Animal Allies Humane Society is temporarily closed to visitors. Interested adopters are encouraged to make an appointment to visit the pet of their interest if they would like to adopt.

Louanne

Not even a week of rain can dampen Tom Kasper's enthusiasm for the Open Hands Food Project.

Last year, he donated over 2500 pounds of food to the Damiano Center over about three months.  This year he's thinking even bigger: weekly donations for 18 or 18 weeks.  More fruits and vegetables. Partnerships this year not just with the Damiano Center, but with local food initiatives like Second Harvest Food Bank, and the YMCA's meal program.

Maybe it's the rain and gloom, but Annie Dugan's thoughts are turning to the dark side of art these days. 

Chances are, if you pay $450 million dollars for a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, you expect it to actually be painted by da Vinci.

Find out more about the disappearing Salvator Mundi here: A Clash of Wills Keeps a Leonardo Masterpiece Hidden (New York Times, April 11)

“I don’t want you to get the impression we’re just putting you on a medicine to hide your problems. Having depression is more common than you know. Continuing to see the counselor is important. These medicines are safe and really have minimal side effects. They don’t make you look at the world through rose colored glasses and needing them is not a character flaw and taking them is not a sign of weakness.

Close to a week of wind, rain, hail (!) and clouds is enough to dampen the mood of just about anyone.

Until, of course, you hear what Larry has to say about what these days have wrought in our world outside.

  Animal Allies Humane Society is temporarily closed to visitors. Interested adopters are encouraged to make an appointment to visit the pet of their interest if they would like to adopt.

Spruce

No one's particularly surprised to discover a big corporation or entity is lying to the public.

Actually, we kind of expect it.

But Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is blowing past that kind of defeatism by filing suit last summer against Big Oil, charging they knew in the '60s about climate change, deliberately lied to Minnesotans about it, and made about $775 billion dollars in the process.

The fossil fuel companies had hoped to move their case to federal court, asserting that it was a suit about climate change and most appropriately tried there.

It seemed unfair to have a poetry series celebrating poets who represent home to people who aren't "from here" originally and exclude Canadians.  So environmental and social justice advocate Jamie Harvie was pressed into double duty this morning.

The Mars Perseverance rover carried the Ingenuity helicopter carefully to the red planet ... then set it down and "trundled away."

Undaunted, Ingenuity unfurled its solar panels, charged itself up and survived a brisk (-130 ℉) night alone.

Virtual opportunities to enjoy art abound again this week with a couple of in-person chances as well.