Thursday, June 9, 2011
Freaky the Stillness
The eerie light from the clouds got me up this morning, like the solitary quiet of a snowfall beginning...except of course it is June! Last night was tumultuous in the clouds and we had winds, rain, hail and twister action everywhere, but this morning.... so still and quiet that the neighbor's sprinkler system is all that cuts the silence. I suppose I beat the birds up.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Uncovering The Sissy Boy Story - The UCLA Gay Experiments
In an attempt to avoid working this morning, I stumbled upon this article and began reading. It is part of an article whose headlines I have seen over the last 2 days but avoided - a young man so tormented by who he was internally despite the "therapy" he endured to change that, that he took his life out of the equation. This is indeed the "psychiatric abuse of gender-variant kids." [Gender Shock by Phyllis Burke].
This thing is killing me. And the doctoral student in the 1970's who developed this therapy modality (The Gender Identity Clinic at UCLA in the 1970's) claimed he was trying to "save" youths from succumbing to the sinful practices of homosexuality, yet was caught in May 2010 traveling with a male escort.
Seems the good doctor generously passed along the love (his religious-based hangups) to many other kids. The problem is, one of the kids turned up dead. He could not reconcile the battle within himself. This kind of abuse appears not to be easily fixed. The journalists who broke the story are looking for other kids who endured the experimental therapy out at UCLA in the 1970’s with therapist George Alan Rekers.
I cannot call the man “doctor.”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/08/rekers.sissy.boy.experiment/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
This thing is killing me. And the doctoral student in the 1970's who developed this therapy modality (The Gender Identity Clinic at UCLA in the 1970's) claimed he was trying to "save" youths from succumbing to the sinful practices of homosexuality, yet was caught in May 2010 traveling with a male escort.
Seems the good doctor generously passed along the love (his religious-based hangups) to many other kids. The problem is, one of the kids turned up dead. He could not reconcile the battle within himself. This kind of abuse appears not to be easily fixed. The journalists who broke the story are looking for other kids who endured the experimental therapy out at UCLA in the 1970’s with therapist George Alan Rekers.
I cannot call the man “doctor.”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/08/rekers.sissy.boy.experiment/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
Thursday, June 2, 2011
The Lampedusa Boat Folks
Social issue and cause #257, however, this one cites a recovering boat person with the most descriptive and powerful comment I've heard in quite some time.
While we in this country visit our markets with full shelves, complain about paying our electric and gas bills, kabitz over the price of a gallon of gas, and even clean up after torrential and fatal weather patterns, there exists outside our borders hundreds of thousands of people who shiver every night, who sweat every day, who never have new clothing, have not ridden in a car, cannot find a way to get educated enough to find a better life, are oppressed by their own governmental systems (be they tribal, elected, or imposed), and who know that their children will suffer a similar fate. These people hear a rumor that they can get passage to a better place if they can afford the $1200 or so dollars. This money gains them a small spot on a wooden fishing vessel, barely seaworthy, with hundreds of others, to trek across the waters in the hopes that the rumors are indeed true. For 5 or more days they have no water, no food (their $1200 does not buy this) and if they are fortunate enough to survive the trek from Libya to the Italian coast line, they are deposited squarely in a foreign land where they know no one.
And do you know why they take this potentially fatal risk? Because if they are left at "home", they are assured death. One writer quotes a survivor, who began working with Feed the Children at the specific dropoff location, saying this about the nature of countries and boundaries:
"Accident of birth is all that separate the Western tourists, who fly to Lampedusa every year to frolic on its pristine beaches, from the desperate migrants who wash up, sometimes dead, on its shores.
"Brhane asks why in the 21st century, little more than a passport made of paper divides humanity into two classes of citizens.
" 'Paper, it makes us different,' he says. 'Paper can change the life of a human being.' "
A piece of paper.... something Hakim told me years ago, when trying to explain to me why immigrants work so hard to get "citizenship" in the US, even though they have no intention of renouncing their homeland. A US passport, a piece of paper, changes lives.
It may sound painfully ideal, but I am so thankful for my warm bed, my electricity that allows me to go online and read the news and share thoughts, the gas that heats the air, the food in my refrigerator (albeit some currently resembles another homeschool science experiment), the very old car in my garage, the faded clothing in my closet, and even the clients who fail to pay me on time.
And when I look up what $1200 can buy me in terms of transportation (air, train, boat, auto), I can get a hell of a lot more than a dirty, broken down old wooden fishing boat with barely enough space to sit.
While we in this country visit our markets with full shelves, complain about paying our electric and gas bills, kabitz over the price of a gallon of gas, and even clean up after torrential and fatal weather patterns, there exists outside our borders hundreds of thousands of people who shiver every night, who sweat every day, who never have new clothing, have not ridden in a car, cannot find a way to get educated enough to find a better life, are oppressed by their own governmental systems (be they tribal, elected, or imposed), and who know that their children will suffer a similar fate. These people hear a rumor that they can get passage to a better place if they can afford the $1200 or so dollars. This money gains them a small spot on a wooden fishing vessel, barely seaworthy, with hundreds of others, to trek across the waters in the hopes that the rumors are indeed true. For 5 or more days they have no water, no food (their $1200 does not buy this) and if they are fortunate enough to survive the trek from Libya to the Italian coast line, they are deposited squarely in a foreign land where they know no one.
And do you know why they take this potentially fatal risk? Because if they are left at "home", they are assured death. One writer quotes a survivor, who began working with Feed the Children at the specific dropoff location, saying this about the nature of countries and boundaries:
"Accident of birth is all that separate the Western tourists, who fly to Lampedusa every year to frolic on its pristine beaches, from the desperate migrants who wash up, sometimes dead, on its shores.
"Brhane asks why in the 21st century, little more than a passport made of paper divides humanity into two classes of citizens.
" 'Paper, it makes us different,' he says. 'Paper can change the life of a human being.' "
A piece of paper.... something Hakim told me years ago, when trying to explain to me why immigrants work so hard to get "citizenship" in the US, even though they have no intention of renouncing their homeland. A US passport, a piece of paper, changes lives.
It may sound painfully ideal, but I am so thankful for my warm bed, my electricity that allows me to go online and read the news and share thoughts, the gas that heats the air, the food in my refrigerator (albeit some currently resembles another homeschool science experiment), the very old car in my garage, the faded clothing in my closet, and even the clients who fail to pay me on time.
And when I look up what $1200 can buy me in terms of transportation (air, train, boat, auto), I can get a hell of a lot more than a dirty, broken down old wooden fishing boat with barely enough space to sit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)