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Urban Wildlife Refuge in Albuquerque's South Valley Gets the Go-Ahead

October 10, 2011 by Democracy for N...

U.S. Rep. Martin Heinrich with students from Mountain View Elementary, in attendance at the announcement of what will become first national wildlife refuge in the Southwest. Mountain View Elementary is just down the road from the property.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar recently announced that a proposed 570-acre national wildlife refuge on a former dairy farm just a few miles south of New Mexico’s largest metropolitan area has been approved.  As proposed, the site will serve as an urban oasis for both wildlife and people. Very exciting, for everyone involved. Establishment of a new Albuquerque-based national wildlife refuge is a win-win situation for people and wildlife, for the economy and open space conservation, for visitors and residents alike.

Protests Grow Nationally, Locally

October 9, 2011 by Blue Oklahoma

The ongoing Occupy Wall Street protest in New York and its spinoffs, such as Occupy OKC, are part of a broader movement expressing general frustration and even outrage with growing wealth disparity and a lack of economic justice in this country.

The movement's strength, of course, is just what the establishment pundits and media claim is its weakness, which is a decentralized, inclusive and local focus. It seems messy and without a precise frame but any movement that can really challenge the status quo will be diametrically opposite in shape and tone to what it challenges.

Its historical roots are protests in late nineteenth-century Gilded Age, which came after similar, growing wealth disparity between the wealthy and the middle-class, and protests in the 1930s in the Great Depression era, which led to worker protections and Social Security.