Do You Remember Me?

One of the reasons I set up this blog (and also why I link it to facebook), has to do with my students.  I hate to see them go.  I hate the limitations of a semester at a large university—you get to know these wonderful people for 15 weeks, and then most of them disappear into the university machine, never to be heard from again.  Facebook, my blog, and other internet connections have changed all that.  I can keep the connection going indefinitely (as long as students are interested). 

My ecofeminism and mothering blog and facebook profile are important platforms for extended teaching.  My students send me information about their activities and/or interests in environmentalism, and I post what I find interesting and important on the topic as well.  Rather than communicating solely through email—these more public venues allow for the communication to flow back and forth between many. 

It just tickles me when I hear from someone like Damion who writes, “I don’t know if you remember me, but can you help me find material on how toxics cause cancer?”

Damion is a gorgeous, ambitious and academically passionate young man.  No, I have not forgotten you, Damion.  Nor have I forgotten Sonia, who worked in the organic garden last spring.  She also wrote to me this morning. I distinctly remember her sunny face, and the splash of blonde hair tucked neatly behind her ears.  She had such an earnest interest in environmentalism and the ties to cancer.  After Sonia spent several days helping to establish a relocated organic garden last spring, she announced to the class, “I had no idea how much fun it could be to dig ditches!”

I rarely forget my students from my ecofeminism classes—probably because these courses break out of a traditional format and these kids are so engaged. Students create their own projects, bring in outside materials, and give powerful audio-visual presentations. The texts we read and view are complicated and emotionally wrenching. Many students have strong first hand and personal connections to the topic.  Unfortunately, all too many of them have known cancer in their lives, and they share those stories.  

These are unforgettable experiences for me as a professor.  

So, no, Damion, I have not forgotten you. 

Here are the links I recommend that you look at:

http://www.enviroblog.org/

http://www.safecosmetics.org/

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/

http://www.ewg.org/home/

Here is the website that our 2009 ecofeminism class created:

http://web.me.com/ecofeministtheory/ecofeministtheory/Welcome.html

Interviewing Patti Wood in January, 2010

Patti Woods and her husband Doug Wood are extraordinary people---I will write about them again here and elsewhere in more detail. They fight every day for what they believe in as they try to save our earth and the health of all living things.

In Patti's view (and I agree with her), it is clear that corporations and their ceaseless quest for profit (at any cost) are destroying the earth and making us sick. All living beings have a fundamental right to clean air, clean water, and unpolluted soil, and yet that right has been stripped from us. Our land, air, rivers and oceans are polluted; our children are dying/suffering from cancer and other diseases; our genes are damaged; and so much more. Most of us, understandably, don't want to think about the polluted world we live in because it is too frightening to contemplate.

Patti and I agreed that our politicians and political system have been corrupted by corporate greed. One major way to undo this corruption is through campaign finance reform. Without this, even the best intentioned politicians cannot act. I believe this is our only hope of real change and real protection. Otherwise, we will continue to live in a world dominated and controlled by corporate interests. In a world dominated by corporate power, our right to safe and clean water, air and soil will remain stripped from us.

At the end of our discussion, Patti talked about her daughter and the CT scan she was once given (unnecessarily) for abdominal pain. Patti described the shockingly high rate of radiation that her daughter received (unnecessarily) from that one test.

Suddenly, I found myself growing uneasy.  My stomach churned.

I told her I had been given many CT scans during and after my cancer treatment.

She grew quiet, for a moment.

"Where on your body?" She asked.
"Everywhere," I answered. "From the pelvis through the neck."
 (Hodgkin's is a cancer of the blood, so grows it everywhere.)
"How many CT scans tests did you have?" She asked.
"Too many to count," I replied. "Maybe nine times, maybe more. Before, during and after treatment."

I found myself growing quiet inside. Still.

After I said goodbye to Patti at the end of the interview, I panicked a bit.   I tried to forget what she'd said about the amount of radiation in a CT scan, but it didn't work.

So, a few hours later, I googled, "how much radiation from CT scans."

Here is what the 12/14/ 2009 USA Today newspaper article says:

CT scans deliver far more radiation than has been believed and may contribute to 29,000 new cancers each year, along with 14,500 deaths, suggest two studies in today's Archives of Internal Medicine. One study, led by the National Cancer Institute's Amy Berrington de Gonzalez, used existing exposure data to estimate how many cancers might be caused by CT scans.


Another study in the journal suggests the problem may even be worse. In that study, researchers found that people may be exposed to up to four times as much radiation as estimated by earlier studies.....


Young people are at highest risk from excess radiation, partly because they have many years ahead of them in which cancers could develop, Smith-Bindman says. Among 20-year-old women who get one coronary angiogram, a CT scan of the heart, one in 150 will develop cancer related to the procedure.

