Category: Climate / Environment

Women Fasted, Amnesty Int’l Founded, and Much More in Peace & Justice History for 5/28

May 28, 1892

The Sierra Club, America’s oldest, largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, was organized in San Francisco with wilderness explorer John Muir as its first president. The organization’s initial effort was to defeat a proposed reduction in the boundaries of Yosemite National Park.
Muir introduced President Theodore Roosevelt to Yosemite the following year, inspiring him during his presidency to establish the U.S. Forest Service, create 5 national parks, and sign the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 national monuments.
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.”
– John Muir, The Yosemite (1912)

John Muir
The Sierra Club today
May 28, 1961

Amnesty International (AI) was founded on this date in Great Britain.
It is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights, particularly as laid out in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Members of AI help maintain a media focus on political prisoners, and organize public pressure to afford them their legal rights and obtain their release.
Visit Amnesty International 
Read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Amnesty International projects 
May 28, 1963
Black and white civil rights advocates were attacked as they sat-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi. They were defying state laws against serving “colored” citizens at “whites-only” public facilities.
According to John Salter, AKA Hunter Bear, one of those who sat in:
“This was the most violently attacked sit-in during the 1960s and is the most publicized. A huge mob gathered, with open police support while the three of us sat there for three hours. I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I’m covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things.”

Attacked for trying to eat at Woolworth’s (L to R): John Salter (Hunter Bear), Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), and Anne Moody.
More photos and the story of the struggle against segregation 
Freedom Movement Bibliography 
May 28, 1982
Seven women fasted for 10 days in Springfield, Illinois, in support of ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment by the Illinois state legislature. The amendment had already been ratified by 35 other states of the 38 required.
May 28, 1998
Pakistan exploded five underground nuclear devices in response to India’s most recent nuclear tests.
 
Since the British partitioned the subcontinent in 1947, there have been three wars between the two countries and numerous border clashes over the disputed Kashmir province. Kashmir had a majority (77%) Muslim population at the time of partition, but became part of predominantly Hindu (80%), though constitutionally secular, India.

Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, widely proclaimed as the ” Father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb,” stands in the access tunnel inside the Chagai Hills nuclear test site before Pakistan’s
28 May 1998 underground nuclear test.
Read more 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may28

Good Info From The Bee-

A Hidden Reading Suggestion

International Women’s Day for Disarmament Today, and More, in Peace & Justice History for 5/24

May 24, 1774
The Virginia House of Burgesses declared this a day of “fasting, humiliation and prayer” in reaction to the British closure of the Port of Boston.
May 24, 1906

Dora Montefiore
British suffragist Dora Montefiore protested the lack of women’s right to the vote by refusing to pay taxes, and barricading her house against bailiffs sent to collect.
Dora Montefiore biography 
May 24, 1917 
An Anti-Conscription Parade was held in Victoria Square, Montreal, Quebec, in resistance to a Canadian draft to send soldiers to the European war. Riots nearly a year later resulted in the death of four demonstrators in Quebec City.

Anti-Conscription Parade, Victoria Square
May 24, 1964
  
Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona), running for the Republican Party nomination for president, gave an interview in which he said he would consider the use of low-yield atomic bombs in North Vietnam.
May 24, 1968
Four protesters, including Phil Berrigan and Tom Lewis, were sentenced in Baltimore, Maryland, to six years each in prison for pouring blood on draft records.
May 24, 1971
At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, an anti-war newspaper advertisement, signed by 29 U.S. soldiers supporting the Concerned Officers Movement, resulted in controversy.
The group had been formed in 1970 in Washington, D.C. by a small group of junior naval officers opposed to the war.
The newspaper advertisement at Fort Bragg was in support of the group’s members, who had joined with anti-war activist David Harris and others in San Diego to mobilize opposition to the departure of the carrier USS Constellation for Vietnam. No official action was taken against the military dissidents, though many were forced to resign their commissions.

GI resistance to the Vietnam War 
May 24, 1981 (since 1981)
International Women’s Day for Disarmament was declared, calling for the peaceful resolution of conflict, and an end to the horror and devastation of armed conflict.
IFOR’s Women Peacemakers Program 
May 24, 1982
More than 200,000 people participated in a massive anti-nuclear demonstration in Tokyo, Japan.
May 24, 2000
Israeli troops completed their withdrawal from southern Lebanon, ending 18 years of occupation. Prime Minister Ehud Barak: “From now on, the government of Lebanon is accountable for what takes place within its territory, and the Lebanese and Syrian governments are responsible for preventing acts of terror or aggression against Israel, which is from today deployed within its borders.”

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may24

“Seldom-seen Sprite”

Virginia's Warbler

I Haven’t Posted One of These In A While-Enjoy! 💖 ☮ 🌞

“Straight up through the sky above this road right now, The galaxies of the Cygnus A cluster Are colliding with each other in a massive swarm Of interpenetrating and exploding catastrophes.” by Worriedman

Pattiann Rogers – ” Achieving Perspective” Read on Substack

The whole brilliant poem, read by David Byrne! Make sure you follow the [this] link. This is one of the best things I’ve ever shared-

Pattiann Rogers is one of the great modern poets. She writes about nature in a completely relatable way that you can learn from and admire.

