Artcalight

Fracking

2012-02-02T19:49:00.000-08:00

Walter sent out a letter today expressing concern that it's likely that Cuomo, Libous and the NRDC have struck a deal to treat the residents of the Southern Tier of New York at lab rats or guinea pigs (take your pick) by allowing the invasion and deployment of 300 wells (why that number? was it just snatched from the air?) as an initial experiment in the Southern Tier. Every well could be drilled through our drinking water aquifer just perfect (which they won't) but that still does not address the unanswered and unacceptable issues of increased truck traffic spewing diesel exhaust, increasing noise, shortening response times for emergency vehicles, increase in ozone from said truck traffic, from increased numbers of compressor stations, the flaring of gas from each well. There's still the unsolved problem of what to do with the frack waste. There's still the theft of millions of gallons of the animals' water, nature's water, the people's water from the hydrologic cycle. There's also the cultural change from an influx of men from the Southwest U.S. working 12 hrs. on/ 12 off in physically exhausting work handling toxic chemicals. There's already a shortage of low income rental housing in the area. As is the case in the NEPA counties being fracked, landlords have jacked up rental rates and residents now find themselves homeless and/or families split up and children put into foster care as a result. And that's just to start.

SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-18T16:42:00.000-08:00

Unless and until Congress or Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. come up with a proper bill to protect people from online piracy and theft, I support SOPA/PIPA. I have been and am a victim of online theft of my words and credentials. I spent hours researching to figure out what had really happened. I got no help from the person whose acts triggered the theft. I snail-mailed a thick letter with copies of the many screen shots I took, to prove my case. No response. I contacted the FEC and got a "we got your form" reply. DMCA charges $199 to take down an infringing website. I did nothing immoral or illegal. The current system requires that I pay to get redress. I support SOPA/PIPA and will contact my representatives to that effect.

True Freedom - Guest Opinion - the original

2011-12-31T08:43:00.000-08:00

True Freedom

Every time you hear your furnace kick on that's money and energy being wasted. With efficiencies and retrofits, we would not "need" anywhere near the amount of energy projected by those who come up with every reason why renewables will not satisfy our needs.

Renewables absolutely will meet our needs when we stop wasting it. NYSERDA has a Deep Retrofit program that can lower energy costs by at least 70% but it can cost around $70,000 per house, depending on age. A lot of people can't afford that. Deep Retrofit is not just blowing in insulation into walls and attics but also layering additional panels on external walls, plus moving out old boilers, furnaces and water heaters, replacing with instant-on heaters or solar hot water heaters. You could end up with not having the need for any heat/cool appliances in the basement and close to zero heating/cooling bills. That's real freedom.

Deep Retrofits can reduce costs and thus improve the bottom line, can improve the economy with more jobs, reduce carbon emissions, and create energy security.

We must move federal, state and local subsidies and tax breaks from oil, gas, coal and nuclear now and transfer those taxpayer dollars to Deep Retrofit incentives and grants as well as solar on every single and multifamily residence and on all public buildings, thus lowering our taxes. New York could meet 15% of its power needs and 100% of its electricity needs with rooftop solar.

Every new high rise must first dig a geothermal trench before they start building. They have to dig a deep hole anyway. Both geothermal and solar installation companies are in New York State and growing, including in Broome county. Check out the New York State solar Industries Association. The state and the Southern Tier should be open to business to these companies and others like them, not to giving tax breaks for polluting gas pipelines, noisy compressor stations, puzzled about what to do with fracking waste fluid, taking the chance of illegal dumps of radioactive waste into fields and streams in the middle of the night, etc., etc.

Hydraulic fracturing's sole purpose is to burn fossil fuel, the greenhouse gas emissions of which have brought us global warming. Methane, i.e. natural gas, is worse than CO2 for heating up the planet. Formerly rare downpours, floods and heat waves are now common across the U.S. and will come to dominate our climate in our grand-children's lifetime.

Let’s stop hiding our heads in the sand and get to work on this. Call and write your legislator and demand a change. If he or she refuses to budge or fudges, vote him or her out of office in 2012. Get together with community members and start your own community energy initiative like in Maryland and Washington State. States that have more insulated buildings and solar have lower electricity bills, including cold mid-western states. New York State is not one of those states. Let's change that.

Identity theft

2011-11-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

A thief based in a post office mail box in a building in Scottsdale, AZ, has stolen my name, educational credentials, experience, etc. by picking up my url at cecilelawrence.org so as to hawk snake oil crap of colon cleanse etc. This url, which Green Party NY used for my 2010 campaign as a volunteer on their behalf, was released by one of their web people, without explaining to me the potential threat to me. DO NOT under any circumstances click on cecilelawrence.org. It's a fraud and theft. I'm in the process of bringing this identify theft to the attention of the feds and others.

Thank you.
Cecile Lawrence, Ph.D., J.D.
The REAL one

Southern Tier agriculture

2011-10-24T18:21:00.001-07:00

Southern Tier Agriculture: A Regional Resource and a Landscape in Transition

View more presentations from KrysCail

Earthquake in eastern U.S.

2011-08-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, shortly before 2:00 p.m., the heavy solid wood chair in which I was sitting at the computer, began to rock from side to side for about 30 seconds. I figured it was either the woman next door in her driveway slamming her truck doors repeatedly, which she likes to do, setting up vibrations, or it was an earthquake. It was an earthquake. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/se082311a.html

2011-08-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

It's now mid-August in upstate NY without any sign of any activity by anyone to protect any part of Tioga, Broome, Chemung counties from the hazards of hydrofracking, spefically a town ban on this toxic process as part of a larger ban on heavy industrial activity. Not even one town is doing the work necessary (i.e. door to door outreach and the collection of signatures, as well as feeling out incumbents) except for a potential effort in the city of Binghamton. Will we be fracked, come 2012?

