Monday linkage, with Joe Pye weed

Some random linkage, starting (of course!) with my own radio show: Thursday, Friday and today.

We were a bit off our game today, since Gregg and I had to soldier on without Double A. Next week, I am going to Texas, and they will have to soldier on without ME... so I am not complaining.

I just get nervous when we change anything.

~*~

Just back from Atlanta, where I caught a very personal story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (unfortunately, behind a pesky paywall, or I would link it) about the former Miss Georgia, beautiful Leighton Jordan. In the AJC account, Jordan's eating disorder is presented in stark, primary colors. It was harrowing; the unending treadmill of ballet, pageants and thinness seemed less like the life of a princess (the fairy tale we all hear about) and more like being caught in a trap.

In her work as Miss Georgia, Jordan describes a personal appearance wherein she spies a 13-year-old girl, very thin and obviously "jittery" as she is confronted with a table full of food. Jordan takes the girl aside and tells her that she needs to hear her story.

It was an amazing moment of sisterhood, self-sacrifice and love.

I promise never again to be mean to the pageant-participants. Jordan has redeemed you all.

Namaste.

~*~

At left: Joe Pye weed, from Linky Stone park. Ain't it just so purty?!?

I used this photo as the background for my new Tumblr, which you should all check out.


~*~





Other stuff--

6th big cat dies at Texas animal sanctuary (USA Today) -- I did not know that big cats caught feline distemper, as domestic cats do. :(

~*~

Also covered on our show today, CNN doctor-on-call Sanjay Gupta reversed himself on the weed. And yes, we are now waiting on the rest of you 'experts' who have said stupid things in the past; you too may be regarded as respectable once again! SAVE YOUR REPUTATIONS NOW! FREE THE WEED!

~*~

[Attorney General Eric] Holder seeks to avert mandatory minimum sentences for some low-level drug offenders (Washington Post) Better late than never.

~*~

Speaking of marijuana (doing radio has taught me the importance of a good segue!), Erin Tatum's feminist review of "We're the Millers" at Bitch Flicks accurately articulates my concerns about the movie, which I haven't yet seen (but I have been subjected to oodles of trailers):

Really, you are lying to yourself if you thought the powers that be would waste any opportunity to showcase Jennifer Aniston's legs. The ensuing montage is pure wet, slow-motion fan service. The dance ends with Rose releasing a steam valve, disorienting their captors enough to let their "family" escape. I'm torn about this scene because although it's trying almost too hard to show that strippers can be smart and intuitive, Rose’s most valuable asset is still her body and her ability to be objectified. I take issue not so much the objectification itself so much as the fact that the definitive aspect of Rose’s character seems to be “LOL WHAT 40+ and still hot?!?”. Certainly Aniston's boldness and athleticism are praiseworthy, but given the amount that the actors talk about it in interviews, you would think the strip routine was her sole appearance.

~*~

I am greatly looking forward to Elysium, a new film containing one of my very favorite scifi plots ever: Earth evacuated by the rich as a festering shithole, while only the poor, sick and unlucky are left behind. This was a favorite theme of my beloved Philip K Dick, as in his great masterpiece Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which became the film Blade Runner. (It is also the scenario in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, a novel of obsessive importance to your humble narrator.) Elysium was directed by Neill Blomkamp, the director of DISTRICT 9.

Unfortunately, Elysium is getting rather mixed reviews, even though it easily won the weekend box office. I still intend to see it, so stay tuned.

The Conjuring got on my nerves, because I really wanted to like it.

~*~

And for you musically oriented folks: I finally "cleaned up" my infamous three-year-old instrumentals post... I profusely apologize to the people who Googled "instrumentals" (which are notoriously VERY HARD to find, since there are no lyrics to look up) and came upon my post with so many songs missing. I blame YouTube! (Again, time to plug the invaluable YouTomb, a fascinating website that chronicles the whys and wherefores of various videos getting the plug pulled.)

I especially got a chock full of searches after MAD MEN used "Love is Blue" over their closing credits in one of this past year's shows.

