2008 September | The Canary Report

Erin Brockovich to hold forum in Cameron

Posted on Sep 30, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Environment, Susie Collins

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Missouri Town Sees High Number Of Brain Tumor Cases

Let’s follow this story as it unfolds. Erin Brockovich is a hero in my eyes (I hope everybody has seen the movie!!); let’s see what’s happening with this tumor cluster in Missouri. I’ll follow up on Oct 14 and see what’s released about her visit to Cameron.

CAMERON, Mo. — The high number of brain tumors reported in Cameron is in the national news again.

KMBC has learned that Erin Brockovich, the woman portrayed in the award-winning movie starring Julia Roberts, will fly into Cameron next month to hold a public forum with concerned residents.

Brockovich, who grew up in Lawrence, Kan., is famous for her crusade to help a small town in California find out what was causing so many residents to get sick.

Her investigation led to an historic $333 million settlement from a utility company that was blamed for toxic chemicals leaking into the residents’ groundwater.

Brockovich now crusades for other communities and has been following the reports of brain tumors in Cameron.

Brockovich will be in Cameron on Oct. 13 at Goodrich Auditorium for a public forum.

Link

Thanks, Marti! (Link to Marti’s website.)

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Tags: Environment

October 1st is World Vegetarian Day

Posted on Sep 30, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Food, Home & Garden, Susie Collins

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I struggle all the time with the issue of eating meat. I do not want to eat mammals, not for health reasons, but for ethical imperative: I love animals and cannot bear the suffering endured by mammals meant as food, especially those grown in commercial feed lots destined for an inhumane slaughter.

So I eat mostly fish, but I know even fish are sentient beings as well, with distinct personalities and the desire for happiness (yes, this is Buddhist teaching). I see the fish in my ponds and I know they are extremely aware of their beingness: they are curious, social, delight in play, and are very unhappy when sick. So it’s also hard for me to eat fish!

So I was interested to discover that October is World Vegetarian Month, with the kick off on Oct. 1st.

Here’s some food for thought from Myriam Black at The World is my sOyster Weblog:

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Tags: Food, Healthy Living

This evening’s walk

Posted on Sep 29, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Leisure, Media/Videos, Susie Collins

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This is the park where I walk most evenings. We go at the very end of the day just as it gets dark. It’s a county park about a mile from my home–it’s an old baseball field chock full of history in our community from the days when sugar was king and every plantation community had a baseball team. The oldtimers tell some great stories!

My newest fascination is with the bats that join us in the evening just as it darkens too much to see well. How I wish I could catch them on film! They dart and flutter catching bugs way up high. They are my new favorite animal.

Anyway, here are three snaps: one of the park when we first arrived, then one toward the ocean (the direction we call makai), and one toward the mountain (mauka) as darkness fell. I should go get some photos in the full light one day so you can see how much prettier it is than these show!

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Tags: Air, Fresh Air Photos, Hawaii, Healthy Living, Leisure, Photography

The Real Dirt on Farmer John

Posted on Sep 29, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Food, Home & Garden, Media/Videos

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If you haven’t seen it, rent this movie!!!

THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN follows Farmer John’s astonishing journey from farm boy to counter-culture rebel to the son who almost lost the family farm to a beacon of today’s booming organic farming movement and founder of one of the nation’s largest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms. The result is a tale that ebbs and flows with the fortunes of the soil and revealingly mirrors the changing American times.

Link

Link to clip from the movie

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Tags: Art, Environment, Film, Food, Organic, Pesticides, Work

Chicago’s toxic air

Posted on Sep 29, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Environment

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TRIBUNE WATCHDOG REPORT: Chicago-area residents face some of the highest risk of getting sick from pollution, but the EPA isn’t making it widely known.

What I admire most about this story on the toxic air in Chicago can be found in the video (at bottom of post): Leila Mendez, who had the chance to move away from the problem, chose to stay and fight for clean air for the sake of the area’s kids. Brava!

People living in Chicago and nearby suburbs face some of the highest risks in the nation for cancer, lung disease and other health problems linked to toxic chemicals pouring from industry smokestacks, according to a Tribune analysis of federal data.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spent millions of dollars to assess the dangers that air pollution poses but has failed to fulfill promises to make the research more accessible to the public. So the Tribune is posting the information on its Web site, where users can easily find nearby polluters and the chemicals going into their air.

Those who look up Cook County will see it ranked worst in the nation for dangerous air pollution, based on 2005 data. The Tribune also found Chicago was among the 10 worst cities in the U.S.

The factory with the highest risk score in Chicago is a steel mill on the edge of upscale Lincoln Park, a neighborhood where it isn’t uncommon to find people buying organic dog food.

In Will and DuPage Counties, six factories rank in the region’s worst 50, though residents of the collar counties generally face much lower risks than people who live in Cook. Nearby Lake County, Ind., has nine of the worst polluters in the region.

So how much danger does a person living near these factories face? The EPA didn’t try to answer that difficult question. Air pollution is just one factor that can affect the chances of developing health problems.

