Commonweal

Commonweal Newsletters

June 9, 2003

Dear Commonweal Board Members and Friends:

I hope this Spring Commonweal Letter finds you well.

Yesterday morning I walked from Agate Beach toward Commonweal. The ocean was silver-gray under low clouds softening the early sun. A swath of white crystal flakes, parched remains of a jellyfish bloom, undulated down the beach, etching the high tide mark against the cliffs.

Last Sunday a cow took refuge in Jenepher Stowell's chapel. The chapel is a shingle shed on the cliff at Commonweal. Inside, a rough wooden altar bears shells, stones, and seabird feathers that visitors bring from the beach. A straw mat covers the slanting floor. A vase of flowers stands in the corner. At the end of her solitary rumination, the cow took communion. She nibbled the straw mat.

This was not the first cow to enter Jenepher's chapel. I remarked to Jenepher, who directs the Commonweal Retreat Center, that a small spring -- a dollar at the hardware store -- would keep the door safely closed. Jenepher shook her head. Visitors must be able to meditate looking out the door at the circle of large rocks around the chapel, she said. So Jenepher replaced the straw mat. Not for the last time.

Living in a Time of Transformative Political Change

In the past I was often able write Commonweal Letters without much reference to world events. Those days are behind us. Whatever our political views, none of us can deny that we are living in a time of momentous change in American policies.

Stanley Hoffman, Buttenweiser University Professor of Government at Harvard, who was my tutor 39 years ago, summarized with considerable objectivity the changes in American policy in the June 12, 2003 New York Review of Books:

[The Administration] has, in self-defense, declared one war--the war on terrorism -- that has no end in sight. It has started, and won, two other wars. It has drastically changed the strategic doctrine and diplomatic position of the United States, arguing the nation's previous positions were obsolete and that the US has enough power to do pretty much as it pleases. At home, as part of the war on terrorism, it has curbed civil liberties, the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, and the access of foreign students to US schools and universities The Justice Department is also supporting efforts to have the Supreme Court reverse its previous decisions on affirmative action and women's rights. The social programs that have softened the harshness of capitalism since the New Deal, inferior as these are to those of other liberal democracies, are threatenedLarge numbers of old, sick, or very young people, mainly among the poor, will be deprived of financial assistance as a result of administration policies

The lopsided tax cuts are misleadingly represented as benefiting us all. Shrinking environmental protection can be justified as a defense of the economy. Increased surveillance of citizens' private activities and of aliens' movements are said to be "required" by homeland security. A military budget equal to those of all other nations combined can be justified by the vulnerability of the US, revealed on September 11, and by the proliferation of threats.

The word "Commonweal" means, literally, the well-being of the whole community. Commonweal is resolutely nonpartisan. That does not mean we cannot defend our core values. We care about at-risk children and their families, and that means we must be concerned with poverty and other environmental factors that contribute to these risks. We care about people with cancer, and that also means we must be concerned with poverty and other environmental contributors to the cancer epidemic. We care about the desperate situation that health professionals find themselves in, trying to work in the face of a global crisis in health care. And that means we must care about the health of the living planet that we and the rest of the creation call home.

In the new dispensation of American politics, as Hoffman notes, caring for Commonweal's core constituencies -- children, health, and the environment -- do not stand out among the new priorities. This is not a partisan observation. Many Republicans across the country, including many in Congress, share these concerns.

It is striking, as I talk to Commonweal friends everywhere, to hear so many say they have decided to do what they can to bring some semblance of wisdom and compassion back into public life. We have always focused Commonweal policy initiatives on very specific issues, such as California policies regarding juvenile justice, the oceans, and environmental health, or national and international policies on toxic chemicals. The challenge we face now is that the entire pattern of Administration policies threatens core Commonweal concerns. We plan to remain focused on our areas of policy competence. But we must, at a minimum, bear witness to the breadth of the reversal that this Administration has wrought of longstanding American commitments to its citizens and to the world.

Commonweal Celebrates Life of Barbara Smith Coleman, Founder of Smith Farm Center for the Healing Arts

On May 3, fifty friends of Barbara Smith Coleman gathered at her beautiful home, on an inlet of Chesapeake Bay outside Annapolis, Maryland, to mourn her death and celebrate her life.

