Say it Again: Only Light Can Drive Out Darkness
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes… Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr. (1967) . “Where Do We Go From Here?“
In the wake of today’s Boston Marathon violence, in the wake of Sandy Hook, in the wake of media sensationalism that substitutes the volume of voyeurism for the true substance of serious social commentary and real solutions, this cannot be said enough:
Only Light Can Drive Out Darkness.
The Things That Matter: Fishing for a Real Future
My day job involves working for an organization whose mission is: “To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders.”
Those are the words and vision of inventor Dean Kamen, founder of the U.S. Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, better known as FIRST. FIRST engages kids in elementary through high school grades in competitive robotics competitions that provide youth with opportunities to work with professional mentors and learn science, math and engineering skills in fun, enduring and rewarding ways, with over $16 million in scholarships for participating high schoolers.
“The assumption that drove the creation of FIRST, “ Kamen said in an interview with PTC last year, “ was
you get what you celebrate in a free culture, and the reason America was slipping compared to a lot of its peers around the world—particularly in kids getting involved with and mastering science and technology—was not bad teachers or bad schools, it wasn’t what we don’t have. It was the fact that as a rich country we have so many distractions that have created for kids role models that prevent them from working hard at things that matter.”
In the last few weeks, I was so immersed in working with students , their mentors and the local business community supporting kids in “working hard at the things that matter,” that I almost missed an equally important debate on things that matter to us here in Tampa Bay involving a big box retailer and the substantive public tax payer incentive that county officials want to give the store to open shop in our community.
Site of “The Estuary” shopping plaza
The Tampa Bay Times reports that the Hillsborough County Commission is considering contributing $6.25 million (down from $15 million, initially) toward road improvements around “The Estuary”, an enormous, ironically named shopping plaza planned between Falkenburg Road and Interstate 75 – currently the site of Florida pine scrub, and a good 15 miles inland from any chance of an “estuary”, which is by definition a partially enclosed body of coastal water where freshwater from rivers and streams meets and mixes with salt water from the ocean and actually does something physically, biologically, environmentally and even economically useful, by virtue of the recreational opportunities our coastline offers.
A real estuary
Besides the sad fact that “The Estuary” shopping center is going to completely destroy anything remotely natural – estuarian or otherwise – in the area of planned development, developers predictions of “ annual sales of $61.8 million, generating state and local sales taxes” and “property assessment climbing to $16.4 million, boosting taxes on land now used for agriculture” ring hollow in light of the facts, and misleading in light of “things that matter.”
Bass Pro’s track record and the history of big tax incentives for major retailers suggest assurances that “ Hillsborough could break even on its $15 million investment by 2018” are probably more than a little inflated. More important, though: Do we truly believe that subsidized shopping offers a real return on our investment towards our collective future?
Bass Pro projects it would create 369 permanent, full-time jobs in addition to 1,517 temporary construction jobs over five years, and the entire shopping plaza development is project to create 1,327 retail jobs.
But the fact is, says a report by the Public Accountability Initiative that examined such claims (Fishing for Taxpayer Cash), “Bass Pro often fails to deliver on its promises as an economic development anchor and major tourist destination – promises which were used to reel in government subsidies. Its stores successfully attract shoppers, but often do not produce sought-after economic benefits associated with major tourist destinations,” and taxpayers in places like Cincinnati, Harrisburg PA, and Bakersfield, CA “ have been left with high levels of debt and fiscal stress as a result of Bass Pro Projects.”
“Retail is not economic development. People don’t suddenly have more money to spend on hip waders because a new Bass Pro or Cabela’s comes to town,” Greg Leroy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a non-partisan economic development watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., told The Atlantic Cities in an article last summer . ”All that happens is that money spent at local mom and pop retailers shifts to these big box retailers. When government gives these big box stores tax dollars, they are effectively picking who the winners and losers are going to be.”
Larry Whitely, a spokesman for Bass Pro Shops, argued in the article that their stores “should be viewed as an amenity being added to a community — much like one might view a park or a library. …”These aren’t just stores – they are natural history museums. Every store is designed to reflect the unique natural environment of the area in which it is located.” “
Aside, again, from the basic fact that the store, by virtue of its construction, would be destroying a unique natural environment in the area in which it is to be located, $6.5 million would buy a lovely real natural history museum , park or library with a far greater return on the investment, socially, aesthetically, academically, environmentally and economically. $6.5 million dollars could also address food insecurity, make a serious impact on homelessness, pay for new teachers, finance school improvements, or make a nice deposit on a light rail system.
