Hazards Facing Employees: Asbestos and Exposure Concerns - Guest Post

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Preface

While "Healthy Lung Month" is almost over, the information below is immensely valuable any time of year. For more information Mesothelioma.net is a great resource for information on mesothelioma and asbestos.
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Hazards Facing Employees: Asbestos and Exposure Concerns

Subject: The Centre for Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has a guideline that all Asbestos Scrap like Broken Cement Sheets, Cement Pipes, Gaskets, Ropes, Packings, Cloth, Insulation, Millboards etc be highlighted as Hazardous and disposed under Hazardous Waste with permits provided. | Date: 02/02/2017 | Photographer: Darshap82 |This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services encourage everyone to celebrate Healthy Lung Month this October. Until the end of the 1970s, many workers in various industries didn't realize that they were endangering their lung health by just showing up to the factory, ship or other structure. Asbestos hidden within these structures was slowly breaking down and entering the breathable air. This fibrous material has been removed from most workplaces, but safety concerns still abound. Get to know more about asbestos, its link to mesothelioma and what employees can do to avoid exposure.

Diving Into the Details:

After 1971, the government passed a law stating that every worker should have the right to a healthy workplace, reports the Communication Workers of America. Obvious sources of asbestos were removed from the workplace. Employees across the nation were elated.

However, it's impossible to remove every gram of asbestos from these workplaces. There are still dangers involving asbestos, such as structural items with embedded fibers.

The government couldn't go back and change the past either. People who were exposed to asbestos were forced to deal with the consequences, including the development of mesothelioma or lung-lining cancer. This cancer is rare and serious at the same time. Prognoses aren't always encouraging for any patient.

Professions of Note:

Although structures cannot be constructed of asbestos-based materials anymore, certain professions near older designs can be at risk. These particular professionals are at risk, such as:

First responders 

Power-plant and oil-refinery employees 

Miners 

Textile workers 

Boiler employees 

Shipyard workers 

Factory employees 

Construction crews 

All of these professions either touch or work around materials that may have residual asbestos. First responders who run into older buildings with the potential for damages are a good example of people who're at risk of being exposed.

Considering Other Occupations:

Teachers and mechanics have something in common: they have the potential for asbestos exposure. All Business reports that these professions involve people who may be close to asbestos materials. This fact is true for 2018 where schools might have asbestos built into certain structural items.

Mechanics have a different exposure type. The parts that they deal with, such as brake pads, might use asbestos as an ingredient. If the material breaks apart on the job, exposure is immediate.

Protecting the Worker:

If a worker worries about exposure risks, questioning the supervisor is a must. Safety and Health Magazine suggests that workers who're concerned about exposure should wear protective gear.

Gloves, masks and other products can block asbestos fibers from being inhaled. A worker has a right to know if he or she is being put in a dangerous predicament. Err on the side of caution by wearing protective gear all the time.

Be vocal about workplace safety as it pertains to asbestos exposure and mesothelioma development. Employees have every right to know if they've been exposed to hazardous materials. By being educated about asbestos and mesothelioma, avoiding them is much easier. Every worker should feel confident about the workplace regardless of the industry.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Editors - A Guest Post By Jocelyn Pruemer

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A few weeks ago, I received the following message from a Karen Miranda of AutoCrit.

"I came across jameskiester.blogspot.com and wanted to contact you about providing some content for your site, or the possibility of contributing. We offer tips for creative writers, cover topics that focus on the insights into fiction writing and discuss the current landscape of publishing. I wanted to see if we could contribute an article/blog post to your site."

Without it even occurring  to me that her company makes editing software, I told her, "I'd be interested in a piece on the need for good editors & editing."  Later, I received the following piece written by Karen's colleague, Jocelyn Pruemer.

 

Jocelyn Pruemer is an integral member of the AutoCrit team and is focused on providing quality feedback to authors looking to improve the readability and polish of their book.

