tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91638950920758295072024-02-07T04:37:50.726-05:00To the ScratchA scratch. A mark or line drawn to signify a starting place. Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-25249306772612465812014-11-04T13:39:00.001-05:002015-01-09T10:45:34.291-05:00The Story of Water is the Story of Us<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7OqRCCloux7zefQdomjGLF3APTXLcnJ5Y-lBeg1JZc8o7vJeuZSRblL-grAM3fA3SpSZTzWJP5YUe8QYf4h8B90yLOFvcdOpQYiWZ_3is2biXuJ4bPisBvuXJqccW9wLoCS8GnpfbY_Aj/s1600/Altman_The+Story+of+Water.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7OqRCCloux7zefQdomjGLF3APTXLcnJ5Y-lBeg1JZc8o7vJeuZSRblL-grAM3fA3SpSZTzWJP5YUe8QYf4h8B90yLOFvcdOpQYiWZ_3is2biXuJ4bPisBvuXJqccW9wLoCS8GnpfbY_Aj/s1600/Altman_The+Story+of+Water.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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This is the Ohio River, taken from Little Hocking, Ohio facing the bottomlands of West Virginia. What can't be seen through the morning fog is DuPont's Washington Works plant, which sits directly across the river. Also invisible are the molecules of <a href="http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/121-a340/">PFOA</a>--a long-lived, synthetic processing aide used, for example, in the production of water- and grease-repellant consumer goods. For more than fifty years, DuPont released PFOA-laced waste into the river and into the bloodstreams of those living on its watershed.<br />
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From the essay, <a href="http://sehn.org/rebecca-gasior-altman-on-the-second-womens-congress-for-future-generations/">On Confluence</a>. Written for t<a href="http://www.sehn.org/">he Science and Environmental Network</a> and the 2014 Minneapolis <a href="http://futurefirst.us/">Women's Congress on the Rights of Future Generations</a>.<br />
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<br />Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-14037035337272976942014-10-12T21:00:00.000-04:002014-11-04T13:40:19.313-05:00The Homes We Drove Past<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>"There are children-of-divorce, and then there are children-who-follow-a-divorce, </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br />
who have their own experience of its aftermath… </i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><i> conceived only after the split and merging of two other families,</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> <span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 19px; text-align: start;">and born from the fact of their devastation."</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://fullgrownpeople.com/2014/10/09/homes-drove-past/">"The Homes We Drove Past"</a></span></div>
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<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://fullgrownpeople.com/">Full Grown People</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Rebecca Altman</span></div>
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Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-12108520898575712702014-10-08T22:11:00.000-04:002014-10-12T21:01:30.335-04:00When the Raspberries Come<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmC9_w_I6SHEyGIZCyDSDTYUzDhxLBb3X_kFXgAVcH1WV6WCanrv0A9GiFN2ltbrqFFHARG3P4-WtjB9omSeB965X4AQdjQ6s4QBb3cQytoYpP07_W-GE3wXnCHFSH9OlDlUSWTcX6Rxvf/s1600/IMG_4887.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmC9_w_I6SHEyGIZCyDSDTYUzDhxLBb3X_kFXgAVcH1WV6WCanrv0A9GiFN2ltbrqFFHARG3P4-WtjB9omSeB965X4AQdjQ6s4QBb3cQytoYpP07_W-GE3wXnCHFSH9OlDlUSWTcX6Rxvf/s1600/IMG_4887.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5c5c5c; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19px;"><i>"Until I had children, I had been out of touch with cycles and seasons, disconnected from the ecological system of which I am a part. But since I’d become a mother, I’d grown into the habit of juxtaposing our lives with the lifecycle of our raspberries. They had become timekeepers, steady and sure during the disordered days of early motherhood."</i></span></blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: right;">
From <a href="http://www.brainchildmag.com/tag/rebecca-altman/">"When the Raspberries Come"</a></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="http://www.brainchildmag.com/">Brain, Child Magazine</a></div>
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Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-13130618717203539402014-04-28T10:47:00.000-04:002014-10-12T21:04:36.223-04:00The Whole Is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rear rail entrance to Union Carbide's former Bound Brook, NJ plant<br />
Taken with Dad, May 2013</td></tr>
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<blockquote>
<i>"Before I was born, before he married my mother, my father made polystyrene plastic.</i></blockquote>
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<i>His plant could manufacturer 8000 pounds of polystryene in an hour, 60 million pounds in a year. </i><i>Every plastic pellet he or anyone ever made is still with us."</i></blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: right;">
From <a href="http://matterpress.com/journal/2014/06/30/many-parts/">"Many Parts"--A Triptych on Chemistry and Family</a></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
June 2014</div>
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<a href="http://matterpress.com/journal/2014/06/30/many-parts/#more-3149">Journal of Compressed Creative Arts | Matter Press</a></div>
<br />Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-82361889391468639372014-02-19T20:49:00.000-05:002014-10-08T22:19:27.298-04:00Thoughts on Home and Place<div class="pwyl-entry" style="background-color: white; color: #666633; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-top: 15px; text-align: left;">
