So, a lot of stuff happened over this busy holiday weekend. One thing that we particularly love? The March Against Monsanto.

This March Against Monsanto footage comes from Tucson, Arizona. The march occurred on May 23, 2015. Was there a march in your area? If so, share the footage with us or link in a comment below.

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ColumnIn Arizona, a bunch of lawmakers agreed that a “No Gays Allowed” sign would be totally cool.

You guys, breaking news: Legislators in Arizona have worked out time travel! They have dubbed their new machine: SB 1062. There are a few kinks to be worked out. First, it only goes back in time. Second, it lands just before civil rights existed.

Earlier this week, legislators in Arizona passed SB 1062, a bill that would allow business owners to refuse to serve gays, lesbians and other individuals for “religious reasons.”

All jokes aside, if the bill had passed, this could have been really scary in terms of civil rights. And, when SB 1062 made it to the desk of Governor Jan Brewer, it looked like this could actually happen.

The Governor posted this on Facebook on Tuesday, February 25: “I can assure you, as always, I will do the right thing for the State of Arizona.”

She was given until Saturday to decide what to do. If she didn’t sign or veto the legislation by the end of the day Saturday, it would have automatically become law. On Wednesday evening, she vetoed—but no one felt sure that she would.

Allowing a “No Gays Served” sign above the counter or on a store window is legalized discrimination. There’s no other way to look at this issue. None.

Logistically, this “turn away the gay” bill would have been hard to implement. What about bisexual people? Trans people? And worse: people who might look straight—but totally aren’t.

How, exactly, would business owners identify a gay person who tries to sneak into their establishments to spend money because, as well all know, gay people have zero self-control. Especially the men.

Oh. Duh. If he’s a gay man, it’s likely that he’s shopping while simultaneously engaging in a sex act—because gay men are slutty. So that’ll be easy.

The ladies could be more difficult to identify. Hmmm. . . a neighborhood watch dedicated to mullet-reporting? Maybe just don’t serve any woman who might hate men—you’ll be able to tell because she will not have at least one baby with her and will be wearing pants. Also look for flaming brassieres!

This sounds like a lot of work—but would have created jobs in Arizona, which is definitely something Brewer is interested in.

In a televised address on Wednesday evening, Brewer said that she hadn’t heard of one case of a business owner’s religious freedom being violated and went on to say, “Religious liberty is a core American and Arizona value, so is non-discrimination.”

I would like to think she vetoed this bill because it is disgusting and wrong, but given her focus in the speech on Arizona’s economic Comeback (with a capital C in the text released to the public) and the pressure from huge corporations, including the Arizona Superbowl Committee—the big game is scheduled to be played in Phoenix in 2015—it’s not hard to be cynical.

The good news is that so many people, and corporations, stood up and said, “No, this is wrong; this cannot happen.” And those who fought for the bill? They will be remembered for who they truly are and that will be their punishment.

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Image: Human Rights Campaign

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Tips on making the most out of your pre-pre-natal status.

You already knew that your most recent menstrual cycle is considered a pre-assembled bundle of joy under the recent Arizona law, which recognizes fetal personhood two weeks before conception. This is because Governor Jan Brewer has developed a unique form of time travel that is both retroactive and womb-specific (and they say America doesn’t invest in science anymore).

At any rate, it’s better to be pregnant than sorry, as the old chestnut goes. Congratulations! You’re (mostly) already a mother. How wonderful – and may I add, on a personal note, that you’re absolutely (hypothetically) glowing? Here are a few bits of pre-prenatal advice we’d like to offer our newly pregnant readers.

• If you’re not sure where to start, why not try naming your tampons, just in case? “We call this one Harper. She’s got her father’s absorbency but I think she takes after my mother’s side of the family – she expands radially just like my mother’s sister Abigail.”
• Worried about early preschool cutoff dates? Now that proto-Edwick is a whole two weeks older, you’ve got that much more of an edge on your Brentwood School application. Your slutty neighbor who got knocked up before H.B. 2036 passed is going to have to wait an entire year before she gets another chance. Edwick will already be fluent in Mandarin calculus engineering by then!
• Don’t forget, however, that early admission also means early student loan repayment – your ante-blastula may already have exceeded the maximum number of uterine deferrals. Does your womb have space for debt collectors?
• What does your icipient embryo think about Lena Dunham’s Girls? Do you want your progeny to be the only one in the maternity ward without an opinion? It’s never too early for a longform thinkpiece about a television show that’s aired exactly one episode, so plan ahead.
• Are proto-zygotes growing up too fast and having sex before they even start to exist?
• Why not take this expansive, futurist approach to the rest of your life? Shake things up a little! Divorce your spouse before your relationship falls apart! Quit your job before you retire! Stop breathing before you die! Don’t think of it as overweening and self-defeating presumption. Think of it as maximizing your life-cycle efficiency. Sure, you’ll die earlier, but we live in fast-paced times! Who wants to sit around waiting for their body to stop working before ceasing to exist?

