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Wednesday Good News Round Up Some Reasons to be Cheerful [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-07-26
Good Morning! Happy Wednesday. Grab your beverage of choice and settle in to read some good news I have searched out for you.
It is a crazy time. I do not know how else to best put it. I see, read and hear things I never dreamed could possibly happen in our world. Some days it seems we are taking so many steps backwards it can blur the good things that are and do take place. It is hard to see our world and people who live on it get trampled by those who are focused on greed and lust for power. They in turn rile up people who feel “left out” for whatever reason and fill them with hatred so they will cheer them on as they try and accomplish their goals of control. Even in the face of this, there are so many people fighting to ensure they are not successful in their goals, including all of you. And that my friends is good news.
"Be cautious with what you feed your mind and soul. Fuel yourself with positivity and let that fuel propel you into positive action." -- Steve Maraboli
Let’s get on with it!
Ohio Republicans' Shady Anti-Abortion Ploy Is Not Going Well
Abortion access is popular, even in red states: The pro-choice position won in all six states where it was on the ballot last year after the fall of Roe v. Wade. So now that an abortion rights ballot measure is going to a popular vote in Ohio in November, nervous Republicans are trying to make it harder for such statewide votes to pass. Now, it appears that desperate strategy is set to fail. But new polling shows the brazen scheme is on its way to failure, according to a Washington Post analysis. Not only do Ohioans overwhelmingly oppose the effort to change the amendment process (57 percent to 26 percent), they also support the abortion amendment itself (58 percent to 32 percent). It seems unlikely that voters would pass Issue 1 to raise the amendment threshold, but if they somehow did, it appears that the abortion measure could also pass. While anything can happen on August 8, things look pretty dire for conservatives.
I know they just got enough signatures for the measure to be on the ballot. This is one hill the republican party will die on.
Well I am in. Let’s Go Barbie!
Barbie just beat a Dark Knight box office record
Much like Taylor Swift, Barbie is beginning to break records you’ve never even thought about before. Best opening weekend of 2023? Absolutely. Fourth-best opening of all time? Sure, pretty impressive. Warner Bros. best Monday ever? Okay, now things are getting a little esoteric. But this is Barbie-mania, baby, and we’re gonna be riding this train until the wheels fall off. Moviegoers everywhere staved off a bad case of the Mondays by delighting in Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling’s performances as Barbie and Ken in Greta Gerwig’s biggest movie yet. Perhaps even more impressive than having Warner Bros. top Monday, Barbie achieved the best Monday of 2023.
I have not seen the film yet but I will in time. I am just happy right now that the RWNJ’s who tried their best to Dr. Suess/M&M/Sesame Street/Bud this movie are still just losers. I mean what did they expect? A movie that was not pink and feminist centric? It’s Barbie for the love.
Also I support the actors and writers as they continue their strike!
Speaking of unions:
Unionized workers are stepping in to save America's oldest craft brewery
Anchor Brewing Co.—the oldest craft brewery in the US—has announced that it’s open to a takeover bid from its unionized staff, after declaring bankruptcy earlier this month. The union confirmed its interest in an acquisition, saying it’s raising money for the purchase. the Anchor Union tweeted on Saturday (July 22) “Overwhelmed with the responses for help. We are working behind the scenes to try and figure out the best possible way to raise funds and actually do this,”. “Things are moving extremely fast, and we have professionals working on this with us.”
I can never and will never understand how “some people” seem to want children to hungry…
The national movement to make school lunches free has hit six states
Heather Gustafson knows what it’s like to struggle to keep money in her children’s meal accounts at school. Now a Minnesota state senator, Gustafson spent several years as a single mother raising four kids on a modest teacher’s salary. Although she suspects her income would’ve qualified her children to receive free or reduced-price school lunch, she never completed the paperwork to determine their eligibility. Thanks to universal school meals legislation that Gustafson and Rep. Sydney Jordan sponsored in the state legislature, Minnesota parents will no longer have to worry about keeping their kids fed at school. The law provides free lunch and breakfast to the state’s K-12 students regardless of household income. Minnesota’s universal free meal legislation is part of a burgeoning national movement to provide all students with no-cost breakfast and lunch. Through the end of the 2021-22 school year, the federal government provided free meals as part of its pandemic response, no matter a family’s ability to pay. That effort gave Minnesota and five other states — California, Maine, Colorado, New Mexico and Vermont — the momentum to pass free school meal legislation.