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On Arlington, Massachusetts</h3>
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The Place Where You Live | Orion Magazine</div>
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February 3, 2014</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2hD0v6JGAOhF8v9Osw80QFNvAtrKRgcawhofaf7n3uZq_PYq0d8_wo0MlQaHhFaF5FC2S8hQmtFgDgVoYZ75pptDRqCPqP59glO4SumP1pWXszBF2SHNMEJR4zBNJ8Cg72JgcQe3lAlz-/s1600/IMG_0628.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2hD0v6JGAOhF8v9Osw80QFNvAtrKRgcawhofaf7n3uZq_PYq0d8_wo0MlQaHhFaF5FC2S8hQmtFgDgVoYZ75pptDRqCPqP59glO4SumP1pWXszBF2SHNMEJR4zBNJ8Cg72JgcQe3lAlz-/s1600/IMG_0628.JPG" height="200" width="200" /></a><br />
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Our block ends in an access trail to ten acres of hilltop conservation land bounded by densely built neighborhoods. The summit, called Mount Gilboa since the 1700s, marks the edge of the Boston basin—a glacier-carved rim that overlooks the flatlands stretching toward the harbor. It took three attempts to put this land into conservation. The first proposal failed in the 1880s.</div>
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From this vantage, one is awed not by the expansiveness of the land, but by the intensity of its use and repurposing, by the possibility of what it once looked like in the days of the Massachusett. To the north, a landfill, once a market farm, is now a playground. To the east, winding through the grid of rooftops, is a defunct rail corridor now bike path. In the distance, the high-rises of Boston, the fanning cables of the 8-laned Zakim Bridge, the aging stacks of the Mystic Generating Station, and everything in between, the landscape through which at least a couple million people pass daily.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgImAwynf_dsb2-2L-LPpSwjqcoY0dSjEpzrzYhtRUhf2rOxtY_1PmWEbkqNvGsrHBL2rb227kyqC7e7KkAfM0RJvJg4kzHeYefC4FUZ0eECyTcf3NFn9qYVQULYWbzAaSdBdG_3DhXCPxH/s1600/IMG_0926.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgImAwynf_dsb2-2L-LPpSwjqcoY0dSjEpzrzYhtRUhf2rOxtY_1PmWEbkqNvGsrHBL2rb227kyqC7e7KkAfM0RJvJg4kzHeYefC4FUZ0eECyTcf3NFn9qYVQULYWbzAaSdBdG_3DhXCPxH/s1600/IMG_0926.JPG" height="200" width="200" /></a>But it was in this sequestered patch of urban wild that I first felt my place in the geological and human continuum—even though I am, like many here, a transplant. I walked these rocks regularly, before motherhood, following the meandering stonewalls that marked some once meaningful boundary. And while pregnant, I waded through snow so thick my knees bumped against my belly with each plunging stride. I wandered its rings of networked trails, while one son toddled behind with lichen-covered twigs and sassafras leaves, and another clung to my back. But our favorite spot is a lean-to built on Gilboa Rock from fallen branches—maybe oak, maybe hickory. We rarely encounter others up here, so we imagine its origins and who must have come here before us. My sons dart in and out of the structure, shoring it up with found sticks. The welcomed wind mutes the sirens below on Massachusetts Avenue, and the ancient rocks ground us after a too-rowdy birthday party and a morning wasted on television.</div>
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Link here: <a href="http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/place_where_you_live/view/arlington_massachusetts_8006/" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto;">The Place Where You Live -- Orion Magazine</a></div>
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Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-64765750138574471552014-02-09T20:16:00.001-05:002014-10-12T21:05:54.412-04:00"The Broken-Hearted Hallelujah"<br />
From <a href="http://www.riverwalking.com/blog.html">Kathleen Dean Moore</a>, a compelling <a href="http://www.riverwalking.com/blog/34-general/114-a-call-to-writers.html">call</a> for more "broken hearted hallelujahs":<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arches National Park, Moab, Utah (2013) </td></tr>
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<i>"As the true fury of global warming begins to kick in—forests flash to ashes, storms tear away coastal villages, cities swelter in record-breaking heat, drought singes the Southwest, the Arctic melts—we come face to face with the full meaning of the environmental emergency: If climate change continues unchecked, scientists tell us, the world’s life-support systems will be irretrievably damaged by the time our children reach middle-age. The need for action is urgent and unprecedented.</i></div>
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<i>We here issue a call to writers, who have been given the gift of powerful voices that can change the world. For the sake of all the plants and animals on the planet, for the sake of inter-generational justice, for the sake of the children, we call on writers to set aside their ordinary work and step up to do the work of the moment, which is to stop the reckless and profligate fossil fuel economy that is causing climate chaos.</i></div>
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<i>Some kinds of writing are morally impossible in a state of emergency: Anything written solely for tenure. Anything written solely for promotion. Any solipsistic project. Anything, in short, that isn’t the most significant use of a writer’s life and talents. Otherwise, how could it ever be forgiven by the ones who follow us, who will expect us finally to have escaped the narrow self-interest of our economy and our age?"</i></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arches National Park<br />
Moab, Utah (2013)</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: right;">
My response: "On What We Bury" </div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/isle/about.html">ISLE</a> (Winter 2014)</div>
