Food Foraging Friday? Not pretty cakes and pies. A Rant

20,000 children die everyday from starvation.  Unicef estimates, this is from 2010, that number to be 25,000, and they should know. 

You may have seen this on Pinterest:

Whatever that number is, It's HUGE!

And being vegan doesn't really help this.  But a keen and caring awareness does. 
Don't let that "Circus McGurcus" in Washington distract you from this reality.   We need to protect our children. 

This Earth is a tiny speck of blue, way out on the edge of a Galaxy. and at the edge of the Universe.  We should be able to feed the people who are here.  We have the resources, we just lack the will!

Live in the US?  We have hungry ones here, too.  Little kids who go to bed hungry every night.  When I was a teacher's aide, I was given the assignment of taking some of these kids, one on one, to just talk about life with them, and so I know they didn't get to eat either breakfast or sometimes dinner. 

It's gotten worse and worse for them as their parents cannot find work to sustain their families.  This was caused by Financial Giants who haven't given a damn since before the banks collapsed in 2008. 
Ladies, we have a job to do. 

We really need to do this for the kids, ours, and "theirs".  Theirs includes some pretty important present and future leaders who want to make a world community that WORKS.  We can't afford to be greedy about this, or clueless.  There is no escape.  There is no Space vehicle.  We can't take "It", what ever that is, with us no matter what we try.   

Tuesday Tails.. What to do if you can't adopt an animal in need.....

All these things help.  All of them. And the more you can do, the more you can help.

For Rats and other Rodents (Hamsters and Mice) or Large birds:
Contact the groups that foster or rescue them.  Unless the Humane Society has told you they can both accept AND find them new homes, don't take them there.  Some ASPCA or USHS facilities aren't equipped to care for or foster these tiny relinquished pets.

 Hope you have a great week.. A Kind one.... no hassles or nasty surprises. 

Wordless Wednesday....

Bits of knitting blah blah. And, wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day ...

Knitting short fingered gloves, and I found this marvelous video about joining yarn and solving problematic holes, too.  This technique is the closest to the one I learned many years ago when first making mittens for my older daughters.  It can be used to close the top and bottom gaps in the fingers, too.  Now, to get some 5 inch #5 double points!




What I'm knitting now.. It's a washable wool/acrylic blend and I'm making short fingered gloves for patients in the cancer ward at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz.  I have a ton of yarn, and that's what I'll be doing.  Knitting it up....

Happy Valentine's Day y'all..

NYT Story: Woman who rescues cats who ran from fires in Sonoma.

This work is noteworthy.  So much Kindness.....  I hope that you will be inspired in some way by this.  Communities can survive if enough people step up and help.  No matter WHAT is going on in Washington, help in your communities when it's needed Heals the Heart...

Cat Rescue after the Sonoma fires

TEST

I'm adding this as a test... It's a Mule fat plant from the Nature Interpretive Center in Mission Trails Park.  Google is a poot!  But flickr is great!  at least I hope they are as great as I think they are.. We'll see!

Flickr Is GREAT!

Faith.....

Faith is quiet.
Doubt is loud.

Faith is supple.
Doubt is stern.

Faith is calm.
Doubt is angry.

Faith faults self.
Doubt faults other.

You must have faith to understand this.

Everyone says they have faith, but few do.

Skillful discipleship means distinguishing the faithful from the fearful.


From Rusty Ring's blog, on the 10th ....


Myself?  I also listen in the quiet, and Await....  

Monday Musings: Whose Memorial Day?

Remember to be Kind to each other.....we're all going to need this in the days to come!

You're going to need your friends because the government has  revealed, glaringly, that it lies on even the most elemental levels. Let's talk "Recruitment", for instance.... These soldiers, and hundreds like them, were green card holders, legal residents, and "dreamers".

Mexicans who served in the United States Army in Vietnam and Iraq under the promise of becoming citizens and ended up as deportees take part in a protest while commemorating the Memorial Day, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on the border with El Paso, Texas, on May 29, 2017. (AFP PHOTO / HERIKA)

An excerpt from the Washington Post article:

Seven members of Congress are planning to do that on Saturday during a visit to Tijuana, Mexico to meet with U.S. military veterans who’ve been deported south of the border. The veterans are either green-card holders, or legal permanent residents, or “dreamers” who’ve been deported because they committed minor, nonviolent crimes or somehow got caught up in the immigration system’s cross hairs. In most cases, they were eligible for citizenship but didn’t pursue it or misunderstood that the applications process wouldn’t be any easier for them just because they served in uniform.

