Catch a fire

It’s not everyday reading something on the Internet can move me to tears, but I’ve given up hope on seeing something like this post (and commentary) at Whiskey Fire. The study is not yet published and I know it only begins to scratch the surface but for the first time since the tests were done on me I have hope, if not for myself I can imagine glad tidings for tomorrow’s little Dickens.

When the neuropsychologist laid it out for me 10 years ago I was crying and he was almost crying, because he couldn’t answer my very pointed questions and account for the disparities in my mental examination. An evaluation spanning eight hours over two days, as comprehensive as it gets, followed by a 25 page report and two hour debriefing and still something missing hangs in the air. In the end I knew that he knew and we both knew what I needed to hear that he couldn’t say. What I didn’t know was that he couldn’t say it because there was no supporting cognitive science to make our unspoken hypothesis official in a formal setting. Correlation is not enough to move the world off its ass, but I have had enough correlation to last a lifetime, and that time is running out. Catch up with me.

He tried to make me feel better like Jake the Snake talks at Whiskey Fire — it’s not a life sentence, keep building up strengths, focus on your incredible resilience and amazing inner resources. Oh please. Show me the science.
Now we’re talking. It’s a start.

“This is a wake-up call…these kids have no neurological damage… yet, the prefrontal cortex is not functioning as efficiently as it should be….researchers suspect that stressful environments and cognitive impoverishment are to blame…The study is suggestive and a little bit frightening that environmental conditions have such a strong impact on brain development…”

Suggestive and a little bit frightening indeed.

Jimmie Dale Healer

Welp, I went ahead and signed up to put in my time and am delighted to find the Obama campaign has impeccable taste. Tonight’s local debate party will be kicked off with music by the world’s most charismatic outlaw who’s sly compassion is as legendary as his high and lonesome zensoaked warble. Jimmie Dale Gilmore is a Saint. This is not hyperbole, but a well-known fact. I can’t find the words and believe me I’ve tried. Anyone familiar with my (cough cough) oeuvre might recall I spent year one in Austin determined to self-destruct in a flamboyant way but what you don’t know is it was Jimmie’s weekly supper gigs at Threadgills that kept me tethered to the planet.

And I didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t hateful, alienated and falling down drunk or the last thing I wanted to do was gather round a picnic table in red-checked oil cloth, pass catfish platters to the homespun hippies sitting next to me and literally rub elbows with women who wear their hair down to their ass in 110 degree weather. Navigating his fan base was not for the squeamish but they are what they are and blessyerheart, we’re not in Kill City anymore.

All this was almost 2 decades ago, a single year that’s now a Texas legend, singing and supper with Jimmie at Threadgills, who saved me on a weekly basis without a single word between us and I know I’m not the only one.

I can’t find any Threadgills footage at youtube but here’s JDG in Norway around the same era doing his single hit Dallas. Heartfelt thanks to the Democrats for putting him on the bill tonight, now I got me some memories and buses to catch.

Diversity at Netroots Nation

Ah well they rejected my panel so fuck ’em I said, prepared to be all pissy and dismissive of the convention on its way to Austin town, but that’s just not me. Three thousand progressive bloggers flying into the state responsible for the neocon stronghold on this country is a marvelous event that didn’t happen by accident. Bu$hco absolutely rules Texas on every level of government, what better place than Austin to say goodbye to all that?

I plan to volunteer and serve the psychobigots in some capacity but will first clear the bitterness away. Maybe I’m not seeing it, but looking over the agenda it appears once again as a “Sea of Middle-Aged White Males” with no disability caucus or mental health activism included anywhere.

As usual civil rights are well-represented by GLBT bloggers who I certainly do recognize as mentors, but that’s not the only civil rights game in town, y’all, isn’t it time to embrace liberal diversity and engage the unwanted stepchildren/lifelong organizers under the big tent? I wonder if any other disability rights bloggers submitted a proposal to NN, and am anxious to read their layout and hear what they have to say about being excluded during this momentous era of Change.™ Party unity my ass, there is something very missing here, and yes, you’re lookin at it.

