Author: Elena

Sunday, April 11 2010, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

If you have never seen a carpet of Bluebells, you don’t know what you are missing! Merrimac Farm is a truly unique treasure. The event is free and a wonderful opportunity to see the Virginia’s amazing assets.

Prince William Conservation played an integral role in the birth of Merrimac Farm.

Bring your family and friends to Merrimac Farm on Sunday, April 11, beginning at 9:00 am, to welcome spring and view the spectacular display of Virginia Bluebells that carpet the floodplain along Cedar Run for nearly a mile. In the words of one visitor, it’s like walking through Oz.

We’ll have naturalist-led tours to the Bluebells and Cedar Run, where you can stay as long as you’d like. Along the way we’ll travel through a variety of habitats, talking about the birds, butterflies, frogs and other wildlife that lives at Merrimac Farm and in Northern Virginia.

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During the Sedar, every year, as I read from the Haggadah, I always relate the story of Passover to our present day life. This editorial by Simon Greer was very meaningful to me so I wanted to share.

In 1775, Marine troops preparing to intercept British warships carried yellow drums painted with what would become an iconic image of the American Revolutionary period: a rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike; underneath, the motto “Don’t tread on me.” Capturing the anti-government political sentiment of the moment, this image was soon immortalized on what became known as the Gadsden flag.

A year later, as America declared independence from Britain, a second image took its place in our national history. The Great Seal, bearing the motto “E pluribus unum” (out of many, one) — bore witness to a second political vision for this nascent country, that of collective identity and mutual obligation.

America, the great political experiment, has attempted since her birth to balance these two founding ideals of individualism and collectivism. Today, the rhetoric of the tea party movement tugs us dangerously out of balance, reimagining this country’s creation as rooted solely in the values of individual rights and freedoms.

One small indication of the movement’s allegiance to this strand of our founding narrative, to the exclusion of the other: Sales of the Gadsden flag increased 400% over a two-month period this past fall. We should all care about this perversion of the founding narrative of this country; it misrepresents what America stands. For Jewish Americans, it marks a rampant individualism that runs contrary to the mutual obligation that Judaism holds out as a political and social ideal.
With Passover on the horizon, Americans can look to the Jewish founding narrative — the Exodus story — for perspectives on freedom and nation building. Interestingly, the Exodus from Egypt is framed not in terms of the individual’s right to freedom from oppression (though that is certainly implicit) but rather in terms of the freedom to work together to build a society of equity, of justice, and of collective social responsibility.

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Click here to read the entire story.

WASHINGTON — Nine members of a Michigan-based Christian militia group have been indicted on sedition and weapons charges in connection with an alleged plot to murder law enforcement officers in hopes of setting off an anti-government uprising.

In court filings unsealed Monday, the Justice Department accused the nine people of planning to kill an unidentified law enforcement officer, then plant improvised explosive devices of a type used by insurgents in Iraq to attack the funeral procession.

Eight of the defendants were arrested over the weekend in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. A ninth remained at large, the Justice Department said. The indictments against them were returned last Tuesday. The defendants were identified as members of Hutaree, described by federal prosecutors as an anti-government extremist organization based in Lenawee County, Michigan, and which advocates violence against local, state and federal law enforcement. The group saw local and state police as “foot soldiers” for the federal government, which it viewed as its enemy, along with participants in what they deemed to be a “New World Order,” according to the indictment.

Silver Lake is such a rare asset, will the county be able to preserve such a beautiful site, I am not too hopeful. Prince William Conservation Alliance has an excellent post up on their blog. If you care about conservation, parks, government process, and integrity, you should click on this link. Make your voices heard, it does make a difference.

A public hearing is scheduled for 7:30 pm tonight strong at the Prince William County Park Authority’s headquarters, at Hellwig Park. It is the first, and perhaps the only, opportunity to comment to the Park Authority Board on the three alternatives developed by county staff for developing recreational facilities at Silver Lake.

Proposed new trails, parking lots, and campgrounds might damage environmentally-sensitive areas – but the maps show only the facilities to be constructed. The three alternatives never identify the environmental assets to be protected. The staff has proposed a standard county park development plan without the ballfields, adding in a fishing pier but ignoring the special character of the Silver Lake site.

Failure to inventory the natural areas at Silver Lake before locating new facilities on a map is an amazing omission. It demonstrates that the Park Authority is locked into its active recreation mindset, and has no clue about managing natural resources.

The staff measures success by how many new things they can build, how much they can change a site. That failure to consider the resources at a site is why the historical places owned by the county were transferred away from the Park Authority, and moved to Public Works.

For the first time in generations, the US Congress has passed a bill reforming our nations health care system.

Historical Attempts
This lofty goal has eluded reformers ever since Teddy Roosevelt attempted it during his 1912 run for president. A national health insurance program was proposed by FDR as part of Social Security, and the effort was continued by his successor Harry Truman in the 1940s, but stiff opposition by conservatives derailed the effort. Lyndon Johnson managed to get limited reforms enacted with the passage of Medicare in 1965, although this national health insurance program is only available to those over 65 years old (and a few others in certain circumstances). Despite nearly universal support today, conservatives vehemently opposed Medicare at the time, claiming it would be the start of government takeover of the health care system. In fact, Sarah Palin almost quoted verbatim the fear mongering speech by Ronald Reagan to the AMA in 1961 that opposed the creation of Medicare.

