Stand Up To Cancer

People ask me this from time to time, though it's not as popular a salutation as it was in the 1730s. In that decade, if the answer went beyond "not much," the town crier often got involved.

These days, with the fast pace of modern technology and 24-hour news cycles and this whole internet fad, the answer is often "everything." So the whole "what's new" thing doesn't lend itself to brief stop-and-chats in the same way it did in the colonial period.

With Stand Up To Cancer's online creative content, we're always working to make sure that the "everything" part is true. Given the relative newness of the website itself, however, it might be good to give a primer on what's worth watching and reading on SUTV and SU2C Magazine. The answer? Again, everything. (Along with cancer, SU2C is also where the end of humility begins.)

There are 21 articles in the magazine and 10 videos spanning the channels of SUTV. In particular this week, if you haven't read the first installment of Alicia Sky Varinaitis' series of personal essays, Insane in the Membrane, then I really don't know what to say to you. Also, Cindy Chupack, Emmy winner and one of the creative minds behind that TV show Sex and the City, reminisced for us about the joys of getting a mammogram on your birthday while preparing to get married, enduring what she coined "the breast sandwich." Turns out it was an incredibly positive experience. (For readers, too.)

The incomparable Jerome Groopman M.D. -- scientist, author, and eternal skeptic of cancer research initiatives -- also wrote about what makes this project different from all other projects, and you don't need a Passover Seder to understand what he means.

Similarly, if you haven't watched Larry David's plea for help or the Daily Show's profanity-laced (but bleeped for office viewing) assault on cancer, then you aren't having enough fun.

Didn't get around to seeing the David Fincher (Fight Club, Panic Room) directed SU2C PSA? Then you haven't yet shed tears over a Stand Up To Cancer public service announcement.

And if you want to understand the urgency of this (and every) moment in cancer research, read and watch the Why Now video and article.

As for new creative content this week, you'll have a chance to see and get involved in an effort to spark greater government support for progress against cancer. As you know, our elected representatives have been forced to sit up and take notice of the growing crisis represented by cancer of late. Here's hoping they're going to stand up as well.

You'll get a chance to read more on what this whole translational research deal is about (it's in layman's terms -- that part of the translation will have already been done).

Truth is, there really aren't videos or articles posted on this site or upcoming that we aren't proud of and we hope they'll make you proud to be part of SU2C, and empowered to make the cause yours. Next week we'll do another roundup of whatever we've got that's both new and good (everything).

If you like, love, are indifferent, or just want to sound off about articles or videos, send an e-mail (blog@standup2cancer.org), post a comment below, or think on it and share your thoughts on our upcoming message board (you'll be able to find it right here in the Forums section of the magazine). We do want to hear from you.

Until the next blog post, thanks for continuing to help make SU2C a success.

-- Eli, Editor, SU2C Magazine