And so, here it is.

Love is blue (L'amour est bleu) - Paul Mauriat (1968)

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Our banner week on Occupy the Microphone!

Occupy the Microphone is on every day, LIVE AT FIVE! In the upstate, you can hear us at 105.7 FM and/or 910 AM, or you can listen to the livestream HERE. You can also download the show at our website, at Spreaker or at Talk Shoe. We are also circulated by the Black Talk Radio Network.



We got a lot of hits on our Memorial Day show, which featured a half hour of excellent antiwar music, followed by a half hour of interviews with veterans who are now peace activists and veteran-advocates, including Wade Hampton Fulmer (of Veterans for Peace), and Kevin Alexander Gray.



Thursday's show highlighted the Detroit Police Special Response Team's murder of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones in May 2010, during a home invasion, which was being filmed for A&E network's reality show, "The First 48". The jury was seated this week in the trial of Officer Joseph Weekley, who has been charged with the murder.
(This is an ongoing, harrowing tale that we will undoubtedly be revisiting many times.)

Victim-advocate Amelia Pena talked about domestic violence issues with co-host Double A (both in photo above).



Friday's show featured local activists Eric Wood and Traci Young Fant. (above, co-host Gregg Jocoy with Eric Wood, Traci Young Fant and Double A.)

Traci discussed several upcoming local events, including OUT OF BONDAGE, which will be held at the Empowerment Zone, 775 Woodruff Rd, Greenville, SC, this Saturday, June 8th at 6pm.

Amelia Pena (mentioned above) will be one of the speakers, along with Winn Freeman, former addict and founder of Wisdom In Living Life Ministry. Also sharing their stories and testimonies will be Torah Speech, Sharon Totherow, Tabatha Duck, Laura Calhoun, Taurice Bussey and Maurice Walker, with a special musical performance by Jeff Redmond.



This free, life-changing community event is dedicated to the memory of Natasha Kerns and Kacy Roberson. For further information, call Traci at 864-235-3592.



Also coming up is the 2nd Annual Multicultural Festival, which will be at McAlister Square in Greenville. (also the home of WOLI studios, where we broadcast Occupy the Microphone). Another free event scheduled for Thursday, June 27th at 3pm. Volunteers, vendors, sponsors and displays are still needed. Sponsorship packets start at $25, while vendor-tables run for $45.

Again, if you are interested, get in touch with Traci, the human dynamo, 864-235-3592. (Traci, it was such a pleasure to have you on the show!)

Tune in tomorrow!

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Political Animals

I was really disappointed in Political Animals on the USA network. I had been looking forward to it, and then... pfffft. Awful. Did someone fall asleep while writing the script or what? (How do you get hired to write that stuff, anyway? Maybe I should send them a resume; apparently, they are hiring entry-level screenwriters at USA.) Sigourney Weaver, usually very good at sarcasm and power-tripping games, was a tremendous letdown. She seems to have phoned in her lines. I could do as well, and so could you.

The story is a juicy one. It's all about an ambitious, take-no-prisoners, ex-president's wife named Elaine Barrish, who is now the Secretary of State.

Gee, wonder who that's about?

And maybe that was the problem. They didn't know whether to "evoke" Hillary (see above link, wherein Weaver equivocates on the subject matter) or just "recreate" a Hillaryesque character. Is she a good witch or a bad witch? They don't seem to be able to make up their minds, and the screenplay veers indecisively back and forth. As a result, they can't really take any meaningful stand. It therefore turns into just another soap opera, this one set in Washington, D.C.

At one point, Weaver/Hillary/Elaine delivered what I think was supposed to be a heartfelt monologue about her convictions, and it just rang false. This savvy, cutthroat politician who craves power, suddenly cares all about the little people? Well, maybe so--that is the very definition of "complex"--isn't it? But Weaver failed to deliver on this emotional complexity and seemed to be reciting hackneyed lines that had just been given to her five minutes previously. Awful. Avoid, avoid. Do not be taken in by the commercials, which are pretty good. (In fact, whoever made the bang-up commercials should be assigned the overhaul of the whole series, but I doubt that will happen.)