Rep. John B. Larson (D-CT), the Chairman of the Democratic Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives writes that the top 10 immediate benefits of the bill will be:

Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;
Lower seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;
Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;
Require plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;
Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

The health care reform expert Karoli adds:

1.Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until age 26
2.Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
3.No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
4.Free preventative care for all
5.Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
6.Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
7.The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
8.Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
9.Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment)

This is simply surreal!  Seriously, the highest law enforcement figure in the State of Virginia believes the President of the United States is not rightfully elected?  I’m sorry, can Virginia look any worse in the eyes of the country?   This bizarre conspiracy theory is simply unfathomable to me. 

You can click here to read the entire transcript.

 
This as a great article  , from March 4th, that Cindy Brookshire sent me, Thanks Cindy!

Hate is meant to incapacitate righteousness; literally cut its head off. We witnessed hate this week in Virginia when the Westboro Baptist Church came to the Commonwealth. They’re the jewskilledjesus.com and godhatesfags.com crowd. While we rarely use protests to draw attention to an issue, the fact that the Kansas-based anti-Semites sought to protest the Virginia Holocaust Museum motivated us to turn out folks to that sacred space.

Last is the professional hater, those like the Westboro crowd who earlier this week looked at Holocaust survivor Jay Ipson and shouted that “Hitler was God’s answer to the Jews.” These are formalized family groups who work at the fringe of the fringe to develop a social or religious orthodoxy that uses untempered hate and extremism to generate a self-fulfilling paranoia suggesting the entire world is against “the family.” We have seen this with David Koresh and other cult leaders who are masters of pitting society against a faux-sacred that claims an orthodoxy so far out of the mainstream that the majority of society shakes its head and simply ignores the shouting as crazy background noise. Many who have commented on the news accounts of this group’s presence in Virginia had wished for just that: a broad ignoring of their visit; a roll of the eys, a brief verbal expression of disgust, and nothing more.

But there’s a monument in Richmond to what can happen when hate goes unchecked. It’s called the Holocaust Museum. And that’s where we stood – Jews, Christians, Muslims, Unitarians and none of the above — with a survivor, supporting him, and each other, so that together we might never forget that big hate can start small and needs to be met with compassion, love and strength.

The Prince William Coffee Party Chapter has been formed and we will have our first coffee talk on March 13th, click here for details.   We will be serving coffee, donuts, and free Coffee Party buttons to the first 50 people!  Now Slowpoke, the buttons are to wear, not to throw!  Seriously though, I really am hoping that people will take this opportunity to start having a civil dialogue.   This is one of my favorite quotes that was posted on the Coffee Party Page:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone…, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again …touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” Lincoln, March 4, 1861

 

Al Alborn is being interviewed, via phone, by CNN/KSRO Radio, at 10:48 this morning. Al and I don’t agree on everything, but we can disagree and still honor our different points of view. Vigorous debate has been at the very birth of our nation and there is no reason to stop now. But vigorous debate is not accusing the other person of not being a true American  because they don’t agree with you.  It isn’t about yelling the loudest so others are too afraid to participate.  I believe we all love our country, we just don’t necessarily agree on how to solve our problems.  I believe THOSE differences, and our ability to express them,  is what makes us a Democracy.

Great story from the PWCA blog.  I love supporting local farmers, either buying produce or beef.  Here is a wonderful way to support your local community!

Click here to read the full story!

What: PWCA 1st Thursdays – Local Food & Sustainable Agriculture
When: Thursday, March 4 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Bull Run Unitarian Universalist Church, 9350 Main St., Manassas

Once home to a thriving farming community, subdivisions and shopping centers have replaced much of Prince William’s rural landscape. This loss isn’t unique to Prince William. Family farms have given way to corporate agribusiness nationwide, essentially entrusting the quality of our food and well being to big business.

Today, after years of rising obesity and blood pressure, fast food diets are giving way to increasing interest in locally grown food… fresher food that retains more nutrients.

Better food is only part of the benefit. Locally grown means locally sold. Supporting urban farming also preserves open space, improves the appearance of our community and supports our local economy, helping keep our taxes in check.

Do you know where your food comes from and what’s in it? How far did it have to travel before reaching your table? Is it even possible to have agriculture in DC’s densely populated suburbs?

On March 4 at 7:00 p.m., Hiu Newcomb, owner of Potomac Vegetable Farms, will tackle these questions and talk about the benefits of locally grown food and sustainable agriculture.

First of all, there was already an exemption worked into the “requirement” for health care coverage, so is Bob just grandstanding? States rights vs federal rights is an ongoing fight, in many ways the civil war seemed to address that ying and yang, didn’t it?

How about those who are opposed to social security or medicare being taken out of their pay checks because they oppose that “government” intervention into their lives. There are credible arguments for ensuring that all Americans are insured, my issue with the requirement, is that you are just lining the pockets of insurance companies if you don’t also allow for a non profit public option! Anyway, there are lots of federal laws that we all abide by, and I would say that if the state can opt out of healthcare, what else can the state legislative body, at the behest of whichever party is in control, “opt” out of, if the opposing party happens to be in power at the Federal level.

Many extemists argue that the income tax is “unconstitutional”, but that argument has been resoundingly rejected!

The Culpeper County school superintendent said Monday that the school system had never formally removed a version of Anne Frank’s diary from classrooms following a parental complaint that some passages were objectionable.

Director of instruction James Allen last week told The Washington Post that the definitive edition of the diary would not be used in the future and that the decision was made quickly, without adhering to a formal review policy for instructional materials that prompt complaints. The remarks set off a hailstorm of criticism online and brought international attention to the 7,600-student school system in rural Virginia.

It’s bad enough to suffer such devastation, loss of your family, but to be at risk of being kidnapped for exploitation is just too horrible to think about, these poor little children.