Ben and Jerry Talk About Stamping Money Out of Politics

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Video Review of the Sony PXW-FS7 by Philip Bloom

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Republicans Are Killing Women: US Maternal Death Rate Climbs; Female Deaths Rise In GOP Counties

Republicans Are Killing Women: US Maternal Death Rate Climbs; Female Deaths Rise In GOP Counties

Author: Randa Morris January 15, 2015 3:08 pm

“Today’s mothers are twice as likely to die of pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes than their mothers were. There is no reason, given our vast resources, knowledge and technology, why we should be going backwards in this area.” – Laura Gilkey, coordinator of The Safe Motherhood Quilt Project, a nonprofit based in Sarasota, Fla.

Globally, only a few countries have seen a rise in the rate of maternal deaths in recent years. Those include Afghanistan, El Salvador, South Sudan and the United States of America. While at one the US had all but eliminated deaths associated with childbirth, things have changed in recent years, with maternal death rates climbing from 14.5 per 100,000 to 17.8 per 100,000 between 2007 and 2011. As of 2014, the number of women who die during pregnancy and childbirth in the US has risen to 28 deaths per 100,000.
For purposes of comparison, the maternal death rate in nearly all wealthy, developed nations is a single digit number. As of 2014, the US maternal death rate is 7 times higher than that of Austria, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden, all nation’s which have a maternal mortality rate of just 4 deaths per 100,000.
It might surprise conservatives to learn that the maternal death rate in the US is 14 times greater than that of Israel. While right wingers might be under the impression that Israel’s very low maternal mortality rate is the result of strict abortion policies, nothing could be further from the truth. The country has very liberal abortion laws, and women are provided with government subsidized abortion services. The country’s liberal policies regarding women’s health has led to a maternal death rate of just two women per 100,000.
According to an article published in Medical Daily, in October 2014, since the year 2011:

Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Kansas have implemented 14 abortion restrictions — the most of any other state. Arkansas and Indiana were tied for the second-most restriction, while Florida, Arizona, and Alabama were tied for third. And out of all 50 states, it was the ones with more restrictions that also had higher, well, everything: maternal deaths, uninsured rates, infant and child death rates, teen drug and alcohol abuse, as well as lower preventive care and cancer screening rates.

The article cited evidence from a 2014 study conducted by the Center for Reproductive Rights. The study, ‘Evaluating Priorities: Measuring Women And Children’s Health And Well-Being Against Abortion Restrictions In The States‘ found that the states with the greatest number of abortion restrictions scored lowest on indicators of women’s and children’s overall health and well-being.

Image credit: Center For Reproductive Rights

Read the study at this link.
As of 2011, the state of Georgia, which has 11 restrictive abortion laws, leads the nation in the number of maternal deaths,at 35 per 100,000 live births. As it turns out, right-wing anti-abortion policies aren’t only sexist, they are also racist. In Georgia’s Fulton County, for example, the maternal death rate for black women is 94 per 100,000 live births. In the same county, however, the maternal death rate for white women is nearly non-existent. In Chocktaw, Mississippi, one of the three states with the most restrictive abortion laws, the maternal death rate is higher than it is in Sub-Saharan African countries. On a national level, black woman are far more likely to die in childbirth than white women.
The state with the second highest rate of maternal mortality is Oklahoma, according to Sept 2014 report by the Oklahoma Hospital Association. The state also continues to have a much higher than average infant mortality rate. One of just three states in the US that has enacted 14 strict anti-choice laws, Oklahoma is one of the most dangerous places in the country for pregnant women.
The rising death toll in the GOP war on women can be linked to several factors, including decreasing access to abortion and limited health care for women. Other factors include socioeconomic conditions that specifically impact women. Ranked the fourth worst state for women, Mississippi does a terrible job recording and reporting on the number of women who die during pregnancy in the state. According to the state’s website, however, Mississippi has ‘a high rate of maternal deaths.’ The state’s infant mortality rate, and rate of teen pregnancy are the highest in the nation.
It’s not just maternal death rates that are on the increase for women in the US. In March of last year, MSNBC published a report on the spike in female deaths in specific areas of the country. The map below was drawn using the most recently available research, which covers the years 1992 – 1996 and 2002 – 2006.

Image credit: MSNBC

Compare the map above to the one below, which shows increasing mortality rates for men during the same period.

