Monthly Archives: October 2015

My days filled with tears

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I’ve done more crying over the last week or two than I have in many years, a reality that doesn’t worry me in the least, but, until very recently, it confused me because I couldn’t figure out why they hell I was crying. I don’t mind my emotional life experience. I do like to understand it. Especially since this recent stint of tearfalls began right after getting great news.

Watch, I’ll show you.

  • The Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition application for pro bono legal services filed with a group that will wed us to a top law firm has been accepted.  Good news. As a result, KAC is on its way to becoming a 501c3 nonprofit company. Very good news.
    • This means KAC will be able to file legal actions against some who are denying the rights of people with brain injury disabilities in New York State. Good news
    • It means we will be even more adept at uncovering and exposing various forms of corruption (which includes exposing those whose allegiance to the rights of individuals with brain injuries is lip service and lip service only). More good news.
    • It means we will be able to advocate for more people and in doing so, hopefully, make their lives a better place to be.  Really good news.
    • It means the waters will become more treacherous for those who oppress the rights of brain injury survivors, often by treating them as if they are nothing but revenue streams.  Very good news.

With all this good news, why the crying?

Let me again assure you I have no problems with the fact I’ve been crying a lot. No embarrassment and no worries that it means something has gone wrong with me. I know some have been convinced or have convinced themselves crying is an act of weakness. I would say to them, if crying is an act of weakness, why is it so hard for you to do it?

I want to understand, not avoid my my emotional experience in life. So, I reached out to my old therapist, an extraordinary man, Bill Buse. If anyone could help me track down the reason for my tears, he could. He did. I can’t tell my father and my mother. I can’t tell my family because I’ve not had an active family life since I was 16. That I can’t tell them drenches me in sadness.

And so, the tears. Now that I understand them, I am very grateful for them. Every one of them is testimony to the depth of my love for my parents, my sister, my family. Every single one of reflects how great it is that KAC will soon be a more powerful advocate than it already is. This would make my parents and my family very happy, and, if you’ll allow the “little boy” to peek out from behind his history, proud of me.

If you’re going to lie to me….

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I don’t ask for much in life other than respect, so, if you are going to disrespect me by lying  to me, the least you can do is make an effort to make it a good, show a little creativity for God’s sake.

I’ve decided to rummage around in my mind and, perhaps the minds of others, to develop some fun, at least for me, responses to people who lie to me so brazenly and obviously I don’t know whether to burst out laughing and ask them if they’re joking or simply stupid enough to think I believe them, or smack them upside their “head” with a verbal dagger that says, we both know you’re lying and you’re such a self-absorbed little twit you’re going to stand by your stench-rubbish anyway.

Anyone who knows me knows I have no ability to be silent when someone’s rights are being denied. I don’t care of it’s people with disabilities, people who are Jewish, African American, Latino, Muslim, veterans, members of the LGBT community, women, etc., etc., I’m not about to stay silent. People who know me also know it is very likely, particularly of you are a public official or someone in a position of authority, that I am going to expose your bigotry for all to see. 

All that aside, let me say there is a special place in hell for people whose claim to care about the rights of others is nothing more than lip-service smoke screens. A form of dishonesty so glaringly obvious I want to grab them by the throat and say, “Why not grow some backbone and say out loud that you don’t give a rat’s ass about these people and you just care about money and power?” 

What’s somewhat amusing is the feigned indignity performances I get to see when I call someone out for lying, for being a hypocrite. They put so much effort into their performance (without exception they’re lousy actors) I’m surprised they don’t snort and dribble out of the corner of their mouths, go into convulsions, and start speaking in tongues. Some feign astonishment to such I degree I expect them to allow their simian roots to take over and start pounding their chest.

Many of the lies I see these days  come from those who claim they are committed to protecting the rights of New York residents who live with brain injury disabilities. Since their commitment is limited to the effort it takes to say they are committed, the least they could do is make a commitment to develop their lying skills. I’ll probably catch them anyway, but at least catching them might pose a sliver of a challenge. However, exposing them will not.

So, here’s the thing, if you’re going to lie to me, make an effort, or give us both a break and shut up.

If you’re going to lie to me….

Posted on by
Reply

I don’t ask for much in life other than respect, so, if you are going to disrespect me by lying  to me, the least you can do is make an effort to make it a good, show a little creativity for God’s sake.

