Green Options

Many of our Bayview neighbors joined us last weekend to celebrate the second anniversary of the Latona Community Garden. What used to be a smelly skanky debris-filled eyesore, is now a thriving organic community garden. The formerly blighted corner has been transformed into a warm and welcoming public space where neighbors gather, local kids play, and organic food is grown.

Several of the neighborhood kids climbing the walnut tree in the Latona Community Garden.

In a historic shift, the conservative American Medical Association has just voted to reverse its long held position that marijuana has no medical value; the group is also planning to entirely review it current cannabis policy. During a meeting in Houston this week, the AMA’s House of Delegates adopted a new position which demands that:

“Marijuana’s status as a federal Schedule I controlled substance be reviewed with the goal of facilitating the conduct of clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods.”

See a battery, pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck. Especially if you take the battery that you found and safely recycle it, keeping dangerous toxic poisons out of our seas and drinking water.

I found this used battery near the ocean in Pacifica, right across from our friend Rick’s Salada Beach Cafe. It has since been safely recycled, and kept from polluting our waterways.

Our oceans are already turning into acid. We have to start today to try to make things better. Keeping one more toxic battery or piece of plastic out of our oceans, collectively, will make a difference. Once you start looking, you may be really surprised just how many “disposable” batteries litter our streets and sewers. Next time you see one, pick it up; what you do matters.

Recently I have been reading very disturbing research about how Diet Coke can possibly cause cancer and kill you. The artificial sweetener that is used in most diet beverages, aspartame, once ingested, becomes a lethal poison called methyl alcohol. Small quantities of this noxious substance can lead to blindness and death; even the most miniscule amounts of this aspartame toxin are strongly linked to cancer.

This is an image of the cancerous tumor that was recently removed from my body.

CNN highlights the Billionaires for Wealthcare enthusiastically singing the praises of a public option, as they entertained unsuspecting attendees at a health insurance conference in Washington DC last week. Wolf Blitzer and Jeanne Moos discuss the increasingly popular use of guerilla musical theatre across the nation. Cleverly orchestrated performances and mini-musicals seem to have become much more popular with folks now than rabid screaming teabaggers.

Sigourney Weaver narrates “Acid Test“, an illuminating and terrifying NRDC documentary that explains how quickly our planet’s oceans are acidifying due to all of the carbon dioxide that we are pumping into our air. This pollution is causing rapid changes in our oceans’ chemistry that will completely disrupt all life on the planet as we know it on a scale that has not been seen for tens of millions of years.

The brave Billionaires for Wealthcare are back in fine voice. This group of talented guerrilla performance artists graciously entertained attendees at a conference of health insurance industry workers with a seemingly spontaneous performance of a clever operatic anthem about our desperate need for a public option.

At the annual conference of America’s Health Insurance Plans, (the corporate lobbying group that recently released a threatening report about how any inclusion

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First Lady Michelle Obama talks straightforwardly about women and why we all so urgently need health care reform in this five minute short that was just released by the White House. At the moment I know that I am existing in something of a self-absorbed cancer bubble of my own, but I actually found this quite moving and powerful.

Years before he was a well-respected United States Senator, Minnesota native and satirist Al Franken was also “Supply Side Jesus“. He gives voice to this witty and sardonic animated allegory, “The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus”.  Franken is quite effective as the overtly capitalist Christ who embraces supply side economics above all else; indeed Jesus and Franken are both Jewish. This five minute cartoon manages to

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Florida Rep. Alan Grayson has just utterly transformed the health care debate in the United States with his speech from the House floor. “I’m just saying what everyone else has been thinking,” explains Grayson.

Visionary Civil Rights leader and revolutionary Harvey Milk has finally been honored by the state of California with an official day to celebrate his life and impact. Each May 22nd is now “Harvey Milk Day”. On that day state schools and educational institutions will now be encouraged to conduct relevant civil rights related exercises.