tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-107583112024-03-13T10:20:39.636-07:00Floating ArkKeeping Hope AfloatJaphethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.comBlogger158125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-72956709475708696972011-06-02T14:23:00.000-07:002011-06-02T16:40:34.240-07:00Politics of CoalYesterday, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gave a speech to the Kentucky Coal Association. In it the Senate Minority Leader assailed the EPA for it's "war on coal" claiming it cost America new jobs and access to cheaper energy.Actually, the EPA is doing exactly what it was created to do: protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-54217500617491431022009-11-19T11:19:00.000-08:002009-11-19T12:44:46.326-08:00Power of the PedalYou might not think that a person could haul over 800 lbs. of produce, pies or party supplies, on a bicycle but you'd be wrong.In an age dominated by "light trucks" and SUVs you'd be surprised by what we can haul around on a trike (thats bike slang for tricycle). The CS Monitor reports on a growing service in Boston that's taking the pollution out of delivery.In a city choked with diesel-spewing Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-52298362750444481072009-08-01T17:39:00.000-07:002009-08-01T18:38:52.759-07:00UnemploymentRecently, I joined the ranks of the unemployed. It's nice to know that I'm not alone. Its a first for me, and the experience has forced me to look beyond the fragile facade that screams to settle for any job anyplace to make sure the spending habits of my lifestyle go unchanged. Instead, I'm looking at my spending habits and forcing them to adapt in this new situation."Employment" as defined by Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-42180044222162917332009-01-20T21:49:00.001-08:002009-01-20T21:57:16.144-08:00Rev. Lowery's Inaugural benedictionOne of the best benedictions I've ever heard.God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-2593534035814737102009-01-13T12:25:00.000-08:002009-01-13T16:17:02.848-08:00Coal comes home to roostJust when we were all beginning to warm to the idea of "clean coal" and a modern energy future that even the Jetsons would marvel at, King Coal goes and ruins it.Within the last month two significant highly toxic waste spills have wrecked parts of the southern Appalachia and Tennessee Valley. The waste is what the coal industry calls "coal ash" and "slurry." Coal ash is a toxic sludge that Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-14429505296067195472008-12-24T22:08:00.000-08:002008-12-24T22:47:25.767-08:00My MoreyI wrote this yesterday evening. I decided to paste it here as well. I wanted to share it not just to tell the world about Morey, but also to allow others who have lost a much-loved pet to share their own thoughts. I hope you will.============================When I arrived home for Christmas yesterday, I knew my family's yellow lab was getting into her later years but I wasn't at all prepared for Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-33524538266461749142008-10-26T15:38:00.000-07:002008-10-26T15:48:25.079-07:00Anchorage Daily News endorses ObamaI'm sure Governor Palin isn't happy about this. But perhaps we should be taking the advice of those that know her the most -- her own capital newspaper. While they avoid Palin and frame the argument (correctly) around Senator McCain's weaknesses, the final paragraph reveals their real concerns about the McCain/Palin ticket.Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-83672976134178952932008-08-09T14:11:00.000-07:002008-08-09T14:16:33.414-07:00America's Sexual Obsession: My reaction to EdwardsOver the last two days I've been asked by just about everyone I know (and those I don't) how I feel about the recent news surrounding John Edwards. Since I worked for over a year on his presidential campaign it's a valid question and one that I take quite seriously. I wanted to write down my response for those of you that may be interested in how this news has affected someone who sacrificed a Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-16428823456947252592008-05-11T13:12:00.000-07:002008-05-11T15:19:16.749-07:00Pangea Day: What we all sharePangea Day went by without very much media attention (although it is possible that the rock I live under shielded me from actual coverage) yesterday and I stumbled upon the website and looked a little more closely at what it was all about.What I love about Pangea Day is that its about re-connecting us as world citizens and using the power of film and the internet, to show what we all have in Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-21322290824630469902008-05-07T12:15:00.000-07:002008-05-07T13:24:12.641-07:00Obama's PenetrationI was watching SportsCenter the other night (not all that uncommon but certainly not a habit) and during a piece highlighting the Ohio State football team I was fairly shocked to hear the players talk about Barack Obama's stump speech -- specifically his reference to Dr. Martin Luther King's phrase, "the fierce urgency of now." The football team, doggedly avoiding the label of "chokers" after Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-86718655573340327242008-05-06T10:29:00.000-07:002008-05-06T11:03:45.342-07:00Cyclone in MyanmarMyanmar (Burma) was hit by a devastating cyclone (what we call a hurricane -- it just spins in the opposite direction) yesterday. Up to 23,000 are reported dead and more than 40,000 are missing. To get a sense of the scale of flooding and the power of the storm, the before and after shots of the Irawaddy River are shocking. If you'd like to donate to help support the relief going on there you canJaphethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-37007945081213950382008-05-05T14:17:00.000-07:002008-05-05T15:14:15.795-07:00Burma Can't WaitA host of Hollywood celebrities are banning together to raise awareness on the human rights disaster happening right now in Burma. Will Ferrell is lending his voice to the cause and put up a video about it below. What I found impressive was how Ferrell toed the line and was able to keep the message light-hearted and humorous even if the topic and main point were anything from funny. It shows his Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-17026770931257067022008-04-25T14:22:00.000-07:002008-04-25T15:21:39.377-07:00Nader in 2008I just received an update from the Nader/Gonzalez webteam and I must say it was bold. In it, they link directly to the DNC asking people to "give them some more money," if you believe they are the solution to an ailing nation. That's pretty ballsy -- typical email fundraising strategy is pretty clear on NOT linking to your competitor's website. Nader's email pretty much just puts it all out thereJaphethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-11728015818252235452008-04-25T01:22:00.000-07:002008-04-25T02:20:31.026-07:00A Real GroceryI lived in Berkeley for about year in 2005. I got to know parts of Oakland through friends that lived there and events and activities going on around the East Bay. The poverty of West Oakland is real and yet can seem distant and far off when you're being whisked through it on a BART train.
