Thinking of you today and hoping you’re well on the other side. I’m still giving everybody hell over here and have actually gotten worse in my middle ages. Live loud, loud fierce, and suffer no fools continues to be my rallying cry. Michael told my old college roommate Anne that he was delighted she and I were friends again because and I quote “we lost her (me) to the proletariat.” I guess baby brother hopes my renewed friendship with Annie will magically transform me into the debutante I once was. Like that’s going to happen:) When you lay dying you looked at me and said, “ Kathy, your freedom is the most important thing to you,” and you were right. I’d be lying if I said I knew exactly where all my freedom has/is taking me. I’d be lying just as much if I said I wanted to live another way.

I have a funny for you. You remember how you willed me the silver candelabras? When I went to Virginia to pick them up, Michael and Daddy told me they’d sold them at auction. I looked at Daddy and said, “it’s not enough that you killed my bird and threw my hair dryer away, now you’ve sold my candelabras at auction!” This was some twenty years ago right after you died and a year before Daddy married that Yankee menza bitch, Lee. Mommy, I’ve never met anyone who was menza who had the sense to come in out the rain. After daddy died Lee made off with your money, which was supposed to go to my son, your grandchild. She called me and she said, “Kathy I had no idea your father was changing the will, I feel just terrible.” She must have said she felt just terrible four or five times. Finally I said, “Well, if you feel so terrible you can just give the money back.” Boy she got off the phone fast.

Five years ago, on my annual summer pilgrimage to Delaware to see Michael (the house is wonderful, a veritable shrine to all things Minter) I went into the attic looking for my exercise ball and noticed your handwriting on a piece of paper taped to a box. I couldn’t read your writing, never could, opened the box and there were my candelabras. Michael was passed out in his room, he’s drinking entirely too much, it’s not pretty, and how he continues to be an effective attorney is beyond me, but the point is I could get the candelabras out and packed without him noticing, which I did, along with a few other select pieces of silver. My suitcase was so heavy the wheels pronated, and pulling it was close to impossible. I wished for someone to help me. To pick up the suitcase, groan, and say, “what did you do, steal the family silver?” To which I would answer, “Why yes, as a matter of fact I did.” That didn’t happen and trying to get across Port Authority from the Atlantic City bus to the Bloomfield bus was a nightmare. You were right; I should have never let my license expire. I should have come home from college and gotten it renewed. I still haven’t gotten another one because I have to start from the beginning and it’s always about money mom. I hate that a lot.

Three years ago Anne met me at Michael’s. I told her about stealing back the candelabras and I told there was a whole lot more in the attic I planned to take. That particular trip I planned on stealing the small, thick gold-framed mirror, the one you bought at the Paris flea market back in 1961. Anne, understanding that Michael and reason do not mix and intimate with the peculiarities of wasp culture, didn’t ask me why I was stealing the mirror, she just wanted to know what I was going to put it in. “I have a Whole Foods bag,” I said, “and I’ll just stick it in your car.” Anne kept Michael busy talking about the dairy lobby in D.C. and I got the mirror. Next time I’m taking a small oil painting of marshlands. Michael will never miss it.

Dear T-T-Tom is well and living in Toledo. He is an astounding photographer and did all the photos at Anne’s most recent wedding. I do think the third time’s the charm. Cric, Anne’s new husband, is the nicest man ever and absolutely devoted to her. By the way, you were wrong; the fact that Anne and I both slept with Tom did not turn him gay. He was already gay, he told us at the wedding. We had such a good time at that wedding, the Coomsberry is to die for, and I got to reconnect with Peggy, a friendship I wished I’d had back in the day, but am blessed to have now. Peggy slept with Tom too and Tom says if he was straight he would have married Peggy.

