FirstFreedomFirst.org was co-founded by two Believers, Barry Lynn and Dr. Welton Gaddy. On behalf of First Freedom First, they have produced an hour-long video to inform others of the importance of maintaining a political wall of separation between church and state. The Separation Clause appears in an abstract form in…
Arianna Huffington recently wrote a post that summarizes enough hypocrisy to throw the happiest concerned citizen into a long-term funk. The deep theme that all of these recent events have in common is that prominent American sources of information are demonstrably untrustworthy. How else can you explain the Administration's military…
Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi assumed the role of a true Believer in order to see what it's like to be one. In Taibbi's entertaining and well-written article, "Jesus Made Me Puke: And other Tales from the Evangelical Front Lines," he describes that he almost got too caught up in…
I previously wrote that I bought a little camera that I try to take everywhere. Having that camera nearby forces me to look more carefully at the startling sights that are everywhere. Many of those sights are the postures and expressions of people, but privacy concerns keep me from freely photographing or sharing the photos of strangers (I haven’t given up somehow accomplishing this!). To this point, I’ve focused on taking photos of nature and architecture. This morning, my wife Anne and I took a walk in Forest Park (in St. Louis, Missouri). In the morning light, we came upon some startling bursts of color, causing me to take out my little camera.
When I look at biological wonders, I sometimes imagine standing with Charles Darwin and learning from him. That’s how I felt a few weeks ago at an orchid show at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Even before Darwin published his findings there were various levels at which one could appreciate nature (it’s beautiful, it’s functional, it inspires poetry). Darwin added an explosive new level, however. Such was his impressive legacy. Before I appreciated Darwin’s contributions, my attention to plants was limited. But now I see functionality embedded in the beauty–there is now so much more to behold [I was also inspired last year when I viewed David Attenborough’s Private Life of Plants and Life in the Undergrowth (focuses on bugs). These are both spell-binding must-watch collections].
There are life and death wars going on out there …
The best way to get people to neglect a cause is to dedicate a Special Day to that cause each year. On that one special Day, we will hold thousands festivals where we treat the cause in a trite way and we will ignore that cause the other 364 days. We’re just too busy with our amusements and distractions to give a damn about important things here in America. Earth Day fits the mold perfectly. You would think that at Earth Day festivals, people would take the purpose of Earth Day seriously. You’d think that people would feel the need to make substantial immediate changes in their lives in order to live and procreate in healthy and sustainable ways, leaving the planet in good shape for the following generations of humans and the other animals. 
What could be done on Earth Day? We could talk big. We could make real plans to take the actions suggested by visionaries like Lester Brown, who proposes that we cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2020. It could really be done. Here’s how Brown describes his plan in his book, Plan B 3.0:
First, dramatically and systematically raise the efficiency of the world energy economy; second, massive investment in renewable sources of energy; and third, increase the earth’s tree cover by planting billions of trees.
Really doing something on a big scale could “inspire awareness of and appreciation for the Earth’s environment.” But most people aren’t doing anything at all. They …