Link to full story.

Video: Click on pic of video below and you’ll be taken to page, scroll down for vid.

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Tags: Air, Chemicals, Children's Health, Environment, EPA, Indoor Pollution, Toxic

Best kind of diet

Posted on Sep 29, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Media/Videos

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Link

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Tags: Humor

The sorrow of isolation

Posted on Sep 29, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, MCS, Susie Collins

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CatherineWO, at Breathez, posted about Sisterhood yesterday, lamenting the loss of getting together with other women as much as she’d like since developing Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. While she’s found some comfort with online blogs, she makes a very valid point about the need for personal interaction.

She recently attended a jewelry party at her daughter-in-law’s. She writes about the gathering: “…even more important to me was the opportunity to just sit and talk with other women. It was a small group, but they all knew I would be there so had come fragrance free. It felt good just to relax and enjoy the company of others.”

But she has a much harder time being able to participate in her church activities. I wrote about CatherineWO’s successful activism at her church, where she lobbied church elders to make all church buildings fragrance free. But she still has some problems with more casual gatherings with women friends, which causes her deep sorrow.

We all suffer losses in our lives for which we must grieve and then move on, hopefully filling the gap with something else of value. But I am not sure how to fill this gap in my life. In moments of selfishness and self-pity, I rail at the women in my own local group who refuse to change their behavior so that I can participate. Yet, such wallowing is so unproductive. I can’t change the behavior of other women, and railing on them to myself only makes me more angry. And I don’t want to become just an angry old woman.

One place I still feel sisterhood is through online blogs. There are some wonderful LDS group blogs that reach out to women, such as www.feministmormonhousewives.org , http://segulah.org/blog and http://the-exponent.com (my favorite). Blogs cannot replace the intimacy we get associating in person with other women, but they do offer a free exchange of feelings and ideas that helps to fill the gap.

Perhaps my greatest resource for sisterhood is with my own daughters and daughter-in-law, four truly amazing women who reach out to me on an almost daily basis. I love them and really appreciate them, but it is unfair and unrealistic to expect them to fulfill the bulk of my social and emotional needs.

So I continue to seek new ways to conpensate for the loss of sisterhood I feel in the isolation of chemical sensitivity. Even introverts need a little socializing once in a while.

Link

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Tags: Fragrance, MCS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Perfume, Support

Fashionable MCS terrorist goes for a bike ride

Posted on Sep 29, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Leisure, MCS

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Lou Cheese, at Living w/ Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, catches his reflection in a bus window while taking a bike ride in Cleveland.

Too bad you couldn’t see the bike. I’ve started wrapping the respirator ensemble in a color-matching silk scarf for bike rides. I can only imagine what the people inside the bus were thinking, probably something like “Well, it’s nice to see the terrorists are making an effort to be a little more fashionable now.”

Link

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Tags: Air, Leisure, MCS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Products, Toxic

New homes showcase environmental features

Posted on Sep 28, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Healthy Living, Products, Susie Collins

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Man, if I only had $2.45 million! Wanna go in with me on it? You can pick which house. We could make it Canary Central. C’mon!

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Tags: Air, Children's Health, Healthy Living, Home, Nontoxic

Seattle company promises nontoxic dry cleaning

Posted on Sep 27, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Healthy Living, Products

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Machines use environmentally friendly pressurized carbon-dioxide and wet-cleaning technologies.

Multimillionaire Mark Callaghan [left], who made his money investing in new-line technology companies, now wants to dominate Seattle’s old-line dry-cleaning business.

Next week, Callaghan’s Blue Sky Cleaners begins targeting downtown Seattle condo dwellers, office workers and hotel visitors with a pickup-and-delivery service promising environmentally friendly, nontoxic cleaning methods.

Callaghan and his business partner, InfoSpace Chief Executive James Voelker, have spent more than $1 million renovating and equipping a large warehouse on Elliott Avenue West near Seattle’s Magnolia Bridge.

The warehouse holds three machines that use pressurized, reclaimed carbon dioxide, as well as two water-based wet-cleaning machines.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers both technologies preferable to perchloroethylene, or “perc,” the longtime solvent of choice for many dry cleaners.

Link

Photo by Steve Ringman/Seattle Times

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Tags: Healthy Living, Nontoxic

Vog is coming my way on Sunday

Posted on Sep 27, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Environment, Susie Collins

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Trade winds to ebb by Sunday evening; weekend may end amid vog

Great. The wind is going to bring the vog to Hamakua tomorrow. Well, it was a good break while it lasted.

For those of you who haven’t been following the local air drama, our vog situation here on The Big Island got very bad earlier this year when the volcano started spewing especially nasty, toxic chemicals, the worst in historical memory. This did not bode well for my health. Although I cannot prove a causal trigger, at the height of the toxic levels this past spring, my breathing became difficult in general and my multiple chemical sensitivity heightened to an absolutely exquisite level. It got so I couldn’t even go into Hilo for shopping and chores, and I started going north to Waimea.

So this next week may be difficult for me. I can hardly wait!

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