How can you not love her? How can you not want to be like her? 

Apparently some men suffer from what is called "'industrial breadwinner masculinity’ where they see the world as separated between humans and nature... The corollary to this is that climate science, for skeptics, becomes feminized—or viewed as 'oppositional to assumed entitlements of masculine primacy.' 

"As Thunberg approached America, she was followed by a tsunami of male rage. On her first day of sailing, a multi-millionaire Brexit activist tweeted that he wished a freak accident would destroy her boat. A conservative Australian columnist called her a 'deeply disturbed messiah of the global warming movement,' while the British far-right activist David Vance attacked the 'sheer petulance of this arrogant child.'

"In the U.S., former Trump staffer Steve Milloy recently called Thunberg a 'teenage puppet,' and claimed that 'the world laughs at this Greta charade,' while a widely shared far-right meme showed Trump tipping The Statue of Liberty to crush her boat." 

If you care about Greta, a tiny 16-year-old girl, and her cause, you need to read this article in The New Republic: The Misogyny of Climate Deniers. Based on a growing body of research linking gender reactionaries to climate-denialism, these new findings come on top of evidence that supports a link between climate deniers and the anti-feminist far-right.

It paints an ugly picture of some men who are at first misogynists who can't handle change in any shape or form if they perceive it as an attack on their masculinity and position in a world where they see themselves at the top and are making all the decisions.

So, G.A.Ls for Gaia, know your enemies and carry on by standing up for Gaia. And Greta.

Doing  Sanctuary at the Miccosukee Embassy in Miami can sometimes seem like doing time in prison. Talk about banality. Thankfully the place has a great sound system. When it's just me and Haalie, I turn up the volume and the voluminous space fills with music that bounces off the stone floors and ricochets off the glass walls. And we dance like no one is watching. I love how my little girl dances so freely, so happily. 

But when I discovered this song,  I couldn't dance. I had to grab up Haalie and hold her tightly, to slowly sway to the music as one. 

That song made me think of my life, the war for Gaia I fought with Nokosee and the child that was born on that fateful night deep in the burning Everglades as we fought for our lives. I love its refrain because that's how I feel. Although I've been stuck here for some time, Haalie makes it doable. And the music restores my soul's purpose. 

Fabian Unger, the Vienna-based artist known as The Sad Gardener, is my kinda "Song and Dance Man." His "Climate Justice" song and dance are just too perfect for words. As soon as I saw and heard it I thought: This should be one of the "acts" in the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. You know, when they pause the floats or bands so they can perform for the cameras and the hosts can talk about them.  Get a marching band load of people of all ages and let them march and dance-- just like Mr. Unger-- in the parade to this music.  During the break, the dancing/singing/marchers can hand out roses to the crowd on both sides of the street before reassembling and doing it all over again.

As for the video, wait for the dancing... because it's worth it.

If you've been reading this blog, you know Greta Thunberg amazes me. For such a tiny little thing, she stands taller and stronger and braver than any of us when she speaks to power about the rapidly declining health of Gaia. And she does it without anger. Or a gun or a knife. 

I want to be like her.

But like Billy Jack, sometimes "I just go berserk!" 

I know, I need counseling.  But I suspect by the time I'm "cured," it will be too late for Gaia. 

Meet Matt Seaholm. He's the proud face of the insidious war on banning the banning of plastic bags.  As reported in The Intercept, the executive director of the American Progressive Bag Alliance is 'unapologetic in his antagonism of environmental groups that have been calling attention to "the ban on the ban." In Texas, Seaholm, the former national director of the Koch brothers-led Americans for Prosperity, positioned himself as the enemy of environmentalists.

​'“They hate what we’re doing,” Seaholm told his plastics industry colleagues at a recent conference with a mischievous grin. “We wear this as a badge of honor.” The fact that environmental groups oppose the APBA’s tactics, Seaholm added, is evidence that his lobbying group “must be doing something right.”'

42 percent of Americans now live in states where they can’t pass local bans on plastics' thanks to his efforts and those of other Big Plastic lobbyists. 

Say what? 

Seaholm derided the attempts at banning plastics as “primarily driven by emotion.”

​Yeah, that and science and evidence. To quote Smokey Robinson, I second that emotion. 

While doing Sanctuary in the Miccosukee Embassy, I happened to come across this article in Mother Jones called Environmentalism's Next Frontier: Giving Nature Legal Rights. In the American legal system corporations and ships have rights. David Boyd, an associate law professor at the University of British Columbia and author of the 2017 book The Rights of Nature says “We have the capacity to recognize the rights of whomever and whatever we want. It’s just a matter of determining what’s important to us.”

