To all my family members and friends on Facebook: I know how annoying it can be when people post their political views on Facebook, and I have to think hard before I do it myself. But let me explain a little bit (okay, a lot) about the reasons why I might do it, when I do it.
I don't want my friends and relatives to think of me as a Democrat or Republican (or even as an independent, (although I'd probably rather have people think of me as someone who IS independent than as "an independent.") I don't want to be defined as a fanboy of anyone or anything - be it a Dodge truck fan (though I have a Dodge truck), a White Sox fan (well, that's not so bad if it means I'm not a Cubs fan), or an Obama fan.
The way I do want people to see me is as a caring and intelligent person with strong values. My values are in everything I do, including my job. Those values include humor, a sense of family and community, and above all, the "social triad": Social responsibility, social equality, and social justice. I work where I work because that institution shares those values, and I believe in making them my highest priorities.
Now, I have those values because I think they are what gives human life its highest meaning. In fact, they are what make us human. It's my belief that anything that is "exceptional" about the United States of America comes from those values, not from the laws we make, the policies we pursue, the wars we wage, the flag we wave (or burn), or the people we elect. Even the Constitution is just a piece of paper if our values don't help us to create that "common good" it talks about.
Although these values pretty much reflect what Christian spiritual beliefs teach us, I don't believe that those values dictate the views that a person should or shouldn't have about religion (unless they are fanatical views - like a belief that it is necessary to destroy or punish people who disagree). Neither do those values require me to agree or disagree with any particular economic policy (unless those policies are rooted in values contrary to my values), or adhere to a particular dogma about the "size," role, or nature of government (unless those arguments are really a cover for selfish attitudes that are opposed to my values). News flash: the big bad government is us... It's simply our will as we put it into practice, and it only needs to be as "big" as it has to be, to do what we believe it should do for all of us, not just a few of us.
What I am opposed to is dishonesty, prejudice, hatred, ignorance, whipping up fears and resentments, sloppy thinking, and the mischaracterization (or outright demonization) of my treasured values. I am bitterly opposed to people attempting to exclude others from full and participatory membership in a society of equals, or to use power and control to oppress or exclude people different from themselves, or to treat anyone in any way that they would not wish to be treated themselves. My attitude is pretty much the opposite of "i've got mine, Jack, so screw you." It's more like "I am harmed when the least fortunate is harmed." so the nuns managed to teach me something besides penmanship and telling the truth.
Social responsibility means that I measure every position I hold, every action I take, and every task that I undertake by the standard of whether it helps or hurts the community of people to which I belong. Social equality means that I fight the marginalization, labeling, or judging of people for any reason, and fight my own inner prejudices - prejudices that, despite my good intentions, have been inculcated in me from living for over half a century in a society that can be sadly ignorant and prejudiced against so many of its members. Social justice means that I accept responsibility for taking the time, effort, and expense to do what I can to see that injustices and wrongs being done to people are righted as much as we can right them, and to work to build social structures that will prevent people from being abused, oppressed, cheated, neglected, persecuted, harassed, discouraged, and harmed through no fault of their own.
I'm not perfect, but I do want to try to live up to those ideals.
So when I post a link or applaud a story on Facebook, you should understand why I do it. I'm either drawing attention to a positive example of people doing things right according to my values, or trying to raise awareness of something that I believe is harming the worldwide human condition or making it more likely that people will suffer. Lots of times, I admit that I will use my sense of humor to draw attention to the absurdities of what people in power (or people who seek power) are saying. Or I may indulge in some pure snark once in awhile. But I hope that it's snark for a good cause, since my values are always the over-arching consideration.
I will be especially outraged when people try to hide selfishness, intolerance, greed, racism, power-grabbing, theft, double-crossing, and downright hatred behind a smokescreen of virtue, moralism, freedom, or "success and prosperity" talk. I will be enraged when people disrespect others by using pure meanness and name-calling. I will call out loudly when I see dishonesty and lazy thinking. I refuse to respect those who subtract social value to enrich themselves, while trumpeting their own "success," and implying that those victimized by these schemes are unworthy, undeserving, or "lazy."
In the process, I may appear to be partisan. But that's only the case because one party in this country seems to have decided that the ends justify any means, and has abandoned the values that are most important to me. All I can say in response is that you should ignore the speeches, ignore the nasty ads, and look at the platforms of the parties as you decide which set of principles and proposed actions would be in the best interest of us all. In the process, you will need to question all the assumptions that underlie those platforms, but that's part of your responsibility as a citizen. It involves a skill called critical thinking. It's a skill that is unfortunately not being taught as well these days as it was when I was going to school.
In fact, one of the political parties has come out and said (through a law passed in one state and a platform in another state) that it's wrong to teach our kids critical thinking skills, because it undermines respect for authority. That should tell you all you need to know about how they think they have to behave in order to gain power. It's the same as using sneaky tactics to make it disproportionately difficult for poor people, students, or elderly people to exercise their right to vote, because they might vote the wrong way. That is below contemptible. And making up lies and stoking fears about widespread "voter fraud" using racial stereotypes and economic fears is disgusting. And I'll call out this awful scheming every time I see it.
If you can't govern without using fear, hate, and lies, you don't deserve to govern. It's no wonder Congress has the lowest approval rating in history.
And if you squawk about how you want to subject us all to the wonderful free market, and then build business models on taking money meant for the public good, diverting it into your pockets, and cheating vulnerable people out of services we paid for, you're despicable. I'm talking privatized prisons and schools. I'm talking you, Chris Christie. No Mob-connected Teamster boss had anything on you.
But where I want to end up here is to emphasize that I take the Common Good very seriously, and get pretty upset when I sense that a politician, or a political party, is playing games with our civilization, our people, or our planet, in order to gain an advantage for themselves at the expense of the common good. And while the Democratic Party is far from perfect, and the average Democratic politician is strikingly ...average, the average Republican politician has to have a severe case of denial to be able to sleep at night, given the level of full-on craziness being embraced by that party in the past few years. And how do they still get people to support them given how obvious the lies, the craziness, and the hatred have become? Well, they seem to have hit on a winning combination: when a lie works, double down and keep repeating it. When even FOX BLINKIN' NEWS calls your speeches the biggest collection of lies they've ever seen, well, heck... just keep repeating the same lies! As long as it keeps your base fired up, screw integrity.
And there's more! Rely on peoples' laziness, prejudice, cynicism, mistrust, and racism to poison the whole discourse so your lies and meanness seem like "just what they all do." Then you can make use of your army of Internet-connected bozos to post awful, hateful comments about every bit of news that happens, until people become desensitized to it and start not noticing the racist and mean-spirited tone of our national conversation. Get a little help from the media, who take the easy way out by claiming to be "fair" and refusing to call the liars out on their lies, calling them "points of view" or "differences of opinion." It's what some have called the "Post-truth Age."
And false equivalencies have replaced logic. What I refer to as "Because George Soros, that's why" thinking.
So if anything I post, any link I like, or any position I take offends you after knowing my values and how I see things, and considering the issue I raise, well then, maybe you should un-friend me. But if you see the sense in what I'm saying, don't worry, there'll be more where that came from.
