News

In the last few days swallows returned to nests under the bridge on the bike path. A friend at Mammoth Mountain CA, heard the long eerie call of the common loon and the drumming of a Williamson sapsucker on April 12th. A cousin in Chippewa Falls, WI heard a loon call 2 weeks ago, before it continued north. Plum, apple, cherry, and lilacs all are blooming and spreading their sweet, full aromas. Irises are abloom. Blackbirds and meadow larks have been back for several weeks. But there was still good snow last week up by the continental divide for crosscountry skiing. Ospreys mate and nest by Longmont. Click here to watch them. My grandfather, who lived by a lake in Wisconsin, wrote the dates on the wall when the ice would form in the fall and when it would break up in the spring. In Wisconsin, we would listen in the spring when the whippoorwill called as it stopped in the wetland on its way north. Here in Boulder, I get excited when the poorwills return to the foothills. Also, the crossbills are neat as they pass thru. Phenology is observing and recording the changes in nature. Birds and animals migrate and mate, plants bloom There are groups you can share you observations with.

New palm oil plantations threaten orangutans, elephants, rhinos, and cause global warming. Write a letter to demand change here. Read about it here. See which products to avoid here.

Proposed nickel-copper-sulfide mines threaten the rivers, Lake Superior, wildlife, and the Chippewa native communities. Over 1,000 acres of wetlands would be destroyed, and the fish and wild rice would be threatened. Also, oppose a land swap of federal national forest to become state land that would primarily logged and mined for profit without concern for wildlife, fish, forest, or recreation. LINK

In camping out, the students remind me of the cardboard shantytown that students built and lived in 26 years ago to pressure the CU adminstrators to divest from companies doing business with apartheid South Africa. Here is an article on the protest. We printed the divest t-shirts for the CU students. And 26 years ago, Jimmy Walker perched atop the extension ladder that he had roped to the cardboard shantytown, so that if the cardboard structure were removed, then he would plummet.

Protestors arrested at BP today. Last night, I saw a great documentary, The Great Invisible, about the oil, shrimp, and oyster workers harmed by BP oil. People are out of work, hungry, and not receiving support from BP. Yet some neighbors are gathering and distributing food to hungry families. Such a contrast between the needy Gulf residents and the powerful oil companies. I recall Tony Hayward, the BP president, complaining about the spill making him miss a yacht race- what a contrast versus the people out of work, and the fish, turtles, whales and dolphins dead. The FB movie site has scary updates on the spill.

Democracy Now shows an article on and interviews with Galeano. He fled military dictatorships because he didn't want to be in a jail ," to lay in a cemetery... as death is very boring" . He wrote of "our possible greatness, our possible beauty" and to remind us of the exploitation that has been done to us. "Torture is not to get information, it is to spread fear. Freedom and Slavery are intimately connected. Wars and invasions and coups are done in the name of democracy against democracy." He loved the playfulness of soccer, of language, of people, of stories.