Thanks for the introductions Paws.
Howdy Toby! Well, after more than 20 yrs of marriage I'm not planning to go down that path again; but it is a pleasure to meet you. I've appreciated reading all of your posts to this forum. Plus, you're a nurse!
Thanks for all your service out there in that crazy world!
Paws wrote:
...and Obama and McCain are the freakin' candidates. Is it just me...??Nope. The question is what are we going to do about it? Might be time to circle the wagons.
Toby writes:
Wow, after reading all that I want to hold someone's hand and sing Kumbaya! There you guys go using big words again...I had to look it up. Wikipedia describes Kumbaya in the following manner: Kumbaya...
a spiritual song from the 1930s. The song was originally associated with unity and closeness. "Kumbaya" means "Come by here", so the lyric could be translated as "Come by here, my lord, come by here." It is a standard campfire song in Scouting, YMCA, the Indian Guides, and some church groups. Geez...and I'm a girl scout; how did that one get by me? I guess us North Dakotans were too busy focusing on other things when I was growing up. However, after reading the words of the song I have to admit that I think it's pretty good. I'm not sure I'd want to hold hands and sing it with others around a campfire though.
Oh...I guess I don't have to worry about that since the wikipedia entry goes on to inform me that it is now used to mock people as being
blandly pious and with a naively optimistic view of the world and human nature. I guess Pres. Bush even took a stance saying it isn't
Kumbaya time anymore when threatening to bomb some country. Wonderful; great way to make friends.
So, perhaps you are also lobbing hot coals at me from across the fire. The smell of burning hair is getting pretty strong so I'm probaby safe to assume that's what is going on and I should probably scramble to get the burning coals out of my hair.
I feel the following long note is in order given that it appears some of you folk think I'm just a pious stupid woman and a fool with a naively optimistic view of the world and human nature.
I could take it personally and respond defensively but I'm not interested in perpetuating such patterns and am actually very interested in having conversations with folks who don't understand and/or agree with me.
But, I've got to say that I actually totally agree with your statement:
Society is going down hill very fast and a big reason for it is that nobody wants to take responsibility for it.I simply refuse to be another nobody who refuses to take responsibility for this mess. You may not agree with what I am saying and doing but at least I am trying my best with an open invitation for suggestions for improvement.
I too have a medical background as a nurse and I too have seen way too much of death with the elderly. I spent a number of years with a 160 bed SNF in Tampa and was with patients as they met their ends in many forms; some of them not so pretty... Yeah, I've been there too as I've also paid my dues working in nursing homes. It got a little better when I was the hospice nursing home liaison but it's still not the same as a home death situation.
Even some home deaths aren't what I would describe as pretty. It takes a lot of effort and maneuvering to help bring some of the situations around to enough resolution to provide a marginal level of comfort. Individuals having violent and terrifying visions of the end, of going to hell, finding no relief to the pain no matter what is done, family dynamics, feuds, cut-throat behavior, scrambling for the goods... I've been there, done that too.
Actually, I wouldn't describe any of these transitions as
pretty. Even childbirth with the emergence of a beautiful new babe is frequently gnarly.
However, many folks drop their masks of denial during such times and I still feel honored to experience such moments. I suppose it's a matter of what each one of chooses to focus on...the ole' glass half-full or glass half-empty analogy.
I know it's not easy and that folks like you and I may have a rather unique view that gives us all the more reason to be cynical about humanity. Believe me, I've got enough cynicism and skeptism to keep me out here in paradise for the rest of my life. (Saving gas and reducing carbon aren't the only factors that keep me from going off the hill unless there's some really really good reason.)
It is true that I do not have as much testosterone in my system and I appreciate that you mentioned it. I am a woman, I am a mother, and it is only natural that my views and the ways I go about things might be a bit different than you guys sitting around this campfire.
I find fault in a lot of the popular thinking today and am loathe to "build bridges" to hopefully encounter that common ground we hear so much about. To me, that's acceptance and acceptance is equivelent to apathy. I'm far to passionate to court apathy. I never was fond of the, "go along to get along" train of thought. However, I'm certainly not a, "my way or the highway" guy either. Tally Ho! Glad to hear it. I think some folks are motivated to interact with others simply for the social, feel good nature of it; perhaps
the go along to get along train. They are willing to be apathetic, keep quiet, and not ruffle any feathers in order to be accepted into a group.
If I was that sort of gal, would I be expressing myself on these threads? I also love cast iron, highbush blueberries, history, and have a lot of stuff to learn in all the other topical threads. Why don't I just ignore this stuff and sit back to enjoy the more comfortable topics?
I'm not interested in building pretend bridges on sand. And, I am not talking about apathetic blind acceptance. I am most certainly not interested in sweeping things under the rug in an attempt to just get along. It's a common strategy around here that has proven to be highly ineffective.
I think that throwing hot coals loaded with assumptions, conclusions, accusations, mocking statements, etc. across some imagined security barricade is easy, may make folks feel better and may even make them think they're doing something to solve the problem of "them" on the other side of the fence...but again, is it an effective strategy??