Seems like a no brainer to me.
These lawmakers want less gendered language in the law
Some lawmakers want to change the masculine default in government documents. Reps. Summer Lee, Ayanna Pressley and Robert Garcia are introducing legislation that would replace masculine generics with gender-neutral language in the U.S. legal code. The Equality in Our Laws Act would direct the Office of Law Revision Counsel (OLRC) to to make non-substantive, gender-neutral revisions to many portions of the legal code. The representatives sponsoring this bill say that it would make the U.S. legal code more inclusive, especially to women and LGBTQ+ people — in particular, gender-nonconforming, nonbinary, and intersex individuals. The sponsors say this bill sends an important message to the majority party in the House about the role that language plays in governance and the law, especially in a climate where state lawmakers have been increasingly restricting reproductive rights, health care access for transgender individuals and what children can learn at school or check out at libraries.
Cool space news:
After bopping an asteroid 3 years ago, NASA will finally see the results
Christmas Day for scientists who study asteroids is coming in just two months when a small spacecraft carrying material from a distant rubble pile will land in a Utah desert. The return of the OSIRIS-REx sample container on September 24 will cap the primary mission to capture material from an asteroid—in this case, the carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid Bennu—and return some of its pebbles and dust to Earth. It has been a long time coming. This mission launched seven years ago and has been in the planning and development phase for over a decade. To say the scientists who have fought for and executed this mission are anxious and excited is an understatement. The samples will be met by a flotilla of scientists and helicopters at the Utah Test and Training Range when it lands on the morning of the 24th. There, the dusty heat shield will be removed. The sample carrier will then be flown to Houston's Ellington Field on the next day, where it will be put into a clean room. Almost immediately, scientists will remove asteroid dust from the exterior of the sample container and begin a preliminary analysis.
Purified Wastewater Is the Drink of the Future
The merganser ducks and egrets at the Whalen Lake bird sanctuary near Oceanside, California, don’t know it, but they’re trendsetters, swimming in water that has been purified by state-of-the-art technology. Pure Water Oceanside, the sprawling water reclamation facility next to the lake, still looks brand new with its Santorini-white buildings and indigo-blue arches under cloudless skies. Up to five million gallons of the city’s wastewater are pumped every day through thick pipes, filters and chlorine tanks in the warehouse-size buildings flanked by blooming purple jacaranda trees. There is no detectable smell in the ultra-clean facility; mechanical engineer Lindsay Leahy, the energetic young water utilities director, calls it “the best-smelling wastewater plant I’ve ever been to.” It’s also the most modern. Palm-dotted Oceanside invested $70 million in the drink of the future: purified wastewater. It is turning water from the residents’ dishwashers, showers and toilets into potable water — or, to call a spade a spade, toilet to tap.
A Wild Cat Comeback — Thanks to Vultures
Corinne Kendall is already planning the next vulture buffet: This November, her team will lay out a goat carcass surrounded by traps in Kafue National Park, Zambia, then hide behind bushes. When a kettle of white-backed vultures has landed to dig into their dinner, some of the mighty birds walking around the carcass will get a foot caught in one of the nooses. The scientists will throw a towel over their heads, capture about ten of the scavengers and mount satellite tags on their backs. As the vultures fly over Africa’s third-largest national park, their satellite tags send geo signals, effectively turning the birds into unwitting research assistants for the scientists. With the scavengers’ help, Kafue National Park has managed a spectacular comeback. After half a century of poaching, the park had lost three-quarters of its wild cats. A concerted effort has turned things around: while leopard and lion populations have dwindled to worrying numbers all across Africa, leopard numbers have tripled in Kafue National Park over the last four years, and the number of lions (currently about 200), cheetahs, other big cats and elephants are stabilizing or increasing.
In honor of the late great Tony Bennett…
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Well that is for me folks. You all know what to do.
Have the greatest Wednesday!
Peace!
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