Tag Archives: Religion

WWALS Non-Discrimination Policy 2021-05-11

The WWALS Board passed a policy this Tuesday, May 11, 2021:

WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc, (WWALS) does not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, color, sex, religion, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, or disability in purpose, activities, or actions.

This has been our practice all along; the Board merely decided to formalize it.

This WWALS policy also applies to Suwannee Riverkeeper, which is a project and a staff position of WWALS.

What does this policy mean for WWALS outings? Actually, not much different from what we have been doing all along. We have had people with various disabilities paddle with us before. We are happy to help people in and out of boats. That applies even to people whose legs fall asleep during a paddle.

[Reed Bingham State Park East Boat Ramp (Dan Phillips), Gibson Park Boat Ramp (Bobby McKenzie)]
Reed Bingham State Park East Boat Ramp (Dan Phillips), Gibson Park Boat Ramp (Bobby McKenzie)

The key is reasonable accommodation.

We describe the level of fitness required for any given outing, so people can decide whether they want to tackle it or not.

Some outings, such as the upcoming Big Shoals portage, up and down steep slippery banks around the biggest rapids on the Suwannee River, will require participants to be able-bodied. Continue reading →

Video: Sign up to recommend No Build; M-CORES toll road webinars

Floridians moved to Lowndes County, Georgia, after Hurricane Irma, but not because of lack of toll roads. If they had had solar panels and batteries so they wouldn’t be without power for weeks, they might have stayed in Florida, said Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman at the meeting in Madison County, Florida, February 11, 2020.

You can recommend No Build this coming week, as M-CORES holds webinars with public comment. See below for how.

[Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman]
Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman says No Build.

The Suncoast Connector Task Force webinar is 9:30 AM to 12 noon, Thursday, April 30, 2020. That’s the toll road that would run from Crystal River across the Suwannee River, through farms, forests, and wetlands, building bypasses around towns and cities, to Thomasville, Georgia.

To listen, you have to Continue reading →

Videos: Don’t split farms, and don’t harm nature, schools, or aquifer, at M-CORES toll road meeting, Madison, FL 2020-02-11

Toll roads splitting farms would be generational damage, said farmer Ernest Culver of Jackson County, and the Task Force doesn’t take into account churches or schools, not to mention nature, rivers, or the Floridan Aquifer, said Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson of Columbia County, at the meeting in Madison County, Florida, February 11, 2020.

[Ernest Culver & Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson]
Ernest Culver & Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson

The idea of repurposing toll roads funds for virus pandemic relief continues to get more at least indirect support. Craig Pitman, Florida Phoenix, 9 April 2020, Does Florida still need that trio of billion-dollar toll roads?,

Florida’s controversial new toll roads hit a potential roadblock this week.

Two of them are supposed to Continue reading →

Mt Zion United Methodist Church Spring, Clyattville, GA

Aaron Sirmons sent these pictures. He was tipped off by Guy Bryant.

Spring reflection, Clyattville, GA

Apparently the church used to use the spring for baptisms. Continue reading →

This sister earth now cries out to us –Pope Francis

Pope Francis makes a religious, ethical, humane, scientific, and practical case Pope Francis at the Jordan River, ABC News for stewardship of this earth and its waters, with moral and ethical bases for “the choices which determine our behaviour”. His case does not require any reader to be Catholic or Christian, as the Pope integrates his faith with the science of an integral ecology. You don’t have to agree with everything he wrote (I don’t) to agree with the gist of it, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

“all life is interrelated”

Pope Francis’ letter to the world is long but well worth reading in full, and these excerpts I hope will encourage everyone to do that.

ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME, 18 June 2015, Vatican City. Continue reading →