Dearest Rosanne, has met a wonderful man and bought herself a 49 acre farm in Maine. She and Chuck are moving in June and it is truly the weepy end of an era. Rosie and I still laugh over how you used to call her when you were looking for me. I don’t know if you know but when you were diagnosed it was Rosie I turned to. I called her from National Airport, collect. I was waiting for the Eastern shuttle, there was a bar right there. Phone to ear I said to the bartender, “Give me a double Canadian club, straight-up.” He handed me the drink, I heard the operator say, “will you accept the charges,” and started yelling in the middle of Rosanne’s yes, “That’s a double?! Are you fucking kidding me? How much are you charging me for this?!” “Where the fuck are you Katie Lou?!” Rosanne hollered.

Rosie picked me up at the airport. She didn’t say anything; she lit a joint and handed it to me. There were no seatbelts in the car. Rosanne had her mechanic cut them out because she felt they were a violation of her civil liberties. She turned up the radio and drove us off into the night. All through Manhattan she drove, wrapped in eloquent silence that said more than words, drifting without destination. East Side, West Side, Midtown, Downtown, Wall Street, we had blood on every corner, every block had a memory we shared, and it still feels like a movie to me. I couldn’t believe you were going to die. I wasn’t going to think about it. I lit another joint. Three joints later I said, “I can go home now.”

When I let myself into the apartment, Gordon was watching Mash, the blue light from the television played across his face. It never occurred to me to turn to my husband first. It’s awful to be in a marriage where’s there’s no comfort. What exactly is the point of marriage if there’s no comfort? If you can’t reach for each other in the dark and hold on? I don’t blame Gordon. It took the two of us to create that toxic tango. I know you told Nancy G. that I was miserably unhappy, Mom, and when she told me what you said I knew that was your round-a-bout way of letting me know that even though I had a child if I left my marriage you were ok with it. I did leave him, three years after you died, and I got sober. It would be five years before I quit reaching for the phone to call you at 7 a.m., in the morning. “I’m calling you early before you get your armor on,” I’d say and you’d laugh. I loved making you laugh; you were my best audience. It’s funny how when people die all of a sudden they become saints and the not-so-nice is wiped away like chalk on a chalk board. That’s not me though because it’s not honest. There were days I hated you as much as I loved you, and after you died it took years of therapy to work through the dysfunction that was our family, that was you and me. I learned the ins and outs of the dysfunction, what connects to what, but just as important I learned about the functional, the truly excellent. I was lucky; I could count on your love like I counted on gravity. There was never any question that you loved me beyond all reason, that you would fight for me, kill anyone who got in my way, and that no matter what I did would always love me. Because you gave me that I could give it to your grandson and he will give it to his children and so and so on. I know for fact dysfunction threads its way down but so does love and love given a sliver of a chance will always win.

I miss you Dee-Dee. I am so happy we were close as we were your last six months on the planet and I love you forever. Give Dad my best and know I’m going to do everything I can to make sure the Yankee menza bitch doesn’t get buried with the two of you at Arlington. Did you know she handed a Tiffany bag to your grandson at daddy’s internment and said, “here’s your grandfather.” She’d put a third of his ashes in a zip-lock bag inside a Tiffany bag. Brad, enormously hung over, in a wrinkled, skinny, navy blue suit, had flown in from college for the burial, looked at me as if this was yet another story for the unbelievable novel that was his life. Bradley is convinced that there has never been a story as far out there as the story that is his life. I’ve yet to tell him the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Rest in Peace Mommy, Kathy. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
*****************************************************************************
copyright Katherine Manaan 2013

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Kat Manaan MAWT
(satire alert)

But let’s be real clear here about what the bill says. Again keep in mind the bill applies only for the next 6 months…..From Collective Evolution….. “The Monsanto Protection Act allows Monsanto to override United States federal courts on the issue of planting experimental genetically engineered crops all across the U.S. The government has no power what so ever to stop Monsanto and other biotechnology corporations from planting and harvesting. After Obama signed H.R. 933, the provision was final, there can be no litigation against these corporations at all. Corrupt food corporations are now allowed to plant and sell their genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically engineered (GE) seeds…”

From HuffPo “Without any hearings on the matter, the Senate included language that would require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to essentially ignore any court ruling that would otherwise halt the planting of new genetically-engineered crops.”……

As per Business Times with whom I happen to agree……“It sets a terrible precedent,” noted the International Business Times. “Though it will only remain in effect for six months until the government finds another way to fund its operations, the message it sends is that corporations can get around consumer safety protections if they get Congress on their side. Furthermore, it sets a precedent that suggests that court challenges are a privilege, not a right.”

