Melanoma is Sneaky

Much to my surprise, I recently was diagnosed with melanoma. Fortunately, I was suspicious of a skin spot, and showed it to a dermatologist. He shrugged and said, "probably not," but cut it off for a biopsy. A week later he called and told me to see a surgeon ASAP. I now am scheduled for minor surgery and further biopsy. The prognosis is, "Don't worry about it." Then a friend from high school shared this video with me, and told me that he's been inspired by my post to see a dermatologist to check out his spots. What you don't know can kill you. Had I ignored the spot, I might have lived another decade before it killed me. I knew a fellow who had a mole burned off, a couple of times, before someone bothered to biopsy it. By then, they gave him 6 months. But he was an athletic individual who wouldn't quit, and lived five years. But those last couple of years were hardly living, in terms of quality of life.

Continue ReadingMelanoma is Sneaky

Sustainability means forever

There is much talk of "sustainability" these days, but I don't think very many people have considered what that truly means. "Sustainable" has become synonymous with "green", which in our hyper-consumerist American society has transformed into "buy something". Understandable, perhaps, but it's deadly wrong. The World English dictionary defines "sustainable" as "2. (of economic development, energy sources, etc) capable of being maintained at a steady level without exhausting natural resources or causing severe ecological damage", which seems to me to be a pretty good definition of what the word really means, as opposed to what people think it means.

Continue ReadingSustainability means forever

On banning free plastic bags

I just don't get it. Just look at the damage being done by allowing free plastic bags and ask yourself why we can't motivate ourselves to ban free plastic bags. If we, as a country, can't make this obviously necessary move, are we capable of anything at all? If some Middle Eastern terrorist dumped this amount of crap all over our country (and world), we'd declare war to seek revenge. But we're doing this to ourselves, so it's OK. And what about bottled water? The ends simply don't justify the means. We are being poisoned by free market fundamentalism.

Continue ReadingOn banning free plastic bags