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How Does It Help?

10/31/2022

Memes are prolific. Some make you laugh. Some make you cry.

Many are political, mostly doctored for effect.

Let’s consider a few of these.

It’s no surprise Donald Trump often appears. One shows him in the left of two frames with his standard sour expression. His yellow hair is folded over and blowing wildly in the wind. In the right frame is a piece of corn. The husk is partially peeled, and the corn silk is shown, also blowing in the wind. The hair on the left and the silk on the right bear a strong resemblance in shape and color. The caption reads, “WHO WORE IT BETTER?”

Herschel Walker is a current hit, due in part to his flashing an honorary sheriff’s badge he had received. It’s become a big thing with him, and he has ordered at least 1000 to give away to support his claim to be a friend to law enforcement. One meme presents him alongside actors from the Andy Griffith show proudly holding his badge. Another shows what appears to be an airline captain’s wings with the caption, “IF YOU BOARD YOUR PLANE AND SEE HERSCHEL WALKER WITH THESE ON…GET TF OFF THE PLANE!!!”

Many memes are clever. Created by talented innovators.

Other sources of humor are Andy Borowitz’s pithy comments. Again, by an extremely clever guy. Here are a few.

“Since Herschel Walker is a lying hypocrite who takes no responsibility for his actions, he should not be the GOP candidate for Senate. He should be the GOP candidate for President.”

“Jared Kushner Calls Hunter Biden a Grifter Who Only Got Job Through Nepotism”

“US Supreme Court Conservatives Shaken by Images of Foreign Women Demanding Rights”

“Trump Says If He Loses At Supreme Court He Will Appeal To Ginni Thomas”

I wish I could be so clever.

The memes and the quotes make those of us who worry about the future of our country feel pretty good.

And it’s not only the amusing posts that we suck up. For example, James Carville recently said, “Stupid people elect stupid people.”

All of this, the funny memes, the Borowitz one liners, the comments about stupid people, all make us feel better—and superior.

Maybe at this time of stress for us and our country this is what we need to lessen our worries and discouragement. And that’s not a bad goal.

But…

Yeah, there’s a but.

Is what we want a short-lived chuckle and a comfortable feeling of superiority?

Or would we prefer even more the long-term security of a country based on democratic principles, mutual respect, and compromise involving a robust two-party system run by responsible people? Like the country we used to have.

If it’s the latter, then we must accept that the leaders of the current version of the Republican party must not be allowed to control our government at any level—national, state, local.

And that means our energies should be razor focused on achieving that goal.

If that’s the case, then one has to ask what good all the clever memes and all the devastating one-liners and all the superior feelings are accomplishing. Obviously, they will do nothing to achieve our real goal. After all, we need people to change their minds, and no one likes to hear they are stupid jerks.

Of course, saying all this is the easy part. How do we actually achieve change?

Unfortunately, I don’t have a clue.

But I can’t help but wonder what would happen if all the creative people developing memes and penetrating comments concentrated their efforts on convincing Republicans to change the way they think about their party. Not with the tired and ineffectual standard arguments of the Democratic party, but with the innovative thought-provoking humorous products of their fertile minds. Would it work? Who knows?

We don’t need many Republicans to change.

But we sure need some.

Especially if the upcoming election is as bad as it threatens to be.

Otherwise, all we’ll have to turn to will be the memes and clever comments. As long as the authoritarian government allows them.

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Save the Truth

10/20/2022

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I don’t know how our country will fare in the coming days. Never before have we had a past president setting so many records for lying and obnoxious behavior. Never before, when a president has stepped beyond the bounds of human decency or political decorum, have the vast majority of members of his own party embraced the disgusting stands taken by their leader.

It is clear we are on the verge of authoritarianism that might well find us at the mercy of a vocal minority that has no problem with suppressing liberties and honest discussions.

Our country as we have known it might be disappearing.

It can happen all too easily. After all, it has occurred over and over on the world stage. Recently, Naziism became known to some of us, and Putin is becoming known to all of us.

So what can we do? We can try to stop this plunge. Given our history, we naturally think we can vote the rascals out. I still cling to that hope, but with ever increasing voting restrictions, the proliferation of guns in the hands of democracy deniers, the formations of “election police,” and the support of millions of rabid followers, I fear the day of honest elections may be ending.

Are we doomed to become vassals? Perhaps. But wicked leaders disappear in time. It’s important the world learn eventually the truth of what those leaders have done.

How can the world preserve that truth?

Well, with the help of future historians who can turn to newspaper articles and recorded media broadcasts. If they still exist. Current dictators are becoming ever more adept at suppressing honest news and eliminating any previously reported news. And even if such records are available, they reflect only what is felt to be the significant news of the day. But not the news of how you or I feel. Our fears, our attempts to overturn the disaster. Our sadness about losing our country.

I’ve read many biographies. Mostly about famous people. Mostly on people who lived more than 100 years ago. The biographers must love the life of those earlier days. Because people kept diaries. I don’t know how busy individuals had the time to record the day-to-day activities of their lives in the detail they did. Perhaps because no TV stole their minds. Anyway, diaries were common. These diaries became the source of much of the information that later appeared in biographies.

