The grassroots Medicare for All movement will ramp up like never before Feb. 9-13, during the Medicare for All Week of Action, as volunteers across the U.S. host 150 Medicare for All “barnstorm” mass organizing meetings to kickstart canvassing and grassroots lobbying in local communities throughout the country.

“Nurses have been fighting for decades to win Medicare for All, so we are thrilled to see the movement for real health care reform in America expanding like never before,” said Bonnie Castillo, RN, executive director of National Nurses United (NNU), sponsor of the Medicare for All week of action. “The barnstorms are about harnessing that momentum and continuing to build it out even further, into every community, conversation by conversation, neighbor by neighbor—until the people’s will for Medicare for All becomes the political will to get it done.”

What:         Medicare for All barnstorm

When:         Sunday, February 10 at 5 PM

Where:         Columbus Unitarian Universalist Church, 93 W. Weisheimer Rd Columbus OH 43214

Friends, fellow inhabitants of planet Earth, I’m not breaking up with you. I just think maybe we ought to see other species for a while. You like dogs, right?

I’ve spent so many years trying to talk with you, and you haven’t heard anything. So, we have the same conversation over and over and over. Let’s just take a little amicable break, OK?

Naked Imperialism

Barely one in five Venezuelans knows who Juan Guaidó is. His newly minted international supporters have trouble pronouncing his name. Yet that is the man whom the Donald Trump administration wants to make President of Venezuela – by any means necessary.  White House national security adviser John Bolton has already floated a trial balloon of “5,000 troops to Colombia.”

History in blackface slaps the present moment awake.

What? The governor put that picture on his yearbook page? In 1984? The wave of outrage, the demand for his resignation — from Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s own party, the Democrats — can’t be dismissed with a shrug and an apology. His career may be over, thanks not simply to an act of youthful stupidity but to the context that made it possible: good old American racism.

In a society where world population is on the rise and citizens are increasingly connected through technology, theorists claim the infamous “six degrees of separation” has narrowed to “three degrees.” How many individuals know someone who has battled cancer, struggled with diabetes, dealt with seizures or contracted HIV? Likely everyone reading this knows at least one person dealing with one (or more) of these severe health concerns. The need for consistent access to healthcare increases significantly when combining those challenges with environmental factors such as: pollution, pesticides, volatile chemicals and shrinking biodiversity. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one in eight deaths worldwide is linked to air pollution exposure.