While the McCain campaign tries to tar Obama with the "celebrity" brush by aligning him with a supposedly certified "celebrity bimbo," Britney Spears, it's important to recall that Ms. Spears gave an interview with CNN shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 in which the interviewer asked her, in view of all her fellow Holloywood celebrities vocally opposing the invasion, where did she stand?

Are you spending more on trash than you need to be? With the higher price of things today from gas to groceries, you want to spend your money wisely. The Orange Bag program of the Monroe County Solid Waste Management District (District) allows you to dispose of your trash and recyclables at the same time. Putting your trash in orange bags and taking the trash and your recyclables to a recycling and solid waste site nearest you reduces disposal costs.

So, if you have trash you need to dispose of and you don’t have City curbside pick-up service or you miss the collection day, the District’s Orange Bag Trash program can help you. Orange bags are available for purchase in most major grocery and hardware stores and they are available in two sizes: ten 33 gallon bags are $10, twenty 15 gallon bags are $10.

pk

Bush speaking in (eurasian) Georgia:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4534267.stm

"I am proud to stand beside a president (of Georgia) who has shown such spirit, determination and leadership in the cause of freedom."

Our political leaders and mainstream media have been apopleptic over Russia's supposed invasion of neighboring Georgia. They seem to think that Russia should be cast out from humanity into the outerdarkness. And, of course, to defend this kind of hystrionics, they indulge in all kinds of lies and distortions.

{EcoLink} updated as of AUGUST 12th GrassrootsAction & GreenEvents Calendar & related notices

{AUG '08} events (& beyond) - Table of Contents:

*Special Notices -*OASIS PermaCulture garden & RainKiosk project seeks input, donations & help
*New Green Media Lab @ the Caldwell Eco Center - call for involvement
*Simply Healthy Fair "Local Foods & Aging Well" - appeal for help
*Earth Machine composters - call for six volunteers to table
*Hoosier Hills Food Bank Gleaning Project - call for volunteers
*Natural Living Festival vending/booth opportunity

The following "Farewell Address" was given by me at the meeting of the Indianapolis Community-Faith-Labor Coalition on August 2, 2008. It has been emended for clarity and accuracy, and a new paragraph added--GF

***
The lead editorial by Ron Haldeman in the August, 2008 issue of the Indianapolis Peace & Justice Journal, “Where have All the Radicals Gone?” says it all. After briefly listing where radical presences in Indianapolis were in the past, visible and effective, he concludes plaintively, “So where have all the radicals gone? We need them very badly.”

Indeed we do. And a good number of them should be coming out of the Community-Faith-Labor Coalition, but they’re not. Much to my dismay, and also much to the detriment of the working people of Indiana and Indianapolis.

{EcoLink} end of JUNE/JULY GrassrootsAction & GreenEvents Calendar & related notices

{end of JUNE/JULY'08} events - Table of Contents:

*Special Notices -
*New PermaCulture garden seeks input, donations & help
*New Green Media Lab @ the Caldwell Eco Center - call for help*NOTICE: IFA seeking new coordinator
*Action Alert from the Citizens Action Coalition regarding Duke coal plant
*Recent/Upcoming episodes of INTERCHANGE on WFHB Community Radio
*Land in path of proposed new-terrain I-69 for projects available

>JUNE<

6/27 ~ Runcible Spoon Poetry Series - "Men's Words"

by Patrick Kitchens

Indiana University is regarded as an elite international educational institution. However in 2007 IU received a D+ by the Sustainable Endowments Institute published in their annual College Sustainability Report Card. Should the university be sent to bed without any supper…Maybe a little harsh. In reply the university created the Sustainability Task Force, appointed by Vice President Terry Clapacs, which developed a framework for campus sustainability that was released January 2008. Areas of focus include: academic initiatives, energy, environmental quality/land use, resource use/recycling, transportation, built environment, and food.

The Report Card is the only independent sustainability evaluation of campus operations and endowment investments. It assesses the 200 public and private universities with the largest endowments, ranging from $230 million to nearly $35 billion. The Report Card is based on several criteria as follows: Administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building, transportation, endowment transparency, investment priority, and shareholder engagement. In 2008, primarily due to the formation of the faculty/student led Sustainability Task Force, Indiana University received a C from the College Sustainability Report Card. Unfortunately IU still ranks at the bottom of the Big Ten in campus sustainability tied with its in-state rival Purdue. In this article I will examine the steps IU is taking towards bettering climate change and energy impacts on campus and make several recommendations.

GrassrootsAction & GreenEvents Calendar & related notices

{MAY 2008} events - Table of Contents:

*Special Notices -
*New Local Eco News outlets - Radio, Print & Net
*New Green Media Lab @ the Caldwell Eco Center - call for help
*Upcoming episodes of INTERCHANGE on WFHB Community Radio
*10 acres of Marc Haggerty's property in path of proposed I-69 open to eco ideas

>MAY<

{Various/Multiple dates ~ Gardening Updates from Stephanie S. of MHC}
5/2 ~ Deadline to Register for Building Green: Affordable Housing Conference
5/2 ~ HECM Conselor Exam Preperation Webinar

Rather than raking through the stacks at IDEM, I'm expanding my CSO or combined sewer overflow education by raking through Alternative editor Steven Higgs' file cabinet. Hopefully, my summarization of an article Steve wrote for IDEM in 2000 about the E. coli riddled Little Lick Creek in Hartford City (our next destination), will better prepare me, and others, for what to expect.

Reading the article, I learned something new right away. Not all strains of E. coli, a bacteria living in the intestines of warm-blooded animals, produce the same results. One of the more threatening strains, O157:H7, causes the bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps often associated with an E. coli infection. This strain and others are found in Little Lick Creek.

Three variables, according to the article, account for this strain in Little Lick: runoff from nearby agribusinesses, failing septic systems and, not surprisingly, untreated waste from CSOs.