Besides Weaver phoning it in, they have Ciarán Hinds, an Irish actor, playing the character based on Bill Clinton (here named Bud Hammond). They couldn't find a SINGLE SOUTHERN ACTOR? Because Hinds' southern accent is one of the worst I have heard since Jane Fonda in Otto Preminger's feverish Hurry Sundown. Are they kidding with that? It was atrocious, insulting and utterly cringe-inducing. Where exactly in the south is he supposed to be from? (Answer: North Carolina) More like Nowhere-in-the-Real-South, USA.

And it's also notable they turned Bud into Elaine's EX husband. Why? So she could make sardonic little jokes about his legendary "other women" without any moral discomfort from the audience. And then Bud and Elaine can meet each other in a motel room, post-divorce (as Secret Service agents wink knowingly at each other and at us) and it really isn't considered wrong. Or something. The fact is, the Clintons are NOT divorced, and showing reality the way it really is, would have been far more honest (and less like hedging your bets).

Further, the "scandal" of one of Elaine's sons being a suicidal druggie (borrowing from the Kennedys now) would be regarded as a scandal for a good feminist reason: one explosive, nasty charge often leveled against ambitious women (across the political and occupational spectrum) is that they are lousy/absent mothers. THIS is why such a story might be covered up by Hillary's people, as well as the stigma surrounding addicts and addiction in general. And yet, neither of these reasons was seriously addressed by the show--that would get too (haha) POLITICAL, and soap opera is obviously where they are going with this.

Too bad. They missed a great opportunity. I will stay with the series, just to see what happens (I like soaps as much as the next person), but I hope Weaver is given the script a whole week in advance next time and/or stops reading cue cards. And please, better scripts? Please? Witty banter and snappy comebacks doesn't seem like a lot to ask from writers accustomed to making six figures.

Or maybe its always risky to try to dramatize politics. SOMEBODY might get offended and networks seek as many viewers as possible. Again, that's too bad. Offending people means you have made an impact and actually matter.

Nobody can be too offended by a soap opera.

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Tuesday Tunes

Turn it up!

Somebody argued with me that Blondie wasn't a punk band, so this is for them. Yes, I know they made pop hits to pay the rent, but this song totally burns the place down.

And I hereby rest my case!

Detroit 442 - Blondie



It also helps that Debbie looks fabulous.

~*~

It has been pointed out to me that Tom Petty was ON "King of the Hill" (well, his animated image was, in any event!) --but this lovely tune was recorded in 1991 and the cartoon started in 1997... I wonder if the song was an inspiration for the title?

It's easy to figure out who wrote what parts of the song: the verses sound like Petty/Heartbreakers, but the chorus is pure McGuinn/Byrds... beautiful!

King of the Hill - Tom Petty and Roger McGuinn



~*~

Too amazing for mere words:

Here But I'm Gone - Curtis Mayfield



May his soul rest in peace.

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Getting to know you

Its been awhile since I participated in a fun meme, and so here we go! These are "Getting to Know You" Questions from the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

1. What is the most daring thing you've done?

Hitchhiking to New York City from Ohio, twice. And back! Also hitchhiked out of Candlestick Park after the Rolling Stones concert, and considering the acidheads who picked me up, that was rather daring, as well.

Speaking of which, I've also done my fair share of LSD, and probably your share, too.

2. What is your favourite article of clothing?

I love my vintage 'Doris Day coats' from the 50s, lovingly salvaged from estate sales, attics and such, but of course, I rarely get a chance to wear them. One is far too fragile to wear (although I did wear it for one season); the stitching holding the lining together has nearly turned to dust, and it really does need to be properly restored... the other is bright red and doesn't go with anything, but it's nice during the holidays.

But it is rarely cold enough in SC to wear these kinds of old-style heavy coats.

