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Polluters, politicians run a foul of Moms Clean Air Force
Feb 1st
Julianne Moore Stars in New Video Calling on Mothers To Join the “Moms Clean Air Force”
Actress Asks Mothers to Tell Washington to Stand Up for Clean Air,
Not Protect the Utility and Coal Industries
Washington, DC – Actress and mother Julianne Moore today released a new video calling on parents to join the fight against toxic air pollution. In the video, which endorses a nonpartisan grassroots group called the Moms Clean Air Force, Moore appears along with the heroine of her popular children’s books, Freckleface Strawberry.
Moms are becoming a powerful force in American politics. They are telling Washington that they will not allow their children’s health to be compromised by dirty fossil fuel power plants, the single largest source of pollution in the U.S. The Moms Clean Air Force is a growing community of tens of thousands of moms— from all across the political spectrum and all across the country—uniting to make their voices heard to protect their children’s health.
“Clean air should be above politics,” Moore said. “The discussion about regulations to protect our air has gotten so polarized that we have forgotten an important thing: We all breathe the same air. And all our children suffer because of pollution. We don’t have to choose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment. We can have both. We can have what’s best for all our children.”
President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act into law in 1970 with overwhelming support from Democrats and Republicans; however, the law is now under dangerous political attack. The new mercury and air toxics standards signed in December, after 21 years of planning, are already under political attack, with some politicians in Congress and lobbyists for the utility and coal industries calling to annul it or defund the Environmental Protection Agency.
Responding to this threat, Moms Clean Air Force is bringing parents together in support of a simple idea: That every child has the right to breathe clean air.
Moore became interested in MCAF after Dominque Browning, the group’s Co-Founder and Senior Director and former Editor-in-Chief of House & Garden, contacted her last summer. “I wrote to Julianne, knowing she is a protective mom, asking her if she would help us spread the word about the connection between toxic—and invisible—air pollution and children’s health, and she responded immediately,” Browning said. “Julianne joins a Force of thousands of mothers with real concerns about mercury poisoning, asthma, behavioral issues, and host of other problems associated with polluted air. Together we are determined to clear the air and protect the health of our children and loved ones.”
Moms Clean Air Force is a coalition of mothers including Blythe Danner, Laila Ali, and Jessica Capshaw, and partner groups such as Healthy Child, Healthy World, Treehugger, Green for All, Asthma Moms, Latism (Latinos in Social Media), Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment (ANHE), Care2, BlogHer, and Clever Girls Collective.
Boulder Police accepting applications for Victim Advocate volunteers
Feb 1st
The Boulder Police Department is seeking victim advocate volunteers to work closely with police officers, providing support and assistance to community members who have become victims of crimes, accidents, natural disasters or other critical events.
Applicants must be a least 21 years old and must be able to attend a required 40-hour training course covering crisis intervention, community resources, active listening and emotional responses to grief and trauma. The training will be held from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturdays. It begins April 3 and runs through April 21.
Victim advocates are asked to make a one-year commitment and to be available for one shift per month.
For more information or to obtain an application for either volunteer opportunity, please contact Susan Townley at 303-441-4048 orTownleyS@bouldercolorado.gov.
The deadline to apply is Friday, March 30.
Your Future, Your Choice! The Naked Curmudgeon by Dan Culberson.
Feb 1st
Here’s what gets me.
I believe a lot of time, effort, money and brainpower can be saved if you reevaluate your political-party affiliation and voting record in terms of your line of work, your personal philosophy and your de facto class in American society.
“What?” you say? “Class?” you say?
“Yes,” I say. Contrary to what many Americans believe or would like to believe, there are three distinct classes in the United States and, perhaps, in every society for purposes of discussion: upper class, middle class and lower class. Now, the difference between the class society in the U.S. and the established class societies in, say, India and medie
vval societies is that Americans don’t have to be fore
American politics have pretty much become a two-party system, and for the most part people agree that Democrats are the liberal party that supports the common, everyday working-class people and Republicans are the conservative party that supports Big Business and the uncommon, country-club set of wealthy people. Which group describes you?er restricted to the class into which they were born. All they need do is acquire a substantial amount of money, buy some new clothes and a flashy new car, move into a nicer community and perhaps get experience in the ways of the next higher class in order to become a bona fide new member of that class.
Common sense says that the majority of people are going to be in either the middle class or the lower class. Using the old “bell curve” of distribution, let us say that 25% of the people are upper class, 50% are middle class and 25% are lower class. Where are you?
Now, people tend to align themselves first with the political party that their parents support, the same as they do their parents’ religion. That is why I voted for the Democratic candidate in my first presidential election back in the Sixties, even though I didn’t much care for the man Lyndon B. Johnson or for his policies in Vietnam: both my career-soldier father and my salesclerk mother were Democrats. As I grew older, wiser and more experienced, I decided that I supported the liberal, pro-arts, anti-Big Business views of the Democrats more than I supported the conservative, anti-Big Government, pro-Big Business views of the Republicans, anyway.
Remember your schooling? “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Why doesn’t “trickle-down economics” work? Because money is power, and the people with the money don’t want to give it up, especially to the people without any money. However, they WILL give some of it to greedy politicians in an attempt to cause the politicians to pass laws that make life easier for the people with the money.
Where do you fit? People with money? People without any money? Or greedy politicians?
Let me make it easier for you. People with money tend to be Republicans. People without any money tend to be Democrats. Greedy politicians tend to drift to whichever party they believe will best support their greed.
“Wait a minute!” you say? “What about the Kennedys?” you say? “What about people without any money who vote Republican?” you say?
Well, people who are born with a lot of money can pretty much do what they want, and people who do not have any money would always like to have more. Some people are benevolent and like to help out their fellow human beings as much as possible. Other people are naturally mean and selfish and want to acquire as much money, power, more money and more power as they can.
So, forget the party of your parents. Forget the economic situation as a whole that the country is in and whom the politicians blame for it. Forget the personal life-styles of individual politicians in office.
Remember this: Republicans are conservative, tend to support people with money and try to find ways that those people can keep their money and acquire more money.
Remember this: Democrats are liberal, tend to support people without money and try to find ways that those people can live better lives and perhaps acquire a little more money.
Best of all, forget “politics” and remember that only about 30% of eligible voters can determine how your life is affected.
Are you in the 25% upper class, the 50% middle class or the 25% lower class? Did you vote in the last election? Do the politicians speak for you?
Your choice determines your own future.
I rest my case.
The Naked Curmudgeon
curmudgeon n [origin unknown] (1577) a crusty, ill-tempered, and usu. old man. naked adj 6: devoid of concealment or disguise. Attempting to cover everything that annoys me, Dan Culberson.
