sandracookie.blogspot's Resurrection

After a lengthy hiatus, I'm back!  Finding concurrent time and motivation to write has been difficult for the past year or so, but I've decided to set a goal to blog once a week because I think the cathartic release will be healthy for me.

Updating readers on life events since my last postings seems overwhelming and unnecessary given that anyone who reads this probably knows all of these tidbits anyway, but here's a recap in list form:

• got married
  
• honeymooned in Hawaii (see manta ray video in the previous post!)
  
• started a new job (I'm on the right - not a great pic, but it's the only photo I have of me working in my new gig as biology professor at High Point University)
  
  
• bought a new house
  
• ran my 16th marathon in March
  
• got back into shorter racing with a couple 5Ks and 10K in the past few weeks (this terrible pic is from the Run for the Haw 5K...23:41)
  
  
• spent a few days in New Orleans to celebrate my sister's graduation from Tulane's MPH program.  The blurry figure at the podium (wearing the cap) is the Dalai Lama!
  
  
• just returned from a meeting in San Antonio (haven't traveled much since the honeymoon, so these little trips seem noteworthy)
  
• in the process of selling my Durham house!  This pic was taken the day I closed in April 2008:
  

But rather than providing self-indulgent chronicles of my life happenings (which I will indeed continue!), the primary reason I wanted to resurrect the blog is to maintain a healthy outlet for my raves, rants, and other foods for thought.  The past year or so has been a particularly frustrating time of injustice, ignorance, and stupidity regarding issues I care deeply about:  family planning, gender  equality, sexuality equality, and use & abuse of science, to name a few.  Today I'll limit this post to a brief rave, a brief rant, and a brief piece of "food for thought."

Rave:  No big surprise that I'm raving about yesterday's SCOTUS moves:  rolling back a key section of DOMA and clearing the way for marriage equality in California!  We still need to eliminate ALL of DOMA and legalize marriage between 2 consenting adults in 37 states, but we'll get there.  We also need to legalize plural marriages and incestuous marriages, but again, we'll get there someday.  One step at a time, and this was a huge step in the right direction!  (And if my call for plural marriages and incestuous marriages freaks you out, check if your "ick" response is rational and justified.)

Rant:  This week the NC House passed an "Abortion Teaching" bill that would require students in 7th grade and higher to be lied to.  Specifically, the lie they would be told is that abortion causes premature births in subsequent pregnancies.  Major medical societies dispute this link, as it is not supported by any solid data.  This is just the latest example of NC lawmakers wasting their time and our money with harmful, ideologically-driven legislation instead of recognizing and addressing the real issues impacting North Carolinians, especially the poor and unemployed.

Food for Thought:  Yet another potentially policy-shifting study recently emerged from the environmental chemistry lab of Dr. Heather Stapleton.  Her previous work has examined flame retardants and other endocrine disruptors in baby products.  This current study found large concentrations of flame retardants in household dust.  Based on everything I've read in the environmental toxicology literature, I have a strong hunch that the "cure" to cancer and other diseases lies in environmental chemicals (that is, the cause lies in chemicals).  Unfortunately, linking cause and effect is extraordinarily difficult in environmental toxicology, especially compared to elucidating genetic causes of disease, because of the challenge in detecting and quantifying acute and chronic exposures of hundreds and hundreds of synthetic chemicals.  But studies like these make at least some progress, so that's encouraging.  What's not so encouraging is that each time a study like this comes out, we realize how difficult it is to avoid exposure to these chemicals.  Since Dr. Stapleton has a couple babies and has devoted her career to this stuff, I think I'll follow her lead!  Excuse me while I go dust with a wet cloth :)