Signs Of The Times

Sometimes I feel like I grew up on the ledge – a ledge that was propelled into action by the signs of the times. With the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and the Women's Movement simmering to a boiling point. It was ALL personal. It was ALL political.

Ledge-Leaning

In many ways, I stopped jumping off ledges when I had kids. I’m still easily riled up, but politics moved to the back burner. The choices changed from demanding equal pay and peace on earth, to whether or not to use cloth diapers, and what school to send the kids to. Believe me, there were many worthy ledges to jump off of, but most were personal – kids, jobs, house. Politically, the most ledgework I could muster up was to rant to my family and vote with my conscience.

My 20-something year old children are also ledge-leaning. If I'm willing to drink a little beer and hum along with the guitar into the wee morning hours, I can engage them in a lively discussion about eco-energy issues like, dirty coal, fracking, mercury testing, and voting to keep the Clean Air Act from being rendered impotent.

Signs Of The Times

"Yes, yes, mom – We'll vote!" They will, but they are worried about another "eco" –  a sign of their times. Their minds are filled with the economics of finding and securing jobs. So many recent college graduates are buried under this weight.

Growing up in the '60’s and '70's, we jumped off ledges. The work got done. Attitudes changed. The results were fair and everlasting, or so we thought...

Outrage

Most people were so outraged by prejudice and segregation that laws got changed. Currently, on the clean air front, more non-white children live with the highest concentrations of air pollution. 60% of Latino children are more likely to suffer from asthma and other environmental illnesses…and three times as likely to die of asthma? How fair is that?

Most people were so outraged about the inequality of women that laws got changed. I couldn't be more elated that women are in the political arena. We fought hard for political equality, but not all female politicians have their priorities straight. Just last week, Sarah Palin proudly announced to a group of veterans and TV cameras, “I love that smell of the emissions.” It is unfathomable to me that a mom of 5 could debunk the scientific knowledge that greenhouse gas emissions have increased by a record amount last year, leaving us with the highest carbon output in history. How fair is that?

Most people were so outraged about an unjust war that they ended it. Now our wars are based on energy politics. Some politicians, backed by energy corporations have much to lose and little to gain from leading us into a truly clean energy revolution. Instead of looking to, and legislating for squeaky clean renewable energy, some politicians are putting the Clean Air Act on the chopping block to protect their "assets." How fair is that?

Ledgework

Our kids are teeter-tottering on a dangerous ledge. Are you ready to do a little ledgework for your kids and help keep the air clean for our kids to breathe? Those of you with young children will have to jump off the ledge for them. Those of us with older children will need to give them a hefty nudge because their generation is rightfully distracted. Here’s what you can do to help save the Clean Air Act.

It will be a sign of “good” times when our kids thank us by texting, “Hey Mom - Peace, Love and Clean Air.”

Photo credit: Ted Fink  Drawing: Liza Donnelly

Mercury Mama's Sweet Dream

Many moons ago, when I was a young pregnant teacher, I taught in a private school that was housed in an old Victorian building. The brick building had many charming features such as fireplaces, ornate moldings and glittering chandeliers in the classrooms. It also had bookcases high up to the ceiling. In my classroom - the Language Arts room, the top shelves held vintage children's books, some rare first edition classics. The Social Studies classroom had ancient yellowing maps that dangled down from the upper shelves. On the tippy top shelf of the Science room, far out of reach from small hands, stood vintage glass beakers with unidentified liquids from years before when the building had been a doctor’s office.

One bright spring day, I poked my 7-month belly into the Science room to lunch with a fellow teacher. A few kids joined us to show off a cool stick they found in the woods by the playground. The stick looked just like a boomerang. They were raring to fling it, and had come to ask for permission. Before an explanation on why it would not be appropriate to set the stick into flight, one of the children impulsively flung it. The stick hit the top shelf broadside, sending the antique beakers and their contents smashing down. There was glass and liquid everywhere.

Within minutes, the other teacher, kids and I were whisked off to the hospital. An administrator had called when he caught wind of what happened. I had never been a patient in a hospital, let alone set foot in a screaming ambulance. The kids needed me not to freak out, so I stayed relatively calm. Until…

In a composed manner, the EMT explained the seriousness of the situation to the children. That was the exact moment my blissful, uneventful pregnancy got derailed. In my 29 year-old panicked pregnant state, I heard one of the doctors say we need to watch her for poisoning:

"Mercury and a motherlode of other chemicals could have been lurking in those beakers."

"MERCURY! Isn’t that the stuff in glass thermometers that you weren’t supposed bite down hard on and break?"

“Yes, there are three kinds…for a pregnant woman, mercury can be especially damaging.”

3 Types Of Mercury

1. Elemental mercury is found in thermometers. The inhalation of fumes from this type of mercury is highly toxic. Mercury can cause significant amounts of neurological damage to babies and children.

2. Mercury salts come from industrial emissions. Breathing or ingesting mercury salts can harm the kidneys.

3. Organic mercury is what leaches into the food chain. Water can become polluted during the manufacturing of certain types of energy production. The mercury can accumulate in shellfish and fish. Organic mercury acts similarly to elemental mercury.