3. What is your favourite monster?

I love all the vampires in THE HUNGER (David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon), and Jeff Goldblum in THE FLY.

4. If you had to dress up as your favourite literary character, who would it be?

Hmm, not sure. I guess I could be one of the women from JG Ballard's COCAINE NIGHTS, but who could afford those designer-duds? I'll 'dress' as one of those characters after they become addicted to morphine, and just be naked in the back of a limo, perpetually confused.

5. What is your favourite fairy tale, urban legend or nursery rhyme:

I am terribly fond of all GREAT conspiracy theories, particularly the most outrageous and ridiculous of our time. I like the 911-truthers a lot, that is some highly-entertaining stuff, and there appears to be no end to it, regardless of the dedicated-debunkers.

Of course, as an ex-Yippie, I know all the JFK-assassination theories by heart, and I like to concentrate on Jack Ruby's role, as regular readers know. I also believe Roman Polanski was tipped off before Charlie's girls dropped by for a visit... that sudden trip to France has always been suspect to me. (I believe the worst of Polanski, always, and he has never disappointed.)

My favorite conspiracy theory these days is CHEMTRAILS: those "tracks" in the sky that are rendering us sterile. I urge you to study and learn and read all about it! I used to hear this story every day (for about 3 yrs) when I sold supplements, and then the overall popularity of the theory seemed to fade a bit. But I am still all about the CHEMTRAILS and I love hearing people talk seriously about them.

I also love Wilhelm Reich's ORGONE theory... not a conspiracy theory, but amazing and wonderful and certainly worth mentioning here.

6. What is a cause near and dear to your heart?

I am a lifelong activist, so there are many... right now, I want to continue the work Occupy Wall Street (and Occupy movements throughout the country) have started, particularly the strengthening of local networks (especially here in conservative SC) and progressive communities. Occupy and its various accompanying social networks have given us the tools, and we must stay connected and involved. KEEPING PEOPLE'S SPIRITS UP (in the face of unbridled right-wing attacks) is crucial right now, and that is something I am concentrating on too.

When people are in jeopardy, I tend to put animal rights on the back-burner, but animal rights ARE near and dear to my heart, also.

7. What is the strangest item you've used as a bookmark?

I famously destroyed a book by using a leaky-pen as a bookmark! YIGH!

8. Do you have any nicknames? What are they and how did you earn them?

Daisy IS my nickname, which I took from my late grandmother.

9. Name one habit you want to change in yourself?

Various food addictions that wax and wane. When I tackle them, I veer off into ORTHOREXIA, and when I don't, I can easily chow down on Reese's Easter eggs, one right after the other. No healthy and sane in-between seems possible for me in the area of food. I am usually in one mode or another (or on my way to one or the other). I chalk this up to a lifetime of evilll dieting, as well as having gone without food (unwillingly) for long periods as a child.

"Feast or famine" is something I have deeply internalized, unfortunately. (sigh)

10. Tell us something interesting or shocking about yourself.

Is there anything I haven't fessed up to on this blog? If I haven't, rest assured, I HAVE fessed up somewhere and I expect somebody will re-print it one of these days. ;)

I once dressed up as the antichrist for Halloween, with a bright "666" etched on my forehead in red-and-black paint, with upside-down crosses on both cheeks; swathed in black, with a black shawl. People took my photo at various parties, all night long, and if I ever run for office or get famous as a talk-radio maven, I expect to see these dreaded antichrist photos re-surface and posted coast-to-coast. (I guess I will have to plead drug abuse, which is true enough.)


Thanks to my beloved Deadhead friend Jojo, for this meme. THANKS JOJO!

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Dead Air Church: 30 Years

It is my official AA anniversary, folks! Today marks my 30th year without alcohol. (gasp) I can hardly believe it myself. At left: an image from one of the late-60s AA comic books, titled "It happened to Alice."