Cardinal! State bird of seven different states – the most of any bird. Meadowlarks come in second with six different states. (This feels like the kind of information old people share….)

Lilac! The good old fashioned kind.

The fragrance is amazing. In a day or two they’ll be fully open. A week after that they’ll be gone.

I went out to the barn to visit some friends

Never gets old!

(snip-little vid of Barncat greeting Worriedman. Just click through above to see it; I couldn’t embed it.)

She’s so pretty!

She’s been working on this for years-

Juice! You can’t hide, Juice…

I am frequently found taking pictures of flowers in the rain.

Ninebark – Two different varieties

A goose among the ragwort –

That’s all I’ve got room for – Thanks for dropping by!

Eugene V. Debs & the Pullman Palace Car Co. Strike & Boycott, plus More, in Peace & Justice History for 5/22

May 22, 1894

Eugene V. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, was imprisoned in Illinois for his role in the Pullman Palace Car Company strike and boycott, which had stalled most rail traffic west of Detroit.
Read more about the Pullman strike
May 22, 1968
Federal marshals entered Boston’s Arlington Street Unitarian-Universalist Church to arrest Robert Talmanson, who had been convicted of refusing induction into the U.S. Armed Forces. He had been offered sanctuary there by the leaders of the church who shared his opposition to the Vietnam War.
When the marshals tried to remove him, access to their car was blocked by 200-300 nonviolent sanctuary supporters.

Draft resister Robert Talmanson dragged by authorities from Arlington Street Church. 
May 22, 1978
Four thousand protesters occupied the site of the Trident nuclear submarine base in Bangor, Washington. The base was built for the maintenance and resupply of Ohio-class submarines.
Though built as part of the U.S. nuclear deterrent, they were perceived by some as giving the U.S. a nuclear first-strike capability with their ability to each deliver 24 missiles with multiple warheads from very close to the borders of other countries. The 14 vessels are at sea 2/3 of the time and can travel as deeply as 800 feet for a time limited only by its food supply.
Read more about Ground Zero  
May 22, 2001
Delegates from 127 countries formally voted approval of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPS), a treaty calling for the initial elimination of 12 of the most dangerous manmade chemicals, nine of which are pesticides.

POPS are often toxic at very low levels, resist degradation and thus persist for decades or longer, because they become concentrated in living tissue, are readily spread by atmospheric and ocean currents.Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, lauding the agreement, said,
“. . . we have to go further. Dangerous substances must be replaced
by harmless ones step by step. If there is the least suspicion that new chemicals have dangerous characteristics it is better to reject them.”
POPS background  

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may22

These Are a Couple of Worthwhile Reads.

Homeless With A View …

I Mentioned the Weather Here,

earlier today. Because it’s been particularly wild, especially just now at 10:35 PM CDT Sunday, I thought I’d write in. So far, so good where I live, we got winds, but no rain (it did rain before I mentioned the weather could impact my time online and posting,) and certainly no tornadoes. Temps stayed below 75 all day, with lower 60 degree dewpoints. Something could have twisted up, but not a huge something. So, that is good, with the exception that now the atmosphere here will lend itself to the same watching and hoping about the weather tomorrow (Monday.) But it is and has been safe here today and tonight. That’s the primary post.

The reason I thought I’d better write in is because, to the West of us, there is an ongoing tornado emergency. There have been tornadoes, a couple with extensive damages, in the late afternoon and evening, but this tornado now is one of what the weather people have been worrying about all the past week. It even was headed toward Greensburg, but did travel between Greensburg and another small town, so those cities are relatively safe. But the storm has been intensifying, and the tornado has been, also. I figure it’s going to make the AM news, and I didn’t want anyone to worry that we got hit; the area is somewhat North, and pretty far West of where I live, a few jogs South of Wichita. So that’s my weather check-in.

I don’t know what the news will tell about it, but the meteorologist I watch was visibly and audibly saddened by watching the reflexivity radar on the tornado, saying it is very bad. So it must be very bad, because he’s not an alarmist meteorologist. I’m yet again humbly thankful to have such weather avoid my area, and I hope there is not much population on the tornado’s path. We travelled by Greensburg for a karate tournament a couple of years after the Big One there, and I don’t recall a lot of homes on the road between towns, but there were houses around and about. We’ll see tomorrow, of course.

So, there’s that.

Republicans caused or did this. We should ban them.

Comer: James Comey Was “Trying To Jizz Up A Coup”

Trump Admin To Close Famed NASA Research Center

Photo: Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro, who also serves as Kennedy Space Center director, a post she assumed in 2021. Trump elevated Petro to lead NASA after he ousted former Sen. Bill Nelson for believing in climate change.

 

WaPo: The Federal Brain Drain Is Rapidly Escalating

 As previously reported here, European governments have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to lure US scientists.