Another piece of information I found on the FDA Government website, which explains the amount of radiation in a CT test says:

Radiation Dose:
The effective doses from diagnostic CT procedures are typically estimated to be in the range of 1 to 10 mSv. This range is not much less than the lowest doses of 5 to 20 mSv received by some of the Japanese survivors of the atomic bombs. (my Italics)

In my own case, from what I can glean, it would have been more than 8 mSv because of the locations of my tests; the abdomen x-ray is in the higher range and I received radiation from my abdomen to my neck. If what I have quoted is correct, then, I received the same or more radiation on a regular basis for several years (at least nine times), than survivors of atomic bombs in Japan.

And here I thought I was in the clear.  I've been cancer free for fifteen years.  For ten years after my chemotherapy treatment, there was the possibility that the chemo could cause leukemia.  I've passed the ten year mark for that.  I've also passed the ten year mark for my the Hodgkin's to come back, so I'm supposedly "cured."  Now her I've coming across this dispiriting news about the dangers of CT scans causing cancer.  Now the clock ticks again.  Hey, the clock ticks for us all, but I'm not happy about this news.   I'm not happy at all.

Wasn't there another way to test for my cancer? As lay people, we do not decide what kinds of tests our doctors use, or what our insurance will cover. One pharmaceutical or medical company elbows their way into the medical profession and their product becomes "protocol". The protocol may kill us in the end, and thus we, the terrified patients, do what our doctors tell us to. Meanwhile, our doctors, like our politicians and government, are controlled by big business.  I know my oncologist meant well.  He saved my life 15 years ago.

So, I'll say a personal prayer, yet again, for my daughter. I will try to believe that another cancer will not kill me, that I'll live long enough to watch my daughter graduate from college, get married, and  have healthy children of her own.  My own daughter lost three of her grandparents to cancer before her birth. May things look brighter for my and all of our future generations.

We can hope.

We can act. Vote. Petition. Write. Protest. Question.

Amen.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-12-15-radiation15_st_N.htm

Nuclear Movies, Morality and A Cautionary Tale

Watching nuclear bomb films has a strange effect.  The topic is so heavy, the issues are so profound, that I find myself unable to think clearly.  The depth of the problems and questions raised are so vast, dense and intense.

I am often too shaken to write.

As I began my film watching on this topic, the list grew and grew.  The list is now at about 70 films. I can’t watch a lot of these films at once.  It is too much to take in.

What I’m finding is that the films made in the 1950s and early sixties are enormously powerful and really well made.  I’m not sure how these films have been buried and forgotten—it must be that the topic is just too hard to deal with.  The moral questions they raise are really scary—but also deeply thought provoking.  They require us to remember that we are (still) living in a perilous nuclear age, and to consider enormous questions around nuclear war, illness, death, and the competition for national power—in a world where we have far more weapons than necessary to destroy the earth many times over.  The issues and questions about why we possess these weapons, who this serves, how it endangers us, and the risks involved, are things most of us don’t want to consider.  We’re worried about Global Warming now—at last some people are aware of that—but what about a nuclear winter and radiation poisoning?  Nuclear winter could very well result in the end of the human race. What about the incredible rise in cancer and other diseases, as well as the long term genetic mutations (passed down through untold generations) from radiation poisoning?  The latter is happening right now, and it will escalate if we continue on our current path.  Yet it is rarely spoken of.

The films from the 1980s are also incredibly strong—and they, too, ask politically pointed positions.  They take aim at the Pentagon and the US government. They also raise profound ethical questions about the right to possess, build and use weapons of mass destruction, and the dangers of such complicated technologies.

Imagining a world after a nuclear holocaust is something most of us do not want to consider.  Most of these films ask us to think about it.   It is hard to do.

Many of the films from the start of the 1990s onward are less focused on the morality and ethics of nuclear war—they tend to be distracting action films with hunky muscular male heartthrobs fighting their way through a dusty world.  They are macho fighter films—not so different from any other crash and bang ‘em up flicks with high-tech weapons.  Does this shift in nuclear war films speak to the general malaise and lack of concern or awareness in our culture about the dangers of nuclear radiation and disaster?

No one talks about the danger of nuclear war anymore.  It seems like everyone thinks it has gone way.  Probably this is because the Cold War is over.  The two countries have reduced their arsenals, but not by enough.  Now there are many other countries that possess nuclear bombs—India, Israel, France, England, and more—accidents happen, even if wars don’t break out (on purpose).   Who is to say that a war won’t break out and some unexpected country won’t use their nuclear weapons?  What then?  What about the DU weapons currently in use in Iraq (these were used in Kuwait was well); these are poisoning and causing cancer and genetic alterations in our own soldiers as well as in the innocent people and lands we are and have been at war with.  Our own military doesn’t acknowledge or take responsibility for any of this.

