loving art, science and creative kids
4/26/2024 10:00:56 PM
The Water Factor is on pre-sale on Amazon. Thanks for helping me launch the book. Price is reduced for family and friends.
Magnolia trees in the Neighborhood
What is Rightfully Mine?
With summer around the corner, I ask myself, what part of nature is rightfully mine? Clean air, drinkable water, clean coastal beaches, non-polluted inland waterways, thriving Redwood Forests in the West, Sugar Maples in the East?
After huffing and puffing up the trail by my home, I realized how cloistered I'd been this winter. But with the trillium in bloom and magnolia blossoms painting neighborhood streets pink, I emerged from my cocoon vowing to take advantage of almost perfect springtime temperatures. No longer worried about pipes bursting in below-freezing weather or summer fires making breathing hard, I cleanse my lungs with fresh oxygen in the forested parks around Portland.
Unfortunately, I've become allergic to the trees surrounding me on my walks. My nose drips with my first step on the trail. Yet, I march on, determined not to let nature get the best of me as I use one Kleenex after another…sigh. It seems misery loves company, for I hear I'm not alone. More people have allergies than ever, with estimates that 30 to 40 percent of the world's population suffers from hay fever, eczema, and asthma. I wonder why.
A prevalent theory, "the hygiene hypothesis," suggests modern living has become too clean and that children aren't being exposed to the germs that train their immune systems to differentiate between harmless and harmful irritants. The research behind this theory shows that families living on farms develop fewer allergic diseases. Other studies indicate more complex factors, such as a shift in eating more processed food and digesting less fiber. Some scientists believe the rise in environmental toxins reduces the skin's ability to ward off allergens. Antibiotics and acetaminophen (Tylenol), they say, may increase the risk of asthma by changing bacterial flora. Obesity is another suggested contributing factor, and so is a deficiency in vitamin D, which is essential for lung and immune development. My physician-father used to send me outside on sunny days to soak up vitamin D.
Because of the rise in allergies, Americans drain their savings with air purifiers, antihistamines, and allergy-free foods. Even those with mild allergies may not sleep well, which often affects their mental state and productivity. This year's warmer weather and early spring triggered an earlier pollen season and worsening seasonal allergies. Climate Change has added twenty days to allergy seasons nationwide. Paired with respiratory virus season and insurance regulatory issues, 2024 is a tough year for those needing medication for allergies and asthma control.
Rather than eliminating air and water pollution, Americans turn to costly medical cures, filter their homes, and purchase bottled water. No wonder the middle class feels broke. Wouldn't it be better to eliminate pollution, eat healthier food, and spend more time outdoors? If we don't care for our surroundings, we'll remain victims of water and airborne diseases.
Access to clean air and water is a right that should not be turned over to corporations and pharmacies that profit from our mistakes. They have a vested interest in keeping us ill. I started writing eco-thrillers by asking citizens to monitor what is happening in their communities.
The Water Factor is a Rightfully Mine novel that demonstrates how corporate interests can abuse access to clean water and make living worse. Antheia in the Thorns, the second book in the series, will be published next year. It points to a little-known product with a significant adverse effect on our air.
Nature is Rightfully Mine and Yours. It should not be a commodity for sale.
Take action in your community to ensure that water, air, and forests remain pure for future generations.
References:
Davies, D. (2023). Why our Allergies are Getting Worse - and what to do about it. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/30/1178433166/theresa-macphail-allergic-allergies#:~:text
Website (20224) . More than a Quarter of W.S. Adults and Children Have at Least One Allergy. Center for Disease Control. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220126.htm#:~:text
Christ, Carolyn (2024) Asthma AttackP Allergies, Rising Costs Impacting Patients. WebMD. retrieved from https://www.webmd.com/asthma/news/20240417/asthma-attack-allergies-rising-costs-impacting-patients
4/19/2024 5:50:04 PM
Introducing THE WATER FACTOR, A RIGHTFULLY MINE NOVEL, a gripping tale of water scarcity and corporate wrongdoing. For the next two weeks, you have exclusive access to this groundbreaking story before its official release.
Take advantage of our special presale offer: the Kindle version is available for just $4.99, half the regular price, with instant download upon release next month. Prefer a paperback? Purchase now for $14.99 and receive delivery within a week. Act fast, as the paperback will only be available at this price for two weeks before being removed from Amazon and reintroduced at a higher price in mid-May.
Stay tuned for the audiobook release, coming soon!
