter to the editors. I'm already drafting another one email to the GE Park District... I think they are really going to come to regret this.


Background here

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Why not an airlift for Burma?

This article was interesting and helped answer a question I had about it myself... why not just drop food in an airlift?

" Oxfam and other agencies have well-trained disaster specialists ready and waiting to go. The Burmese authorities must allow them in to do their job. However until that happens, calls for air drops must be resisted. They will make good television and fulfil the need to do something - anything - to help relieve the suffering in Burma.
But air drops are expensive, inefficient and not the best way to help desperate people on the ground. "

But the comments at the bottom of the link offer a lot of good contrarian reasons to do SOMETHING.



Friday, May 9, 2008

Myanmar / Burma: disaster x disaster

Help is needed! and it appears its not getting through. Just sent this Amnesty form email and also printed out a letter to mail there... but by the time they get it -it will probably be TOO late.
This "junta" government or whatever you want to call it is EVIL.

While Snr-Gen Than Shwe and the top generals selectively pick and choose what aid to accept from foreign nations, they are stalling on issuing visas to the UN and other international aid workers.

The UN said the junta’s refusal to allow foreign aid workers into the country was "unprecedented" in the history of humanitarian work, even as survivors of a devastating cyclone waited for food, shelter and medicine. Observers said Than Shwe is making all the major decisions about foreign aid workers. Eric John, the US ambassador to Thailand, said that if the junta delays visa application to aid workers one more day, more people will die.

I sent an email also earlier today to my former colleague Allan M. who is Burmese. He lives in San Francisco. I hope his family is OK. What a tragedy!

neocons and Iran

Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com
scary,... note to self:" pay attention this time "

"The neoconservative war-lovers behind this effort have not changed, nor have their tactics. They realize, as many of them acknowledge, that they will have four more years in power if John McCain is elected. But they also realize that he may not be, and that their last hope for their long-desired attack on Iran lies in convincing the current administration to provoke one before its tenure ends. As much as one wishes it weren't true, as much as the fixation on petty election issues might obscure it, the truly depraved extremist group that brought us the invasion of Iraq still exerts substantial influence and is quite busy trying to exert it."
.....
"And now, magically up pops these new reports from Israel warning that the deadline to stop Iran's nuclear bomb is the end of the year -- right before George Bush leaves office. Bush has less than eight months left to fulfill his history-mandated mission "to prevent another holocaust" by attacking Iran, or else "be in the historical dock if he allows Iran to get the bomb." They're as transparent as they are dishonest and bloodthirsty."

Friday, May 2, 2008

Medical Review for Organ Transplant





"SEATTLE -- A musician who was denied a liver transplant because he used marijuana with medical approval under Washington state law to ease the symptoms of advanced hepatitis C died Thursday."

First, there should be more donors so people on the waiting list don't die unnecessarily, 2nd, the medical review team nixed his transplant even when using the pain-killing drug (in WA state) is legal! That just doesn't make sense.