If you tell the story of the burnt ballot boxes in Portland and Vancouver this week (an important story that warrants attention), also tell how good fire-suppressant design saved all but three ballots in the Portland box, and the efforts of the election workers who contacted those three voters and arranged for replacement ballots.

Things are scary and bad, and often literally on fire. But there are good people and good systems too. Making us forget that is always a win for the worst ones.

Grass is pretty amazing.

I was out at the farm, doing the regular fall chores and prepping beds for garlic, when my glasses lens fell out. The screw is, of course, gone. But I need my glasses to drive. Enter a natural material that's abundant, strong, flexible and able to hold a knot.

It got me home. Thanks, grass.
#grass #nature #AnyLandingYouWalkAwayFrom

All the wild racist conspiracy theories we have to debunk keep us from talking about the quieter things the GOP wants to do.

One very un-sexy one is dismantling and privatizing the National Weather Service. NWS is how government should work. It's a pure public service. It saves lives. You probably don't think about it on an average day, but it benefits you constantly. A system that works so well without profit motive can't exist in their worldview, and if they have their way, it won't.

#uspol

An #EarthDay reminder that despite what governments, militaries, and oil, plastic and chemical companies would have you believe, you didn't break the world. The treat you bought yourself, your drive to work, the flight to see your aging parents. They didn't break it, and eliminating them will not save it.

Individual reduction is great. It feels good, and I would never discourage it for its own sake. But individual responsibility for environmental degradation is an intentional and damaging lie.