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"We slip behind a sandstone dome, smooth like a church bell,
and sit on the edge of the rim, its walls striated, and each striation a
chapter in its history. To look down into the canyon is to look back through
time. My friends lie with their bodies sinking into the contours of the warm,
rust-colored rock. I drop to my knees. We do not speak. The tourists murmur.
Two ravens call. The wind chants through the canyon below. I unfold the
pamphlet the ranger handed us when we entered the park. It explains how
everything we see was once buried beneath an ocean, and how the ocean deposited
the sand and salt that surrounds us now as exposed sandstone, as red rock. Is there
a more humbling experience—kneeling in a desert where an ocean rose and
receded, and where humans have roamed for 10,000 years?"<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arches National Park, Moab, Utah (2013)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arches National Park, Moab, Utah (2013)</td></tr>
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.en_US" rel="license"><img alt="Creative Commons License" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/88x31.png" style="border-width: 0;" /></a><br />
This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>.Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-80083118968134887742012-01-13T21:36:00.001-05:002015-01-09T10:55:03.769-05:00Hope is a Thing with FeathersMy second column went up at Odewire.com last week. On hope. And birds. Among other topics.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVxP3uRP2iOZ4NqXFZdtQiYaEirwCuufWHmmT-XZljOpTZbSxMEbwtlddES9OqY70Hm4D0j98BE_w1rvQxTZzfXCxAqkIKzbZnmGrV3s0bsSPaELRTQnTupap1fOy1tK5qUcFHbZhk8uCE/s1600/slawart+tree+roots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVxP3uRP2iOZ4NqXFZdtQiYaEirwCuufWHmmT-XZljOpTZbSxMEbwtlddES9OqY70Hm4D0j98BE_w1rvQxTZzfXCxAqkIKzbZnmGrV3s0bsSPaELRTQnTupap1fOy1tK5qUcFHbZhk8uCE/s320/slawart+tree+roots.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>"We humans are only beginning to understand that life is more than a sum of its parts, that we are more than the sum of our parts. We are learning that any one part of a complex system connects to every other part, and that the interaction of multiple elements creates complex chains of influence that we may never anticipate.</i></blockquote>
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<i>When we reach beyond ourselves, maybe, just maybe, we set in motion something that will resonate through those tied to us in ways we might not foresee."</i></blockquote>
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<b>Update (January 2015):</b> Since Odewire.com discontinued its fantastic blog, I have archived a cached version of the essay here.<br />
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Reach beyond yourself</h1>
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<span style="border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span> <a href="http://odewire.com/184698/reach-beyond-yourself.html" rel="bookmark" shape="rect" style="border: 0px; color: #cc0000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="2:56 pm">January 10, 2012</a></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Individual actions matter in ways we might not anticipate.<br clear="none" />
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Environmental sociologists and psychologists who observe our responses to the growing awareness of environmental problems are finding that we live in isolation too often. Too often, we keep what we know private, rarely speaking to one another candidly about what concerns us. How do we live with what we know? Well, according to social scientists, what we need are more routine opportunities to convene and converse about issues like climate change, and to lay plans for a different future together.</div>
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Their findings also hint that our individual actions matter in ways we might not anticipate. Sociologist Kari Norgaard learned from her <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12539" shape="rect" style="border: 0px; color: #0066cc; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">study</a> of how people in one community spoke about climate change that neighbors and community influence how we live. They shape how we respond to what we know and our capacity to see purpose and to find hope in what we can do. Our connections, her findings suggest, matter deeply to our resolve to reconcile the tensions between what we know and how we live.</div>
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In November 2011 independent filmmaker <a href="http://www.islandsandrivers.co.uk/about.html" shape="rect" style="border: 0px; color: #0066cc; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Sophie Windsor Clive and her colleague Liberty Smith</a> posted a stunning two minute clip titled <a href="http://vimeo.com/31158841" shape="rect" style="border: 0px; color: #0066cc; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Murmuration</a>. Maybe you’ve seen it? Chances are you have. The video went viral.</div>
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]The first time I watched it, I didn’t know that a murmuration is a flock of starlings. Nor did I know that starlings, at dusk, somewhere near the winter solstice, swarm into a stunning, swirling cloud of mystifyingly ordered chaos.</div>
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Clive and Smith’s video elicited from me pure, biological joy. My heart rate quickened, almost as if it sought synchronicity with the shifting undulations of the starling formations. I felt calm, yet breathless, weeping from the wonder of it. Sharing the experience with Clive and Smith, despite mediated through a computer screen, elicited tears from the same place in me that wept at the birth of my sons, that weeps at the feel of their breath on my neck as I carry them to bed. It is a mix of awe and gratitude for bearing witness to all that is mysterious and complex and miraculous about life.</div>