I am told, by both liberals and conservatives, that I am a fool and of very little brain for paying any attention to what is essentially a “non-existent act.” The Monsanto Protection Act is a throwaway, without impact, snuck into HR 933 to satisfy Republicans. In other words I am supposed to believe that Section 733 and its contents are going to disappear in six months. I don’t, anymore then I believed a pre-emptive war against Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, would stop terrorism. I also don’t believe that more regulation will make fracking safe, nuclear power is clean, the XL Pipe Line will create lots and lots of jobs, and that Jesus, whose Gnostic teachings I happen to enjoy quite a bit, died for my sins.

The Monsanto Protection Act will simply morph into another bill, another law. Why do I think this? Because in 2010, Obama appointed Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s Vice President and chief lobbyist, senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. Michael Taylor was in charge of FDA policy when GMO’s were allowed into the US food supply without one single test to determine their safety. Michael Taylor still has his job.

We fight on.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Kat Manaan MAWT

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hr933enr/pdf/BILLS-113hr933enr.pdf

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/21/1195868/-H-R-933-Sequestering-the-Sequester-What-s-the-Point

http://government.brevardtimes.com/2013/03/monsanto-protection-act-voting-record.html

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/farmers_and_food_safety_advocates_lead_monsanto_backlash_partner/#.UVOGc7yZMZs.reddit

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/farmers_and_food_safety_advocates_lead_monsanto_backlash_partner/#.UVOGc7yZMZs.reddit

http://www.ibtimes.com/monsanto-protection-act-shines-light-gmo-controversy-america-1159717

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/what_you_need_to_know_about_the_terrifying_monsanto_protection_act_20130328/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Truthdig+Truthdig%3A+Drilling+Beneath+the+Headlines

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/mpa.asp

http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/52314-obama-appoints-monsantos-vp-as-senior-advisor-to-the-commissioner-fda

I do not believe a woman who stays home to take care of her child is less of a feminist then a woman who chooses a corporate job. I think the whole mommy war thing (I’m a better feminist than you) is really stupid, as stupid as the pubic hair argument, and takes away from the real issue(s) namely equal pay for equal work, affordable health and child care, the utter lack of jobs, the rising rates of poverty and homelessness, the re-emergence of debtors prison’s, and the fact that over half of our elected officials represent corporate profit (greed) rather then the needs of humanity.

I support reproductive freedom for women and have no patience with women who don’t. I would have patience for anti-choice women if all their energy went into prevention, namely safe, effective, and easy access to birth control, rather then enforced pregnancy. I am not politically correct. I am not here to get along with everybody. I find bigotry in any form abhorrent and will speak out and publish posts against racism, homophobia, misoygyny, rape, bullying, the wanton destruction of the environment, NDAA, the horrid treatment of whistleblowers, war, etc. I do not believe for one minute that cuts to social security and medicare are warranted, think chained CPI’s are evil, and the grand bargain is a crock of shit.

I am a lefty feminist and my last boyfriend was a firefighter, a 9/11 first responder. I get on very well with men; I do not get on with patriarchal assholes at all and that includes women. I have intensely close female friends, my 3 closest friends I’ve known for over 30 years. I live hand to mouth but life is rich. I will never vote for a woman because she’s a woman and I will never refrain from criticizing someone’s politics because she’s a woman. I would vote for a Bernie Sanders over a Cathy McMorris Rodgers any day because I am a thinking woman and research people’s voting records, and please don’t write me and say, “well he’s from Vermont and she’s from Washington, so it’s not like they’ll ever run against each other,” because clearly you’ve missed the point.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools, Kat Manaan MAWT

