Category: Uncategorized

“My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.”

The lines are Bertrand Russell’s and I’ve been in mind of them for many days. I suppose that like most people I endeavor in my quietude to affirm the rightness of human consciousness and by this I mean the hopeful, shy, steady properties of optimism. Obviously that’s a steep task, especially if you’re subject to depression as I often am, and certainly the steepness I speak of is tipped all the more by the suffering and dying we witness–have witnessed–know that we will witness. What I know about hope may feel insufficient hourly, but I know my version of the good is borne out by history and not by the ideas about destiny that are peddled by traditional theology.

Not long ago I saw a minister on TV telling his flock that unless they admitted and re-admitted their fallen condition and gave everything they had to Jesus they would be going to Hell. I found myself talking to the screen, saying essentially, “the trees don’t go to hell, the cats and dogs don’t go, the brute whales don’t go, in fact, dear, you’ve reserved only one kind of life for eternal damnation and you’ve done it with sheer inelegance.” That’s what I dislike most about organized religion–it’s sheer inelegance, its lack of grace, and the baldness of the saving narrative. Religion, as defined by the preachers is too ugly for nature and too ugly for god.

I am in mind of this today because I’ve been reading poetry about love. There is more love in poetry and in the privacies of hope than in all the churches. This was always true, but I felt like writing it down.

Bertrand Russell again:

“One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.”

Here’s Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

The Face of All the World (Sonnet 7)
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
And this… this lute and song… loved yesterday,
(The singing angels know) are only dear,
Because thy name moves right in what they say.

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Commission Sues Tel Aviv Restaurant For Refusing Veteran With Guide Dog
(Jerusalem Post)
January 10, 2012

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL [Excerpt provided by Inclusion DailyThe Commission of Equal Rights for People with Disabilities filed a NIS 60,000 [$15,580US] civil lawsuit on Tuesday against a Tel Aviv restaurant that allegedly refused entry to a blind IDF veteran.

According to the lawsuit, Pam- Pam restaurant in Tel Aviv’s Ibn Gabirol Street would not allow Mordechai Levy-Talmy eat inside because was accompanied by his guide dog.

The lawsuit, filed by lawyer Enas Hajyahia, charges that 55- year-old Levy-Talmy, a blind and disabled IDF veteran, went to eat lunch with his wife at Pam-Pam, but when the couple requested an indoor table, the waitress insisted they sit outside. Levy- Talmy asked to speak to the restaurant manager, who informed him that guide dogs were not allowed to enter the restaurant, and therefore the couple must eat at an outdoor table instead.

The restaurant manager would not change his mind even after Levy-Talmy explained he was obligated by law to allow guide dogs to enter.

Entire article:
TA eatery may pay after spat over guide dog
http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=252110

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Your friends are influential but only just so. Winter rain has you by the infra-spinatis, that muscle half neck, half arm, and you forget three books as you stand by the window and consider the merits of weeping.

I think I will weep for you, my sadly bundled flesh. And I might also cry for my soul but it’s a no go–the soul is engaged, testing the nimbostratus, gliding like the tall, electric jelly fish she really is.

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See below for details:

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: Diane Wiener <dwiener@SYR.EDU>
Date: January 12, 2012 4:15:59 PM PST
To: <DISABILITYSTUDIES@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
Subject: This Saturday, 1/14/12: a live, free MindFreedom web radio show
Reply-To: Diane Wiener <dwiener@SYR.EDU>

 
MindFreedom International Free Web Radio:
 
Listen to Us, American Psychiatry!
 
This Saturday, 14 January 2012, at 2 pm ET, 11 am PT, your calls are welcome on this live free MindFreedom web radio show. At that time click here:
 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/davidwoaks

Why should YOU protest the American Psychiatric Association (APA) wherever you are, when they meet in Philadelphia on 5 May 2012?
 
Listen and call in live to a MindFreedom Mad Pride Live Free Web Radio show.
 
~~~~~~~~~~
 
THESE SPECIAL GUESTS will be on the show, and also in Philly for the
protest:
 
ANN RIDER lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and will fly into Philadelphia to protest the APA Annual Meeting.
 
Ann lived a psychiatric and substance abuse history. She is now a national leader for hiring mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors to provide peer support. She is on the newly-elected board of the National Coalition for Mental
Health Recovery. Ann founded and directs Recovery Empowerment Network (REN).
 
DEBBIE PLOTNICK is one of the hosts encouraging people to get to Philly to peacefully speak out about changing the mental health system. Debbie is Director of the Advocacy Division at the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
 
HOST: David W. Oaks is a psychiatric survivor and director of MindFreedom International, based in Eugene, Oregon.
 
David plans to get to Philly for the 'five-five' peaceful protest, especially because the APA will be adopting it's newest label bible, the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5."
 