From a purely personal perspective, $6.5 million could fund a couple or three FIRST robotics STEM education robotics teams in every one of Hillsborough County’s nearly 160 K-12 schools for years, helping create the type of scientifically literate people Florida needs for a truly economically successful future. Because the real path to future prosperity in Florida and nationally, economic development experts are saying, is growing a knowledge based economy,not a consumer based one.
A knowledge based economy is one that is “driven by research, ideas, innovations, and technical skills to generate high-impact economic benefits and high-wage jobs. Strong sustainable knowledge economies
- Are able to sell goods and services at a higher profit margin than others;
- Earn average wages up to $25,000 more than non-knowledge-based communities, and;
- Are able to perform and execute business through more cost-effective and efficient relationships.
In the “New Economy Index” report of states by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which evaluates states on a similar “knowledge based” formula, Florida ranked 21st – and dropping.
“Some have argued that, given the economic downturn, now is not the time to focus on innovation,” 
observed the report’s authors. “rather, our chief concern should be job creation. Yet, fostering innovation and creating jobs are by no means mutually exclusive. To the contrary, most studies of the issue have found that innovation is positively correlated to job growth in the mid- to long-term.”
By a correlation factor of 0.87, notes one author – ” in fact exponentially proportional to KEI (Knowledge Economic Indicator) , ie higher the KEI, higher is the per capita income of that country and vice versa. Highest KEI is of Denmark at 9.58 on a scale of 1 to 10, and the lowest KEI is of Myanmar at 0.96 at rank 145.” (Express Tribune-)
Among the key findings in Change the Equation’s Florida Vital Signs report, “Florida needs a world class education system and seamless talent supply chain to meet workforce demands at all skill levels. STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – is of the utmost priority if Florida is to achieve its long term goal.”
Nowhere in that report is there a call for more consumer opportunities or retail jobs.
“Before handing taxpayer money to Bass Pro projects, ” concludes the Public Accountability Initiative report, ” public officials should consider what some other cities are going through as a result of Bass Pro-anchored projects that have fallen short: high levels of debt and fiscal duress, lackluster development, vacancy and blight, and lower-than-expected tax revenues. Considering the potential consequences, it is imperative for public officials and taxpayers to take the proper steps to ensure that they are not subsidizing an underperforming development: ask straightforward questions of Bass Pro and project developers, demand transparency and data, secure contractual guarantees that limit cannibalization, and, above all, consider alternatives. There is no good reason to subsidize development that sells cities short and leaves taxpayers on the hook.”
Public officials – and the public – should also consider what really matters to Florida’s future and help us build a Knowledge economy that will serve us and future generations far better, and make us far more productive and competitive than any retail chain store ever will. If, as Dean Kamen says, and as I fully agree, we get what we celebrate, and the best we can do is Bass Pro Shops , then that’s all we’ll get.
If, however, we choose to celebrate creative productivity and scientific and technical literacy and achievement, we’ll get so much more than we could ever have imagined!
Make 2013 a Love Note!
Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. ~Hal Borland
Of all the images I captured this year – sweeping Alaskan vistas, Ozark valleys, majestic marshes, beautiful animals and amazing skyscapes – it is this goofy but joyful family portrait that seems to both sweetly sum up the past year, and to beautifully illustrate my hopes for the new one. Everyone in the photo has suffered some hardship or loss over the past year: the passing of close loved ones, the loss of jobs, accidents, and health problems. And still we dance.
In the wonderful poem, “What If” , by Ganga White, Director of the White Lotus Foundation yoga center in California, White asks:
What if our religion was each other?
If our practice was our life?
If prayer was our words?
What if the Temple was the Earth?
If forests were our church?
If holy water—the rivers, lakes and oceans?
What if meditation was our relationships?
If the Teacher was life?
If wisdom was self-knowledge?
If love was the center of our being
Think about it: What if your life really was your worship? Regardless of what you believe or don’t believe , what if each day was treated as holy and sacred in the Temple of Earth? What if your life was one big Love Note? Consider how you would live then, and you will have your way forward into a future where the only resolution you need is the resolve to live in joy, compassion and thanks giving.
Wishing you a New Year rich with opportunities for good choices, and thoughtful and intentional ways of being, and wishing all of us the strength of our convictions to help create a world in which love, reverence, and gratitude are central to our lives.
Happy New Year. Look after each other.
Mark Price and the Power of Turning off the News
“The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they’re genuine. –Abraham Lincoln” (Unknown internet source)
It started over the weekend, the deluge of various and sundry well-meaning, sweetly captioned photos and thoughtful public sentiments by a variety of sentimental public figures, including the usually eloquent Morgan Freeman, whose “brilliant take on what happened” in Connecticut flooded Facebook and in-boxes. What jumped out at me initially was the puzzling opening sentence fragment asking a question but lacking a question mark: ”You want to know why.”