This proposal, penned by the illustrious Candid Psychiatrist, is as stand-up as anything going on this week, and it received a standard polite brush-off by the NN gatekeeper. Hmph. Methinks the elite liberal establishment resists education, and I think we would have killed.

CHALLENGING THE CORRUPTION OF PSYCHIATRY
A Proposed Presentation for Netroots Nation 2008

ABSTRACT

The institutions and practice of contemporary psychiatry are corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry, managed care, and other commercial interests. The prevailing treatment model today is biological psychiatry, a worldview that systematically dehumanizes patients by reducing their life stories, individual concerns, and emotional needs to a bunch of dumb molecules. This clinical model is driven by fiscal priorities, professional insecurities, and an elitist/authoritarian mindset—and is propped up by a vast research infrastructure that is drunk on drug company money, generating sham science in support of diagnoses and theories that have no firm basis in fact.

The above paragraph may seem hyperbolic, but it is more supportable than much of what passes for conventional wisdom in psychiatry today. Many progressives resist education on these issues because they are accustomed to defending psychiatry from perceived enemies of science. Others generalize from their own positive experience of psychiatric treatment, and/or question the credibility of psychiatry’s opponents. Nonetheless, recent news stories about the selective publication of antidepressant studies, the systematic diagnosing and drugging of children, and other outrages hint at the widespread dysfunction in our mental health system. Many in the progressive community are being seduced by pseudoscience and unwittingly enabling corporatism. We would like to correct this misjudgment.

The movement for psychiatric reform is evolving and broadening as awareness of this institutional corruption increasingly comes to light. The internet has opened doors for free communication between consumers and providers, and its anonymity has allowed psychiatrists and other providers to speak freely without fear. As parties that used to oppose each other find common cause and coalesce, we see ourselves on the threshold of a new front in netroots activism.

PANELISTS

Dr. Paul Minot is a psychiatrist with a medication management practice in Central Maine. He is part of the burgeoning critical psychiatry movement, attacking the institutional corruption and sham science that taints its contemporary practice and dehumanizes patients. He cites his experience playing in punk bands in the 1980s as significantly influencing his worldview. He now promotes psychiatric reform through his website, Candid Psychiatrist (www.candidpsychiatrist.com), and also posts frequently at Daily Kos. Perhaps his greatest notoriety to date comes from a diary there entitled Bush’s ‘Delusions’: A Psychiatrist’s Perspective which was linked throughout the blogosphere and subsequently became a viral email. Dr. Minot will be examining the scientific underpinnings of biological psychiatry.

Robin Plan is a consumer advocate addressing psychiatric issues on her website, Writhe Safely (https://writhesafely.wordpress.com). Her background is in alternative-rock broadcast media, and she now works tracking Texas state legislation. She is an award-winning SLAM poet, pioneer in the DIY poetry zine scene of the 1980s, and her work has been taught at Miami University Women’s Studies and Stanford University Introductory to Writing courses. Robin describes herself as a radical humanist, for whom advocacy has been the enduring presence in her life. She has shelter experience counseling victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, child abuse, Alzheimer’s victims, and works on campaigns addressing hunger, patient rights, the democratization of the arts, and the mental health consumer liberation movement.
Ms. Plan will discuss the impact of biological psychiatry from the patient’s perspective.

John Breeding, Ph.D. is a counseling psychologist in Austin, Texas. He is the director of Texans for Safe Education, a citizens group dedicated to challenging the ever-increasing role of psychiatry and psychiatric medications in the schools. He combats psychiatric oppression in other arenas as well, and is a steering committee member of the Coalition for the Abolition of Electroshock in Texas (www.endofshock.com). His personal website, Wildest Colts Resources (www.wildestcolts.com), is an exhaustive resource for information on parenting, psychology, and psychiatry. Dr. Breeding is the author of four books, including The Wildest Colts Make the Best Horses and The Necessity of Madness and Unproductivity: Psychiatric Oppression or Human Transformation. He has 37 video clips posted at http://www.youtube.com, with tens of thousands of cumulative views logged there. Dr. Breeding will explore the ethical and spiritual impact of biological psychiatry.

