A GOOD TIME IN THE GOOD NEWS GARDEN

Friday, August 27th gave Maywood, Illinois a
perfect weather day to showcase the fresh
produce planted by Green Corps, young people
who may have previously never dealt with gardens
of either the vegetable or flower variety.
The Prairie Path "Open House" (outdoors only)
was a tripartite effort by Loyola University
Medicine, Cook County Green Corp and University
of Illinois' Extension....you should have
seen the pride and joy on those young faces!

The garden of course was bursting with tall
leaves of Kale and other vegetables, baby
watermelons hidden between them on the ground,
etc. Today, Saturday, the mature crops
go to the local Farmers' Market for sale.
Meanwhile, the young planters have already
sampled some of their wares. What could be
better?

Projects like this have sprung up all around
the U.S., with many teens gaining insight
into more than mere appreciation of where
food actually comes from. The value and rewards
of teamwork, sensitivity and sustained effort
are pearls beyond price, food for the soul.

In this Good News Garden
a good time was had by all.

Reason, Fairness and Compassion: Off the Table

Why don't most of the politicians and
Wall Streeters read and heed Paul Krugman
and Simon Johnson? There's really only
one ugly reason: The super-rich and
well-fixed political figures really
don't care about middle and lower class
Americans, the majority. As Paul Krugman,
Simon Johnson and James Kwak so ably point
out, the rich and political, hereinafter
referred to as "they","them" or "their",
keep changing their reasons to deny
further assisting the unemployed. I've
seen cries of "socialism", "deficit-driven
depression/bankruptcy", "bond investor
withdrawal risk", etc. ....Whew! Say,
call me when you make up your minds--
AND make some sense.

Some of them have forgotten, if they ever
apprehended it, 6,000 years of recorded
history, oh, and a pithy little saying:
"...You can't fool all of the people all
of the time". The scales of Justice
sometimes swing back to weigh in favor of
the oppressed. Yet I see that many of
"them" must act and live by the old saw,
"take the money and run". But by forgetting
the lessons of history and economics, in the
long run, EVERYONE pays for stupid,
narrow-interest policies, even the very
proponents of same.

TO THE POWERS THAT BE: FIX UNEMPLOYMENT

(1) Exhort those sitting on cash to hire!
Productivity numbers have lied for decades;
I'm here to attest to the sharp decline in
accuracy AND quality; you can't really do
"more with less", you just do LESS.

(2) If there is stimulus money unspent, allocate
it to employ people to fix our infrastructure.
Realize nothing lasts forever, not even the proton.
(Reading more science over a lifetime versus
partaking in many pointless social
opportunities would be a big help here.)
If the stimulus fund HAS truly been spent,
vote more money to do this vital work which
has been stupidly, niggardly, overlooked.

TO THE LARGER ELECTORATE:
Remember in November.
(Please, remember in November.)

Unless a miracle of sane policy or
voter awareness/alacrity occurs, reason,
fairness and compassion are off the table.

Clean Air or Clean House: The Senate

The Union of Concerned Scientists is quite disturbed by the
current Senate inaction on climate change legislation, and so
am I. The following is a letter I sent to Illinois Senators
Durbin and Burris through the Union of Concerned Scientists'
take action website, which encourages editing the sample
letter they thoughtfully provide:

Some Senators are attempting to delay or block the EPA's
authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate global
warming emissions. These sorts of attacks are unacceptable:
the very politicians who want things to remain as they are
haven't read enough science to understand that the impending
climate change danger affects everyone on Earth--INCLUDING
their OWN families.

This denial insanity has progressed so far that even
physicist Stephen Hawking has been quoted as making
outrageous statements like "We must leave Earth or
face extinction." --What?? Say, let's fix things
right here, right now, while there may yet
be time. Moving to another planet to continue the sad
historical human pattern of overpopulating, polluting and
violence isn't even in the realm of possibility for several
hundred years, so let's get down to business now, shall we?

The question becomes, "Is the Clean Air Act the law, or not?"
If it IS the law, Congress must find a way to enforce it,
period. Otherwise it might be time to politically clean
house, if not the air, in subsequent elections.