Those damn words

Here's my confession for the day: I, Maria Dessena, am not good with words. I do not have a particular gift for language. Admittedly, I can get around ok on a blog; I can occassionally retell events in an amusing way (like the dumpster story). But not without much thought and practice - it takes me a good hour to write a paragraph-long email to a friend, reading and editting, rewritting, reading, etc. And for a musician, I have a hard time being spontaneous with anything aside from pitch... At work, if I have to call someone, it takes a couple hours to get pumped up, and I have to fully write the conversation down ahead of time so I don't freeze when they answer "hello?".

That being said, I'd like to draw everyone's attention to 2 new blogs I've discovered this week: In a Cold Climate and Science for Sale, written by my college buddy and former roomie in Harlem, Ashley Shelby. SHE is good with words:

"Squeezer is a seventeen year old geriatric cat, who chews the fur off her flanks and who has become so amnesiac that she lets anyone and everyone pet her. When she first came into our home, Christmas of '91, she was, it was instantly agreed, my cat. She stayed up in my room, ate her meals there and used the litterbox that was placed in the linen closet between mine and Lacy's rooms. She never deigned to allow anyone else to fondle her. I went away to college and, later, New York, and she had to lower her standards. Soon, she and my mother were inseparable. First came the Squeezer pin-up calendars, filled with photos my mother had taken of the cat in various seasonal and holiday apparel. Then came commissioned paintings of the cat. Upstairs, in my old bedroom, my mother keeps box after box of photographs of Squeezer in various stages of repose. Coming across this stash is like coming across a foot fetishist's collection of women's shoes."

Having actually seen the Squeezer calendar, I was in stitches for a good ten minutes after I read that. That selection is from In A Cold Climate, Ashley's day-to-day blog.

Science for Sale is something else entirely:

"One of the most interesting pharmaceutical examples is the case of breast cancer research. Until quite recently, research focus has been limited to what are called “lifestyle” factors thought to lead to the disease: obesity, alcohol use, fat intake, and early detection. In fact, Breast Cancer Awareness month focuses entirely on early detection, and is funded by one of the world’s largest manufacturers of pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and plastics: Zeneca Pharmaceuticals. Zeneca earns more than $300 million a year in sales of acetochlor, a carcinogenic herbicide. It earns nearly $500 million a year from its bestselling cancer therapy drug, tamoxifen citrate. It operates eleven cancer treatment centers. When, in 2001, researchers with Cornell University suggested that environmental estrogens such as the chlorine compounds found in herbicides might cause breast cancer, the Chemical Manufacturers Association launched a million dollar P.R. campaign to discredit the research, calling it “a rejection of accepted scientific method.” While it’s rarely talked about, early detection is, ultimately, a stopgap method for managing breast cancer. However, research into causes of cancer that have to do with chemicals in the air and in the ground, as well as herbicides, is limited due to the vigorous attempts of those industries to squelch such inquiries."

I can't tell you how many times I've wondered how I got Hodgkin's. Aespestos? Pesticides in the crops outside Hornell? Genetics? Who knows. Has no one done the research? Considering Rochester is one of the top Cancer Cities in America, you'd think someone would. There's a strip of land outside Arkport, a giant field that used to be a lake until it was drained for farmland. A woman and a man, two neighbors, live across the street on a hill overlooking this farmland. One was treated for thyroid cancer, the other died from pancreatic cancer not long after. Another crop south of Hornell - home of my nieghbor's daughter, treated for breast cancer. Childhood friend, the same year I was treated, died of Leukemia.

Yes, people get cancer. People are treated. But to think that the same people that treat it are creating it?? Makes me want to scream.

In ANY case, ranting aside, I find comfort in the fact that Ashley can articulate things I only speculate about. Science for Sale is a well thought-out, well researched look into corporations funding scientific research that conveniently disproves anything that could incriminate them.

I am proud of Ashley.