And when you think about politics, don't think it's impolite to call people out when - either intentionally or without thinking - they support people and policies that hurt the common good. That hurt our planet. That hurt our kids' futures. That hurt humanity. That make those of us who had dreams and ideals in our teens and twenties wonder if we stumbled into some bizarre alternate America conceived as satire or horror by Stephen King. Or that just make you crazy with their brazen effrontery, like Paul Ryan lying about his marathon time. Or that depress us by reminding us that schoolyard bullies like Karl Rove and Grover Norquist have so much cynical power to thwart the good intentions of good people and concentrate political and economic power with those who have the most money. While decent working people who try to stand up for each other are labeled "thugs."
And - after making yourself informed about their platforms - if you agree that one of our parties is now pushing alarmingly goofy ideas that even the John Birch Society would have hesitated to say out loud forty years ago, you have two choices. You can help them do it, by liking their smiling candidates and helping them win, or you can hold them accountable, by complaining loudly that they don't represent your values or your ideas about how we're supposed to conduct ourselves as civilized human beings. Voting against them isn't enough. It hasn't made them less crazy in the past four years, in case you hadn't noticed. And not voting is worse.
At the same time, you'll see me point out and celebrate those who take actions that help to put my values into practice. They usually do it quietly, so they need the attention. It's a lot easier to sow hate and division than it is to take the small and difficult steps needed to make a better world.
And in closing, I'm going to say - for the first and last time in my life - "Like and share if you agree."
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Friday, March 25, 2011
Enough is enough is enough.
Paul Krugman has written another superb column in the New York Times about the futility of the approach being favored by the current crop of politicians - Democrats as well as Republicans. The idea that we must slash the national deficit and debt, no matter what that does to our citizens, is crazy. Krugman's piece lays bare all the fallacies in it and uses the example of Ireland and other European nations that have taken this path as evidence of why it is so crazy and self-defeating.
But it's also horribly inhumane. Sociopathic, even. One of his commenters pointed that out far better than I ever could, and I'm going to ask this gentleman's forgiveness for copying his rant in full. It is an impassioned statement, and crystallizes all of the frustrations that I've felt ever since this economic collapse was just a roaring noise over the horizon, in about 2006:
martin
Portland, Oregon
March 25th, 2011
1:35 am
On the Federal level, Obama caved on extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and to prove his own credibility of being at least half insane,cut programs like heating subsidies for poor elderly Americans.
When politicians talk about deficits, they never talk about about ending farm subsidies or tax oil loopholes and subsidies, estate taxes, or raising taxes on the richest, a few percent. but propose cutting programs that benefit the sick, children, seniors, the poor, schools, health care and the middle class and poor in general.
This is beyond poor judgement. There is a contempt and almost hatred of the middle class and poor and a cult like lionization of the rich and corporations that defies reason, is at base nihilistic and inhumane and is reminiscent of fascist regimes the brutal dictatorship of Agosto Pinochet of Chile, who was greatly influenced by the University of Chicago economists like Milton Friedman and was a great friend of the Nixon regime and the foreign policy of Henry Kissinger.
Well said, "martin."
This writer gets the MORAL injustice of what is happening. The protesters in Wisconsin got that. The editorial writers at the Chicago Tribune didn't - those writers who joined the throngs of good ol-boys and Chamber of Commerce types who kvetch that unions probably did this to themselves and hey, haven't they kind of outlived their usefulness anyway? And, you know, it's only public employees - who have it better than the rest of us - who feel entitled to this kind of protection. Pensions? Might as well ask for buggy whips. You will take this 401(k) and you will risk your future on the markets. Oh, and we'll charge you a nice fee to manage it. Hey, you can be a high roller like the big boys. Yeah, well, we all lost money the past two years. Them's the breaks. And sorry, you don't get a bailout like they did.
Anyone who joins that chorus should be ashamed of themselves. All you have to do is listen to the news. Some examples that struck me:
The writer? Pope Leo XIII. The year? 1891. (The title: "Rerum Novarum.")
Gee, our modern society is SO much better than the old days of the nineteenth century, isn't it?
I suspect that there's a reason that no one wants to take a hard look at the moral values that underlie our society and how we are part of the problem. There's no app for that. You can't get it on an easy payment plan. As the furniture commercial whines at us, "I want it all. And I want it now." So we'll let the Chinese make it for us and let the billionaires reap the profits, so we can have our cool furniture that will fall apart in five yeas, and our cool phones that will be obsolete in six months, and our streaming videos that aren't worth watching anyway.
We need to suck it up and take a stand and be willing to hold ourselves accountable. Then we need to hold these bozos accountable. How long are we going to keep believing lies??!
Concentrating wealth in the hands of those who already have it is not going to get our economy started. Deregulating our way to job creation is like charging our way to Capital One cash rewards. The price is too high and the benefits aren't going to happen.
But it's also horribly inhumane. Sociopathic, even. One of his commenters pointed that out far better than I ever could, and I'm going to ask this gentleman's forgiveness for copying his rant in full. It is an impassioned statement, and crystallizes all of the frustrations that I've felt ever since this economic collapse was just a roaring noise over the horizon, in about 2006:
martin
Portland, Oregon
March 25th, 2011
1:35 am
I think we are going through a period of madness in this country. All across the nation, Republican governors have cut taxes for the rich and corporations and propose offsetting these with cuts in programs which benefit middle and working class Americans and the poor.
On the Federal level, Obama caved on extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and to prove his own credibility of being at least half insane,cut programs like heating subsidies for poor elderly Americans.
Are oil and farm subsidies being cut. of course not!
The working and middle class are the new scapegoats, particularly public workers. Now that outsourcing has taken care of the former manufacturing class, what is left are public employees like teachers, and their unions.
This madness has reached such a point that the Governor of Maine removed art murals from the state capital depicting the history of the labor movement. He said it disparaged business. Government censoring and removing art. We are rapidly moving past oligarchy, which is bad enough, but are racing towards American style fascism as I see it.
When politicians talk about deficits, they never talk about about ending farm subsidies or tax oil loopholes and subsidies, estate taxes, or raising taxes on the richest, a few percent. but propose cutting programs that benefit the sick, children, seniors, the poor, schools, health care and the middle class and poor in general.
This is beyond poor judgement. There is a contempt and almost hatred of the middle class and poor and a cult like lionization of the rich and corporations that defies reason, is at base nihilistic and inhumane and is reminiscent of fascist regimes the brutal dictatorship of Agosto Pinochet of Chile, who was greatly influenced by the University of Chicago economists like Milton Friedman and was a great friend of the Nixon regime and the foreign policy of Henry Kissinger.
This has become a fixated ideological vision for Republicans and they have no concern for who gets hurt by their policies as long as the rich and corporations benefit. They actually believe that wealth makes a person or entity more worthy and superior to ordinary Americans and that somehow by skewering the government totally in favor of the rich, the trickle down effect will benefit society as a whole. The fact that this thinking has failed both in America and abroad does not deter them because like all people wedded to an all or nothing blind ideological position, they are impervious to facts, history and reason. Also emotions like compassion, empathy and connectedness does not enter into their decision making. Ordinary Americans are collateral damage.
Not focusing of jobs leads to less money to spend on the part of ordinary Americans, which further depletes government revenues and demand in the private sector, which results in more unemployment and reduction in services and government spending which leads to a further depressed economy.