Oh, but maybe we don't want to take responsibility and step up to the plate on behalf of our kids. Maybe there isn't even a need for any strategy since there isn't anything that can be done anyway.
Are you guys trying to tell me that I just need to accept that this civilization is going down the tubes, that it is our destiny as foretold in the Bible and that I am a pious naive fool to think we, the so-called people, may actually muster the courage and the bravery to take this bull by the horns?
Sorry, that approach doesn't make me feel good, bring me happiness, help me fulfill my perceptions of my responsibilities as a mother, nurse, soon to be granny, and/or what I feel is a calling and mission from God. Am I pious and self-rightous? Maybe but I too am not a "my way or the highway" kind of gal.
I'm certainly not pretending that things are all rosey and all we have to do is sing songs and hold hands. But, I'm also not going to abandon our young and let the pirates have the free run of the ship as long as I still have a voice.
Here's an example...
I was the Athens City-County Public Health Preparedness/bioterrorism grant coordinator from 2002-2004. It was a cushy full time job with benefits, vacation, and retirement.
For many folks, landing a job like that is just what they want. It offers the potential to sit back, do the minimum, pay the bills and enjoy life with the illusions that when they get old they'll be able to retire with a full benefit package. If that's what they want then they are highly motivated to keep their mouths shut and not make waves. Ahh...seems to me that is what falls into the category of mandy pandy, wimpy and spineless behavior.
(Oh, I mentioned in an earlier post that I don't encounter such people. It is true in my current reality but as I recount my experiences in governmental beuracracy...a whole slew of such people are coming to mind.)
An amazing amount of homeland security money is going to most of our health departments in this country to ensure the health and well-being of our citizens by taking an all hazard approach to worse case scenario planning.
Do you know what your health dept is doing with all this money? Do you have confidence that they could handle a pandemic? Are you familar with the 1918 history, have you seen the pictures? What role do think the health dept has in preparing and building a robust infrastructure capable of responding to the collapse of our current systems?
The potential was/is absolutely amazing and I was excited to really have the opportunity to address this stuff with the authority, credibility and governmental money. However, as it turns out I really was naive to think I had been hired to take my job seriously and do my best job. (So who knows maybe you're right and I'm still ridiculously naive...but at least I'm happy.)
Local health departments across the country are being given the money to change the way they go about things, to expand their job descriptions, etc. To move from a "silos approach" to a "systems approach", to include the public in planning, to network and coordinate community, etc.
But, we've already established that most people don't like change and the same goes for entrenched beuracracies. It's no surprise that as long as I was spending money on stuff everything was hunky dorey. But it was a different story when the state became more insistent that they change the fundamental way in which the health dept was operating and interacting with the community. And, I was suppose to coordinate such a change. Yeah, right.
I tried my best, consulted with state, fed, and social change experts...but nothing I did could budge the good ole' boy beauracracy and the status quo attitude that "nothing's going to happen here anyway and if it does, we'll just wing it the way we always do". I was literally told to "just do the minimum for the money". I was told that I was having problems accepting the situation because I am a nurse. I was told that I was a menopausal apocalyptic minded woman. What! You hired me to do all hazard worse case scenario planning and to take preparedness seriously. Folks are giving you their hard earned dollars to make sure these things getting addressed!
Now now...I'm going to get worked up again. Remember Katrina? What if the health departments down there had actually been doing their jobs? Would it have been any different? Did anyone even bring that up? No, No...it's much easier to shift the burden of responsibility to FEMA.
Anyways, I was being told to be another good mandy pandy employee and just make the department look good when I wrote up my grant reports. My collegues said they agreed with me when I spoke up about my concerns but they couldn't speak up because they knew what the administrator would do to them, they needed their jobs to get the kids through college, and they too were hoping for the retirement package. It was getting absolutely ridiculous and it was making me physicially sick.
I spoke with our Health Commissioner, then the Board of Health members. I then took my concerns to our County Public Health Advisory Council, composed of the County Commissioner pres., city mayors, township trustee presidents. This state established council is suppose to hold the public health departments accountable in all of our counties in Ohio. (Ultimately, as you will see, the public is the only body that holds a breath of a chance to hold these special jurisdictional entities accountable...and the public doesn't care.)
The only replies I received in response to my letters to the council members were about the fact that no one had told them about this council and that I must have my information wrong. When I directed them to the Ohio Revised Code and the list of assigned members, the only thing that upset them was that their lack of involvement in the council might damage their attempts to run for other more advanced political offices in the future.
(One might wonder why they had not been informed of the council.)
So, I continued up the chain of command and talked with state and federal officials in charge of these programs. All they could say is
we understand the situation you are in, appreciate your efforts, but our hands are tied because of home rule and a lack of mandates associated with these grants. I was assured that I wasn't legally responsible for the fact the health dept wasn't fulfilling the deliverables, that they weren't taking these things seriously or doing everything possible to ensure the safety of the citizenry in a worse case scenario.
