Megan P
LightNews LightNews
banner
megawatts.bsky.social
Megan P
@megawatts.bsky.social
640 followers 390 following 220 posts
Social worker, school counselor, hiker, biker, naturalist, reader, camper, griever. Mom to kids, dogs, tortoise. Widow and wife. Listening, learning.
Posts Replies Media Videos
megawatts.bsky.social
Morning fog in Ukiah Valley.
Photo of dense fog in Ukiah Valley, from perspective of walking downhill above the fog, with blue sky above the fog.
December 15, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Reposted by Megan P
robgmacfarlane.bsky.social
The revival of the Klamath River & its watershed over the past 14 months—after the completion of the biggest dam-removal project in US history—is one the most hopeful stories I know in our hope-stripped age.
Magnificent @bengoldfarb.bsky.social essay on it here.
emergencemagazine.org/essay/a-rive...
A River Reborn – Ben Goldfarb
Journalist Ben Goldfarb and photographer Kiliii Yüyan trace the monumental effort to restitch relationships between land, salmon, and humans on the Klamath River, after four of its most obstructive da...
emergencemagazine.org
December 14, 2025 at 5:55 PM
megawatts.bsky.social
Persimmon trees after their leaves have all fallen but before their fruit falls are one of my favorite things.
Photo of persimmon tree with a lot of fruit on it but no leaves, with blue sky in the background.
December 14, 2025 at 1:26 AM
Reposted by Megan P
mendovoice.bsky.social
🌊 After a 30-year absence, juvenile coho salmon were documented in Ackerman Creek north of Ukiah. State officials say the discovery signals progress in salmon recovery efforts.

mendovoice.com/2025/12/juve...

#mendocinocounty #salmon #california #conservation
Juvenile coho salmon found in Mendocino County after 30-year absence • The Mendocino Voice | Mendocino County, CA
The discovery of juvenile Coho salmon in a tributary north of Ukiah marks the first confirmed natural reproduction in the upper Russian River basin in more than three decades.
mendovoice.com
December 11, 2025 at 11:28 PM
megawatts.bsky.social
Princess Bride, too, but also this. I used to play the soundtrack on repeat.
December 8, 2025 at 2:56 AM
megawatts.bsky.social
“We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.”
(poetrysociety.org/poems/a-brie...)

And also The Jabberwocky, thanks to my 6th grade teacher Mrs. Greenlee.
December 7, 2025 at 3:22 PM
megawatts.bsky.social
Beautiful morning helping build a new trail in Ukiah’s western hills. Can’t wait to hike it!
Looking down upon fog in Ukiah Valley and Doolan Canyon, with blue sky above. 14yo holding a slender salamander on his gloved hand.
December 6, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Reposted by Megan P
nhannahjones.bsky.social
It might be easy to find things like this merely petty or superficial, but that would be a mistake. Demeaning, erasing or eliminating celebrations or acknowledgments of Black America is straight from Redemption playbook, and is intended to reinforce the racial hierarchy and signal its reinstatement.
National parks change prioritizes Trump birthday over days honoring Black people
Free entrance days at national parks no longer include MLK Day and Juneteenth.
www.sfgate.com
December 5, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Reposted by Megan P
hormiga.bsky.social
So our campus just announced the six undergraduate programs being put on the chopping block.

One of them is Philosophy.

Philosophy.