Barbara was a wise and compassionate woman. She was a gifted artist and an authentic healer who understood the human condition. A longtime Washingtonian, Barbara lived for many years in a lovely Georgetown house filled with books, art, and music. Much of the art was of her own making.

Barbara lived her last seven years with a sense of urgency. She believed, rightly it turned out, that she was living on borrowed time. She dedicated these years to creating the Smith Farm Center for the Healing Arts in Washington, D.C. Smith Farm offers the Commonweal Cancer Help Program on the East Coast. Smith Farm is Barbara's legacy, her testament, and her memorial.

When Barbara's brother Neill was diagnosed with a life-threatening cancer fifteen years ago, she accompanied him to the Bristol Cancer Help Centre in Bristol, England. The Bristol Cancer Help Program is very similar in many respects to the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. The Bristol program had a major influence on me in developing the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. Bristol also had a profound effect on Barbara. A common experience in the Commonweal and Bristol Cancer Help Programs is that participants often achieve some fundamental insight into what matters to them in their lives. Barbara had such an experience at Bristol. She "got it," as she often said. "Getting it" changed her life.

Barbara decided she wanted to dedicate the rest of her life to helping others "get it." Sensibly, her first step was to seek out someone already doing work in the lineage she had found at Bristol. She heard about Commonweal and came to visit. Understanding that we shared a vision, Barbara asked if I would join her in creating a Cancer Help Program in Washington.

At the time Barbara asked, I did not have the space in my life to commit to this large undertaking. I declined with regret. Barbara decided to try to start a Cancer Help Program on her own. She purchased a beautiful house on Chesapeake Bay that she hoped to make the site for her cancer retreats. Her neighbors blocked the permits she needed. Barbara was devastated. Shortly afterward, Barbara developed colon cancer with a high risk of recurrence. Barbara's intensely aggressive cancer treatments took her to the very edge of life. After she recovered, she returned to Commonweal again. She proposed for a second time that we create a Cancer Help Program in Washington. This time I was able to agree to join her.

We founded Smith Farm Center for the Healing Arts in Barbara's living room in Georgetown. We found in Shanti Norris a gifted and committed Executive Director for Smith Farm. Shanti, like Waz Thomas, who is General Manager at Commonweal and coordinates the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, had trained in Integral Yoga. She had exactly the right skills to direct a Cancer Help Program.

Commonweal made a remarkable commitment to helping Barbara create Smith Farm. For the first Smith Farm Cancer Help Programs, we flew much of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program staff across the country. Rachel Naomi Remen and I co-led the first Smith Farm Cancer Help Program. As we found East Coast staff, we reduced the number of cross-country travelers. Massage Coordinator Jnani Chapman, psychotherapist Lenore Lefer, and I continue regularly to cross the country to participate in Smith Farm Cancer Help Programs.

Barbara succeeded in what she set out to do. The Smith Farm Cancer Help Program is now reliably as powerful and effective as the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. We hold the Smith Farm retreats at Hallowood, a beautiful Lutheran retreat center in Comus, Maryland, the site of one of the first free slave communities. Hallowood offers the same kind of peaceful and beautiful setting in which to do deep inner work that Commonweal provides.

Barbara named her center the Smith Farm Center for the Healing Arts in honor of her father's farm, Smith Farm. She added "Center for the Healing Arts" because the role of art in healing was a central passion in her life. A recognized and accomplished sculptress and painter herself, Barbara turned to art after her second husband died, to cope with her despair. Art gave Barbara her life back. Barbara became the gifted sand tray therapist in the Smith Farm Cancer Help Program. She and Shanti also launched a Smith Farm program to bring art into Washington hospitals. A growing community of artists bring "Smith Farm Art Carts" to the bedsides of patients at Howard Medical Center and the Washington Cancer Center.

The Smith Farm office is a short walk from DuPont Circle at 1632 U Street N.W. Barbara had her art studio there for many years. The Smith Farm office is on the second floor. It still has the stripped wood floors, the white walls and the light that she loved as an artist. It is filled with her art. A pet store on the ground floor of the building helps us pay the mortgage. It is a beautiful and gloriously eccentric space.