Image credit: MSNBC

These are alarming trends which, in a country governed by sanity, would have lawmakers searching for answers. Yet, in the past decade the US has been governed, not by sanity, but by religious extremism.  The facts are in and it’s more than clear that the right-wing’s obsession with saving zygotes is killing women. Yet while the right wing religious fanatics are in the middle of straining at gnats and swallowing camels, we know all too well that they won’t be interrupted by a trivial reality, like women dying.
On the first day that the new Congress convened in Washington, Republicans attempted to pass five more restrictive and dangerous anti-abortion laws at the Federal level. These attacks are only going to get worse, as the religious fanatics in Washington give more and more rights to fertilized eggs, while taking more and more rights away from US women. They claim their fanaticism is ‘pro-life,’ but Republican laws result in death, not life.

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Cat Foodmaking Made Easy

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Jon Stewart destroys ‘disingenuous’ Dick Cheney: It was you that propped...

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Remarks by the President to the City Club of Cleveland

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How to Scramble Eggs Inside Their Shell - NEW VERSION

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Novatec unveils stealth mid-drive system

Novatec unveils stealth mid-drive system

TAICHUNG, Taiwan (BRAIN) ─ Mid-drive systems from Bosch, Panasonic and Shimano require frames designed around their drive units. Novatec took the opposite approach with Eram, introduced at Taichung Bike Week. It looks like a crank with thick bash rings fitting a standard bottom bracket, but it packs a 250-watt punch.
"We kept the size of the motor system small — it's really not that much larger than a triple crank," said Allen Shih, Novatec's sales specialist. "It fits any full-suspension mountain frame without interfering with any suspension function."
Since a suspension frame's jumble of tubes makes finding a place to mount a battery difficult, Novatec is offering a backpack-able battery option so a rider doesn't need to mount the battery to the frame. With smartphone control, there is no reason to run wires to a handlebar control.
The preproduction prototype weighs 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds), and the company is shooting for 1.1 kilos (less than 2.5 pounds) for production versions. And though small, the motor still packs more than 60 Newton-meters of torque. Since the motor is on the non-drive crankarm, the system allows the use of standard chainrings and a front derailleur.
Novatec didn't mean for its electric mid-drive system to be stealth; the company just didn't want it to get in the way of bike designers. So compacting the drive system to keep it out of the way pretty much meant it had to fit within the envelope of a traditional crankset. Novatec packs a powerful motor within the space normally occupied by three chainrings.
Although the company has a wide range of electric vehicles in its catalog, from electric scooters and mopeds to cycles for people with special needs, this is its first electric drive system. The compact packaging and bottom bracket mounting suggest it would retrofit well to an existing bike, but the company emphasizes it's targeting OEM spec.
"Its small, compact size and our range of battery options gives bike makers complete freedom to incorporate the system to their bike," Shih said. "They can design their bike to look the way they want and not worry about how our drive system is going to change that look," he said.

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Want to avoid toxins on your food? Shop the “Clean Fifteen”

Here’s the Clean Fifteen list:

1. Avocados
2. Sweet corn
3. Pineapple
4. Cabbage
5. Sweet peas (frozen)
6. Onions
7. Asparagus
8. Mangos
9. Papyas
10. Kiwi
11. Eggplant
12. Grapefruit
13. Cantaloupe
14. Cauliflower
15. Sweet potatoes  

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This Billionaire Governor Taxed the Rich and Increased the Minimum Wage -- Now, His State's Economy Is One of the Best in the Country

