Author: Ellen Beaulieu

I have been enrolled in a class this year all about active learning strategies in science and math classrooms. This semester we have been watching 7 min clips of each other teach.

I watched footage of my biology colleague using a game with his students. He got them in groups of four, gave them each a straw and a plate full of kidney beans. He said, “alright, you need to fish for the kidney beans using only your straw. Go.” He gave them no other directions. It seemed simple enough. They went at it, giggling, playing, fishing. After a certain amount of time he said, “alright, time. One year has elapsed. If you still have beans on your plate, those fish can reproduce. Put three beans back for every fish in your lake.” 90% of the plates had no beans. The communities were dead because the lakes were dead.

Uncontrollable consumption of resources without regard to the common good is totally unsustainable. I begged this teacher to take his game on the road to congress. I joked I would pay for his flight. The game was so simple yet so effective at illustrating a core tenet of conservation: One cannot use resources selfishly without regard to the common good. To do so is unsustainable.

Make no mistake, this Republican tax scam is a redistribution of wealth. It is just taking the limited resources and supports for low and middle income people and using those cost savings to give tax cuts to already wealthy people. It is pushing the wealth up. They don’t even have the decency to lie well about it. When asking a room full of CEOs what they would do with these corporate tax benefits, none raised their hands for training, growth, or reinvesting in employees.

I feel like we were robbed. In the middle of the night. Of thousands of dollars annually. And spray painted on the walls of our home were slurs against the decisions that built the life we live.

You actually couldn’t craft a tax bill that was more an affront to me personally than the one the two houses of the legislative branch produced.  Actually we were robbed once, and I have to say, this tax bill felt more violating. All our robbers scored was some Sudafed and an iPod. GOP congress plans to take thousands of dollars from my middle class blue state family and generally increasing the tax burdens of the middle class in any area with high state and local tax burdens which we have because we want our states to fund education, infrastructure, and technology. And then we give this money to real estate developers and corporations with already astounding amounts of cash. The world’s wealthiest just got even wealthier! The poor and middle class get less! Income inequality that was already breathtakingly large just got insurmountable. America is so great! USA! USA! I can’t wait for Steve Mnuchin’s wife to have her “Let them eat cake” moment of twitter fame. Oh, and let’s eliminate healthcare for 13 million ppl and drill in the arctic for good measure.

Here’s the rub. I live in a blue house in a blue state. I wouldn’t mind paying more taxes if it meant the people of my country would benefit, if they were investments in education, healthcare, green technologies. But they aren’t. They are going to go to already wealthy people who will not reinvest in the American workforce, will not innovate to address climate change, or enhance health benefits for employees, and certainly will not provide a free college education for the children or enhanced technical retraining for their employees. They will probably just invest it, give CEOs pay raises, or do stock buy backs, you know, what corporations and rich people do.

But rich people, I just have one question. How much money is enough for you? Are you proud of what kicking 13 million people out of health coverage, limiting the already limited disposable income of middle income consumers and their ability to save for retirement, adding 1.5-2 trillion dollars to the national deficit will do to the security of your country? Are you proud that in exploding the deficit, you are also paving the way to dismantle the social safety net that has been the backbone for middle America for decades? Do you think bankrupting your employees with the new added burdens of inflated medical costs, higher tax burdens, and elder care for their financially insecure retired parents will somehow make them more productive?

And Republicans, why the speed of light legislative process with no public hearings? Why the immediate implementation that leaves financial planning for every American in limbo over the next two weeks , a time when generally most Americans prefer not to worry and focus on spending their few vacation days catching up with friends and family with whom they have had little time to interact with so few paid leave days annually? My husband and I are scrambling to figure out if it would actually benefit us to pay our full property tax bill before the year end. Is that possible? Is it deductible? Is it advisable? Who can say? Probably no one who voted on it, that’s for sure.

I guess we all knew it was going to have to get a lot worse before it gets any better. Let’s just hope this sham of a legislative process doesn’t cause too much irreparable damage to the lives of regular people before sensible legislators can regain control and attempt to mitigate the impact. You know, people who actually care about regular people and protecting the nation’s interests, not the donors or worse, their own.

