by Jenny Blanchard

We’ve all seen those iconic images – the house with the blue shutters, the red chimney, and the white picket fence, complete with a driveway and a two-car garage. There is often an apple tree in the front yard with a tire swing. American schoolbooks and culture are replete with these images, despite the fact that children living in Puerto Rico are totally baffled by these images since none of their house resemble those depicted and apple trees do not grow in Puerto Rico. 

What is lionized in our society is not so much the dwelling itself, but owning the home, as home ownership has long been considered an integral part of that increasingly unattainable American dream. This worship of property has led to the cruel dismiss al of a large swath of our population known as renters. Those who rent are often unfairly stigmatized as less mature and financially irresponsible. Cities and towns view often view renters as a transient population that is less invested in the health of their local communities.

If a municipality has a high percentage of renters, they are often looked down upon as eroding the tax base by not paying property taxes. This is a common fallacy: While they do not pay property taxes directly to the government, they contribute indirectly through their monthly rent, as landlords factor these tax obligations into their rental prices. Credit applications often ask if you are a renter, and use these responses as a way to measure financial stability. Worst of all, renters are far more vulnerable to evictions. As of 2026, roughly to 90% of landlords are represented by attorneys in eviction cases, while only about to 10% of tenants have legal representation.

All too frequently, the worship of the ownership society means that you’re on your own. Renters clearly need more protections against arbitrary evictions, excessive rent hikes, predatory leasing and unfair fees. But more than anything, they need to be afforded respect and freedom from societal shame and judgment.

In his book Eviction , Matthew Desmond speaks eloquently of home as “the center of life. It is a refuge from the grind of work, the pressure of school, and the menace of the streets. The home is the wellspring of personhood. When we try to understand ourselves, we often begin by considering the kind of home in which we were raised.”

These words are true regardless of whether we rent or own a home. Home is not the property we own, but the place we live, and it should always be a refuge.

Summer is here and the world is flush with lush green growth.  Nature is fully alive and bursting with growth.  Unfortunately, this is also the prime season for mosquitoes.  Besides being a nuisance they can also be carriers of serious health problems like the West Nile Virus.  At this time of year you will see lots of advertisements by companies that sell various types of mosquito fogs.  Unfortunately there is no scientific evidence that fogging reduces the mosquito populations.  However these broad spectrum pesticides do kill a lot of our pollinating insects including some like dragonflies that help to reduce mosquito populations.

The main reason that fogging doesn’t work lies in the life cycle of the mosquito.  Once the female gets a blood meal from us or other animals she lays her eggs in stagnant water.  There they hatch into larva which then molt several times and finally pupate.  From the pupa the mosquito then emerges, waits for its wings to dry, and then starts flying around to mate and find a new blood meal.  This entire cycle can take anywhere from four days in the warmest part of summer to as long as a month in cooler weather.

Any method that relies on just killing adult mosquitoes is thus bound to fail as there are many more mosquitoes in the pipeline so to speak.  Unfortunately there is no silver bullet that can eliminate mosquitoes.  The best way to reduce the number of mosquitoes relies on a number of steps meant to reduce the number of larvae.

Homegrown National Park has introduced the mosquito bucket challenge which is a nature friendly way of reducing the mosquito population.  It involves building mosquito buckets which provide an enticing habitat for the female to lay her eggs.  It then uses mosquito dunks which contain a biological larvicide called Bti which prevents the larvae from developing into adults.

There are six steps in this responsible way of mosquito management.

Step 1 - Support a healthy habitat by planting native plants and avoid sprays to help encourage our native dragonflies, birds, and bats that eat mosquitoes.

Step 2 - Make a mosquito bucket to target larvae in a controlled spot before they become biting adults.

Step 3 - Dump standing water.  Female mosquitoes will only lay their eggs in still water.  It can be a very small amount of water so search your property for containers, gutters, or saucers that might be a tempting breeding ground.

Step 4 - Treat standing water that you cannot dump.  Use mosquito dunks in bird baths, rain barrels (if they have openings - close barrels will not be a problem), and ponds.

Step 5 - Protect yourself by using screens, fans, repellents, and protective clothing to help reduce bites.

Step 6 - Spread  the news and get your neighbors involved.  Mosquitoes don’t respect property lines and even if you remove or remediate all the breeding sites on your property, they will be happy to use your neighbor’s yard instead.

Building the bucket is pretty simple and you can find the complete instructions and much more information on the Homegrown National Park website.

by Lilly Gioia

On Friday the Defense Department announced it has removed 180 separate religious affiliations from the U.S. military’s list of religious affiliation codes. The code for Unitarian Universalists was eliminated as well as Humanists, Atheists and pagan traditions, and many others. A statement by the Unitarian Universalist Association said, along with dozens of other religious traditions, UU’s will now be categorized broadly under “OTHER” in military religious affiliation codes.

This decision does not impact the status of our UU military chaplains, but may make it more difficult for our uniformed UUs to access the spiritual care that they need. At this time the UUA is diligently working with our UUA counsel and partners in a variety of faith traditions to craft a strategic response that faithfully represents our values and demonstrates clear support for our UU service members and their families, as well as all those who are impacted by the DOD policy.

As Unitarian Universalists, “Today we declare that no government action can erase our faith nor lessen the powerful and necessary grounding it provides for those who serve.“

These new reforms mark the first time the code list has been revised since March 2017, decreasing the total number of faiths from 211 to 31, according to Military.com. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth intends to enhance the delivery of targeted religious support from the Chaplaincy. This is the same Pete Hegseth who recently prayed at a Pentagon Christian service for VIOLENCE “against those who deserve no mercy.”

The revised list does include Agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Judaism, Sikhs and “Other.” The rest are Christian-based groups (22 in all), everyone from Baptists, Catholic, Assembly of God, Evangelical, Orthodox, Pentecostal, Non-Denominational, Mormons and even Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Who’s not there anymore? Deists, Druids, Heathens, Humanists, Magik, Pagans, Shaman, various Wicans and Unitarian Universalists.

This represents a stark change from 2017 when the Armed Forces Chaplains Board endorsed an expansion “to standardize and better identify religious preferences recognized by the military services.”

In December 2025 Secretary Hegseth announced his intention to “make the Chaplain Corps great again.” He stressed prioritizing religious liberty and practice in the military by executing a “top-down shift, putting spiritual well-being on the same footing as physical and mental health.”

A former U.S. Army chaplain told Military.com that the revised list is
“horrible.” Mickey Weinstein, cofounder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told Military.com that the new DOD list is a “middle finger to the United States Constitution’s separation of church and state. Reducing the number of religious faiths from hundreds to 31 is another absolute, clear, filthy, and disgusting unconstitutional, immoral and unethical attempt to force only the approved solution, getting closer and closer to Christian nationalism,” Weinstein
said.

Herman Mehta, author of the Friendly Atheist Substack, questioned the exclusion of so many faith groups, including Atheists. “There are reasons to include folks, not just for accuracy, but because it makes it easier for people of minority beliefs to get the help they need.” “The new list “looks like a list made by Christian nationalists who have no awareness of the world that exists outside their bubble, but who know that there are some different kinds of Christians,” Mehta said.

Scott MacConoway, Government Affairs director for the Secular Coalition of America, stated that the military is slightly more religious than the population in general. About 25% will probably choose No Religion. That is about 525,000 service members. About half of them would say they are spiritual, but not religious. The rest would identify as atheists or humanists or something else.

The Religion News Service commented that Unitarian Universalists and Deists who are now excluded from the latest list, are among signers of the Declaration of Independence, although Unitarians and Universalists were separate groups at the time.