I realized last Monday night while sitting in the audience at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), that I probably would not have made a very good marine biologist......and to think that for years, it was what I told everyone I wanted to be.
The presentation was by Sylvia Earl, aka "The Shark Lady," and she's been around a long while. The NYAS has been running a series of lectures given by women scientists, to encourage young women scientists, and those of us chicks who just have a general interest in science. Of course there are men at these lectures too, but the focus is on women who have become scientist and how their interest was nurtured to allow them to become successful in their chosen career.
Sylvia Earl is the Jacque Cousteau of women a friend recently informed me. I had no idea. My interest in marine biology was so long ago, that I can't say I've kept up with the times at all. Although I was there having bought the series of tickets, there were women in the audience who were obviously thrilled to be there, and upon approaching the microphone at the end of the lecture to ask questions, positively gushed, while telling Sylvia what a huge influence she was in their lives. (Many of these women were very knowledgeable about sharks too.)
Perhaps if it had been Jacque Cousteau I would have been hugely impressed, and I feel awful and disloyal saying that I knew so little about one of my own gender who is so obviously well known and respected in the field of marine biology. Heck, the woman has done all kinds of stuff for National Geographic and the American Museum of Natural History, and holds the record for the deepest dive by a women (I believe).............I should be more impressed!
However, whether or not I was impressed isn't the point, what is, was my realization that my long ago dream would probably not have ended up being a career path I would have wanted to stay on. Sylvia was quite excited to describe in detail what it was like to, oh..... dissect a shark to see if it gave birth to live young, or released eggs. It was at that moment it dawned on me that I would not have liked doing that. I hated dissecting frogs in middle school and fetal pigs in college! Sylvia talked about peering into the murky water at a NYC aquarium while growing up, and wanting to be in that dark green water for real. Probably not something I would have enjoyed either. In retrospect, I think I might have made a kick-ass marine ecologist or environmentalist. But, we'll never know. I'm a helper...it's what I do and will probably always be what I do. Perhaps in my next life some new career path will unfold....it could happen.......
Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin............
"Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears.
Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them.
It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story-- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves.
She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan.
She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered.
The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently.
She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters.
I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet.
It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable forhumans.
It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack.
It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction.
It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing.
It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalismand aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill."
I think of teeth when I think of drills.
I think of rape.
I think of destruction.
I think of domination.
I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent.
I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?"
Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008
Published in the Long Island Advance, May 22, 2008
OK, so…I’m going to dip a toe into a pond that I would normally be afraid to venture into. Normally I stick to “writing what I know,” which is usually a good policy to have. Today it will be more like writing about what I wish I knew.
If I wasn’t working in Human Services, I’d like to think that I might have stumbled into a career as a scientist. I’m sure this revelation will come as a surprise to my family, but it shouldn’t. At one time I wanted to be a marine biologist and it was all I can remember talking about. The movie Jaws cured me of that dream. And, let’s face it, if becoming a marine biologist was really that important to me I would not have let a mechanical shark scare me away.
Although I love sitting by the ocean, or standing at the edge getting my feet wet, rarely do I go in, and the moment I do the theme song from Jaws starts to play in my head and it’s just not worth the anxiety I feel not knowing what might be swimming around under me. Hence a career spent in the water did not seem like a good idea in the end.
In my fantasy career world of today, I can envision being a geological archeologist, or some sort of environmental biologist. I’ve been able to satisfy this need by visiting places like the Museum of Natural History, by attending lectures on the arts and sciences, or just by sitting in my living room, watching the Discovery or National Geographic channels. Yet, as a rule, I don’t write about science not feeling anywhere near qualified to do so.
I do have a growing concern about our environment though, and last year I ventured into that arena and wrote about it. So, in an effort to stretch my abilities just a bit more and set out once again into uncharted waters, I’d like to tell you about Science Debate 2008.
