Good day Asgardia.  How humbled and surprised I was to learn my name is on the list of Parliamentarian members.  I can only promise you that I will do the best I can with our first move forward.  I am happy to hear any concerns you may have and am looking forward to the next official steps in this new en devour.  We are all writing our names in the history books alongside those who have explored unknown territories before us.  Some will scoff, some will laugh, some will back us wholeheartedly.  Don't let anyone be a negative force in your attempts to achieve the new.  Welcome all and lets move onward and upward.

Good morning asgardia and happy Easter.  I’m excited to hear about any election updates that are out there and wanted to take a moment to say take some time for you today!   Me?  I’m baking a ham dinner and I’m thankful that I can do so.

UNITY----- IS EQUAL IN ALL FORMS OF COGNITIVE ACCEPTANCE----- EVERY THOUGHT  MATTERS

I think I mentioned that I am the Vice President of a non- profit theater called the Springfield Community Players, in Springfield VT.  We have been around for almost 100 years, in fact, we are the longest continually running community theater (all volunteer) in the state of Vermont.

While I am looking to the future with my running for office in Asgardia, I am also working in the here and now with my theater group.  We are en devouring to get funding to upgrade out heating system and put in an air conditioning system to our theater.  We run out of a re purposed elementary school that was built back in the 1930's.  We have to shut down in November and re-open in April as our heating system uses so much oil it's too expensive and bad for the environment.  We are looking to change all that.

If you would just take a moment to look at my gofundme link and feel free to donate or share the link, I would appreciate it so much.

https://www.gofundme.com/central-heat-and-ac-campaign

I don't believe that I am breaking any rules by posting this here as I could not find anything forbidding it.  But if you know of it, please copy me on the rule and I will take this down.

In the meantime, thanks for any help you can provide, monetarily or just sharing.

Todd Hutchinson

Vice President

Springfield Community Players.

http://www.springfieldcommunityplayers.org/

I think I mentioned that I am the Vice President of a non- profit theater called the Springfield Community Players, in Springfield VT.  We have been around for almost 100 years, in fact, we are the longest continually running community theater (all volunteer) in the state of Vermont.

While I am looking to the future with my running for office in Asgardia, I am also working in the here and now with my theater group.  We are en devouring to get funding to upgrade out heating system and put in an air conditioning system to our theater.  We run out of a re purposed elementary school that was built back in the 1930's.  We have to shut down in November and re-open in April as our heating system uses so much oil it's too expensive and bad for the environment.  We are looking to change all that.

If you would just take a moment to look at my gofundme link and feel free to donate or share the link, I would appreciate it so much.

https://www.gofundme.com/central-heat-and-ac-campaign

I don't believe that I am breaking any rules by posting this here as I could not find anything forbidding it.  But if you know of it, please copy me on the rule and I will take this down.

In the meantime, thanks for any help you can provide, monetarily or just sharing.

Todd Hutchinson

Vice President

Springfield Community Players.

http://www.springfieldcommunityplayers.org/

So we thought I had the flu, but after a week and the medications have not worked, I went back to the doctor and the took and X-ray and found I have a mild case of pneumonia..... If THIS is mild?, then I’d have to have the full blown version... this makes me think.... how do we handle illness in a closed space environment?   Hmmmmmmmm....

hmmmmm interesting.....

Water: Economic Commodity or Human Right? -- Christiana Z. Peppard

Author
Christiana Z. Peppard

April 2, 2015

Water is essential to biotic existence, and it is not a value-free substance, even as the availability of fresh, clean water is often taken for granted in the United States. In other parts of the world, billions of people lack potable water; their lives are constrained by its absence.

Fresh water is also a necessary resource for generating economic wealth and political power; corporations and governments contend over water in many regions of the world.

Who owns water, allocates it, manages it, receives it—in what ways and for what reasons? These are political, economic, and ethical questions.

Structurally entrenched patterns of privilege and injustice—such as access to fresh water—require action on many levels of scale and with the input of variegated forms of situated, moral creativity. In the twenty-first century, such issues of political ecology should interface productively with religious ethics.

Consider water: Should it be understood primarily as an economic commodity or as a fundamental human right? Fresh water is not like most other environmental goods or services. It is sine qua non (fundamental to ecosystemic and human existence) and sui generis (there is no substitute).

These features are universal but are not uniform. Yet for a range of reasons it took the United Nations General Assembly until 2010 to affirm a fundamental human right to water.