Disaster deal

2011-08-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

Green Party of NY Alert - Vote No on Debt Deal
WWW.GPNY.ORG
The debt ceiling deal struck last night does not tax the rich or even allow temporary tax cuts on the rich to expire. Nor does it defund any wars. Yet it requires cuts of $1.2 trillion now and $2.5 trillion over a decade. This so-called deal boxes US policy into a relentless program of domestic spending cuts, economic stagnation, and growing poverty when we need increased public spending to create jobs and build a sustainable economy that meets the people's basic needs and restores the environment.

Call your Congressmembers and urge them to vote no on the deal and demand that the President use his constitutional power to raise the debt ceiling, raise the funds, and pay our nations' bills under the 14th Amendment, Section 4 of the US Constitition ("The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law,...shall not be questioned.)"

Call the Congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121

You can send an email message at: http://bit.ly/nWsr7q

From Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist:

"The deal is a disaster. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America's long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.... Obama could and should have demanded an increase in the debt ceiling back in December. When asked why he didn't, he replied that he was sure that Republicans would act responsibly. Great call. And even now, the Obama administration could have resorted to legal maneuvering to sidestep the debt ceiling, using any of several options."

From Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under Clinton: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/01-2

"The deal does not raise taxes on America's wealthy and most fortunate - who are now taking home a larger share of total income and wealth, and whose tax rates are already lower than they have been, in eighty years. Yet it puts the nation's most important safety nets and public investments on the chopping block. It also hobbles the capacity of the government to respond to the jobs and growth crisis. Added to the cuts already underway by state and local governments, the deal's spending cuts increase the odds of a double-dip recession. And the deal strengthens the political hand of the radical right."

From Glen Greenwald, constitutional lawyer (http://www.commondreams.org/glenn-greenwald)

"The reported deal on the debt ceiling is so completely one-sided -- brutal domestic cuts with no tax increases on the rich and the likelihood of serious entitlement cuts in six months with a "Super Congressional" deficit commission -- that even Howard Kurtz was able to observe: "If there are $3 trillion in cuts and no tax hikes, Obama will have to explain how it is that the Republicans got 98 pct. of what they wanted," while Grover Norquist, the Right of the Right on such matters, happily proclaimed: "Sounds like a budget deal with real savings and no tax hikes is a go." The same White House behavior shaping the debt deal -- full embrace of GOP policies and (in the case of Social Security cuts) going beyond that -- has been evident in most policy realms from the start.

Three days ago, Democratic Rep. John Conyers, appearing at a meeting of the Out of Poverty caucus, said: "The Republicans -- Speaker Boehner or Majority Leader Cantor -- did not call for Social Security cuts in the budget deal. The President of the United States called for that"

There's no Earth II

2011-07-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

Cuomo, the 2011 governor of New York State, AKA the Andrew according to Chip Northrup, states that the needs of the environment need to be balanced against the need for jobs. Not! The environment is where we breathe, drink, live, hear. If that balancing results in deterioration of the air, water, soil, hearing, mental and physical health, and death, which it will when it comes to fracking, you could have a million jobs but they'll be useless in a dead environment. We're running out of places to which to move. There's no Earth II.

Eulogy on my mother's death- partly delivered at the memorial service at St. George's church in Flushing, NY on Sunday, May 22nd.

2011-05-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

My mother encountered many challenges, right from the start, but she persevered throughout.
Born in New York city, my mother told me that a doctor told her parents to take her someplace warm, as she would not last another winter. Taken to live with her grandmother in the Manchester parish countryside in Jamaica in the 1900's, she was left there for a number of years. Mother told me that her grandmother had four? sons and so was a "tough" woman and that she beat my mother when she lost her eyeglasses in the bush. Mother spoke about that often and also wrote a story about it for her Queens branch AAUW group. I wrote a poem about it for my Ph.D. dissertation which I'll post another time.

Later, after her primary and secondary schooling ended, she became a teacher of Spanish. She was living or visiting with distant relatives or friends (Claude and Kathleen Clarke) where my father met her when visiting the Clarkes. My mother assured me it was only because she needed a place to stay while going to school in town, as her parents had moved back from NYC to the countryside, had a house with furniture brought from the U.S. therefore she was not needy. Photos show my father hanging out with the young Clarkes (Yvonne, Valerie and Neville) so it appears he was a close friend or distant relative of the Clarkes. The furniture part surprised me as at another time she told me her father lost a lot of money in the Wall St. crash in the 1920s. He was an elevator operator and her mother was a nurse who died of problems related to diabetes. I referred to Kathleen Clarke as "Aunt Kathleen" and our family maintained contact with them long after the marriage of my father and mother so I suspect there was some kind of blood relationship never made clear to me.

While I was growing up, I knew my mother taught at Excelsior High School and that she, at one point, was studying for her B.A. through the University of London's extension program in Jamaica. She graduated. At another time, when I was little, she was away in the U.S., on Long Island, working as a nanny for a family. That separation was not good for me at all. It might as well have been six years.

A wife, a mother, and a teacher, her love of Spanish culture and music was great. Something about Cervantes' story of Don Quijote de la Mancha as well as the stories in the Novelas Ejemplares, resonated with her. Persevrance in spite of obstacles. Her love of Spanish classical music and dance she gave to me. I remember listening to Manuel de Falla's "El Sombrero de tres picos" - The three cornered hat - over and over. I loved and love the dance movement at the end. There's also the Fire Dance of which I used to be able to do a pretty good rendition.

Later, when I was in high school, she never pressured me to take Spanish as my foreign language. She encouraged me and arranged for me to have a tutor in Latin in order to meet certain class requirements (i.e. stay in the A track for "office" work rather than the B track for "wife" work). Knowing Latin was a huge help for when I went to law school.

