loving art, science and creative kids

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I painted the cave while writing Antheia in the Thorns. It is where grieving mother, Jennifer Russo, loses herself and gains the strength to combat a corporation taking away a human right. 

Air shouldn’t require purifiers

  When people hear the phrase human rights, they often picture courtrooms, war zones, and political speeches. But human rights aren’t abstract. They’re practical, personal and of everyday concern. 

Britannica defines human rights as rights belonging to an individual simply for being human. The United Nations took it further in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, recognizing the “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” as the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace.

It’s a powerful statement. But here’s the question that haunts me:  What happens when someone’s profit depends on your rights being violated? The answer is in the details where real-world human rights struggles live.  In the first book in the Rightfully Mine series,  The Water Factor explores whether water, an essentials of life, should be treated as a human right or as a commodity, bottled and traded on Wall Street.

In the newly released novel Antheia in the Thorns, the focus shifts to something we rarely think about until it’s taken from us: The air we breathe. In it, anthropologist turned housewife, Jennifer Russo, and an Antheia activist, Brian Adakai, fight a toxic, real-world threat most people have never heard of: petroleum coke (petcoke)—a dirty byproduct of oil refining.

Though rarely used in the U.S., petcoke replaces coal in energy plants because it’s cheaper producing higher BTUs.  It’s also more polluting.  Petcoke is shipped around the world where it’s stored in dusty piles that affect air quality. The U.S. is its largest producer, yet is treated by congress as someone else’s problem.

The damage doesn’t show up on corporate balance sheets. It shows up in smog and in people with asthma, allergies, chronic coughs, and in children who can’t run without wheezing or falling into ash piles to die while playing. It devastates communities that don’t have the political power to stop it. That is why petcoke isn’t just an environmental issue. It’s a human rights issue.

If the right to life means anything, shouldn’t it include the right to breathe air that won’t harm you? If freedom means anything, doesn’t it include freedom from pollution you never consented to? And if justice means anything, doesn’t it require environmental laws so corporations can’t hide behind loopholes and legal intimidation? Weakening the EPA and FDA is a travesty we shouldn’t allow. 

In Antheia in the Thorns, Jennifer and Brian aren’t fighting a vague evil. They’re fighting people with names. Oil entrepreneur Abdul Hammed Dillinger has built an empire on profit-first thinking. He has a legal shield in his attorneys, Amy Stuart and her lover, Jen’s husband, Jason Russo. They don’t need to win on truth.  They only need to win by exhausting their opponents. Do do so, they delay, they threatened they bury their opposition in paperwork. They manipulate the system until those fighting back are broke, discredited, or afraid.

This is how human rights are defeated in the modern world. It’s not always with violence, but more often with strategy. And that’s why I wrote this book. Because beneath the legal maneuvering and corporate shields is something more intimate: betrayal, grief, and the moment a woman realizes she has nothing left to lose. Jennifer isn’t a superhero. She’s a wife, a mother, a woman who trusted the wrong people. But when the air itself becomes dangerous she discovers that courage isn’t about strength. It’s about refusal to be silenced. “No! Our lungs are not negotiable.”

If you believe clean air shouldn’t require a purifier; if you’ve ever felt outmatched by systems designed to wear people down;  if you’ve wondered what it takes to stand up when standing up costs everything—then this story is for you.

The ebook of Antheia in the Thorns is currently on Amazon at an introductory price. If you decide to delve into the story, an honest review helps more than most people realize.” It’s the most powerful way to help this story reach new readers. 

Human rights aren’t abstract. They’re in every breath we take. And some stories are worth telling because silence costs too much.

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Art can be purchased on my website and shipped free throughout the continental U.S. Contact me at [email protected] with questions.