"When he took office in January of 2011, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton inherited a $6.2 billion budget deficit and a 7 percent unemployment rate from his predecessor, Tim Pawlenty, the soon-forgotten Republican candidate for the presidency who called himself Minnesota's first true fiscally-conservative governor in modern history. Pawlenty prided himself on never raising state taxes -- the most he ever did to generate new revenue was increase the tax on cigarettes by 75 cents a pack. Between 2003 and late 2010, when Pawlenty was at the head of Minnesota's state government, he managed to add only 6,200 more jobs.
During his first four years in office, Gov. Dayton raised the state income tax from 7.85 to 9.85 percent on individuals earning over $150,000, and on couples earning over $250,000 when filing jointly -- a tax increase of $2.1 billion. He's also agreed to raise Minnesota's minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2018, and passed a state law guaranteeing equal pay for women. Republicans like state representative Mark Uglem warned against Gov. Dayton's tax increases, saying, "The job creators, the big corporations, the small corporations, they will leave. It's all dollars and sense to them." The conservative friend or family member you shared this article with would probably say the same if their governor tried something like this. But like Uglem, they would be proven wrong.
Between 2011 and 2015, Gov. Dayton added 172,000 new jobs to Minnesota's economy -- that's 165,800 more jobs in Dayton's first term than Pawlenty added in both of his terms combined. Even though Minnesota's top income tax rate is the 4th-highest in the country, it has the 5th-lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6 percent. According to 2012-2013 U.S. census figures, Minnesotans had a median income that was $10,000 larger than the U.S. average, and their median income is still $8,000 more than the U.S. average today.
By late 2013, Minnesota's private sector job growth exceeded pre-recession levels, and the state's economy was the 5th fastest-growing in the United States. Forbes even ranked Minnesota the 9th-best state for business (Scott Walker's "Open For Business" Wisconsin came in at a distant #32 on the same list). Despite the fearmongering over businesses fleeing from Dayton's tax cuts, 6,230 more Minnesotans filed in the top income tax bracket in 2013, just one year after Dayton's tax increases went through. As of January 2015, Minnesota has a $1 billion budget surplus, and Gov. Dayton has pledged to reinvest more than one third of that money into public schools. And according to Gallup, Minnesota's economic confidence is higher than any other state
Gov. Dayton didn't accomplish all of these reforms by shrewdly manipulating people -- this article describes Dayton's astonishing lack of charisma and articulateness. He isn't a class warrior driven by a desire to get back at the 1 percent -- Dayton is a billionaire heir to the Target fortune. It wasn't just a majority in the legislature that forced him to do it -- Dayton had to work with a Republican-controlled legislature for his first two years in office. And unlike his Republican neighbor to the east, Gov. Dayton didn't assert his will over an unwilling populace by creating obstacles between the people and the vote -- Dayton actually created an online voter registration system, making it easier than ever for people to register to vote.
The reason Gov. Dayton was able to radically transform Minnesota's economy into one of the best in the nation is simple arithmetic. Raising taxes on those who can afford to pay more will turn a deficit into a surplus. Raising the minimum wage will increase the median income. And in a state where education is a budget priority and economic growth is one of the highest in the nation, it only makes sense that more businesses would stay.
It's official -- trickle-down economics is bunk. Minnesota has proven it once and for all. If you believe otherwise, you are wrong.
"

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Senator Elizabeth Warren Banking Committee Hearing: Financial Regulation...

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3880/3800 revolutionary refillable printer cartridge - World's Best Ink ...

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How to Eat Sushi: You've Been Doing it Wrong

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10 Facts That Republicans should Know

10 Facts That Will Blow Right-Wingers' Minds

1. The United States is not a Christian nation, and the Bible is not the cornerstone of our law.

Don’t take my word for it. Let these Founding Fathers speak for themselves:
John Adams: “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” (Treaty of Tripoli, 1797)
Thomas Jefferson: “Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.” (Letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814)
James Madison: “The civil government … functions with complete success … by the total separation of the Church from the State.” (Writings, 8:432, 1819)
George Washington: “If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.” (Letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789)
You can find a multitude of similar quotes from these men and most others who signed the Declaration of Independence and/or formulated the United States Constitution. These are hardly the words of men who believed that America should be a Christian nation governed by the Bible, as a disturbingly growing number of Republicans like to claim.
2. The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist.

The Pledge was written in 1892 for public school celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas. Its author was Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, Christian socialist and cousin of socialist utopian novelist Edward Bellamy. Christian socialism maintains, among other ideas, that capitalism is idolatrous and rooted in greed, and the underlying cause of much of the world’s social inequity. Definitely more “Occupy Wall Street” than “Grand Old Party” by anyone’s standard.
3. The first president to propose national health insurance was a Republican.

He was also a trust-busting, pro-labor, Nobel Peace Prize-winning environmentalist. Is there any wonder why Theodore Roosevelt, who first proposed a system of national health insurance during his unsuccessful Progressive Party campaign to retake the White House from William Howard Taft in 1912, gets scarce mention at Republican National Conventions these days?
4. Ronald Reagan once signed a bill legalizing abortion.