Why what? I wondered, but read on…
“This may sound cynical, but here’s why.
“It’s because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he’ll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.
“CNN’s article says that if the body count “holds up”, this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer’s face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer’s identity? None that I’ve seen yet. Because they don’t sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you’ve just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.
“You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news.“”
On Facebook, several supportive “likers” also added “RIP Morgan Freeman,” adding another puzzling element to the whole thing because 1) Morgan Freeman isn’t dead and 2) if it was believed that he was, in fact,dead, why would he be commenting on the Connecticut shooting?
It was, of course, no surprise that this was yet something else that a famous person didn’t actually say. These are the sentiments of a Vancouver fellow named Mark Price, a script writer by trade, whose comments were pranked by 
Reddit user Quintilian751, who said, “ Couple of us thought it’d be funny, since it was a well written article, to attribute it to Morgan Freeman.”
The rest is the stuff of Internet virality.
“I honestly wish my brush with Internet fame wasn’t associated with murdered children,” the Vancouver Sun report Price wrote. ” If what I said resonated with thousands of people, despite who they believe said it, GOOD. I stand by what I said about why it happened, and how it was reported!
“...If it weren’t given to a celebrity, nobody would be talking about it. What got people to spread my words: The content of the message, or who supposedly said it?””
Price has got a powerful point here, and I’m perfectly happy to give him full credit for it because it really was the content of the message that caught my eye, and not who supposedly said it. And I truly believe, when you get right down to it, “turning off the news” might be the best thing we can do to regain our humanity and stop the madness.
Joel Gascoigne , founder of social media sharing app, Buffer, made a conscious decision two years ago to stop reading and watching mainstream media.
“And it just so happens, ” he observes in his blog post, “The Power of Ignoring Mainstream Media, ” that the last 2 years have also been the most enjoyable and productive of my entire life, and have contained some of my greatest achievements.”
Gascoigne notes that about 95% of mainstream news is negative, even though in reality, 95% of life is not.
“Mainstream news report about wars, natural disasters, murders and other kinds of suffering. It seems the only natural conclusion of watching or reading mainstream news is that the world is a terrible place, and that it is getting worse every day. However, the reality of course is the complete opposite: we live in an amazing time and the human race is improving at a faster pace than ever before.”
Sandy Hook Elementary will always stand out as one of the saddest periods in American history, and nothing should diminish the sorrow and loss and the commensurate necessary social dialog that is taking place.
But it is not the only period in American history, and if it’s a hallmark of anything, perhaps it is that it’s time to turn off the TV, especially mainstream news, and tune into one another and the bigger picture of the world in which we really live, a world in which we ARE better than this.
“Only Light Can Drive Out Darkness” Redux
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence, you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that. – Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? p. 62
On May 2, 2011, on the day of Osama Bin Laden’s death, I visited an inadvertently viral misquotation of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s, “Returning hate for hate multiples hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that.”
That post to this day continues to generate more views than any other, with the search terms, “Returning hate for hate multiples hate” the most recurrent search term bringing readers here by the hundreds, more than a year later.
This is just a tiny microcosm, I know, of people searching for answers, looking for a way out of the darkness.
But WE are the way out of the darkness. We are the light we’re looking for.
Fred Rogers said his mother told him to “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” They were abundantly visible yesterday, and continue to be, in Connecticut and wherever there is need.
In the debates and arguments that loom in the coming days, that are already taking place – on gun control, on mental health, on security – we have more opportunities to be the helpers, that critical light in the darkness, by refusing to become polarized, so entrenched in the rhetoric of extremes that we’re unable to find our way through mature dialog to real solutions.
You can believe in the Second Amendment without interpreting it to mean guns for everyone without rules for anyone.
You can be in favor of responsible gun ownership, but also in favor of sanity and keeping the world as safe as we possibly can.
You can support reasonable restrictions on guns without being against God and country. - -Sue Carlton, Tampa Bay Times
Rev. Peter Morales, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, my chosen faith, calls on us to “reflect humbly and work to change the conditions that allow such violence to take place.”
We must work, he says,to create a society “ where differences are resolved without violence, where the mentally unstable do not have ready access to lethal force, where violence is not glorified...”
Creating a society where violence is not glorified.
To me, that means doing my part to take the high road in difficult and potentially volatile discussions; it means stepping in gently but without moralizing to redirect conflict whenever reasonable and possible; it means speaking up with a different view when I hear young people – and older ones – joking about or glorifying violence; it means taking an active part in discussions in my community and sharing my views with local media over sensational news coverage of important events, and with my congressional representatives with firm insistence that they look beyond personal political gain to the serving the Greater Good to which they are pledged.