I cannot get myself out of this story. I’ve dug myself in very deeply.  I have read so many books on uranium and the building of the atom bomb, as well as so many recent articles on the pros and cons of retaining, maintaining, modernizing and reducing/expanding our nuclear arsenal, and the pros and cons of nuclear power.  While the President claims he’s committed to reducing our nuclear arsenal, some articles I read say the opposite is true.  Only last week our President announced his commitment to give loan guarantees to the nuclear power industry in the amount of 54 billion dollars to build 100 new plants (if you paid close attention, before the 54 billion announcement-- just a few weeks earlier-- the number was 5 billion).  In a short time, the loan guarantees will grow, that is for sure.  The President will have to guarantee at least 100 billion and probably more in order to accomplish this goal.  As far as I’m concerned, this is a huge mistake, and from everything I read, the cost far exceeds the benefit.  Even if you look at it purely in economic terms, it doesn’t make sense.  In terms of safety—the industry says it is safe.  This is absolutely not true.  There are constant leaks from our present plants (though the press doesn’t report this, and countries like France--the supposedly model nuclear country--are dumping their radioactive waste into oceans. Also, France and other European countries have other problems with their plants, and this is downplayed or ignored by the mainstream press).  So, while we still don’t know what to do with the dangerous radioactive waste we’ve accumulated so far, taxpayers are about to mortgage this country to build more plants and create yet more poison that cannot be disposed with safely (and which lasts thousands of years).  There are plans to make plants that don't create much waste, but we are not there yet, and the story is never that simple.  The nuclear industry lobbyists are behind the plan (surprise, surprise), and even Democrat politicians who typically don’t support nuclear power—are behind it.  The President is behind it.  What are they thinking?  I don’t see any vocal opposition.  Where is everyone?  In Long Island, in 1989, we refused such a thing.  What has changed in twenty years that no one seems to be taking notice about 100 new nuclear plants?  

Our current situation reminds me a bit of the moral tale in  the movie Fail Safe.  In Fail Safe the men in charge of government and the military industrial complex are all so proud of the power of our nuclear arsenal and the advanced technology used to oversee the war machine.  The movie asks, who is really in power here (we the people?), who makes the decisions about our political and military stance, and shouldn’t we be afraid that giving over more and more of our human control and will to technology puts us at great risk?  It also suggests that while military technology is seductive and thrilling we must be careful to harness this unheeded passion and exercise caution. We must be careful not to be like Dr. Frankenstein.  He fell in love with the thrill of his project, but when the monster was born, "man" had lost control.  Mary Shelley was sending out an important  warning.  Many scientists who worked on the atom bomb regretted their accomplishment and saw the making of the bomb as a 'dark day for mankind'.  

These are huge questions.  Most of us are just trying to get by, make a living, pay the bills, and raise our families.  We’re tending to sick parents, sending money to Haiti (that is a very good thing), grumbling about Obama not saving us from the depths of recession, hoping our schools don’t lose more funding , saving for college (if possible) and if we have jobs—feeling very grateful.  Many of us are watching the Superbowl.  Obviously--not all of us are so blessed to have these worries.  Numbers of homeless are escalating and it is cold outside and if we're there, it is got to be all these folks can do to stay alive and making it through another day.

Life needs to be lived.  I just hope we keep living it.

There was almost no such thing as childhood cancer before 1950.  Anyone remember what day Hiroshima was bombed?  Anyone know how many bombs were built and  tested in the US in the 1950s?  Many link the testing of such bombs and the exposure to nuclear radiation from these bombs to the enormous rise in cancer in and after the 1950s.  More and more many have started to think about the connections between DDT and cancer  (DDT and other toxic chemicals also came into use post-WWII and DDT was sprayed across the country for years and years, many other related toxic chemicals remain in use).  After WWII the US and other industrialized countries began the perilous love affair with cancerous chemical pollutants.  We are not free of either environmental problems--radiation or toxins--they plague us today.  Our cancer rates and other terrible environmental and health problems have risen accordingly.

I dream of a world free of their production, and free of these poisons.  I would like to see an end to childhood cancers, birth defects, and disease.

Can we do anything if we do wake up?  I think so!  We deserve a "safety" first environmental and earth policy, because we have the right to have clean air, water, soil, and food.  We, the people,  must wake up and demand that our safety comes first.  Politicians won't listen if we speak up and make our voices heard.

Can we wake up?  Will we wake up?

Science and technology are thrilling and seductive.  Yet, there is a cost if we don't exercise a policy of safety first.

I have felt it myself. The glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it's there in your hands, to release this energy that fuels the stars, to let it do your bidding. To perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky. It is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is, in some ways, responsible for all our troubles - this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds.  --Freeman Dyson

Asleep at the wheel?

America Has Been Asleep At the Wheel

I grew up with parents who fought against nuclear testing in the 1950s and early sixties, and against the building of an ever-larger nuclear arsenal and dangerous nuclear power plants-- from the late 50s through the end of the early 90s (when my parents passed away).

Words like SANE, Nuclear Freeze, Hiroshima, nuclear fission, nuclear fall-out, radiation sickness, Atom Bomb, H-Bomb, Chernobyl, leaks, cancer, the Cuban missile crisis, and much more abounded in my house on a daily basis, and names like The Manhattan Project, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Helen Caldicott, Marie Curie, and many others, were used with great frequency as well.