Scott Russell Sanders, in his book <em style="border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1285" shape="rect" style="border: 0px; color: #0066cc; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Hunting for Hope: A Father’s Journey</a></em> (Beacon Press, 1999), writes that wonder and hope are intimately tied. <em style="border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hunting for Hope</em> is Sanders’ mediation on how he lives in hope. It is a gift he offered to his children, to their generation, and to his students, all of whom have asked him “haltingly, earnestly,” in one way or another, how he confronts despair, how he lives with what he knows, how he would advise them to live, given all they now know, too, through him, about the troubled world they will inherit.
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He reminds them that reawakening our senses, often dulled by the details of our lives, enables us to experience the thrum and throb of life and seasons and cycles. And it is our keen awareness of elemental life that grounds us in hope, that delivers us moments of grace in an oft times gritty world.</div>
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That the murmuration video went viral, to me, speaks volumes about this particular moment in which we live. It speaks to what we yearn for.</div>
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The more I’ve learned about starlings since seeing that video, the more I’ve come to realize how little we truly understand the dynamics of ordered chaos, how little we understand what motivates and coordinates the birds to fly as they do. As I learned from Brendan Keim’s <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/06/starling-physics/" shape="rect" style="border: 0px; color: #0066cc; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">reporting</a> on Wired.com, scientists understand that each bird is influenced by how the birds immediately adjacent to it moves, such that each bird seeks to mimic the motion and speed of those around it.</div>
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But the collective, interactional dynamics, it seems, remain a mystery. How is it that a flock of starlings, whether 100 or 1000, know to turn or adjust speed in unison, as if one? Their bodies somatically know something about how each individual connects to a system, how a system influences each individual. They know how a part connects to the whole, and how the whole influences the parts. <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/06/starling-physics/" shape="rect" style="border: 0px; color: #0066cc; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">They know about criticality and tipping points</a>.</div>
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Watching the shifting cloud of starlings was, for me, much like Sanders describes: a wellspring of hope that life is, as it always has been, mysterious and extraordinary, teacher and exemplar, worth honoring and savoring.</div>
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But their movement also offered me hope in the form of metaphor, too, for we humans are only beginning to understand that life is more than a sum of its parts, that we are more than the sum of our parts. We are learning that any one part of a complex system connects to every other part, and that the interaction of multiple elements creates complex chains of influence that we may never anticipate.</div>
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When we reach beyond ourselves, maybe, just maybe, we set in motion something that will resonate through those tied to us in ways we might not foresee.</div>
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That is as hopeful a thought as I can imagine.</div>
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Happy New Year.</div>
By Rebecca AltmanRebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-76843895242147343382011-12-02T14:02:00.001-05:002012-04-09T09:34:00.512-04:00StorytellingBegan a new post writing a twice monthly online column for <a href="http://odewire.com/">OdeWire.com</a>. Who knows where I'm headed with this. Then again, as the saying goes, "how will I know what I think until I see what I say."<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3zeLLDlbB-D4sYQr0susdfnQ_Bt4vNRFIxH2pVFMGB9aUGUY7ErQd6zoa1LTPqdBHK8ha7i5Yh-iDDCHoxnXeIoZZb9TQiE38mdp_1znsguzF0Q3icvPDycUbOv_ji1F1NYgiRA0tuGP/s1600/IMG_0198.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3zeLLDlbB-D4sYQr0susdfnQ_Bt4vNRFIxH2pVFMGB9aUGUY7ErQd6zoa1LTPqdBHK8ha7i5Yh-iDDCHoxnXeIoZZb9TQiE38mdp_1znsguzF0Q3icvPDycUbOv_ji1F1NYgiRA0tuGP/s320/IMG_0198.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">"We need storytellers to help us remember our errors and omissions. Sentinels to stand watch and to warn. And guardians to synthesize this wisdom, to pass it forward, and to speak on behalf of future generations who have <a href="http://www.sehn.org/future.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">the right to inherit clean air and water, arable soil and healthy food, too</span></a>."</blockquote><br />
From my first post: <a href="http://odewire.com/164731/tell-a-new-story.html">Tell a New Story</a>Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-31347715227623283682011-08-01T10:42:00.007-04:002011-08-10T21:07:46.986-04:00Laying TrackLast night, my husband and I attempted to watch the cable news analysts debate the meaning of the Congressional debate over the federal debt ceiling. Before long, we turned off the television. And turned to gathering train tracks abandoned by our toddler. We couldn't stand to witness the cross talk. And then, ironically, began an exchange on another topic that, in hindsight, followed a similar dysfunctional pattern of crosstalk. Our impasse stemmed from my poor ability, at that hour, to focus. Or listen. Really listen. Across the differences in our own perspectives.<br />
