Recently in Taking Action Category

Today, on one of the coldest Mother's Day I can recall, Melissa ran in the Melrose Race for Women, which benefited the Melrose Alliance Against Violence.

In contrast with yesterday's torrential downpours and booming thunder, it was 39 degrees when we left the house at 6:45 AM. By race time at 9:00, it was still only in the mid-40s plus the wind began blowing pretty steadily, at about 35 MPH the local radio station reported. Melissa was psyched to have the cool weather in which to run, but honestly, it was awfully chilly for the crowd of non-runners, such as yours truly.

Melissa said it was a very supportive crowd of runners, with folks encouraging each other as they were running up the hills. She said at one point that a guy who lived on the race route had the Superman theme playing on a loop on a boom box. To the left is a photo I took just after she finished the race.

Next week, Sept 29th - Oct 5, is Banned Books Week (BBW). This week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them.

Here's a couple of suggestions for how to celebrate Banned Books Week:

• Read one of the top ten 2006 Challenged Books


• Check out Google's Banned Books site.


• Read Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, one of the challenged books. The full text is available from the University of Virginia Library's Electronic Text Center.


• Listen to an MP3 of Curriculum Review editor Frank Sennett's discussion of the freedom to read, book challenges in schools, and the first-ever Banned Books Week observance with American Library Association (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom Director, Judith Krug. It's 22 minutes long.


• Check out Amnesty USA's Banned Books site.


• Download, print, and post this Banned Books Week poster (PDF)


• Check out a list of the best sites for kids and teens in celebration of Banned Books Week, rated and reviewed by United Feature Syndicate columnist, Barbara J. Feldman.


• Take the time to read the Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment, and reflect on intellectual freedom, and how the freedom to read should not be taken for granted.

Speaking of the First Ammendment, I'd also like to suggest you check out a contrary opinion about Banned Books Week and what the author describes as its secret hypocrisy.

While many people are fighting for the right to vote even once, I had an odd experience that shows you how easy it is for things to go askew in the U.S. electoral system:

I got to the polling place this morning and my name was on the register roles, twice. They misspelled my last name so it showed up in two places. It's five letters and a VERY common Anglo name, so it's beyond me how they managed to screw it up, but my City Clerk's office did. I pointed it out to the clerk at the polling place but he didn't seem to care because there was a queue they wanted to get cleared before the polling volunteers' oxygen tanks ran out or pacemaker batteries died. Of course they didn't ask for any photo ID, so I suppose I could go and vote again tonight. Probably won't though. Once was quite enough for me.

As I'm sure I have mentioned on this site I have several friends and family members who have had battles with breast cancer. Some have survived, some have not. One of the best ways to prevent this horrible disease from being a death sentence is through early detection. Now while I'm always suspect of people touting fundraising campaigns without actually asking for money, there is one web site I can recommend: The Breast Cancer Site

I'm posting the link to this site on the right-hand side of my blog so that visitors can click on it.

In 2003 visitors to this site helped generate funds to pay for over 1,900 mammograms. Of course the advertisers on the site would like you to buy some Pink Ribbon-related apparel, which would help the cause further, but it's not necessary to raise money to fund mammograms.

Please visit the site by clicking on the Fund Free Mammograms button on my site, or by visiting the Breast Cancer Site directly.

3M Corporation (they make Post Its and all kinds of tape and paper) is building the World's Largest Pink Ribbon in Times Square for breast cancer awareness month in October.

For the first 75,000 people who click on this link and give their name, 3M will donate $1 to breast cancer research and place a Post-It in their name on the billboard.

Please sign up and pass along!

http://www.3m.com/us/office/postit/research/largest_pink_ribbon.jhtml

In my experience few letters from U.S. government agencies to the public are well written. I've often wondered if citizens of other countries have the same problem receiving official communiques from their governments. This morning an answer came from an unexpected source.

I received an e-mail message from Domingo Namuncura Serrano, the Management Advisor to the President of Chile. Although my ability to read Spanish is far better than my ability to speak it, I was not able to completely understand his message. I thought I had the gist of it, but wanted to be certain, so I turned to my favorite free, online tranlsation web site, AltaVista - Babel Fish Translation for help.

Now before I tell you what the message said, I bet you're wondering why I got an e-mail from the Chilean Government? Good question!

Earlier today I attempted to send an e-mail to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), Gale Norton. I wanted to ask her to protect Utah's redrock canyons from energy development and off-road vehicles. The e-mail bounced back almost instantly with this error message:

"Mail for gale_norton@ios.doi.gov rejected for policy reasons."

Though I've grown accustomed to my Yahoo e-mails bouncing back as a consequence of using other people's PCs to log on to send them, this did not seem like the typical "GFY: we think you're sending spam" error message. For a moment I thought that perhaps the Secretary had created a rule in her e-mail program that automatically refuses messages from people who disagree with current department policies. Then I thought, "Nah, that's too obvious." I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and began looking for a more logical reason. Once I started digging I was quite surprised by what I found.

I have several friends with children who have special educational needs. One family in particular has spent the last two years fighting with their son's school system over the development and implementation of his educational plan. The school needs this plan in place so that this six-year old boy can receive the level of educational services that he not only needs, but is entitled to under the law. His family has spent thousands of dollars for an advocate and a team of specialists to work with the school system's special education administrators but to little avail. These administrators have confounded the family with a cycle of unprofessional behavior, negligence, and simple stonewalling as a means of masking what appears to be gross incompetence. Despite the family's efforts to delicately navigate the intricate channels of the school system, educational law, and the myriad of specialists, and even entering mediation, late in 2003 they had reached what seemed to be a breaking point. Without agreement on an educational plan, the parties were deadlocked and this bright-eyed, young boy's education seemed destined to be the subject of a protracted legal battles. Then, in January of this year, in a somewhat miraculous event, they had a breakthrough and finally began making progress on his plan. While this glimmer of hope hasn't led to complete resolution, the mediation seems to be helping the process and progress is being made.

My reason for describing this situation is that about a week ago I heard from the child's mother about her concern over a pending piece of legislation in the U.S. Senate: S.1248, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Several of the provisions in this bill's current form have her absolutely livid, the two most relevant to her case are one, setting a statute of limitations on legal action that a family can take against a school system when they are dissatisfied with the services being offered; and two, preventing families who successfully sue a school system from recouping legal fees.

There's a bill before the House and Senate called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act (Senate bill S.1684 and House bill H.R.1886.IH) which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the "drive-through mastectomy" where women are forced to go home hours after surgery against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and some times with drainage tubes still attached.

Lifetime Television has put this bill on their web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on.

PLEASE! Sign the petition by clicking on the web site below and help women living with breast cancer get the care they need and deserve! You only need to give your name and zip code—no address, no phone numbers, no money. You just need to scroll down the page to sign.

If you wish to take an additional action, please contact your U.S. Senators and tell them you want them to support this bill. This is particularly important if you live in a state whose Senator is on the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (see the list of members) where the bill is now under review. Likewise, please contact your House Reps to move the bill out of the Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations (see the list of members) and to the House floor for a vote.