Author: ali redford

I love dogs and people. I want living creatures to thrive. I love to cook, and share the food, but ya gotta get in line in front of the dog.

Harriet Tubman, Voters In Spain, Hugo Chavez, & More, In Peace & Justice History For 12/6

December 6, 1849
Harriet Tubman, a slave in Maryland, escaped her owners.
More about Harriet Tubman  
=========================================
December 6, 1865
The state of Georgia provided the final vote needed for the 13th Amendment to become part of the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery.
slave auction  
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

first vote
Two days before, Mississippi’s legislature had voted to reject ratification; Mississippi didn’t ratify the anti-slavery amendment until 1995.
More on the ratification 
==========================================
December 6, 1978
The voters of Spain approved a new constitution in a popular referendum by nearly 8-1. It proclaimed Spain to be a parliamentary monarchy and guaranteed its citizens equality before the law and a full range of individual liberties, including religious freedom. While recognizing the autonomy of seventeen regions, it stressed the indivisibility of the Spanish state.
==========================================
December 6, 1998
In Venezuela, former Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez, who had staged a bloody coup attempt against the government six years earlier, was elected president.

Some perspective on some of Chavez’s actions  
Two views on what Venezuelans saw in Chavez 
BBC profile of Chavez 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december6

Decent Enviro News:

Boston Turns Bus Stops Into Living Shields Against Deadly Heat·

Written by Matthew Russell

Boston has turned 30 bus shelters on the #28 route into pocket gardens. The drought-tolerant plantings sit atop waterproof trays, shading riders, soaking up rain, and greening a corridor long hit hard by summer heat, Boston.gov reports.

The project is a three-year demonstration tied to the city’s Heat Plan and its “Cool Commutes” strategy.

Two men lean over a green, flowering landscape feature in an urban setting.

Photo: YouTube / Weston Nurseries
Thirty bus shelters now host green roofs.

Heat Relief Where It’s Needed

The Route 28 line runs through Mattapan, Dorchester, and Roxbury. These neighborhoods are designated environmental justice areas and face higher, longer-lasting heat on hot days, Bay State Banner reports.

By replacing sun-baked clear panels with living roofs, the shelters cut radiant exposure and reduce the local heat-island effect.

Person in a neon shirt tending to a green rooftop garden.

Photo: YouTube / Weston Nurseries
Roof trays retain stormwater during downpours.

Stormwater Kept Out of Streets—and Harbor

Every downpour loads gutters, outfalls, and ultimately coastal waters. These roofs slow that flow. City officials estimate the 30 shelters will capture on the order of 1,400–1,500 gallons across the pilot period, helping curb runoff that can carry pollutants to drains and waterways, according to The Boston Globe. The city will also track water quality of roof runoff to understand filtration benefits.

City bus showing "29 RIDE FOR FREE" sign at a street corner.

The #28 route was chosen for high ridership.

Small Roofs, Big Biodiversity

Sedum forms the hardy base layer. Native plants will be added to attract bees, butterflies, birds, and other pollinators, building a tiny habitat network along Blue Hill Avenue, per Mass. Municipal Association. That boost matters in dense blocks with limited tree canopy.

Climate Action With Community Hands

Social Impact Collective designed the system and helped lead installation with YouthBuild Boston and Weston Nurseries, while JCDecaux, the city’s street-furniture partner, enabled the retrofit. The work revives a 2014 pilot and scales it across the city’s busiest bus corridor, The Architect’s Newspaper reports.

The #28 line is fare-free through 2026, positioning the program to reach riders who are most exposed to heat and least served by rapid transit.

Measuring Impact, Planning Scale

Over three years, Boston will collect data on temperatures, plant growth, stormwater retention, air quality, and pollinators to guide future standards for bus-shelter design, Mass. Municipal Association reports. If expanded to all 280 shelters, the city’s green roofs could hold roughly 15,000 gallons during storms—a meaningful dent in street flooding that also protects downstream marine habitats.

“Enigma Of The Pacific”

Marbled Murrelet

Brachyramphus marmoratus

About

The petite, quail-sized Marbled Murrelet has been called the “enigma of the Pacific.” So much about this stub-tailed seabird is unusual and remains poorly known. The bird’s range extends from Alaska to California; in northern treeless areas, it nests on the ground, but in the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, it flies inland as far as 55 miles to nest high in trees. Its nesting habits remained one of North America’s great bird mysteries until 1974, when a tree surgeon working 147 feet up in a 200-foot-tall Douglas fir found an active nest. The only other bird in the alcid family that shares this nesting behavior is the murrelet’s close cousin, the Long-billed Murrelet, found in Asia.

Marbled Murrelet populations are in steady decline, due in part to the clearing of old-growth temperate rainforests, habitat shared with the imperiled Northern Spotted Owl. But nest predation by clever corvids like Steller’s Jays and Common Ravens can also adversely impact murrelets. These birds gather where people enjoying the Pacific Northwest’s forest leave garbage behind — the picnic areas and campsites more than 100 feet below nesting murrelets — making it all the more important to clean up and pack out what you bring in.

Threats

Seabirds are declining faster than any other bird group. The Marbled Murrelet faces many of the threats that endanger all seabirds, but the loss of its old-growth forest nesting habitat is unique among seabirds. Listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1992, the Marbled Murrelet is also listed as a Yellow Alert Tipping Point species by Partners in Flight, a result of the loss of more than 50 percent of its population in the past 50 years. (snip-MORE on the page)

https://abcbirds.org/birds/marbled-murrelet/

And Now, Tig Notaro-

I enjoy Tig Notaro’s talent. Especially when she shares it for worthy causes.