As I read about the chains forcing people to work, or not in some cases, I got to remembering when my son was in the 3rd grade (23 years ago) and I started working full-time for a chain of gyms as a floor trainer. The pay was $6.25 an hour, low for even then, but I had a plan; I would work as a floor trainer, build up a clientele, turn pro, and make some real money. The way I saw it I could partially cover my rent with my child support and I would just figure out a way to pay everything else because as a single mom, that’s what I did. I’d already figured I could walk the 36 blocks to and from the gym (a total of 62 blocks) which would save me $5 a day bus fare which worked out to $25 a week, which worked out to $100 a month and I would use that for childcare to pay a friend’s tween, who went to I.S. 44 directly across the street from where I lived and right around the corner from P.S. 87 where my son went to school. Right off the bat I was losing a fifth of my bi-weekly pay-check but as I told myself, it’s not forever, this is a good plan, I will make this work.

I didn’t like the gym manager much and she didn’t much like me, however I was very popular with the members and within five months I was one of the highest grossing trainers in the chain. Three months before Thanksgiving I went to management and explained that what with the holidays coming I was going to need time off (unpaid, there was no such thing as paid time off) and how was I to go about that. I had worked the holidays before in other low-end jobs but I was a single mom now and it was different. The manager was none to pleased; ‘you have to get someone to cover for you,’ she said. ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘how do I do that? Do I ask around here?’ ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I have to fax the other gyms and see if anyone wants to take your hours.’ ‘And you’re going to do that today?’ I said. She eyed me; I eyed her right back. ‘If no one takes your hours you can’t have the time off,’ she said.

The gym manager, let’s call her Jill, and the assistant manager, let’s call him Billy, and I had a power battle going from the get-go. It started with the way I was paid. If I private-trained on the floor while I was on duty the $40 training fee was to be split 50-50; ergo the gym would get $20 and I would get $26.25. Billy subtracted the $6.25 from the $20, saying I had been paid my hourly rate of $6.25 in the $20 that I received for private training. ‘So I am getting $13.75 and the gym is getting $20? That is not a 50-50 split,’ I said calmly. ‘No you don’t get it,’ he said, oh god was he patronizing, ‘we paid you over here, that’s why we’re taking it away over here.’ ‘No you don’t get it,’ I said, ‘maybe this works on the stupid but it’s doesn’t work on me.’ I made such a stink they did in fact call corporate and I was right. An apology was not forthcoming and I had to wait till the next paycheck, that would be two weeks, to see the monies lost.

My hours for unpaid leave would come through for both Thanksgiving and Christmas and at the last moment the person who said he’d fill them backed out. When Jill told me I gave her a shark stare and walked away. I was about to turn pro and I knew she wouldn’t fire me but I remember wondering what people who weren’t educated, who didn’t know they had certain rights, did. By this time my son, all of 8, had fired the babysitter, ‘she was mean,’ he much preferred to walk around the block by himself and I had to make a choice that no momma should have to make, namely to let my 8 year old son walk around the block and home, by himself, in New York City. He would call me when he got home and Trini on the desk would come get me. This pissed Billy off to no end. ‘You need to be here, Trini,’ he said like it was fucking IBM. I knew nothing about any of this till later. I was sitting at the trainer’s desk checking the appointment book, when Billy came up behind me and started rubbing my shoulders. I froze. ‘We can’t come find you when your son calls,’ he said, ‘you understand.’ What I understood was Billy was an asshole with a little structural power, what I understood was it’s a rock and a hard place when you’re poor, when you really need the job that’s barely meeting your expenses, which if you’ve been poor you know is better than not meeting your expenses at all. ‘Ok Billy,’ I said. Later I would talk to Trini, Brad always called between 3 and 3:10, I would be by the phone on the floor where she could see me. If I was there she would put the call through, if I wasn’t she would take a message and I would call him right back. I wasn’t willing to take on Billy, I’d worked my ass off and in 2 months I would be a pro-trainer, finally as much money going out would be coming in, and my hours would be my own. I remember thinking, ‘ah the difference between feminist theory and reality.’ It was such a power-over thing, the image of me sitting down, Billy behind with his hands on my shoulders, obsequiously kind, managing me.

