Does this description define anyone you know?  Perhaps it describes more than a few people you know or whom you see regularly on TV.

What are you going to do about it?

A bit of wit and wisdom from Ann Richards.  It is a statement that should make you understand how important it is to vote.

Boy! Wish we had someone like her in power in Texas right now.

She would be kicking ass and taking names later.

https://floridiansprotectingfreedom.com/

"Bees Can't Bayer It" is the slogan for the campaign the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is waging against Bayer to draw attention to the crises Bayer is causing in our bee population. According to the NRDC over the past year 39 per cent of this country's honeybee colonies collapsed - one of the largest losses ever recorded.  Science has proven the world's most widely used insecticides, called neonics, is a key factor in this die-off of bee colonies.  There are barely enough bees available each year to pollinate key food crops.  We depend on bees to polinate 70 out of 100 major food crops.  This crises could soon cause reduced access to healthier foods and rising food costs.

While you make think of Bayer as the trusted maker of aspirin, it is also one of the world's leading manufacturers of bee-toxic neonics.  The neonic chemicals it invented, imidacloprid and clothianidin, have made as much as $1.5 billion in annual sales.  But Bayer, the German chemical giant, is facing difficulties in selling their chemicals close to home because the European Union has restricted the use of these chemicals.  Bayer, however, is pressing forward to sell more and more of these bee-killing pesticides in the U.S.  Neonics are now the most heavily used class of insecticides in the United States, applied to an estimated 150 million acres of crops each year.

There are indications the danger is spreading far beyond bees. The EPA has found that three of the most widely used neonics likely harm up to 80 percent of all threatened and endangered species and likely driving more than 200 vulnerable plant and animal species toward extinction.  Meanwhile, as neonics turn up in our food and drinking water, there is increasing concern about how they may impact our health.  Recent research shows that neonics pass effectively through the placenta during pregnancy and from breast milk to nursing newborns.  Human health studies have found that children exposed to neonics in the womb are at increased risk for birth defects like malformations of the heart and brain, as well as increased risk of autism-like symptom.

Meanwhile Bayer is waging a PR blitz that appears to be sowing doubt about available science and diverting attention away from its bee-killing products.  It wants you to believe bees are suffering from mites, disease, viruses, and loss of habitat - anything and everything but neonics - which Bayer claims are perfectly safe.  

For more information:  Natural Resources Defense Council      https://www.nrdc.org/bio/daniel-raichel/take-action-protect-bees-during-national-pollinator-week

Barbara Kruger was born in 1945 in Newark, New Jersey. Kruger briefly attended Syracuse University, then Parsons School of Design in New York City, where she studied with artists and photographers Marvin Israel and Diane Arbus. Kruger worked in graphic design for Condé Nast Publications at Mademoiselle magazine, and was promoted to head designer within a year, at the age of twenty-two. Kruger has described her time in graphic design as “the biggest influence on my work…[it] became, with a few adjustments, my ‘work’ as an artist.” In the early 1970s, Kruger started showing artwork in galleries in New York. At the time, she was mainly working in weaving and painting. However, she felt that her artwork lacked meaning, and in 1976, she quit creating art entirely for a year.

She took a series of teaching positions, including at University of California, Berkeley. When she began making art again in 1977, she had moved away from her earlier style into photo and text collages. In 1979, Kruger developed her signature style using large-scale black-and-white images overlaid with text. She repurposed found images, juxtaposing them with short, pithy phrases printed in Futura Bold or Helvetica Extra Bold typeface in black, white, or red text bars. In addition to creating text and photographic works, Kruger has produced video and audio works, written criticism, taught classes, curated exhibitions, designed products, such as T-shirts and mugs, and developed public projects, such as billboards, bus wraps, and architectural interventions.

Kruger addresses media and politics in their native tongue: sensational, authoritative, and direct. Personal pronouns like “you” and “I” are staples of Kruger’s practice, bringing the viewer into each piece. “Direct address has motored my work from the very beginning,” Kruger said. “I like it because it cuts through the grease.” Kruger’s work prompts us to interrogate our own positions; in the artist’s words, “to question and change the systems that contain us.” She demands that we consider how our identities are formed within culture, through representation in language and image.

 

For more stories of remarkable women, see HERSTORY on womensvoicesmedia.org