To ensure the future of Smith Farm, Barbara left half of her estate to the Barbara Smith Fund, which will help support Smith Farm. Barbara asked me to succeed her as president of Smith Farm and the Smith Fund. Our shared commitment during her life was, and remains, to continue to build a national community of effective work in healing, in which both Commonweal and Smith Farm are, with many other valued colleagues and friends, among the partners. It is a lifetime commitment.

Commonweal Staff and Friends Tested for Body Burden Of 167 Chemicals Related to Cancer, Nerves and Birth Defects

One of the most effective public education initiatives in environmental health that Commonweal has ever participated in took place this fall. Commonweal participated in the release of a study called Body Burden: The Pollution in People. The study was released by the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C., in collaboration with Commonweal and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. EWG was the lead partner on the project, which is summarized on its extraordinary website, www.ewg.org. You can go directly to the body burden study at www.bodyburden.org.

The experience was a very powerful one for all of us. On the EWG website you will find photographs of each of us, and each of us has a full page devoted to the 167 chemicals found in us, what is known scientifically about these chemicals, what health effects are associated with them, and some of the products which contain these chemicals.

The bottom line is that no one knows what health effects we or our children have experienced due to these body burdens of toxic chemicals. The chemical industry claims there is no reason for concern with these low-level exposures. Independent scientists know that there is a growing body of scientific evidence that humans are exposed to some chemicals at levels known to cause health effects, especially during fetal development, in animal studies.

Commonweal's role in the project was to guide the selection of eight of the nine people who were willing to be guinea pigs for the first study in which people were tested for a wide range of chemical contaminants in their bodies, told the results, and encouraged to go public with what they had learned.

I was tested along with Sharyle Patton, Davis Baltz, and Lexi Rome of Commonweal. The others tested included Commonweal friends Charlotte Brody, Executive Director of Health Care Without Harm, Monique Harden, then an attorney with EarthJustice, who worked with us on a major community resettlement project in Norco, Louisiana (see www.commonweal.org, click on the Norco Studies Project), Andrea Martin, founder of The Breast Cancer Fund, and Lucy Waletzky, a psychiatrist and pesticide activist from New York. The participant we did not choose, but were honored to be tested with, was Bill Moyers, the great PBS journalist who has made environmental health one of his trademark issues.

What was really striking about the Body Burden study was the remarkable amount of national press notice it received and, at a personal level, the intense interest that Commonweal friends showed in our experience. For months after the study, people would approach us to say how interested they were in the study. Many wanted to know how they could get tested.

We have a vision of a day when these tests are affordable and available to everyone. Right now, a full battery of tests costs over $5,000, and can only be done as part of a study project. Commonweal is working on the next generation Body Burden study with Environmental Working Group. Stay tuned.

Collaborative on Health and Environment Has 600 Partners Seeking Better Science and Policy on Environmental Health

Imagine a day when Americans concerned with the effects of the environment on our health have come together with the collective strength of, say, the National Rifle Association or the American Association for Retired People. Would politicians respond when we spoke of our shared concerns? You bet. We are a long way from that day, but it is not too soon to take some first steps.

The Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE) is a national Partnership of people and organizations that would like to see concerned Americans find a common voice on environmental health.

Commonweal serves as the administrative office for CHE. CHE was founded at a National Conference at the San Francisco Medical Society on March 21, 2003, jointly sponsored by SFMS and Commonweal. The central focus of the gathering was on bringing patient groups, scientists, health professionals, health-affected communities, and other concerned groups together to preserve our health by protecting our environment.

CHE has attracted over 600 Partners from across the country. The CHE Partners are organizations and individuals who have signed on in the first year to work together to improve science, public education and policy initiatives in environmental health. The list of CHE Partners is a very distinguished one.

CHE's principal scientific focus is on environmental contaminants - manmade chemicals and heavy metals that affect our health. As many readers know, we all have hundreds of these chemicals in our bodies. Very few have been tested adequately for their effects on our health. The developing fetus is uniquely vulnerable to some of these contaminants which are known as endocrine disruptors or, more broadly, signal disruptors. They are able to mimic the hormonal signals that the mother's body sends to the developing fetus to guide its growth.