Your support is crucial in spreading awareness about this important narrative. Purchase your copy today, share it with friends, and leave a review on Amazon to help us reach our goal of over one hundred reviews by launch day.
Look for "THE WATER FACTOR" in bookstores nationwide this August. I am available for virtual discussions via Zoom for book club and as a speaker at local events and bookstores.
"Why Do I Care? Hot off of this week's press:
In an unprecedented deal, a private company purchased land in a tiny Arizona town – and sold its water rights to a suburb 200 miles away. Local residents fear the agreement has ‘opened Pandora’s box."by Maanvi Singh in Cibola and Queen Creek, Arizona
Synopsis:
The Water Factor, a Rightfully Mine Novel, is a 2024 International Firebird Book Award winner for best dystopian novel. It is a confronting eco-thriller showing environmental devastation that will surprise and engross you until the final page.
The novel opens dramatically in 2039 with James Hokama Byrne, grandson of Chief Tahoma-Kiche, leading a team to steal water trucks and take them to the reservation where his grandparents live. The battle began years ago, when water was labeled a commodity rather than a right, and Glacier Oceanside joined the ranks of the world’s largest water cartels. Top executives didn’t count on being confronted by James Hokama Byrne, an employee the company mentored since his high school graduation. But delivering to drought-stricken farms and getting kidnapped in Ethiopia changed the young man’s outlook. When the Glacier Oceanide started draining aquifers on his grandfather’s reservation to send to bottling plants and marijuana farms, something within him snapped. He couldn’t remain silent.
The plot involves readers in the manipulations and crimes of water cartels, drug lords, and utility companies that operate openly and with little oversight. Going by his middle name, Hokama, the hero is challenged to make access to clean water a human right, not a commodity exploited by private corporations. The story is exciting, radical, and urgent, involving love affairs, murder, and kidnapping. If you like action with a touch of romance, and if you cry for misused populations, you won’t want to miss this call to action. To ensure authenticity, Eichinger met with members of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon and was assisted by Native American Smithsonian consult and Ethiopian families.
4/12/2024 10:06:49 PM
AN EYE FOR AN EYE
To better understand society’s addiction to war and punishment, I explored the phrase an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Though written in the Old and New Testaments and the Koran, its origin was much earlier. It was codified in ancient Mesopotamia, decades before the Greek and Roman civilizations flourished and the Old Testament existed. Archaeologists found the phrase in Hammurabi’s code as one of 282 laws inscribed on a stone pillar discovered in 1901 in what is modern-day Iran.
The Babylonian empire was ruled by Hammurabi from 1792-59 B.C.E. As his holdings grew, so did the need to unify the countries he conquered. He sent experts out to gather the existing laws followed throughout his kingdom and had them compile a final list, selecting which ones to follow. An eye for an eye is more than a simple statement that says to strike back with equal force. It was meant as a guide for judges. The entire code describes differing punishments for wealthy or noble persons, commoners, and slaves. It says that the strong should not harm the weak and that members of the ruling class should receive harsher punishments than those in the lower classes. Many of the punishments were indeed quite harsh. For example:
- “If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
- If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.
- If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.
- If a son of a paramour or a prostitute say to his adoptive father or mother: "You are not my father, or my mother," his tongue shall be cut off.”
Years later, an eye for an eye was written into the Old Testament (Exodus 18:13–26; Leviticus 24:20; Deuteronomy 19:21) several times. It was also intended to guide judges and lawgivers, not justify vigilantism or settle personal grievances. However, the Pharisees and scribes took the principle to heart and started applying it to everyday situations. If someone punched you, you punched him back, ignoring the law and the religious teachings upholding society.
Jesus countered the practice of retaliation in his Sermon on the Mount. “Do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.” According to various interpretations, Jesus did not nullify the Old Testament law but separated it from the government’s responsibility to punish evildoers. He, too, considered it the responsibility of judges, police officers, and the military to defend and protect citizens. To an individual victim, he said, “We should not seek retribution for personal slights.” Jesus preached loving your enemies, praying for those who persecute you, and giving more to those who would persecute you. I wonder how many follow these teachings today?
The Koran also contains writings about ways to treat evil doers. “We prescribed for them therein: A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear and a tooth for a tooth; and for wounds, an equal retaliation. Then, if one forgives it, that will be expiation for him. Those who do not judge according to what Allah has sent down, they are the unjust. —translated by T. Usmani (expiation is the act of making amends or reparation for guilt or wrongdoing; it is a form of atonement.)
