Prophylactic Mastectomy: Angelina Jolie Opens a Door on a World of Challenging Decisions

Angelina Jolie’s brave announcement in the New York Times last week that she has undergone a prophylactic mastectomy and reconstruction because of her high hereditary risk of breast and ovarian cancer has resonated loudly with other women who come from families with high cancer rates. Being a carrier of a deleterious mutation in a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene means that a woman faces a 56-87% risk of developing breast cancer and a 20-60% risk of developing ovarian cancer, both rates far above those faced by women in the general population. Many of the breast cancers occur at unusually early ages, so breast screening in women at high risk is recommended to begin at age 25 and women in screening programs are also advised to consider prophylactic mastectomy and prophylactic oophorectomy when they complete their childbearing.

 As the Cancer Genetics and Prevention Clinic Director of Psychology Research and Clinical Services and the author of Prophylactic Mastectomy: Insights from Women who Chose to Reduce Their Risk (Praeger, 2012), I have heard many women’s stories about how they came to the same decision Angelina made and how they have coped with the physical and psychological challenges which surgery created. The vast majority of women feel as Angelina said she did, grateful for the chance to avoid cancer and to be able to reassure her children that they would not lose her to that disease. Having lost a parent to cancer at a young age and having small children are two of the most common motivations for women to choose prophylactic mastectomy. What Angelina could not cover in her letter were the many dilemmas, challenges, decisions, problems and adaptations which a woman opting for prophylactic mastectomy faces along the way to her successful surgery and recovery. The 21 women I interviewed for the book talked openly about difficulties finding sympathetic doctors, countering well-meaning relatives who opposed the surgery, confronting innermost feelings about their breasts, figuring out how to explain this surgery to small children (one woman told her young children her surgery was like when their stuffed animals needed new stuffing!), and adjusting to a changed sexual experience and body image. The road to “saving my own life” or “feeling safe within my body” is often a bumpy one, leading to a good place, but sometimes requiring support from family, friends, and professionals along the way. Hats off to Angelina, for pointing the GPS down that road! She has made it much easier for other women to follow.

Andrea Farkas Patenaude, PhD, Director of Psychology Research and Clinical Services, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Author, Prophylactic Mastectomy: Insights from Women Who Chose to Reduce Their Risk (Praeger, 2012) 

Video Discussion with the Authors of African Americans on Television: Racing for Ratings

African Americans on Television: Racing for Ratings

David J. Leonard, PhD, is associate professor and chair in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University. Leonard has written Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema.

Lisa A. Guerrero, PhD, is associate professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University. Guerrero is the editor of Teaching Race in the 21st Century: College Teachers Talk about Their Fears, Risks, and Rewards.

Interview with Bruce E. Johansen, Author of Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement

What prompted you to write The Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement? What "message" do you want to communicate?

Kim Kennedy White, the acquisitions editor for race and ethnicity, asked me to write an encyclopedia about the American Indian movement. Her idea excited me because I have known some of the principal people over many years.  I decided to include both AIM, as well as many allied groups that also fought for Native American rights beginning in the 1950s. People from many of these groups often made common cause.

For example, I was a member of Leonard Peltier’s first defense committee during the late 1970s, in Seattle. I also was the first to write about his case in a national venue (The Nation, September, 1977). My first book (Wasi’chu: The Continuing Indian Wars, 1979) described events during the “reign of terror” at Pine Ridge from 1973 to 1976.  I had witnessed some of the fishing-rights activities in Puget Sound as a reporter at the Seattle Times, and knew many of the participants. Kim’s invitation made me revisit all of this in a new way, as history.

What I want to communicate is the story of people deciding to demand justice and enforcement of treaty rights, and to do it in an historical context that enables everyone to understand a time that has influenced subsequent events.

What was the highlight of your research? In the course of your research, what discovery surprised you the most? What surprises readers/others the most about your research?

The highlight was learning more, as an historian, about people and events I had known or experienced, and reading other authors’ work on the same subjects. I have written, for example, about sterilization of American Indian women, and the effects of uranium on Navajo miners – both of which became objects of protests that brought them to a halt. My favorite part of writing is discovery of new information, followed by weaving of text. The book includes many personal stories that should make it more readable.

How did your research change your outlook on the American Indian Movement?

The research enriched my outlook more than changing it.

How have people reacted to your book and/or the ideas you set forth? Is it what you hoped for, or is there more work to be done?

Just about everyone I have told about this book wants to read it cover-to-cover, which is very unusual for an encyclopedia.

What's next for you?