I am no longer a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, for a variety of reasons. (I touched on some of my issues with AA here and here.) But I still credit the organization with saving my life. Nothing else would have worked for me. The very aspects of AA that are so harshly criticized now, such as the pseudo-cultish environment, are the very things I most needed. My ongoing druggie-party-atmosphere had always provided me with 'friends'--and consequently, when I cleaned up, I needed "new playmates and playgrounds" to take their place... or I was going to run into big trouble. Immediately. The social environment of AA was crucial.

I remember once having the vivid sensation of having jumped from a window on a very, very high floor... and inexplicably, soft, loving hands, dozens of hands, caught me and brought me safely to earth. Often, when I think of AA, I have this sensation, this vision, that I will never forget, of all the hands reaching out to catch me.

Sometimes it makes me cry, because I did not deserve it. Not at all.

It was amazing that this should happen to me, that these loving, kind hands should catch me after all I had done. This is what Christians call Grace. I deserved to crash through the concrete, and yet... I was spared.

It is impossible to come through such an experience unchanged and unscathed. My spiritual curiosity began then, generously mixed with survivor's guilt: Why have I been spared, when other good people were not? As I would hear (ever more often, it seemed) of famous and nonfamous addicts dying (page down here, for my musings about John Belushi, the first famous addict to die after I became sober), I would experience almost dizzying gratitude (and accompanying relief) that I had stopped when I did.

The gratitude has never abated. Perhaps that is key.

~*~

Recently in Feminist Blogdonia, there was a huge uproar over a controversial, confessional post, written by a popular male feminist, about violence against women he had committed while still using. This didn't surprise me, but it surprised, shocked, and horrified many others. And from their shock, I learned an important lesson: I had intended to write a longer piece for my 30-Year anniversary. I wanted to tell a harrowing story, since it underscores my gratitude; it makes it very clear that I was in crisis, and how far I have come.

And yes, I have a few I could tell.

I now know that such stories, stories of pain and addiction, stories of insanity, stories of possible death, near death and death itself, need to be kept secret and/or only shared with people we know well and deeply trust. Online is not the place, as Hugo discovered. And that's too bad, isn't it? But I am glad Hugo went their first. As a result, I certainly won't.

And so, I shall leave it to your imagination ... with the help of a few movies.

Warning: these video clips tell the truth.


And a very happy anniversary to me! :)

~*~

In this clip from Trainspotting, Ewan MacGregor is in drug withdrawal, hallucinating and haunted by various dead friends, including the baby that died in his apartment (because they were too high to feed her).

Here we learn the important lesson that guilt can become actual monsters that follow you around.



At the end of Clean and Sober--Michael Keaton realizes what the film audience already knows:



From Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, here is Samuel L Jackson as "Gator", with the late Ossie Davis and the incomparable Ruby Dee:



And we end with two trailers from Requiem for a Dream, the best and most honest movie ever made about addiction:

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Betty Ford 1918-2011

I was 24 years old when I walked into my first AA meeting. Too young?

Certainly, I already looked like I belonged there, swathed in discarded old scarves like some pitiful hippie-ragamuffin. Although it was dark, icy and cold--January in Ohio--I had walked to the meeting at St Aloysius on West Broad Street. That fact seemed to impress the people at the meeting more than anything I had actually said, which was likely a jumble of drug-addled gibberish that made no sense.

I held onto the one hope I had: too young? Am I too young?

And then, she just sort of settled into my mind. Her presence. It was like she was with me.

The president's wife, you nitwit. It could be anyone. Anyone.
A-N-Y-O-N-E. Any age, any sex, anywhere; there is no membership requirement except the desire to stop drinking.

But... but...

Shut UP, said my conscience, eager to win one for a change. Shut UP. The president's fucking wife.

Anyone.

And she remained there, a presence in my consciousness, a presence occupying my head without my full realization... until now. And she is gone.

Betty Ford was crucial to me, to us. She was so important, possibly the most important person in the American recovery movement save for the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because she was Anyone. She was the respectable person who passed out at a dinner given in her honor. She was a rich man's wife who started to drink to deal with social pressures. And she wasn't Dick Van Dyke or Robert Downey Jr, either, she was a WOMAN. A lady. She had been, after all, the First Lady.

