Dear Mr. President, show us your leadership, vision

Today the White House phone line, 202-456-1111, is busy. It was busy yesterday, too, so I wrote a note to support President Obama in his effort to negotiate a meaningful agreement in Copehagen. (You can submit your email here, too.)

Dear President Obama and Cabinet Members,

Thank you for your support of and attendance at the Copenhagen Climate Summit.


The health care plan for the world lies in your hands.

Please continue to lead our world to a sustainable, realistic future and seek a binding agreement among world leaders at the Copenhagen Summit today.

Stay longer if you have to.

We need an agreement at this crucial time.

Limiting greenhouse emissions also keeps carcinogens from our air (lungs), water (bodies) and soil (food). Please consider this when you come home to Washington D.C., which is polluted by coal fired power plants just west of our region.

Consider this also for the people in China who suffer from lung, throat and stomach cancer here.

Again, thank you for your leadership and vision during this crucial time.

I hope all of you and your staff have a Blessed Holiday Season!

With Global Love,

Lillian Kafka
Fredericksburg, Virginia, U.S.A., Planet Earth

Heartbreaking Images of Pollution in China

The health of people is intrinsically linked to the health of the earth. These images are two in a series by Lu Guang, a freelance photographer from the Peoples Republic of China. His work here examines the relationship of villagers in China with the industries that often employ and sicken them.


http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

We are challenged to find a more sobering portrait of the ill health of our earth than the air, water and ground pollution depicted these provinces.

I would like to see a ban on these industries and the products they produce. When will there by a dialogue in the U.S.? We can effect this degradation of our fellow humans and our home, the earth, by mandating certain manufacturing standards on products shipped and sold here, can we not?

2 Days Left in Copenhagen: A Plea from my Heart

Greetings, friend!

As you may or may not know, there is a summit going on in Copenhagen to determine how people of all countries will agree to coexist on this earth over the next five decades and beyond.

Climate change is a dire human rights issue that is dependent on our good will and love for all species on this wonderful earth. The earth's health effects our health, and it's precipitous that we in the U.S. are trying to tackle our personal health care system. The Copenhagen summit is being held to create a health care system for the planet and it ends in two days.

Unfortunately, the leaders of these countries won't be able to reconvene after Christmas like the U.S. Congress. We must seize this opportunity! That is why I am pleading with you to sign an online petition today, before the summit ends.

Also, if you are voicing your opinion about our health care system, take advantage of the situation, and voice your opinion on the health of our earth. The phone number for the State Department is at the bottom of this email! (Scroll down)


The goals of this movement are to:

• Encourage world leadership to sign a binding treaty
• Enable future generations to live a life free of worries of climate change
• Offer financing ($10 billion per year ) to aid climate refugees

"You cannot keep quiet now. . You cannot just simply hide behind your own borders because people will be able to find out what's happening will be able to tell the word." - UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Avaaz spoke to UK's Prime Minister Gordon Brown the other day. You can listen to this enlightening interview here.


"Over the next 48 hours it's important for people around the world to register their determination to support action on the environment .. There are millions of people around the world who feel strongly about the climate change agenda ... who would fight [for this]. I would not underestimate the effect [on leaders]. email and twitter that they want an agreement and they want one now! this public expression of opinion will have an effect." - UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown in an interview with Avaaz Sept. 21, 2009

Climate change threatens the lives of people today. Read about it here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6321351.stm and
Read about the effects of climate change on animals at http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/


The following is the sample email provided by AVAAZ. Normally I send these emails without a personal note, but everything you just read was from my heart and soul. Please contact me at http://lonalang.blogspot.com/ if you would like to discuss this issue or provide feedback.

With Global Love,

Lona Lang
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi,

I just joined over 11 million people in the world's largest ever climate petition.

There has never been a more important time to add your name - our message is being delivered to leaders at the Copenhagen climate negotiations later this week.

Please add your voice at

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_copenhagen_now/98.php?CLICK_TF_TRACK

Thanks!

Dear Friends,

With three days to go, the crucial Copenhagen summit is failing.

Tomorrow, the world's leaders arrive for an unprecedented 60 hours of direct negotiations. Experts agree that without a tidal wave of public pressure for a deal, the summit will not stop catastrophic global warming of 2 degrees.

Click below to sign the petition for a real deal in Copenhagen -- the campaign already has a staggering 11 million supporters - let's make it the largest petition in history in the next 72 hours! Every single name is actually being read out at the summit -- sign on at the link below and forward this email to everyone!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_copenhagen_now/98.php?CLICK_TF_TRACK

An Avaaz team is meeting daily with negotiators inside the summit who will organize a spectacular petition delivery to world leaders as they arrive, building a giant wall of boxes of names and reading out the names of every person who signs. With the largest petition in history, leaders will have no doubt that the whole world is watching.

