Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Author: Leslie Eastman

Profile photo

Leslie Eastman

I am an Environmental Health and Safety Professional, as well as a science/technical writer for a variety of news and professional publications. I have been a citizen activist since 2009, and am one of the co-founders of the San Diego-based group, Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 11, 2017 11 Comments
California's officials have been worried that tourists may contract Hepatitis A as a result of being exposed during the outbreak that has hit the state's homeless community. It appears that their fears have been realized, as two concert goers from Utah were struck with the disease that appears to have its origin in San Diego.
Three friends from Salt Lake City visited San Diego in early August for the Metallica concert at Petco Park. Two of them unknowingly brought home an unwelcome souvenir.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 10, 2017 23 Comments
As Fuzzy noted when Alexandria's famous Christ Church removed the plaque honoring George Washington (a founding member of that institution):
First, they came for the Confederate flag, but I didn’t fly a Confederate flag, so I did not speak out.  Then they came for Confederate statues, but I didn’t feel strongly about Confederate statues, so I did not speak out.  Then they came for statues of George Washington...

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 08, 2017 15 Comments
The last time we reported on Reed College in Portland, Oregon, a student sit-in had shut down school’s finance office. The protests were organized by “Reedies Against Racism,” (RAR) a group that has been active on campus for a little over a year and whose members interrupted the lecture of a humanities class (Humanities 110) on Western Civilization it described as "Eurocentric" and "silencing people of color". Despite the intimidation and harassment, Reed College freshmen are battling back. The following snippet is from an article in the Atlantic that details the challenge the freshmen are giving to the RAR's moral authority.
...This school year, students are ditching anonymity and standing up to RAR in public—and almost all of them are freshmen of color. The turning point was the derailment of the Hum lecture on August 28, the first day of classes. As the Humanities 110 program chair, Elizabeth Drumm, introduced a panel presentation, three RAR leaders took to the stage and ignored her objections. Drumm canceled the lecture—a first since the boycott. Using a panelist’s microphone, a leader told the freshmen, “[Our] work is just as important as the work of the faculty, so we were going to introduce ourselves as well.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 07, 2017 27 Comments
Late in October, California Governor Jerry Brown threatened to sue the administration of President Donald Trump for implementation of environmental policies focused more on real pollutants (e.g., heavy metals) and less on contrived ones (e.g., carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion. I noted Brown would be taking a European "climate change" tour that would include a stop at the Vatican. His presentation at the seat of the Catholic Church focused on climate, alright...the political one.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 06, 2017 19 Comments
A few years ago, West Africa experienced an Ebola outbreak, killing almost 12,000 people. The Red Cross was one international organization that traveled to the continent to supposedly help the countries fight the disease and provide proper care to the sick. Three years later, it seems that the Ebola virus isn't the only parasite sucking the life out of Africans.
Fraud by Red Cross workers and others wasted at least $6 million meant to fight the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the organization confirmed Saturday. The revelations follow an internal investigation of how the organization handled more than $124 million during the 2014-2016 epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 04, 2017 40 Comments
Last night, my inbox was filled with how the latest "National Climate Assessment" released by the administration counters what President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt have said about the questionable assertions about man-made climate change and the policies that are derived from the ludicrous theories. The following muck from The Washington Post is a great example of the elite media spinning a narrative that is demonstrably false in scientific terms but that fits their politically-motivated agenda:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 01, 2017 22 Comments
We have been following the efforts to contain the outbreak of Hepatitis A in California. Hepatitis A virus attacks the liver, causing yellowing of the skin or eyes, diarrhea, nausea, stomach pain and fatigue. It extreme cases, it can be fatal. The pathogen is often spread through person-to-person contact and consumption of food or water contaminated with fecal matter. The fears of public health officials that the disease would spread to other states seem to have been realized, as 2 cases linked to the San Diego outbreak have been treated in Colorado.
An outbreak of hepatitis A in Southern California raised concern among Colorado health officials after two homeless people who apparently contracted the disease in San Diego were treated here.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 28, 2017 22 Comments
President Trump's eraser and Twitter feed seem to be more effective that Obama's pen and phone. In the last days of his insipid administration, the former president created the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah with a stroke of his pen, claiming thousands of square acres of land for the federal government. Now, President Trump indicates that he is going to trim back the size of the land grab.
President Trump on Friday told Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah that he will shrink the size of Bears Ears National Monument, a 1.35 million-acre piece of land former President Obama designated as a national monument just before leaving office.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 28, 2017 12 Comments
After a week of news treats, President Trump had some Halloween fun with the children of the press corps.
Mr. Trump invited children of the White House press corps to the Oval Office in their costumes to meet him and pose for pictures during the annual Halloween festivities at the White House Friday. As the kids dressed as Darth Vader, a unicorn and Princess Leia gathered around the Resolute Desk for a photo with the president, Mr. Trump teased some of their journalist parents who were in attendance. “I cannot believe the media produced such beautiful children,” the president said to laughter. “How the media did this, I don’t know.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 27, 2017 27 Comments
It is difficult to keep track of all the #WINNING that I enjoyed this past week, between the implosion of RussiaGate and the IRS apology to Tea Party groups. Personally, I am savoring President Trump's efforts to reverse course on Obama's toxic domestic and foreign policies. Trump's regulatory rollbacks, as well as his nixing of the Paris Climate Accord and EPA head Scott Pruitt's ending the "Clean Power Plan", has already helped fuel the American economic engine.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 24, 2017 22 Comments
The last time I reported on eco-activist billionaire Tom Steyer in 2015, investigators had issued a detailed report that showed extensive behind-the-scenes coordination between Obama's White House staff, aides to as many as 12 governors, and officials at multiple arms of Steyer’s network of political and policy group to push the climate-change agenda. Given President Trump's regulation-gutting and EPA chief Scott Pruitt's rollback of progressive clean-power policies (at no small risk to himself), one can presume that Steyer isn't enjoying the same level of influence that he once had under Obama.
Accessibility by WAH