A big step toward sustainability

There’s so much to like about springtime. And April just might be my favorite month.

Well, this April is really special, especially for those of us who are environmentally-conscious and are rooting for our planet while she is being brutalized by modern industry and billions of unaware and indifferent humans.

We are in the last few moments of April as I write this, but it was in this month that renewable energy–that is, hydro, biomass, wind, geothermal and especially solar–generated more power than coal.

Stop and think about that for a moment. It is quite a noteworthy event and shows clearly that in spite of all the ways that our planet has been horribly treated–especially in the last two years–we can, and we must, do everything in our power to make progress and to mitigate the damage being done to Mother Earth.

If you’d like to read a good and highly informative article about this salutary event, just follow this link.


“Bulldog Ben” Basile



© 2019 Ben Lawrence Basile

Today is National Arbor Day

Many folks and environmentally-focused organizations will be out planting trees today. I would love to be among them, but another evening at work is going to be my fate today.

I think it’s a very good thing that there is a day set aside for trees and the planting of trees. I'm setting my sights on next year. A little prior-planning should do the trick.

The banner photo is one of three majestic oaks that live right outside the apartment where I was living in 2015 and ’16. The view from my patio was just breathtaking.

If you’d like to know more about National Arbor Day, just follow this link.

More trees, please!

Bulldog Ben

Photo credit Benjamin Basile

Redacted Mueller Report is out

Trump's sycophantic Attorney General, William Barr, released the Mueller Report today.

With redactions, of course.

Without a doubt, Barr is covering for the boss. He was hand-picked for that purpose.

The American People and Congress need to see the full report. Congress needs to hold plenty of hearings on this, and Robert Mueller needs to be called to testify.

And it needs to happen as soon as humanly possible.


"Bulldog Ben" Basile

Compassion In Action

Sometimes the language we use when speaking or writing about things is pretty abstract. It’s always good give more life, more substance, to your story by citing examples or giving more detail.

I talk about compassion often and believe it's vitally important. Especially at a time when a lot of people, including many in positions of power, seem to be trying to be intentionally cruel.

It wouldn’t be a bad thing to come up with a really good, a really clear example of someone acting compassionately.

Here we go: last Saturday night, Hanna Pignato, a waitress at the Joe’s Crab Shack on the Daytona Beach Pier noticed that a young swimmer in the ocean beneath her restaurant was struggling in a rip current.

Most folks would have hollered for a life guard or dialed 9-1-1.

Not Hanna. She gave her apron and wallet to a colleague and jumped into the sea.

Unfortunately for this hero, she hit a sandbar and broke her foot and fractured three vertebrae.

The swimmer was pulled to safety by someone else and Hanna was barely able to swim back to shore safely.

But the overarching fact here is that she put it all on the line! She acted compassionately, to say the least, when the limit of most folks’ compassion would have been to feel intensely sad if the boy had not ultimately been saved from the rip current.

Hanna is a hero! Her ennobling act of compassion stuns and inspires me.

Needless to say, her medical expenses are considerable. And her apartment is on the third floor so this is a big deal.

If you’re able to help Hanna, I hope you will. Click here if you’d like to know how you can help.



"Bulldog Ben" Basile

© 2019 Ben Lawrence Basile

Suspect in custody in church burnings

Many of you know that three historically-black churches in Louisiana were torched in a ten day period earlier this month.

It's an ugly thing. It's clearly a hate crime. Crimes like that have become more prevalent in the last couple of years.

America's Hater-in-Chief is clearly inciting violence against people he dislikes. It's something he's been doing since before he was elected.

This article lays out many--if not all--of the times he egged on his hateful followers but it's about six months old. The poser prez has dipped into his well of hate many times since.

It's a good thing--a very good thing--that Law Enforcement arrested the alleged arsonist pretty quickly.

He's the son of a Deputy Sheriff and has no prior arrests.

But he's another in a long procession of hateful white people in the south who are just itching to inflict as much damage as possible on people of color.

It's a very severe problem, especially in the south and it's getting steadily worse.

If our president had a shred of conscience and even one once of compassion, he would be trying to address this situation and make it better.

But he doesn't and he seems to be doing everything in his considerable power to make it worse.

Churches are burning and this lying, loser prez is fanning the flames.



"Bulldog Ben" Basile


© 2019 Ben Lawrence Basile

Peter Poacher has a very, very bad day at work

I caught wind of this somewhat unusual story coming out South Africa last week.

I didn't post about it at the time because is sounded like one of those stories that may or may not have actually happened but are put out there mostly to sell papers or garner lots of clicks.

Then I noticed today that the story's been picked up by so many for-real news organizations that I know it's been verified many times over. So here we go.

Some poacher in Africa was stomped to death by an elephant last week. The scene of this wonderful but somewhat rare event was Kruger National Park in South Africa.

But wait, there's more! After getting squashed like a roach, the hapless dude was eaten by a pride of lions!

In these encounters, the humans usually "win". And it's only because they're way ahead of the animals in treachery and weapons technology.

But now and then, the critters really bring their A Game and get to make up for the previous hundred rounds or so of the disgusting and grim contest.

In the very unlikely event that you're not completely sure of which side I'm on when poachers go out to murder and butcher animals I love, just leave me a comment and I'll be only too happy to explain.

Ardent, long-time lover of Elephants and Cats, I am,

"Bulldog Ben" Basile

© 2019 Ben Lawrence Basile

Ban on Arctic Drilling Restored

It created quite an outcry when the trump Administration overturned an Obama-era ban on most drilling in the Arctic.

The Executive Order lifting the ban was signed back in April of 2017.

The League of Conservation Voters believed that that executive order could not withstand a legal challenge and so they filed suit.

They won their case yesterday–and though the trump Administration is almost sure to appeal Judge Sharon Gleason’s order–the planning for drilling in some extremely environmentally-sensitive areas has come to a screeching halt.

To see a story with more detail about this rare piece of good environmental news, follow this link.

To learn more about the League of Conservation Voters, click here.

Bulldog Ben

Why does Alex Jones do what he does?

As many of you may know, Infowars front man Alex Jones is being sued by some of the families of children murdered in the Sandy Hook shooting. 

He was deposed just a few days ago by attorneys for the families who brought the suits. They had been repeatedly harassed by some of the thuggish followers of Jones, who repeatedly, over a period of years, helped to spread the vicious, accursed theory that the massacre didn't actually happen, that it was all a part of a left-wing plot. 

There's a lot of chatter on social media right now about all of this. One person I know referred to the case and opined that Jones is insane. Otherwise, the thought was, he would never have kept alive those ridiculous conspiracy theories and worked so hard to spread them. 

I, on the other hand, believe that Jones is perfectly sane and does things like that for two main reasons.

The first reason is because it gets his brain-dead audience to tune in, buy the sponsors' products and put money in his pocket. It doesn't bother him in the least that doing that harms real people. He hates them--meaning survivors and families of victims of mass shootings--so that's even better for him.

The second reason is that he can! He's never had any real negative consequences from spreading hate and chaos; he enjoys doing it, so there's no reason to stop.

Getting kicked off Twitter might be seen as a negative consequence but Jones and his cronies didn't miss a beat. They just had to change platforms. The methods, the message and the ugly way he and others operate didn't change at all.

It is true that these law suits could change all that but I'm not sure they will. I sure hope they do. If they can take away enough cash from Jones and others like him, it could be a very big deal.

In the meantime, the Reich Wing has unlimited stores of money and hate which will make sure that Jones and others like him who wallow around in that right-wing media cesspool can keep doing what they do.

Bulldog Ben

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