When I was too young to remember, my mother joined her Women Strike For Peace friends and protested in Washington to ban nuclear bomb testing in the U.S. Throughout my childhood, mom and dad worked for the peace movement. Years later, after marching with other members of the Nuclear Freeze movement in Miami, mom and dad would come home and say, "the Cubans threw rocks at us today-they called us communists." I nodded. Big deal. Another march. Another day.

It was all chatter to me as a kid. Background noise as I ate my cereal or watched TV.

I was asleep in my cushy middle-class American life-watching TV incessantly, reading Mad Magazine and Archie comic books, thinking about my friends--an American kid who worried about my own needs, dreams, fears. I certainly didn't want to think about the annihilation of the human race.

Of course I knew about the end of WWII, yet I could not face the pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was too painful to think about.

My parents are no longer alive, but the dangers remain. For 65 years, America has been asleep at the wheel, as Daniel Ellsberg tells us. How many of us, as Ellsberg notes, know the difference between an A-Bomb, H-Bomb, or N-Bomb? How many of us know of the near-misses we already have had? How many of us know of the two missing H-bombs in the swamps of South Carolina (lost in 1958)? How many of us know of the recent use of American DU bombs used in Kuwait and Iraq that have spread large amounts of radiation --leading to cancer, birth and genetic defects in the people of the countries we've attacked (as well as in American soldiers)? How many of us think about the problem of the massive amount of radioactive nuclear waste in this country and the problem of finding a safe way to dispose of it? How many of us really consider the dangers of nuclear power plants, especially in this age of terrorism? How many of us take note of the current attempts by President Obama (and the Pentagon's resistance) to reduce our nuclear arsenal? How many of us know what a "first strike" policy means?

Most importantly, perhaps, few of us consider the ease with which the U.S. or Russia can destroy all life as we know it in seconds.

If we do know of these things, why don't we something about them?

Global warming is important. Toxins and chemical pollution need to be eradicated. Racism, sexism, and classicism must come to an end. Cures for AIDS and cancer (as well as many other terrifying diseases) need to be found. The poor need food and shelter. Solutions to clean water shortages need to be found.

Yet one nuclear accident, mishap, miscommunication, or intentional strike, may mean the end of all human life.

I have to agree with Daniel Ellsberg--I think we're asleep.

Meanwhile thousands of nuclear weapons both here and in Russia are on "high trigger alert."

There is also the growing threat of nuclear terrorism.

I recommend you listen to the following discussion with Dr. Bruce Blair (President Obama's nuclear advisor) with Dr. Helen Caldicott at the following site:

http://ifyoulovethisplanet.org/

______________________________________

To read Daniel Ellsberg's brilliant article go to:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/06-5

Here is the current news on President Obama and

our nuclear policy:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-obama-nuclear4-2010jan04,0,1799502.story

Nuclear War and Reactors in Film--Look to the Skies!

I'm working on a new chapter for my book. As always, a new chapter opens up new problems, new ideas, new things that must be considered. In this case, I've opened up Pandora's Box. This chapter might as well be a book unto itself. New material and new films are flying at me from all directions like wild saucers in a 1950s sci-fi film. If things keep going like this, I'll never finish my book!

In 1961 my mother and her friends Phyllis and Thalia were deeply involved in the Women Strike for Peace movement; they fought to end the testing of nuclear bombs in the U.S. and the building of a nuclear arsenal. They spoke as concerned "mothers" in a time when women were supposed to remain in the home and refrain from speaking up about political issues (especially war). This history is the launching pad for my chapter on mothers and environmentalism in film. Only two of the films I initially intended to discuss looked at the dangers of nuclear radiation (Silkwood and China Syndrome)....

Oh boy, (or should I say, oy vey). I soon realized that I had to read up more on the history of the Atom Bomb, the cold war, nuclear fission, the Cuban Missile Crisis, bomb testing, nuclear radiation and contamination, nuclear waste, and much more. I'm not nearly done. The topic is enormous. And, guess what? I quickly discovered that the topic of nukes in film is expansive: I've found about 40 films (mostly in the 1950s through mid 60s, as well as in the 1980s). These two periods seem to be obsessively concerned with the problem of nuclear disaster (especially the former period). Also, guess what? These films are really brilliant.

Yesterday, Nicole and I watched Five (1951)-a fascinating film about "The Day After" the world has been detonated with atom bombs. Only five people survived the detonation. This is their story. The film is rife with Biblical references to sin and rebirth. Today I watched The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959), with Harry Belafonte as the protagonist. This film examines what happens to the three remaining people on earth after a nuclear disaster. Belafonte's character is black, while the other two characters include a white woman and a white man. The tension in the story centers on an anguished interracial and triangulated love. It is quite powerful--but the problem of radiation and nuclear disaster functions merely as a backdrop to the love story and a critique of racism. A few days before, I watched the nineteen-eighties film, The Day After. This one is not so interesting artistically, but it sure paints a frightening picture of what our would look and be like if the nuclear bombs go off.