She knew the importance of music and the arts in general. I thank her for the five years of private piano lessons and the band concerts we attended in Hope Botanical Gardens, as well as for introducing me to Jamaican pantomime, such as in "Eight O'clock Jamaica time." She loved to sing but did so less and less as she got older.

My mother encouraged a life in public service, especially for females. One of her best friends was a female magistrate. My mother probably wanted to go into law, but the obstacles were too many.

When I was 16 and my sister 8 years old, our father died of a heart attack. Within one day, my mother went from wife to widow with two teenage daughters. Shortly after, political unrest worsened in the island. My sister and I were caught in the 1968 Rodney riots, in danger of losing our lives. My mother said I came home traumatized. She handled finding a place for us to move to in the U.S. and a job for herself and for me and registering Marie at Flushing High School. The stress must have been tremendous but she carried on. She soon got her license to teach in the New York City schools and in short order got her M.A. from St. John's University.

When the opportunity arose she took a tour trip to Spain and the UK and other European countries. Finally, she was in the land of Cervantes and all the other Spanish writers, artists, and passionate music she so appreciated.

She so loved being amongst people and having conversations. She regretted being an only child but tried to make up for it by gathering friends around her and being very diligent in keeping contact with cousins on her side and the Lawrence side.
She loved words and great literature, frequently quoting from Shakespeare and poets like Tennyson. In the weeks before she died, she was quoting from the "daffodils" poem. She also would reference Jamaican folk sayings like "cockroach should not be in fowl business." In her later years she loved playing scrabble and liked crossword puzzles although she did not always finish them. Throughout it all, with such a hill and gully ride-o life, she persevered, not much different from one of the heroes in Cervantes' Novelas Ejemplares.

All the world's problems can be solved in a garden

2011-05-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

http://youtu.be/wZmYdX9zHVU

2011-04-29T07:18:00.001-07:00

The extent to which we rely on plankton for our lives is the extent to which we are plankton.

New Yorkers United to Ban Fracking

2011-04-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

New Yorkers United to Ban Fracking

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2011

Statewide Grass-Roots Leaders Meet,

Agree a Fracking Ban Is the Only Acceptable Outcome

Nearly 70 grass-roots activist leaders from around New York State met in Binghamton on Saturday, April 16, to confer on ways to institute a statewide ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and form a powerful alliance.

The polluting, industrializing, and energy-intensive method of extracting petro-methane, aka “natural” gas, has been causing water pollution and health problems in other states where it has taken place. This group, which includes entrepreneurs and business leaders, wants to stop it from harming New York—not to follow the usual regulatory route of mitigating harm after it happens.

The New Yorkers were joined by allies from Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Michigan, all states currently under siege from the gas exploitation industry.

Mike Bernhard is a member of Chenango-Delaware-Otsego Gas Drilling Opposition Group (CDOG), whose website has been tracking drilling issues for two-and-a-half years. “The more we’ve learned,” said Bernhard, “the more we know it’s impossible to extract shale gas from the Marcellus or any other formation around the country without catastrophic effects on our quality of life, property rights, property values, communities, individuals and traditional industries, as well as on the environment.”

Gloria Mattera, who traveled from Brooklyn for the all-day series of workshops and presentations, stressed the statewide unity of the group. “Although New York City politicians seem to think that the watershed that supplies 90 percent of city water is at least nominally protected,” she said, “it is not. We’re all in this together.”

Carl Arnold, of Delaware County, echoed Mattera’s thoughts. “We recognize that if the clean fresh waters of the Delaware, Susquehanna, Finger Lakes and other watersheds are contaminated by this dangerous and destructive industry, we all lose. We won’t let industry or anyone drive a wedge between ‘upstaters’ and ‘downstaters.’ We’re all New Yorkers, and we all want a healthy environment and safe water, clean air and a healthy food supply.”

The group was united in feeling that New York taxpayers should not be forced to bear the financial burden of cleaning up the toxic mess the gas industry leaves wherever it goes.

The day was filled with sessions on legal and issues related to fracking, and attendees networked over lunch catered by Binghamton eatery Cyber Café, supplemented with local foods brought by conveners.

The group recognizes there’s a hard fight ahead. “It’s not easy for a bunch of ordinary citizens to fight a megatrillion-dollar industry that obviously has a lot of local, state, and national politicians in its pocket,” said Maura Stephens of Tioga County, a cofounder of Coalition to Protect New York (CPNY), which also sent representatives from Chemung, Oneida, Schuyler and Yates Counties to the conference.

Fellow Tioga County resident Cecile Lawrence, a member of several organizations working for peace and a greener economy, added, “Other besieged areas of this country, as well as other parts of the world, are looking to New York State for leadership in ending the corporate invasion and toxic occupation of their communities. We aim to provide that leadership.”

LuAnne Kozma, who drove nine hours from Michigan to attend the conference, said, “More and more of us in Michigan recognize that a pro-regulatory approach simply allows fracking to continue and that only a ban will prohibit it.”

Kozma is with Don’t Frack Michigan, which seeks a statewide ban on fracking. She was glad to connect with many experienced New York activists who shared their ideas for educating the public and getting the ear of honorable legislators.

Attendees stressed that attaching the disclosure of fracking chemicals to only the public water supply, as the FRAC Act now languishing in the U.S. Congress would do, is not enough.

“That abandons tens of millions of rural people around the country who rely on well water,” pointed out Jack Ossont of Yates County, a member of the Committee to Preserve the Finger Lakes and CPNY. “Besides, the FRAC Act requires only that companies disclose what chemicals they’re using—it doesn’t protect our water from contamination by industry in the first place. That’s not acceptable.”