In the meantime, the media must stop use of the term “major legislative victory.” That implies there is something winning about this bill. Nothing in this bill helps the republic to win or rise in stature or status. Instead they must start calling this massive wealth grab by and for the incredibly wealthy a win for the 1%. Or a win for Republican donors. It certainly isn’t a victory for any conservatives who claim to care about the deficit. It certainly isn’t a win for Republicans who favor “regular order.” It certainly isn’t a win for regular people.

I am not even sure Spider-Man can save us. I am sure it is not sustainable. I study biology. #electionshaveconsequences

This was me, peak parenting, or so I thought. My husband was participating in the Tour de Fuzz, a century to benefit the police of Sonoma County. I ordered white wine with a poolside charcuterie tray for our lunch at the Fountaingrove Inn, a landmark establishment that no longer exists. We were guests a couple of weeks before the fires. It was burned to the ground in the recent fires that obliterated many acres of Sonoma County. Here this day, gone the next. It was consumed by the Tubbs Fire.

Above are before and after images of the high school where the start of the century was staged. The destruction total. Fortunately for Santa Rosa, this high school was not in use as a school. Unfortunately the neighboring public one was.

Anyone who has been to Sonoma County wine country has seen these cypress trees lining the path to a winery. We live within an hour’s drive to Santa Rosa. We have made a life out of weekend trips to this beautiful corner of the earth. So to revisit last month after some of the worst fires in CA history, to see them scorched to the tip like skinny spent matchsticks was kind of jarring.

To enter the establishments where we have frequented, talk to the locals, hear about how many of their friends, their families are out of a home, out of a job, or worse, both, was fairly gut wrenching.

With two sets of CA wildfires of the most destructive on record in this season alone, and two apocalyptic hurricanes leaving over a thousand dead by recent estimates, I am done listening to denial of climate change. Scientists are in almost complete agreement. The few who will voice an alternative opinion are exploiting a payroll opportunity. There is overwhelming consensus that these are the consequences of climate change.

The worst part of it is how many people (scientists and politicians alike) know it. This is on the scale of the knowledge big tobacco had of the causative role smoking played as a carcinogen while Joe Camel still graced the pages of our Weekly Readers.

At a time when the US should be playing a leading role in the solutions that transform our dependence on fossil fuels to a renewable energy economy, we are the lone leaders in leaving the Paris Accord.

This is the defining moment of our times. There is no doubt. You can hear the gears grinding as GOP Representatives pivot from, “there is no scientific consensus ” to “The hour is too late.” They had our children’s future in their hands, and they sold it for short term political gain.

Disgust doesn’t begin to describe the emotions of this adult female who remembers cherishing her book “50 things you can do to save the world” snipping six pack rings and walking her radio flyer wagon around the neighborhood of her rural GA hometown as a middle schooler. It is time for leadership and action.

My friends and family just had a snow day Georgia in the middle of December. Instead of marveling at the beauty of the peacefully falling flakes, I wish more would stand back in recognition of the aberration and in abject terror that climate change means unpredictable extremes in weather that led their local forecaster to tell you to prepare for flurries that wouldn’t stick. Then pivot to the recognition that American citizens in Puerto Rico awoke to a thirteenth week without power or potable water in a botched recovery effort the likes of which our country hasn’t seen since Katrina. Then recognize global climate change is more of a national security threat than any radical Muslim or oppressed white male. It has the capacity to do millions of dollars in property damage, leave thousands homeless, kill hundreds with almost no warning. It will likely only worsen. Then come to tears when you realize this is just the new normal.

It is a time when our diplomatic envoys should be extracting their good inky pens and asking , “Where do I sign?” That is precisely what happened with the long negotiated Paris Accords, a textbook example of the power of global diplomacy. Instead, on June 1st our president announced we would be withdrawing from the long negotiated Paris Accords and hired a man to run the EPA who is a cartoon villain for human killing deregulation. And in response, Emmanuel Macron says please, come to France. Do your research here. We will fund you because the work needs doing. Make our planet great again. This guy gets it.

You can lament the inefficiency of national government, and there are few things government is really good at, but pooling resources to tackle global insoluble problems has to be on the list of its strengths. No single individual will innovate on a level to neutralize the threat of climate change, but sustained investment in innovative technology and conversion to renewable energy sources can have an impact.

Instead our president and his minions want us to party like it is 1929 and prop up coal while rolling back regulations that protect our environment and eliminating thousands of acres of National parks while tacking on drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to tax reform because why not?

