The first thing that food banks need is money. So the Donate button is going right here so that you can't miss it.
For every $1 you donate, Feeding America helps provide 7 meals to men, women and children facing hunger in our country.
Ameriprise Financial will make a 2 to 1 match of any donation until the end of September. That means that for every dollar you donate for the next 5 days you are funding 21 meals.
Ok, not so much a study but a fairly trivial illustration that I hope sparks discussion.
There is a lot of outrage lately over a perceived notion that the press is being unfairly targeted by the Coast Guard's BP's recent announcement of the establishment of safety zones around sensitive areas such as booms, skimmer operation zones, and the spill site.
I'm skeptical that the press has been targeted. Many of the people visiting, or attempting to visit, those sites are spectators, not legitimate reporters of any stripe.
I count uncredentialed documentarians among the legitimate media representatives, by the way, they are a vital component of information collection and dissemination.
Access by tourists and the simply curious needs to be limited, for what I hope are obvious reasons.
But that is only a part of the focus of this diary, just a foundation on which my opinions are built.
This is, once again, an addition to a long litany of the colossal fuck-ups that BP has done in managing their response to the oil spill. Apparently, they've not really been manning their volunteer centers, and have refused to take in volunteers with actual background experience in responding to oil spills. Here's more from Brad Johnson at Think Progress on this issue:
BP has rejected the help of thousands of volunteers, many with expert training and experience in handling offshore oil disasters and oil spill cleanup. Yesterday, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd interviewed Don Abrams of OilSpillVolunteers.com, who collected the names of nearly 8,000 volunteers in the first weeks after BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion, and tried repeatedly to contribute their expertise to mitigating this national disaster. Many of the volunteers Abrams had organized have certification in the federal government’s official Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Standard (HAZWOPER), and were ready and able to train others.