The presentation will be live-blogged by Philip Dawdy, an award-winning investigative journalist and patient advocate who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Mr. Dawdy has reported extensively on mental health issues on the local and national level, and worked as a staff writer at Seattle Weekly until November 2006. Since then Philip has been running the popular consumer blog, Furious Seasons (www.furiousseasons.com) and is a frequent diarist at Daily Kos.

GOALS

We hope that this presentation will increase the audience’s understanding of the extensive corruption of science that is used to justify the biological model of psychiatry, and the many ways in which the application of this clinical model degrades patient care. We would like to overcome the perception that critics of psychiatry are enemies of science, and thus attract wider support among progressives in opposing rampant corporatism in psychiatry. Finally, we would like to demonstrate how the internet is enabling activists with diverse perspectives to communicate with each other and come together in common cause.

Busy, busy busy

Our sensitive overlords at the National Center for Trauma-Informed Care are holding a conference this weekend; their 3rd in a series spanning two decades. I must be in pretty bad shape to consider this good news, but beneath the layers of shmooze and self-congratulation must lie some potential toward changing hearts and minds in the bureaucracies they toy with. That’s what I tell myself, looking over the program schedule (PDF), which kicks off July 10 with a private all-day Consumer/Survivor/ Peer/Expert Meeting to develop a National Consensus Statement on Trauma-Informed Care. Heaven knows it is time for that or something like it.

From the pink flower-embossed, healing brochure:

The Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) has been sponsoring conferences that have defined the agenda of what needs to be done to recognize, understand, spark, and speed the healing and recovery process from violence and trauma.

From Dare to Vision in 1994, to Dare to Act in 2004, and now Dare to Transform in 2008 we are moving closer to real action for positive and lasting change. Our Goal: Revolutionizing Human Services with Trauma-Informed Care.

Trauma-informed programs and services represent the revolutionary transformation as the “new generation” of mental health and allied human services organizations and programs that serve people with histories of violence and trauma. Trauma survivors and consumers in these programs and services are likely to have histories of physical and sexual abuse as well as other types of trauma-inducing experiences.

These adverse experiences often lead to mental health and other types of co-occurring disorders such as health issues, substance abuse, eating disorders, HIV/AIDS, and contact with the criminal justice system. Unrecognized trauma also may lead to misdiagnosis or mistreatment of consumers and survivors.

When a human service program becomes trauma-informed, every part of its organization, management, and service delivery system is assessed and potentially modified to include a basic understanding of how trauma impacts the life of the individual seeking services. Trauma-informed organizations, programs, and services are based on an understanding of the trauma survivor’s vulnerabilities, which traditional service delivery approaches may inadvertently exacerbate and, as a result, cause re-traumatization.

This shift marks the change from a place that merely
carries out services to one that becomes a safe place of healing for the people it aims to serve. It is from this place of understanding that we have come together at Dare to Transform – a starting point for revolutionizing our systems of care.

Program highlights:

Tomorrow’s fish and chip paper

You remember that lady who fell down and died in front of everybody in a New York hospital? What are you, living in the past, that was 8 whole days ago! But here’s a footnote lest you were to think something relevant was about to happen — that video didn’t hit the airwaves as the result of an investigation into the deplorable conditions of our nation’s yadda yadda, it was a fluke stumbled on while investigating some other unrelated everyday civil rights violation. See that puff of smoke going up, that would be the change in the air, an allowance that what happened in Kings County Psychiatric Hospital happens all the time in those places, in your neighborhood and mine, standard and unremarkable. Putting eyes on it is what’s remarkable, which leads to necessary outrage which leads to — oh look, something shiny!

“WHY?” asked NBC. Why in the name of all that’s sacred did this poor, black, aging, psychiatric, involuntarily committed woman slump to the floor and die in the space of one hour to the callous indifference of everyone around her?  If only there were some dots to connect, we might begin to understand.

Rise up, little blogger

I remember last year, when the A-listers de-linked all the smaller blogs from their rolls, in what double-talking Atrios christened Blogroll Amnesty Day. The small blogs responded in true opposition by filling their own blogrolls with the links of those who had been kicked off the big blogs, in a classy demonstration of support and solidarity led by skippy the bush kangaroo and Jonathan Swift.

