BTW, it's "Banned Book Week"

** The American Library Association reminds us that it's the last week in September. So grab a banned book and sin away!

Some families devalued

** Bill Bennett's remarks about how aborting every black baby would effectively reduce the crime rate (see previous post) brand him as a flaming racist, albeit a sanctimonious one. This former government official whose reputation was built around "family values" blatantly acknowledges that he believes some families have no value at all. The religiosity he, and the so-called religious right, espouses apparently doesn't include the biblical description of man being created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:27). Or else it attempts to correct God's sloppy handiwork by eliminating a few duds, huge batches of them - 10% or more of the US population. Crimestoppers like Bennett certainly know the efficient ways to manage it - using the tools of genocide. Why does this moral idiot have a radio program - and who listens to him? And why? Could it be that we are truly sinking into a moral tar pit, led by swaggering moralists like Bennett - and his audience?

Cecelie S. Berry delivers eloquent but reasoned excoriation in this Salon.com article, excerpted below:

There has been among African-Americans a lurking suspicion that the family values movement is not about values but about how some groups, blacks in chief, are morally void, and therefore expendable. Is it any wonder that we postulate, when this view is popularized by conservative leaders, that it might help explain why inner-city schools remain segregated, underfunded breeding grounds for delinquency; why government policies make prisons a better investment than early education programs; why the death penalty, though embattled by DNA evidence, still remains unbowed in many states? And is it so surprising for us to ask whether the racist assumptions of Bennett and men like him were behind the federal government's dilatory rescue of the overwhelmingly black and poor residents of New Orleans?

Now THAT'S a racist!

** I'm still trying to catch my breath! Hard to add anything to what Salon's Tim Grieve reports below. I didn't think anyone had the nerve to come right out and say something like this - but then again, the guy saying it is an admitted compulsive gambler - so maybe he just took a chance!

If Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman is serious about wooing African-American voters, he can throw all his energy into speaking to African-American groups and recruiting African-American candidates. Either that, or he could just ask Bill Bennett to shut up.

Bennett, who served as secretary of education under Ronald Reagan before writing the beloved-by-the-right "Book of Virtues," explained on his radio show yesterday that America could reduce its crime rate by eliminating African-Americans.

Media Matters has the audio. The gist of it: A caller to Bennett's radio show suggested that the Social Security system would have money to spare if the nation hadn't aborted so many wage earners over the years. In the course of raising questions about that theory, Bennett said you can't make too many assumptions about the kind of adults aborted fetuses might grow up to be.

There is "just too much that you don't know," Bennett said. "But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

-- Tim Grieve

Depression and spirituality

** As someone frequently overcome by depression, I found most interesting an article from the October 2005 issue of The Atlantic Monthly (subscription required for online viewing). It’s about Abraham Lincoln’s little-noted - at least not since the 1940s - almost constant state of “profound melancholy.” Toward the end of the article by Joshua Wolf Shenk, are some insights into Lincoln’s spirituality, and its relation to his struggle:

Throughout history a glance to the divine has often been the first and last impulse of suffering people. "Man is born broken," the playwright Eugene O'Neill wrote. "He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue!" Today the connection between spiritual and psychological well-being is often passed over by psychologists and psychiatrists, who consider their work a branch of secular medicine and science. But for most of Lincoln's lifetime scientists assumed there was some relationship between mental and spiritual life.

Lincoln, too, connected his mental well-being to divine forces. As a young man he saw how religion could ameliorate life's blows, even as he found the consolation of faith elusive. An infidel—a dissenter from orthodox Christianity—he resisted popular dogma. But many of history's greatest believers have also been its fiercest doubters. Lincoln charted his own theological course to a living vision of how frail, imperfect mortals could turn their suffering selves to the service of something greater and find solace—not in any personal satisfaction or glory but in dutiful mission.

An original theological thinker, Lincoln discounted the idea, common among evangelicals, that sin could be wiped out through confession or repentance. Rather, he believed, as William Herndon explained, "that God could not forgive; that punishment has to follow the sin." This view fitted with both the stern, unforgiving God of Calvinism, with which Lincoln had been raised, and the mechanistic notion of a universe governed by fixed laws. But unlike the Calvinists, who disclaimed any possibility of grace for human beings not chosen for that fate, Lincoln did see a chance of improvement. And unlike some fatalists, who renounced any claim to a moral order, Lincoln saw how man's reason could discern purpose even in the movement of a vast machine that grinds and cuts and mashes all who interfere with it. Just as a child learns to pull his hand from a fire, people can learn when they are doing something that is not in accord with the wider, unseen order. To Lincoln, Herndon explained, "suffering was medicinal & educational." In other words, it could be an agent of growth.

