Awaken Your Inner Gaia

Team Gaia Acts Out for Workers Rights

Team Gaia just finished up a pretty hefty side project for the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission.

Our part in the event was presenting to the audience skits that we wrote which showed young adults examples of things like sexual harassment in the workplace, understanding your workplace rights, and even knowing how to dress for your job. We gathered up our actors, which included Karis and me, and got to work on our five skits, while our filmers got their cameras ready and JC prepared the audio.

The morning of our performance, we we were greeted by Anthony Butler, the HRC's education and community liaison, who also presented, explained and discussed our skits with the audience once each one was acted out. The event took place Saturday, Sept 20th in the Jacksonville Main Library, located downtown. Though the walls weren't packed with an avid audience, we did have a good amount of people show up (especially considering there was an Obama rally a few blocks away in Met Park). Nonetheless, we filmed the entire event, so we can still spread the word!

All of us here at TG worked very hard on the project and it turned out to be a big beautiful success!! Look for the videos online.

The news needs some Zoloft

So I've been watching news on television and reading it in the newspapers to search for something -- anything to spice up the blogs I write for Team Gaia. In this journey, I have noticed a trend... if no news is good news, that means the news is always bad. Right?

Do you get my logic here?

On a typical news day, everything is always "Man Holds Up Walgreens," "Intoxicated Teen Wraps Car Around Tree," and the more tragic, "Parent Kills Infant Son."

WHAT IS THAT!? It's terrible, sad and after a while, it numbs a community to just brush off these tragedies like dandruff from a shoulder.

I actually was on the news in 2002 because we bought a rental mattress that was infested with bedbugs -- and the news story focused not on the family striving together to survive, it was about all the gross and terrible rashes me and my brothers and sisters were getting from these bugs. If our family photo wasn't in there, you wouldn't have even been able to tell we were related.

This could have been a great, interesting, and inspirational story if it had just a slight twist on the angle. How's this: "Family Comes Together to Sleep Tight and Not Let the Bedbugs Bite."

Much better.

And as I watch ABC at this very moment, tonight there will be a special about a family who experienced some terrible thing on PRIME TIME. It's even called, PRIME TIME CRIME. What is this world coming to?

(Speaking of crime and violence, at Team Gaia, our JaxTA group plans to campaign against crime and violence for our next group activity.)

So this brings me to ask, where does all the good news go? Well, here I must refer to the wonderful Billy Joel who said, "only the good die young?"

I think the reason that the six o'clock news and daily newspaper, lack rainbows and sunshine, is maybe because of the television drama. It's all about the bad stuff that happens to the characters, and as I said earlier in this blog--the people brush it off onto their plate and eat it for supper.

I've also heard people say "there's no money in good news." Is that all we're about - money? It may be up to us bloggers to criticize, but perhaps now it's also up to us to bring the good news back to life.

Our Time To Be Alive

Dude, our generation has a lot to experience. Also known as Generation Y, Generation Einstein, the iGeneration, the "rear end" of the MTV Generation, we are the Millennials (all those born between 1982-1996. Not to be confused with Generation Z, 1996-2001, the Neo-Disneys). Like the GI Generation (1901-1924), we are the "civic heroes" of the world according to Strauss and Howe's list and book Generations.

Doesn't that alone get you pumped?

And just think about it for a sec.; there is this life changing "war" going on, technology is booming (I mean, MC Lars said it best in his song, iGeneration, "this is the internet generation"), and everyday there is more to know.

The world, as I write, is creating a natural, evolutionary revolution! Every generation has their call to arms, and this is ours: adapting to change. We are right at the age where we weren't born with all this, and we aren't too old to understand it all. With all this change, only the best will survive.

Though as Millennials, we have this awful rep: Millennials have a reputation for being peer oriented and seeking instant gratification. Businesses are scared to hire us because of this! Even 60 Minutes created a warning to the world about us(Part 1)(Part 2)! But something nice to grind your teeth on, fellow Millennials out there, like the WW2 babies (Baby Boomers), we as Cold War babies, are almost equal in numbers (Baby boomers have 76 million, we have 70 million).

What gets me started on this, is that I, along with my fellow Team Gaia members, have been watching I Love the New Millennium on VH1. And it reminded me of all the change we are going through, and really makes me just want to say, "This is our time. Bring it on."

Lakes on a Fiery Planet

The NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (Phoenix's BFFL) has found gratuitous traces of rivers, lakes, and streams on the red planet. Rich minerals in clay showed more water on the planet than we originally believed, and the chemicals in the clay prove it.

For future missions, Nasa is mapping out landing sites to gather these minerals. The variations in the minerals suggest that different processes, or different types of watery environments, created them. So, Mars had stages, just like Earth!

What I find interesting in discoveries like this is the similarities between our planet and the alien planet; with Mars it's the signs of water, and other planets such as Venus, it's the gases that are the same as ours, just amplified. It really helps us understand our own planet more, and to truly see how unique and special it is. One more reason to protect it. In the coming decades maybe some of us (me, me, me) at Team Gaia may get a chance to travel into space and see firsthand what lies out there in the final frontier.

Violent Days

It is a sad, sad week for many here in Jacksonville, Florida.
This past weekend, there were three slayings, another near death, and a police shooting that left a knife-wielding man dead.

The three slayings.

The first of the homicides was Patrick Stafford, 39. He was found dead in a front yard. Sgt. Mike Perry said that Stafford lived on Lem Turner Rd, but may have been visiting family at Academy St. The Autopsy showed that he was shot multiple times. There are no suspects.

The youngest, was 16 year-old Monquell Wimberly, who was shot while innocently riding his bike from one grandmother's house to another's in the Westside at Hollybrook Apartments. Police reported that he died at the scene at about 10 a.m.

