VIDEO: new song from Bruce Springsteen

That's what makes us great

By Bruce Springsteen

To watch this great music video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOPtROINIyY

Week 13 in review

Climate change and risk to fossil fuel industry

Sustainability train has left the station

Cambridge University Press

Commercial activity in fossil fuels is increasingly at odds with global actions to reduce the threat of climate change.

Burning coal, oil, and natural gas is responsible for two-thirds of humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases, and yet provides more than 20% of GDP in two dozen nation states.

By Citicorp's estimate, current commitments to reduce these emissions could mean forgoing $100 trillion in fossil fuel revenues by 2050 -- representing a huge disruption to global affairs, undermining national budgets and corporate balance sheets while exposing stakeholders, including pension holders and ordinary citizens in resource-exporting states, to myriad risks.

Give Your Old Stuff to Others — Not the Landfill

Spring cleaning? Don't throw it away...give it away

By Jill Richardson

EDITOR'S NOTE: This topic is one I heartily endorse, as well as practice. What I do with clothing and household goods is donate them to the Jonnycake Center's resale store in Westerly. I give books, CDs and DVDs to the Cross' Mills Library. Building supplies and old furniture to South County Habitat's ReStore right here in Charlestown. And old electronics go to Charlestown-based Indie Cycle's regular drop-offs at the Charlestown Mini-Super. - W. Collettte

My neighbor moved out this week. I learned that when I found a moving truck blocking my car and I couldn’t get out of the driveway. No matter — by the end of the day, the truck was gone.

In its place, however, was a queen-sized pillow-top mattress, a wooden dresser, and five tires sitting there on the curb.

Then it rained for four days straight.

The dresser and the mattress appeared to be in perfect condition when she placed them out there. She probably could’ve gotten $100 for them if she’d sold them before she moved. But after four days of rain, who’d want them?

On the fifth day, the sun came out and I went for a walk. Another neighbor had three soggy couches on the curb, all apparently in good condition. At least, they had been before the rain.

Upset about the immense amount of waste now headed for the landfill, I told a friend about the furniture. She replied that her son had found an entire wardrobe of stylish clothing that others had tossed out, with much more going to the landfill.

Saving the planet can be hard to do. Who wants to deny yourself anything? And are you willing to spend extra money to lessen your impact?

I’ve always felt that the best place to look when trying to help the environment is at win-win solutions.

Trump is HIRING lobbyists

Top Ethics Official Says ‘There's No Transparency'
by Justin Elliott for ProPublica

President Trump has stocked his administration with a small army of former lobbyists and corporate consultants who are now in the vanguard of the effort to roll back government regulations at the agencies they once sought to influence, according to an analysis of government records by the New York Times in collaboration with ProPublica.

The Times adds new details to our previous reporting on Trump's weakening of ethics rules and former lobbyists working on regulations they opposed on behalf of private clients just months ago.

The Times scrutinized financial disclosures of top White House staffers and found that the lobbyists and consultants in their ranks had more than 300 recent corporate clients and employers, including Apple and Anthem, the insurance company.

Trump “Armada” gaffe the most dangerous mistake yet

World wonders if they can believe anything Trump says

Dan Rather

Where in the world is the USS Carl Vinson?

As far as I am concerned, this week brought perhaps the most dangerous and destabilizing events in the presidency of Donald Trump, and it has been almost completely overshadowed by a cavalcade of news such as elections in Georgia and the Bill O'Reilly story.

But while many of us may be preoccupied, make no mistake the world is watching - and is worried.

For over a week, the American people and the world were led to believe that the United States was sending an aircraft carrier strike force to the waters off of North Korea, in an escalating tension over the standoff with that troublesome nation over its nuclear and missile ambitions.

President Trump boasted about his show of force. “We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier," he said.

The National Security Advisor and the Secretary of Defense both reiterated the information. Except it wasn't true. The carrier USS Carl Vinson and its accompanying ships were heading in the other direction, thousands of miles away.

How and why can this happen?

The cost of golf carts

Astronomy Picture of the Day

The Red Spider Planetary Nebula 

From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

Oh what a tangled web a planetary nebula can weave.

The Red Spider Planetary Nebula shows the complex structure that can result when a normal star ejects its outer gases and becomes a white dwarf star.

Officially tagged NGC 6537, this two-lobed symmetric planetary nebula houses one of the hottest white dwarfs ever observed,  probably as part of a binary star system.

Internal winds emanating from the central stars, visible in the center, have been measured in excess of 1000 kilometers per second.

These winds expand the nebula, flow along the nebula's walls, and cause waves of hot gas and dust to collide. 

Atoms caught in these colliding shocks radiate light shown in the above representative-color picture by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Red Spider Nebula lies toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). Its distance is not well known but has been estimated by some to be about 4,000 light-years.

PRIVACY: smart phone fingerprint security is flaws

So you think you can secure your mobile phone with a fingerprint?

