This is one to see — my review will follow but I wanted my followers to have a chance to buy tickets from the link on the website for the virtual opening. It is a bone-chilling film and yet so familiar in these times of the USA.
A THOUSAND CUTS produced and directed by Ramona S. Diaz is about the work of journalist Maria Ressa. After studying molecular biology and theater at Princeton she applied for a Fulbright fellowship with which she completed her Masters in Journalism. She has been a journalist in Asia for nearly 35 years. Maria Ressa co-founded Rappler, the top digital-only news site that is leading the fight for press freedom in the Philippines. As Rappler's executive editor and CEO, Maria has endured constant political harassment and arrests by the Duterte government, forced to post bail eight times to stay free. Rappler's battle for truth and democracy is the subject of A Thousand Cuts.
For her courage and work on disinformation and 'fake news,' Maria was named Time Magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year, was among its 100 Most Influential People of 2019, and has also been named one of Time's Most Influential Women of the Century. She was also part of BBC's 100 most inspiring and influential women of 2019 and Prospect magazine's world's top 50 thinkers.
There is a new very short film on mercury in your body from the Minamata Convention on mercury. There are a whole series of short films on the subject produced by UNESCO with the Convention secretariat. On YouTube under the tag #MakeMercuryHistory there are several short films that might answer questions you have about mercury. People are still asking me about it over the fish couters in various markets.
Remember Governments may come and go, and a million people are tweeting about the USA excutive officer while he gives a life feed speech in Mississippi — but heavy metals are here to stay so the Mercury Convention folks are working internationally to: contain mercury, reduce technology that uses mercury, find alternative technologies to replace them, remediate the environment and the improved or compensate lives that have been damaged by this particular heavy metal. Also, I’ve been updating the Mercury and Minamata Convention on Mercury page of my website. So have a look. And use that #MakeMercuryHistory.
The business of being a writer is much harder than that of being a physician — well on me anyway. They taught me how to practice medicine while have to teach myself or find those to teach me the trade aspects of being a writer.
I wanted to thank all of my family, friends and readers for the outpouring of greetings for my birthday and the support for my work you have shown. Though these are enormously hard times for the nation, the world, the ecology… I am heartened by the interest my peers and my children and therir peers have shown in making the world a better place — PLEASE MAKE TIME AND SPACE TO GET OUT THE VOTE FOR THE PRIMARY ELECTIONS — Which begin in February see https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/elections/2020-presidential-election-calendar.html.
The first Primary/Caucus is in February — only 4 months away. To make the world inch those two steps forward — even if we then go one step back—we have got to get out the vote. I’m looking forward to sharing reviews of 8 films over the next months before Christmas the will help you feel why I believe we really have to make this the focus for the end of the year year. I believe each film I’ve screened for this collection of reviews have profound implications bioethicaly and in terms of what my nephew, grandchildren and baby cousins will be facing. Though I am also busy working on Book II of the Chasing Mercury Toxic Trilogy- Weighing Lead. I consider getting out the vote as a part of that work — because the lead and the mercury cleanup work can’t properly happen under the current political circumstances in our nation.
Meanwhile keep an eye out for the film reviews in the pre film award season screenings — just a heads up —PLAN TO SEE THE FILM ‘JUST MERCY’ on Christmas Day. Everyday someone does the impossible and let it be me and you. I’ve screened Just MERCY and let’s just say —- we pulled off a film industry coup with our support of HIDDEN FIGURES openning on Xmas Day in 2016 — which financially helped fuel STEAM programs but we lost the momentum by loosing a government that cared about STEAM. Let’s support JUST MERCY and work and get a government back that believes in JUST MERCY.I write about films I want to support and I want you to help me support! …Oh yes, and if you haven’t, have a look at my new review on bioethics.net of the film: THE LURE OF THIS LAND directed by Alexandra Lexton. http://www.bioethics.net/2019/10/a-film-review-the-lure-of-this-land/
I really have to stop writing notes late at night! Thanks for reading.
I’m delighted to be introducing my this year’s book THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM:BIOETHICAL CONCERNS IN HUMAN MILK BANKING to the independent book store community beginning at the guiding light of community based readers BOOK PASSAGE CORTE MADERA, on Saturday, AUGUST 3, 2019, at 4PM. Joining me will be Pauline Sakamoto the founding director of Mothers Milk Bank San Jose — the organization to whom the proceeds from the sales will be allocated and Susan Martinelli of the California Breastfeeding Coalition—who is a lactation consultant with the County of Marin— my own home county.. Please join us, kids welcome, as we celebrate and promote the international WORLD BREAST FEEDING WEEK !
