Tag Archives: gift

130,000: The number of Puerto Ricans who never returned after Maria

by FranklyR14 Posted on December 20, 2018

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When Hurricane Maria smashed directly into Puerto Rico in September of last year, it took an enormous toll on the island. The near-peak-intensity Category 4 storm destroyed the island’s power grid, caused more than an estimated 100 billion dollars in damage, and resulted in the deaths of thousands of people.

Now we have the numbers to understand how much the storm and its widespread devastation sped up the pace of migration.

In the disarray that followed, there was a max exodus to the U.S. mainland. In Florida alone, 200,000 Puerto Ricans arrived within the first two months after the storm made landfall. Many Puerto Ricans eventually returned, but an estimated 130,000 people — almost 4 percent of the population — permanently left the island between July 2017 and July 2018, according to newly released United States Census Bureau data. That’s saying a lot: No state saw its population decrease more than 1 percent for that same period, and most saw increases.

“Puerto Rico has seen a steady decline in population over the last decade,” said Sandra Johnson, a statistician at the Census Bureau, in a press release. “Hurricane Maria in September of 2017 further impacted that loss, both before and during the recovery period.”

While the island’s population has been dwindling for several years, Maria made living in Puerto Rico much, much harder. According to Census data, Puerto Rico has lost an average of about 55,000 people a year over the last seven years. But last year’s exodus alone was double that number. And it’s no wonder people left: with the extended power outages, communication lapses, and infrastructure failures, a large chunk of the workforce was forced off the island. Others left simply in order to find some semblance of normalcy.

For now, about 3 million people remain in the Island of Enchantment, but unmitigated climate change will fuel even more humanitarian disasters — putting the island at risk of yet another mass exodus.

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130,000: The number of Puerto Ricans who never returned after Maria

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Someone just paid $25,000 to name a worm-like amphibian after Donald Trump

by AnnettOlmstead Posted on December 18, 2018

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Donald Trump’s name is attached to a lot of things — Trump Towers, Trump University, The Trump Foundation (oops nevermind) — and now, Dermophis donaldtrumpi — a four-inch-long, worm-like amphibian from Panama.

Dermophis donaldtrumpi isn’t the first species to get a presidential naming treatment. President Obama has an watery namesake as well — he earned his by expanding a marine protected area around the Northwestern Hawaiian islands. And President Trump had a species of yellowish-”haired” moth named after him (Neopalpa donaldtrumpi) in 2017. But this newest addition to the Trump family name does not derive not from its physical similarity to the president. Rather, the species’ tendency to bury its head (and body) in the sand drew parallels to Trump’s persistent denial of climate change.

The naming rights for the species were auctioned off to raise money for Rainforest Trust. Dermophis donaldtrumpi is a caecilian, a word derived from the Latin for “blind.” The winning bidder, Aidan Bell, is the head of a sustainable building materials company called EnviroBuild, and wound up spending $25,000 to make the environmental and political jab. .

In a post on EnviroBuild’s blog, Bell wrote: “The dermophis genus grows an extra layer of skin which their young use their teeth to peel off and eat, a behavior known as dermatrophy. As a method of ensuring their children survive in life, Donald Trump prefers granting them high roles in the Oval Office.”

Ooh scientific burn.

But Dermophis donaldtrumpi may not be with us for much longer. he caecilian has a thin skin (sound like anyone we know?) , and like other amphibians, is especially vulnerable to the impacts of global warming. Will President Trump think and act any differently, knowing that his namesake is on the line?

Hey, a herpetologist can dream, right?

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Someone just paid $25,000 to name a worm-like amphibian after Donald Trump

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10 Crazy Facts About Holiday Waste

by CleoTbh54677 Posted on December 16, 2016

The sustainability-minded junk removal service,Junk King, created an infographic detailing the embarrassing excess of waste we Americans conjure up over the holidays. We are terrible! Although really it comes as little surprise to anyone who has ever watched footage of the national bloodsport of competitive shopping known as Black Friday.

We love the holiday junk and all its trappings and wrappings. How much? Well put it this way: Between Thanksgiving and January 1, we gift the landfills with an additional one million tons of waste per week. (Note: I don’t normally condone making nouns into verbs, as in gifting, but find it oddly soothing when describing something that rankles me so.)