Ted Schettler, M.D., of the Science and Environmental Health Network in Boston, chairs the very active CHE Science Working Group, which is creating a series of detailed peer-reviewed fact sheets on the connection between environmental contaminants and many common diseases. Pete Myers, a Senior Commonweal Associate and former Director of the W. Alton Jones Foundation, has created www.ProtectingOurHealth.Org, the superb CHE Science Website, which is linked to the CHE Organizational Website www.healthandenvironment.org.

The way CHE works is simple:

We welcome readers of the Commonweal Letter as CHE Partners. It is a very good way to stay current on Commonweal work in environmental health.

CHE is chaired by Commonweal Advisory Board Co-Chair Philip R. Lee, M.D., former Chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco, and former Undersecretary of Health in the Johnson and Clinton administrations. Steve Heilig, Director of Public Health and Education at the San Francisco Medical Society, and Sharyle Patton, Director of the Health and Environment Program at Commonweal, are the co-directors of the Commonweal CHE Project. Jeanette Meyers, now on maternity leave, is CHE Coordinator. Catherine Porter, Commonweal Director of New Initiatives, also works on CHE, as does Frieda Nixdorf, our new Administrative Associate. I devote much of my time to CHE.

CHE has held regional conferences this year at Columbia School of Medicine in New York, at Harvard in Boston, and at the University of Washington in Seattle. We will hold a second national conference at the University of California, San Francisco, during the American Public Health Association Conference on November 14. All readers are welcome to participate in that conference. We also intend to hold more regional CHE conferences next year.

In addition to its vigorous science and public education work, one of CHE's most successful projects is the Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative, which is bringing together key national organizations across the country concerned with these disabilities. The Initiative is coordinated by Elise Miller, Executive Director of the Institute for Children's Environmental Health in Washington state.

It is entirely possible that by this time next year we will have over 1,000 CHE Partners building a national network of respect for high-quality science, shared interest in public education and policy, and the trust to work effectively together. We welcome all Commonweal friends who would like to join us in this critical endeavor.

Commonweal Bids Fond Farewell to David Arredondo And His Work with Juvenile and Family Court Judges

For many years, David Arredondo, M.D., worked closely with Carolyn Brown both at Commonweal and at Full Circle, the residential school for at-risk children that Carolyn Brown and I co-founded in Bolinas thirty years ago. The time has come, David has decided, to set up his own center to continue his work helping juvenile and family court judges to understand mental health issues in the children whose fate they will determine.

David's work at Commonweal has been called the Solomon Project. He has provided training and technical support for family and juvenile court judges in California and across the country on mental health issues. Over the past few years, he developed a model Juvenile Mental Health Court in Santa Clara County with Judge Len Edwards. Jurisdictions in Montana, Delaware, Ohio, and New Jersey have requested his assistance in setting up juvenile mental health courts.

David has now inaugurated the Office of Child Development, Neuropsychiatry and Mental Health (OCDNMH). "This office," he writes, "is the response to research with juvenile and family court judges that showed a significant need for an authoritative source of information on mental health issues.

"The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) has vigorously supported this endeavor, and the affiliation with them has been prominently introduced on the homepage of their website. Additionally, both the Chairman of the Board and the President of the NCJFCJ have joined the advisory board for the OCDNMH."

David's article "Child Development, Children's Mental Health and Juvenile Justice: A Foundation for Rational Decision Making," is in the current edition of Stanford's Law and Policy Review. It will be republished by the Judicial Council's Administrative Journal for Families and the Courts.

The Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation and the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice have placed contact information for the OCDNMH on their websites to help manage inquiries regarding children with mental health problems who are involved with the juvenile justice system and juvenile mental health courts.

We wish David and his wife and colleague Stefany every continuing success in their work. It has been an honor to work together for more than ten years.

David's work has been and continues to be made possible by truly visionary support from Ellen Michelson and the Michelson Foundation. We want to express deep gratitude to Ellen Michelson, and also to Mary Callender, Program Officer for the Michelson Foundation. We regard this as an extraordinary act of sustained and committed philanthropy.

Commonweal Cancer Help Program Holds 111th Retreat; Four Great Trends Mark Changes in Cancer Over 17 Years

Barbara Smith Coleman's vision of bringing the Cancer Help Program to Washington would not have been possible were it not for the seventeen years during which we have built the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. We held its 111th Cancer Help Program last month. The 112th retreat will be in June. The retreats continue to attract extraordinary participants from across the United States. The depth of the personal work that people do during these weeks remains astonishing to me.

