I recently had the experience of what it must be like for a stranger hearing my speech. What was most eye-opening and startling were the strong feelings it evoked in me.
I was at a weekend gathering, and the keynote talk was given by someone who, like me, has impaired speech stemming from Cerebral Palsy. There was no speech device used, and no one repeated what was said. (The text of the address was widely distributed after the weekend.) Although the speaker’s speech isn’t as impaired as mine and although I had understood and conversed with the speaker at other gatherings, there were large sections of the talk I couldn’t make out.
Much to my surprise, I found myself feeling quite angry. Not just sad and confused, lost, but downright mad. In a case of sharp irony, with the talk being about inclusivity, I felt excluded - and I felt that the speaker was excluding me. (Let me be clear: I am not naming names, because my purpose here is not to blame, and I was able to read the text of the talk later. My purpose here is to reflect on how I felt.)
I felt that I have always tried hard to make sure people understand what I say - having people repeat what I say, using speech devices, etc. - and here the speaker was not seeing to it that I understood what was said. A bit later, I thought that, rather than sitting there feeling excluded and angry, I should have spoken up. I should have asked for someone to repeat what was said. Or maybe I should have asked for one of the few copies of the talk handed out for those who were “hard of hearing or non-English speaking” (which I’m not).
But it wasn’t and isn’t that simple. I may have been rude if I had spoken up. After all, no one else spoke up. Was I the only one having difficulty? Or were the others wanting to not be rude?
And how does this all fit in with the theory, which I subscribe to more and more, that disability is a societal issue, a problem for society to deal with, providing more easily obtained services and accommodations, etc., rather than a problem for the individual to handle? Does it go with the idea that disability is hard because society makes it hard - or that society makes disability harder?
If society did indeed take on the responsibility of accommodating the disabled, making disability less hard, if not not hard, perhaps it would be more my responsibility to understand what the speaker was saying. Perhaps I would have been trained, as I have been in arithmetic and grammar, to have the skills and the patience to do so. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to make so much of an effort to make sure that people understand what I’m saying.
I want to add, as an aside, that the weekend involved flying and that I couldn’t help noticing again that, ironically enough, the Transportation Security Agency has gone out of its way to accommodate those in wheelchairs, with a separate area and agent for the pat-down. I thought it was pretty funny when the agent did a very thorough job of checking me and my chair out on my trip home in my Jesus-hippie overalls with the “Another hippie for peace” patch.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Winter wonder(iing)land
It got cold here last week, and it did rain a bit, but it is warming up again. This winter is even weirder than usual in sunny, funny So Cal, to say the least, and all the more so with the rest of the country gripped in a deep freeze. Here is a column I wrote for the Claremont Courier last month which appeared on its website (www.claremont-courier.com).
LIVING IN PARADISE - AND DANGER
My friend sighed. He really didn’t want to go home.
It was a few days into the new year, and my friend came by for a visit. He had been in Claremont, also going to other places like Palm Springs and Laguna Beach, for two or three weeks over the holidays. As we talked in the warm afternoon sun and went into my house, he was dreading flying home the following day.
I don’t think my friend was particularly upset that the holidays were over. He may or may not have been unhappy about having to go back to his work. What he really didn’t want, what he was absolutely dreading, was just to go home to Vermont, where, at the time, it was even colder than it usually is in Vermont in January.
My friend never likes going back to Vermont after spending the holidays here, but it was all the harder with the unusually cold spell. Spending the holidays in Claremont and environs is always a bit magical, a bit of heaven, when his driveway at home is blocked with snow. Later, after his return home, he remarked that, during his trip, he had eaten many of his meals outside, surrounded by blooming flowers.
I haven’t been eating my meals outside, and I can’t say that I’m surprised by flowers blooming in January, but I have been reading a lot in my yard, and I was doing so in short-sleeves when my friend came by before returning to Vermont. I’ve been going out in tee-shirts during the day in recent weeks, and, except when I was up north in the Bay Area for several days after Christmas (when I really didn’t need them), I haven’t worn long underwear since mid-December. And I definitely haven’t wanted thermal sheets on my bed since early December when we had that cold snap here (remember that?).
I couldn’t even laugh at the college students walking around in shorts and flip-flops when they returned to classes last week. Sure, January often has warm and dry days here (see: the Rose Parade), but this was getting weird, with day after day warm and dry. Yes, it was a special, luxurious, decadent treat to read in the bright sun, lounging on the dark green lawn by a row of brilliant red and white camellias in a festive red tee, on Christmas Day, but it was downright strange when I was still doing it a month later. At least it hasn’t been so warm that I have wanted to go without a shirt.
There was sure something unusual going on here. Just as the frigid, brutal weather in most of the rest of the United States was unusual.
I knew, however, that this was no idyll, no pleasant dream, no paradise on earth (at least for those who like it warm or hot all the time), when it hit the news. The two headlines at the top of the front page of the Los Angeles Times on January 16, told it all - or a lot of it.
“Cutting back as levels fall” was the headline on one article, with the sub-headline reading “Concern is that state is headed for major drought.” The article said that many lakes and reservoirs in California are at historically low levels and that
residents in some towns up north are being asked not to water their lawns. It was one of several that week noting the lack of rain, saying that last year was the driest in decades and that this January appeared headed to be the driest ever. It was also reported that this year’s snowpack, vital to the state’s water supply, is 20% of the average. Although it also had been mentioned in these articles that Southern California has enough water stored to last a year or two, it was no surprise when, on the following day, Governor Jerry Brown declared that California is in a drought.