I began to wonder about keeping a diary. Not the normal kind where I describe the day’s activities and the people I met and the love I felt. Rather, more of a journal that reflects observations on the destruction of our country and the feeling each step brought out in me.

What if we all did that?

We could describe our worries as freedom after freedom was wrenched from us. How each step made us feel. Or our frustration as a single party methodically eliminated all opposition and cemented control over our supposedly protective three branches of government. Or the gut-wrenching devastation of Supreme Court rulings.

In this way, if enough people recorded it, future historians would have a multi-source record of how the dictatorial faction took over and then governed.

In this way, maybe we could feel just a little that we were “sticking it” to the regime that had ruined our country.

Of course, many of us are doing that already via social media or blogs. The problem with this is it’s all electronic in the public domain and can be attacked and destroyed by dictators.

We’ll have to figure how to keep our thoughts in a place that is safe today but can be found tomorrow. Maybe thumb drives hidden in our homes?

If anyone does keep such records, I thank him or her. I hope future historians will find these thoughts and share them with the world.

And I hope the world will learn a lesson from them.

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We Care

10/7/2022

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There were a lot of suicides in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s and Church of England vicar Chad Varah didn’t like it. I suspect many felt the same, but Varah decided he was going to do something about it.

He talked to his parishioners and many volunteered to staff a phone line where distraught suicidal people could call and find a listener. These volunteers for the most part were not doctors or mental health counselors. They were just ordinary folks who cared about their fellow humans. They did not preach. They did not tell the callers what to do. They did not promise what they could not deliver.

They listened. But didn’t judge. If they felt it was appropriate to make a referral, perhaps to a professional, they might phrase it something like, “Have you considered speaking to a counselor?” If the caller indicated there was no way he’d do that, the volunteer would back off.

This group took on the name Samaritans.

They soon discovered the need they were filling. The number of calls increased dramatically. The callers felt comfortable speaking to nonprofessionals. Many callers indicated there was no one else they could talk to or receive understanding from.

The movement grew. It still exists, and now there are more than 200 branches in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The idea traveled the ocean and branches appeared in various spots in the United States. I believe the one in Boston is still in operation.

And one was established in the late 1960s in Orlando, Florida—where I live. It wasn’t called the Samaritans. Its name was We Care, and it billed itself as a suicide prevention and crisis intervention agency. Because if you were in crisis—no home, no food, no access to medication, thrown out by your parents, fifteen and pregnant—the thought of suicide often seemed appealing. We Care was available 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

There were two telephone numbers that could be dialed, both answered by the same person. One was known as We Care. The other Teen Hotline. Because young people needed a place of their own.

I became a volunteer for We Care/Teen Hotline in 1972 and remained with them for 22 years. Before I was allowed near a phone, I had to take several evenings of instruction on how to listen and how to talk nonjudgmentally. I participated in make-believe practice sessions. I had to learn to be caring and not try to be Mr. Fixit. I was impressed with the necessity for total confidentiality. I had to understand that I could not become too emotionally involved with the caller, and that my mental health was important too.

Finally, I was allowed to take incoming calls and I was terrified. I never lost the trepidation felt before answering the ringing. Probably kept me alert.

I was amazed to learn that the training I’d been given actually worked. The callers responded favorably to the idea of being listened to. Such a simple concept but such a novel one in many of their lives. When I answered Teen Hotline, I thought the kids would blow off this old guy, then in my thirties. Never once did that happen. They didn’t care I was ancient by their standards. They cared that I listened.

I think most of us volunteers learned a lot from the experience. I know I did. For example, I learned that so many of the sound bites spewed by Republicans simply weren’t true. I never came into contact with a “welfare queen in a Cadillac.” I saw people weren’t poor because they were lazy. They were poor because even working two or three jobs at miserable pay still couldn’t make it possible to support their families.

Perhaps the most important lesson was learning how to listen. It came in handy in my dealings with students.

I had the opportunity to hear Chad Varah speak when he visited our facility. I’ll always remember a story he told to indicate the dedication of the volunteers. An illness had forced a scheduled volunteer to cancel a shift and he needed a replacement. He called a young woman volunteer to see if she could fill in. He said if she had a date that night he would understand. Her reply? “Of course I have a date, a good looking bird like me. I’ll break it and be in.” That speaks to the dedication of the vast majority of volunteers with whom I was associated over those 22 years.

During that period I served in many capacities. A phone volunteer for all 22. One of a team of two who would visit people who had made a suicide attempt (again almost always received with appreciation), Board member and Board officer.

I kept statistics for We Care on suicide attempts in the area. There were a lot. Most were overdoses, and fortunately very few of them were successful. Gunshot wounds were a different story. While they were significantly fewer than overdoses, they were significantly higher in success rate. Yet we continue to love our guns.

We Care doesn’t exist anymore. In the late 1990s a new director replaced the volunteers by professional counselors. That format eventually failed but I think there are similar organizations in operation now.

But it’s not the same. I believe we provided an important service. I think there were people who would call us but would not have called had they known they were going to speak to a professional. Yet they might have the courage to contact a professional after speaking with us.

I think the work was important, and I’m proud to have been a part of it. I believe I and my fellow volunteers got some people through the night, at least for that one time.

I think our present very mixed-up society needs something like We Care.

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How Does It Help?

Save the Truth

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