Nothing will change unless we, as a people, as a culture, stop being the silent majority for common sense and compassion, and start actively building the safe and sane nation in which we want to live.
Speak loudly, but put down the big stick, and raise your candle higher.
We Must Be Better Than This
We challenge the culture of violence when we ourselves act in the certainty that violence is no longer acceptable, that it’s tired and outdated no matter how many cling to it in the stubborn belief that it still works and that it’s still valid. ~Gerard Vanderhaar
This afternoon, when I came home from a lovely outing with my 24 year old daughter, our arms loaded with groceries, conversation still warm on our lips, we were greeted at the door by MILlie – my poor misguided, mal-focused mother-in-law – with news of today’s mass shooting. I had heard nothing of it. I had been on a hike with my daughter, enjoying as always any time we get together outdoors. I had picked up some gluten free cookies for my 20 year old son, while we were out. We had chatted about their 22 year old sister, and what things must be like where she is in Alaska right now. We had not listened to the radio, but to each other, and the day had been sweet with comfortable togetherness.
But now MILlie was telling me about a mass shooting at a school, and that 27 people had died, and I became angry. Did that happen here? I asked her. No, she said. It happened in Connecticut. That’s awful, I told her, but there’s nothing I can do about it; watching endless news reports of it (as I rightly assumed she’d been doing) wouldn’t make it better. She tried again to tell me more, but I wouldn’t listen.
As I put the groceries away, I thought about how to explain what repulsed me about these media stories. Hearing the urgent tones on the news in the background, I wondered why we do this to ourselves, all of it, from the madness of the one, to the voyeurism of the many.
You know why I don’t like hearing these things? I asked MILlie. Because it’s disrespectful to the families and their terrible losses. It makes a sideshow out of unimaginable personal tragedy, reduces it to sound bites between commercials for holiday shopping and Viagra. It both diminishes the horror through numbing repetition – a horror that rightly should be gut wrenching and unendurable – and inadvertently glorifies it, setting a new standard of watchable violence for the next unbalanced gun man to attempt to exceed.
She looked at me blankly, and then said, No, they’re just sharing new information, and she turned back to the TV, detached even as she was concerned, watching in conflicted cluelessness, probably like thousands of others glued to their TVs in the delusion of gaining knowledge, and perhaps some semblance of control, in this unfathomable story.
After dinner, I wanted to sit down to write holiday cards – they’re already late. But I knew I had to learn what had actually happened, to get the facts of the matter, so I read the news online, alone where I could parse it out carefully – and my heart broke.
It was an elementary school.
Twenty children between the ages of five and ten were murdered.
The children were killed by a 20 year old gunman, barely out of childhood himself.
On a day when I was out with my daughter, buying cookies for my son, thinking of my other daughter far from home, twenty children died for absolutely nothing but the whim of an emotionally damaged man-child, who also took his own life.
Twenty children who won’t see Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or a New Year. Twenty children whose families will never experience the holidays the same way ever again; presents never opened, dinners never shared, milestones never reached – families who will never know the joy of spending time with their grown children, a lifetime of history between them as they grow ever older and more familiar.
All of that lost. All those lives, all those stories, all those loves and lifetimes, over some asinine nonsense, some imaginary vendetta carried out on children by a man barely grown out of his own youth and wielding a gun under whatever illusion people wield guns on other people.
We are better than this, says the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in an online letter writing campaign to urge “a real national conversation … bringing together Americans from across the nation and across the political spectrum, to call for real solutions — solutions that recognize the Second Amendment right to bear arms — solutions with the only goal of preventing gun violence.
“…. We are better than this this. We must work to make the voice of the American public heard. We all just want to live in a safer nation.”
Are we better than this?
I would like to believe we are. I really wanted to be getting those Christmas cards out tonight, but instead, I’m looking at our Christmas
tree, our holiday time capsule, my daughter calls it, with its almost geologic layers of family history ornamenting its branches. There are souvenirs of family vacations, little ballerina shoes hearkening back to years of dance classes, and glass treble clefs from the piano playing period. There are Starwars ornaments and a Hogwarts owl, physics joke ornaments and homemade paper ones and even one made out of duct tape. Our Christmas tree is a family totem.
As I look at it, lit with white lights and hung round with timeless memories, my heart aches for all those families who may never want to see another Christmas, for whom ever carol is now a dirge. I’m thinking of all those childhoods never realized. And I’m thinking of how we make a mockery out of human tragedy by calling it news when it all it is, is virtual rubbernecking.