All conference participants agree that only a full ban on fracking for methane, a potent greenhouse gas, will protect the clean fresh water, air quality, food supply, community infrastructure, property values and quality of life now enjoyed by people in beautiful New York State.

Robert Jereski of New York City put it bluntly: “Shale gas is a dead end. The transition to a green economy must begin now. That makes sense for jobs and for a sustainable economy.”

On May 2, New Yorkers United to Ban Fracking will join thousands of other New Yorkers in Albany to demand a statewide ban on this industrial nightmare. Find more information at http://www.un-naturalgas.org.

With spring 2011 comes......

2011-04-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

Photo of the opening plenary at Left Forum in NYC in March.

Increasing number of events on fracking. Events downstate and upstate. Concerns about injection wells for ramming toxic fracking waste deep into the ground, in OH and AK. Do earthquakes result? Mining sand for fracking, causing lung scarring in WI and elsewhere. The horror of the earthquake/tsunami/multiple nuclear plants breaking down in Japan continues. Radiation released into the atmosphere floating across the ocean eastward to the North American continent. Increased radiation levels found in rainwater and surface water in areas of the U.S. but the EPA assures us it's not of concern. Reading that the EPA has raised the level of "safety."
With spring comes plants pushing up out of the ground and the planting of crops. The combined threats of fracking, Fukushima radiation, existing fracking south of the border releasing toxins into the air, trucking frack waste to landfills this side of the border and spreading radioactive frack waste salt on roads in winter now to blow around. How to remain hopeful as Mr. Hope Obama touts the need for un-natural gas to save us all.

Egypt: Tariq Ramadan & Slavoj Zizek

2011-02-10T17:36:00.000-08:00

It all comes down to fungus

2011-01-17T16:33:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching a video interview of an Italian oncologist, Dr. Tullio Simoncini, where he presents his evidence that fungus causes cancer, that cancer cells are acidic, and that he's had good results with direct application of a baking soda solution onto the cancer cells via a catheter into the breast tumor or the prostate tumor, or a bronchial tumor for example. Look in Google video for this: "Fungus Causing Cancer - - A Novel Approach to Most Common Cause of Death."
I had difficulty figuring out how he would do this with a brain tumor. Still, this approach is intriguing. I think he said that a catheter could be inserted into the brain to directly apply the sodium bicarbonate to the tumor cells in the brain.
Marc Sircus, OMD, Director of the International Medical Veritas Association, has been writing for a long time that sodium bicarbonate is the poor man's cancer treatment.
http://imva.info/
I'm not saying this to take away from the Italian oncologist. Either Dr. Simoncini knew about what Marc Sircus has been writing or did not know, and developed his idea independently, which is a kind of scientific verification. It does not matter.
So the Italian oncologist concludes that it's rampant pollution that's causing the fungus. Now, think about white nose syndrome that's killing off bats in a big way in the U.S., especially in the northeast. Look at the www.bats.org page for the section on white nose syndrome.

Think also about so-called Colony Collapse Disorder in bees, for which there's various theories as to cause but one recent study points to fungus as causative. Look at www.sciencedaily.com for an article about this theory put forward in October of 2010.

Put this all together.

Widespread pollution from toxins in the air, water, food, soil, - toxins which can be chemicals or electro-magnetic radiation

or vaccine contents and all the benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, etc. in the air and water from oil and gas drilling via fracking

and the compressor stations leaking methane into the air, the toxins in clothing - all this pollution, the cumulative impact of which is attacking all life -humans, bees, bats and who know what else that has or will develop fungus. As Dr. Simoncini pointed out, hundreds of thousands of people in Japan have toenail fungus. Have you checked your toes lately? This is not an issue of morality or cleanliness. It's an issue of our bodies being overwhelmed with trying to fend off an ever increasing amount of environmental stresses and toxins that corporations are blasting at all life.
One route, at least for humans, is for us to do our best to eliminate sources of yeast and fungus in our diets, like mushrooms, wheat, dairy, dried fruit. Yes, there go the sauteed portabella on focaccia with melted mozzarella accompanied with date squares for dessert.

This is the kind of epidemic event at which homeopathy can excel over conventional Western medicine (ConMed), along with food discipline.
And soak your feet in baking soda at night as frequently as possible, e.g. while you check email or post on your blog.

But the most important route is to get out there and fight back!

Res ipsa loquitur

2010-12-19T20:21:00.001-08:00

Res ipsa loquitur - the thing speaks for itself - AKA "Duh!"

The wrenching of fully grown trees out of the ground as if there were no more than a handful of unwanted dandelions and just as precious for watershed protection, cleansing the air,
The helicoptered dropping of charges followed by muffled blasts underground to the devastation of all life that communicates via vibration
The whirling dust storms devilishly birthed by the movement of massive diesel powered trucks and machinery;
Men desperate for money power out precious loam, flattening,
Spewing exhaust triggering asthma, stroke, breathing our last breath,
Men, and it seems it's always men, drive heavy gigantic barrel-shaped vehicles fast along narrow winding rural roads.

Increasingly scarce water that men suck from creeks, streams, lakes, rivers;
Tractor trailers groaning under the strain of layered bags of toxic chemicals strapped down with hooked reins
that can fly loose, puncturing a bag of poison spilling its contents for miles and miles and miles along roads,
On which your mother, my sister, our children, dogs, chickens walk.

Underground, hidden and hurting, whirling steel digs deep into millennial layered shale.
Stop, he does not stop but continues,
ramming thick slimy fluid poison into the fossilized remains of prehistoric animals and vegetation;
Heavy metals mixed with burning radiation, a DNA mashup;
To the mosh pit of hell, open to the now sickly air,
For frogs, wild turkey, geese, cows, sheep, to sip, crawl or dive into sickness or death
Do us part,
U.S. flag of occupation flying high from the utmost point of the rig.

