We've been had by the mass media

The function of the mass media is not to inform the American public of important things that are happening in their country, it is to turn attention away from the important things that are happening in their country and to keep them sleepy and compliant.

Our Connection to Nature

This is sad: Americans encounter a number of society-wide forces disconnecting them from nature. Americans face competing priorities for their time, attention and money. They live in places that often have more concrete than green space. It is increasingly normal to spend little time outside. More than half of adults report spending five hours or less in nature each week, and most are satisfied with this minimal amount of time. Many parents and older adults lament that children today are growing up with limited opportunities to experience nature. Parents say their 8 -to 12-year-old children spend three times as many hours with computers and TVs each week as they do playing outside.

Everglades Restoration

It is going to take multiple tools and approaches to save our Everglades. Protecting the land north of the lake from intense development is part of the solution. Wetlands throughout cattle ranches in the northern Everglades supply valuable habitat while acting as natural water storage systems that help clean and supply the drinking water to millions of people in south Florida.

1997 Environmental Disaster

In 1997, amid heavy rains, a dam broke atop one of two gypsum stacks at the Mulberry Phosphates plant on State Road 60, unleashing a 56-million gallon spill of the acidic wastewater into the Alafia River. The pollution killed everything in its path for 42 miles, eventually rolling into Hillsborough Bay. The death toll included more than 1 million baitfish and shellfish and 72,900 gamefish near the river’s mouth, 377 acres of damaged trees and other vegetation along the riverbank, and an unknown number of alligators. When state officials hit the company with a multimillion-dollar fine for the damage done, it declared bankruptcy and shut down. (Its insurance company wound up footing the bill.) Ten years later, local and state officials were still working on restoration projects. Meanwhile the old gyp stack was taken over by a larger company—Mosaic—with plans to close it permanently.

Ruffling some feathers

anyone with a vested interest in the future success of the Democratic party should be doing everything they can to try and get everyone to forget about their unelectable joke of a candidate as quickly as possible so that they can maybe start winning some elections someday.

History and Education

Founding father and President Thomas Jefferson once remarked, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” His words were crystal clear: in order for a free society to function, its citizens must be informed about current events, the functions of their government and the history of their nation. Jefferson’s advice, however, is increasingly ignored by his fellow Americans more than 200 years later. It seems that fewer and fewer Americans care to know about how history and governmental affairs affect them personally. The 2014 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report found that only 18 percent of 8th graders were at least proficient in U.S. History and only 23 percent in Civics.

Photography Degree

When you enter the world of professional photography as a photographer, it is your work and how you present that work — not a certificate or grade — that speaks for you.