In the news story I glanced through, were children’s comments – 8 and 9 year olds “interviewed” for the news piece. I saw them briefly on the evening news as well. What the hell is that? How is that news? Who interviews a child at a mass murder site. Who calls the grandmother of the shooter to get her thoughts – after both her daughter and her grandson are dead, and her grandson is responsible for the deaths of 20 children, something she will never understand?
That’s not news. That’s not reporting. That’s not information. That’s American bread and circuses, a hideous media sham, masquerading as news.
Are we better than this? God, I hope so! I so want to believe we are, that we can have intelligent dialog about important issues without 
resorting to polarized lambasting; that we can find healthy, rational ways to help the troubled among us, that the media recognizes the role it plays in exacerbating the worst of our social ills with sensationalist “reporting” that substitutes sound for substance, and that we, as Americans, can “challenge the culture of violence” by collectively letting it be known that violence, in any form, is no longer acceptable.
I said I couldn’t do anything. But I can. You can. We all can. We can’t accept this any longer.
For the love of all our children, we must be better than this.
Voting on the Side of Love
A friend and her son, Standing on the Side of Love
“In a political culture defined by fear and hate, for one side to be right, the other side has to be wrong. They become more than the opponent—they become the enemy. As this rhetoric level rises, we tend to forget what we’re fighting for, and only concentrate on who we’re fighting against.” Elliott Cennamo, winner of the Unitarian Universalist Association‘s Voting on the Side of Love Video Contest
I’m a big proponent of keeping religion out of politics; a firm believer in Thomas Jefferson’s “Wall of Separation.” But for better or worse, it’s there – religion is part and parcel of American politics, from the Democrats hasty move to include God in the party platform, to Billy Graham stumping for God on the Republican party platform and nearly every candidate’s asteriskian references to their seemingly monochromatic Christian faiths.
My chosen faith, Unitarian Universalism, acknowledges that sometimes inadvertent, sometimes purposely overt, but often intimate connection between religion and public life through a campaign called Standing on the Side of Love that seeks to influence public attitudes and public policy not along party lines, but along the lines of compassionate religious voices speaking out on the common ground of love and shared humanity. As a UU, as well as a writer working on a book about the Power of Love Notes, the idea resonates with me deeply.
While the campaign platform might be difficult for some people to get behind, the basic premise that love is the antidote to fear and hate is a solid one.
“Love, based not on some cynical partisan desire to find an edge, but coming from our hearts and our beliefs,” writes Cennamo.
“Love is not something you compromise, “he observes. ” Love is a gift from the almighty, and no loving god would give someone such a gift just to punish them for having it. Because it’s not just about having love, it’s about living love.
“Love, whether they were born on the same side of town, the wrong side of the tracks or the other side of the world. Love. Even if they might not look like us, pray like us, talk like us or love like us. Love is part of being human. And no one should be dehumanized just because of who they are.“
Idealistic? Maybe. But any less idealistic than thinking one candidate or another will make a pivotal difference on the basis of an equally idealistic party platform? They don’t make the difference. We do, when we step outside the rhetoric and into our shared humanity to make decisions based on common sense and compassion instead of hate and fear.
Environmental Shell Games
Little Lake Johnson, Gold Head Branch State Park
On May 11, Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) scientist Connie Bersok was suspended , pending an investigation, ostensibly for refusing to rubber stamp a Highlands Ranch Mitigation Bank application to turn a north Florida pine plantation into a wetlands mitigation bank. I was only peripherally aware of mitigation banks before reading this story. But fresh from a weekend stay at Gold Head Branch State Park, up in Keystone, FL - in Clay County where Highlands Ranch plans to manage a 1,500-acre wetlands mitigation bank – and where our little waterfront cabin overlooked only a baked mud lake bed, the topic drew my interest. It’s a topic that should draw more Floridians’ interest.
As a matter of fact, many if not most of the lakes in the area were dry . There weren’t many wetlands to
speak of, and much of the area is and has historically been pine forest, as evidenced by the sawmill history of Clay County in the 1880s. By their own description, the land HRMB wants to manage currently consists of about 1000 acres of “mesic and xeric pine plantation, which will be restored to native mesic flatwoods and sandhill communities, 223.9 acres of hydric pine plantation, which will be restored to native mixed forested wetlands/hammock communities, 328.1 acres of isolated and contiguous wetlands that will be preserved and enhanced as part of the mitigation plan, and 32.4 acres of trail roads, power lines and structure.”
