It's October, breast cancer awareness month. I'd like to take the opportunity to invite women to question the annual onslaught of pink, which (although it's nobody's bad intentions) urges consumerism of pink-themed products, while trivializing the epidemic of breast cancer, it's environmental causes, and the suffering of its victims.

Raising awareness about breast cancer is undoubtedly a good idea. But here women would do well to follow the lead of AIDS activists who fought valiantly for funding, and gave us the AIDS quilt and Angels in America--not teddy bears, pink ribbons, and, in my home town of Lawrence Kansas, bras tied together and strung across the Kansas River bridge.

As a friend pondered, "What would be strung across the bridge to raise awareness of prostate cancer in men?".