Alternately, of course, you could use those two weeks to get the hell out of Arizona and into a state with sane, compassionate reproductive laws. Like Nevada – wait. New Mexico, then. Or not. Utah doesn’t look much better, does it? Colorado? …Oh.

Image: Josh Parrish

The post What to Expect When You’re (Legally Considered to be) Expecting appeared first on EcoSalon.

There are laws dictating that pregnancy begins before you even have sex. Really.

I’m considering having sex this weekend. So, according to lawmakers in eight states, that means I might be pregnant. That’s right. I can get pregnant up to two weeks before I even have sex. No, I am not a superhero with a magic womb, nor am I a farm animal (note to Terry England: Really, I am not a farm animal), I am just a woman in the U.S. watching my right to choose get stripped away one moon cycle at a time.

Despite the fact that I am totally uninterested in making a new human and, at 35, have used my completely functional lady-brain to decide to take a birth control pill every day – it seems that my eggs’ desire to get fertilized is so strong that the mere thought of having sex five days from now means that if I happen to get pregnant, I already am.

Confused?

Luckily, we have Planned Parenthood to break it down – at least we do for now. Michelle Steinberg, Planned Parenthood of Arizona lobbyist, was quoted in the Tucson Citizen calling the law the country’s “most extreme piece of anti-abortion legislation.” She explained that it defines pregnancy in a way that bans abortion two weeks before the other seven states with similar, restrictive laws. It calculates gestational age starting with the first day of the woman’s last menstrual period rather than the date of conception. Meaning, even if you haven’t had sex since your last period, you could still be pregnant.

Not only is this ridiculous, it’s dangerous. Many women don’t learn that their fetus has a severe or life-threatening problem until an ultrasound is given around the 20th week of pregnancy. This law would prevent these women access to abortion should they learn that the fetus (planned or not) has a disease that will cause death in the womb or at birth.

But, really, if it’s good enough for a pig…

Georgia state Rep. Terry England (R-Auburn) made headlines last month when he compared pregnant women carrying stillborn fetuses to term to livestock. England is quoted as saying: “Life gives us many experiences…I’ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive. Delivering pigs, dead or alive. It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it.”

That bill, quickly and aptly nicknamed the “Women as Livestock Bill,” criminalizes abortion after 20 weeks, with no provisions for rape or incest. It was passed last month.

Current law allows abortions up until the point of viability – defined as the time when a fetus could reasonably survive on its own outside of the woman’s womb (many medical experts estimate that to be from 22 to 24 weeks). Current law also allows abortions after 24 weeks to protect the “life or health of the woman.” The problem here is that “health” isn’t really defined.

Most reasonable people will agree that forcing a woman to give birth to a dead baby will negatively impact her health. What about forcing a woman who gets raped?

The way things are going in this country, I’m not taking my rights for granted. I’m planning for the future, so, if you’d like to give a shower gift, I’ll be registered at Planned Parenthood indefinitely. One never knows when they might be pregnant.

Image: Gaga M13

The post Having Sex This Week? In Some States, You Might Already Be Pregnant appeared first on EcoSalon.

Fashion writer Johanna Björk continues her drive from New York City to Ojai, California, eating good food the entire way.

During the first part of my six day roadtrip across America, I made it through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and about half of Nebraska, all without eating any junk food — which is harder than it sounds when you’re on the road. Over the course of the three days that lay ahead, the plan was to make it all the way to California, a mere 1,626 miles.

Day Four – Nebraska, Colorado
We woke up on the late side, which was probably due to several glasses of good wine we had at The Drover in Omaha the night before. The plan was to make it to Denver where we had friends to stay with. After a while of driving we saw a roadside sign advertising a “Museum of the Prairie Pioneer” and just had to go check it out. The Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer turned out to be a living history museum with a mix of indoor exhibits and outdoor built environments.