The "Rights of Nature" idea reaches all the way back to 1972 (two years after the first Earth Day) when Christopher Stone, a University of Southern California law professor, suggested in his essay Should Trees Have Standing? that they should. He was one of the first Western legal scholars to contemplate nature’s ability to take part in lawsuits.

​Rights-of-nature laws often work by appointing a guardian to advocate for a particular ecosystem or natural feature, much like a parent represents a child’s interests in court (Guardian ad Litem). The guardian can sue on the ecosystem’s behalf. If the ecosystem is awarded damages, the money might go into a trust dedicated to funding its restoration.

I may not be a lawyer to sue on behalf of Gaia, but I can still guard her interests by any means necessary. And you can, too. 

Rosalie Fish got my attention when this picture showed up on my feed a couple of months ago. Spokane tribal member Alex Flett took the picture as the 17-year-old high school student ran in her last track meet for the Muckleshoot Tribal Schools. A member of the Cowlitz tribe, she took that opportunity to publicize the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement (#MMIW), a call for action to solve the murders and the mysteries, and to change the culture that allows it to happen. To do that, she painted a red hand over her mouth "to speak for those who couldn't speak for themselves" and wrote MMIW down her leg.

Yesterday I was reading an article about indigenous gender identity. Before the "Great Colonial Flood," the indigenous tribes were pretty cool and laid back about what made a man or a woman and gays (Two Spirits) were accepted as the norm and were in fact considered to be a blessing if a Two Spirit was part of your family. Many tribes also were matriarchal with at least one where the women owned just about everything while their husbands owned just their medicines and weapons. Of course, this all was disrupted big time when Europeans arrived with their God. Part of the genocide that followed was the White Man's attempt to beat the "devil" out of the 500 Tribes through any means necessary. Over time the role of women in the tribes was diminished because the Judeo-Christian God said men were supposed to be in charge and women were to be subservient to them.  Violence against Indigenous women and the people of Two Spirits grew and often became minimized or dismissed both within and outside of Indigenous communities. 

The article made me think of Rosalie's red hand painted across her mouth as she ran alone and bravely for all of those who have been killed or are missing.  I couldn't shake that bloody red hand out of my head and wondered why I never saw this malignant behavior towards women in the New Seminole. Instead, I saw the most romantic and supportive relationship between Nokosee's parents. Busimanolotome Osceola, founder of the New Seminole, led by example and his son paid attention-- Nokosee is the most loving and supportive husband a woman could want. 

And then I saw this new hand evolving behind my eyes which symbolizes a family of colors. I rounded up the usual suspects at the Miccosukee Embassy and made prints of Nokosee's, mine, and Haalie's hands. This is who we and the NS are: a tribe of many colors, young and old, gay and straight fighting for Gaia.

On Saturday, July 13th, the Loretto Police Department (Tennessee) posted on its Facebook page about the recent arrest of a man who officers said tried to flush methamphetamine down his toilet. The department warned residents against doing such a thing, which they said could lead to creating "meth-gators." The department wrote:

"On a more or less serious note: Folks…please don't flush your drugs m'kay. When you send something down the sewer pipe it ends up in our retention ponds for processing before it is sent down stream.

"Now our sewer guys take great pride in releasing water that is cleaner than what is in the creek, but they are not really prepared for meth.

"Ducks, Geese, and other fowl frequent our treatment ponds and we shudder to think what one all hyped up on meth would do.
​
"Furthermore, if it made it far enough we could create meth-gators in Shoal Creek and the Tennessee River down in North Alabama. They've had enough methed up animals the past few weeks without our help."

The department ended the post by asking residents to call the police if they have any drugs they want disposed of "in the proper way."

Which got me to thinkin' about Haalpatee, Nokosee's 18-foot one-eyed pet gator. If you read my books you know that gator did NOT need any stimulants to get him animated. I can only shudder at the thought of him-- or any gator for that matter-- getting high on meth.  Talk about a horror movie-- with a message.

It all began on July 1st when actor Jason Statham took up the viral #bottlecapchallenge that requires a spinning back kick to remove a bottle cap.  Clicking the link above will show you how it has evolved from a standard martial arts kick to an American football center's hiking a football at the bottle cap; to a gorgeous woman standing on a jet ski artfully clipping the bottle cap with her toe as she swings by.

But Nokosee's, mine, and Haalie's fav is by Native Hoop Dancer James Jones. His signature approach above is something three-year-old Haalie has tried until she's so dizzy she can't stand up straight. And, although her efforts kept us entertained on what would otherwise have been another slow day at the Miccosukee Embassy, it's interesting to note that when we finally stepped in to stop her, she protested vehemently, reminding us of her strong spirit and an innate need to overcome any challenge. Nokosee told me he sees her mom in her. I hugged him for that but then he said, "Too bad she's going to grow up and become a teenager." 

I had to laugh. He was reminding me of my own father.