chaparral Archive

Featured Stories

• 12 Reasons to Try Elliott Abrams in the International Criminal Court
  Posted on February 15, 2019 | No Comments

  Donald Trump appointed Elliott Abrams as “Special Envoy to Venezuela” to help facilitate regime change in that country by the United States. This nod marks Mr. Abrams' third assignment in U.S. Republican administrations. The following is a brief background of his career, summarized by Rachel Bruhnke.

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• Ecological Amnesia: Life Without Wild Things
  Posted on February 9, 2019 | No Comments

  We have forgotten the flocks of passenger pigeons that blotted out the sun, the herds of bison that shook the ground, and the untamed places in which we destroyed them. This is ecological amnesia. This capacity to forget, this fluidity of memory, has dire implications in a world dense with people, all desperate to satisfy their immediate material needs. Yet, the way forward is land and water protection and regeneration, permaculture, and community reconnection with the wild.

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• Coup Redux in Venezuela: ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’
  Posted on February 3, 2019 | 1 Comment

  As we see another coup against Venezuela's democratically-elected government, we revisit the 2002 coup attempt in the documentary, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (a.k.a. Chavez: Inside the Coup), which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. A television crew from Ireland's Radio Telifís Éireann happened to be recording a documentary about Chávez during the events of April 11, 2002.

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• Pushing Back Against the Venezuela Coup-Plotters
  Posted on January 30, 2019 | 2 Comments

  An attempted coup is underway in Venezuela, call it what you like. While the Bolivarian Revolution has had its problems, U.S. sanctions have devastated its economy and people. Negotiations led by Mexico, Uruguay, and the Vatican are the only sane way forward.

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• Angels and Saints in Mosaic at Sicily’s Monreale Cathedral
  Posted on January 13, 2019 | No Comments

  The Cathedral at Monreale, built between 1170 and 1189, in a hilltown above Palermo, Sicily, is a masterpiece of Arab-Norman Byzantine mosaics created by craftspeople from Constantinople.

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• EcoJustice Radio – Nuclear Waste: The Los Angeles Meltdown & Cover-Up – Ep. 26
  Posted on December 17, 2018 | 1 Comment

  The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL or Rocketdyne), north of Los Angeles, burned in the November 2018 Woolsey Fire, threatening toxic exposures from contaminated dust, smoke, ash, and soil. In […]

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• EcoJustice Radio – Ku Kia’i Mauna: The Mauna Kea Movement to Protect Sacred Sites – Ep 25 Part II
  Posted on December 13, 2018 | No Comments

  Kumu Mikilani provides an update on the status of Mauna Kea and the inspired movement to stop the construction of the 30-meter TMT telescope, anticipated to be the Northern Hemisphere's singular largest telescope sponsored by CalTech, University of California and the countries of India, Japan, and Canada. Twelve telescopes have already blighted what native Hawaiians consider their most sacred mountain and pinnacle of their origination cosmologically.

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• EcoJustice Radio – Ku Kia’i Mauna: The Mauna Kea Movement to Protect Sacred Sites – Ep 25 Part I
  Posted on December 12, 2018 | No Comments

  Kumu Mikilani Young discusses with Carry Kim from EcoJustice Radio about the proposed, highly controversial 30-meter TMT telescope which would be built atop "ceded" conservation lands on Mauna Kea, considered the most sacred mountain for native Hawaiians or Kanaka Ma'oli. The TMT telescope would be the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere and is being spearheaded by the University of California, the California Institute of Technology as well as: Japan, China, India and Canada.

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• EcoJustice Radio – Centennial Project: Suburbs Sprawl, Health & Environment Suffers – Ep. 24
  Posted on November 26, 2018 | No Comments

  Tejon Ranch Centennial Specific Plan (or Centennial) is a massive planned city in a unique, rare, fire-prone wilderness of grasslands and mountains, a residential and commercial development in LA County. […]

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• Defensible Space: My Wildfire-Appropriate Retrofit Journey – Part I
  Posted on November 16, 2018 | 1 Comment

  As the Western U.S. continues with massive wind-driven, high-intensity wildfires that often turn deadly, Naomi Pitcairn recommends retrofitting homes on the Wildland Urban Interface for fire-resistant resiliency. This is Part I of a three-part series.

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