Not doing well in fight against cancer

https://healthfinder.gov/News/Article.aspx?id=716118&source=govdelivery&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Rural Appalachia Faces Growing Cancer Crisis, Research Shows

 It's the only region in the U.S. that hasn't made big progress in fighting the disease. Rural Appalachia Faces Growing Cancer Crisis, Research Shows

While the rest of the United States makes major strides against cancer, a cancer crisis is taking hold in rural Appalachia.
A University of Virginia (UVA) team analyzed federal government data and found that between 1969 and 2011, cancer rates fell in every U.S. region except rural Appalachia.
Over the study period, rural Appalachia went from having the nation's lowest cancer death rate to the highest. Cancer death rates were nearly 15 percent higher in Virginia's rural Appalachian counties than in non-Appalachian urban areas nationwide. In rural Appalachian areas of Kentucky, cancer death rates rose 36 percent.
Rural residents in every state in the Appalachian region, except Maryland, had higher cancer death rates than their urban counterparts, the study found.
"Almost 40 percent more cancer mortalities [in rural Kentucky] than in the other United States. I think that's crazy," researcher Nengliang (Aaron) Yao said in a university news release.
In addition, people in Appalachia are more likely to die within three to five years of their cancer diagnoses than people in urban areas outside the region, and breast cancer is less likely to be caught early, the researchers said.
Yao cited several economic, geographic and political barriers to quality cancer care in the region.
"They don't use a lot of health care. It means they don't spend a lot of CMS [U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] money, and if you don't spend, you won't be considered high-cost patients," said Yao. He is an assistant professor of public health sciences in the School of Medicine and the UVA Cancer Center.
"If you're not high-cost patients, it is hard to draw attention from policymakers and payers," Yao added.
Other problems include widespread poverty, high levels of smoking and obesity, and poor access to health care, the study authors noted.
The study was published recently in the Journal of Rural Health.

A letter from a free man to his former slave owner from before the Civil War

Historians know of this letter, but it is now getting more popular with social media.

https://www.good.is/articles/jordan-andersons-legendary-clapback?utm_source=121&utm_medium=FB&utm_campaign=swp

Heading home from work

West Virginia workers heading home after a day on the job. Photo from 1910.

North Carolina Travel -- one option

The annual gathering is slated for North Carolina, and what some are going to do.

<a href="http://www.suusi.org/index.php/home1/latest-news/485-director-responds-to-hb2">http://www.suusi.org/index.php/home1/latest-news/485-director-responds-to-hb2</a>

What is SUUSI doing about HB2?

Many people in our SUUSI community and in the larger Unitarian Universalist world have expressed concern about the recent passage of HB2, a North Carolina law that mandates discriminatory practices towards transgender and gender-non-conforming people, overturns local non-discrimination laws across North Carolina enacted to protect LGBT people, and effectively repeals state-level non-discrimination laws altogether.


The SUUSI Board has issued a strong statement condemning HB2. And yet we understand that a statement is not enough. Given that SUUSI’s new home is in North Carolina, we find ourselves called to respond forcefully to this law and to join the work of getting it repealed and/or overturned. We are convinced that our presence in North Carolina as religious people opposed to the types of discrimination that HB2 represents can be a positive force for justice in North Carolina and throughout the Southeast.

As the SUUSI director, I thought it would be wise to update all who are concerned about HB2 as to what SUUSI is doing and working on.

First, we have been in contact with our new hosts at Western Carolina University to ensure that SUUSI participants, no matter their gender identity or expression, will be safe and welcome on campus.  Our hosts have been gracious and kind, and have expressed their commitment to working with SUUSI to ensure that HB2 does not affect our participants negatively. The Conferences Director at WCU assured us this:  “This legislation is by no means a reflection of most of the people of the state of North Carolina.  It certainly is not a reflection of how anyone will be treated on the campus of Western Carolina University. Western Carolina University will continue to welcome all groups and treat everyone with the utmost respect and dignity.”


Next, we are reaching out to local organizations to offer our assistance and our voices in their work on behalf of LGBT people in Western North Carolina.  We have offered our willingness to engage in public religious witness against HB2, but will not plan any such witness if transgender people in the Cullowhee community feel that it would make them less safe.  We have offered also to help raise funds for their work.  A list of organizations to which you might consider making donations is at the end of this letter.

We have also pledged to join the fight against HB2 in the courts.  It is clear to many legal experts that the first part of HB2, regarding transgender people and bathrooms, is blatantly in conflict with Federal law, and is probably unconstitutional.  A recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on a case involving a law in Virginia backs up this opinion.  At its most recent meeting, the SUUSI Board pledged $2000 from SUUSI 2016 to the Charlotte Clergy Coalition for Justice’s fund for legal expenses in challenging HB2.

