Well folks, again I am pausing our policy of keeping posts to 750 words. But, damn, this woman can write! And, yes, she plays hardball. But come on people… we are way past hotdogs and softball.

I didn’t know of Anne Helen Peterson’s writing until recently, but I suggest you grab her words and consider where you stand in all of this. And then maybe think again.

What If This is Just the Way Things Are?

Anne Helen Peterson

(…)

My partner and I go on a long walk with the dogs every Friday afternoon, the sort where you can actually feel some of the accumulated tension of the week fall off you the further you get from home. Last week, as the invasion in Ukraine continued to escalate in ever more horrifying ways, we were talking about that feeling that we don’t leave crisis mode; we just move from one (or more) primary sources of crisis into the next.

In many cases — including the current one — we don’t actually leave the previous crisis behind; it just wanes in urgency, with a promise that it will certainly wax again. It demands a sort of cyclical vigilance — and it’s been the norm for the last two pandemic years, with their ongoing waves of high-alert anxiety, but it’s also characteristic of the ongoing climate catastrophe, of the erosion of voting rights, of the threats to trans kids and the families and health care professionals and educators who affirm them, of outbursts of horrific racist violence, of school shootings, of giant steps back when it comes to women’s bodily autonomy. It happens, then it happens again, then it just keeps happening.

Since I now spend a good part of each day in my studio painting I have used stair-running and any other indoor opportunity (like flopping down on the rug to do yoga) to convince myself that I am getting enough exercise. Yet in the back of my head there is this niggling idea that I need to get outside… that “outside” is somehow critical to living well, which is probably why I was drawn to reading the latest two studies on mental health and green environments. “Pretty-pretty” amazing as Larry David would say.

You know this is serious when the insurance companies get involved. Follow the money, right? Still Philadelphia is to be commended for finding out if something mattered vs. apply band-aids.

Below is an excerpt of the article.

The Incredible Link Between Nature and Your Emotions

Outside article by Aaron Reuben

Imagine that the day you were born you were assigned a personal code, much like a Social Security number. You used this code when you enrolled in school, visited your doctor, filled a prescription, paid your taxes, got married, got divorced. But unlike a Social Security number, this code tracked your every move, inscribed in a massive system of interlocking data registers that could tell a researcher almost anything they wanted to know about your life. Such a personal identification system is the norm in Nordic countries, where the government provides a wide net of services for its citizens and consequently monitors their health, needs, and use of public services. This year, researchers in Denmark used this system to generate the largest and most comprehensive observational study of mental health and the environment yet undertaken: one million young adults, or everyone born in Denmark from 1985 to 2003 and still living there by their tenth birthday.

by Vicki Panagotacos

The ability to vote is likely to be compromised in 17 states even though Marco Rubio recently said no proposed legislation in this country will keep a person from voting. It’s a matter of degree folks, as you well know. A slight of hand, but a human tragedy because those who suppress a voter’s right to vote are getting away with murder without being charged.

Granted the “black situation” in America took a long time to create and it’s not going to be easy or pleasant to improve. But if we continue to ignore it, can we at least stop pretending that our policies focus on the human dignity for all.

Can We Stop Being Hypocrites?

In 2015 Ted Cruz said on Christian Broadcasting Network, “If Christians will simply show up and vote our values, we’ll turn this country around.” I must say the comment is rather stunning considering his current approach.

Frankly, the Christian Conservatives behind this recent move must have gotten a hall pass from Jesus. In any case they are taking advantage of the luck of the draw – i.e., they weren’t born black.

Putting aside America’s earlier right to enslave another human being, why can’t we be decent – now – and make it easy for every citizen in this country to have the dignity of the vote?

If you want less crime in black neighborhoods and inner cities, if you want “them” off the street corners and employed, if you want “them” busy being educated and trained to make a decent living so they aren’t inclined to steal—one would think you can’t at the same time support limiting a person’s ability to vote in state and national elections.

I am not saying you should feel safe in poorer black neighborhoods at night. Jesse Jackson, when running for office, spoke in SF and admitted: “If I am walking down a dark street alone at night and someone is following me, I’d rather it be a white man than a black man.”

That’s the way it is – but who set this up to happen? Turn that pointed index finger of yours around, folks.