Here are a few titles of the films I have watched and/or will watch: Invasion USA (1952), The Day the World Ended (1956), The World, The Flesh, and the Devil (1959), The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), Panic in the Year Zero (1961) Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), The Year 2889 (1966), The Atomic Cafe (1951, and 1982), Atomic War Bride (1960), Watch the Skies! (1950).

This is only a start!

For the later period there is Twilight's Last Gleaming (1970), Omega Man (1971), Silent Running (1972) (just a few in the early seventies); then, China Syndrome (1979), Testament (1983)--a truly extraordinary film, The Atomic Cafe (1982), The Day After (1983), Stryker (1983), Wargames (1983), Endgame (1983), Silkwood (1983),, Rush (1984), The Quiet Earth (1985), The Nuclear Conspiracy (1986), Desert Bloom (1986), Manhattan Project (1986), Radioactive Dreams (1986), When the Wind Blows (1986), The Abyss (1989). The nineties and 21st century don't have much to speak of --The Hunt for Red October (1990), Secret Weapon (1990), Until the End of the World (1991), Deterrence (2000), The Widowmaker (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002).

I'm not watching Godzilla (the original or the remake), nor am I watching The Planet of the Ape series or Road Warrior. I've got enough on my plate with the pseudo- "realistic" films.

It is good that the weather is conducive to movie watching. Today is beautiful, but the wind blows and the temperature is bitter cold.

Green Moms Carnival

Green Moms Carnival

Take a look at this great post from Enviroblog

This excellent piece describes how toxins invade the womb. The blogsite also contains other important information about toxics, our bodies, and our health.

News From a Cancer Survivor

I was recently diagnosed with basel cell carcinoma.

This is considered a low key cancer, one that is not life threatening.

I'm a fair white girl who grew up worshipping the sun in an era before sunscreen. I swam all day as a toddler in Miami at our home pool, spent long summers in Israel at the beach and pool, spent summer days at the UC Berkeley Strawberry Canyon pool, crashed the Claremont Hotel pool in Berkeley (in my teens while working at Berkeley Repertory Theatre as an actress), and swam at the Stark pool in Danville in high school, among many other places. Sunbathing was our entertainment and a tan meant we were beautiful. We slathered ourselves in baby oil.

Then, the dark news: my Dad was diagnosed with Melanoma when I was in my early twenties. He told me to stay out of the sun. I didn't listen. I continued to sunbathe on the roof of my soho loft building in Manhattan, sunbathed on vacations, and I rarely used sunscreen.

Dad died eight years later from the melanoma (he developed a brain tumor which is the typical evolution of the disease when it has matistisized). I (sort of) paid attention after his death and spent less time in the sun--no longer sunbathing flat on my back, but continuing to do activities outside--often without a hat or sunscreen... pretty much until now. Okay sometimes I used sunscreen, but not not carefully or religiously.

I gave birth to a redheaded girl and have tried to keep her out of the sun. We've been a bit more relaxed in the last few years, so she's developed a face full of freckles. Still, I think she's had only one mild sunburn. I've been careful to keep her out of the strong mid-day sun, to make her wear a hat and keep her body covered as much as possible. But we're not perfect.

Two weeks ago I went to see my dermatologist for what is supposed to be my annual visit-- but I have not been in several years-- to check for melanoma. As the child of a parent with melanoma, I really should go every six months. Yet because I have so many doctor visits to make for cancer checks for various potential outbreaks every six months--more than you'd want to know--sometimes I just tune it all out and try to forget, and skip scheduling appointments. It is my way of blocking cancer from dominating my life.

The first thing the dermatologist noticed was the tiny little patch (the size of a small freckle) of what looked to me to be dry skin--maybe eczema-- on my cheek. He said, "that looks like basel cell carcinoma," and took a biopsy and explained that if it is cancerous, they would do the surgery right in his office. I ask if there would be a few stitches. He said, "Well, probably more than that." He didn't say more, and I assumed it was a minor thing.

It was not a minor thing. At least not to me. A huge circle of skin was removed from my face. But no one, not any of the doctors who worked on my face explained much to me in advance about the final result and how I will look once they are finished. The surgeon who removed the cancerous skin tissue (the MOHS surgeon) said they would do it in stages, checking with each stage if they have removed all of the cancerous cells. He looked very sad as he explained this to me, but he never said, "You need to be prepared, this may end up as a very large circle, smack in the center of your face, and sewing it up after is a little complicated and will change the shape of your cheek. There will be scarring." Instead, he told me I looked like this very glamorous actress from Gossip Girls (I had no idea who she was --I've never seen the show). He took out his iphone and showed me her picture. I was so flattered--she's young and lovely. What a nice distraction. (I'm kidding, of course.)

