Monthly Archives: January 2007

OUR AMERICAN DICTATORS

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George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are our American dictators.

These are two messianic, misguided, self-absorbed men. Bush says he is “the decider” and when asked about the impending Congressional resolution opposing the troop build up, Cheney said, “It can’t stop us.”

This delusional duo believe their will reigns supreme. Never mind the will of the congress, never mind the will of the people, never mind the experienced guidance of our military leaders, never mind the bi-partisan study offered by the the Iraq Study Group. The last thing Bush and Cheney represent is democracy.

If you don’t agree with me, maybe you”ll agree with a man who said, “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.” As we now know, the American people along with the world community were given anything but the real facts in order to bring about the Iraq War. The man I just quoted also said, “No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent” and “(n)early all men can handle adversity but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Bush and Cheney were given power and it poisoned them, or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, power released the poison within them, and now it threatens to poison us.

Oh, by the way, in case you were wondering, the man I was quoting is Abraham Lincoln. He was all about Democracy. In fact he died for it.

STRENGTH FROM KING, NOT BUSH

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There was a rare instance of unfettered presidential honesty in George W. Bush’s State of the Union speech last night. Take note and be grateful because it doesn’t happen often anymore. To his credit, Bush refused to be restrained by political spin artists and in no uncertain terms came from the very center of his soul when he addressed the deadly carnage inflicted on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. He never mentioned it.

Bush is a reminder that racism and classicism are alive and well, that the poorer you are, the darker your skin, the more disabled you are, the less you count. He is a reminder us that the struggle for civil rights in our country is, sadly, far from over.

Tragically, Bush is a reminder that far too many of us have forgotten the dream so majestically set forth by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

To be fair though, many business and political leaders have their own dreams. For instance, they have dreams rooted in greed, dreams rooted in the lust for power, dreams whose success rests on a willingness to send the poor and socially vulnerable off to fight and die. While we might not use suicide bombers, we have a society designed in a way that assures that the military is largely comprised of the economically less fortunateand most vulnerable. Were there even an iota of honesty in Bush’s we-must-fight-the-terrorists-or-we-will-all-die scenario, then why aren’t his daughters actively involved in the fight? If not in the military, why not in some volunteer effort to support the troops? Mary Todd Lincoln made it a point to visit wounded Civil War veterans on a regular basis.

The dream pursued by Bush is absent the presence of equality for all. It is absent the basic tenet that all members of the human family have the right to be who they are safely in the world around them. In truth, the Bush dream is missing one key element: the American Dream.

If New Orleans had fewer people mired in the merciless grip of poverty, the government’s assistance response would have been faster, more comprehensive and far more effective. If there had been more whites and less blacks and Hispanics when a category 3 hurricane (with a storm surge of a category 5 hurricane) ripped into New Orleans on August 29, 2005 flooding 80 percent of the city, the response would have been better. On April 18, 2006 the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals reported 1,464 people had died. Thousands lost their homes and livelihoods. Bloated bodies of the dead were seen floating everywhere. Yet not so much as a syllable in the Bush speech.

Now I would be hard pressed to say anything about Dr. King that has not been said before. He has been a member of my heart since I was a small boy. Yet, as a boy, and later as a young man, I was disconnected from King’s accurate recognition that the power of love combined with non-violence required a form of intellectual, emotional and spiritual strength that not enough of us aspire to.

Now I am certainly no choir boy and have never been in the same room as perfection. Even though as a boy I intellectually and even emotionally believed and understood King was right, I wounded others with emotional and physical violence and dishonesty. Even though it has been many years since violence has had a home in my character, the memories of the pain I caused others can halt me in my tracks and fill me with pain and heartbreak.

It takes strength to turn the “ship” around for a person or for a country. It takes strength to step into the light of honesty and tell the truth. It takes strength to apologize, to admit you are wrong or made a mistake. There is no shame in doing this. In fact, there is a kind healing that takes place in the gentle glory and sweet joy to be found in world of honesty. But it takes strength to get there. All too often we get the message that admitting a wrong or a mistake or apologizing are acts of weakness. Well, if they are, then why are they so hard for so many to do?

If we let King’s accurate view of the human character die, we ought to be ashamed. King dreamed of the day when his children would be “judged by the content of the character, not the color of their skin.” But the dream does not end there. The dream believes in the possibility of a day when we are judged by the content of our character, not whether we are rich or poor; by the content of our character, not whether we are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist; by the content of our character, not whether our country or any country has oil; by the content of our character, not whether we are male or female; by the content of our character, not whether we are gay, lesbian, straight or bi-sexual; by the content of our character, because society has learned that our value is in our humanity, and nowhere else.