(What I’m left wondering, though, is if Southern California having water stored up makes it okay for us to keep watering our lawns and to use thousands of gallons to make a hockey rink in Dodger Stadium.)
The other story topping that front page was about how cell phones and other nifty technological devices that we now rely on may well be rendered useless by an earthquake. This article didn’t come out of the blue. There had been not only a number of articles commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Northridge quake and about concerns over old buildings and new earthquake faults in Los Angeles. There had also been a number of small quakes in the area in the previous week or two. Many of these stories included the reminders that we are well overdue for “the Big One.”
There were also the fires, including the dramatic one in the hills above Glendora. Several articles in the Times noted that, while it is highly unusual to be concerned about wildfires and to need fire-fighters and equipment available in January with the “fire season” usually ending in late November or December, foliage is tinder dry and combustible due to, yes, lack of rain. Furthermore, there was a report several days later about how the high pressure weather system that is keeping rain away is also trapping air particles and making it smoggy, not only unusually so during our winters here but also sometimes unhealthily so to an significant extent.
What do we do with all this ominous news? Continue to bask and play in the sun, glad we’re not in all that snow and ice, perhaps while buying more bottles of water and hoping for the best when the large earthquake or no rain comes? As a friend from L.A said when he was here on the same day that the two articles appeared, “It’s so beautiful that it’s getting dangerous.”
I think he was only half-joking, if that.
LIVING IN PARADISE - AND DANGER
My friend sighed. He really didn’t want to go home.
It was a few days into the new year, and my friend came by for a visit. He had been in Claremont, also going to other places like Palm Springs and Laguna Beach, for two or three weeks over the holidays. As we talked in the warm afternoon sun and went into my house, he was dreading flying home the following day.
I don’t think my friend was particularly upset that the holidays were over. He may or may not have been unhappy about having to go back to his work. What he really didn’t want, what he was absolutely dreading, was just to go home to Vermont, where, at the time, it was even colder than it usually is in Vermont in January.
My friend never likes going back to Vermont after spending the holidays here, but it was all the harder with the unusually cold spell. Spending the holidays in Claremont and environs is always a bit magical, a bit of heaven, when his driveway at home is blocked with snow. Later, after his return home, he remarked that, during his trip, he had eaten many of his meals outside, surrounded by blooming flowers.
I haven’t been eating my meals outside, and I can’t say that I’m surprised by flowers blooming in January, but I have been reading a lot in my yard, and I was doing so in short-sleeves when my friend came by before returning to Vermont. I’ve been going out in tee-shirts during the day in recent weeks, and, except when I was up north in the Bay Area for several days after Christmas (when I really didn’t need them), I haven’t worn long underwear since mid-December. And I definitely haven’t wanted thermal sheets on my bed since early December when we had that cold snap here (remember that?).
I couldn’t even laugh at the college students walking around in shorts and flip-flops when they returned to classes last week. Sure, January often has warm and dry days here (see: the Rose Parade), but this was getting weird, with day after day warm and dry. Yes, it was a special, luxurious, decadent treat to read in the bright sun, lounging on the dark green lawn by a row of brilliant red and white camellias in a festive red tee, on Christmas Day, but it was downright strange when I was still doing it a month later. At least it hasn’t been so warm that I have wanted to go without a shirt.
There was sure something unusual going on here. Just as the frigid, brutal weather in most of the rest of the United States was unusual.
I knew, however, that this was no idyll, no pleasant dream, no paradise on earth (at least for those who like it warm or hot all the time), when it hit the news. The two headlines at the top of the front page of the Los Angeles Times on January 16, told it all - or a lot of it.
“Cutting back as levels fall” was the headline on one article, with the sub-headline reading “Concern is that state is headed for major drought.” The article said that many lakes and reservoirs in California are at historically low levels and that
residents in some towns up north are being asked not to water their lawns. It was one of several that week noting the lack of rain, saying that last year was the driest in decades and that this January appeared headed to be the driest ever. It was also reported that this year’s snowpack, vital to the state’s water supply, is 20% of the average. Although it also had been mentioned in these articles that Southern California has enough water stored to last a year or two, it was no surprise when, on the following day, Governor Jerry Brown declared that California is in a drought.
(What I’m left wondering, though, is if Southern California having water stored up makes it okay for us to keep watering our lawns and to use thousands of gallons to make a hockey rink in Dodger Stadium.)
The other story topping that front page was about how cell phones and other nifty technological devices that we now rely on may well be rendered useless by an earthquake. This article didn’t come out of the blue. There had been not only a number of articles commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Northridge quake and about concerns over old buildings and new earthquake faults in Los Angeles. There had also been a number of small quakes in the area in the previous week or two. Many of these stories included the reminders that we are well overdue for “the Big One.”
There were also the fires, including the dramatic one in the hills above Glendora. Several articles in the Times noted that, while it is highly unusual to be concerned about wildfires and to need fire-fighters and equipment available in January with the “fire season” usually ending in late November or December, foliage is tinder dry and combustible due to, yes, lack of rain. Furthermore, there was a report several days later about how the high pressure weather system that is keeping rain away is also trapping air particles and making it smoggy, not only unusually so during our winters here but also sometimes unhealthily so to an significant extent.
What do we do with all this ominous news? Continue to bask and play in the sun, glad we’re not in all that snow and ice, perhaps while buying more bottles of water and hoping for the best when the large earthquake or no rain comes? As a friend from L.A said when he was here on the same day that the two articles appeared, “It’s so beautiful that it’s getting dangerous.”