When I look back at the past twenty years of researching cancer treatments, and at the seventeen years I have participated in the Cancer Help Program, I see what seem to me to be four principal trends in cancer care.

First, mainstream cancer treatments have continued to improve significantly. There have been a number of treatment breakthroughs that extend life for some people with cancer. Equally important, there have been substantial improvements in the quality of life for people undergoing cancer treatment.

Second, complementary or integrative cancer therapies have been increasingly accepted by patients and by sophisticated mainstream practitioners. Jim Gordon's annual Comprehensive Cancer Care Conference in Washington, D.C., has become the national meeting place for practitioners, researchers and patients interested in some of the most promising integrative therapies. The website is http://www.cmbm.org.

Third, the most powerful transformative development has been the Infomedicine Revolution created by the personal computer and the Internet. Specifically, the use of search engines like Google (www.google.com) to research disease states and treatments has transformed patient access to information and therefore the inherent power relationship between physicians and patients. Tom Ferguson, M.D., a Senior Commonweal Research Associate, held two workshops at Commonweal and has written several white papers on the rise of Infomedicine for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with the support of RWJ grants to Commonweal. But it is not only information, as Tom points out, that patients have found online. Patients have created what Tom calls online "disease tribes" who share information, experience, and other concerns. Perhaps the single most important web address for cancer patients seeking this experience is www.acor.org, a remarkable service that hosts over one hundred separate listservs for people with different cancers, who share information and experience and can post questions to others on the list.

The fourth key trend remains more in its infancy, which is the growth in awareness among patients and health professionals of the role of environmental factors in cancer, a development pioneered by organizations like the Breast Cancer Fund, Breast Cancer Action, the Women's Cancer Resource Center, the Brain Tumor Foundation, the American Lymphoma Foundation, Marin Breast Cancer Watch, and other similar smaller cancer support and education groups across the United States. It will be a while before this new trend revolutionizes our understanding of cancer. But the environmental health movement will ultimately transform cancer medicine as surely as the integrative medicine movement and the development of the Internet have. And its contribution will be to force a new focus on cancer prevention.

Rachel Remen's Institute for the Study of Health and Illness Is Transforming Medical Education in Fifteen Medical Schools

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., is, most of you know, the co-founder and Medical Director of the Cancer Help Program.The author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather's Blessings, Rachel has a unique capacity to help health professionals and lay people to understand transformative healing work of the kind that Barbara Smith Coleman found first at Bristol and then at Commonweal.

For the past twelve years, Rachel has focused her Commonweal work through the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (ISHI) on bringing this transformative experience to physicians and medical students. She writes:

"This has been a very important year thus far for the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (ISHI). The Healer's Art, ISHI's course for medical students, was taught for the twelfth year at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. It received outstanding evaluations from students and faculty. Evaluations were equally outstanding from the students and faculty at the fifteen other medical schools who offered it concurrently with UCSF. More then 1,000 students will participate in the course in 2003 at UCSF, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Dartmouth, and ten other medical schools. An additional four medical schools are preparing to offer the course in fall 2003 or winter 2004.

"In response to the nationwide interest in the course, ISHI has strengthened its faculty development training program and will be offering four Tradecraft Trainings in 2003 for faculty who will teach the course in their home medical schools.

"Cyber-ISHI is growing as well. More than two hundred practicing physicians have signed up to participate in the Finding Meaning in Medicine curriculum offered at the FMM website. The site will also soon be open to medical students and other health professionals. We are also experimenting with some beautiful e-mail brochures to replace the slow and expensive snail mail mailings we have used in the past to get the word out about our programs."

Commonweal Proposal to Reform Sentencing inYouth Prisons Becomes California Law 15 Years After We Recommended It

David Steinhart, Director of the Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program, is one of the foremost juvenile justice policy advocates in California. He recently played a major role in the passage of historic legislation to reform the sentencing of young people to the California youth prison system, which is called the California Youth Authority (CYA). The new legislation is a long-delayed success story for Commonweal, because it enacts California youth sentencing reforms we proposed fifteen years ago.