The fact is that this is what Republicans want. They want to government to be reduced to being a tool of the corporate class and to have most services that were formerly the domain of government to be privatized, therefor completing the transformation of our representative democracy into a corporate state who main function is to further the needs of an economic elite. Choose your term, but the result will be an American style oligarchy, which we almost are already, or fascism American style.
A corporate coup has taken place in America right under Obama's nose, aided by the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court. Obama has lost the ideological war to Republicans. He has stifled dissent from progressives while Republicans went full steam ahead with their ideological war against the middle class,and their elevation of greed as our most worthy social value. Obama privately reads biographies about Regan, while Republicans champion his economic policies regardless of their value and efficacy. They have won...so far.
Our only hope as I see it is for Republicans continue to keep power and have ordinary Americans of all political persuasions realize the contempt that the have for them and that they really serve the needs of a small economic elite. Workers, unions and the middle class are starting to get organized, without the help of Obama, because Republican policies are directly attacking their well being. This will be the only way to defeat Republicans, because most Democratic leaders are too timid to take them on directly, the clearest example being the president.
Just like the draft helped end Vietnam and would have ended Iraq earlier or even prevented it had we had one because everyone would have had skin in the game, the current direct economic war on ordinary Americans might finally cause them to unify and organize to oppose Republican policies. This will happen in spite of the Obama's desire to stifle such a movement. No conflict..no change.
Well said, "martin."
This writer gets the MORAL injustice of what is happening. The protesters in Wisconsin got that. The editorial writers at the Chicago Tribune didn't - those writers who joined the throngs of good ol-boys and Chamber of Commerce types who kvetch that unions probably did this to themselves and hey, haven't they kind of outlived their usefulness anyway? And, you know, it's only public employees - who have it better than the rest of us - who feel entitled to this kind of protection. Pensions? Might as well ask for buggy whips. You will take this 401(k) and you will risk your future on the markets. Oh, and we'll charge you a nice fee to manage it. Hey, you can be a high roller like the big boys. Yeah, well, we all lost money the past two years. Them's the breaks. And sorry, you don't get a bailout like they did.
Anyone who joins that chorus should be ashamed of themselves. All you have to do is listen to the news. Some examples that struck me:
- A recent CBS News story by Katie Couric on the new hunger in America revealed that more and more middle class kids are going to school hungry because their debt-ridden parents lost their homes, are living in borrowed quarters, and can't afford groceries every week.
- A recent BBC story repeats what we've been hearing on PBS Newshour (yesterday, as a matter of fact): The income inequality gap in the United States is higher than it's ever been, and is on a par with nations like Somalia.
- WTTW in Chicago reported this week on a team of doctors who had been traveling to Vietnam and other nations to provide free joint-replacement surgery to people who needed it. They realized this year that people in Chicago without health insurance were unable to get this surgery, and were living in pain and unable to function. The doctors decided to bring their mercy mission back home to their own city. When they did, none of he large teaching hospitals would host it. They found a smaller community hospital that was glad to offer the service to local residents.
- And, on a personal note: Our grocery bill regularly tops $200 a week for three people, which it never used to (I know because Jewel used to send us coupons for $15 off a $190 purchase and we could never reach that total six months ago).
"In any case we clearly see, and on this there is general agreement, that some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class: for the ancient workingmen's guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organization took their place. Public institutions and the laws set aside the ancient religion. Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself."
The writer? Pope Leo XIII. The year? 1891. (The title: "Rerum Novarum.")
Gee, our modern society is SO much better than the old days of the nineteenth century, isn't it?
I suspect that there's a reason that no one wants to take a hard look at the moral values that underlie our society and how we are part of the problem. There's no app for that. You can't get it on an easy payment plan. As the furniture commercial whines at us, "I want it all. And I want it now." So we'll let the Chinese make it for us and let the billionaires reap the profits, so we can have our cool furniture that will fall apart in five yeas, and our cool phones that will be obsolete in six months, and our streaming videos that aren't worth watching anyway.
We need to suck it up and take a stand and be willing to hold ourselves accountable. Then we need to hold these bozos accountable. How long are we going to keep believing lies??!
Concentrating wealth in the hands of those who already have it is not going to get our economy started. Deregulating our way to job creation is like charging our way to Capital One cash rewards. The price is too high and the benefits aren't going to happen.
Friday, December 24, 2010
This is an illustration of the way we do such a poor job treating addictions...
I guess this posting on TMZ illustrates on many levels what's wrong with addiction treatment in this country in the 21st century. And our society in general, if you really want to be honest. Seems Lindsay Lohan got into an altercation with a staff member at Betty Ford Center, where she's in for her - uh, nth round of rehab, resulting in a police report, an alleged sprained wrist, the firing of the staff member for talking about it publicly (how do you make a public police report without talking about it?) and a juicy story for TMZ and others to run with.
First, my disclaimers. I don't really know anything about Lindsay Lohan, except what I read and see on TV. So this is just, like, my opinion. My knowledge of the Betty Ford Center is a bit fuller, since I actually looked at the Better Business Bureau's rating of them as a charity (they reportedly fail to meet the minimum standards for a reputable charity, including making data available on the effectiveness of their services). But I also know a lot about treatment programs (or "rehab" programs, as they are popularly called) from my ten years of case managing mental health and substance abuse treatment and my longer history of referring people to programs and rubbing elbows with their marketing people at conferences and meetings. So I know more about what I'm talking about on that score. Although I usually keep any criticisms to myself, out of professional courtesy.
And on the subject of mental health and substance abuse treatment, its relationship to the legal system, and patient compliance and noncompliance, I'm pretty much an expert, having done dozens of substance abuse assessments on people who violated drug and alcohol laws and policies and needed to fulfill the requirements imposed on them. So on to this story.
First, there's Lindsay Lohan. She certainly appears from what we read and see to be a train wreck of a human being. She was interesting (though a little hard to watch, which I assumed was part of her acting) in "A Prairie Home Companion;" but everything I've seen about her since that time has been painful. Take an apparently insecure human being with seemingly poor role models for parents, expose her to the celebrity machine and make her part of the national freak show for a few years, throw in some well-meaning attempts by the legal system to impose some constructive consequences on her, and wait for the mixture to ferment into a sour mash of what passes for "entertainment" these days. We probably expect her to self-destruct like Anna Nicole Smith, (whose tragic life has been replayed over and over by "Entertainment Tonight," in a particularly creepy carnival display). But at least she's still with us and in apparently decent health.
Then there's the judge and court system that tried to impose some sensible consequences for her drunk driving offense. They tried various forms of probation and education, and when those didn't work, finally sentenced her to "treatment." Which is dubious enough in the case of your average Joe who sits through a few classes and dozes through "Clean and Sober" a couple times. But for a celebrity, it's even worse. No hope of getting the offender to face the issues honestly and realistically, because of the constant pressures of public exposure, second-guessing, and celebrity narcissism that are sure to be involved.
Then there's the "treatment" itself. The pervasive approach that has come to be used in the treatment industry in this country is a bizarre amalgamation of support and shame. They've taken AA, which was the only game in town for many years, and twisted it to fit an industry that too often serves itself more than the client's needs There are good treatment programs out there (often based at hospitals or psychiatric facilties), but "rehab" tends to mean the free-standing residential programs that believe in 28 days (or more) of indoctrination rather than individualized therapy and an actual treatment plan.