While the end of the piece reads a bit like a commercial, the piece does contain an interesting perspective on the value of good editing.
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What We Talk About When We Talk About Editors
 

Photo courtesy of Jocelyn Pruemer.

If you’ve ever taken a creative writing class, you’re probably familiar with Raymond Carver. The undisputed master of post-war minimalism, Carver, and his 1981 collection of stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, is unfailingly presented to every eager freshman English student as the be-all and end-all of modern American short fiction (seriously, if you were to ask my first-year creative writing teacher, he’d probably tell you there hasn’t been a book published before or since). And it’s easy to see why. His stories are spare, ambivalent, yet loaded with pathos, his prose-style is as lean as it is precise. It’s often what isn’t said in a Carver story that matters most, making the profound gut wrenching impact of his best works seem almost accidental. It wasn’t.

What they usually don’t tell you in creative writing 101 is that Raymond Carver wasn’t really Raymond Carver. Raymond Carver was really Raymond Carver AND Gordon Lish. That is to say, without Lish, his editor, Carver would have been a completely different writer. When Lish first got his hands on what would become What We Talk about When We Talk about Love, he famously whittled it down to literally half its original size. He mercilessly rearranged, deleted and rewrote line after line of Carver’s bloated prose. What is now recognized as Carver’s signature style of minimalistic gritty realism was really all Gordon Lish. Without him I think it’s safe to say that Carver’s name never would’ve warranted inclusion in the short fiction pantheon among the likes of Chekhov, Joyce and O’Connor.  Carver eventually got fed up with Lish’s rapacious editing style and severed their relationship. His writing suffered.

 

From the world-renowned author to the lowliest scribbler and everyone in-between, every single writer on the planet has one thing in common: the need for a good editor. I don’t care if your medium is the bildungsroman, the blog or the bible tract, if you don’t have someone you can trust checking your work along the way, it probably isn’t worth reading.

 

Unfortunately for most of us, especially fiction writers, editors can be difficult to come by. As an amateur novelist, poet, short story writer etc. your options for an extra set of eyes are usually few. Maybe you have a couple of friends or a spouse who’s willing to read your work, which is always nice, but they love you, and don’t want to hurt your feelings, so it can be difficult to tell whether or not they’re being as brutally honest as you need them to be. Writing workshops tend to be more helpful in this regard, but they too usually lack the cold Gordon Lishian disregard for your ego that makes for a good editor. So unless you have a book deal, or are willing and able to pay a ridiculous sum of money to hire a freelance editor, you’re pretty much on your own.

This is why I’ve found online editing applications so essential. All you have to do is enter in your manuscript and in seconds it scans the entire thing and picks it apart with the machine-like precision you look for in a good human editor. It finds and highlights the usual problems any decent creative writing instructor will warn you about (e.g. adverbs, clichés, passive voice indicators, repetitive phrases, etc.) making it easy for you to hunt down your errors and make the necessary corrections. There are a few great one’s out there, but I’d have to say that AutoCrit tops the list because of its ‘Compare to Fiction’ feature which will automatically compare your writing to a massive database of successful published authors so you can see how your own work stacks up—which is sort of intimidating, but also quite helpful.

Unlike your best friend, or your workshop partners, or even the Gordon Lishes of the world for that matter, AutoCrit and its digital contemporaries don’t miss a single thing. For better or worse all of your amateurish flaws are accounted for, quantified and reflected back at you in brilliant Editor’s Pen Red. Of course, unlike a Gordon Lish, these applications will not go ahead and make the changes for you, leaving the difficult and unsavory task of killing your babies entirely to you. So while an editing application certainly can’t take the place of a professional editor, it can still do many things a human editor can’t. Which means that while it might not be able to singlehandedly mold you into the next Raymond Carver, when used in conjunction with your other resources it is an excellent tool to have in your authorial arsenal.

