Imagination and Knowledge

Today I called Sen. Schumer and Sen. Gillibrand and said the following:

Hi, my name is [watersword] and my zip code is [redacted]; I'm calling to ask you to add a tally mark to your count of constituents who have called and are very angry about the Republican anti-health care bill.

Both times I was answered fairly promptly, the staffer was clearly charmed by my "I know you are on my side, I'm trying to help," and I was informed that Schumer's office has gotten ~500 calls over the past ten days on the issue (I'm not sure if that's all the offices, including Washington, or just the NYC office I called), and the Gillibrand staffer I spoke was on his ~60th call on the subject for the day. This is a horrible slog but I am going to keep showing the fuck up.

Today, I wrote a letter to the EPA, on the occasion of the Second Five Year Review of the Hudson River Superfund Site, to tell them that I am super proud of the work they've done so far, and urging them to take seriously the data indicating that the levels of PCBs and other pollutants in the river are still too high for the health of both humans and the environment. My letter was inspired by sovay's beautiful letter about the ongoing national monument review (comments on that particular clusterfuck are still open), and writing it was very cathartic. If you want to do the same, the emails you need are Klawinski.gary@epa.gov and Romanowski.larisa@epa.gov. (No, I don't know why it's not on regulations.gov.)

I also dropped K. Gillibrand a note to thank her for her recently-introduced bill Every Child Deserves a Family Act, which bans discrimination against adoptive or foster parents on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Al Franken (D-MN), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Bernard Sanders (I-VT); there's a corresponding bill in the House, sponsored by Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). If you're repped by any of these folk, take a few minutes in this month of Pride to thank them and urge them to keep up the good fight, would you?