~~~~~~~~~~
 
At the start of the show, 2 pm ET or 11 am PT, go directly to the Blog Talk Radio site hosting the monthly "Second Saturday" show, here:
 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/davidwoaks

There you can listen and call in LIVE, or hear the archive later.
 
Call-in Number: (646) 595-2125.
 
Boycott Normal: For more info about occupying the American Psychiatric Association on 5 May 2012 — wherever you live — click here:

http://www.boycottnormal.org

YOUR live calls, suggestions, questions are encouraged.
 
~~~~~~~
 
Tips About How to Listen and Call-in Live, or Hear Archive Later
 
You can listen and call-in live and free by either computer or phone from anywhere in the world.
 
                WHEN: Saturday, 14 January 2012 – 90 minute show
 
                USA: 11 am Pacific, 12 noon Mountain, 1 pm Central, 2 pm Eastern
 
                UTC/GMT/London: 7 pm [19:00]
 
                Berlin: 8 pm [20:00]
 
                Auckland: 8 am
 
Your live calls, questions, comments, are welcome, here:
 
(646) 595-2125.
 
Ask questions by phone, or e-mail questions to
radio@mindfreedom.org
 
Can't get to a computer that day? No problem! You can use the call-in number just to listen, like a teleconference:
 
Online, you can join a live chat.
 
~~~~~~~~~
Clickable version of above news alert with more tips and photo of guests here:

http://www.mindfreedom.org/radio

~~~~~~~~~
 
Please forward this to all who may support a nonviolent revolution in the mental health system.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Diane R. Wiener, Ph.D., L.M.S.W.
Director, Disability Cultural Center
Syracuse University
105 Hoople Building
805 South Crouse Avenue
Syracuse, NY 13244-2280
dwiener@syr.edu
(315) 443-4486
FAX: (315) 443-4338
 
DCC website: http://sudcc.syr.edu
DCC on Facebook: www.facebook.com/sudcc
 

Essay: Book, Solo

Something about the old days, back when the family bible kept all the secrets– like a mattress, inside with the stuffing one could find lunacies and doctored treasures, the births, marriages, the runaways. Now all the cracked ideas are in the village square, broken plans and patent schemes tricked out in suits with padded shoulders. Here comes an idea called “let’s pretend we’re eating” –an old folk tale really, but the Christian conservative political candidate with the expertly dyed hair says over and over that the poor have insufficient imaginations. Try as I might I can’t find this in the family bible. I tried. I found old birth certificates. They were written in elegant, crafted script by people, women most likely who were very poor indeed.

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Dickens called writers ink stained wretches and who really knows what he meant precisely? Editing, revising, publishing with deadlines, all were surely parts of his equation. I don’t think Dickens ever suffered in the white heat of creation. I think the attractions of making were too heady and attractive for him. Dickens was not a pinched writer and unlike Thackeray he liked his characters, even the lugubrious ones.

And yet Dickens knew all too well the disconnections afforded by the creation of a public persona– the writer who is understood as a cheerful progressive is still, at the end of the day, alone in his study and just as alone as all human beings must be.

Literary writing tackles the matter of human loneliness. “Electric communication,” he wrote, “will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.”

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Easy Wordsworth. Easy as flowers wild by the Oyster River. Anyone can be lonely but satisfied, like the old woman with the red face who they said had had a lobotomy but we were children and did not know what it meant, only that she lived by the water and was, as far as we could tell, perfectly alone. We were kids. We were respectful. She picked her flowers and we picked ours. Hoary Alyssum; White-wood Aster; Blue-stemmed Goldenrod; Spreading Jacob’s Ladder…

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I will never get tired of this city that’s blue as a shin bone, blue as a pair of false teeth, blue as the eyes of a fish, blue as my grandfather’s school book. And the children sleep in their prams, bundled against the cold, thin little vapors like smokey needles rising from their unformed faces–one sees them on every street, small, seemingly abandoned bundles devoting themselves to the subconscious. No sign of their parents: it’s a matter of common sense to put your baby out alone in the winter. City as blue as your dead mother’s curtains, blue as an old soldier’s wrist, blue and blue and blue and blue and blue and blue…

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No one knows where the crazy apple comes from. My friend Marvin Bellonce wrote a poem called “Crazy Apple”. Meanwhile the fruit, the literal, non-Miltonic, Luther Burbank fruit ticks and ticks in the orchard like thought itself. The world “worlds” as Heidegger would say–or he did say it, past tense, the world in the act of becoming but always yesterday. But the crazy apple is turning toward the future, sun baked in the pure silence of its growing. Look at it: imperfect and dark as an ancestor’s shoe.

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I woke to the waves and sand and realized I’d been dreaming of my father. We were in Finland back in the late fifties, a time when it seemed people didn’t laugh. The water had to do all the laughing in those days. Clouds watched the children. There were very few televisions. I remember the adults reading books by the sea. The ocean was everyone’s philosopher. Those were beautiful days. Everyone had his cup of sand.

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