Sexism on display with the support of silence

It seems a prominent Rick Santorum supporter and members of the Republican leadership have taken a pledge to do their best to alienate all American women in part by treating them as if they are nothing more than chattel. Many members of both sides of the aisle are supporting this effort by their silence.

In a television interview today with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Foster Friess, the last living Cro-Magnon man and Santorum backer, addressed the issue of contraception by saying, “"This contraceptive thing, my gosh, it's so... inexpensive. Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn't that costly." Mitchell was visibly stunned: “Excuse me, I'm just trying to catch my breath from that, Mr. Friess, frankly.”

As if this view of women was not despicable enough, three Democrats walked out of a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on religious liberty and the birth control rule when only men from conservative religious organizations were allowed to testify. 

I must apologize for calling Friess the last living Cro-Magnon man, he has a sibling, fellow Cro-Magnon man, Republican Virginia state delegate Bob Marshall, who said, "The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children.”

It seems clear to me that the forces or racism, sexism, and bigotry towards the disabled are surging to the surface, and, I suspect, historians and sociologists will eventually conclude that the antecedent to these un-American trends was and is the election of the country’s first black president.

While all this disturbs and sickens me, what disturbs and sickens me even more is the silence of so many elected officials on both sides of the aisle. They would be wise to remember Dante Alighieri’s accurate warning: ““The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”

 

Days of contemplation

As I begin setting these words down I am listening to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, music my father would listen too when he wanted to relax and release the tensions and anxieties of the day. I listen to them now, not just for the same reasons he did, but to bring him close to me. The day my father died my ability to feel safe being me in the world died with him. I was 15, he was 55, way too early on both fronts.

I am inflicting no special form on this essay, other than that of staying with my thoughts and setting them down as accurately, openly and honestly as possible. If I am going to set this down for you to read, you deserve all three elements.

Recently I have been contemplating how best to shape what I currently see as the home stretch of my life. There are certain things I know for sure:

• I want to write. Not just offerings in this blog and for remarkable publications like the newspaper Independence Today, but short stories and novels and, finally, the completion of a memoir.
• I will stay involved in advocacy, especially now, when the penchant for budget cuts combined with the forces of greed and out-of-control egos have already done damage and threaten to do more damage.
• I know that while we have been estranged for some time, the door to my life will always be open to my daughter. I will not go into details here, but no matter the past, there is no person on planet earth that I love more than I love my daughter, not a single one. It would be nice to have time for just the two of us.
• I would like to travel, though God knows how this will come about given the poverty that currently has me by the throat. But there is time, and there is much I’d like to see: the Grand Canyon (wouldn’t mind living in it as matter of fact), Germany, so I could, finally, make a childhood dream come true and stand in a room the Beethoven was in. And then, of course, England to visit the haunts of Charles Dickens and company, Russia to visit Tolstoy’s home, France to visit all kinds of places including those directly linked to a relative: Jean Jacques Rousseau.
• I would like to read all the classics ever written.
• I’d like to break the bonds of PTSD and go outside more than I do.

The current challenge is to find a new home, not easy when you have no money and when your pickings are shaped by rents approved by HUD (Section 8), but, thankfully, not impossible. If I could pick a destination it would be Western Massachusetts. We’ll see, I need to stay open to all reasonable possibilities.

Step one is find a home, then, one day at a time, make the things I know for sure, some just dreams at the moment, come true.

Freedom & Equality vs. Greed & Racism

These were Mitt Romney’s exact words: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling…You can focus on the very poor, that’s not my focus.”

His glaring lack of understanding and compassion for the poor is only outdone by what can only be explained as one of four things: ignorance, stupidity, heartlessness, or, all of the above. His words imply that those who are poor are not struggling! As if somehow being poor,  receiving food stamps and a rental subsidy is the easy life.  False. Studies documenting links between stress-related illnesses linked to poverty abound.  Anyone who implies that those who are poor are not struggling is, at best, socially and morally tone deaf. For someone who hopes to be president of my country to imply it is disgraceful, and, frankly, inexcusable.

One has to thank God for the likes of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. Stewart points out that the reason the safety net is there for the very poor is because they’re not okay. 

Mitt Romney has been accurately described as the poster boy for the one percent. It seems to me that the upcoming presidential election will pit all that is good about America against those members of the one percent who are saturated in greed and the simmering racism that is the underpinning for much of the hatred for the president.

If freedom and equality are to prevail, President Obama will be elected to a second term. If either Romney or Gingrich ascend to the presidency, God help us all.