NYU Tandon School of Engineering

No two people are believed to have identical fingerprints, but researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering and Michigan State University College of Engineering have found that partial similarities between prints are common enough that the fingerprint-based security systems used in mobile phones and other electronic devices can be more vulnerable than previously thought.

The vulnerability lies in the fact that fingerprint-based authentication systems feature small sensors that do not capture a user's full fingerprint. 

Instead, they scan and store partial fingerprints, and many phones allow users to enroll several different fingers in their authentication system. Identity is confirmed when a user's fingerprint matches any one of the saved partial prints. 

The researchers hypothesized that there could be enough similarities among different people's partial prints that one could create a "MasterPrint."

Charlestown pollen undeterred by rainy weather

Even though we've had lots of gray days with rain or drizzle, the trees are putting out so much pollen that it is still at levels that can cause allergy sufferers a bit of misery. Here's the five-day outlook:

From Pollen.com

To see which types of pollen are in the air, continue...

Allow workers to create their own businesses

Legislation unveiled to streamline creation of worker cooperatives

By Steve Ahlquist in Rhode Island’s Future

“Worker cooperatives allow businesses to be more than money-making enterprises,” said local co-op worker/owner Liz McDonnell of Fortnight Wine Bar, “When workers are owners and owners are workers, everyone is invested in the day-to-day and the long-term goals of the business. This permits the business to be more responsive to its community, making it a great place to live, work, and visit. I’m excited to give the worker cooperative model the legitimacy and clarity of its own enabling law.”

“Cooperatives are part of the solution to the problem of working in a capitalist economy,” said McDonnell, “in a traditional business workers sell their labor and the product of that labor belongs to the owner, not to the worker. So there’s a disconnect between your work and what you produce. Control over the terms of labor are also in the hands of the owner, with the worker negotiating at best from a position of weakness. In contrast, cooperatives allow workers to be reconnected to the product of their labor, to be invested to their work and recognized for the work that they do.”

Senator Donna Nesselbush (Democrat, District 15, Pawtucket, North Providence) and Representative Robert Craven (Democrat, District 32, North Kingstown) have introduced bills that will allow worker owned cooperatives to be started in Rhode Island. House Bill 6001, and Senate Bill 676 will allow organizations of working people to start cooperatively owned business. 

Killing critically needed ocean research

President’s Budget Would End R.I. Sea Grant Program

By ecoRI News staff

A Trump administration proposal to cut the national Sea Grant budget by $30 million effective April 28 would likely mean the elimination of the program altogether, including the Rhode Island Sea Grant program at the University of Rhode Island.

The cuts to Sea Grant and other federal environmental programs are administration proposals to offset costs for proposed increases in defense and border-protection activities. Rhode Island Sea Grant director Dennis Nixon said this is the first time a presidential administration has proposed eliminating Sea Grant in a current fiscal year.

"God Save the Queen!"

May 7: Miles for Smiles Benefit Walk/Run

We are excited to announce Dental Lifeline Network of Rhode Island's Miles for Smiles 5K Walk/Run Benefit Race Sunday, May 7th 2017. Dental Lifeline Network provides free comprehensive dental care for those with disabilities, who are elderly, or medically compromised. The 5K takes place at Ninigret Park in Charlestown, RI. Registration begins at 9:00 A.M. and the race starts at 10:00 A.M. We invite you, your family, and friends to come and support Dental Lifeline Network Rhode Island. The race can either be walked, skipped, or run depending on your preference. Please consider registering online at the link below, or come to Ninigret Park at 9:00 A.M. for same-day registration.Visit our facebook event group in the link below and let us know if you are attending the event. We suggest you check for updates closer to the race. Please spread word of this fun event. We hope to see you there! Registration for the event can be found online at https://runsignup.com/Race/RI/Charlestown/MilesForSmiles5KRunWalkETC The Facebook event for the race can be found at HERE If you have any questions, please call Alex Prevey or Terrie Straight at Arrowhead Dental Associates at 401-364-6300.

Arrowhead Dental Associates 4995 South County Trail Charlestown, RI 02813 401-364-3730 Email | Website

Charlestown area job openings

Gap widens between Charlestown unemployment rate and state average

By Will Collette

On April 20, DLT announced that Rhode Island’s overall unemployment rate fell to 4.3%. 

That’s good news, except that rate is still the highest in New England and some of the drop was due to fewer people in the workforce.

As bad as that is, Charlestown is even worse with unemployment at 6.0% and a town government that doesn’t seem to care.

If they did care, they would take a serious look at some serious and practical things Charlestown could do to help boost employment, DESCRIBED HERE.

In the meantime, if you are out of work and looking for a job or looking for a  better job, I’ve collected an assortment of recent job postings for work in non-profits or government agencies in South County.

There’s a great on-line service, RI Community Jobs, provided by Brown University’s Swearer Center for Public Service. You can sign up to receive a daily e-mail with all the latest listings for the entire state plus nearby parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Here are some job announcements of note.