In the 1980s, Commonweal published a series of investigative reports on the California Youth Authority. The reports, written by Commonweal Research Director Steve Lerner, included a set of recommendations for the CYA that Steve wrote with national juvenile justice authorities Paul and Anne DeMuro. This report, Reforming the CYA, presented a plan to cure the deep-seated deficiencies of Californa's youth prison system.

"That plan," David writes, "was systematically ignored by state policymakers for more than a decade. Now, fifteen years later, lawmakers have approved a major youth sentencing reform bill (SB 459) that adopts key aspects of the Commonweal plan, and Governor Gray Davis has reluctantly signed the bill into law. "

The California Youth Authority, David reports, is a set of 11 prison-level institutions for youth up to age 25. "It has been awash in controversy for years-with lockdowns of wards, documented abuses by staff, and serious and deadly outbreaks of violence. For many reasons (decline in violent crime, higher costs to counties) the CYA population has dropped over the last decade-from 10,000 to less than 6,000 inmates now. The decline can also be attributed to a loss of judicial faith in CYA's capacity to rehabilitate young offenders.

"Here is what the new legislation does:

"These are big changes. They were made possible because Senator John Burton forced a response from an otherwise disinterested administration- he did this by cutting half ($1.6 million) the Parole Board's funding from the FY 02/03 budget. This January, the Parole Board went broke. That meant that they, and the Governor who appoints them, were suddenly interested in talking about reform.

"It will take time to assess how these changes work out. Some of our goals are to build the quality of rehabilitative programs at CYA, to improve ward success on parole and to reduce state costs related to running the youth institutions. But those with long memories at Commonweal should feel some sense of reward and relief-because we just won a 15 year chess game on youth sentencing policy in California."

David Steinhart worked closely with the Senate and Governor's staffers who crafted the reform language for this historic youth sentencing reform bill. We owe him a deep vote of thanks for staying at the table for fifteen years to win this critical reform for young people in the juvenile justice system.

Art at Commonweal: Michael Rafferty Exhibits 108 Paintings Painted with One Eye and Finds an Enthusiastic Reception

Michael Rafferty, Raff to his friends at Commonweal, is the voice of Commonweal. He answers the phone. He is also my assistant, and our computer technology expert. But his informal and critical role is that he sits at the hub of Commonweal activities. Two parakeets come to work with him and fly free in his office, settling on the head or shoulders of a few selected staff members when they drop by. Raff has published two novels that have found an enthusiastic local readership. He has made some wonderful videotapes for Commonweal, and he also makes other videotapes that interest him. One of his best videotapes is about his wife, Carol Harmon, and her dogs. It is called Carol Is Quite Fond of Her Dogs.

Raff was also for many years an amateur painter. He stopped painting seven years ago after he lost an eye to melanoma, because he could not tell with one eye when the brush was going to touch the canvas. Then one day two years ago he developed a technique for bracing his arm so that he could control the contact of the brush with the canvas.

Raff painted several experimental paintings. Commonweal's Art Coordinator, Mimi Mindel, liked them. She asked if he would do an art exhibit in the Big Room at Commonweal. Raff said he had no paintings to do an exhibit. Mimi told him to paint some. So Raff sat down and in his spare time painted 108 paintings on a single theme. The theme: flowers in a vase on a table next to a window through which you see a moon-lit sky.

As Raff painted, more and more of his Commonweal and Bolinas friends bought his paintings. At the reception for his art exhibit at Commonweal, he provided black eye patches so viewers could view the art as he viewed it. The Big Room on the second floor of Commonweal was filled with Rafferty enthusiasts including eleven members of his family who had come out from Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, and New York for the event.

Raff sold 64 of the 108 painting he exhibited and gave eleven more to his relatives, and he had five commissions for new paintings. The sales were not only related to the great beauty of his paintings. The paintings were also very reasonably priced. In fact, Raff has a professional card that says:

Flowers on a Table by a Window in the Moonlight
Fine Art @ $25 per hour
Commissions Welcome

Raff now has a new exhibit of 50 paintings that will be shown at the Healing Arts Center created by Commonweal staff member Marion Weber in Stinson Beach, the next town down the coast from Bolinas. There is no sign that enthusiasm for his paintings is abating.

