Food and Water Watch helps you tell the USDA to stop field trials of genetically-modified seed. What's that, you say? Our government actually allows corporations to test their GMO seed outside? Yes, they do. And you probably already know what happens when they do: the Frankenseeds get blown about by the wind or washed away by the rain and find themselves growing on fields where they don't belong, including on organic farms, where their presence renders what's grown there inorganic. Last year a farmer in Oregon found GMO wheat on his own farm, and the USDA, after an undoubtedly very thorough investigation, couldn't determine where the GMO seed came from. I said this years ago when it happened under Tha Bush Mobb, and I'll say it again today: if you can't keep track of where the Frankenseed is, don't let it grow outside. Especially since Monsanto has gotten into the habit of suing the farmers who find their own crop contaminated by Monsanto seed. That's certainly bad behavior we want to discourage.
Meanwhile, Change.org helps you tell the LaSalle County (IL) state's attorney to drop charges against one Steve Patterson, who rescued two bald eaglets that had fallen from their nest after a storm, and got in trouble with the law for it. It's hard to imagine what Mr. Patterson could have done to avoid this mess, which has dragged on for a year and a half now -- he made multiple calls to local authorities, all of which went unanswered, and even after taking the eaglets from the ground he didn't try to rehabilitate them himself, but found a licensed professional to do it. The birds both recovered, but Mr. Patterson got two counts of "illegal taking of a bird of prey" and two counts of "taking a protected species," and federal Good Samaritan law apparently doesn't operate in Illinois. I don't advocate ignoring the law whenever it's convenient, but that's not what Mr. Patterson did -- can we really fault him for not knowing precisely whom to call to get the birds rescued? -- and mercy is just as admirable quality in a state's attorney as it is in the rest of us.
Finally, CREDO helps you tell the EPA to stop oil refineries from polluting the air with the most vigorous anti-pollution rules possible. Naturally the oil corporations are fighting the EPA's efforts, but I don't have to mention the benzine, xylene, and toluene that oil refining routinely puts into the air, or mention that Port Arthur, TX has 27 oil refineries and also feature astronomically higher rates of heart and respiratory conditions and a mortality rate from cancer 40 percent higher than suffered by the average Texan -- I only need ask: have you ever driven the New Jersey turnpike around Elizabeth, New Jersey? Have you ever visited the neighborhood of Paulsboro, in the southern part of the state? If you've ever been near an oil refinery, you know how it smells. You know it doesn't smell good. And you don't need oil corporations telling you it's not so bad. Need I add that that poor and minority folks are far more likely to live near oil refineries? Or that a child's respiratory system is more sensitive to oil refinery pollutants than an adult's?
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