Child bent over with intestinal pain, burning skin, the shakes,
No records kept, no screening of workers, forced treaties of silence in exchange for doubtful buffaloed BPA'd? water steaming in the sunlight,
Man from man, woman from woman, family from family torn apart,
Do us part.

As the forces of occupation do their part
We're just doing what we're told,
We meed to keep the engine of commerce going
As the enslaved from Africa, the indigenous people de-slaved to facilitate the creation of the layers of domination,
Same argument, we need the slaves for the sake of commerce, for the sake of the nation,
We need the exhalation of fossils for the sake of commerce, for the sake of the nation, U.S. flag flying high atop.

And we have "science" on our side,
"Science" says "no documented evidence" of contaminated water,
The politicians say who know nothing about science,
A science corrupted, bought and sold,
A contortion like the intestinal grippe after having sipped Dimock water, a science of a 100% impossibility, a false quackery feeding the desperate and greedy.

Res ipsa loquitur.

Like Hitler's science-based plan to exterminate the Jews.
Like the English invading plan to exterminate the indigenous people of the Americas.
Sullivan and Clinton. Clinton and Sullivan riding high the crest of the pounding waters of the Susquehanna sweeping clear the scientifically proven "inferior" peoples living quietly along the banks with their storehouses of corn, squash, dried meat.
Dead, gone, along with their knowledges of the movement of the waters on their part of Turtle Island.

Not the science of which biologists, chemists, geologists true to their calling will speak who never say anything to a certainty except be careful, you cannot lose by slowing down or even banning.
Except money.
With the forces of Nature no certainty can ever exist. Then mix in human imperfection.

When you have un-silenced evidence, you must say stop.
Do not continue to do what generations later, as Sandra Steingraber said, realize is the unthinkable.
Slavery,
the killing of the Jews,
the genocide of indigenous peoples,
the not treating black men for Syphillis,
the fraud-filled injection of Syphillis into
the bodies of brown people, Tuskegee, Guatemala,
the U.S. eugenicists' choice of Jamaica for their research as the ground zero for the creation of "monsters" by "race mixing", on and on.
Then, science. Now, Unthinkable.
This is the poisoned tree of "science" from which comes the word-fruit that those who want to make money from drilling speak, even if they do it out of desperation, which does not excuse them.

Every single human being has the responsibility to get the information necessary to protect us all, even if those with temporary power do everything to keep the information hidden.
Let us not be the new Germans to our own selves.
The thing speaks for itself.

Cecile Lawrence (c) October 2010

Speaker at an event on the politics of natural gas drilling

2010-05-07T19:15:00.000-07:00

Un-natural gas - event at TC3 - Feb. 2010 - Dr. Ron Bishop - where he made a statement that puzzled a number of people

2010-03-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

Un-natural gas - event at TC3 - Feb. 2010 - Tom Shelley

2010-03-03T19:50:00.000-08:00

Un-natural gas - event at TC3 - Feb. 2010 - Dr. Adam Law, endocrinologist

2010-03-03T19:49:00.000-08:00

When we're screwed we multiply

2010-02-27T17:01:00.000-08:00

The World According to Monsanto

2009-01-03T18:47:00.001-08:00

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hErvV5YEHkE

Eviction in the U.S.

2008-12-12T11:02:00.001-08:00

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1463341016/bctid3856257001

Naomi Klein's shock doctrine

2008-12-02T15:23:00.000-08:00

DJ Spooky AKA "The Subliminal Kid" - his new creation "Rebirth of a Nation"

2008-11-22T17:18:00.000-08:00

EFT - energy medicine

2008-11-22T10:06:00.000-08:00

Life consists more of energy than of matter. Western medicine focuses on matter, usually oblivious to energy, often with toxic results. Consider alternatives while eating real food, food as medicine, not food to support the corporate bottom line. The EFT process has similarities to the healing/curing techniques of Wilhelm Reich shared in his book CHARACTER ANALYSIS.

Rally against budget cuts

2008-11-18T19:41:00.001-08:00

The financial crisis shall not be a hatchet in the backs of the poor, middle class, disabled, ill, school children, universities, libraries, but should be a scalpel to extract a pound of flesh at least from the reckless multi-millionaire criminals who caused it.

Gas drilling-Making sure we get it right 3

2008-11-02T11:07:00.001-08:00

Gas drilling-Making sure we get it right 2

2008-11-02T11:06:00.001-08:00

Gas drilling - Making sure we get it right 1

2008-11-02T11:01:00.000-08:00

Fritillaria - white

2008-07-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

Here I'm standing IN the part of the front garden that's in the strip between the driveway and the neighbor to the right so that I can take a photo of the two white fritillaria stalks. They go up over my head so. One was leaning over such is the weight of the very thick stalk so I pounded a tall stake into the ground behind and then tied the two with rope to the stake. Not elegant but it keeps them both up while they're still blooming.

Lost and found

2008-06-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

Self and not-self

Misty morn on the river

2008-06-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

The 22nd of June 2008 at 8:00 a.m. on the upper Susquehanna.

Flowers take over

2008-06-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

An example of converting a lawn to something more nature-friendly. Coreopsis, red rose bush, marguerites about to bloom, a few iris yet to bloom, a marjoram bush, a few lilies yet to bloom.

Bees feasting

2008-06-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

I saw these bees feasting on blossoms in a patch of lambs' ear. I felt thrilled to see them because of the news about bee colony collapse. Instead of being from a hive that's trucked around, perhaps these bees are free-bees? Heh, heh!

Gardens in spring

2008-06-14T16:15:00.000-07:00

One of several gardens on a college campus with a horticultural program.