In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James writes of "sick souls" who turn from a sense of wrongness to a power greater than they. Lincoln showed the simple wisdom of this, as the burden of his work as president brought home a visceral and fundamental connection with something greater than he. He repeatedly called himself an "instrument" of a larger power—which he sometimes identified as the people of the United States, and other times as God—and said that he had been charged with "so vast, and so sacred a trust" that "he felt that he had no moral right to shrink; nor even to count the chances of his own life, in what might follow." When friends said they feared his assassination, he said, "God's will be done. I am in His hands."

Some articles about depression and spirituality:

Out of the prison of depression

Depression's hold released by the Word of God

Stay right here -- God needs you

Racism alert

** The attached document was forwarded to me so I can't verify its authenticity. The document says the author, Anne Gervasi, is a licensed psychologist who worked with Katrina refugees in Dallas. It is strident and harsh but nonetheless, it contains some points worth pondering. Among them:

Katrina kicked the top off of a racist and social termite's nest that has been growing beneath the ground since Reconstruction. These were deeply religious people who have lost God and for that matter, faith and hope. Hope has been replaced by magical thinking that augurs a second and more terrible level of social disruption and anger not far down the road.

Since it doesn't look like the present administration is going to address this and Gervasi's other issues promptly or wisely, it's important that spiritually-inclined people consider focusing on them. In fact, maybe the government's very failures are a wake-up call to individuals to use their spiritual resources to get in where politics and bureaucracy fears to go. Anyone who lived through the race riots of the 60s and 70s should think hard about taking some responsibility for preventing those disruptions.

11 Sep 2005
Anne Gervasi is a licensed psychologist. She donated her time and her talent working with Katrina refuges at first, Reunion Arena and then, the Civic Center. This is her first hand account and reaction to what she had to deal with.

First-hand reaction to Katrina refugees

There are so many words that come to mind. As a scholar I am thinking Diaspora, social displacement, systemic disruption, mass trauma, pandemic and unbelievable chaos. As a clinician, I am looking at something that we have never been trained to handle in this country—a level of victimization and its resultant psycho-social ripples that mandate a whole new field of clinical practice-mass victimology. Katrina kicked the top off of a racist and social termite's nest that has been growing beneath the ground since Reconstruction. These were deeply religious people who have lost God and for that matter, faith and hope. Hope has been replaced by magical thinking that augurs a second and more terrible level of social disruption and anger not far down the road.

Over and over, I kept hearing a framing of self that puzzled me until I realized that this is how it must have been for blacks after Reconstruction. Over and over, people said, "everyone has been so wonderful, thank you, thank you." When I said, "there is no need to thank us, you are our fellow citizens and we want to help you—American to American," there would be a long pause as if the idea of being the same never struck them before.

They are angry and it is growing. The system failed them. For that matter, there is no system because all the safeguards and preparations that we thought were in place aren't there. I have been begging anyone who would listen over the past two years for a program in mass victimology to prepare for the next tragedy after 9/11. Now it is here and the lack of organization, science, and preparation are going to result in terrible consequences for us as a nation.

Imagine sending people who have been assimilated into the most stable demographic population in America into cities and towns all over the US who are as unprepared as the victims to understand their sense of dislocation and their support needs. The lower Gulf States have a language, a history, a social dynamic, a faith, a societal structure, and a ritual system unlike any other in America. These people have lived in and been acculturated to this system for generations. When the dust settles and the mud dries, we are going to see all over America, a nation that will lose patience with the needs of a foreign refugee population. Abandoned once again, the fury and the trauma that have been momentarily quieted by the outpouring of empathy and support post-crisis, will arise larger and more terrible than we have been equipped as a nation to handle. I hear it now, over and over, in the survivor stories, in the loss of self, and the need to reclaim dignity and power.
Right now, numbness is being replaced by magical thinking. "People want me here—here is better. I think I'll stay here." What is going to happen when reality sets in? The bulk of people who are planning to stay don't understand the system here. Even though we abut borders, we are a vastly different nation. At least we are southerners. What is going to happen to the thousands being sent to Connecticut or Illinois or New Jersey? They are being offered free apartments, furniture etc., by generous and well meaning people who haven't thought the long term consequences through very well. A lot of the apartments are in areas where they won't have transportation or jobs. What is going to happen six months down the road when the magic wears off and the help slowly fades? How about the holidays for a people who thrive on ritual, tradition, and celebration?

The trauma they are experiencing is so profound that we have no cultural term or machinery set up for it. The dead and nameless bodies by the thousands rotting in the water, arriving dead on the buses with them, or dying next to them in the shelters are a huge festering wound that no one dares mention. This is a true Diaspora the likes of which we haven't seen since Reconstruction. The immediate needs that are being addressed ignore the greater traumas yet to be spoken. No governmental system can survive the number of wounded and disillusioned people that we are going to see sprouting up all over America. Something far greater and more organized has to be done.