According to Dr. Jasser Auda, The Koran mentions the verse as something God had revealed in the Torah (Old Testament). It doesn’t stand alone but must be considered in relation to other verses considering crime and punishment. In general, the Koran gives governments, not individuals, the right to apply criminal rulings when there isn’t a shadow of a doubt. There is room in Islamic law for relatives of a murdered person to pardon the murderer for compensation.
I think of the United Nations charter as a modern-day Hammurabi’s code. It assembled laws that member nations agreed to for “peace, dignity, and equality on a healthy planet.” The preamble reads, “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained.” Their work is carried out by courts, tribunals, multilateral treaties, and the Security Council, which can approve peacekeeping missions, impose sanctions, or authorize the use of force when there is a threat to international peace and security.
What influence do these world religions and the United Nations exert on society today? In my mind, not enough. Too many people who call themselves followers ignore their teachings for personal gain. They form gangs, militias, and vigilante groups who take the law into their own hands. They lie, cheat, and steal. There is no justice in how they act, yet their actions are often condoned, and their leaders are put on a pedestal. Why do so many people wear a wreath of righteousness when they’ve taken advantage of the poor and helpless?
AN EYE FOR AN EYE DOESN'T WORK. IT CREATES CHAOS AND MISERY FOR THE AVERAGE PERSON WHO LIVE WITH REVENGE IN HIS OR HER HEART.
If more people practiced the laws of the land,I wouldn’t be writing books about corporate crime or concerned with how my grandchildren will deal with global warming. I wouldn’t worry that they may not have enough clean water for drinking or growing food for their table. I wouldn’t be concerned about their homes flooding or burning to the ground in unforeseen weather events. The 8.1 billion people on earth can and must act together for the common good.
I look forward to reading your comments below.
A Masked View is an acrylic painting on canvas.
The Water Factor will be available on Kindle and in paperback for presale on Amazon later this month. It will also be in bookstores this fall in time for the holiday season.
'Eichinger's near-future dystopian eco-thriller explores a world with little water. The novel opens dramatically in 2039 with James Hokama Byrne leading a team to steal water trucks and take them to the Chekesuwand reservation, where his grandparents live. The underdog fighting to regain what is rightfully theirs and wreak revenge on wrongdoers is a time-honored thriller plot, and the novel gamely attempts to animate this storyline with the timely theme of water scarcity. Eichinger addresses a critical topic with the frame of an attention-grabbing plot." Kirkus Review
References:
Website. 4c. Hammurabi’s Code: An Eye for an Eye. The Early Middle East. Ancient Civilizations. Retrieved from https://www.ushistory.org/civ/4c.asp#:~:text=%22An%20eye%20for%20an%20eye,the%20Greeks%20or%20Romans%20flowered
Website. What Does the Bible mean by “an eye for an eye?” Got Questions. retrieved from https://www.gotquestions.org/eye-for-an-eye.html
Website translation for an eye for an eye. Quran.com. Retrieved from https://quran.com/5/45?translations=20,84,17,85,101,18,95,19,22
Website. Uphold International Law. The United Nations.Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/our-work/uphold-international-law
4/6/2024 3:23:32 PM
CALMING TRAUMA
The savagery and futility of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine break my heart. It is hard to erase the images of children drinking from mud puddles, of starving and maimed people, and of those wracked with preventable diseases. While researching The Water Factor and Over The Peanut Fence, I was exposed to traumas that incapacitate their victims. On foreign soil and at home, rape, domestic violence, poverty, gun violence, and starvation are at the top of the list. Having resided in a safe, loving home all my life, it is difficult to imagine being forced to leave my country when no one would welcome you.
I often ask myself, what type of person perpetuates such unsettling crimes against humanity? Terrorists fighting for religious or political dominance? Profiteers selling weapons to warring factions? Oil, gas, and coal companies who knowingly pollute the atmosphere and raise global temperatures? or the public who buys their products?
Do politicians who won't compromise consider the victims of their decisions. Do they think of the raped woman forced to give birth to an unwanted child, leaving two traumatized individuals in its wake? Will society lend them a helping hand? Who will quiet the nightmares of the families waiting at closed borders? Can veterans or anyone living with PTSD get over their trauma? I'll never forget Warsaw's city museum, where visitors were greeted by the sound of warplanes closing in and dropping bombs that overwhelmed my senses. What if it were real, and I had to live through that? What would my future be like?