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While in this heightened awareness of layered disconnects, I received an email about American Public Radio's <a href="http://being.publicradio.org/first-person/civil-conversations/">Civil Conversations Project</a>, which On Being's host, Krista Tippett, writes about <a href="http://blog.onbeing.org/">here</a>.<br />
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The Civil Conversations Project is a series of radio programs that respond to our collective disconnects, evidenced by events in Washington, in Oslo, throughout our shared, public spaces, even, in our private spaces with loved ones:<br />
<blockquote><b><i>our political ways of speaking to each other, and about each other, have broken down.</i></b></blockquote>This excerpt from Tibbett's blog about the Civil Conversations Project particularly struck me:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>We have no prominent models, no public habits of navigating difference, that demonstrate what social healing would look like... We don't merely disagree; we demonize, making the bridging of gulfs between us unthinkable. And now we are </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>watching this play itself out</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i> in the halls of Congress in an extreme and tragic way. </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #353334;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>So this summer we've pulled together our civil conversations of the past year as a well of cumulative wisdom. For the next six weeks, we'll offer them up side by side as a resource of ideas and tools for healing our fractured civic spaces. </i></span></span></blockquote><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The first program, "Words that Shimmer," speaks with poet Elizabeth Alexander, who asks, "are we not of interest to each other?" "Don't we want to know one another?"<br />
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Later in the series, Tippett speaks with scholar and philospher, Anthony Appiah, who, as Tippett writes, studies the conditions leading toward "seemingly impossible social change." Appiah suggests that in times of debate we often seek agreement, but would be better served by <a href="http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/ccp-appiah/">"sidling up to difference."</a> Tippett sumarizes his point quite eloquently. </div><blockquote><i>What we need more than agreement, he says, are simple habits of association with different others, encounters that breed familiarity. There is real social and even moral value to be had when we connect with others even on the most mundane topics of who we are and how we spend our days — whether it be soccer or football, shared hobbies or parenting. In fact, Anthony Appiah says, this kind of human exchange — as much a matter of presence as of words — is the old-fashioned meaning of the word "conversation."</i></blockquote>In subsequent shows, Tibbett and her guests lay new track that lead toward alternate ways "to tell hard truths and redemptive stories, to sit with questions... to live forward together, even while holding passionate disagreements."<i><b> </b></i><br />
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Activist and ethicist Frances Kissling models how to live with difference by asking <i><b>"what can I see that is good in the position of the other? What troubles me in my own position?"</b></i><br />
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Writer Terry Tempest Williams ponders what is vital about social struggle. She asks, <b><i>"When have I changed, and why? What is the nature of my voice in the wider world? How do I use it?"</i></b><br />
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Sociologist Sherry Turkle, author of <a href="http://www.alonetogetherbook.com/">Alone Together</a>, wonders, "What is served by having an always-on, always-on you, open-to-anyone-who-wants-to-reach-us-way of life?" What happens to civility when we our bodies are present, but our minds are plugged in elsewhere? <i><b>How can we lead critical, informed and examined lives with our digital objects? </b></i>(The picture, by the way, that accompanies this segment is particularly <a href="http://www.publicradio.org/applications/formbuilder/user/form_display.php?form_code=bd8c0f2927ac">striking</a>.)<br />
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Civil Rights leader and scholar Vincent Harding considers "is America possible?" through a conversation about history, hope and civility, and about <b><i>democracy across difference</i></b>.<br />
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Philospher and professor Anthony Appiah ponders, <i><b>"what is it for one to have a life of significance?"</b></i><br />
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And, theologian Richard Mouw helps us probe our own thinking: <i><b>"what is it about people like me that scare you so much? What is it about what you are advocating that worries me so much?"</b></i><br />
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I will be tuning in. And laying new track. Join me, will you?<br />
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More about the Civil Conversations Project <a href="http://being.publicradio.org/first-person/civil-conversations/">here</a>.<br />
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</tbody></table>Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-40544478876874166052011-07-17T09:02:00.001-04:002011-07-17T23:01:48.459-04:00Magic BeansI'm here to report that we were saved by beans. Pole beans, to be exact.<br />