Given the U.N.’s rather recent endorsement, it surprises many observers that the Catholic Church has taken a moral position on this issue since at least 2003—insisting, in no uncertain terms, that fresh water is a unique and essential substance for human life; that it is a gift from God; and that therefore access to fresh water should be considered a fundamental human right.

In fact, the hierarchical magisterium has even referred to fresh water as a “right to life” issue, which is no small claim in the pelvically-focused United States. How might this insight resonate with environmental justice movements in the twenty-first century, in and beyond the pews?

Like many U.S. municipalities, the city of Detroit has significant segregation between relatively affluent (often white) middle-class suburban families and downtown residents with compressed earnings—many of whom are African-American, some of whom are unemployed.

During the summer of 2014, attempting to limit economic losses as part of the city’s bankruptcy management, Detroit Water and Sewerage District (DWSD) began shutting off water supply to accountholders in arrears, ranging from corporate clients to individual homeowners.

Implementation was uneven. Stories trickled out of people—some elderly, some homebound, many living below the poverty line—whose water had been cut off without an apparent appeals process.

National outcry by local water justice advocates attracted international attention, leading to a public condemnation by the U.N. special rapporteur on water and sanitation. Discrimination charges were filed by legal aid organizations on the grounds that the shutoffs disproportionately and unfairly affect African-American residents.

Detroit's arrangements of political economy, urban infrastructure governance, and structural racism converged to privilege certain human bodies over others and reveal that problems of environmental (in)justice exist right in the backyard of middle America.

These contests over water resonate globally with patterns of privilege and disenfranchisement in global political economy, even while specific cases vary. Ethical reasoning and prudent, justice-oriented norms for action in this planetary context can benefit from the engagement of religious communities and moral traditions.

The Catholic Church’s global, public endorsement of the right to water is but one example. There are many others.

In Detroit, where questions of water and justice remain visible and vexed, support for disenfranchised people can—and should—take practical, embodied forms.

One compelling and recent example comes from Islamic Relief U.S.A., which along with the Michigan Muslim Community Council donated $100,000 to defray water bill payments for impoverished Detroit residents. “It is important to us in our faith to help our neighbors,” said the CEO of Islamic Relief USA in January 2015.

To be sure, religious cosmologies or moral principles will not save the planet on their own. But they are crucial, often vibrant repositories of values and practices that might just help to make the world a more just, sustainable place—one municipality or human right at a time.

Resources :

Peppard, Christiana Z. Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2014.

To learn more about the stance of the Roman Catholic Church on the issue of water, see, for example, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) , chapter 10.

United Nations Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Detroit’s water shutoffs target the poor, vulnerable and African-Americans.” October 20, 2014. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15190&LangID=E .

Couch, Robbie. “Muslim groups give $100,000 to help Detroiters Without Water, Say ‘It’s Part of Our Faith to Help’.” Huffington Post , January 8, 2015, Impact: What's Working. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/08/muslim-group-detroit-water_n_6437506.html

The authoritative, catalyzing text on U.S. environmental racism is Robert D. Bullard, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality, third edition (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000).

For a recent analysis by a religious ethicist, see Willis Jenkins, The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2013), chapter 5.

Image: Industrial sites (Zug Island and US Steel) on Detroit River, 2014; Credit: Corey Seeman / flickr creative commons. To comment, email Managing Editor, Myriam Renaud, at DivSightings@gmail.com .

To subscribe to Sightings and receive it by email every Monday and Thursday, please click here .
Author, Christiana Z. Peppard , (Ph.D. Yale University) is Assistant Professor of Theology, Science, and Ethics at Fordham University. Her research focuses on ethical analysis of modes of valuing fresh water in an era of economic globalization and climate change, and on the construction and deployment of the concepts of nature and of human nature. She is the author of Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis (Orbis Books, 2014). Peppard is also a Fordham University Public Voices Fellow and her work has appeared in TED-Ed, CNN.com , Microsoft's Global Innovators in Education blog, the History Channel, and the Washington Post. @profpeppard

See all articles by Christiana Z. Peppard

Topic Tags: Christiana Peppard Catholic Church Detroit U.N. structural racism environmental justice water rights Islamic Relief USA

.... even the sun is a limited resource.... we need to determine how to recycle as much as we possibly can ... in ways that no one has ever thought of before... what can we do to ensure we are leaving no footprint in space outside of what is necessary?   There’s so much garbage in orbit already... we need to help clean it up.... for our own safety.. the safety of our satellites And the future of any long term established colony’s should we go that route.... thoughts?