The arts are a constant leitmotif running through much of Commonweal's work and, of course, the work Barbara Smith Coleman started at the Smith Farm Center for the Healing Arts. We do expressive art work (sand tray) in the Cancer Help Program and in Rachel Naomi Remen's programs for physicians. Marion Weber, who has done sand tray for the Cancer Help Program and continues to do sand tray with Rachel's ISHI programs, has long been a national leader in the healing arts field, as was Barbara Smith Coleman. Carolyn Brown has done a great deal of art work with the children and young adults she works with. Mimi Mindel creates six remarkable art shows at Commonweal each year. New Commonweal Senior Associate Adam Cummings is developing an arts project within the Collaborative on Health and the Environment.

Heartfelt Thanks to All Friends Who Contributed to Commonweal -- Please Keep Us in Mind This Spring

Commonweal is extraordinarily fortunate to have an almost uniquely loyal and supportive community of friends who contribute to our work. These individual contributions provide the real glue that keeps Commonweal together. They also provide most of the support for our core direct service programs -- the Cancer Help Program and the Children's Program.

This year, in the midst of the worst downturn in decades in foundation support, the part played by individual contributions is more important to us than ever. Over the year-end holidays, Commonweal experienced once again a remarkable outpouring of support from our friends, with contributions totaling $157,915.

We offer our profound gratitude to the following Commonweal Friends who have given us their support since October 1, 2002:

Suzannah and Gerry Abrams, Martin and Cessy Agegian, Edward K. Aldworth, Donna and Tom Ambrogi, Susan Robinson and Joyce Clements, Rita Arditti, Justine Auchincloss, Iris Baranof, Debra Barry, Carl Bellini, Ian Berke, Keith I. Block, M.D. and Penny B. Block, Sally, Nelson and Jake Blower, Seymour Boorstein, M.D., Barbara Boucke, Ed and Nancy Boyce, Ursula Brandt, Ph.D., Janet Breuner, Anne Maiden Brown, Elliott D Buchdruker, Diana Klotz Buckner, Andrew and Dawn Carman, Steven Chase, Ronald Chez, Lena Choo, Stephen Christensen, Deborah Claymon, Virginia Coe, John Colla-Negri, Philip J. Collora, Carroll Covey, Les and Roxanne Cramer, Madeline Crivello, Karen Cunningham, Barry Custer, Justine Daniel, Nicholas J. Daniello, M.D., Marcy Darnovsky, John Davey and Lisa Ericksen, Electra De Peyster, Thomas and Gun Denhart, Mia Dodson, John and Ann Doerr, Barbara Duchon, Arthur and Carla Eaton, Barbara and Richard Edmonds, Kofoworola Egbeyemi-Domingo, Hilarie Faberman, Monique Ferris, Wayne L. and Margery G. Field, John E. Fischler, Samuel and Juliet Fleischmann, Rochelle D. Foster, Mrs. Margaret Francis and Family, Charles L. and Virginia M. Fritz, Matthew Gardner, Howard Gardner, Cynthia Gin, Ruth Glanz, Daniel Goleman, Gene Gordon, the Gormley Family, Tom Goselin, Susan Gotbetter, Sally and Gil Gradinger, Cynthia J. Graham, Richard M. and Gretchen D. Grant, David A. Greenburg, Sadja Greenwood, Gene and Elogeanne Grossman, Joan and David Grubin, Jessie Gruman, Ph.D., Charles and Susan Halpern, Robert and Joy Hausman, Frances Hayden, Kathleen Hayden, Sharon Herman, Evangeline Hermanson, Susan Hester, John Hidalgo, Sally Hindman and Daniel Sawislak, Lois Crozier Hogle, George and Ann Hogle, Connie Holmes, Diane Deutsch Hooker, Roy W. Howard, Marty Johnson, M.F.C.C., Robert and Kelly Jones, Alan Snyder and Susan Katz-Snyder, Stephen and Carol Noel King, Joan Klagsbrun, Ph.D., Nan Schuman Klein, Maxine Kraemer, Alyse Laemmle, Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., Kathy Larocque, Cathryn Lee, Mary Lenox, Iyana Christine Leveque, Thomas Lewis, Barbara Lipkin-Luther, Dr. Michael Litrel, Erika Bast Little, Madeline Littlefield, Betty P. Lupton, Martha Lyddon, Donald Magnin Family Fund, Idelisse Malave, Bonnie Maly, S. Jerome Mandel, Susan Mangum, Joan Martin, Colleen Martin, Joseph E. Mason, Jr. M.D., Joe Matazzoni, Mary Lee McCune, Susan B. McIntosh, Rohana McLaughlin, Margaret McNamara, Mary Marcus and Richard Muse, Richard and Anne Melbye, Margaret G. Mellon, Josie Merck, Scott Gardner and Michael Duncheon, Patricia Mickey, James S. Miller, Elise Miller, Iris M. Milne, Martha Missirlian, George G. Montgomery, Jr., Barbara Moorman, Dorothy Mozen, Craig Mukai, Fitzhugh Mullan, M.D., Nolan and Mary Murdock, Anne Firth Murray, Stephen Myers, Michael Myers, Ronald and Irene Nakasone, George S. and Penny L Nann, Albert P. Neilson, Marion Nestle, Jane Norling, Rochelle Nwadibia, Mary and Kevin O'Connell, Carol Oja, Nancy and James Osborn, Martha Payne, Stephen R. Perry, Joan E. Peterson, Edith Piltch, Nancy A. Presson, Virginia Presti, Sharon Malm Read, Andrea Reed, Mia Reilly, Beatrice Renfield, James Renfrew, Bob Riboli, J.P. Richards, Vicki Robin, Ruth Rosen, Roger A. Rosenblatt, Debra and Bill Rostenberg, Diana and Don Rothman, Kelly Sanders, Reuben Hale and Sarah Schafer, Steve Schechter, Beth Setrakian, Peter and Carol Shaughnessy, Norman and Claire Sherman, Suzanne Silkworth, Marilyn Silva, Sidney and Margaret Silver, Sandra Silverman, Jay Simoneaux, Deloy Simper, Norval Sinclair, Robert and Wendy Singley, Tricia Skennion, Andrew J. Small, Mary Stephens Smith, Marcia Soffer, Charles and Tracy Stephenson, James Steyer, Sara Stuart, Shira Stutman, Carolyn Svenson, Anne Symens-Bucher, Toby Symington, Deborah Szekely, Gregory Tarsy, Sally Tilton, Mary Ann Valiulus, Francesca Vietor and Mark Hertsgaard, Murry and Marilyn Waldman, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Walker, Harold and Laura Ware, Debra Weinberg, Albert and Susan Wells, Paula Gordon White, Melissa Wong, Wen Winny Yang, Lindsay Young, Rachael Young, Julie Yozamp and Rick Giardino, Suzanne Zane and Matthew B. Zwerling,