The Stuhr Building, designed by Edward Durell Stone

Yes, indeed, I am

The main building, designed by renowned architect Edward Durell Stone, is surprisingly modern. There, you will find exhibits featuring everything from old farm equipment to period-specific clothing. Across the way, the Gus Fonner Memorial Rotunda houses beautiful collections of Native American and Old West memorabilia reflecting the contrasting cultures of the Plains Indians and the early western settlers. After this, we took a walk through Railroad Town, which is a replica of an old frontier town, complete with storefronts, wagons and trains. Since it was a weekday, none of the buildings were open, and the only other visitors to the museum at the time was a class of school children. It was actually quite nice to feel like we had the place to ourselves.

The Log Cabin Settlement

Hanging out by the teepee

The Log Cabin Settlement is an interpretation of the 1850s-60s “road ranches” that were built (using Cottonwood logs) along the pioneer trails and served travelers heading west. The Pawnee Earth Lodge is a 38-foot wide replica of an 1830s lodge that would have been home to about thirty to fifty people. The Pawnee were once the most influential and populous of the native peoples of Nebraska, and their towns ranged in size from forty to two hundred of these earth lodges. Before leaving, I just had to go lay down inside the teepee for a while to stretch before the long ride ahead.

The Pawnee Earth Lodge

Thirty to fifty people would have lived inside one of these Earth Lodges

After a minor WordPress incident (I accidentally deleted most of a post on my blog trying to fix a spelling error using the WordPress iPhone app), a desperate search for wifi took us to the Coffee Cottage. Located right off the highway, in the midst of gas stations, fast food drive-ins and chain motels, is an independently run coffee shop (with free wifi), where the owner herself will make your cup of ice coffee for the road. That’s what I call a happy accident.

The Coffee Cottage

Original Pony Express Station in Gothenburg, Nebraska

We stopped in Gothenburg, Nebraska to check out the original Pony Express station, a small log cabin that once was a stop along the Pony Express route that ran from Missouri to California. During the period of about eighteen months when the Pony Express was delivering mail, a total of 183 riders did the route. They had to be “young, skinny wiry fellows not over 18” and “expert riders willing to risk death daily.” Orphans were preferred and the wages were $25 per week. The average weight of a rider was 120 pounds, and most of them were around 20 years old, but the youngest of them was merely eleven and the oldest in his mid-40s.

The Sod House Museum

An authentic replica of the sod houses built by early settlers in the region

On our way back to the highway, we made one last stop, at the Sod House Museum — an authentic replica of the sod houses built by early settlers in the region. Apparently, the museum is also home to one of the world’s largest plows (we managed to miss that one, somehow). Had we not already had our coffee, we would have definitely visited Lasso Espresso next door.

Lasso Espresso

After being on the road again for a while I got my very first close look (and smell) at a CAFO, a sad sign that all is not always as picturesque as it seems. We arrived in Denver a little before 9 pm. The friend that we were supposed to stay with for the night had suddenly become sick and we found ourselves using the Kayak and Priceline apps, looking for hotels for the night.

Driving past a CAFO

Gorgeous skies on the approach to Denver

Apparently, bed bugs are sort of an issue in Denver, and after finding several of the hotels we were looking at on bedbugregistry.com we freaked out and decided that instead of risking waking up with itchy skin we should spend a bit more on a hotel without bed bugs. So, we used a great app called Hotel Tonight, which lets you find deals on nice hotels in major cities for that same night. We ended up at a Hilton Garden Inn, so much for no mainstream motels. Oh well, sometimes you have to make tradeoffs.

Day Five – Colorado, Utah
Before leaving Denver in the morning, we stopped in at a Whole Foods to stock up on healthy stuff to eat during the day. I had been craving a green juice since we left New York, but to my great dismay, this location did not have a juice bar and I had to settle for an organic tea.

Snow-capped mountains

After four days of driving through the plains, the snow-capped Rocky Mountains in the distance was quite an impressive sight, and driving up through them was amazing. We were finally entering the Wild West. Going through the winding roads and tunnels carved through the mountains makes you realize just how amazing it is that people managed to build all this.

A gold mine

Gorgeous lakes

Red cliffs

The outskirts of Vail

We passed an actual gold mine, red cliffs, lakes and small skiing towns. When stopping for a bathroom break we lucked out and found what has to be the most spectacular rest stop in Colorado. There were stairs that led down to a small beach, where the Colorado River rapidly flowed by. I wanted to put my toe in the water but decided that it was probably not the best idea. Instead, I sat on one of the rocks for a while, admiring the splendor of nature’s beauty.