According to the EPA, a mitigation bank is ” a wetland, stream, or other aquatic resource area that
Dry lake bed of Little Lake Johnson
has been restored, established, enhanced, or (in certain circumstances) preserved for the purpose of providing compensation for unavoidable impacts to aquatic resources permitted under Section 404 or a similar state or local wetland regulation.1 A mitigation bank may be created when a government agency, corporation, nonprofit organization, or other entity undertakes these activities under a formal agreement with a regulatory agency. ”
Despite what I’m sure are good environmental intentions, I see nothing but a gold plated loop hole for developers here, a way to play an environmental shell game with our natural resources. By virtue of the mere existence of mitigation banks, there is no reason to even really try to avoid environmental impacts on aquatic resources. Developers know they can simply buy their way out any impact by purchasing mitigation credits, a feel good pay off that supposedly off sets any loss of land or resources caused by a project.
And in the case of HRMB, it’s land that is not even wetlands to begin with. The majority of the “mesic” (seasonally wet) and “xeric” (dry) pine plantations they want to restore to their “native mesic flatwoods and sandhill communities” are still pine forests, not wetlands. Additionally, it takes nature infinite periods of undisturbed time to create a true wetlands (or pine forest, for that matter), with all its commensurate flora and fauna. And even then, the flora and fauna of a north Florida wetlands is going to be different from the disrupted flora and fauna of areas for which the mitigations credits are being purchased.
Furthermore, the mitigation area set aside for compensation was already there – maybe doctored up to look like a wetlands, but it’s land that already existed and has its own native plants and animals (or did, until it was recast as a new improved habitat). Now it symbolically also represents land lost elsewhere, even though the land it’s standing in for is still lost, and even though the mitigation area may not be anywhere near the area where developmental damage occurred, and even though, as in the case of Highlands Ranch, the mitigation lands may not even be wetlands.
And that’s where Connie Bersok took issue with the Highlands Ranch application. When Bersok, in the course of her job, in the service of her state and Florida’s environment, pointed this out to the DEP, Deputy Secretary Jeff Littlejohn told her to ignore the rules and put the permit through. Bersok stood her ground quite publicly, “I hereby state my objection to the intended agency action and refusal to recommend this permit for issuance.“
Two days later, she was suspended. She has not spoken to the media, pending the ongoing investigation into her suspension and the Highlands Ranch application. The DEP , for its part, maintains in a May 31 response to the Tampa Bay Times report about the issue, “Ms. Bersok was not suspended because she refused to issue a permit. She was placed on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation by the department’s Inspector General. It is not the department’s policy to discuss employee personnel matters in the newspaper or with the general public.”
Furthermore, the DEP assures, “The permit has not been issued. In fact, the department has not completed its review of the Highlands Ranch Mitigation Bank permit application. Any decision made about this permit will be based on sound science and within the confines of Florida law and the environmental rules that govern the department’s action.”
That would be good, especially since the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s stated mission is to “ protect, conserve and manage Florida’s natural resources and enforce the State’s environmental laws.”
The DEP acknowledges criticism of mitigation banking, but says it has made improvements in a “proposed new approach” to permitting that “holds the bank operator more accountable to the required environmental result and allows for the release of credits only after environmental restoration is completed and verified to be successful. “ The DEP says it will tie credit release schedules more closely to “specific and measurable ecological conditions” using an “environmental-results based approach.”
“Despite the Times’ mischaracterization of the department’s actions and environmental policies, “ the DEP says, “the department and its employees are committed to doing the right thing by the rules and statues that govern its actions, by Florida taxpayers and by the environment.”
Should we be concerned that the environment is the last thing on the list?
We don’t need any more houses, apartments, condos or shopping facilities. A large percentage of the ones we have now are standing foreclosed, abandoned, and closed for business. But we do need clean air and water, the ultimate “specific and measurable” ecological conditions.
Instead of trying to mitigate damage to our natural resources, and pretending as if mitigation credits are anything more than imaginary compensation for lands and resources that are lost forever, maybe its time to hold Florida accountable, and to look at limiting development as the only “unavoidable impact” of preserving what’s left of our natural heritage.
Consider sharing your thoughts with the DEP and Governor Scott , and letting them know whether you prefer mitigation credits for developers, or mitigating further damage to our natural resources in more effective and enduring ways, like significantly limiting further development and properly enforcing our environmental laws, and let’s stop playing shell games with Florida.
Note: You can also visit Environment Florida to send a message directly to Governor Scott and Deputy Secretary Herschel Vinyard.