This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of Blogger Amnesty, and the outcasts are celebrating by sharing the link love and endorsing some of their personal lesser-known favorites.

My recommendations are coming up, but first Jon Swift gives the background —

The idea that links are the capital of the blogosphere seems so obvious that you would think an economist like Atrios of Eschaton would have realized it long ago. And as he is a progressive who has accumulated quite a bit of link wealth, you might also think he would be in favor of redistributing some of that wealth instead of just letting it trickle down. So when he announced last year that he was declaring February 3 Blogroll Amnesty Day, and other bloggers followed suit, I assumed he meant that he was opening his blogroll up to the masses. I sent him a polite email pointing out that his blog was on my blogroll and I would really appreciate it if he would add my blog to his. I never heard back from him.

When February 3 rolled around, many bloggers discovered to their horror that instead of adding new blogs to his blogroll he was throwing many off, including some bloggers who were his longtime friends. Blogroll Amnesty Day, it turned out, was a very Orwellian concept. Instead of granting amnesty to others he was granting amnesty to himself not to feel bad for hurting others feelings. Though Atrios has stubbornly refused to acknowledge that he made a mistake, some bloggers who initially joined him, backtracked. Markos of the Daily Kos instituted a second blogroll that consisted of random links from diarists. PZ Myers of Pharyngula now has real Blogroll Amnesty Days where he invites anyone who has blogrolled him to join his blogroll. And in the wake of the bloodletting quite a number of smaller blogs, like my friend skippy the bush kangaroo, changed their own blogroll policies and now link more freely to others.

Ironically, Blogroll Amnesty Day had a net positive effect for the blogosphere as a whole. I discovered a number of great blogs and made new friends and I am sure that is true for others as well. And so instead of remembering February 3 as a day that will live in infamy, let’s turn this day into a celebration of the power of smaller blogs. Let’s recognize that building an inclusive community of diverse voices is what the blogosphere should be about, not creating a new elite to replace the old mainstream media elite. This year there were a number of stories that the big blogs missed that were being covered by smaller blogs such as the Jena 6 and the situation in Burma. I hope someday that Atrios and other A-List bloggers will join us in recognizing that they could learn a lot from reading smaller blogs rather than getting all of their news from a few limited sources. And instead of attacking big blogs or each other, I hope smaller blogs will take this opportunity to expose themselves to other voices that often don’t get heard.

All weekend I will be updating this post with links from other bloggers who are recognizing Blogroll Amnesty Day and skippy will be doing the same. Blue Gal is encouraging bloggers to link to a few of their favorite blogs with traffic less than their own. Let us know how you plan to celebrate Blogroll Amnesty Day and send us a link to your post and I’ll link to it here (even if I disagree) and then please check out some of the other blogs linked to here or on my blogroll and add a few of them to your blogroll as well. It won’t cost you a thing.

I followed that awful purge last year but didn’t participate, being a humble C-lister who tends to watch the larger blogosphere from the sidelines for fear the larger blogosphere might not understand poor old Writhe Safely, but I am delighted to say thanks to the Minx at Nevada’s highly acclaimed Reno and its Discontents, I am included by name in this weekend’s tribute to blogroll amnesty & blogroll bloodbath anniversary remembrance day, and she actually gets what this mental health blog is all about:

Flawedplan of Writhe Safely simply has excellent taste and excellent taste should always be rewarded.

Now that’s a real blessing, since it’s a private distress of mine that a reader might visit this place in search of a critique of mainstream psych treatment and be non-plussed by the plethora of alternative art, when they were looking for guidance toward initiating a practice of alternative mental health, which we know means good things like vitamin and herbal remedies, acupuncture, peer support, meditation and exercise routines, all good stuff under the big tent. That said, as blogmaven of this site, I begin with the premise that good taste IS mental health, that one can move toward recovery without using shitty words like recovery and just follow what nourishes the soul, by cultivating a love of beauty. I believe the path of autonomous self-development leads to pretty much the same place the prescriptivists would take us by issuing directives. Or even a better place, since, ya know prescriptions are over-prescribed. This fill-my-cups path to mental wellness is sacred to me, as much as the subtlety in only suggesting, with the hope that one day when we think of critical psychiatry we’ll think aesthetics first, alongside the civil activism, punditry, pharma rants and policy reports and perhaps, see all these elements as of-a-piece, woven in to one tapestry. Though this may sound off-the-wall, I have to make my stand for humanism, which holds that the sum is greater than its parts. That may seem like an idea or maxim, but is in fact, an ethos, itself greater than itself.