Watching the Colorado River flow by at the most beautiful rest stop in Colorado

Mountain pass

As we drove further through Colorado, the formerly green and red landscape turned all different shades of beige as the trees disappeared. When we entered Utah, a vast landscape of nothing but majestic mountains and canyons was spread out in front of us. It looked like a big storm was stirring up ahead and we decided to stop at the next town and find a hotel for the night.

Entering Utah

Dark clouds looming above the mountains

The nearest town, Salina, turned out to be about three hours away. It was kind of scary to drive through the winding mountain roads in the dark, with rain pounding the windshield. When we finally made it there, we looked up the cheapest thing on Kayak and found a small, fairly new motel. The people in the reception had never heard of Kayak, but were very sweet and honored the rate for us. For dinner, we had a big salad that we had picked up at Whole Foods in Denver that morning. I fell asleep watching a Storage Wars marathon on TV.

Day Six – Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California

It’s amazing how much stuff one can fit in a MINI

On the road again

Hitting the road again in the morning, we were once again mesmerized by the beauty of the landscape. Every time I put my camera down after taking a photo something new turned up. It was kind of ridiculous, in a good way.

Majestic mountains in the distance

…every way you looked.

One of the most spectacular parts was the drive through the Virgin River Gorge, which follows I-15 for 20 miles across the corner of northwestern Arizona and slices right through a scenic desert canyon.

The drive through the Virgin River Gorge is quite spectacular

Majestic canyons — just like a scene from an old Western movie

Entering Nevada, there was no sign to formally welcome us to this new state. There was, however, casinos, lots of casinos. The landscape became more desert-like and the temperature started rising — at one point it showed as 101 degrees Fahrenheit. As we approached Las Vegas, we saw more and more power lines converging in the distance. I guess it takes a lot of power to run all those lights in Sin City.

You pick: Sin or Salvation. Elvis or Jesus

As we approached Las Vegas, the power lines got larger and more plentiful

The strip was enveloped in a big storm cloud, so we decided, since we had both already been to Vegas, that we would find a raw food place to have lunch. I used Yelp to find a place, on the west side of town, called Go Raw Café. Located in a strip mall adjacent to a man-made lake in an upscale residential neighborhood, it was a bit hard to find, but the food was definitely worth it. The house salad was divine (and huge) and came with dehydrated crackers. We also tried the chips, salsa and guacamole (house salsa and guacamole served with flax chips) and half a Portabello Mushroom Wrap (marinated portabella mushrooms, veggies, kale, and “almond cheese” wrapped in collard greens served with house slaw). Such a treat. I also (finally) got a green juice for the road.

Big delicious raw salad

Raw Portabello Mushroom Wrap

Sipping a green juice outside Go Raw Café in Las Vegas

Entering California, you have to pass through an agriculture checkpoint, where they make sure that you are not bringing in any invasive plants or pests. I was worried that they would take my goji berries, but we were just waved through. Finally, we had reached California! It was getting dark and pretty soon we were stuck in LA-traffic on a five-lane freeway. How classic.

Traffic congestion outside of LA

Almost there — Ojai, California, my new home

Rolling into our new home in Ojai, it was pitch black outside. It felt great to have arrived, but I was also sad that the journey was over — 2,872 miles. Maybe some day I will do it again.

The post Roadtripping Across America: Nebraska to California appeared first on EcoSalon.

When I was in a college I had a friend named Henry. He wasn’t my closest comrade, by any stretch, but he was part of our little posse and was as friendly to me as anyone else in the group – eye-to-eye handshakes, hugs, pats on the back and pints of beer. Never a cross look or an ill word. Until one evening.

I was in the campus pub with the gang, our group holding court at our usual corner table. Henry entered swiftly, determined, his head darting around, clearly looking for someone or something. After a moment he turned to me. He had obviously found what he was looking for. Without hesitation, he pushed his way through the crowd, moving furiously in my direction. Suddenly he left his feet, diving through the air, up across the table, knocking over beers, screaming obscenities, every inch of his body dedicated to causing me harm. I pushed my chair backwards and crouched in the corner, stunned and mortified as my friends pulled him away, struggling just to hold him. As I saw him disappear back into the crowd, I looked for some hint of meaning from his eyes. I got nothing. I searched my own mind for a reason. I came up empty.