This AA-based style of treatment (which many AA members consider a perversion of their program, by the way) seems to take some of the unhealthier 12-step lore and adds unhealthier treatment approaches to it. They focus on how they have to "break through denial" to get the substance-abusing person to realize that he or she is a lower form of life, which isn't exactly the AA approach (they always say that they are a program of attraction rather than compulsion).
There's already a pretty strong dose of Christian sin-and-salvation fundamentalism involved, with the AA program being a direct descendant of the Oxford and Moral Re-armament Movements of the early Twentieth Century, codified by a reportedly narcissistic insurance salesman and his male drinking buddies in the 1930's and followed like an actual religion ever since. That's okay when it takes place in church basements and draws a core fellowship of like-minded people, but then you have the forced treatment component, which frankly makes poor use of whatever benefit there is in AA. And then, you toss in the celebrity aspect that's morphed into a marketing machine over the years. When Tiger Woods checked into a "sex addiction" program, the treatment facilities went wild, throwing all their energies into promoting that dubious "disease" and their treatment programs as the only solution for it.
Finally, there's the Betty Ford Center. Our former First Lady is still revered as a brave pioneer who brought addiction treatment into the national conversation and helped create a prestigious and respected professional program that offers hope to the afflicted. But unfortunately, it's also become a stop on the celebrity rehab tour that offers a freak show of celebrity nuttiness for the paparazzi and the likes of TMZ to mine for our prurient interest. There's limited hope of privacy or confidentiality, and apparently very little in the way of medical care, but there's a whole lot of gratitude and wonderfulness among its supporters and alumni.
There's also a lot of cash flowing in ($25,223,002 in patient revenues, and $5,079,517 in donations, according to the figures they provided the BBB). As the BBB pointed out, there's little in the way of effectiveness data for BFC, but that's not unusual: no treatment program likes to reveal how many of the people it treats actually manage to stay drug- and alcohol-free for a year or more and achieve what the American Psychiatric Association calls "sustained complete remission."
The thing is, few of these "rehab" (residential) programs actively help patients to understand how addiction really works in the body and mind, how to manage cravings and urges, how to manage lifestyle changes, or what to do if they relapse. Instead, they get the standard-issue disease-and-denial talk, advice to "keep coming back," and gratefulness directed at the program (which can mean Betty Ford or AA in general), with the standard assertion that it has"saved so many lives." The participants get a lot of spiritual and serenity talk, disease education, one-day-at-a-time perspective, and profound helplessness and passivity - only one's "higher power" can restore them to sanity. However, "sanity" is a poorly defined concept, and is definitely not the same as clinical success, being instead a hazy amalgam of character flaw removal, surrender, groupthink, and, well, whatever the opposite of self-efficacy is.
In many of these programs, relapse is seen as less of an issue than accepting the program, which fits the AA tradition that ll that is necessary is a "sincere desire to stop" drinking or drugging. Unfortunately, when the public welfare requires an irresponsible substance abuser to CUT IT OUT, the goals of this kind of program don't serve the public interest. Useful advice on how to take responsibility for managing this chronic medical condition, including the most pressing task of how to manage urges, is almost completely lacking in too many of these "rehab" treatment programs. In fact, wanting to take responsibility fo managing one's addiction is often viewed as a heretical sign of "Egotism," (where "ego" is defined by the cute old chestnut "Edging God Out").
And, since addiction is a family disease, support and help automatically become "codependence" and "enabling." Unfortunately,when there is a true enabler, like Lindsay's mom, who make ridiculous excuses for the addicted person, these actions are actually trivialized and become simply run-of-the-mill evidence of the way the "disease"operates for everyone. It doesn't. That's wrong behavior when you're dealing with an addict in the family.
In my experience, stiff consequences for further use, combined with a seriously tight program of drug and alcohol testing, are a lot more effective in insuring the public safety than simply approving of the addicted person's participation in a program. Although it's often true that the willingness to demonstrate participation in the program can be a good sign, it's also often true that the attitudes conveyed in some of these programs (including the admonition to "fake it till you make it") can be associated with a lack of responsibility for future behavior..
So that leaves the staff member, I guess. She does have a right to make a police report if that's called for. And patients in an ordinary treatment facility are entitled to privacy. But BFC is clearly not an ordinary treatment facility. And it appears they follow the industry standard of hiring people "in recovery" themselves, who may, as a result, be less than professional. As this staff member appears from the news stories to have been. Which doesn't promise great results or professional treatment. But I still kind of feel sorry for the staff member, who probably got drawn into a scuffle with a particularly difficult client and now finds herself in the middle of that same freak show. I hope she can stay sober through it all, at least.
First, my disclaimers. I don't really know anything about Lindsay Lohan, except what I read and see on TV. So this is just, like, my opinion. My knowledge of the Betty Ford Center is a bit fuller, since I actually looked at the Better Business Bureau's rating of them as a charity (they reportedly fail to meet the minimum standards for a reputable charity, including making data available on the effectiveness of their services). But I also know a lot about treatment programs (or "rehab" programs, as they are popularly called) from my ten years of case managing mental health and substance abuse treatment and my longer history of referring people to programs and rubbing elbows with their marketing people at conferences and meetings. So I know more about what I'm talking about on that score. Although I usually keep any criticisms to myself, out of professional courtesy.
And on the subject of mental health and substance abuse treatment, its relationship to the legal system, and patient compliance and noncompliance, I'm pretty much an expert, having done dozens of substance abuse assessments on people who violated drug and alcohol laws and policies and needed to fulfill the requirements imposed on them. So on to this story.
First, there's Lindsay Lohan. She certainly appears from what we read and see to be a train wreck of a human being. She was interesting (though a little hard to watch, which I assumed was part of her acting) in "A Prairie Home Companion;" but everything I've seen about her since that time has been painful. Take an apparently insecure human being with seemingly poor role models for parents, expose her to the celebrity machine and make her part of the national freak show for a few years, throw in some well-meaning attempts by the legal system to impose some constructive consequences on her, and wait for the mixture to ferment into a sour mash of what passes for "entertainment" these days. We probably expect her to self-destruct like Anna Nicole Smith, (whose tragic life has been replayed over and over by "Entertainment Tonight," in a particularly creepy carnival display). But at least she's still with us and in apparently decent health.
Then there's the judge and court system that tried to impose some sensible consequences for her drunk driving offense. They tried various forms of probation and education, and when those didn't work, finally sentenced her to "treatment." Which is dubious enough in the case of your average Joe who sits through a few classes and dozes through "Clean and Sober" a couple times. But for a celebrity, it's even worse. No hope of getting the offender to face the issues honestly and realistically, because of the constant pressures of public exposure, second-guessing, and celebrity narcissism that are sure to be involved.
Then there's the "treatment" itself. The pervasive approach that has come to be used in the treatment industry in this country is a bizarre amalgamation of support and shame. They've taken AA, which was the only game in town for many years, and twisted it to fit an industry that too often serves itself more than the client's needs There are good treatment programs out there (often based at hospitals or psychiatric facilties), but "rehab" tends to mean the free-standing residential programs that believe in 28 days (or more) of indoctrination rather than individualized therapy and an actual treatment plan.
This AA-based style of treatment (which many AA members consider a perversion of their program, by the way) seems to take some of the unhealthier 12-step lore and adds unhealthier treatment approaches to it. They focus on how they have to "break through denial" to get the substance-abusing person to realize that he or she is a lower form of life, which isn't exactly the AA approach (they always say that they are a program of attraction rather than compulsion).