I think he was only half-joking, if that.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
A place like home in Claremont?
Here is my column that appeared in last Friday’s Claremont Courier. ‘Nuff said, as my friend Chris would say.
ARE WE ONE KIND OF COMMUNITY OR THE OTHER?
Karl Hilgert, Mary Cooper and Andrew Mohr knew that what they were doing wouldn’t be easy.
When they got together with others from Pilgrim Place and the Claremont Quaker Meeting last year, inspired by Occupy Claremont, to not just talk about the homeless in Claremont but to actually assist them, they knew that it wouldn’t be simple. In forming the Claremont Homeless Advocacy Program (CHAP), they knew they were in for some hard work.
The idea behind CHAP and it’s “Summer to End Homelessness” was to pair volunteers up with homeless individuals to help them go through the gauntlet of bureaucracies in order to get the services they need. Such an endeavor included, at the very least, waiting in crowded rooms, sometimes for hours, and filling out lots of forms - challenging enough for those with stability in their lives.
This was difficult and frustrating, and, no, the people in CHAP didn’t end homelessness in Claremont. They were under no illusions that they would, but at least they were trying and getting something done about an ugly and daunting problem. It’s a problem that many people don’t want to even think or talk about.
And now CHAP is trying and doing something more. With the Claremont Quaker Meeting providing space, the people in CHAP are giving overnight shelter to homeless people in Claremont. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the Quaker meeting but not involved with CHAP.)
This is a huge and even scary undertaking. It has started off small, with only men and only a few of them each night, but that still involves needing people to stay overnight as hosts and providing a simple breakfast each morning. This bold, hands-on leap had to be taken, Mr. Hilgert, Ms. Cooper, Mr. Mohr and the others in CHAP believe, because the nights are cold. As they see it, the question is: How can one try to assist the homeless and leave them to spend the night out on the street? The plan is that more homeless people and not just men will be able to stay at the shelter, and there is hope that other faith communities in and around Claremont will get involved in this effort.
It is easy to say that this is too difficult and won’t last. It is easy to say that this shelter program isn’t enough or won’t work, even that it will cause trouble, attracting more homeless people to Claremont.
But, as its people well know, what CHAP is doing isn’t easy. CHAP is doing something hard. At the very least, the CHAP folks are trying.
Which is a lot when it looks like there are people in Claremont who don’t even want to think about trying.
Just as CHAP was getting set to open its overnight shelter for homeless people in Claremont, there was grumbling and all sorts of alarms being raised - again - about low-income housing in Claremont. Correct that: there have been people upset about the idea of low-income housing in Claremont.
We have seen this before. But in the past, the outcry has been over proposed projects, like the one several years ago just north of the 2-10 freeway. This time, the bruhaha is over a site that may - or may not - be used for low and very low-income housing sometime in the future.
The city was only trying to identify land that could be used for such a project, as required by the state of California. However, when it came to a 5.9-acre parcel on Mills Avenue across from Chaparral Elementary School, there was confusion, with a good number of people thinking that a 100-unit low-income housing project was to be built there. This, as Kathryn Dunn reported in these pages on January 24, lead to a “backlash.”
According to Ms. Dunn’s reporting, “The city’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment allocations require city staff to identify possible locations for future very low and low-income housing development. The city is not, however, required to actually build the units. This fact did little to assuage residents’ fears about the project. About 45 people showed up to the January 7 planning commission meeting citing concerns...”
Forty-five people showing up at a meeting to denounce a project that could possibly and is not required to happen sometime in the future is a lot. There were also letters and other pieces in these pages lamenting this low-income housing project that isn’t planned.
The backlash was such that City Manager Tony Ramos decided to send the Housing Element Update back to the planning commission for a second review, although it will most likely mean that the city will miss a state deadline. As Mr. Ramos explained, “We need to vet this more...to make sure all residents’ concerns are addressed.”
The City Council agreed at its January 28 meeting, at which dozens of residents were present to register these concerns.
The concerns and fears about this proposed low-income housing project that isn’t there include those voiced in previous years about low-income housing projects: traffic, quality of life, negative effects on surrounding property values and wildlife. Another familiar element of the complaints is that the site that they concern is north of Foothill Boulevard. It is interesting that I haven’t heard about complaints about two other sites on the list that are on Arrow Highway.
Why is low-income, high-density housing acceptable in the south area of Claremont, even next to the Village where it has turned out to be quite successful, and the mere possibility of it is met with strong opposition? Also, as for the argument that people with lower incomes shouldn’t be relegated to housing near a freeway, where it has been shown that the air quality is worse, the low-income housing projects and the Arrow Highway properties aren’t all that far from the 10 freeway. What’s more, I haven’t seen much of an outcry over the standard housing projects being built near or even off the 2-10 freeway.
It has also been pointed out that the parcel on Mills Avenue is currently owned by Golden State Water Company, with a water well being operated on it. But surely the planning commission knew this when it made its recommendation. Isn’t there a creative, uniquely Claremont way to accommodate the well along with housing?
I can’t help wondering this when CHAP is trying and finding a way to do something to provide shelter for the homeless on these cold nights.
ARE WE ONE KIND OF COMMUNITY OR THE OTHER?
Karl Hilgert, Mary Cooper and Andrew Mohr knew that what they were doing wouldn’t be easy.
