Month: September 2026

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Alcohol causes cancer!?!

Why is the latest medical science confirmation—that alcohol definitely causes cancer—NOT major news?! Isn’t this like the most important life-altering moment of truth to hit humanity on the head since … our ancient ancestors began making and drinking and enjoying alcohol? This is a bold, all-cap headline, front page news, should be the lead of every network newscast and talk show from now on. Or am I the only one who thinks this medical news is probably the biggest health finding of my lifetime, alongside cigarettes of last century?

Medical scientists even provide a list of definite links between drinking alcohol, even moderately, and the following cancers: breast, colorectal, liver, esophageal, mouth, throat and larynx. ! So in my mind, I go through all the people I’ve known who’ve died from cancer and try to recall if they drank in excess or ever. Yep, I know some who definitely hit the bottle or can hard on a daily basis and wound up fighting cancer till their sad deaths. Yet I know others who died of these very cancers and were basically nondrinkers, not even one drop for one or two loved ones.

So, it’s not fair is all I’m saying. But live long enough, and you learn cancer is not fair.

Still, it is suspicious how this major news story of the century is not even discussed whether on the news, internet or even among people privately. THIS IS BIG NEWS, Y’ALL!!

Perhaps it’s our old lingering puritanical American attitude that alcoholics get what they deserve. But these cancers aren’t just linked to heavy drinkers. Remember: America had prohibition in the Roaring 1920s. All those who attended speakeasies and held dinner parties with alcohol served were not alcoholics. Most were people who enjoyed a drink or two occasionally, usually on the weekends. From vintage film clips, they had a helluva good time.

And that kind of drinking enjoyment, once prohibition ended, has continued for generations. Yes, some people get addicted to alcohol, but not every person who drinks even daily. Some find help to quit drinking through programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, some people need that kind of group assistance. See, drinkers are usually very sociable.

Drinking thing

In the 1970s public service announcements against drinking and driving led to groups of friends going out for the night to decide on a designated driver (and nondrinker for the evening) who would ensure everyone got home safely and avoid drunk driving. In the 1980s, the legal drinking age was raised from 18 to 19 then to 21—federal legislators assuming adults of that age were more mature than the teen years. This was an effort to curtail drunk driving and many horrible and deadly crashes.

But again, why is the now proven fact that ALCOHOL CAUSES CANCER not as loudly promoted and as well known as cigarettes causing cancer? The whole fight against cigarettes was a bit before my time; I vaguely recall TV advertising cigarettes because they were yanked off the air. But my generation definitely recalls years of pushback between the cigarette industry and anti-smoking legislation. There had to be designated smoke-free areas in every public place and restaurants until all businesses, including airplanes and nightclubs, went smoke free. And the applause across the land was thunderous.

I didn’t grow up in a smokers’ home but knew several kids who did. They all hated it: the smoke in their hair, on their clothes, on the pages of their textbooks. These kids seemed more mature than their parents who could read the warning labels on cigarette packs. Then more recently, the day came when the packs warned ‘causes cancer’ instead of ‘may cause cancer’ as was the label from my generation.

There was the federal investigation when all CEOs of the cigarette industry sat before Congress and the nation and declared straight-faced that smoking cigarettes is not a definite link to cancer. Our nation laughed and coughed at the audacity. Everybody knew by then that there was definitely something up with cigarette smoking and certain breathing illnesses and diseases and eventually cancers like oral and lung. As a society, we seemed to have accepted it, but it took a long time. So maybe nowadays, smoking is not the cool thing to do anymore. Many smokers, if not most, stopped in this country, not necessarily around the world.

Now I suppose we’re going to see a similar transformation in our culture that has heavily promoted drinking alcoholic beverages, from beer to cocktails and frozen drinks. Labels may already be on liquor containers, soon with the phrase ‘causes cancer’ instead of ‘may cause cancer.’

Alcohol is an undisputable major part of our society, associated with good times, good food, friends, family, celebrations, music and lots of laughter. Young people have a need to explore with alcohol and see how much their bodies can tolerate without repercussions. Surely our nation has learned that prohibition does not work; it didn’t work a century ago, just caused vicious gangland crime.

People want to be free to make their personal choices about things like drinking and smoking, once called vices. Laws don’t change people’s minds when it comes to alcohol. Major social movements like Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and anti-smoking supporters take years to build, essentially a generation.

And who are we kidding? The only reason why ‘alcohol causes cancer’ is not shouted from the media is because of big money from the alcohol industry. The gun lobby pales in comparison. It would be financially ruinous to business: all the package stores, especially in small communities; restaurants and night clubs; grocery stores; as well as delivery drivers; and manufacturers of wine, beer and other spirits—plus evaporating the impressive revenue directly from liquor sales that pours into our government coffers from cities to states. Telling Americans (and our government and the many people who imbibe on a regular basis) they ought to stop drinking—at this point in time, with Trump president, shrinking incomes, AI fears and job loss, plus another forever war—would cause a mutiny of sorts. If ever we needed a reason to drink, these times would be it. [Psst. Just consider the consequences. Here’s to your health!]