I saw Henry a few more times that semester. He seemed subdued, always moving slowly, never looking at me. He would immediately leave any room I entered. Before the end of the year’s classes he was gone. I later found out he was sick. Manic depression. Despite my usual “what did I do to deserve this?” it all had nothing to do with me. It turned out there was no “meaning.” There was only illness.

In the wake of the Arizona shooting, our nation has scrambled for meaning. Why did Jared Lee Loughner open fire on Representative Gabrielle Giffords in a rampage that killed six people and wounded 14 others at Tucson grocery story on January 8? What did Giffords represent that lead him to commit such a heinous act? What point was he trying to make? How does this reflect on national politics? How about gun control? There are so many questions and issues here, one hardly knows where to begin.

Of course, it’s entirely appropriate for an incident like this to spur debate on topics like gun control (I’m imagining now the transaction at Sportsman’s Warehouse and the moment when Loughner’s fingers first touched the deadly semiautomatic Glock ) and the impact of violent political rhetoric (what kind of imbecile uses crosshairs over names to make a political point). But if you’re looking for meaning here, consider these two things: First, the lives and loved ones of the dead and injured. And second, our nation’s dysfunctional relationship with mental illness – our lack of education around the subject, our stigmatization of those who suffer from its various forms, and our unwillingness as a society to address these illnesses in a concerted and informed manner.

There are a number of forms of mental illness that affect untold millions of our population. To gain a basic understating of the subject, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) offers a wonderfully informative site that would do us all some good to explore. Here are a few of the most common forms of mental illness that could lead to violent behavior, along with information on diagnoses and treatment.

• Bi-polar disorder
• Borderline personality disorder
• Dissociative disorders
• Schizophrenia
• Schizoaffective disorder

Our society’s failure to control the use of guns in crime continues to befuddle every civilized nation on Earth. Likewise, the entire democratic world is stupefied by the way we conduct our political selves. (Says “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart: “It would be really nice if the ramblings of crazy people didn’t resemble the way we talk to each other on TV.”) But the state of our mental health system – a system that is clearly failing to deal with the many Americans who suffer from the above illness – receives disturbingly little attention.

NAMI recently conducted a study on “The State of Public Mental Health Services Across the Nation.” The results today are the same as they were when the group conducted its last study in 2006: We received a “D.” (Note that the Virginia Tech shooting, where a mentally ill man murdered 32 and wounded so many others, occurred in 2007.)

“State by state, this assessment of our nation’s public mental health services finds that we are painfully far from the high-quality system we envision and so desperately need,” reports NAMI. “While some states are making consistent efforts to improve, the great majority are making little or no progress.” Their conclusion: “The state of mental health services in this country is simply unacceptable.”

Jonathan Cohn, writing for The New Republic, adds this: “Mental health, unfortunately, is probably the illness most likely to go untreated in the U.S. The stigma around mental illness isn’t what it once was, but it still exists. Private insurance rarely provides enough coverage for the seriously ill, overwhelming public systems to the point where people who could benefit from therapy, drugs, and community supports – frequently living totally normal, productive lives – instead end up without treatment and sometimes without homes. Inevitably, some of these people end up committing crimes, overloading a criminal justice system ill-equipped to handle them. We don’t warehouse the mentally ill in asylums anymore. Instead, we warehouse them in jails.”

A key word in Cohn’s astute assessment is “stigma.” Our lack of education (let alone understanding) as individuals and a society leads to myriad false characterizations of the mentally ill – and their families. These erroneous notions prevent many from seeking, being lead to or being required to receive treatment. This is not only to due the negative connotations associated with those who suffer – and the progenitors of those who suffer –  but also from a institutional world that remains underfunded and misguided in part as a result of those same stigmatizations.

So families and others (question are being raised, for example, as to what school officials who suspended Loughner from Pima Community College for bizarre and violent outbursts might have done to ensure he received treatment), continue to try to deal with a problem with what amounts to decreasing guidance and few protocols made available by a society that wants to sweep the issue under the rug.