When they got together with others from Pilgrim Place and the Claremont Quaker Meeting last year, inspired by Occupy Claremont, to not just talk about the homeless in Claremont but to actually assist them, they knew that it wouldn’t be simple. In forming the Claremont Homeless Advocacy Program (CHAP), they knew they were in for some hard work.
The idea behind CHAP and it’s “Summer to End Homelessness” was to pair volunteers up with homeless individuals to help them go through the gauntlet of bureaucracies in order to get the services they need. Such an endeavor included, at the very least, waiting in crowded rooms, sometimes for hours, and filling out lots of forms - challenging enough for those with stability in their lives.
This was difficult and frustrating, and, no, the people in CHAP didn’t end homelessness in Claremont. They were under no illusions that they would, but at least they were trying and getting something done about an ugly and daunting problem. It’s a problem that many people don’t want to even think or talk about.
And now CHAP is trying and doing something more. With the Claremont Quaker Meeting providing space, the people in CHAP are giving overnight shelter to homeless people in Claremont. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the Quaker meeting but not involved with CHAP.)
This is a huge and even scary undertaking. It has started off small, with only men and only a few of them each night, but that still involves needing people to stay overnight as hosts and providing a simple breakfast each morning. This bold, hands-on leap had to be taken, Mr. Hilgert, Ms. Cooper, Mr. Mohr and the others in CHAP believe, because the nights are cold. As they see it, the question is: How can one try to assist the homeless and leave them to spend the night out on the street? The plan is that more homeless people and not just men will be able to stay at the shelter, and there is hope that other faith communities in and around Claremont will get involved in this effort.
It is easy to say that this is too difficult and won’t last. It is easy to say that this shelter program isn’t enough or won’t work, even that it will cause trouble, attracting more homeless people to Claremont.
But, as its people well know, what CHAP is doing isn’t easy. CHAP is doing something hard. At the very least, the CHAP folks are trying.
Which is a lot when it looks like there are people in Claremont who don’t even want to think about trying.
Just as CHAP was getting set to open its overnight shelter for homeless people in Claremont, there was grumbling and all sorts of alarms being raised - again - about low-income housing in Claremont. Correct that: there have been people upset about the idea of low-income housing in Claremont.
We have seen this before. But in the past, the outcry has been over proposed projects, like the one several years ago just north of the 2-10 freeway. This time, the bruhaha is over a site that may - or may not - be used for low and very low-income housing sometime in the future.
The city was only trying to identify land that could be used for such a project, as required by the state of California. However, when it came to a 5.9-acre parcel on Mills Avenue across from Chaparral Elementary School, there was confusion, with a good number of people thinking that a 100-unit low-income housing project was to be built there. This, as Kathryn Dunn reported in these pages on January 24, lead to a “backlash.”
According to Ms. Dunn’s reporting, “The city’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment allocations require city staff to identify possible locations for future very low and low-income housing development. The city is not, however, required to actually build the units. This fact did little to assuage residents’ fears about the project. About 45 people showed up to the January 7 planning commission meeting citing concerns...”
Forty-five people showing up at a meeting to denounce a project that could possibly and is not required to happen sometime in the future is a lot. There were also letters and other pieces in these pages lamenting this low-income housing project that isn’t planned.
The backlash was such that City Manager Tony Ramos decided to send the Housing Element Update back to the planning commission for a second review, although it will most likely mean that the city will miss a state deadline. As Mr. Ramos explained, “We need to vet this more...to make sure all residents’ concerns are addressed.”
The City Council agreed at its January 28 meeting, at which dozens of residents were present to register these concerns.
The concerns and fears about this proposed low-income housing project that isn’t there include those voiced in previous years about low-income housing projects: traffic, quality of life, negative effects on surrounding property values and wildlife. Another familiar element of the complaints is that the site that they concern is north of Foothill Boulevard. It is interesting that I haven’t heard about complaints about two other sites on the list that are on Arrow Highway.
Why is low-income, high-density housing acceptable in the south area of Claremont, even next to the Village where it has turned out to be quite successful, and the mere possibility of it is met with strong opposition? Also, as for the argument that people with lower incomes shouldn’t be relegated to housing near a freeway, where it has been shown that the air quality is worse, the low-income housing projects and the Arrow Highway properties aren’t all that far from the 10 freeway. What’s more, I haven’t seen much of an outcry over the standard housing projects being built near or even off the 2-10 freeway.
It has also been pointed out that the parcel on Mills Avenue is currently owned by Golden State Water Company, with a water well being operated on it. But surely the planning commission knew this when it made its recommendation. Isn’t there a creative, uniquely Claremont way to accommodate the well along with housing?
I can’t help wondering this when CHAP is trying and finding a way to do something to provide shelter for the homeless on these cold nights.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Too many rights, not enough care
I have a confession to make: I think there are some disabled people who shouldn’t be living out in the community. At least temporarily.
This is really tough for me to say. Some years ago, one of my attendants remarked that she wished we were living in the 1950's, “when everything was simpler and less crazy.” I pointed out that if we were in the 1950's, I’d probably be living in a back room, if not in a large hospital. She said “oh” and shut up real fast.
I used to love reading The Disability Rag, with its unabashed advocacy, championing disabled rights. It was really where I got the idea that disability is a societal problem, with society not being accessible enough and not providing enough services, rather than a problem with someone not able to do certain things.