If it could happen to her, it could happen to you. (And do you know how many times I have heard that phrase, in meetings, in monologues, in phone conversations? I have said it myself, and it has been said to me.) Why do you think it couldn't? Who do you think you are? Of course it could. Luck, goodness, intelligence, class, decency, none of that means squat: you can't handle it, leave it alone. Even she had to. It could be anyone.

Anyone.

And how many lives were saved, all because we could point to her and confidently announce, ANYONE? Her presence, her life, became an object lesson for millions... certainly, it was very important to me, to know that she was in our ranks. See? I'm not the only girl! (In 1982, it often felt like I was.)

My deep affection and love for this woman is hard to convey. Her simple honesty and her life lessons, helped so many of us. Just her presence, in our minds, meant so much.

Her legacy overshadows her husband's easily.

Rest in peace.

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Charlie Sheen: Hero of the hour?

As you have undoubtedly heard, Charlie Sheen's live shows didn't go over so well over the weekend. Practicing alcoholics are never as funny as they think they are, in the long haul. With editing, yes. For a whole show, no. From ABC:

After all but getting booed off stage at the Detroit, Mich. debut of his live show, "My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat Is Not an Option," it's unclear if or how Sheen's month-long tour will proceed.

Anticipation ran high for the event. Ticket holders milled about the Fox Theater in downtown Detroit before the 8 p.m. start time, sometimes yelling Sheen catchphrases like "tiger blood" and "winning" to rev up fellow attendees. As of Saturday afternoon, all 4,700 seats at the theater had been sold.

...

Sheen managed to up the crowd's enthusiasm for the start of his act. Before his official debut, he played a montage of video clips including scenes from "Apocalypse Now," the film starring Sheen's father that Sheen claims to be obsessed with. He then strutted on stage with his "goddesses," Bree Olsen and Natalie Kenly, who proceeded to engage in a passionate kiss, much to the delight of the crowd.

They then went backstage to burn a bowling shirt similar to the one Sheen wore on "Two and a Half Men." While footage of the shirt on fire in a garbage can played on the big screen behind him, Sheen urged the crowd to hold up their lighters, asking, "Doesn't anyone smoke cigarettes anymore?"

The spectacle mirrored the ranting and raving Sheen's done online and in interviews over the past few weeks. But after that, things took a turn for the weird.

Sheen stood at a podium in front of a pseudo-presidential looking seal saying "Warlock States of Sheen" and launched into a nonsensical speech seemingly directed at his critics.

He started, "Tonight I am delivered by cyber cloud, with the stomp and glisten of heaven's produce section." He then talked about burning something "down from the mount of olive" and "gasoline rainbows." He frequently damned "trolls" -- presumably, "Two and a Half Men" creator Chuck Lorre and his former bosses at CBS and Warner Brothers. He called Sarah Palin a "whore" for no apparent reason.

No apparent reason? Of course there is an apparent reason, that you media-swine refuse to take seriously: He's a misogynist pig.

The fact that so many people find his woman-hating amusing and worth celebrating, lets us know exactly how far we have to go.

Anna Holmes' piece in the New York Times, linked above, details all the woman-pounding Charlie has humorously engaged in over the years. And as a rich, privileged white man, he gets by with all of it (paging Chris Brown! Chris Brown, call your office)... and of course, since so many of the women getting pounded are mere actresses, models and sex workers, they 'deserve' it:

A woman’s active embrace of the fame monster or participation in the sex industry, we seem to say, means that she compromises her right not to be assaulted, let alone humiliated, insulted or degraded; it’s part of the deal. The promise of a modern Cinderella ending — attention, fame, the love and savings account of a rich man — is always the assumed goal.

Objectification and abuse, it follows, is not only an accepted occupational hazard for certain women, but something that men like Mr. Sheen have earned the right to indulge in. (Mr. Sheen reportedly once said that he didn’t pay prostitutes for the sex; he paid them “to leave.”)

