Recent Posts

Cuernavaca, under the volcano
Literary

Death By Misadventure: Malcolm Lowry’s Gin-Sopped Volcano

Malcolm Lowry’s 1947 masterpiece “Under the Volcano,” about the fervid last hours of an alcoholic ex-diplomat in Mexico, is set to the drumbeat of coming internal and external conflict. Autobiographical and reflective of the expatriated trust-funder in a futile search for an artistic home, the perpetually inebriated master got lost along the road toward his own abyss, and died under suspicious circumstances, out-of-print.

fluoridated water, dangers to health
Environmental Health

Fluoride Dangers in Drinking Water: Our Daily Dose

Is drinking water fluoridation safe and effective? New science reveals that fluoride is a developmental neurotoxin and an endocrine disruptor. The CDC tells us that drinking fluoride decreases tooth decay, at best, by 25%. Is one less cavity worth risking a child’s long-term brain and thyroid health? Watch the film “Our Daily Dose” and read the critique by Paul Connett.

drug trafficking in Honduras
Political Geography

Drug Trafficking in Honduras: Corruption a Multinational Affair

In the nightmare of corruption, murder and impunity that is post coup d’état Honduras, many political and economic sectors of the “international community,” foremost the U.S. and Canada, maintain beneficial relations with drug trafficking and related enterprises. Rights Action ?shares Karen Spring’s dissection of a recent U.S. money laundering bust in Miami of the Rosenthals, one of Honduras’ elite families.

Taylor Yard, LA River, Los Angeles
Urban Land

L.A. River Must Transform as Watershed, Transportation Corridor

Takeaways from a recent Green Festival Expo discussion on the Los Angeles River Revitalization include that the job of planning for water resiliency belongs to all of us, not Frank Gehry regardless of his recent charge, and we must also consider how public access, parkland, ecosystem restoration, cargo and passenger rail, bicycle greenways, and anti-gentrification environmental justice will fit into the mix. Collaboration is the key.

greater sage-grouse, Sagebrush Sea
Wildlife

Protecting the Sage-Grouse in a Sea of Natural Gas

While stopping short of full endangered species protections for the Greater Sage-Grouse, the Obama-era Fish and Wildlife Service implemented land use plans to restrict energy development and grazing in the expanse of northwestern U.S. desert called the Sagebrush Sea, depicted in a 2015 documentary. The Trump Interior Department attempted to amend that plan to open up more commercial activities. We feature here an essay on Wyoming’s core plan attempts to salvage the state’s last populations in a landscape dominated by energy development.