Can we be a university without offering a Philosophy major?
December 2, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Reposted by Megan P
seancasten.bsky.social
Arguably every political debate the US has ever had is about whether to expand democracy beyond the ~6% who were eligible to vote in 1790. The details change but the general fight is always the same.
chrisgeidner.bsky.social Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 14d
NEW: Republican-led states, in a new filing at the D.C. Circuit, say D.C. residents are irrelevant, D.C. belongs to everyone else. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The filing is led by the South Carolina and West Virginia attorneys general. Both states sent troops to DC.
No. 25-5418 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Plaintiffs-Appellee V. DONALD J. TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States, et al., Defendants-Appellants BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE SOUTH CAROLINA, WEST VIRGINIA, AND 22 ADDITIONAL STATES IN SUPPORT OF STAY PENDING APPEAL Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia District Court Case No. 1:25-Cv-03005-JMC ALAN WILSON ATTORNEY GENERAL STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA Thomas T. Hydrick Solicitor General P.O. Box 11549 Columbia, South Carolina 29201 JOHN B. MCCUSKEY ATTORNEY GENERAL STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA Michael R. Williams Solicitor General OFFICE OF THE WEST VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF AUTHORITIES 11 INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE ............... 1 INTRODUCTION ............ 1 ARGUMENT ........... 3 The Equities Weigh Heavily in Favor of a Stay, as the Injunction Usurps Presidential Power and Endangers D.C. Citizens and the Government ............................... ..... 3 A. Securing the District Is the President's Constitutional Responsibility and Vital to a Functioning Republic .... .....3 B. Crime Has Exploded in Our Capital, Hurting Residents and Hindering the Federal Government 5 C. In the Few Months Since the Executive Orders, President Trump and National Guard Troops Have Made the Capital Safer ......... 10 CONCLUSION .............. 13 ADDITIONAL COUNSEL........................ 15 INTRODUCTION The District of Columbia is the Seat of America's National Government and the house of all three of its branches. U.S. CONsT. art. I, § 8, cl. 17. Safety, security, and domestic tranquility in D.C. are critical, not only to the good people of the District, but to the functioning of the United States. The American People rely on the effective operation of their Government, which in turn depends on the safety of elected representatives and officials who carry out the popular will. The American People travel from all over the country to Washington, every day, to visit its historic sites and exercise their First Amendment right to petition the Government. See U.S. CONST. amend. I. The District belongs to "the People" as a whole, and its safety is critical to our constitutional republic.
December 2, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Reposted by Megan P
peterhartlaub.bsky.social
“Cold-blooded icon”

💯💯💯
December 3, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Reposted by Megan P
seancasten.bsky.social
Trump will deport an Afghani living in the US with Temporary Protected Status if he is *accused* of stealing $1000. But he’ll set a white dude free who was *convicted* of stealing $1.6B from American citizens to go commit more crime. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/u...
Trump Frees Fraudster Just Days Into Seven-Year Prison Sentence
www.nytimes.com
November 30, 2025 at 3:17 PM
megawatts.bsky.social
A great day in New Mexico (with lots of green chile in my belly!)—so wonderful to have our dogs with us on this trip! 😁🐕
View of the Sandia Mountains with pinon trees in the foreground from within Frank Ortiz dog park in Santa Fe, NM. View of the Jemez Mountains in the far distance with man and mixed breed dog posing in foreground. View of Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the distance with woman and mixed breed dog posing in foreground. Small mixed breed dog in arroyo in Santa Fe, NM.
November 25, 2025 at 9:11 PM
megawatts.bsky.social
Made it to Santa Fe today to visit our daughter, who is a freshman at St. John’s College. Stopped by my uncle’s old house outside Grants on our way east. Gorgeous skies, stunning landscape, beautiful crisp fall air. I love being back in New Mexico!
View from I-40 in western New Mexico. View from I-40 between Grants and Albuquerque with sunlight and storm clouds. View from I-40 between Grants and Albuquerque with sunlight and storm clouds. View from I-40 between Grants and Albuquerque with sunlight and storm clouds.
November 24, 2025 at 2:38 AM
megawatts.bsky.social
Walking down a lonely desert highway—just a dog, a long strip of road, and stormy clouds overhead.
Mixed breed dog on the highway to Amboy with grey clouds in the background.
November 23, 2025 at 3:46 AM
Reposted by Megan P
adamserwer.bsky.social
The fact that no one in the room stood up for her says a lot about how we got here bsky.app/profile/pale...
paleofuture.bsky.social Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 29d
"Quiet! Quiet, Piggy."
November 18, 2025 at 2:55 PM
megawatts.bsky.social
Took our 14yo and three of his friends zip lining in the rain in the redwoods today to celebrate his birthday and it was awesome. The teens had a blast and didn’t mind that we tagged along. Coasting through the air, feeling the wonderful rain on my face, gazing out at a gorgeous 2nd growth forest—😁.
November 17, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Reposted by Megan P
drjengunter.bsky.social
My thoughts on the FDA announcement today about MHT vajenda.substack.com/p/reaction-t...
Reaction to the FDA Announcement on MHT
Removing the Black Box Warning was Served with a Side of Serious Misinformation
vajenda.substack.com
November 11, 2025 at 3:03 AM
Reposted by Megan P
jdaldern.bsky.social
Good advice for all generations: “Log off and act.” www.yahoo.com/news/article...
Contributor: Gen Z can't save the planet while doomscrolling it dry
As U.S. data centers drink up more than 200 billion gallons of water per year, young peoplea are no longer willing to wait for someone else to step up.
www.yahoo.com
November 10, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Megan P
bgrueskin.bsky.social
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.