Keep the dream alive.

PAGING NANCY MICKLIN

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Nancy Micklin helped save my life. We were in the early months of a relationship during a hot New York City summer in 1984 when I was held-up at gunpoint on my way to work and shot in the head at point blank range. The bullet remains lodged in my brain.

The NYPD’s 84th Precinct got to the scene with amazing speed and I was rushed to the hospital in the backseat of a police car.

In the emergency room I asked a nurse to call Nancy. I will never, despite my best efforts, be able to describe the exhilarating rush of hope I felt when Nancy reached my side. She would leave my side from time to time, ostensibly to take a break, get some water or some air. Actually, she was taking a break so she could break down and cry. ER staff would comfort her and then she would return to my side fully composed. I did not learn the real reason for her breaks until I was well out of danger.

There is a down side to this story that I hope to fix some day. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Nancy was there when I was taken on a gurney to the CT-Scan. She was there before and after brain surgery. She was there every day I was in the hospital. She held me when I was terrified. She was my angel.

When you’ve been shot in the head, suffered significant blood loss and have a bullet lodged in your brain, which is bleeding because of it, willpower is a primary fuel in the fight for life. Nancy Micklin from Northport, Long Island helped whatever willpower I had come to the fore. While I may have lived were she not in my life at the time, I can tell you my chances of living would have been greatly diminished.

Back to the down side.

Years ago the idea of a memoir had taken seed and I called Nancy. She was not happy to hear from me. In fact, she was angry. “You blasted me on national television for ending the relationship,” she said. She was wrong and I told her she was wrong. She did not believe me. She said, “Don’t tell me that, someone told me.” The conversation ended and she is still wrong, but understandably so.

I had appeared on a talk show called “Best Talk in Town.” The subject was secondary victims, a horrible term for those close to the crime victim. I call it a horrible term because there is nothing secondary about their experience. Now my relationship with Nancy ended five weeks or so after I was shot. She ended it and even wrote me a letter shortly thereafter saying she didn’t fully understand why she had ended it. What neither of us understood at the time, through no fault of our own mind you, was violent crime has been known to destroy relationships like fire burns dry kindling.

The program’s host asked, “If two people really loved each other shouldn’t they stay together during hard times?” At this point I had learned a lot more about the impact of violent crime. I said it wasn’t that simple, and it isn’t. I said the victim’s it-can’t-happen-to-me-syndrome is gone forever and the world of those close to the victim is savaged by the experience. I said relationships ending as a result of violent crime is, sadly, very common. The perpetual whirlwind of emotions everyone goes through is, to say the least, grueling to endure.

Now, I am almost done with the memoir. I would like to thank Nancy in person some day. Last I heard she was happily married with children and living in Peeksill, New York. I would love to tell her husband and children what a wonderful person their wife and mother is.

With all my heart I hope she is happy in life. I am happy in my life, a life I might not have were it not for her.

THE AMERICAN BRAIN INJURY EPIDEMIC

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As a brain injury survivor and one who works with brain injury survivors I am saddened but not surprised that a leading expert in forensic pathology says former National Football League player Andre Waters’s November 2006 suicide was likely tied to brain damage suffered by Mr. Waters over his playing career.

The New York Times today said forensics expert Dr. Bennet Omalu of the University of Pittsburgh “determined that (Andre) Waters’s brain tissue had degenerated into that of an 85-year-old man with similar characteristics as those of early-stage Alzheimer’s and that if he had lived, within 10 or 15 years “Andre Waters would have been fully incapacitated.””

There is an epidemic of brain injuries in the United States and we, as a people, are playing catch-up. In some quarters we are waging the catch-up battle valiantly, but we have a long way to go.

I sustained my brain injury in 1984 when I was held up and shot in the head at point blank range. While I received extraordinary medical care, no one, and I mean no one, mentioned the words brain injury or brain damage to me. And so I left the hospital with a bullet in my frontal lobe, bone spray in my left temporal lobe, and a sharp awareness that I would be wise to avoid contact sports.

It would be nearly 10 years before I learned that the damage to my brain impacted my daily life in a very real way. I am far from alone and not even in the same room with unique on this front. Millions of Americans deal with brain injuries. Think this is an overstatement? Try these facts on for size.

– With more than 50,000 Americans dying every year from brain injuries, it is safe to say more than 1 million Americans have died in the 22 years since I was injured, including more than 150,000 children.
– 1.4 million Americans sustain brain injuries annually.
– In 1995, direct medical costs coupled with lost production cost the United States an estimated $56.3 billion.
– Many members of the American military wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered brain injuries.

