Not a Death Sentence

Something attracted me to to this article.  I guess I do read sensationalist news like everyone else.  

So mother abducts son to prevent him from receiving 'life-saving treatment'.  This is the actual text of another article I found.  Just by writing that, the reader must assume that the mother is crazy.  She's choosing to kill her son.  Everyone must be lining up with the doctors and, now, the judges to condemn her and her 'evil' choice.  Chemotherapy and radiation are 'treatments'.  It's okay to cut up his brain.  They even call her 'cancer mum'.  Wow, I didn't even notice that.  Disgusting.  Truly fucked.  

I guess I should write a letter to the editor.  

But I mostly want to write to Sally.  I want to tell her that as alone as she must feel, with the terrible choices that she has to make (or not make according to the judge), she is not alone.  She is not a 'cancer mum'.  She is not killing her son.  She is thinking hard about this, about these dismal choices.  She has seen him go through 'treatment' already.  She has to visit him in hospital every day with tubes coming out of his chest and head and beeping machines all around him.  Sally you are amazing, strong, beautiful.  You are a mother.  

Our culture (endless economic growth?) is cancer.  But that's another story . . .

To get personal (and I don't like to do this online), someone very very close to me has cancer (or whatever you want to say).  She was diagnosed going on nine years ago.  

Nine years.

Cancer it seems is not such a death sentence.  She has taught me that and so much more in these years.  I, like everyone else, assumed that when I got cancer (and who doesn't in this toxic culture) that I would be living under a death sentence.  She has taught me that fear is probably your worst enemy when you are diagnosed.  It is not a death sentence.  Don't ever forget that.  I won't.

It was breast cancer.  She wanted her breast removed and refused chemotherapy and radiation eight years ago.  The doctors showered her with fear and borderline hate for this choice.  One of them told her 'I never want to see you again'.  They denied her the surgery until it had spread, then they cut her up.  Now it's in her bones.  But she's still very much alive, slowing down for sure, sleeping more, not doing as much.  But she still writes to the prime minister every other day.

We joked the other day about her status as palliative.  She has been palliative for a long time.  She asked the palliative doctor if, since she keeps staying alive, she should be removed from the roll.  He said that if she's not dead by 2018 then they'll remove her.  Well I'm sure he didn't quite put it that way.  It's good to laugh anyway. 

I think we need to recognize that chemotherapy and radiation weaken our immune systems and can allow cancer to spread.  Combined with fear and worry, since we are psycho-physical beings, the disease spreads.  How many people have radiation and chemo and are pronounced cured only to have cancer return?  I think of Jack Layton.  Didn't he lead a stressful life before the end?  Was that good for his health?  And you can bet he ate organic.

But here we are in our thought prisons again.  There's only one way to 'battle' cancer.  Everything is civilized language: war, conquest, violence, only one way to live and be.  We all line up with the doctors and the media and isolate and marginalize (perhaps even criminalize) people who make different choices. 

And with a child, that's hard.  The hardest.  It's easy for me to talk, I make my own choices.  

Sally, I can't imagine what you are feeling.  And your dear son.  All this stress is filtering to him.  But I'm with you, a lot of us are.

Alcoholic Faith Mission

Probably everyone in the city has heard of this band but thought I would share.  If you go to their website you can listen to more music.  Reminds me of TV on the Radio at times.

Atamai

Perhaps you might remember some of these folks.  Keep up the good work everyone. 



Atamai Village -- Permaculture Community from PassitOn Films on Vimeo.

Hope

Tonight I gave a short presentation on hope for the start of Advent.  Not much of a religious man I know (well maybe you don't actually know this old Presbyterian that well) but I was invited.  I spoke about how hope can be a prison.  How action is much better.  How we all have power if we only knew it.  I still don't know it I think.  

And then I read this.  I know a thing or two about fracking and you might want to know something about it too.  Particularly if you live in a rural area.  I guess the hope is almost all squeezed out of me.  

