Joshua Tree Nat'l Park includes federally protected wilderness in the Mojave desert

…even if it isn’t your savings, 401k, job security, financial well being, and overall sanity. Amid all of the noise around the global economic crisis, “octomoms,” and NCAA tournament, a landmark piece of environmental protection legislation was quietly passed, making good on candidate Barack Obamas promise to stick up for the environment. This week President Barack Obama signed the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009. In the act, more than 2 million acres of land across nine states are designated as wilderness. What’s wilderness land? According to the 1964 (LBJ anyone?) law, the wilderness designation applies to land “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” As President Obama noted in his speech during the signing of the bill, “it designates more than 2 million acres across nine states as wilderness; almost as much as was designated over the past eight years combined.” In short: FACE! Bush administration.

The Omnibus Public Lands Management Act is important on a few fronts. Read the rest of this entry >>

photo by RMTips21, Creative Commons

Last night the University of Florida Gators claimed the title of BCS Champions against the University of Oklahoma Sooners. Gators football superstar Tim Tebow threw for 231 yards and ran for 110 yards. Although I’m not quite the Gator fan some of my fellow TakePart writers are, I have to admin that Tebow and fellow Florida star Percy Harvin (who was allgedly injured) put on a steady performance, even after a slack first half where Tebow threw more interceptions in 30 miuntes than he had all year.

There’s lots of noise today about the Gators and the BCS system - for example whether or not NCAA college football should have a playoff system or stick with the bowl games, the controversy over Tebow’s John 3:16 eye black, or the ridiculous amount of speculation about Tim Tebow’s girlfriend, What would I rather make noise about? The college football season that was and the benefits of big football and athletic programs as a whole. Read the rest of this entry >>

Greetings TakePart faithful! We’ve got some exciting news - TakePart is now optimized for your iPhone. Anytime, anywhere you can bust out your sleek iPhone 3G and learn all about ways you can TakePart to make the world a better place.

Speaking of, are you thinking of ditching your old cellphone for an Apple iPhone? Before you take the plunge to AT&T, buy a ton of iPhone apps, and upgrade to iPhone 1.1.4 takepart and donate your old phone to for recycling. It’s the green way to get dispose of your phone and all proceeds go to charity.

Everyone is abuzz about Barack Obama’s win in the 2008 presidential election over rival Republican John McCain. How much of everyone, you ask?  We won’t answer that, because we won’t dignify your question’s bad grammar and strange syntax with an answer. In lieu of an answer, takepart click on the image above to check out over 700 newspapers’ coverage of the Obama victory. Enjoy!

In anticipation of the upcoming film Food, Inc, we’ve been busy blogging about issues of food safety, intensive farming, organic farming methods, and other food issues in our Hungry for Change segment. Part of sustainable agriculture practices is knowing where your food comes from (”sourcing” in food circles). While we’ve covered how to find where your food comes from, have you ever thought about where your wine comes from? Beer, wine, and liquor are all based on agricultural products - just like the things you eat.

Last weekend I took a day trip to the Santa Rita Hills in Santa Ynez wine country to pick pinot noir grapes at the exemplary Clos Pepe Vineyards. A lot of smaller vineyards and winemakers in wine country contact volunteers to help them harvest and crush. This provided a great opportunity to meet with other wine enthusiasts, get close to the land, and see how much of wine production is still handled by hand. Read the rest of this entry >>

Baton Rouge is slowing recovering from the paralysis caused by Hurricane Gustav damage. The photo above is of a dear friend’s house. He and his wife are back at work, his children are back at school, but they won’t be moving home for quite some time. The rental market in Baton Rouge (particularly for families) is incredibly tight right now, and the surrounding areas are further behind with recovery and have even fewer options.

The city is in the transition phase from the sprint to get life functioning again and the marathon to getting life back to normal. For instance, commute times are close to twice as long as normal becuase so many street lights remain either completely out or blinking. My family said that the feeling around town is very strange: you’re happy to have your electricity back, but you’re saddened to see the brush piles, destroyed homes, tarped roofs, and food lines. Updates below:

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Hope is back to coming once a day

The Hurricane Gustav saga continues, but there are signs of hope around Baton Rouge. My brother sent me this photo and I thought it was pretty funny, so I called him. He was trying to make the point that life is slowly returning to Baton Rouge and the hope is contagious - even if it’s just the mail being delivered to houses without power. Hurricane Ike is moving into the Gulf right now; while no one would ever wish a disaster on someone else, the thought of another hurricane pounding the area is keeping things in Baton Rouge tense. In classic Louisiana fashion, locals are jokingly calling it “Hurricane Yikes” and hoping it fizzles out. The revised path has the storm barely missing Louisiana, but no one is taking any chances.

If you look closely in the photo you can see the now-ubiquitous brush piles lining the road and the iconic blue FEMA tarp on the roof in the upper right corner. Lines at FEMA sites are still long (photo below), but more and more people are returning to work or settling into temporary accomodations while their homes are repaired. Photos and updates about traffic, gas stations, schools, and more after the jump: Read the rest of this entry >>

Delivering meals to shelter evacuees in Plaquemines, LA

There are still thousands of Hurricane Gusav evacuees living in shelters in and around the Baton Rouge area. My brother Jordan (if you’ve been following our coverage, he’s becoming quite the online content creator) sent me these pictures from the front lines of the relief effort. Feeding evacuees, relief volunteers, and first responders in from other states to help is a huge part of the relief effort. Churches, companies, and NGOs work to keep everyone fed throughout the weeks and months they’ll be on the ground helping or in shelters waiting for electricity to be restored or homes to be rebuilt.

The pictures are from a feeding shelter in Plaquemines, LA across the river from Baton Rouge. Dow Chemical employees prepared 500 meals that were sent to evacuees in Point Coupee parish northwest fo the city. Even in dreary times like this, Louisiana’s spirit and culture shines through. The meals prepared today were jambalaya and red beans and rice, classic staples of Louisiana Cajun/Creole cuisine. Most Louisiana food has the advantage of being scalable to cook for large (or in this case, VERY large) groups of people very easily. Additionally, if you’re in a shelter with your family worried about rebuilding your home and Hurricane Ike in the Gulf, some Louisiana comfort food goes a long way. Read the rest of this entry >>

It’s been one week since Hurricane Gustav made landfall and devastated south Louisiana. We apologize for the brief interruption in posts; TakePart will continue to do our best to cover the effects and relief efforts from the storm, even if the national media won’t. As you can see in the video above, cleaning up all the limbs, trees, and debris remains most people’s daily routine, and desperately wishing you had your electricity (aka air conditioning and perishable food) back remains a popular past time. Brush piles up to 10 feet high line most streets in older Baton Rouge neighborhoods.

Just how much debris did Hurricane Gustav create in Baton Rouge? The parish created a 30 day plan for removing all debris. However, with Hurricane Ike looming just outside the Gulf of Mexico, the parish has speeded up the plan to less than a week. If the piles were to remain uncollected, they could turn into dangerous projectiles if Baton Rouge were unfortunate enough to be hit with another deadly hurricane. More updates and pictures after the jump.

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