Gilles Gui was looking for the magical purple bluebells that raise their heads each spring under the budding beech leaves of the Hallerbos forest, an annual explosion of color that draws crowds from around the world.
And in these times full of stress and anxiety about wars, economic threats and other tensions, he found something else too: a sense of tranquility.
“I notice that there’s a lot of silence in my head when I’m done,” Gui said. “Yeah, it helps me keep some peace in my mind, really just take my mind away from everything that’s going on.”
Spending time in nature, experts have long said, can be a balm in troubled times.
“From a stroll through a city park to a day spent hiking in the wilderness, exposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits, including improved attention, lower stress, better mood, reduced risk of psychiatric disorders, and even upticks in empathy and cooperation,” a 2020 article of the American Psychological Association said. [snip]
That hug from nature is just about everywhere right now. Japan is awash in a sea of cherry blossoms, which mesmerize people around the world. Bluebell season also coincides with the prime tulip season in the Netherlands. The renowned Keukenhof garden there has become a playground for influencers and those seeking that ultimate selfie...
It's great advice to disconnect from time-to-time and recharge your emotional and psychic batteries, especially now with Spring's beauty unfolding all around. Take advantage whenever you can. You'll need it as you read on...
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has broken its silence, conceding its agents were responsible for the arrest of two men during a raid on a downtown Charlottesville courthouse and promising that the bystanders who questioned those agents will be prosecuted.
ICE also blasted the area’s top prosecutor, who has announced he will be investigating the raid, as “posturing for the media.”
“It is shameful,” wrote an ICE spokesman who declined to be named in a Saturday morning statement, “that the Commonwealth Attorney, a sworn officer of the court and fellow law enforcement officer, has decided to prioritize politics over public safety — placing a criminal’s wellbeing above that of the brave women and men in law enforcement, whom the Commonwealth Attorney took an oath to support.” [Ed.: get the shovel out for this anonymous spokesman's pile of gaslighting bullshit!]
The spokesman was pushing back against Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley, who has announced an investigation into the raid and warned that “further actions like the courthouse arrests yesterday would constitute a grave danger to our community.”
Hingeley has taken particular issue with the manner of the detention. Of the three plainclothes ICE agents captured on camera arresting one of the two men as he emerged from Albemarle County General District Court on Tuesday, one was wearing a balaclava masking his face and none displayed badges or arrest warrants to the man.
While Albemarle County Sheriff Chan Bryant said the ICE agents did produce proper badges and paperwork to bailiffs inside the courthouse prior to the confrontation caught on video, Hingeley stands by his assertion that arrests that resemble kidnappings are a danger to the community and could provoke violent confrontations.
“It is a fact that the method chosen by ICE agents to make these arrests constituted a risk to public safety, and I stand by that statement,” Hingeley told The Daily Progress in an email.
He also took a swipe at ICE.
“In Albemarle County, at least, if not at ICE, facts are facts, and I am confident my constituents appreciate my efforts to bring facts to light,” Hingeley continued...
From it's loathsome thug Acting Director Tom Homan to the various ICE- holes conducting these Gestapo- like arrests, this is an out- of- control government ignoring due process and threatening retaliation against anyone who challenges its dubious authority and "kidnapping" methods, going so far as having the FBI arrest a judge in Wisconsin as a warning to other jurists not to interfere. This is what fascism looks like, folks.
Campgrounds, boat ramps and other facilities in at least 30 locations at federal lakes and reservoirs in six states will be closed or have their hours curtailed as of mid-May as the Trump administration tries to rapidly shrink the U.S. government.
Officials at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the lakes and reservoirs and their amenities for boating, camping, hiking and sightseeing, said they are dealing with staffing shortages and other budgetary restrictions.
Corps spokesman Douglas Garman said concentrating staff at fewer recreational sites will allow those sites to keep the “full range of services” that visitors expect.
The Corps' district office in Omaha, Nebraska, which oversees facilities across a large swath of the Great Plains from western Iowa and Nebraska to Montana's border with Canada, said the changes also will protect hydropower and dam operations.
"Decisions to make operational changes at recreation areas are not made lightly, and we understand those decisions can be disruptive to the public’s travel plans," Garman said in an email to The Associated Press.
President Donald Trump imposed a federal hiring freeze after beginning his second term in January, and his Department of Government Efficiency is trying to eliminate tens of thousands of government jobs.
In Pickstown, South Dakota, residents were “appalled” to learn the Corps plans to close its visitor center at the Fort Randall Dam and suspend tours of the dam's powerhouse on May 1, said Cindy Broyhill, the president of the town’s Board of Trustees.
“”We have a lot of fishing and boating, but we also have a lot of just plain tourists coming through to see the dam," Broyhill said of Pickstown, located a little more than a half-mile (0.8 kilometers) east of the dam on the Missouri River, about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) north of the Nebraska state line.
“I think there are other places where they could cut that would make more sense," she added...
Those "other places" being where there are lots of Democrats, black, brown and LGTBQ folks, she didn't say. How did the Pickstown district vote in the last election, you didn't ask?
Every state mentioned in the quote was a solid Malignant Fascist state, so expect reactions there to be the same (i.e., "We elected him to screw those people, not us!").
So a big FAFO to you!