The Ronald Reagan Republicans worship today is more myth than reality. Reagan was a conservative for sure, but also a practical politician who understood the necessities of compromise. In the spring of 1967, four months into his first term as governor of California, Ronald Reagan signed a bill that, among its other provisions, legalized abortion for the vaguely-defined “well being” of the mother. Reagan may have been personally pro-life, but in this instance he was willing to compromise in order to achieve other ends he considered more important. That he claimed later to regret signing the bill doesn’t change the fact that he did. As Casey Stengel liked to say, “You could look it up.”
5. Reagan raised federal taxes eleven times.

Okay, Ronald Reagan cut tax rates more than any other president – with a big asterisk. Sure, the top rate was reduced from 70% in 1980 all the way down to 28% in 1988, but while Republicans typically point to Reagan’s tax-cutting as the right approach to improving the economy, Reagan himself realized the resulting national debt from his revenue slashing was untenable, so he quietly raised other taxes on income – primarily Social Security and payroll taxes - no less than eleven times. Most of Reagan’s highly publicized tax cuts went to the usual Republican handout-takers in the top income brackets, while his stealth tax increases had their biggest impact on the middle class. These increases were well hidden inside such innocuous-sounding packages as the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987. Leave it to a seasoned actor to pull off such a masterful charade.
6. Roe v. Wade was a bipartisan ruling made by a predominantly Republican-appointed Supreme Court.

Technically, Roe v. Wade did not make abortion legal in the United States; the Supreme Court’s decision held only that individual states could not make abortion illegal. That being said, the landmark 1973 ruling that Republicans love to hate, was decided on a 7-2 vote that broke down like this:
Majority (for Roe): Chief Justice Warren Burger (conservative, appointed by Nixon), William O. Douglas (liberal, appointed by FDR), William J. Brennan (liberal, appointed by Eisenhower), Potter Stewart (moderate, appointed by Eisenhower), Thurgood Marshall (liberal, appointed by LBJ), Harry Blackmun (author of the majority opinion and a conservative who eventually turned liberal, appointed by Nixon), Lewis Powell (moderate, appointed by Nixon). Summary: 2 conservatives, 3 liberals, 2 moderates.
Dissenting (for Wade): Byron White (generally liberal/sometimes conservative, appointed by JFK), William Rehnquist (conservative, appointed by Nixon). Summary: 1 liberal, 1 conservative.
By ideological orientation, the decision was for Roe all the way: conservatives 2-1, liberals 3-1, moderates 2-0; by party of presidential appointment it was Republicans 5-1, Democrats 2-1. No one can rightly say that this was a leftist court forcing its liberal beliefs on America.
7. The Federal Reserve System was a Republican invention.

Republicans, and, truth be told, many Democrats, despise the Federal Reserve as an example of government interference in the free market. But hold everything: The Federal Reserve System was the brainchild of financial expert and Senate Republican leader Nelson Aldrich, grandfather of future Republican governor and vice president Nelson Rockefeller. Aldrich set up two commissions: one to study the American monetary system in depth and the other, headed by Aldrich himself, to study the European central banking systems. Aldrich went to Europe opposed to centralized banking, but after viewing Germany's monetary system he came away believing that a centralized bank was better than the government-issued bond system that he had previously supported. The Federal Reserve Act, developed around Senator Aldrich’s recommendations and - adding insult to injury in the minds of today’s Republicans - based on a European model, was signed into law in 1913.
8. The Environmental Protection Agency was, too.

The United States Environment Protection Agency, arch-enemy of polluters in particular and government regulation haters in general, was created by President Richard Nixon. In his 1970 State of the Union Address, Nixon proclaimed the new decade a period of environmental transformation. Shortly thereafter he presented Congress an unprecedented 37-point message on the environment, requesting billions for the improvement of water treatment facilities, asking for national air quality standards and stringent guidelines to lower motor vehicle emissions, and launching federally-funded research to reduce automobile pollution. Nixon also ordered a clean-up of air- and water-polluting federal facilities, sought legislation to end the dumping of wastes into the Great Lakes, proposed a tax on lead additives in gasoline, and approved a National Contingency Plan for the treatment of petroleum spills. In July 1970 Nixon declared his intention to establish the Environmental Protection Agency, and that December the EPA opened for business. Hard to believe, but if it hadn’t been for Watergate, we might remember Richard Nixon today as the “environmental president”.
Oh, yes - Republicans might enjoy knowing Nixon was an advocate of national health insurance, too.
9. Obama has increased government spending less than any president in at least a generation.