Then to the helpers and what is happening there. Turf wars have already sprung up. In the name of "I know better than you do," chaos and wasted energy are multiplying. The Red Cross was initially in charge of certifying the credentials of the helping therapists. After Oklahoma City and the pretenders who arrived there, this seemed like a wonderful clearing house. Everyone who wanted to help had to go through a brief orientation and a thorough checking of credentials. Only licensed professionals were allowed. Driver's licenses were checked for criminal records. This seemed to be a common sense excellent approach to the question of rapists, pedophiles, and other thugs being denied access to a vulnerable population. Actually, things ran better than I expected at the beginning. Then in came the physicians who I guess felt that their non-existent coursework in this area qualified them to better run things. Immediate chaos, disorganization, and all sorts of ersatz "helpers" began running around. They grabbed our current Red Cross badges and then stopped us from going back on the floor to finish seeing our patients without the new badges, which they just happened to be out of. We had an optometrist with prescriptive lenses but no glasses or readers and no idea when he'd ever see any. We had a deaf booth but no deaf helpers. In the midst of all this chaos, thousands and thousands of the walking wounded mixing with the powerless well-intentioned came the whispered word, pandemic. Lots of people are suddenly getting sick, and we have to have precautions. Don't eat or drink or touch the patients. We only have one bottle of disinfectant in the mental health section, so come back here—the length of the Convention Center—after each patient. "What of the people who are being cycled out of here?" "What are we sending into the population?" If people are sick and contagious, where are the precautions to separate the vulnerable? What of precautions such as masks and gloves to keep the medical professionals and first responders safe? All the here and now is suspended in the hope that maybe tomorrow will take care of itself and the worst won't happen. Those are the question we asked on the first day. NO ONE IS IN CHARGE.

Therefore, there is no consistent answer or approach or forethought. I am no infection guru but as soon as I heard on day one that people with no water were forced to drink water with bloated bodies, feces, and rats in it, the thought of cholera, typhoid, and delayed disease immediately occurred to me. What if the fears of disease are correct? People are fanning out throughout America. Where is the CDC?

In the age of computers, we are doing worse than the pencil squibs and the rolls of paper to log in the displaced after World War II. Literacy and computer access seems to be considered as a given for people who have lost it all. Accessing FEMA is through a website. People are in shelters waiting for FEMA to come "in a few days." "Be patient." The Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana pumped my hand and replied to my desperate queries about how to help people find their parents and babies, "Be patient—give us a few days."
The mothers who have lost their children, and there are many, and the children who have lost their parents, have had it with the "be patient" response. The shelters are surprisingly silent. It is hard to find the traumatized mothers because they cry silently. One mother asked how patient I would be if my five-month-old was somewhere unknown for over a week. Over and over, others would ask, "Do you think my baby has milk and diapers?" "Do you think they are being kind to my baby?" And then, so softly that I would have to ask them to repeat, "Do you think my baby is okay?" My response—the convenient lie. Every time I said, "of course," I prayed to God that it was true.

I am sure that there is a special ring of hell for the media: The survivor stories end-on-end for the titillation of the public. I heard Soledad O'Brien say something about the still unrecognized need to address the psychological trauma. I sent a response to the CNN tip-line that there were hordes of every manner of mental health professional working 24/7. CNN's response? Dr. Phil and the stories of the survivors" on Larry King. They went to the guy who lost his clinical license for serious professional infractions to tell the stories? I could see the "entertainer" down there gathering tales of the already exploited so that he and Larry could both pimp their ratings. The real unsung mental health heroes, the counselors, psychologists, social workers and psychiatrists dealing with un-medicated psychosis and severe traumatic responses were represented by Dr. "Keep-It-Real"? We don't need tabloid help from the media. Scream about accountability and point fingers for those who can't. Where is the real help from the media? Help us find those babies and parents and missing family. We have a man in one of the shelters who is caring for four kids. They call him uncle. He is actually the cousin of the fiancé of the mother who is probably dead. The children are silent. They sit and play and weep with open mouths that can't scream. Where is the media to scream for them?
Finally, to hell with this "no blame game." The stories that I know to be true are enough to make me boil. The compassionate foreign doctors who can't find anyone to validate their credentials, the expensive mobile hospital still sitting parked waiting for federal paperwork to move into Louisiana, the five C130s sitting on the Tarmac in San Diego since the night of Katrina, still waiting for orders to move. Where the hell are the beds? We have some old people sleeping on hot plastic pool floats with no sheets. They are still no showers for people who have walked for hours through fetid waters. Their skin is breaking out in rashes. Still no showers. Where the hell are the DeCon showers bought with Homeland Security money that can shower 30 people at a time. The convention centers have no bathing facilities so the filth and skin reactions are getting worse. What of lice? There are no clothes for the really heavy and large. I was reduced to writing the women I knew who went to Weight Watchers to comb their attics for "before" outfits. When I arrived with the sack of my gatherings, I had to engage in a full scale battle and puff myself up to all my red-headed doctor fury to get them distributed to the women still sitting there in their stinking clothes.