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After a day and a half of disgruntled toddler stunts, including floor art with markers, a rousing game of toss-the-baby-toys-behind-the-washing-machine, and related foul play, we already had cashed in the reserve patience banked from our recent vacation.<br />
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And then it was time for dinner, which was, as my toddler declared, "yuck"--a point neither my husband nor I could contest with straight faces.<br />
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The dish admittedly flopped on account of some overzealous additions. The end result was a sink stuffed with dishes and an unhinged, hungry toddler. And a tantrum of epic proportion--a spillover of pent up emotion that seemed, at the time, bottomless.<br />
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On a whim, my husband offered: "let's go pick Grandpa's beans," at which point, my toddler desisted, jammed his feet into his shoes and bolted for the door. His despair evaporated. Just. Like. That.<br />
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And did he ever pick beans. A box full of 'em. And when I asked whether he'd like to cook them, he gladly followed me inside, averting another wave of crises that could have stemmed from the usual "it's-time-to-go-in-dilemma."<br />
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In he marched, bean box cradled to chest. Up to the counter he climbed. Out came his knife.*<br />
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He cleaved and chopped and hacked. Then, into the boiling water went the bean parts.<br />
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And when they were barely tender, a quick rinse, a dash of pepper and salt, olive oil and vinegar. Down the hatch they disappeared, save for a few samples proudly handed out to all.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>And this is how I came to appreciate <i>all the more</i> the genius of those working to get kids in the garden, like <a href="http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/">Alice Waters and the Edible Schoolyards</a> she inspired. Or <a href="http://www.sharonlovejoy.com/CultivatingWonder/My_Books.html#2">Sharon Lovejoy</a>. Or the<a href="http://growingchefs.org/"> Growing Chefs</a> program to name a few.<br />
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Much like the genius of Grandpa and Grandma, who planted these pole beans for us in the first place.<br />
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Much like the genius displayed by anyone who has ever broken ground and gotten little hands involved, a movement flourishing now as more people convert previously fallow land to grow food (see these links for more on the proliferation of <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12335">community and urban gardening,</a> the <a href="http://www.foodnotlawns.net/">Food Not Lawns</a> and<a href="http://inhabitat.com/edible-estates-goes-to-print/"> Edible Estates </a>projects, <a href="http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/house/articles/2009/06/10/delivering_gardens_is_a_growth_industry/">the rise of small-scale farmers farming other people's backyards</a>, even<a href="http://civileats.com/2010/08/23/faces-visions-of-the-food-movement-annie-novak-2/"> farming of urban rooftops</a>).<br />
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Getting kids into the garden surely yields more than teaching them about growing food. Or even knowing food. Or getting kids to fill their bellies with good food.<br />
<br />
There's something even more basic at work. Something with a direct line to their emotional and social well-being. Though I know not how to name or measure or quantify it, yet. (In my attempt to explore this question, I stumbled on <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1472775320">an interesting exchange in </a><i><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2010/01/school-gardeners-strike-back/33570/">The Atlantic</a></i> about assessing the value of school gardens and kitchen classrooms.)<br />
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As for cranky toddlers, I'm left wondering what else these beans can do.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br />
We tumbled into bed grateful that, of all things, getting to the garden righted what felt wrong to him, gave him a place to dispense and redirect the static that accumulated in him over the course of a busy day. (And that he ate <i>something</i> green.)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj02QcbFp9uJ-yFAAERafpnDHoEX-BvBWO3SDuBda4R92krUSQ-CelngjnzhFxOy5jDSdsJkBWKyb8zJIyclV9aSZHHTgeQ6NDAvREk-pv_ob9XIKGyFTbKOpTk_wm7n3CKJwEj5dwiqHb/s1600/beans4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj02QcbFp9uJ-yFAAERafpnDHoEX-BvBWO3SDuBda4R92krUSQ-CelngjnzhFxOy5jDSdsJkBWKyb8zJIyclV9aSZHHTgeQ6NDAvREk-pv_ob9XIKGyFTbKOpTk_wm7n3CKJwEj5dwiqHb/s320/beans4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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Earlier that night, for story time, he chose Jon J. Muth's retelling of <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=zFPP_6tEvKoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">Stone Soup</a>, where a trio of monks hoodwinked alienated community members into making vegetable soup together. When we reached the part where everyone contributes to the pot, he announced he'd like to add beans. <br />
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And also, poop. At which point, I realized that the magic had run its course.<br />