The lawmakers, all Democrats and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, plan to visit the Deported Veterans Support House in hopes of building support for legislation that would allow the veterans to return to the United States, obtain a green card and eventually apply for citizenship.

Read about this in the Washington Post HERE

If we cannot, as a Country, keep our word to our soldiers, we are defunct as a Nation of Honor.  I personally know that recruiters for the armed services mislead young men into believing that they would be made U.S. citizens if they served this country.  Instead, hundreds were deported after their service.  

Friday, and it's time to stand on the back porch and yell, " TGIF!"

Rusty Ring, a blogger I follow, posted the link below today.

Frankly, I hope that "How to be Perfectly Unhappy" goes Viral!

Make it so, Mr. Sulu!

All about Animals: Humans are animals too; remember this, always. The Tails, and Tongues, of the Borg are forked....pass it on

Do you like these little beetles?

Our children's Brains?

Past EPA Actions taken for the poison Chlorpyrifos

This is an excerpt from the above article:

"To address health and environmental risks from chlorpyrifos exposure, the following restrictions have been placed on pesticide products containing chlorpyrifos:

• In June 2000, we eliminated all homeowner uses, except ant and roach baits in child resistant packaging and fire ant mound treatments. In addition, termiticide uses were phased out.
• In 2000, we required that all uses of chlorpyrifos products in the U.S. be discontinued on tomatoes. Use on apples was restricted to pre-bloom and dormant application. The grape tolerance (maximum residue level) was lowered to reflect the labeled dormant application.
• In 2002, we limited the use of chlorpyrifos on citrus and tree nuts as well other crops.
• In 2012, we further limited the use of chlorpyrifos by significantly lowering pesticide application rates and creating “no-spray” buffer zones around public spaces, including recreational areas and homes.

Over the past several years, we have conducted several risk assessments and taken regulatory action in response to a petition from the Pesticide Action Network of North America and Natural Resources Defense Council. In March 2017, we denied that petition, which asked us to revoke all pesticide tolerances (maximum residue levels in food) for chlorpyrifos and cancel all chlorpyrifos registrations. As a part of the ongoing registration review, we will continue to review the science addressing neurodevelopmental effects of chlorpyrifos. Read the Federal Register notice announcing our response to the petition."

The following is a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

"For Immediate Release, April 21, 2017

Contact: Brett Hartl, (202) 817-8121, bhartl@biologicaldiversity.org

Public Records Sought on Dow’s Efforts to Pressure Trump Administration Over Pesticides, Endangered Species

WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity submitted Freedom of Information Act requests this week seeking public records from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Commerce to illuminate reports about how Dow Chemical is pressuring the Trump administration to abandon efforts to protect endangered species from pesticides.

Last week Dow asked the Trump administration to scrap a nearly completed four-year effort to protect endangered species from Dow’s insecticide chlorpyrifos. In January the EPA announced that its scientists had determined the highly toxic pesticide is likely to harm 97 percent of the approximately 1,800 listed threatened and endangered animals and plants found in the United States. (Italic's are mine.)

“American taxpayers have a right to know exactly how Dow Chemical is profiting from the ever-deepening corporate swamp in our nation’s capital,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center. “It’s detestable that Dow and the Trump administration have so little respect for the health of our children and environment.”

Over the past six years, Dow has donated $11 million to congressional campaigns and political action committees, and has spent an additional $75 million lobbying Congress. In January 2017 Dow was one of three companies that donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration. President Trump named Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris as the head of the American Manufacturing Council in his administration. Liveris praised Trump by stating that Trump is making the United States “not a red-tape country, but a red-carpet country for America’s businesses.”

 Trump, who referred to Liveris as “my friend Andrew,” gave Liveris his pen after signing the executive order mandating that agencies create so-called “regulatory reform task forces.” Several weeks ago, the EPA shocked public health advocates by abruptly scrapping a proposed ban on chlorpyrifos, which is known to cause brain damage in children.

“Dow spent millions on congressional campaigns, the president’s coronation and lobbying Congress and now it’s looking for its payback,” said Hartl. “The disgusting backroom efforts to sidestep the Endangered Species Act are the latest proof of just how hostile Trump’s closest industry buddies are toward common-sense protections for our environment.”