Then he cut into right side of my face. He cut in three stages.

After the MOHS surgeon was done, the plastic surgeon walked in. I had no idea how much had been removed-my face was numb. I assumed it was small. The plastic surgeon asked, "Have you seen your face?" I said "No." He said, "You need to see it in order for me to help you understand what I have to do." So he held up a mirror and I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to cry. There was a very large red circle in the center of my face. I knew one day I would look back and think this was a very minor thing. My life was not threatened. I will have a scar on my face for a while--but the scar will fade. He proceeded to cut and snip and sew the big open circle into one long straight line. When the surgeon was done, he asked me if I wanted to look in the mirror. I said, "No." He covered the wound with a long bandage. I told him I would wear the bandage forever.

In that moment, in that first week, I felt as if the world had come apart.

Why? My body has been through so much worse: chemo, hair loss, physical pain, serious surgery, life threatening cancer, the loss of so many loved ones to cancer and heart disease. Why did this minor surgery for a minor cancer upset me so? It is nothing. I have/had my legs and arms and heart and mind. The things that matter remain/ed in place.

So, why was I so upset? Was it vanity? Was it something more?

This question plagued me.

Perhaps it is because--my face is me. It is what I physically identify with as my "self". It is what the world sees. It is what I see in the mirror.

Perhaps it was because the results of my surgery were completely unclear--they were not explained to me in advance.

Still, this was not the end of the world. I will be fine.

At night, as I lay under the covers, feeling the grief, I came to an understanding.

My body is on high alert. The doctors are on constant watch for the many parts of my body that are "high risk." Every six months my body is forced to go through a huge battery of tests in various areas to probe and look for potential life-threatening cancers.

Most obviously, and more importantly, my father died from melanoma--the deadly skin cancer. Now the largest organ on my body threatened to self-destruct at any moment. Now I have joined him. Now I must keep close watch on my skin. Now I must fear every freckle, every discoloration, every bump.

Now, once again, I am terribly afraid.

As a mother, I am faced with more fear. For my daughter, I want to smile and be brave. It is harder than one would think to do. For my daughter, I grieve. She does not deserve to live under the weight of knowing mom's visit here on this planet is so tenuous. I try to promise her I will be here for a very long time, but how can I promise that, especially given my history and my family history?

* * * * * *

Two weeks later--after I first wrote the above--the bandage has come off.

I touch the scar. It is hard in some places. There are small bumps. It does not hurt. Sometimes it looks prominent and upsets me, and in a different light it looks like a long cat scratch.

In the end, I know I cannot ward off these cancers. I would like to be free of this fear, and free of the chemicals that threaten to make me sick--they are in and around me. I would like to think that I can protect myself from early death, and most of all I'd like to protect my daughter from the loss of a parent, and from getting sick from cancer herself. Yet all of this is out of my control.

All that I can do is write, sign petitions, join the environmental movement, and hope others will join me. I hope and dream that the Climate Change action will take place, and that the chemical, nuclear, and other destructive industries stop abusing, exploiting and poisoning the earth. For those of us who have gone through rounds of chemotherapy, surgeries, radiation, and other painful procedures, as well those of us who have lost loved ones to the horror of cancer--I hope and dream of a better environmental future, a healthier home for us to live in.

The earth's body is our body. Her scars are our scars.

In some moments, I actually like my scar. It is a reminder of all of these things I love and care about on this earth. My scarred cheek is a river or mountainside worn down and altered throughout time--still beautiful, though ever changing.

Ruminations...eco-villages, toxics, and more

I just learned of two great sites to share with you that list safe cosmetics and how/where to find them. Take a look:

safecosmetics.org

cosmeticsdatabase.com

FACT: In the US, there are few or no laws to protect us from the use of hazardous materials in body and cosmetic products. You might be surprised to learn that you are putting anti-freeze (among other toxics) on your skin if you are using commercial skin care products. You might want to consider the alternatives....

The European Union is working on legislation for the prevention and use of toxics. It is time the US takes up this same sort of legislation. How can we make this happen?

For those of you who are interested in the idea of living eco-lifestyles--check into the "Eco Village" in Ithaca, NY, and "Findhorn" in Scotland....These are just a few examples of "real" places where people are living in ecologically balanced ways.... For those of you who think we can only dream, these places actually exist!

In England there is a movement to create "transition town villages," which are sustainable communities. "How" we live is a choice. Death, disability, and illness by toxins is not inevitable. It is a choice. Global warming is not inevitably going to destroy us. It is a choice.

News from The Mothering and Environment Conference

Here I am in Toronto. It is grey outside and the physical plant of York University is a bit dismal and reminds me of Stony Brook. I keep getting lost in the very many long and winding hallways. Yesterday I gave my keynote lecture on the 'polluted mother-nature body' in literature and film. The content of this talk is a large part of my book topic. So, my book is well underway.

