Leigh Davis (1958 - 2011)

Time was, school lunches featured “Salisbury steak” and mashed potatoes, with a side of corn as a vegetable. You could mash it all together into what comic Patton Oswalt calls a failure pile in a sadness bowl, washed down with strawberry milk and chased with a bright green mint chocolate chip ice cream cone. Yep, those were the days.

While for many dog owners, the appearance of the small-dog park might seem sudden, there are those for whom it couldn’t arrive soon enough. Case in point: Taffee, the Jack Russell Terrier.

Religious groups have always provided guidance on a range of issues, but historically, the environment hasn’t been one of them. Global warming seems to have changed all that, as leaders and followers of faith traditions contemplate our impact on the planet and on ourselves, and how we might change it.

While the Reverend Billy and the Church of LIfe after Shopping have been taking their environmental campaigns to the streets, with guerrilla theater protesting consumer culture, Reverend Fletcher Harper, executive director of Green Faith, has taken it to the Internet. Early this winter, as Congress considered the American Clean Energy and Security Act and the world geared up for the Copenhagen summit, the national faith-based organization hosted a webcast on "Green Jobs, Climate Justice."