Willing to fall down

A brain injury is not a static being. One’s relationship with the damage changes overtime. I am no exception. It is also hard at times to determine how much is the injury and how much is rooted in one’s emotional configuration.

There was a time after the injury in which I could work 50 to 60 hours a week. That ended some years back as fatigue is an issue now. Keep in mind that a damaged brain is physically working harder than a non-damaged brain. It’s as if a six-cylinder engine is now running on five cylinders. It still runs, but it has to work harder to run.

I also deal with PTSD. So do many others with brain injury. PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is essentially a disorder that results from a trauma out of the norm. In my case it was being held up and shot in the head. I imagine the combination of living on the streets, being held under gunpoint for several hours before escaping, and being held up at gunpoint only months after the shooting also contributed to the presence of the PTSD.  The damage in my frontal lobe as a result of the bullet does not help. Of late, my isolating has spiked. It is rare I leave the house. I’ll put off shopping or going to the library until the last minute.

I do manage to get to the support groups I facilitate for people with brain injuries and I do manage to get to leadership team meetings for the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition. I also get to meetings of New York State’s Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council. I suppose I am able to break out of seclusion for the aforementioned reasons because lives are at stake, people’s equal rights are at stake, and spending time with fellow survivors of brain injury means a great deal to me.

I can tell you that the day-in day-out struggle with the PTSD-isolation is exhausting and upsetting. Those who know this terrain like I do, and there are many who do, will understand when I say it is not a matter of not wanting to go out. I do. It is a matter of breaking through what I call the fear wall. Today I succeeded in returning a book to the library. It was beautiful weather and my plan was to park and walk about the town. I couldn’t do it. I drove about the town for a short time and managed to stop at the market for a bit of food. There was a moment in the market when I was frozen still with terror. Part of me wanted to drop my shopping basket and run for the exit. Instead I finished my task and hustled back home.

Once home I realize that in that terror moment I was worried that the internal trembling would become so pronounced and debilitating that I would fall down. It then dawned on me that I need to be willing to fall down, push the edge of the terror envelope in other words and if it makes me fall down, so be it.

I will not give up, of that you can be sure. Why do I write a piece like this? In part I write it because there are many who face the same things I do and if they read this they’ll be reminded and reassured they’re not alone. And if there is anything I have learned in life it is this; the challenges we face become more manageable when we realize we are not facing them alone.

Gabby Giffords & some thoughts on head wounds

Several years ago I was standing in an Albany parking lot talking to three other men who, like me, had survived being shot in the head at point blank range. One of us, I don’t remember who, interrupted the flow of our conversation and said, “Can you believe it? We’ve all been shot in the head and we’re still alive.”  A quiet moment followed in which each of us took this reality in. There was, then and now, an  ineffable and unbreakable bond between us. I feel the same bond with Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who handed in her resignation today , as well as anyone who has experienced this form of mind-splitting, life-shredding violence.

What is rarely if ever talked about is a salient truth unique to head injuries, brain injuries if you will. When your head is wounded, whether by bullet, stroke, fall, accident, drugs, alcohol, and so on, the very place from which you experience life has been invaded, and, without mercy, damaged. I cannot and will not say one type of injury is worse than another. What I can say is there is a form of vulnerability one lives with after suffering what, in today’s parlance, is called an acquired brain injury. And acquired brain injury, or ABI, is any injury to the brain that occurs after one is born. The more commonly used term, TBI, or traumatic brain injury, is a subset of the ABI family in that a TBI is any brain injury resulting from an external event: fall, gunshot, accident.

I tend to think that all of us who have lived through these injuries live with this unique form a vulnerability, sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes both. The question, or perhaps better put, the challenge we each face is this: are we willing to take part in life again knowing these things happen? My answer and my hope for myself and all others is, yes. Am I successful in this endeavor? Not always.  There are days on end when I cannot get myself out of the house. I do know I do the best I can.

I know this too; the three men I was in the parking lot that day are doing the best they can. Gabby Giffords is doing the best she can. Thousands upon thousands of Americans of every age and every walk of life are battling like hell and doing the best they can. Because we are all human, our best varies from day to day. Such is life. What I will not do, and I hope no one else will do, is give up. If we give up, then whatever life-villain damaged our brain wins. And one of the last things on earth I want to do is give the circumstances of my injury and the injury itself so much control over my life that they cause me to give up.  That is a power they don’t deserve – not ever.