Author Archives: Peter Sanford Kahrmann

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About Peter Sanford Kahrmann

Writer, disability rights advocate, civil rights advocate.

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.

With their hearts on my mind

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I will be testifying today at a public hearing being held by members of the New York State Assembly about Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to demolish the lives of New Yorkers with brain injuries by moving them into managed care and annihilating the services they need and deserve to protect their independence – and keep their homes.

I’ve got plenty of motivation. In addition to my own brain injury, I live with a bullet lodged in my brain as a result of being held up and shot in the head, I know hundreds of New Yorkers with brain injuries. Incredible individuals who only ask for respect, and respect includes access to the care they deserve and the independence they have a right to keep.

  • I know a young man who suffered his brain injury in a car accident; he witnessed the decapitation of two of his friends during the accident.
  • I know a woman who one winter day was walking through a park with her husband pulling her two toddlers on a sled. A drunk snowmobile driver crashed into them. When this woman came out of a coma she learned she would never again move from the neck down, and she learned that both her children had died in the accident.
  • I know a brave woman who is a wheelchair user as a result of her brain injury, an injury caused by meningitis caused by a mosquito bite.
  • I know five good men who, like me, suffered their brain injuries from being shot in the head.

That’s just a sampling of the many survivors of brain injuries I know. I can barely see through the tears now as I think about them all, and contemplate the suffering  the Cuomo administration wants to inflict on them. I will testify today with the hearts of thousands on my mind. Not at all incidentally, the very people in Cuomo’s Department of Health who devised this plan openly acknowledge they know nothing about the brain or brain injury.

Now, there are some truly good people in the New York State legislature.  I’ve met them. I even believe in them.  I know too that to do the right thing for New Yorkers with brain injuries they will have to stand up to some intense opposition from a governor who many say is something of a bully.

I do not fear bullies. Not even a little.

I believe members of the state’s legislature have it in them to stand up and do the right thing. Consider the document below. It is the triage assessment of me the morning I got shot. The circled area says, in part, Patient walked into the ER accompanied by the police. Profuse bleeding from head wound. It was five in the morning when I got shot. When I regained consciousness, there was no one around. I got back to me feet and got myself help. So, if I can stand up and get myself help after being shot in the head at point blank range, I have no doubt members of the NY State Legislature have the capacity to stand up and do the right thing for New Yorkers with brain injuries. The question is, will they?

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