Huh? Granted, and so much for the vision thing, back to what this day is all about; skippy sez:

each blog will celebrate the unity of progressive infrastructure amenability by posting links to a handful of smaller blogs, thus giving exposure to diverse voices thru-out blogtopia, and yes, we coined that phrase!

Here’s a short list of blogs I read regularly and wish others would too, beginning with the brilliant and up-lifting Homeless Man Speaks: “It’s funny what people think they know.”

Next up is the ghost of Violet Socks, aka Reclusive Leftist: In her youth she was a bonne vivante and circus performer; now she is a crabbed and eccentric recluse who occupies a small house deep in the forest, where she writes and researches topics of interest.

Alcoholic Poet: The only thing you need to know about the mind accountable for this place is that it exists compulsively aware of itself.

Pink Lady at In the Pink Texas: has an affinity for pinot and an irrational fear of breeders, orphans, Catholic nuns, sobriety, lactivists, miniskirts and speaking on panels. She tries to respond to all comments, especially the ones that refer to her as a sociopath.

One of the best writers out there period happens to write about the unvarnished suffering of mental illness in all its hilarity. Laugh and cry with Crazy Tracy at Time For Your Meds, where humor meets four-point restraints.

Mickey Z is Z-Net’s cool observer, and self-educated writer/martial artist/vegan who lives with his wife Michele in New York City.
Likes: sunsets, rainbows, and anarcho-syndicalism. Dislikes: mean people, traffic, and factory farming.

Jaye at at winding road in urban area , is someone to want to know, just go read her intense about page adapted from Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire – What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
‘Whenever I stand short and do it their way‘ to paraphrase David Steinberg.

Broke at Been Broken, is a diarist summed up nicely last year by John Grohol, in his 2007 top ten blog awards: Very poetic and thoughtful. It feels delicate but has an undercurrent of strength, which describes many people who have a bipolar disorder but few write this eloquently in a blog.

And, coming full circle with the silver-tongued Chuckling and crush-king of my blogroll; Atrios thinks I suck, on why he is not a popular blogger.

It’s so amazing to read all these talented writers this weekend, knowing they will never make the big blogrolls, since as of February 3rd, 2007, that’s the policy! So here’s a toast to true amnesty, community, empowerment, virtual cake, and, as Tom Waits put it “champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.”

Welp, it’s that time again

I just worked 17 hours, am revving up, seeing double, voter suppression is back on the agenda, fireworks under the oink dome all day. I’m going to spend the weekend researching the researchers, but will post a music video in the meantime to bless your eyes.

Anyone who’s a political junkie would have loved this display; heroism, giggles and the hair-raising wingnut gall smacked down by truth machine Rafael Anchia time and again, 10 hours, a shot from both sides, and it’s only the beginning. Did you know that a near-death Senator Gallegos laid here for a week last year to keep this from passing? On the senate floor! Good night sleep tight, y’all come back now, but first, a chunka my 5,000 word summary of the best free entertainment in Texas:

House Committee on Elections:

Justin Levitt of the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law said eligible American voters are hurt by voter ID and proof of citizenship laws, and that he doesn’t want Texas legislators to be “sold a lot of snake oil” by proponents of voter ID. He told the Committee to look hard at the problem — make sure it is real, tailor the solution to make certain it corrects the problem, and make certain it does not make the problem worse.

Chair Berman asked what the witness thought about Texas implementing voter ID.

