A Sense of Place

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A Sense of Place

We all have a place, a favorite spot that gives us comfort and time for pause. Maybe it’s a country, a climate, or a spot in the sun on your back deck. We just returned from a family vacation in Ocracoke, North Carolina, one of my places, a veritable paradise. This will be the fourth time in the last five years that we’ve taken the exact same vacation to this remarkable island that boasts a grand total of 900 residents in the off-season. This time around I realized that what I love the most is the elemental nature of the island: nothing but sun (fire), sea (water), sand (earth), and sky (air).  Read more here…

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The 20th Annual – Whales-In-Training

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[Photo by Steve Miller]

The 20th Annual — Whales-in-Training

Nothing announces the passage of time more succinctly than the inexorable growth of your children. Well, any children really, but when it’s one’s own or those of your friends, it”s particularly poignant, especially if those friends happen to be your forever friends. This past Memorial Day, “The Whales” celebrated our 20th Annual camping trip at Shawnee State Park in Bedford County, Pennsylvania. We’ve been friends for several decades now, friendships sealed in the extraordinary times at Penn State’s Happy Valley and still going strong.  Read on…

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When Chemicals Combine

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When Chemicals Combine

It’s a tenet of the modern age that if you are alive and thriving on our planet, walking around in a “meat suit” — to steal a term from the TV show, “Supernatural” — you are likely composed of a cornucopia of pharmaceuticals, some of which you ingested internally and some which you just picked up along the way. No one knows how many chemicals are on the market today, but of the tens and tens of thousands, only a fraction of them have been vetted by the Society of Chemical Manufacturers of America, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, or any of the other organizations with any kind of “jurisdiction.” If you ask the EPA what, say, arsenic does, they may tell you it’s a chemical with an atomic number of 33, that it’s commonly occurring in minerals, that it’s used in industrial settings for strengthening alloys of copper and lead, and as a semi-conductor, and in the production of pesticides, insecticides and herbicides, among other things. It can also be naturally occurring in groundwater, and problematically, long-term exposure can lead to such things as diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Fine, good, glad to have that info. Let’s definitely keep arsenic out of our drinking water. But what about teflon? Or aluminum? Or dioxin? Anyone study those much? Know what the cancer risk is? The fate and transport? Whether it’s water soluble or the speed at which it travels to reach the ground water? The nine ways to Sunday I can die from it?

Combine here…

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Thank You, Friend

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Thank You, Friend

Thanking people should be the easiest part of writing a book and yet, it’s not. Why? Well, in this instance, the first draft of Oil and Water was written about thirteen years ago, and in between then and now I edited the manuscript at least four times, beefed it up, cut it down, pasted it back together, started as close to the “inciting event” as I could without losing the integrity of the document, subjected it to scrutiny by various critique groups, let it languish for months, sometimes years at a time while I worked on other things, and then shredded it again before sending it out to publishers and agents where it garnered interest at times and fell into darkness at others. When I got tired of the search for the perfect representative, I decided to become her. Whether I have succeeded magnificently or failed miserably is a subjective matter, but I do know I have tried, sometimes with grace and sometimes with everything but, to bring this most heartfelt work out into the world, and maybe drag some environmental awareness along with it in a fun, non-threatening, non-judgmental manner. Okay, maybe the teeniest bit of judgment, but I am an environmentalist after all and old habits die hard.    Read the synopsis here…

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The Worst Client Ever

It’s the 21st century.  By now we should be all living in peace and enjoying the view, but instead, we’re still rehashing the same tired old prejudices we’ve had since we all stole this place from the Native Americans.  Unfortunately, because of the current state of our political process and the presumptive GOP nominee, it doesn’t appear that it will end anytime soon.  Interest piqued?  Then please enjoy this post by my friend and colleague, William C. Smith.

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Judge Higginbotham and The Worst Client Ever
By William C. Smith

I don’t shed any tears for Donald Trump’s lawyers. I’m sure they’re very well paid, and – thanks to their client’s notorious litigiousness — the sky’s the limit on those billable hours. According to USA Today, Trump has been involved in least 3,500 federal and state lawsuits over the past three decades.  Read more here…

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World Environment Day

IMG_1161[photo — Bethany Beach, DE]

World Environment Day

Welcome to World Environment Day, a day to celebrate stewardship of the Earth. We as Americans have so many natural resources that we often take for granted while other parts of the world are not so lucky. So what can we do to make our place a little cleaner, more livable, more sustainable, and demonstrate our gratitude for those resources we do have?

Positive action to protect your planet is what it’s all about on June 5th. Remember, it’s the tiny things that add up to big things in the end so make a few little changes that will last a lifetime and help to transform not just yours, but many lives in the process. In the interim, here’s something to think about: our amazing water and a novel idea that will help those who don’t have access to WASH, water, sanitation and hygiene.   Read more here…

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The GWA 9th Annual

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The Global Water Alliance’s 9th Annual Conference

This year’s Global Water Alliance (GWA) conference in April 2016 hosted a variety of thinkers, entrepreneurs, NGO’s, policy makers and regulators at the Fox School of Business conference rooms at Temple University. All right, just one regulator, me, but I didn’t go for that reason. I went for the fun, I went for the camaraderie, and mostly, I went for the KTS, the knowledge transfer session. Since its inception, the GWA has been a networking station and clearinghouse for all these groups who have at their core a passion for water and solving the world’s WASH — water, sanitation and hygiene — issues.

Read more here…

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Promote Your Blog Here

Great blog for the brain.

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Feeling Nosey?

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[photo by Scott Eberly]

Feeling Nosy?

So it’s Memorial Day weekend and the unofficial start of summer. What better time to dive into a book? May I recommend Six Sisters? I’ve even got some questions for you to ponder after your done.  So grab your hammock and a cool one and get started!

Six Sisters, three stories, one theme: Know Thyself.

Read the questions here…

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Rain Clouds and Waterfalls

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Rain Clouds and Waterfalls

Rain Clouds and Waterfalls by Piper Templeton is a lovely little coming of age and beyond story set in a time when life was simpler if only because choices were limited. In other ways, life was more harsh as the dogma of the day ruled. People, especially children, had fewer options. They didn’t revere, as we do today, the meaning of individuality, and “Authority,” meaning work, school, teachers, parents, priests, etc., was spelled with a capital A. It was always the job of rock and roll, beginning with the Beatles, to peel back the veil of mass conformity so that everyone could let their individual light shine. Rain Clouds and Waterfalls offers a peek into that beginning time.  Read the review here…

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