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gurdonarkI arrived today to find that gregwest98 had sent on a nice oversize of the wonderful picture of painted birdhouses on a pickup truck he had posted recently. I have to decide whether it is home or office...right now I'm just happy, because it IS. I also located the nervousness.org card I'm supposed to be replying to from a nice woman in Washington state, so I will be able to meet my exchange obligations with aplomb. I figured out how to actually use the feedback function this week on that site, so I am full of good wishes and positive vibrations.
On the drive home, one commentator noted how Our Glorious Conservative President danced on Cinco de Mayo but only drew up a one page memo for Juneteenth. I think he had a point, but we are so far from undoing the havoc that racism has caused in this country. The ghost of Jim Crow laws haunt my childhood memories. I started elementary school when "individual option", one of the last defenses against Brown v. Topeka, was still being tried by southern schools. In this version, a limited number of African-Americans were admitted to the white school on a token basis. This finally was knocked out by the courts. When full integration finally came, when I was 11 or so, the African-American school was a run-down, no-cafeteria, substandard facility. With hindsight, I'm ashamed for the folks in my town and dozens like it. Church attendance, of course, was near 100 percent. We sang "In Christ there is no East or West" with vigor.
My mother taught at Central High in Little Rock when Eisenhower had to send the 101st Airborne to displace Faubus' segregationalist use of the Arkansas National Guard. A mob of angry whites gathered outside the school to taunt the 9 students who bravely were willing to be the first to integrate Central High. The photos of that time are breathtaking--fascists walking among us, taunting high school kids.
My father was interviewed by Japanese TV. He was able to tell them a bright spot--that the med school he attended in Little Rock was fully integrated. It's a good thing that he wasn't asked about the law school in Fayetteville. It had "integrated" ten years before. This "integration", though, was another form of racism. The school administration made the first African American law student carry a little fence with him from class to class. He was to erect his little fence--get it, separate but equal? It's like a bad movie--but it happened.
Tonight on NPR they talked about a particularly mild form of autism that afflicts otherwise "functioning" kids, robbing them of social skills. I was disquieted slightly when all of the things cited that these kids liked to do out of over-exuberance sounded like things I might have liked to do when I was 17, had I had but world enough and time. I decided, though, that life is just too short to self-diagnose myself with every illness that might possibly explain social ineptness. I have a relative, trained in the ways of special education, who graduated during an "exuberant" time when virtually every condition was blamed on "minimal brain damage". It's a bit like one of my stock expressions--infant rubella made me what I am today.
I hate to risk being a psycholuddite, but I sometimes feel that our understanding of the mind and behavior is still locked in an age not that far advanced from the Victorians. I guess I must have a grain of "science guy" in me, because I do believe in meds.
I have seen meds work miracles for those people meds can help. But I think that all the therapists I've met that I really respect abandon all the intricacies of theory and focus on the extremely practical....how to get through this, how to change that, how to
cope with this inner thing from the past. I've seen therapy really help folks, but mostly when it is about getting through the day to day, not bold inner insights. I wouldn't want to discourage anyone seeking whatever help they need in whatever medical mode. It's so hard to generalize, because some of us had truly horrid pasts or have really debilitating conditions and need all the theories and ideas and help we can get. But my theory, uninformed as I am, is that many of us just need to get on with it, while those who really need all the help get it. I'm sure not against therapy or counselling, and I actually favor meds. Still, I have this sense that so many of us must just accept our flaws and try to figure out how to live with a little faith, a little hope, a little love, and our minimal brain damage.
I'm a bit wary of general rules, though. In the book of rules in Hell, such generalities govern everything. and you know, I love that tag about how in Hell there is no justice, but Due Process is punctiliously observed.
gregwest98 had sent on a nice oversize of the wonderful picture of painted birdhouses on a pickup truck he had posted recently. I have to decide whether it is home or office...right now I'm just happy, because it IS. I also located the nervousness.org card I'm supposed to be replying to from a nice woman in Washington state, so I will be able to meet my exchange obligations with aplomb. I figured out how to actually use the feedback function this week on that site, so I am full of good wishes and positive vibrations.On the drive home, one commentator noted how Our Glorious Conservative President danced on Cinco de Mayo but only drew up a one page memo for Juneteenth. I think he had a point, but we are so far from undoing the havoc that racism has caused in this country. The ghost of Jim Crow laws haunt my childhood memories. I started elementary school when "individual option", one of the last defenses against Brown v. Topeka, was still being tried by southern schools. In this version, a limited number of African-Americans were admitted to the white school on a token basis. This finally was knocked out by the courts. When full integration finally came, when I was 11 or so, the African-American school was a run-down, no-cafeteria, substandard facility. With hindsight, I'm ashamed for the folks in my town and dozens like it. Church attendance, of course, was near 100 percent. We sang "In Christ there is no East or West" with vigor.
My mother taught at Central High in Little Rock when Eisenhower had to send the 101st Airborne to displace Faubus' segregationalist use of the Arkansas National Guard. A mob of angry whites gathered outside the school to taunt the 9 students who bravely were willing to be the first to integrate Central High. The photos of that time are breathtaking--fascists walking among us, taunting high school kids.
My father was interviewed by Japanese TV. He was able to tell them a bright spot--that the med school he attended in Little Rock was fully integrated. It's a good thing that he wasn't asked about the law school in Fayetteville. It had "integrated" ten years before. This "integration", though, was another form of racism. The school administration made the first African American law student carry a little fence with him from class to class. He was to erect his little fence--get it, separate but equal? It's like a bad movie--but it happened.