Thanks to the Foundations That Make Commonweal's Work Possible Despite the Most Severe Funding Downturn in Decades

The heavy lifting that makes Commonweal's major educational and policy programs possible is done by a dedicated group of foundations. We owe deep gratitude to the following foundations for their support this year:

The Alan and Nancy Baer Foundation, the Jenifer Altman Foundation, the American Cancer Society, the Aslan Foundation, the Beldon Fund, the Boeschen Family Foundation, the Bothin Foundation, the California Wellness Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Hale Foundation, the Homeland Foundation, the Roy A. Hunt Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Katz-Snyder Fund, the Alberta Kimball Foundation, the David L. Klein, Jr. Foundation, the Mach Foundation, the Marin Breast Cancer Council, the Marin Foundation, the John Merck Fund, the Michelson Foundation, the New York Community Trust, the Open Society Institute, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Panta Rhea Foundation, the Pew Fellows Program, the Beatrice Renfield Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, the Colleen and Robert D. Haas Fund, the San Francisco Medical Society, the Seven Springs Foundation, the David H. Smith Foundation, the Tides Center, and the Tides Foundation.

Conclusion

So that is the news from Commonweal this spring. The bottom line is that our work is as vibrant and interesting as it ever has been, and as necessary as it ever has been. We are keeping our fingers crossed about keeping Commonweal programs intact through this very difficult economic time.

If you have not had an opportunity to contribute to Commonweal this year, I hope that you will consider helping us to sustain Commonweal's work. I enclose an envelope for your convenience. You can specify which program you want to support or send a contribution for core Commonweal support.

Thanks for being part of the Commonweal community.

With warm best wishes,

Michael Lerner President

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