I’ve decided to rummage around in my mind and, perhaps the minds of others, to develop some fun, at least for me, responses to people who lie to me so brazenly and obviously I don’t know whether to burst out laughing and ask them if they’re joking or simply stupid enough to think I believe them, or smack them upside their “head” with a verbal dagger that says, we both know you’re lying and you’re such a self-absorbed little twit you’re going to stand by your stench-rubbish anyway.

Anyone who knows me knows I have no ability to be silent when someone’s rights are being denied. I don’t care of it’s people with disabilities, people who are Jewish, African American, Latino, Muslim, veterans, members of the LGBT community, women, etc., etc., I’m not about to stay silent. People who know me also know it is very likely, particularly of you are a public official or someone in a position of authority, that I am going to expose your bigotry for all to see. 

All that aside, let me say there is a special place in hell for people whose claim to care about the rights of others is nothing more than lip-service smoke screens. A form of dishonesty so glaringly obvious I want to grab them by the throat and say, “Why not grow some backbone and say out loud that you don’t give a rat’s ass about these people and you just care about money and power?” 

What’s somewhat amusing is the feigned indignity performances I get to see when I call someone out for lying, for being a hypocrite. They put so much effort into their performance (without exception they’re lousy actors) I’m surprised they don’t snort and dribble out of the corner of their mouths, go into convulsions, and start speaking in tongues. Some feign astonishment to such I degree I expect them to allow their simian roots to take over and start pounding their chest.

Many of the lies I see these days  come from those who claim they are committed to protecting the rights of New York residents who live with brain injury disabilities. Since their commitment is limited to the effort it takes to say they are committed, the least they could do is make a commitment to develop their lying skills. I’ll probably catch them anyway, but at least catching them might pose a sliver of a challenge. However, exposing them will not.

So, here’s the thing, if you’re going to lie to me, make an effort, or give us both a break and shut up.

A coward named Cuomo

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Whether you liked him as the governor of New York or not, only a fool would doubt the courage of Mario Cuomo. He stood fast in his opposition to the death penalty (I oppose it too) even when he knew many disagreed.  He was courageous man. Not so his son, the current governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. All I know makes it clear to me he is a coward and, if you permit me a redundancy, a wimp.

Numerous sources tell me about the bullying he likes to do behind the scenes. Bullies are cowards. Able to act all tough and strong when there is no one to challenge them. Leave it to Cuomo  to run around New York playing like he’s John Wayne when inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped. Notice Cuomo was always surrounded by state police. Easy to play tough guy when you have some real-life armed toughs as your escort.

And now, Cuomo has his Department of Health on the brink of pulverizing the lives of New Yorkers with brain injuries and the business stability of those who provide services to them under the state’s Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver Program. A waiver is a Medicaid reimbursement program that provide services so a vulnerable part of the population can live in the community or return to community life. It’s been in this state for 21 years now.  And under whose watch did it come to be?  Mario Cuomo’s, the Cuomo with the courage and integrity and compassion for others. Andrew’s DOH wants to shove the waiver into a form of managed care that will destroy the lives of New Yorkers with brain injuries, remove their housing subsidies, and get rid of their case managers. 

In other words, the son wants to destroy something great built by his father.

 

To be held and to hold

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There is not enough holding each other going on. Not enough hugs. That warm-kindness gift between beings when, for the time it lasts (and then some, if you’re lucky), you are caring and cared for. Those who hug for effect’s sake rather than sincerity’s sake are not included in this missive.

I would gladly hug Charles Dickens for saying, ““Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”

There is an abundance of evidence telling us the presence of touch improves our quality of life and the absence of touch reduces the quality of life. “Touch makes our world real,” is one of the  salient points made by Alberto Gallace and Charles Spence in their book, “In Touch with the Future: The sense of touch from cognitive neuroscience to virtual reality.” Spence works out of Sommerville College, in Oxford, England and Gallace is with the Department of Psychology at University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy.

In a time when technology (driven by government and big business (I am repeating myself)) draws us out of self and into their control the importance of being truly present in the moment and present with another in the moment is, I fear, fading.  Pairs of eyes by the thousands staring at handheld devices unaware that they are slowly but surely being fed whatever the powers that be want them to be fed. 

Which is why to hold someone and be held by someone is one of the purest forms of sanctuary life offers.

Hug those you love, let them hug you back. Hold them. Allow them to hold you. Springsteen was right. Sometimes it all comes down to wanting “a little of that human touch.”

Addiction to technology is not about life, to be held and to hold is.