My Big Fears
My local public radio show interviewed Governor Stacey Abrams this week, in our big art deco concert hall in downtown Portland, and I was inspired by her talk. The statement that I was most caught by was “There’s no universe in which it should be a normal thing that you have the national guard or ICE roaming the streets and we are not talking about it EVERY SINGLE DAY”. This is me talking about it. Let’s talk.
https://www.opb.org/article/2025/11/24/stacey-abrams-coded-justice/
She has a website, https://10stepscampaign.org/#10 which talks about the ten ways we are already fallen into authoritarianism and the ten ways to get democracy back. She said that her mission is to get it back, and understand the ways we’ve done so before. History is so important right now.
Stacey’s newest book is about AI. I feel as though AI is one of the less conscious reasons that I’m trying to move to a less populated, less educated, more isolated community on the Oregon Coast. AI and, as a result, airports, are starting to really scare me. Usually when something scares me, it helps to learn more about it. In the case of AI, learning more makes me more scared.
In a couple of weeks I’m leaving for the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium for the third year in a row, but I’m not sure if I’ll go next year. One reason is that I’m getting more and more travel anxiety. Another reason is that I still believe in global warming and the literal filth of jet engines, in spite of my great desire to learn about breaking breast cancer science. Now I may start to have a third reason—living two hours from the airport. This is likely to be the tipping point. This is also why I’ve scheduled my last two flights to Europe—I have a bucket list agenda item of learning about the homelands of my grandparents. But after next spring, I do think that I will become much more of a travel hermit.
Thankfully, this is a really good year to be at the international breast cancer symposium in Texas—big research developments will be discussed in both of my diagnosis areas: Lobular Breast Cancer and DCIS. It will also be an important reunion and a face to face gathering of the breast cancer advocates I’ve become closer to online in the last year. I hope that some of you will join us! The Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance is an excellent convenor of advocates, if you’re interested. I wish we had such an org for survivors of DCIS. Maybe there is one, but I’m not aware of it if so. Are you?
Unlike AI, learning about the science of breast cancer and its treatments always gives me MORE solace, event though I continue to learn how excessively complex the science is. To see people studying and learning about it gives me so much hope. Thankfully I can tune into the symposium online in future years! This year, substack will be the place I debrief about my learnings there. Last year I debriefed on youtube, and the year before I did so on instagram. It’s nice to be here where you who are interested in this stuff can find me better.
If you’re going to San Antonio, I’ll be tabling each afternoon in the nonprofit kiosk area at the Stand Tall AFC booth. Aesthetic Flat Closure is my third area of interest—one not as mysterious when it comes to scientific discovery! I’ll be talking to some potential sponsors who may be able to support our mission of getting tables at ALL the breast cancer walks while I’m there. If you’d like to support Stand Tall in this way, you can donate here: https://notputtingonashirt.org/standtallafc/#donate