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Gloria: in excelsis

Many women across the U.S. mourn the passing of feminist icon Gloria Steinem, who died in her New York City apartment at age 92. She lived a very long life, but the 1970s was perhaps her most popular era. She was always attractive with long hair styled by teasing and spraying, aviator glasses and then rimless frames, light eye makeup, and most envious by American women her forever slim physique. Enough to make most gals jealous. Yet her fight for women’s rights and clever quips pointing out our still sexist society meant a lot to us, young and younger.

I was 11 when abortion became law of the land. For years, many women old and young fought hard for that right—Gloria often depicted on the front lines protesting for abortion on demand.

And as soon as abortion was legalized in the U.S., the backlash to return to yesteryear was loud and strong but not necessarily covered by the media like the ‘sexy’ feminist movement.

I admire Gloria Steinem very much. We have a lot in common. I’ve tried to emulate the hairstyle as a teen and young woman but could never get mine to settle just right around my face and scalp. To this day, I wear similar glasses and for a period wore contacts just like her. I was a professional journalist and sometimes wrote about women’s causes like equal pay for equal work and allowing women to apply and get jobs employers thought only men could do. I also had no children. Like Gloria Steinem, I along with many girls growing up in the 1970s determined to be a career woman. Whether news reporter or teacher, my career was the most important thing in my life.

The only time Gloria kinda let me down was her reaction to the news that abortion rights were overturned by the current U.S. Supreme Court, allowing about half the states to automatically revoke a female citizen’s right to choose, her doctor’s opinion also removed from consideration.

Upon hearing 50 years of abortion rights were overturned, Gloria Steinem said she just had to laugh.

THIS IS NOT FUNNY, I thought. It’s damn serious, a face-slap sudden change in our society, while countries like Mexico legalized abortion, but in the U.S. females must go through pregnancies regardless of individual circumstances whether financial, rape, health of baby and/or mother, and even age.  

Notably, Gloria had a great sense of humor and often smiled and laughed about a number of silly ongoing sexisms in our country. Still after 250 years, no female U.S. president for some very peculiar reason, one a feminist like me cannot comprehend? Yet Gloria did. She understood men completely. Had their number, so to speak. Men control women. Look at our current president, and you’ll agree.

The abortion page

Gloria’s premiere feminist magazine Ms. included in the first edition a list of women who allowed their names to be printed under the title “We Have Had Abortions.” Wow. Gloria’s name was first. She wrote a lot about the circumstances as a young woman with a former boyfriend finding herself pregnant when she had other plans to study abroad. She knew if she told him she was pregnant, he would want them to get married. And she knew their marriage would not be good for either of them.

The rest of Gloria’s backstory is growing up homeless and poor in the 1930s-40s with a very large father, a mother who aspired to be a journalist but succumbed to debilitating alcoholism, and a younger sister. Recalling her childhood, Gloria said she raised herself, her mother and sister. Mom was mostly bedridden and weak. So when Gloria came of age, she left for college, later lived in India for a year, returned to the U.S. as a journalist, and published an excellent undercover investigative piece on being a Bunny waitress at the Playboy Club. Her career took off, and she got involved with the women’s movement full throttle, making friends with Betty Friedan (whose book The Feminine Mystique was a smash hit among American homemakers in the 1960s) and Bella Abzug, NYC’s brazen feminist lawyer and political icon. The Hulu series Mrs. America features these feminists during the 1970s.

Since the early 1970s when women broke polite societal silence on their own abortion experiences, here’s how much society has changed: No woman will ever say she had an abortion. Why? Fear of being shot. That’s our America today. Anti-choice groups grew militant during the 1980s and 1990s: protesting daily at women’s healthcare clinics, blowing up women’s healthcare clinics, shooting physicians who performed abortions, harassing families of physicians who performed abortions including nowadays online, and scorning in every wicked way all girls and women who approached women’s healthcare clinics whether inquiring into an abortion or other health concern including contraception.  

The anti-choice crowd protested so vehemently because they believed life begins at conception. It doesn’t matter what anyone else believes.

And today women in our ultra technological 21st century society, in contrast with our older sisters of the 1970s, don’t have the … strength—political, emotional, physical—to war with the ultra conservatives who make the laws. We will be followed, harassed, shamed online, and obviously attacked for marching in protests to Make Abortion Legal Again.

Gloria’s candor was what made her a great spokesperson for women’s equality and women’s rights. She wasn’t brassy or bossy. She remained single, marrying late in life until widowhood, and was mostly on the road. Her home fridge had few food items which may explain her litheness. But Gloria wanted us to know she was a product of her upbringing: a Depression-era kid growing up riding in a car, reading books when her family could not find a livable dwelling and school, performing dances at stores for food. She had been groomed from childhood to live on the road, stopping in big cities and college towns to talk to large crowds who wanted to see and hear her. Always the reporter, she listened to what people had to say to her as well. Maybe that explains her laugh and soft smiling acceptance that a woman’s right as controversial as abortion would be a brief victory, empowering half the country at least but for only a couple of generations.