I’ve always been interested in the impact of our vanishing water resources, an environmental issue that seems to get left behind a lot. A point Elizabeth de la Vega echoes in a piece she recently wrote for TomDispatch entitled “Our National Water Policy - Oh Wait, We Don’t Have One“. The piece opens with as American of a quote as you can get, one from Homer Simpson:

“Lisa, the whole reason we have elected officials is so we don’t have to think all the time. Just like that rainforest scare a few years back. Our officials saw there was a problem and they fixed it, didn’t they?” — Homer Simpson

Simpson’s aside, De la Vega explores the much needed state of water policy here in the US as a time when we have floods in the Midwest and wildfires on the West Coast, here’s a taste of the confusion and lack of definition she explores:

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Nicole Hughes:

U.S. Media Ignores Link Between Midwest Floods and Global Warming

Top 10 Houseplants for Removing Indoor Air Pollution

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Andy Kondrat:

Dubai to Build Rotating Positive Energy Tower

Bioethicist Peter Singer Tackles World Food Shortage

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Jon Popham:

Americacorps Workers Assist Flood Ravaged Town

Australians “Out-Fat” Americans

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Giulia Rozzi:

Progressive Book Club

Oprah Recommends “A New Earth”

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Gina Telaroli:

Human Rights Watch 2008 Film Festival Update

SilverDocs 2008 Update

The New York Times reports,  The swollen Mississippi River surged over nearly a dozen levees in the St. Louis area and flooding vast areas of farmland, as the region’s growing crisis pushed corn and soy prices toward record levels. The runaway river claimed one Missouri town late Wednesday night when it broke a levee in Winfield, just outside of St. Louis, leaving a 150-foot hole, deluging the small community and sending a surge of water downstream toward the next levee. Crews of firefighters spent the night evacuating residents, in some cases by boat, as workers fought to contain the river further south.

St. Louis is the next major city in the path of the surging river, which is expected to crest at 40 feet there on Saturday.

takepart and donate to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

Related
Mississippi Surges Over Nearly a Dozen Levees
U.S. Corn Soars to Record as Crop Flooded
Mississippi River threatens more Midwest levees

Americorps disaster response workers are laboring hard to save the flood ravaged town of Clarksville, Missouri. An Americorps team led by Katie Rooney and Kyle Henning has been coordinating volunteer and community liaison efforts out of the City Hall of the small Mississippi River community, population 490.

“I think they are awesome,” Clarksville Alderman Mike Russell, who doubles as the town’s emergency services manager, told MSNBC. “I can literally tell you that if it was not for them running the City Hall end, we would be much worse off.”

Americorps is a Federal National Service program created by President Clinton in 1993. Members specialize in a wide array of domestic issues ranging from environmental programs to literacy initiatives. The Clarksville team was part of a disaster response unit based out of St. Louis, Missouri who had just finished assisting tornado victims in the Southwest portion of the state when they were called to help out with the disastrous Mississippi flooding in Clarksville. Americorps members receive healthcare, a few hundred dollars a month, a modest educational grant and numerous ready to eat meals for their invaluable service to pressing issues confronting the country.

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It sounds like a joke, but this is for real: three Mississippi politicians”two Republicans and one Democrat”have banded together to propose legislation that would “prohibit restaurants from serving obese customers,” according to USA Today.

State Representative John Read, a Republican who is one of the bill’s three authors, defended the demented, bizarre bill on the grounds that he “was trying to shed a little light on the No. 1 problem in Mississippi.”

Admittedly, obesity is a big, big problem in Mississippi, which has ranked number one for adult obesity rates in the country for the past three years. But banning obese people from restaurants is not the solution, as Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, told USA Today:

“It would be hard to concoct something more ridiculous” “Are these legislators fighting to get rid of soft drinks in schools? Are they working to stop the relentless marketing of unhealthy foods to children? Are they doing anything about the fact that poor people do not have access to healthy foods?”

This episode suggests that, contrary to Rep. Read’s assertion, the number one problem in Mississippi is not fat people, but fat-headed politicians.

For a more intelligent approach to tackling America’s obesity epidemic, visit healthyamericans.org.