Haha, ain't that funny? Is he serious or joking?--go the predictable onlooker-comments... ohhh, he's just being funny. Actually, I think he means everything he says, and he has repeatedly proven that he is willing to back it up with a nice right to the jaw, if any nearby female should argue.

Indeed, it’s difficult for many to discern any difference between Mr. Sheen’s real-life, round-the-clock, recorded outbursts and the sexist narratives devised by reality television producers, in which women are routinely portrayed as backstabbing floozies, and dreadful behavior by males is explained away as a side effect of unbridled passion or too much pilsner.

And so, a pricey live show-tour by a woman-hater, or should I say ANOTHER woman-hater (there are oodles of rock stars and hip-hop stars and country-and-western stars who have gotten plenty rich off of women-hating... paging Eminem! paging Ted Nugent! etc) ... and then I see Phyllis Schlafly (barfs for emphasis) on C-Span over the weekend, telling us that feminism is over with and no longer necessary, and what are these harridans and harpies still so pissed off about?

One wonders if she has flipped her channels lately, over to ABC (live video of Charlie at above link) or to the millions of other outlets that have advertised Charlie's zealously-sexist antics over recent months. Hello? What planet is Schlafly on?

They deserve each other, most assuredly.

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Stalemate and ADD

I keep drawing the Two of Swords, which I can't figure out. I've never drawn it for myself until lately. The problem with attempting to read one's own tarot (or be one's own therapist!) is that you simply can't figure out this stuff for yourself, just as we can't always figure out we don't look good in certain clothes we love anyway. No objectivity!

And it doesn't help that many of the tarot-experts and sources can't agree on the card's meanings. Hm.

I choose the meaning I think is most likely: Stalemate. I am stalemated. At least I know that much.

However, if I am indeed lying to myself (one of the meanings of the Two of Swords), how could I know what the card means? Obviously, I am already in denial, and that means I don't have a clue.

She really needs to take off the blindfold!

~*~

Speaking of blindfolds (how's that for a segue?), Chaos is Normal posted FTY: Students, which included an excerpt from a bang-up interview (by Amy Goodman) of one Canadian Dr Gabor Maté. This incisive excerpt sent me over to Democracy Now to listen to the whole show, titled Dr. Gabor Maté on the Stress-Disease Connection, Addiction, Attention Deficit Disorder and the Destruction of American Childhood. Highly recommended!

I hear about ADD every day, as my customer-parents attempt to deal, often buying supplements for their children. I hear all about the endless "symptoms"--which so often to me, sound like, well, just being a child. When did simple childhood become a disease?

I didn't grow up hearing about ADD, which also fascinates me. Is this some "new and improved" diagnosis, in that case? If so, is our culture to blame for stigmatizing certain behaviors? And as with autism, are those same behaviors possibly 'rewarded' elsewhere? (i.e. the preponderance of autism in the Silicon Valley) Dr Gabor Maté believes actual brain development in children has markedly changed over the last generation or so, due to our radical changes in culture. (I have often believed this about addiction, so when somebody with smarts comes out and backs me up, I am thrilled.)

Quotes from Dr Maté I found especially pertinent:

In the United States right now, there are three million children receiving stimulant medications for ADHD... Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. And there are about half-a-million kids in this country receiving heavy-duty anti-psychotic medications, medications such as are usually given to adult schizophrenics to regulate their hallucinations. But in this case, children are getting it to control their behavior. So what we have is a massive social experiment of the chemical control of children’s behavior, with no idea of the long-term consequences of these heavy-duty anti-psychotics on kids.

And I know that Canadians statistics just last week showed that within last five years, 43—there’s been a 43 percent increase in the rate of dispensing of stimulant prescriptions for ADD or ADHD, and most of these are going to boys. In other words, what we’re seeing is an unprecedented burgeoning of the diagnosis. And I should say, really, I’m talking about, more broadly speaking, what I would call the destruction of American childhood, because ADD is just a template, or it’s just an example of what’s going on. In fact, according to a recent study published in the States, nearly half of American adolescents now meet some criteria or criteria for mental health disorders. So we’re talking about a massive impact on our children of something in our culture that’s just not being recognized.