I am done. My sign is ready. When can I march. We have to fight to preserve our planet while she is in a position to save. There is no planet B. We as global citizens have to pop this nationalist bubble of ignorance and awaken to the terrifying reality that climate change is the greatest geopolitical threat facing our country and its world, and recognize that media bias meant it got all of 15 minutes in the 2016 presidential debates only because she brought it up.

There is only one party fighting for the future of this planet. But we all breathe the air. We all live on the the land. We all consume the fruits of the ground. We should all be terrified of the clear and present danger. Now is the time to demand more of our elected officials for the future of our children.

This is as close as my sister and I have ever come to being princesses. We were part of the court in a rural Alabama local community theater production of Once Upon a Mattress. I think we were 14ish and 16ish at the time. You know, we were right in the age of Roy Moore’s wheelhouse.

I remember there was a young man maybe late 30s early thirties in the show with whom I shared many jokes. Even in retrospect, I viewed this as an incredibly normal interaction. I was an adolescent yearning to be viewed as witty, interesting, perhaps even attractive. He did find my jokes funny but recognizing I was a minor he laughed and joked with me but maintained a barrier. That is completely normal behavior for two people in those two positions in life.

Roy Moore is a child predator with a now well publicized past. A young woman in Alabama of the ages we are in this picture cannot consent to a relationship with a man. A respectable man would never put them in a position to need to.

Some polls suggest the fine people of Alabama believe this is all fake news perpetrated by democratic operatives. But the reality is quite far from that. This story was broken by real reporters, on the ground covering the runoff, listening to locals, hearing rumors, following leads, finding hidden truths.

And why shouldn’t we believe these women? Most of them were Trump voters. I mean they were spending their formative years in heavily conservative rural Alabama. It isn’t that surprising that they have certain political persuasions. It was on the ground old fashioned journalism that allowed investigative reporters to give these victims a voice.

Most were reluctant to come forward as many victims were in the pre-2017 mindset. The misogyny and sexism that are pervasive in our social and political systems lead many journalists, politicians, and lawyers to shame victims, question the veracity of their statements, judge their appearance and what their wardrobe says about their motives. Their bravery to come forward exposes them to such intense scrutiny that many feel violated all over again. So why would they report? They keep it inside. They blame themselves. They suffer silently.

I have a friend who suffered a similar fate.

He was her teacher. She was his babysitter. The relationship began when she was a young teen, but she was very intelligent, felt she was older than her age and thought she was able to consent. When she ended their relationship as she headed to college, he didn’t accept. He stalked her. She gathered the evidence. She filed a restraining order. She moved on with her life, tried hard to mentally and emotionally suppress the trauma. She became incredibly successful. Then she got the call.

He was doing it again. Or at least members of her small town suspected it. They needed her to be a witness. The police had lost some evidence. It had been almost a decade. So they needed her voice.

Thanks to the constant consistent support of her closest confidants, she found the bravery she needed to be the voice her community needed. She found that bravery based on our continual and unfailing support. But she was exposed. She had made herself vulnerable again. The torrent of hateful comments about her in local paper and media forums sent her spiraling. Though she was a minor at the time of the incident, it was a small town and there were people who spoke her name, because the internet is built for trolls.

She kept her voice strong but only for the others, the suspected unnamed victims who needed her. No women joined her because to do so was to become a figure of public scrutiny. She had to be the strong one for the young girls in his classrooms. She had to break his power for their protection. Though at the time, so many adults knew, her community did not protect her. She had to be better than that.

Child predators know how to find their victims. And they wield their influence and power in young vulnerable females. He was a teacher. Roy Moore was a district attorney. He met one of his accusers in the courthouse with her mother on their way to divorce proceedings. He was banned from the mall for prowling. Banned from the mall!

My friend was alone through it all. At least Moore’s accusers have each other. They will need each other as their integrity is questioned on a national stage, as their abuser is propped up by our pussy grabber in chief and the party he represents.

But Moore’s accusers also have something else. They have a momentum shift. The women’s march, the #metoo movement (Time’s most recent person of the year!), the wave of credible high profile abuse scandals in media and government represent a pivotal moment in women’s history. We are not taking it anymore. We as women will be heard. What she said is starting to shine a light on the darkness of him. What he said is starting to not matter as much, and that is a good thing.