In December 2016 Liveris criticized the EPA’s ground-level ozone pollution and renewable standards for utilities, while agreeing with a climate-change-denier that carbon dioxide is “an inert compound” and should not be regulated by the EPA.

During his tenure as the CEO of Dow, his company was assessed $6.5 million in fines by the EPA since 2010, including serious violations of the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

Over the same time period, Dow AgroSciences — the division that manufactures pesticides — has been assessed four separate penalties for violating the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.


The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.2 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places."

Yes, but did we not just blow half the Afghani herds, and their minders, up with this Mega whatzit Bomb?

The goat herds of Afghanistan can yield big money, if the country's ever left alone to do it.

Read about it HERE

Didn't Heifer International have a big drive to replace all the goats that had been killed by the bombing in Afghanistan?  I seem to remember it and donated to it myself.

What's that old song line?

"We did it before and we can do it again!"

Awful Injury and a new chance at a happy life... Dog rescue

People who do this work make my world.  The just make my World.  It shows just how kind so many of us are.  

Halloweeeen memee! Sunday Stealing.

Welcome back to Sunday Stealing which originated on WTIT: The Blog authored by Bud Weiser. Here we will steal all types of memes from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent memes. You may have heard the expression, “honor amongst thieves”. In that age-old tradition, we try to credit the blog that we stole it from. We also provide a link to the victim's meme in our "Previous Victims" widget. (It's our way of saying "Thanks!") Sometimes we edit the original meme, to make it more relevant to our global players, to challenge our players, to select the best questions, or simply to make it less repetitive from this new meme or recently asked questions from a previously featured meme.  
Cheers to all of us thieves!!! 

Halloween Meme

From the archives 

1. What is the worst treat to get when trick-or-treating? 
 That would have to be a was...  And it would be from a couple of strange people on a pitch black porch, who had us stick our hands into a big deep bowl of black oatmeal.   They were pretty much having a good time, probably with booze, and they laughed and laughed at us.  They gave us the ONLY trick I've ever had played on me on Halloween.  Nasty! Nasty! Nasty! lol!

2. What character from any horror film would you most like to play?
I want to play Meryl Streep's witch from the movie, "Into the Woods". 

Source: Chris Woods on Tumblr

3. Would you rather be a zombie, alien, or psycho? (why) 
I'd rather be an Alien because I think I like them better than a rotting human being or a crazy one.  I'd like to be an EWOK.  

This one, called Wicket

4. How many Halloween, Friday the 13th, or Nightmare on Elm Street movies combined do you have on dvd? 
Zero.  We have things like "6th Sense", and "Alien", and "PitchBlack".  Those are scary enough.  

5. What is the scariest movie you have ever seen?
 Well, since you've asked and you did it so nicely I'll say again that I think the movie, "No Country for Old Men" is just about the scariest thing I've seen.

6. Lamest costume you have worn on Halloween? 
In my adult life I've been to one costume party, and that was as an airline pilot.  That costume was a masterpiece.

7. Favorite Halloween treat? 
Tiny Mounds bars

 8. Friendly-faced jack o’lantern or scary one? 
Friendly.  I don't want to scare the little kids away now do I? 

 9. Have you ever had nightmares about a scary movie character chasing you? 
Not that I can remember.  I'm not afraid of clowns so that's 75% of the complaints anyway, right?

Scary Clown Stories for Kids Page

 10. Best thing about Halloween? 
Halloween gives kids and families and neighbors all a good time.  I love to hand out candies and praise costumes.  I even like the teens!

 11. Strangest Halloween custom you’ve heard of? 
Making cake heads that look like skulls and then eating them.  My daughters love this day and Bee is making a cake to celebrate The Day of the Dead.

This is a cake but don't eat the sugar skulls
They are not for eating.

And they also for the  Dia de los Muertos.  and really quite a beautiful day.  

 12. Person in your family who most likes Halloween (not counting yourself)? 
My family is all grown up and so we like to hand out candy but don't dress for it anymore.  Well, maybe my witch's had gets a dusting off.  

 13. Are you superstitious? If so, name at least one superstition of yours. 
I'm not superstitious.

This one is from YouTube and she want's you, she reaaally ,br> wants to eat your brains.

 14. What's your best Halloween memory? 
Working at the school and running a booth for balloons when I was an adult.

 15. At what age were you allowed to go trick-or-treating by yourself?
I was about nearly 9 and had my little brother with me who had just turned 6.  But we just went around our own neighborhood.  Things were different for little kids then.  Safer and more fun.  Now parents have to have eyes in back of their heads.  