The survivors are like the Mayor of New Orleans who apologized to George Bush for his anger. "If we tell the way we feel, maybe help will stop." All the apologists on the air distancing George and his co-vacationers and idiot appointees should be impeached. I liked Nagin when he called it all bullshit. He was right. How about Haley Barbour complaining about the lack of support for his state? Did he so soon forget his past life and what he did to set up this government of spin artists? If they had acted like a government the body count would be less. The aid would be better managed. The days of filth, and feces, and death would have been ended sooner. God help all of the poseurs in charge when these folks finally get in touch with their justifiable rage. Did you see the White House's logo for the hurricane? George and some asshole in a ball cap against a background of Katrina waving the flag. They had the energy and time for a nice logo but no time to get the elements of help in gear?
The tragedy is leavened by some moments of farce, the guy who arrived with a case of Gucci shoes in various sizes that he "saved" from his closet. The man wearing twelve expensive watches up his arm. I guess he is a punctual sort. There are the too-poignant-for-words vignettes. I saw a lady sitting on a blanket holding a photo of two children that she had pulled from the water. She kept crying and looking at it. I thought they were her children. She didn't know whose they were. They were just losses and she mourned them.

Of course there were the criminals, thugs, and mobsters. One of the greatest indictments of the "spin machine" that is going to come from this situation will be the repeated characterizations of the victims as lawless and criminal. Over and over I heard people tell me about how ashamed they were to be portrayed that way. Ninety-nine percent of these people never were characterized as anything but lawful and good citizens. In their most desperate hours to be reduced to taking food and water to survive and then to be lumped with the television thieves and the shooters is too shameful for most of them to bear. I heard from hospital employees that survived on a cup of watered grits so that the patients could make it. And then I heard had they had to hide the ones that didn't in closets to keep up the morale of the others.

The people that survived this tragedy and the people who help them all know one truth. The help and the love and the care that has been extended to them have been on a citizen-to-citizen basis. The churches, doctors, therapists, and ordinary citizens who are giving all they can in time and resources are managing to band-aid at the most elementary level-neighbor to neighbor. The government has failed. We are more vulnerable now than before 9/11 because faith in the system is gone. No system can sustain itself as a viable entity when the citizenry are the walking wounded. Victims implode a system from within and expose its decay. This is the beginning of the end unless we can get a drastic change of philosophy and restore the government to a system "by the people for the people." Right now nobody down here believes we have that.

Anne Gervasi
agervasi@sbcglobal.net - gervasi@dal.devry.edu Euless, TX 76039

What would I be without my STUFF?

** These days I’m thinking a lot about THINGS, because we have been surrounded by and have been handling a plethora of STUFF from our previous locations (most of it from thirty years' worth of living together). But then we go out to Costco, Home Depot, and Target and see tons more things.
Not complaining that they’re there, but what’s bugging me is that I’m SEEKING and BUYING more and more things and bringing them home. On the surface, and perhaps for real, there are new things to accommodate our new home. But there’s also this APPETITE for acquisition that seems so obvious these days.

So many things we have been trying to find “homes” for here are not part of our active life these days. They are artifacts from other periods – kind of like an archaeological dig that chronicles a past civilization by its discards and detritus. But is that who we are today?

No, but it could be argued that these things have contributed to what we are today. But why keep them? One obvious reason is that they may be needed in the future as references, documentation, tools and they may be part of some rekindled interest. And yet, one wonder if it would be all that tragic not to have them.

A friend said today that the people of New Orleans are really feeling the loss of their “stuff.” While it’s easy to empathize with the sense of loss, the complications that ensue when certain stuff is lost, and the emotional burden of losing track of the sentimental things that put us in touch with each other and with states of mind that are pleasant and meaningful, still, what is all that compared to the vast treasury of talents, skills, cognitive and physical functions that still remain? True, the effort of rebuilding and replacing one’s “home” is sad and hard, but perhaps it wouldn’t be so difficult if we lived more consciously in the fullness of our innate abilities as spiritual creatures.

A spiritual base in consciousness would affirm that all that “stuff” is just a poor approximation of the wealth of goodness that constitutes and surrounds us. As emanations of the one Source of all reality, all identity and all goodness, we already possess all we need in order to make life worthwhile. And while the past may not feel as near as a lost sentimental object might suggest, we still have our intelligence, our drive, our creativity and our expectation of good to make us feel whole and useful.

We need not – indeed cannot – be defined by the objects we possess – or don’t possess. We must be defined by our Source, which is never lost, never depleted or destroyed. The light that shines us forth is inextinguishable, and the sooner we grasp and embrace this fact the sooner we can recover from the separation from our material things