Because of my own experience I see the side of the worker who resents being made to work on the holidays, I also see the side of the worker who chooses to work for extra money (not much) but better then nothing. I agree that the chains should be closed for the holidays; at the same time it profoundly irritates me that the liberal elite are calling for the closure of the chains when many of the people who are working are doing so because they desperately need the money. And as I contain these opposites I realize what is being missed here is the elephant in the middle of the room, namely capitalism, the be-all-end-all drive for profit, and the fact that we live and collude with an economic system, a power over system, where the many live to serve the one, that has reduced all life to dollars and cents.

What I am extremely grateful for this Thanksgiving is that getting out from under an oppressive economy that clearly does not work for 99% of the people has begun in earnest. Occupy Wall Street is buying up people’s debt, cooperative businesses are being born, and alternative energy is sustainable and holds a motherlode of jobs. People are working on building a humane world outside the parameters of what we’re taught the world “is,” and “has to be.” I am no Pollyanna but what I’ve seen happen in the past year in the culture is pretty damn amazing, yes 3/4′s of everything still pretty much sucks but there is undeniable progress. What gets me all teary is what can actually happen when people come together for the common good. Yes, I am grateful for friends, family, and health, but I am just as grateful that people from all walks of life, all colors and all creeds, are coming together for the common good and that it is not limited to a few days out of the year.

Wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Kat

Clearly the Senate does not play by the rules of the playground, the words “fair” and “share” being so alien to them. The crux of this fiscal cliff battle is the Bush tax cuts, cuts that allow multi-international corporations and the super rich to pay virtually no tax. Needless to say the tax cuts, which cost the country trillions of dollars in revenue, have been excellent for the profit margins of the non-job creating 1%, which are at an all time high. Add to that the trillion dollars spent on war and of course there’s a deficit for days.

What the Republicans are threatening to do if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire is go after social security, Medicare, education, and other safety net programs. They’re saying that if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire we will fly off the fiscal cliff and go into a recession. This is bullshit and Obama needs to stand strong here. There are myriad other things that can be done to bring down the deficit without going after the safety net that so many depend upon including, but not limited to, cutting the 10 to 52 billion dollar subsidies the oil companies receive annually, closing the 14 to 20 million dollar tax write-offs for companies who are outsourcing jobs overseas so they don’t have to pay the worker a living wage, and of course there’s that extra trillion in revenue raising taxes on the rich could bring in. Stop the war, add that trillion to the aforementioned and hey no more deficit.

As a woman of the playground, not an economist, I have been told I don’t understand; that I am taking a complicated subject and making it simplistic, but the truth is economics has been made purposely complicated, your brain is supposed to bobble as you try to decipher finance-speak, so that corporate profit can continue to trump the needs of human beings and the planet. Being on our knees to an economy that genuinely cannot function without our money and participation, that clearly does not work for the majority of us, makes about as much sense as allowing a child in the playground to hold the jungle gym hostage.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools, Kat Manaan

“But I’m interested in what a woman over 50 has to say,” I told him, “and women over 60, 70, 80, and 90 and not from the place of perky-positive, I-happily-embrace-my- changes either. Furthermore several thousand people a day are turning 60 and a little over half of them are women, you think you might be missing a market??

“You should be a successful writer now,” he said, “not starting out. I don’t mean to be harsh.”

“You’re an idiot,” I said, “I don’t mean to be harsh.”

The fact that I didn’t make a disparaging comment about his anatomy means that I am becoming diplomatic in my middle ages.

The reason I am interested in what women over 50 have to say is they have a humanizing context that only life experience can give you; the reason I am interested in what women over 50 have to say is that they trust their own edgy experience over anything the so-called experts tell them; the reason I am interested in what women over 50 have to say is because I am a woman over 50, staring down the barrel of 60 actually, and I want to hear about something other than first love, starting out in the world, and having a baby, even though all three are integral to the woman I am today. I’ve been in recovery for over 20 years and one of the first thing I learned is that there is no such thing as terminal uniqueness, if I felt a certain way there was a good bet others felt the exact same way. My first experience with this on facebook was Komen.