I see where we are going thanks to fracking.  People are poisoned, slowly but surely, wherever it spreads.  And shale (and therefore gas and oil) is everywhere.  Maybe there are some places with tiny shale reserves under the ground, inefficient to extract.  For now.  But to keep the party going we are going to frack everywhere.  Force out every last cubic metre of gas, every last barrel of oil.  And we're going to burn them and party until we can't.  I expect that this will mean that all the humans will leave the countryside for cities and towns.  Easier to police of course.  And then there will be no one to require public meetings and public information sessions.  Lakes will be drained and turned into frack fluid.  The air will be thick with chemicals.  Many animals will die.  But the city lights will stay on.  This is where we are choosing to go. 

Makes hope an attractive thing.  But I'm not going anywhere. 

Bison?

I took my sister to the dentist the other day with my mum.  On the way out, my mum bumped into someone she had worked with at the local nursing home.  The lady's husband it turns out is the fellow I'd hear about who raises bison.  I had heard that he has a loyal clientele and was unlikely to have any to sell but I thought (as mum would say) 'what the heck' and told his wife that I'd be interested in ordering some.  

He called the other day.  So it looks like we are getting the front quarter of a bison sometime this week.  Should cost around $270 he said.  I don't buy meat from the grocery store and those killers at XL Foods but I think it'll work out to be equal or somewhat cheaper.  And the bison doesn't get fed GMO corn until it's almost dead like conventional beef cattle.  It's all grass and apples. So organic effectively and local.  Can't beat it.  

I guess perhaps that the reason people go to the grocery store for meat is because it's easy.  And maybe they don't have the money to put up for a big order.  Maybe we're just disorganized.  But think how much we could be supporting local beef (and bison) farmers instead of big feedlot companies?  Wouldn't that be better?

It's going to be a lot of meat.  We'll find room for it I'm sure.  And we can share it with friends and family too if there's too much.  I've never done this kind of big order before but there's always a first. 

I heard a doctor of Chinese medicine recently who said that a Chinese friend was shocked that in North America, summer is barbeque season.  He said that meat (especially red meat) is a hot food and is meant to be eaten during the winter.  It's not healthy to eat hot food in a hot season.  This makes sense to me.  Also it's a time of no fresh veg (unless you go to the grocery store and I resist).  So maybe it's a time for meat and potatoes.  

Brutal

Another important, yet always hidden and justified, real story of real people.

Apologies

I have not been keeping up with writing. Sorry.  Not that I think many people are reading.  But still it's good to have a journal.  

So what's new?  What's worth talking about?  Fiscal cliff: boring.  Palestine: same old story.  US election: get ready for the one party system.  Omnibus: you expected something different?

So we'll get back to real things.  The garden is almost finished for the year.  We still have jerusalem artichokes and parsnips in the ground and provided it doesn't freeze completely we'll still have time to dig them up and store for winter.  Our basement is full of potatoes and carrots and beets.  Feels like the hot, dry summer made for less of a potato harvest but I'm not sure.  I think it's more or less the same.  

The first year with a greenhouse was a great success.  Lots of jars of really sweet and bright red tomatoes in the basement.  We made some eggplant pickle and our very own hot sauce.  Also made some green chili pickled which is so hot.  Can you tell I'm addicted?  All this from our greenhouse.  We planted lettuce and spinach and kale in there in October and we'll see how it does over the winter.  We have a small problem with an area that gets flooded and this will need to be addressed next year.  

Right now I'm writing from the city.  We just bought a motorcycle and we have to stick it on the back of our trailer and take it home.  Long drive.  I'm very worried about it falling over.  Probably it will be alright.  We'll let you know.  A motorcycle seemed like a great idea but now I realize that it's just added a lot of complexity to our lives.  I have to now learn to be an amateur motorcycle mechanic.  I guess it's learning something new.  But I would much rather not.  I think I'm just seeing it as daunting but changing oil and lubing chains isn't actually that much of a big deal.  Will be so sweet to go for a ride next year!

And in case you think I'm going through a mid-life crisis, we actually got this to be a commuter bike.  We were hoping to get rid of one car and have a car and motorbike.  It may happen.  But with non-driving family about we can't seem to shake that we are effectively a taxi service. 

Rambling on.  Stay tuned.  Or not.