As much as I get the flu shot every year, wash my hands and do everything I can to NOT get sick.... this year the flu has nailed me.   While it’s not the worst case in the world it just proves I can’t always avoid it.   So I’m feeling Blah but still excited to see how our elections went, when they are finalized.  Be safe and healthymout their folks!

A toast to you Asgardia.....thanks to all those who voted for me and thanks to all those that didn't.  I wish everyone the best of luck and here's to our future!

As I sit at work and watch the snow fall I am reminded that one snowflake by itself is a minor beautiful thing.  But when many come together they can cause havoc, create power outages, cause traffic snarls and become a force to be reckoned with.  I am just a snowflake but I want to join the avalanche that is asgardia.  Join now.  Start the future with us.  Vote for me.

i don’t always catch the biggest fish but I never stop trying.  I believe my leadership will be the same.  I will never stop trying.   I believe that everyone is equal no matter where you are from, your age, race, sex, sexual orientation, education level, skin color, religious beliefs. Those are all things that make you, you.  I celebrate your difference and I look forward to learning from them.  I also believe that there is a strong correlation between the science and arts and the way they compliment each other.  The creative process is the same whether your building a Hedron collider, putting a mustange into orbit around the earth or painting a bowl of fruit.  It’s all tied together.  I would like to ensure that each cultures art is represented and combined equitably to form an Asgardian artistic culture.

I have to say the power to vote, in any format, is a tremendous responsibility.  I only hope that I have made the best possible choices for the initial and short term future of Asgardia.  I still believe that I can help make a difference.  Won't you consider voting for me?  IF you have questions about me, please feel free to reach out and email me thutch655@aol.com I will answer as many questions as I can.  Thank you in advance for your vote.  Good night Asgardia!!

What kind of an impact will you make on this earth.  Will you have made someones life better, will you save an endangered species?  No one knows what lies at the end of their path, but your decisions will take you to multiple versions of your life.  If you decide to vote for me in the elections, I will make the best decisions I can for all species on the planet or off.  Let's create a clear path for us all to see where, exploration and innovation are of more regard than the menial things we collect in our lives now.

What kind of an impact will you make on this earth.  Will you have made someones life better, will you save an endangered species?  No one knows what lies at the end of their path, but your decisions will take you to multiple versions of your life.  If you decide to vote for me in the elections, I will make the best decisions I can for all species on the planet or off.  Let's create a clear path for us all to see where, exploration and innovation are of more regard than the menial things we collect in our lives now.

While there is a great opportunity here to build, from the ground up (see what I did there?) I think it's very important to never forget that artistic expression will always compliment creative thinking.  While I've seen a lot of posts about science but not many post for art (outside the competitions for the flag and solar etc)   We need to have a way to capture the colorful and creative side of our new found combined culture.  Please consider having at least one person as a parliamentarian that would support the arts.  It doesn't have to be me, but someone.

I recently returned from my first trip to Scotland.  We saved for a long time to go on a European vacation and hope that we can do more in the future.  I was amazed, humbled and astounded at the rich diversity, culture and heritage that is Scotland (and we took a day trip to London on the fastest train I've ever been on, 127 MPH holy cow).  This is the majority of my genetic heritage and I have so much more to explore.  We hope to make this a yearly event, visiting a new country each year.  Maybe you have suggestions on which country we should try to see next and why?  I'd love to hear your views on your homes.  (I should note that I was able to travel to St. Petersburg Russia back in 1992 and was floored by the generosity and friendship that was offered to me back then as well).  So tell me about your homes.

I recently returned from my first trip to Scotland.  We saved for a long time to go on a European vacation and hope that we can do more in the future.  I was amazed, humbled and astounded at the rich diversity, culture and heritage that is Scotland (and we took a day trip to London on the fastest train I've ever been on, 127 MPH holy cow).  This is the majority of my genetic heritage and I have so much more to explore.  We hope to make this a yearly event, visiting a new country each year.  Maybe you have suggestions on which country we should try to see next and why?  I'd love to hear your views on your homes.  (I should note that I was able to travel to St. Petersburg Russia back in 1992 and was floored by the generosity and friendship that was offered to me back then as well).  So tell me about your homes.