Sandra Steingraber gave an amazing lecture in which she explored her writing of Living Downstream, Having Faith, and her new work on children's development (ex-utero) in a toxic world. Sandra never ceases to move me... She balances a brilliant discussion of the science of how our bodies work in "concert" with the chemicals and toxins we come in contact with, with her own personal experiences. She became an ecologist and began her work on cancer and the environment because of her cancer story. For cancer survivors like me, her work is a gift.

She also spoke about the connections between the onset of early puberty (which is increasing rapidly) and breast cancer. Girls are beginning puberty at younger and younger ages. Possible reasons for this are lack of exercise, diet, and toxic exposure. Here are the things I love about Steingraber: she makes science poetry--in discussing biology, ecology, and even chemistry, she uses metaphors and symbols that bring it to life for a literature person like me. She also brings her own cancer and mothering stories into the study and presentation of ecological science.

As a human being, Steingraber is very accessible. When I met her after the lecture, she spoke of her children in such tender terms and she asked me about my daughter and my cancer. I also found out that she is a poet. Poet and ecologist! Often, when she speaks, tears come to my eyes. But my brain fires off as well--her description of the brain and how it develops in utero--the strings, and webs, and networks. I am rapt when she gives her science lesson. Her detailed biological description of the birds and the bees (how babies are made) was just fascinating.

Steingraber's Living Downstream is being updated and a new version will be available soon. Living Downstream has been made into a movie and it will be out soon. I can't wait to use it in my classrooms.

I'm learning about pre-agriculture, pollution, goddesses, Findhorn, sustainable communities, wildness, conservation, climate change, and so many other things. More to come......

Superfund sites close to home! Be your own Erin Brockavitch for the day!

For those of you looking for fun activities with the kids this weekend, how about a fun trip to your local superfund site(s)?

This handy website will allow you to plug in your zip code, and voila, you'll have a list of your heaviest neighboring polluters. Addresses and maps are provided. It couldn't be easier! http://www.scorecard.org/index.tcl

My scorecard comes up with a whopping 6 superfund sites in my very own county. My, that is welcome news. Names for chemical pollutants are listed for each site and they ring familiar bells from Hollywood movies like A Civil Action and Erin Brockavitch.

Why don't you go to http://www.scorecard.org/index.tcl and find out what your lucky number is? Learn about all the chemical spills near you!

If you are up for it, sign this petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/761256353?z00m=65884

This morning...

I woke up and my backyard was full of hundreds of birds. I don't know what kind. I'm not Terry Tempest Williams--not a birder--they descended and ascended in unison, like a wave of fabric, a woman shaking out her sheets. Down and up, down and up. I was not wearing glasses or contacts and the world was still fuzzy.

Sometimes I find myself consumed with this environmental thing. Carbon paper. I just found a link that discussed the dangers of carbon paper. I'd forgotten this. You know the little receipt slips you get in the grocery store for credit card or cash purchases? Those innocent looking pieces of paper are toxic. Wash your hands carefully after touching them. Patti Wood told my ecofeminism class about this last spring and I forgot all about it. So yesterday, every time a clerk would hand me the receipt slip, I pulled away quickly in horror--refusing to touch it--as if the person had a disease. "Would you like your receipt?" "No!!!" What is worse? Someone getting hold of your receipt and using it to steal from your credit card account, or touching some lethal toxic matter? I'll leave the receipt, thanks. But what about the poor clerk? He/she has to work for a living and they have no choice! Gloves, I guess. Weird, weird, world.

Back to birds: I was reading Alice Walker's "Mother's Day 2004" entry. In it, she describes the abuse of chickens in the meat industry. Her writing is really powerful. I'm feeling guilty even eating eggs or cheese. Poor animals. Why does she title her work, "Mother's Day"? Does she see this as a day for "all" mothers to tend to all animals and living beings? Is mother's day a day to nurture our fellow creatures?

Climate Change.... take action: www.blogactionday.org

My article on Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents

http://books.google.com/books?id=piGL44eTDYYC&lpg=PA67&ots=Vud9H0VezG&dq=Parable%20of%20the%20Sower%20%20Hutner&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=Parable%20of%20the%20Sower%20%20Hutner&f=false

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/photosvideos/photos/MerkelREACHtoxicpregnant

Mothering and Environment Conference in Toronto, 2009

In late October, I'm flying to Toronto to the ARM conference. I will be one of several keynote speakers. One of my very favorite ecologists will be there-Sandra Steingraber, author of Living Downstream and Having Faith. I'm looking forward to meeting her again and listening to her lecture. She has taught me so much and I am very grateful to her for doing the work she does.

My talk will be on ecofeminism and mothering in contemporary literature and film. I'm going to outline a definition of ecofeminism, explore its ties to mothering, and then connect these concepts to a number of novels (and some poetry and nonfiction) as well as to some films.

This talk is a kind of snapshot of the book I'm working on entitled, Polluting Mama: Ecofeminism, Literature and Film.

