Category Archives: ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Protect our families from chemical disasters

11/22/2014 Nativegrl77

ACTION ALERT
Tell the Environmental Protection Agency to Improve Chemical Plant Safety

Right now, 134 million Americans live in danger zones around facilities that use or store hazardous chemicals. And with around 30,000 documented incidents reported annually—from West Virginia to California—we remain devastatingly ill-prepared to protect the public from chemical disasters.

In fact, last year, 15 people died and three schools were destroyed as a result of a fertilizer plant explosion in Texas. After this tragic and avoidable accident, President Barack Obama took an important step to prevent disasters like this from happening again, calling on federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to strengthen chemical plant safety regulations.

Tell Administrator Gina McCarthy that the EPA must improve chemical plant safety and ensure communities get the scientific information they need to make informed decisions about their health, safety, and environment.

For the first time in decades, we have a chance to make real strides in improving chemical safety and security. The EPA needs to hear your support to improve chemical plant safety and prevent future disasters. Tell Administrator McCarthy that the EPA must improve access to information about toxic chemicals, require the use of safer chemical processes, and protect vulnerable communities.

Let’s make sure the EPA enacts the necessary standards to keep our families safe from chemical disasters.

Sincerely,

Danielle Fox
Outreach Coordinator
Center for Science and Democracy
Union of Concerned Scientists

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Child abuse in my Church

11/22/2014 Nativegrl77

Bishop Robert Finn was convicted of covering up a child abuse scandal two years ago, and he is still the head of my church. I started a petition asking Pope Francis to request his immediate resignation.

Sign Jeff’s Petition

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I’m a Catholic and I take my kids to church every Sunday. Church is supposed to be a safe place. But Bishop Robert Finn, who is the head of my diocese (that’s a regional group of churches), made our church unsafe for my children when he covered up a child sex abuse scandal.

In 2012, Father Shawn Ratigan — who was a priest in a church near mine — plead guilty in U.S. Federal Court to producing and possessing child pornography. Father Ratigan used his position as a priest to take lewd images of children in his faith community.

A judge found Bishop Finn guilty of covering up Ratigan’s crimes — Bishop Finn is one of the highest level leaders in the church ever to be convicted in a sex abuse scandal. But despite his conviction, Bishop Finn still has his job as head of our diocese.

I started a petition on Change.org asking Pope Francis to call for Bishop Finn’s resignation as head of the Kansas City diocese. Click here to add your name.

Pope Francis has called sexual child abuse “the shame of the church,” but he hasn’t taken enough action to hold child abusers and their protectors in the church accountable. Our diocese needs a leader who protects children, not one who protects their abusers.

As a Catholic, I believe in forgiveness, and I think Bishop Finn should be forgiven. But as a father, I don’t think he should keep a job where he could put more children in danger. Forgiveness and change can work together.

The Catholic church needs to see that it’s not enough to get rid of priests who abuse children — the leaders who cover up the abuse must be held accountable as well. I know that if thousands of people sign my petition, Pope Francis will call for Bishop Finn to step down.

Click here to sign my petition calling on Pope Francis to ask Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted of covering up a child pornography scandal, to resign as the head of the Kansas City diocese.

Thank you,

Jeff Weis Kansas City, Missouri

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

It’s On Us: A Week of Action

11/21/2014 Nativegrl77

The White House

Since its launch in September, the It’s On Us campaign has rapidly expanded to reach hundreds of thousands of students on college campuses across the country. It’s On Us is a cultural movement aimed at fundamentally shifting the way we think about sexual assault. In addition to a celebrity PSA with almost 4 million views, the campaign has generated more than 100,000 pledge signatures from people committing to be a part of the solution.

On Monday, It’s On Us launched its first Week of Action to engage thousands of students in the conversation about how to end campus sexual assault. Partner organizations and hundreds of school leaders joined together to hold over 200 events in 38 states across the country.

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

The week kicked off with the release of a new PSA encouraging bystander intervention. Snapchat sent a special PSA to more than 250,000 student users via the app, and offered special It’s On Us picture filters to help spread awareness. Xbox also featured the PSA on the game console’s dashboard, and SB Nation not only released two original PSAs with athlete spokespeople, but also created custom content for each of their individual partner sites.

Student leaders across hundreds of college campuses held events ranging from pledge drives at athletic events to panel discussions with college administrators and experts in the field. At the University of Texas at Dallas, the student government, sororities and fraternities, and other student stakeholders came together to launch their Week of Action. The It’s On Us logo and branding were incorporated into their homecoming festivities, and student leaders were featured in “We Are UT Dallas,” a one-minute video highlighting UT Dallas’s participation in the campaign.

On Monday, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hosted an “It’s On The Quad” pledge drive and photo booth. Throughout the week, they will distribute 500 It’s On Us t-shirts to students who take the pledge.

More than 50 colleges and universities have also created their own PSAs, including MIT, University of Arizona, Ohio State University, and even the staff and faculty at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Throughout the Week of Action, thousands of young people have stepped up and turned their pledge into action — and there will be more opportunities to engage with the It’s On Us campaign beyond this week. Over the coming months, we will work with our partners on college campuses and in communities to continue to engage students across the country.

It’s on us to realize we all have a role to play in preventing sexual assault, and we must challenge each other to do everything we can to make our college campuses safer.

Kyle Lierman
Office of Public Engagement
The White House

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

The President just announced this

11/21/2014 Nativegrl77

Our immigration system has been broken for decades. That’s why President Obama announced new steps tonight to address as much of the problem as he can using his executive authority, and why he’ll continue to work with Congress to pass comprehensive reform.

Find out more about President Obama’s plan — then pass it on.