Monthly Archives: January 2015

The Many Birds of Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

crns-yellw-use

By Bob Wells – SOCARRO, N.M. — Back in November I went over to Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Recreation area near Socorro, New Mexico for the Festival of the Cranes. It’s held every year to celebrate the arrival of the Sandhill Cranes to their winter home. I wanted to get the chance to photograph…

Mobile Residents Say No to Canadian Tar Sands Crude Oil Tank Farms

unnamed (7)

Will the City Government Side With the People or Industry? By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — The citizens of Mobile, especially those in the historic Africatown community along with members of the Mobile Bay Sierra Club, have held public meetings and spoken up: They do not want the Mobile Planning Commission and the City…

President Obama’s Job Approval Rating Hits 50 Percent

kkzq-smrq0yvj8vjsq7xqa

By Glynn Wilson – Less than a week after President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address to a new Republican-dominated Congress, his job approval rating reached 50 percent in Gallup’s daily tracking poll, the first time since June 2013. Three months ago, in mid-October, only 39 percent of Americans approved of Obama’s…

Obama Administration Proposes Further Wilderness Protections for Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-summer

Recommends Largest Ever Wilderness Designation to Protect Pristine Habitat – WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama’s administration moved this week to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, widely considered one of the most spectacular and remote areas in the world. The Department of the Interior is releasing a conservation plan for the refuge that…

Politicians Say the Darndest Things

o-MIKE-HUBBARD-ALABAMA-facebook.jpg

Education Matters – By Larry Lee – Some of us can recall when Art Linkletter did a segment on his radio show called “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” He would ask questions of children and in their wonderful innocence they would give answers that often made us laugh. I read or hear comments from politicians…

The New Compassionate Conservatism and Trickle-Down Economics

Jeb_Bush514a

By Robert Reich – Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney are zeroing in on inequality as America’s fundamental economic problem. Bush’s new Political Action Committee, called “The Right to Rise,” declares “the income gap is real” but that “only conservative principles can solve it.” Mitt Romney likewise promised last week that if he runs for president…

Why Wages Won’t Rise

portrait

By Robert Reich – Jobs are coming back, but pay isn’t. The median wage is still below where it was before the Great Recession. Last month, average pay actually fell. What’s going on? It used to be that as unemployment dropped, employers had to pay more to attract or keep the workers they needed. That’s…

President Obama is America’s Political Jackie Robinson

105_small

By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — How can I explain this in a way everyone will understand, including conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats and the national and state press corps? President Barack Obama is and must be our political Jackie Robinson. You may recall or have heard that Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson was the first…

The Fiftieth Anniversary in Selma: A Once In a Lifetime Experience

Hank_Sanders1a

By Hank Sanders – It’s a once in a lifetime experience! I know you have heard that statement before, but this really is a once in a lifetime experience. It’s once in a lifetime because it happens only once. It’s once in a lifetime because it’s so big. It’s once in a lifetime because it’s…

President Obama Delivers 2015 State of the Union Address

1-USIIGtkypiwhO6W4o8cwIw

Watch the Video Read the Text There is a ritual on State of the Union night in Washington. A little before the address, the White House sends out an embargoed copy of the President’s speech to the press (embargoed means that the press can see the speech, but they can’t report on it until a…

Selma the Film: Clearing Up the Controversies

-3610720303813552

By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — If you are really any kind of patriotic American — Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, libertarian, whatever — you must be willing to acknowledge that what happened in Alabama and Washington in 1965 was a pivotal moment in U.S. and world history. By “pivotal” I do not…

Studies Show 2014 Was the Warmest Year On Record

warming2014

By Glynn Wilson – The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest on record since 1880, according to two separate analyses by scientists from NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000, they say in a release just out…

U.S.S. Alabama Battleship Memorial Park Enshrouded in Fog

MobileBay_fog1k

MOBILE, Ala. — A strange fog converged on the Mobile County side of Mobile Bay on Monday even into the afternoon, creating an interesting lighting situation at the U.S.S. Alabama Battleship Memorial Park. It was not the “fog of war” created by smoke from exploding shell from the weapons of war, but I suspect an…

Signs of an Obama Revival?

2415152-obama

By Nicholas Sheppard – After a year and a half of poor poll numbers, a Republican takeover of both houses of Congress, a sluggish economic recovery and numerous problems abroad, President Obama’s fortunes may be changing going into 2015. His job approval rating has been trending up in general in recent weeks, reaching 48 percent…

Draconian Neoliberalism: International and Domestic

Milton_Friedman

By Heather Gray – ATLANTA, Ga. — With the new Republican Congress being seated in January 2015 there is no doubt that there will be efforts to further expand neoliberal (politically conservative) policies at the expense of us all. In fact, the political right wing has been trying to erode the government’s “collective” benefits of…

Why Let the Facts Get in the Way of Propaganda?

political_spin_photo_1

Education Matters – By Larry Lee – The word “spin” has several meanings. Grandpa thinks it is what you do when you test drive a new car. Grandma says it’s what the washing machine does. And the soccer mom does it when she goes to the health club. But political types know it is the…