Sen. Lott (R-MI) Resigns As Leader After His Racist Comment, & So Much More In Peace & Justice History for 12/5:

December 5, 1955
Five days after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, the African-American community of Montgomery, Alabama, launched a boycott of the city’s bus system.
The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed to coordinate the boycott with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., elected as its president.
Out of Montgomery’s 50,000 black residents, 30,000-40,000 participated. They walked or bicycled or car-pooled, depriving the bus company of a substantial portion of its revenue.
The boycott lasted (54 weeks) until it was agreed the buses would be integrated.

Waiting at a transportation pickup point during the Montgomery bus boycott – 1955-1956
< What was the Montgomery Bus Boycott? > 
December 5, 1955
The American Federation of Labor, which had historically focused on organizing craft unions, merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, an organization of unions largely representing industrial workers, to form the AFL-CIO with a combined membership of nearly 15 million.
George Meany was elected its first president.

AFL-CIO history 
December 5, 1957
New York became the first city to legislate against racial or religious discrimination in housing (Fair Housing Practices Law).
December 5, 1967

Dr. Benjamin Spock  
264 were arrested at a military induction center in New York City during a Stop the Draft Week Committee action. Dr. Benjamin Spock and poet Allen Ginsberg were among those arrested for blocking (though symbolically) the steps at 39 Whitehall Street where the draft board met. 2500 had shown up at 5:00 in the morning to show their opposition to the draft and the Vietnam War.
  
Allen Ginsberg
December 5, 1980
The United Nations adopted the charter for the University for Peace in Costa Rica. Its purpose would be “promoting among all human beings the spirit of understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, to stimulate cooperation among peoples and to help lessen obstacles and threats to world peace and progress . . . .”

The monument sculpted by Cuban artist Thelvia Marín in 1987, is the world’s largest peace monument.
It also established short-wave Radio for Peace International (RFPI)which was shut down by the University in 2004 when RFPI exposed a plan between the University for Peace and the U.S. to hold anti-terrorist combat training on campus. 
Interview with James Latham, CEO of RFPI when it was under siege 
RFPI on the web 
December 5, 2002

President George W. Bush with Sen. Lott and Sen. Thurmond
At the 100th birthday celebration for Senator Strom Thurmond (R-South Carolina), Senate Republican leader Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) praised Thurmond’s Dixiecrat Party 1948 presidential campaign (official slogan: “Segregation Forever!”).
“I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of him. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”
The reaction to this sentiment led to Lott’s resignation as Senate majority leader.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december5

Lewis Black Channels Scottie

and agreed with him. There are f-bombs within; not gratuitous, but NSFW.

I Don’t Think Peace Means What He Thinks It Means

sigh.

WASHINGTON, DC – DECEMBER 03: U.S. President Donald Trump’s name is seen recently placed on the outside of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) building headquarters on December 03, 2025 in Washington, DC. This addition was made ahead of the Trump administration hosting a deal-signing between the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

President Trump has renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace … for himself. (snip)

What’s new at the NASA Earth Observatory

It is indeed good to see the NASA Earth Observatory newsletter in my Inbox again, since the shutdown ended. This is one of the things we the people own and pay taxes to maintain, and it’s a wonderful thing, good for all to learn about our world. Even if a person never gets farther than their own downtown, they can still learn about the world with the information we receive from the Observatory. We need to keep the stuff we’ve paid for!

Go and explore here: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/ . There is all manner of stuff! And you, too, can have a newsletter!

Snippet: We are back! After the lapse in appropriations at the beginning of October, and therefore a lapse in our ability to pay for our newsletter platform, the Earth Observatory team is back to publishing our Image of the Day and we are happy to be back in your inbox. We have a slate of new stories to share with you (I will include them all below so you can catch up) and more planned. But in other news…

Satellites Detect Seasonal Pulses in Earth’s Glaciers

Mmm. Pie.

81-Year-Old Wins “Best Technique” at a San Francisco Lesbian Pie-Eating Contest

Babs wrote that her victory was “proving once and for all that experience matters.”

By Mathew Rodriguez

Proving that there is no age limit to good tongue skills, an 81-year-old woman who competed in a San Francisco lesbian pie-eating contest won Best Technique, per viral social media videos about the event.

Babs Daitch, who joined a crush of pie-eating lesbians in the contest on November 23, posted about her entering the contest, and subsequent title-winning performance, on her social media channels. Though she could not claim the overall victory — a woman named Jenn won, per the Bay Area Reporter — she did win “Best Technique,” per her own social media accounts. She wrote that her victory was “proving once and for all that experience matters.”

One video, posted on Friday, featured Daitch being cheered on by the crowd. Her response: sticking her tongue out in between her middle and index fingers. The clip has garnered over 40,000 views since it hit the internet. (snip-MORE on the page)

RIP, “Iconic Swamp King” Claude

I enjoyed reading about Claude now and then; maybe I’m not the only one.

‘Iconic swamp king’: San Francisco’s beloved albino alligator dies aged 30

Claude, the de facto mascot for a local museum, was the subject of a children’s book and regularly received fan mail

Claude, at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, on 24 April 2025. Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

Claude, the beloved albino alligator who called the California Academy of Sciences home for the better part of two decades, has died at age 30.

The San Francisco museum announced his death on Tuesday and said that the reptile had in recent weeks received treatment for a “suspected infection”. Claude, with his unusual white scales, had become a sort of mascot for the academy and the city. He was the subject of a children’s book and regularly received fan mail and gifts from around the world, the museum said.

“He brought joy to millions of people at the museum and across the world, his quiet charisma captivating the hearts of fans of all ages,” a statement from the museum read. “Claude showed us the power of ambassador animals to connect people to nature and stoke curiosity to learn more about the world around us.”

In September, the museum celebrated his 30th birthday with a month of festivities in honor of the “iconic swamp king”. (snip-MORE)