At about 2:40 p.m., a man identified by a witness as Nathaniel Grant walked into a Williams Grocery near Talleyrand. Grant had been shot in the head and there were wounds in his torso. He was sent to Shands Jacksonville, where he was pronounced dead.

The near death.

Daryll Alexander, 33, was stabbed at the Hilltop Village Apartments. Friends loaded him into car, and eventually they rendezvous with the Shands Jacksonville Rescue Unit. He was in critical condition through Sunday, July 20th.

The knife-wielder.

Ex-con Daryll Edward Waters, 38, was shot and killed by police officers at about 10 p.m. Police reported that he ran from the police, stole a patrol car, smashed two other police cars, and threatened officers with a large knife. Police suspect Waters may have used the knife to stab Daryll Alexander at the Hilltop Village Apartments.

So what does Mayor Peyton have to say?
"If we do not reverse this trend, we are going to limit our future," Peyton said for First Coast News.

But my question is "How?"

This bloody Sunday has left many community members scared. I wonder why we live in a world with so much violence, and I wonder what we can do to battle it as a community. Violence is caused by people, and only people can prevent it. This large community that we have here in Jacksonville, I mean, we are the largest city in the United States, land-wise. We must have tons of people in that space. Our year 2000 census reported 1,300,823 people here. Thats more than enough to stop violence.

New At Team Gaia

Sex Education is a hot topic at Team Gaia this month. To spice things up we’ve added 5 new PSA’s to our GAIA TV section in which our Team Gaia Connecticut teens get real about sex education.
After watching those, you should also check out our Team Gaia radio station, WTGR and hear what other teens have to say about Sex Education in schools. In this Podcast you’ll also hear from experts Frieda Saraga, Director of Health Education, and Lisa Clarson, Teen Co-ordinator of Planned Parenthood of Northeast Florida as they do a special Q & A with our listeners, answering their questions about sex.
Aside from sex education, we at Team Gaia have also been busy at work gardening and caring for our organic garden; you can take a sneak peek of this in our Garden Party video.
So take a look or a listen; it’s all new, it’s all very sexy, and most importantly, it’s all green.

No use crying over....whoops!

So places like WalMart, all its affiliates, and Costco have taken a step towards a greener earth.
No, they haven’t donated money, planted trees, or started using energy efficient bulbs in their super, colossal marts. They have manipulated their powers over a simple jug of milk!

Yes, moo cow milk!

This new milk jug is adapted to the new American economy and lifestyle. They are efficient in more ways than you think, but is that really a good thing?

So why does this peak my interest and why should it peak yours, let me take you through the pros and cons:

Pros:

1) They are more efficient and easy to stack, hence more milk in one place.

2) Sam’s Club reported savings of 10 to 20 cents a gallon.

3) Milk crates are gone. Now they are stack and shrink wrapped, then moved by a big machine instead of man power to load onto the semi. (Wait…machines use a lot of energy…energy costs a lot of money. Shouldn’t this be a con?)

4) The company that makes the milk in the jugs has saved a lot of money on water use by 40-60 percent and more milk per crate means less trips to the supermarket to drop off milk-a fuel savings.

Cons:

1) You can’t pour it.

In the New York Times article about the issue, they asked dairy owner Mike Compston who described the pouring technique in a telephone interview as a “rock-and-pour instead of a lift-and-tip.”

So this is the problem, is milk you can’t pour even worth it? Many bowls of Cheerios await your answer.

The Rise of the Pheonix

In 1999, the Mars Polar Lander failed to land on Mars. But this year Nasa decided to try again with the Pheonix Spacecraft. The engineers had a strict budget and had to use recycled space parts. When Mars and Earth once again aligned perfectly for a launch, the Pheonix was sent and Nasa ground their teeth for a successful mission.

The Phoenix was reborn from the ashes of failed missions, and on May 25th 2008 landed on Mars, ready to go.

Since then, Pheonix sent back to us tons of awesome stuff.

1) On 6/27/08 Pheonix scraped Icy soil, subsurface soil, and surface soil in one scoop. Imagine how that reveals how the planet is structured, and the density of the planet.

2) On 6/25/08 Pheonix performed it’s first wet experiment on martian soil, sending TONS of chemistry data back to earth.

3) The Pheonix begins digging in what scientists call “Wonderland” on it’s 22nd Martian day, aka 6/17/08.

I’ll keep you posted on the rest of Pheonix’s wonders in Wonderland!

The name of this blog is on the tip of my tongue...

Ok so check out this awesome article from the boston globe…
(This article is interesting, I swear)

Now that I assume you have clicked on the link…
Even though you might not suffer from amnesia, I think this is a HUUUGE piece of medical history. It puts the brain in a funky state.

Imagine your brain is a messy desk. Unopened mail and scattered pieces of junk are everywhere. One letter in your unopened mail is…well, let’s say it’s your tax return. You know that something important is in that pile and you try to remember what it is, but you never knew it in the first place because it is bundled into a folder that may be called Importatnt Stuff to Remember versus _Tax Returns_. This is my own version of the metaphor, better explained by the article.

In the brain, things aren’t organized such as “The Tony Hawk file.” They’re organized as “Everything I’ve ever known about extreme sports.” And Tony Hawk might be in there, you just may have forgotten about his story – that simple.

Tasmanian Tiger is back

It's been 70 years since its extinction; 2 years since they almost abandoned the project, but now the Tasmanian Tiger is back!

Scientists harbored the DNA inside mice, the first time that extinct DNA has lived inside a different host and has been revived successfully. This brings to question, what else could scientists do with DNA? Could Jurassic Park become a reality?

This new discovery could also help scientists isolate Neanderthals' DNA and bring scientists one step closer to the "missing link" that could once and for all, prove evolution as a fact.