There's already a pretty strong dose of Christian sin-and-salvation fundamentalism involved, with the AA program being a direct descendant of the Oxford and Moral Re-armament Movements of the early Twentieth Century, codified by a reportedly narcissistic insurance salesman and his male drinking buddies in the 1930's and followed like an actual religion ever since. That's okay when it takes place in church basements and draws a core fellowship of like-minded people, but then you have the forced treatment component, which frankly makes poor use of whatever benefit there is in AA. And then, you toss in the celebrity aspect that's morphed into a marketing machine over the years. When Tiger Woods checked into a "sex addiction" program, the treatment facilities went wild, throwing all their energies into promoting that dubious "disease" and their treatment programs as the only solution for it.
Finally, there's the Betty Ford Center. Our former First Lady is still revered as a brave pioneer who brought addiction treatment into the national conversation and helped create a prestigious and respected professional program that offers hope to the afflicted. But unfortunately, it's also become a stop on the celebrity rehab tour that offers a freak show of celebrity nuttiness for the paparazzi and the likes of TMZ to mine for our prurient interest. There's limited hope of privacy or confidentiality, and apparently very little in the way of medical care, but there's a whole lot of gratitude and wonderfulness among its supporters and alumni.
There's also a lot of cash flowing in ($25,223,002 in patient revenues, and $5,079,517 in donations, according to the figures they provided the BBB). As the BBB pointed out, there's little in the way of effectiveness data for BFC, but that's not unusual: no treatment program likes to reveal how many of the people it treats actually manage to stay drug- and alcohol-free for a year or more and achieve what the American Psychiatric Association calls "sustained complete remission."
The thing is, few of these "rehab" (residential) programs actively help patients to understand how addiction really works in the body and mind, how to manage cravings and urges, how to manage lifestyle changes, or what to do if they relapse. Instead, they get the standard-issue disease-and-denial talk, advice to "keep coming back," and gratefulness directed at the program (which can mean Betty Ford or AA in general), with the standard assertion that it has"saved so many lives." The participants get a lot of spiritual and serenity talk, disease education, one-day-at-a-time perspective, and profound helplessness and passivity - only one's "higher power" can restore them to sanity. However, "sanity" is a poorly defined concept, and is definitely not the same as clinical success, being instead a hazy amalgam of character flaw removal, surrender, groupthink, and, well, whatever the opposite of self-efficacy is.
In many of these programs, relapse is seen as less of an issue than accepting the program, which fits the AA tradition that ll that is necessary is a "sincere desire to stop" drinking or drugging. Unfortunately, when the public welfare requires an irresponsible substance abuser to CUT IT OUT, the goals of this kind of program don't serve the public interest. Useful advice on how to take responsibility for managing this chronic medical condition, including the most pressing task of how to manage urges, is almost completely lacking in too many of these "rehab" treatment programs. In fact, wanting to take responsibility fo managing one's addiction is often viewed as a heretical sign of "Egotism," (where "ego" is defined by the cute old chestnut "Edging God Out").
And, since addiction is a family disease, support and help automatically become "codependence" and "enabling." Unfortunately,when there is a true enabler, like Lindsay's mom, who make ridiculous excuses for the addicted person, these actions are actually trivialized and become simply run-of-the-mill evidence of the way the "disease"operates for everyone. It doesn't. That's wrong behavior when you're dealing with an addict in the family.
In my experience, stiff consequences for further use, combined with a seriously tight program of drug and alcohol testing, are a lot more effective in insuring the public safety than simply approving of the addicted person's participation in a program. Although it's often true that the willingness to demonstrate participation in the program can be a good sign, it's also often true that the attitudes conveyed in some of these programs (including the admonition to "fake it till you make it") can be associated with a lack of responsibility for future behavior..
So that leaves the staff member, I guess. She does have a right to make a police report if that's called for. And patients in an ordinary treatment facility are entitled to privacy. But BFC is clearly not an ordinary treatment facility. And it appears they follow the industry standard of hiring people "in recovery" themselves, who may, as a result, be less than professional. As this staff member appears from the news stories to have been. Which doesn't promise great results or professional treatment. But I still kind of feel sorry for the staff member, who probably got drawn into a scuffle with a particularly difficult client and now finds herself in the middle of that same freak show. I hope she can stay sober through it all, at least.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Julian Assange: Ka-Mai?
In all the talk about Wikileaks and whether Julian Assange is a hero or a traitor, doing the human race a service or out to destroy the world order, I find myself thinking of Roland and Eddie from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. Or maybe Roland and Cuthbert. Both Eddie Dean and Cuthbert Allgood were characters who earned the epithet Ka-mai from Roland. The term meant “Fate’s fool,” at least roughly. In Roland’s view of reality (and King’s multiverse), Ka is a force that represents destiny, fate, karma, and blind chance all rolled into one. Ka makes seemingly random events serve a purpose, and seemingly coincidental events serve no purpose that humans can discern.
Most writing I’ve seen about Wikileaks seems to try to categorize Assange as an anarchist. To me, that’s not really accurate. Anarchists want all forms of government and authority to be destroyed. Assange seems to be targeting secrecy and deception, and to be operating only in the realm of information. His only weapon is information. His targets are misinformation and the withholding of information. He doesn’t use, nor encourage the use of, violence. Nevertheless many people seem to equate his actions with violence, alleging that the information he releases puts people in danger. That fascinates me. But it doesn’t answer the question of what Assange is.
That got me thinking. The world seems to me more and more to have its own self-preservation instinct, the longer I live in it. Call it the Gaia hypothesis if you will, but it tries to heal itself from all that we inflict on it – to the point that we become deceived into thinking we can continue to spill oil and belch carbon and get away with it.
The human world seems to have some of the same characteristics. Somehow, we avoided nuclear annihilation in the 1950’s and 1960’s, which only those of us of a certain age can really recall with clarity. Somehow, we were taken care of. If you are religious, you may well think that God saved the human race. If you believe in the innate goodness of people, you may think that we came to our senses and recoiled from that horrific possibility.
Now, we face newer threats. No one can kill the world in one giant fireball anymore – at least I don’t think so – but we risk death by a thousand cuts. We have little cells of terrorism and hate, which can spawn ugly and destructive consequences. And we have large-scale dysfunction and new sorts of plagues that we don’t realize are growing until they begin to show themselves. Instead of DDT and polio, we now have melamine in the milk, infecting the world’s food supply, and toxic assets infecting the world’s financial system. We have information plagues, as well: Unfounded allegations, rumor, libel, innuendo, lies, propaganda, and Internet hoaxes. These things threaten our sanity the way toxic assets threaten our economies, and melamine and lead threaten our food and household products.
So how does the Earth (or Fate, or Destiny, or God) attempt to remedy these plagues? In the case of the corrupted global information network (which includes everything from Fox News to Facebook) we get some medicine – remedies crafted by well-meaning and thoughtful people: FactCheck.org, Snopes.com, and some of the reputable news organizations doing real investigative work. But we also get the world’s equivalent of a high fever: Wikileaks. It’s a reflexive and unfocused attack on a plague by trying to make conditions inhospitable for the plague germs. Releasing all that information strikes me as the human race’s equivalent of the body releasing a host of white blood cells into the bloodstream. It may make the patient sicker, but it may cure the infection.
