Editorial Reviews
Book Description
An incredible detailed comic book looking at life's obstacles. This book gives the reader an understanding that life isn't always fair but there are always alternatives to the obstacles set in our paths. It's the way you choose to handle life's situations that shows your true character and helps us succeed in reaching our goals. At the end of the book, are inspirational quotes that can be read and discussed by parent and child.
About the Author
Arise Foundation
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Edmund and Susan Benson, Founders
Edmund F. Benson was born in Boston in 1929 and attended school there. Impatient to do his part during World War II, at age 14 he joined the Massachusetts State Guard. One month after his 16th birthday, he joined the U.S. Merchant Marine. Three years later, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. At age 21, he established a sales organization which grew into a chain of 18 furniture rental showrooms with locations stretching from Boston to Austin, TX. In 1972 he moved his business headquarters and family to South Florida. Since his retirement in 1982, he has devoted 100 percent of his time and energy to making the world safe for children. Susan Benson, M.S. Ed., was born in New York in 1942 and attended school there. She has been an educator with over 30 years of experience teaching learning challenging children and young adults.
In 1986, the Bensons established a non-profit foundation, ARISE Foundation, which through its Anti-Pollution Committee alerted, educated and badgered residents and government representatives of the severe environmental problems being caused by Dade County's garbage incinerator. The facility, built without serious health considerations, was emitting unacceptable levels of toxic pollutants.
The primary focus of ARISE Foundation at that time was environmental education. Edmund and Susan Benson directed many of their activities toward our schools--in Dade County, throughout the nation and the world--to reach the maximum number of people who can achieve short and long-term impact on the threats to life and health of our throw-away, chemically-oriented society.
Edmund became to South Florida what Rachel Carson became to America: an endearing workaholic who spent every waking hour committed to protecting our beautiful and delicate environment, to ensure that today's children and their children inherit a healthy community. This truly motivated man made a fundamental commitment, through his personal convictions and intellectual integrity, from which everyone benefits." -- The Miami Herald Spirit of Excellence Award, Sept. 11, 1990.
The "Miami Monster"
Benson was shocked into action due to health-damaging concerns created by Dade County's solid waste incinerator. After alerting the public and officials of environmental perils caused by fallout from one of the largest municipal waste incinerators in the world, local media lauded him for his "bulldog tenacity", Benson has received the enthusiastic endorsement of his neighbors, Senators and Members of Congress, as well as the Mayor and Board of Dade County Commissioners.
Describing the incinerator as "working toward our own extinction", Benson battled on and off for 10 years to get the County to clean up its act. First, he convinced officials to terminate its contract with the builder-operator of this waste-burning plant. He led parents and children on protest marches; collected 10,000 signatures on petitions demanding change. Using vivid aerial photographs, he fixed the public eye on the disease-laden facility where garbage rotted in the outdoor sun and airborne ash containing heavy metals, with the potential for causing serious illness, spewed from superheated incinerator stacks. He designed and executed hard-hitting mail campaigns, and conducted surveys demonstrating that, tragically, his neighbors felt better and their health dramatically improved once they distanced themselves from their homes to breathe cleaner air.
His "Gruesome Times" newsletter, contains "All the garbage that's fit to print". Its screaming environmental graphics demand attention, as he speaks and writes in word pictures: "What has become an urban rite--the thoughtless incineration of society's castoffs...A foul acid rain falls constantly over South Florida while mysterious maladies send the sick searching aimlessly for healers as we continue brea
Life Isn't Fair,Edmund F. Benson,Susan Benson,Arise Foundation,1586142968,Comics & Cartoons,Comics & Graphic Novels,Humor
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