Anyway, back to the facts, graphic-style:

Credit: Junk King

Junk King also came up with these tips to help combat the waste many of which you may have heard before (some things can’t be mentioned enough):

Wrap creatively:Wrapping paper and gift bags arent the only way to wrap presents. Try using a different material that you already have around your house. Newspaper, sheet music, and old maps are fun choices and are much more unique than commercial wrapping paper. You could also use scarves, t-shirts, or other fabric to wrap gifts. That way, the wrapping could be a gift as well!

Buy a potted tree:Every year, nearly 33 million live trees are sold across North America. Considering how much paper that we waste, saving a tree is the least that we can do. Buy a potted tree this year instead of cutting one down. This way, after the holidays are over and its time to take down the decorations, you can plant the tree in your own backyard.

Regift:Around 35% of Americans have an unopened or unused gift collecting dust somewhere. Instead of taking up valuable space or throwing it away, find it a new home. If you dont know of anyone who would like the gift, take it to a donation center. During the holidays, there are plenty of organizations collecting gifts for those who are less fortunate.

Give sustainably:There are a number of small steps that you can take to make your gift a little bit more environmentally friendly. For example, if youre giving a battery-powered gift, consider gifting a reusable battery charger along with it! If youre giving someone something made from paper, like a journal, try to find one thats made from recycled paper. Buying a handmade gift from a local shop or online store, or even making a gift yourself, can also help reduce waste, as these products are not mass-produced.

Go digital:About 2.6 billion cards are given to people every year. That amounts to just about 50,000 cubic yards of paper — enough to fill a football field 10 stories high! And no matter how sentimental they may be, they usually end up stashed away in a box or thrown away. Instead of paying for overpriced, wasteful cardstock, send an electronic greeting card for free!

Donate your leftovers:Holiday meals are usually big ordeals, and its always better to have too much than too little, but most of the time the leftovers are too much to handle. Instead of wasting perfectly good food, consider bringing your leftovers to a local homeless shelter. There are plenty of people who go hungry during the holidays, and your donation could make a world of difference to someone in need.

Written by Melissa Breyer. This post originally appeared on TreeHugger.

Photo Credit: Jeff Egnaczyk/Flickr

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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10 Crazy Facts About Holiday Waste

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The GOP Undercard Debate Would Have Been Less Terrible If Lindsey Graham Had Been In It

by MarisolM85 Posted on January 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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The lowest-polling GOP presidential candidates—Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina—squared off prior to the main GOP debate Thursday night, trying to answer a very basic question: why are they still in the race? Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was also invited to the undercard debate, but declined to participate if he wasn’t given a spot at the main event. Paul announced that he would instead host a “tele-town hall” on Facebook.

Ahead of Thursday’s debate, the three remaining undercard debaters were polling at about 4.5 percent combined (Santorum was polling at zero), according the RealClearPolitics polling average.

Fiorina came out of the gate with a sharp dig at Hillary Clinton:

The candidate’s responses to question on major issues were more or less predictable: On the economy? Obama has ruined it and pushed jobs overseas. On foreign policy? Obama can’t handle ISIS but they can. Along the way, they managed to sneak in a few zingers.

Fiorina, for instance, took a shot at GOP frontrunner Donald Trump: “Despite Donald Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin, Russia is our adversary.”

In one of the event’s most memorable exchanges, Santorum offered an interesting spin on mass deportations. He described sending the children of undocumented immigrants back to their countries of origin as “gift” that would enable them to improve their home countries. He called this “exporting America” in what can only be described as perhaps the worst study abroad program ever. At another point, Santorum suggested people Google him to see how he once stood up to Hillary Clinton. But you probably want to avoid Googling “Santorum.”

Huckabee kept to his normal tack of decrying Obama’s policies on all fronts, including repeating the mostly false claim that, under the Obama administration, the US navy has shrunk to its lowest level since 1915.

Overall the event seemed flat, and certainly could have used the lovable flourishes of erstwhile GOP candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham.