Millions watched the Avaaz vigil inside the summit on TV last weekend, where Archbishop Desmond Tutu told hundreds of delegates and assembled children:

“We marched in Berlin, and the wall fell.
"We marched for South Africa, and apartheid fell.
"We marched at Copenhagen -- and we WILL get a Real Deal.”

Copenhagen is seeking the biggest mandate in history to stop the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. History will be made in the next few days. How will our children remember this moment? Let's tell them we did all we could.l them we did all we could.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_copenhagen_now/98.php?CLICK_TF_TRACK

With hope,

Ricken, Alice, Ben, Paul, Luis, Iain, Veronique, Graziela, Pascal, Paula, Benjamin, Raj, Raluca, Taren, David, Josh and the whole Avaaz team.
-------------------------------

A note from my friend Dec. 17, 2009:

One last plea: Please call the State Department (202-647-6575) and tell them you stand in solidarity with the youth sit-in happening at the State Department right now and the sit-in that happened at the Bella Center in Copenhagen last night (I know some of the brave activists in both): http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/12/17/live-blog-dc-sit-in/

Here's a recap of last night's sit-in in Copenhagen: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/12/17/live-blog-youth-activists-refuse-to-leave-before-everyones-voices-are-heard/

First Friday of Nov. 2009 in Fredericksburg

Come view the works of Jenny Zoe Casey, Meg Martin, Patty Ormsby and Ruth Ann Loving this Friday at the November gallery reception at Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts. Reception is 6:30-8 p.m. Nov. 6, 2009.

Gallery info: 813 Sophia Street, Fredericksburg, VA 22401 Tel: 540-373-5646. Hours: 12-4 pm Thurs-Mon; 11-4 pm Sat (Closed Tues.-Wed)

Focus and intention

Perhaps he was looking out for my health, or maybe he just doesn't like the look of his buddy picking up muddy, germ-infested pieces of plastic from the ground. Either way, a dear friend of mine once gently soothed my urgent mother earth-saving psyche with the following words: Don't worry about saving us from a world that's so far gone it'll destroy itself in short order. Start working on meditating yourself off of it.
However thought provoking and expansive his advice, I feel a compulsive need to make even the tiniest daily material effort toward cleaning up the mess my fellow humans seem to compulsively make.
Therefore my life's goals are blending in such a magnificent way that I feel compelled to share them here, in a way to focus them and make them real.
To date, my goal is whittled and polished as follows: To learn ways to compassionately interact with all living beings, lovers, family, friends and strangers while sharing insights on how to live a compassionate lifestyle within the bountiful yet finite realms of our physical planet and its resources.
The first portion of this goal wishes to cultivate compassion on a personal scale to enable me to think, act and speak with loving kindness seeping from every breath. The second is a wish for the cultivation of universal compassion for the earth, and for each and every living, telepathic cell.
Perhaps one day these goals will be the same.

Peace, please

We could all benefit from dusting off this track and listening to a needle sweep the trough of its timeless grooves.
Fortunately there's nothing dusty about Yoko Ono's remixes of the celebrated peace anthem "Give Peace a Chance." Electronic, tribal and world beats steadily shuttle messages of peace and nonviolence through mixed genres of the 21st century. Even though the last four decades hastened a march toward relevant technological, musical and social advancements, a violent context of war and greed still permeate our social consciousness -- and uncannily at that.
The most recent release of Ono's tracks approach the 40th anniversary of John Lennon and Ono's first recording. "Give Peace a Chance" is, again, well timed and needed.
You could be blessed with such youth as to have never heard the original live. Or you did and you remember the passion of the peace movement. Prepare to transcend to 1969, when hopeful young minds wished for a life without violence.
Producers include Tommie Sunshine, Morel, Mike Cruz, DJ Dan, CSS (Brazil), Karsh Kale (India), DJ Tszpun (China), Kimbar (Russia), Death in Vegas’ Richard Fearless (England), DJ Meme (Brazil), Blow Up (Italy), Alex Santer (Greece), and Findo Gask (Scotland).
Take them all for a spin. The updated rhythms and underlying wisdom allows you to wander into a familiar state of mind that stumbles upon a message of peace for the first time. It's novel again. Hopeful again. Possible.

Give it a chance: http://imaginepeace.com/news/archives/5496

THE NATIONAL PARKS: My Parks

"Voyage confirms plastic pollution"

The BBC's environment reporter Judith Burns writes in the Aug. 27,
2009 online edition that yes, the great Pacific trash vortex is real.
It's too late when this debris is polluting out water. We need to stop
it before it gets there.

"Scientists have confirmed that there are millions of tonnes of
plastic floating in an area of ocean known as the North Pacific Gyre."

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8225125.stm

Recycling is Angelic: Japanese aethetics and "what's missing"

I am enjoying this blog by Roland Kelts via Adbusters on Japanese culture and minimalism.
"In Japan the concept of kirei, or beauty, is analogous to being supremely clean..."