The People's Grocery is in that part of West Oakland where dozens of liquor stores are always two blocks Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-79813971688212619362008-04-23T00:11:00.000-07:002008-04-23T01:06:42.546-07:00A Texas-Sized ProblemSome of you may have heard about the garbage patch of the Pacific ocean discovered recently by scientists examining water quality between California and Japan. Its an astounding story of the actual imprint we are leaving on our world and how its coming back to haunt us in more ways then one. Some folks over at VBS.tv, as part of their Toxic Series, took a 3-week trip with scientists studying the Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-45080060542820115882008-04-18T19:24:00.000-07:002008-04-18T19:56:26.146-07:00EdWordsThis guy is amazing. I'm sad his outstanding platform is being buried by Obama and Hillary bickering about who's more bitter. At least this guy keeps his eyes on the prize when it comes to fighting for universal healthcare, solving poverty and the working and middle class of America. Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-57625015004571342892008-04-10T09:55:00.000-07:002008-04-14T22:20:00.111-07:00China, the Olympics and TibetI've heard some interesting arguments over the past two days on why we should allow China to host the Olympic Summer Games in a few months, effectively ignoring their human rights record. I thought I'd address some of them here: "We shouldn't make the Olympics political"It's easy not to make the Olympics political when the host country isn't guilty of human rights abuses. It's easy when the host Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-33579029689263718722008-04-09T17:15:00.000-07:002008-04-10T09:54:52.902-07:00Parade of the Vanishing TorchJust got back from a long day chasing the "disappearing torch" across San Francisco. There were over 6,000 protesters that turned out and about as many ethnic Chinese countering. It was a victory for those of us involved in shedding more international attention and light on the human rights abuses China has committed, without any real consequence, over the past half-century in Tibet. The BBC Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-66660777775701720612008-04-07T21:56:00.001-07:002008-04-07T23:04:11.570-07:00Bomb It"This is the biggest art movement in the history of human kind." I bet you don't know what the medium is. "Bomb It," the new documentary about the rise of the graffiti movement in urban regions throughout the world, shows the explosion of underground "tagging" as both an art, and a form of communication (some would argue that any art is a form of communication, which I would agree with). Be it Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-11609618739428796002008-04-04T11:11:00.000-07:002008-04-04T11:29:14.562-07:0040th Anniversary of MLK Memphis SpeechThe last two minutes of Dr. Martin Luther King's are shockingly prescient. An incredibly powerful speech that is always good to go back to periodically. He was assassinated hours after this address. Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-6450661906102828732008-03-31T00:54:00.000-07:002008-03-31T02:17:05.638-07:00Securing the torchThe world's attention has been on the tiny mountain kingdom of Tibet over the past two weeks after protests in 6 different Chinese cities erupted over the course of several days beginning on March 14. However, China, in the midst of working to downplay and even blame the protests and violence on Tibetan "revolutionaries"", is pushing through to start the Olympic Games of 2008 in Beijing by Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-82562341792956366542008-03-28T23:58:00.000-07:002008-03-29T01:10:42.494-07:00Body of WarEarly this week we passed the 4,000 death mark in the Iraq War. I've had the war on the brain recently, being more amazed at how out of touch most of America is when it comes to recognizing the fact that we're still over there in a big way. Last October I was lucky enough to catch an amazing documentary called Body of War. Perhaps the most compelling and heart-wrenching glimpse into the life of aJaphethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-54829100059068078782008-03-20T13:03:00.001-07:002008-03-20T13:09:28.567-07:00NCAAIt's Day 1 of March Madness and I've got my eyes tracking all my picks online. It should be a ridiculously good tournament and I'm hoping for a couple upsets (come on Siena!). However, my favorite clip from the past decade of NCAA tournament upsets, because I'm from Vermont and will always root for the Catamounts if they are in it (not this year), is from 2005 when TJ Sorrentine "hit one from Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-42928944999719635042008-03-09T20:11:00.000-07:002008-03-09T23:41:05.691-07:00Time is Money and Mo' Money = Mo' ProblemsI talked with my mother this evening about the lack of focus my generation seems to have when it comes to concentrating on one task for more than ten minutes. Multi-tasking is the new black, and for this generation, the first to have cell phones, email, instant messaging, Facebook, Myspace and text messaging all at once the opportunity to continue a conversation is omnipresent. And the temptationJaphethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10758311.post-88708791420778766242008-03-07T18:51:00.000-08:002008-03-08T12:39:21.477-08:00Mowing GreenThis is just freakin' awesome. If I had a lawn, I'd get one in a heartbeat. A true zero-emissions mower! Albeit, a tad pricey.Japhethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16895650682817454149noreply@blogger.com0