Author GiGi Panderian ( the Accidental Alchemist and others) sent a note today reminding me that this is the day that the Loving Decision was handed down by the US supreme court confirming the right to marry and have children under the 4th Amendment of the United States and the 16th Article of the Declaration of human rights. of the Declaration of Human Rights. This is the Anniversary of the Loving Decision in the USA supreme court.Confirming the right to marry and have family as outlined in Article 16 of the Declaration of Human Rights.
It was only in 1968 that the Supreme Court of the USA ruled that interracial marriage is legal to see my the two-part review--and be aware that we, at this time, on this date of today as a nation are moving backward in terms of family protections under the law--if we do not stop it. Have you checked the news today to see what is being done in our name? see both parts of the review Part I and 2 — then watch the movie and recommit to justice for families that are being torn asunder.
I had a great time with The Inner Typewriter author-host Scott Calhoun taping three episodes. He wanted to know how writers should think about bioethics. I used as an example EVENING AT THE GARDEN and some Prime Time TV shows. Please Follow, Share and Subscribe to the Inner Type Writer. We also talked a bit about Chasing Mercury and it’s underpinnings in bioethics. It’s a fun show that has writers talk/think about things of interest to—well—other writers. Also Scott is a typewriter collector. Think of the film CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER where I learned Tom Hanks (among others) Collect typewriters and I’ve been planning to go to Berkely to the store ever since!The typewriter on the desk was the same model that I learned to type on at my grandmother’s house when I was five! Great Coffee and donuts too on the set.
I had a great time with The Inner Typewriter author-host Scott Calhoun taping three episodes. He wanted to know how writers should think about bioethics. I used as an example EVENING AT THE GARDEN and some Prime Time TV shows. Please Follow, Share and Subscribe to the Inner Type Writer. We also talked a bit about Chasing Mercury and it’s underpinnings in bioethics. It’s a fun show that has writers talk/think about things of interest to—well—other writers. Also Scott is a typewriter collector. Think of the film CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER where I learned Tom Hanks (among others) Collect typewriters and I’ve been planning to go to Berkely to the store ever since!The typewriter on the desk was the same model that I learned to type on at my grandmother’s house when I was five! Great Coffee and donuts too on the set.
It is difficult to describe the number of ways that writer-director Alfonso Cuaron’s semi-biographical ROMA represents an Ichthian leap in cinema. There are no special effects to speak of, no costumes except at a New Year’s Eve party cum fire. To compare the film with the level of change that Italian Neorealism presented in the middle of the last century seems strident, yet true. Equally valid is the sense that this film represents the 7th Art at its best in both the creative and technical expression of cinema. There is not a super hero among them — but a sense of magic at the level of Murakami’s Wind Up BirdChronicle or Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle. It is a universal film from the soul of a Spanish master.
See more at: http://www.bioethicsscreenreflections.com/2019/01/roma-bioethics-and-mobius-loop.html
In the the throws of of helping the publication of Sarah Kornfeld’s “What Stella Sees” I saw the original certificate of copyright for that book. It was signed by the same person as who signed that of Chasing Mercury. I realized that it was just over a year ago when one of the finest public servants the nation has known resisted collaboration with —well— what we have in our government today— Are is the piece form last year. piece — the “Canary in the Tunnel.” I’ve republished it for you here today.
“I had a very strange experience today. I went to the drawer where I keep my copyright certificates for film and written works. I couldn’t remember the date I received the copyright for Chasing Mercury. I needed it for the front matter of the book as we prepare to publish. I opened the drawer, in the space which we laughingly refer to as my desk. The copyrights are there so my kids can find them when I die. I fished out and unfolded the certificate. Then I saw it—”
THURSDAY JUNE 21st is the first day of Summer! There is a body of water and a beach chair waiting for you to show up with a good book? But do you know where your summer books are?
This project is directly related to themes in Chasing Mercury. I can't begin to express the admiration I have for the founder/executive director of the Performing Stars Youth Program -- Felecia Gaston. She is truly a woman who knows "What plot of ground she has been given to till," As Ralph Waldo Emerson would say. And thanks to my dear friend Ola Bonds for flagging Performing Stars and it's director. PS is onto a new venture after taking children on driving tours across the USA to historically significant sights of contribution to the world of African American figure the program's right place is being honored. Performing Stars' youth ( http://performingstars.org) from Marin City are invited to attend the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and Legacy Museum From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration in Montgomery, Alabama.
