Thursday, October 28, 2010

Why I HEART Dr. Gupta and Senator Lautenberg

Yesterday I wrote about blog abandonment and some of you rallied with comments, (thank you for that!), including a request for another photo of Uncle Tim's Bridge, above. I think it would be hard to stop posting, although there’s a good chance daily entries will be less of an option for me this winter. Next week B&B duties will diminish, but November is slated as renovation month at Seagull Cottage, so I will wield a paintbrush rather than a pen. It’s almost impossible to find blocks of hours to revise my novel when so many other circus rings are active and require attention. Facebook is in the middle ring and it sucks enormous amounts of time. I have discovered the site replaces the media to a certain extent in that Facebook friends often share news stories not covered in the press.

A status report by a Facebook friend alerted me to Sanjay Gupta’s participation in a New Jersey hearing on the regulation of toxic chemicals, organized by Senator Frank Lautenberg. I immediately shared this news: “Unable to move the Senate this session, Sen. Lautenberg of New Jersey took the debate on toxic chemicals to his home state. CNN's Sanjay Gupta is one of the people who testified that chemicals in the environment may be harming kids. (The rest of us, too, I might add.)”

Please read the CNN article or simply watch the video of Sanjay’s testimony. Dr. Gupta turned down the job of Surgeon General of the USA to retain his freedom, and it looks like this was the right decision.

I have not yet called for the first meeting of my green working group, and members are probably scratching their head as to why, but I do plan a November screening of Sandra Steingraber’s new award-winning documentary Living Downstream at the Wellfleet Public Library. I also continue my education on the impacts of body burden and endocrine disruption, and share what I learn here. So much to do, so little time!

Innkeeping is a job that requires work every day in season. What I mean is we do not get weekends off, unless we plan ahead. This is one of the reasons innkeepers burn out so fast, and why I harp on the fact that innkeeping is not an activity for retirement, unless, of course, one has the means to pay for help.

Are your days as busy as mine? Have you come up with ways to staunch the social-media time drain and get other things done once your work day is finished? Do you spread the word about toxic chemicals in the environment to family and friends? Did you watch Sanjay Gupta's CNN special Toxic America?