So maybe Ka is the organism behind all this. “Ka like a wind,” as King put it. Something is the universe abhors a vacuum – the absence of truth, honesty, openness and fairness among human beings. So Assange becomes Ka’s fool. He is the agent of the correction. And he’s not alone. He has plenty of people who believe in what he’s doing.
Adlerian psychology holds that neurotic symptoms often result from an individual’s lack of honesty with himself or herself – avoiding one’s social responsibilities by means of distracting symptoms and maneuvers, like the phobic person who avoids interacting with other people. The Adlerian therapist may employ a tactic that is colloquially referred to as “Spitting in the soup.” That means exposing the person’s hidden agendas and the real purposes of their behavior. It seems to me that Assange is doing that to the world of politics. And in one respect, I admire what he’s doing. The world of politics has too long been a parlor game played with people’s lives. Power, control, manipulation, deceit, and betrayal have been sad parts of human history for too long. It’s only after the fact that historians have been able to expose the deceits for what they were. We enjoy historical analyses because they peel back the façade of respectability and civilization, and expose the schoolyard behaviors and double-dealing that takes the honor and mystique out of epic battles.
It seems to me that the people behind Wikileaks are forcing that perspective that we usually only get from historical research, and thrusting it into the current dialogues of humankind. Thrusting it in our faces, in fact. And in a sense, it doesn’t matter whether Julian Assange comes across as a hero or a traitor (Traitor to whom, though?). He is an agent of a corrective force in human history. We’ve gotten too tangled up in our own brilliant ideas, and we all need to face reality. Yes, it’s possible that the release of information we thought would help us “get” the bad guys may have consequences for our strategies. If we fail to make adjustments, some people may be hurt or killed as a consequence. That should not happen. But if nations and people treated each other honestly, it would not happen. We as a nation are guilty of thinking we can be more clever than our opponents, and we have hurt and killed people in the process. We should be above that. Like law enforcement officers, we must behave in a civil and respectful manner at all times if we wish to earn the respect of others in the world. We have not been good at doing that. We’ve been acting like vigilante cowboys too often. We are now being held to account.
The next set of releases threatens to expose corporate double-dealing. That should be our next target. If we don’t take strong steps to root it out – steps that can’t be weakened and disabled through hysteria and fear-mongering from the powerful people who stand to lose from transparency – we will deserve the disruption that more leaks will cause.
If Julian Assange didn’t exist, I’m afraid that fate - or ka - would have had to invent him, or someone very much like him. He may be a lowlife grandiose narcissist who thinks he can force himself on women, but by instigating Wikileaks, he’s done something that would have ended up happening somehow anyway. Let’s hope that this fever leads to a recovery for the human race’s integrity.
Most writing I’ve seen about Wikileaks seems to try to categorize Assange as an anarchist. To me, that’s not really accurate. Anarchists want all forms of government and authority to be destroyed. Assange seems to be targeting secrecy and deception, and to be operating only in the realm of information. His only weapon is information. His targets are misinformation and the withholding of information. He doesn’t use, nor encourage the use of, violence. Nevertheless many people seem to equate his actions with violence, alleging that the information he releases puts people in danger. That fascinates me. But it doesn’t answer the question of what Assange is.
That got me thinking. The world seems to me more and more to have its own self-preservation instinct, the longer I live in it. Call it the Gaia hypothesis if you will, but it tries to heal itself from all that we inflict on it – to the point that we become deceived into thinking we can continue to spill oil and belch carbon and get away with it.
The human world seems to have some of the same characteristics. Somehow, we avoided nuclear annihilation in the 1950’s and 1960’s, which only those of us of a certain age can really recall with clarity. Somehow, we were taken care of. If you are religious, you may well think that God saved the human race. If you believe in the innate goodness of people, you may think that we came to our senses and recoiled from that horrific possibility.
Now, we face newer threats. No one can kill the world in one giant fireball anymore – at least I don’t think so – but we risk death by a thousand cuts. We have little cells of terrorism and hate, which can spawn ugly and destructive consequences. And we have large-scale dysfunction and new sorts of plagues that we don’t realize are growing until they begin to show themselves. Instead of DDT and polio, we now have melamine in the milk, infecting the world’s food supply, and toxic assets infecting the world’s financial system. We have information plagues, as well: Unfounded allegations, rumor, libel, innuendo, lies, propaganda, and Internet hoaxes. These things threaten our sanity the way toxic assets threaten our economies, and melamine and lead threaten our food and household products.
So how does the Earth (or Fate, or Destiny, or God) attempt to remedy these plagues? In the case of the corrupted global information network (which includes everything from Fox News to Facebook) we get some medicine – remedies crafted by well-meaning and thoughtful people: FactCheck.org, Snopes.com, and some of the reputable news organizations doing real investigative work. But we also get the world’s equivalent of a high fever: Wikileaks. It’s a reflexive and unfocused attack on a plague by trying to make conditions inhospitable for the plague germs. Releasing all that information strikes me as the human race’s equivalent of the body releasing a host of white blood cells into the bloodstream. It may make the patient sicker, but it may cure the infection.
So maybe Ka is the organism behind all this. “Ka like a wind,” as King put it. Something is the universe abhors a vacuum – the absence of truth, honesty, openness and fairness among human beings. So Assange becomes Ka’s fool. He is the agent of the correction. And he’s not alone. He has plenty of people who believe in what he’s doing.
Adlerian psychology holds that neurotic symptoms often result from an individual’s lack of honesty with himself or herself – avoiding one’s social responsibilities by means of distracting symptoms and maneuvers, like the phobic person who avoids interacting with other people. The Adlerian therapist may employ a tactic that is colloquially referred to as “Spitting in the soup.” That means exposing the person’s hidden agendas and the real purposes of their behavior. It seems to me that Assange is doing that to the world of politics. And in one respect, I admire what he’s doing. The world of politics has too long been a parlor game played with people’s lives. Power, control, manipulation, deceit, and betrayal have been sad parts of human history for too long. It’s only after the fact that historians have been able to expose the deceits for what they were. We enjoy historical analyses because they peel back the façade of respectability and civilization, and expose the schoolyard behaviors and double-dealing that takes the honor and mystique out of epic battles.
It seems to me that the people behind Wikileaks are forcing that perspective that we usually only get from historical research, and thrusting it into the current dialogues of humankind. Thrusting it in our faces, in fact. And in a sense, it doesn’t matter whether Julian Assange comes across as a hero or a traitor (Traitor to whom, though?). He is an agent of a corrective force in human history. We’ve gotten too tangled up in our own brilliant ideas, and we all need to face reality. Yes, it’s possible that the release of information we thought would help us “get” the bad guys may have consequences for our strategies. If we fail to make adjustments, some people may be hurt or killed as a consequence. That should not happen. But if nations and people treated each other honestly, it would not happen. We as a nation are guilty of thinking we can be more clever than our opponents, and we have hurt and killed people in the process. We should be above that. Like law enforcement officers, we must behave in a civil and respectful manner at all times if we wish to earn the respect of others in the world. We have not been good at doing that. We’ve been acting like vigilante cowboys too often. We are now being held to account.
The next set of releases threatens to expose corporate double-dealing. That should be our next target. If we don’t take strong steps to root it out – steps that can’t be weakened and disabled through hysteria and fear-mongering from the powerful people who stand to lose from transparency – we will deserve the disruption that more leaks will cause.