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The Top 10 Christmas Books - Guest Post by Irene Martin

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Irene Martin, of www.privatewriting.com, is a copywriter working on building and improving her online presence. Interested in education, literature and writing she asked if she to do some guest writing on this blog. 

Since the holidays are upon us I told her, " I'd be interested in a piece on Christmas themed literature (its history, a "best of" list, etc...)."  She responded it the following piece listing her picks for the 10 best Christmas books of all time. 

Please note, paragraphs referring to some of the older works (A Christmas Carol, etc...) contain minor spoilers.  However, the only "spoiled" stories are pieces which 99% of us are extremely familiar with.
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The Top 10 Christmas Books, by Irene Martin

Though it comes just before the end of the year, Christmas, to many people, may be “the most wonderful time of the year.” The joyful energy in the air, the majestic medley of lights, the wondrous food, the boundless holiday cheer and heartfelt giving – and some folks even like the songs that play incessantly every holiday season.

But it’s also a great time for literature – not only because reading is one of the best, most natural things to do when it’s cold outside, but because some of history’s best literature is Christmas-themed.

Below are (quite possibly) the 10 best Christmas books of all time! Enjoy!
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THE LIST

10. The Christmas Train – by David Baldacci
OK, so it’s not exactly Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. That is quite a bit further down on the list. Internationally bestselling American author David Baldacci is one of today’s most engaging novelists. Even though The Christmas Train is not his usual thriller about Washington, D.C., it does, however, include a life-changing, cross-country train ride at Christmas; it’s got a bit of holiday magic too.

Like most good Christmas stories, it illustrates a person’s rediscovery of the essential goodness in people. Baldacci’s website says this “tale shows how we do get second chances to fulfill our deepest hopes and dreams, especially during the season of miracles.”

9. The Greatest Gift – by Philip Van Doren Stern
First published as a virtually unknown short story (then published as a book), The Greatest Gift is the story that would inspire the classic Christmas film It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), which has been named number 11 on the American Film Institute’s list of the best American movies ever made. It’s the story about a discontented, miserable and married man finding gratitude in realizing that life is a precious gift. It follows the same theme present in most Christmas-themed literature: there is a transforming magic in the air during the Christmas season, almost inexplicably touching everyone, whether they want to believe it or not.

8. The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus – by L. Frank Baum
The first Christmas children’s book on the list, but certainly not the last, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902), written by L. Frank Baum who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, tells the story of Santa’s origins, his giving of the first-ever toy, and explains the how the merry “old St. Nick” came to give gifts to children all over the world and how he was ultimately given immortality. It’s a touching tale reminding those who may have lost their imagination at one point or another that the end of the year, Christmastime, is the perfect time to get it back – at least a little of it.

7. The Father Christmas Letters – by J. R. R. Tolkien
The prolific author of The Lord of the Rings had a very gentle heart for his own children’s imagination at Christmastime. So much, in fact, that for over 20 years he gave each of his four children, beginning from the time that they were very young, letters from Santa himself (but truly written by Tolkien). Tolkien’s daughter-in-law would later gather the letters and edit them, having them published into a book by Houghton Mifflin in 1976, three years after the author’s death. Mainly about his (Santa’s) travels and adventures with his elves, The Father Christmas Letters has received positive praise for its influence on Children’s literature.

6. The Homecoming: A Novel About Spencer's Mountain – by Earl Hamner Jr.
Certainly more known for spawning the hit TV series The Waltons, The Homecoming: A Novel About Spencer’s Mountain is Earl Hamner Jr.’s story about a family in the mountains of Virginia during the Great Depression. It’s snowy, frigid Christmas Eve and, as the night emerges, the family grows increasingly concerned for their patriarch who has not yet returned home from work. The Homecoming, part adventure, part holiday drama, is a warm and wonderful classic of American literature that illuminates the triumph of the human spirit, a theme running in many of the holiday’s best literature.