Republican campaign strategists may lie, but the numbers don’t. Government spending, when adjusted for inflation, has increased during his administration (to date) by 1.4%.  Under George W. Bush, the increases were 7.3% (first term) and 8.1% (second term). Bill Clinton, in his two terms, comes in at 3.2% and 3.9%. George H. W. Bush increased government spending by 5.4%, while Ronald Reagan added 8.7% and 4.9% in his two terms.
Not only does Obama turn out to be the most thrifty president in recent memory, but the evidence shows that Republican administrations consistently increased government spending significantly more than any Democratic administration. Go figure.
10. President Obama was not only born in the United States, his roots run deeper in American history than most people know.

The argument that Barack Obama was born anywhere but at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii, is not worth addressing; the evidence is indisputable by any rational human being. But not even irrational “birthers” can dispute Obama’s well-documented family tree on his mother’s side. By way of his Dunham lineage, President Obama has at least 11 direct ancestors who took up arms and fought for American independence in the Revolutionary War and two others cited as patriots by the Daughters of the American Revolution for furnishing supplies to the colonial army. This star-spangled heritage makes Obama eligible to join the Sons of the American Revolution, and his daughters the Daughters of the American Revolution. Not bad for someone 56% of Republicans still believe is a foreigner.
 

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Beef Chili with Fifteen Spatulas - Honeysuckle

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Christmas Roasted Pork Loin & Pork Crackling How to make recipe

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8 Logical Fallacies

8 Logical Fallacies That Fuel Anti-Science Sentiments

1. False Equivalence

Balanced reporting is important, no question. But that doesn't mean every single perspective on a contentious issue deserves equal air time or consideration. Such is the fallacy of false equivalence, the assertion that there's a logical equivalence between two opposing arguments when there is none. 
False equivalence is a logical fallacy which describes a situation where there is a logical and apparent equivalence, but when in fact there is none. This fallacy is categorized as a fallacy of inconsistency.^[1] It would be the antonym of the mathematical concept of material equivalence.
False equivalence is occasionally claimed in politics, where one political party will accuse their opponents of having performed equally wrong actions.^[2] Commentators may also accuse journalists of false equivalence in their reporting of political controversies if the stories are perceived to assign equal blame to multiple parties.^[3] False Equivalence should not be confused with false balance – the media phenomenon of presenting two sides of an argument equally in disregard of the merit or evidence on a subject (a form of argument to moderation).

2. The Appeal to Nature & The Naturalistic Fallacy

Fewer things have done more to undermine scientists and their work than the appeal to nature and the naturalistic fallacy. The former is the belief that what is natural is "good" and "right" and the latter deducing "ought" from "is." Both have been used to argue that progress in science and technology represents a threat to the natural order of things. It's a line of argumentation that lauds the inherent wholesomeness of all things natural, while decrying the unhealthiness and unsavoriness of all things unnatural.

3. Observation Selection

Many critics of science deliberately (and sometimes unconsciously) select and share information that serves to undermine specific proclamations of science, while ignoring information that works to support credible hypotheses.

• 1 Types
  • 1.1 Sampling bias
  • 1.2 Time interval
  • 1.3 Exposure
  • 1.4 Data
  • 1.5 Studies
  • 1.6 Attrition
  • 1.7 Observer selection
• 2 Avoidance
• 3 Related issues
• 4 See also
• 5 References

4. Appeal to Faith

I'm not interested in the evidence — I just have faith that what I believe is true.

Arguing about God is useless because God is beyond scientific reasons or arguments.

I refuse to believe in all this global warming doom-and-gloom. I have faith that God wouldn't let such a bad thing happen to us.

Sound familiar? These are common refrains repeated by people who have appealed to their faith when making an argument — a fallacy in which religious convictions are conflated with reason and evidence. But while many of these people believe they're acting rationally, the truth is of the matter is that the choice to believe in something is no substitute for science.