...

The normal basis for child development has always been the clan, the tribe, the community, the neighborhood, the extended family. Essentially, post-industrial capitalism has completely destroyed those conditions. People no longer live in communities which are still connected to one another. People don’t work where they live. They don’t shop where they live. The kids don’t go to school, necessarily, where they live. The parents are away most of the day. For the first time in history, children are not spending most of their time around the nurturing adults in their lives. And they’re spending their lives away from the nurturing adults, which is what they need for healthy brain development.

...

In ADD, there’s an essential brain chemical, which is necessary for incentive and motivation, that seems to be lacking. That’s called dopamine. And dopamine is simply an essential life chemical. Without it, there’s no life. Mice in a laboratory who have no dopamine will starve themselves to death, because they have no incentive to eat. Even though they’re hungry, and even though their life is in danger, they will not eat, because there’s no motivation or incentive. So, partly, one way to look at ADD is a massive problem of motivation, because the dopamine is lacking in the brain. Now, the stimulant medications elevate dopamine levels, and these kids are now more motivated. They can focus and pay attention.

However, the assumption underneath giving these kids medications is that what we’re dealing with here is a genetic disorder, and the only way to deal with it is pharmacologically. And if you actually look at how the dopamine levels in a brain develop, if you look at infant monkeys and you measure their dopamine levels, and they’re normal when they’re with their mothers, and when you separate them from mothers, the dopamine levels go down within two or three days.

So, in other words, what we’re doing is we’re correcting a massive social problem that has to do with disconnection in a society and the loss of nurturing, non-stressed parenting, and we’re replacing that chemically. Now, the drugs—the stimulant drugs do seem to work, and a lot of kids are helped by it. The problem is not so much whether they should be used or not; the problem is that 80 percent of the time a kid is prescribed a medication, that’s all that happens. Nobody talks to the family about the family environment. The school makes no attempt to change the school environment. Nobody connects with these kids emotionally. In other words, it’s seen simply as a medical or a behavioral problem, but not as a problem of development.

Daisy pauses to scream a hearty YES!

You see, now, if your spouse or partner, adult spouse or partner, came home from work and didn’t give you the time of day and got on the phone and talked with other people all the time and spent all their time on email talking to other people, your friends wouldn’t say, "You’ve got a behavioral problem. You should try tough love." They’d say you’ve got a relationship problem. But when children act in these ways, we think we have a behavioral problem, we try and control the behaviors. In fact, what they’re showing us is that—my children showed this, as well—is that I had a relationship problem with them. They weren’t connected enough with me and too connected to the peer group. So that’s why they wanted to spend all their time with their peer group. And now we’ve given kids the technology to do that with.

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...human beings are shaped very early by what happens to them in life. As a matter of fact, they’re shaped already by what happens in uterus. After 9/11, after the World Trade disasters in those terrorist attacks, some women who were pregnant suffered PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. And depending on what stage of pregnancy they suffered the PTSD, when they measured their children’s cortisol levels—cortisol being a body stress hormone—at one year of age, those kids had abnormal cortisol levels. In other words, their stress apparatus had been negatively affected by the mother’s stress during pregnancy. Similarly, for example, when I looked at the stress hormone levels of the children of Holocaust survivors with PTSD, the greater the degree of PTSD of the parent, the higher the stress hormone level of the child.

So, how we see the world, whether the world is a hostile or friendly place, whether we have to always do for ourselves and look after others or whether we can actually expect and receive help from the world, whether or not the world is hostile or friendly, and indeed our stress physiology, is very much shaped by those early experiences.

Listen to/read the whole thing; Dr Maté has an overall approach you probably haven't heard before. And I think it helps immeasurably that Dr Maté has ADD himself, and has the necessary inside-understanding to talk about the issues.

His newest book is titled In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, which I have just ordered from AMAZON.

(Thanks Chaos!)

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