On May 17, over 100 residents from across Los Angeles joined hands at Hands Across the Harbor in the Port of LA as part of the National Day of Action Against the Keystone XL Pipeline and Hands Across the Sand/Land. It was one of hundreds of synchronized events to raise awareness about the dangers of dirty fuels including tar sands and hydraulic fracturing or fracking, active threats to Harbor area residents.
Recent Posts
Decommissioning San Onofre: Money Over Meltdown
San Onofre’s nuclear reactors are permanently shut down. However, Southern California Edison has left tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste that will remain on site for decades, if not longer. San Onofre’s spent fuel contains 89 times the amount of radiation (Cesium-137) released from Chernobyl. What is being done to rectify this situation?
Sprawl vs. Open Space: “Rio Santiago” Again Threatens Orange
Jack Eidt writes on the dangers of proposing mixed use development far from urban amenities and alternative transportation. The real estate industry in Orange County, California and beyond, has consistently violated engineering and planning wisdom by building in floodplains, paving over precious open space land and losing opportunities to preserve wildlife habitat and recreation opportunities amid the suburban sprawl at the edge of the wilderness.
Chumash Story: Seeds of Creation and the Rainbow Bridge
Hutash, the Earth Mother, created the first Chumash people on the island of Limuw, now known as Santa Cruz Island. They were made from the seeds of a Magic Plant.
Music of the Tree Rings: Sound of a Wild Forest
Austrian media artist Bartholomäus Traubeck has custom-built a record player that is able to “play” cross-sectional slices of tree trunks. The result is his art piece “Years,” an audio recording of tree rings being read by a computer and turned into music, much like a record player’s needle reads the grooves on an LP.
Walkabout: Following Songlines Beyond the Western Frame
Walkabout, vision quest, walking in Dreamtime, all of it refers to a particular rite of passage from the indigenous Australians, but also in evidence in animist cultures throughout the world. The 1971 film of the same name narrates a young woman and her brother’s journey beyond their Western frame, but never quite able to follow the ancestor paths, or songlines, of the land.
The Psychological Cost of a Hotter World: More Suicides
Using Phoenix, Arizona, as an example of where global warming has resulted in inhuman heat and extreme weather, Jerry Adler in Smithsonian wonders if human beings will be able to keep their cool? New research suggests not.