Tonight on NPR they talked about a particularly mild form of autism that afflicts otherwise "functioning" kids, robbing them of social skills. I was disquieted slightly when all of the things cited that these kids liked to do out of over-exuberance sounded like things I might have liked to do when I was 17, had I had but world enough and time. I decided, though, that life is just too short to self-diagnose myself with every illness that might possibly explain social ineptness. I have a relative, trained in the ways of special education, who graduated during an "exuberant" time when virtually every condition was blamed on "minimal brain damage". It's a bit like one of my stock expressions--infant rubella made me what I am today.
I hate to risk being a psycholuddite, but I sometimes feel that our understanding of the mind and behavior is still locked in an age not that far advanced from the Victorians. I guess I must have a grain of "science guy" in me, because I do believe in meds.
I have seen meds work miracles for those people meds can help. But I think that all the therapists I've met that I really respect abandon all the intricacies of theory and focus on the extremely practical....how to get through this, how to change that, how to
cope with this inner thing from the past. I've seen therapy really help folks, but mostly when it is about getting through the day to day, not bold inner insights. I wouldn't want to discourage anyone seeking whatever help they need in whatever medical mode. It's so hard to generalize, because some of us had truly horrid pasts or have really debilitating conditions and need all the theories and ideas and help we can get. But my theory, uninformed as I am, is that many of us just need to get on with it, while those who really need all the help get it. I'm sure not against therapy or counselling, and I actually favor meds. Still, I have this sense that so many of us must just accept our flaws and try to figure out how to live with a little faith, a little hope, a little love, and our minimal brain damage.
I'm a bit wary of general rules, though. In the book of rules in Hell, such generalities govern everything. and you know, I love that tag about how in Hell there is no justice, but Due Process is punctiliously observed.
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no subject
Date: 2002-06-19 06:35 pm (UTC)hell, I don't know...
Date: 2002-06-19 06:45 pm (UTC)My favorite lawyer joke, not surprisingly,
is one I made up myself...
fellow dies, and goes to Heaven.
"But St. Peter", he says, "I was just about
to sit the bar examination and become a lawyer".
"Not to worry," St. Peter kindly said,
"in Heaven we have a bar exam for the Celestial Bar, and it's MUCH easier".
"I'm SAVED", the student cried, "now I'm in for sure".
"Well, hate to discourage you", the good saint said, "but in Heaven we are always honest.
The bar may be easier in Heaven, but in Hell the pass rate is MUCH higher".
no subject
Date: 2002-06-19 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-06-19 07:32 pm (UTC)Labels
Date: 2002-06-19 08:30 pm (UTC)I heard the same NPR story, and that was the line that stuck. I was struck by how this young man who behaved well with adults, just couldn't cope with kids. I couldn't cope with kids either, preferring the solitude of an out-of-the-way hallway with enough light to read by. Kids are cruel, but I made it through the crucible of childhood and into the blissful world (at least socially) of adulthood. Something about having to make your own way in this world humbles us all, so that only the most tenaciously obnoxious do not feel a kinship for fellow struggling adults. So what about this young man? It sounds like whatever his "affliction" he's got strengths enough to recover, even thrive on. We like the outsider, the eccentric in everyone but our own blood. In the future all children might be labeled, with corresponding warnings of dosage and directions about whether to ingest their cures on a full stomach or an empty one.
As a new LJer I've decided my strategy will be to reply to blogs in the evenings, and journal on my own in the morning. It will be tough to keep up with you Bob.
Re: Labels
Date: 2002-06-20 03:49 am (UTC)I think your posting and commenting plan sounds good, and I don't think there is "bad" plan. Right now my work is getting really busy, so I expect I'll diminish a bit, but I find that I tend to read more books, watch more movies, do more hobbies when I begin working longer days, not less, because the stress requires more release and because my mind is much more alive when I am busy.
I must be minimally brain damaged.
no subject
Date: 2002-06-19 09:36 pm (UTC)i cant even focus on the rest of this because there is no LINK to the pic you said you got that was POSTED!!!!
I expect a revision AT ONCE or I keep my eyes on the first paragraph only bub!!!!
humph!!! some people!! lol :P
no subject
Date: 2002-06-20 03:55 am (UTC)Here it is. (http://www.livejournal.com/talkpost.bml?journal=gregwest98&itemid=16329)
no subject
Date: 2002-06-20 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-06-20 03:58 am (UTC)I don't want to minimize that some of these kids had real problems and needed real help.
But when we define it so everything besides a 60 hour a week job at an engineering firm is not "normal", I get concerned.
Several things...
Anyway, I was about to write you a note that I got a shipping notice about the photo last night. Obviously, I don't need to mention it now. Hope it looks as good on their printout is it did on the one from my printer. I used shutterfly because I'm so lazy that I don't want to go to the Post Office. Sad, eh?
Also, I think the autism thing is interesting. I have a relative that is affected by that sort of autism and while you and I might feel it explains our own social ineptness, when you sit down with such an afflicted person and live with them for awhile, you notice the real difference between social awkwardness and autism. It's quite a different thing; I'm not sure why Time magazine and NPR seem to have difficulty getting that point across. I'm an NPR junkie (surprising isn't it?) but I missed that story.
Re: Several things...
Date: 2002-06-20 07:21 am (UTC)The photo looks better in print than it did in the post, which surprises me. I am eager to get it framed and up, either at work or in "my" room at home.