I have been an activist and feminist since the 70’s and have never seen anything like the tribe of women’s response to the defunding of Planned Parenthood by Susan G. Komen. Though Handel, Brinker, et. al., tried and continue to try to blame the response on Planned Parenthood, the reality is the loud and angry “no!” that rang across this country was completely organic, one friend told another friend who told another friend. Overnight 10,000 plus women liked the still phenomenal Defund Susan G. Komen page; within the week Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the hardest working women in the Senate, had joined with other democrats to form ‘One Million Strong For Women’ to take advantage of the waking giant that was the women’s vote. Unite For Women formed and began planning a march; We Are Women formed and yet another march was planned; lefty women’s pages sprouted up right and left, we all liked and shared each other’s pages, and the much needed dissemination of information, once the ostensible province of the mainstream media, had begun. As a feminist for over forty years, it was the most exciting thing I’ve witnessed since the marches back in the 60’s and 70’s. The big difference for me, and the rest of the kitchen table caucus, (my inner circle) is that there are so many men on the side of feminism now.

That women brought down Komen made the power of the tribe visible and took Washington aback. There is no question that the power women wield as voters threatens the misogynist old boys (and girls) network that is Washington, D.C., who haven’t been able to get away with half the crap they’re used to getting away with because of that damn facebook and all those lefty pages. The War Against Women is no distraction; it is a reality. A woman’s right to control her body is being systematically chipped away at that state level, birth control is next, and it’s all thanks to AUL (American’s United For Life.) That equal pay for equal work is still being discussed boggles the mind yet every Republican Senator, including the women, blocked the equal pay for equal work bill in June of 2012. This is due to the profound and toxic influence of ALEC. In case you’ve been living under a rock the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) promotes a wide range of profit geared “model legislation” of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation in the exact same way that AUL promotes a wide range of “model anti-choice legislation” of the church, by the church and for the church. Over half of elected Republicans are members of ALEC and though one expose after another has been written about ALEC, and corporation after corporation has left its membership, make no mistake the power of ALEC continues to be as powerful and invisible as gravity.

Not surprisingly where there’s ALEC there is lot’s of anti-choice, subservient womanhood, and no same sex marriage; there is fracking, the XL pipeline, and a complete evisceration of environmental law; there is creationism and Christian Dominionism; there is limited collective bargaining and ultimately no unions; there is no health care, no social security, no Medicare, no safety nets; there are unregulated banks, corporations, Wall Street, and privatization. Contrary to the spin there is no job creation here, absolutely none. This is the conservative agenda, an agenda that would turn my beloved country into a kind of feudal system run for profit by patriarchy and his God. This is exactly what Romney represents and stands for and this is why I am not voting for him.

Unlike many of my friends I don’t love Obama, I have real problems with NDAA, drones, HR 347, the war, Monstanto, the list goes on, but unlike Romney, Obama is sane when it comes to social issues; he has also done some fine work on the economy, healthcare is a step in the right direction, and I honestly believe he will respond to the expressed needs of a loud electorate. This is why no matter who wins (I pray pray pray it’s Obama) we can’t just walk our vaginas home after the election. I’ve heard from a lot of you, “are you going to quit MAWT after the election?” Absolutely not, the way I see it is we’re just beginning the work of reshaping the country. Given that terminal uniqueness thing if I’m thinking this way, then quite a few others are also. As for the little twit who told me that people weren’t interested in anything women over 50 had to say, well MAWT has almost 7,000 likes and reaches a little over half a million people a week; clearly women over 50 are damn interested in what each other has to say and a political force to be reckoned with. Thank-you MAWT family for all your comments, your stories, and your support; it has been an honor to be a part of this community. Now let’s VOTE BLUE!