He is a computer safety researcher.

And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.

In under 1600 words.

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
I Want You to Understand Chicago Politics Chicago 2025-11-08 I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again. An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next. Understand what it is to pray in Chicago. On September 19th, Reverend David Black, lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was praying outside the ICE detention center in Broadview when a DHS agent shot him in the head with pepper balls. Pepper balls are never supposed to be fired at the head because they can seriously injure, or even kill. “We could hear them laughing as they were shooting us from the roof,” Black recalled. He is not the only member of the clergy ICE has assaulted. Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon was violently arrested on October 17th, and Baptist pastor Michael Woolf was shot with pepper balls on November 1st. Understand what it is to sleep in Chicago. On the night of September 30th, federal agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter to execute a raid on an apartment building on the South Sho…
November 9, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Megan P
govpritzker.illinois.gov
This is not a deal — it's an empty promise.

Trump and his Republican Congress are making healthcare more expensive for the middle class and ending it for working families.

Time for Democrats to stand tall for affordable healthcare. www.politico.com/news/2025/11...
Senate reaches deal on ending the shutdown
Democrats are coalescing around a bipartisan agreement to fund the government.
www.politico.com
November 10, 2025 at 12:50 AM
megawatts.bsky.social
A beautiful day in the neighborhood. #ukiah #mendocino #autumn
Photo of southern Ukiah valley with oak woodlands in foreground and grapevines in background.
November 9, 2025 at 6:30 PM
megawatts.bsky.social
Who doesn’t love persimmon season? #persimmons #autumn #yum
Photo of ripe persimmon on persimmon tree with yellowish green leaves and more persimmons in the background.
November 8, 2025 at 11:02 PM
Reposted by Megan P
adamserwer.bsky.social
Went back to the history of the Sicilian Mafia to illustrate something obvious but worth stating explicitly: The Trump administration behaves like an organized crime syndicate running a protection racket, not a representative government www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Elections in democracies determine who administers the government; they do not alter whom the government is for. Under any administration, Republican or Democratic, the United States government exists to serve the people of the United States, regardless of their partisan affiliation. Besides, Americans are not as easily divided as Trump might think. Millions of Republican voters live in New York, just as millions of Democrats live in Texas. He cannot tell whom he is punishing by glancing at an electoral map. But even if he could, Trump’s acts of extortion have no place in a democracy. They belong in a protection racket: If you support Trump, you are protected; if you do not, you are vulnerable. If you donate enough cash to Trump, you may receive favorable treatment, including immunity from the law. If you oppose Trump, you may be prosecuted. This is not how a representative government works. It is how the Mafia works.
November 8, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Megan P
cristianvlad.bsky.social
Wonder why this scene looks so familiar...
#WildlifeWednesday 🐦🐕
November 5, 2025 at 6:57 AM