Mouth magazine was even better. I loved its homemade look and its hands-on, out-there, fiery vision of radical inclusion. Editor Lucy Gwin was full of terrific passion, which really kicked me in the butt and got me even more out there. But I couldn’t go along with her when she kept saying that the mentally ill should be allowed to not take their meditations. I wanted to be p.c and agree that, like me, the mentally ill should be able to live as they want, but I couldn’t.
Never mind that many mentally ill people end up homeless, living lives of not-so-quiet desperation, cycling endlessly through hospitals and jails, often at fantastic public expense. This was before there was the steady stream of mass shootings that we now live with in the U.S, with the shooter almost always turning out to be mentally ill.
Yes, there is a huge problem with how easy it is for people to get guns in this country, but the problem about mentally ill people getting guns is more than about how easy it is to get guns.
After all, the southern state lawmaker who appeared on Sunday’s episode of 60 Minutes - I’m sorry I can’t remember his name and state - had his face scarred from when his mentally ill son attacked him with a knife. Soon after the attack, the son, who was reportedly sweet-natured and liked playing bluegrass music, shot himself. The congressman later read in his son’s diary that the son had the idea that he would go straight to heaven if he killed his father who was evil.
The point is that not having a gun at the time didn’t stop grave, if not lethal harm, from being done. Guns are just handy and easier to use.
The 60 Minutes segment, entitled “No Place to Go,” was about how family and friends have very limited options in getting help for their mentally ill loved ones. In the case of the congressman’s son, for instance, he was sent home after a hospital visit when the six hours to find a facility where he could stay and get care expired. The congressman has introduced legislation to extend this placement period to 24 hours in his state. In another interview during the segment, a mentally ill hospital patient explained that he hears voices telling him to kill himself or occasionally others and that “that’s not who I am.”
This tragic, impossible situation will the mentally ill began in the 1980's when most of the large mental institutions were closed. The mentally ill were at last given rights, including regarding their care, giving them autonomy and dignity. This was great, but the problem was and is that no funding was provided to care for the mentally ill out in the community. Even more of a tragedy is that it’s not so much that money is not available - it’s that no one wants to talk about the mentally ill.
Until this is resolved, until we can talk about the mentally ill and then decide to provide the care they need, there will be more of these shootings and other tragedies. Until then, in order to protect them and others, I’m sorry to say that more restrictions, if not also fewer rights, should be placed on the mentally ill.
This is really tough for me to say. Some years ago, one of my attendants remarked that she wished we were living in the 1950's, “when everything was simpler and less crazy.” I pointed out that if we were in the 1950's, I’d probably be living in a back room, if not in a large hospital. She said “oh” and shut up real fast.
I used to love reading The Disability Rag, with its unabashed advocacy, championing disabled rights. It was really where I got the idea that disability is a societal problem, with society not being accessible enough and not providing enough services, rather than a problem with someone not able to do certain things.
Mouth magazine was even better. I loved its homemade look and its hands-on, out-there, fiery vision of radical inclusion. Editor Lucy Gwin was full of terrific passion, which really kicked me in the butt and got me even more out there. But I couldn’t go along with her when she kept saying that the mentally ill should be allowed to not take their meditations. I wanted to be p.c and agree that, like me, the mentally ill should be able to live as they want, but I couldn’t.
Never mind that many mentally ill people end up homeless, living lives of not-so-quiet desperation, cycling endlessly through hospitals and jails, often at fantastic public expense. This was before there was the steady stream of mass shootings that we now live with in the U.S, with the shooter almost always turning out to be mentally ill.
Yes, there is a huge problem with how easy it is for people to get guns in this country, but the problem about mentally ill people getting guns is more than about how easy it is to get guns.
After all, the southern state lawmaker who appeared on Sunday’s episode of 60 Minutes - I’m sorry I can’t remember his name and state - had his face scarred from when his mentally ill son attacked him with a knife. Soon after the attack, the son, who was reportedly sweet-natured and liked playing bluegrass music, shot himself. The congressman later read in his son’s diary that the son had the idea that he would go straight to heaven if he killed his father who was evil.
The point is that not having a gun at the time didn’t stop grave, if not lethal harm, from being done. Guns are just handy and easier to use.
The 60 Minutes segment, entitled “No Place to Go,” was about how family and friends have very limited options in getting help for their mentally ill loved ones. In the case of the congressman’s son, for instance, he was sent home after a hospital visit when the six hours to find a facility where he could stay and get care expired. The congressman has introduced legislation to extend this placement period to 24 hours in his state. In another interview during the segment, a mentally ill hospital patient explained that he hears voices telling him to kill himself or occasionally others and that “that’s not who I am.”
This tragic, impossible situation will the mentally ill began in the 1980's when most of the large mental institutions were closed. The mentally ill were at last given rights, including regarding their care, giving them autonomy and dignity. This was great, but the problem was and is that no funding was provided to care for the mentally ill out in the community. Even more of a tragedy is that it’s not so much that money is not available - it’s that no one wants to talk about the mentally ill.
Until this is resolved, until we can talk about the mentally ill and then decide to provide the care they need, there will be more of these shootings and other tragedies. Until then, in order to protect them and others, I’m sorry to say that more restrictions, if not also fewer rights, should be placed on the mentally ill.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Welcoming King - eventually
Things have been pretty quiet here in Claremont for the last two weeks after the holidays. That’s because the college students are still on Winter break. Things will be picking up, and I’ll be going out to lots of lectures, soon enough, with classes starting for the Spring semester on Tuesday. I know this, because Monday is the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, and the Claremont colleges have been starting their Spring semester on the day after the King holiday.