If you think only football players or those in contact sports run the risk of injuries like those suffered by Mr. Waters, you are sadly mistaken. A couple of years ago I went to a conference on brain injury at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. A forensics expert showed that if you have someone lie down on their back, lift their head 12 inches off the ground, and let go, the skull is travelling 40 miles per hour when it strikes the surface.

We are not quite holding our own in this catch-up battle. There was, after all, no brain injury association on the national level until 1980. Now we have the Brain Injury Association of America, a wonderful organization. States have their respective brain injury associations, all deserving of their citizens support. I am a member and board member of the Brain Injury Association of New York.

Unlike cuts and bruises and broken bones, brain injuries do not heal. Yet the reluctance of so many to take simple precautions is mind boggling. I have seen the following scene too many times. A family is on a bicycle ride. The children are dutifully wearing their helmets (sometimes) while the parents are not wearing their helmets. Perhaps the parents think that adulthood means they are no longer beholden to the law of gravity. Or, perhaps, there is a bit of vanity at work, some concern that one’s hairstyle will get messed, or, some “real man” doesn’t wear a helmet because he is , well, a “real man”. Dazzling displays of reasoning for sure. Tell you what though, when you’re paralyzed and/or you can’t remember what happened five minutes ago, remind me to ask you who your hair stylist is, or what it’s like to be a “real man.” But then again, why should I bother? You won’t remember anyway.

If you are from New York State, you can contact the Brain Injury Association of New York, the one I belong to at http://www.bianys.org/

Contact the Brain Injury Association of America for information on a Brain Injury Association near you. Please visit their website at http://www.biausa.org/

DEHUMANIZING ASHLEY

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The parents of a nine-year-old Washington State girl say their decision to sterilize their daughter Ashley and medically restrict her growth will better assure her safety and quality of life. No matter how you hold their decision to the light, the view is tragic.

Ashley lives with a condition called static encephalopathy. According to the National Institute of Health, “Encephalopathy is a term for any diffuse disease of the brain that alters brain function or structure.” Static simply means the condition is not deteriorating. In other words, Encephalopathy is a catch-all phrase.

There can be no doubt that the ethical dilemma swirling around this controversial treatment, performed at Children’s Hospital in Seattle, is in large part linked to society’s failure to make sure people with disabilities are guaranteed the same level of human rights as everyone else.

Ashley cannot walk, talk or swallow food and is cognitively impaired. Her parents are her primary caregivers. In their blog her parents say the treatment “includes growth attenuation through high-dose estrogen therapy, (a) hysterectomy to eliminate the menstrual cycle and associated discomfort to Ashley, and breast bud removal to avoid the development of large breasts and the associated discomfort to Ashley.” As a result of the treatment, the parents say Ashley will “be a lot more physically comfortable free of menstrual cramps, free of the discomfort associated with large and fully-developed breasts, and with a smaller, lighter body that is better suited to constant lying down and is easier to be moved around. Ashley’s smaller and lighter size makes it more possible to include her in the typical family life and activities that provide her with needed comfort, closeness, security and love: meal time, car trips, touch, snuggles, etc.”

Her parents call Ashley their “pillow angel.”

Whether you agree or disagree with Ashley’s parents and their medical team, there is something disturbing, even barbaric, about sterilizing and altering a child’s growth in order to make life easier for caregivers and allegedly assure the child’s quality of life. It is an honest but misguided belief that the removal of Ashley’s breast buds will significantly diminish the chance of sexual abuse. The absence of breasts will not deter pedophiles and other sexual predators.

It seems to me that the response (pro or con) to the unsettling treatment chosen by Ashley’s parents and medical team is in large measure rooted in a more sinister reality: the continued dehumanization of people with disabilities. What does it say about a society that apparently believes it can best protect a child from sexual assault by sterilizing the child and removing some body parts? What does it say about a society that would rather stunt a child’s growth than provide the community services the child and family deserve? What it says is this. We live in a society still wedded to a social tenet that is simple and wrenching: the greater the damage to a person’s physical and/or cognitive functioning, the less human they are. After all, the parents of a child paralyzed from the waist down would never be allowed to have the child’s legs amputated simply because it would be easier for the child to be physically managed and easier for the child to maneuver a wheelchair in tight quarters because there would be no leg rests.

A report by Dr. Daniel F. Gunther and Dr. Douglas S. Diekema, members of Ashley’s medical team, says “Achieving permanent growth attenuation while the child is still young and of manageable size would remove one of the major obstacles to family care…”

The words that trouble me most here are the words, manageable size. While the words address Ashley’s physicality, they miss her humanity, and that is the greatest tragedy of all. When we lose sight of another’s humanity, we are all lost.