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Kat Manaan

The cancer industry is a trillion dollar a year industry funded by drug companies and multi-national companies that are manufacturing products containing cancer causing carcinogens and other known cancer causing substances. This is why virtually no monies are spent on cancer prevention because once the connection is made between the carcinogen and the cancer ostensibly the corporations (funding cancer research) are going to have to cease and desist manufacturing a product that is making them billions. It’s a fucking holy trinity of profit; they make the carcinogen that causes the disease, they own the patents to the drug and sell the drug that is the “prescribed” treatment for the disease, and they own the patents and sell the drugs that treat the side effects of chemo. In the meantime they will fund the research for a magic bullet cure, which they will then sell for even more money. Corporations, no matter what the cost to humanity, expect a return on their investment and they’re not about to give up a trillion dollar business unless it’s going to pay them even more.

Cancer research is based on the hypothesis that if you kill the primary tumor you will cure the cancer. It is also assumed that the only way to do this is through chemo and/or radiation sometimes, sometimes not, in conjunction with surgery. Yet roughly 90% of cancer patients die from metastasis, and chemo and radiation do not stop metastasis. When a doctor tells a patient that such and such has been proven to be an effective course of treatment, the patient hears “cure,” but what is actually being said is that the treatment has been shown to retard/shrink the growth of cancer cells in the lab. There is no correlation whatsoever between the shrinking of cancer cells and cancer cure yet this continues to be the hypothesis on which all cancer research is based.

The number one medical/scientific argument against research into alternative and complimentary cancer treatments is the fact that the treatments cannot be tested within the framework of what passes for ‘good science,’ namely the double blind, placebo controlled study, wherein one side gets the drug and the other side gets the placebo (“treatment has been shown to retard/shrink the growth of cancer cells in the lab”) but the double blind placebo controlled study cannot gauge the impact of a drug on the rest of the body. That more cancer patients die from the effects of chemo and/or radiation than they do from cancer clearly illustrates the core weakness of this kind of study in relation to cancer research and treatment. Billions of dollars are spent on drugs to treat the effects of chemo and/or radiation and the drugs are made by pushers of chemo and/or radiation.

Rates of cancer survival as they are presented to the public are based on five-year increments, that is, if you live for five years after treatment than the treatment is considered a success. Overall and relative survival rates do not specify whether cancer survivors are still undergoing treatment at five years, if they still have cancer, or if they’ve achieved remission. Quality of life is also not factored into the picture so if you’re lying in bed comatose on a morphine drip, five years after diagnosis, treatment is still considered a success.

Traditional cancer treatment financially destroys people and is so enormously painful and exhausting that it is almost too much for the everyday person to fathom. The image that comes to mind when I put my hands on people undergoing chemo and/or radiation is a body nuked at the core and the fires spreading outward. The chemo and/or radiation moves through the system like the toxic poison it is killing everything it touches, healthy and unhealthy, and utterly destroying the immune system. The side effects are well documented and horrific. Patients speak of their inability to walk, an overwhelming physical weakness, exhaustion, the inability to take care of themselves or their children, intense nausea, teeth falling out, hair falling out, chemo induced leukemia, feeling like drano is running through their veins, achy bones, achy feet, a sense of being cold all the time and an awful taste in the mouth. Cancer patients get really fucking tired of hearing, “you have so much courage,” “you’re so brave,” and other phrases along those lines.

Let us not pour our hard-earned money, our valuable time, our holy passion, our open hearts, and our incandescent souls into a lie. This information getting out there, information that’s been around for a long, long time, but underground. Well it’s not underground any more.

Breast Cancer Action is the only breast cancer organization that recognizes the causal link between environment and cancer. They also refuse donations from any corporation producing known carcinogens. Here is the link:

For more information on cancer read Questioning Chemotherapy by Ralph Moss, PhD.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Kat Manaan

*If you are a cancer patient and traditional treatment is working for you, please know I am thrilled for you, but I have an equal number of patients chemo and/or radiation has not worked for. This post is advocating first and foremost for more patient choice and for research into alternatives.