“It’s an awful idea, Mr. Chair, research shows that the poor, elderly, and minorities are overwhelmingly shut out, not because they are not citizens, but because they simply don’t have the papers.” Levitt said Americans do not need ID to get on a plane, rent a car or video, they are asked for it yes, but commercial enterprise understands that not all Americans have photo ID. He said that airports deal with citizens who lack identification by subjecting them to extra procedures and more intrusive security measures. Representative Anchia asked where the witness would put the right to rent a video and board a plane in the hierarchy of rights, are they constitutional rights? No, said Levitt, voting comes before all others and is so important we need to make sure people have no barriers to exercising that right. The Chair noted that the State was prepared to give the poor free photo ID last session, Levitt replied that a person has to possess ID in order to obtain a photo ID, that his organization has facts on the number and sorts of people who can’t get ID, and repeated that the size of the voter fraud problem is extremely small, “there are far more UFO sightings every year than reports of the sorts of fraud that photo ID can fix.” He conceded the point that voter ID may increase the confidence in the system of those who have it, but claimed it would not increase the confidence of those eligible American citizens who have been shut out of the system.

Dr. R.P Moore, Elections and Voting Researcher with the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina stated that it is difficult to get a handle on the facts since social scientists are dealing with a conflicting body of literature, most of it ideologically-loaded by advocate groups, and most of it frankly not rigorous, but trends are beginning to emerge. He said there is growing evidence that there is a population of Americans that don’t have a photo ID. We do know they are disproportionately poor, women, minorities, and likely to vote Democratic, he said. In Texas 150,000 registered voters lack photo ID, not including eligible voters without identification who would be impacted by photo ID requirements. Representative Burnam announced it would cost the State $25 per birth certificate for 150,000 citizens to solve a problem that does not exist.

Dr. David Muehlhausen, Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation said the rational conservative position is that this is something the states should decide. He claimed that studies linking lower voter turnout to voter ID laws are flawed, that there is no evidence of voter suppression in states that have voter ID; in fact, he said, turnout has increased by 2%, which shows voter ID enhances public confidence in the electoral process.

Representative Burnam asked what the Heritage position would be in terms of funding voter ID, would they advocate the cost fall on the state or the individual? Muehlhausen replied that it would in his opinion not be a bad thing for the state to pay the costs. Representative Anchia asked if the Heritage Foundation would oppose biographical data and fingerprints on the card, the witness replied that it is a contentious issue within the Heritage organization, but the official position is that Heritage supports voter ID.

Anchia asked the witness why a conservative organization would throw its resources into the voter ID issue. Muehlhausen said voter ID has no impact on turnout, and the Heritage Foundation thinks lawmakers need to know that. Anchia said just because white turnout goes up 2% doesn’t mean that minority voters aren’t disenfranchised by 40%. Muehlhausen testified that he controlled for race and ethnicity factors and according to his data set the implementation of voter ID shows no effect on minorities in one state in 2 election cycles. He agreed with Anchia that more research is needed, and that it will continue to accumulate.

Dr. Gerald Hebert, Campaign Legal Center, Washington, DC …launched a full-throated diatribe naming the GOP as the elephant in the room, suggesting voter ID will shake out on partisan lines. He said that fraud does exist, but every nationwide reputable study shows the incidents are overblown, citing less than a hundred prosecutions per election cycle. The witness gave a profile of 13 Texans prosecuted in 1996. He said attorney general Greg Abbott prosecuted 10 people for mailing the ballots of housebound senior citizens, all of which were African Americans and all voted Democratic. He alleged thuggery and harassment by the Attorney General’s investigative agents, and the misuse of tax monies to subvert the minority vote. Voter intimidation tactics, vote caging and suppression exists in Texas, said Hebert, and is being perpetrated by Greg Abbott , and that office is where the legislative fix begins. The Chair asked for clarification — was the witness accusing the Attorney General of enabling voter fraud in Highland Park? The witness affirmed the inquiry, and Chair said he will forward the witness testimony to the AG office and solicit Abbott’s response.