5. How the Grinch Stole Christmas – by Dr. Seuss
In this Christmas classic for children (though some adults love it, too), the terrible Mr. Grinch tries to sabotage Christmas for the peaceful village of Whoville, home of the merry and warm-hearted Whos. With a heart “two sizes too small,” the bitter and grouchy, cave-dwelling creature, hearing the noisy Christmas festivities nearby in Whoville, suddenly decides to stop their Christmas and looks to steal their presents, trees and food for their holiday feast. But after doing so, he expects to hear their languished cries Christmas morning; instead, he hears them singing a joyous Christmas song.

What is so wonderful about this story is the Grinch realizing the holiday is so much more than gift giving and feasting; learning this, his small heart suddenly grows three sizes larger. He ends up returning all of the the presents and is warmly invited to spend the holidays with the Whos.

4. The Gift of the Magi – by O. Henry
O. Henry’s 1906 Christmas classic, originally a short story (but published in one of Henry’s anthologies), is one of the most touching stories of all time. It is the story of a selfless, enduring love shared between a young couple who want but can’t afford to buy each other Christmas gifts. Each sells their most precious possession to get the other a worthwhile gift.  The Gift of the Magi is an important reminder that love endures, that it is all people ever really need in life. It also reminds readers that giving something of one’s self is perhaps the greatest gift of all.

3. The Night Before Christmas – by Clement Clarke Moore
First a poem published anonymously in 1823, The Night Before Christmas, later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, has become a yearly tradition for many American families who read the book each year on Christmas Eve – just hours before Old St. Nick shows up with presents. The relatively short poem is about a sleeping father who, after being suddenly awakened when St. Nicholas lands on the roof, sees the “jolly, old elf” himself leaving his children presents, then flying away in his sleigh. The story tugs at the imagination of readers, especially young children, and truly captures the magic surrounding the wonderful holiday season. It rhymes, too, and is a lovely narrative.

2. The Polar Express – by Chris Van Allsburg

A generally short book adored by many – both children and adults – The Polar Express is the heartwarming story of a little boy who no longer takes joy in Christmas. On Christmas Eve he catches a train ride on the “Polar Express” to the North Pole and gets to see Santa Claus and his elves at work; he then wakes up the next morning, Christmas Day, with the same joy and sense of wonder that he had been missing for so long. It’s the perfect story illustrating how easily one’s imagination (and its corresponding joy) can potentially be lost forever; that is, unless they can return to the innocent mentality of a child … even if it is for a just a short while.

1. A Christmas Carol – by Charles Dickens
Certainly one of the best Christmas stories of all time, if not the best, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a holiday classic read and enjoyed by people all over the world. Like the Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge, a rather cold and miserly person, undergoes a life-altering experience at Christmas. On Christmas Eve, three different ghosts visit him during the night while he sleeps. It’s a series of dreams, but it all seems too real to him. Ultimately, in his dreams, he is showed how his existence could end if he goes on living with his bitter resentment toward life and with a general disdain for all the people in his own life. Thinking he has died a lonely, awful death (which comes after living a selfish, greedy, bitter and even lonelier life), Scrooge wakes up Christmas morning a renewed person, joyful, charming, full of positive energy and acts lovingly to literally every, single person he sees.

The story of A Christmas Carol is an engaging reminder to adults, those who may have been hardened by life, that it’s never too late to live with love and gratitude and with a general compassion for others, because it’s never too late to change for the better.
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Well, that's quite the list.  I might have included John Grisham's Skipping Christmas in there somewhere.  However, with multiple retellings of Dickens' classic book in existence, including; 1970's cinematic Scrooge (a musical film adaptation starring Albert Finney), 1979's An American Christmas Carol (starring Henry Winkler), 1998's The Passion of Scrooge (a chamber opera by Jon Deak for one baritone and chamber orchestra), and many more; nobody can dispute Irene's #1 pick.

What's your favorite Christmas story?  Leave your answer in the comment section below.
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