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    Standards of Care
    The Sun InterviewBy Naomi PittsStandards of CareRolonda Donelson on Bias and Anti-Science Attitudes in Medicine

    The reason Black women were used to develop the field of gynecology was because they were no more than property. They weren’t seen as people; they were just seen as things. The controlling of Black women’s bodies started with chattel slavery, but it continues today.

    Milk
    Readers WriteBy Our ReadersMilk

    Pumped for an infant, spilled at the dinner table, used as a tear gas antidote

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Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

    Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

    Temple Sweeper

    12 May 1974. Josh may be dying. It seems so witless and so unreal. I cannot relate to him as other than a living force. Words seem superfluous to the privacy and loneliness of his experience. He is Josh as he always has been; I make clumsy assurances of my love and hope. My suffering for him can only make it harder.

    By Val StaplesDecember 1977
    Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

    Common Sense As Cosmic Sense

    To live by the heart alone is to impose no order on one’s world, to burn out in a frenzy. If one does not temper one’s experience with both logic and feeling, both discernment and love, then one is treading close to the edge of the abyss. The unquestioned heart is as extreme as the unquestioned mind.

    By Richard WilliamsDecember 1977
    Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

    Breasts: A Lesson In Self-Discovery

    The room temperature should be comfortable but a bit on the cool side to insure the full development of the castle and each of the respective pawns and moats of the areola.

    By Frank GrazianoDecember 1977
    Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

    The Chain Gang

    Consumers foot the bill for the supermarket monopolies. And what a bill! A 1975 government report found that 41% of the increase in food margins in a nine-year period was the result of rising advertising and promotional expenses — money spent not to better our diet but to manipulate us as shoppers.

    By Cary FowlerDecember 1977
    Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

    Excerpts From RAIN

    Journal Of Appropriate Technology

    RAIN is one of my favorite magazines. Published monthly in Portland, Oregon, RAIN calls itself “a monthly information access journal and reference service for people developing more satisfying patterns that increase local self-reliance and press less heavily on our limited resources.”

    By Tom BenderDecember 1977
    Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

    Hillsborough: Queen Of The Piedmont

    According to the Hillsborough Chamber of Commerce, “at least 116 late 18th and early 19th century structures” still grace the town’s quiet streets. Many are beautifully preserved and marked for the passerby.

    By Barry JacobsDecember 1977
    Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

    David Searls Loves The Sun

    A Romance

    I want to hold the Sun-connections of my life up to the light, like a five-inch-tall Italian standing, hands aloft, under a heap of the finest spaghetti. I want to shake the November Sun at the world, and testify like a Baptist in heat.

    By David SearlsDecember 1977
    Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

    Breadmen’s

    The Rose In The Greasy Fist

    I’ll start with a startling admission: in this, The New Age, the closest I come to feeling part of a community is at an all-night cafe just down the block called Breadmen’s.

    By Sy SafranskyDecember 1977
    Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

    Temple Sweeper

    The drug habits of Americans — that’s “legal” drugs, obtained by prescription or off the grocery and drugstore shelves — is alarming.

    By Val StaplesNovember 1977
    Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

    Shadow Dancing

    Autumn comes, summer ends . . . so quickly. The fire is momentarily resurrected in dazzling fall days, brilliant changing falling leaves. I compete with birds and squirrels for the bounty of fruit, nuts, berries.

    By Leaf DiamantNovember 1977
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