Millions upon millions face experience trauma from war, gun violence, an accident, rape, domestic violence, or weather-induced disaster. Thousands of victims worldwide need psychological and physical care to be made whole again. If we don't want a depressed nation where more people self-medicate with alcohol and street drugs, though it is costly, we have to provide resources to help them. Every time there is a school shooting, a person loses their home, or a child drinks polluted water, the effect on the national economy escalates.
The emotions, smells, and sounds during a traumatic event get embedded in the individual's muscles, gut, and brain. Some manage by compartmentalizing the experience by burying the event. Part of them becomes internally frozen, cut off from emotions and sensations. Thousands of vets who won't speak of their wartime experience also don't admit their anger, alcoholism, depression, frustrations, and perpetual agitation have to do with trauma. A deep fear of getting hurt, betrayed, and abandoned keeps them from having close relationships, loving sexual partners, and participating in communal activities--the things that might help them heal.
My master's degree program introduced me to behavior modification, though Carl Rogers and talk therapy were the rage. In the clinical setting, I quickly realized that talking about the event wasn't enough to help traumatized victims. However, it was usually the first step to getting them to say what happened and to label their internal struggles. I realized then that the healing process has a mind-body connection. While counseling a group of 300 to 400 hundred-pound women who had to lose weight for health reasons, we talked about their childhood and adult experiences for weeks. Quite a few said that their husband liked them fat, and they were afraid of what would happen if they lost weight. Nothing they or I said made a difference to them shedding a pound. It wasn't until I taught them to meditate that they began to deal with family and personal issues. They overcame the agitation that led them to overeat by calming their minds. Most of the women saw lower numbers on their scales.
Mindfulness, meditation, communal chanting, art, massage, and dance are among the treatments psychologists proscribe to make people feel safe, connected, and willing to engage in meaningful relationships. These activities help victims relax so they can recognize their sensations and emotions so they are not frightened when touched, hugged, or rocked, the ways most of us are aided when emotionally vulnerable.
Doctors are quick to prescribe medications for stress, but these are only blockers that eliminate the sensory world. They may push horrific thoughts away for a few hours, but not for good. It's the reason many people become addicted to them or other self-prescribed drugs.
Letting go of the past isn't easy. To become well takes a certain amount of strength and the will to do so.
Brain imaging and research into mind-altering drugs have led to alternative therapies that appear to work when desensitization, bio-feedback, cognitive behavioral therapy, stress-reducing drugs, and talk therapy don't. Improvements in electrical mapping of the brain have great promise in isolating the part of the brain that won't let stress go. The newer therapies aim to rewire the fear-driven forces with Brain/computer interface technology or with psychedelics. Psilocybin, Ketamine, cannabis, and MDMA (ecstasy) have been shown to decrease amygdala activation in trauma victims during emotional processing. These methods try to sift the person's mindset so they can think or behave differently. People become more suggestible with psychedelics. In the hands of a qualified therapist, the person becomes more responsive to positive suggestions.
You might ask what this has to do with water, which is the subject of my latest book. The answer is everything. Human beings can't survive without access to clean water. They can't grow crops, have carbon-cleaning forests, or in-home air conditioners to stave off heat strokes. Communities experiencing water scarcity are traumatized. Since humans seem unable to stop creating havoc, we must be prepared for the consequences of our actions. Trauma victims will become more commonplace in the future if we don't get our act together.
The Water Factor will be available for presale online by the end of the month. Stay posted and help make its launch a grand success. The story is an eco-thriller about a naive high school graduate who learns that the company he works for is pilfering water to sell to marijuana farmers from his grandfather's reservation in the high desert. His adventures on the way to maturity make the book a page-turner. Though set in the future, the story is based on actual events.
- I look forward to reading your comments on my blog site at www.eichingerfineart.com/blog
- Calming Chaos is an acrylic painting available for $ 495. Shipping is included in the continental U.S. For information, contact [email protected]
References:
Tupper, KW. (2015)Psychedelic medicine: a re-emerging therapeutic paradigm. National Institutes of Health. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4592297/
Website (2021) Psychedelic Therapy: Uses, How It’s Done, Risks, and More. Healthline. Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/psychedelic-therapy
Website. What to Know About Psychedelic Therapy. Medical News Today. retrieved from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/psychedelic-therapy#how-does-it-work
Van Der kolk,B. M.D. (2014) The Body Keeps The Score. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-670-78592-3.