International Women's Day is March 8, 2018. http://www.un.org/en/events/womensday/history.shtml. Can I count you in again? I need my "Street Team" of Chasing Mercury supporters to mobilize and buy copies of Chasing Mercury (print edition) on Amazon this Sunday 2/25/2017 (12:01AM to 12 Midnight). If you have any questions shoot me a note. The timing will help assure the now available print version of CM’s success. Go to the Print Edition at https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Mercury-Toxic-Trilogy/dp/0692059660/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Why should you care about Chasing Mercury's success for International Women's Day-- besides your affection for, well, me?
Besides ending mercury poisoning and lead poisoning-- I have a simpler request.I have two samples of the audiobook. Each of them is different - One starts at the beginning of the story. The other sample starts in the middle of the story. I need to know which one is more interesting to you and likely to make you want to hear the rest.
I'm excited to make this offer-- PLEASE ENJOY THE CHASING MERCURY AUDIOBOOK IN HONOR OF THIS AMAZING TRAVELING INTERNATIONAL EXHIBIT OPENING IN CHICAGO POST/11/9/ THE NEW NOW [NOW]. The Art Exhibit opens this THURSDAY. PLEASE SHARE THIS GIFT ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA AND WITH FRIENDS. The cost of your free audiobook will be donated by Chasing Mercury to the POSt/11/9 THE NEW NOW [NOW] Collective as Chicago is only the first venue of many national and international sites fo for this marvelous exhibition. I'm not just saying that because I'll be there reading from Chasing Mercury.
From Chasing Mercury, Chapter 17, San francisco Bay 1969-1972
“Paco often traveled through the back alleys of Venice, as he had that night, to reach our house. He tried the back door. Locked, as it should have been, he started to knock. That was when he heard the sound of our front windows shattering. Kicking the door open, he had a line of sight through the living room to the front yard. Two unfamiliar shadows held cigarette lighters. Whoosh, whoosh—Molotov cocktails, gasoline soaked cloth wicks in Coke bottles, flew through the already broken glass.
“HOT ENOUGH TO BLISTER THE skin, the Santa Ana Winds ravaged Los Angeles. Sirens raced down Manchester to the hospital on the other side of the cul-de-sac. They were loud and frequent, stopping us from opening the windows to let even the hot breeze blow through. From the ranch house picture window we could see black clouds from fires burning eight miles south. Newscasters called it a riot. Later, the people who lived in that part of the city, and history, would call it The Watts Uprisings.
CHANGE IS SLOW But it happens. The Minamata World Convention goes into force April 16, 2017. 40 years the need was recognized. Something to Celebrate!!! Chasing Mercury by September Williams awaits you. The novel is a soaring cross cultural romantic suspense saga. CHASING MERCURY by September Williams E-book is at these outlets: AMAZON, APPLE IBOOKS, BARNES & NOBLE, GOOGLE PLAY, KOBO, also soon at libraries using OVERDRIVE and BIBLIOTECH IF Chasing Mercury consider reviewing it. ( Especially on Amazon or Good Reads.) It turns out what you think encourages others to read the book.
In the the throws of of helping the publication of Sarah Kornfeld’s “What Stella Sees” I saw the original certificate of copyright for that book. It was signed by the same person as who signed that of Chasing Mercury. I realized that it was just over a year ago when one of the finest public servants the nation has known resisted collaboration with —well— what we have in our government today— Are is the piece form last year. piece — the “Canary in the Tunnel.” I’ve republished it for you here today.
“I had a very strange experience today. I went to the drawer where I keep my copyright certificates for film and written works. I couldn’t remember the date I received the copyright for Chasing Mercury. I needed it for the front matter of the book as we prepare to publish. I opened the drawer, in the space which we laughingly refer to as my desk. The copyrights are there so my kids can find them when I die. I fished out and unfolded the certificate. Then I saw it—”
I'm excited to do my first twitter chat with the AMAJournal of Ethics. TodaySeptember Williams Author of "Chasing Mercury" TODAY AT 12 NOON PT -1:45 On Twitter Chat talking About Bioethics, Film and Chasing Mercury! On twitter go to #EthicsChat at noon. ( Photo by Unique Real see on FB)
September Williams Author of "Chasing Mercury" TODAY AT 12 NOON PT -1:45 #EthicsChat
![September Williams' Chasing Mercury Audiobook is FREE this week to honor the POST/11/9 THE NEW NOW [NOW] EXHIBIT OPENING](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57268c4059827e5304e828b1/1510001892218-KLGRAR7NK0OTOR2RYT63/fullsizeoutput_4b56.jpeg)