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The GOP Undercard Debate Would Have Been Less Terrible If Lindsey Graham Had Been In It

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Needed: Better Debate Moderators

by CortezKiddle197 Posted on October 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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Ed Kilgore notes this morning that “the media appetite for naming a clear winner has fed a post-debate trend towards labeling HRC as a gigantic, titanic, overwhelming cham-peen.” True enough, and you can blame that on a sort of self-feeding bandwagon loop among the campaign press. Still, in this case I think it’s probably justified. Sure, O’Malley did OK, and so did Sanders, but let’s face it: Nobody cares much about O’Malley, and Sanders probably didn’t change the dynamics of the race in his favor despite a decent performance. What’s more, my own personal reaction is that Sanders made it even clearer than ever that he doesn’t really want to be president. He just wants to move the race to the left.

But the fact that Hillary did well really does matter. She showed Democrats why they’ve always liked her in the past. She showed off her debating skills. She put to rest all the Benghazi/email nonsense. She almost certainly halted her slide in the polls. She basically made herself the inevitable winner yet again. Plus this:

And that leads to the aspect of the debate that struck me apparently more than most observers: the exceptional hostility of the questioning from moderator Anderson Cooper, who seemed to be trying to defy expectations that he’d be less savage than Jake Tapper was in CNN’s GOP debate. Pretty quickly, Cooper became a stand-in for all the media folk trying to make the Democratic contest about emails and Benghazi! and “socialism,” and you got the sense the candidates and the immediate audience united in disdain for the superficiality of where the hosts wanted the discussion to go. The feral roar that greeted Bernie Sanders’ statement that Americans were tired of “hearing about Clinton’s damn emails”—followed by HRC shaking Bernie’s hand—was the signature moment of the night. And this wasn’t just some “gift” from Sanders to Clinton, as it was called by several talking heads last night. It was a party-wide rebuke to the MSM for how they are covering this campaign.

I didn’t get the sense that Cooper was especially hostile. But Kilgore is right that debate moderators generally try to focus on superficial “toughness” instead of asking either genuinely tough questions or genuinely interesting policy questions. In a way, this is justified: you don’t want candidates to get away with just making stump speeches. You want to challenge them. You want to see how they perform under pressure. Unfortunately, when you take this too far it becomes obvious that you’re just desperately trying to gin up controversy for its own sake. Debate moderators need to understand that the show isn’t about them. It’s about genuinely digging out answers from candidates on subjects they might prefer to fudge. That’s genuine toughness. But that takes a deep knowledge of policy and the willingness to engage with it. That’s too often missing from these events.

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Needed: Better Debate Moderators

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Donald Trump’s Latest Dumb Press Release Will Make You Glad Donald Trump Writes His Own Press Releases

by Lilla22Bjygef Posted on July 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving.

Update, 6:48pm ET: Keen-eyed Mother Jones editor Ian Gordon has found the real scandal:

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Donald Trump’s Latest Dumb Press Release Will Make You Glad Donald Trump Writes His Own Press Releases

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Aveeno Baby Gift Set, Daily Care Essentials Basket, Baby and Mommy Gift Set

by Myrna Posted on July 31, 2014

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Reissues With Benefits: The Velvet Underground’s "White Light/White Heat"

by ErnestinaWrenn Posted on December 9, 2013

Mother Jones

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The Velvet Underground
White Light/White Heat 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition
UMe

White Light/White Heat is one legendary album that lives up to the hype. The Velvet Underground’s second release, and the last to feature the founding lineup of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Mo Tucker (at least until the band’s reunion in the ’90s), it’s a grimy, exhilarating blast of confrontational noise, credited with launching everything from punk to industrial rock to ambient music. This impressive three-disc set offers mono and stereo versions of the original release, plus a slew of pretty-enticing extras from the era. The highlights are the title song, “I Heard Her Call My Name” and the still mind-blowing 17-minute epic “Sister Ray,” wherein Reed seems both offhand and sinister at once, like Bob Dylan transformed into a sneering New York City degenerate. Only “The Gift,” a gruesome spoken-word tall tale recited by Cale in his entrancing Welsh lilt, has not aged well.