This has been the case for the last several years. It certainly wasn’t always so. Perhaps the real reason that the date of the first day of Spring semester classes at the Claremont colleges is hard-wired in my brain is that, for many years after the King federal holiday was established some 30 years ago, the Spring semester classes started on the King holiday.
The Claremont colleges are private institutions, and, as such, they can do pretty much what they want, at least in terms of scheduling. There have been many years, for instance, in which they haven’t observed Labor Day. But I always thought that it was weird that there were not only classes but that they began on the King holiday. I always imagined it was something like a slap for the relative handful of black students, faculty and staff at the colleges.
I can’t say if there was racism - conscious or unconscious - going on. But I can say that I thought that the noon ceremony held annually on that day, with the college presidents attending and with august words spoken and stirring anthems sung, didn’t cut it.
No, it wasn’t enough. Especially not with students, especially those feeling like they were in an alien environment, scurrying around, preoccupied with working out their class schedules, buying their books and getting and feeling settled. The ceremony - no doubt the last thing on these students’ minds - felt tacked on and empty.
That is, if it didn’t feel like a bad joke, being a substitute for a genuine tribute.
As far as I know, there never was any protest about this. I didn’t hear or see any outcry. I suspect - or would like to think - that there was quiet grumbling over the years. In any case, I thought it made sense, thought it was right, when, about five years ago and with no fanfare, Spring semester classes started on the day after the King holiday, as has happened since. It felt like a wrong was quietly righted. And the series of talks by noted black activists and scholars over the next month or so helps, even when there is a whiff of patronization about these presentations.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by all this - not when the Methodist church has a nativity scene featuring a fatally shot Treyvon Martin and not only makes national headlines but also gets letters and online comments from Claremont residents condemning the scene as sacrilegious, saying that it is a “shameful” and “disgusting” perversion of the Christmas story.
This has been the case for the last several years. It certainly wasn’t always so. Perhaps the real reason that the date of the first day of Spring semester classes at the Claremont colleges is hard-wired in my brain is that, for many years after the King federal holiday was established some 30 years ago, the Spring semester classes started on the King holiday.
The Claremont colleges are private institutions, and, as such, they can do pretty much what they want, at least in terms of scheduling. There have been many years, for instance, in which they haven’t observed Labor Day. But I always thought that it was weird that there were not only classes but that they began on the King holiday. I always imagined it was something like a slap for the relative handful of black students, faculty and staff at the colleges.
I can’t say if there was racism - conscious or unconscious - going on. But I can say that I thought that the noon ceremony held annually on that day, with the college presidents attending and with august words spoken and stirring anthems sung, didn’t cut it.
No, it wasn’t enough. Especially not with students, especially those feeling like they were in an alien environment, scurrying around, preoccupied with working out their class schedules, buying their books and getting and feeling settled. The ceremony - no doubt the last thing on these students’ minds - felt tacked on and empty.
That is, if it didn’t feel like a bad joke, being a substitute for a genuine tribute.
As far as I know, there never was any protest about this. I didn’t hear or see any outcry. I suspect - or would like to think - that there was quiet grumbling over the years. In any case, I thought it made sense, thought it was right, when, about five years ago and with no fanfare, Spring semester classes started on the day after the King holiday, as has happened since. It felt like a wrong was quietly righted. And the series of talks by noted black activists and scholars over the next month or so helps, even when there is a whiff of patronization about these presentations.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by all this - not when the Methodist church has a nativity scene featuring a fatally shot Treyvon Martin and not only makes national headlines but also gets letters and online comments from Claremont residents condemning the scene as sacrilegious, saying that it is a “shameful” and “disgusting” perversion of the Christmas story.
Friday, January 3, 2014
The presents - and presence - of the past
This was my column in the Claremont Courts two weeks ago. The holidays and the new year are often a time for reflection. I must admit, however, that, at least when it comes to thinking about the future and a new year, I am much more of an one-day-at-a-time guy. As my friend John once said, I don’t do New Year’s.
THEY MAKE ALL THINGS BRIGHTER
Two women. Both were about my age. And both, like me, grew up in Claremont.
One of them, I knew well, with her a few houses down the street for years and our families very close friends. The other, I didn’t know, but I heard about her and met her two or three times.
Devon Williams Bishop and Amy Gusman Miller. It was sad to see their obituaries in these pages in the last month. Both succumbed to cancer. Both were 50 or so, and both left behind husbands, children and at least one parent.
I already knew that Devon - Devon Williams, as I knew her for much of my life - had died (I was the one who gave the news to the rest of my family, living up north in the Bay Area for many years now), but seeing her obituary, with her picture, was a hard jolt. It was even more of a sad surprise to see the obituary for Amy, who I knew as Amy Gusman when her mother, Harriet, listed as a survivor, was my teacher.
These deaths, even coming after long illnesses, were bad shocks, earth-shattering in their sadness. As when anyone who dies leaving behind both or one parent (not to mention relatively young children), as when anyone my age or younger dies, they were especially upsetting, more of a tragedy. Furthermore, their cold similarities were heart-aching.
But these deaths also brought forth a flood of warm memories.
With Devon, there are memories of being in a group of families who went to the same church and whose fathers taught at the colleges. There are memories of shared birthday parties and Easter brunches, of spending a weekend together in Idylwild every year when there was snow, of going caroling and having a party with a pinata at Christmas. I also remember my older sister and the girls in the other families spending hours and days and nights together.