If Julian Assange didn’t exist, I’m afraid that fate - or ka - would have had to invent him, or someone very much like him. He may be a lowlife grandiose narcissist who thinks he can force himself on women, but by instigating Wikileaks, he’s done something that would have ended up happening somehow anyway. Let’s hope that this fever leads to a recovery for the human race’s integrity.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Wikileaks and my skepticism
My take-aways from the latest Wikileaks leaks:
1. The Wikileaks guy is neither the menace to civilization and international peace that he's made out to be, nor the people's hero he fancies himself to be. He strikes me as nothing so much as a kid who never outgrew his high school newspaper rants against the principal.
2. The world of diplomacy will survive all these leaks with nothing worse than a bunch of embarrassed people who counted on their snide and cynical handling of important world events being their own little secret.
3. All in all, it's probably a good thing that everyone has had their noses rubbed in the fact that nothing can be kept from the masses anymore. Remember that, you who financed the Republican "tsumnami' that was supposedly such a "mandate" in last month's elections. See who benefits, as Walter Szobczak said. "Follow the money." ("I am the walrus," said Donny). People will wise up once they stop crowing about how we're gonna shrink government and cut taxes. When that doesn't happen, they'll first of all blame Obama and Pelosi, then once they've been drubbed and Palin is pesident and they're still in foreclosure on their homes with flat screen TV's... Then they'll take the trouble to find out who was behind it all.
4. Anyone who thinks the guy is really a rapist because the Swedish prosecutors coincidentally found two women to come forward with accusations right after the last leaks: I have a great scheme to make money working from home that I want to tell you about. C'mon, the same powers that be that are being made to look foolish in all these documents now want us to believe that this guy is a crazed psychopath who threatens world order. Yeah.
1. The Wikileaks guy is neither the menace to civilization and international peace that he's made out to be, nor the people's hero he fancies himself to be. He strikes me as nothing so much as a kid who never outgrew his high school newspaper rants against the principal.
2. The world of diplomacy will survive all these leaks with nothing worse than a bunch of embarrassed people who counted on their snide and cynical handling of important world events being their own little secret.
3. All in all, it's probably a good thing that everyone has had their noses rubbed in the fact that nothing can be kept from the masses anymore. Remember that, you who financed the Republican "tsumnami' that was supposedly such a "mandate" in last month's elections. See who benefits, as Walter Szobczak said. "Follow the money." ("I am the walrus," said Donny). People will wise up once they stop crowing about how we're gonna shrink government and cut taxes. When that doesn't happen, they'll first of all blame Obama and Pelosi, then once they've been drubbed and Palin is pesident and they're still in foreclosure on their homes with flat screen TV's... Then they'll take the trouble to find out who was behind it all.
4. Anyone who thinks the guy is really a rapist because the Swedish prosecutors coincidentally found two women to come forward with accusations right after the last leaks: I have a great scheme to make money working from home that I want to tell you about. C'mon, the same powers that be that are being made to look foolish in all these documents now want us to believe that this guy is a crazed psychopath who threatens world order. Yeah.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Shock Machine Memories
Ah, now that Christmas is coming, the Hallmark Channel is running shows about good old fashioned Christmas complete with good old fashioned toys and good old fashioned moral dilemmas like whether to make money or make kids happy... Which made me think of shocking people.
When I was a kid, we had a Gilbert Erector Set. Actually, we had two or three of them, with all the parts kind of mixed together. The oldest one had belonged to my older brothers. My younger brother and I inherited it all, along with a bunch of instruction booklets in that inimitable 1940's - 1950's style. We made lots of stuff with the Erector sets, but my favorites were the tram cars (like aerial tramways) that ran on string between two rooms, and the shock machine.
For a long time, I wondered if we had the only erector set that had instructions on how to build a shock machine, but Googling it now reassures me that it was indeed a feature of one of the sets (the "8-1/2" set).You took a few of the rectangular plates and assembled them into a holder for two "D" batteries, with room for an axle with a crank and gear on one end of it, and a piece of metal that slapped against the teeth of the gear when you turned the crank. Next, you assembled two "handles" that each used four of the 6 inch or so "girders" bolted into a square shape. Then you took some wire and hooked the battery/crank assembly to the handles, and to the two blades of the wall plug of the 120V electric motor. Then you had your little friends hold the handles while you turned the crank, and they got a shock that was guaranteed to delight them (Especially any budding personal injury lawyers, I'm sure).
The instructions helpfully explained the principle, which (as best as I can recall) involved sending the 3 volts of DC current from the batteries through the coils of the motor, where they induced a field that then "broke down" when the strip broke contact with the gear teeth, and sent a higher voltage current back in the opposite direction and through the handles and your little friend. It was supposed to be a high voltage but a "harmless" low level of current. It made a tingling, throbbing sensation that was actually much harder to endure when the crank was turned slowly than when it was turned quickly. It made the muscles in your arms tense and cramp up.
For even more fun, you could attach one wire to the handle of one of those cheap aluminum pots that most people had in the kitchen cabinet, and fill it with water. Then you were supposed to put a quarter in the water, and dare your friends to pick the quarter up out of the water while holding the other handle, while you turned the crank. I clearly remember that they said to use a quarter, because it impressed the hell out of me that you could safely offer to let them keep such a big piece of change (heck, it could buy 25 pieces of Bazooka bubble gum). Because NO ONE could grab the quarter, they claimed. (and inflation had already claimed some of the drama between the 1950's when my brothers got this set, and the early 60's, when I got my hands on it).
We showed this to other kids in the neighborhood, and one of them (a kid of about six who nowadays would be on Adderall) tried to imitate us and build his own shock machine.He took a more straightforward approach, using scissors to cut and strip the wire of an outdoor extension cord. That was my first lesson in the awful power of imitation. My brother and I (and our friend Mac MacArthur) hopefully convinced him that his version wouldn't be nearly as much fun.
And that toy was used when we got it! So much for the Christmas spirit of being good consumers.
When I was a kid, we had a Gilbert Erector Set. Actually, we had two or three of them, with all the parts kind of mixed together. The oldest one had belonged to my older brothers. My younger brother and I inherited it all, along with a bunch of instruction booklets in that inimitable 1940's - 1950's style. We made lots of stuff with the Erector sets, but my favorites were the tram cars (like aerial tramways) that ran on string between two rooms, and the shock machine.
For a long time, I wondered if we had the only erector set that had instructions on how to build a shock machine, but Googling it now reassures me that it was indeed a feature of one of the sets (the "8-1/2" set).You took a few of the rectangular plates and assembled them into a holder for two "D" batteries, with room for an axle with a crank and gear on one end of it, and a piece of metal that slapped against the teeth of the gear when you turned the crank. Next, you assembled two "handles" that each used four of the 6 inch or so "girders" bolted into a square shape. Then you took some wire and hooked the battery/crank assembly to the handles, and to the two blades of the wall plug of the 120V electric motor. Then you had your little friends hold the handles while you turned the crank, and they got a shock that was guaranteed to delight them (Especially any budding personal injury lawyers, I'm sure).