Truth about homeopathy

2008-06-01T17:56:00.001-07:00

Link to an article that addresses misinformation about homeopathy.

http://www.zeusinfoservice.com/TruthAboutHomeopathy.html

Retreat 1

2008-05-31T18:12:00.003-07:00

A gazebo at least 100 feet above a narrow chasm with rushing water below.

Bridging 1

2008-05-31T18:01:00.000-07:00

A typical image but still pleasing.

Oppositive perspective 2

2008-05-31T17:55:00.000-07:00

Amazing what goes on of which you can be totally unaware.

Oppositive perspective 1

2008-05-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

Created while listening to DJ Spooky's "Sound Unbound." Some parts of this CD I really like, others not, especially the spoken voice parts related to U.S. politics and commercialism.

Gold floating

2008-05-31T17:40:00.001-07:00

Created while listening to Eckhart Tolle

River rushing gorge dungeon

2008-05-31T17:22:00.001-07:00

I like the contrasts between the bridge to seeming nowhere, over rushing water, beside dungeon-like edifice. What would it be like to be inside that construction next to the roar of the waterfall?

2008-04-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

This weekend I created this card for sis' birthday. It's more about me than her, I think. I'm having some aggravation, possibly, from the Staphysagria - 2-3 days of vision issues (flashing lights, spots shifting from right eye to left eye where spots turned into a thick black wire). This drawing, with coloured pencils and felt pen, could represent female rage or, on the other hand, a woman playing a lute while being stage curtains.

Staphysagria redux

2008-04-13T18:29:00.001-07:00

I decided it seemed a good idea to try Staphysagria 200c again, doing so Friday night. Two weeks ago I took it in 30c with no aggravation resulting. Friday and Saturday night, themes of abandonment and/or rejection. Some aggravation on face. The chief feature of Staphysagria also showed up, possible an aggravation. I started this drawing yesterday and finished it today. The left side seems to indicate the tension in the muscles on the left side of my face from the nerve damage. In colored pencil on Bristol paper. Spraying matte preservative on it faded the colours so I used HP Photosmart Edit to restore some of the colours. I return to British spelling.

Desperate for warm weather

2008-04-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

No need to say anything more. One of the many gardens on campus.

Life - as it is - 2

2008-04-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

The lower half of "Optic Irritation." It's possible the midsection is missing. Hmm.... Considering the date of this drawing is early February, I suspect it expresses some of the trauma from being shoved and then verbally bullied on the bus. The effect lasted for several months. Only now, in April, does it seem to be lifting.

Life - as it is -1

2008-04-11T18:28:00.001-07:00

The top half of a larger drawing titled "Optic Irritation." Sharing my blog today with a brilliant young student with multiple stresses inspired me to post this larger drawing.

Bird Series - A08

2008-04-06T15:11:00.001-07:00

After several attempts at processing the trauma from the combination of the two incidents of bullying on the bus, I might be experiencing the start of an opening. First, the word "bullying" came to me from reading a New York Times report on the high incidence (c 45%) of bullying in the workplace in the U.S. so now I had a word, a label to pin on the behavior of the people that seems more accurate than harassment. I also signed up for a writing workshop series for six Saturdays at the local Environmental Education center. People there mostly wanted to talk rather than write but one person suggested I write something about the incident from the perspectives of the different people involved. That appealed to me at first. I had focused on the idea of transforming the incident into a short story. But I still seemed stuck, unable to write. Yesterday, I went to the first of another writing workshop of four Saturdays, with a focus on memoir writing, run by a local poet and creative writing journal founder. I knew I would get more professional guidance there. He asked us to think about the place in our body and the place outside the body where the memory of the event lies. I wrote and revised repeatedly in the short 20 minutes. He remarked that he knows I write poetry and what I wrote seemed clinical. . . something like that. Then it hit me. The place in the body is my throat, being unable to scream. the place outside the body is a vehicle whether it be the bus or my car from long ago when it's possible I was caught in a riot. Then I came home and worked on the drawing above, the first in many months of not being able to draw, in fact since the bus bullying. Poetry seems the more proper medium here to express the linkages between recent and long buried trauma.

Getting fried on the bus in more ways than one

2008-01-27T15:56:00.000-08:00

Part of the many reasons I've stopped riding the bus and am now driving my car back and forth includes the frequent use of cellphones (loud ringing, loud conversations, non-emergency) by at least 4-5 passengers. None seem to have considered the potential negative impact on their health much less that of those around them. I wanted to include in this post a link to a book recently published on the website for the National Academies for Science, Engineering and Medicine, but Blogger said no. The book is report of a conference on the potential biological effects of EMFs, specifically cell phones. What about the cell towers?

Still processing - righteous raging rooster

2008-01-17T17:05:00.000-08:00

I'm telling myself that I'm experiencing in a very micro way the national obsession in the U.S. with racism/sexism currently in connection with the campaign for the country's next president. The contraction, the gasping. Here's my response: a hermaphrodite barnyard bird that appears tamed but when necessary whips out hot courage that threatens the squawking chickens around, I guess. That's as much compassion I can muster right now for sexist/racist ignorance. Go chick-en/rooster! Is that a middle finger thrust in the air at lower right, or a penis or a writing implement?

The hurt and the healing

2008-01-11T19:36:00.000-08:00

I'll leave this one for you to figure out why I put it here now. Several interactions intertwining. It's best if you click on the image to get the bigger picture :). The man and the woman beside him are looking at a photo for sale in lower Manhattan at Battery Park, not far from the site of the hole in the ground from the attacks on the World Trade Center. The photo shows the skyline now bereft of the Twin Towers. The photo behind the couple shows young people gardening. Occupying myself in my garden always has a healing effect on me.