We need to support these women unquestionably until evidence proves otherwise. They need our faith in their truth, they need our tissue for their tears, they need our rebuke of the power dynamic that left them and young women like them vulnerable. Let’s call this approach to the veracity of a woman’s story a much needed equal and opposite reaction.

The RNC is giving Moore money. Senate leaders are saying, “let the people of Alabama decide.” The president has both his Twitter thumbs at the ready endorsing regularly. Seriously? Seriously? At a time when the women of the country are finding the vocabulary word ENOUGH, Republicans are propping up a predator because they need his vote to advance their agenda. This is yet another in their increasingly long list of transgressions for party over country.

But I believe in you Alabama. I lived directly adjacent to you for half of my life. I believe you love conservatism and Jesus and trust you can distinguish when one should supersede the other. It is not enough just to sit this one out or vote write in “on principle” because that is not a principled stance. A principled stance is voting for the only viable non child predator option, Doug Jones, to make sure a credibly accused child abuser does not have an elected position in our government.

Elections have consequences. Make sure you don’t let another predator win one.

Dad keeps telling us she had a good day.

November 9, 2016 was a day that will live in infamy for people of a certain disposition. Many members of our family are of that disposition. She was of that disposition. November 9th was when it became real because the final nail wasn’t in the coffin until late in the evening of the 8th PST. I know because I watched.

I was teaching chemistry at a community college. I was a relatively new teacher who didn’t even think to include election day in my calculation of when to schedule my semester’s exams when I finalized my syllabus in early August. That morning, as deflated as I felt, I rushed to the campus bakery where the culinary arts students practice their craft and cleaned them out of pastries to soften the blow of taking an exam the day after many of my students had voted in their first presidential election.

I had never received so many emails the night before an exam, students begging me to postpone as they felt devastated by the seemingly inevitable result. I carted out my patented line that I set the exam dates at the beginning of the semester, can’t deviate as it is a contract with my students blah blah blah. Through my grief, it felt anemic. I stayed up until midnight drafting the exam acknowledging my heart was hardly in it as the camera spanned glass room full of tearful devastated women waiting  for a concession speech that would not come.

My students couldn’t understand why I was doing this to them. I looked at them, and I said, “You have been preparing for this exam longer than one night. And I am still giving this to you because we will need you. We will need people who value and can analyze data  to help our country build a sustainable future.” And I meant every word. And now in retrospect, I may have never been so prescient.

I don’t really remember what happened between proctoring that exam and the call. I just know about an hour before I was to drive to pick up my daughter, mom called and asked if I was sitting down. I sat. A day I thought was already pretty miserable immediately came crashing in around me. I sobbed uncontrollably in what I think you would describe it as a panic attack. I can’t say for sure. I can only with certainty say I temporarily lost the ability to control the sadness that overwhelmed me. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only 30 minutes or so, I pulled it together to go pick up my daughter from daycare.

I clutched her, smelling her hair, holding the one thing I knew to be true, blameless, pure, and hopeful on that day in the world. I held her with the weight of knowing she will be my legacy, our legacy, a standard bearer for liberated, powerful women. She was 1.5. Someone so small shouldn’t have had to be the primary hope for someone as adult as me. I try consciously every day to raise her to care, to love, to wonder, to think, to smile, to question, to encourage, to listen, to love. I try every day in every way to help her be the change I want to see in this country. It feels like an approachable scale.

The issues the country faces as it struggles to reconcile the hard fought progress for racial equality with the white resentment those gains fomented now unleashed and legitimized by his administration are incontrovertible. But the public evil might just be necessary as a means of healing. It is like a bandaid has been swiftly removed from a festering wound. Only with contact with air will the wound truly seal and begin to heal.

But while the national healing begins, I hurt. My neighbors hurt. My country hurts. I yearn for her embrace, her guidance, her wisdom. But she is gone. And I clutch the lessons she delivered, the memories we shared. My family is her legacy. The perspectives we share are echoes of her, exploration into self awareness, family identity, and national promise.

Please join our journey through this new uncomfortable reality in which my sister and I search for meaning, direction, and opportunity following what we both view as a seismic shift in the fabric of our family, our country, and our world. We don’t always agree, and you won’t always agree with us, but we hope we model her faith in humanity, her love for her fellow man, and her progressive vision and that our message resonates with those who my have dissonant opinions.