The instructions helpfully explained the principle, which (as best as I can recall) involved sending the 3 volts of DC current from the batteries through the coils of the motor, where they induced a field that then "broke down" when the strip broke contact with the gear teeth, and sent a higher voltage current back in the opposite direction and through the handles and your little friend. It was supposed to be a high voltage but a "harmless" low level of current. It made a tingling, throbbing sensation that was actually much harder to endure when the crank was turned slowly than when it was turned quickly. It made the muscles in your arms tense and cramp up.
For even more fun, you could attach one wire to the handle of one of those cheap aluminum pots that most people had in the kitchen cabinet, and fill it with water. Then you were supposed to put a quarter in the water, and dare your friends to pick the quarter up out of the water while holding the other handle, while you turned the crank. I clearly remember that they said to use a quarter, because it impressed the hell out of me that you could safely offer to let them keep such a big piece of change (heck, it could buy 25 pieces of Bazooka bubble gum). Because NO ONE could grab the quarter, they claimed. (and inflation had already claimed some of the drama between the 1950's when my brothers got this set, and the early 60's, when I got my hands on it).
We showed this to other kids in the neighborhood, and one of them (a kid of about six who nowadays would be on Adderall) tried to imitate us and build his own shock machine.He took a more straightforward approach, using scissors to cut and strip the wire of an outdoor extension cord. That was my first lesson in the awful power of imitation. My brother and I (and our friend Mac MacArthur) hopefully convinced him that his version wouldn't be nearly as much fun.
And that toy was used when we got it! So much for the Christmas spirit of being good consumers.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
"...Except at Ground Zero." Republican Slurpee Cups.
Scott Stantis, a cartoonist I usually have a problem with because he's consistently snotty about anything that smacks of liberalism, actually hit the nail on the head with today's cartoon. It shows the text of the First Amendment, as if carved on a stone monument, with a spray-painted asterisk after the sentence, "Congress shall make no law respecting the extablishment of religion." The spray-painted footnote says, "except at Ground Zero."
Much of the debate over the proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero invokes emotion: The opponents ask, “How must the families of the victims feel?” The supporters counter with, “How would you feel if a Catholic parish was treated this way ..?” And on and on. Many of the arguments resonate with most of us, and (according to the surveys I’ve seen) most of us feel mixed emotions and dissonance about this. Despite all the rhetoric, people don’t seem to be able to avoid talking about how they feel. Even very intelligent and reasonable essays (like this one in the New York Times) seem caught up in trying to come up with a way of looking at it that you can feel okay about.
But we have a Constitution for a very good reason: so that the way people feel at any given moment does not lead to decisions that have no consistency nor rationale.
However you feel about the mosque, Ground Zero, your views of Islamic beliefs, your impressions of someone’s perceived (or presumed) sympathies toward terrorists, or any other value judgment, none of it matters. That’s because we have a First Amendment that has stood the test of 200 years. And it has endured precisely because it is unequivocal and clear. We as a nation do not permit ourselves to attempt to dictate or restrict the practice of religion. Period.
If you don’t like that, then your only recourse is to try to assemble the majority needed to repeal it. But if that were to happen, we would lose a huge part of what makes this country what it is, and makes it worth fighting for. A visit to Iran might give you an education about what to expect were that to happen.
On another (and much lighter) note, it has been pointed out (also in the New York Times) that Obama and the Democrats have adopted the "car in the ditch" metaphor with special enthusiasm. In case you haven't heard this line of rhetoric, he likens the economy to a car that the previous administration drove off the road and into a ditch... "And now they want the keys back."
He has embellished this image with references to the mud that the car is stuck in, how muddy the current administration is getting trying to free it, and how even his daughter will need to show how she can drive before she'll be trusted with the keys. The one that gave me a laugh was when he mentioned that the Republicans were "...standing around with their Slurpees" while the Democrats toil to pull this vehicle out.
Shortly after that, I passed a Seven-Eleven with a window display of various Slurpee cups with WWE wrestlers on them, with the line, "Collect them all." I thought, what a great idea!
So here's a free idea for the Democrats. With the permission of the Slurpee folks, of course: "Right Wing Windbag Slurpee Cups." I can picture them now... Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, "Dr" Laura Schlessinger, Ann Coulter, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and what the heck, Russell Pearce, because even though he's only a state windbag, he unleashes a lot of stink into the national discourse.
The smaller size Slurpees could feature each of the Republicans who's delivered the Saturday rebuttals to Obama's radio addresses. That could be the "small Republican windbag" collection.
If we give credit to Ed Kilgore of Progressive Fix, we could expand this (throw in Ben Stein and Steve Forbes, for instance) and call the whole thing the "Teabags, Windbags, and Moneybags" Slurpee Collection. Collect them all!
Remember, I thought of it first.
Much of the debate over the proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero invokes emotion: The opponents ask, “How must the families of the victims feel?” The supporters counter with, “How would you feel if a Catholic parish was treated this way ..?” And on and on. Many of the arguments resonate with most of us, and (according to the surveys I’ve seen) most of us feel mixed emotions and dissonance about this. Despite all the rhetoric, people don’t seem to be able to avoid talking about how they feel. Even very intelligent and reasonable essays (like this one in the New York Times) seem caught up in trying to come up with a way of looking at it that you can feel okay about.
But we have a Constitution for a very good reason: so that the way people feel at any given moment does not lead to decisions that have no consistency nor rationale.
However you feel about the mosque, Ground Zero, your views of Islamic beliefs, your impressions of someone’s perceived (or presumed) sympathies toward terrorists, or any other value judgment, none of it matters. That’s because we have a First Amendment that has stood the test of 200 years. And it has endured precisely because it is unequivocal and clear. We as a nation do not permit ourselves to attempt to dictate or restrict the practice of religion. Period.
If you don’t like that, then your only recourse is to try to assemble the majority needed to repeal it. But if that were to happen, we would lose a huge part of what makes this country what it is, and makes it worth fighting for. A visit to Iran might give you an education about what to expect were that to happen.
On another (and much lighter) note, it has been pointed out (also in the New York Times) that Obama and the Democrats have adopted the "car in the ditch" metaphor with special enthusiasm. In case you haven't heard this line of rhetoric, he likens the economy to a car that the previous administration drove off the road and into a ditch... "And now they want the keys back."
He has embellished this image with references to the mud that the car is stuck in, how muddy the current administration is getting trying to free it, and how even his daughter will need to show how she can drive before she'll be trusted with the keys. The one that gave me a laugh was when he mentioned that the Republicans were "...standing around with their Slurpees" while the Democrats toil to pull this vehicle out.
Shortly after that, I passed a Seven-Eleven with a window display of various Slurpee cups with WWE wrestlers on them, with the line, "Collect them all." I thought, what a great idea!
So here's a free idea for the Democrats. With the permission of the Slurpee folks, of course: "Right Wing Windbag Slurpee Cups." I can picture them now... Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, "Dr" Laura Schlessinger, Ann Coulter, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and what the heck, Russell Pearce, because even though he's only a state windbag, he unleashes a lot of stink into the national discourse.
The smaller size Slurpees could feature each of the Republicans who's delivered the Saturday rebuttals to Obama's radio addresses. That could be the "small Republican windbag" collection.
If we give credit to Ed Kilgore of Progressive Fix, we could expand this (throw in Ben Stein and Steve Forbes, for instance) and call the whole thing the "Teabags, Windbags, and Moneybags" Slurpee Collection. Collect them all!
Remember, I thought of it first.
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