"Urban residents in Japan comply by stuffing their bits of garbage into briefcases, pockets and backpacks and carrying them until they arrive at a recycling corner, where they methodically drop each item into its assigned receptacle."

Read more.

Cleaning up the river: update

For the second time this weekend I stopped by the river shore to pick up some garbage (and enjoy the water). This time a woman started gathering cans and wrappers with us. Then her husband told my friends and I that they would take their kids out to pick up litter before the next time they romped in the water.
I'm learning that it's easy to get people to help take care of this planet. I just have to show them how.

Cleansing the shore, cleansing the soul

Hurricane Bill's arrival in Fredericksburg began with a softly falling rain.
I approached the Rappahannock River wearing my gardening gloves and carry two empty garbage bags as a smooth drizzle promised to cut an oppressive heat lingering for most of August. Perfect timing. I was there to scoop up the plentiful garbage along the riverbank before Bill could wash it into the Rappahannock and, eventually, into the Atlantic.

In this area of the city's shore teenagers splash to cool themselves and fishermen draw small- to medium-sized fish from the rushing water. Beer bottles, blunt wraps, condoms, plastic drinking straws, take-out containers and plastic food packaging litter the trail.

In the time that it took for gray clouds to float overhead and burst a steady rain, I gathered about 15 pounds of trash from a small section of the river along Rivershore Road.

The rainy forecast did not preclude a vacant shoreline. I saw two young men swimming and a group of fishermen throwing nets and wearing goggles who were diving into the water for the fish. One of them walked by as I was ripping out strands of fishing wire from the sand and tree roots. Garbage was everywhere.

He asked me if I would like them to "ayudar." Yes, I said. Since they were already waist deep in the river, could they hand me the floating plastic bottles? We were getting soaked one way or another. He came back twice, then a again with handfuls of bottles and trash. His help made me ecstatic.

I had been meaning to pick up trash along the river, just near my house, ever since a few weeks prior. I was there swimming and saw a shameful amount of litter. Every other step was met with a potato chip bag or a beer bottle. I found a plastic bag and filled it to the brim, explaining to my swimming partner that I wasn't there to pick up after other people, I was there to prevent my friends in the rivers and oceans from swallowing these floating plastic pills of poison.

The drizzle turned into a downpour. "You should go home, you're going to get all wet," said one fisherman wearing a "Mexico" shirt. I would leave when the bag was full. I intended to fill one bag per visit and it wouldn't take long. There was plastic bottles, straws, fishing line, glass beer bottles, aluminum beer bottles, plastic forks, chewing tobacco containers, bottle caps, cigar holders, a flip flop, socks and broken Styrofoam cups.

I scaled a rocky ledge, a sure storm water chute whose angles encouraged velocity to whisk into the current all debris lying in its path. One of the fishermen walked around the bottom of the rock outcropping. "Do you have another bag?" he asked. I was thrilled to toss it down to him. "We have some things to put in it," he said.

I found a few more pieces of plastic wrappers and drink containers, cinched my bag and lugged it up the hill to a trash can along the street. I hoped for a minute that someone wouldn't see me, soaking wet, and think I was dumping my own garbage. Driving home I pressed the A/C button and let the cool air dry my arms. Even though my feet were muddy and I had bits of sand and dirt on my clothes, I actually felt cleaner than when I had arrived.

HDR testing

This is my first attempt at creating high dynamic range (HDR) photos.

A Confederate Cemetery in Fredericksburg.

A second HDR attempt went slightly askew because the wind blew the limbs and created a sort of 3D effect.

Sunshine's breaking through clouds.

An angel's somber gesture.

Define LOVE

Love can be expressed through action, the gestures of care and respect for another. Yet inaction can be a more powerful gesture of true love.
Divine love does not seek to control. Pure intentions do not give way to judgement or disrespect for another's need to walk their own road in life.
True love doesn't fall victim to the burden of judgment because love forgives unconditionally.
How does one fall in love?
What is the chemical reaction that causes a lover to admit that his romantic feelings for her have reached an intensity that he recognizes as "love"?
Where does this chemical process occur and is it caused by a chemical at all?
Can love be defined by the scientist in a lab where lust and complimentary personalities are condenced into their respective liquid and gas compounds, then blended carefully in a beaker that will glow with the combusting energy produced by this phermone-induced explosion?

Commute - Nov. 19, 2008

Hush, my child, you have control of your world
Those tiny, fleshy fingers of yours have got it

That oil-squirting teet of lurching nightmares and lead
Is your mind playing tricks

It's the eleventh month
And this clean air is my promise

Your ancestors fueled their dreams
by the gallon,
But, baby, they saw mammals dying by the dozens,
then the wiser of our race outlawed oil decades ago.

Now hmmmmm
Let this electric motor lul
hmmmm
mmm