Later, I was thrilled to see Devon in an episode of “thirtysomething” on TV (okay, I was a fan!), and I have enjoyed exchanging Christmas cards in recent years. I think the last time I saw Devon was something like ten years ago in the Village when she had a baby in a carriage and was in town visiting her father. Or was it a year or two later in Memorial Park on the Fourth of July?
In the case of Amy, it is her mother that I remember. Mrs. Gusman was one of my last teachers at Danbury School, back when Danbury School was still at Danbury School (where the Hughes Community Center is and where, if I’m not mistaken, Amy had attended earlier when there was a wing for non-disabled students).
There was something unique about her. Although my other teachers at Danbury expected much of me despite my considerable disabilities, Mrs. Gusman pushed me even harder. She made it clear that she had high standard and had me doing a steady stream of reports and projects - never mind that it meant hours at a typewriter (this was long before personal computers). There were many times when I wasn’t happy with this, but, in so doing, she was a big part of why I was successful when I was mainstreamed at El Roble and went on to the high school and U.C Riverside, where I spent days at a typewriter, and have thus been able to work as a writer. (Years later, I laughed when Carol Schowalter, another teacher with high standards who I had for English at El Roble and who died a few years ago, groaned that Mrs. Gusman had “stole” her Greek mythology unit and taught it to me, probably when Amy was in her class at El Roble.)
Like all the bright lights that have been strung up everywhere this month, these memories give me light and warmth when it is dark and cold. Yes, it is sad, tragic, that these beautiful, bright, energetic women have passed on, passed on too early, but their presence here and the memories that their presence brings enriches the life I have in this community.
We saw this most clearly and dramatically with the death of Nelson Mandela a few weeks ago. While Mandela’s death was sad, although expected, and left South Africa with challenges, it was an opportunity to celebrate, even with singing and dancing, his tremendous impact and legacy in South Africa and the world. Not only that, it was a time to re-commit to his ideals of equality and reconciliation.
Yes, Mandela was a leader who ended up having great world-wide impact, but these two women and their lively creativity and caring have had an impact, adding to what makes life here unique. In this season of gifts and hope, their lives, filled with love, and the memories of them leaves a warm, glowing sense of gratitude for all the good in life and inspiration to make the best of it.
This is the same lively creativity and caring that we see and cheer when the students perform at the colleges. There was last weekend’s performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony by the Claremont Concert Symphony and the Claremont Concert Choir, with students from Scripps, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd and Pitzer colleges, as well as the Claremont Chorale, under the direction of David Cubek. So many found these performances, celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Garrison Theater and the tenth anniversary of the Performing Arts Center at Scripps College, inspiring that people had to be turned away.
There was also a recent Wednesday evening performance by the Pomona College Sea Chanty and Maritime Music Ensemble. Who knew there was a Sea Chanty and Maritime Music Ensemble at Pomona College? And who knew the students were learning sailor songs and how to play the concertina and hornpipes?
This was essentially an open class, with the director, Gibb Schreffler, very much participating and noting that this was the first sea chanty class, not only at Pomona College but perhaps at any college. The students sang their hearts out, performing a slew of songs such as “Walkalong, You Sally Brown,” “Stormalong John” and “Pull Down Below.”
I can only hope they keep singing.
THEY MAKE ALL THINGS BRIGHTER
Two women. Both were about my age. And both, like me, grew up in Claremont.
One of them, I knew well, with her a few houses down the street for years and our families very close friends. The other, I didn’t know, but I heard about her and met her two or three times.
Devon Williams Bishop and Amy Gusman Miller. It was sad to see their obituaries in these pages in the last month. Both succumbed to cancer. Both were 50 or so, and both left behind husbands, children and at least one parent.
I already knew that Devon - Devon Williams, as I knew her for much of my life - had died (I was the one who gave the news to the rest of my family, living up north in the Bay Area for many years now), but seeing her obituary, with her picture, was a hard jolt. It was even more of a sad surprise to see the obituary for Amy, who I knew as Amy Gusman when her mother, Harriet, listed as a survivor, was my teacher.
These deaths, even coming after long illnesses, were bad shocks, earth-shattering in their sadness. As when anyone who dies leaving behind both or one parent (not to mention relatively young children), as when anyone my age or younger dies, they were especially upsetting, more of a tragedy. Furthermore, their cold similarities were heart-aching.
But these deaths also brought forth a flood of warm memories.
With Devon, there are memories of being in a group of families who went to the same church and whose fathers taught at the colleges. There are memories of shared birthday parties and Easter brunches, of spending a weekend together in Idylwild every year when there was snow, of going caroling and having a party with a pinata at Christmas. I also remember my older sister and the girls in the other families spending hours and days and nights together.
Later, I was thrilled to see Devon in an episode of “thirtysomething” on TV (okay, I was a fan!), and I have enjoyed exchanging Christmas cards in recent years. I think the last time I saw Devon was something like ten years ago in the Village when she had a baby in a carriage and was in town visiting her father. Or was it a year or two later in Memorial Park on the Fourth of July?
In the case of Amy, it is her mother that I remember. Mrs. Gusman was one of my last teachers at Danbury School, back when Danbury School was still at Danbury School (where the Hughes Community Center is and where, if I’m not mistaken, Amy had attended earlier when there was a wing for non-disabled students).