Yikes! Is your heart racing as fast as mine right now? I’m calming myself so I can tell you the rest of the story…

After hours of blood and urine testing and a full ER exam, I was given the green light and told to go home and watch for any unusual symptoms. UNUSUAL SYMPTOMS! With pregnancy dreams hopped up on overdrive, even unprovoked, every possible baby horror was passing through my sleep state. Now ALL of my dreams became punctuated with a capital “M” for MERCURY.

This is the first time I’ve told this story in the 25 years since my daughter was born. We were lucky - there were no “unusual symptoms”. As I am about to celebrate my beautiful, healthy daughter’s birthday (she was born on Mother’s Day weekend), those dreams are coming back to me. Did politicians think when they sided with corporate energy lobbyists to block limits on mercury pollution that we moms wouldn't notice? Let's prove them sorely wrong, and stand up for our kids by protecting the Clean Air Act.

Here's the rub: No matter how old our children become, there are things we can protect them from and things we can't (wayward boomerangs). Mercury spewing into the bodies of pregnant women and children, and accumulating in our food chain, we must stop.

What do I want for my children this Mother's Day? Oh, that's simple: Sweet Clean Air Dreams.

This post is part of the MCAF Blog Carnival: A Mother's Day Gift. We invite you to join the Carnival and tell us what you want to give your kids for Mother's Day.

Muddy Comments

Here’s the first comment I read Monday morning on an article I wrote for Care2 titled, 10 Ways To Help Kids Cope With Japan:

“my god how stupid is this article? coping with what the tv says? are parents really this stupid that they need an article on how to explain natural disasters to their mentally ill children?” ~ Jay

No caps, just hateful spewing.

Hopefully by the time you read this, the next few commenters will clean up Jay’s vomit. That’s how it often works on blogs. Maybe they’ll be all over him, and the conversation will go humming back to normal. Maybe. Websites have the ability to deem the comment inappropriate and delete it. They haven’t. If it’s cleaned up, the post might continue to get hundreds of constructive and adoring comments. Yet, this one guy feels entitled to bring us into his revoltingly unsafe world.

After three years of blogging, I rarely get nasty comments. I don’t let these types of comments get to me anymore. They used to. Now I just wonder where these people come from, and why they even bother to comment?

I checked Jay’s profile. Here’s a shortened version: Age: 37 Lives in: Canada Causes: women's rights, violence against women, violence against children, pro-choice, environment, endangered species, civil rights, children welfare... About me: sweet, loving, silly, strange, cat owner, loyal, average intellect... What Bugs Me: unfriendly people, the destruction of rural areas, people who won’t use their minds!, people who rape, ignorance, cruelty, bullying… Passions: writing, nature, making a difference…

What a crock. I’m going to take back an earlier statement I made. This does bug me. While I might be stuck in the mud with writer’s dismay, I have a few questions for you: Do you think all of our advancement towards becoming a more global community through the Internet has made us any more tolerable of each other? Should I moderate comments here? I don’t (except for spam). Is it only a matter of time until these slugs find Econesting and muddy it up?

I’m closing my computer.

Photo: Juliet Harrison

Japan: 10 Ways To Help

I shudder to think that Japanese children are getting tested for radiation as I write this.

I can't look away.

CLICK HERE for a round-up of 10 organizations I put together for Care2 that are aiding in the efforts to help Japan recover.

I'm giving to Save The Children...

”We are extremely concerned for the welfare of children and their families who have been affected by the disaster. We stand ready to meet the needs of children who are always the most vulnerable in a disaster.”

Credit: Kyodo/Reuters via Global Giving

Pothole

“I got the key to the highway, and I'm billed out and bound to go I'm gonna leave here runnin', cause walkin' is much too slow” ~ Eric Clapton

I was cruising down the road Saturday morning maintaining a respectable speed, and listening to music on my iPod that would make my son, who was arriving any moment for spring break proud. My little Jetta diesel was humming along when it hit a pothole and started to shake. In that split second, I remembered not to slam on the brakes and lose control. Slowly, I drifted over to the side of the road to inspect the damage. The right front tire was obliterated.

Next, I did the least gender-bending thing I could think of and called my husband. So much for all those women's studies classes in the ‘70’s…sexism reigns when there's a flat tire. He was about 20 minutes away at the hardware store – his Saturday morning home away from home.

After about a half an hour, a very pleasant police officer pulled over and surveyed the damages. I explained that my guy was tool ogling and would be by shortly. The nice cop and I discussed how to deal with the broken highway. He said he’s seen a sharp rise in pothole vs. car incidents these last few weeks. He had no idea when the highway department would get around to making the repairs on all the potholes. After a short discussion about our mutual love of rockin' to Clapton while driving, he bid me farewell and said he would check back in about an hour - just in case my knight in shining armor forgot about me. Ha, cute cop.

As it turned out, I did have a bit more time to think about the pothole situation.

If the highway department fails to deal with the craters before they eat up tires and rims, we might need to find a swifter, slightly more subversive alternative. I had written a post over on Planet Green that might be the key to the highway…Go Bomb Something With Yarn - Knitting Over The Edge.

Credit: Flickr - Pothold Project via CMYBacon