World Book Night and Why it’s Important
World Book Nightis a celebration of reading and books which will see tens of thousands of people share books with others in their communities across America to spread the joy and love of reading on April 23. Successfully launched in the U.K. in 2011, World Book Night got its start in the U.K. last year, and is kicking off in the U.S. for the first time this year, with hopes of spreading further across the world each year.
Why April 23? April 23 is UNESCO’s World Book Day, chosen because it is the anniversary of Cervantes’ death, as well as Shakespeare’s birth and death. UNESCO’s homage, actually called World Book and Copyright Day, is celebrated as an opportunity to “pay a worldwide tribute to books and their authors on this date, encouraging everyone, and in particular young people, to discover the pleasure of reading and to gain a renewed respect for the extraordinary contributions of those who have furthered the social and cultural progress of humanity.”
According to UNESCO, the idea for the celebration originated in Catalonia (Spain) where it has become a tradition to give a rose as a gift for each book purchased. Here in the U.S., and in the U.K., World Book Night is celebrated by giving – a book! I’m a World Book Night Giver, and on Monday night at Westfield Citrus Park Mall , I’ll be giving away copies of one of the most interesting and thought provoking books I’ve read in years – the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.
The story of Henrietta Lacks is one that has developed like a gathering storm over the last 60 years, the far reaching and pertinent tale of a black
woman whose cells – identified as HeLa cells – were taken with her knowledge or that of her family’s in 1951, and became one of the most important tools in medicine because of their incredible ability to be continually cultured. HeLa cells have been vital to the development of the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more, lucrative to tune of billions of dollars even though her family today can’t afford health insurance. Described as ” a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew, ” the story of Henrietta Lacks and her immortal HeLa cells remains deeply relevant to all of us.
Just today, in a Wall Street Journal story titled in part, “Lab Mistakes Hobble Cancer Studies,” HeLa cells are evoked for their virulent properties that are as responsible for compromising important research as they are for being instrumental in the development of cures and treatments of illness and disease. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Cell repositories in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Japan have estimated that 18% to 36% of cancer cell lines are incorrectly identified. Researchers at Glasgow University and CellBank Australia found more than 360 such mistaken cell lines, including 100 that turned out to be the late Ms. Lack’s cervical cancer cells.”
Besides the fact that it’s beautifully written, and relatively easy to read, I was also moved by its message of how deeply connected we can be to complete strangers, by how much of our lives we may owe one another, without even being aware of it. I think the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is appropriate and powerful book to give to others. I think one of the most important things I can do as a writer is evoke thought and hopefully inspire action. I think the action that this book inspires is simply the act of acknowledgement – the acknowledgement that common thread running through our lives is our shared humanity.
I can’t think of a better way to reconnect with that common ground than by sharing the gift of thoughtful literature.
Heads Up!
“Miller said she was walking along, paying more attention to her phone than where she was going…Her companions heard, “”Oh God!” And then a splash.”
ABC News, St. Joseph, Michigan
I’m torn about perpetuating these strange popular stories – Chicken Nugget Girl, Baby x , the guy with the homemade bird wings hoax. But they say so much about our culture, our ways of being. Woman-Who-Fell-Off-Pier-After-Texting-While-Walking also falls right into that “strange but true” category, as much for the wonder of her story being covered as an “exclusive” news piece by her local media, as anything else.
Although Woman-Who-Fell-Off-Pier was “quite embarrassed” about the whole thing , she was still willing to heroically go on the evening news at the scene of her clumsiness to talk about the experience which, from the seriousness of the reporters covering the piece, suggests it was so much more than a case of not looking where you’re going.
“I couldn’t let pride stand in my way of warning people to not drive and text, or walk and text. It can be dangerous,” Mrs. Miller told the reporter with equal gravity.
Besides the rescue circus of pier walkers who included Miller’s husband, son and a by-stander, fire fighers, police and the coast guard also showed up, no doubt at great expense to tax payers, amused or otherwise. Oh for the days of swimming and wading ashore (Miller fell into just six feet of water), or simply climbing up the ladder attached to the pier, and waving off undue attention.
What a strange new problem.
The dangers of texting while driving have become abundantly clear, if for whatever reasons they weren’t obvious in the first place. But walking? We have become toddlers in a strange texting land! Consider the following Fast Facts from the US Office of Compliance (who knew there was such an office?):
- A teenage girl in New York City fell six feet through an open manhole while texting, sustaining minor injuries but, more problematically, exposed to raw sewage.
- A Florida teen died from injuries received when he stepped into the path of oncoming cars as he crossed a busy city street while texting.
- A university exchange student stepped into the path of a bus while jogging and listening to an Ipod in North Carolina.
- A man sustained a broken finger when he tripped and fell while talking on his cell phone.