OK Schools Chief Calls Education Ranking “Fake News”

Newly-released data shows that Oklahoma ranks 46th in per-pupil spending, but Walters, who is eyeing a run for governor, has called for cuts to his state’s “wasteful” education spending, including $250,000 to provide school districts with emergency inhalers. 

In his KFOR interview, Walters did boast about getting new teachers a signing bonus, but as was widely reported the time, $290,000 of that money had to be clawed back because it had gone to teachers who did not qualify. Some of those teachers had already spent the money.

Combat Sports Clubs Are Recruiting White Nationalists

The SPLC’s report is here. The February 2024 report linked below shows that the same thing is happening in the UK.

Tesla Effectively Bans Its Investors From Suing Them

 Guess who donated to the Texas Republicans behind the new law?

 

Felon Has Another Screaming Fit On “Stolen Election”

Trump Demands That Walmart “EAT THE TARIFFS”

Feds Seize Shipment Of Shirts From Anti-ICE Brand

Something something free speech.

New: CBP seized a shipment of t-shirts from @cola.baby featuring a swarm of bees attacking a cop. The company also sells "ELIMINATE ICE" t-shirt and previously was threatened by LAPD for "FUCK THE LAPD" shirts and hats. Shirts to be "destroyed under CBP supervision"www.404media.co/cbp-seizes-s…

— Jason Koebler (@jasonkoebler.bsky.social) 2025-05-15T19:44:07.171Z

Forbes: Canadian US Tourism Boycott Is Growing

Canadian Travel Boycott Has Strengthened—Car Travel To U.S. Plummeted 35% In April, Fourth Consecutive Month Of Year-Over-Year Declines

— Forbes (@forbes.com) 2025-05-13T11:53:03.619Z

Trump Posts Video Claiming Hillary Is A Serial Killer

OH GOP Bill Would Designate “Natural Family Month”

Rep. Beth Lear first appeared here in January 2024 when she defended her anti-trans bathroom bill by citing the “millstones” bible verse which calls for drowning anyone who hurts children.

She later blamed “depraved monster” Alfred Kinsey, liberals, and the ACLU for transgender people even existing.

Rep. Josh Williams first appeared here in July 2024 for his bill that would criminalize drag shows in the presence of children. Williams reintroduced his bill last week.

 

Happy Birthday Sir Bertrand Russell, and more in Peace & Justice History for 5/18

May 18, 1872

Bertrand Russell
Birthday of Sir Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, essayist, and social critic, a leading figure in his country’s anti-nuclear movement. In 1954 he delivered his “Man’s Peril [from the Hydrogen Bomb]” broadcast on the BBC, condemning the Bikini H-bomb tests, and warning of the threat to humanity from the development of nuclear weapons: “. . . as a human being to other human beings: remember your humanity, and forget the rest.”
A year later, together with Albert Einstein nine other scientists, he released the Russell-Einstein Manifesto calling for the curtailment of nuclear weapons.
Text of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto 
He became the founding president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958. He resigned in 1960, however, and formed the more militant Committee of 100 with the overt aim of inciting mass civil disobedience, and he himself with Lady Russell led mass sit-ins in 1961 that brought them a two-month prison sentence, at the age of 89.

Bertrand Russell in front of the British Ministry of Defence, Whitehall, London
May 18, 1896
Supreme Court endorsed “separate but equal” facilities for those of different races with its Plessy v. Ferguson decision, a ruling that was overturned 58 years later.
May 18, 1972
Margaret (Maggie) Kuhn founded the Gray Panthers (originally called the Consultation of Older and Younger Adults for Social Change) to consider the common problems faced by retirees — loss of income, loss of contact with associates, and loss of one of society’s most distinguishing social roles, one’s job. The members discovered a new kind of freedom in their retirement — the freedom to speak personally and passionately about what they believed in, such as their collective opposition to the Vietnam War.


Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers

Gray Panther history 
May 18, 1974
In the Rajasthan Desert in the state of Pokhran, India successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon, a fission bomb similar in explosive power to the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. 
The test fell on the traditional anniversary of the Buddha’s enlightenment, and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi received the message “Buddha has smiled” from the exuberant test-site scientists after the detonation. The test, which made India the world’s sixth nuclear power, broke the nuclear monopoly of the five members of the U.N. Security Council—the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, China, and France.
Detailed background on India’s nuclear weapons program and its first test 
May 18, 1979
A jury in a federal court in Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee established a company’s responsibility for damage to the health of a worker in the nuclear industry. Karen Silkwood worked for the Kerr-McGee Nuclear Corporation at their Cimmaron, Texas, plant where plutonium was manufactured.
Silkwood had become the first female member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers bargaining committee, focusing on worker safety issues, but had suffered radiation exposure in a series of unexplained incidents. The jury in Judge Frank G. Theis’s court awarded her estate $505,000 in actual damages, and $10 million punitive damages.

Karen Silkwood’s sisters and parents
She had died in a car accident on her way to a meeting with a The New York Times reporter five years earlier.
Karen Silkwood remembered 
The Supreme Court upheld the decision and the award 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may18