People In Your Neighborhood

Take a seat and read!

Why Violence Is Vanishing "As one becomes aware of the historical decline of violence, the world begins to look different. The past seems less innocent, the present less sinister. One starts to appreciate the small gifts of coexistence that would have seemed utopian to our ancestors: the interracial family playing in the park, the comedian who lands a zinger on the commander in chief, the countries that quietly back away from a crisis instead of escalating to war.

Chris Jordan writes a beautiful piece on how not only noticing the helpers, but importantly, teaching our children to BE the helpers is so important. This is one of my foundations and I am always passing this on to my own children."

Not only is this just Awesome and inspirational, it also made me laugh out loud multiple times.

Where you can donate for different Bostonians seriously injured in the bombings.

Since I was in my early twenties, my mom has been telling me that exposing people to radiation on a regular basis is more worrisome than missing a possible cancer by avoiding mammograms. This article is brilliantly written and researched, and a few of the paragraphs summarize the tide change with life altering information. I was actually stunned, for instance, by this: " D.C.I.S. survivors are celebrated at pink-ribbon events as triumphs of early detection: theirs was an easily treatable disease with a nearly 100 percent 10-year survival rate. The thing is, in most cases (estimates vary widely between 50 and 80 percent) D.C.I.S. will stay right where it is — “in situ” means “in place.” Unless it develops into invasive cancer, D.C.I.S. lacks the capacity to spread beyond the breast, so it will not become lethal. Autopsies have shown that as many as 14 percent of women who died of something other than breast cancer unknowingly had D.C.I.S.

There is as yet no sure way to tell which D.C.I.S. will turn into invasive cancer, so every instance is treated as if it is potentially life-threatening. That needs to change, according to Laura Esserman, director of the Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center at the University of California, San Francisco. Esserman is campaigning to rename D.C.I.S. by removing its big “C” in an attempt to put it in perspective and tamp down women’s fear. “D.C.I.S. is not cancer,” she explained. “It’s a risk factor. For many D.C.I.S. lesions, there is only a 5 percent chance of invasive cancer developing over 10 years. That’s like the average risk of a 62-year-old. We don’t do heart surgery when someone comes in with high cholesterol. What are we doing to these people?"

The Complete Guide To Not Giving A Fuck - nuff said.

Gloria Harris' new piece in The Nervous Breakdown is gripping: her story of the day she bought a new car with 'blood money', had her baby and gave him up for adoption to her sister. She was 20, the same age as I was when I had Dakota, so I think this particularly got me.

If Game of Thrones had the same opening credits as Friends :)

Roundup linked to Parkison's, cancer, etc. Not shocking.

I loved this piece by Rob Roberge- hilarious

What if Google dumped you and you couldn't access anything Google? ERMEGAWD. It does happen.