Still processing the hurt - the ramparts

2008-01-11T19:16:00.001-08:00

Engaging more with the feeling of hurt, I'm processing the back and forth of expansion and contraction as I try to move towards resolution and peace, using this medium as a healing modality. In other words, the blog as healer, which is what my main work is about! Healing through creativity! Instead of resorting to violence to the other, which I don't see myself being able to do, or turning on myself (e.g. catching a cold, getting an ache), I lance this boil by opening up the tool box of creative resources which are there for everyone at all times. This photo is of a building being constructed upwards floor by floor. It could just as well be a photo of a building being deconstructed through engaging in battle, with the pipes sticking out being guns instead of being part of the construction of that floor. Perception, perception - ah...

Red Hot Pokers

2008-01-11T18:53:00.000-08:00

Before I post the drawing of the raging rooster, I felt the need for a healing image relevant to how hurt I now realize I really feel from the woman on the bus shoving me aside. Here's another photo of another section of my garden in the spring/summer. These plants are truly called red hot pokers. They seem to not mind being next to the smaller of the two blue spruce trees in front standing as guardians on either side of the front door.

Frustrage

2008-01-10T17:33:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting on a bus every week day for one hour from and one hour back to where I park my car about 15 minutes away from my house, early morning and late afternoon. Heat to warm the chill of the air on the bus from the temperature outside being anywhere between -2 degrees F and 45 degrees these past 3 months comes only from heaters that warm you only if you sit right on top of them. One night I returned home with feet so chilled that it took me 45 minutes of soaking them in very warm water before the feeling returned. I called the bus company, which apparently relayed this item to the driver, who advised me to sit on the left side as he's "got more heaters there." Tonight the bus was 50 minutes late and crowded. In a tired daze I approached a seat on the driver's left as instructed only to see and feel the arm of the woman sitting on top of the heater firmly blocking me, pushing me away, saying not a word. The woman behind me in the aisle then sat there. I can only guess that the woman on the heater was saving the seat beside her for this woman. I sat across the aisle on the non-heated side of the bus, crammed next to another woman. I could see no other seats on the left.

I've given myself the task of how to draw this out - literally and figuratively. I reported this today (1/11/08) to the driver, my voice surprisingly breaking as I did so. It then occurred to me that this could fall under "assault" so I called the bus company.

I did draw out this poison pus by talking to my sister on the telephone and by finishing a drawing of what appears to be a rooster on a rampage.

A piece of my garden in spring

2007-12-30T17:11:00.000-08:00

I'm on a roll here with posting today, as I'm thrilled I've figured out how to get photos as well as originals with sizes shrunken before posting.
I've been working on the space in front of my house for the past 5 years off and on, in the spring and summer, converting it from lawn to flowers, herbs and sometimes tomatoes - I need to move the strawberries as they don't like the slope or perhaps being too near a large blue spruce.

Sliced open

2007-12-30T16:55:00.000-08:00

Created September of 2003. It could be a representation of deep psychic conflict or the culturally created male/female split or a black/white split. Anyway, it's a split.

Kaleidescope

2007-12-30T16:32:00.000-08:00

Or it could be a ferris wheel, a Wizard of Oz type spaceship, etc. Much depends on which way you turn it.
I worked with the colors in HP Photosmart Edit, since just today I figured out how to relocate a photographed image into that program so as to shrink the size and also discovered I could do other things with the image.

Jennifer on her way home back to the cosmos

2007-12-30T15:46:00.000-08:00

Another drawing reflecting on Jennifer's passing.

Water Series - C07

2007-12-29T18:26:00.000-08:00

The eyes have returned in my drawings, along with a rich yellow yolk. Done with chalk pastels.

Water Series - B07

2007-12-29T18:15:00.000-08:00

I think this speaks for itself except I'm not sure I know what it's saying. Possibly this drawing could reflect concern about/ interest in my mentor's activities in deep-sea diving off a South East Asian island with coral reefs. Aru, I think, is the name of the island.

Water Series -A07

2007-12-29T18:09:00.001-08:00

This is also a 3-image series, dedicated to water. Only now do I notice the similarity in shape of this drawing to the one dedicated to Jennifer Ayala. Composed in December of 2007, returning to chalk pastels.

To Dr. Jennifer Ayala (Hitchcock)

2007-12-29T17:54:00.000-08:00

I started this drawing in August 2007 while at a conference session on Nonviolent Communication (R) and worked on it off and on until December 2007. It's done with colored pencils. In September, I believe, we heard that Jennifer Ayala (Hitchcock) who had received her Ph.D. in April 2007 from the PIC program at Binghamton University, had died. She used a wheelchair and was an advocate for people with disabilities. She was in her early 30's. She had a monkey as a helper, a Capuchin I believe. Again, I drew this, mostly disconnected from cognition, being mostly in a state of disoriented affect, although I am conscious of deliberately added elements alluding to wheels. The face at the lower left seems indicative of a monkey's face but it was not intentional. Also, Jennifer had long blond hair, the representation of which in the drawing was also not intentional. That's the beauty of almost direct communication with the unconscious.

Bird Series - C07

2007-12-29T17:44:00.000-08:00

I restrained myself until uploading the third and final image in the drawings in the Bird Series 07. It's taken me several months to be able to focus and figure and play around with finding out how to resize, when here it was under my nose all the time, in the scanner program.
With all three drawings, I used my "disability" to advantage, in that I tend to crouch down on the floor when I'm having what I call "disorientation" probably brought on by some slight brain damage from radiation. It enables me to "space" out and lose focus, thereby allowing my psyche to transmit information directly to my fingers without my cognition getting in the way. Even if I have not finished the drawing, usually simply the act of connecting with some inner/outer world this way facilitates my return to this plane of existence.