See also: the argument to uncertainty and the universal skepticism fallacy.
The "appeal to faith" is often used in a different way by theists - who claim that all forms of thought rest upon faith. This claim, which was created to undermine reason itself, is false. There is no need for a baseless belief when one has reasons to believe, be they axioms or pragmatism. See the quote under the Stolen Concept Fallacy for more on this.
Faith, by definition, relies on a belief that does not rest on logic or evidence. Faith depends on irrational thought (i.e., a desire) and produces intransigence. Faith has never been shown to be anything more than believing what you want to believe no matter the reality. Historically, people "of faith" have used the very next appeal that follows "to alter the opinions" of their opponents.

5. God of the Gaps

Science does not have all the answers, nor does it pretend to. We still don't know how consciousness works, we don't know what instigated the Big Bang, and there are still holes in our understanding of how certain traits emerged via natural selection. That's not to say these are intractable problems; it's quite possible we'll solve these some day. In the meantime, it's important to gather evidence, posit hypotheses, and assume the naturalistic paradigm (i.e. all phenomenon can be explained without having to invoke the actions of a divine force).

6. Appeal to Consequences

Appealing to consequences can be seen as a kind of precautionary principle, an injunction to not engage in activities or scientific endeavors that raise threats of harm (or undesirable outcomes) to human health or the environment on account of a unforeseen series of cascading events (which is related to another fallacy, the slippery slope). In many cases, however, anti-science folks intertwine the boundaries between their disputes of a particular scientific line of inquiry with alleged philosophical and moral consequences.

For example, there's a fear that belief in evolution will lead to genocide, or that it will lead to the opinion that humans are just another animal in the forest (i.e. the negation of human exceptionalism). Another common concern is that atheism/materialism will lead to an unfulfilled, immoral life.

7. Withholding of Consent

It's just a theory.

No, sometimes it's not just a theory. Okay, sure, scientific principles like natural selection and general relativity are theories, but there comes a point when explanations or models become so instructive and so damned useful that they graduate to the level of axioms — a statement or proposition that's so established, accepted, or self-evidently true that we should refrain from withholding our consent, because to do otherwise would be simply unreasonable.

8. Playing God

Think of this as the nonsecular corollary to the naturalistic fallacy. Though not a formal logical fallacy, it is an error in thinking — the idea that humanity should not tread on what is traditionally God's domain, and that by doing so, we're being hubristic, reckless, and irreverent.

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Ivy League’s meritocracy lie: How Harvard and Yale cook the books for the 1 percent

How Harvard and Yale cook the books for the 1 percent

"Now that is a correlation! This is what I refer to as the “Volvo effect.” In Crazy U, Ferguson talks about how the parents of his son’s friends and classmates were spending $30,000 to $35,000 to prepare their children for college. That isn’t the amount they had to pay for a premier boarding school mind you—that was the amount they paid to hire someone to tutor their child on the SAT and to help them write their “statement of interest” essays on their college applications. When these students get in to a particular college we say that this process reflects the fairness of the meritocracy, but really it only reflects the fact that the elite dominate the entry to higher education. These students aren’t smarter than the other students. Or to put it another way: they may be smart, but they are not necessarily those most likely to contribute to our society; they simply come from families that have more money to pay people to prepare them for the SAT, to test-prep them for their high school grades, and to pay for viola lessons so they can stand out more in the admissions process. The SAT’s most reliable value is its proxy for wealth. It is normed to white, upper-middle-class performance, as numerous studies have shown when the test is viewed through the lenses of race and class. The figures below, from 2013, show this in stark relief."

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London's Guerrilla Gardeners

Throw It, Grow It: London's Guerrilla Gardeners by Kendra Wilson

" When Richard Reynolds moved into a tower block in central London's Elephant and Castle district, he was not intending to become a guerrilla gardener. He simply decided to take a DIY approach to the wasteland around him. One night, Reynolds went out after midnight to do some weeding, soil conditioning, and planting near the front door. He didn't own the land, but he enjoyed improving it. He began to do more and more, tackling traffic islands and roundabouts further afield. Tree pits seemed like the perfect place to grow flowers, in the dusty square surrounding the base of a tree. In 2004, he began Guerrilla Gardening, a blog that documents the beautifying effects of what he calls "illicit cultivation" by guerrilla gardeners around the world."

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News From Nowhere

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