Michael Chenoweth

THINGS TO CHECK OUT:

Here are some resources that I think are useful. Check them out. You might learn something.

ORGANIZATIONS:

The Izaak Walton League of America.  

This is one of America's oldest conservation organizations. It was founded in 1922, by a group of 54 sportsmen (hunters and fishermen) who had noticed serious damage occurring to America's natural resources, due to short-sighted decisions by state and federal agencies. It was formed to help turn that trend around.

(Full disclosure: From 1989 to 2011, I was a national director of the League. I am president of the League's Florida Keys Chapter.)  

The Izaak Walton League has a long history of finding good workable solutions to America's most difficult and longest-lasting natural resource problems. It looks at natural resource issues through a very wide lens, and comes up with sensible approaches to addressing those issues. It acts through over 250 chapters around the country (and one in England).  

President Obama, on February 16, announced a new initiative for "community based conservation." The Izaak Walton League invented the term. Check it out. http://www.iwla.org/index.php?ht=d/sp/i/191/pid/191

The League publishes and e-mails newsletters on several important continuing issues and welcomes inquiries from those who would like to receive that information. It also has many prior publications, on a variety of issues, available for downloading from the League's web site.

More information is available at www.iwla.org, 

or at 

Izaak Walton League of America

707 Conservation Lane

Gaithersburg, Maryland 20878.

Telephone: 1-800- IKE-LINE

Membership in the national Izaak Walton League is $40 per year for individuals and $60 per year for a family membership. Youth and Student memberships are available at a reduced rate. All memberships include an excellent quarterly magazine.

If you would like to join the Florida Keys Chapter, membership is $52 per year for individuals and $78 per year for families. The difference goes to the chapter and Florida Division of the League.

Here is a legal notice required by the State of Florida (even though this isn't the chapter's web site). 

A COPY OF THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES BY CALLING TOLL-FREE (800-435-7352) WITHIN THE STATE. REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL, OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE. REGISTRATION # CH 12291.

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INTERFAITH YOUTH CORE

This organization facilitates meetings between young people of different religions, with the goal of promoting peace and better understanding, not only of our differences, but also of our similarities.

Check it out at www.ifyc.org 

While you are at it, see "Acts of Faith" below, written by the founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, Eboo Patel.

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THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. Your membership will help the ACLU protect the Constitution and America.

www.aclu.org

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WOMEH'S EMERGENCY NETWORK

Women's Emergency Network works with women and girls in financial need faced with an unwanted pregnancy. 

Reproductive freedom is meaningless if the funds are not available to pay for abortions or other counseling regarding their pregnancies.  WEN makes the critical difference for many women.

www.wen-online.org

ALS: A disease that needs our help to find a cure.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.

There are 30,000 people in the United States who suffer from this incurable and fatal disease, and another 350,000 or so in the rest of the world. The big pharmaceutical companies are neglecting this area, apparently because there are not enough victims to make it profitable for them. The research that is being conducted is being done by a small group of about 30 scientists funded by the ALS organization. 

You can find out more by going to www.als.net and www.alsa.org

How did I find out about this?

(April 4, 2011) I spent the last week at the Sun 'n Fun Fly-In in Lakeland, Florida, and for much of the week I was in the Florida Aviation Museum there, talking to people about my book, "Power!", which is available elsewhere on this website. I had the distinct privilege of being located near an awesome and inspiring woman named CarolAnn Garratt, who flew her single-engine Mooney airplane around the world to generate publicity and donations for ALS research. In the process, she set a new world record for the circumnavigation - 8-1/2 days.  You can learn more about her and ALS at her website www.alsworldflight.com.  She has two very good books about her world circling flights (she did it once before at a more leisurely pace), and a DVD available with video from the record flight. All proceeds (100% of all revenues) from sales of the books and DVDs goes to ALS research. CarolAnn donated the publication costs, so every penny goes to ALS research.  Buy them all.

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CLEAN WATER NETWORK - FLORIDA

Clean Water Network does very good work to improve Florida's water quality.  The issues this organization works on are critical to the health of Floridians and to its fishing and tourist industries. They need support from all who are concerned about the deterioration of Florida's water quality, which is occurring because of fertilizer, urban runoff and industrial discharges.

http://www.cleanwaternetwork-fl.org/

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BOOKS:

SEASICK: Ocean Change and the Extinction of Life on Earth.  by Alanna Mitchell.

This book, meticulously written by a journalist who discovered for herself how interconnected and interdependent life on land is with life in the sea, is an eye-opener. 

Ms. Mitchell describes in intricate detail how natural processes in the ocean contribute to our ability to live here on land, and how those contributions are in grave danger of being lost, because of our misuse of the ocean, and our pollution of the air and water. 

No one who cares about the future welfare of their descendants should miss reading this book.

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ACTS OF FAITH, by Eboo Patel

This is a candid and revealing recounting of one young Muslim Indian-American's voyage of discovery, from the schools of Chicago to travels around the world to find out about himself, his religion, his family, and his own faith. I found myself making frequent comparisons to "Dreams from my Father" by Barack Obama. It gives many insights that were new to me about the practice of Islam.

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NO GOD BUT GOD, by Reza Aslan

This should be required reading for all non-Muslims. It tracks the history of Islam, from the beginnings in the sixth century, where an illiterate merchant named Mohammed conducted his life in such a way as to establish a whole new religion, which now has over a billion followers, in many different forms. It goes through the development of the different kinds of Islam, ending with a review of the several main kinds of Islam that exist today. 

In the context of the revolutionary changes occurring in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other Muslim countries, this book gives important insights into possible directions those countries may take, as their new governments coalesce, depending on the role religion assumes in the resulting governments. And of course, what role their religious leaders take, and which leaders end up with the greatest influence, can profoundly impact the future of the region, for good or bad.