But despite system failures, we can and should educate ourselves. There are things we can do when we become worried about a friend or loved one, and Arizona should be a wakeup call, says NAMI Medical Director Dr. Ken Duckworth. He offers a few suggestions:

• Maintain your support and connection with the person – if that is impossible then work to get help to understand why.
• Many people trust their general practitioner, who may help or find a psychiatrist or mental health professional who can help.
• Get support for yourself from people you trust or in a support group as you engage in the challenge to find the right path.
• Always see if you can find a way to get your loved one help with consent and collaboration. If you do need to put someone into an evaluation or treatment against their will, they may not thank you. But you may make a difference.
• Call the department of mental health in your state to get information about resources for services.
• Substance abuse can increase the risk of violence and complicates treatment efforts. Contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for a substance abuse treatment facility locator.
• Most important, he says, “families and communities need to work together to create a situation where there is no prejudice against seeking mental health treatment or towards people who live with mental illness.”

In the aftermath of Henry’s attempted attack on me that night so many years ago, I wanted nothing more than for my “friend” to disappear. I didn’t want to talk to him or see him and, as it came to light that he had a mental disorder, I wanted to deal with him even less. Most of us know what to do with bullies (personal and political) because we have some orientation regarding their motives. Our responses can be framed in the context of those motivations, and outcomes can be measured. But we don’t know what to do with mental illness. We want it to just go away.

Unfortunately, it will never go away. But our first best hope is to inform ourselves – as individuals and as society– by taking the initiative to learn and teach. Only this way will the stigmas disappear and the right choices about treatment and institutionalization policies become clear. We will never be able to prevent instances like this from ever occurring. But we can prevent some of them. And that would be a lot. Just ask the victims’ families.

“Henry” is not my attempted assailant’s real name. I don’t know where he is today, or if he ever received treatment for his illness.

Image: Medill DC

The post Real Lessons from Arizona appeared first on EcoSalon.

Last Friday, I sat down to write an article about the notion of “ignorance is bliss.” I didn’t get to it right away. And on January 8, 2011, Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Arizona by a would-be assassin. I followed the story all day Saturday and most of Sunday, learning in real time the details of the 19 others who were wounded and of the six who were killed. I spent much of the day feeling as helpless and sick about the tragedy as did millions of others across the world.

So now I pick up the idea of “ignorance is bliss” once more, after a weekend that felt a little like that Tuesday in September, 2001, when the world watched the World Trade Center fall, the Pentagon burn, and a plane crash in Pennsylvania. The news coming out of Arizona was and still is simply heartbreaking. Trying to make sense of it seems completely futile, as inevitably the deaths of innocent people are.

So. Ignorance is bliss. But if that’s true, then I should have turned off the TV at the first sign of trouble and spent the weekend going about my own private business. Right? JWT Intelligence recently touted that “ignorance is bliss” in their roundup of the 100 Things to Watch in 2011. As JWT Intelligence reports, “From general privacy concerns raised by tools like Google Maps with street view to personal security concerns around broadcasting one’s whereabouts on Facebook or Foursquare to national security concerns around the information disclosed by Wikileaks, more people question how much information really needs to be readily available.” In the age of information, how much knowledge is too much?

JWT Intelligence refers to the dissemination of our own information rather than the taking in of others. But there’s an argument for both ways. When a tragedy occurs, is it better to know all the details when there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it? And conversely, in this era of over-sharing, are we compromising ourselves by letting the world in on our own minute details? According to this line of thought, yes, ignorance is not only bliss, but integral to our own personal safety.

So where is the line? Certainly, there is some validity to the argument that we have become so immersed in over sharing that we risk losing our individuality into one massive glob of Facebook/Twitter/Foursquare. With so many people shouting into the wind, who do we listen to? And more to the point, who has has something worthwhile to hear?

And perhaps there would be “bliss” in cutting ourselves off from the information highway – or at least, its 24-hour daily update thread. But that would be a bliss many don’t want a part of, myself included. Yes, I could have turned away from the tragedy in Arizona. I was hundreds of miles away at the time. I couldn’t go give blood. I couldn’t comfort the families of the victims. But then, I would have never heard the stories of the incredibly brave people who fought shooter Jared Loughner. I kept watching the events unfold in Arizona to hear some positive news – and finally, it came with the acknowledgment of the heroes of the day.

There’s retired Army colonel Bill Badger who, though shot himself, clocked the shooter over the head with a folding chair and then held his wrist until authorities arrived.

There’s Patricia Maisch, 61, who grabbed the shooter’s magazine when he dropped it.

There’s Giffords intern Daniel Hernandez, 20, who is credited with saving Rep. Giffords life by applying pressure to her wound right after she was shot.

And there’s countless more to be honored because they were doing the right thing at the right time.

There would have been no bliss in staying ignorant of their acts.

Image: kenlund

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