Tina Benkiser, Chair of the Republican Party of Texas, said there are few prosecutions of voter fraud, because it is very difficult to detect. She described voter ID as a tool of fairness, integrity, common sense and voter confidence, and she recommended that voter fraud be prosecuted as a felony offense. Representative Anchia cross-examined this witness at length, arguing that the measures she advocates would increase rather than decrease opportunity for fraud. He denied the Conservative Coalition claim that 3700 illegals were dropped during 2004-2007, and said his own study which came in today via the open records act shows the number closer to 23 illegal residents. Chair Berman accused Anchia of making inflammatory statements and harassing the witness. Representative Farias said he would like to ask a question and the Chair refused to recognize him, stating he was not a member of this Committee and when recognized earlier in the day had argued with the Chair. Representative Burnam read from Republican Party email alerts he claimed deliberately misled the public about voter fraud in Texas, the Chair instructed Benkiser not to respond to the allegation, saying she was not on trial. Burnam pressed on, the Chair banged the gavel, and Benkiser said she would meet with the representative privately to respond to his accusation. Representative Burnam concluded that Benkiser is personally responsible for inflaming the public for nefarious purposes and deliberately undermining the public’s confidence in the electoral process. With voice shaking, the witness responded that she is in this battle to make certain the citizenry is informed so that no representative under the dome can feed the public its opinions.

In closing, Chair graciously apologized for earlier displays of temper, and said he set the schedule for this day because he knew it would bring out animosities that need to be aired if both sides are to reach a compromise. He invited Rafael Anchia to head a subcommittee to find solutions for mail-in ballot fraud, which the Representative accepted with relish. Given no further testimony, the meeting adjourned at some godawful hour.

Housing. First.

Apologies to regular readers about the light posting, I spent the week running down opportunities for real life volunteer work and I have to learn about homelessness, so am back to the Internet for the goal-direction and learning tools.

I remember when getting off the streets meant you can walk into a 24 hour drop in center at 2 AM, upset, hysterical, crying, and a nice social worker would take you in and make you a sandwich. Sit next to you on the couch and listen to your problems, then give you a blanket and squeeze your shoulder and tell you it will be all right. And when you wake up on your own schedule, the social worker pours you a cup of fresh coffee, offers you a cigarette and asks how you slept. The two of you sit at the kitchen table with a telephone and rolodex, which the social worker matter-of-factly refers to as “resources”, and starts dialing numbers, flipping through the cards. Food stamps, clothing, housing, transportation, employment. There is a sense of purpose and a real clear focus. None of it on a broken brain, all of it on essential needs, a walk up Maslow’s ladder, step-by-step, nothing more and nothing less. Reality based. Problem solving. At the end of the day you have 3 appointments, you’re still sad, but you believe in the things you have to believe if you’re going to go on. People will help, problems can be solved, I don’t have to fall off the radar, I can get attention and still be safe.

Thirty years ago this was how it went for me the 3 times I had no place to go, because dignity, boundaries and empathy were built into the model. What the hell happened? There was no psychiatric assessment, no “behavioral health” component, no substance abuse checklist, no prefabricated codes of conduct. There were offerings that relate to mental health, yes, presented without emphasis, because they must have rightly understood that to go beyond offering resources, with a punitive, coercive and paternal process would add to my degradation, which has to lessen if a person is going to tap into their will, which doesn’t just pop up automatically once it’s defeated. Homelessness is defeating. The helper’s role is to inspire hope, so you can stand up, square your shoulders and go forward.

I just don’t get it. This week I’ve been talking to homeless people, because it’s cold and they’re just standing around. It’s not that they’d rather go it alone, it’s that they are meant to go it alone, to die. I know this because a few years ago you could hand your food stamps out to a homeless woman and she could walk into the store and get something to eat for herself and her child for the first time all day. Human Services went to debit cards in order to stop that practice. The message is clear, play by our rules or they can die.

The one thing that keeps me from being homeless is my house. Tis a gift to be simple, folks.

I’ve lived in my own mobile home for ten years, and the most stabilizing thing in my life is my mortgage. I’ve had one episode of major depression in the last five years, didn’t leave the house for 2 months, til the threat of losing my roof sent me to the psych clinic for the Effexor. Which I took until I got better, and discontinued after 3 months because I was allowed to, because I no longer needed to, because I am not in the system, where an un-medicated brain is seen as better off dead, according to all the latest scientific research genocidal maniacs.