Hasta La Gadget!

If our air isn’t clean, our communities can’t be healthy.

I grew up just outside Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the gateway community to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where my dad worked as the chief scientist. Growing up in the Smokies, clean air was essential to the health of the national park, visitors and local residents, and the economy. But on some summer days growing up, although you were in one of our nation’s crown jewel national parks, it was unhealthy to go on a hike, and you couldn’t see the next ridgeline, due to air pollution. Much of that pollution was coming from old, outdated coal-fired power plants nearby.

We weren’t alone – national parks and other special places around the country suffer from high rates of air pollution worse on some days than the pollution in our biggest cities. Why are our parks and communities suffering from this pollution?

There is a federal standard in place called the Regional Haze Rule that was intended to ensure clean air in national parks and wilderness areas. However, the protections haven’t been strong enough to do the job, polluters have been skirting them for decades, and some states charged with developing cleanup plans have just kept kicking the can down the road instead. Fortunately, after years of work by clean air and public health advocates calling for action, the Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with revisions that could close some of these loopholes. Without strong safeguards protecting our air, we simply can’t keep people healthy, economies strong and natural wonders pristine.

Last week, I testified at a public hearing at EPA headquarters in Washington, DC about these revisions to the Regional Haze Rule. On behalf of Sierra Club, I called on EPA to adopt strong revisions to the standard that will adequately protect public health, local economies, and natural areas in our national parks and wilderness areas.

Looking back on my time growing up, pollution was not just a threat to the health of visitors and local residents – it was a threat to our economy. When people chose to spend their precious summer vacation days in the Smokies, only to discover they couldn’t see our famed mountain views or safely enjoy the outdoors due to a “code red” air pollution day, there was a real danger they would never come back, and would warn their friends from visiting as well.

Communities like mine count on EPA to hold these polluters accountable and ensure we are safeguarding our health, local economies, and most special places. The rule specifically designed to protect our parks is not strong enough in its current form. But revising this standard could change that, benefiting everyone.

As you might expect, polluters are working hard to undermine changes that would strengthen the haze rule. That’s what makes this moment critical: if we can ensure that much-needed revisions to the Regional Haze Rule occur, we can keep our air clear.

Here are four common-sense measures that EPA can adopt to protect our air:

Make sure state plan requirements to clean up pollution are clear, robust, and uniform throughout the country, including requiring a more robust technical analysis. Our clean-up efforts should be guided by sound science and uniform standards.

Require that states meet, and do not miss, important deadlines, which they are currently missing regularly under the current system, sometimes by years.

Not allow states to delay cleanup of this pollution for another decade by allowing them three more years past the current deadline (until 2021, as EPA is currently proposing) to submit their haze cleanup plans. The public has been waiting long enough for clean air, and pushing action into the next decade is unacceptable.

Ensure EPA is able to enforce these rules and take corrective action if states are falling down on the job. Strong standards matter, but they don’t mean anything unless they’re enforced.

We all deserve clean air. Strengthening our air pollution standards is within our reach, and now is the moment to make this happen.

We need to be sure that EPA finalizes the strongest possible standards, so that communities like the one where I grew up can count on clean air, a safe environment, and a thriving local economy for generations to come. You can help – take action here for clean air in our parks.

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It’s Saturday morning. Probably. You’re disoriented, the inside of your mouth has been replaced by ass-flavored shellac, and somehow it’s 87 degrees at 10 a.m. The full weight of last night will soon come rushing back to you, and you need enough hair of the dog to qualify as taxidermy in order to steel yourself against the impending nausea.

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Trailers, trailers everywhere. While we’ve seen the two official trailers Sony released in the U.S., those in other countries have been given a better look at the movie. A new international trailer for the soon-to-premiere flick has made its way online, and it’s pretty great. Yes, it has scenes we’ve already seen…as well as a considerable number we haven’t, and … Continue reading

I had just graduated college. It was the summer of 2013, and I received my first job offer: the opportunity to teach English in China.

Soon after I began celebrating my first “real-world” job, red flags started coming in. My program went silent for a month. I had no idea what city I would be teaching in and when I would be starting. No details, no e-mails, no phone calls. I got onto Skype to call their office in Shanghai, and after they found an English speaker to address my concerns, I was given a response: be patient.

After waiting two and a half months, I finally received notice I was assigned to a private school in Shenzhen. Since the summer holiday was ending, I was left with 48 hours to receive my visa from the New York consulate and board a flight to Shanghai for orientation.

The one-week orientation was nothing more than a hodgepodge of poorly led seminars that barely prepared us to stand in front of a classroom. There were about 100 other English teachers in attendance, most of which were fresh college grads like myself. By the week’s end, we got ready to fly off to our respective cities to start our year of teaching.

Right as we are getting ready to leave, the program leaders told a handful of teachers there was a change of plans. Their assigned schools could no longer take them as teachers, so they would now be re-assigned to schools in a rural part of China.

Rightfully so, these teachers were upset, angry and shocked. They flew across the world expecting to teach in one place, and now they were told they would be going somewhere vastly different.