Happy Halloween.. Stay away from those clowns if you know what's good for you!  Buhahahaha!

Nasty Business-Be Warned! Tuesday Tales: cat meat in suburbia? Mon Dieu!

I was raised on a farm, and had a lot of unpleasant chores to perform, and also saw some brutal things happen around me, like the killing of dogs and cats by psycho dad. But, we were never forced to eat them.  But their killing, let me tell you, was horrific and it's something you NEVER want to see.

For their safety in the cities and burbs, , please, please do keep the kitties inside, and don't let the dogs out alone either!

  Just reading about this makes me sick, and I don't want to keep my mouth shut and be sick anymore!   So I'm sharing it to make true the saying that a trouble shared is a trouble halved.  Yes, I know, thanks ever SO much, Mz. Zippi!

 

A wiki page on the ugly world of CAT MEAT.   Don't shoot the messenger.

 No, I haven't lost my mind.  I am just very upset and concerned is all.   

Tuesday Tails... The tale of a Tortoise who ran out of the fire.

Suzi sent me a better picture of this when it happened, and here is a follow up of the story

This LINK goes to the ABC website.

It's a heartwarming story in view of how destructive the fires were.  Animal Rescue workers and police worked tirelessly to get as many animals out of the threatened areas before the fires struck.

here's Wolfie, who always manages to wedge his chunky little body next to mine in the recliner.

And when it's a little hot, he wiggles out for the cooler part of the arm.

Some of our pets from long ago:  Little Clipper.  He was a wonderful little dog .
We had him for about 10 years before he was hit by a car.
A little child saw him in the yard at one of my friend's houses, and she let "him out to play."  I'm very glad she wasn't hurt.

#

Tobie, our first rescue doggie.
She was  tiny, born without a tail, and was
 sweet, and naturally playful

There is Spider Louie, named for the spider pattern on his sides,

Jazzie loved the RV, and Loved to go on rides, just the way that Wolfie does.  My poor dog Shadow would get car sick, but he would always go.

Jazz at 2 years

Jazzie: in the snap Jasper is about 10 years old.  He liked riding up on Mr. Z.'s arm all over Quartszite.

When Jasper was only  four months old and weighed all of a pound, a seller at one of the booths in Quartzsite gave me a little polished stone on a chain.  It had Jazzie's colors in it.  It also had googly eyes glued on it,  The seller pointed to my eyes and to his own, and said, "Keep your eyes on him, indicating Jazzie.
He was such a nice man, and we heeded his words for the rest of Jasper' life.


That's all for now.  Hope you enjoyed the small stories and some pictures of our pets from long ago, and a few more pictures of Wolfie.

An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton... Ann Arbor Quakers' Meeting....

I consider this a Humanitarian Post:  That's not Political, or shouldn't be.

Quaker Meeting Peace for Palestine, no more no less. It's time to REALLY Save the Children!

I'm carrying on a long family tradition.  I want this heartache to end where it was started.

If you would like to sign Dr. Helen Fox's petition, please feel free to use the link to her website.

We need to change the way things are done in this wicked world.  Children ALWAYS pay too big a price for Adult failures.  It's time this ended.

Ann Arbor Friends Meeting Peace for Palestine website.

Women of the World, Unite!

What do we want?

When do I want it?

For Heaven's Sake, let's at least do this for the sake of the children!

Wordless Wednesday:

Amazingly Brave.....

See More Tanker Runs here

This Photo is from the Corona Fire Department's team. C/o SuzieQz

This Tuesday Tails is a little different: Lest we Forget, The Unsung Little Heroes of Animal Testing

You will find 7 of these little hero groups, and short Bios of each, HERE

Thank you to all the people who worked so hard on this issue from the get go.  I won't ever forget your hard work and dedication to lessening this unnecessary suffering.

Sweet Baby

I am glad that the use of animals is declining in every industry, and may it never, EVER be used in cosmetics testing in the very near future.  Some things are just absolutely uncalled for and cruel.

Saturday Remembrances....A very special song....

played and sung on a very special piano, by a courageous man in mourning...

I feel this video deserves  to be shared worldwide...  I'm upping it to a wider place.  Please pass this message around.  We need to become everything we are supposed to be, and not what too many of us have become.

The back story is a remembrance of two tragedies.....  One for the player/singer's young son, and the death of John Lennon.