I’m on a few science related email lists and ScienceDebate2008.com is one of them. The people who run this website have for months been trying to engage those candidates running for the office of President of the United States in a debate to see where they stand on issues such as “healthcare, climate change and energy and how science can tackle them.” They took many, many steps in order to make their invitation to discuss these topics appealing to the candidates, yet none other than McCain responded, and he declined.
There seems to be a misconception within the mainstream media that people don’t want to hear about this, therefore having this very important invitation publicized has been almost impossible. In an effort to prove that people are interested in what those running for office think about science related issues, a poll was commissioned by Research!America and ScienceDebate2008 and conducted by Harris Interactive ® that showed that 85% of U.S. adults agree that the presidential candidates should participate in a discussion of this kind.
“’This topic has been virtually ignored by the candidates, but this poll shows that Americans of all walks know how important science and technology are to our health and way of life,’ said Shawn Lawrence Otto, CEO of Science Debate 2008. ‘We’ve heard a lot about lapel pins and preachers. But tackling the big science challenges is critical to our children’s future – to the future of the country and the future of the planet. Americans want to know that candidates take these issues seriously, and the candidates have a responsibility to let voters know what they think.’”
I don’t have room here to go into detail about what I consider a very critical issue for our country. Clearly it’s not about the political party you belong to though. We all belong to the human race and we should care about what those who want to lead our country think about climate change, global poverty, education and renewable energy.
The Long Island Advance is about as mainstream media as I can come up with in order to publicize what I think is a very important topic. If I’ve tweaked your interest even the littlest bit, please check out http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/ and see what you might do to help bring attention to something that is so important to us all. You don’t have to be a “wanna-be” scientist to have a desire to be well informed prior to casting your vote in November.
Published in The Long Island AdvanceMay 24, 2007It’s difficult to live in the world today and not have heard the words “global warming.” You can’t open a newspaper or read a magazine, go online or watch television without seeing something related to this topic. I’m initially good at not paying attention to issues that seem far greater then I am. If our government refuses to see the light, what can I, one person do about it?
For me it’s become increasingly difficult to ignore this subject. Some would like us to believe that scientists are needlessly scaring us, but I’ve decided not to take that chance. That’s why I now own six reusable shopping bags that I take when I go to the grocery store.
Ever since grocery stores replaced paper bags with the plastic ones, I’ve hated them. My five or six reusable bags hold the same amount as 12 plastic bags, which would often spill their contents all over the trunk of my car. I do wish that my environmentally friendly shopping bags were just a little less flashy though. They’re a bit too bright, but no matter, I’m not trying to make a fashion statement, just an environmental one.
Often when shopping in local grocery stores I look around me to see if anyone else is using the flashy bags and I have yet to spot anyone. I’m very good about making sure those bags are always in the trunk of my car and ready to use should I need to make a run to the store. Sure, once in a while I forget them and have to use the plastic ones. (I still haven’t figured out what to put the cat litter in, so for now I continue to need a few.) Yet, I would love to see more people leaving the store with all their groceries in the flashy new bags.
Leaving less of a carbon footprint is important to me. There are huge political issues involved. More than I have the time, the space, or the understanding of to write about here. For me, this is about being responsible for what my impact here on earth is. I can’t help believe that if everyone gave just a little more thought to that, it might very well make a difference. I think being
environmentally responsible now might be an important gift I can give to my children and theirs.
You all know how I feel about my car. Although for me one of the biggest draws to moving to a more urban area is avoiding those car dilemmas that I’ve written about, another is the fact that I will further decrease my carbon footprint. I realize that it’s almost impossible to live in Suffolk County without one, so I’m not anticipating a mad rush of people to follow in my particular footsteps. All I would really like to do is to get you to think in simple terms about what you can do to help stop global warming.
The Inuit’s are falling through thin ice while hunting; Polar Bears are starving while their natural habitat melts before their eyes. The poorest countries in the world will suffer the most, and the riches, the least. Maybe those of us here today won’t feel that suffering, but it’s a sure bet that the generation that comes after us will.
Do something to decrease your carbon footprint. Even if all it is, is to replace your light bulbs or start to shop for local produce, or to make a fashion statement by using those fancy new grocery store bags.
