rebelpleb

Ten weeks ago, I had colon resection surgery for a malignant polyp. At 36 years old, I had cancer. I have been a vegetarian for nearly 15 years, have not eaten red meat in nearly 20 years, and have been physically fit my entire life - I was even a college athlete. I possessed exactly zero risk factors (as defined by the ever knowledgeable medical industry) for such a malady. In fact, I had numerous “anti-” risk factors that should have placed me at negative odds of acquiring cancer at all. My reality belies these erroneous beliefs about health and cancer. A great number of our common health problems and syndromes (I refuse to term them diseases, because “disease” connotes known specific causes) can be attributed to our atrociously unhealthy lifestyles and western diets that lack nutrition. Cancer is not one of them. The notion that good nutrition, fitness, health and well-being prevent cancer is fallacious . And the unwavering hope that we will find a cure to this epidemic is just as f

I wanted to say a few words about my grandmother - Nanny, as we grandchildren called her - because she was one of my favorite people on the planet. Being with Nanny and speaking with her always brought me great joy, just as it brought her joy to be with her grandchildren. Though it never felt like it at the time, our conversations were always a learning experience. From her I learned not only how to cook, but how to give, how to sacrifice, how to be strong, how to deal with life’s difficulties, and most of all, how to give and receive unconditional love.   From a young age, I delighted in visiting my grandparents. Those weekly visits to their Yonkers home, and then to their home in Bethel, enabled me to learn to cook from the master. I’ll never forget all the years of “caving” the cavatelli macaroni and leaving pounds of it to dry on the dining room table. We could never get to eating it soon enough. Every time I came over to my Nanny’s home, she had the most delectable leftovers in h

My life partner and I sometimes take out DVDs from our local library here in Grand Forks , North Dakota . These disks are in appalling condition, full of scratches, gouges, congealed gunk, and a wide sampling of malodorous particles. It is true that these materials get used a lot, but certainly no more than the rentals from local video stores, which rarely suffer from the same kind of calamities. As we try to repair the carnage visited upon these disks so they will play in my computer, we try to visualize what people must be doing to ruin the materials. We envision Frisbee-type tossing that degenerates into even less advised drunken household stunts; we even imagine folks using the disks as mini plates from which fork-worthy victuals are carelessly tined. Why all the respect for rentals and not for the library loans? The first thing that pops to mind is that we might be held accountable for rentals but that library stuff is free. Pushing it slightly further

In the May 12, 2008, UK paper The Guardian , David Adam reported that “carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high…[and] climate change could begin to slide out of control.” He went on to write that scientific models assumed half of our future CO2 emissions would be reabsorbed by forests and oceans, but that these assumptions “may be too optimistic.” Of course, CO2 isn’t the only crisis in our world, but let’s set the shortcomings of scientific reductionism aside for the moment. The fact that CO2 emissions are increasing is no surprise. Look locally. Is there a decrease of driving in your town or city ? Besides the handful of folks that are walking or biking, not even high gas prices diminish driving. Couple that with the abundance of vehicles that get eight to twelve miles per gallon, and it might appear to the casual observer that there is no climate crisis or even a fuel shortage. Do we need to drive every time we go out? Are we really too busy to walk? Is