I am writing and editing the Encyclopedia of American Indian Culture: From Canoes to Pow-wows with Kim. Also, I am writing two books in the Puget Sound area, one on the revival of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, another on an amazing multi-ethnic organization, El Centro de la Raza that people re-built with their own hands in an abandoned school in Seattle. Both of these books are specific applications of the kind of self-determination that developed during the time that AIM was active.  El Centro and the Muckleshoots have been allied since the fishing “wars” of the 1960s and 1970s; the Seattle area is very multi-ethnic, and many people have been given to developing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ideas of a “beloved community” that crosses ethnic lines. Both books thus are relevant to the United States as a whole because  we are becoming more ethnically diverse every day. El Centrowas founded mainly by Latinos led by people who want to appreciate their own culture as well as everyone else’s. I’m Norwegian-American, and their historian.

Bruce E. Johansen is Jacob J. Isaacson University Research Professor In Communication and Native American Studies University of Nebraska at Omaha, having worked there since 1982, meanwhile producing 37 books, mainly in Native American studies and on environmental subjects. These include The Encyclopedia of Global Warming Science and Technology (2 vols., 2009), Global Warming in the 21st century (3 vols., 2006), and as co-editor (with Barry M. Pritzker) of the 4-volume Encyclopedia of Native American History.

Colonial Williamsburg’s Gift to the Nation Electronic Field Trip “Founders or Traitors”

Colonial Williamsburg’s Gift to the Nationprovides teachers with unique resources to engage students in the study of citizenship and the values that shaped our nation. The Electronic Field Trip “Founders or Traitors” explores the later part of 1776, which were “the times that try men’s souls.” Join Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge as they meet with British admiral Lord Howe, hoping to end the American rebellion peacefully. Meet the signers of the Declaration of Independence and discover the risks they took.

·         Available online 24/7 from May 1, 2013 to May 1, 2014

·         On-demand video streaming over the Web

·         Email John Adams

·         Interactive online games

·         Downloadable resources, such as the teacher guide and program script (PDF)

·         Comprehensive lesson plans

View the complete 2013-2014 Electronic Field Trip Schedule 

We hope you’ll take advantage of this opportunity to bring this exciting, relevant program into your school or home!

Register Now at http://giftnation.history.org/

Brooklyn Castle

On April 5-7, 2013, 5,331 chess players in grades K-12 competed at the SuperNationals V chess tournament. It was the largest chess tournament ever held in the United States. When not competing at giant chess tournaments, those thousands of scholastic chess players play chess at their schools. Educators and librarians are often asked by chess-loving students to sponsor chess clubs. Sometimes parents or principals push for chess instruction in schools, having read that chess helps with problem solving and other academic skills.

Consequently, chess can be found during the school day or in the extracurricular hours (before school, during lunch, or after school) at many public and private schools. Public libraries also frequently host chess clubs.

The award-winning documentary Brooklyn Castleprovides a portrait of chess at one middle school in Brooklyn, New York. I.S. 318 students take up to seven chess classes during the week. Many also participate in after-school chess club meetings and in Saturday tournaments.

The Web site for Brooklyn Castle describes the film as telling “the stories of five members of the chess team at a below-the-poverty-line inner city junior high school that has won more national championships than any other in the country. The film follows the challenges these kids face in their personal lives as well as on the chessboard, and is as much about the sting of their losses as it is about the anticipation of their victories. Ironically, the biggest obstacle thrust upon them arises not from other competitors but from recessionary budget cuts to all the extracurricular activities at their school.”

Brooklyn Castle is rated PG. A full-length documentary (101 minutes), it holds the attention of children ages 8 and older. Its subject matter is of particular interest to middle and high school students, parents, and educators.

Brooklyn Castle is available in DVD format and will be shown on television this fall. The film’s director Katie Dellamaggiore gave the following information:

-The film will air on PBS this fall, as part of the POV documentary series. No airdate yet, 

but here’s the announcement:

http://www.pbs.org/pov/blog/povdocs/tag/brooklyn-castle/#.UXbjsCvrkdo

-The Educational DVD is available for pre-order here:

http://firstrunfeatures.com/brooklyncastle.html

About this blog post author:

Alexey W. Root was the 1989 U.S. Women’s Chess Champion and is a Woman International Master. She has a Ph.D. in education from UCLA. She is the author of five ABC-CLIO books on chess in education: 

The Living Chess Game: Fine Arts Activities for Kids 9-14 (2011)

People, Places, Checkmates: Teaching Social Studies with Chess (2010)

Read, Write, Checkmate: Enrich Literacy with Chess Activities (2009)

Science, Math, Checkmate: 32 Chess Activities for Inquiry and Problem Solving (2008)

Children and Chess: A Guide for Educators (2006)

Dr. Root is a senior lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Studiesat The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas). From 1999 to 2003, she served as associate director of the UT Dallas Chess Program, home to one of the top college chess teams in the world. Root currently teaches Chess Online courses for college credit via UT Dallas eLearning. She lives in Denton, Texas. Contact Dr. Root at alexey.root@gmail.com.