There was something unique about her. Although my other teachers at Danbury expected much of me despite my considerable disabilities, Mrs. Gusman pushed me even harder. She made it clear that she had high standard and had me doing a steady stream of reports and projects - never mind that it meant hours at a typewriter (this was long before personal computers). There were many times when I wasn’t happy with this, but, in so doing, she was a big part of why I was successful when I was mainstreamed at El Roble and went on to the high school and U.C Riverside, where I spent days at a typewriter, and have thus been able to work as a writer. (Years later, I laughed when Carol Schowalter, another teacher with high standards who I had for English at El Roble and who died a few years ago, groaned that Mrs. Gusman had “stole” her Greek mythology unit and taught it to me, probably when Amy was in her class at El Roble.)
Like all the bright lights that have been strung up everywhere this month, these memories give me light and warmth when it is dark and cold. Yes, it is sad, tragic, that these beautiful, bright, energetic women have passed on, passed on too early, but their presence here and the memories that their presence brings enriches the life I have in this community.
We saw this most clearly and dramatically with the death of Nelson Mandela a few weeks ago. While Mandela’s death was sad, although expected, and left South Africa with challenges, it was an opportunity to celebrate, even with singing and dancing, his tremendous impact and legacy in South Africa and the world. Not only that, it was a time to re-commit to his ideals of equality and reconciliation.
Yes, Mandela was a leader who ended up having great world-wide impact, but these two women and their lively creativity and caring have had an impact, adding to what makes life here unique. In this season of gifts and hope, their lives, filled with love, and the memories of them leaves a warm, glowing sense of gratitude for all the good in life and inspiration to make the best of it.
This is the same lively creativity and caring that we see and cheer when the students perform at the colleges. There was last weekend’s performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony by the Claremont Concert Symphony and the Claremont Concert Choir, with students from Scripps, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd and Pitzer colleges, as well as the Claremont Chorale, under the direction of David Cubek. So many found these performances, celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Garrison Theater and the tenth anniversary of the Performing Arts Center at Scripps College, inspiring that people had to be turned away.
There was also a recent Wednesday evening performance by the Pomona College Sea Chanty and Maritime Music Ensemble. Who knew there was a Sea Chanty and Maritime Music Ensemble at Pomona College? And who knew the students were learning sailor songs and how to play the concertina and hornpipes?
This was essentially an open class, with the director, Gibb Schreffler, very much participating and noting that this was the first sea chanty class, not only at Pomona College but perhaps at any college. The students sang their hearts out, performing a slew of songs such as “Walkalong, You Sally Brown,” “Stormalong John” and “Pull Down Below.”
I can only hope they keep singing.
Monday, December 23, 2013
No laughing matter
Robin Williams is pretty funny, and his new show on CBS, “The Crazy Ones,” in which he stars as the senior partner in an ad agency, is pretty good. An ad agency makes for an interesting sitcom setting, with lots of fun, creative possibilities for story-lines. Partly because of this, the show is finally a good vehicle for Williams’ vamping style - all the more after some of the sappy, wince-inducing films he has stared in (as with Whoopi Goldberg, Hollywood doesn’t quite know what to do with him).
Michael J. Fox is also starring in a new show this season, “The Michael J. Fox Show” on NBC, which is pretty good. In this sitcom, Fox, beloved from his days on “Family Ties” and in the “Back to the Future” movies and who has had Parkinson’s disease, is charming as a husband and father with Parkinson’s who returns to his job as a television news anchorman. Some of the comedy is smartly (in both senses) based on his mild disability and having difficulty doing some things. The way people see him as “brave” is also mocked. So why has Williams’ show been a hit, while Fox’s show is regarded as a “flop.” Apparently, many more people are watching “The Crazy Ones” than are watching “The Michael J. Fox Show.” Why is this, when both are pretty good sitcoms, as sitcoms go?
I can’t help but wonder if people are uncomfortable with laughing at someone who is disabled. It may be too big of a shift, at least in the broader, commercial, for people to laugh at someone who they normally would, or should, have compassion or pity for. Also, that people are used to, and fondly remember, seeing the guy not disabled probably doesn’t make this any easier.
But can’t having compassion for someone include laughter? Could it be that we can laugh with Fox and not at him? Or is disability just the serious stuff of tragedy?
As for people finding the disabled brave and inspiring, maybe it is too hard for people to laugh at it when it’s something that they need in their lives.
Michael J. Fox is also starring in a new show this season, “The Michael J. Fox Show” on NBC, which is pretty good. In this sitcom, Fox, beloved from his days on “Family Ties” and in the “Back to the Future” movies and who has had Parkinson’s disease, is charming as a husband and father with Parkinson’s who returns to his job as a television news anchorman. Some of the comedy is smartly (in both senses) based on his mild disability and having difficulty doing some things. The way people see him as “brave” is also mocked. So why has Williams’ show been a hit, while Fox’s show is regarded as a “flop.” Apparently, many more people are watching “The Crazy Ones” than are watching “The Michael J. Fox Show.” Why is this, when both are pretty good sitcoms, as sitcoms go?
I can’t help but wonder if people are uncomfortable with laughing at someone who is disabled. It may be too big of a shift, at least in the broader, commercial, for people to laugh at someone who they normally would, or should, have compassion or pity for. Also, that people are used to, and fondly remember, seeing the guy not disabled probably doesn’t make this any easier.
But can’t having compassion for someone include laughter? Could it be that we can laugh with Fox and not at him? Or is disability just the serious stuff of tragedy?
As for people finding the disabled brave and inspiring, maybe it is too hard for people to laugh at it when it’s something that they need in their lives.
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