Giving this sort of talk helps me frame my book topic--there are so many things I want to cover in my book--at times it feels daunting. Should I narrow down my focus? Should it be more academic? In other words, should I refer to numerous critics and use many footnotes? If I do so, however, this will alienate non-academic readers. I want to open up my discussion to the general public, and I want to be inclusive of all kinds of readers, not just scholarly ones. I'm writing. I'm discovering. I know how to write a traditional scholarly book, but writing this kind of work is new to me--there is no clear formula to follow. Working outside of a box is thrilling, but also confusing. How do I know if it is working? Will I have an audience? Who is my audience?

My first chapter is autobiographical and it tells the story of my cancer experience and how it collided with my desire to be a mother.... Chemotherapy can kill a woman's eggs and when my cancer was diagnosed, I was childless. While I saw other cancer patients cry about losing their hair--I was crying because I knew I might never give birth and might never live to experience being a parent. There is more to this story, too. I lost my mother to heart disease a year before my own cancer diagnosis, and she also had cancer at her death. She had lymphoma and emphysema. My father died from melanoma. I came from a history of cancer. Would I pass this on to my own daughter--later, when I finally became pregnant?

So many people have cancer now. Is my story unique? No. My neighbor across the street has lung cancer and he only smoked for a short time many years ago. My cousin died at 34 from lung cancer and never smoked. Three women on my block have had breast cancer recently. A child we know well just got over two years of brutal chemo and bone marrow treatment for Leukemia. A friend's brother-in-law is dying from lung cancer and he never smoked. Four of my daughter's grandparents had cancer in their fifties; three are dead. These stories are endless. We all have them.

So why do I write and teach what I do? I suppose I feel that the more people who "know", the more people will finally stand up and say "enough." Young people (at least until very recently) who take my classes are shocked by this information about environmental degradation. They are blown away--"no one told us," they say. I feel they deserve to know, and they deserve the chance to make a difference. I teach my students about about incredible environmental activists--some of whom are quite young--who are making changes in the world. Greater change is needed from all of us. We wear breast cancer pins, but then we spray our lawns with pesticides, drive huge cars, bathe our bodies in chemicals, buy and eat poisoned food, drink from poisonous plastic bottles, and support companies that pollute heedlessly. I'm completely convinced from everything I read that our bodies are filled with toxic chemicals....For an incredible first-person story about the pollution in our bodies, see this great article in National Geographic,"The Pollution Within," by David Ewing Duncan:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/10/toxic-people/duncan-text

Our bodies are filled with toxic chemicals. Our earth is filled with toxic chemicals.

These chemicals are causing cancer and possibly many other illnesses. Since the 1950s, with the advent of the use of pesticides and other industrial and chemical pollutants, cancer rates have risen exponentially. Rachel Carson warned of the dangers of pesticides in her book, Silent Spring. Sandra Steingraber has taken Carson's mission and applied it to what has happened to our planet since the 1950s. The polluting must stop.

I remember walking in strawberry fields when I was three and four--picking strawberries and eating them off the vine. The strawberry fields bordered our neighborhood: my house fronted the fields and I would cross the street to pick them. My yellow house was part of a new middle-class community built in the farm country of South Miami. Strawberries were sprayed routinely with DDT and other pesticides. Miami was sprayed routinely with chemicals to kill mosquitoes and other pests. My house was sprayed routinely to kill insects and, particularly, the dreaded cockroach, which we all feared. We swam in heavily chlorinated pools. There is a picture of my family and neighbors parading on fourth of July for freedom---children on bicycles, my sister as the statue of liberty, me on my tricycle carrying an American flag-- all of us so proud to be part of the middle-class dream in the early sixties. We couldn't see the chemical clouds around us, and we didn't know how we were being poisoned.

Did my cancer come from those chemicals? Did my parents' cancers come from these chemicals? Or from thousands of other chemicals I/we were exposed to throughout our lives?

What is the cost? My parents are both dead; cousins, friends, and aunt are dead. I almost died, and who knows how long I will live? Each year, twice a year, I am tested. MRIs, Catscans, sonograms, blood tests.

I am not alone. There are too many of us. It is easy to feel silenced and hopeless. Who am I to fight the chemical, tobacco, agricultural, industrial, and pharmaceutical industries? But we must act. We must learn. We must find alternatives to create the things we need and use--alternatives that are less toxic, less dangerous than those industries are now contaminating our planet with. Climate change activism is very important, and part of this re-energizing of the environmental cause includes finding clean sources of energy production. We must find clean sources of all industrial production. We must stop producing dangerous toxic chemicals. We once (not long ago) lived in a world without them. We need to go back to that time and relearn.

There is a book called The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis. Davis shows us how chemical and other polluting industries have worked hard to cover up the "real" reasons for the cancer epidemic--toxic chemical pollution. Early in the twentieth century scientists understood the relationship between pollution and disease. How and why was this information buried and ignored? And what is the price for this blatant lie?