- At least three people in the Washington D.C. area have died in accidents recently while wearing headphones.
The report goes on to say, “A study conducted at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington by psychologist and professor Ira Hyman and his students noted that
Texting at 65 mph - while heading up the Sunshine Skyway!
talking on a cell phone takes a toll on cognition and awareness. The study showed that pedestrians using their cell phones often did not notice objects or people in their path. They also found a type of preoccupation called “inattention blindness,” meaning that a person can be looking at an object but fail to register it or process what it is. “
More stats, from the report, these from a study conducted by the University of Birmingham that focused on children using cell phones. The study found:
- Students using cell phones took up to 20% longer to cross the street than children who were not using a cell phone;
- Slow-crossing students with cell phones were up to 43% more likely to be hit by a vehicle while crossing the street; and
- Children looked both ways 20% fewer times when crossing the street while using cell phones
In a 2009 study published in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Pediatrics journal researchers found that children whotext or talk on a cell phone while walking near or on a street are 40 percent more likely to get hit by an automobile. Digital Trends cited a recent study by Stony Brook University that found participants texting while walking “consistently veered away from walking a straight path by a 60 % deviation. Wandering to the left or right could easily explain how Bonnie Miller found herself falling off the edge of the pier. The amount of distance traveled by people within the study increased by 13% and participants took approximately 33 % longer to reach a destination when texting while walking. The research team also found that walking while talking on a cell phone increased travel time by about 16%.”
Have we finally reached a time in our history where we’re so busy talking with our thumbs we can’t walk with our feet? Have we become sidewalk potatoes -sometimes mashed with a side of gravy? Will helmets and knee pads become accessories to smartphones?
As disturbing as it is entertaining, London, which is apparently among the most text-accident prone places in the world, went so far as to cushion all the lampposts on the evidently aptly named Brick Lane, a particularly hazardous stretch of pavement that in 2007 alone had a reported 68,000 texting accidents. Cameras were installed to “capture pictures of people running into these obstructions and record incident frequency.
I looked for some evidence of any resulting report, but couldn’t locate anything. Perhaps they’re just too embarrassed to release it.
Some of the finest minds are working on solutions though:
“For consumers with Android-powered smartphones,” notes the Digital Trends piece, ” an application developer named Sascha Affolter has created an app called Transparent Screen that uses the camera to show what’s directly in front of the user while walking. The transparency effect can be adjusted by the user and works when texting or using other applications like Google Maps.”
Great – a heads up display for the inattention-blind to further enable a bad habit – when you could just put your own darn head up and see where you’re going. Hate to go all Luddite here – I mean I’m organizing a Mini Maker Faire and everything! – but technology without common sense is just a waste of resources, potential and the human experience.
Casey Neistat is more inclined to counsel some tongue-in-cheek texting etiquette, instead…
I’ve been at dinners, on outings, and walks and otherwise hanging out with friends and family who feel compelled to answer every text chime, and to tap away about where they are, or where they’re going, or what they’re going to do next week, completely missing their immediate surroundings, head down while the world goes by, always somewhere else and rarely where they are. We ‘re not only taking a lot longer to reach our destination if we’re texting while walking, or while being with others, but we’re seeing commensurately less along the way.
And it’s not just that we fail to see the edge of the pier or the looming lamppost; we’re missing each other, the company of the people we’re with, their features and expressions, their gestures and touch, the nuances of their words and thoughts. We’re missing the scenery – trees, flowers, grass, birds and animals, the landscape of neighborhoods and cities, the play of shadows, the swirl of leaves or even paper in the wind– all the things that make up the texture and tapestry of our immediate surroundings in the present moment, an instant in time we pass through only for the briefest instant and never have again.
Long ago, the answering machine was this great invention that freed us from having to answer the phone every time it rang, or from having to wait around for important calls. We could leave home to do things and listen to the messages when we returned, disregard unimportant calls and return important ones as needed. Now, oddly, “smart” phones have enslaved us again, more deeply than a corded phone ever did, to the ball and chain of instant accessibility. Now instead of waiting at home for important calls – which were really far and few between – we’ve elevated every minute piece of communication to the realm of “important.”
But freeing ourselves is easy. Turn off the phone. It’s smart. It takes messages. Need to send or receive a truly important message? Then stop, pull over, sit down, excuse yourself briefly from your company– and then send or read. And turn it off and rejoin life, previously in progress.
And look up. It’s a 3D world out there –enjoy it!
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All work by Theresa Willingham is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on work at Thinking Out Loud and elsewhere. Please inquire before using. Thank you! My Work
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- Life through the Lens