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*By knife, I'm referring to a beat-up blue plastic knife my Mom gave me a decade ago. It was billed as safe for the Teflon pans I do not own, so it was converted into a "training knife" for little fingers.Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-1450812489487880462011-07-01T07:49:00.001-04:002014-03-01T15:34:05.974-05:00Strawberry Fields Forever<h3 class="entry-header" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #cc9900; font-family: Palatino, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1px; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">{this moment} - A Friday ritual. </span></em></span></h3>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. </span></em></span></h3>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"A simple, special, </span></em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savor and remember." </span></em></span></h3>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Inspired by </span><a href="http://www.soulemama.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Amanda Soule</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">.</span></em></span></h3>
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Off for an adventure. Enjoy the start of July!</div>
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Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-46725581619647852582011-06-27T13:07:00.004-04:002011-06-27T14:08:11.674-04:00Staying ConnectedOn the days I actually make it to a desk, this is my begin-the-day-ritual: I scan the headlines at <a href="http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/">Environmental Health News</a>.<br />
<br />
It's my homepage. My home base. My life line--one essential way I stay plugged into what's happening around the world. How I stay plugged into the hurry-up-and-wait-world of environmental health science and policy. Scanning the top stories at EHN helps me transition from launching littles into their days with full bellies. And appropriate attire.<br />
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There, I can scan the top news and editorials on issues related to health, justice and the environment. And remember why I've plunked myself into the middle of this maelstrom. Why being in the midst of all these issues is among the most important places a mother could be.<br />
<div><br />
</div>Here, too, one can read up on the latest science that trained EHN fellows translate for those of us who still break a sweat when too many numbers follow decimal points, or when acronyms and chemical names--like <a href="http://www.epa.gov/iris/subst/0035.htm">2,2',3,3',4,4',5,5',6,6'-Decabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-209)</a> (see what I mean?)-- outnumber familiar words. The EHN fellows take the latest research and parse it into: what you need to know; what the researchers did; what they found; and what it means. And they use standard language to do so. Language that this beleaguered mother only three sips into a blessed cup of coffee can read.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br />
Today, the headline that reached across the screen and rattled me was <a href="http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201106250161.html">this one</a>. About Japan issuing radiation detectors to pregnant women and children who live near the <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/alanrudy/charlesperrowonfukushimareactors">Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant</a>.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">A</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">bout 300,000 children and pregnant women in Fukushima Prefecture will get dosimeters to monitor their exposure to radiation spewed from the hobbled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.</span></span></blockquote><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
For some time, I've been drawn to the science of monitoring bodies in an era when we, as a society, are growing more attuned to the fluid relationship between what's around us and what's in us. How, as <a href="http://www.steingraber.com/">Sandra Steingraber </a>has written so eloquently, our bodies are living scrolls, telling the history of where and how we've lived.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHVqHResAkqVJul3kslFdQ1aTgYVu6rnK8ew74oZD_RUSI6VMqM_xQy4MVwmIE0N9cuKFjrxhkY8Z7Sr6rCauLtCgP4Z1FU6HLSHmy9R_fFaEbf2lwzobc8Jq6z3plA4_jE8mQrs5cogP7/s1600/20070927_0806.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHVqHResAkqVJul3kslFdQ1aTgYVu6rnK8ew74oZD_RUSI6VMqM_xQy4MVwmIE0N9cuKFjrxhkY8Z7Sr6rCauLtCgP4Z1FU6HLSHmy9R_fFaEbf2lwzobc8Jq6z3plA4_jE8mQrs5cogP7/s320/20070927_0806.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Rebecca Gasior Altman (2007) <br />
Body casts of pregnant women symbolizing implications of exposures for future generations. </td></tr>
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I'd <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2654440/">root myself among the camp</a> that believe people have the right-to-know about what's in their bodies, despite all the attendant uncertainties about what it means to know.<br />
<br />
Or, for that matter, what's in their food. My friend, Carolyn Raffensperger at the <a href="http://www.sehn.org/">Science and Environmental Health Network</a>, once told me about the radiation detectors issued to women who foraged for food near Chernobyl.<br />
<br />
But I often wonder about what it feels like to know. Or to submit to knowing.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">I recently came across <a href="http://kasmauski.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/nuclear-fears/">these striking photos and personal account</a> posted last March by National Geographic photographer, <a href="http://www.kasmauski.com/">Karen Kasmauski.</a> As she came to find out, Kasmauski was contaminated with the legacy of Chernobyl fallout while sharing traditional foods on assignment, she thinks, in Sweden. Herein, she describes the click--click-clicking of geiger counters, the experience of undergoing whole body scans, the handing down of an unknown destiny:<br />