Practical Guidance for Teaching a Difficult Subject

One of the reasons ABC-CLIO created its newest online resource Modern Genocide: Understanding Causes and Consequences is to help students better understand and help educators better teach this difficult and complex topic. Despite general agreement that the subject of genocide should be covered in high school and college classrooms in the United States, aside from coverage of the Holocaust, the larger topic of genocide is often omitted from textbooks, leaving educators with little support in tackling this sensitive subject.

The below excerpt is a sample lesson taken from the Support Center which is included with all ABC-CLIO Online Solutions. If you are not already a subscriber to the Modern Genocide online resource, sign up for a 30-day trial today to gain access to the articles in this lesson and much more.

Overview

In this lesson, you will learn about the problems surrounding the definition of genocide by examining key documents which are commonly used to define genocide and examining categories and wordings in these documents that complicate the matter at hand. You will also closely look at a genocidal event to examine the problems that have arisen in defining genocide.

Resources: Access to Modern Genocide, including the following:

•    Holocaust [Entry ID: 1771182]

•    Armenian Genocide [Entry ID: 1691734]

•    Rwandan Genocide [Entry ID: 1765743]

•    UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide(1948) [Entry ID: 1758431]

•    The Eight Stages of Genocide (1996) [Entry ID: 1771570]

•    Graphic Organizer: 3-Column Table.

     •     Available in the documents section of this lesson.

Directions

Activity 1: Day 1

Prepare:

At the beginning of the class session, read the following two documents closely.

• UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)

• The Eight Stages of Genocide (1996)

Consider the differences in how these documents define the concept of genocide. Also, consider the years these were written and the events that might have recently occurred during that time that shaped how the people who wrote these documents viewed or thought about genocide. Write the different categories identified in these documents regarding potential victims of genocide as well as the exact wording (i.e., Article 2 in the UN Convention) as to what criteria is necessary for an event to be considered a genocide.

Investigate:

Having read these documents, answer the following questions:

·    UNCG Article 2 states that genocide requires the "intent to destroy"? What might be some of the problems in regards to proving "intent"?

·    Article 2 also stipulates that there must be a concerted effort at the destruction of "in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." What might be the issue with the phrasing "in part"? How does the Eight Stages of Genocide model engage these issues?

·    Consider other items discussed in UNGC Article 2. What would be some challenges in attempting to prove any of these acts? For example: "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

·    Why would groups based on political affiliation, gender, or sexuality not be included in the UNCG definition? Consider the time it was written. How does the Eight Stages model discuss these groupings?

·    Why is it important to continue to study the causes and consequences of genocide in the 21st century? Considering the wording of the Eight Stages of Genocide model, how has the definition of genocide continued to evolve over time?

After a few minutes, your teacher will bring the class together to discuss the answers to these questions.

Osama Bin Laden's Legacy Defeated in Boston

As our need to know motivations for the brutal attack spurs questioning of the surviving brother of two who ignited pressure cooker bombs at the Boston marathon, we should also look to Al Qaeda's ongoing campaign recruiting youths to inspire such acts. Teenagers and young adults are especially vulnerable to being lured into that fatal fold. Al Qaeda’s appeal has a unique “fit” with normal adolescent rebelliousness. What would be normal adolescent rebellion and protest for some young people, becomes terrorist action under Al Qaeda’s tutelage. The Arab world’s turmoil creates many young adults who are in the phase of what psychoanalysts call “prolonged adolescence.” 

In addition to enlisting well-educated youth, radical Islamists also recruit poor and less-educated Muslim “foot soldiers” through religious Madrassah schools and young-adult mosque programs and activities. The Madrassah-type “schools” offer economic advantages and spiritual inspiration to families and Muslim communities that have few alternatives. 

The recruiting techniques of Al Qaeda and its metastatic subsidiaries are clever, creative, and diverse in their applied theology.  

Al Qaeda woos Muslim individuals, families, and communities who see membership in Al Qaeda and participation in Jihad as a high calling. 

But the courage, compassion, and leadership shown in Boston speaks volumes about the higher power of God's love. 

The Cult of Osama: Psychoanalyzing Bin Laden and His Magnetism for Muslim Youths

PETER ALAN OLSSON, M.D., is a Psychiatrist at Monadnock Community Hospital, an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School, and an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine. He practiced Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Houston for 25 years and in New Hampshire for eight years. His training and residency was completed at Baylor College of Medicine.