Okay, so I'm not legally responsible...but could I sleep at night knowing what was going on?
Needless to say, the administrator didn't take kindly to my efforts and started putting his thumb down on me harder and harder to get me to quit. It didn't matter if my initatives were fulfilling the grant deliverables and receiving state wide recognition...he simply squashed everything.
It's a much longer story but in the end, by the grace of God, the Ohio Unemployment Commission determined I had been
discharged without just cause. I felt vindicated but still felt absolutely comitted to carry on these efforts from the public sector.
To me the only way to do hold these so-called leaders accountable and to try to help prepare ourselves and our communities is to keep trying to inform, inspire, empower and mobilize people. If we think a knight in white is going to show up to rescue us; we are going to be terribly let down.
Even our local Red Cross director later said with a grin...
you're just not going away are you? She also said,
the only way anything is going to change if the people, the community, want it. At the same time, instead of just taking an easy "us vs them" approach and letting my anger, frustration, cynicism hold sway ...I am still trying to find ways to build bridges with the health dept and other government entities. I am serious about the need for top down/bottom up efforts to build strong, robust, resilient systems...not just soft, feel good bridges that won't hold up in a crisis.
Building the bridges I'm talking about doesn't include apathy, or blind acceptance just to get along...it's about slow, consistent and strategic efforts. It's about recognizing that our leaders are a bunch of selfish immature boys and girls who simply don't know what they're doing.
Some folks out there may feel content watching tv while the kids tear up the house but as a parent, I can't simply sit back in my bubble of reality on the couch and not say anything. These kids, our leaders, are setting fire to the house and folks don't even care.
I don't blame people, individuals, or want to lay any guilt trips on folks. I think that we've been subject to 40 yrs + of very effective consumeristic programming and that we have been well trained to be an apathetic and disempowered herd of cattle. Moreover, it's hard to know what to do that can possibly make any difference. The only hope we have is if we somehow overcome the intentional divisions that have been nurtured and somehow raise our voices in some kind of unified effort.
Anywasy, at the very least, when I go to my grave and my kids pull out the stone carving tools they can write something like
this ole' lady gave it her best shot on my tombstone.
I suppose, by todays standards, I'm a bit archaic in my system of beliefs, but they're mine and have served me well so far. I expect I'll get along with them a bit further on down the line. Yep, glad to hear it, especially if happiness comes with it. Nursing is a high burnout path however so I hope you're taking care of yourself.
You may think I'm a pious b**** but just to be clear... I'm not wearing rose tinted glasses, nor am I immune to the affects of looking at the current status of our society.
My experience with our local systems of government, the apathetic nature of most folks, the inability of most people to take personal responsibility and/or make necessary changes in their lives is extremely frustrating at times. Such things, news stories, comments, etc., can trigger a whole range of emotions in me.
I have my "us vs them" moments as well and I've been known to let loose with a big vent on some innocent target while tossing aside all the compassionate communication skills that I have tried so hard to learn and practice.
Such outbursts may feel good in the short term but I usually end up feeling like a big schmuck since instead of manifesting good Christian values I end up jumping to conclusions, alienating, judging and hurting other people.
It seems pretty clear that you guys are going to push my buttons from time to time. And, my views may trigger more of your frustration and anger. But I believe we have all agreed to some basic principles of communication on this list if I read the
welcome members information correctly.
I can deal with a certain amount of teazing. And, who knows, maybe I need to look hard at the reflections you are giving me of being a mandy pandy, kumbaya singing wimp who has forgotten 911 and just wants to hold hands in blissful harmony.
But I've got to say, I don't find pushing or shoving around a campfire and being around folks who think it is fun to throw hot coals at each other to be either fun or safe.
Such behavior is certainly not allowed out at my campfire ring even though I have the pond close by. If I feel I am in an unsafe situation here I will have no other choice but to leave your ring. I hope it doesn't get to that because I would like to continue this dialogue.
You are welcome to just tell me to get lost, I do much better when folks just directly lay their cards on the table rather than using mocking sarcasm...but of course that's your choice.
But I will share that it's not surprising that y'all would disagree with my world views. Most of my survival buddies can't understand why I even bother with the mainstream public or lists like this. They think I should just sit back, enjoy my little paradise and focus on what makes me happy and what I need to survive and defend myself. And, they most certainly have a point. Howevre, they seem to have come to understand the sincerity of my drive and my calling, see what I can accomplish, and, at the very least, pretend to tolerate me.
I hope you too can understand that I just have to keep talking to people about this stuff. If the emperor thinks he is wearing clothes, but really isn't, it seems to me someone should at least mention it.
I don't know how to go about really making a difference but I figure it is like throwing a pebble into the pond or planting seeds...you never know what kind of affect the ripples may have or when the seed may actually sprout.
However, I most certainly need all the input I can get, especially since I now hold the responsibilities that come with the title of grandmother.
Oh boy.
Thanks for the congratulations!
kj