<blockquote><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">“Because you are contaminated,” he replied. “You’re registering cesium-137 in your whole body count. The signature of the isotope is from Chernobyl.”</span></i></span></blockquote><div>And then the waiting. And not knowing. "Watchful waiting," I've heard it called. Of <a href="http://www.kasmauski.com/#a=0&at=0&mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&s=8&p=6">"Living with Radiation."</a>All-the-while realizing the possibility of never knowing what the numbers might mean. Of perhaps society never knowing, as Kasmauski wrote, the "long-term consequences and hidden costs of nuclear power."<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">So, this morning, I'm thinking about those parents who, like me, packed bags for their kids to go off to school or to camp or to a friend or relative's. And like me, they might have packed extra socks and a snack. But unlike me, they also slipped in their child's radiation detector.<br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">What must <i>this</i> feel like?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Is there relief in being able to check, to have access to a number? Does that relief, at some point, give way to an uneasy mix of questions that have only partial answers: for what do these numbers mean, and how, as a parent, to respond?<br />
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</div>Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163895092075829507.post-85874209053026597592011-06-24T13:27:00.000-04:002014-02-09T20:23:12.034-05:00Epigraph<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"Civilization's values remain rooted in philosophies, religious traditions, and ethical frameworks devised many centuries ago. Even our economic system, capitalism, is a half millennium old. So our daily dealings are still heavily influenced by ideas that were firmly set before anyone knew the world was round. In many ways, they reflect how we understood the world when we didn't understand the world at all. Our economic, religious and ethical institutions ride antique notions too narrow to freight what we've learned about how life works on our sparkle dot of diamond dust in the space. These institutions resist change; to last this long, they had to. But they lack mechanisms for incorporating discoveries about how life operates. So they haven't assimilated the last century's breakthroughs: that all life is related by lineage, by flows of energy, by cycles of water, carbon, nitrogen and such; that resources are finite, and creatures fragile... In important ways, they poorly correspond or respond to a changing world... [And] though we are fearless about revolutionizing technologies, we cling to concepts that no longer reflect realities."</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Carl Safina (2010 <a href="http://carlsafina.org/publications/books/the-view-from-lazy-point-a-natural-year-in-an-unnatural-world/">The View from Lazy Point</a>, pp. 15-16) </div>
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I find this true on many levels, from the institutional to the individual. At least for me, as I bumble my way through parenting young children or putting food on the table, and stumble across the same themes in the study of health, society and the environment. To the Scratch is one space to explore the interface between old and emerging patterns of being in the world, whether personal or political. Or both.<br />
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To the Scratch</div>
<blockquote>
A scratch. A mark or line drawn to signify a starting place. A place to start. To start from the scratch is to start from a beginning. I imagine many possible beginnings. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
To reverse course, and begin again despite the outcomes of previous attempts. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
A starting place where one might draw advantage from previous experience or wisdom. Or, one might not. </blockquote>
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* * *</div>
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“</span><span style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There was once a village along a river. The people who lived there were very kind. These residents, according to parable, began noticing increasing numbers of drowning people caught in the river’s swift current. And so they went to work devising ever more elaborate technologies to resuscitate them. So preoccupied were these heroic villagers with rescue and treatment that they never thought to look upstream to see who was pushing the victims in.”</span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="text-align: right;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626;"><a href="http://www.steingraber.com/">Sandra Steingraber</a> f</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">rom <a href="http://www.livingdownstream.com/">Living Downstream</a> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">(2010 De Capo Press</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">)</span></span> </blockquote>
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"Food is never just food. It's also a way at getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be." </blockquote>
<blockquote style="text-align: right;">
Molly Wizenberg (2009 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><a href="http://orangette.blogspot.com/">A Homemade Life</a></span>, p. 2)</blockquote>
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Rebecca Altmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15406395417685282523noreply@blogger.com0