Luckily for me, I was not in this group. Myself and 15 other teachers flew down to Shenzhen and were greeted at the school gates with surprises of our own. An administrator told us our apartments were still being “professional cleaned,” so in the meantime, we would be housed in student dorms. As she guided us to the dorms, I noticed piles of debris and garbage everywhere, which I later learned resulted from an explosion that had occurred on the campus earlier that month.

We arrived at the back of the school to see a row of wooden cabins. Inside each cabin were three pairs of bunk beds, two squatting toilets and a hose dangling over the toilets to shower. I don’t think there was plumbing because the toilets wouldn’t flush and reeked of… toilet. This was my new home.

After setting our things down, the school hurried us to a “welcome lunch.” In the cafeteria, they handed me two containers. One container had a cold pile of rice, and the other had overcooked vegetables alongside a puddle of oil with bits of bony meat. Just before I decided to taste the meal, they handed me chopsticks. I ripped open the chopstick wrapper to find mold lining the side of the chopsticks.

When I saw the mold, I politely declined the meal, returned to my cabin and went to sleep. From then on, things continually got worse.

The next morning, the administrators had us attend a meeting in their boardroom. We were told that before we started working at their school, we must agree to some new policies. They wanted us to work double the hours we agreed to and teach extra subjects besides English. For example, I was assigned to teach U.S. history without any proper curriculum. They handed me a 1,000-page textbook and said go teach.

Mind you, my monthly salary was around $900, which is extremely low for foreigners in China. For the hours they wanted us to put in, it was completely unfair. Instead of expressing sympathy for our concerns, they responded with manipulation and scare tactics. The administrators warned us that if we were to leave, they would have their “connections” find and punish us.

Not only was the school going against our contract and making us work extra, but they now were threatening to harm us if we left their school.

A bunch of us foreign teachers decided we had to come up with an escape plan. After we would teach during the day, we would head to a café, huddle around our laptops and desperately search for other teaching jobs around Asia. I was lucky to find another position that was looking to hire immediately in Shenzhen. Before I knew it, I was packing my bags and shipping across the city to move into a new school.

At first, I was nervous and afraid that this was another program I couldn’t trust. It took me a while to open up to Chinese culture again. Thankfully, they were wonderful to me and I had a fantastic year working with them.

My biggest piece of advice for any foreigner coming to China is to have backups. No matter what program you go through, what flashy websites you read, and what promises they tell you, you never know what your situation is going to be until you arrive.

Through this experience, I learned how to adapt, be resourceful, and stand up for myself. If I wasn’t someone who sought hope during times of hardship, I’m not sure how I would have gathered the strength to get myself out of hole I found myself in.

I share this story not to scare anyone away from teaching abroad. My intention is to empower those who find themselves stuck in a difficult situation like my own. No matter what, there is always a way out.

For video updates from my life in China, visit my YouTube channel.
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Frank Macri works closely with expats and the LGBT community wanting to move beyond anxiety and self-doubt by connecting with who they are. For more, visit www.TheFrankLife.com or watch his YouTube updates from his life in China.

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National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre took aim Friday at moves to restore voting rights to people with past felony convictions — an absurd argument, since the NRA helps former felons restore their gun rights.

LaPierre told the organization’s annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, that Democrats are “even allowing felons the right to vote, including violent rapists and murderers.” 

“Tentacles of the Clinton machine are out registering those felons right now,” he said. “They’re releasing them, and then they’re registering them. Heck, when they sign their release papers, they might as well at the prison door … give ’em a Hillary Clinton bumper sticker.” 

LaPierre characterized recent moves by Democrats in Maryland and Virginia to allow ex-offenders to vote as dangerously crooked political maneuvers.

But when it comes to giving those same people the right to own a gun, the NRA takes a different position.

The NRA, the largest gun-rights group, has fought for decades to make it easier for ex-offenders to restore their gun rights, even though federal law holds that people convicted of felonies are barred from bearing arms. In some cases, NRA lobbying has made it easier for ex-felons convicted of violent crimes to legally purchase guns.

The NRA was a key supporter of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, which contained a provision allowing felons convicted of gun crimes and other violent offenses to petition to have their gun rights restored. A review by the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit that studies the effects of gun regulations, found a number of instances in which violent ex-felons had been given “relief” to own a firearm, only to be arrested on charges of commiting another violent crime.

Congress removed funding from that program in 1992, against the protests of the NRA.

“There’s no reason why a person who has demonstrated they are now a good citizen should be deprived of their right to own a firearm,” NRA representative Richard Gardiner told The Washington Post before the vote. “We ought to recognize that some people can change.”

In recent years, the NRA and other gun-rights advocates have shifted their focus to nonviolent ex-felons.

The process for restoring gun rights to ex-offenders varies by state. Congress, however, has made the process more burdensome by blocking funding for the Justice Department to process applications. Last year, the House passed an amendment that would have provided funds to ensure that more ex-offenders who were prohibited from buying guns could apply for restoration status.

“Those who have lost the right to purchase and obtain a firearm are now one step closer to being able to petition the government for a full restoration of those rights,” the NRA wrote on Facebook.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who sponsored the amendment (which eventually failed), said the measure was long past due.

“America is a land of second chances,” Buck said in a floor speech. “One mistake should not define your future.”

For people like LaPierre, however, that spirit of redemption apparently only applies to people who want firearms, not those who want to participate in democracy.

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