Patricia Adams - OnEarth Magazine

Meet Me At The Fair

"GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, LIBERALS DO."
The banner flew over the National Rifle Association booth at the recent Delaware County Fair in Walton, New York. In front of the booth people milled about, listening as raffle tickets were being read off. There were families with young children, old people sitting on benches, some people in wheelchairs and many others robust and glowing in the health of hard farm work and rural living. There were also summer vacationers, dressed in casual urban attire.
I stopped for a moment and looked around at the people gathered under this banner. It was a week after Sarah Palin had announced that she did not support the Health Care Bill because of the "death panels" it would establish. This was clearly what had inspired the banner. Whether all the people there agreed with the message was unclear but, right or wrong, the message was simple and emotional. And it got me to thinking.
John and I go to this fair ...read full post

Comments (1) | October 26, 2009
They Can’t Go Home Again

All around the boat they were leaping into the air, making their way slowly back to their birthplace. From hundreds of miles away, the Alaskan salmon were returning to the streams in the Tongass National Forest to find the very creek and spot where they were born, to lay or fertilize their eggs and expire after the next generation was created. The salmon spawning in the millions meant that the grizzly bear and cubs could stand in the streams and scoop up the fish as they thrashed by, guaranteeing that they would have enough body fat to get through the coming winter. The eagles, waiting high in the Sitka spruce would also have a great feast before the onset of winter.
But this was not happening last summer. In August, John and I hosted an NRDC-sponsored trip to Southeast Alaska and I observed something as painful as anything I have seen in nature. I watched as the salmon worked their way back to their home stream only to be halted - not by dams or fish nets but by dry ...read full post

Comments (0) | September 23, 2009