We are trying our best to reduce the economic benefit of SUUSI to North Carolina, and to let NC government officials know that their state is losing revenue because of HB2.  Toward that end, SUUSI Core Staff traveling to Western NC for our June meeting will fly in and out of Atlanta, Georgia.  We will rent cars there and fill them up on the Georgia side of the GA-NC border, where we will also stock up on supplies and snacks.  We are compiling resources for SUUSI participants to help them spend less money in North Carolina, and we will collect receipts at SUUSI to show NC officials the money that could have been spent in their state.  As we understand that many people’s travel necessitates long routes through NC, we are trying to compile a list of businesses that have explicitly opposed HB2, so that we might funnel our travel dollars to them.  We expect that this will also include a list of businesses that have declared their bathrooms open to all.

Finally, we are in conversation with UUA staff about making SUUSI a key place to disseminate resources for people to fight transphobic and anti-LGBT legislation in their home states.  As you know, NC’s HB2 is the first of what could be many such laws in the Southeast, and we would like to leverage SUUSI’s regional attendance to make sure that such bills can be stopped wherever they are proposed.

SUUSI takes seriously our role as a religious entity newly located in North Carolina, and we take HB2 seriously as well. While we have committed to holding our conference in North Carolina, we have also committed to engaging in opposition to this odious law. We hope that you will join us in gathering on the side of love this July.



Yours in Faith,

Rev. Dr. Michael Tino, Director

director@suusi.org

Steph Curry, Tar Heel State, All-Star Game in 2017, and piece of mind

In 2016, the NBA All-Star Game visited Wilburn's home town, Toronto. In 2017, the game moves to North Carolina. Yep, that North Carolina. Some are not so happy to travel to there with the new legislation and wish to make a statement. https://www.thenation.com/article/steph-curry-on-north-carolinas-hb-2-no-one-should-be-discriminated-against/

TV show "Outsiders"

Have you heard of this show, "Outsiders?"

“Outsiders,” is a WGN America series shot in the Pittsburgh area. It has been renewed for a second season in March 2016.

“Outsiders” focuses on the Farrell clan, a tight-knit family of renegades who have lived atop Shay Mountain in Kentucky for more than 200 years, and their fight to defend their way of life from anyone who dares to challenge them. TV veteran David Morse stars as the patriarch of the family with Ryan Hurst (Opie Winston on “Sons of Anarchy”) as his son.

 

The show, which debuted in January, is WGN America's third original series and possibly its most successful. It has drawn consistent ratings over the course of its first season to date, drawing 2.8 million viewers in the live plus seven days rating, according to Variety.com.

 It was shot last year primarily at the 31st Street Studios in the Strip District. Millvale and Monroeville also were primary filming locations, according to location director John Adkins of Regent Square, but filming also was done in Ross, Shaler, Reserve, Harmar, Pitcairn, North Versailles, North Braddock, Turtle Creek, Dunbar and West Newton.

 

Many of the supporting cast members, including some with recurring speaking roles, live in Pittsburgh or the region and work here regularly in film and theater.

Thirteen episodes have been ordered for season two, but there's no word on when filming will begin. “Outsiders” will be showcased March 12 with a screening at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, according to Variety.

“Outsiders” airs at 9 p.m. Tuesdays.

Links:
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsiders_%28TV_series%29 Wikipedia page
• http://wgnamerica.com/series/outsiders official site
• http://triblive.com/aande/moreaande/10128987-74/outsiders-pittsburgh-season
original article in Tribune Review

Toronto Meeting

Meeting in Toronto, Mark Rauterkus, desktop guy who didn't catch any of the typos, and author, speaker, researcher and professor, Wilburn Hayden.

The Preliminary Program of the 39th Annual ASA Conference, Voices from the Misty Mountains: Diversity and Unity, a New Appalachia, March 17-20, 2016, Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, West Virginia is available. http://appalachianstudies.org/annualconference/.

Registration: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/jas/isubscribe.php.

Session 10.2. Sunday, March 20, 9:30 - 10:30 AM. Black Appalachian Pioneers Gather: William Turner, Wilburn Hayden & Edward Cabbel.

See you there!

Books can be shipped to Europe

Books are being shipped to the United Kingdom. Order via Amazon can go overseas. Thanks for the recent order in SKIPTON, N Yorkshire. Hope you enjoy the resource and read.

Wilburns' page at York

See Professor's page at York: http://people.laps.yorku.ca/people.nsf/researcherprofile?readform&shortname=whayden