In the film AN EXERCISE IN EMPATHY producer-director and journalist, Cedric O’Bannon features September Williams, MD, Author, Bioethicist, immortalizing her, February 2020 Visit to CSU-Chico. The visit was co-hosted by the CSU Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the School of Nursing. The work honors researchers, teachers, and healthcare workers on the frontlines of the SARS-CoVID19 Pandemic. For more info and Screener click HERE
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 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
Well, this year has been a heck of a ride — On August 16, 2017 the World Minamata Convention on Mercury was ratified and thus transitioned from a convention to treaty to international with the strength of international law . That means the first year anniversary of the treaty has just passed.http://www.mercuryconvention.org.) I was able to be at the first convention of the parties signatory to the convention in Geneva this past September. Over this year my romance suspense novel Chasing Mercury seems to have opened up the dialog on environmental toxins to several thousands of people who otherwise might not have cared as much — and hopefully more will come. Here are some reviews from the past month— but what is clear to me is what readers are appreciating is not me — but the story of a group of people who came together to make change and who are still working at it. Hope people will continue to support Chasing Mercury and remember that a portion of the proceeds continue to go to greenaction.org and http://freegrassy.net/mercuryhome/
Tracking the process of application to the convention has been brought with joy and fear as I begin to understand how hard people worked to achieve the convention and how much work still has to be done —
Mercury is a natural element: it is found in the Earth’s crust and naturally released through volcanic activity and weathering of rocks. It exists in various forms, each with a varying degree of toxicity but all equally harmful, affecting the nervous system, the brain, the heart, the kidneys, the lungs and the immune system of all living beings. Because exposure to mercury – even small amounts – may cause serious health problems, including in utero, the World Health Organization considers it one of the top ten chemicals of major public health concern.
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?
On March 2, 2018 I will be at the University of Illinois, Chicago Medical College. We are going to do some exercises looking at narrative, creativity, enhance the capacity to be good clinicians by being healthy creative people who listen actively and understand and are fed by stories. It should be fun. The notes for the reading and screening are here.
Today, Chasing Mercury is #1 Best Seller in Memoirs/Biographies and environmentalist E books., #7 in all books in that category, and #78 ( Top 100) in ebooks Mysteries, thrillers & Suspense and international Crime!
That will last a day maybe — they recalculate Amazon best sellers every hour! But thank you so much for every one who has been reading and buying Chasing Mercury over the past week!! Part of the proceeds go to Green Action for Health and Environmental Justice, www.greenaction.org and to freegrassy.net
What makes waves have power? Wind speed, Wind duration, Wind distance traveled determined-- wave height, wave length, wave time interval (sets -- come in 3 to 20) -- all of this makes power -- every bit has it's role.Women's rights are human rights - has declared in the Declaration of Human Rights, the emancipation proclamation, the founding documents of the French Revolution -- the all come to this point.
Everyone has a role in this movement for change that advances the humanitarian and environmental justice — on the street or not. But for all the women who will be on the streets marching in tomorrow, Saturday, and all the other work that women do — I wish you Peace, I thank you, and above all TELL YOUR STORIES BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE. See https://www.womensmarch.com
“This is the San Francisco, America pretends does not exist.”
Green Action ( greenaction.org) enters its 3rd decade of coalition building and stalwart support for environmental justice, health and against environmental racism and classism in Bay View Hunters Point, Kettleman City, Richmond and in coalition with so many others struggling for Environmental Justice. If you could bear to make it to the end of my ebook or audiobook Chasing Mercury - You would notice that the last point in the final “Authors Acknowledgements” reads, “A portion of the proceeds from Chasing Mercury go to: http://freegrassy.net and also to http://greenaction.org/?page_id=181”
Near Sunset today I walked the Tennessee Valley Trail. It has always been important to me. The first year I lived in the area ( 15 years ago) I photographed its ever changing beach almost daily. Each day that beach is completely remodeled...
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.
Born in Minamata, japan in 1956, Ms. Shinobu Sakamoto is a survivor congenitally afflicted with Minamata Disease. As early as age 15 she became an eloquent spokesperson and advocate for environmental justice, ending mercury pollution and protection of the rights and care of those with Minamata disease, severe human mercury poisoning. Minamata disease was initially recognized in the late 1950s, at Minamata Japan, and has the distinction of being among the first industrial toxin identified illnesses. Ms. Sakamoto has travelled from Japan to address the international community this week at the United Nations Environmental Program sponsored first conference of the parties signatory to the Minamata Convention on Mercury. The convention (treaty) has gone "into force" this past August 2017.
There is something inherently exhausting about compacting 3 years of work into 12 hours of audio recording -- I guess it's what makes diamonds. I had a great 4 days with Greg, a super sound engineer at Command Productions in Sausalito, recording the audiobook edition for Chasing Mercury. It's off to the distributors and hopefully it will be available by the end of this week or next...
“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.
![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)