Among the additional songs, standouts include two versions of the eerie “Hey Mr. Rain,” the atypically playful “Temptation Inside Your Heart” and the first official release of an oft-bootlegged live show from 1967, featuring the terrific and otherwise unavailable “I’m Not a Young Man Anymore.” Lou Reed’s recent passing has inevitably renewed interest in his work, but White Light/White Heat would be essential listening in any case.

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Reissues With Benefits: The Velvet Underground’s "White Light/White Heat"

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The Gift of Adversity – Norman E Rosenthal M.D.

by Myrna Posted on September 11, 2013

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The Gift of Adversity

The Unexpected Benefits of Life’s Difficulties, Setbacks, and Imperfections

Norman E Rosenthal M.D.

Genre: Self-Improvement

Price: $14.99

Publish Date: August 29, 2013

Publisher: Penguin Group US

Seller: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.


The noted research psychiatrist explores how life's disappointments and difficulties provide us with the lessons we need to become better, bigger, and more resilient human beings. Adversity is an irreducible fact of life. Although we can and should learn from all experiences, both positive and negative, bestselling author Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal, believes that adversity is by far the best teacher most of us will ever encounter. Whether the adversity one experiences is the result of poor decision-making, a desire to test one’s mettle, or plain bad luck, Rosenthal believes life’s most important lessons—from the value of family to the importance of occasionally cutting corners—can be best learned from it. Running counter to society’s current prevailing message that “excellence” must always be aspired to, and failure or mistakes of any sort are to be avoided at all costs, Rosenthal shows that engaging with our own failures and defeats is one of the only ways we are able to live authentic and meaningful lives, and that each different type of adversity carries its own challenges and has the potential to yield its own form of wisdom. Using stories from his own life—including his childhood in apartheid-era South Africa, his years after suffering a violent attack from a stranger, and his career as a psychiatrist—as well as case studies and discussions with well-known figures like Viktor Frankl and David Lynch, Rosenthal shows that true innovation, emotional resilience, wisdom, and dignity can only come from confronting and understanding the adversity we have experienced. Even when life is hardest, there are meanings to be found, riches to be harvested, and gifts that can last a lifetime. Rosenthal illustrates his message through a series of compact, memorable chapters, each one drawn from episodes in the lives of his patients, colleagues, or himself, and concluded with a take-away maxim on the lesson learned.

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The Gift of Adversity – Norman E Rosenthal M.D.

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Wishes Fulfilled – Wayne W. Dyer

by Myrna Posted on July 8, 2013

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Wishes Fulfilled

Mastering the Art of Manifesting

Wayne W. Dyer

Genre: Self-Improvement

Price: $11.99

Publish Date: February 28, 2012

Publisher: Hay House

Seller: Hay House, Inc.


This book is dedicated to your mastery of the art of realizing all your desires. The greatest gift you have been given is the gift of your imagination. Everything that now exists was once imagined. And everything that will ever exist must first be imagined. Wishes Fulfilled is designed to take you on a voyage of discovery, wherein you can begin to tap into the amazing manifesting powers that you possess within you and create a life in which all that you imagine for yourself becomes a present fact. Dr. Wayne W. Dyer explores, for the first time, the region of your highest self; and definitively shows you how you can truly change your concept of yourself, embark upon a God-realized way of living, and fulfill the spiritual truth that with God all things are possible-and &quot;all things&quot; means that nothing is left out. By practicing the specific technique for retraining your subconscious mind, you are encouraged to not only place into your imagination what you would like to manifest for yourself, but you are given the specifics for realigning your life so you can live out your highest calling and stay connected to your Source of being. From the lofty perspective of your highest self, you will learn how to train your imagination in a new way. Your wishes-all of them-can indeed be fulfilled. By using your imagination and practicing the art of assuming the feeling of your wishes being fulfilled, and steadfastly refusing to allow any evidence of the outer world to distract you from your intentions, you will discover that you, by virtue of your spiritual awareness, possess the ability to become the person you were destined to be. This book will help you See-with a capital S-that you are divine, and that you already possess an inner, invisible higher self that can and will guide you toward a mastery of the art of manifestation. You can attain this mastery through deliberate conscious control of your imagination!

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Wishes Fulfilled – Wayne W. Dyer

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