Bird Series - B07

2007-12-29T17:38:00.000-08:00

This is the second in the oil pastel Bird Series of '07. Perhaps some cobalt element is incubating inside of the bird? I was given a small (1 1/2 inch across) ceramic talisman from Turkey that looks much like this cobalt disc.

Bird Series - A07

2007-12-29T17:32:00.000-08:00

This is the first in a series of oil pastel drawings that ended up looking like various kinds of birds.

2007-12-03T18:12:00.000-08:00

Hiding in the forest.

The title for this picture came to mind only when I noticed the two legs on the right lower side of the drawing. When I finished it, I thought I saw some kind of insect, especially on the left where antennae seem to have appeared. The body is disproportionately huge with perhaps egg cases inside, and perhaps a spine in the center. Perhaps it’s really hiding behind mother bug. This is yet another drawing that comes from the unconscious since I don’t plan ahead. I just start making shapes and fill in, allowing my fingers to choose the colors and what to do. The entire process usually bypasses conscious awareness, going straight from the unconscious to my fingers and then onto the paper.

Thinking

2007-10-21T19:18:00.000-07:00

This is a drawing from about 4 years ago. It's relevant even today. The title I just gave it is "Thinking." I'd have to check my journal to try to remember what was going on when I drew this (chalk pastel on flip-chart paper, then sprayed with fixative), but it represents what I feel when I'm in deep thought or in deep disorientation or both. Wheels swirling around and straining at clarity. But all the while maintaining some joy, comfort, peace? in colours and designs.
And then again, it could be a kaleidescope or even a ferris wheel - take your pick.

Silenced wisdom

2007-06-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

As usual, I'm not sure what this represents. It's another oil pastel on paper. The week so far has been full, again as usual. I got no sleep this past Monday night, what with driving 30 minutes away to get on a bus at 2:00 a.m. that left its destination at 11:00 p.m. the night before. We got into Washington, D.C. around 9:00 a.m. for the national day to rally and lobby for the restoration of habeas corpus. The bus I went on was sponsored by the ACLU. Very well organized by the regional director. For the remainder of this week, I've been very busy with a variety of tasks. This drawing might be the result of all that squirreling around.

Attention - deficit

2007-06-08T18:14:00.003-07:00

I did this drawing some time in year 2005, amongst a large group of drawings that came out probably from what was going on internally while I was taking various homeopathic remedies, sequentially. The homeopath was driving himself to find the right remedy to at least give me some relief, while hoping that he would find the remedy that would be close as possible to the sweet spot of core healing.
The drawing could represent that need for and the getting of the shared attention that a newborn human is programmed to require. That's how bonding with care-givers occurs. With deficient or absent attention, the required level of various hormones, especially oxytocin, and pyshological and psychic phenomena do not develop, impairing the ability of the resulting adult to develop healthy relationships, and imparing functioning in many other ways.
It's possible that red triangular shape with the lines across could represent a womb or a vagina - some kind of birthing may be going on. Notice that the heads appear to be speaking, while the head on the far right is wthin something looking like the ear's semi-circular canals. As for the eye, it seems connected to some kind of pupa sack, with a couple of eggs nearby.
When I'm drawing, I don't think. It works best that way, for many people engaged in some kind or creative production, I would guess. This drawing appears early in my Ph.D. dissertation.

Finding the one sure spot deep enough to bear the weight

2007-06-08T18:14:00.001-07:00

This photograph shows a bank building on a spot that's deep enough to bear the weight of a building that height. It gives a physical representation of how it feels to have a secure footing psychologically and psychically even when all around seems like shifting sand. Finding that sweet spot of security, resilience and persistence can be really difficult and scary when you're lacking that early infant shared attention necessary for healthy human development. While difficult, it's not impossible to find a zone of a feeling of security, contrary to the dogma of thinking in evolutionary psychology. (And here you thought it was a phallic symbol - tsk! tsk! - my goal is to reframe and re-interpret metaphors and symbols so as to overturn the oppression of patriarchy).

Eye and I streaming

2007-06-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

Created over 2-3 days around 5/8/07. This is yet another drawing with an eye as the focus. I don't think about balancing while I'm drawing, but somehow the picture ends up with blues and greens at the top and bottom and yellows, orange, and reds at left and right. Why the eye is looking towards the left I have no conscious idea. I'm not sure if the feeling of the picture is peaceful or tumultuous. Perhaps it's both, like life. Again in oil pastels and felt pen, on bristol paper.

Fire/dragon fly traffic light at night

2007-06-08T18:12:00.001-07:00

Created 5/22/07. I felt in a dreamlike waking state, a bit restless so to settle down, I decided to draw. This is the result. I did have the idea of some kind of street light, but no other ideas while drawing. It seems like the heads could be of people lost in a fog, searching for some kind of direction. Sounds familiar. Notice the sequence of the lights. What does it mean? Afterwards I thought the sequence reminded me of the ridiculous and manipulative terror alerts a while back Funny how they don't do them so much anymore, unless it's because I'm not paying attention to the media outlets where they do remain.

Oranges

2007-06-08T18:10:00.000-07:00

To be honest, this picture looks better scanned than in the real life version.
I'm not really satisfied with the texture of the oil pastel markings, but I do like the colors. I stayed focused on reds, oranges and yellows, which is unusual for me, since I tend to like to swim around in blues, purples and greens. I'm still trying to figure out what's being represented here.

Flower mouth at sea

2007-06-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

I'm getting to really like working/playing with images and this blog. This kind of practice is what I've been wanting to do for a really long time - combination of images and text not involving too much reading.

The background for this drawing was inspired by an artist-photographer who installed an upside-down photo of an ocean scene. It made a deep impression on me.